For a brief time following the events of 911 the United States enjoyed widespread support throughout the world. It took a George W. Bush to squander all that goodwill. It is not surprising that along with a Congressional majority and over 90 percent approval rating, the policies of George W. Bush are now almost universally reviled. A new world wide poll by the BBC suggests that US policies are almost universally rejected, denounced by majorities as high as two-thirds or more on most issues and much higher on still others.
Bush may have enjoyed a longer honeymoon with the rest of the world had he not insisted upon waging a war of aggression against Iraq, a nation having nothing whatsoever to do with 911, a nation about which Bush lied repeatedly in order to wage his war. Bush's numbers have gone down as the war rages on and on without end and, increasingly without hope. The numbers prove that the world now views the US, under Bush, as a rogue nation.
Getting reviews as bad as those for the Iraq war is the the issue of global warming. On this issue, often denied and derided be the GOP, Bush is proven as wrong, armed, and dangerous as he was on Iraq. Bush is now escalating his failed war on Iraq but failure on global warming carries with it even more catastrophic results.
Everyone can be wrong once in a while. And almost everyone is wrong from time to time with regard to issues less critical to the very survival of the planet. It takes a particularly evil genius to be so consistently wrong about almost everything and with such dire consequences.
Ironically and tragically, it is the magnitude of Bush's crimes that afford him a measure of invincibility. Those who are merely and routinely wrong about mundane issues are promptly sacked. Those, like Bush, who are monumentally wrong, are often promoted by a small and still powerful cabal who fear drowning in the wake of a sinking Titanic. Clinging tenaciously to power, this class of conscienceless courtiers will prop Bush up until all are swept away in the inevitable political Tsunami.
Such a political apocalypse was described by the great British screenwriter Sir Robert Bolt, whose script for A Man for All Seasonsportrayed a frightened nobility in danger of being swamped in Wolsey's wake. As the execution of Sir Thomas More proved: there is rarely a convenient escape for fence-sitters. As in a play by Ibsen, Shakespeare, or, indeed, Bolt himself, Bush set into motion a tragic dialectic with the words: "You are either with us or you are for the terrorists".
On every issue, however, the world has rejected Bush and his divisive policies. Is Bush so stupid that he would suggest that some two thirds of the world's population are terrorists?
It is most certainly a mistake to divide up the world into black and white, good and evil. Yet that is what Bush has done. Though he would not compromise when pressed against the wall, Bolt's portrayal of Thomas More is that of a man who would have avoided the "either/or", a man who would have preferred the life of the common man to that of the existential hero.
More: God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping.
As the world is distracted with wars and rumors of wars yet to come, Bush, who peddles those wars while exploiting the very fear of war, works quietly behind the scenes to consolidate his dictatorship.
The following video of Sen. Diane Feinstein on the floor of the U.S. Senate blows the whistle on yet another Bushco power grab -the latest chapter in Bush's Hitler-like attack on the independence of the American judiciary.
Watch this video and tremble -fear for the future of Democracy, Due Process of Law, freedom itself: When the end nears, depend on Bush to defy the Supreme Court of the United States in a critical case, a divisive case in which the stakes are very high. As Bush said of his jihad against a mythic "Axis of Evil", this case is of the form either/or. It will make or break his would-be dictatorship in a scenario best left to the game Risk. Bush is willing to wager the farm that his weak-kneed opposition will make the wrong choice.
The American people, the Congress and the courts must prove him wrong -just as he has been wrong about everything else. The American republic is in play in a cynical Bush/GOP game.
The stakes are very high. If Bush wins, the people lose. America will no longer have the legal recourse of removal; impeachment will be a dead issue. If impeached, Bush will not leave the office. Having subverted every protection afforded the people by our founders, Bush and company seem determined to leave us no choice but slavery under a dictatorship or a popular uprising. Bush will leave us no choice but revolution. It's his modus operandi.
…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.
—Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
Nixon was called an “imperial President”. Interestingly, the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were concerned with his abuse of the IRS, obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate Scandal, and his various abuses of agencies to include the CIA.
Bush antes up the lives of US soldiers to play out the two deuces he holds. Cynically sacrificing American lives, a treasonous and illegitimate "President" hopes to salvage his legacy -a legacy not worth salvaging at any price on any bet with any hand. Legally, the illegitimate "President" who lied the nation into the commission of an ongoing war crime compounds his venal crimes and ventures once again into high treason.
Why did Bush lose the war in its very planning, inception, and execution? Greed? Arrogance? Idiocy? Vainglorious visions of conquest and dictatorship? At this point -who cares? We must all work together to bring this miscreant and liar to justice in the Senate and, later, in the international court.
The record is clear when seen outside the prism of mass media -especially Fox and all the lying minions who toil there. The facts are these:
The Iraq war is lost. Iraq itself may be a lost cause. Bush broke it irreparably.
Iraq has become a virtual automated recruiting machine for Al Qaeda in those places where it actually exists. Moreover, Al Qaeda is now joined by numerous other groups who are similarly inspired by Bush's ongoing crimes. Bin Laden's number one ally is Bush's hamfisted conduct of middle east policy. The failed war in Iraq is only the most publicized aspect of it. Bin Laden -literally a creation of the CIA -has been made a gift of Iraq by Bush. Bin Laden and his wannabes alone have benefited from this most tragic war, this most tragic failure in American history.
There may nothing left Bush now but to bow and deign to talk to the villified Al Qaeda.
When the surge fails (and it will) Iran wil fill the vacuum having grown stronger as a result of Bush's counter-productive campaign of villification. As expected Iran has already formed an alliance with the Shias of Iraq -an outcome sure to alienate Bush's Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
If Bush's goal was the usurpation of Iraqi oil, it is hard to see how he might deliver those resources to his cabal of oil barons when both Sunnis and Shias oppose him and his evil campaign to make the Middle East safe for the theft of oil -not Democracy.
Some 70 percent of all Americans oppose the surge. Democrats, therefore, must seize the moral high ground by cutting off funding for additional troops and additional campaigns. Democrats -it has been suggested -can tax our way out of the war with a "Victory Over Terror" tax levied on incomes of $5 million a year or more. Levied on all income, it would include stock options, jet plane rides, company-paid-for health and life insurance, retirement programs, golden parachutes, the use of apartments in Paris, cars and drivers.
The GOP will hate it and, therefore, it must be good. Those targeted have enjoyed the big GOP tax cuts since the days of Ronald Reagan who made them feel good about being greedy. This group has never been expected to sacrifice in times of war; rather, they have been enriched by it repeatedly. It's time to put a stop to it. Power to the people'
To close, the following is the video referred to by Sadbuttrue in the comments to this article:
A strong voice has emerged that lays bare the fraud and incompetence behind Bush's Iraq strategy from the bombing campaign to the surge -a last desparate grasp for illusory "victory". The voice is that of Rory Stewart of Britain's Foreign Office. He brings to the table his experiences in Afghanistan and in Iraq as a Deputy Governor.
Stewart declares flatly that the Bush/Blair war on Iraq is already lost, there are no good options left Bush. A civil war has been underway for some time now. That opinion, of course, is also that of this blog and has been since its inception. Stewart made his case on BBC's Hardtalk where he was cross-examined by Steven Sackur. Stewart says of the surge that it will "...only kill a lot of people" (See: All the King's Men Sign a Death Warrant on American GIs) It is a failed strategy. Citing experiences in Fallujah and elsewhere, he says that Bush's proposal is doomed to fail.
"I see no reason to believe that this will not be the case again," Stewart says. He is correct to point out that so-called insurgents have always been unaffected by surges. Insurgents always return to an area when coalition forces pull out.
It is not only the sectarian nature of the conflict but Bush's inability to define victory that makes winning impossible. Certainly it has been noticed that when Bush administration officials used to talk of victory now they talk only of security. Even when expectations are thus scaled down, the Bush administration is mute on how security is achieved when warring sects comprise the government itself. As this blog asked long ago: when civil war breaks out in Iraq, which side will Bush be on?
Ideological slogans marked the run up to war. Tragically, no slogan defined success but all them may have been designed to make GOP ideologues feel good about supporting a war of aggression and the ongoing war crime in the wake of attack and invasion.
Stewart comes to the point. Stated US goals, he says, are not achievable. Indeed, it may be too late for the US to shape Iraq's future in any way whatsoever. The surge which we now know will involve some 21,000 additional troops is called a "grave mistake." Underscoring the point, Stewart states: "What we can do, we have done." I wonder if Stewart might also have been thinking about how the irreparable harm that has been done might be undone. That, of course, is impossible. The enemy is hard to identify. Conventional forces cannot just go in, Stewart says, and have any effect.
Sunnis and Shias have at least this much in common. Both want the Americans out! Both sects have other things in common but we may never know about them. According to Stewart, Britain actually stopped talks between the warring factions. Why would the coalition fear the possibility of peace breaking out in the war zone? When something might have developed, nothing was. Stewart concludes: "Getting rid of Saddam is pretty much all that we have accomplished." It is my opinion that even that is tarnished by the ludicrous nature of the kangaroo court that tried Saddam and, of course, the farcical and cruel nature of the lynching that followed. It is hard to imagine that Bush would have wanted to make of Saddam a martyr.
Bush claims that pulling out now would result in disaster. Stewart, however, sees a phased withdrawal as Iraq's only hope at this point. BBC's Stephen Sackur pressed the issue, asking if such a pullout would result in a terrible civil war. Stewart's answer: "There is a terrible civil war now."
Indeed, some 3,000 Iraqis die every month. Stewart asks: "What is achieved by staying another year, three years, or six years?" That question may have been answered by Edwin Starr at the height of American involvement in Viet Nam. War! What is it good for? Absolutely Nuthin'.
At last, the opinion of the world has turned against the Bush/Blair conspiracy to occupy Iraq.
Agree with many of your points written above, but no-one 'dragged' this country into the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Yes, Blair acquiesced to US foreign policy, but the invasion was also supported and voted for by a huge majority of our MP's.
The choice to invade and occupy Iraq was made by the elected representatives of Britain. No-one else is to blame for this idiocy - it's Blair and our MP's.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining . . . I hope to see Blair eventually prosecuted by an energised International Criminal Court. Subsequently, I look forward to the day when I, and other British taxpayers are forced to pay reparations to Iraqis for the horrendous consequences of this immoral and illegal act.
The great British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in his Wisdom of the Westthat Western civilization was and is essentially Greek -so great was that blossoming in the fifth century BC. Of the several factors supporting that thesis, none is more important than a discernable secular, populist trend absent from the older civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Russell supports that thesis by pointing out "...an astonishing stream of masterpieces which have set the standard for Western civilization."
Admittedly this is a bit of a tautology. Any civilization could merely define a standard conforming to those of its own creation. Nevermind, Russell remains one of the profound intellects of the 20th century, having partnered with Whitehead in the Principia Mathmatica, and, later, opposing nuclear proliferation, war, and the Viet Nam war in particular. Russell believed the Greeks were the first civilization to evince philosophical or scientific curiosity. Eastern civilizations of the period, by contrast, were ruled by "divine" Kings, military aristocracies, and powerful priesthoods -guardians of elaborate polytheistic systems. The Pharaoh Akhenaten was a notable exception -remembered for having replaced many gods with one "Sun" god. The effort did not succeed.
Though each Greek city-state developed and nurtured its own culture, all were unmistakably Greek. As such, they were surprisingly secular even if Socrates himself would fall victim to the "religious right". Russell observes that religion "...was not conducive to the exercise of intellectual activity." He leaves it to the reader to conclude that it was because of this that neither Egypt nor Babylonia developed science or philosophy.
It is at this point that Russell makes the study of philosophy an ingredient essential to an understanding of politics:
A man who took no interest in politics was frowned upon, and was called an idiot, which is Greek for "...given over to private interests."
The term private interests could be construed to mean hobbies. It is more likely, however, that it is descriptive of burgeoning business enterprises. After all, the city-states must surely have been great importers and traders. As such, it is easy to see certain tensions between the affairs of state and the affairs of enterprise. By the time of Henry VIII, Sir Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth" would presage both fascism and Stalinesque communism. In both, the "State" and business would bury the hatchet and work in concert against the interests of everyone else -as Bush and his cabal do today.
It is the Greek use of the word idiot that resonates so truly today, a time when multi-national corporations dominate the media, when Jack Abramoff and similar ilk broker the corporate takeover of the state, when the people themselves are shunned, when George W. Bush exports death and destruction for the benefit of corporate sponsors.
It seems never to end. Nothing is learned. Old GOP scandals are covered up or spun while new ones are spawned. There is a body of evidence to indicate that Bush and Blair deliberately schemed to make legal -after the fact -the aggressive war against Iraq. The following link -Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ -is just the latest smoking gun, confirming the much earlier Downing Street Memos. An excerpt:
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal."
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier."
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
In other words, Bush and Blair are war criminals. These violations of the Nuremberg Principles are prohibited by US Codes, Section 2441 which prescribes the death penalty for war crimes resulting in death.
Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter is vindicated. In 2005, in a 5,000-word speech, Pinter excoriated "...the US government over Guantánamo Bay and its attempts to destabilise Nicaragua in the 1980s."
He also savaged the Blair government for its "pathetic and supine" support of George W. Bush. He likened Blair`s government to a "bleating little lamb" for its support of Bush's criminal war against Iraq. Indeed, the ICC at Belgium has already received numerous cases against Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and a host of other senior U.S. officials. The charges include crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...among the other named defendants we also have General Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge of the Iraq war at the outset and authorized these torture techniques. There's also George Tenet, who was head of the CIA, and that of course involves the CIA's secret detention sites around the world, where waterboarding and other kinds of torture went on. Those are three of the people at the top who we've named as defendants. Then we have the lawyers, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in particular, who basically set up the legal framework. There was a case during the Nuremburg trials in Germany after World War 2 in which German lawyers were gone after because they implemented the Nazi program of murder.
Bush meanwhile will compound his idiocy having learned nothing. Chaos will worsen for two reasons among others: the vengence execution of Saddam and Bush's planned "surge". Bush failure is evident on all but forgotten fronts. Afghanistan, under-reported for years, has been lost. Hamid Karzai is literally confined to Kabul.
One is reminded of Winston Churchill who wrote that the statesman "...who yields to war fever...is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." At last, what does "staying the course" and "getting the job done" mean? There is, in fact, no course to stay but mere "war fever" itself.
Bush, moreover, has never defined what is meant by winning. Some 600,000 Iraqis are now dead as a result of the US invasion and the wave of civil war that spewed up in its wake. That figure is comparable to the 618,000 Americans who died in the Civil War. Is there yet another standard by which the magnitude of this catatastrophe might be made clear?
Now Bush wants to send more troops to Iraq to achieve a "goal" that he cannot articulate. A "surge" it is called when, in fact, it is idiocy compounded, the criminal repetition of a failed policy. Bush will raise the stakes on a losing bet —and he dares call himself a "Texan"! Bush has made of us mere slaves to uncontrollable events, victims of evil unleashed. We might as well have awakened as cockroaches.
Another year and yet another tragic milestone on Bush's road to total idiocy and psychosis. It was reported today that American deaths in Iraq have reached 3,000.
Bush doesn't care what anyone thinks; he will prosecute his folly though the cost is tragic and ruinous. Bush hopes to salvage his dubious legacy with a "surge". The "surge" will only compound the folly, kill more US troops, increase the levels of chaos and violence in Iraq.
Why? None of this was necessary but for Bush's megalomanical personality, his insanity, his measurable psychosis! Of course Bush and company wish to control Iraqi oil. But is it necessary to carry out mass murder, torture, and other heinous atrocities in order to do so? Is it necessary to create and promote hellish chaos? There must surely be an easier way to steal oil. A total moron could not have done worse than Bush.
Like the proposed "surge", the execution of Saddam Hussein has already proven to have been counter-productive. The hypocrisy is glaring. Bush, himself, is no more innocent than Saddam. Unlike Saddam, Bush is protected by a modern day Praetorian guard -a convenient corollary of raw power that subverts American democratic ideals even as it vindicates that notorious Nazi: Hermann Goering.
The execution of Saddam Hussein has proven to the Sunnis that Bush has already taken sides in the civil war that the Bush denies exists. The backlash has already begun, exacerbating the sectarian nature of Iraqi violence.
Saddam's execution laid bare the hyprocrisy for yet another Bush war rationale. It's hard to imagine how executing anyone convicted by a kangaroo court advances the cause of justice or democracy. It`s hard to imagine how anything good can come of this travesty of a "trial". There may have been a legitimate case against Saddam. There may have been legitimate accusations. But they were not heard in this court where the rules of evidence clearly did not apply, where the presumption of innocence was abandoned, where defense objections were dismissed out of hand, where the fix was in.
The vengeful nature of the Saddam execution makes stark the US/Bush defeat in Iraq.
If you watch the video of the moments leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution, am I wrong that it bears a certain resemblance to the terrorist snuff films we've watched out of Iraq over the last three years? A dark, dank room. The executioners wear not uniforms of any sort, either civilian or military, but street clothes and ski masks. We now learn that the executioners were apparently taken from the population of southern Iraq, the country's Shi'a heartland, where Saddam's repression was most severe. And in an apt symbolic statement on what the Iraq War is about, two of the executioners who saw Saddam off started hailing Moktada al Sadr in Saddam's face as they prepared to hang him. Remember, al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the force the 'surge' of new US troops is meant to crush next year. That's where we are.
Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and a staunch friend of India, who consistently supported India on Kashmir and other issues. US corporate and British government media outlets have already tried to convict Saddam by playing up the Halabja massacres and other accusations which are not even part of this trial. When unsubstantiated allegations were made that Iraq was behind the plot to kill former US President George H.W Bush in Kuwait , father of the current US President in 1993, President Bill Clinton had hit Iraq with missiles. Why no charges against him!
Swiss legal expert Prof Marc Henzelin, Professor of international law at Geneva University had declined to defend Saddam Hussein. He put it this way in the same article:
"Wonderful material for a US television series but nothing to do with a fair trial. I think it is all about justifying the United States' invasion of Iraq and to string Saddam Hussein up sooner rather than later without asking too many questions.”
The nature of the war -called illegal by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan -raises doubts about the legitimacy of Saddam`s trial itself --let alone the suspicious conduct of it. When Saddam -guilty or not -is executed by the illegitimate government of Jawad al Maliki, the US will have committed another war crime in a string of war crimes not matched since Adolph Hitler.
The case is often made that Saddam and the United States were partners in the perpetration of war crimes. See Robert Fisk`s latest article, He takes his secrets to the grave. Our complicity dies with him. Convenient for Saddam`s American co-conspirators! Here`s an excerpt:
The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is ead.
Gone is the man who personally received the CIA's help in destroying the Iraqi communist party. After Saddam seized power, US intelligence gave his minions the home addresses of communists in Baghdad and other cities in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union's influence in Iraq. Saddam's mukhabarat visited every home, arrested the occupants and their families, and butchered the lot.
Is the subversion of the very concepts of western justice what Bush meant when he said that we were fighting for Democracy in Iraq? Of the many lies told by Bush to justify his war of naked aggression, this must surely be the most egregious. America, under Bush`s criminal regime, proves itself not merely incapable but unwilling to support the very ideals of our founding.
Efforts by the right wing to blame Iraqis are not merely ludicrous and stupid, they consist of cynical, right wing spin not based on fact. It is the ghost of Karl Rove, typical of the right wing "blame the victim" mentality that has all but poisoned American politics. Iraqi citizens did not ask America to bomb the hell out of them, destroy their infrastrusture, poison the water supply, loot the museum, and, in other ways, murder at least 600,000 civilians in a war of naked aggression.
The American public has no faith in the war and less faith in the commander-in-chief. This is more ruinous than Viet Nam. It is folly not matched since Adolph Hitler insisted upon attacking the Soviet Union. The whole rotten edifice would come crashing down, he said. Americans, having grown up with the images of The Longest Day and, more recently, Saving Private Ryan, have a much harder time imagining the cruel nature of the German v Russia struggle played out over a shifting and bitter winter front of some several thousand miles, from Lenningrad (now St. Petersburg, it's original name) to the Black Sea.
Bush will keep America in Iraq to its bitter ruin -unless he is stopped by an enraged populace. Otherwise, more will die needlessly to satisfy the his bloodlust. The reality, seemingly lost amid the headlines, is simply this: the so-called commander-in-chief flouts the opinions of his own generals, a panel of infinitely more intelligent and competent people from both sides of the political spectrum, and some 70 percent of the American people who are now fed up with this utter stupidity, this ruinous catastrophe.
A question was put to me recently: What is a citizen to do when his/her own country embarks upon a disastrous and immoral course? Why is the lesson of Viet Nam so easily forgotten? Perhaps they were never learned! Indeed, the architects of this American defeat --the most humiliating since Little Big Horn or the Tet Offensive -all seem to have cut their teeth on the many failures of Richard Nixon. Later, this cast of characters were seen hanging around the Reagan White House.
I suggest that the US identify the real "evil doers", the hangovers from Nixon, Reagan, and now Bush, and sweep these lying bastards into the dustbin of history. It is our only hope. Otherwise, a free nation is lost.
Another question put to me: Can America find its way back? Probably not. Whose constituency will have the stomach to restore the many lost liberties when a recent poll indicates that most Americans oppose the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution, i.e. the Bill of Rights? It is safe to say that those nations losing their liberties never restore them. An early case: Octavian who took the title Augustus. He pledged to restore the Republic of Rome but never got around to it. By the time Claudius assumed the mantle, the Republic was just a distant memory; emperors ruled like Oriental despots. At last, of course, the Empire broke apart and fell. By the time Rome pulled its legions out of Britain, the fall was swift and a swath of destruction and scorched earth was evident from the shores of the English Channel all the way to Rome.
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyBush seems to be scrambling to consolidate dictatorial powers before his administration comes crashing down around him. According to the Washington Post, Bush has moved to implement the recent bill that abrogates habeas corpus, authorizing military trials of so-called "enemy combatants". The US District Court in Washington has been summarily notified that it no longer has jurisdiction in such cases and may no longer consider "... hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba."
Habeas corpus, a Latin term meaning "you have the body," is one of the oldest principles of English and American law. It requires the government to show a legal basis for holding a prisoner. A series of unresolved federal court cases brought against the administration over the last several years by lawyers representing the detainees had left the question in limbo.
Bush's move may put the US in unchartered waters. Clearly —the bill demanded by Bush and duly passed by the obeisant Congress is unconstitutional on its face. Even the stodgy Wall Street Journal said that the law was "... a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court", stripping the courts of all jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus claims filed by so-called "enemy combatants" anywhere in the world.
Why is this issue still on the table? Two years ago, Rasul v. Bush decided in favor of the Guantanamo detainees, giving them the right to challenge their detentions. More recently, Hamdan v Rumsfeld ruled decisively in favor of the detainees. The decision was blunt and precise, unequivocal. Clearly —Bush's position is un-American yet the issue persists with congress giving Bush an unconstitutional authority to try detainees before military commission while denying courts all judicial review of habeas corpus claims.
Outrageous!
Tyranny!
The question is raised amid rumors of intervention: will the Supreme Court strike down the law?
The terror legislation set to be signed into law Tuesday by President Bush sits atop an ideological fault line that sharply divides the US Supreme Court and highlights the emerging power of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The new law rejects at least five key holdings by the liberal wing of the court and sets the stage for what many analysts believe will be yet another historic showdown between the courts, the president, and Congress.
Mr. Bush's authorization of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will trigger a barrage of challenges asking judges to strike down the law as illegal, unconstitutional, or both. And it has sparked a heated debate among legal scholars and lawmakers.
It would appear that despite Bush's order, the case will go to the Supreme Court where a decision to strike down the bill may be a 5-4 decision with Justice Kennedy the swing vote against Bush's bill.
According to the Post, Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights representing many of the detainees has promised to challenge the bill and filing a motion for dismissal of all of the cases that are at the heart of Bush's order to the court.
"We and other habeas counsel are going to vigorously oppose dismissal of these cases," Warren said. "We are going to challenge that law as violating the Constitution on several grounds." Whichever side loses in the upcoming court battles, he said, will then appeal to the Supreme Court.
The GOP opposition to Bush is growing on two fronts. First —the Iraq Study Group (ISG), co-chaired by former secretary of state, James Baker, billing itself a "bipartisan commission". The best headlines associated with the commission were Baker's comments that Iraq was a "helluva mess".
Secondly —some Republican senators have signalled that they might side with a new Democratic majority unless Bush changes course. The group wants a "decisive rethink" on Iraq. That Democrats may capture both houses is the impetus to this group which might find itself in a position to support cutting war funding if the administration continues to ignore the growing chorus of war critics.
So far, however, the Iraq Study Group fails to impress. Washington Post's Dana Millbank says the group has nothing to report:
If President Bush and the Iraqi government are hoping for some solutions from the congressionally commissioned Iraq Study Group, they might want to start thinking about a Plan B.
Former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), the study group's co-chairmen, called a briefing yesterday to give a "progress report" on their activities. A dozen television cameras and scores of reporters filled the hall -- only to discover that Baker and Hamilton had revived Jerry Seinfeld's "show about nothing" format.
Millbank has a point. "Helluva mess" tells us as much about Iraq as "stay the course". "Helluva mess" is, of course, the result of having no course to stay.
Indeed it would appear that the Iraq Study Group has already made Bush's biggest mistake: it cannot define success. That may be because the purpose of the group was never designed to make of Iraq a success but, rather, to come up with a way to save George W. Bush's ass —if not his face. Bush cannot save face, however, when nothing will ever change the fact that his war was lost when he began it upon a pack of malicious lies.
Already the ISG has ruled out victory which Bush had clearly hoped to avoid having to define. Bush calls "victory" his objective; he talks about the "enemy". What he has utterly failed to understand is that the enemy in Iraq is the people themselves for whom the US presence is an abominable violation of their nation's sovereignty and the personhood of each citizen of Iraq. What, therefore, is victory when the people themselves oppose the occupation. Does victory consist of the brutal murder of every last Iraqi who dares to oppose the illegal aggression waged against him and his nation? Bush might have gotten away with an endless string of lies and platitudes had not the lack of victory been so spectacular that it will neutralize any "October Surprise" that Karl Rove might have wanted to stage.
The Study Group is, therefore, a cynical, disingenuous exercise that might as well have GOP stamped all over it.
Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.
It must be pointed out, however, that achieving "stability" in Iraq can never be touted by Bush supporting GOPPERS as a "victory". Iraq, after all, was "stable" before Bush destabilized it. At best, "stabilization" achieves a tenuous status quo ante but with a tragic loss of innocent civilian lives. Among the various options, none are good. Bush lost the battle of Iraq.
WASHINGTON: US President George W Bush vowed on Saturday not to give in to Iraqi insurgents, but promised to adjust his administration's tactics in the country to changing circumstances.
In his weekly radio address, Bush acknowledged that Ramadan has been "rough" for both US troops and Iraqis.
But he attributed the growing violence to more active operations by US troops as well as "a sophisticated propaganda strategy" pursued by insurgents.
"There is one thing we will not do: We will not pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," Bush said.
But what IS the mission? Bush has no clue. Bush has proven himself incapable of articulating a mission; he issues only empty, meaningless, shallow platitudes, slogans like "stay the course" as opposed to "cut and run". This is kool-aid cooked up and/or concocted by GOP focus groups, chosen for its ability to stir up primal fears and instincts. Fact is: there is no mission, there is no glorious victory. Only utterly meaningless death, human tragedy and a sinister vision of apocalypse —the price humankind pays for vainglorious visions of imperial dictatorship and world domination.
I have been opposed to the war in Iraq from the beginning. Unfortunately, it has been a tragedy for all concerned. We must change course. Continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result is simply not acceptable. It is time to admit our error and to begin to move forward in a new direction. [emphasis mine, lh] Barbara Dunaway, Santa Barbara, California
I, like many Americans, gave the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt prior to the start of the war. Since then, with no weapons of mass destruction to be found, the tribal warfare which has historically existed in Iraq preventing progress in the move toward democracy, the thousands of military personnel who have died, and the billions of US dollars that are being spent on this effort instead of important domestic problems, I am appalled and disgusted that we are now stuck in what appears to be a no-win situation. Diana Ananda, Bellevue, Kentucky
In February 2003, I thought a war with Iraq was unnecessary, unwise, and unlawful... Three years later, more than 2,700 U.S. troops killed, 20,000 plus injured, 650,000 or so Iraqis dead, and no end it sight. My opinion has not changed. Hey, what do I know? I learned all this from various news sources; too bad the Bush administration was not listening to their own experts. John Marsh, East Lansing, Michigan
Bush himself is forced to make the analogy with the "tet offensive" in Viet Nam. The US has lost the "Battle of Baghdad. But, of course, it's not his fault says his press secretary. It's the fault of the "terrorists" for daring to show the truth in pictures:
"The president was making a point that he's made before, which is that terrorists try to exploit pictures and try to use the media as conduits for influencing public opinion in the United States," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters yesterday.
Now that Bush as rescinded the right of habeas corpus, it a quantum leap to Bush merely ordering the arrest of anyone daring to exploit the truth, using pictures that don't lie, and in other ways "exploiting" the reality of an utter failed, stupid, cruel and abominable war crime.More about how the web of lies, spin, and deception endanger all us from Keith Olbermann:
As the GOP once again descends into scandal, depravity, and treason, it must be pointed out that the more things change the more they stay the same. I wrote the following article shortly after the election of Bill Clinton when it was hoped that a new broom would sweep clean. It is a look back at the Reagan/Bush years —an era that I had hoped was gone forever. While Bill Clinton did not promise to undo every horror perpetrated by the back-to-back debacles of Reagan/Bush, he was a breath of fresh air sweeping across a fetid bog, a GOP cesspool. Would that it had lasted but a bit longer!
The last presidential election turned out to be a referendum on "values" after all —though the outcome was not what Dan Quayle had in mind when he attacked Murphy Brown. The real values of the GOP were not family values at all. They were, rather, elitist values, a charade unveiled by a failing Reagan/Bush economy. With the ascension of Bill Clinton, it was apparent that it was "...the economy, stupid!", that the GOP White House had for twelve years gone through the motions in a bubble. It was a White House isolated from real problems, real issues, a real world. It was a White House [like that of Bush today] of delusions, spin, and demagogic sloganeering. It was Bush [Senior], himself, who said in his second debate: "I'm not sure I get it". That was one of only two things Bush Sr. was ever right about. The second was "voodoo economics".
But the Reagan/Bush dynasty did not fail. It succeeded in "getting government off the backs" of country club cronies, oil barons, the upper one percent of the nation. Reagan/Bush would be more fondly remembered had it failed. Sadly, twelve years of GOP success either created or rewarded a privileged aristocracy still clamoring for privilege and special treatment by the tax man. This is success that the country would do better without.
The rest of us pegged the family values talk for what it was: old fashion elitism, intolerance, bigotry. What historian Henry Steele Commager said of Warren Harding and the era of normalcy which followed his corrupt, scandal ridden administration can be said of the Reagan/Bush years:
Never before had the government of the United States been more unashamedly the instrument of privileged groups; never before had statesmanship given way so unreservedly to politics.
—Henry Steel Commager
The pundits blame the President's lack of "...the vision thing". However, vision belongs to those who see a need for change and make constructive proposal in good faith. George Bush [Sr] may have been sincere when he said things weren't so bad. They weren't! For him and his rich cronies. Hadn't Marie Antoinette said something similar? Let them eat cake! Had not Herbert Hoover, likewise, opined that the poor might do well to sell apples and oranges from a push cart?
Pat Buchanan's "hate speech" at the GOP National Convention proved to have been a throw back to bad ol' days, specifically, the administrations of Harding, Hoover, and Coolidge when American society was materialistic, intolerant, an era when membership in the Ku Klux Klan rose to millions.
Much of the problem is the character of the American rich —the GOP's core constituency. They are overly impressed with themselves. They imagine that they are the "upper class". They delude themselves by thinking themselves intelligent and citing their wealth in evidence. The nouveau riche are the most egregious offenders, more likely to think their wealth deserved.
The English aristocracy —by contrast —are educated at Cambridge and Oxford. An American Rhodes scholar was impressed with English university life and summed it up this way:
Three thousand young men, every one of whom would rather lose a game than play it unfairly.
Those are most certainly not the values that can be associated with the party that gave this nation a slogan: Greed is good. Those are not the values of a party knee deep in the Savings and Loan scandal. Those are not the values of the Boeskys, the Helmsleys, Iran/Contra, Watergate, and Iraq-gate.
As mentioned this essay was written in the twilight of Bush Sr's regime as Bill Clinton waited in the wings to take the oath of office. If Bush Junior had merely picked up where Iran/Contra and the Savings and Loan scandal left off, it would have been bad enough. Alas, Junior was not merely crooked, he has attacked the very foundations of our republic. He sold out to his "base" —a venal cabal of the super, super rich, the defense establishment, and the oil industry. He has placed two nations into the hand of this Axis of Privilege and ruthlessness —the United States and Iraq.
That Bush now wants to send more troops to Iraq means that he has lost control of policy and lost control of Iraq. Never mind that the war is already lost; at least three Civil Wars already rage; the "insurgents" are not "insurgents" but a guerrilla war against the illegal US occupation of Iraq. But we were told that we would be greeted as liberators. Not so!
Former Secretary of State Jim Baker says pulling out now will create more chaos! There is chaos now! Repeating the failed strategy, staying the course that is no course will but create more chaos at greater cost in both American and Iraqi lives. Iraq, meanwhile, has bankrupted America —yet Bush continues to spend like a drunken sailor. Baker doesn't talk about that. Baker's offensive is nothing new; it's just the tired GOP strategy: repeat the lie often and loud and it will be believed. Cicero warned long ago that the "...mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious."
One is reminded of Winston Churchill who wrote that the statesman "...who yields to war fever...is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." At last, what does "staying the course" and "getting the job done" mean? There is, in fact, no course to stay but mere "war fever" itself. Bush, moreover, has never defined what is meant by winning. Some 650,000 Iraqis are now dead as a result of the US invasion and the wave of civil war that spewed up in its wake. I believe that figure to be even higher than US civil war dead! Now Bush wants to send more troops to Iraq to achieve a "goal" that he cannot even articulate. Bush wants to aggravate an utterly failed strategy by repeating it. Bush wants to raise the stakes on a losing bet —and dares to call himself a "Texan"! Bush has made of us all mere slaves to uncontrollable events.
An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
—Thomas Paine
What good, then, more troops when Bush has already abandoned all our Democratic principles and eschewed habeas corpus? Indeed, so-called "terrorists" could not conquer America from without nor have they the need to do so. Bush has accomplished from within what they could not from without.
What price have we paid for this appalling record of utter failure and ignominious defeat amid unapologetic idiocy and hubris? We have paid the highest price that a free nation can pay. We have paid with our freedom! We have indulged Bush's delusions with our very Constitution. We have suffered his hubris at the expense of Democratic ideals. We have sold our souls.
Even as we were told that the war was fought to preserve our American freedoms, Bush was at work destroying those freedoms more effectively than any terrorist could possibly have done.
"One bit of trivia that caught our eye was the elimination of habeas corpus, which apparently use to be the right of anyone who's tossed in prison to appear in court and say 'Hey, why am in prison?'"
Bush has denounced charges that Iraqis were actually better off under Saddam. Denounce all you want, Bush, but the fact of the matter is this: the average Iraqi had a better chance of surviving Saddam than he has of surviving you and your criminal occupation of his country!
Saddam's regime seems benign compared to the Bush occupation now characterized by heinous torture (another war crime), the deaths of some 650,000 civilians, and a level of violence which Bob Woodward described in his new book and on CBS:
Getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That’s more than 100 a day—that is four an hour. Attacking our forces.
Saddam, we are told, murdered Iraqi people. So has the US.
Saddam, we were told, tortured people. So has the US.
Saddam, we are told, was a "bad man". Well —what makes Bush a good one, when, in fact, Bush has done everything and with more force and brutality than did Saddam.
Saddam, we are told, enslaved the people of Iraq. And Bush has not? And for oil? Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that one who believes himself the master of others —as Bush presumes to master Iraq —"...is a greater slave than they." If I were an Iraqi citizen, what difference would it make to me whether I am murdered or tortured by Saddam or by Bush? Bush and the mindless GOP cultists who follow him blindly seem to think that murder committed by "good" people is good but murder committed by "bad" people is bad. The cult of Bush believes that if done in the name of Democracy, America may enslave the world. In fact, murder is murder and people are defined by what they do. One who murders in cold blood is a cold blooded murderer. One who would enslave others is a tyrant. Bush does not get a pass. Bush must be held to account on both counts.
It was only recently that Bush tried —in bad faith —to link his "war on terrorism" with his abysmal quagmire in Iraq. At the time, Bush polled well only on the "terrorism" issue. Bush had hoped that linkage would pull his fat out of the Iraq fire. That strategy was undermined when some 16 US intelligence agencies linked the two issues in a more honest, straightforward and meaningful manner. They found that the continued US presence in Iraq inspires more terrorism, makes terrorism worse, and inflames the middles east.
If Bush's real goals are merely the theft of Iraqi oil for the benefit of his corporate base, then the war must not be won. But, in fact, the US war of naked aggression against the people of Iraq is already lost. Moreover, it is a heinous war crime that absolutely MUST be prosecuted at the Hague if the ideals of international justice are to be anything but the empty rhetoric and meaningless platitudes that Bush would have you believe that they already are.
Not merely the US but the world must make an existential choice. Our choice will determine the nature of human civilization over the next century; it may even decide if we will have one. Choose Bush and revert to a dark age of technological, fascist totalitarianism that would have made Hitler blush. Reject Bush and the horse he rode in on and we may yet survive to nurture the true ideals upon which our own nation was founded.
Some updates. Keith Olbermann strikes again. His topic is about how George W. Bush murdered the Bill of Rights and HabeasCorpus —an established principle that goes back to Magna Carta:
Keith Olbermann on MSNBC comments on Bush's reaction on Friday to Colin Powell's letter of last week. He suggests that the President owes the nation an apology. Olbermann repeats both the question to the President at the Rose Garden press conference and Bush's response:
Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don’t you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you’re following a flawed strategy? BUSH: If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. It’s just — I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.
And then, without missing a beat, Olbermann says:
Of course it’s acceptable to think that there’s "any kind of comparison."
And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary.
Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists.
Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.
What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right — we have the duty — to think about the comparison.
And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think — and say — what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.
All of us agree about that.
Except, it seems, this President.
With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right. That Colin Powell cannot be right.
Thank you, Mr. Olbermann, for continuing to point out out what is so clearly true.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Brent Budowsky To men and women of faith, in my title I suggested a Google because I do not ask you to believe me, or anyone else, in this politically supercharged election. In this case the truth is more repugnant and immoral than any political comment could fully describe and I suggest you research this yourself and talk about the results with fellow believers.
Jack Abramoff made a fortune of money, then donated a fortune to Republicans, lobbying for the Marianas. These Islands in the Pacific are an American territory not subject to all US laws and on these islands, horrific, disgusting and sinful acts are committed especially against women and children.
This is no different than Mark Foley raising huge political money, then giving a hundred thousand to the Chairman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, and be protected by Republican Leaders for so long. Congressman Reynolds may partially apologize, but when it mattered, Congressman Foley's money talked, because in Washington, if the abusers give more money than the young page, the abusers are protected and pages are endangered.
Same with Jack Abramoff, his money, the support it bought on the Marianas, the damage it did to abused children and women with forced abortions.
This election is far from over, and Pres. Bush and his team are desperate. Their entire agenda — not to mention their freedom from investigation and perhaps indictment and even impeachment — rests on a Republican victory on Nov. 7.
On Sept. 21, Raw Story reported that Karl Rove was telling conservative groups that he had a surprise scheduled for the last two weeks of October that would turn the midterms in the Republicans’ favor.
Now, as mid-October approaches, we have to assume that Rove’s other shoe will drop within a week or so.
We have already seen how suddenly the narrative can change in an election. Eight days after the Raw Story report, Rove found the shoe on the other foot for once when an unnamed Republican operative outed GOP Rep. Mark Foley as chickenhawk who had been stalking Capitol Hill page boys for years. And worse, GOP leaders, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and others, have known about Foley’s predatory ways for months and years, and have been covering it up to keep Foley’s seat in GOP hands. The scandal has had Republicans on the defensive and off-message for two weeks. ...
Bush will not only preside over a military defeat in Iraq, he has already ushered in a new era —the end of the "American Century", the end of American ascension, the end of American empire. The new era is already characterized by increased nuclear proliferation and defiance, the decline of Democratic ideals and outright opposition to US interests all over the world. Much was made of the "de-stabilization" of Iraq. More should have been made of the consequences of our failure. More attention should have been paid to the good will that Bush has now pissed away —perhaps forever.
Bush's only argument in favor of staying in Iraq is itself the most damning indictment of his utterly failed and catastrophic administration. That argument was put forward by former Secretary of State Jim Baker to George Stephanopoulus on ABC: pulling out now will plunge the middle east into chaos and Iraq into civil war. But Baker failed to state the obvious conclusion: staying in Iraq will accomplish the same thing but at greater cost.
Iraq is already engaged in a civil war, a war made worse by the continued US presence. The Middle East is already inflamed. Our allies have already turned against us. The war on terrorism is already failed. The recent report of some 16 US intelligence agencies support that conclusion: the war on Iraq has made "terrorism" worse. When it became abundantly clear that an occupation — intended to last 90 days —began to unravel, Bush and Bushies came up with a seemingly endless string of absurd ex post facto rationales for the war in Iraq. Nevertheless, none were true; none addressed the issue! All were spin born of an article of GOP faith that the only thing that really matters is what you can trick or convince people into believing —even if it's a lie.
In fact, Bush never articulated an American mission in Iraq and declared its accomplishment prematurely. Rather, Bush took this nation to war without a mission. Bush took this nation to war upon lies, meaningless slogans, and various hoaxes —not clearly defined objectives! The occupation, we were told, was to last 90 days. Instead, after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and some four years of bloody occupation and now civil war, more headless bodies, most of them civilians, turn up every day. It is also increasingly clear that "terrorists" have little if anything to do with it. The violence is sectarian in nature, most certainly a civil war waged amid a growing guerrilla war against the illegal US occupation. This war was lost before it began.
Only in fairy tales is straw spun into gold —but the situation in Iraq has turned into an epithet much less attractive than mere straw. If Bush withdraws from Iraq, there is no lie, no spin, no re-framing technique that will make gold of the stinking mess that Bush has created and will leave dumped and unburied in Iraq.
Arguably —no country has been more widely emulated, if not admired, than the US. Though we often did not live up to them, the values we ostensibly advocated —individual liberty, due process of law, the rule of law, and the ideal of equality of opportunity —made of us a beacon of hope at a time when Adolph Hitler ground millions beneath his Nazi boot and Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist. Our prosperity was at once envied and resented. But we were forgiven because of our ability to change and face our problems however painful the result: the labor movement, the struggle for racial equality; the still unrealized dreams of equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or religion.
Until the recent wave of ugly, jingoistic, GOP posturing, we were open to debate and ideas. That is not to say that we never made horrific mistakes. Vietnam, for example, is a lasting shame and tragedy that need not have happened but for a fatal American flaw: hubris!
Today, that flaw is epitomized by George W. Bush, the ruler of the states of denial and delusion. The Mark Foley scandal —as repugnant as it is —is more so because it's the last straw. When millions have already said enough is enough, Foley pulls the rug from beneath the well-oiled GOP propaganda machine. Now —even George Will quips that Republicans must awaken each day with but one thought: "What can we do to offend the base?" Even Tony Blankley has been heard muttering that maybe the GOP ought to lose. Don't lose sleep over it, Tony. Just give us a free and fair election and count the votes. The people will speak.
Indeed, the Foley scandal —more properly, the cover up and handling of it by the GOP leadership —has proven for all time that the GOP mission since the ascension of Ronald Reagan, since the Contract with America, has all been an abominable fraud.
... according to a flurry of polls, endangering their control of Congress in the November 7 elections.
Democrats hold a growing advantage heading into the final four weeks of the campaign, with analysts moving more Republican-held seats into the high-risk category and improving the odds of Democrats seizing control of at least the House of Representatives.
The polls, all taken after the sex scandal surfaced, show Democratic candidates with huge leads over Republicans amid broad public unhappiness about the Iraq war, Bush's leadership and the Republican-led Congress.
"These polls seem to suggest the public has decided to just 'throw the bums out,"' said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
"These are huge, huge, numbers and they are very bad for Republicans," she said. "There is not a shred of good news in these polls for Republicans."
Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann's strongest commentary to date, calling Bush out, telling the "President" that he is a liar:
TIME declares end of the Republican One-Party Reign of Error
Sex, lies and power games are just the latest symptoms of a Republican Party that has strayed from its ideals
By KAREN TUMULTY
Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left. The epitaph for the movement that started when Newt Gingrich and his forces rose from the back bench of the House chamber in 1994 may well have been written last week in the same medium that incubated it: talk radio. On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's show, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his leadership and the failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages. "If I fold up my tent and leave," Dennis Hastert told her, "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."
That quiet admission may have been the most damning one yet in the unfolding scandal surrounding Florida Congressman Mark Foley: holding on to power has become not just the means but also the end for the onetime reformers who in 1994 unseated a calcified and corrupted Democratic majority. Washington scandals, it seems, have been following a Moore's law of their own, coming at a faster clip every time there is a shift in control. It took 40 years for the House Democrats to exhaust their goodwill. It may take only 12 years for the Republicans to get there. ...
There is a temptation to relax as Bush and his endemically crooked party seem headed for political oblivion. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The cornered sewer rat is dangerous:
For some 30 years, the Argentine women known as the Madres (Mothers) de La Plaza de Mayo have marched every Thursday in front of the Presidential Palace of Argentina. They gather in memory of their children and grandchildren, who were among the estimated 30,000 people who disappeared during "Operation Condor." Another 50,000 people were murdered.
"Operation Condor" reached its peak in the 1970s. With assistance from the United States, and the support and knowledge of Henry Kissinger, five of the southern cone South American nations conducted a campaign of unspeakable torture and killing against their own citizens.
When you look at the photos carried by many of the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo, you see middle class men in suits and ties and nicely dressed women. You see young children with smiling faces.
What happened during Operation Condor is so horrific – all done in the name of the safety and security of "the nation" – that it is barely speakable. The torture included one of the Bush Administration’s favorite techniques – waterboarding – and many other methods. Families were forced to watch or listen to their love ones being mutilated. Friends were required to conduct torture on those that they knew. Pregnant women were allowed to stay alive until their babies were born, then they were murdered. Their children were given to military families who adopted them.
In a New Yorker article a few years back, a former member of the Argentinian military recalled flights over the Atlantic where drugged and bound Argentinians, whose interrogation was finished, were thrown alive into the ocean. Bodies of the already killed were dumped into the Rio de la Plata, which divides Argentina and Uruguay.
Many Americans will say that this horror cannot happen in the United States, but they are wrong. Legally, as a result of the legislation passed in September, it is now quite possible.
As was the case in Argentina, America now allows the President or his designate to declare a person an "enemy combatant" (or enemy of the state) without any judicial process. In short, a person becomes an "enemy of America" on the mere basis that Bush or his designate says so.
The fundamental problem with such power is that it allows tyrannical authority to detain anyone, without the right of habeas corpus, on the mere whim or suspicion of the executive branch of government. No one will be informed of the detention, no court will review it, no recourse will be allowed the relatives or friends of the detained.
They will become the new "disappeared," as many foreigners have already become in the CIA gulag of secret prisons, and the not-so-secret jails in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new law is vague enough that the Bush Administration, which drives a Mack truck through loopholes or openly disregards congressional laws, can justify arresting American citizens it simply declares are providing support to those it declares are enemies of America.
It is "Operation Condor" all over again.
What one must remember about "Operation Condor" and Gitmo, for example, is that they were basically horrifying fishing expeditions. One did not need to be guilty of anything. One was adjudged guilty merely because a state authorized agent declared one so. In "Operation Condor" – as at Gitmo – the vast majority of people were detained and tortured merely on the suspicion that they might have some knowledge of value. And if they didn’t, it was their bad luck – and their detention would be a sacrifice paid for the "security of the nation."
It is not a large leap – however much Americans would like to think otherwise – from the summary arrest, torture and occasional murder of foreigners to applying the same process to residents of the United States. Suspicion or politically-motivated accusations of the government become equivalent to a sentence of guilt. Bush has already declared persons who disagree with his Iraq policies "tools of the terorrists."
To those who say that the recently passed legislation may allow Bush to authorize torture as he deems fit, but that it prohibits murder, we have two words: Abu Ghraib. How quickly we have forgotten that a number of detainees at Abu Ghraib were tortured to death, with no one in the Bush Administration held accountable.
One cannot fully control torture as if it were a thermostat. When you start down the road of torture, people are going to die accidentally. And then when the culture of torture becomes ingrained in the military, people will start to be murdered. It is hard to contain torture; it is impossible to just torture the "guilty." Soon, it becomes – as it did in "Operation Condor" – a nightmare combination of "trolling" and "cleansing" the political opposition.
In such an environment, torture is the first step on a descent into state-authorized murder to achieve political goals, not necessarily "national security."
The mothers of the disappeared, clutching photos now more than three decades old, know this truth.
It was Henry Kissinger who brought us a prolonged war in Vietnam, the bombing that led to the Khmer Rouge massacre in Cambodia, the death squads in Central America, the East Timor slaughter, and Operation Condor -- among other potential war crimes.
It is not a coincidence that he has allegedly returned as an advisor to Bush and Cheney on the debacle in Iraq – and perhaps on other matters. Kissinger believed and believes that murder in the name of some vague notion of "American supremacy" is justified (although he won’t publicly acknowledge it). More than 80,000 victims of Operation Condor are murdered testaments to his worldview. (Kissinger will not travel to several nations, including France, because he would face judicial questioning in these countries about his role in Operation Condor.)
He now has the ear of a man who has been given Operation Condor-like authority. Yes, it is true that murder per se is not sanctioned in the new Congressional legislation; but how would we know if someone has been murdered if we are not told why or by whom they have been detained?
That is how the children and grandchildren of the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo came to be "los desaparecidos."
The mothers and fathers who march in Plaza de Mayo each Thursday are now senior citizens. Their losses are three decades behind them, but still they demand accountability for the nightmare of abduction, torture and death that gripped their nation and the surrounding countries of Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia.
When the mothers first began marching, Operation Condor was still in place. So it followed that some of them, including the founder, "disappeared" because they demanded the right of habeas corpus for their loved ones.
It is early October and the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. "Operation Condor" appears a distant memory amidst the bustling city of Buenos Aires. Trees and flowers are blossoming. Lovers openly embrace and kiss in the many parks. It is the annual time of seasonal renewal in Argentina.
For some nations, their long nightmare of people being declared "enemies of the state" by faceless men, then tortured and killed is over.
For the U.S., the long nightmare of the disappeared is just beginning to take shape.
And, if that were not scary enough, CNN reports on Donald Rumsfeld's role in North Korea getting nuclear weapons. What was the extent of Donald Rumsfeld's involvement in a US sale of nuclear reactors to North Korea?
(FORTUNE Magazine) – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors.
The company is Zurich-based engineering giant ABB, which signed the contract in early 2000, well before Rumsfeld gave up his board seat and joined the Bush administration. Rumsfeld, the only American director on the ABB board from 1990 to early 2001, has never acknowledged that he knew the company was competing for the nuclear contract. Nor could FORTUNE find any public reference to what he thought about the project. In response to questions about his role in the reactor deal, the Defense Secretary's spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told Newsweek in February that "there was no vote on this" and that her boss "does not recall it being brought before the board at any time."
Rumsfeld declined requests by FORTUNE to elaborate on his role. But ABB spokesman Bjorn Edlund has told FORTUNE that "board members were informed about this project." And other ABB officials say there is no way such a large and high-stakes project, involving complex questions of liability, would not have come to the attention of the board. "A written summary would probably have gone to the board before the deal was signed," says Robert Newman, a former president of ABB's U.S. nuclear division who spearheaded the project. "I'm sure they were aware."
FORTUNE contacted 15 ABB board members who served at the time the company was bidding for the Pyongyang contract, and all but one declined to comment. That director, who asked not to be identified, says he's convinced that ABB's chairman at the time, Percy Barnevik, told the board about the reactor project in the mid-1990s. "This was a major thing for ABB," the former director says, "and extensive political lobbying was done."
The director recalls being told that Rumsfeld was asked "to lobby in Washington" on ABB's behalf in the mid-1990s because a rival American company had complained about a foreign-owned firm getting the work. Although he couldn't provide details, Goran Lundberg, who ran ABB's power-generation business until 1995, says he's "pretty sure that at some point Don was involved," since it was not unusual to seek help from board members "when we needed contacts with the U.S. government." Other former top executives don't recall Rumsfeld's involvement.
Today Rumsfeld, riding high after the Iraq war, is reportedly discussing a plan for "regime change" in North Korea. But his silence about the nuclear reactors raises questions about what he did--or didn't do--as an ABB director. There is no evidence that Rumsfeld, who took a keen interest in the company's nuclear business and attended most board meetings, made his views about the project known to other ABB officials. He certainly never made them public, even though the deal was criticized by many people close to Rumsfeld, who said weapons-grade nuclear material could be extracted from light-water reactors. Paul Wolfowitz, James Lilley, and Richard Armitage, all Rumsfeld allies, are on record opposing the deal. So is former presidential candidate Bob Dole, for whom Rumsfeld served as campaign manager and chief defense advisor. And Henry Sokolski, whose think tank received funding from a foundation on whose board Rumsfeld sat, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the 1994 agreement.
One clue to Rumsfeld's views: a Heritage Foundation speech in March 1998. Although he did not mention the light-water reactors, Rumsfeld said the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea "does not end its nuclear menace; it merely postpones the reckoning, with no assurance that we will know how much bomb-capable material North Korea has." A search of numerous databases found no press references at the time, or throughout the 1990s, noting Rumsfeld was a director of the company building the reactors. And Rumsfeld didn't bring it up either. ...
For a brief time following the events of 911 the United States enjoyed widespread support throughout the world. It took a George W. Bush to squander all that goodwill. It is not surprising that along with a Congressional majority and over 90 percent approval rating, the policies of George W. Bush are now almost universally reviled. A new world wide poll by the BBC suggests that US policies are almost universally rejected, denounced by majorities as high as two-thirds or more on most issues and much higher on still others.
