Senator fires back at U.S. family upset with seal hunt

Senator fires back at U.S. family upset with seal hunt

Last Updated Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:16:34 EST

CBC News

A Liberal senator has replied to a family in Minnesota upset about Canada's seal hunt with a letter denouncing the United States for executing prisoners at home and killing people in Iraq

The McLellan family had written to Canadian senators to say they cancelled a vacation in Canada because of the hunt, which they called "horrible" and "inhumane," Montreal's La Presse reports.

In her response, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette said that what she finds horrible is "the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government's aggressive foreign policy, etc."

She said Americans are not in a position to criticize others. "They must start to look at their own behaviour, the permanent heightening of the planet's insecurity since the election of Bush," she told La Presse.

"All senators received the letter from the McLellans and I was the only one to respond," she said.

The family "did not choose a good cause," she added.

In their letter, the McLellans said they love Canada and have Canadian ancestors but cancelled a trip to Canada last year because of the seal hunt and will scrap plans for one this year if the spring hunt goes ahead, La Presse said.

Hervieux-Payette, a lawyer and former Liberal MP, was appointed to the Senate in 1995 by then prime minister Jean Chrétien. She last drew public attention with a private member's bill in 2004 to outlaw spanking of children.

In defending the seal hunt, she called it a centuries-old practice and part of the livelihood of coastal residents both native and white.

She invited the McLellans to come to Canada to see a humane society that lives in safety and respects the traditions of its native people.

It is not clear whether she might pay a penalty for remarks that could be seen as anti-American. Once appointed, senators have a job until retirement at 75.

A Toronto-area MP, Carolyn Parrish, was thrown out of the Liberal caucus in 2004 after she stomped on a George Bush doll and renounced her loyalty to the party. She stayed in Parliament as an Independent but did not seek re-election this past winter.

Missouri House bans contraception for poor women

Missouri House bans contraception for poor women

03/16/06 06:51 AM

The Missouri House voted yesterday to ban contraceptive funding for low-income women, and to prohibit state-funded programs from referring those women to other programs. The sponsor of the proposal, Rep. Susan Phillips, declared contraceptive services an "inappropriate use of tax dollars."

According to the Kansas City Star, the proposal does not save Missouri any money. Rather, it restricts how state agencies can spend $9.23 million set aside for public health programs for people with low incomes who do not qualify for Medicaid.

Phillips says that both Missouri Right to Life and the Missouri Catholic Conference supports her proposal. Opponents repeatedly pointed out that eliminating contraception paves the way for increased abortions, but Republicans and a couple of Democrats voted for passage.

- Diane E. Dees

Operation Overblown

Operation Swarmer was a Ruse
Bad intel yet again.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders. How Operation Swarmer Fizzled

How many times are we going to be seduced by a good story from a tribal leader?

The sub-heading on the Time article quoted above is: Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing.

That's nothing, now read this...



Operation Overblown

BAGHDAD — Operation Swarmer is turning out to be much less than meets the eye, or the television camera, for that matter.

Iraqi and Coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom’s largest air assault operation in southern Salah Ad Din province March 16. Named Operation Swarmer, the joint operation’s mission was to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra.

Operation Swarmer included more than 1,500 troops from the Iraqi Army’s 4th Division, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and 101st Combat Aviation Brigade. The Soldiers isolated the objective area in a combined air and ground assault.

More than 50 Attack and assault aircraft and 200 tactical vehicles participated in the operation. Troops from the Iraqi Army’s 4th Division, the “Rakkasans” from the 187th Infantry Regiment and the “Hunters” from the 9th Cavalry Regiment assaulted multiple objectives. Forces from the Iraqi 2nd Commando Brigade then completed a ground infiltration to secure numerous structures in the area.
Initial reports indicate a number of weapons caches were captured, containing artillery shells, IED-making materials and military uniforms. Iraqi and Coalition troops also detained 41 suspected insurgents.

That sounds exciting! But according to a colleague of mine from TIME who traveled up there today on a U.S. embassy-sponsored trip, there are no insurgents, no fighting and 17 of the 41 prisoners taken have already been released after just one day. The “number of weapons caches” equals six, which isn’t unusual when you travel around Iraq. They’re literally everywhere.

(Digression: Just to clear some things up, “air assault” does not equal air strikes. There are no JDAMs being dropped, and there are no fixed-wing aircraft involved at all, except maybe for surveillance. An air assault is the 101st Airborne’s way of inserting troops into a battlespace. There is so far no evidence of bombardment of any kind. Also, it’s a telling example of how “well” things are going in Iraq that after three years, the U.S. is still leading the fight and conducting sweeps in an area that has been swept/contained/pacfied/cleared five or six times since 2004. How long before the U.S. has to come back again?)

As noted, about 1,500 troops were involved, 700 American and 800 Iraqi. But get this: in the area they’re scouring there are only about 1,500 residents. According to my colleague and other reporters who were there, not a single shot has been fired.

“Operation Swarmer” is really a media show. It was designed to show off the new Iraqi Army — although there was no enemy for them to fight. Every American official I’ve heard has emphasized the role of the Iraqi forces just days before the third anniversary of the start of the war. That said, one Iraqi role the military will start highlighting in the next few days, I imagine, is that of Iraqi intelligence. It was intel from the Iraqi military intelligence and interior ministry that the U.S. says prompted this Potemkin operation. And it will be the Iraqi intel that provides the cover for American military commanders to throw up their hands and say, “well, we thought bad guys were there.”

It’s hard to blame the military, however. Stations like Fox and CNN have really taken this and ran with it, with fancy graphics and theme music, thanks to a relatively slow news day. The generals here also are under tremendous pressure to show off some functioning Iraqi troops before the third anniversary, and I won’t fault them for going into a region loaded for bear. After all, the Iraqi intelligence might have been right.

But Operation Overblown should raise serious questions about how good Iraqi intelligence is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by earnest lieutenants that the Iraqis are valiant and necessary partners, “because they know the area, the people and the customs.” But when I spoke to grunts and NCOs, however, they usually gave me blunter — and more colorful — reasons why the Iraqi intelligence was often, shall we say, useless. Tribal rivalries and personal feuds are still a major why Iraqis drop a dime on their neighbors.

So I guess it’s fitting that on the eve of the third anniversary of a war launched on — oh, let’s be generous — “faulty” intelligence, a major operation is hyped and then turns out to be less than what it appeared because of … faulty intelligence.

Feingold, Kerry & the 'Strategists'

Feingold, Kerry & the 'Strategists'

By Robert Parry

March 15, 2006

Years before Sen. John Kerry fell under the spell of national Democratic “strategists,” he believed that a Democrat’s best hope for winning the White House was to run as an insurgent. To overcome built-in Republican advantages, Kerry felt a Democrat had to show principle and challenge the status quo.

But Kerry had that thinking beat out of him. In the late 1980s, he got pummeled by the mainstream news media and the political establishment for exposing cocaine trafficking by Nicaraguan contra rebels and for embarrassing their Reagan-Bush patrons. Respectable Washington didn’t want to believe the ugly reality.

Mocked by the big newspapers and branded a “randy conspiracy buff” by Newsweek, Kerry was persuaded by party insiders that his political future required him to trim his sails and dump his rebelliousness overboard. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Kerry’s Contra-Cocaine Chapter.”]

So, by the time he ran for president in 2004, Kerry was silent about his heroic investigations of the 1980s. He presented himself instead as a careful politician who spoke in a fog of nuance. Whenever he seemed poised to crush the bumbling George W. Bush, Kerry retreated into poll-tested platitudes.

As it turned out – as the younger Kerry would have understood – the greatest risk was to play it safe.

Now, to hear Kerry tell it, he has relearned the lesson that he once knew. He has vowed to fight with clarity and passion. But the tragedy of John Kerry – like “The Natural” in Bernard Malamud’s novel (not the movie) – may be that opportunity missed is often a chance lost for good.

In life, you often don’t get a second act. Except, of course, for Democratic “strategists,” who always seem to get a second act, even a third and a fourth, no matter how often they lose. Strategist Bob Shrum, for instance, has been a chronic loser in presidential races but is still sought out by Democratic hopefuls, including John Kerry in 2004.

And, when they’re not applying their cold hands to Democratic campaigns, the strategists can put a chill on any Democrat’s principled behavior by whispering in the ears of journalists that a seemingly noble act is reckless, calculated or somehow both.

Feingold Undermined

That was the case when Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, proposed censuring Bush for authorizing warrantless wiretaps of Americans outside the legal channels of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – and thus in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on searches and seizures without the government getting a court’s approval.

While Feingold’s proposal could be viewed as a moderate step – expressing congressional disapproval short of impeachment – Washington Post reporter Charles Babington searched out unnamed “Democratic strategists” to make Feingold’s plan look both craven and crazy.

“Some party strategists,” Babington wrote, “worried that voters will see the move as overreaching partisanship.” Then, going in the opposite direction, Babington quoted the strategists worrying that the real problem with Feingold’s initiative was that challenging Bush on abrogating the Fourth Amendment wasn’t the smartest partisan move.

“Several Democratic strategists said (illegal) surveillance issues are not Bush’s most vulnerable spot, and they fear the party may appear extremist,” Babington wrote.

The Post reporter then quoted a strategist, identified only as a former aide to President Bill Clinton, as saying, “It is more likely that a big censure fight would have the effect of rallying folks to his (Bush’s) side.”

The Clinton aide added, “While some in the Democratic base want retribution for what happened to Clinton, I think there is a larger reluctance to try to remove people from office.”

But the Clinton aide’s assessment of motivation – that Democrats “want retribution” for the impeachment drive against Clinton – seems to have little evidentiary support. The grassroots pressure for holding Bush accountable has sprung from outrage over his “preemptive” war in Iraq, his lies and his violations of the Constitution.

Without the unattributed quote from the Clinton aide, Babington would have been hard-pressed to find citations among grassroots bloggers or other Democratic activists who want Bush impeached or otherwise punished as retribution for Clinton’s humiliation in 1998-99.

But the Clinton aide’s comment fits with the mainstream media’s critique of Feingold’s censure resolution as almost all things negative: partisan, “extremist,” counter-productive and vengeful.

The “Democratic strategists” thus set up the story’s kicker line. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, called Feingold’s resolution “political grandstanding of the very worst kind.” [Washington Post, March 14, 2006]

The construction of Babington’s story also underscores the difficulty that any Democrat faces in trying to take principled stands against Republicans.

The Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets will invariably apply a negative spin suggesting some ulterior motive; the Republicans will counter-attack aggressively; and “Democratic strategists” will deliver a sucker punch from behind.

Similar muggings hit John Kerry when he tried to investigate the contra-cocaine scandal in the 1980s; battered Al Gore in 2002 when he questioned Bush’s rush to war in Iraq; demeaned Rep. John Conyers’s hearing on the Downing Street Memo in 2005; and now confront Feingold for daring to seek even a mild form of accountability against Bush.

The lesson for Democrats who want to stand and fight is that they must respond to this three-sided problem with a three-pronged solution: challenging Republican wrongdoing without fear or equivocation; building media outlets that will circumvent the smug mainstream press; and standing behind the rare Democratic politician who shows some courage.

Bill O’Reilly is fond of using his POLE

If you’ve read or, worse, listened to his book, Those Who Trespass, on tape (listen to Stephanie Miller’s show almost any day for a taste), Bill O’Reilly is fond of using his pole, literally.

But, if you listen to or watch The O'Reilly Factor, Bill’s even more fond of using his poll – or hiding behind it – literally.

Here’s how it works. Whenever Bill wants to rake someone across the coals, without leaving his fingerprints on the rake, he sets it up as a poll to ask "the folks." He then uses these polls to pose a question – the subject of which he's championed – with a predetermined answer. Then he uses the numbers to support his argument. It’s a bit like a Vice President feeding a story to a New York Times writer, then refers to the Times to prop it up, say, as a reason to invade a sovereign country... hypothetically, of course.

For example, as he was railing against a light sentence handed down by a judge to a convicted child molester, Bill posed this question: "If Judge Cashman is not removed from hearing criminal cases, will you boycott Vermont?" Though, except for not buying those teddy bears, I have no idea how you boycott Vermont, eighty-eight percent of the the poll’s respondents voted "yes." Bill responded to anyone who accused him of calling for a Vermont boycott, saying that he did not. He didn’t have to. The folks had spoken. And when the Factor Folks speak, Bill no longer couches their vote in terms of his personal poll. It becomes the way a cross-section of what all of America thinks.

And just who are "the folks?" How many times have "the folks" differed with Bill’s analysis, prior to his posing the poll question? I don’t know how many of the folks who vote on Factor polls are his diehard fans, but I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to figure that the great majority of the voters are regular listeners and agree with Bill on most things. After all, while you don’t have to be a $49.95 per year Premium Member to vote in a Factor poll, how many people outside the O’Reilly fan base take time to go to his Web site and vote?

But this week, his poll question may just have gotten his agenda smacked up the side of its head.

The poll question asked, "Did the media overdo the coverage of ABCNews anchor Bob Woodruff's situation?" This was Bill’s objective way to slam the "major media," and at the same time, blaspheme the talk of war colored with real blood and pain. The large majority of the folks said "yes," and with that, Bill wondered out loud how would we ever be able to wage a war if we actually showed the horrors of war!

Since Bill has some sort of license to know what people like Cindy Sheehan are thinking, I think Bill thinks that too much information just confuses the folks. But then again, perhaps we wouldn’t disagree with the decision to go to war, but before getting in lockstep behind hostilities, at least we would begin to comprehend the genuine consequences of real live warfare. How horrid to go into war with more information rather than less. Not very FOX Newsish.

Now Bill would tell us that this wasn’t necessarily the way he felt, but it was what "the folks" thought. Still, and just as clear as the Ohio vote results in 2004, what Bill wanted us to grasp was that he thought the more we knew, the less we’d make a decision he favored. And that is exactly what he stands for. Less truth. More Bill.

But for all the bravado Bill bloviates every show, he’s a coward. He hides behind "the folks" without admitting his polls are predisposed to support whatever message he wants to get out. I know Bill would point to one or two polls to show I’m wrong, but that’s what he always does. Look at the cherry-picking of the "War On Christmas" horrors.

Then again, Bill just might do a poll asking the folks if they think his polls are biased. My guess is that "the folks" would say I’m wrong.

"I did not touch Jeff Guckert with these hands."

James Dale Guckert (c. 1958) worked under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon as a White House reporter between 2003 and 2005, representing Talon News. After Guckert came under public scrutiny, in particular for his lack of a significant journalistic background and involvement with various homosexual escort service websites using the professional name Bulldog, he resigned from Talon News on February 8, 2005. Continuing to use the name Gannon, he has since created his own official homepage and become a columnist for the Washington Blade newspaper, where he has come out, claiming to be a bisexual.

Guckert routinely obtained daily passes to White House briefings. He attended four Bush press conferences and appeared regularly at White House press briefings. Americablog, a Weblog focusing on gay rights issues discovered Gannon's pseudonym and made public his past history, as Guckert, 'Gannon', 'Bulldog', and 'Lou'. Questions have arisen as to Guckert's relationship with the White House and with the Republican Party. Although he did not qualify for a Congressional press pass, Guckert was given daily passes to White House press briefings "after supplying his real name, date of birth and Social Security number." [1]

Guckert first gained national attention during a presidential press conference on January 26, 2005, in which he asked United States President George W. Bush a question that some in the press corps considered "so friendly it might have been planted."

Group reinstates boycott of Ford over ads aimed at gays

Group reinstates boycott of Ford over ads aimed at gays
By Jeremy W. Peters The New York Times

THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006
DETROIT A coalition of groups that oppose civil rights for gay people is pressing for a boycott of Ford Motor, in the latest push by U.S. religious conservatives to influence how and where companies advertise.

The American Family Association, which has boycotted Target retail stores for using the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas" and Procter & Gamble over its stance on local legislation involving discrimination against gays, has reinstated a boycott to try to force Ford to stop advertising in publications aimed at gay readers.

Ford, which has a long history of working cooperatively with gay rights groups, gave no indication Tuesday that it would change its decision to continue advertising in gay media.

Last year, Ford came under criticism from gay rights groups after it decided to withdraw its Jaguar and Land Rover ads from publications aimed at gays.

The American Family Association claimed responsibility for Ford's move, and the carmaker did little at first to challenge that. But after discussions with representatives from gay and lesbian groups, Ford reversed its decision.

The American Family Association and 43 other groups then accused Ford of breaking its word and called on the company to stop the ads and end contributions to gay causes.

On Monday, American Family Association and 18 other groups reinstated the boycott against the carmaker.

"Ford reneged on the agreement to stop funding homosexual organizations and activities and advertising in homosexual media," its chairman, the Reverend Donald Wildmon, said.

But so far, Ford said, it plans to stick to its policy regarding advertising in gay media.

"We've always been open to dialogue, but our position is that we will continue treating all with respect," a spokeswoman, Kathleen Vokes, said.

Boycotts are a common technique for groups to show disapproval of corporate policies, but the actions do not often attract wide support.

While conservative groups have said their boycotts have persuaded corporations to change their marketing techniques, their influence seems questionable. Despite an announcement from the American Family Association last year that Procter & Gamble was no longer advertising on the American television shows "Will & Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the company continued to advertise on the programs.

"We didn't change anything," a spokesman for Procter & Gamble said.

Ford has also rejected American Family Association's claims that it persuaded the automaker to change its position on advertising in gay media. In May, the group started its first boycott of Ford for its support of gay causes. It started the Web site BoycottFord.com, which has since been reactivated. It said it had sent out 2.2 million e-mail messages urging people not to buy Ford cars and trucks.


DETROIT A coalition of groups that oppose civil rights for gay people is pressing for a boycott of Ford Motor, in the latest push by U.S. religious conservatives to influence how and where companies advertise.

The American Family Association, which has boycotted Target retail stores for using the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas" and Procter & Gamble over its stance on local legislation involving discrimination against gays, has reinstated a boycott to try to force Ford to stop advertising in publications aimed at gay readers.

Ford, which has a long history of working cooperatively with gay rights groups, gave no indication Tuesday that it would change its decision to continue advertising in gay media.

Last year, Ford came under criticism from gay rights groups after it decided to withdraw its Jaguar and Land Rover ads from publications aimed at gays.

The American Family Association claimed responsibility for Ford's move, and the carmaker did little at first to challenge that. But after discussions with representatives from gay and lesbian groups, Ford reversed its decision.

The American Family Association and 43 other groups then accused Ford of breaking its word and called on the company to stop the ads and end contributions to gay causes.

On Monday, American Family Association and 18 other groups reinstated the boycott against the carmaker.

"Ford reneged on the agreement to stop funding homosexual organizations and activities and advertising in homosexual media," its chairman, the Reverend Donald Wildmon, said.

But so far, Ford said, it plans to stick to its policy regarding advertising in gay media.

"We've always been open to dialogue, but our position is that we will continue treating all with respect," a spokeswoman, Kathleen Vokes, said.

Boycotts are a common technique for groups to show disapproval of corporate policies, but the actions do not often attract wide support.

While conservative groups have said their boycotts have persuaded corporations to change their marketing techniques, their influence seems questionable. Despite an announcement from the American Family Association last year that Procter & Gamble was no longer advertising on the American television shows "Will & Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the company continued to advertise on the programs.

"We didn't change anything," a spokesman for Procter & Gamble said.

Ford has also rejected American Family Association's claims that it persuaded the automaker to change its position on advertising in gay media. In May, the group started its first boycott of Ford for its support of gay causes. It started the Web site BoycottFord.com, which has since been reactivated. It said it had sent out 2.2 million e-mail messages urging people not to buy Ford cars and trucks.

Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

March 13, 2006 |

MARADI, NIGER—More than 60,000 urgently needed Bibles arrived to allay suffering throughout the famine-stricken nation of Niger Friday, in one of the largest humanitarian-relief operations ever attempted by a Christian ministry.

Africans gather in hopes of receiving the Bibles they have hoped for.

"Come rejoice, and feast upon the word of Our Lord, Jesus Christ," said Christina Clarkson, executive director of the Living Light Ministries of Lubbock, TX. "Those who were hungry, hunger no more, for the Word brings life."

An exuberant Clarkson said the Bible drop was the culmination of one of the largest and most aggressive grassroots fundraising drives ever undertaken by the organization, which was able to fund the mission largely through local charitable events, such as bake-offs, barbecues, and pie-eating contests.

"We absolutely would not be here today if it were not for the amazing generosity of the people back home," Clarkson said. "People everywhere opened up their hearts and checkbooks to us and said, 'Dig in.'"

Niger, ranked as the second-poorest nation on Earth, is experiencing its worst famine in more than 20 years, as a brutal drought last year was followed by a plague of crop-destroying locusts. An estimated 3.5 million of Niger's 12 million people are currently at risk of starvation.

"That's why it was so important for this mission to happen right now," said Clarkson. "So many people here are suffering. Disease, starvation, and lack of shelter are day-to-day realities in Niger. But once they hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and accept Him as their Lord and Savior—once they really take Him into their hearts—then they will see what poor comforts are the things of this world."

Due to the tireless efforts of Clarkson and other members of the congregation, the ministry was able to provide the needy with Bibles superior to the ones they use in their own church services.

"Handcrafted, genuine leather—best money can buy," said 61-year-old missionary Don Kostic as he ran his hand along the book's ornately embossed spine. "It's like my wife back home says: Nothing is too good for people who are ready to receive the Living Word of Christ."

Although the fundraising efforts were unprecedented, congregation members said Living Light would never have succeeded had they not obtained the generous support of an array of corporate sponsors, including Applebee's and Church's Fried Chicken.

"We spent so much money just to get here," Kostic continued. "After we had all the Bibles engraved, we still had to charter the plane. When we landed in Niamey, we could barely even afford ground transportation."

Undaunted, the missionaries purchased the best vehicle they could find, which turned out to be a used bread truck. "That old thing!" recalled Kostic, laughing. "We must've scrubbed it down a hundred times. You couldn't get the smell of freshly baked, vitamin-fortified bread out of it if your life depended on it."

Reaction among Niger residents has been mixed.

Moussa Yaouli, a 35-year-old farmer, was particularly interested to learn more about the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Living Light personnel told him involved the eating of wafers. "It is said to be a big wafer. I am sure it will feed many of my children."

Moussa Yaouli derives spiritual nourishment from his handcrafted leather Bible.

Though "spiritually gratified" by their work, many of the missionaries spoke about the difficulties of working in an impoverished country.

"It can be so hard being away from the comfort of our homes and our loving families," Clarkson confided. "I will admit, there have been times when I prayed, 'Lord, just help me get through this mission and get me back to Texas!' But when we rolled into town and people started running after the truck with those big smiles on their faces, I couldn't help but smile back."

Clarkson added: "And when we opened up the back of the truck and they saw that it was full of Bibles... Grown men and women wept in front of their children. That's how moved they were by the Holy Spirit. That's how I know it's all been worth it."

Clarkson said her mission will succeed in bringing the people of Niger "the spiritual sustenance they've been deprived of," despite such obstacles as the nation's 18 percent literacy rate.

"You say you're suffering. I say, let the good Lord do the suffering for you," she said. "You say you're exhibiting the deleterious effects of severe dehydration and chronic malnutrition. And I say that no matter what ails you, the Holy Bible is the best medicine there is."

Lap Dogs of the Press

Lap Dogs of the Press




By Helen Thomas
The Nation

Friday 10 March 2006


Of all the unhappy trends I have witnessed - conservative swings on television networks, dwindling newspaper circulation, the jailing of reporters and "spin" - nothing is more troubling to me than the obsequious press during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. They lapped up everything the Pentagon and White House could dish out - no questions asked.

Reporters and editors like to think of themselves as watchdogs for the public good. But in recent years both individual reporters and their ever-growing corporate ownership have defaulted on that role. Ted Stannard, an academic and former UPI correspondent, put it this way: "When watchdogs, bird dogs, and bull dogs morph into lap dogs, lazy dogs, or yellow dogs, the nation is in trouble."

The naive complicity of the press and the government was never more pronounced than in the prelude to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The media became an echo chamber for White House pronouncements. One example: At President Bush's March 6, 2003, news conference, in which he made it eminently clear that the United States was going to war, one reporter pleased the "born again" Bush when she asked him if he prayed about going to war. And so it went.

After all, two of the nation's most prestigious newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, had kept up a drumbeat for war with Iraq to bring down Dictator Saddam Hussein. They accepted almost unquestioningly the bogus evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the dubious White House rationale that proved to be so costly on a human scale, not to mention a drain on the Treasury. The Post was much more hawkish than the Times - running many editorials pumping up the need to wage war against the Iraqi dictator - but both newspapers played into the hands of the Administration.

When Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered his ninety-minute "boffo" statement on Saddam's lethal toxic arsenal on February 5, 2003, before the United Nations, the Times said he left "little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal" a so-called smoking gun or weapons of mass destruction. After two US special weapons inspection task forces, headed by chief weapons inspector David Kay and later by Charles Duelfer, came up empty in the scouring of Iraq for WMD, did you hear any apologies from the Bush Administration? Of course not. It simply changed its rationale for the war - several times. Nor did the media say much about the failed weapons search. Several newspapers made it a front-page story but only gave it one-day coverage. As for Powell, he simply lost his halo. The newspapers played his back-pedaling inconspicuously on the back pages.

My concern is why the nation's media were so gullible. Did they really think it was all going to be so easy, a "cakewalk," a superpower invading a Third World country? Why did the Washington press corps forgo its traditional skepticism? Why did reporters become cheerleaders for a deceptive Administration? Could it be that no one wanted to stand alone outside Washington's pack journalism?

Tribune Media Services editor Robert Koehler summed it up best. In his August 20, 2004, column in the San Francisco Chronicle Koehler wrote, "Our print media pacesetters, the New York Times, and just the other day, the Washington Post, have searched their souls over the misleading pre-war coverage they foisted on the nation last year, and blurted out qualified Reaganesque mea culpas: 'Mistakes were made.'"

All the blame cannot be laid at the doorstep of the print media. CNN's war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, was critical of her own network for not asking enough questions about WMD. She attributed it to the competition for ratings with Fox, which had an inside track to top Administration officials.

Despite the apologies of the mainstream press for not having vigilantly questioned evidence of WMD and links to terrorists in the early stages of the war, the newspapers dropped the ball again by ignoring for days a damaging report in the London Times on May 1, 2005. That report revealed the so-called Downing Street memo, the minutes of a high-powered confidential meeting that British Prime Minister Tony Blair held with his top advisers on Bush's forthcoming plans to attack Iraq. At the secret session Richard Dearlove, former head of British intelligence, told Blair that Bush "wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The Downing Street memo was a bombshell when discussed by the bloggers, but the mainstream print media ignored it until it became too embarrassing to suppress any longer. The Post discounted the memo as old news and pointed to reports it had many months before on the buildup to the war. Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley decided that the classified minutes of the Blair meeting were not a "smoking gun." The New York Times touched on the memo in a dispatch during the last days leading up to the British elections, but put it in the tenth paragraph.

All this took me back to the days immediately following the unraveling of the Watergate scandal. The White House press corps realized it had fallen asleep at the switch - not that all the investigative reporting could have been done by those on the so-called "body watch," which travels everywhere with the President and has no time to dig for facts. But looking back, they knew they had missed many clues on the Watergate scandal and were determined to become much more skeptical of what was being dished out to them at the daily briefings. And, indeed, they were. The White House press room became a lion's den.

By contrast, after the White House lost its credibility in rationalizing the pre-emptive assault on Iraq, the correspondents began to come out of their coma, yet they were still too timid to challenge Administration officials, who were trying to put a good face on a bad situation.

I recall one exchange of mine with press secretary Scott McClellan last May that illustrates the difference, and what I mean by the skeptical reporting during Watergate.

Helen: The other day, in fact this week, you [McClellan] said that we, the United States, are in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history?

Scott: No. We are ... that's where we are currently.

Helen: In view of your credibility, which is already mired ... how can you say that?

Scott: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you're taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically elected governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Helen: Were we invited into Iraq?

Scott: There are democratically elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, but we are there today.

Helen: You mean, if they asked us out, that we would have left?

Scott: No, Helen, I'm talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments.

Helen: I'm talking about today, too.

Scott: We are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future.

Helen: Did we invade those countries?

At that point McClellan called on another reporter.

Those were the days when I longed for ABC-TV's great Sam Donaldson to back up my questions as he always did, and I did the same for him and other daring reporters. Then I realized that the old pros, reporters whom I had known in the past, many of them around during World War II and later the Vietnam War, reporters who had some historical perspective on government deception and folly, were not around anymore.

I honestly believe that if reporters had put the spotlight on the flaws in the Bush Administration's war policies, they could have saved the country the heartache and the losses of American and Iraqi lives.

It is past time for reporters to forget the party line, ask the tough questions and let the chips fall where they may.

Wisdom at last

On March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Maryland Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin,professor of law at Amercan University, was requested to testify.



At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

US general says no proof Iran behind Iraq arms

US general says no proof Iran behind Iraq arms
Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:41 PM ET

Seems Bush in his latest round of speechs is just pullin' "facts" out of his ass....Marines have one thing, it is called Honor. Peter Pace should be prepared to retire shorty.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday the United States does not have proof that Iran's government is responsible for Iranians smuggling weapons and military personnel into Iraq.

President George W. Bush said on Monday components from Iran were being used in powerful roadside bombs used in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel had been inside Iraq.

Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran's government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, "I do not, sir."

"Unless you physically see it in a government-sponsored vehicle or with government-sponsored troops, you can't know it," Rumsfeld said at the same briefing. "All you know is that you find equipment, weapons, explosives, whatever, in a country that came from the neighboring country."

"With respect to people, it's very difficult to tie a thread precisely to the government of Iran," Rumsfeld added.

Washington's charges about Iranian weapons and personnel in Iraq have added to tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

Rumsfeld reiterated that there was evidence that Revolutionary Guard personnel had been in Iraq, and said, "It's entirely possible there are rogue elements and they're just there on their own or they're pilgrims. Not likely."

Bush said on Monday, referring to improvised explosive devices: "Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran."

Coulter advocated U.S. invasion of Iran ... and China

In defending the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq during an appearance on the March 13 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter suggested that the United States should invade Iran and China in order to pre-empt any threat those nations may pose. Coulter made her remarks during a conversation with co-host Alan Colmes and Richard Aborn, managing director of risk-management firm Constantine & Aborn Advisory Services, about the Bush administration's discredited claim that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When Aborn suggested that Coulter's rationale for invading countries before firmly establishing that they represent a serious threat "would mean we need to go into Iran" and "we should go into China," Coulter responded: "Yeah!"

This week, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution designed to pressure Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. The measure failed to win the support of either China or Russia. Representatives of the countries that support the measure -- including the United States, France, and Britain -- said they may put it before the full 15-member security council, despite the disapproval of the other two permanent members.

From the March 13 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: Let me give you an example of where I believe we were misled.

You had [Vice President] Dick Cheney on [NBC's] Meet the Press saying Saddam Hussein reconstituted his nuclear program. That was not true. He said it a couple of times. We heard from [President] George W. Bush, he's a threat that we must deal with as quickly as possible. It turned out not to be true --

SEAN HANNITY (co-host): That's what [Sen. John] Kerry [D-MA] said.

COLMES: We heard, "imminent threat," "immediate threat," over and over and over again from this administration. That turned out not to be true. So, is that not a misleading of the American public?

COULTER: How about the rape rooms, did that turn out to be true?

COLMES: Now, but, you're avoiding my question.

ABORN: We're not -- we're not invading countries.

COLMES: The very specific things I just mentioned? Were they true or not true?

COULTER: No, I'm not avoiding. OK. Then, let me ask you another question. How about right now? You have a lunatic running Iran, who's running around claiming he has a nuke. When do we wait? Do we wait for a city to be taken out?

COLMES: But, wait a minute. You're not responding to my very -- I gave you a very specific thing --

ABORN: But that's a much a different -- again. That's a much different argument. Ann. Ann, you are --

COULTER: No, it's not, because we're not going to know. We're not going to know, as [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice said, until a city is gone. Now liberals want to say we won't do anything, and if we go in --

COLMES: So, that we can wait until everybody else, until they're gone?

ABORN: That would mean we need to go into Iran. We should go into China. This is not an intellectually honest argument.

COULTER: Yeah!

ABORN:. Well, then, you're -- you hear what they're talking about --

COLMES: I gave you specific reasons we were --

COULTER: OK. But America, listen to this: Democrats will not take out a threat, they will wait for an American city to be bombed. Pay attention to that.

COLMES: I guess, we're just going to have to go and invade every country.

ABORN: You can resort to insult, it doesn't get you anywhere.

Robertson Finds Radical Muslims 'Satanic'

Robertson Finds Radical Muslims 'Satanic'

By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press WriterMon Mar 13, 6:50 PM ET

Television evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday on his live news-and-talk program "The 700 Club" that Islam is not a religion of peace, and that radical Muslims are "satanic."

Robertson's comments came after he watched a news story on his Christian Broadcasting Network about Muslim protests in Europe over the cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

He remarked that the outpouring of rage elicited by cartoons "just shows the kind of people we're dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it's motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it's time we recognize what we're dealing with."

Robertson also said that "the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination."

In a statement later Monday, Robertson said he was referring specifically to terrorists who want to bomb innocent people as being motivated by Satan. In the news story, he noted, radical Muslims were shown screaming: "May Allah bomb you! May Osama Bin Laden bomb you!"

Angell Watts, a Robertson spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview that the news segment also included comments from a moderate Muslim in the United Kingdom saying radicals don't represent most Muslims in that country.

Robertson's Virginia Beach-based network did not include his remarks when it posted the program on its Web site, however. That decision was made out of concern Robertson's remarks could be misinterpreted if viewed out of context, Watts said.

Monday's comments were similar to remarks he made on his program in 2002, when he said Islam "is not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy."

Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for comments suggesting that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Robertson recently told ABC's "Good Morning America" that he comments off the cuff after watching news segments. He later told the Christian magazine World that he's being more careful and reviewing news stories before going on the air.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called Robertson's new comments "grossly irresponsible."

"At a time when inter-religious tensions around the world are at an all-time high, Robertson seems determined to throw gasoline on the fire," Lynn said in a statement.

___

“I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

Harvey Wasserman
Columbus Free Press (Ohio)

On a cold, cloudy night, the lines threaded all the way around the Ohio State campus. News that Kurt Vonnegut was speaking at the Ohio Union prompted these “apathetic” heartland college students to start lining up in the early afternoon. About 2,000 got in to the Ohio Union. At least that many more were turned away. It was the biggest crowd for a speaker here since Michael Moore.


In an age dominated by hype and sex, neither Moore nor Vonnegut seems a likely candidate to rock a campus whose biggest news has been the men’s and women’s basketball teams’ joint assault on Big Ten championships.

But maybe there’s more going on here than Fox wants us to think.

Vonnegut takes an easy chair across from Prof. Manuel Luis Martinez, a poet and teacher of writing. He grabs Martinez and semi-whispers into his ear (and the mike) “What can I say here?”

Martinez urges candor.

“Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

The students seem to agree.

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”

“You all know, of course, that the election was stolen. Right here.”

Off to a flying start, Vonnegut explains that this will be his “last speech for money.” He can’t remember the first one, but it was on a campus long, long ago, and this will be the end.

The students are hushed with the prospect of the final appearance of America’s greatest living novelist. Alongside Mark Twain and Ben Franklin, Will Rogers and Joseph Heller and a very short list of immortal satirists and storytellers, there stands Kurt Vonnegut, author of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE and SIRENS OF TITAN, CAT’S CRADLE and GOD BLESS YOU, MR. ROSEWATER, books these students are studying now, as did their parents, as will their children and grandchildren, with a deeply felt mixture of gratitude and awe.

Nobody tonight seems to think they were in for a detached, scholarly presentation from a disengaged academic genius coasting on his incomparable laurels

“I’m lucky enough to have known a great president, one who really cared about ALL the people, rich and poor. That was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was rich himself, and his class considered him a traitor.

“We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries,” he says. “They run everything.

“We have no Democratic Party. It’s financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans.

“So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.

“I’m trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It’s becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil.

“Bush used that line recently,” Vonnegut adds. “I should sue him for plagiarism.”

Things have gotten so bad, he says, “people are in revolt again life itself.”

Our economy has been making money, but “all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one.

“As the world is ending, I’m always glad to be entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You should practice once a night.

“If you want really want to hurt your parents and don’t want to be gay, go into the arts,” he says.

Then he breaks into song, doing a passable, tender rendition of “Stardust Memories.”

By this time this packed hall has grown reverential. The sound system is appropriately tenuous. Straining to hear every word is both an effort and a meditation.

“To hell with the advances in computers,” he says after he finishes singing. “YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what’s inside you. And don’t kill anybody.

“There are no factories any more. Where are the jobs supposed to come from? There’s nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask the Seminoles: ‘what the hell did you do?’’ after the tribe’s traditional livelihood was taken away.

Answering questions written in by students, he explains the meaning of life. “We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And appreciate the good moments by saying ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’

“You’re awful cute” he says to someone in the front row. He grins and looks around. “If this isn’t nice, what is?

“You’re all perfectly safe, by the way. I took off my shoes at the airport. The terrorists hate the smell of feet.

“We are here on Earth to fart around,” he explains, and then embarks on a soliloquy about the joys of going to the store to buy an envelope. One talks to the people there, comments on the “silly-looking dog,” finds all sorts of adventures along the way.

As for being a midwesterner, he recalls his roots in nearby Indianapolis, a heartland town, the next one west of here. “I’m a fresh water person. When I swim in the ocean, I feel like I’m swimming in chicken soup. Who wants to swim in flavored water?”

A key to great writing, he adds, is to “never use semi-colons. What are they good for? What are you supposed to do with them? You’re reading along, and then suddenly, there it is. What does it mean? All semi-colons do is suggest you’ve been to college.”

Make sure, he adds, “that your reader is having a good time. Get to the who, when, where, what right away, so the reader knows what is going on.”

As for making money, “war is a very profitable thing for a few people. Jesus used to be so merciful and loving of the poor. But now he’s a Republican.

“Our economy today is not capitalism. It’s casino-ism. That’s all the stock market is about. Gambling.

“Live one day at a time. Say ‘if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is!’

“You meet saints every where. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.

“I’m going to sue the cigarette companies because they haven’t killed me,” he says. His son lived out his dream to be a pilot and has spent his career flying for Continental. Now they’ve “screwed up his pension.”

The greatest peace, Vonnegut wraps up, “comes from the knowledge that I have enough. Joe Heller told me that.

“I began writing because I found myself possessed. I looked at what I wrote and I said ‘How the hell did I do that?’

“We may all be possessed. I hope so.”

He accepts the students’ standing ovation with characteristic dignity and grace. Not a few tears flow from young people with the wisdom to appreciate what they are seeing. “If this isn’t nice, we don’t know what is.”

Not long ago we spoke on the phone. I asked Kurt how he was. “Too fucking old,” he replied.

Maybe so. But the mind and soul are still there, powerful and penetrating as ever. Just as they’ll ever be in his books and stories and the precious records of his wonderful talks.

Thankfully, Kurt Vonnegut is still possessed by the genius of seeing and describing the world as only Kurt Vonnegut can.

He is still sharp and clear, full of love and life and light. May he be with us yet for a long long time to come.

Harvey Wasserman read CAT’S CRADLE, SIRENS OF TITAN and SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE in college, sought Boku-Maru, and has never been the same.

Bush Still Ignores Iraq Reality

By Robert Parry
March 12, 2006

As George W. Bush sets out on another speaking tour to justify invading Iraq three years ago, he’s still ignoring what should be the chief lesson for any U.S. President: Don’t play games with the intelligence, especially on matters of war and peace. You only get good people killed.

Yet, in test-marketing his new P.R. campaign in a March 11 radio address, Bush had his rose-colored glasses firmly back on. In his upbeat assessment, he downplayed grisly evidence that Iraq is sliding toward sectarian civil war, with Shiite “death squads” butchering Sunnis and Sunni gunmen killing Shiites.

He didn’t mention how the Iraqi elections have divided – not unified the country – by solidifying the political power of Shiite fundamentalists who have close ties to Iran. Nor did Bush acknowledge that the anti-Americanism engendered by the U.S. occupation has been a boon to al-Qaeda’s recruitment and training of a new generation of terrorists.

For Bush, the Iraq glass is always one-tenth full, not nine-tenths empty.

In the week ahead, Bush made clear he intends to deliver another dose of the wishful thinking that led the American people to believe that the conquest of Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” a “shock and awe” pyrotechnic display followed by thankful Iraqis showering U.S. troops with candy and flowers.

Distorted History

For this third anniversary of the March 19, 2003, invasion, Bush also has dusted off his old out-of-context history that frightened Americans into believing that Saddam Hussein’s tired dictatorship was a grave threat to U.S. national security.

“I strongly believe our country is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power,” Bush said in his radio address. “Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was an enemy of America who shot at our airplanes, had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction, threatened and invaded his neighbors, ordered the death of thousands of his citizens, and supported terrorism.”

Bush then resorted to a favorite sleight of hand juxtaposing Hussein’s supposed support for terrorism with a reference to al-Qaeda’s operations inside Iraq, all the better to implant the subliminal connection in the minds of many Americans.

“After the liberation of the Iraqi people, al-Qaeda and their affiliates have made Iraq the central front on the war on terror,” Bush said, leaving out the key detail that Hussein’s secular government had suppressed al-Qaeda-style Islamic terrorists before the invasion.

But to grasp how misleading Bush’s radio address was would require an American citizen armed with a comprehensive knowledge of the history and the politics of the Middle East.

For instance, the American planes that Bush mentioned were flying in Iraqi air space and frequently were bombing Iraqi targets. In other words, Iraq was shooting at war planes over its own territory. But a poorly informed American might not know that, assuming instead that Iraq had attacked U.S. aircraft over neutral or American territory.

A gullible American also might not realize that Hussein developed his chemical and biological weapons during his war with Iran in the 1980s, when he was getting military help from Vice President George H.W. Bush and Mid-East envoy Donald Rumsfeld. [See Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

Bush also left out the fact that U.S. intelligence has since concluded that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were effectively eliminated in the 1990s because of United Nations sanctions and air strikes ordered by President Bill Clinton.

Bush’s claim about Hussein invading his neighbors dated back even farther – more than a decade – as did the allegations of mass killings. In 2003, human rights groups reported no Kosovo- or Rwanda-type crisis inside Iraq that would justify a military intervention.

To the contrary, Bush’s “preemptive” war – against a country then cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors – unleashed a human rights catastrophe with tens of thousands of Iraqis killed along with more than 2,300 U.S. soldiers.

No Blame

As usual, in his radio address, Bush took no blame for invading Iraq under the false argument of non-existent WMD stockpiles; nor for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths, including many children; nor for the spread of al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq; nor for the seething anti-Americanism around the globe.

Clearly, too, Bush has no intention of admitting that he committed war crimes by invading a non-threatening country under false pretenses and by killing innocent civilians in the process. But Bush also is showing no inclination to stop his addiction to misrepresenting the facts or engaging in risky wishful thinking.

At Consortiumnews.com, we have warned about the danger of Bush’s wishful thinking from the first days of the war. On March 30, 2003, 11 days into the U.S. invasion, as Iraqi forces were putting up surprising resistance, I cited U.S. military analysts who were already worried about Bush’s miscalculations.

“Whatever happens in the weeks ahead, George W. Bush has ‘lost’ the war in Iraq,” the article said. “The only question now is how big a price America will pay, both in terms of battlefield casualties and political hatred swelling around the world.

“That is the view slowly dawning on U.S. military analysts, who privately are asking whether the cost of ousting Saddam Hussein has grown so large that ‘victory’ will constitute a strategic defeat of historic proportions. At best, even assuming Saddam’s ouster, the Bush administration may be looking at an indefinite period of governing something akin to a California-size Gaza Strip.

“The chilling realization is spreading in Washington that Bush’s Iraqi debacle may be the mother of all presidential miscalculations – an extraordinary blend of Bay of Pigs-style wishful thinking with a ‘Black Hawk Down’ reliance on special operations to wipe out enemy leaders as a short-cut to victory.

“But the magnitude of the Iraq disaster could be far worse than either the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba in 1961 or the bloody miscalculations in Somalia in 1993. In both those cases, the U.S. government showed the tactical flexibility to extricate itself from military misjudgments without grave strategic damage. …

“Few analysts today, however, believe that George W. Bush and his senior advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have the common sense to swallow the short-term bitter medicine of a cease-fire or a U.S. withdrawal.

“Rather than face the political music for admitting to the gross error of ordering an invasion in defiance of the United Nations and then misjudging the enemy, these U.S. leaders are expected to push forward no matter how bloody or ghastly their future course might be.

“Without doubt, the Bush administration misjudged the biggest question of the war: ‘Would the Iraqis fight?’ Happy visions of rose petals and cheers have given way to a grim reality of ambushes and suicide bombs.

“But the Bush pattern of miscalculation continues unabated. Bush seems to have cut himself off from internal dissent at the CIA and the Pentagon, where intelligence analysts and field generals warned against the wishful thinking that is proving lethal on the Iraqi battlefields.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.”]

More Happy Talk

On May 23, 2005, we revisited Bush’s dangerous tendency to ignore cautionary intelligence.

“In Iraq, George W. Bush has demonstrated an old truism of geopolitics, wishful thinking mixed with bellicose rhetoric makes for a deadly cocktail,” the article said. “The question now is: can the U.S. political system wean itself from an addiction to this poisonous brew of swagger and delusion?

“So far, the Bush administration shows no sign of getting on the wagon and looking at the facts with a clear eye. Instead, it’s still talking tough and demanding that everyone concentrate on the few glimmers of progress amid the death and destruction.

“‘We don’t have an exit strategy,’ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted during a trip to Iraq on April 12. ‘We have a victory strategy.’

“Yet, on the ground in Iraq, the violence gets worse. A U.S. offensive called Operation Matador, near the Syrian border, was met by fierce Iraqi resistance, decimating one Marine unit. Insurgents also carried out a wave of car bombings that left about 450 Iraqis dead, including many police and government soldiers.

“American analysts also seem to have missed much of the significance of Iraq’s Jan. 30 (2005) election. In part, it was a vote by the Shiite majority to consolidate its new political dominance over the formerly powerful Sunni minority. But the vote also was a repudiation of the U.S.-handpicked leaders closely associated with the occupation.

“Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and other Iraqis in the U.S.-installed government were trounced at the polls by the United Iraqi Alliance, whose platform called for ‘a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq.’ …

“Meanwhile, prospects for a stable Iraqi government – or a near-term defeat of the insurgency – still don’t seem promising.

“Breaking with the official optimism in a briefing to New York Times reporters, American military commanders ‘gave a sobering new assessment’ of the war. One officer said the U.S. military might have to remain in Iraq for ‘many years,’ the Times reported.” [For more, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s Dangerous Wishful Thinking.”]

Now, almost one year after that article and three years into the war, the Iraqi political situation continues to deteriorate – and Bush plans to hit the road again selling his elixir of happy talk, flag-waving jingoism and delusion.

His political advisers apparently have told him that he still has an audience of Americans who will believe whatever he says.

Wonder Why the MSM doesn't report this?

Ever wonder why some have to get coverage of newsworthy events from the media in the United Kingdom? And Fox news call the US media the "far left press"

A good read is manufacturing consent!

Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship

· Sandra Day O'Connor warns of rightwing attacks
· Lawyers 'must speak up' to protect judiciary
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday March 13, 2006

Guardian
Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

Ms O'Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary."

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

In her address to an audience of corporate lawyers on Thursday, Ms O'Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issued last year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, over a court ruling in a controversial "right to die" case.

After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Mr DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour."

Mr DeLay later called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of "an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president".

Such threats, Ms O'Connor said, "pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom", and she told the lawyers in her audience: "I want you to tune your ears to these attacks ... You have an obligation to speak up.

"Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence - people do," the retired supreme court justice said.

She noted death threats against judges were on the rise and added that the situation was not helped by a senior senator's suggestion that there might be a connection between the violence against judges and the decisions they make.

The senator she was referring to was John Cornyn, a Bush loyalist from Texas, who made his remarks last April, soon after a judge was shot dead in an Atlanta courtroom and the family of a federal judge was murdered in Illinois.

Senator Cornyn said: "I don't know if there is a cause and effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country ... And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence."

Although appointed by a Republican, Ms O'Connor voted with the supreme court's liberals on some divisive issues, including abortion, making her a frequent target for criticism from the right. After announcing that she intended to retire last year at the age of 75, she was replaced in February this year by Samuel Alito, who is generally regarded as being more consistently conservative.

In her speech, Ms O'Connor said that if the courts did not occasionally make politicians mad they would not be doing their jobs, and their effectiveness "is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts".

KISS ME YOU FOOL!







There is no doubt in my mind that Prez Bunnypants is a lying, thieving, murderer. What he has done to ruin the United States inside in out over the last six years is criminal.

The dead from Iraq are on his empty conscience.

Nothing good has come from Bush and his neo-con puppeteers.

I do draw the line on the "faked" terrorist attacks of 9/11. I don't think the neo-cons and Bush were smart enough to pull it off. I also sincerely hope that many of the people that work for the chimp are not completely soulless.

I do agree that they will do almost anything to keep power. If the Dems do not get some balls and a realistic agenda that the American people can chew on were are screwed again.