Hannah's Blog

Pro Bono John circa 2000

Memories seem to be fading quickly nowadays. Hardly anyone can remember what John Roberts was up to while the votes were being counted in 2000. Though it's now being reported that he actually authored the brief that went to the Supreme Court in Bush vs Gore.

Presumably, the primary quality to look for in a judicial nominee is good judgement. So what are we to make of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr's agreeing to have himself trotted out like some sort of show horse for the announcement of his nomination?

What are we to make of his co-operation with the Progress for America crew,whose reputation rests largely on orchestrating smear campaigns against the political opponents of those they support?

And what's the point of having his dad's subordinates at the steel mill speak well of a kid that's made good? We already know from the Justice Clarence Thomas record that a modest background does not necessarily produce compassion or a strong commitment to individual rights.

The news that John Roberts rushed down to Florida to offer some pro bono advice to help George W. Bush get selected to an office the majority of the American people clearly didn't want him in isn't reassuring either. If anything, it shows a level of partisanship that's fundamentally inconsistent with judicial independence. What's to keep us from concluding that John Roberts is just cashing in his chips?

Rice with Yellow Cake

Roger Morris sets the table.

Published on Thursday, July 28, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Source Beyond Rove- Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal
by Roger Morris

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." It was September 2002, and then-National Security Advisor, now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was fastening on CNN perhaps the most memorable and frightening single link in the Bush regime?s chain of lies propagandizing the war on Iraq. Behind her carefully planted one-liner with its grim imagery was the whole larger hoax about Saddam Hussein possessing or about to acquire weapons of mass destruction, a deception as blatant and inflammatory as claims of the Iraqi dictator?s ties to Al Qaeda.

Rice?s demagogic scare tactic was also very much part of the tangled history of alleged Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger, the fabrication leading to ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson?s now famous exposé of the fraud, the administration?s immediate retaliatory ?outing? of Wilson?s wife Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, and now the revelation that the President?s supreme political strategist Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney?s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved in that potentially criminal leak?altogether the most serious political crisis Bush has faced. In fact, though her pivotal role has been missed entirely?or deliberately ignored?in both the media feeding frenzy and the rising political clamor, now-Secretary of State Rice was also deeply embroiled in the Niger uranium-Plame scandal, arguably as much as or more so than either Rove or Libby.

For those who know the invariably central role of the NSC Advisor in sensitive political subjects in foreign policy and in White House leaks to the media as well as tending of policy, especially in George W. Bush?s rigidly disciplined, relentlessly political regime, Rice by both commission and omission was integral in perpetrating the original fraud of Niger, and then inevitably in the vengeful betrayal of Plame?s identity. None of that spilling of secrets for crass political retribution could have gone on without her knowledge and approval, and thus complicity. Little of it could have happened without her participation, if not as a leaker herself, at least with her direction and with her scripting.

"God's never failed me yet"

One summer weekend in 1998 at the family estate at Kennebunkport, Me., former president George H. W. Bush introduced his ambitious son George W. to a 43-year-old political science professor, Condoleezza Rice. One of the rare African-American women in the field of Soviet studies, she was rarer still for her archly conservative views. She had interrupted a teaching career at Stanford to work from 1989 until 1991 on the elder Bush's National Security Council staff as a specialist on Russian and East European affairs, and remained a vocal Bush loyalist. George W. Bush was planning on running for the White House and was woefully uninformed about world politics. At Kennebunkport, the politician and academic hit it off right away, and Rice was entrusted with a vital task: "to instruct and protect G.W. at his most vulnerable," as a friend put it. How the woman who became his National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State has fulfilled that trust has had fateful consequences for the United States, other nations, and not least for George W. Bush.

Since the end of the Second World War, the National Security Adviser's staff domain has varied between a dozen and nearly 100, but its function has remained strikingly the same: to be the presidency's eyes, ears, and brain, devoted like no other institution in Washington to protecting and serving the Chief Executive, the National Security Adviser's constituency of one. Rice, who worked for Brent Scowcroft, a cautious NSC adviser under the elder president Bush, defined her role early in 2001 as "stitching the connections together tightly."

The gravity of the NSC Adviser's role demands an extraordinary combination of intellect and substantive knowledge, with shrewd understanding of both the world and Washington-a capacity that previous office-holders have had to varying degrees, from Henry Kissinger's mastery of power on down.

Although usually relatively hidden from public view in her sensitive role as the president's advisor without peer, the Nigerien uranium scandal and case for war mounted by Rice illustrates vividly that she was a full party to the now notorious intelligence claims about Iraqi weaponry and ties to terrorists. Prey to the same impulse of the uninformed men around her, she repeated to the 9/11 commission, in one of her rare under oath testimonies before Congress, the regime's cant about terrorism in general-insisting "they attacked us for who we are, for no other reason" ignoring a half century of history of American foreign policy and musing with stunning hubris that victory in Iraq will "inspire hope and encourage reform throughout the greater Middle East."

However history records Bush's policy and Rice's counsel of war, to all appearances Rice has succeeded at the one task required for advancement in the current Bush regime-maintaining by her fierce loyalty the patronage of the President.

And in line with an administration that joins eagles claw to religious cloak, Rice looks to the same sense of divine guidance that fortifies her patron. "When I'm concerned about something, I figure out a plan of action, and then I give it to God. I just ask to be carried through it," she said in a 2002 interview with Essence magazine. "God's never failed me yet." It is an opinion, of course, that history will not share. *

The evidence of Rice?s complicity is increasingly damning as it gathers over a six-year twisting chronology of the Nigerien uranium-Wilson-Plame affair, particularly when set beside what we also know very well about the inside operations of the NSC and Rice?s unique closeness to Bush, her tight grip on her staff, and the power and reach that went with it all. What follows isn?t simple. These machinations in government never are, especially in foreign policy. But follow the bouncing ball of Rice?s deceptions, folly, fraud and culpability. Slowly, relentlessly, despite the evidence, the hoax of the Iraq-Niger uranium emerges as a central thread in the fabricated justification for war, and thus in the President?s, Rice?s, and the regime?s inseparable credibility. The discrediting of Wilson, in which the outing his CIA wife is irresistible, becomes as imperative for Rice as for Rove and Libby, Bush and Cheney. And when that moment comes, she has the unique authority, and is in a position, to do the deed. Motive, means, opportunity?in the classic terms of prosecution, Rice had them all. *

1995: Saddam Hussein?s son-in-law Hussein Kamel, in charge of Iraq?s strategic weaponry, defects to the West. He tells CIA debriefers that at his command after the Gulf War, ?All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed.? His claim is supported by continuing reports of UN inspectors and US intelligence, including sophisticated imagery analysis by both the CIA and Pentagon.

1999: The first rumors begin to circulate in Europe that the Iraqis may be trying to buy ?yellow cake? weapons grade uranium from Niger, a poor West African country that earns more than half its export income from the strategic ore. Since Iraq is known to have used only amply available Iraqi uranium in nuclear research until its disbanding in 1991, and because Niger?s yellow cake is produced solely at two mines owned by a French consortium and the entire output strictly controlled and committed to sale to France, European intelligence agencies and UN officials soon discount the story?though the rumors persist along with other alarming allegations by Iraqi exile groups long working to incite the US Government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, American embassies and CIA stations in Europe routinely report the rumors in repeated, widely circulated cable traffic to Washington over the summer and fall of 1999. Among the recipients is the nuclear non-proliferation section of the Clinton Presidency?s NSC staff, whose files on Iraq, a ?red flag? country, are turned over to Rice and her staff when she assumes office eighteen months later

January 2001: Parties unknown burgle the Nigerien embassy in Rome. Stolen from the torn-up offices are various valuables along with stationery and official seals, which the Italian police warn might be used to forge documents.

February 24, 2001: ?Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capacity with respect to weapons of mass destruction,? says Secretary of State Colin Powell. ?He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.?

July 29, 2001: ?We are able to keep his [Saddam?s] arms from him,? NSC advisor Rice tells the media. ?His military forces have not been rebuilt.?

August 2001: An African informant reportedly hands Italian intelligence what are purported to be official Nigerien documents of ?great importance.? Among them are letters apparently dealing with Niger?s sale of uranium to Iraq, including an alleged transaction in 2000 for some 500 tons of uranium oxide, telltale in a weapons program. The Italians routinely pass the letters on through NATO channels to the US, where by the fall of 2001 both State Department and Department of Energy nuclear intelligence analysts doubt the genuineness of the documents, and duly report their findings to Rice?s NSC staff.

January 2002: In cables cleared by both Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rice, the first high-level reference to the subject after 9/11, Washington asks the US ambassador to Niger to uncover any possible Iraqi purchases of uranium. After talks with senior Nigerien officials and French executives in the uranium mining operations, along with a still wider investigation by the embassy, including the CIA, the ambassador reports back that there is no evidence of such dealings, and no reason to suspect them.

February 2002: Vice President Cheney hears ?about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger,? according to what his chief of staff Libby later tells Time. In his daily intelligence briefing by the CIA, as Libby relates, Cheney asks about ?the implication of the [Niger] report.? CIA briefing officers tell Cheney and Libby of the documents passed on months before by the Italians, including the State and Energy Department judgment that the papers are probable forgeries.

A few days later, with the routine concurrence of Rice and her staff, Cheney through Libby asks the CIA to look into the matter further. The Agency has no ready experts in Niger suitable to assign the Vice President?s requested inquiry. After routinely canvassing the relevant offices and relatively brief discussion, they seize on the suggestion of one of their operatives working on nuclear proliferation issues, a mid-level CIA veteran named Valerie Plame who has worked abroad and in Washington under ?NOC? ?non-official cover in private business in contact with several foreign sources. Her pertinent if personal recommendation for the assignment is her husband, then-fifty-three year-old Joseph Wilson IV, a retired Foreign Service Officer who has served briefly as Charge d?Affairs in Baghdad in 1990 and then from 1992-1993 as US Ambassador to Gabon, a seasoned diplomat with experience in both Iraq and West Africa, and even some specialization in African strategic minerals.

February 19, 2002: A meeting at the CIA discusses sending Wilson to Niger. Attending is an analyst from the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research who says the trip is unnecessary, since the US embassy in Niger and European intelligence agencies have already disproved the story of an Iraqi purchase?and whose notes of the meeting, including the facts of Valerie Plame?s CIA identity as an NOC operative on WMD and her role in recommending her husband, will be the basis for later crucial memos in the scandal.

Despite State Department objection, the CIA decides to go ahead with the Wilson mission to satisfy the Vice President?s request, and the former ambassador is ?invited out [to CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia] to meet with a group of people at the CIA who were interested in this subject,? as he will remember it. Wilson is introduced to the gathering by his wife, who then leaves the room.

In late February, with the concurrence of CIA Director George Tenet as well as Rice and Powell, Wilson flies to Niger.

February 24, 2002: Meanwhile, to further emphasize the importance of the issue and with Washington?s concurrence, the US Ambassador in Niger has invited to the capital of Niamey Marine four-star General Carlton Fulford, Jr., deputy commander of the US-European Command, which is responsible for military relations with sub-Saharan West Africa. Fulford meets with Niger?s president and other senior officials on the 24th, and afterward confirms the Ambassador?s earlier findings, as he later tells the Washington Post, that there is no evidence of the sale of yellow cake to Iraq, and that Niger?s uranium supply is ?secure.? The General?s report duly goes up through the chain of his command to the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon and on to Rice at the NSC, Powell at State, the CIA, the Energy Department and other interested agencies.

March 5, 2002: Having met with several Nigerien officials and sources over a ten-day visit and debriefed at length the US Embassy staff and Ambassador (who promptly cables a report on to Powell and Rice), Wilson returns from Niger and gives CIA officers, as they request, an oral report which is the basis for a CIA-written memo on his trip then forwarded to Rice and Powell, and for a further CIA debriefing for Cheney in response to his original request. Republicans will later dispute about how categorical or emphatic Wilson?s report and its derivatives actually are at this point. He refers to "an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary" for Iraq who had approached Niger about sales of ore, though adds that Niger ?ignored the request.? But the essence of his conclusion is, once again, that there is no evidence of Iraq procuring uranium from Niger. In de facto acceptance of this finding, the several Washington agencies involved in the issue, including Rice and her NSC staff, make no other effort?beyond the US embassy investigation, General Fulford?s trip, and the Wilson mission?to investigate the matter further in Niger or anywhere else.

May-June 2002: With the Iraq-Niger uranium issue apparently laid to rest, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld establishes in the Pentagon, with the full knowledge of Rice, a new Office of Special Plans, under the direction of Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and cabal of neo-conservatives the Bush regime has assembled at the upper civilian reaches of the Defense Department. Believing the CIA, FBI and other agencies in myriad negative reports, including the Wilson mission, have simply ?failed? to find existing evidence of Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction and Saddam?s ties to al-Qaeda, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz direct ?Special Plans? to gather and interpret its own ?intelligence? on Iraq. Meanwhile Rice takes over coordination of efforts to stymie ongoing arms inspections of Iraq by the United Nations.

June 26, 2002: In a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior British officials at Ten Downing Street, Sir Richard Dearlove, ?C,? head of MI6 British intelligence, reports on what he found during recent Washington conversations at the highest levels of the CIA, White House and other US official quarters. ?Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,? as a summary records his words. ?But intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.?

July 2002: Concerned at the potential opposition to the war, and to coordinate policy and media relations for the coming attack on Iraq, a special White House Iraq Group (WHIG) is set up, chaired by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and composed of Rice, Rove, Libby, Rice?s deputy Stephen Hadley, and media strategists Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush aide, Mary Matalin and others. The WHIG is to plan and control carefully all high-level leaks and public statements on Iraq and related issues. ?Everything, I mean everything, was run through them and came out of them,? a ranking official will say of the group. ?It was understood, of course, that Condi or Hadley would clear everything from a policy point of view, Rove and Libby would do the politics, and the rest would handle the spin.?

August 26, 2002: ?Now we know,? Vice President Cheney tells the VFW convention, ?Saddam Hussein has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.? Rice routinely clears this speech.

September 2002: Several months earlier, the US and UN embargo of Iraq has seized a shipment of high strength aluminum tubes, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the US State and Energy Departments duly identify as designed solely for launch tubes for conventional artillery rockets. Despite those expert findings, Rice now claims publicly that the tubes are ?only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.?

Apparently reflecting the original rumors of the Iraq-Niger deal and the subsequent dubious documents handed the Italians thirteen months before (copies of which have reportedly been given to MI6 British intelligence by an Italian journalist), a British Government White Paper on Iraq released in September mentions that Baghdad ?had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.? Pressed on the issue by the CIA (on the basis of its now-several reports debunking the story) to drop that statement as inaccurate, the British claim they have sources for the assertion ?aside from the discredited [Nigerien] letters,? but never identify them. Rice is fully briefed on all these exchanges.

(Eventually, British intelligence officials will admit the 2002 White Paper statement on uranium from Africa was ?unfounded.? Meanwhile, however, much of official Washington is aware of the CIA-MI6 squabble over the Niger uranium and questionable letters. ?The Brits,? a Congressional intelligence committee staffer will later tell the New Yorker?s Sy Hersh in discussing the issue, ??placed more stock in them than we did.?)

It?s also that September, in answer to a question in a CNN interview about what evidence the White House has of Iraqi nuclear weapons, that Rice makes her infamous quip, a line first authored by Mary Matalin??We don?t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.?

September 26, 2002: In closed-hearing testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (with a transcript closely reviewed by Rice), Powell refers to ?reports? of an Iraqi purchase of Nigerien uranium as ?further proof? of Saddam Hussein?s weapons of mass destruction.

October 2002: Seizing on the British White Paper, despite the documented disagreement of the CIA as well as the State and Energy Departments, the Office of Special Plans inserts in a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, apparently one of the few documents Bush reads in this sequence, a reference to the British report of an Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. Though the NIE at CIA insistence notes ?different interpretations of the significance of the Niger documents,? and that the State Department judges them ?highly dubious,? the reference to Nigerien uranium is listed among other reasons to conclude that Iraq poses a danger to American national security.

?Facing clear evidence of peril,? Bush says in a speech in Cincinnati that October, ?we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.? Behind the scenes, an earlier draft of the October speech has also contained a reference to an Iraqi purchase of 500 tons of uranium from Niger, the now-revived claim from the discredited documents of fifteen months before. CIA Director Tenet urges that the White House take out that reference, and though the Pentagon?s Special Plans office is pushing for inclusion of the reference, Rice?s deputy (and eventual successor) Stephen Hadley, after two memoranda and a phone call from Tenet, finally agrees to drop the passage. Rice is fully briefed on all this.

December 19, 2002: As preparations are hurried for the attack on Iraq, a State Department ?Fact Sheet,? cleared by Rice, asks ominously, ?Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement??

The assumption of the Niger-Iraq uranium connection now begins to appear regularly in the President?s Daily Brief, the CIA intelligence briefing which is now also drafted under the influence of the Office of Special Plans.

January 23, 2003: In a New York Times op-ed entitled ?Why We Know Iraq is Lying,? Rice refers prominently to ?Iraq?s efforts to get uranium from abroad.?

January 28, 2003: "The British government,? Bush says in his State of the Union litany on the dangers of Iraq, ?has [sic] learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.?

Rice and her staff, of course, have as always laboriously worked and reworked the national security passages of the speech. In readying the address, Rice?s NSC Staff assistant for nonproliferation, Robert Joseph, asks Alan Foley, a ranking CIA expert on the subject, about the ?uranium from Africa? passage, which obviously refers to the old Niger issue. Foley says the CIA doubts the Niger letters and connection, has disputed the British White Paper (as Rice and Joseph well know), and recommends that the NSC strike the reference. In typical bureaucratic fashion, however, Foley also says it would be ?technically accurate? to say that the British had in fact issued such a report on Iraq, however mistaken. With the approval of Rice and her deputy Hadley, the passage stays, becoming a major piece of ?evidence? in the case for war.

February 5, 2003: In his now infamous presentation to the United Nations, a factor in silencing many potential dissenters in Congress, Powell pointedly omits any reference to the Nigerien uranium. The story ?had not stood the test of time,? he says later.

That February, too, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as part of his own propaganda for war, issues a Ten Downing Street paper called ?Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation,? which includes a reference to the Nigerien uranium. Thought to be drawn from authoritative MI6 intelligence, the paper is soon widely ridiculed, eleven of its sixteen pages found to be copied verbatim from an old Israeli magazine.

March 7, 2003: In response to a request four months before, the State Department finally hands over to the IAEA copies of the Niger letters, which UN experts promptly dismiss as ?not authentic? and ?blatant forgeries.? "These documents are so bad," a senior IAEA official tells the press, "that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.? A former high-level intelligence official tells The New Yorker, ?Somebody deliberately let something false get in there. It could not have gotten into the system without the agency being involved. Therefore it was an internal intention. Someone set someone up.?

March 8, 2003: In reply to questions about the forgery, a State Department spokesman says the US Government ?fell for it.? "It was the information that we had. We provided it,? Powell will say lamely on ?Meet the Press". ?If that information is inaccurate, fine."

March 17, 2003: Bush, in a statement cleared by Rice, repeats that ?Iraq continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.?

March 19, 2003: Bush orders the invasion of Iraq.

March 21, 2003: Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D. WVa) writes FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for an investigation of the Niger letters. "There is a possibility,? Rockefeller says, ?that the fabrication of these [Niger] documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq."

May 6, 2003: In an anonymous interview with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Ambassador Wilson?identified none too subtly as ?a former US Ambassador to [sic] Africa,? says about the failure to find WMDs in Iraq: ?It?s disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this [that Saddam had no nuclear program or weapons] for a year.?

June 10, 2003: Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman asks the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) for a briefing on the Niger uranium issue, and specifically the State Department?s opposition to the continuing White House view that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake. The resulting memo is dated the same day, and drawn from notes on the February 19 meeting at the CIA on the Wilson mission and other sources. Befitting the sensitivity of the information, the memo is classified ?Top Secret,? and contains in one paragraph, separately marked ?(S/NF)? for ?Secret/No dissemination to foreign governments or intelligence agencies, ? two sentences describing in passing Valerie ?Wilson?s? identity as a CIA operative and her role in the inception of the Wilson trip to Niger. This June 10 memo reportedly does not use her maiden name Plame.

June 12, 2003: The Washington Post reports that an unnamed ?former US ambassador? was sent to Niger to look into the uranium issue and found no evidence of any Iraqi purchase.

At the State Department, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage asks INR to prepare a memorandum on the background of what the Post is reporting, and INR sends to Armitage that same day a copy of the June 10 memo to Grossman. The memo is also sent to Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security (and future UN Ambassador-designate) John Bolton.

July 6, 2003: Outraged by continuing references to the Nigerien uranium, Wilson breaks his anonymity with a sensational New York Times op-ed disclosing his mission to Niger sixteen months before, and the fact that he found no evidence of an Iraqi purchase of ore. "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war," Wilson writes, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." He tells "Meet the Press," "Either the administration has information that it has not shared with the public or ... they were using the selective use of facts and intelligence to bolster a decision that had already been made to go to war."

Later in the day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage calls INR Assistant Secretary Carl W. Ford at home, and asks him to send a briefing memo to Powell about the Niger uranium issue. Ford simply pulls out the previous June 10 memo with its reference to Wilson?s wife (her name now corrected from Wilson to Plame), addresses it to Powell, and forwards the memo to Rice to be passed on to Powell, who is due to leave the next day with the Presidential party on a trip to Africa.

Meanwhile, the WHIG is also moving that Sunday to deal aggressively with the Wilson op-ed. They will no longer focus on the too obviously fraudulent claim of an Iraqi purchase of yellow cake?White House orthodoxy before the invasion?but will instead discount the issue, discredit Wilson, and shift blame for the now-embarrassing State of the Union reference. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer is to try to downplay and dismiss Wilson?s article on-the-record at the next day?s press briefing, while Rice and others begin to make off-the-record calls to the media to do the same. While pursuing their own contacts among right-wing reporters and columnists, Rove and Libby are also to work with CIA Director George Tenet in a statement by Tenet taking responsibility for any inaccuracy in the State of the Union passage.

July 7, 2003: Under a barrage of questions at a 9:30 am press briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says of the Wilson claims, ?There is zero, nada, nothing new here,? adding that "Wilson's own report [shows] that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales." (A reference to the ?Algerian-Nigerien intermediary? in Wilson?s debriefings? "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the President alleged?" Wilson later that day replies to Fleischer. "These guys really need to get serious.") But as the briefing wears on, Fleischer?s defense grows ?murkier,? as the New York Times reports, and he seems to ?concede? that the State of the Union reference to Niger uranium ?might have been flawed.?

That evening, with the White House scrambling to defend itself against Wilson?s resonating charges, Bush leaves for a trip to Africa, accompanied by Rice and Powell. Before the party flies out of Andrews, Rice is in several meetings with Rove, Libby and other senior aides of the WHIG.

The scene now shifts to the plush but still relatively close quarters of Air Force One, the specially configured 747 where the accompanying media are boarded through a rear door and funneled directly to their mid-level section closed off from the forward official compartment, and where Administration VIPs like Rice and Powell are in conference rooms and adjoining lounge chairs in closer and easier proximity and informality than in any other official venue. It is in this setting, soon after takeoff, as the New York Times will report two years later, that Powell is seen walking around carrying the INR June 12/July6 memo detailing Wilson?s mission and Plame?s identity and role in the ?(S/NF)? paragraph. Powell discusses the memo with Rice and other presidential aides on board, including press secretary Ari Fleischer. Witnesses later see Fleischer ?perusing? the memo. There are reports, too, of several calls between the plane and the White House discussing the Wilson affair. En route over the Atlantic, Rice and Fleischer both call contacts at the Washington Post and New York Times ?to make it clear,? the Times will report, ?that they no longer stood behind Mr. Bush?s statement about the uranium?the first such official concession on the sensitive issue of the intelligence that led to the war.?

It is in these hours of late July 7 and early July 8 that Rove, Libby and other officials get word of Plame?s identity from Air Force One. Rove and Libby will hear of Plame in the drafting with Tenet of his mea culpa, but officials on the plane reading the INR memo cannot know or be sure of this, and the memo?s passages on Wilson, including his wife, are now relayed back to Washington. Reporters later speculate that Powell might have called either Rove or Libby with such information, but as one concludes aptly, ?That was above his pay grade.? The President himself might have read the memo and called the two aides. But given Bush?s style and grasp, that, too, is implausible, though he may well have been informed of the calls and given his approval. The only official on board Air Force One with the knowledge and authority?motive, means and opportunity?to instruct Rove and Libby in their leaks and so betray Plame was Condoleezza Rice.

July 7-8, 2003: Right-wing Columnist Robert Novak is called by thus far unidentified senior officials leaking to him that Wilson?s wife, Valerie Plame (they use her maiden name), is a CIA operative who instigated her husband?s trip to Niger. ?I didn?t dig it out, it was given to me,? Novak tells Newsweek of the leak. ?They thought it was significant. They gave me the name and I used it.?

July 9, 2003: Rove discusses the Wilson imbroglio, including the role of Wilson?s CIA wife, with columnist Robert Novak, who identifies her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame.

July 11, 2003: Peppered by questions about Wilson?s charges, Bush in a press conference in Uganda says, ?I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services.? That evening, aboard Air Force One flying over East Africa, Rice speaks at length with the media about the ?clearances? of the President?s speech. ?Now I can tell you,? she says, ?if the CIA, the director of central intelligence, had said, ?Take this out of the speech,? it would have gone without question.? She says nothing about the actual maneuvering behind the now-troublesome passage, the Joseph-Foley exchange, the controversial British memorandum US intelligence has disputed, the shadowy history of the yellow cake fraud.

July 11, 2003: Back in Washington, working to discredit Wilson, Rove leaks to Time?s Matthew Cooper that ?Wilson?s wife? is, in fact, in the CIA ?working on WMD? and has been behind his mission to Niger. Rove ?implied strongly,? Cooper later emails his editor, ?there?s still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium from Niger.?

After that conversation, in evidence of the central role of Rice and her staff in the betrayal of Plame?s identity to discredit Wilson, Rove emails Rice?s NSC deputy Hadley that he has ?waved Cooper off? Wilson?s claim, and that he (Rove) ?didn?t take the bait? when Cooper offered that Wilson?s revelations had damaged the Administration. Hadley immediately relays this message to Rice in Africa.

That same day, after extensive deliberations with Rove and Libby, CIA Director Tenet makes a public statement that the Nigerien uranium allegation should never have appeared in the Bush 2003 State of the Union. "This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches,? he confesses, ?and CIA should have ensured that it was removed,"

July 12, 2003: When asked by Cooper about Plame being CIA, Libby confirms the story to the Time reporter. That same day, in a talk with the Washington Post?s Walt Pincus, an unidentified ?senior administration official? brings up Plame?s CIA identity, in what is now a widely authorized leak approved by Rice as well as Rove.

July 14, 2003: Columnist Robert Novak, attributing the story to ?two senior administration officials? ?neither of which is Rove or Libby?identifies Plame as a CIA ?operative on weapons of mass destruction? who was behind her husband?s mission to Niger.

July 20, 2003: ?Senior White House sources? call NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell to say, ?the real story here is not the 16 words [Bush?s reference to Niger uranium in the State of the Union]? but Wilson and his wife.?

July 21, 2003: On MSNBC, host Chris Mathews tells Wilson, ?I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says, and I quote, ?Wilson?s wife is fair game.??

July 30, 2003: Alarmed about the impact of the betrayal of Plame?s identity on current and future agents and sources abroad, the CIA asks the Justice Department to investigate the leak, which leads to the naming of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Prosecutor.

September 2003: An unidentified ?White House official? tells the Washington Post that ?at least six reporters? had been told about Plame before Novak?s column appeared. The disclosures, the source says, were ?purely and simply out of revenge.?

This chronology will no doubt continue to expand in the days and weeks ahead. There may well be a ticking time-bomb in the Grand Jury investigation of the Plame leak that goes beyond anything we now envision. In earlier findings in cases of reporters refusing to testify, DC Circuit Judge, David Tatel, a distinguished jurist known for his devotion to civil liberties and especially press freedoms, had stoutly maintained a federal privilege for the media, shielding it from being compelled to testify except under the most exceptional conditions. But then later joining his colleagues in ordering Cooper and the New York Times? Judith Miller to testify, Tatel reviewed extensive secret information from the prosecutor, devoted eight blacked-out pages of his judgment to the material, and concluded that the privilege he had upheld throughout his career as a lawyer and judge had to give way before "the gravity of the suspected crime." No other element of the scandal bodes so ill for the Bush regime.

There is also the intriguing relationship between John Bolton, the regime?s stymied appointee to the UN, and Judith Miller, the New York Times correspondent sent to jail for contempt in refusing to divulge her sources on Plame even for a story she never wrote. Bolton?s close relationship to Miller, in which many suspect the right-wing lobbyist handed the reporter much of the fraudulent accounts of Iraqi weaponry that ended up on the front page of the Times, may well have encompassed as well the passing of information from the INR memo on Plame, which Bolton saw before Powell or even Rice.

Then, too, as the Progressive Review?s Sam Smith and Counterpunch?s Alexander Cockburn have pointed out from their lonely perch of substance and perspective atop what?s left of American journalism, there is, in the end, much less to the whole story than meets the eye. In their too obvious relish of celebrity, Wilson and Plame as heroes are as dubious as the Niger letters. The CIA, and the Presidents who used it as a private mafia, account for a more than half-century history far more catastrophic than a legion of seedy Roves and Libbys or even multiple Bush regimes. Relentlessly corrupt, inept, anachronistic, if ever an institution deserved to be ?outed? and prosecuted in its numbers, it is our vastly bloodstained intelligence agency. But as it is so often in politics, we are left with the lesser, still needed reckoning at hand.

And, of course, the larger issue beyond Plame is the Bush regime?s Big Lie behind the invasion of Iraq, in which the phantom Nigerien yellowcake was an important malignant element. No government since World War II has more blatantly invented the pretext for waging a war of aggression. The Rove and Libby collusion only begins to peel away the layers of the crime. Rice is the next skein to be pulled.

Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National Security Advisor?the sheer incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or misunderstood?should have been enough to have run her from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic political cowardice of both the Democrats and the media.

Now, however, her role in the Plame scandal cannot be ignored or excused. She alone among senior officials was knowing and complicitous at every successive stage of the great half-baked yellow cake fraud. She alone was the White House peer?and in national security matters the superior?to Rove and Libby, who never could have acted without her collusion in peddling Plame?s identity. She as much as anyone had a stake in smearing Wilson by any and all means at hand. If Rove and Libby are to be held criminally or at least politically accountable for a breach of national security, our ?mushroom cloud? secretary of state should certainly be in the dock with them

(This article owes a primary debt to the ground-breaking research of Professor Gary Leupp of Tufts University in his ?Faith-Based Intelligence,? CounterPunch.org, July 26, 2003.)

Roger Morris was Senior Staff on the National Security Council under both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, until resigning over the invasion of Cambodia. An award winning author, he has written extensively about the Presidency and American foreign policy.

© 2005 The Green Institute

Dean to AME

DNC: Excerpts of DNC Chairman's Remarks to the AME Church's Political Empowerment Agenda

Houston, TX - Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean today addressed the Political Empowerment Agenda at the 29th Biennial Convention of the Connectional Lay Organization of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). The following are highlights from his remarks as prepared for delivery:

"The AME church was founded in response to discrimination - when black Methodists were asked to worship separately from their white counterparts. Since then the church has been a cornerstone of the black community...and it's an honor to be here...

"The church has an essential role in America and in nations around the world. It provides social services, outreach, and refuge to the poor and downtrodden...

"Although we work on different paths, we are united by many of our common goals...

"Our values are far closer than some would have us believe...

"I want to talk to you about what Democrats stand for, and why we are Democrats. We believe that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. We want to bring people together around the common good, and we have a strong belief in the fundamental value of community...

"Many in the political arena want to distort moral values for their own purposes and ignore what's really important. Universally throughout multiple religions and faiths, the idea of reciprocity and treating your neighbor as you want to be treated is a basic tenet...

"I am not a preacher. That is not my calling. But in my public role as Chair of the Democratic Party and in my private role as citizen, I believe that I and we collectively are called to serve one another...

"You can not lift up your fellow man by cutting education programs such as Head Start, Pell grants, or by cutting community development block grants. You can not lift up your fellow man by cutting job training, and Social Security, and small business opportunities. And you can't lift up your country, if you cater to the lower laurels of human nature by using a political strategy that divides Americans by race or religious denomination to win elections...

"Today all across the country the Republican party is driving an anti-immigrant hysteria, intended to divide America ahead of the 2006 elections. In 2002 they used the racially coded word "quota" to incite fear and prejudice on the part of those who thought they would lose jobs and educational opportunities to minorities...

"The Democratic Party will not divide Americans to win elections. We have much to do...and we need to do it together...

"The Republican leadership likes to talk about their connection with African Americans and their heritage as the party of Lincoln. This new stump is chock full of apology but light on true repentance...

"Like America, the Democratic Party has grown and evolved and our relationship with the African American community is a progressive movement...

"We are the party of the Congressional Black Caucus and Senator Barack Obama...It is no mere coincidence that the vast majority of African American elected officials are Democrat and that Democrats continue to lead the effort to put African Americans in office around the country...

"We have to be in the African American community today and year round and not just two weeks before an election. The African American community has been a loyal constituency of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has taken the African American vote for granted - we will not do that again...

"Decency, lifting up our fellow man, bringing hope to the those left out of the process and ensuring that our nation's prosperity is shared by all...these are things that the African Methodist Episcopal Church has stood for and these are things that Democrats stand for...

"I commend the AME Church for your commitment to opening the doors to opportunity through education. Since Brown v. Board of Education, we have made tremendous progress, but there is work to be done. We must ensure that every child in America regardless of race, class, economic status receives a quality education...And we must provide more than paltry funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

"It is unacceptable that we are the only industrialized nation where illness can be met with uncertainty, even poverty. Only 58% of blacks have private health insurance in comparison with %79 of whites. HIV/AIDS has been disproportionately affecting the AA community. We need a healthcare system that works for everyone...

"The new civil rights struggle is the fight for economic opportunity, for entrepreneurship, jobs, prosperity, and home ownership. It is a struggle for equal access to loans, small business training and assistance and financial literacy...

"It is the idea that every American is entitled to a fair shot at the American dream...

"Finally, I want to commend the AME on the creation of the AME V-Alert initiative. There is no democratic right more basic to our democracy than the power of the vote...

"Democrats understand that you can't ask for the vote of African Americans if you're not willing to support the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act...the very thing that empowered African Americans to participate in the political process...

"Last month the DNC Voting Rights Institute issued a report on the 2004 Ohio elections that found that if you were African American you had to wait three times as long to vote and were twice as likely to experience problems while trying to vote...

"This is not right. This is not the American way, and it's not good for our democracy when our citizens don't have confidence that their voice is being heard...and Democrats will continue to fight to guarantee that no American is denied the right to vote, and that their votes are counted."

Our Sensitive Police

The following is a transcription of a communication from our chief of police to a member of his department and the Town Administrator--a transcription, not an exact copy.

From: David Kurz
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 11:10 AM
To: David Holmstock
CC: Todd Selig
Subject: RE: Julian Smith

Thanks David for the information. I will discuss the situation with Todd next week. In the interim, if there are any further issues, be as polite as you can . . . I know that anyway . . . .and contact me immediately.

----------Original Message--------------
From: David Holmstock
To: Andrew Buinicky; Bob Joslin; Dave Kurz
CC: dholmstock at ci.durham.nh.us
Sent: 7/16/2005 7:32 AM
Subject: Julian Smith

Dear Chief,

I would like to bring to your attention what I feel is a pattern of an abuse of power by Council Person Julian Smith. Two incidents lead me to write this letter about the concerns the patrol has about his conduct.

The first incident occurred with Sgt. Joslin not long after we started patrolling the Wiswall Bridge as a directed patrol. Sgt. Joslin was stopped by Council Person Smith and he told Sgt. Joslin that he did not believe we should be enforcing the bridge by stopping people from jumping off of it. He went on to have further conversations about his experience with the bridge and continued to express his opinions about the way we should enforce the bridge. This incident was shortly after we were given the clear directive on how to enforce the bridge. Then we have a council person telling us that we should not be dealing with it the way we are directed to deal with it. Sgt. Joslin said he tried to avoid furthering any conversation with him on that night. If Council Person Smith had an issue or concern, it is my opinion that should have been forwarded to the Chief and not to a Sgt. on patrol as if he was giving orders.

Yesterday, 07-15-2005, Sgt. Buinicky stated he was going to an ambulance call when he was stopped by Council Person Smith. Again, Council Person Smith spoke to Sgt. Buinicky in ehat he described as a, "Loud and Threatening" voice. Smith asked Sgt. Buinicky if he was the officer that was out patrolling the area the night prior. He asked him again, even after the quesion was answered. Council Person Smith then went on to point out how he wanted a motor vehicle accident investigation conducted by our department and the steps he wanted us to take to investigate it. The facts of the accident are that Officer Lyczak had already investigated the crash, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Smith in any way shape or form. That did not stop him form trying to tell us how to do our jobs.

In my opinion, Council Person Smith is clearly trying to intimidate officers on this department because of his position on the council. My concern, and that of Sgt. Buinicky, is what if that was officer Lyczak on patrol yesterday, and not Sgt. Buinicky. According to Sgt. Buinicky, Mr. Smith told him he was going to speak to the officer who took the accident and tell him what should be done anyway. Would the tone and message have been any worse than what it was when he was talking to a Sgt, who clearly described his tones as threatening and loud in nature?

At this point I would like these concerns on record in case this pattern of dealing with officers in this department gets any worse. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Sgt. David Holmstock (204)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some points of clarification and/or correction to the above---

1) to "enforce the bridge" means to tell the kids jumping off a 15' high bridge into the river and swimming not to, even though there is no ordinance on the books prohibiting this activity.

2) Whichever police officer engaged in a casual and brief conversation with Council Person Smith did not identify himself, but it was in the afternoon, when the children and teens were swimming, not at night, as is stated in the report.

3) The matter of how swimming in the river at the bridge is to be regulated has been taken up by the Council and the Town Administrator, as well as the town's insurance advisor.

4) Since Sgt. Buinicky (who also did not identify himself) was sitting in his cruiser with the motor and the air-conditioner running, it was probably necessary to speak loudly in order to be heard.

5) The particulars of the accident investigation--an accident in which town property was damaged and Council Person Smith found it necessary to alert the Department of Public Works to have the damage repaired, because the police investigation took no note of it--were not discussed with Sgt. Buinicky, but rather with the watch commander in charge when Council Person Smith called the police department on behalf of the neigbor whose garage doors were totally destroyed when the vehicle careened across the road, through the yard and knocked an antique auto off the blocks on which it was stored. (7/29/05 addendum--it now seems that it was Sgt. Buinicky who took the call from Council Person Smith, but did not consider it worth-while to volunteer when he was asked about the accident that they had already spoken on the phone)

Bottom line--police officers do not like being told what to do by citizens. Not even by citizens who have been elected to represent those who pay their salaries and provide their perks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Town Administrator states his position:

Dear Julian,

I am writing to let you know that two recent interactions between you and our police officers have caused concern amongst two of our sergeants. (Please see email
stream below dated July 16, 2005 between Chief Kurz and Sgt. Holmstock.) There is a perception that you are utilizing your position as a Town Councilor to direct officers in the field as though you were their supervisor. As you know, the Town Charter states, "No Councilor shall give orders to or interfere with the performance of the duties of any of the administrative officers or employees, either publicly or privately." While I do not believe that this was at all your intention, once one is a Town Councilor it becomes very hard for that individual to speak only as a resident when our officers know very well that the individual is also on the Council and as such has great influence over the affairs of the Town. Whether you identify yourself as a Councilor or not, the police officers likely know you by sight and understand that you are a member of the Town's governing body. Thus your words carry special weight. While I regularly encourage members of the Council to politely and professionally interact with staff to obtain information or to learn more about policy issues, great care should be taken not to give the impression that orders or directives, overt or subtle, are being conveyed as a result of the discussion. If Councilors disagree with policy directives or feel strongly that a certain action should be taken, the appropriate course would be to contact me individually or to bring the matter up before the full Council so that the topic could be fully and openly discussed. I would then follow up on the concern utilizing the appropriate chain of command.

Judge John G. Roberts, Jr.

What do we know about Judge John G. Roberts, Jr?

So, let's see, what have we got on Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. so far?

1) He has shown poor judgement in several instances connected to the announcement of his nomination. In addition to parading his family before the cameras, like he was some candidate for a political office, who wanted to distract us from his lack of personal depth, he co-operated with a lobbying group, Progress for America, which has a rather sordid history of putting out smears on the opponents of those whom they support. I reach this conclusion because it is unlikely that PFA came up with the names, pictures and quotes from laborers subordinate to Roberts' dad in the plant on their own. Never mind that PFA is a very partisan group. They are entitled to support anyone they like. It is the judges who are supposed to be non-partisan.

2) Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. seems to have a very short memory in that he can no longer remember associates from seven years ago. Either that, or his commitment to those associates is very superficial. If, indeed, as is now claimed his inclusion in the membership of the steering committee of the Federalist Society was a mistake, it is a mistake that should have been corrected at the time. Not to have done so demonstrates a certain inattention to detail which does not bode well for a judge who's going to be making life and death decisions--at least as long as the death penalty is on the books.
If there is a memory problem, then that would seem to make a perusal of the documents Judge Roberts prepared in the Reagan/Bush White House even more important. After all, we keep documentary records just for that purpose--because human memory is fallible and often unreliable.

3) Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. has demonstrated a commitment to the principle of "judicial restraint" which counsels that other branches of the government are not to be interfered with. While it seems entirely appropriate to assume that "judicial restraint" refers to a reluctance to interfere in citizens' private lives, that's not what an analysis by Jeffrey Toobin, who's much better acquainted with the law than I, concludes. In any event, if Judge Roberts is reluctant to interfere with the other branches of the government, specifically the executive and the legislative, then that sort of throws the principle of "checks and balances" out the window, doesn't it?

4) Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. seems to be somewhat of a literalist in that he sets great store by the "provisions" of the Constitution. Which probably means that whatever isn't there in black and white, simply doesn't exist. And the verbiage about "rights" left "to the people" is just a sop, a promise to respect individual human rights that doesn't mean anything in real life. Consequently, since citizens don't enjoy any human rights, other than those specified in the Constitution, captives held on foreign soil can't be expected to fare better, as the Judge's recent ruling regarding the detainees on Guantanamo clearly demonstrates.

5) Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. is a strong proponent of the principle of "intent." What that means in regards to individuals who seek to be compensated for an injury inflicted by another is that they have to prove that the injury was inflicted on purpose. As Justice Souter has pointed out, this standard makes it impossible for anyone to get any satisfaction since what's in a person's or corporation's mind is impossible to establish. Moreover, if the offending entity is a government body, whose purpose is presumably the public welfare, the negligent, inattentive or even slightly malicious public servant responsible for causing harm is likely to go unpunished, uncorrected and unrepentant.
So, for example, one might expect that the polluted terrains and waters being left behind as more military facilities are abandoned will remain uncorrected since it is fairly obvious that the US Army, Air Force and Navy never meant to poison their neighbors or their neighbors' children.
While Judge Roberts cannot be questioned on such a hypothetical situation coming before him, since it is likely to be an important issue in the near future, one can extrapolate from his ruling on the case of an employee whose wrists succumbed to carpo tunnel injury and whose employer was found within his rights to simply fire her, because he clearly didn't intend to injure the employee.
While my own quarrel with the principle of "intent" has been prompted by its use in the criminal law to let experienced miscreants escape responsibility for their actions and makes it very difficult for the victims of their actions to get justice, its application to corporate or public entities makes them virtually immune to accountability for their behavior. Again, the principle of "checks and balances" by which we insure that government does not become abusive, seems to be undermined by this interpretation.

7) There has been some public discussion of the conservative legal community's commitment to the principle of "original intent." Most cursory readers of such discussions would probably conclude that courts were trying to figure out what those who wrote the Constitution meant by what they said. While I think it is doubtful that is is possible to make an accurate determination of what someone meant in retrospect, I'm more inclined to think that's not what the "original intent" people are interested in anyway. Rather, their focus is on the "original intent" in setting up a government in the first place and that seems to be related to an assumption that humans, having been tainted by "original sin," are in dire need of being governed to make them behave.
Of course, if that is one's assumption, or the prejudice from which one proceeds, then the general welfare is obviously best served by keeping individuals (especially those that haven't yet been "saved") under tight control. And the notion of government as a social contract which provides benefits to the parts and the whole flies out the window.

Lest it appear that I am dumping on poor Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. let me hasten to assure you that there is nothing personal in the issues that concern me. I'm trying to be as objective as I can and focus on what's in the record, nothing more.

NH Photos

I Don't Recall Roberts

When I woke this morning, I didn't intend (word we will hear much of in coming months) to focus on Judge Roberts. But then the cartoon on the editorial page of the Boston Globe pointed out just what I'd been thinking: that it's strange for such a brilliant man not to remember what organizations he belonged to just seven years ago.

Well, not strange actually. Seems to me Judge Roberts has made a significant number of other errors in judgement in his brief tenure in the public arena.

The first, of course, was in permitting the announcement of his nomination to be played like that of a candidate for political office, parading his wife and children in hopes that the electorate won't pay attention to his back-room deals.

The second, or perhaps it actually came first, was his co-operation with the Progress for America crew whose great expertise, until now, has been in smearing democratic candidates for the presidency and promoting the piratization of social security.
Though I'm not a proponent of guilt by association, judges should be careful about the people they choose as friends and supporters.

Third, of course, was permitting the White House press secretary to act as his spokesperson when answering questions from the press. While it's quite possible that McClellan could have made it on his own initiative, a statement about what the judge does or doesn't remember is either accurate, or should have been corrected by Roberts himself.

Roberts' retreat into the "I do not recall" mode so early in the process is worrying. On the other hand, it's actually quite consistent with his commitment to the proposition that "intent" has more weight than action and that, no matter how, avoiding responsibility is a good thing. So, we should probably be glad to have gotten such an early clue that when it comes to choosing between right and wrong, Judge Roberts prefers "I don't remember."

Guess that's what he's got in common with his latest mentor.

Iraq's Kurds --Iraq's Saviors?

Peter W. Galbraith is on the right track with his report from Irbil. He's noticed that America's support for its Kurdish friends is not all they expected. No surprise there.

The constitution and the Kurds

By Peter W. Galbraith | July 25, 2005

ERBIL, Iraq
THERE ARE NOT many places in Iraq where the locals want to celebrate American Independence Day. But, in Iraq's self-governing Kurdistan region, the newly elected government decided to host a Fourth of July party for their American allies. Top coalition officers were invited along with US civilians, food and drinks ordered (the secular Kurds serve and drink alcohol), and the Kurdistan prime minister had prepared his speech. Then America's top diplomat in the region delivered an ultimatum: She would not attend unless the Kurds flew Iraq's flag at the party. The Kurds refused and canceled the party.

[...]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/07/25/the_constitution_and_the_kurds/

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That the Iraqi people are fussing over the allocation of their natural resouces should not come as a surprise.  The Interim Constitution that Bremer shoved down their throats made it quite clear that the American occupation was directed towards achieving what they had failed to get out of Saddam Hussein, preferential access to ALL of Iraq's natural resources (land, water, minerals and oil).

What most Americans probably missed was that, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a socialist state and most natural and capital assets belonged to the state.  In theory, this should have made it easy for American corporate interests to acquire exclusive long-term leases and buy up Iraq's resources cheaply.  In theory, it also should have made it easy for the United States to negotiate the construction of those fourteen military bases we wanted to have there-- in order to assert our dominance over the Indian Ocean basin.  But, Saddam was resistant.  That's why he had to be removed.

Easy access to Iraqi oil is nice, but we really don't need it.  Much more important to military bases in the desert are water and electricity to keep the troops cool and replicate all the comforts of home.

John Kerry has challenged the Administration to declare that the US has no interest in the permanent bases we are even now building.  He expressed that conviction during the campaign.  Which made it absolutely imperative that he be defeated.  A permanent American military presence in the region has been the Pentagon's goal for several decades.  Very likely it's what drove the occupation of Vietnam.  Fat chance they will give up that dream without a fight.

And to think, that fellow Chalabi promised it would be easy.

What the Hell?

What the Hell?

That's what a Republican Senator friend of mine had to say when he read my call for a Democrat majority in Congress-- or at least in one of the two Houses-- in 2006. However, I feel, that were he to look at how absolute power corrupts absolutely-- case in point Speaker DeLay-- perhaps we Republicans ought to be more careful in what we wish for, given the blight our wishes brought upon us. After all, before DeLay we had Gingrich. And though he walked out after getting caught without making too much of a fuss, he couldn't resist that "call" inside his brainstem-- more to ego than "to serve" myth-- and is now embarrassing us all bucking for the presidency and introduced on FOX-TV as if he speaks for all of us Republicans.

How I miss the days when the Democrats had one side of the Congress, the Senate, and the Republicans just swept the House right from under Bill (is is) Clinton. In adversity, Bill Clinton showed us that he not only has "cahones" (though a bit overactive) but also a cerebral cortex to more than match his pituitary. He devours writ en words as if they were feminine parts and processes issues as if thinking brought him orgasms.

Clinton was at his best after taking a severe body blow from us Republicans, who for decades were so outraged, for example, by the WELFARE EMPIRE devouring urban America. It was composed of a massive bureaucracy that both kept clients down, insuring sloth on their part and rewarded irresponsible reproduction. One might say its motto was: "WE REWARD REPRODUCERS WHO DON'T PRODUCE WITH CASH." I recall my outrage upon learning, however, that the welfare clients were not the problem; for example, in New York, they got only 17 cents out of every welfare dollar while the bureaucracy ate up the other 83 cents. Ron Reagan tried to dent the bureaucracy of welfare. However, when he couldn't he just went after the most vulnerable in order to get some results: the disabled, who could not protect themselves. It was Bill Clinton who hopped into bed with the Republican Congress and together created the most revolutionary welfare reform in American history. That's what the Founding Fathers told us to do "persevere and compromise relentlessly" to produce bipartisan legislation in the people's service.

Personally, in 2000 I looked into GW Bush's soul-- so I thought-- and saw humble, candid, compassionate conservatism from a man who hit rock bottom and crawled his way out, Bible in hand. Alas, I failed to check how much gray matter was left after a life of coke and booze. We thus got a president, unfortunately, whom no one yet has described as well as his former Sec. of the Treasury, O'Neill: a blind man talking to the deaf.

When crisis hit on 9/11, Evil Dick Cheney and carnivorous Rumsfeld got together with the Devil's Disciples, the neocons-- and did exactly what they used to practice doing back in the Reagan years. Back then, Cheney and Rumsfeld, though private citizens with no official authority, would go to the depths of a mountain cave to form an "alternate US Govt," in case the White House was nuked by the Soviets. Asked why they don't take members of Congress, given the succession rules in the Constitution, they insisted that such an alternative government had to be decisive and Congressmen would slow them down. Well, come 9/11, Evil Dick sent President GW Bush on Air Force One to circle around the Midwest while he took over the government. It was then that the Iraq War was hatched out. But, when meeting with Cheney and the neocon cabal at Camp David, Bush had to shut them down, insisting that we WILL attack Afghanistan, not Iraq, as they demanded.

Yet, Evil Dick dicked us all by beating at Bush until he went along with an Iraq War. Since Bush reads nothing, has a limited attention span and little memory, he couldn't argue; all he could finally do was accept the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon demand for war in principle in order to delay the war until Saddam Hussein is-- he hoped-- deposed by his own people, thus avoiding war. However, when the cabal threatened to expose Bush's indecisiveness, he relented and gave the "Saddam, ya got 48 hrs, ta git outa Baaagghdaaad!" speech. From that point on, Bush focused on the DECISIVE WAR PRESIDENT myth weaved by court scribe Woodward, the ahistoric picture of "Bush's War."

Finally, after re-election, Bush grew Clintonesque cohones too and he threw out all the neocons, locked Cheney down in the basement and took over the Administration. Cabinet status was based on two criteria: (1) never bring GW bad news; (2) be loyal no matter what, just like the tree monkeys that see, hear nor speak evil. Alas, cahones ain't no substitute for gray matter of the cerebral kind. And so Bush focused exclusively on paying off the robber barons that payed for his campaign by giving America over to them, piece by piece.

Noting that the White House had no foreign policy, no economic policy, no environmental policy, just engaged in the great give away at taxpayer's expense and the failing war in Iraq, Republican legislators became nervous-- especially Republican Congressmen, for there's no one more accountable to the public than Congressmen, and they will face a hostile public, per the polls, in 2006. Rove, however, assured them that he would pull off another miracle as he did in 2002 and 2004. Considering himself the Pied Piper of the Christian Yahoos, he insists that he will deliver votes galore.

Unfortunately, a funny thing happened to Rove on the way to the Forum. Diverting attention of the Plame investigation (the exposing of a CIA covert operative in order to punish her husband for NOT proving Cheney's WMDs lies true) onto himself, a political operative, away from Cheney's neocon parallel NSC of Middle East fanatics, who did have clearance and appropriate legal responsibility, he lost all his seeming impenetrable glow. The more Bush came to his defense, the more he stepped in his own doodoo.

Now Republican legislators are coming to realize that they are Republicans, not Rove trolls. They realize that the balding little guy does not put them into office with his campaign magic, but the voters do with confidence. They realize that, like the Democrat Party, the Republican Party is a party of the people, not of Evil Dick and Dumb George. THAT IS INDEED A REVOLUTION, in every way as important as the Welfare Revolution because now the Republican Congressmen that Rove thought he controls like trained seals realize that their words must reflect the thinking of the voters, not of Rove.

And, for the first time, all those Americans who shut closed their minds when first presented the CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE of GW Bush and the CRIMINAL INTENT of Evil Dick Cheney during the first term, are given another chance to revisit how we as a nation got into such a mess in less than five years. However Rove cajoles, intimidates and tries to buy off Republican legislators, truth is, everyone realizes that he is a moral midget instead of a frightening ogre. Consequently, when he rants his usual bravado: I'll kill him, tear him limb from limb; I'll squeeze him until he stops breathing; I'll get this s.o.b. and shake him till he can suffer no more, etc., Rove is seen as a puny little pain in the butt, just like like the Wizard of Oz.

All this forebodes a great prospect for the Democrats. But not so if Mrs. Clinton on her way to presidential candidacy accepts to embrace the neocons in return for lots of seed money for her campaign. Already, watching her on MEET THE PRESS from Baghdad, it was impossible to know which, she or Sen. McCain, sitting next to her, was answering the questions-- BOTH were spouting identical BUSHIT!

I don't know if there's any connection between Bill's bad mixing of sex and politics and Hilary's political prostitution, but it ain't gonna work. Americans in the last election chose not to know because they didn't want to know how we got stuck in Iraq-- they were still to frightened by 9/11. After all, most people suffered then from the "ain't my kid going to Iraq" syndrome. But now they have a chance to review what they sent soldiers into by voting for Bush. This time they can't escape the fact that if you don't consider every soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan as "MY KID," you are nothing but a Bushit American. Real Americans will save their souls and this time will want to know why and how. As a result, we enter the 2006 Campaign again debating history. But this time, we won't be debating the Vietnam War of 30 years ago, as in 2004, but the Iraq War, begun three years ago by Evil Dick, Avaricious Rummy and the nutty neocons.

If the Democrats will not get over their awe of Rove, and will seek to emulate him in order to win elections, we will soon know. With Dr. Howard Dean on call as Chief of the DNC, Democrats are all being inoculated with polar positions that leave a wide space between Rove and Democrat principles. For that, Dr. Dean is cursed by all the Rove-copy cats. Hilary's bonding with the neocons, pretending that they are the returned prodigal sons, won't hold water when they are examined by Dr. Dean. Dr. Dean knows very well the difference between the patient and the cancer. He will not permit the metastasis to spread on.

Yet, we little people who only get to vote once in a while for one or the other candidate that the two parties put before us, know full well that politicians-- Democrat or Republicans-- are whores. Thus, neocons prowling dark corners with big bucks in hand will seem irresistible. But remember, once Democrats catch VD from the neocons, all these Democrat candidates will have no place else to go but to Dr. Dean for treatment. Then we will all know where you've been and what you did.

What Bush is made of is evident from the Pentagon's leak of a British document and then the admission that, yes, next year a lot of troops will be pulled out of Iraq. But so desperate are the Rovites that instead of bringing them home for Christmas, the Rovites are waiting until just before the 2006 election to bring them back. Don't you all get angry at the assumption that you are so dumb?

As a dying and disgusted old man, I can only thank God that in their disgust with politics my children chose to fight back rather than roll over and play dead for the likes of Evil Dick Cheney and the robber barons. That means that from now on politicians will be punished for prostitution ABOVE the belt, not just below. OUR kids will look at everything we chose not to see, instead passing on the burden to them. They will not waste time cursing us. Instead they will make us see what we should have done before we close our eyes forever. Thanks kids-- kick ass-- daddy loves ya!

Daniel E. Teodoru

Posted by Danielet on July 24, 2005 at 02:27 PM

Permission to Torture, Sir

We've known. of course, that the torture of foreign captives in American military prisons was implicitly authorized by a Presidential "finding" in February of 2002.

We had hoped that in the interim the present Administration has recognized that the results of the policy decisions were morally wrong.

We are astonished to find this is not the case--that the Administration is threatening to veto the appropriations bill for all our soldiers, airmen, marines and national guard troops if it contains a prohibition against such abuse.

Threatening the well-being of innocent people in order to force others to do one's bidding is the strategy of the terrorist.

"After ignoring repeated calls and court orders to release new, politically embarrassing images and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the president has stooped to new low. President Bush recently threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill if it includes any attempt to bar "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, let alone investigate past abuses at those facilities. The rationale behind this veto threat--that it would "restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice"--would be laughable if it weren't part of a reprehensible, concerted effort to obstruct the democratic process.

If the president of the United States is willing to hold hostage the funds necessary for the support of our men and women in uniform, just because some in Congress want to do what is right, then I despair for the future of this great country.

I urge the Congress to exert its powers enshrined in the Constitution and vote in favor of investigating and regulating the abuses and handling of detainees. And if President Bush does follow through on his veto threat, I pray there will be enough who will vote to override it. Our troops deserve nothing less."

RavenwindinCO

Bush w. Social Security Blanket

What is George W. Bush hiding under his SOCIAL SECURITY BLANKET and why does he need his mommy by his side?

Judge John G. Roberts, Jr.

Briefly stated, Judge Robers is wrong for the Supreme Court of the United States because he has little or no regard for individual or human rights. In addition, he seems convinced that there is no governmental responsibility to carry out the will of the polity. And, indeed, he hangs all determination of right and wrong on the notion of intent.

Never mind that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

View image

After an admittedly cursory review of the career of JudgeJohn G. Roberts, Jr. as outlined in dkosopedia, I have come to the conclusion that in no sense can Judge Roberts be described as a conservation whose primary object is to follow the Constitution of the United States.

Why do I say that? It seems quite clear from his positions on a variety of issues that Judge Roberts rejects the delegation of all rights not assigned to the federal government or the states to the people. Indeed, he sees no God-given or human individual rights at all, beyond those specifically enumerated. So, of course, since he doesn' t consider American citizens as having human rights, foreign captives detained on a foreign land mass (Guantanamo, Cuba) don' t have any either, as he argued in a recent decision.

On the other side of the leger, or because there are no individual rights, there aren' t any individual or government responsibilities, either. Like the phrase " of the people," " providing for the general welfare" would seem to be just a nice sounding catch-all. Indeed, as some of his rulings on environmental issues demonstrate, the federal government has no responsibility to even carry out legislative directives. In Judge Roberts' world, the role of the legislature would seem to be to pass rules and regulations that make governing (telling people what not to do) easier for the executive. Thus, any directions that the legislature might give to the executive can easily be ignored if they do not mesh with the intent of the executive.

If we think of an act, any act, being made up of an actor or agent (subject) and that which is acted upon (object) then it seems pretty clear, if my reading of Judge Roberts positions is correct, that subject and object are really irrelevant. What counts is the actor's intent. So, for example, if the government does not intend to discriminate against certain classes of people, then their exclusion from full participation must be considered as simply accidental. It' s nobody's fault. Naturally, Judge Roberts is opposed to affirmative action requirements. Similarly, if people are prevented from voting, unless it can be proven that someone had the intention of keeping them from the ballot, there is no recourse in the law.

Not only is intent almost impossible to prove in most circumstances, as Justice Souter has pointed out, but intent, as we are all now well aware, tends to be hidden in a veil of lies by all but the most simple criminals. If we want to consider some more consequences of this perspective, the exclusive focus on intent, we would find, for example, that a spouse who has been beaten black and blue would have to prove that the perpetrator actually meant to harm her, instead, as he might explain, of merely applying corrective measures to punish some forbidden behavior on her part. Or we might be confronted with a father who ascribes his impregnation of his teenage daughter as intended to teach her about sexual relations and their consequence (the pregnancy she will have to carry to term because medical intervention would keep her from learning the lesson well).

While one might be tempted to agree that there is no provision in the Constitution to permit or mandate the regulation of medical services, prohibiting certain citizens from gaining equal access to health care would seem to be a violation of the equal protection clause. But, again, Roberts does not seem to recognize ANY government obligations. And, when it comes to rights, it' s clear that the government has most, groups have some and the individual effectively has none. Even freedom of speech, for example, applies to the speech, not the speaker.

Perhaps he' s just overlooking the social contract upon which our government is supposedly based. Perhaps Roberts simply doesn't understand that when an individual cedes some of his God-given inalienable right for the greater benefit of the whole, he' s entitled to get something back.

There' s one position that s perhaps particularly relevant to considering whether Roberts is suited to the Supreme Court. In the summary of his career it' s described as an argument on Habeus Corpus in which Roberts joined a unanimous opinion, denying the claim of a prisoner who argued that by tightening parole rules in the middle of his sentence, the government subjected him to an unconstitutional after-the-fact punishment, which was overturned by the Supreme Court (Fletcher vs District of Columbia) This argument, of course, exactly mirrors the strategy Roberts is reported to have suggested to resolve the 2000 election in Florida--that the legislature simply change the rules governing the selection of delegates to the electoral college in media res.

I leave it to others to decide whether this demonstrates a disregard for the fundamental principles of the law. I find his cavalier attitude quite shocking. Though it is consistent with the belief that the fundamental purpose of the law is to govern or control individual behavior and hand out punishment when individuals intend to do wrong.

No doubt, Roberts' position on governmental responsibility makes him attractive to those who are (rightfully) concerned about the significant liability the government is creating in failing to adequately protect the troops in Iraq from environmental insults. Perhaps there are those who look forward to letting the government off the hook with the argument that it didn t intend for the soldiers to become disabled because of environmental exposures. I happen to think that would be morally and legally wrong and hope that our support for the troops will keep this fellow off the Supreme Court.

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

According to the New York Times, Roberts made the following replies to questions during his last confirmation hearings:

"I do not have an all-encompassing approach to constitutional interpretation; the appropriate approach depends to some degree on the specific provision at issue," Judge Roberts wrote in response to a written question during his 2003 confirmation to the federal appeals court in Washington. "Some provisions of the Constitution provide considerable guidance on how they should be construed; others are less precise.

"I would not hew to a particular 'school' of interpretation," he added, "but would follow the approach or approaches that seemed most suited in the particular case to correctly discerning the meaning of the provision at issue."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What I find interesting is the repeated use of the word "provision." What it tells me is that Roberts is focused only on what's IN the Constitution and not what's been left out and presumably "left to the. . . people" which is where our individual human rights reside.

Looks like Roberts is a "if it ain't there, it doesn't exist" kind of guy.

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

Also, while his Catholicism should not be held against him, one might ask how he reconciles the belief in original sin with the commitment to "innocent until proven guilty."

The Yellow-cake Tale or A Tale for the 21st Century

'Twas a marvelously allusive tale George W. Bush told the nation and the other credulous peoples of the globe, when he spun the story of Saddam Hussein. He told of the ogre of Baghdad, sitting in his palaces and plotting to buy some more yellow-cake uranium from the country of Niger (conveniently missing its second g )in deepest Africa, and to make a bomb or bomblets, that could be delivered by drones, like storks delivered babies of old, to any city in America he chose.

'Twas a tale worthy of the brothers Grimm. First there was the color (yellow) to remind us of all our other colored fears, the "redskins" and the "red menace" and the "yellow peril" and, of course, the darkest heart of Africa. But this time it was to be yellow cake, much better than that ginger-bread baked up by the witch.

Then there was the word uranium. No more need to worry about traces of strontium 90 that babies might drink from their mother's breast or breathe in with every breath. No, now we could all picture ourselves eating yellow cake, right there at the family table, if it didn t blast us all to smithereens first.

But, of course, there was nothing to cause real worry. Like the children reading the story of "My Pet Goat," fearless leader (along with the anti-aircraft batteries on the roof) would be there to protect us. George W. Bush would make sure that all good Americans are safe in their beds and secure in their homes. All the bad ones he'll lock up and throw away the key. What's not to believe?

'Twas a hell of a story, well told, and it sounded sincere. But it was all a lie. Saddam Hussein had no reason to buy uranium from Africa. There was more than enough in storage and, if he ran out, he could have just sent off to them thar hills, where the Kurdish people live, and ordered some more dug up. And, if he wanted to deliver anything anywhere, he'd best have relied on some storks because the American air patrol wouldn' t let anything fly in the no-fly zone, much less drones carrying
bundles of bombs.

So what was the point of the story? Why would the President of the United States make up such a whopper? Why scare the American people instead of telling them the truth? Was it because, having classified all the truth as top secret, the only safe thing left to tell was lies? Or was the story just too good not to tell? Where' s your sense of humor, America?

***************************************************************************************

Another perspective from a retired CIA agent----

Testimony of James Marcinkowski

July 22, 2005

What is important now is not who wins or loses the political battle or who may or may not be indicted; rather, it is a question of how we will go about protecting the citizens of this country in a very dangerous world. The undisputed fact is that we have irreparably damaged our capability to collect human intelligence and thereby significantly diminished our capability to protect the American people.

Understandable to all Americans is a simple, incontrovertible, but damning truth: the United States government exposed the identity of a clandestine officer working for the CIA. This is not just another partisan "dust-up" between political parties. This unprecedented act will have far-reaching consequences for covert operations around the world. Equally disastrous is that from the time of that first damning act, we have continued on a course of self-inflicted wounds by government officials who have refused to take any responsibility, have played hide-and-seek with the truth and engaged in semantic parlor games for more than two years, all at the expense of the safety of the American people. No government official has that right.

For an understanding of what is at stake it is important to understand some fundamental principles. No country or hostile group, from al Qaeda to any drug rings operating in our cities, likes to be infiltrated or spied upon. The CIA, much like any police department in any city, has undercover officers--spies, that use "cover."

To operate under "cover" means you use some ruse to cloak both your identity and your intentions. The degree of cover needed to carry out any operation varies depending on the target of the investigation. A police officer performing "street buys" uses a "light" cover, meaning he or she could pose as something as simple as a drug user, operate only at night and during the day and, believe it or not, have a desk job in the police station. On the other hand, if an attempt were made to infiltrate a crime syndicate, visiting the local police station or drinking with fellow
FBI

FBI agents after work may be out of the question. In any scenario, your cover, no matter what the degree, provides personal protection and safety. But it does not end there. Cover is also used to protect collection methodology as well as any innocent persons a CIA officer may have regular contact with, such as overseas acquaintances, friends, and even other U.S. government officials.

While cover provides a degree of safety for the case officer, it also provides security for that officer's informants or agents. In most human intelligence operations, the confidentiality of the cover used by a CIA officer and the personal security of the agent or asset is mutually dependent. A case officer cannot be identified as working for the CIA, just as the informant/agent cannot be identified as working for the CIA through the case officer. If an informant or agent is exposed as working for the CIA, there is a good chance that the CIA officer has been identified as well. Similarly, if the CIA officer is exposed, his or her agents or informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of a case officer ensures not only his or her own personal safety but that of the agents or assets as well.

The exposure of Valerie Plame's cover by the White House is the same as the local chief of police announcing to the media the identity of its undercover drug officers. In both cases, the ability of the officer to operate is destroyed, but there is also an added dimension. An informant in a major sophisticated crime network, or a CIA asset working in a foreign government, if exposed, has a rather good chance of losing more than just their ability to operate.

Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost.

So how is the Valerie Plame incident perceived by any current or potential agent of the CIA? I will guarantee you that if the local police chief identified the names of the department's undercover officers, any half-way sophisticated undercover operation would come to a halt and if he survived that accidental discharge of a weapon in police headquarters, would be asked to retire.

And so the real issues before this Congress and this country today is not partisan politics, not even the loss of secrets. The secrets of Valerie Plame's cover are long gone. What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us. How are our case officers supposed to build and maintain that confidence when their own government cannot even guarantee the personal protection of the home team? While the loss of secrets in the world of espionage may be damaging, the stealing of the credibility of our CIA officers is unforgivable....

And so we are left with only one fundamental truth, the U.S. government exposed the identity of a covert operative. I am not convinced that the toothpaste can be put back into the tube. Great damage has been done and that damage has been increasing every single day for more than two years. The problem of the refusal to accept responsibility by senior government officials is ongoing and causing greater damage to our national security and our ability to collect human intelligence. But the problem lies not only with government officials but also with the media, commentators and other apologists who have no clue as to the workings of the intelligence community. Think about what we are doing from the perspective of our overseas human intelligence assets or potential assets.

I believe Bob Novak when he credited senior administration officials for the initial leak, or the simple, but not insignificant confirmation of that secret information, as I believe a CIA officer in some far away country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be of invaluable service to our covert war on terror because "promises of protection" will no longer carry the level of trust they once had.

Each time the leader of a political party opens his mouth in public to deflect responsibility, the word overseas is loud and clear--politics in this country does in fact trump national security.

Each time a distinguished ambassador is ruthlessly attacked for the information he provided, a foreign asset will contemplate why he should risk his life when his information will not be taken seriously.

Each time there is a perceived political "success" in deflecting responsibility by debating or re-debating some minutia, such actions are equally effective in undermining the ability of this country to protect itself against its enemies, because the two are indeed related. Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere "paper-pusher," or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers, or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it is a disservice to this country. By ridiculing, for example, the "degree" of cover or the use of post office boxes, you lessen the level of confidence that foreign nationals place in our covert capabilities.

Those who would advocate the "I'm ok, you're ok" politics of non-responsibility, should probably think about the impact of those actions on our foreign agents. Non-responsibility means we don't care. Not caring means a loss of security. A loss of security means a loss of an agent. The loss of an agent means the loss of information. The loss of information means an increase in the risk to the people of the United States.

There is a very serious message here. Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people. Think about whether your partisan obfuscation is creating confidence in the United States in general and the CIA in particular. If not, a true patriot would shut up.

Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security.

When this unprecedented act first occurred, the president could have immediately demanded the resignation of all persons even tangentially involved. Or, at a minimum, he could have suspended the security clearances of these persons and placed them on administrative leave. Such methods are routine with police forces throughout the country. That would have at least sent the right message around the globe, that we take the security of those risking their lives on behalf of the United States seriously. Instead, we have flooded the foreign airwaves with two years of inaction, political rhetoric, ignorance, and partisan bickering. That's the wrong message. In doing so we have not lessened, but increased the threat to the security and safety of the people of the United States.

*******************

IT REMAINS RELEVANT, ALAS. SO DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of research.... [I]t does present a serious case for the president's partisans to answer.... Readers can hardly avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says, "David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the current president. He compares what Bush said with the known facts of a given situation and ends up making a persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations.... Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."

Iraqi dispatch

For some reason one day of coverage of how the 27 million people are faring in Iraq is enough, according to the BBC. And even though it prides itself on having a "continuous presence" in Iraq, the Tribunal on Iraq that was held in Turkey was too far away to cover. Well, maybe because the way to Turkey runs through Fallujah and nobody wants to go there.

That's actually easier to understand than the official explanation:
"But unlike the WTI which takes the war in Iraq as unjust as its premise, the BBC must be open-minded and impartial in its approach."

Media Lens recently issued a media alert about the lack of British media
coverage given to the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul last
month. Our alert, The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing World Tribunal on
Iraq ,
was sent out on July 6, 2005.

We suggested that readers ask senior BBC managers and editors why the
BBC, a publicly-funded broadcaster, is failing to cover the many reports
of alleged US war crimes in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq. Why, in
particular, did the main BBC news programmes ignore the Tribunal's
damning findings against the invasion and occupation of Iraq? And when
has the BBC ever reported Bush and Blair's culpability for war crimes?

These are troubling questions for well-rewarded media professionals to
answer rationally, while preserving any semblance of self-respect. The
cognitive dissonance demonstrated by senior BBC managers trying to
believe that BBC 'impartiality' is upheld, even while actual media
performance clearly promotes the agenda of destructive state power, is
astounding to behold. One recalls the White Queen's boast in Lewis
Carroll's 'Through the Looking Glass': "Why, sometimes I've believed as
many as six impossible things before breakfast."

    Alice in Wonderland: The "Evidence-Based Journalism" That Ignores
    Evidence!

Helen Boaden, the BBC news director, has now issued the following
statement to the many people who wrote to her. We asked a number of
knowledgeable commentators to respond (see below).

"Thank you for your email criticising the BBC for lack of coverage of
the World Tribunal on Iraq. We have received numerous complaints on this
subject in different parts of the BBC and - after careful consideration
of the matter - the following is the BBC response, which I am sending on
behalf of the BBC.

"The subjects under discussion at the Istanbul meeting are indeed
important and many of the topics are matters which the BBC has examined
persistently and regularly across our outlets. There are many
conferences which the BBC does not cover and - given finite resources -
we take the view that what is important is that a full range of issues
is aired.

"Currently our top financial priority in relation to Iraq is to report
on events from the country itself. The BBC is the only British
broadcaster to have maintained a continuous presence in the country,
including the maintenance of a permanent bureau in Baghdad. One example
of how this investment has paid off is the whole day of reports we
carried on BBC News 24, BBC World, Radio 5 Live and on the BBC News
website on June 7th. On that day, we chronicled different aspects of
life for the 27 million people who live in Iraq. There's a summary of
what we did on the website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4603875.stm

"Turning to the agenda of the World Tribunal on Iraq, the BBC has
examined events in Iraq from many angles, including the legal framework;
the role of the UN; international relations; the conduct of coalition
forces and the human rights violations at Abu Graib; the controversy
over Guantanamo Bay. But unlike the WTI which takes the war in Iraq as
unjust as its premise, the BBC must be open-minded and impartial in its
approach.

"We are committed to evidence-based journalism. We have not been able to
establish that the US used banned chemical weapons and committed other
atrocities against civilians in Falluja last November. Inquiries on the
ground at the time and subsequently indicate that their use is unlikely
to have occurred.

"The BBC takes its commitment to impartial reporting with the utmost
seriousness. Please rest assured that we strive for open-minded,
responsible journalism.

"Yours sincerely
Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News" (Email forwarded by numerous Media
Lens readers, July 13 onwards, 2005)

The award-winning journalist John Pilger, who has extensive experience
of visiting and reporting on Iraq, told us:

"Helen Boaden's response is simply ridiculous. She says the BBC 'has not
established' that the US has used banned weapons or committed
atrocities. The US has admitted using napalm, a banned weapon, and the
evidence of atrocities in Fallujah is overwhelming: too great to list
here. Read, for example, the statements of doctors at Fallujah General
Hospital and of other independent eye witnesses. The reason the BBC 'has
not established' all this is because its reporters are embedded with the
Americans and British and report the occupiers' news, about which there
is nothing 'impartial'." (Email to Media Lens, July 14, 2005)

We also contacted the World Tribunal on Iraq [WTI] for their response.
Communications coordinator Caroline Muscat told us WTI had invited the
BBC World Service correspondent in Istanbul, Jonny Dymond, to attend the
Tribunal's hearings. She helped to set up interviews and provide
footage: "we did our best to meet his needs".

Dymond confirmed to us that he attended the opening press conference,
and was present on the first day of the 5-day proceedings (email from
Jonny Dymond to Media Lens, July 14, 2005). This resulted in a news
story on the BBC World Service lasting 24 seconds, and a longer report
of about 90 seconds in length. These reports failed to mention the
Tribunal's finding that the BBC, and other named, mainstream media,
bears "special responsibility for promoting the lies about Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction".

Caroline Muscat told us: "The lack of coverage on BBC World Service is
not due to any neglect our end."

But not a smidgen of even this limited coverage was broadcast on the
major BBC news bulletins, such as the evening Six O'Clock and Ten
O'Clock television news on BBC1. Muscat continued:

"In effect, Ms. Helen Boaden is saying that the Tribunal was not a
priority story for the BBC because of judgments made at the BBC on this
global initiative." She added that the Tribunal "was followed by
millions of people around the world on alternative media sites, the live
audio and video streaming provided by the WTI web site... The fact that
Iraqi people risked their lives to travel to Istanbul and testify on the
horrors they face on a daily basis was not a priority story because the
BBC says that, 'Currently our top financial priority in relation to Iraq
is to report on events from the country itself'.

"While we respect the BBC's commitment to evidence-based journalism, it
is hard to ignore the fact that the evidence in this story is the
Tribunal itself. The fact that a significant number of respected
diplomats, academicians, reporters and human rights lawyers came
together with international experts from various fields to bring to the
world's attention the injustice occurring in Iraq, is in itself a story
that merits reporting.

"The BBC has disregarded the experience and professionalism of all those
who participated in this Tribunal. In fact, one of the reasons why this
initiative took place is precisely because we felt, like millions of
people around the world, that there was an imbalance and a lack of
clarity and objectivity in the reporting of the so-called 'war on
terror'. By failing to understand the significance of presenting this
other side of the story of this war the BBC has in fact proved us
right." (Email to Media Lens, July 14, 2005)

We contacted Dahr Jamail, a 'non-embedded' journalist who has bravely
reported from Iraq for a total of 8 months to date. Jamail testified in
Istanbul, detailing many atrocities inflicted upon Iraqis by US forces.
This was his response:

"It is interesting that Helen Boaden uses the reason for not covering
the WTI that the BBC uses 'evidence-based journalism,' then goes on to
state that the BBC has, 'not been able to establish that the US used
banned chemical weapons and committed other atrocities against civilians
in Fallujah last November.'

"This is one of the main purposes for the WTI to have even occurred - to
provide this information to the media and to inform the world of the
atrocities being committed in Iraq." (Email to Media Lens, July 13, 2005)

Jamail pointed out that the Tribunal provided all the evidence the BBC
needs, "from witnesses which included several Iraqis, of the US use of
illegal weapons in Fallujah during November such as cluster bombs,
uranium munitions, napalm and chemical weapons". Jamail also pointed to
the "testimonies and photographs of the US military raiding hospitals
and killing both doctors and civilians as what appears to now be their
standard operating procedure for their military adventures in Iraq." He
concluded:

"It is clear that if the BBC was truly 'committed to evidence-based
journalism' as Ms. Boaden states, they would report what Iraqi doctors
and civilians say as to what occurred in Fallujah in November."

    Blind Faith: The BBC Ignores Its Own 'Impartiality' Mantra

Hans von Sponeck is a former UN Assistant Secretary-General who ran the
humanitarian oil-for-food programme in Baghdad for 18 months. He
resigned in 2000, appalled at the impact of UN sanctions on Iraq. He
also responded to Boaden's email:

"The World Tribunal was anything but just 'another conference'. A
sensitive and impartial BBC should have quickly discovered that the
Istanbul event provided a rare glimpse into a world-wide public mind
which stands for peace, justice, political honesty and accountability.
The BBC chose to ignore its own advice that 'impartiality is to cover
all sides'. To bypass a responsible international movement at a time
when political opportunism and dishonesty are rampant, when
international law is broken at will and human security is becoming a
distant dream, is anything but coverage of all sides and the antithesis
of open-minded journalism." (Hans von Sponeck, email to Media Lens, July
13, 2005)

Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent, acknowledged "the
immense difficulties on the ground" for reporters in Iraq, but told us
that Boaden's points "about the deployment of depleted uranium and the
atrocities in Fallujah and elsewhere are specious". He continued:

"There is plenty of reliable evidence that the invasion forces used
depleted uranium and napalm-style materiel in Iraq (we the British
certainly used the former in 1991) and the BBC's defence experts could
do a lot more to put this into the public arena. The deployment of such
ghastly weapons against civilian areas is surely +feeding+ the anger
that results in attacks like those against Madrid and London. The
inability or reluctance of the BBC properly to expose or even discuss
intelligently the use of such weaponry as depleted uranium or napalm is
shameful and even provocative for its viewers and listeners, especially
given its propensity to allow its presenters and guests to go into
finger-wagging fury over Iran's alleged quest for nuclear weapons."
(Email to Media Lens, July 14, 2005)

Finally, Richard Keeble, professor of journalism at Lincoln University
and author of 'Ethics for Journalists', sent us his response to the BBC
statement:

"The mainstream media have been celebrating the 'revolution' that
occurred over the coverage of the London bombs - with the prominent use
of mobile phone images provided by members of the public and weblogs.
This, it has been argued, represents a major 'democratisation' of the
mainstream media. Yet significantly, the incorporation of data supplied
by non-professional journalists has in no way impacted on the overall
bias of the coverage. In other words, the most important revolution
needed in the mainstream media is over news values. Their failure to
report the Iraq War Tribunal shows how conventional news priorities
still predominate. Mainstream journalism remains too closely tied to
dominant economic, political and economic structures and interests. More
and more people are realising this and turning to more authentic
alternatives." (Email to Media Lens, July 13, 2005)

Mark Byford, the BBC's deputy director-general, claimed recently that
the "BBC now begins with the presumption that the licence-payer is
right. After all, the licence-payers are the public that fund and own
the BBC in the UK." (Byford, 'Your flexible friend', The Guardian, June
11, 2005) He observed: "How an organisation responds when someone
complains is an important determinant of how people feel about its
openness and responsiveness."

True enough. Alas, judging by the reactions we see every day, many
members of the public are deeply sceptical about the BBC's own claims of
"openness" and "responsiveness".

They are increasingly wise to the appalling reality that the
publicly-funded BBC is an accessory to war crimes and state terrorism
perpetrated by the British government, in tandem with its US ally.

Plamegate

OK, it may be a little premature. But it's beginning to look we've reached a turning point.

Here's some of what I've been thinking so far.

MonicaSmith wrote on July 21, 2005 06:10 AM:

TigerMom*in*NM wrote on July 21, 2005 12:42 AM

OK, the reason this stuff is still coming out is because Judith Miller is sitting in jail. That's given the whistle-blowers confidence that they have a reasonable chance of not being outed when they provide confidential information.

That said, I still think that the original ID came from George the Lesser himself. Perhaps the referenced document was a response to an inquiry for verification and a name that the original source, per usual, didn't have. Don't forget that the reason George the Lesser makes up nick-names for people is because he can't remember their names. And the reason for that is because people have no independent reality for him--people only exist as he sees them.

OK--I admit it. That's pure speculation and has about as much validity as the speculations about WMD in Iraq. But, like Clinton's quibbling, is unlikely to kill anyone.

MonicaSmith wrote on July 21, 2005 06:40 AM:

Shelley wrote on July 21, 2005 06:15 AM

I suppose lying is a very hard habit to break. During the Cold War a lot of people were able to convince themselves that their security depended on not letting our enemies (saber-rattlers to be sure) know what we were up to and so a whole culture of acceptable lying evolved.
Then Nixon got caught. But, having learned just yesterday that the Watergate burglars were paid with money that was laundered through bank accounts controlled by a partner of Poppy, Liedtke, I'm beginning to wonder if Nixon wasn't undermined from within and followed some bad advice which then made him realize that the rot was more wide-spread than he thought and he resigned for the good of the country.
Then Ford made Poppy head of the CIA and Carter got rid of him. Which is actually rather peculiar. The more customary thing is that agency heads, while they do serve at the pleasure of the executive, are retained from one administration to the next, as the head of the FBI was for years.
Strange that Carter, an experienced administrator got rid of Poppy. Perhaps Reagan was Poppy's revenge.

Or have I got the time-line wrong? Have to admit that I was real busy with three children under six about that time, not to mention renovating houses, so I didn't pay a lot of attention.

Anyway, I've never bought the oil story when it comes to foreign relations. (The BLM has just announced that it issued over two thousand new permits in one year for drilling on public lands--no doubt a response to the increased price per barrell, as well as opening up the public lands). What these people are after is power--an American Empire that they control--to achieve what their nazi forbears just missed accomplishing (because, it was long explained, they didn't have enough fuel--but that wasn't it).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MonicaSmith wrote on July 21, 2005 06:49 AM:

I think the most surprising bit of information I've ever come across was the revelation that the sheik of Brunei or Bahrain or some such exotic nowhere place had been persuaded to donate money to some illegal project. I don't even remember the particulars. Only my reaction with the biggest WHY? ever. And I'm only now getting at the answers.
Michael Moore got it right about the "Sheiks of Araby" That's why they hate him so much. Those are the role models for the Bushes--absolute rulers. Of course, the empire they aim for is much, much larger. Too bad their name is BUSH. With a name like that, they'll never make it. Adding "Bandar" won't do it either. LOL

Did you all see in the paper that the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia is leaving? Again? Didn't we just get a new one?

Too much to keep track of!!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MonicaSmith wrote on July 21, 2005 08:05 AM:

Patrick in LA wrote on July 20, 2005 10:06 PM

Agree with this analysis. However, it all depends on those with the physical force (military and police) being willing to enforce the dicta of the executive. And that's where it is beginning to slip.
And what we unarmed citizens need to do is make sure we protect the people who are telling us the truth. Because, as I've been repeating for a couple of days now, the situation that's been created makes is OK to lie and threatens to punish those who tell the truth, by making all truths secrets and their revelation, in time of war, treason.
Judith Miller had a choice between telling the truth and being charged with treason and keeping silent and going to prison. As long as people are going to be punished for telling the truth, we have to protect them by keeping quiet and spreading the truth surreptitiously.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MonicaSmith wrote on July 21, 2005 08:45 AM:

Renee*in*Ohio wrote on July 21, 2005 08:25 AM

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. I said at the time that it was most unwise to force Tenet to resign--not because of what Tenet might reveal, but because of the message it would send to the institution that this Chief Executive can not be trusted. If the Chief cannot be trusted, then people will not put their lives on the line.
Obviously, what the public is learning now, has been known by the institution for some time. And it's been known by the people in the State Department.

Again, Miller sitting in jail is the Times' proffer of good faith. It's the key to unlocking a lot of secrets.
Stupid are the people who fed her lies.

And, finally, this from

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/072105Weiner/072105weiner.html

Excerpts to tempt you:

Bush&Co. realized they couldn't come right out and tell everyone what their true motives were?to depose the Saddam Hussein regime in order to control the world's second largest oil reserve, to set up permanent military bases there, and to use the presence of those bases and the "shock & awe" example of overthrowing a dictator as a warning to other autocratic regimes in the Greater Middle East to bow to U.S. wishes. Those wishes involved oil, Israel, nuclear reactors, terrorism, and the like. So, a convenient reason?one simple enough for the masses to comprehend?had to be found that would justify war.

[...]

The White House Iraq Group

But someone, or some entity, within the administration had to coordinate these concerted propaganda campaigns. That was the bailiwick and job-assignment of the WHIG, chaired by Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, the regular members of which were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff. In other words, WHIG included the key decision makers (Rove, Rice, Card, Cheney-via Libby), and the key propaganda specialists (Hughes, Matalin, et al.).

[...]

Again, it's not totally clear how far Special Counsel/U.S Attorney Fitzgerald is willing to go to clear out this nest of administration vipers. He could choose to stick close to the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson case itself, or he could keep heading in the direction of indicting a good many administration officials?perhaps with Bush and Cheney as unindicted co-conspirators?for their part in lying about classified national security matters to the Congress and American people. A wild card: If Judith Miller were to trade immunity for prosecution and decide to testify about Rove/Libby/Cheney, anything could happen.

Wounded, Cornered Animals Are Dangerous

If and when the above scenarios start to unfold, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Rove would get desperate enough to try to question the motives and character of the special counsel himself, as BuzzFlash puts it, "to try to sink the investigation through an ad hominem attack. This is Rove's pathological gutter tactic. He doesn't know how NOT to use it when backed into a corner." Or Rove/Bush conceivably could do a Nixon and order Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to fire Fitzgerald.

Anything is possible as the Bush administration paints itself further into the scandal corner, and, desperate to avoid criminal proceedings and/or impeachment, lashes out at its perceived enemies.

Stay tuned. The fun is just beginning.

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government & international relations at various universities, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers.

The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.
Email editor@onlinejournal.com
Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal?. All rights reserved.

In case it's not entirely clear, the day started off with the newspapers reporting that Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor designated to investigate the leak of Plame, was moving forward, as well as yet another document, this one from the State Department, regarding Plame and Wilson, having been made available to the Washington Post. That document clearly indicates that the name of Valerie Wilson is to be kept secret.

Bush vs. Plame

What does George W. Bush have against Valerie Plame?

This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a shield law for reporters to protect them from prosecution for withholding sensitive information from law enforcement agencies. Senator Kennedy made a statement, including a reference to Judith Miller who now sits in jail, which an aide then posted on the political web site, KOS.

The following is my take on the current state of affairs, and mine alone, based on nothing but raw speculation and no evidence. But there's a consistent pattern.

The Supreme Court, by the way has identified an "implied right to privacy" in the constitution, which suggests to me that an implied absolute right to remain silent should be there, as well.

First off, free speech and free press aren't worth much if they don't imply the freedom to remain silent on the one hand, and the freedom to print on the other.

All that's being "guaranteed" so far is the content--not the right to actually speak or print something up. Witness that in Iraq they don't censor, they just shut the press down. And the embedded media are subject to the same "classified information" restrictions as are the troops. Just the mention of some items of information, like the building of permanent bases with all the modern coveniences and utilities, could be cause for arrest and detention and courts martial, or worse.

Secondly, the press has been effectively strangled by making the truth secret while telling lies (officially known as "disinformation") is OK. Judith Miller was doing fine as long as she published the lies she was fed. It was when she discovered the truth and refused to divulge it that she went to jail. Given a choice of being charged with treason for revealing accurate information and going to jail for not speaking, the latter is definitely preferable.

What Wilson did was he risked a charge of treason for revealing classified information, which happened to be the truth and put the lie to the disinformation that Bush/Cheney had been spreading around (it must have been really frustrating for John Kerry not to be able to counter the Bush lies on the campaign trail with the truth he'd got from his high level briefings). Because the whole issue was a little farcical, althoug very effective in playing to the nation's subconscious fears (yellow peril, darkest Africa, Niger missing one 'g', uranium bombs, etc) it was unlikely that the bad publicity that would come from his arrest or disappearance would be considered worth while. But Wilson did take the risk and he did it in his own name, instead of leaking.

Bush/Cheney/Rove reacted in typical fashion. If you've got nothing you can use against an opponent, go after his wife. They did it with Muskie, Dukakis, McCain, Kerry, Dean. What they overlooked was that this one was protected by the US code.

Why? Habit. What probably happened was that they were discussing that thorn in the side Joe Wilson and GWB probably piped up, "oh, yeah, that's the guy with the wife in the CIA" and his minions took it from there. See, that's why nobody remembers where they first heard it. Her name wasn't important and it's likely that nobody leaked it. Indeed, Valerie Plame had no importance in her own right. What was wanted was to intimidate her husband and get him to shut his mouth before he revealed any more truths about Iraq, where he was stationed, if I remember correctly, about the time of Gulf I.

Whether or not this tale can be played as consistent with the usual disregard for women, for their ability to make decisions about their own health care, for their right to have careers of their own, I don't know, but it should be considered. Because the behavior is all of a pattern.
I know I for one am tired of wives being dumped on. It's a cowardly form of interaction.Where Wilson himself stood up and said, "here I am, come get me," they decided to go after his wife and now Judith Miller sits in jail, besides.
You'd think they'd at least have enough shame to nominate a female replacement for O'Connor.

Holly's DC Adventure

When people travel do those that stay behind deserve a report? You bet.

DC Report about Howard with no Howard

When people think of ideal vacations, they usually would never think of my choice. Movie-star fans go to Hollywood, nature enthusiasts go to national parks, but Deaniacs and political junkies like me choose Washington DC. I know there are many Deaniacs and crushies that live by and take for granted our nation?s capitol, but this girl from the Midwest sticks couldn?t think of a more exciting place to ?spend my summer vacation.?

Last year I dragged my three adult children and husband to Deanfest. After my boys declared it the WVE (worst vacation ever), I decided to never include them in my future vacation plans again. I vowed that next year I would go alone. Then my oldest son had the audacity to plan his wedding on the very same day as Deanfest 2005. Not to be left behind, I started making plans to make up for this tragedy.

My daughter Erin, had obtained a summer internship in DC with a women?s organization. And my friend Lois, from the DC area had invited me several times to come visit when Howard Dean was in town. It didn?t take much coaxing to make plane reservations. No one ever knows Howard?s plans more than a few days in advance, so I thought I would take my chances and pick a convenient date for me. As it would happen, three days before my flight I read on the BFA that Dean was scheduled to be in Madison and Milwaukee (one and a half hours away form my home) the very days I would be in Washington. LOL

*************************************
Well it would still be fun and I had spent over four hours the month before in the same room with Dean at the Rainbow/Push conference so I should not be greedy.

I flew into Washington National airport (I refuse to call it Reagan Airport) at night so I was as excited as a little kid when the plan did a steep bank and I viewed first the lit up Capitol building followed by the Washington Monument and then finally the top of the Lincoln Memorial. I never stop being thrilled by the night view of our nation?s capitol. The possibility of terrorist attacks necessitated us to remain in our seats the last 30 minutes, but I am amazed at how close our plane could legally get to our nation's most important buildings.

Before I report on the DNC stuff I must report on my experience with my favorite IL Senators. Being from the GREAT STATE OF ILLINOIS we could not pass up an Illinois senators? tea that is held every Thursday morning. For Illinois constituents and ?people that WISH they were from Illinois? there is an open invitation to meet with Senator Durbin and Senator Obama. I had to take a cup of tea and a doughnut hole so I could say I had ?tea with the Senators.?

We first staked out our seats, third row back next to the center aisle. Then we stood by the only entrance with my Obama family picture and marker in hand. I was lucky enough to be the second person he talked to. I told him the picture was when he was in Rockford and that I had used it for our Christmas card. I asked to sign it ?to the Johnson family? which he gladly did but then the organizer wisked him away. (I was the only one to get his autograph.) Durbin had not arrived yet so they started without him.

Obama stood tall, relaxed, and stately at the podium. We had been disappointed in some of his more recent votes and his weak speech at the Rainbow/Push but there is nothing like being ?star struck? all over again.

Senator Durbin arrived and they asked us to stand up and introduce groups that were present. Well I can never pass up a time to talk about Democracy for America so I asked Lois, ?There is just three of us should I say we are the Democracy for America group?? She quickly whispered back. ?Yes.?

I raised my hand then stood up and proudly said, ?I am from Democracy for America, the Illinois group.? Obama smiled big, ?Oh yes, that is the Johnson family from Rockford? BUSTED

Questions were asked about the homeless, environment, college grants and supreme court appointees. I raised my hand and was about to thank Durbin for speaking out against atrocities in American prison camps, but I swear the organizer was not going to let the ?Johnson family? get in on the scene again so she ended the questioning.

They then ended by taking professional pictures of the Senators with attendees. With Durbin as one of my heroes and Obama as Erin?s, I arranged it so Durbin had his arm around me and Obama?s around Erin. No star could make us more struck.

What place is more fascinating than the White House and the Oval Office to Deaniacs? You guessed it, Governor Dean?s new office at the DNC. There is nothing like the training of going door-to-door begging strangers to vote for Kerry than to teach you courage to ask strangers for something. Internet friend, Julie had posted that she was recently employed at the DNC. So lacking no pride, I invited myself to visit her at the DNC. Julie was most deserving of the job because of all the work she had done for the Dean campaign in Virginia. But I have to agree with her when she in amazement stated, ?Can you believe this, they PAY ME to attend Governor Dean press conferences?!!?

The DNC building is a new 3story reddish building just a few blocks south of the Capitol. It has a wall full of windows and is located in the middle of ripped up sidewalks and between torn down buildings. Gov. Deans office is located on the top floor in the corner with its own balcony overlooking DC. But the railroad track couldn?t be 15 feet from his window LOL Because we were early and didn?t want to interrupt Julie from her work too soon, we sat outside the building on a bench. A police officer and a suited man slowly walked by. Do you think we need credentials to show that we weren?t Republican spies? A drove of interns exited, confirming Julie?s email about not needing volunteers because interns were swarming the place.

Lois, Erin and I entered the DNC building and proudly told the front desk guard that we were there to visit our friend, Julie. I didn?t tell him I was not sure what she looked like because she was my friend from the inter-net and have never met her. There, hanging in the lobby, picture of Howard. Knowing we could not see the real thing, Lois and I had my daughter take a picture of us standing by it.

Julie has worked there for a while but had never had an official tour before. DNC is housed on the third floor with the? D triple C? as they call it, on the floor below. The building was bought from Republicans that the DNC had rented from previously. (Yuck) and with all the money McAuliff had raised in the previous year they could buy it, remodel and add an addition. (side note: it seems like many of the employees are new from the Dean campaign but there are still some former hold overs from the previous chair)

The guide repeatedly referred to the ?Governor this and the Governor that? I asked if that is what he wanted to be called rather than Chairman and they said ?Yes, that?s his choice. Officially one should be referred to by the his highest elected office.? I personally think he is still extremely proud of his history of being such a good governor. There basically are three large rooms with many cubicles in each with everyone with their own laptop and with most employees not over thirty. I took a picture of Julie at her desk. Never had I been jealous before of someone working in a cubicle but I would gladly give my entire office to work there. We walked past the WEB masters (if I was a DNC blogger I am sure I would be impressed). There were conference rooms behind glass windows and a radio studio. Hillary was scheduled to be in the TV studio on the floor below later today. HERE I AM STANDING IN THE BUILDING WHERE SO MUCH COOL ACTION TAKES PLACE.

Several offices had closed doors but Tom McMahon was open with him working at his desk.

We then came to a large corner office with the door wide open. ?This is the Governor?s Office.? I asked if I could go in and they said sure. Julie, out of respect felt unable to enter. Being bold, and with a strong curiosity, I couldn?t stop myself. Lois and Erin let me lead the way. It was very neat with no clutter (this confirmed the report that Dean probably doesn?t spend much time here.) It had two handsome brown leather couches and a large wood desk at the far end. The corner walls were all windows that overlooked DC. I inspected the wall hangings. There was a signed original comic art. ?This was given to the Governor by his admirer Doonsberry?, the guide explained. I wish I could remember what he wrote but it was something about admiring Dean for all he had done. The wall opposite the desk had a red, white and blue quilt hanging The desk and high back leather chair faced the center of the room. I walked back behind the chair to see what was on the clean, paperless desk. On the desk was a black wireless phone and a black flat screen computer with keyboard. There was a small fifteen year- old photo of his 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter caught in the middle of play. There was also a small frame with a young Governor Dean with his wife. (I did not wonder why he had such old photos because on my desk I have a thirteen year- old photo of my disarrayed family wearing t-shirts randomly gathered in front of the White House fence)

I could not pass up the opportunity for photos. When I visited the White house I had a picture taken of me standing at the podium in the President?s press room. I guess that I truly feel the government and the party belong to the people (I know, justification). So I had a picture taken of me standing behind Dean's chair.

Well hopefully some of you are still with me here. Other details of the day include visiting the Senate floor and hearing Sen. Biden talk about national security. Being a C-span nut, I was duly impressed. But the cool room and comfortable chairs proved to be too much and my daughter got busted by a security guard telling her, ?Sorry Miss, but there is no sleeping allowed in the Senate.?

We found out from Julie that there was a anti-Rove rally being put on by Move-On in front of the White House. We picked up signs that said,? Fire Rove, the traitor? and joined around 200 others walking around shouting. ?Bush keep your word, Fire Rove, and Who do you want out? Rove! When? Now!? I am sure Bush is isolated from such activities but it sure was fun to get out my frustration. We carried the signs home and were encouraged on by appreciating commuters. I would be asked to move out of my small rural town if I would have displayed signs like this at home.

It looks like there is a strong possibility that I may be living out my dreams through my daughter. It appears she will be moving to DC next year to get her masters degree. This mother will be taking many more trips in the future, so keep the spare bedroom open Lois.

Rove vs. Plame cont'd

Frank Rich has a perceptive column in today's New York Times. My take after the break

Rich on Rove vs. Plame

Dear Editor:

Frank Rich is exactly right.  He's really only left one question unanswered.  Why did the President and Vice President insist on putting out false information about the yellow cake uranium that Iraq had plenty of in its own stock and, therefor, had no reason to buy from an African country?

There were actually many reasons.  "Yellow cake uranium" is a particularly allusive phrase.  Not only does it harken back to the "yellow peril," but the combination of "cake" and "uranium" is a subtle reminder that radiation from uranium is particularly bad when inhaled or ingested.  Then, of course, there are lots of people for whom anything coming out of darkest Afrika is certain to be bad news.  That the country's name, Niger, is lacking in just one 'g' to make it a word one is not supposed to use, didn't hurt either.  Innocuous though it sounds, on a subconscious level this phrase was sure to frighten.  Which was, of course, the primary motivation.

But, there was another reason for using false information.  While the Republican opperatives discovered some time ago that it is almost impossible for the targets of slander, regardless of whether or not they are public officials, to defend themselves against false charges, because it is practically impossible to prove a negative, when it comes to classified information (official secrets to the Brits), it would be a crime to reveal accurate information.  Disinformation or false information, on the other hand, is perfectly legal.  So, the story about the yellow cake and the clerk at the CIA were both OK because they weren't true.

The bigger issue here and the one that has members of the Senate up in arms is that, even though they have access to the same accurate information as the administration, they are prevented from countering the President's lies with the truth, because in doing so they would be revealing top secret information.

Which is probably why Senator Kerry made a speech on the Senate floor calling on the President to deny any US interest in establishing permanent bases in Iraq.  What he didn't say, even though his statements on the floor of the Senate are immune from prosecution, was that the American military is actively building those bases even as we speak.  If Bush were to take up the Senator's suggestion and make such a statement, it would be a lie. But, again, it would be OK, because it wouldn't be revealing top secret information.

While the Vice President no doubt has much experience in the fine art of national deception, it's not unlikely that the President, having learned it at his father's knee has become expert ever since he abandoned his National Guard commitment to do something else in the Central American skies.  Wouldn't it be ironic if Rove blowing Plame's cover led to all kinds of secrets being exposed?

Rove vs. Plame

Why exactly is it that fake forgeries keep turning up in the world of G.W. Bush?

First there were the fake National Guard records, which actually contained accurate information. Then there were the fake invoices from the country of Niger for yellow cake uranium that wasn't bought.

Could it be because spreading false information is not a crime?

The brain woke up this morning just percolating with ideas. I don't even know where to start.

OK, maybe this. Read an op-ed the other day, by I can't remember who, in which the columnist apologized for having gotten it wrong on Rove. But that's not what caught my attention. What struck me was his promise that in the future he would do his reporting first before writing up an opinion piece.
Now, the question I am left with is was it just a slip of the tongue--that what he really meant to say was that he would do research and investigate BEFORE coming to an opinion in the future--or does this journalist not know the difference between report and research?

More and more I'm really inclined to the latter. The common pattern now seems to be for reporters to get "tips" and then "verify" what they've been told by checking with two other people to see if they can get the same story from them. Then that's the truth that they write up and publish, usually with lots of supporting quotes because that someone told them something of greater or lesser importance can't be challenged. Whether one or all of the "sources" are lying doesn't ever come up.
Anyway, that's the pattern that's brought us Rovegate. You can see why we have a problem that's a lot bigger than Rove vs. Plame.

[..]

The other thing that's bubbling in my brain is the snippet of Harry Reid on the Senate floor yesterday. It made the evening news. As did Susan Collins schoolmarmish rebuke of the nasty boys threatening to strip security clearances from officials who leak secrets and from each other. The ammendments failed.
But, the whole thing got me to thinking why Reid and Dean and other Democrats are so into the Rove thing. And I think I've finally figured it out. It doesn't have anything to do with the particulars of Rove vs. Plame. Rather, it has to do with how "official secrecy," referred to as "classified information" on the federal level is being used to undermine the foundations of our government.

Let me back up just a minute. During the many years that I served as a volunteer guardian ad litem and interacted with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems I eventually came to the conclusion that "confidentiality," as it is called there, serves mainly to protect various government personnel from having their poor performance exposed. The children, whose privacy is supposed to be protected from public scrutiny, know full well when they have been abused and neglected and the people who do it to them know it too. The only thing that secrecy accomplishes is that the citizenry, who actually pay for all these programs, are kept in the dark about how often the money is misspent and how frequently the responsible "welfare system" isn't.

Now, while it is undoubtedly true that SOME information and plans should not be bruted about, the enormous increase in "classified information" in the federal government cannot possibly be justified on the basis of national security. Not to mention that our enemies are likely to know our secrets anyway, just as we know most of theirs.

That said, classifying information is not our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is that by making it a crime to reveal accurate information, we have made it possible for government officials to lie WITHOUT BEING REFUTED. Rove and George the Lesser (George the First probably invented the strategy) have become experts at spreading lies because they know that those who know the truth can't speak up without risking arrest for treason.
Or actually, since the passage of the Patriot Act, giving out ACCURATE information can be defined as aiding terrorists and the person can just be disappeared without a hearing.

See, that's what makes Rove vs. Plame important. It's an unimportant example of a very serious pattern. People who tell the truth can be arrested. People who tell lies get off scott free, even if it ends up killing tens of thousands needlessly.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!!!

Kerry knows all about it first hand. Having been on the Foreign Affairs Committee and gotten all the "classified briefings" that the President gets, he knew that George the Lesser was lying about all kinds of things, but there wasn't any way for him to provide proof, without putting himself in jeopardy for revealing information he had sworn to keep secret.

Wilson came forward on a really insignificant matter--the yellow cake uranium--in part, I would argue, because it would have looked really bad to arrest a former ambassador for telling the truth about something that wasn't. Now, of course, it's beginning to dawn on Rove and his merry men that their lying is being exposed.

I mean, ask yourself why George the Lesser insisted on putting known false information into his SOTUS. He did it because it WAS false. He lied on purpose because even the President can't reveal classified information. Besides, "yellow cake uranium from Africa" is such an evocative subject. Think of the yellow peril. Think of darkest Africa. Think of uranium poisoning leading to cancer. Think of how many terror buttons are contained in that little phrase.

[...]

So, why was Harry Reid jumping up and down on the Senate floor like Rumplestiltskin (that's what the clip on ABC looked like)? I think I know the answer to that. It's because Senators cannot be arrested for what they say on the senate floor. Of course, they purchase that immunity, supposedly, by maintaining a certain level of decorum (of which Susan Collins reminded everyone) and, presumably, by being honorable and not violating their oath to keep secret the secrets they've been told.
But what if the secrets are harmful to the nation?

If the bureaucrats who know them can be whisked off to prison immediately if they speak up, how are they to be protected? Can they leak the information to the press and be sure they won't be fingered and prosecuted later? We'll see, won't we? It's why Judith Miller is in jail. Do you think she is happy that she was lied to in the run-up to the war and there's no way to punish the liars because it's OK to tell lies, but a crime to tell the truth?
Yes, this is way bigger than Watergate and I think the press has just caught on.

But, back to Kerry. On the day George the Lesser made his speech on Iraq, June 28th, I think, Kerry prepared a speech to deliver on the floor of the Senate and provided a preview copy to rawstory. It didn't get much coverage and rawstory didn't help by putting in the headline the now common knowledge that Iraq is now breeding terrorists.
The important part was the sentence half way down in which Kerry urged George the Lesser to announce that the US has no intention of building permanent bases in Iraq--a position that would be consistent with what China and Russia have called for and which a faction of the Iraqi "government" has been promoting--without any coverage in our MSM, by the way.

Since the construction of the permanent bases (a dozen out of the hundred or more we already have) is probably "classified," a statement from George the Lesser that we have no intent to build them would be a lie, but that would be OK. It's admitting that they are being built that's verboten.

[...]

Strategy to counteract government secrecy and deception. What should we do?

Well, first of all, Dean's and the Dem's focus on the lying of Rove needs all the support we can give them. That yet another political wife was recklessly targeted to get back at her spouse is not as important as the fact that false information was fed to the people of the US. Nor is it all that important that her "cover" was exposed. What's important is that the dissemination of the truth can be punished under the cover of "national security secrets" while the national security is being undermined by lies--and has been for a long time.
More emphasis on the historical parallels is needed. We can get out a lot of truth by making reference to history, by throwing the light on what "being out of the loop" actually means. If the loop is a noose around someone's neck, then the fellow outside is the one holding it.

No more jokes about George the Lesser being dumb or incompetent. If George the First was a master crook, then George the Lesser being a little behind doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Especially if George the First is still calling the shots and keeping a short leash on Clinton to make sure he doesn't head off the reservation. A promise of support for Hillary may well be a sweetener for his going along with the plan. Support is often provided so the rug can be pulled out at the last minute. I'm sure Dean could tell us a lot about that if he weren't busy moving on.

Don't get me wrong. What Dean is doing is a good thing. But, if we recognize that some traditional supporters, especially the money bags, are likely to end up as turn-coats, then we have got to make sure that the revenue stream is constant. That means monthly donations of dollars to the DNC.

P.S.

The fellow mistaking reporting for research also got me to thinking about what people mean when they complain about the liberal media. Perhaps they are mistaking "liberal" for "lazy" as opposed to "conservatives" being committed to "hard work." If so, then they've obviously got a point. The media are liberal with the truth in the sense that they are content to report what people tell them and fail to check the facts.
Ordinary people, when they discover they've been lied to, generally make an effort not to be taken in again, unless they are the lazy sort and just don't care. But, "lazy" being an impolite word, they probably prefer to call others who exhibit this lax behavior, liberal.
By the same token, referring to the press as conservative in this context means that the press is doing what it is presumed to have done traditionally--i.e. work hard to uncover the truth. If that's your perspective, then accusing the press of being conservative isn't interpreted as the accusers intend.
Perhaps a better word for what's going on is "prejudice." Much of the press is driven by prejudice--a perspective on the world that they seek to validate with their stories. News has to be stuffed into an old frame.

I think where we make a mistake is in defining the press in terms of their presumed attitude TOWARDS their audience or the issues they cover, instead of how they do their work. If liberal=lazy, then we can all agree that many people in the MSM are liberal sons of b!tches.

P.P.S.
I still think that the reason G.W.Bush didn't complete his National Guard commitment was because he was flying around Central America collecting information (not ferns) for the CIA (not the landscaper who hired him). If so, wouldn't it be poetic justice if Valerie Plame were avenged by blowing the cover of that short-term operative?

Addendum----

The Intelligence Challenge: Can We Trust Our President?

By Larry Johnson

From: TPMCafe Special Guests
By Brent Cavan, Jim Marcinkowski, Larry Johnson, and Jane Doe

We trained and worked at the CIA with Valerie Plame. We presented the following statement at a hearing on Capitol Hill in October 2003. In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate.

Jul 15, 2005 -- 10:59:46 PM EST
We slogged through the same swamps on patrols, passed clandestine messages to each other, survived a simulated terrorist kidnapping and interrogation, kicked pallets from cargo planes, completed parachute jumps, and literally helped picked ticks off each other after weeks in the woods at a CIA training facility. We knew each other's secrets. We shared our fears, failures, and successes. We came to rely on each other in a way you do not find in normal civilian life. We understood that a slip of the tongue could end in death for those close to us or for people we didn't even know. We were trained by the best, to be the best. We were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. They may not appreciate what they have created.

Our joint training experience forged a bond of trust and a sense of duty that continues some eighteen years later. It is because of this bond of trust that the authors of this piece and two other colleagues, all former intelligence officers, appeared on ABC's Nightline to speakout on behalf of the wife Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a sensitive undercover operative outed by columnist Robert Novak. The Ambassador's wife (we decline to use her name) is a friend who went through the same training with us. We acknowledge our obligation to protect each other and the intelligence community and the information we used to do our jobs. We are speaking out because someone in the Bush Administration seemingly does not understand this, although they signed the same oaths of allegiance and confidentiality that we did.

Many of us have moved on into the private sector, where this Agency aspect of our lives means little, but we have not forgotten our initial oaths to support the Constitution, our government, and to protect the secrets we learned and to protect each other. We still have friends who serve. We protect them literally by keeping our mouths shut unless we are speaking amongst ourselves. We understand what this bond or the lack of it means.

Clearly some in the Bush Administration do not understand the requirement to protect and shield national security assets. Based on published information we can only conclude that partisan politics by people in the Bush Administration overrode the moral and legal obligations to protect clandestine officers and security assets.

Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer.

You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It's a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Ambassador Wilson's political affiliations are irrelevant. Political differences serve as the basis for the give and take of representative government. What is relevant is the damage caused by the exposure that Ambassador Wilson's wife as a political act intended to undermine Wilson's view.

It is shameful on one level that the White House uses the news media, its own leaks, and junior Congressmen from Georgia, among others, to levy attacks on Ambassador Wilson. Moreover they discount what he has to say, his value in the Niger investigation, and suggest his wife's cover is of little value because she was "a low-level CIA employee". If Wilson's comments or analysis have no merit, why does the White House feel the need to launch such a coordinated attack? Why drag his wife into it?

Not only have the Bush Administration leakers damaged the career of our friend but they have put many other people potentially in harm's way. If left unpunished this outing has lowered the bar for official behavior. Further, who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States? If we won't protect our own officers how can we reassure foreigners that we will safeguard them? Better human intelligence could prevent any number of terror incidents in the future, but we are unlikely to get foreign recruits to supply it if their safety cannot be somewhat assured. If more cases like Mrs. Wilson's occur, assurances of CIA protection will mean nothing to potential spies.

Politicians must not politicize the intelligence community. President Bush has been a decisive leader in the war on terrorism, at least initially. What about decisiveness now? Where is the accountability he promised us in the wake of Clinton Administration scandals? We find it hard to believe the President lacks the wherewithal to get to bottom of this travesty. It is up to the President to restore the bonds of trust with the intelligence community that have been shattered by this tawdry incident.

We joined the CIA to fight against foreign tyrants who used the threat of incarceration, torture, and murder to achieve their ends. They followed the rule of force, not the rule of law. We now find ourselves with an administration in the United States where some of its members have chosen to act like foreign tyrants. As loyal Americans and registered Republicans we implore President Bush to move quickly and decisively against those who, if not apprehended, will leave his Administration with the legacy of being the first to allow political operatives to out clandestine officers.

Dean at NAACP

For the Record.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean Addresses NAACP Annual Convention

Washington, DC - DNC Chairman Howard Dean today addressed the NAACP 2005 Annual Convention in Milwaukee. The following are excerpts from his remarks:

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk to you, it is a great honor.

Over 200 years ago, Thomas Paine wrote about the Revolutionary War that "these are the times that try men's souls." He wrote that in a pamphlet called "The Crisis." Sounds familiar doesn't it?

...The horrible events in London are yet another reminder that we do indeed live in soul trying times. But these are precisely the times when good people, all of us, are required to do more - when we are required to stand up as the NAACP has done for more than 95 years.

I'm here to tell you that the Democratic Party is going to stand up for the things we believe in. We're going to stand for social justice. We'll never take a single African American vote for granted. We're going to show up now, not eight weeks before an election. And we're going to put organizers in all 50 states.

For more than 95 years, you have been the conscience of our nation, and the message of your work is a powerful one - when we come together around shared goals and common principles, great things are possible. Historic things are possible. People of all races, nationalities and faiths have united in the NAACP on a fundamental premise - that all men and women are created equal.

The Democratic Party shares this mission, and we share common goals in the fight for fairness and equality for every one. We believe that everyone is equal in the eyes of God...

I met with a group of young African American business leaders, we talked about economic opportunity, the difficulty of raising children, ensuring that there are good schools for their kids - this is the new struggle for civil rights. It is not water fountains or seats on the bus. It is equal opportunity for your small business, economic equality, equal access to schools and highly qualified teachers. It is health care, equal opportunity for a mortgage to buy a home for your family, and it is the promise of retiring with dignity after a life of hard work.

And you know, the water fountains and seats on the bus were really about those things too...

It is no coincidence that the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus are all Democrats--because the Democratic Party remains the party of opportunity...

It is a moral value to balance the budget. It's a moral value not to leave massive debt to our children and grandchildren...

It's a moral value to ensure basic economic security for every family. It's not acceptable that hard working people, some working two jobs, live one paycheck away from financial disaster, or don't have health care, or have to choose between sending their child to college or caring for their elderly parents...

It is a moral value to expand economic opportunity, create good paying jobs and keep them here in America, not ship them to China. We need to increase the minimum wage so that Americans can earn a decent living...

We need a foreign policy that restores our moral authority in the world. When we send young men and women to war, it must be for the right reasons and they must have the proper equipment. But America is not going to be defended simply by having a strong military. We also need to have high moral purpose.

We must focus on the threats of today, and the threats of tomorrow. We need an energy policy that reduces our dependence on foreign oil...

We need a health care system that works for everyone. It is unacceptable that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn't ensure access to affordable health care for every American. If Japan, Switzerland, England, and Canada can provide health care, we should be able to...

We need to reform our education system. We cannot just have No Child Left Behind and leave the money behind too...

We need to reform our election system. I know Donna Brazille was here earlier this week to talk to you about our Ohio report. I'm not here to look backward, but to look forward. But the truth is, our election system failed the citizens of Ohio in 2004, and failed African Americans who had to wait three times as long to cast their vote, and failed young voters who were illegally asked for identification at the polls.

We need to make voting a federal right for all Americans. Voting isn't just a right, it's a responsibility...

We're not going to divide Americans to win elections. The Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" used in the 1960s and 1970s lives today. In 2000, they used the racially charged word "quota" to divide African Americans. In 2004, they used gay marriage. And just you wait; in 2006 its going to be immigrants. We need to stand together. We are all children of God, equal in the eyes of God. We need to stand up for social justice. The one thing the Democratic Party will never do - we will never divide Americans to win elections. We'll never do that...

When I was campaigning for President, there was a lady in New Jersey who helped us enormously. She raised a lot of money for us. One of the guests at one of her fundraisers was this woman's 30 year old daughter, who was a school teacher from Texas. We were talking about things and the separation of church and state came up. All of a sudden the woman from Texas popped up and said "Governor, I don't agree with you on that, I'm an evangelical Christian. We don't believe there ought to be separation of church and state. We believe this is a Christian nation." You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody was a little uncomfortable, so we changed the subject to something else and went on.

At the end of the evening I was saying goodbye to the guests. I asked her how it is that she happened to support me when she couldn't possibly agree with my views that a woman has the right to make up her own mind about her health care or that gays ought to have the same rights as everyone else.

She looked at me and said "we are deeply troubled by your views on gay rights and a woman's right to choose. But we support you for two reasons. The first reason is that our child has kidney disease and in Texas that means we cannot get health insurance for our child or for anybody in our family. We think everybody ought to have health insurance. But the real reason we support you is that evangelicals are people of deep conviction and you are a person of deep conviction. What we look at more than anything else is not if you will agree with every single one of our convictions, but - if something happens to our family or our community or our country - whether or not the people who are going to be making decisions affect us will make those decisions out of deep convictions, not based on focus groups."

...There is one thing that we must do: we must stand up, we must speak with conviction. Together we must stand up and stand together. To stand up for the least among us, to stand up for our children, our veterans, our communities, the very things that define who we are and what we believe.

Iraqi Dispatch

Whether the mainstream media were aware of it or not, their embedding has made them subject to the UCMJ and liable to arrest, if what they report brings displeasure to the military command. So, it's even more important that the reports of autonomous journalists like Dahr Jamail be spread far and wide.

      From No Man?s Land to Displacement

by Dahr Jamail
from Left Turn Magazine

The Iraqi/Jordanian border is a land of desolation. Coils of razor wire
stretch into the desert whilst sun-grayed plastic bags caught in their
sharpness flap in the hot, dry winds. In No Man?s Land, Jamail exposes
yet another face of the human consequences of the US occupation of Iraq
? the suffering and resistance of displaced Kurdish-Iranian and
Palestinian refugees.

Long columns of trucks wait at the Jordanian border to carry their loads
of supplies into war-torn Iraq. When Iraqi drivers wish to enter Jordan,
they now wait up to 18 days to be allowed in. The al-Karama border is a
land of waiting, but not just for the truck drivers. There have been
others waiting to enter Jordan for far longer. The refugee camp situated
in this bleak area is called No Man?s Land camp because it literally is
just that: an area of land caught between the borders of two countries
with nowhere else to go.

?If you leave me here I will die,? said the elderly Merza Shahawaz as he
was groaning from the pain in his kidneys, ?Please help me.? In his tent
covered with plastic sheeting inside the camp, his wife was helping him
sit up. He cannot sit without her holding him up.

?I ask you to help me. I plead for humanitarian people to help us now,?
mumbled the 66 year-old man in dire need of dialysis. His family sitting
nearby shed tears as they brushed flies away from their faces.

His 42 year-old son pleaded, ?We are all dying slowly here. You see us
with your eyes, I ask for help. He is dying in front of his family?s
eyes but nobody is doing anything for him. We don?t want our children?s
fate to be this. Death is better than this life. If our children grow up
like this it means they are dead.?

It is one example of the suffering of so many in the camp of over 700
people.

*Hunger strike*

Kurdish-Iranian refugees have a long history of suffering. Initially
having left Iran under persecution from the government over 20 years
ago, some of them were members of the Kurdish peshmerga militia who
fought against fundamentalist Islamic rule and were lucky enough to
escape with their lives. Many of them fled to Iraq, where the regime of
Saddam Hussein placed them in the al-Tash refugee camp, located 80 miles
west of Baghdad, which held over 12,000 Iranian Kurds.

Many of these refugees, after the US-led invasion of Iraq in spring of
2003, said they were threatened by armed groups and told they had to
leave. Several refugees I interviewed in No Man?s Land camp said they
were instructed to leave Al-Tash by the US-backed Iraqi government.
Palestinians, Iraqis, Jordanians and Syrian refugees were also in the mix.

At the time of the invasion the Jordanian government agreed to provide
temporary protection for Iraqis fleeing the fighting and chaos in their
country. But when the Iranian-Kurds from Al-Tash camp reached the
Jordanian border, they were denied access. Others were denied access
because they lacked valid passports. Already burgeoning with refugees
from Palestine and Iraq, the government of Jordan felt it had reached
its limits and denied access to future refugees.

While the local Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization ? with help
from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), CARE
International and other organizations ? has been working to assist the
refugees, it appears as though it is not enough.

A tattered sheet tied to a chain-link fence which surrounds No Man?s
Land camp flittered in the wind. It read: ?We Iranian Kurd refugees have
gone on hunger strike because we have been paid no attention from UNHCR
and they use demagogy policy towards our just issue and have not tended
to our demand which is resettlement in third countries. Dying once is
better than daily death.?

On the other side of the fence a tarp provides shade for 21 men who were
on hunger strike, demanding more assistance from UNHCR.

Omar Abdul Aziz, is 39 years old. He was living in Al-Anbar at Al-Tash
camp near Ramadi before he came here. ?We used to live 23 years at
Al-Tash camp,? he explained, ?After the war the horrible security came.
Due to the fact that the occupation forces didn?t control the borders,
Iranian intelligence came into Iraq and began raiding Al-Tash, so we had
to leave.?

The soft spoken man, weak with hunger nine days into the strike, sat on
a mat while he talked. ?I am on hunger strike because UNHCR didn?t do
anything for us. This is not the right place for women and kids to live
in, and we have an unknown future. We have no solution here, only moving
from camp to camp, from desert to desert.?

Flies buzzed languidly about the faces of the downtrodden men in the
tent as Aziz continued. ?We don?t want to go to Iraq because it is
unstable and it is not our country. What has happened to us is due to
the illegal American invasion of Iraq. We ask the American people,
appealing to their humanity, to evacuate us from this horrible
situation. We are the orphans of the international community. The
international community has kept their mouths closed about us, and
especially the Americans.?

Others spoke of spending over two years in the horrible conditions of
the camp where snakes, sandstorms and scorpions are a daily reality as
they languish in tents seeking shelter from the scorching desert sun.

?We are depressed and we are dying here,? Zaman Shakary told me. The
frustration of the 45 year-old man was vented in anger towards UNHCR.
?Condoleeza Rice goes and shakes hands with Barzani, but does nothing
for us here. I have given an order that if I lose consciousness 10 times
I will continue my hunger strike if UNHCR does not respond and help us.
Humans cannot live this way.?

Most of the refugees were asking for resettlement, but not necessarily
to another refugee camp. ?We are asking for resettlement in another
country. I have been on hunger strike for 9 days, and my demands are
that if I die it is for life, I do not live for death,? said Suwady
Rashat. The 43 year-old added, ?I want to tell the American people that
the Iraqi government deprived us of what we need, and it is because of
the invasion which has not truly benefited Iraqis.?

Nearby sat a 6 year-old boy with a lost, sad look on his face,
antagonized by flies. ?I am here because my father is on hunger strike
for 9 days now,? he told me, ?Please, someone needs to help us here.?

Another man in the camp, Hassan Sadiq, lived in the US for a year before
the recent invasion. He returned to Iraq just before the invasion, then
fled to No Man?s Land Camp as chaos engulfed Iraq. Prior to his time in
America, Sadiq had fled Iran because of his Human Rights advocacy
against the regime there. He had initially spent time in the nearby
Ruwaished camp ? another refugee camp an hours drive into Jordan ? where
he went on hunger strike for 36 days in protest of UNHCR, who according
to him, were not doing enough to assist him from being extradited back
to Iran.

?Now UNHCR wants to close this camp and put us back in Ruwaished. When I
was there I was under constant threat of being extradited back to Iraq.
Now I?m concerned they will transfer us back to Ruwaished, which is
nothing but a jail in the desert.? His situation is reflective of many
others in the camp. ?I would like to say to the American government that
I remember George Bush says he is fighting for freedom. But by God, here
I need freedom and they have forgotten us. The US has been ignoring us
since 1974. The American government is responsible for us being here,
because we are displaced because of the war.?

The camp was fraught with health problems ? without enough clean water
or medical care, diarrhea, minor respiratory problems, sore eyes, and
dehydration abound. Many people tell me they have trouble breathing when
sandstorms hit, which is several times each week.

In another tent a man told me his 13 year old son was killed on the road
by a passing truck. His wife aborted her fetus when fighting broke out
near the Iraqi border several months ago. There have been problems in
the camp, aside from the aforementioned health and depression symptoms.
The hunger strike was aimed at UNHCR for not doing enough to help them;
however, UNHCR recently managed to move the entire camp into Jordan.
*
Dismal Place*

On May 29, with the assistance of the Jordanian Hashemite Charity
Organization and CARE International, UNHCR moved the 743 residents of No
Man?s Land camp to the Ruwaished refugee camp. The long struggle to
obtain permission from the Jordanian government ended with the agreement
that UNHCR would vigorously pursue further solutions for the refugees,
who were moved in three convoys.

Jaqueline Parleviet is the Senior Protections Officer for UNHCR in
Amman, Jordan. ?The hunger strike ended because of the move,? Parleviet
noted. ?All of the refugees I spoke with were happy to be moved. The
problems and resistance we encountered inside the camp went away when we
moved them.?

UNHCR is now pursuing the solutions of either voluntary return or
resettlement to another country for each refugee in the Ruwaished camp,
which is now filled with about 880 refugees. Yet Ruwaished camp, while
at least sitting inside a country, still remains a dismal place. There
are no trees in sight of the wire fence enclosed spot in the middle of
the desert.

While there are some improvements ? residents can leave for short
shopping trips in nearby Ruwaished, CARE international is providing some
vocational training and schooling, and the Jordanian Hashemite Charity
Organization is providing food, stoves, water and other necessities ?
the mood remains quite bleak.

Rahma Shaban left Palestine in 1948. Under the intense midday sun, she
told me of having to leave Iraq because of the horrible security
situation after the invasion. ?Baghdad is a great place,? she added,
?But I must have security for my children.? Other refugees blame the new
Iraqi government for there difficulties. ?I can?t blame Iraqis for our
problems,? said Donia Baltergy, ?I blame these Iraqis who came with the
invaders.?

She began to cry as she continued to discuss her situation in the camp.
?It?s difficult for us to live in this harsh place,? she said while
holding her hands out while she pleads, ?We?ve been sitting here for two
years. They don?t let us go out, they don?t like for us to talk to the
press, they don?t give us rights to do anything.?

Like the former No Man?s Land camp, the Ruwaished camp is plagued with
sandstorms and scorpions, and the residents continue to endure health
problems and cope with ongoing depression. There was little hope for
change when I visited, and many refugees expressed discontent towards
UNHCR and other organizations for not doing more to assist them.

According to Parleviet, some of the Somali and Sundanese refugees were
resettled in the US and Australia, along with 387 Iranian Kurds
previously moved to Sweden. ?We have cases pending now for the UK and
Ireland,? she added. Yet despite small instances of success, the
refugees recently relocated from No Man?s Land are now united with 133
other displaced people in the middle of the desert, close to one of the
worst conflict zones on the planet today.

Discontent towards what has become of Iraq, the country most of these
people love and had to leave, continues to be vented at the US. Standing
in front of a small brown tent used to teach women health classes, Rahma
Shaban exclaimed through tears, ?The Americans said they were coming to
help Iraqis. Now we see their lies, proven by the fact that they have
done nothing but cause us pain, suffering, and erased our future and the
futures of our children.?

And until their situation is changed, these feelings will most likely
persist.

The Law of War

Leonard Clark, a member of the Arizona National Guard has been arrested in Iraq for publishing statements on the internet that his commanding officers didn't like.

Whether or not his expressed intention to run for the United States Senate seat now held by Senator Kyle had anything to do with his arrest is uncertain. However, the opportunity it represents to become more familiar with the Uniform Code of Military Justice should not be missed.

See U.S. Code Title 10, Chapter 47 ? The Uniform Code of Military Justice (commonly known as the UCMJ):

802. ART. 2. PERSONS SUBJECT TO THIS CHAPTER
(a) The following persons are subject to this chapter:

(1) Members of a regular component of the armed forces, including those awaiting discharge after expiration of their terms of enlistment; volunteers from the time of their muster or acceptance into the armed forces; inductees from the time of their actual induction into the armed forces; and other persons lawfully called or ordered into, or to duty in or for training in the armed forces, from the dates when they are required by the terms of the call or order to obey it?

(3) Members of a reserve component while on inactive-duty training, but in the case of members of the Army National Guard of the United States or the Air National Guard of the United States only when in Federal Service?

(10) In time of war, persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Number 10 would seem to provide an explanation for why the American public hasn't gotten the straight story on the war in Iraq. By being embedded, the reporters have become subject to the UCMJ and are thereby prohibited from making statements with which the military commanders disagree.

Who is a Domestic Terrorist?

KEVIN SCHMIDT STERLING VA wrote on July 12, 2005 11:26 AM

In the end, Rove will not get away with anything. Although he may not be proven to be a traitor, there are several other laws that he has broken.

Also, from his office in the White House (C), he outed and he lied about Valerie Plame's (A) involvement in the decision to send Wilson to Niger. He did so to smear and discredit Wilson and to intimidate reporters and U.S. Government employees into not speaking out against the Bush administration (B).

It makes no difference whether he intentionally or unintentionally outed Plame (A), he still outed her. His actions took a resource out of the war against terrorism and endangered and still endangers every U.S. citizen.

Under the U.S. Patriot Act, Karl Rove has fulfilled the three requirements of being designated a "Domestic Terrorist":

SEC. 802. DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM.

(a) DOMESTIC TERRORISM DEFINED- Section 2331 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

`(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that--

`(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

`(B) appear to be intended--

`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

`(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.'.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

Karl Rove IS a "Domestic Terrorist", it's as simple as A, B, C. Under the laws of the U.S. Patriot Act, he can and should be immediately incarcerated, for an indefinite period of time, and without the benefit of a trial.

The Bush Conspiracy

There's really only one area in which the President of the United States has sole responsibility and that's in formulating our foreign policy. So it seems just a little strange, at least in retrospect, that the candidates for this office have been permitted to omit any serious consideration of our relations with other nations from their campaigns.

I'm not even sure when it became an accepted truth that it would be detrimental to the national interest and perhaps give our enemies an advantage, if our foreign policy were debated in an open forum. Must have been during the cold war.

In any event, this strategy of not revealing any particulars of our intent towards other nations obviously proved to be a ringing success since it has now been adopted in relation to domestic issues, as well. Which probably accounts for the increasing reliance on the politics of personality and personal destruction. If foreign relations are off the table and domestic issues are divisive, then there's really nothing left to differentiate the candidates but their individual foibles and the predilections of their families.

But the practical up-shot of this pattern of focusing on and targeting individuals is that more and more public policy is actually set and carried out in secret, while those who would expose it to the light of day are ruthlessly destroyed. Thus, at the moment, we have the saga of Karl Rove and Joseph Wilson's spouse, Valerie Plame, whose career was ruined because the Bush administration didn't like what he had to say.

Of course, one ruined career isn't all that bad. If that were all that's at stake, we could shrug it off. But it isn't about one career and it isn't even about what Joseph Wilson reported about the ingredients for weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein, another uncooperative fellow targeted for destruction, didn't have. Indeed, it's not even about the on-going aggression in Iraq. It's really about what can only be referred to as the Bush Conspiracy, an agenda that has been followed now for decades, without ever being discussed, to position the United States as the ruler of a global empire, not by default, but by crushing all those who might dissent.

To be fair, Bush the Elder did make his intention to set up a "New World Order" known. But, since it wasn't addressed during his campaign for re-election, even those who were paying attention probably missed the true meaning of that phrase--not that global relations would henceforth be based on trade and co-operation, but that the New World would take over from the Old World and tell everyone what to do. And, since it wasn't discussed during the campaign for re-election, there was no opportunity for this interpretation to be rejected.

Indeed, although there was much carping that President Clinton's recommendations for investment in "Rebuilding America's Defenses," as the Project for a New American Century framed the issue, were not enough, there was really no substantive change in the strategy for extending American rule. While the pressure on Iraq to bring it to accepting a permanent American presence on its soil went on a bit longer than the planners obviously preferred, the accession of George the Lesser got it all back on track.

There's an old German saying which seems apt in this case. "Kommst Du nicht willig, dann brauch ich Gewalt." Since the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was unwilling to welcome a US presence, force will be used until the population gives in. And since all the Bush Conspiracy calls for is a permanent location for the military forces that will keep China and India and perhaps even Russia in check, the demise of the Iraqi people is no more a concern than the exterminations in Kosovo, Somalia, Congo or anywhere else. No more than was shown for the people of Central and South America in prior decades.

The participants in the Bush Conspiracy aim to rule the world. A few million more or less don't really matter.

Iran & Iraq

Iran and Iraq are about to sign an agreement of military co-operation, as well as sharing an oil pipeline between Iran and Basra.
What Saddam Hussein was unable to accomplish George the Lesser has.

On the other hand, former President Bill Clinton, speaking at the 2005 Aspen Ideas Festival on Friday night, said "I wouldn't set a deadline" for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Very likely that's the position Clinton has to take because, like all the presidents since Nixon he's aware that the goal all along was to find a permanent home for American military assets in the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean region to counteract the inevitable surge of China to a position of influence and power.

All that trade with China has just been an effort to buy them off or buy ourselves time until our position as THE world power is secure. Iraq, like Vietnam, was both an effort to establish an enduring foothold in the region and to demonstrate our military might by destroying everything in sight. If Vietnam proved anything, it's that if the first goal isn't achieved, the second still makes the effort worth while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It seems increasingly obvious that our big mistake was in failing to recognize and expose the Bush Conspiracy that took shape in the 1970s and 1980s when the hegemony of the United States, the "New World Order," became the lynch-pin of our foreign policy.

The strategy for keeping what was really intended hidden was rather simple. In the interest of national security, American foreign policy was never subjected to a full airing during national political campaigns.

Then, when that strategy proved so successful in keeping American incursions around the globe out of our political discussions, it was adapted increasingly to domestic issues as well. The result was what we have come to refer to as the politics of personal destruction, where the personal characteristics of candidates, including their families and business associates came under the most intense scrutiny and their policy positions were, for the most part, ignored.

Keeping American foreign policy secret from the public had an ancillary and perhaps unanticipated consequence in that it may those who shared in the secrets co-conspirators and effectively negated their ability to voice any kind of criticism. So, Kerry, for example, was precluded of making an issue of the illegal war in Iraq, not because he had voted to pay for it a couple of times, but because he had participated in the planning stages, as well.

And, of course, attacking a surrogate to demonstrate America's prowess to potential competitors is a strategy of long standing. It's apparent failure in Vietnam, which is being replayed in Iraq, is only real, if the ostensible intent (to prevent the spread of the communist ideology and promote democracy) were real. Since the true intent is merely to flex the American military muscle and demonstrate how much damage it can inflict, the possibility of failure doesn't enter into policy considerations. Neither, obviously, does the total absence of morality.

How can one possibly justify subjecting a foreign population to death and destruction in order to impress others with our ruthlessness? How does that differ from the mentality of the terrorist?

Rain-rain-

Rain, rain, go away
Don't come back until we say..........

Hurricane DENNIS (05-09 JUL)
Storm - Max Winds: 130 Min Pres: 938 Category: 4
Current - Max Winds: 80 Min Pres: 972 Category: 1

HURRICANE DENNIS FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 19
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042005
0900Z SAT JUL 09 2005

AT 5 AM EDT...0900 UTC...A HURRICANE WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR
PORTIONS OF THE NORTHEASTERN GULF COAST FROM THE STEINHATCHEE RIVER
WESTWARD TO THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER.

............
AT 5 AM EDT...0900 UTC...A TROPICAL STORM WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED
FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA COAST WEST OF THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL
RIVER TO GRAND ISLE...INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE
PONCHARTRAIN.

A HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE OR
TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS...RESPECTIVELY...ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE
WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE
AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION IN THE HURRICANE
WARNING AREA. A HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM WATCH MEANS THAT
HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS...RESPECTIVELY...ARE
POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS

..............

PRESENT MOVEMENT TOWARD THE NORTHWEST OR 325 DEGREES AT 12 KT

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 972 MB
EYE DIAMETER 10 NM

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INITIAL 09/0900Z 23.9N 82.9W 80 KT
12HR VT 09/1800Z 25.3N 84.1W 90 KT
24HR VT 10/0600Z 27.5N 85.7W 100 KT
36HR VT 10/1800Z 29.8N 87.1W 110 KT
48HR VT 11/0600Z 32.5N 88.5W 45 KT...INLAND
72HR VT 12/0600Z 36.0N 90.0W 30 KT...INLAND
96HR VT 13/0600Z 38.0N 89.5W 20 KT...INLAND
120HR VT 14/0600Z 39.1N 85.0W 20 KT...INLAND

West Virginia Action

Morgantown, West Virginia can claim a first.

First of all, don?t get me wrong. We don?t feel like we?ve changed the world here with the protest on July 4th. We all know that there is much work to be done. But we do feel that there have been some marked successes.

Number 1 is the media. We have permeated the media around here. Regardless of how it was presented, we got tons of mentions and lots of interviews.

We did a reasonably good job of staying on message throughout the process, both in the media and on site. We chose impeachment as the message for a couple reasons. One, Bush?s sagging poll numbers show the rate at which people are losing faith in him. The more the word ?impeach? is used, the more likely that people will associate it with him and the more likely his numbers will fall further, if even just around here. And two, we wanted to start building local momentum for the September 24th impeachment march in Washington.

Our protest was INCIDENT FREE. This fact did not go unnoticed by any stretch of the imagination and it gives the event a lot more legitimacy. Some reporters seemed the most impressed that we?d managed to keep the crazies out, though who knows how that happened- just dumb luck I believe, but still, a success.

Wow have we struck some nerves! That, in turn, has sparked a community (and regional) conversation about what is and is not acceptable behavior in a democracy. This is a dialogue that needs to happen in many, many places. This dialogue gives people permission to question and if our protest caused one person to question this president for the first time (and I happen to know that it did), then it was victory.

One of our members, a woman, was successful at demonstrating inside the event, holding up a sign that said, ?Bombs Drop, Bush Profits? which Bush saw, Secret Service missed, and Morgantown Police Department ignored. I wonder if she is the first person to ever get away with protesting inside one of these things.

We buoyed the spirits of Democrats and Progressives alike. Since I became active a couple years ago, it seems like there has been nothing but defeats. This is the first event that I?ve seen that people came away feeling like they?d won. In my short involvement in this political world, this was the first victory that we?ve been able to contribute to directly (other than the DNC Chair race, which was bittersweet for many). This one was all sweet.

We completely ruined a GOP publicity event. There were no republicans who left that event happy (except the ones who recognize the importance of free speech). The High Muckety-Muck republican that owns our local newspaper even went out of his way to put in an editorial that sounded like a spoiled 7th grader accusing someone of ruining his party. It had all the tone of a crying temper tantrum- we got to them that well.

We exceeded our own expectations, perhaps the biggest victory of all. These people expected Morgantown to be easy, our protest to be small, and the day to go smoothly. In one moment we got to frustrate Bush and Rove both (Rove had to look out at a huge sign standing alone on the hillside that read, ?Jail Karl Rove.?). We have been told that we were extremely LOUD inside the event, constantly reminding them that we were out there- and Bush had to keep smiling.

Well wait a minute, maybe our biggest victory is that those people won?t come ?round here no mo.

As much as I?d like for our event to be the flashpoint for change, I know it probably isn?t. But maybe it can be another pebble in the avalanche.

Thanks again, everyone, for the words of encouragement and praise.

Be well, stay active.

Chris

Message from Prague

Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Bradley urged to call for Bush's impeachment
By COLIN SHEA
Prague, Czech Republic

This is an open letter to U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley.

Documentary evidence of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors has been in full public view for six weeks now and you have been shamefully silent. Seven citizens of New Hampshire are dead for no reason, yet you continue to participate in the disgusting charade of the Iraq war. This must end. Serious discussion of impeachment must finally take place in the House of Representatives.

On May 1, a British newspaper published a secret memorandum from August 2002 from the very highest levels of the British government. It shows conclusively that the Bush administration had already decided at that time to attack and occupy Iraq. This was eight months before hostilities commenced, and three months before the release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iraq threat the purported basis for war.

The head of British intelligence, noted that an assault "was now seen as inevitable," and that "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Accusations that the administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war are now proved beyond doubt. Bush's protests that conflict was not inevitable were lies. Promises to give UN inspectors a chance to check allegations of Iraqi WMD were a farce.

The British foreign minister is quoted in the memo as saying there was no justification for war because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

Bush knew Iraq posed no threat, but went to war anyway. British intelligence raised the alarm that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath."

We are fighting a savage guerrilla war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of U.S. troops. No infrastructure has been repaired after countless billions of corrupt and mismanaged appropriations. Unsupervised troops have violated the Geneva Conventions repeatedly.

Administration hawks should have foreseen the aftermath of the war. Their British counterparts did, and said so. But Wolfowitz and Cheney did not want to disrupt their pipe dreams of American soldiers greeted with flowers and Iraqi oil revenues paying for the reconstruction. Our seven soldiers are dead as a result of their criminal negligence.

The October 2002 NIE claimed the "growing ability to sell oil illicitly increases Baghdad's ability to finance WMD programs" as a prime casus belli. Yet, a report released by the United States Senate places the blame for this at the door of the Bush administration, which regularly assisted favored countries in breaking the embargo. The report states that "the United States not only failed to exert an effort to stop the oil shipments, it appears to have facilitated them."

The administration intervened via the State Department to allow Jordan to smuggle millions of dollars worth of oil out of Iraq on the eve of the war. Profits from this transaction went directly to Saddam Hussein. The administration knew this, yet facilitated it. But, if they believed their own intelligence, they also believed they were funding Iraqi WMD when war looked inevitable.

American troops advancing on Baghdad might have been attacked with chemical weapons, paid for with American dollars. WMD were just a desert mirage, however, which explains why the Bush was unconcerned about the broken embargo.

But, if these countless millions did not go to Iraqi WMD, where did they disappear?

Illicit oil kickbacks are a primary source of funding for the current insurgency. But, if the Bush administration facilitated the majority of recent kickbacks as the Senate report claims, it means they provided the very funds guerrillas now use to kill American troops.

These facts constitute evidence of presidential malfeasance that clearly rises to the level of impeachable offenses. You have an irreducible duty to the citizens you represent, to the memory of New Hampshire's fallen, and to the Constitution you have sworn to uphold. You must make the case for impeachment on the House Floor and initiate a vote to send the charges to the House Judiciary Committee for investigation. Anything less would be a disgrace to your office and your constituency.

Colin Shea is a former Dover resident living in Prague.

Vietnam Redux

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer5jul05,0,5176601.column?coll=la-util-opinion-commentary

Robert Scheer has got it half right. Iraq II is warmed over, but it's not the cold war, it's Vietnam redux. And not just because the US is going to lose to the indigenous population. Indeed, I've finally come to understand what Vietnam was all about--not about stopping communism, the official line, but about stopping China from becoming the dominant power in that part of the Globe. The goal has been the same for decades--to establish a permanent US military presence in the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean region.

After the possibility of doing that in Vietnam was lost, the effort turned to bribing Saddam Hussein and making nice with the sheiks of Arabi. Saudi Arabia didn't work out either. Bahrain and Qatar are too small. Saddam Hussein had his own agenda, increasing the influence of Iraq by extending its borders, but because he had already proved unreliable, the US found it necessary to teach him a lesson about who was boss and launched Gulf War I. Unfortunately, Saddam is a recalcitrant learner and even a decade of bombardment and economic isolation didn't bring him to agreeing to a permanent US presence. Ergo, a new crew of rulers was to be brought in who would acquiesce in this long-term scheme which, for some reason both Democratic and Republican administrations have been unwilling to share with the American public.

For a short time it looked like the tsunami would provide an opportunity to find a new location for our military assets. But then, the governments of the affection region wouldn't even let our warships dock to deliver relief aid. Clinton and Bush are still making an effort. But the people of southeast Asia still don't want a permanent American presence. Indeed, the residents that were displaced from the island of Diego Garcia are looking forward to returning when the British lease, and the American sub-let, runs out in 2010.

Demfest Coverage

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/006567.html

The following is a list of posts from all around the blogosphere that report on DemocracyFest 2005. Is your post missing? Let us know!

Annatopia
DemFest 2005 Album
Molly Ivins and 1st Sgt. Jefferies
Demfest, or The Gathering of the Snarktivists

Barbara Ann Radnofsky Campaign Blog
Barbara Radnofsky at DemFest 2005
National Bloggers Breakfast
Saturday at DemFest
Barbara Radnofsky at DemocracyFest 2005 photos

A Better Nation
Democracy Fest Report 2
Democracy Fest 2005
Volunteer Early, Volunteer (a Little More) Often

Blog for America
Report from the Student Caucus
House Party Training at DemFest
Hot & Happy at DemFest
DemFest Session: Civic Action Networks
Breakfast with Kos and Jerome at DemFest
Images From Stubb's
More from Stubb's
Hello From Stubb's
BFA Bloggers at DemFest
More Images from DemFest
What types of people are attending DemFest?
Report from the Student Caucus
Outside of the Blogger Caucus...
Where are the mountains?

Booman Tribune
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at DemFest
Quick list of DemFest blogging links

Brains and Eggs
"DeLay Factor", finally
Religion, Democracy, and the Common Good
A few DemFest snapshots
Breakfast blogging
Democracy Fest 2005, Austin

Burnt Orange Report
DemFest Coverage
So I Fibbed

Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley
Democracy Fest Report (Photos + Dean Audio)

DeanPhotos
Jessica's DemocracyFest 2005 photos
A sentimental and thought-provoking look at DeanFest/DemocracyFest 2005
Democracyfest 2005 Austin Texas

Daily Kos
One man, one woman, & one brain at DeanFest
DeanFest, Day 1
DeanFest, Day 2
Saturday at DeanFest (with pictures)
Texas DemocracyFest 2005
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr at DemFest
Austin DemFest
Kossacks' Guide to Democracy Fest w/Poll

Democracy for Missouri
Democracyfest Austin TX, 2005 Album

JABbering Stooge
DemocracyFest 2005

Kos at DemFest 2005
Barbara Ann Radnofsky at DemFest
Our real world paper blog from Demfest message board...
Media Workshop with Ralph Miller
campaign training 201
time to interact
Demfest is going great.
early morning stonewall
Watching Howard Dean in person!
The DeLay factor on C-Span
turning red states blue
the frame shop
Latino Caucus at Demfest
Demfest Under way!
Campaigns at the DemFest Bloggers' Caucus
The excitement is intense...

PinkDome
Friday Tidbits continued...Live from DemocracyFest

Random and Uneventful
Democracy Fest
DemFest Photos

Splashblog at DemocracyFest 2005
Photos from DemFest

Weblogsky
DemocracyFest 2005

Defining Dean

Wright was struck by Dean's unaffectedness when the two of them visited Washington in 1993, for President Clinton's address on health care to a joint session of Congress. Dean was invited to sit behind the first lady in the gallery and to stay over at the White House. The next morning Wright picked up Dean. "Awaiting our arrival was this boyish guy, looking for all the world like he was waiting for a bus to take him to summer camp," Wright wrote. "[H]e had a suitcase I'm certain was made out of cardboard. His hair looked like he had simply run his hands through it and had a pronounced cowlick sticking up in the back. He had buttoned his shirt unevenly and the knot in his tie was closer to his shoulder than his adams apple."

How did it go? Wright wanted to know.

"I was tired. I went right to sleep," Dean said.

Well, did he see the Clintons for breakfast? "I didn't see anyone. I just got up, and showered, and came down here to wait for you guys."

"Governor," Wright said, incredulously, "you didn't even get to have a cup of coffee this morning?"

"I don't drink coffee. Besides, I wasn't sure where I was, and I didn't want to bother anybody."

Iraqi Sting

For many months now, while other explanations have come and gone, the
assertion that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to face
them at home has been a rather constant refrain. Indeed, now that every
other rationale for our assault on Iraq has been debunked, that one
persists and journalists, who think their job is to interpret reality, are
beginning to suggest this is a good thing.

How can this be? If there were no terrorists in Iraq before we attacked
and they have flocked there in the aftermath, what it means is that America has set up the Iraqi people to be victimized and killed by terrorists, in addition to
being bombed by the US, just so Americans can be safe in their beds. And this is a good thing?

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and one of the most ancient of
civilizations has been brought to the edge of extinction in what can only
be called one of the biggest "sting" operations ever. The immorality of that is truly stunning.