Americans deserve candor, not more hopeful 'updates'
USA Today
Tue Jun 21, 7:09 AM ET
Another day, another round of bombings, electricity cuts, death and destruction in Iraq. Monday's grim tally included a suicide attack in northern Iraq that killed at least 15 traffic policemen and wounded 100. Insurgents' sabotage of water pipes left 2 million sweltering Baghdadis without water.
Nothing, in other words, out of the ordinary. Just more evidence that the United States is bogged down in Iraq, battling a fierce insurgency with the outcome uncertain. More than two years after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, no end is in view for the 140,000 U.S. troops. More than 1,700 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives.
Not surprisingly, public support for the war in Iraq is slipping. Almost six in 10 Americans, in a Gallup poll this month, want some or all troops to come home. For the first time, a bipartisan group of congressmen is beginning to press for an exit deadline.
The White House response? A series of speeches starting this week intended, according to spokesman Scott McClellan, as an "update" for the American people. But far more is needed than another hopeful scenario, or a set of idealistic goals without a hard assessment of the realities on the ground and what has brought the USA to this point.
That sort of assessment has been missing from the Bush administration, which still seems in denial that its Iraq adventure has strayed so far from the original plan.
Instead of candor, the administration has supplied a stream of shifting explanations about the reasons for the Iraq war, realities on the ground, expected costs, duration and outcome.
Start with the primary reason President Bush cited for the war: that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that threatened the USA. No such weapons were found. Nor was any credible connection to al-Qaeda. The administration then switched to the argument that its chief aims were to remove a dictator and bring democracy to the region.
Or the low-balling on costs. Former Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq strategy, early on estimated a "range from $10 billion to $100 billion." The war tab so far tops $200 billion.
Or the too-early declaration of victory. On May 1, 2003, Bush landed on a returning aircraft carrier, declaring major combat operations over against the backdrop of a "Mission Accomplished" banner. The triumph was short-lived as an insurgency took hold.
Since then, officials have repeatedly underestimated the insurgency. Every event that was supposed to derail it - the capture of Saddam, the transfer of sovereignty, the elections in January - has failed to do so. Just three weeks ago, Vice President Cheney said the insurgency was in its "last throes." Tell that to the families of dozens of Iraqis and Americans who've died since.
No battle plan, the military truism runs, survives the first contact with the enemy. But winning the battles, and the wars, requires recognizing misjudgments and recalibrating.
How to recalibrate in Iraq? Start with unflinching answers to three questions:
• What is the right U.S. troop level? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted Iraq to be a showcase for his efforts to transform the military into a lean, high-tech force. The 150,000 combat troops deployed turned out to be enough to topple Saddam - but not enough to secure the peace. Today, reports from Iraq suggest that forces are stretched too thin to overwhelm the insurgency.
Meanwhile, recruiting has become difficult, forces are drawn thin elsewhere and a draft is a political non-starter. Caught in that squeeze, it's fair to wonder where the administration's thinking begins. Does it ask first what's needed to win the war and then supply it? Or does it say this force level is what's politically possible; make do. The latter invites failure.
• When will Iraqis be able to take over? The U.S. strategy, properly, is for Iraqi forces to defend their country. Improving their skills is supposed to ease the pressure on U.S. forces, and their number, 169,000, is impressive. Nonetheless, it hides a dismal reality: They are patchily trained. Minimum competence could take two years or more.
• How long can public support be maintained? Americans have until now generally backed the war, but recent erosion is ominous. Painting more rosy scenarios that are never attained would accelerate that erosion, eventually making the war unsustainable. Americans need to understand what success is supposed to look like, and they need benchmarks they can see achieved.
In our view, there is no choice but to stay the course. Cutting and running would cauterize the losses, but the longer-term risks are alarming: of Iraq becoming a terrorist refuge; of full-scale civil war; of hopes for democracy crumbling in Iraq and the region.
Preventing all that from happening requires looking at the facts as they are, not as some might wish them to be, and adjusting the approach accordingly.
The White House declined to submit an opposing view to this editorial.
Copyright © 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
A Compelling Article Of Gay Pride
Articles of Faith: In the Spirit of Pride
The Task Force Media
By Christian de la Huerta
The Pride celebrations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community celebrated across the country during June must seem a strange ritual to outsiders. With a wild mix of go-go boys, drag queens and topless lesbians, all throbbing to tribal drumbeats, this seemingly self-indulgent display causes outrage for social conservatives, and chagrin for those in the gay community who would like to see us acting more conventionally. But perhaps there is another way to look at Pride besides as an exercise in hedonism: perhaps it represents the pressing back of cultural boundaries by a people uniquely qualified for spiritual exploration.
Throughout history, people we today label lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender have been honored for their roles of spiritual service and leadership. In many cultural contexts, gay people have been the healers, teachers, shamans, keepers of beauty, mediators and peacekeepers; those who "walked between the worlds." For queer spiritual practitioners, not only is their homosexuality or gender identity not a sin, sickness or abomination, it is a gift, a blessing and a privilege. It is the element of their personality that has pushed them outside the realm of comfort and conventionality and into the place of mystery inhabited by those who fulfill roles of sacred service. If there is any doubt about the pervasiveness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in religious leadership roles, it would be a compelling exercise if, on some weekend, every single queer minister, rabbi, music director, teacher or other spiritual functionary stayed home from religious services.
The term "Gay Pride" barely begins to capture the sense of honor and respect this rich spiritual heritage deserves. According to the Dagara tribe in Africa, certain people Westerners would identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are uniquely physically and energetically suited to be "gatekeepers," the guardians of the doorways into other worlds, realms and realities. The Dagara believe that much of the pain and woundedness of the world can be traced to a lack of respect for these spiritual gatekeepers. In fact, author and speaker Malidoma Some says that part of the reason the world is in the shape that it is in is because the gatekeepers "have been fired from their jobs."
Similarly, among Native American peoples, the Two-Spirit were thought to have special powers and played key roles in tribal ceremonies. These people, who lived on the edges of tribal life, were associated with the gift of prophecy and the implementation of rituals, and were said to possess healing powers. Today Two-Spirits are regaining their place of honor among many Native American communities after being annihilated or forced to go underground during the European invasion.
Is it any wonder that mystics and saviors of many spiritual traditions can often be found with those on the margins of society? Perhaps, beyond "healing" the poor, the religiously unclean and the sexually different, these prophets found in these people a spiritual kinship that sustained their ministries. If the historical figures of Elijah, Buddha, or Jesus were to come back today, I would not be surprised to find them in gay bars, with "welfare moms" or with AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. For it is people in the boundary places of the world who are often closest to the Divine.
All this does not mean that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are better than straight people. (After all, heterosexuals should not be blamed for not having a "choice" about their sexual orientation!) It does mean, however, that queer people should have a sense of responsibility to continue bringing light, healing and spirit to the world, even if the world does not yet realize or fully appreciate our value and contributions.
Furthermore, it is time for religious leaders to stop asking queer people to apologize for who we are and to recognize our innate spiritual offerings of service and leadership. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have gravitated to and fulfilled spiritual roles throughout history, in numbers that far exceed our proportion to the overall population. We have contributed tremendously to the evolution of humanity.
For those who snicker or cringe at the fabulous excess of Gay Pride festivals, realize this: These are the outsiders, the spiritual warriors, the scouts of consciousness who are integrating spirit and sexuality for much of the rest of society. We owe these modern-day shamans the latitude they need and the respect they deserve to do this crucial work.
And for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the world is crying out for us to speak from a place of real power and pride. We must know, in the deepest recesses of our souls, in the very fabric of our tissues, in every one of our cells in every part of our bodies, that we are blessed in the ways we express our love and our passion. Our blessing is that we know love, and we must love deeply, passionately and selflessly. It is our calling as a people. It is our calling as human beings.
This spiritual calling is what I will be celebrating during Gay Pride. I invite all of you who hear this call within you to do the same.
Christian de la Huerta is a member of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He is the author of Coming Out Spiritually, and founder of Q Spirit and Revolutionary Wisdom.
First convened in 1998, the National Religious Leadership Roundtable of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is an interfaith collaboration of more than forty denominations and faith-related organizations. The Roundtable seeks to reframe the public religious dialogue on issues involving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by amplifying the voices of LGBT-affirming people of faith, countering religious voices of bigotry and intolerance, and working to advance full equality for all.
The Task Force Media
By Christian de la Huerta
The Pride celebrations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community celebrated across the country during June must seem a strange ritual to outsiders. With a wild mix of go-go boys, drag queens and topless lesbians, all throbbing to tribal drumbeats, this seemingly self-indulgent display causes outrage for social conservatives, and chagrin for those in the gay community who would like to see us acting more conventionally. But perhaps there is another way to look at Pride besides as an exercise in hedonism: perhaps it represents the pressing back of cultural boundaries by a people uniquely qualified for spiritual exploration.
Throughout history, people we today label lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender have been honored for their roles of spiritual service and leadership. In many cultural contexts, gay people have been the healers, teachers, shamans, keepers of beauty, mediators and peacekeepers; those who "walked between the worlds." For queer spiritual practitioners, not only is their homosexuality or gender identity not a sin, sickness or abomination, it is a gift, a blessing and a privilege. It is the element of their personality that has pushed them outside the realm of comfort and conventionality and into the place of mystery inhabited by those who fulfill roles of sacred service. If there is any doubt about the pervasiveness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in religious leadership roles, it would be a compelling exercise if, on some weekend, every single queer minister, rabbi, music director, teacher or other spiritual functionary stayed home from religious services.
The term "Gay Pride" barely begins to capture the sense of honor and respect this rich spiritual heritage deserves. According to the Dagara tribe in Africa, certain people Westerners would identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are uniquely physically and energetically suited to be "gatekeepers," the guardians of the doorways into other worlds, realms and realities. The Dagara believe that much of the pain and woundedness of the world can be traced to a lack of respect for these spiritual gatekeepers. In fact, author and speaker Malidoma Some says that part of the reason the world is in the shape that it is in is because the gatekeepers "have been fired from their jobs."
Similarly, among Native American peoples, the Two-Spirit were thought to have special powers and played key roles in tribal ceremonies. These people, who lived on the edges of tribal life, were associated with the gift of prophecy and the implementation of rituals, and were said to possess healing powers. Today Two-Spirits are regaining their place of honor among many Native American communities after being annihilated or forced to go underground during the European invasion.
Is it any wonder that mystics and saviors of many spiritual traditions can often be found with those on the margins of society? Perhaps, beyond "healing" the poor, the religiously unclean and the sexually different, these prophets found in these people a spiritual kinship that sustained their ministries. If the historical figures of Elijah, Buddha, or Jesus were to come back today, I would not be surprised to find them in gay bars, with "welfare moms" or with AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. For it is people in the boundary places of the world who are often closest to the Divine.
All this does not mean that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are better than straight people. (After all, heterosexuals should not be blamed for not having a "choice" about their sexual orientation!) It does mean, however, that queer people should have a sense of responsibility to continue bringing light, healing and spirit to the world, even if the world does not yet realize or fully appreciate our value and contributions.
Furthermore, it is time for religious leaders to stop asking queer people to apologize for who we are and to recognize our innate spiritual offerings of service and leadership. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have gravitated to and fulfilled spiritual roles throughout history, in numbers that far exceed our proportion to the overall population. We have contributed tremendously to the evolution of humanity.
For those who snicker or cringe at the fabulous excess of Gay Pride festivals, realize this: These are the outsiders, the spiritual warriors, the scouts of consciousness who are integrating spirit and sexuality for much of the rest of society. We owe these modern-day shamans the latitude they need and the respect they deserve to do this crucial work.
And for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the world is crying out for us to speak from a place of real power and pride. We must know, in the deepest recesses of our souls, in the very fabric of our tissues, in every one of our cells in every part of our bodies, that we are blessed in the ways we express our love and our passion. Our blessing is that we know love, and we must love deeply, passionately and selflessly. It is our calling as a people. It is our calling as human beings.
This spiritual calling is what I will be celebrating during Gay Pride. I invite all of you who hear this call within you to do the same.
Christian de la Huerta is a member of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He is the author of Coming Out Spiritually, and founder of Q Spirit and Revolutionary Wisdom.
First convened in 1998, the National Religious Leadership Roundtable of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is an interfaith collaboration of more than forty denominations and faith-related organizations. The Roundtable seeks to reframe the public religious dialogue on issues involving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by amplifying the voices of LGBT-affirming people of faith, countering religious voices of bigotry and intolerance, and working to advance full equality for all.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Finally, A Voice Of Reason for Moderate Christians
June 17, 2005
The New York Times
Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH
St. Louis
IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.
People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.
Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.
But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.
When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.
When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.
We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.
In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.
By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.
For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.
John C. Danforth is an Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH
St. Louis
IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.
People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.
Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.
But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.
When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.
When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.
We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.
In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.
By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.
For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.
John C. Danforth is an Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Bush & Company: Freedom when it suits them
A Tyrant's Best Friend
The Nation
Ari BermanWed Jun 15,10:54 AM ET
Last week, a bipartisan group of six US senators called on the Bush Administration to support an international investigation of the brutal crackdown last month in Uzbekistan to determine whether US-trained Uzbek special forces opened fire on civilians. "In the aftermath of the Andijan massacre, America's relationship with Uzbekistan cannot remain unchanged," Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike DeWine, John McCain, John Sununu, Joe Biden and Patrick Leahy wrote in a letter to Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice.
The Bush Administration, as usual, seems to have ignored the advice. Instead, the US and Russia blocked an attempt by NATO to call for an international probe after a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels last Thursday, the Washington Post reported.
"I cannot say we agree on all elements because we do not agree," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after the meeting. Britain and other European countries wanted to include tough language in a joint communique, building off a statement by the European parliament that Washington halt negotiations with Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov over long-term access to an air base in southern Uzbekistan and "to bring those responsible for the massacre in Andijan to trial." Because of close links between Uzbekistan and NATO, the statement would've surely caught Karimov's attention.
Instead, Rumsfeld overruled European officials and Rice's State Department, insisting that the NATO communique discuss only "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan." Of course, it wasn't the first time the stealth hand of DoD has triumphed in inter-Administration disputes, particularly with regards to Uzbekistan. In 2002, State condemned "torture as a routine investigation technique" among the Uzbek security forces. Two years later, Colin Powell tried to cut off $18 million in training assistance over human rights concerns. General Richard Myers protested the cuts, and added $21 million for bioterrorism defense.
"In my view, we shouldn't let any single issue drive a relationship with any single county," Myers said of human rights violations, before the government crackdown in May. "It doesn't seem to be good policy to me." In fact, though, the desire for a permanent military base still trumps all other issues. "What would be the likely fallout from America's deepening relationship with a government that brutally represses its own people?" the six Senators asked. The Pentagon has yet to answer. After the crackdown, State proposed a blanket suspension of cooperation, the Post reports. DoD countered by advocating a case-by-case review, a timid recommendation that ultimately prevailed.
Mr. President, what happened to standing with the forces of freedom?
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
The Nation
Ari BermanWed Jun 15,10:54 AM ET
Last week, a bipartisan group of six US senators called on the Bush Administration to support an international investigation of the brutal crackdown last month in Uzbekistan to determine whether US-trained Uzbek special forces opened fire on civilians. "In the aftermath of the Andijan massacre, America's relationship with Uzbekistan cannot remain unchanged," Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike DeWine, John McCain, John Sununu, Joe Biden and Patrick Leahy wrote in a letter to Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice.
The Bush Administration, as usual, seems to have ignored the advice. Instead, the US and Russia blocked an attempt by NATO to call for an international probe after a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels last Thursday, the Washington Post reported.
"I cannot say we agree on all elements because we do not agree," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after the meeting. Britain and other European countries wanted to include tough language in a joint communique, building off a statement by the European parliament that Washington halt negotiations with Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov over long-term access to an air base in southern Uzbekistan and "to bring those responsible for the massacre in Andijan to trial." Because of close links between Uzbekistan and NATO, the statement would've surely caught Karimov's attention.
Instead, Rumsfeld overruled European officials and Rice's State Department, insisting that the NATO communique discuss only "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan." Of course, it wasn't the first time the stealth hand of DoD has triumphed in inter-Administration disputes, particularly with regards to Uzbekistan. In 2002, State condemned "torture as a routine investigation technique" among the Uzbek security forces. Two years later, Colin Powell tried to cut off $18 million in training assistance over human rights concerns. General Richard Myers protested the cuts, and added $21 million for bioterrorism defense.
"In my view, we shouldn't let any single issue drive a relationship with any single county," Myers said of human rights violations, before the government crackdown in May. "It doesn't seem to be good policy to me." In fact, though, the desire for a permanent military base still trumps all other issues. "What would be the likely fallout from America's deepening relationship with a government that brutally represses its own people?" the six Senators asked. The Pentagon has yet to answer. After the crackdown, State proposed a blanket suspension of cooperation, the Post reports. DoD countered by advocating a case-by-case review, a timid recommendation that ultimately prevailed.
Mr. President, what happened to standing with the forces of freedom?
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Amendment to ban flag burning? Those damn Republicans have bigger fish to fry!
Amendment supporters exaggerate threat to flag
USA Today
Tue Jun 14, 6:46 AM ET
Have you seen any American flags burned recently? Not likely. No one else has, either.
But that isn't stopping some members of Congress from exaggerating the threat. The danger is so dire, they say, that the Constitution must be amended to protect Old Glory. The House of Representatives could vote to do so as soon as this week.
The temptation for politicians to engage in demagoguery in the name of patriotism is a Washington ritual as sure as the arrival of Flag Day today. But this is a phony crisis, and the supposed remedy is pure poison. Congress would, for the first time in 214 years, tamper with the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the cornerstone of American democracy.
And for what? As of Monday, even the leading organization seeking this legislation lists only one flag-burning incident this year. That was a middle-of-the-night act of petty vandalism outside a library in Topeka, with no apparent witnesses. Suspects can be prosecuted for destruction of public property without touching the Constitution.
With patriotic instincts heightened by the threat of terrorism and Americans fighting and dying abroad, insults to the flag are bound to provoke anger. But even if such incidents were more common, amending the Constitution would be a dangerous idea, repudiating the lessons of American history.
The Founding Fathers, fresh from oppression and revolution, realized that for their fledgling democracy to succeed, it would need safety valves to release political pressure in times of strife. First among those was the freedom to speak freely and criticize the government without fear.
Wisely, they did not entrust that freedom to legislators who, they knew, would blow with the political winds.
Instead, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, they reserved that right for the people - to be abridged only if two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and three quarters of the states agreed.
The Founders never mentioned flag burning, but the Supreme Court, in 1989 and 1990, ruled that free speech included a right for people to express their grievances by abusing the flag.
Since then, flag-desecration incidents have dropped to almost nothing. But that hasn't stopped those who think they know better than the Founders from trying to rewrite their work. Five times since 1995, the House has approved constitutional amendments that would bar desecration of the flag.
What's next once that precedent is set? An amendment to bar desecration of the Bible? A prohibition on other speech that makes Congress unhappy?
If popularity is the test of free speech, then the right does not exist.
Fortunately, the proposed amendment has failed each time in the Senate - so far. But turnover leaves the potential vote in the Senate much more in doubt this year.
While polling on the subject varies, there's no public outcry for a flag amendment. A study released Friday by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville found 63% opposed to such a constitutional amendment. That's up from 53% a year ago.
Millions of Americans rightfully infuriated by the sight of a burning flag will draw no solace from those numbers, but they have another option. By waving 10,000 flags for every one that's burned, they would say far more than fining a flag burner ever could. They would honor the flag's meaning, too.
Copyright © 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
USA Today
Tue Jun 14, 6:46 AM ET
Have you seen any American flags burned recently? Not likely. No one else has, either.
But that isn't stopping some members of Congress from exaggerating the threat. The danger is so dire, they say, that the Constitution must be amended to protect Old Glory. The House of Representatives could vote to do so as soon as this week.
The temptation for politicians to engage in demagoguery in the name of patriotism is a Washington ritual as sure as the arrival of Flag Day today. But this is a phony crisis, and the supposed remedy is pure poison. Congress would, for the first time in 214 years, tamper with the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the cornerstone of American democracy.
And for what? As of Monday, even the leading organization seeking this legislation lists only one flag-burning incident this year. That was a middle-of-the-night act of petty vandalism outside a library in Topeka, with no apparent witnesses. Suspects can be prosecuted for destruction of public property without touching the Constitution.
With patriotic instincts heightened by the threat of terrorism and Americans fighting and dying abroad, insults to the flag are bound to provoke anger. But even if such incidents were more common, amending the Constitution would be a dangerous idea, repudiating the lessons of American history.
The Founding Fathers, fresh from oppression and revolution, realized that for their fledgling democracy to succeed, it would need safety valves to release political pressure in times of strife. First among those was the freedom to speak freely and criticize the government without fear.
Wisely, they did not entrust that freedom to legislators who, they knew, would blow with the political winds.
Instead, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, they reserved that right for the people - to be abridged only if two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and three quarters of the states agreed.
The Founders never mentioned flag burning, but the Supreme Court, in 1989 and 1990, ruled that free speech included a right for people to express their grievances by abusing the flag.
Since then, flag-desecration incidents have dropped to almost nothing. But that hasn't stopped those who think they know better than the Founders from trying to rewrite their work. Five times since 1995, the House has approved constitutional amendments that would bar desecration of the flag.
What's next once that precedent is set? An amendment to bar desecration of the Bible? A prohibition on other speech that makes Congress unhappy?
If popularity is the test of free speech, then the right does not exist.
Fortunately, the proposed amendment has failed each time in the Senate - so far. But turnover leaves the potential vote in the Senate much more in doubt this year.
While polling on the subject varies, there's no public outcry for a flag amendment. A study released Friday by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville found 63% opposed to such a constitutional amendment. That's up from 53% a year ago.
Millions of Americans rightfully infuriated by the sight of a burning flag will draw no solace from those numbers, but they have another option. By waving 10,000 flags for every one that's burned, they would say far more than fining a flag burner ever could. They would honor the flag's meaning, too.
Copyright © 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
The debate's over: Globe is warming...does Bush know this yet?
The debate's over: Globe is warming
Politicians, corporations and religious groups differ mainly on how to fix the problem
By Dan Vergano
USA TODAY
Don't look now, but the ground has shifted on global warming. After decades of debate over whether the planet is heating and, if so, whose fault it is, divergent groups are joining hands with little fanfare to deal with a problem they say people can no longer avoid.
General Electric is the latest big corporate convert; politicians at the state and national level are looking for solutions; and religious groups are taking philosophical and financial stands to slow the progression of climate change.
They agree that the problem is real. A recent study led by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that, because of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, Earth is trapping more energy from the sun than it is releasing back into space.
The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise 2 to 10 degrees by 2100. A “middle of the road” projection is for an average 5-degree increase by the end of the century, says Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
What the various factions don't necessarily agree on is what to do about it. The heart of the discussion is “really about how to deal with climate change, not whether it's happening,” says energy technology expert James Dooley of the Battelle Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md. “What are my company's options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Are there new business opportunities associated with addressing climate change? Those are the questions many businesses are asking today.”
GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.
Religious groups, such as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals and National Council of Churches, have joined with scientists to call for action on climate change under the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. “Global warming is a universal moral challenge,” the partnership's statement says.
And high-profile politicians from both parties are getting into the act. For example, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a reduction of more than 80% over the next five decades in his state's emission of greenhouse gases that heat in the atmosphere.
To be sure, many companies — most notably oil industry leader ExxonMobil — still express skepticism about the effects of global warming. And the Bush administration has supported research and voluntary initiatives but has pulled back from a multi-nation pact on environmental constraints.
The administration was on the defensive last week when The New York Times reported that a staff lawyer has been softening scientific assessments of global warming. White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended such action as a routine part of a multi-agency review process.
Nonetheless, the tides of change appear to be moving on.
“As big companies fall off the ‘I don't believe in climate change' bandwagon, people will start to take this more seriously,” says environmental scientist Don Kennedy, editor in chief of the journal Science. Companies aren't changing because of a sudden love for the environment, Kennedy says, but because they see change as an opportunity to protect their investments.
“On the business side, it just looks like climate change is not going away,” says Kevin Leahy of Cinergy, a Cincinnati-based utility that reports $4.7 billion in annual revenue and provides electricity, mostly generated from coal, to 1.5 million customers. Most firms see global warming as a problem whose risks have to be managed, he says.
Power companies want to know what sort of carbon constraints they face — carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas — so they can plan long term and avoid being hit with dramatic emission limits or penalties in the future, he says.
Climate scientists say this acceptance comes none too soon. “All the time we should have been moving forward … has been wasted by arguing if the problem even exists,” says Michael Mann of the University of Virginia.
The IPCC estimates that rainfall will increase up to 20% in wet regions, causing floods, while decreasing 20% in arid areas, causing droughts. The Environmental Protection Agency says melting glaciers and warmer ocean waters will likely cause an average 2-foot rise in sea level on all U.S. coasts by 2100.
Carbon dioxide is the byproduct of burning fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or oil. There are now about 1 trillion tons of carbon from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By the end of the century, atmos-pheric carbon projections range from 1.2 trillion tons if stringent corrective steps are taken to 2.8 trillion tons if little is done.
Moving ahead with solutions looks like the hardest part of the equation for the United States. The Bush administration's stance has frustrated advocates of a more aggressive response.
Bush explained in a 2001 speech why he opposed joining the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to curb greenhouse gases: “The (Kyoto) targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science. For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases.”
Instead, the administration “harnesses the power of markets and technological innovation, maintains economic growth, and encourages global participation,” former Energy Department head Spencer Abraham wrote last year in Science. He pointed to tax incentive programs, climate research and technologies such as “FutureGen,” the Energy Department's 10-year,$1 billion attempt at creating a coal-fired power plant that emits no greenhouse gases.
Other administration efforts:
•The $1.7 billion hydrogen fuel-cell car initiative announced two years ago in Bush's State of the Union address.
•A $49 million carbon “sequestration” initiative with 65 projects to see whether carbon dioxide can be stripped from emissions.
•Participation in the international ITER program to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source.
The administration has encouraged voluntary efforts. Fourteen trade groups representing industrial, energy, transportation and forest companies have signed up for a program aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 18% by 2012.
So why isn't this enough to assuage critics?
Rick Piltz, a science policy expert who resigned in protest from the administration's Climate Change Science Program in March, says the reliance on voluntary measures and long-term technology breakthroughs is a roadblock against simple conservation steps that could curb emissions now. Piltz provided the edited documents that were the subject of last week's story in The New York Times.
Commonly cited examples of the conservation steps Piltz mentions:
•Incentives for emission controls on the oldest and least efficient power plants.
•More stringent mileage and tailpipe requirements on vehicles.
•Expanded tax credits for more efficient air conditioners, hybrid cars and appliances.
Political leaders will support such measures only if the benefits come at a low cost to the economy, says William Reilly, co-chair of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy and former head of the EPA under President George H.W. Bush. “But there is a lot going on, and I think we will be seeing some movement on this.”
Away from the political arena, other irons are in the fire:
•More people are advocating nuclear power. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore told a congressional panel in April that “nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas-emitting energy source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand.”
•Immelt called for the United States to adopt an emissions-trading plan for greenhouse gases. Taking a cue from the EPA's policy of having companies buy and sell permits to release sulfur dioxide, which is responsible for acid rain, economists suggest that such a scheme would limit carbon dioxide by making emissions economically less feasible. In Congress, the Climate Stewardship Act proposed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would commit the country to such a plan.
Pressure for reforms may come most strongly from “socially responsible” investors. “We make bottom-line arguments to companies to make decisions in the interests of their shareholders,” says John Wilson of Christian Brothers Investment Services, which manages $3.5 billion in investor funds. The firm advises 1,000 Catholic institutions, such as churches, schools and hospitals.
A Christian Brothers resolution in May asked ExxonMobil “to explain the scientific basis for its ongoing denial of the broad scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global climate change.” The resolution garnered 10.3% of shareholders' votes, representing 665 million shares worth more than $36 billion, despite the opposition of management.
“The future of energy is plainly moving away from fossil fuels and we want the companies (that) we invest in to explain how they plan to adjust,” Wilson says.
Dooley, of the Battelle Institute, says: “We need a whole series of ‘home runs' and maybe even a couple of ‘grand slams' to successfully address this problem. More efficient refrigerators, better and cheaper solar cells, hybrid automobiles, fuel cells, power plants that capture and store their (carbon dioxide) deep below the surface and nuclear power. They all have important roles to play.”
“No one seriously talks about trying to address climate change with one technology,” Dooley says. “Everyone understands that there isn't a ‘silver bullet' out there waiting to be discovered.”
Politicians, corporations and religious groups differ mainly on how to fix the problem
By Dan Vergano
USA TODAY
Don't look now, but the ground has shifted on global warming. After decades of debate over whether the planet is heating and, if so, whose fault it is, divergent groups are joining hands with little fanfare to deal with a problem they say people can no longer avoid.
General Electric is the latest big corporate convert; politicians at the state and national level are looking for solutions; and religious groups are taking philosophical and financial stands to slow the progression of climate change.
They agree that the problem is real. A recent study led by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that, because of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, Earth is trapping more energy from the sun than it is releasing back into space.
The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise 2 to 10 degrees by 2100. A “middle of the road” projection is for an average 5-degree increase by the end of the century, says Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
What the various factions don't necessarily agree on is what to do about it. The heart of the discussion is “really about how to deal with climate change, not whether it's happening,” says energy technology expert James Dooley of the Battelle Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md. “What are my company's options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Are there new business opportunities associated with addressing climate change? Those are the questions many businesses are asking today.”
GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.
Religious groups, such as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals and National Council of Churches, have joined with scientists to call for action on climate change under the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. “Global warming is a universal moral challenge,” the partnership's statement says.
And high-profile politicians from both parties are getting into the act. For example, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a reduction of more than 80% over the next five decades in his state's emission of greenhouse gases that heat in the atmosphere.
To be sure, many companies — most notably oil industry leader ExxonMobil — still express skepticism about the effects of global warming. And the Bush administration has supported research and voluntary initiatives but has pulled back from a multi-nation pact on environmental constraints.
The administration was on the defensive last week when The New York Times reported that a staff lawyer has been softening scientific assessments of global warming. White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended such action as a routine part of a multi-agency review process.
Nonetheless, the tides of change appear to be moving on.
“As big companies fall off the ‘I don't believe in climate change' bandwagon, people will start to take this more seriously,” says environmental scientist Don Kennedy, editor in chief of the journal Science. Companies aren't changing because of a sudden love for the environment, Kennedy says, but because they see change as an opportunity to protect their investments.
“On the business side, it just looks like climate change is not going away,” says Kevin Leahy of Cinergy, a Cincinnati-based utility that reports $4.7 billion in annual revenue and provides electricity, mostly generated from coal, to 1.5 million customers. Most firms see global warming as a problem whose risks have to be managed, he says.
Power companies want to know what sort of carbon constraints they face — carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas — so they can plan long term and avoid being hit with dramatic emission limits or penalties in the future, he says.
Climate scientists say this acceptance comes none too soon. “All the time we should have been moving forward … has been wasted by arguing if the problem even exists,” says Michael Mann of the University of Virginia.
The IPCC estimates that rainfall will increase up to 20% in wet regions, causing floods, while decreasing 20% in arid areas, causing droughts. The Environmental Protection Agency says melting glaciers and warmer ocean waters will likely cause an average 2-foot rise in sea level on all U.S. coasts by 2100.
Carbon dioxide is the byproduct of burning fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or oil. There are now about 1 trillion tons of carbon from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By the end of the century, atmos-pheric carbon projections range from 1.2 trillion tons if stringent corrective steps are taken to 2.8 trillion tons if little is done.
Moving ahead with solutions looks like the hardest part of the equation for the United States. The Bush administration's stance has frustrated advocates of a more aggressive response.
Bush explained in a 2001 speech why he opposed joining the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to curb greenhouse gases: “The (Kyoto) targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science. For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases.”
Instead, the administration “harnesses the power of markets and technological innovation, maintains economic growth, and encourages global participation,” former Energy Department head Spencer Abraham wrote last year in Science. He pointed to tax incentive programs, climate research and technologies such as “FutureGen,” the Energy Department's 10-year,$1 billion attempt at creating a coal-fired power plant that emits no greenhouse gases.
Other administration efforts:
•The $1.7 billion hydrogen fuel-cell car initiative announced two years ago in Bush's State of the Union address.
•A $49 million carbon “sequestration” initiative with 65 projects to see whether carbon dioxide can be stripped from emissions.
•Participation in the international ITER program to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source.
The administration has encouraged voluntary efforts. Fourteen trade groups representing industrial, energy, transportation and forest companies have signed up for a program aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 18% by 2012.
So why isn't this enough to assuage critics?
Rick Piltz, a science policy expert who resigned in protest from the administration's Climate Change Science Program in March, says the reliance on voluntary measures and long-term technology breakthroughs is a roadblock against simple conservation steps that could curb emissions now. Piltz provided the edited documents that were the subject of last week's story in The New York Times.
Commonly cited examples of the conservation steps Piltz mentions:
•Incentives for emission controls on the oldest and least efficient power plants.
•More stringent mileage and tailpipe requirements on vehicles.
•Expanded tax credits for more efficient air conditioners, hybrid cars and appliances.
Political leaders will support such measures only if the benefits come at a low cost to the economy, says William Reilly, co-chair of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy and former head of the EPA under President George H.W. Bush. “But there is a lot going on, and I think we will be seeing some movement on this.”
Away from the political arena, other irons are in the fire:
•More people are advocating nuclear power. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore told a congressional panel in April that “nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas-emitting energy source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand.”
•Immelt called for the United States to adopt an emissions-trading plan for greenhouse gases. Taking a cue from the EPA's policy of having companies buy and sell permits to release sulfur dioxide, which is responsible for acid rain, economists suggest that such a scheme would limit carbon dioxide by making emissions economically less feasible. In Congress, the Climate Stewardship Act proposed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would commit the country to such a plan.
Pressure for reforms may come most strongly from “socially responsible” investors. “We make bottom-line arguments to companies to make decisions in the interests of their shareholders,” says John Wilson of Christian Brothers Investment Services, which manages $3.5 billion in investor funds. The firm advises 1,000 Catholic institutions, such as churches, schools and hospitals.
A Christian Brothers resolution in May asked ExxonMobil “to explain the scientific basis for its ongoing denial of the broad scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global climate change.” The resolution garnered 10.3% of shareholders' votes, representing 665 million shares worth more than $36 billion, despite the opposition of management.
“The future of energy is plainly moving away from fossil fuels and we want the companies (that) we invest in to explain how they plan to adjust,” Wilson says.
Dooley, of the Battelle Institute, says: “We need a whole series of ‘home runs' and maybe even a couple of ‘grand slams' to successfully address this problem. More efficient refrigerators, better and cheaper solar cells, hybrid automobiles, fuel cells, power plants that capture and store their (carbon dioxide) deep below the surface and nuclear power. They all have important roles to play.”
“No one seriously talks about trying to address climate change with one technology,” Dooley says. “Everyone understands that there isn't a ‘silver bullet' out there waiting to be discovered.”
Sunday, June 12, 2005
BUSH? Can you hear us?
A Growing Public Restlessness
By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 12, 2005; B09
The number 58 appears frequently in the latest Post-ABC News poll, sending a clear warning signal to President Bush and the Republicans.
The June survey found that 58 percent of its 1,002 respondents now disapprove of the way Bush is handling both the economy and the situation in Iraq. The same number now believe that, weighing the costs and the benefits to the United States, the war was not worth fighting. And the same number, when asked about their own and the president's priorities, say that Bush is mainly concentrating on things that are not important to them personally.
The individual ratings for the president are among the worst since he took office. Support for the war is the lowest yet recorded in this poll. Never before have Bush's priorities been as far out of kilter with public opinion.
There's not much good news for the president in the rest of this poll or in a separate survey taken a couple of weeks earlier by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The two surveys put Bush's overall job disapproval scores at 50 percent and 52 percent -- the worst ratings in a long series of polls.
Five months into his second term, the storm signals are clearly flying. Were this the Clinton administration, it would be safe to assume that the man in the Oval Office would be badgering his political advisers for ideas on how to halt the decline. But Bush prides himself on pushing ahead, whatever the obstacles, and there are no signals that he is about to change course on any of his major policies.
But pushing on leaves him vulnerable to events that he cannot control. That is most obviously the case in Iraq, where the continuing violence clearly has sapped support for his decision to go to war. Seventy-three percent in the Post-ABC poll now say the military casualties in Iraq have become unacceptable. That number has doubled since the spring of 2003.
For the first time in this survey, a majority of respondents -- 52 percent -- said the war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States. But at this point Bush has no choice but to play out his hand. Withdrawal is not an option, and he is limited on how fast he can spur Iraqis to meet their security needs or complete the construction of their government.
But Iraq is only in second place when it comes to the public's priorities. The No. 1 concern is the economy and jobs.
And here is where Bush ought to be considering a new game plan. Although Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan declared the economy to be "on a reasonably firm footing" the other day, six out of 10 of those in the Pew survey said jobs are hard to find in their local areas -- including almost half of those with household incomes over $75,000. Three out of 10 said they did not have enough money last year to pay for their medical and health care needs.
Bush has had relatively little to say about these economic anxieties. His economic initiatives, including the plea to make past tax cuts permanent, would mainly benefit the affluent. Instead, Bush has devoted his energies to selling a Social Security reform that the public views with deep suspicion. By a 2 to 1 margin, it thinks Bush's proposals would not improve the long-run financial stability of Social Security, and nearly as many people think they would reduce the retirement income most seniors will receive.
On economic policy and Social Security, it may be up to Republicans in Congress to give voice to the policy message that Bush has either ignored or mishandled so far. And they have reason to do so. Seventeen months before the midterm elections, Democrats have, for the first time since April 2001, gained a lead, of five points, over Republicans as the party that respondents say will do a better job coping with the main problems facing the country.
Newt Gingrich, who has been touring the country to promote his new novel, told me last week that he sees "a lot of parallels between the restiveness of European voters," who have handed losses to the ruling parties in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, "and what I feel when I'm on the road.
"If Ford and General Motors are rated as junk bonds and United Airlines can't pay its pensioners," the former Republican speaker said, "people feel there is something wrong. Both parties are hurt, but the governing party is at greater risk."
davidbroder@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 12, 2005; B09
The number 58 appears frequently in the latest Post-ABC News poll, sending a clear warning signal to President Bush and the Republicans.
The June survey found that 58 percent of its 1,002 respondents now disapprove of the way Bush is handling both the economy and the situation in Iraq. The same number now believe that, weighing the costs and the benefits to the United States, the war was not worth fighting. And the same number, when asked about their own and the president's priorities, say that Bush is mainly concentrating on things that are not important to them personally.
The individual ratings for the president are among the worst since he took office. Support for the war is the lowest yet recorded in this poll. Never before have Bush's priorities been as far out of kilter with public opinion.
There's not much good news for the president in the rest of this poll or in a separate survey taken a couple of weeks earlier by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The two surveys put Bush's overall job disapproval scores at 50 percent and 52 percent -- the worst ratings in a long series of polls.
Five months into his second term, the storm signals are clearly flying. Were this the Clinton administration, it would be safe to assume that the man in the Oval Office would be badgering his political advisers for ideas on how to halt the decline. But Bush prides himself on pushing ahead, whatever the obstacles, and there are no signals that he is about to change course on any of his major policies.
But pushing on leaves him vulnerable to events that he cannot control. That is most obviously the case in Iraq, where the continuing violence clearly has sapped support for his decision to go to war. Seventy-three percent in the Post-ABC poll now say the military casualties in Iraq have become unacceptable. That number has doubled since the spring of 2003.
For the first time in this survey, a majority of respondents -- 52 percent -- said the war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States. But at this point Bush has no choice but to play out his hand. Withdrawal is not an option, and he is limited on how fast he can spur Iraqis to meet their security needs or complete the construction of their government.
But Iraq is only in second place when it comes to the public's priorities. The No. 1 concern is the economy and jobs.
And here is where Bush ought to be considering a new game plan. Although Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan declared the economy to be "on a reasonably firm footing" the other day, six out of 10 of those in the Pew survey said jobs are hard to find in their local areas -- including almost half of those with household incomes over $75,000. Three out of 10 said they did not have enough money last year to pay for their medical and health care needs.
Bush has had relatively little to say about these economic anxieties. His economic initiatives, including the plea to make past tax cuts permanent, would mainly benefit the affluent. Instead, Bush has devoted his energies to selling a Social Security reform that the public views with deep suspicion. By a 2 to 1 margin, it thinks Bush's proposals would not improve the long-run financial stability of Social Security, and nearly as many people think they would reduce the retirement income most seniors will receive.
On economic policy and Social Security, it may be up to Republicans in Congress to give voice to the policy message that Bush has either ignored or mishandled so far. And they have reason to do so. Seventeen months before the midterm elections, Democrats have, for the first time since April 2001, gained a lead, of five points, over Republicans as the party that respondents say will do a better job coping with the main problems facing the country.
Newt Gingrich, who has been touring the country to promote his new novel, told me last week that he sees "a lot of parallels between the restiveness of European voters," who have handed losses to the ruling parties in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, "and what I feel when I'm on the road.
"If Ford and General Motors are rated as junk bonds and United Airlines can't pay its pensioners," the former Republican speaker said, "people feel there is something wrong. Both parties are hurt, but the governing party is at greater risk."
davidbroder@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
A Commitee Needed: THE BUSH administration unable to effectively control prisoners of war
Beyond Guantanamo
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 12, 2005; B08
THE BUSH administration's policies and practices for detaining and interrogating foreign prisoners remain desperately in need of reform. The hundreds of suspected enemy combatants who have been held incommunicado or subjected to abuse and torture, and the scores who may have been unlawfully killed, represent the single greatest failing of the United States in the war on terrorism. Yet there has been shockingly little corrective action. Though the Army has announced some administrative reforms, there has been no truly independent investigation of the abuses. No senior officers or officials have been held accountable. Most seriously, many of the policies that have led the CIA and military to systematically violate international laws and human rights standards remain unaltered.
Frustrated by the administration's intransigence and outraged by the latest reports of abuse -- this time involving desecration of the Koran -- several senior Democrats, including Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former president Jimmy Carter, have embraced the idea of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where some 520 detainees are now held. The proposal is worth considering, mainly because Guantanamo has become a global symbol for U.S. abuse of prisoners. But a much broader and more systematic agenda of reform is needed, one that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could and should embrace.
The first step must be to impose legality and outside control on the most shameful part of the detention system -- which is not Guantanamo Bay but the secret network of detention facilities maintained by the CIA. The dozens (at least) of prisoners in this network, including the most important terrorist leaders, are being held without any legal process, outside review, family notification or monitoring by the International Red Cross. Moreover, the administration has declared that such prisoners may be subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, such as mock executions and simulated drowning, even though the United States has ratified an international treaty prohibiting such practices. It also insists on the right to transport these prisoners to countries where torture is practiced, again in contravention of international law.
All of these prisoners should be held in facilities operated by the United States and visited by the Red Cross; the grounds for their detention should be subject to regular outside review. When possible, they should be charged and tried. As is the case for all other detainees in American custody, treatment that would violate the U.S. Constitution should be illegal.
Prisoners at Guantanamo are already entitled to reviews of their detention, a system of military tribunals has been established and the Supreme Court has ruled that U.S. courts have jurisdiction. But these legal mechanisms are inadequate, as one federal judge has already ruled in a case now on appeal. Both the reviews of detention and the tribunals need to be changed so that defendants have more rights; the best approach would be to adopt the existing system of military justice. At a minimum, Congress should mandate that testimony obtained through torture not be admissible.
The abandonment of Guantanamo would alleviate a public relations problem. But it also might lead prisoners to be housed under poorer conditions and with less possibility for judicial review than exists now. It may be necessary for the United States to detain enemy combatants for many years in the future, if not at Guantanamo then somewhere else. Such prisoners cannot always be charged or tried, but they should be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Conventions -- which the Bush administration wrongly and unnecessarily abandoned.
The proper way to hold enemy fighters in a shadowy and unconventional global war is a new and difficult issue. That is one good reason to create a bipartisan commission, as was recently proposed by Mr. Biden, to investigate what has happened since 2001 and to make recommendations. The country needs to forge a consensus about how it can effectively hold and question enemy combatants without bringing shame to its democratic system. The Bush administration has demonstrated that it can't accomplish that vital mission on its own.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 12, 2005; B08
THE BUSH administration's policies and practices for detaining and interrogating foreign prisoners remain desperately in need of reform. The hundreds of suspected enemy combatants who have been held incommunicado or subjected to abuse and torture, and the scores who may have been unlawfully killed, represent the single greatest failing of the United States in the war on terrorism. Yet there has been shockingly little corrective action. Though the Army has announced some administrative reforms, there has been no truly independent investigation of the abuses. No senior officers or officials have been held accountable. Most seriously, many of the policies that have led the CIA and military to systematically violate international laws and human rights standards remain unaltered.
Frustrated by the administration's intransigence and outraged by the latest reports of abuse -- this time involving desecration of the Koran -- several senior Democrats, including Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former president Jimmy Carter, have embraced the idea of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where some 520 detainees are now held. The proposal is worth considering, mainly because Guantanamo has become a global symbol for U.S. abuse of prisoners. But a much broader and more systematic agenda of reform is needed, one that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could and should embrace.
The first step must be to impose legality and outside control on the most shameful part of the detention system -- which is not Guantanamo Bay but the secret network of detention facilities maintained by the CIA. The dozens (at least) of prisoners in this network, including the most important terrorist leaders, are being held without any legal process, outside review, family notification or monitoring by the International Red Cross. Moreover, the administration has declared that such prisoners may be subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, such as mock executions and simulated drowning, even though the United States has ratified an international treaty prohibiting such practices. It also insists on the right to transport these prisoners to countries where torture is practiced, again in contravention of international law.
All of these prisoners should be held in facilities operated by the United States and visited by the Red Cross; the grounds for their detention should be subject to regular outside review. When possible, they should be charged and tried. As is the case for all other detainees in American custody, treatment that would violate the U.S. Constitution should be illegal.
Prisoners at Guantanamo are already entitled to reviews of their detention, a system of military tribunals has been established and the Supreme Court has ruled that U.S. courts have jurisdiction. But these legal mechanisms are inadequate, as one federal judge has already ruled in a case now on appeal. Both the reviews of detention and the tribunals need to be changed so that defendants have more rights; the best approach would be to adopt the existing system of military justice. At a minimum, Congress should mandate that testimony obtained through torture not be admissible.
The abandonment of Guantanamo would alleviate a public relations problem. But it also might lead prisoners to be housed under poorer conditions and with less possibility for judicial review than exists now. It may be necessary for the United States to detain enemy combatants for many years in the future, if not at Guantanamo then somewhere else. Such prisoners cannot always be charged or tried, but they should be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Conventions -- which the Bush administration wrongly and unnecessarily abandoned.
The proper way to hold enemy fighters in a shadowy and unconventional global war is a new and difficult issue. That is one good reason to create a bipartisan commission, as was recently proposed by Mr. Biden, to investigate what has happened since 2001 and to make recommendations. The country needs to forge a consensus about how it can effectively hold and question enemy combatants without bringing shame to its democratic system. The Bush administration has demonstrated that it can't accomplish that vital mission on its own.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Another British expose: Bush boys no plan to deal with post-war Iraq
Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan
Advisers to Blair Predicted Instability
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 12, 2005; A01
A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.
The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial on both sides of the Atlantic since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.
In those meeting minutes -- which have come to be known as the Downing Street Memo -- British officials who had just returned from Washington said Bush and his aides believed war was inevitable and were determined to use intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his relations with terrorists to justify invasion of Iraq.
The "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," said the memo -- an assertion attributed to the then-chief of British intelligence, and denied by U.S. officials and by Blair at a news conference with Bush last week in Washington. Democrats in Congress led by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, have scheduled an unofficial hearing on the matter for Thursday.
Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting -- and other British documents recently made public -- show that Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.
In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."
Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
That memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith, who writes for the London Sunday Times. Excerpts were made available to The Washington Post, and the material was confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
The Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country. And administration officials have acknowledged the mistake of dismantling the Iraqi army and canceling pensions to its veteran officers -- which many say hindered security, enhanced anti-U.S. feeling and aided what would later become a violent insurgency.
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003.
The British, however, had begun focusing on doubts about a postwar Iraq in early 2002, according to internal memos.
A March 14 memo to Blair from David Manning, then the prime minister's foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, reported on talks with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Among the "big questions" coming out of his sessions, Manning reported, was that the president "has yet to find the answers . . . [and] what happens on the morning after."
About 10 days later, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote a memo to prepare Blair for a meeting in Crawford, Tex., on April 8. Straw said "the big question" about military action against Hussein was, "how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," as "Iraq has no history of democracy."
Straw said the U.S. assessments "assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured. . . ."
Later in the summer, the postwar doubts would be raised again, at the July 23 meeting memorialized in the Downing Street Memo. Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, reported on his meetings with senior Bush officials. At one point, Dearlove said, "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing June 5 on "Meet the Press," disagreed with Dearlove's remark. "I think that there was clearly planning that occurred."
The Blair government, unlike its U.S. counterparts, always doubted that coalition troops would be uniformly welcomed, and sought U.N. participation in the invasion in part to set the stage for an international occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, said British officials interviewed recently. London was aware that the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion's aftermath. But the British government was "shocked," in the words of one official, "when we discovered that in the postwar period the Defense Department would still be running the show."
The Downing Street Memo has been the subject of debate since the London Sunday Times first published it May 1. Opponents of the war say it proved the Bush administration was determined to invade months before the president said he made that decision.
Neither Bush nor Blair has publicly challenged the authenticity of the July 23 memo, nor has Dearlove spoken publicly about it. One British diplomat said there are different interpretations.
Last week, it was the subject of questions posed to Blair and Bush during the former's visit to Washington.
Asked about Dearlove being quoted as saying that in the United States, intelligence was being "fixed around the policy" of removing Hussein by military action, Blair said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He then went on to discuss the British plan, outlined in the memo, to go to the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
Bush said he had read "characterizations of the memo," pointing out that it was released in the middle of Blair's reelection campaign, and that the United States and Britain went to the United Nations to exhaust diplomatic options before the invasion.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Advisers to Blair Predicted Instability
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 12, 2005; A01
A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.
The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial on both sides of the Atlantic since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.
In those meeting minutes -- which have come to be known as the Downing Street Memo -- British officials who had just returned from Washington said Bush and his aides believed war was inevitable and were determined to use intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his relations with terrorists to justify invasion of Iraq.
The "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," said the memo -- an assertion attributed to the then-chief of British intelligence, and denied by U.S. officials and by Blair at a news conference with Bush last week in Washington. Democrats in Congress led by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, have scheduled an unofficial hearing on the matter for Thursday.
Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting -- and other British documents recently made public -- show that Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.
In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."
Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
That memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith, who writes for the London Sunday Times. Excerpts were made available to The Washington Post, and the material was confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
The Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country. And administration officials have acknowledged the mistake of dismantling the Iraqi army and canceling pensions to its veteran officers -- which many say hindered security, enhanced anti-U.S. feeling and aided what would later become a violent insurgency.
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003.
The British, however, had begun focusing on doubts about a postwar Iraq in early 2002, according to internal memos.
A March 14 memo to Blair from David Manning, then the prime minister's foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, reported on talks with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Among the "big questions" coming out of his sessions, Manning reported, was that the president "has yet to find the answers . . . [and] what happens on the morning after."
About 10 days later, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote a memo to prepare Blair for a meeting in Crawford, Tex., on April 8. Straw said "the big question" about military action against Hussein was, "how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," as "Iraq has no history of democracy."
Straw said the U.S. assessments "assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured. . . ."
Later in the summer, the postwar doubts would be raised again, at the July 23 meeting memorialized in the Downing Street Memo. Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, reported on his meetings with senior Bush officials. At one point, Dearlove said, "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing June 5 on "Meet the Press," disagreed with Dearlove's remark. "I think that there was clearly planning that occurred."
The Blair government, unlike its U.S. counterparts, always doubted that coalition troops would be uniformly welcomed, and sought U.N. participation in the invasion in part to set the stage for an international occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, said British officials interviewed recently. London was aware that the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion's aftermath. But the British government was "shocked," in the words of one official, "when we discovered that in the postwar period the Defense Department would still be running the show."
The Downing Street Memo has been the subject of debate since the London Sunday Times first published it May 1. Opponents of the war say it proved the Bush administration was determined to invade months before the president said he made that decision.
Neither Bush nor Blair has publicly challenged the authenticity of the July 23 memo, nor has Dearlove spoken publicly about it. One British diplomat said there are different interpretations.
Last week, it was the subject of questions posed to Blair and Bush during the former's visit to Washington.
Asked about Dearlove being quoted as saying that in the United States, intelligence was being "fixed around the policy" of removing Hussein by military action, Blair said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He then went on to discuss the British plan, outlined in the memo, to go to the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
Bush said he had read "characterizations of the memo," pointing out that it was released in the middle of Blair's reelection campaign, and that the United States and Britain went to the United Nations to exhaust diplomatic options before the invasion.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Media Control: Bush vs Nixon..the winner is?
Excellent article of the tactics of the Nixon administration efforts to control the media compared to the much more dangerous control the Bush administration. But sadly enough, this is our present day reality. The article:
June 12, 2005
The New York Times
Don't Follow the Money
By FRANK RICH
THE morning the Deep Throat story broke, the voice on my answering machine was as raspy as Hal Holbrook's. "I just want you to remember that I wrote 'Follow the money,' " said my caller. "I want to know if anybody will give me credit. Watch for the accuracy of the media!"
The voice belonged to my friend William Goldman, who wrote the movie "All the President's Men." His words proved more than a little prescient. As if on cue, journalists everywhere - from The New York Times to The Economist to The Washington Post itself - would soon start attributing this classic line of dialogue to the newly unmasked Deep Throat, W. Mark Felt. But the line was not in Woodward and Bernstein's book or in The Post's Watergate reportage or in Bob Woodward's contemporaneous notes. It was the invention of the author of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Marathon Man" and "The Princess Bride."
This confusion of Hollywood's version of history with the genuine article would quickly prove symptomatic of the overall unreality of the Deep Throat coverage. Was Mr. Felt a hero or a villain? Should he "follow the money" into a book deal, and if so, how would a 91-year-old showing signs of dementia either write a book or schmooze about it with Larry King? How did Vanity Fair scoop The Post? How does Robert Redford feel about it all? Such were the questions that killed time for a nation awaiting the much-heralded feature mediathon, the Michael Jackson verdict.
Richard Nixon and Watergate itself, meanwhile, were often reduced to footnotes. Three years ago, on Watergate's 30th anniversary, an ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans couldn't explain what the scandal was, and no one was racing to enlighten them this time around. Vanity Fair may have taken the trouble to remind us that Watergate was a web of crime yielding the convictions and guilty pleas of more than 30 White House and Nixon campaign officials, but few others did. Watergate has gone back to being the "third-rate burglary" of Nixon administration spin. It is once again being covered up.
Not without reason. Had the scandal been vividly resuscitated as the long national nightmare it actually was, it would dampen all the Felt fun by casting harsh light on our own present nightmare. "The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before" was how the former Nixon speech writer William Safire put it on this page almost nine months ago. The current administration, a second-term imperial presidency that outstrips Nixon's in hubris by the day, leads the attack, trying to intimidate and snuff out any Woodwards or Bernsteins that might challenge it, any media proprietor like Katharine Graham or editor like Ben Bradlee who might support them and any anonymous source like Deep Throat who might enable them to find what Carl Bernstein calls "the best obtainable version of the truth."
The attacks continue to be so successful that even now, long after many news organizations, including The Times, have been found guilty of failing to puncture the administration's prewar W.M.D. hype, new details on that same story are still being ignored or left uninvestigated. The July 2002 "Downing Street memo," the minutes of a meeting in which Tony Blair and his advisers learned of a White House effort to fix "the intelligence and facts" to justify the war in Iraq, was published by The London Sunday Times on May 1. Yet in the 19 daily Scott McClellan briefings that followed, the memo was the subject of only 2 out of the approximately 940 questions asked by the White House press corps, according to Eric Boehlert of Salon.
This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon's special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn't run pro-Nixon stories. Watergate tapes and memos make Mr. Colson, who boasted of "destroying the old establishment," sound like the founding father of today's blogging lynch mobs. He exulted in bullying CBS to cut back its Watergate reports before the '72 election. He enlisted NBC in pro-administration propaganda by browbeating it to repackage 10-day-old coverage of Tricia Nixon's wedding as a prime-time special. It was the Colson office as well that compiled a White House enemies list that included journalists who had the audacity to question administration policies.
Such is the equivalently supine state of much of the news media today that Mr. Colson was repeatedly trotted out, without irony, to pass moral judgment on Mr. Felt - and not just on Fox News, the cable channel that is actually run by the former Nixon media maven, Roger Ailes. "I want kids to look up to heroes," Mr. Colson said, oh so sorrowfully, on NBC's "Today" show, condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring "the confidence of the president of the United States." Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times's Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The "Today" host, Matt Lauer, didn't mention any of this - or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson - and he was ubiquitous - ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a "former White House counsel."
Had anyone been so rude (or professional) as to recount Mr. Colson's sordid past, or to raise the question of whether he was a hero or a traitor, the genealogical line between his Watergate-era machinations and those of his present-day successors would have been all too painfully clear. The main difference is that in the Nixon White House, the president's men plotted behind closed doors. The current administration is now so brazen it does its dirty work in plain sight.
In the most recent example, all the president's men slimed and intimidated Newsweek by accusing it of being an accessory to 17 deaths for its errant Koran story; led by Scott McClellan, they said it was unthinkable that any American guard could be disrespectful of Islam's holy book. These neo-Colsons easily drowned out Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, both of whom said that the riots that led to the 17 deaths were unrelated to Newsweek. Then came the pièce de résistance of Nixon mimicry: a Pentagon report certifying desecrations of the Koran by American guards was released two weeks after the Newsweek imbroglio, at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, to assure it would miss the evening newscasts and be buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers.
At other times the new Colsons top the old one. Though Nixon aspired to punish public broadcasting by cutting its funding, he never imagined that his apparatchiks could seize the top executive positions at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Nor did he come up with the brilliant ideas of putting journalists covertly on the administration payroll and of hiring an outside P.R. firm (Ketchum) to codify an enemies list by ranking news organizations and individual reporters on the basis of how favorably they cover a specific administration policy (No Child Left Behind). President Bush has even succeeded in emasculating the post-Watergate reform that was supposed to help curb Nixonian secrecy, the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
THE journalists who do note the resonances of now with then rarely get to connect those dots on the news media's center stage of television. You are more likely to hear instead of how Watergate inspired too much "gotcha" journalism. That's a rather absurd premise given that no "gotcha" journalist got the goods on the biggest story of our time: the false intimations of incipient mushroom clouds peddled by American officials to sell a war that now threatens to match the unpopularity and marathon length of Vietnam.
Only once during the Deep Throat rollout did I see a palpable, if perhaps unconscious, effort to link the White House of 1972 with that of 2005. It occurred at the start, when ABC News, with the first comprehensive report on Vanity Fair's scoop, interrupted President Bush's post-Memorial Day Rose Garden news conference to break the story. Suddenly the image of the current president blathering on about how hunky-dory everything is in Iraq was usurped by repeated showings of the scene in which the newly resigned Nixon walked across the adjacent White House lawn to the helicopter that would carry him into exile.
But in the days that followed, Nixon and his history and the long shadows they cast largely vanished from the TV screen. In their place were constant nostalgic replays of young Redford and flinty Holbrook. Follow the bait-and-switch.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
June 12, 2005
The New York Times
Don't Follow the Money
By FRANK RICH
THE morning the Deep Throat story broke, the voice on my answering machine was as raspy as Hal Holbrook's. "I just want you to remember that I wrote 'Follow the money,' " said my caller. "I want to know if anybody will give me credit. Watch for the accuracy of the media!"
The voice belonged to my friend William Goldman, who wrote the movie "All the President's Men." His words proved more than a little prescient. As if on cue, journalists everywhere - from The New York Times to The Economist to The Washington Post itself - would soon start attributing this classic line of dialogue to the newly unmasked Deep Throat, W. Mark Felt. But the line was not in Woodward and Bernstein's book or in The Post's Watergate reportage or in Bob Woodward's contemporaneous notes. It was the invention of the author of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Marathon Man" and "The Princess Bride."
This confusion of Hollywood's version of history with the genuine article would quickly prove symptomatic of the overall unreality of the Deep Throat coverage. Was Mr. Felt a hero or a villain? Should he "follow the money" into a book deal, and if so, how would a 91-year-old showing signs of dementia either write a book or schmooze about it with Larry King? How did Vanity Fair scoop The Post? How does Robert Redford feel about it all? Such were the questions that killed time for a nation awaiting the much-heralded feature mediathon, the Michael Jackson verdict.
Richard Nixon and Watergate itself, meanwhile, were often reduced to footnotes. Three years ago, on Watergate's 30th anniversary, an ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans couldn't explain what the scandal was, and no one was racing to enlighten them this time around. Vanity Fair may have taken the trouble to remind us that Watergate was a web of crime yielding the convictions and guilty pleas of more than 30 White House and Nixon campaign officials, but few others did. Watergate has gone back to being the "third-rate burglary" of Nixon administration spin. It is once again being covered up.
Not without reason. Had the scandal been vividly resuscitated as the long national nightmare it actually was, it would dampen all the Felt fun by casting harsh light on our own present nightmare. "The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before" was how the former Nixon speech writer William Safire put it on this page almost nine months ago. The current administration, a second-term imperial presidency that outstrips Nixon's in hubris by the day, leads the attack, trying to intimidate and snuff out any Woodwards or Bernsteins that might challenge it, any media proprietor like Katharine Graham or editor like Ben Bradlee who might support them and any anonymous source like Deep Throat who might enable them to find what Carl Bernstein calls "the best obtainable version of the truth."
The attacks continue to be so successful that even now, long after many news organizations, including The Times, have been found guilty of failing to puncture the administration's prewar W.M.D. hype, new details on that same story are still being ignored or left uninvestigated. The July 2002 "Downing Street memo," the minutes of a meeting in which Tony Blair and his advisers learned of a White House effort to fix "the intelligence and facts" to justify the war in Iraq, was published by The London Sunday Times on May 1. Yet in the 19 daily Scott McClellan briefings that followed, the memo was the subject of only 2 out of the approximately 940 questions asked by the White House press corps, according to Eric Boehlert of Salon.
This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon's special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn't run pro-Nixon stories. Watergate tapes and memos make Mr. Colson, who boasted of "destroying the old establishment," sound like the founding father of today's blogging lynch mobs. He exulted in bullying CBS to cut back its Watergate reports before the '72 election. He enlisted NBC in pro-administration propaganda by browbeating it to repackage 10-day-old coverage of Tricia Nixon's wedding as a prime-time special. It was the Colson office as well that compiled a White House enemies list that included journalists who had the audacity to question administration policies.
Such is the equivalently supine state of much of the news media today that Mr. Colson was repeatedly trotted out, without irony, to pass moral judgment on Mr. Felt - and not just on Fox News, the cable channel that is actually run by the former Nixon media maven, Roger Ailes. "I want kids to look up to heroes," Mr. Colson said, oh so sorrowfully, on NBC's "Today" show, condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring "the confidence of the president of the United States." Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times's Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The "Today" host, Matt Lauer, didn't mention any of this - or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson - and he was ubiquitous - ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a "former White House counsel."
Had anyone been so rude (or professional) as to recount Mr. Colson's sordid past, or to raise the question of whether he was a hero or a traitor, the genealogical line between his Watergate-era machinations and those of his present-day successors would have been all too painfully clear. The main difference is that in the Nixon White House, the president's men plotted behind closed doors. The current administration is now so brazen it does its dirty work in plain sight.
In the most recent example, all the president's men slimed and intimidated Newsweek by accusing it of being an accessory to 17 deaths for its errant Koran story; led by Scott McClellan, they said it was unthinkable that any American guard could be disrespectful of Islam's holy book. These neo-Colsons easily drowned out Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, both of whom said that the riots that led to the 17 deaths were unrelated to Newsweek. Then came the pièce de résistance of Nixon mimicry: a Pentagon report certifying desecrations of the Koran by American guards was released two weeks after the Newsweek imbroglio, at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, to assure it would miss the evening newscasts and be buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers.
At other times the new Colsons top the old one. Though Nixon aspired to punish public broadcasting by cutting its funding, he never imagined that his apparatchiks could seize the top executive positions at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Nor did he come up with the brilliant ideas of putting journalists covertly on the administration payroll and of hiring an outside P.R. firm (Ketchum) to codify an enemies list by ranking news organizations and individual reporters on the basis of how favorably they cover a specific administration policy (No Child Left Behind). President Bush has even succeeded in emasculating the post-Watergate reform that was supposed to help curb Nixonian secrecy, the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
THE journalists who do note the resonances of now with then rarely get to connect those dots on the news media's center stage of television. You are more likely to hear instead of how Watergate inspired too much "gotcha" journalism. That's a rather absurd premise given that no "gotcha" journalist got the goods on the biggest story of our time: the false intimations of incipient mushroom clouds peddled by American officials to sell a war that now threatens to match the unpopularity and marathon length of Vietnam.
Only once during the Deep Throat rollout did I see a palpable, if perhaps unconscious, effort to link the White House of 1972 with that of 2005. It occurred at the start, when ABC News, with the first comprehensive report on Vanity Fair's scoop, interrupted President Bush's post-Memorial Day Rose Garden news conference to break the story. Suddenly the image of the current president blathering on about how hunky-dory everything is in Iraq was usurped by repeated showings of the scene in which the newly resigned Nixon walked across the adjacent White House lawn to the helicopter that would carry him into exile.
But in the days that followed, Nixon and his history and the long shadows they cast largely vanished from the TV screen. In their place were constant nostalgic replays of young Redford and flinty Holbrook. Follow the bait-and-switch.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Mourning Jean O'Leary
June 6, 2005
Jean O'Leary — Leader and Champion
Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force family mourns the death of Jean O'Leary, our former executive director and life-long champion in the fight for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Jean served as co-executive director with Bruce Voeller from 1976 to 1979. During her tenure, she organized the first-ever White House meeting with gay and lesbian rights advocates; coordinated the first openly gay presence at a Democratic National Convention; was the first openly-gay or lesbian person appointed to a presidential commission (President Carter's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year); and coordinated the passage of resolutions recognizing the rights of lesbians at thirty state women's conferences and at the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977. She advocated for gay rights in immigration and naturalization law, campaigned to repeal anti-sodomy statues, and advocated with the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In all, her efforts helped make gay rights a national issue in the late 1970s. Her commitments to feminism and anti-racism live on as core values of the Task Force.
Our thoughts are with Jean's partner, Lisa Phelps, other members of her family and her wide circle of friends.
Jean O'Leary — Leader and Champion
Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force family mourns the death of Jean O'Leary, our former executive director and life-long champion in the fight for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Jean served as co-executive director with Bruce Voeller from 1976 to 1979. During her tenure, she organized the first-ever White House meeting with gay and lesbian rights advocates; coordinated the first openly gay presence at a Democratic National Convention; was the first openly-gay or lesbian person appointed to a presidential commission (President Carter's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year); and coordinated the passage of resolutions recognizing the rights of lesbians at thirty state women's conferences and at the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977. She advocated for gay rights in immigration and naturalization law, campaigned to repeal anti-sodomy statues, and advocated with the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In all, her efforts helped make gay rights a national issue in the late 1970s. Her commitments to feminism and anti-racism live on as core values of the Task Force.
Our thoughts are with Jean's partner, Lisa Phelps, other members of her family and her wide circle of friends.
More on Bush & The Downing Street Memo
The Downing Street Memo Reconsidered
The Nation
David Corn
Sat Jun 11,12:47 AM ET
I posted this on my personal blog at www.davidcorn.com and thought I should share it here as well.
I taped a television program on Friday, and the subject turned to the Downing Street memo--that now-famous memo that recorded a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his chief aides in which Blair was told by the head of England's CIA that the Bush administration had already decided to go to war and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Right away, the two conservatives on the panel--columnist Linda Chavez and radio host Michael Graham--issued a joint defense: the memo was nothing new, this had all been reported before (including at the time), even Bill Clinton supported regime change in Iraq, and a variety of reports have concluded that the WMD intelligence, while wrong, was not intentionally rigged. They really hammered that last point.
Much of this was wrong or misleading. Clinton may have supported the notion of regime change in Iraq; he did not back the particular war Bush launched. And while two reports--one produced by Senate Republicans; the other written by a panel appointed by Bush--reported no evidence of intelligence-tampering had been found, there were numerous media reports in which intelligence analysts claimed (yes, anonymously) that pressure was applied. Moreover, Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel did not agree with that committee's nothing-there finding on this matter. In other words, it's not a closed case.
But this discussion made me realize that perhaps those Bush critics waving the DSM around as gotcha evidence have placed too much emphasis on the "fixed" sentence. I suppose one could read it to mean that Richard Dearlove (aka C), the head of the British MI6, was telling Blair that the Bushies were "gearing" intelligence and facts toward their desire for war. Or perhaps he was indicating that they were building a case for war with whatever facts and intelligence they could find. All of these possibilities come across as somewhat dodgy. But maybe C did not mean "fixed" as in "rigged."
There might be some wiggle room here for the Bushies. But the true impact of the DSM--which Chavez and Graham danced around--is that it shows that Bush was not being straight with the American public. At that point in time--the summer of 2002- Bush and his advisers were claiming that Bush had not yet decided to go to war, that he saw it as a last option, that he would try other alternatives--even diplomacy!--first. The obvious goal was to persuade the public that he was a reasonable fellow who would not rush to such a momentous decision. Yet the DSM, as many readers of this blog already know, discloses that C came back from Washington with quite a different impression:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Let's compare C's insider's view with the view given to the rest of us. On August 8, 2002, the Chicago Tribune ran a front page piece that read:
While portraying Iraq as a serious threat to American security, President Bush and his top advisers made a concerted effort Wednesday to reassure European and Arab allies that the administration would weigh its options and their concerns before trying to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"I promise you that I will be patient and deliberate, that we will continue to consult with Congress and, of course, we'll consult with our friends and allies," Bush said in a speech in Madison, Miss.
"I will explore all options and all tools at my disposal: diplomacy, international pressure, perhaps the military," he said.
The president's comments, as well as those made by Vice President Dick Cheney and others, marked a distinct shift in tone. Administration officials have spoken repeatedly and strongly about the evils of Hussein's regime and insist they would take whatever action against him they deem necessary, unilaterally if need be. However, Wednesday's comments seemed designed to calm foreign leaders who are sharply questioning Bush's call for a "regime change" in Iraq, which most have interpreted to mean a military invasion.
"The president has not made a decision at this point to go to war," Cheney said in a speech in San Francisco. "We're looking at all of our options. It would be irresponsible for us not to do that."
C says he consultations in Washington indicated Bush wanted war. Yet Bush told the public otherwise. Not news? Only if you think a president misleading Americans about his desire for war is not worthy of attention.
All the focus on the "fixed" issue might be a distraction. This memo is evidence--more evidence, I should say--that Bush was committed to war from the start and said whatever needed saying (truth be damned) to sway the citizenry.
Which brings me to another point. The memo, as its devotees know, also reported that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at this meeting said that it
seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
A "thin" WMD case for war? So Bush had not even convinced Jack Straw. Isn't it news that the foreign minister of the Bush's number-one ally believed that Bush's prime rationale for the invasion of Iraq was "thin"? (The U.K.'s attorney general at this meeting also raised questions about the legal basis of an invasion of Iraq.)
This steers us to a key matter. Conservatives like Chavez and Graham now like to hide behind the CIA, blaming bad intelligence for the missing WMDs. Bush didn't screw up, they argue, he merely relied on inadequate intelligence. But the Straw section of the Downing Street memo kills that argument. Straw presumably had access to the best intelligence on the topic, and still he wasn't sold. The bottom-line: even the bad intelligence led to a "thin" case. The problem was not merely the crappy intelligence; it was how Bush used the bad intelligence and stretched it beyond its limits to ease the way to war.
Put aside the question of "fixed" intelligence. The DSM demonstrates that Bush was dishonest with the public about his intentions and that the intelligence he did have in hand--fixed or not, faulty or not--did not support the case for war. I can understand why conservative cheerleaders of the war don't want such matters being discussed. But to call the Downing Street memo an item of no importance is to descend into the land of total spin.
******
Speaking of which, if you haven't read The Washington Post's front-page piece on the problems within the Iraqi security forces, do so. It captures the dilemmas of the Iraq mess in a depressing nutshell. It also is further proof of the rising credibility gap. The Bush administration keeps talking about the progress being made in Iraq. The reports from ground-level--such as this piece--blast apart such rhetoric. In a similar vein, Senator Joe Biden, who was recently in Iraq, reports that there are 107 Iraqi battalions that have been trained and placed in uniform but only three are operational. At this rate, Jeb P. Bush (or Chelsea Clinton) will be president when the Iraqi army can take on the insurgency.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the Post piece--written and reported well by Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru. Note the difference between what the on-the-ground solider says and how the general spins. Do you think we will ever see anyone in charge acknowledge reality in Iraq?
BAIJI, Iraq -- An hour before dawn, the sky still clouded by a dust storm, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's Charlie Company began their mission with a ballad to ousted president Saddam Hussein. "We have lived in humiliation since you left," one sang in Arabic, out of earshot of his U.S. counterparts. "We had hoped to spend our life with you."
But the Iraqi soldiers had no clue where they were going. They shrugged their shoulders when asked what they would do. The U.S. military had billed the mission as pivotal in the Iraqis' progress as a fighting force but had kept the destination and objectives secret out of fear the Iraqis would leak the information to insurgents.
"We can't tell these guys about a lot of this stuff, because we're not really sure who's good and who isn't," said Rick McGovern, a tough-talking 37-year-old platoon sergeant from Hershey, Pa., who heads the military training for Charlie Company.
The reconstruction of Iraq's security forces is the prerequisite for an American withdrawal from Iraq. But as the Bush administration extols the continuing progress of the new Iraqi army, the project in Baiji, a desolate oil town at a strategic crossroads in northern Iraq, demonstrates the immense challenges of building an army from scratch in the middle of a bloody insurgency.
Charlie Company disintegrated once after its commander was killed by a car bomb in December. And members of the unit were threatening to quit en masse this week over complaints that ranged from dismal living conditions to insurgent threats. Across a vast cultural divide, language is just one impediment. Young Iraqi soldiers, ill-equipped and drawn from a disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, say they are not even sure what they are fighting for. They complain bitterly that their American mentors don't respect them.
In fact, the Americans don't: Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall.
"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."
"We don't want to take responsibility; we don't want it," said Amar Mana, 27, an Iraqi private whose forehead was grazed by a bullet during an insurgent attack in November. "Here, no way. The way the situation is, we wouldn't be ready to take responsibility for a thousand years."
Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of the 42nd Infantry Division, which oversees an area of north-central Iraq that includes Baiji and is the size of West Virginia, called the Iraqi forces "improved and improving." He acknowledged that the Iraqis suffered from a lack of equipment and manpower but predicted that, at least in his area of operation, the U.S. military would meet its goal of having battalion-level units operating independently by the fall.
I can tell you, making assessments, I think we're on target," he said in an interview.
On target for what? Make sure you read the full article.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
The Nation
David Corn
Sat Jun 11,12:47 AM ET
I posted this on my personal blog at www.davidcorn.com and thought I should share it here as well.
I taped a television program on Friday, and the subject turned to the Downing Street memo--that now-famous memo that recorded a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his chief aides in which Blair was told by the head of England's CIA that the Bush administration had already decided to go to war and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Right away, the two conservatives on the panel--columnist Linda Chavez and radio host Michael Graham--issued a joint defense: the memo was nothing new, this had all been reported before (including at the time), even Bill Clinton supported regime change in Iraq, and a variety of reports have concluded that the WMD intelligence, while wrong, was not intentionally rigged. They really hammered that last point.
Much of this was wrong or misleading. Clinton may have supported the notion of regime change in Iraq; he did not back the particular war Bush launched. And while two reports--one produced by Senate Republicans; the other written by a panel appointed by Bush--reported no evidence of intelligence-tampering had been found, there were numerous media reports in which intelligence analysts claimed (yes, anonymously) that pressure was applied. Moreover, Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel did not agree with that committee's nothing-there finding on this matter. In other words, it's not a closed case.
But this discussion made me realize that perhaps those Bush critics waving the DSM around as gotcha evidence have placed too much emphasis on the "fixed" sentence. I suppose one could read it to mean that Richard Dearlove (aka C), the head of the British MI6, was telling Blair that the Bushies were "gearing" intelligence and facts toward their desire for war. Or perhaps he was indicating that they were building a case for war with whatever facts and intelligence they could find. All of these possibilities come across as somewhat dodgy. But maybe C did not mean "fixed" as in "rigged."
There might be some wiggle room here for the Bushies. But the true impact of the DSM--which Chavez and Graham danced around--is that it shows that Bush was not being straight with the American public. At that point in time--the summer of 2002- Bush and his advisers were claiming that Bush had not yet decided to go to war, that he saw it as a last option, that he would try other alternatives--even diplomacy!--first. The obvious goal was to persuade the public that he was a reasonable fellow who would not rush to such a momentous decision. Yet the DSM, as many readers of this blog already know, discloses that C came back from Washington with quite a different impression:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Let's compare C's insider's view with the view given to the rest of us. On August 8, 2002, the Chicago Tribune ran a front page piece that read:
While portraying Iraq as a serious threat to American security, President Bush and his top advisers made a concerted effort Wednesday to reassure European and Arab allies that the administration would weigh its options and their concerns before trying to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"I promise you that I will be patient and deliberate, that we will continue to consult with Congress and, of course, we'll consult with our friends and allies," Bush said in a speech in Madison, Miss.
"I will explore all options and all tools at my disposal: diplomacy, international pressure, perhaps the military," he said.
The president's comments, as well as those made by Vice President Dick Cheney and others, marked a distinct shift in tone. Administration officials have spoken repeatedly and strongly about the evils of Hussein's regime and insist they would take whatever action against him they deem necessary, unilaterally if need be. However, Wednesday's comments seemed designed to calm foreign leaders who are sharply questioning Bush's call for a "regime change" in Iraq, which most have interpreted to mean a military invasion.
"The president has not made a decision at this point to go to war," Cheney said in a speech in San Francisco. "We're looking at all of our options. It would be irresponsible for us not to do that."
C says he consultations in Washington indicated Bush wanted war. Yet Bush told the public otherwise. Not news? Only if you think a president misleading Americans about his desire for war is not worthy of attention.
All the focus on the "fixed" issue might be a distraction. This memo is evidence--more evidence, I should say--that Bush was committed to war from the start and said whatever needed saying (truth be damned) to sway the citizenry.
Which brings me to another point. The memo, as its devotees know, also reported that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at this meeting said that it
seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
A "thin" WMD case for war? So Bush had not even convinced Jack Straw. Isn't it news that the foreign minister of the Bush's number-one ally believed that Bush's prime rationale for the invasion of Iraq was "thin"? (The U.K.'s attorney general at this meeting also raised questions about the legal basis of an invasion of Iraq.)
This steers us to a key matter. Conservatives like Chavez and Graham now like to hide behind the CIA, blaming bad intelligence for the missing WMDs. Bush didn't screw up, they argue, he merely relied on inadequate intelligence. But the Straw section of the Downing Street memo kills that argument. Straw presumably had access to the best intelligence on the topic, and still he wasn't sold. The bottom-line: even the bad intelligence led to a "thin" case. The problem was not merely the crappy intelligence; it was how Bush used the bad intelligence and stretched it beyond its limits to ease the way to war.
Put aside the question of "fixed" intelligence. The DSM demonstrates that Bush was dishonest with the public about his intentions and that the intelligence he did have in hand--fixed or not, faulty or not--did not support the case for war. I can understand why conservative cheerleaders of the war don't want such matters being discussed. But to call the Downing Street memo an item of no importance is to descend into the land of total spin.
******
Speaking of which, if you haven't read The Washington Post's front-page piece on the problems within the Iraqi security forces, do so. It captures the dilemmas of the Iraq mess in a depressing nutshell. It also is further proof of the rising credibility gap. The Bush administration keeps talking about the progress being made in Iraq. The reports from ground-level--such as this piece--blast apart such rhetoric. In a similar vein, Senator Joe Biden, who was recently in Iraq, reports that there are 107 Iraqi battalions that have been trained and placed in uniform but only three are operational. At this rate, Jeb P. Bush (or Chelsea Clinton) will be president when the Iraqi army can take on the insurgency.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the Post piece--written and reported well by Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru. Note the difference between what the on-the-ground solider says and how the general spins. Do you think we will ever see anyone in charge acknowledge reality in Iraq?
BAIJI, Iraq -- An hour before dawn, the sky still clouded by a dust storm, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's Charlie Company began their mission with a ballad to ousted president Saddam Hussein. "We have lived in humiliation since you left," one sang in Arabic, out of earshot of his U.S. counterparts. "We had hoped to spend our life with you."
But the Iraqi soldiers had no clue where they were going. They shrugged their shoulders when asked what they would do. The U.S. military had billed the mission as pivotal in the Iraqis' progress as a fighting force but had kept the destination and objectives secret out of fear the Iraqis would leak the information to insurgents.
"We can't tell these guys about a lot of this stuff, because we're not really sure who's good and who isn't," said Rick McGovern, a tough-talking 37-year-old platoon sergeant from Hershey, Pa., who heads the military training for Charlie Company.
The reconstruction of Iraq's security forces is the prerequisite for an American withdrawal from Iraq. But as the Bush administration extols the continuing progress of the new Iraqi army, the project in Baiji, a desolate oil town at a strategic crossroads in northern Iraq, demonstrates the immense challenges of building an army from scratch in the middle of a bloody insurgency.
Charlie Company disintegrated once after its commander was killed by a car bomb in December. And members of the unit were threatening to quit en masse this week over complaints that ranged from dismal living conditions to insurgent threats. Across a vast cultural divide, language is just one impediment. Young Iraqi soldiers, ill-equipped and drawn from a disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, say they are not even sure what they are fighting for. They complain bitterly that their American mentors don't respect them.
In fact, the Americans don't: Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall.
"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."
"We don't want to take responsibility; we don't want it," said Amar Mana, 27, an Iraqi private whose forehead was grazed by a bullet during an insurgent attack in November. "Here, no way. The way the situation is, we wouldn't be ready to take responsibility for a thousand years."
Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of the 42nd Infantry Division, which oversees an area of north-central Iraq that includes Baiji and is the size of West Virginia, called the Iraqi forces "improved and improving." He acknowledged that the Iraqis suffered from a lack of equipment and manpower but predicted that, at least in his area of operation, the U.S. military would meet its goal of having battalion-level units operating independently by the fall.
I can tell you, making assessments, I think we're on target," he said in an interview.
On target for what? Make sure you read the full article.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Friday, June 10, 2005
Apple Launches New Topic: Color
Click the title for the link. It is a great site. Not quite up to par with Pantone but some excellent, practical advice. A MUST for designers, artists, photographers; for anyone who likes color.
MIA: Middle Class
June 10, 2005
The New York Times
Losing Our Country
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960's America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security.
But as The Times's series on class in America reminds us, that was another country. The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists.
Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.
Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.
But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation. Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.
It's not a pretty picture - which is why right-wing partisans try so hard to discredit anyone who tries to explain to the public what's going on.
These partisans rely in part on obfuscation: shaping, slicing and selectively presenting data in an attempt to mislead. For example, it's a plain fact that the Bush tax cuts heavily favor the rich, especially those who derive most of their income from inherited wealth. Yet this year's Economic Report of the President, in a bravura demonstration of how to lie with statistics, claimed that the cuts "increased the overall progressivity of the federal tax system."
The partisans also rely in part on scare tactics, insisting that any attempt to limit inequality would undermine economic incentives and reduce all of us to shared misery. That claim ignores the fact of U.S. economic success after World War II. It also ignores the lesson we should have learned from recent corporate scandals: sometimes the prospect of great wealth for those who succeed provides an incentive not for high performance, but for fraud.
Above all, the partisans engage in name-calling. To suggest that sustaining programs like Social Security, which protects working Americans from economic risk, should have priority over tax cuts for the rich is to practice "class warfare." To show concern over the growing inequality is to engage in the "politics of envy."
But the real reasons to worry about the explosion of inequality since the 1970's have nothing to do with envy. The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.
Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won't be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let's try to do something about the politics of greed.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
Losing Our Country
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960's America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security.
But as The Times's series on class in America reminds us, that was another country. The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists.
Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.
Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.
But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation. Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.
It's not a pretty picture - which is why right-wing partisans try so hard to discredit anyone who tries to explain to the public what's going on.
These partisans rely in part on obfuscation: shaping, slicing and selectively presenting data in an attempt to mislead. For example, it's a plain fact that the Bush tax cuts heavily favor the rich, especially those who derive most of their income from inherited wealth. Yet this year's Economic Report of the President, in a bravura demonstration of how to lie with statistics, claimed that the cuts "increased the overall progressivity of the federal tax system."
The partisans also rely in part on scare tactics, insisting that any attempt to limit inequality would undermine economic incentives and reduce all of us to shared misery. That claim ignores the fact of U.S. economic success after World War II. It also ignores the lesson we should have learned from recent corporate scandals: sometimes the prospect of great wealth for those who succeed provides an incentive not for high performance, but for fraud.
Above all, the partisans engage in name-calling. To suggest that sustaining programs like Social Security, which protects working Americans from economic risk, should have priority over tax cuts for the rich is to practice "class warfare." To show concern over the growing inequality is to engage in the "politics of envy."
But the real reasons to worry about the explosion of inequality since the 1970's have nothing to do with envy. The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.
Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won't be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let's try to do something about the politics of greed.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Thursday, June 09, 2005
OF CONCERN: Gay Rights Battlefields Spread to Public Schools
June 9, 2005
The New York Times
Gay Rights Battlefields Spread to Public Schools
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Emboldened by the political right's growing influence on public policy, opponents of school activities aimed at educating students about homosexuality or promoting acceptance of gay people are mounting challenges to such programs, at individual schools, at statehouses and in Congress.
Chief among the targets are sex education programs that include discussions of homosexuality, and after-school clubs that bring gay and straight students together, two initiatives that gained assent in numerous schools over the last decade.
In many cases, the opponents have been successful. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, parents went to court to block a health education course that offered a discussion of homosexuality, while in Cleveland, Ga., gay and lesbian students were barred from forming a high school club of gay and straight youths.
Leading figures on both sides of the fight say they have never seen passions about public school activities run so high. They agree that much of the reason is conservative groups' eagerness to meet their adversaries with a forcefulness more common to modern-day election campaigns.
"The intensity of the culture wars has heated up over the last few years," said J. Michael Johnson, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group that specializes in issues involving religion. "People are becoming more aware that they have rights, and they're feeling more emboldened to defend them. Across the country, people are saying enough is enough."
Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of another conservative group, Liberty Counsel, said: "We're concerned about the effort to capture youth through indoctrination into the homosexual lifestyle. Students are a captive audience, and they are being targeted by groups with that as an agenda."
The growing conflicts are centering on three issues: whether classrooms are an appropriate venue to explore issues of homosexuality, whether schools should lend sanction to extracurricular activities in which gay culture is a focus and whether textbooks that acknowledge homosexual relationships are suitable for younger children.
This spring, in one instance of the conservative response, the Alliance Defense Fund organized its first national Day of Truth for high school students uncomfortable with the National Day of Silence, an event sponsored for nine years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to protest discrimination in schools.
"We needed to present a counter or Christian perspective," said Mr. Johnson, whose event attracted participation by 340 schools. Kevin Jennings, founder and executive director of the gay education network, said more than 3,700 junior and senior high schools took part in his group's event.
Mr. Jennings and other gay rights leaders say the growing opposition to their efforts is in keeping with a predictable trend set off by disputes over issues like same-sex marriage that are playing out on the national stage.
"These are a bunch of people who very much want to remove from public discourse any mention of homosexuality," said James Esseks, litigation director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "They don't want any mention of the fact that gay people exist."
The struggles have broken out everywhere.
Last month in Montgomery County, Md., a parents' group, alarmed because revisions to a health education course for 8th and 10th grades included a discussion of homosexuality and a video that demonstrated how to use a condom, went into federal court and gained a restraining order to halt them. The county school board then voted 7 to 1 to eliminate the amended program, six months after unanimously approving it.
Conservative groups applauded the board's vote as a victory for religious conviction, and described the litigation strategy as a model for school districts across the country.
"This was huge," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, which seeks to apply biblical principles to public policy.
Another battle involved student journalists at East Bakersfield High School in California. They wrote a series of articles for the school newspaper this spring that explored gay issues through student experiences. But the principal, John Gibson, citing concern for the safety of students who had been interviewed and photographed, would approve publication only if their identities were withheld.
The journalists refused and, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school district on May 19, seeking an emergency order that would have allowed the articles to be published in the final issue of the year, six days later. A county judge declined to overrule Mr. Gibson, saying the issues were too important for an instant ruling.
Christine Sun, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., said that if Mr. Gibson had been motivated only by concern for student safety, "his actions are completely illogical."
"These kids were already 'out' on campus," Ms. Sun said of the articles' subjects. "To the extent there is any threat against them, neither they nor their parents were notified by the principal or anyone from law enforcement."
Mr. Gibson did not respond to a call seeking comment.
The war is being waged at the state level as well. Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that would bar state spending on books or other materials that "promote homosexual lifestyle." Oklahoma passed a resolution last month calling on public libraries to restrict children's access to books with a gay theme. Louisiana is considering a similar measure.
Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan free-speech advocacy group, said gay rights issues involving public schools had become a litmus test to many religious conservatives.
"They feel the public schools are getting ahead of the country," Mr. Haynes said. "They believe the schools are imposing a view of homosexuality that offends their faith and is not consistent with where we are as a country."
Two members of the Southern Baptist Convention have prepared a "resolution on homosexuality in public schools," to be introduced at the denomination's annual gathering this month. The resolution implores Baptist churches to determine whether schools in their area have "homosexual clubs or curricula or programs" and, if so, to encourage parents to remove their children from the schools.
"Churches and parents need to be aware of what's going on," said Bruce N. Shortt, a Houston lawyer who is a co-author of the resolution.
After-school clubs known as Gay-Straight Alliances, which draw together students to share common experiences and concerns, have become a particular source of conflict. The issue has roiled a number of communities, including Ashland, Ky.; Klein, Tex.; Hanford, Calif.; and Cleveland, Ga., where a small group of gay and lesbian students were denied permission this year to form an alliance at White County High School.
Federal law often frowns on administrators' barring some clubs while allowing others, but Cleveland school officials told the students that they would abolish all after-school organizations before allowing a gay-straight alliance.
"They're just scared of change," said Kerry Pacer, 17, who is leading the students' effort. "We live in the Bible Belt. Anything that threatens change, people here don't want that."
Complaints over the students' endeavor led State Senator Nancy Schaefer to introduce a bill that would have required a parent's written permission before a student could join any after-school club. The legislature later deferred to the Georgia Department of Education, which is now considering a modified approach allowing each local school board to develop its own policy.
Ms. Schaefer dismisses the compromise as too weak.
"I just don't feel like homosexual clubs have anything to do with readin', writin' and 'rithmetic," she said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
Gay Rights Battlefields Spread to Public Schools
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Emboldened by the political right's growing influence on public policy, opponents of school activities aimed at educating students about homosexuality or promoting acceptance of gay people are mounting challenges to such programs, at individual schools, at statehouses and in Congress.
Chief among the targets are sex education programs that include discussions of homosexuality, and after-school clubs that bring gay and straight students together, two initiatives that gained assent in numerous schools over the last decade.
In many cases, the opponents have been successful. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, parents went to court to block a health education course that offered a discussion of homosexuality, while in Cleveland, Ga., gay and lesbian students were barred from forming a high school club of gay and straight youths.
Leading figures on both sides of the fight say they have never seen passions about public school activities run so high. They agree that much of the reason is conservative groups' eagerness to meet their adversaries with a forcefulness more common to modern-day election campaigns.
"The intensity of the culture wars has heated up over the last few years," said J. Michael Johnson, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group that specializes in issues involving religion. "People are becoming more aware that they have rights, and they're feeling more emboldened to defend them. Across the country, people are saying enough is enough."
Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of another conservative group, Liberty Counsel, said: "We're concerned about the effort to capture youth through indoctrination into the homosexual lifestyle. Students are a captive audience, and they are being targeted by groups with that as an agenda."
The growing conflicts are centering on three issues: whether classrooms are an appropriate venue to explore issues of homosexuality, whether schools should lend sanction to extracurricular activities in which gay culture is a focus and whether textbooks that acknowledge homosexual relationships are suitable for younger children.
This spring, in one instance of the conservative response, the Alliance Defense Fund organized its first national Day of Truth for high school students uncomfortable with the National Day of Silence, an event sponsored for nine years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to protest discrimination in schools.
"We needed to present a counter or Christian perspective," said Mr. Johnson, whose event attracted participation by 340 schools. Kevin Jennings, founder and executive director of the gay education network, said more than 3,700 junior and senior high schools took part in his group's event.
Mr. Jennings and other gay rights leaders say the growing opposition to their efforts is in keeping with a predictable trend set off by disputes over issues like same-sex marriage that are playing out on the national stage.
"These are a bunch of people who very much want to remove from public discourse any mention of homosexuality," said James Esseks, litigation director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "They don't want any mention of the fact that gay people exist."
The struggles have broken out everywhere.
Last month in Montgomery County, Md., a parents' group, alarmed because revisions to a health education course for 8th and 10th grades included a discussion of homosexuality and a video that demonstrated how to use a condom, went into federal court and gained a restraining order to halt them. The county school board then voted 7 to 1 to eliminate the amended program, six months after unanimously approving it.
Conservative groups applauded the board's vote as a victory for religious conviction, and described the litigation strategy as a model for school districts across the country.
"This was huge," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, which seeks to apply biblical principles to public policy.
Another battle involved student journalists at East Bakersfield High School in California. They wrote a series of articles for the school newspaper this spring that explored gay issues through student experiences. But the principal, John Gibson, citing concern for the safety of students who had been interviewed and photographed, would approve publication only if their identities were withheld.
The journalists refused and, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school district on May 19, seeking an emergency order that would have allowed the articles to be published in the final issue of the year, six days later. A county judge declined to overrule Mr. Gibson, saying the issues were too important for an instant ruling.
Christine Sun, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., said that if Mr. Gibson had been motivated only by concern for student safety, "his actions are completely illogical."
"These kids were already 'out' on campus," Ms. Sun said of the articles' subjects. "To the extent there is any threat against them, neither they nor their parents were notified by the principal or anyone from law enforcement."
Mr. Gibson did not respond to a call seeking comment.
The war is being waged at the state level as well. Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that would bar state spending on books or other materials that "promote homosexual lifestyle." Oklahoma passed a resolution last month calling on public libraries to restrict children's access to books with a gay theme. Louisiana is considering a similar measure.
Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan free-speech advocacy group, said gay rights issues involving public schools had become a litmus test to many religious conservatives.
"They feel the public schools are getting ahead of the country," Mr. Haynes said. "They believe the schools are imposing a view of homosexuality that offends their faith and is not consistent with where we are as a country."
Two members of the Southern Baptist Convention have prepared a "resolution on homosexuality in public schools," to be introduced at the denomination's annual gathering this month. The resolution implores Baptist churches to determine whether schools in their area have "homosexual clubs or curricula or programs" and, if so, to encourage parents to remove their children from the schools.
"Churches and parents need to be aware of what's going on," said Bruce N. Shortt, a Houston lawyer who is a co-author of the resolution.
After-school clubs known as Gay-Straight Alliances, which draw together students to share common experiences and concerns, have become a particular source of conflict. The issue has roiled a number of communities, including Ashland, Ky.; Klein, Tex.; Hanford, Calif.; and Cleveland, Ga., where a small group of gay and lesbian students were denied permission this year to form an alliance at White County High School.
Federal law often frowns on administrators' barring some clubs while allowing others, but Cleveland school officials told the students that they would abolish all after-school organizations before allowing a gay-straight alliance.
"They're just scared of change," said Kerry Pacer, 17, who is leading the students' effort. "We live in the Bible Belt. Anything that threatens change, people here don't want that."
Complaints over the students' endeavor led State Senator Nancy Schaefer to introduce a bill that would have required a parent's written permission before a student could join any after-school club. The legislature later deferred to the Georgia Department of Education, which is now considering a modified approach allowing each local school board to develop its own policy.
Ms. Schaefer dismisses the compromise as too weak.
"I just don't feel like homosexual clubs have anything to do with readin', writin' and 'rithmetic," she said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Huffington Stole The Show
Iraq Is the Issue
John NicholsThu Jun 2,11:29 AM ET
The Nation
They came to hear Howard Dean.
But they got the message that matters from Arianna Huffington.
That's because, while the chairman of the Democratic National Committee delivered a tepid and predictable address to the Campaign for America's Future's "Take Back America" conference on Thursday, the columnist and author who not that many years ago identified as a Newt Gingrich conservative was the speaker who showed up with a road map for renewal of the Democratic Party.
Where Dean made no direct mention of the war in Iraq during a lengthy address to the morning plenary that kicked off the fullest day of the annual gathering of progressive activists, Huffington went to the heart of the matter.
"We cannot continue to ignore the debacle in Iraq if we are going to have any hope of [Democrats] ever again being a majority party," said Huffington, the conservative who came in from the cold and has recently lent her name and energy to the Huffington Post.
At a conference where the schedule was heavy with domestic-policy discussions but short on discourse regarding foreign policy, Huffington bluntly told the crowd, "We cannot have a solution on the domestic front without addressing what is happening in Iraq."
After a quick tour of the quagmire ("Ahmed Chalabi is the oil minister -- this is like something out of Saturday Night Live") and of the Bush Administration's steady pattern of misdeeds and missteps, Huffington asked the fundamental question of Congressional Democrats and party leaders: "Where is the oversight?"
"There is no oversight going on in this most corrupt and most immoral Congress that we have right now," she said, adding that, "I'm very troubled by the way our Democratic leaders go on television and sound like spineless Republicans." (Later in the day, at the one conference session that was devoted to foreign policy issues, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern recalled Dean's recent "now that we're there, we're there" comment regarding the "need" to remain in Iraq and then said, "That sounds like Rumsfeld to me.")
Noting that, in a recent television appearance, US Senator Hillary Clinton said she was not comfortable talking about developing an "exit strategy" to withdraw US troops from Iraq, Huffington said, "With respect to Senator Clinton, if you are not comfortable setting an exit strategy, please point us to someone who is."
Clinton is much discussed as a potential Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. But Huffington drew some of the loudest applause of the conference when she said of the 2008 race, "I want a Democratic presidential candidate who can give a straight, unambiguous answer on Iraq."
It was deserved applause; if Democrats do not come to understand this message, they will doom themselves to an agonizing repetition of the electoral debacles of 2002 and 2004.
"There is no way in a time of war that you can be a majority party without having a policy position [that is distinct from the Republicans]," explained Huffington, who suggested that, instead of avoiding the debate about national security, Democrats need to turn the debate on its head.
"The Democratic leaders need to make it clear that these men running our foreign policy are dangerous," she said. "There is no way Democrats can win an election unless they make it clear that these Republicans are not making this country safer."
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
John NicholsThu Jun 2,11:29 AM ET
The Nation
They came to hear Howard Dean.
But they got the message that matters from Arianna Huffington.
That's because, while the chairman of the Democratic National Committee delivered a tepid and predictable address to the Campaign for America's Future's "Take Back America" conference on Thursday, the columnist and author who not that many years ago identified as a Newt Gingrich conservative was the speaker who showed up with a road map for renewal of the Democratic Party.
Where Dean made no direct mention of the war in Iraq during a lengthy address to the morning plenary that kicked off the fullest day of the annual gathering of progressive activists, Huffington went to the heart of the matter.
"We cannot continue to ignore the debacle in Iraq if we are going to have any hope of [Democrats] ever again being a majority party," said Huffington, the conservative who came in from the cold and has recently lent her name and energy to the Huffington Post.
At a conference where the schedule was heavy with domestic-policy discussions but short on discourse regarding foreign policy, Huffington bluntly told the crowd, "We cannot have a solution on the domestic front without addressing what is happening in Iraq."
After a quick tour of the quagmire ("Ahmed Chalabi is the oil minister -- this is like something out of Saturday Night Live") and of the Bush Administration's steady pattern of misdeeds and missteps, Huffington asked the fundamental question of Congressional Democrats and party leaders: "Where is the oversight?"
"There is no oversight going on in this most corrupt and most immoral Congress that we have right now," she said, adding that, "I'm very troubled by the way our Democratic leaders go on television and sound like spineless Republicans." (Later in the day, at the one conference session that was devoted to foreign policy issues, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern recalled Dean's recent "now that we're there, we're there" comment regarding the "need" to remain in Iraq and then said, "That sounds like Rumsfeld to me.")
Noting that, in a recent television appearance, US Senator Hillary Clinton said she was not comfortable talking about developing an "exit strategy" to withdraw US troops from Iraq, Huffington said, "With respect to Senator Clinton, if you are not comfortable setting an exit strategy, please point us to someone who is."
Clinton is much discussed as a potential Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. But Huffington drew some of the loudest applause of the conference when she said of the 2008 race, "I want a Democratic presidential candidate who can give a straight, unambiguous answer on Iraq."
It was deserved applause; if Democrats do not come to understand this message, they will doom themselves to an agonizing repetition of the electoral debacles of 2002 and 2004.
"There is no way in a time of war that you can be a majority party without having a policy position [that is distinct from the Republicans]," explained Huffington, who suggested that, instead of avoiding the debate about national security, Democrats need to turn the debate on its head.
"The Democratic leaders need to make it clear that these men running our foreign policy are dangerous," she said. "There is no way Democrats can win an election unless they make it clear that these Republicans are not making this country safer."
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Makes Me Want To Buy A Ford
Another swing of the pocketbook
Christian activist groupgoes after Ford Motor Co.
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 4:13 p.m. ET June 1, 2005
A week after it declared victory over Walt Disney Co., a leading Christian activist group has fired another missile in its long war against companies it thinks are destroying traditional American values.
The target this time is Ford Motor Co., which Christians should boycott as “the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle,” the American Family Association says on a Web site it put up Monday, boycottford.com.
The AFA, the nonprofit group run by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, criticized Ford for donating money to gay-rights organizations — Ford offers to give up to $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination for every Jaguar and Land Rover it sells. The group also complained that Ford sponsored gay pride celebrations, advertised in gay-oriented publications and was “redefining the definition of the family to include homosexual marriage,” Randy Sharp, the organization’s director of special projects, said Tuesday.
If anything, Ford says, the AFA is not giving it enough credit.
Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an interview Wednesday that the AFA was misusing “diversity” by treating it as a code word for “homosexuality.” But “to Ford, diversity is a much broader definition than simply homosexuality,” she said. “Diversity is very important to Ford, and it goes beyond homosexuality.”
Thousands respond to call for action
Evans said it was “too early yet to know for sure” what impact the boycott might have. “We do know that some Ford dealers are getting calls, and we know our customer relations center is getting calls, but I don’t have a good volume,” she said.
The quantifiable impact of a boycott based on Christian principles is all but impossible to assess, but for the AFA, which has gone after scores of giant corporations for almost 30 years, they are an article of faith. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 54,000 people had signed the AFA’s online pledge to boycott Ford, Sharp said.
The organization usually starts with a letter-writing campaign, urging its members to contact executives, local franchisers and advertisers to express unhappiness with a company’s behavior. In what it considers intractable circumstances, the AFA will escalate to a formal boycott.
The campaigns are the AFA’s most visible activity by far. Through its main Web site and two affiliated sites, One Million Dads and One Million Moms, it can have a score of boycotts and letter-writing drives in play at one time.
The fight against Ford is just one of many it has going: As of Tuesday, it was calling for action against the Carl’s Jr. hamburger chain (to protest its racy new ad featuring Paris Hilton), Kraft Foods (for its sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games), Mary Kay Cosmetics and Old Navy stores (for advertising on ABC’s prime-time soap opera “Desperate Housewives”) and NutriSystem Inc., the weight-loss company (for airing its own salacious TV ad).
Most recently, the AFA ended a nine-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co., which it launched because of what it felt was the company’s “attitude, arrogance and embrace of the homosexual lifestyle.”
The AFA said it was moving on because “we have made our point.” Disney said it never changed any of its policies, but Sharp pointed to an executive shuffle and the dissolution of Disney’s deal with the founders of the Miramax studio, which seemed to specialize in films designed to get Wildmon’s goat, notably “Kids,” “Priest” and “Dogma.”
‘Gay agenda,’ racy ads push hot buttons
The reasons for each boycott vary in the details, but the companies’ alleged zeal to push the “homosexual agenda” is a common theme, side by side with their sponsorships of television programs the AFA finds morally unacceptable.
There is plenty to go after, and the AFA has aimed its guns at so many companies that even it has trouble keeping track, Sparks acknowledged in an interview. There are so many letter-writing campaigns, in fact, that sometimes the AFA finds itself working against itself.
For example, the organization in mid-May blitzed Wal-Mart for approving a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender affinity group for its employees, shortly after it lavishly praised Wal-Mart for matching donations to the Salvation Army over Christmas. In December, the AFA was praising Wal-Mart as a place where “Sam Walton’s legacy still remains in the minds and hearts of his company”; by April, it was urging Christians to consider taking their business elsewhere.
Other Christian organizations have tried similar tactics; most recently, a minister in suburban Seattle claimed credit for a decision by Microsoft Corp. to withdraw its support for a bill that would have extended Washington state’s anti-discrimination laws to gays and lesbians, a claim Microsoft rejected. (MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.)
But there is no other organization quite like the AFA, which in the past has taken on Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen, Tide detergent, Clorox bleach, Pampers, MTV, Abercrombie & Fitch, K-Mart, Burger King, American Airlines and S.C. Johnson & Son, makers of Windex, Ziploc, Pledge, Glade and Edge.
The current campaign against NutriSystem reveals how much the AFA relishes the battle. The company’s sin is to have aired a television ad that the AFA found “offensive and tasteless,” and to whet its followers’ appetite for battle, the AFA spares no detail in describing just how offensive and tasteless the ad is:
“A woman in black panties, bra, and high heels, is pushing a shopping cart through a supermarket aisle,” the AFA says in an Action Alert on its Web site. “A man stocking items seems to be lusting after her, as she pauses in front of him (shown from side angle). They zoom in on her stomach as the stocker glances up and down at her torso with a lustful smile. The panties are very low cut, [and] as she walks away it is in slow motion.”
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
Christian activist groupgoes after Ford Motor Co.
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 4:13 p.m. ET June 1, 2005
A week after it declared victory over Walt Disney Co., a leading Christian activist group has fired another missile in its long war against companies it thinks are destroying traditional American values.
The target this time is Ford Motor Co., which Christians should boycott as “the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle,” the American Family Association says on a Web site it put up Monday, boycottford.com.
The AFA, the nonprofit group run by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, criticized Ford for donating money to gay-rights organizations — Ford offers to give up to $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination for every Jaguar and Land Rover it sells. The group also complained that Ford sponsored gay pride celebrations, advertised in gay-oriented publications and was “redefining the definition of the family to include homosexual marriage,” Randy Sharp, the organization’s director of special projects, said Tuesday.
If anything, Ford says, the AFA is not giving it enough credit.
Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an interview Wednesday that the AFA was misusing “diversity” by treating it as a code word for “homosexuality.” But “to Ford, diversity is a much broader definition than simply homosexuality,” she said. “Diversity is very important to Ford, and it goes beyond homosexuality.”
Thousands respond to call for action
Evans said it was “too early yet to know for sure” what impact the boycott might have. “We do know that some Ford dealers are getting calls, and we know our customer relations center is getting calls, but I don’t have a good volume,” she said.
The quantifiable impact of a boycott based on Christian principles is all but impossible to assess, but for the AFA, which has gone after scores of giant corporations for almost 30 years, they are an article of faith. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 54,000 people had signed the AFA’s online pledge to boycott Ford, Sharp said.
The organization usually starts with a letter-writing campaign, urging its members to contact executives, local franchisers and advertisers to express unhappiness with a company’s behavior. In what it considers intractable circumstances, the AFA will escalate to a formal boycott.
The campaigns are the AFA’s most visible activity by far. Through its main Web site and two affiliated sites, One Million Dads and One Million Moms, it can have a score of boycotts and letter-writing drives in play at one time.
The fight against Ford is just one of many it has going: As of Tuesday, it was calling for action against the Carl’s Jr. hamburger chain (to protest its racy new ad featuring Paris Hilton), Kraft Foods (for its sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games), Mary Kay Cosmetics and Old Navy stores (for advertising on ABC’s prime-time soap opera “Desperate Housewives”) and NutriSystem Inc., the weight-loss company (for airing its own salacious TV ad).
Most recently, the AFA ended a nine-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co., which it launched because of what it felt was the company’s “attitude, arrogance and embrace of the homosexual lifestyle.”
The AFA said it was moving on because “we have made our point.” Disney said it never changed any of its policies, but Sharp pointed to an executive shuffle and the dissolution of Disney’s deal with the founders of the Miramax studio, which seemed to specialize in films designed to get Wildmon’s goat, notably “Kids,” “Priest” and “Dogma.”
‘Gay agenda,’ racy ads push hot buttons
The reasons for each boycott vary in the details, but the companies’ alleged zeal to push the “homosexual agenda” is a common theme, side by side with their sponsorships of television programs the AFA finds morally unacceptable.
There is plenty to go after, and the AFA has aimed its guns at so many companies that even it has trouble keeping track, Sparks acknowledged in an interview. There are so many letter-writing campaigns, in fact, that sometimes the AFA finds itself working against itself.
For example, the organization in mid-May blitzed Wal-Mart for approving a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender affinity group for its employees, shortly after it lavishly praised Wal-Mart for matching donations to the Salvation Army over Christmas. In December, the AFA was praising Wal-Mart as a place where “Sam Walton’s legacy still remains in the minds and hearts of his company”; by April, it was urging Christians to consider taking their business elsewhere.
Other Christian organizations have tried similar tactics; most recently, a minister in suburban Seattle claimed credit for a decision by Microsoft Corp. to withdraw its support for a bill that would have extended Washington state’s anti-discrimination laws to gays and lesbians, a claim Microsoft rejected. (MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.)
But there is no other organization quite like the AFA, which in the past has taken on Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen, Tide detergent, Clorox bleach, Pampers, MTV, Abercrombie & Fitch, K-Mart, Burger King, American Airlines and S.C. Johnson & Son, makers of Windex, Ziploc, Pledge, Glade and Edge.
The current campaign against NutriSystem reveals how much the AFA relishes the battle. The company’s sin is to have aired a television ad that the AFA found “offensive and tasteless,” and to whet its followers’ appetite for battle, the AFA spares no detail in describing just how offensive and tasteless the ad is:
“A woman in black panties, bra, and high heels, is pushing a shopping cart through a supermarket aisle,” the AFA says in an Action Alert on its Web site. “A man stocking items seems to be lusting after her, as she pauses in front of him (shown from side angle). They zoom in on her stomach as the stocker glances up and down at her torso with a lustful smile. The panties are very low cut, [and] as she walks away it is in slow motion.”
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
The "I" Word: Impeachment
Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 by the Boston Globe
The 'I' Word: Impeachment
by Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese
The impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse.
Minutes from a summer 2002 meeting involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveal that the Bush administration was ''fixing" the intelligence to justify invading Iraq. US intelligence used to justify the war demonstrates repeatedly the truth of the meeting minutes -- evidence was thin and needed fixing.
President Clinton was impeached for perjury about his sexual relationships. Comparing Clinton's misbehavior to a destructive and costly war occupation launched in March 2003 under false pretenses in violation of domestic and international law certainly merits introduction of an impeachment resolution.
Eighty-nine members of Congress have asked the president whether intelligence was manipulated to lead the United States to war. The letter points to British meeting minutes that raise ''troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war." Those minutes describe the case for war as ''thin" and Saddam as ''nonthreatening to his neighbors," and ''Britain and America had to create conditions to justify a war." Finally, military action was ''seen as inevitable . . . But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Indeed, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor any imminent threat to the United States:
The International Atomic Energy Agency Iraq inspection team reported in 1998, ''there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-usable material." A 2003 update by the IAEA reached the same conclusions.
The CIA told the White House in February 2001: ''We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has . . . reconstitute[d] its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Colin Powell said in February 2001 that Saddam Hussein ''has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."
The CIA told the White House in two Fall 2002 memos not to make claims of Iraq uranium purchases. CIA Director George Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use that claim as proof of an Iraq nuclear threat.
Regarding unmanned bombers highlighted by Bush, the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center concluded they could not carry weapons spray devices. The Defense Intelligence Agency told the president in June 2002 that the unmanned aerial bombers were unproven. Further, there was no reliable information showing Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether it had established chemical agent production facilities.
When discussing WMD the CIA used words like ''might" and ''could." The case was always circumstantial with equivocations, unlike the president and vice president, e.g., Cheney said on Aug. 26, 2002: ''Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
The State Department in 2003 said: ''The activities we have detected do not . . . add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing . . . an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."
The National Intelligence Estimate issued in October 2002 said ''We have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against US territory."
The UN, IAEA, the State and Energy departments, the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center, US inspectors, and even the CIA concluded there was no basis for the Bush-Cheney public assertions. Yet, President Bush told the public in September 2002 that Iraq ''could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given." And, just before the invasion, President Bush said: ''Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
The president and vice president have artfully dodged the central question: ''Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al Qaeda, suppressing contrary intelligence, and deliberately exaggerating the danger a contained, weakened Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?"
If this is answered affirmatively Bush and Cheney have committed ''high crimes and misdemeanors." It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step. Based on the mountains of fabrications, deceptions, and lies, it is time to debate the ''I" word.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate. Kevin Zeese is director of DemocracyRising.US.
© 2005 Boston Globe
The 'I' Word: Impeachment
by Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese
The impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse.
Minutes from a summer 2002 meeting involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveal that the Bush administration was ''fixing" the intelligence to justify invading Iraq. US intelligence used to justify the war demonstrates repeatedly the truth of the meeting minutes -- evidence was thin and needed fixing.
President Clinton was impeached for perjury about his sexual relationships. Comparing Clinton's misbehavior to a destructive and costly war occupation launched in March 2003 under false pretenses in violation of domestic and international law certainly merits introduction of an impeachment resolution.
Eighty-nine members of Congress have asked the president whether intelligence was manipulated to lead the United States to war. The letter points to British meeting minutes that raise ''troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war." Those minutes describe the case for war as ''thin" and Saddam as ''nonthreatening to his neighbors," and ''Britain and America had to create conditions to justify a war." Finally, military action was ''seen as inevitable . . . But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Indeed, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor any imminent threat to the United States:
The International Atomic Energy Agency Iraq inspection team reported in 1998, ''there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-usable material." A 2003 update by the IAEA reached the same conclusions.
The CIA told the White House in February 2001: ''We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has . . . reconstitute[d] its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Colin Powell said in February 2001 that Saddam Hussein ''has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."
The CIA told the White House in two Fall 2002 memos not to make claims of Iraq uranium purchases. CIA Director George Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use that claim as proof of an Iraq nuclear threat.
Regarding unmanned bombers highlighted by Bush, the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center concluded they could not carry weapons spray devices. The Defense Intelligence Agency told the president in June 2002 that the unmanned aerial bombers were unproven. Further, there was no reliable information showing Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether it had established chemical agent production facilities.
When discussing WMD the CIA used words like ''might" and ''could." The case was always circumstantial with equivocations, unlike the president and vice president, e.g., Cheney said on Aug. 26, 2002: ''Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
The State Department in 2003 said: ''The activities we have detected do not . . . add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing . . . an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."
The National Intelligence Estimate issued in October 2002 said ''We have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against US territory."
The UN, IAEA, the State and Energy departments, the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center, US inspectors, and even the CIA concluded there was no basis for the Bush-Cheney public assertions. Yet, President Bush told the public in September 2002 that Iraq ''could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given." And, just before the invasion, President Bush said: ''Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
The president and vice president have artfully dodged the central question: ''Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al Qaeda, suppressing contrary intelligence, and deliberately exaggerating the danger a contained, weakened Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?"
If this is answered affirmatively Bush and Cheney have committed ''high crimes and misdemeanors." It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step. Based on the mountains of fabrications, deceptions, and lies, it is time to debate the ''I" word.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate. Kevin Zeese is director of DemocracyRising.US.
© 2005 Boston Globe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
