From Consortium News via truthout.org :
Gary Webb's Death: American Tragedy
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Saturday 09 December 2006
When Americans ask me what happened to the vaunted U.S. press corps over the past three decades - in the decline from its heyday of the Watergate scandal and the Pentagon Papers to its failure to challenge the Iraq WMD lies or to hold George W. Bush accountable - I often recall for them the story of Gary Webb.
Two years ago, on the night of Dec. 9, 2004, investigative reporter Webb - his career shattered and his life in ruins - typed out four suicide notes for his family, laid out a certificate for his cremation, put a note on the door suggesting a call to 911, and removed his father's handgun from a box.
The 49-year-old Webb, a divorced father of three who was living alone in a rental house in Sacramento County, California, then raised the gun and shot himself in the head. The first shot was not lethal, so he fired once more.
His body was found the next day after movers who were scheduled to clear out Webb's rental house, arrived and followed the instructions from the note on the door.
Though a personal tragedy, the story of Gary Webb's suicide has a larger meaning for the American people who find themselves increasingly sheltered from the truth by government specialists at cover-ups and by a U.S. news media that has lost its way.
Webb's death had its roots in his fateful decision eight years earlier to write a three-part series for the San Jose Mercury News that challenged a potent conventional wisdom shared by the elite U.S. news organizations - that one of the most shocking scandals of the 1980s just couldn't have been true.
Webb's "Dark Alliance" series, published in August 1996, revived the story of how the Reagan administration in the 1980s had tolerated and protected cocaine smuggling by its client army of Nicaraguan rebels known as the contras.
Though substantial evidence of these crimes had surfaced in the mid-1980s (initially in an article that Brian Barger and I wrote for the Associated Press in December 1985 and later at hearings conducted by Sen. John Kerry), the major news outlets had bent to pressure from the Reagan administration and refused to take the disclosures seriously.
Reflecting the dominant attitude toward Kerry and his work on the contra-cocaine scandal, Newsweek even dubbed the Massachusetts senator a "randy conspiracy buff." [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Kerry's Contra-Cocaine Chapter."]
Thus, the ugly reality of the contra-cocaine scandal was left in that netherworld of uncertainty, largely proven with documents and testimony but never accepted by Official Washington, including its premier news organizations, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.
But Webb's series thrust the scandal back into prominence by connecting the contra-cocaine trafficking to the crack epidemic that had ravaged Los Angeles and other American cities in the 1980s. For that reason, African-American communities were up in arms as were their elected representatives.
So, the "Dark Alliance" series offered a unique opportunity for the major news outlets to finally give the contra-cocaine scandal the attention it deserved.
Media Resistance
But that would have required some painful self-criticism among Washington journalists whose careers had advanced in part because they had avoided retaliation from aggressive Reagan supporters who had made an art of punishing out-of-step reporters for pursuing controversies like the contra-cocaine scandal.
Also, by the mid-1990s, a powerful right-wing news media had taken shape and was in no mood to accept the notion that President Ronald Reagan's beloved contras were little more than common criminals. That recognition would have cast a shadow over the Reagan Legacy, which the Right was busy elevating into mythic status.
There was the turf issue, too. Since Webb's stories coincided with the emergence of the Internet as an alternate source for news and the San Jose Mercury News was at the center of Silicon Valley, the big newspapers saw a threat to their historic dominance as the nation's gatekeepers for what information should be taken seriously.
Plus, the major media's focus in the mid-1990s was on scandals swirling around Bill Clinton, such as some firings at the White House Travel Office and convoluted questions about his old Whitewater real-estate deal.
In other words, there was little appetite to revisit scandals from the Reagan years and there was strong motive to disparage what Webb had written.
It fell to Rev. Sun Myung Moon's right-wing Washington Times to begin the counterattack. The Washington Times turned to some ex-CIA officials, who had participated in the contra war, to refute the drug charges.
But - in a pattern that would repeat itself over the next decade - the Washington Post and other mainstream newspapers quickly lined up behind the right-wing press. On Oct. 4, 1996, the Washington Post published a front-page article knocking down Webb's story.
The Post's approach was twofold: first, it presented the contra-cocaine allegations as old news - "even CIA personnel testified to Congress they knew that those covert operations involved drug traffickers," the Post reported - and second, the Post minimized the importance of the one contra smuggling channel that Webb had highlighted - that it had not "played a major role in the emergence of crack."
A Post side-bar story dismissed African-Americans as prone to "conspiracy fears."
Soon, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times joined in the piling on against Gary Webb. The big newspapers made much of the CIA's internal reviews in 1987 and 1988 that supposedly cleared the spy agency of a role in contra-cocaine smuggling.
But the CIA's decade-old cover-up began to weaken on Oct. 24, 1996, when CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz conceded before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the first CIA probe had lasted only 12 days, the second only three days. He promised a more thorough review.
Nevertheless, Webb was becoming the target of outright media ridicule. Influential Post media critic Howard Kurtz mocked Webb for saying in a book proposal that he would explore the possibility that the contra war was primarily a business to its participants.
"Oliver Stone, check your voice mail," Kurtz chortled. [Washington Post, Oct. 28, 1996]
Webb's suspicion was not unfounded, however. Indeed, White House aide Oliver North's emissary Rob Owen had made the same point a decade earlier, in a March 17, 1986, message about the contra leadership.
"Few of the so-called leaders of the movement … really care about the boys in the field," Owen wrote. "THIS WAR HAS BECOME A BUSINESS TO MANY OF THEM." [Capitalization in the original.]
Kurtz and other big-name journalists may have been ignorant of key facts about the contra war, but that didn't stop them from pillorying Gary Webb. The ridicule also had a predictable effect on the executives of the Mercury News. By early 1997, executive editor Jerry Ceppos was in retreat.
On May 11, 1997, Ceppos published a front-page column saying the series "fell short of my standards." He criticized the stories because they "strongly implied CIA knowledge" of contra connections to U.S. drug dealers who were manufacturing crack-cocaine. "We did not have proof that top CIA officials knew of the relationship," Ceppos wrote.
The big newspapers celebrated Ceppos's retreat as vindication of their own dismissal of the contra-cocaine stories. Ceppos next pulled the plug on the Mercury News' continuing contra-cocaine investigation and reassigned Webb to a small office in Cupertino, California, far from his family. Webb resigned the paper in disgrace.
For undercutting Webb and other reporters working on the contra investigation, Ceppos was lauded by the American Journalism Review and was given the 1997 national "Ethics in Journalism Award" by the Society of Professional Journalists. While Ceppos won raves, Webb watched his career collapse and his marriage break up.
The CIA Probe
Still, Gary Webb had set in motion internal government investigations that would bring to the surface long-hidden facts about how the Reagan administration had conducted the contra war.
The CIA's defensive line against the contra-cocaine allegations began to break when the spy agency published Volume One of Inspector General Hitz's findings on Jan. 29, 1998.
Despite a largely exculpatory press release, Hitz's Volume One admitted that not only were many of Webb's allegations true but that he actually understated the seriousness of the contra-drug crimes and the CIA's knowledge.
Hitz acknowledged that cocaine smugglers played a significant early role in the Nicaraguan contra movement and that the CIA intervened to block an image-threatening 1984 federal investigation into a San Francisco-based drug ring with suspected ties to the contras, the so-called "Frogman Case."
On May 7, 1998, another disclosure from the government investigation shook the CIA's weakening defenses.
Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, introduced into the Congressional Record a Feb. 11, 1982, letter of understanding between the CIA and the Justice Department.
The letter, which had been sought by CIA Director William Casey, freed the CIA from legal requirements that it must report drug smuggling by CIA assets, a provision that covered both the Nicaraguan contras and Afghan rebels who were fighting a Soviet-supported regime in Afghanistan and were implicated in heroin trafficking.
The next breach in the defensive wall was a report by the Justice Department's inspector general Michael Bromwich. Given the hostile climate surrounding Webb's series, Bromwich's report opened with criticism of Webb. But, like the CIA's Volume One, the contents revealed new details about government wrongdoing.
According to evidence cited by Bromwich, the Reagan administration knew almost from the outset of the contra war that cocaine traffickers permeated the paramilitary operation. The administration also did next to nothing to expose or stop the crimes.
Bromwich's report revealed example after example of leads not followed, corroborated witnesses disparaged, official law-enforcement investigations sabotaged, and even the CIA facilitating the work of drug traffickers.
The report showed that the contras and their supporters ran several parallel drug-smuggling operations, not just the one at the center of Webb's series.
The report also found that the CIA shared little of its information about contra drugs with law-enforcement agencies and on three occasions disrupted cocaine-trafficking investigations that threatened the contras.
Though depicting a more widespread contra-drug operation than Webb had understood, the Justice report also provided some important corroboration about a Nicaraguan drug smuggler, Norwin Meneses, who was a key figure in Webb's series.
Bromwich cited U.S. government informants who supplied detailed information about Meneses's operation and his financial assistance to the contras.
For instance, Renato Pena, a money-and-drug courier for Meneses, said that in the early 1980s, the CIA allowed the contras to fly drugs into the United States, sell them and keep the proceeds.
Pena, who was the northern California representative for the CIA-backed FDN contra army, said the drug trafficking was forced on the contras by the inadequate levels of U.S. government assistance.
The Justice report also disclosed repeated examples of the CIA and U.S. embassies in Central America discouraging Drug Enforcement Administration investigations, including one into contra-cocaine shipments moving through the international airport in El Salvador.
Inspector General Bromwich said secrecy trumped all. "We have no doubt that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy were not anxious for the DEA to pursue its investigation at the airport," he wrote.
Despite the remarkable admissions in the body of these reports, the big newspapers showed no inclination to read beyond the press releases and executive summaries.
Cocaine Crimes & Monica
By fall 1998, Official Washington was obsessed with the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, which made it easier to ignore even more stunning contra-cocaine disclosures in the CIA's Volume Two.
In Volume Two, published Oct. 8, 1998, CIA Inspector General Hitz identified more than 50 contras and contra-related entities implicated in the drug trade. He also detailed how the Reagan administration had protected these drug operations and frustrated federal investigations throughout the 1980s.
According to Volume Two, the CIA knew the criminal nature of its contra clients from the start of the war against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
The earliest contra force, called ADREN or the 15th of September Legion, had chosen "to stoop to criminal activities in order to feed and clothe their cadre," according to a June 1981 draft CIA field report.
ADREN also employed terrorist methods, including the bombing of Nicaraguan civilian planes and hijackings, to disrupt the Sandinista government, the CIA knew. Cocaine smuggling was also in the picture.
According to a September 1981 cable to CIA headquarters, two ADREN members made the first delivery of drugs to Miami in July 1981, the CIA cable reported.
ADREN's leaders included Enrique Bermudez and other early contras who would later direct the major contra army, the CIA-organized FDN. Throughout the war, Bermudez remained the top contra military commander.
The CIA later corroborated the allegations about ADREN's cocaine trafficking, but insisted that Bermudez had opposed the drug shipments to the United States which went ahead nonetheless.
The truth about Bermudez's supposed objections to drug trafficking, however, was less clear. According to Volume One, Bermudez enlisted Norwin Meneses, a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine smuggler, to raise money and buy supplies for the contras.
Volume One had quoted a Meneses associate, another Nicaraguan trafficker named Danilo Blandon, who told Hitz's investigators that he and Meneses flew to Honduras to meet with Bermudez in 1982.
At the time, Meneses's criminal activities were well known in the Nicaraguan exile community. But the FDN commander told the cocaine smugglers that "the ends justify the means" in raising money for the contras.
After the Bermudez meeting, contra soldiers helped Meneses and Blandon get past Honduran police who briefly arrested them on drug-trafficking suspicions. After their release, Blandon and Meneses traveled on to Bolivia to complete a cocaine transaction.
There were other indications of Bermudez's drug-smuggling tolerance. In February 1988, another Nicaraguan exile linked to the drug trade accused Bermudez of narcotics trafficking, according to Hitz's report.
After the contra war ended, Bermudez returned to Managua, where he was shot to death on Feb. 16, 1991. The murder has never been solved.
CIA Drug Asset
Along the Southern Front, in Costa Rica, the drug evidence centered on the forces of Eden Pastora, another leading contra commander. But Hitz discovered that the U.S. government may have contributed to the problem.
Hitz revealed that the CIA put an admitted drug operative - known by his CIA pseudonym "Ivan Gomez" - in a supervisory position over Pastora. Hitz reported that the CIA discovered Gomez's drug history in 1987 when Gomez failed a security review on drug-trafficking questions.
In internal CIA interviews, Gomez admitted that in March or April 1982, he helped family members who were engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering. In one case, Gomez said he assisted his brother and brother-in-law in transporting cash from New York City to Miami. He admitted that he "knew this act was illegal."
Later, Gomez expanded on his admission, describing how his family members had fallen $2 million into debt and had gone to Miami to run a money-laundering center for drug traffickers. Gomez said "his brother had many visitors whom [Gomez] assumed to be in the drug trafficking business."
Gomez's brother was arrested on drug charges in June 1982. Three months later, in September 1982, Gomez started his CIA assignment in Costa Rica. Years later, convicted drug trafficker Carlos Cabezas charged that in the early 1980s, Ivan Gomez was the CIA agent in Costa Rica who was overseeing drug-money donations to the contras.
Gomez "was to make sure the money was given to the right people [the contras] and nobody was taking ... profit they weren't supposed to," Cabezas stated publicly.
But the CIA sought to discredit Cabezas at the time because he had trouble identifying Gomez's picture and put Gomez at one meeting in early 1982 before Gomez started his CIA assignment.
While the CIA was able to fend off Cabezas's allegations by pointing to these discrepancies, Hitz's report revealed that the CIA was nevertheless aware of Gomez's direct role in drug-money laundering, a fact the agency hid from Sen. Kerry's investigation in 1987.
The Bolivian Connection
There also was more about Gomez. In November 1985, the FBI learned from an informant that Gomez's two brothers had been large-scale cocaine importers, with one brother arranging shipments from Bolivia's infamous drug kingpin Roberto Suarez.
Suarez already was known as a financier of right-wing causes. In 1980, with the support of Argentine's hard-line anti-communist military regime, Suarez bankrolled a coup in Bolivia that ousted the elected left-of-center government.
The violent putsch became known as the Cocaine Coup because it made Bolivia the region's first narco-state. Bolivia's government-protected cocaine shipments helped transform the Medellin cartel from a struggling local operation into a giant corporate-style business for delivering cocaine to the U.S. market.
Some of those profits allegedly found their way into contra coffers. Flush with cash in the early 1980s, Suarez invested more than $30 million in various right-wing paramilitary operations, including the contra forces in Central America, according to U.S. Senate testimony by an Argentine intelligence officer, Leonardo Sanchez-Reisse.
In 1987, Sanchez-Reisse said the Suarez drug money was laundered through front companies in Miami before going to Central America. There, other Argentine intelligence officers - veterans of the Bolivian coup - trained the contras.
CIA Inspector General Hitz added another piece to the mystery of the Bolivian-contra connection. One contra fund-raiser, Jose Orlando Bolanos, boasted that the Argentine government was supporting his anti-Sandinista activities, according to a May 1982 cable to CIA headquarters.
Bolanos made the statement during a meeting with undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. He even offered to introduce them to his Bolivian cocaine supplier.
Despite all this suspicious drug activity around Ivan Gomez and the contras, the CIA insisted that it did not unmask Gomez until 1987, when he failed a security check and confessed his role in his family's drug business.
The CIA official who interviewed Gomez concluded that "Gomez directly participated in illegal drug transactions, concealed participation in illegal drug transactions, and concealed information about involvement in illegal drug activity," Hitz wrote.
But senior CIA officials still protected Gomez. They refused to refer the Gomez case to the Justice Department, citing the 1982 DOJ-CIA agreement that spared the CIA from a legal obligation to report narcotics crimes by non-employees.
Instead, the CIA eased Gomez, an independent contractor, out of the agency in February 1988, without alerting law enforcement or the congressional oversight committees.
When questioned about the case nearly a decade later, one senior CIA official who had supported the gentle treatment of Gomez had second thoughts. "It is a striking commentary on me and everyone that this guy's involvement in narcotics didn't weigh more heavily on me or the system," the official acknowledged.
The White House Trail
A Medellin drug connection arose in another section of Hitz's report, when he revealed evidence suggesting that some contra trafficking may have been sanctioned by Reagan's National Security Council.
The protagonist for this part of the contra-cocaine mystery was Moises Nunez, a Cuban-American who worked for North's NSC operation and for two drug-connected seafood importers, Ocean Hunter in Miami and Frigorificos de Puntarenas in Costa Rica.
Frigorificos de Puntarenas was created in the early 1980s as a cover for drug-money laundering, according to sworn testimony by two of the firm's principals - Carlos Soto and Medellin cartel accountant Ramon Milian Rodriguez. Drug allegations were swirling around Moises Nunez by the mid-1980s. At the AP, his operation was one of the targets of our investigation.
Finally reacting to these suspicions, the CIA questioned Nunez on March 25, 1987, about his alleged cocaine trafficking. He responded by pointing the finger at his NSC superiors.
"Nunez revealed that since 1985, he had engaged in a clandestine relationship with the National Security Council," Hitz reported.
"Nunez refused to elaborate on the nature of these actions, but indicated it was difficult to answer questions relating to his involvement in narcotics trafficking because of the specific tasks he had performed at the direction of the NSC. Nunez refused to identify the NSC officials with whom he had been involved."
After this first round of questioning, CIA headquarters authorized an additional session, but then senior CIA officials reversed the decision. There would be no further efforts at "debriefing Nunez."
Hitz noted that "the cable [from headquarters] offered no explanation for the decision" to stop the Nunez interrogation.
But the CIA's Central American task force chief Alan Fiers said the Nunez-NSC drug lead was not pursued "because of the NSC connection and the possibility that this could be somehow connected to the Private Benefactor program [the contra money handled by North]. A decision was made not to pursue this matter."
Joseph Fernandez, who had been the CIA's station chief in Costa Rica, later confirmed to congressional Iran-Contra investigators that Nunez "was involved in a very sensitive operation" for North's "Enterprise." The exact nature of that NSC-authorized activity has never been divulged.
At the time of the Nunez-NSC drug admissions and his truncated interrogation, the CIA's acting director was Robert M. Gates, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Dec. 6, 2006, to be President George W. Bush's new Secretary of Defense.
Miami Vice
The CIA also worked directly with other drug-connected Cuban-Americans on the contra project, Hitz found.
One of Nunez's Cuban-American associates, Felipe Vidal, had a criminal record as a narcotics trafficker in the 1970s. But the CIA still hired him to serve as a logistics coordinator for the contras, Hitz reported.
The CIA also learned that Vidal's drug connections were not only in the past.
A December 1984 cable to CIA headquarters revealed Vidal's ties to Rene Corvo, another Cuban-American suspected of drug trafficking. Corvo was working with anti-communist Cuban, Frank Castro, who was viewed as a Medellin cartel representative within the contra movement.
There were other narcotics links to Vidal. In January 1986, the DEA in Miami seized 414 pounds of cocaine concealed in a shipment of yucca that was going from a contra operative in Costa Rica to Ocean Hunter, the company where Vidal worked.
Despite the evidence, Vidal remained a CIA employee as he collaborated with Frank Castro's assistant, Rene Corvo, in raising money for the contras, according to a CIA memo in June 1986.
By fall 1986, Sen. Kerry had heard enough rumors about Vidal to demand information about him as part of a congressional inquiry into contra drugs. But the CIA withheld the derogatory information. On Oct. 15, 1986, Kerry received a briefing from Alan Fiers, who didn't mention Vidal's drug arrests and conviction in the 1970s.
But Vidal was not yet in the clear. In 1987, the U.S. attorney in Miami began investigating Vidal, Ocean Hunter and other contra-connected entities.
This prosecutorial attention worried the CIA. The CIA's Latin American division felt it was time for a security review of Vidal. But on Aug. 5, 1987, the CIA's security office blocked the review for fear that the Vidal drug information "could be exposed during any future litigation."
As expected, the U.S. Attorney did request documents about "contra-related activities" by Vidal, Ocean Hunter and 16 other entities. The CIA advised the prosecutor that "no information had been found regarding Ocean Hunter," a statement that was clearly false.
The CIA continued Vidal's employment as an adviser to the contra movement until 1990, virtually the end of the contra war.
Honduras Trafficking
Hitz revealed that drugs also tainted the highest levels of the Honduran-based FDN, the largest contra army.
Hitz found that Juan Rivas, a contra commander who rose to be chief of staff, admitted that he had been a cocaine trafficker in Colombia before the war. The CIA asked Rivas, known as El Quiche, about his background after the DEA began suspecting that Rivas might be an escaped convict from a Colombian prison.
In interviews with CIA officers, Rivas acknowledged that he had been arrested and convicted of packaging and transporting cocaine for the drug trade in Barranquilla, Colombia. After several months in prison, Rivas said, he escaped and moved to Central America where he joined the contras.
Defending Rivas, CIA officials insisted that there was no evidence that Rivas engaged in trafficking while with the contras. But one CIA cable noted that he lived an expensive lifestyle, even keeping a $100,000 thoroughbred horse at the contra camp.
Contra military commander Bermudez later attributed Rivas's wealth to his ex-girlfriend's rich family. But a CIA cable in March 1989 added that "some in the FDN may have suspected at the time that the father-in-law was engaged in drug trafficking."
Still, the CIA moved quickly to protect Rivas from exposure and possible extradition to Colombia. In February 1989, CIA headquarters asked that DEA take no action "in view of the serious political damage to the U.S. Government that could occur should the information about Rivas become public."
Rivas was eased out of the contra leadership with an explanation of poor health. With U.S. government help, he was allowed to resettle in Miami. Colombia was not informed about his fugitive status.
Drug Flights
Another senior FDN official implicated in the drug trade was its chief spokesman in Honduras, Arnoldo Jose "Frank" Arana.
The drug allegations against Arana dated back to 1983 when a federal narcotics task force put him under criminal investigation because of plans "to smuggle 100 kilograms of cocaine into the United States from South America."
On Jan. 23, 1986, the FBI reported that Arana and his brothers were involved in a drug-smuggling enterprise, although Arana was not charged.
Arana sought to clear up another set of drug suspicions in 1989 by visiting the DEA in Honduras with a business associate, Jose Perez. Arana's association with Perez, however, only raised new alarms.
If "Arana is mixed up with the Perez brothers, he is probably dirty," the DEA responded.
Through their ownership of an air services company called SETCO, the Perez brothers were associated with Juan Matta Ballesteros, a major cocaine kingpin connected to the murder of a DEA agent, according to reports by the DEA and U.S. Customs.
Hitz reported that someone at the CIA scribbled a note on the DEA cable about Arana stating: "Arnold Arana ... still active and working, we [CIA] may have a problem."
Despite its drug ties to Matta Ballesteros, SETCO emerged as the principal company for ferrying supplies to the contras in Honduras.
During congressional Iran-Contra hearings, FDN political leader Adolfo Calero testified that SETCO was paid from bank accounts controlled by Oliver North. SETCO also received $185,924 from the State Department for ferrying supplies to the contras in 1986.
Hitz found other air transport companies used by the contras implicated in the cocaine trade. Even FDN leaders suspected that they were shipping supplies to Central America aboard planes that might be returning with drugs.
Mario Calero, Adolfo Calero's brother and the chief of contra logistics, grew so uneasy about one air-freight company that he notified U.S. law enforcement that the FDN only chartered the planes for the flights south, not the return flights north.
Hitz found that some drug pilots simply rotated from one sector of the contra operation to another. Donaldo Frixone, who had a drug record in the Dominican Republic, was hired by the CIA to fly contra missions from 1983-85.
In September 1986, however, Frixone was implicated in smuggling 19,000 pounds of marijuana into the United States. In late 1986 or early 1987, he went to work for Vortex, another U.S.-paid contra supply company linked to the drug trade.
Fig Leaf
By the time that Hitz's Volume Two was published in fall 1998, the CIA's defense against Webb's series had shrunk to a fig leaf: that the CIA did not conspire with the contras to raise money through cocaine trafficking.
But Hitz made clear that the contra war took precedence over law enforcement and that the CIA withheld evidence of contra crimes from the Justice Department, the Congress and even the CIA's own analytical division.
Besides tracing the evidence of contra-drug trafficking through the decade-long contra war, the inspector general interviewed senior CIA officers who acknowledged that they were aware of the contra-drug problem but didn't want its exposure to undermine the struggle to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
According to Hitz, the CIA had "one overriding priority: to oust the Sandinista government. … [CIA officers] were determined that the various difficulties they encountered not be allowed to prevent effective implementation of the contra program."
One CIA field officer explained, "The focus was to get the job done, get the support and win the war."
Hitz also recounted complaints from CIA analysts that CIA operations officers handling the contras hid evidence of contra-drug trafficking even from the CIA's analysts.
Because of the withheld evidence, the CIA analysts incorrectly concluded in the mid-1980s that "only a handful of contras might have been involved in drug trafficking." That false assessment was passed on to Congress and the major news organizations - serving as an important basis for denouncing Gary Webb and his series in 1996.
Nevertheless, although Hitz's report was an extraordinary admission of institutional guilt by the CIA, it passed almost unnoticed by the big newspapers. [For more details, see Robert Parry's Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth']
On Oct. 10, 1998, two days after Hitz's report was posted at the CIA's Internet site, the New York Times published a brief article that continued to deride Webb but acknowledged the contra-drug problem may have been worse than earlier understood.
Several weeks later, the Washington Post weighed in with a similarly superficial article. The Los Angeles Times never published a story on the release of the CIA's Volume Two.
To this day, no editor or reporter who missed the contra-cocaine story has been punished for his or her negligence. Indeed, some of them are now top executives at their news organizations. On the other hand, Gary Webb's career never recovered.
Unable to find decent-paying work in a profession where his past awards included a Pulitzer Prize, Webb grew despondent. His marriage broke up. By December 2004, he found himself forced to move out of his rented house near Sacramento.
Instead, Webb decided to end his life.
One Last Chance
Webb's suicide offered the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times one more opportunity to set matters right, to revisit the CIA's admissions in 1998 and to exact some accountability on the Reagan-era officials implicated in protecting the contra crimes.
But all that followed Gary Webb's death was more trashing of Gary Webb. The Los Angeles Times ran a graceless obituary that made no mention of the admissions in the CIA's Volume Two and treated Webb like a low-life criminal, rather than a journalist who took on a tough story and paid a high price.
The Times obituary was republished in other newspapers, including the Washington Post. No one reading this obit would understand the profound debt that American history owed to Gary Webb, who deserved the lion's share of the credit for forcing the CIA to make its extraordinary admissions.
Yet, the big media's consistent mishandling of the contra-cocaine scandal in the 1980s and 1990s carried another warning that the nation missed: that the U.S. press corps was no longer capable of reporting complex crimes of state.
That unaddressed danger returned with disastrous results in late 2002 and early 2003 when George W. Bush sold false stories about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction while the major newspapers acted as cheerleaders and accomplices.
At the time of Webb's death on Dec. 9, 2004, the full scope of the Iraq disaster was still not evident, nor was the major press corps ready to acknowledge that its cowardice in the 1980s and its fecklessness in the 1990s were the direct antecedents to its complicity in the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Gary Webb had been a kind of canary in the mine shaft. His career destruction in the 1990s and his desperate act of suicide in 2004 were warnings about grave dangers that, if left ignored, would wreak even worse havoc on the United States and the world.
But - on this second anniversary of Webb's death - it should be remembered that his great gift to American history was that he, along with angry African-American citizens, forced the government to admit some of the worst crimes ever condoned by any White House: the protection of drug smuggling into the United States as part of a covert war against a country, Nicaragua, that represented no real threat to Americans.
It is way past time for that reality - and that gift - to be acknowledged.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & "Project Truth."
Wrap...
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Listen up, BushCo...and NOW!!!
From McClatchy Newspapers via truthout.org :
Leave Iraq Now; Don't Wait Until 2008 Election Day
By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday 07 December 2006
After nearly four years of living in what can be charitably described as a state of denial, everyone in Washington, from President Bush to the Baker Commission to incoming defense secretary Robert Gates, to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the study group assembled by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has finally admitted that pretty much nothing is going right in Iraq.
Duh.
Our president, who froze the whole process of planning and fighting a war by declaring that he was "staying the course" even when the course was obviously wrong, finally abandoned those words, if not his dogged pursuit of "victory" in a place which has denied victory to a string of foreign invaders dating back to Alexander the Great.
The Baker Commission issued its report - which primarily recommended that we begin talking with Iraq's friends and enemies next door and Iraqi-izing the war by handing things over to Iraqi forces before we begin pulling out in time for the 2008 presidential election - on a day when 10 American troops were killed on the roads of Iraq by improvised explosive devices.
All things considered, it was too little, too late and too long a wait if you have a son or daughter serving a third or fourth combat tour in Iraq - something that few, if any, of the above referenced politicians and wise men have contributed to the war effort.
Gates, whose nomination to replace Rumsfeld in the Pentagon's top job is being rushed through the Senate at the speed of light, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee we're neither winning nor losing in Iraq and could offer them no path to victory.
The senators, clearly enamored of Bob Gates because he isn't Don Rumsfeld, had no hard questions for the nominee, and in a rare show of bipartisan unanimity voted 24-0 to send his nomination to the floor for swift approval.
The senators and much of official Washington clearly want Gates in and Rumsfeld on a Greyhound bus bound for oblivion as soon as humanly possible. The disgruntled Rumsfeld leaked his own Iraq report, dated two days prior to his firing, admitting that things weren't nearly as rosy as he'd been pretending they were.
While those who have nothing more at risk than their personal pride and the arrogance of power published reports and made statements devoid of any real answers, young American soldiers and Marines were being wounded and killed at an appalling rate on the dangerous streets and roads of Iraq.
This week, the American military death toll in Iraq crossed the 2,900 mark, with well over 20,000 wounded.
All the politicians paid the customary lip service in praising the troops and commending them for the terrible sacrifices they must continue to endure while the wrangling and dithering over a futile war goes on with no end in sight.
How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning?
Some even suggest sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq - 20,000 to 30,000 more to try to clean up Baghdad, or as Sen. John McCain suggests, 100,000 more to achieve a victory of some kind.
What are they thinking?
The time to use overwhelming force, according to the Caspar Weinberger-Colin Powell doctrine, is when you launch an invasion. Ratcheting up later is just so 1965, and so hopeless a gesture when the situation has already gone to hell.
Let's get a few more things straight right now.
There's no victory waiting for President Bush in Iraq, and nothing that his father's friends say or do can save him from an ignominious end to his presidency in two years and two months, or from the judgment of history.
There will be no convenient and successful negotiation of a "decent interval" with our enemies Iran and Syria to cover our withdrawal from a war that we should never have started.
There can be no successful Vietnamization in Iraq - standing up more and better Iraqi army and police units and handing control over to them - when all we're doing is arming and training more recruits for the civil war that clogs the streets of Baghdad with the corpses of the victims of a Sunni-Shia bloodbath.
What we need to do is what none of the commissions and their reports dared to suggest: Begin withdrawing American forces from Iraq right now. Not in 2008. Not after the American death toll has crossed 5,000. Not just in time for a presidential election.
If you worry about the future of Iraq, don't. It will remain what it's always been: a violent, angry land of warring tribes only occasionally beaten and bludgeoned into submission by a homegrown despot like Saddam Hussein.
If you worry about added turmoil and instability in the Middle East, pull some of those departing American forces back to Kuwait and leave them there on standby. Then redirect thought, energy and effort into salvaging Afghanistan, finding Osama bin Laden, saving Lebanon, negotiating peace between Israel and its enemies, rebuilding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and, oh yes, ending the uncivil war between Republicans and Democrats.
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only one way to leave Iraq: Load our people up on their trucks and tank transporters and Bradleys and Humvees and head for the border. Now.
--------
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. Readers may write to him at: P.O. Box 399, Bayside, Texas 78340; e-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com.
Wrap...
Leave Iraq Now; Don't Wait Until 2008 Election Day
By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday 07 December 2006
After nearly four years of living in what can be charitably described as a state of denial, everyone in Washington, from President Bush to the Baker Commission to incoming defense secretary Robert Gates, to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the study group assembled by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has finally admitted that pretty much nothing is going right in Iraq.
Duh.
Our president, who froze the whole process of planning and fighting a war by declaring that he was "staying the course" even when the course was obviously wrong, finally abandoned those words, if not his dogged pursuit of "victory" in a place which has denied victory to a string of foreign invaders dating back to Alexander the Great.
The Baker Commission issued its report - which primarily recommended that we begin talking with Iraq's friends and enemies next door and Iraqi-izing the war by handing things over to Iraqi forces before we begin pulling out in time for the 2008 presidential election - on a day when 10 American troops were killed on the roads of Iraq by improvised explosive devices.
All things considered, it was too little, too late and too long a wait if you have a son or daughter serving a third or fourth combat tour in Iraq - something that few, if any, of the above referenced politicians and wise men have contributed to the war effort.
Gates, whose nomination to replace Rumsfeld in the Pentagon's top job is being rushed through the Senate at the speed of light, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee we're neither winning nor losing in Iraq and could offer them no path to victory.
The senators, clearly enamored of Bob Gates because he isn't Don Rumsfeld, had no hard questions for the nominee, and in a rare show of bipartisan unanimity voted 24-0 to send his nomination to the floor for swift approval.
The senators and much of official Washington clearly want Gates in and Rumsfeld on a Greyhound bus bound for oblivion as soon as humanly possible. The disgruntled Rumsfeld leaked his own Iraq report, dated two days prior to his firing, admitting that things weren't nearly as rosy as he'd been pretending they were.
While those who have nothing more at risk than their personal pride and the arrogance of power published reports and made statements devoid of any real answers, young American soldiers and Marines were being wounded and killed at an appalling rate on the dangerous streets and roads of Iraq.
This week, the American military death toll in Iraq crossed the 2,900 mark, with well over 20,000 wounded.
All the politicians paid the customary lip service in praising the troops and commending them for the terrible sacrifices they must continue to endure while the wrangling and dithering over a futile war goes on with no end in sight.
How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning?
Some even suggest sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq - 20,000 to 30,000 more to try to clean up Baghdad, or as Sen. John McCain suggests, 100,000 more to achieve a victory of some kind.
What are they thinking?
The time to use overwhelming force, according to the Caspar Weinberger-Colin Powell doctrine, is when you launch an invasion. Ratcheting up later is just so 1965, and so hopeless a gesture when the situation has already gone to hell.
Let's get a few more things straight right now.
There's no victory waiting for President Bush in Iraq, and nothing that his father's friends say or do can save him from an ignominious end to his presidency in two years and two months, or from the judgment of history.
There will be no convenient and successful negotiation of a "decent interval" with our enemies Iran and Syria to cover our withdrawal from a war that we should never have started.
There can be no successful Vietnamization in Iraq - standing up more and better Iraqi army and police units and handing control over to them - when all we're doing is arming and training more recruits for the civil war that clogs the streets of Baghdad with the corpses of the victims of a Sunni-Shia bloodbath.
What we need to do is what none of the commissions and their reports dared to suggest: Begin withdrawing American forces from Iraq right now. Not in 2008. Not after the American death toll has crossed 5,000. Not just in time for a presidential election.
If you worry about the future of Iraq, don't. It will remain what it's always been: a violent, angry land of warring tribes only occasionally beaten and bludgeoned into submission by a homegrown despot like Saddam Hussein.
If you worry about added turmoil and instability in the Middle East, pull some of those departing American forces back to Kuwait and leave them there on standby. Then redirect thought, energy and effort into salvaging Afghanistan, finding Osama bin Laden, saving Lebanon, negotiating peace between Israel and its enemies, rebuilding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and, oh yes, ending the uncivil war between Republicans and Democrats.
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only one way to leave Iraq: Load our people up on their trucks and tank transporters and Bradleys and Humvees and head for the border. Now.
--------
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. Readers may write to him at: P.O. Box 399, Bayside, Texas 78340; e-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com.
Wrap...
Friday, December 08, 2006
Microloans and the Nobel Prize...well earned!
From International Herald Tribune :
Giving credit where it's due
Muhammad Yunus
Published: December 8, 2006
DHAKA, Bangladesh: When I stepped out of my classroom at Chittagong University 30 years ago and into Jobra, the village next to my campus, I had only one goal in mind: to see if I could be of service to a few starving human beings.
Little did I know that those walks into Jobra village would lead me to walk across a stage in Oslo, Norway this Sunday afternoon to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. What I learned in that village changed my life and the lives of hundreds of millions of others around the world.
In 1976, I met Sufia Khatum, who made bamboo stools. This hardworking woman, who could neither read nor write, became my teacher. She didn't have the money to buy the bamboo for her stools and so she borrowed from a local moneylender on the condition that she sell the finished stools back to him at a price he set.
The moneylender's price barely covered the cost of the bamboo, leaving her with only a two- penny return on her work. This forced her to continue borrowing from the moneylender and placed her in a condition of slave labor. My students found 41 other people like Sufia who needed a grand total of $27 to free themselves from this debt trap.
She and the other 41 microentrepreneurs were the first borrowers of what would become Grameen Bank, the institution with which I share the Nobel Peace Prize.
They, and our nearly 7 million current borrowers, who are the owners of the bank, will be with me on that stage receiving the prize. Ninety-six percent of Grameen's clients are women, affecting a total of 35 million family members. We have lent nearly $6 billion over the last 30 years in loans that average $130 each.
The $27 I lent to 42 people 30 years ago was my first lesson in a new kind of banking. The first rules to be broken were the rules of banking. We made small loans to women without collateral, not large loans to men with great holdings. We required no paperwork of our illiterate borrowers, only that they learn to sign their names, and we did our banking in the villages.
Our work is built on the realization that our society has not only marginalized the poor, but also marginalized women. That is why our housing loans are in the name of the woman and require that the title to the land on which the house will be built is also in the name of the woman. We have made nearly 600,000 housing loans on these conditions.
One of our sister organizations, GrameenPhone, has 10 million cellphone subscribers in Bangladesh. There is no revolution in getting cellphones to better-off people in poor countries. Our revolution, however, is placing cellphones in the hands of 300,000 village phone ladies who use the phone as a profitable business.
The Nobel Peace Prize has established the link between poverty and peace, and underscored that poverty is a threat to peace. Microcredit plays a very important role in reducing poverty.
From humble beginnings 30 years ago with a loan of $27 to 42 people in Jobra, this work has now spread rapidly worldwide, empowered by the Microcredit Summit, a global campaign committed to ensuring 100 million microcredit families rise above the $1 a day threshold by the end of 2015, thus lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty.
Poverty does not belong in a civilized society. It belongs in museums. We are committed to building a world in which our children and grandchildren will have to go to museums to see what poverty looked like.
Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.
Wrap...
Giving credit where it's due
Muhammad Yunus
Published: December 8, 2006
DHAKA, Bangladesh: When I stepped out of my classroom at Chittagong University 30 years ago and into Jobra, the village next to my campus, I had only one goal in mind: to see if I could be of service to a few starving human beings.
Little did I know that those walks into Jobra village would lead me to walk across a stage in Oslo, Norway this Sunday afternoon to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. What I learned in that village changed my life and the lives of hundreds of millions of others around the world.
In 1976, I met Sufia Khatum, who made bamboo stools. This hardworking woman, who could neither read nor write, became my teacher. She didn't have the money to buy the bamboo for her stools and so she borrowed from a local moneylender on the condition that she sell the finished stools back to him at a price he set.
The moneylender's price barely covered the cost of the bamboo, leaving her with only a two- penny return on her work. This forced her to continue borrowing from the moneylender and placed her in a condition of slave labor. My students found 41 other people like Sufia who needed a grand total of $27 to free themselves from this debt trap.
She and the other 41 microentrepreneurs were the first borrowers of what would become Grameen Bank, the institution with which I share the Nobel Peace Prize.
They, and our nearly 7 million current borrowers, who are the owners of the bank, will be with me on that stage receiving the prize. Ninety-six percent of Grameen's clients are women, affecting a total of 35 million family members. We have lent nearly $6 billion over the last 30 years in loans that average $130 each.
The $27 I lent to 42 people 30 years ago was my first lesson in a new kind of banking. The first rules to be broken were the rules of banking. We made small loans to women without collateral, not large loans to men with great holdings. We required no paperwork of our illiterate borrowers, only that they learn to sign their names, and we did our banking in the villages.
Our work is built on the realization that our society has not only marginalized the poor, but also marginalized women. That is why our housing loans are in the name of the woman and require that the title to the land on which the house will be built is also in the name of the woman. We have made nearly 600,000 housing loans on these conditions.
One of our sister organizations, GrameenPhone, has 10 million cellphone subscribers in Bangladesh. There is no revolution in getting cellphones to better-off people in poor countries. Our revolution, however, is placing cellphones in the hands of 300,000 village phone ladies who use the phone as a profitable business.
The Nobel Peace Prize has established the link between poverty and peace, and underscored that poverty is a threat to peace. Microcredit plays a very important role in reducing poverty.
From humble beginnings 30 years ago with a loan of $27 to 42 people in Jobra, this work has now spread rapidly worldwide, empowered by the Microcredit Summit, a global campaign committed to ensuring 100 million microcredit families rise above the $1 a day threshold by the end of 2015, thus lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty.
Poverty does not belong in a civilized society. It belongs in museums. We are committed to building a world in which our children and grandchildren will have to go to museums to see what poverty looked like.
Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.
Wrap...
McKinney's last Bill...
From truthout.org :
BREAKING McKinney Introduces Bill to Impeach Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120806Z.shtml
In what was likely her final legislative act in Congress, outgoing Georgia representative Cynthia McKinney announced a bill Friday to impeach President Bush.
Wrap...
BREAKING McKinney Introduces Bill to Impeach Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120806Z.shtml
In what was likely her final legislative act in Congress, outgoing Georgia representative Cynthia McKinney announced a bill Friday to impeach President Bush.
Wrap...
Republican Majority at work...more for the rich...
From American Progress:
CONGRESS -- TAX BILL STUFFED WITH TAX BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHY:
In the coming days, Congress will likely pass a "tax extenders" bill containing "provisions to renew popular expired tax breaks," including the "research credit, a deduction for tuition and other college expenses, and a deduction for teachers who spend money out of their own pocket for classroom supplies." Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) called the tax extenders "no-brainers" that "give continued tax relief to families paying for college, teachers buying classroom supplies, and producers of clean energy from sources such as wind."
But instead of simply passing the popular tax extenders, Congress has decided to use the bill for partisan purposes. The House and Senate have attached drilling legislation to the bill, which would open 8.3 million acres of federal land in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.
Additionally, in closed-door final negotiations of the tax extenders package, "House and Senate negotiators added a tax break benefiting high-income taxpayers that was never passed by either the full House or Senate." The measure would increase the amount that individuals could contribute to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), "thereby allowing those who could make these additional contributions to shelter even more of their income from taxation." HSAs are disproportionately used by high-income individuals.
The Government Accountability Office found "that the average income of HSA users was $133,000 in 2004, compared to $51,000 for all non-elderly tax filers." American Progress has more facts on HSAs here and here.
Wrap...
CONGRESS -- TAX BILL STUFFED WITH TAX BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHY:
In the coming days, Congress will likely pass a "tax extenders" bill containing "provisions to renew popular expired tax breaks," including the "research credit, a deduction for tuition and other college expenses, and a deduction for teachers who spend money out of their own pocket for classroom supplies." Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) called the tax extenders "no-brainers" that "give continued tax relief to families paying for college, teachers buying classroom supplies, and producers of clean energy from sources such as wind."
But instead of simply passing the popular tax extenders, Congress has decided to use the bill for partisan purposes. The House and Senate have attached drilling legislation to the bill, which would open 8.3 million acres of federal land in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.
Additionally, in closed-door final negotiations of the tax extenders package, "House and Senate negotiators added a tax break benefiting high-income taxpayers that was never passed by either the full House or Senate." The measure would increase the amount that individuals could contribute to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), "thereby allowing those who could make these additional contributions to shelter even more of their income from taxation." HSAs are disproportionately used by high-income individuals.
The Government Accountability Office found "that the average income of HSA users was $133,000 in 2004, compared to $51,000 for all non-elderly tax filers." American Progress has more facts on HSAs here and here.
Wrap...
Impeach Bush/Cheney?
From Tom Paine:
Impeachment: Morally Right vs. Politically Wrong
Jennifer Van Bergen David Corn
December 08, 2006
Why Impeachment Is Crucial
Jennifer Van Bergen : "The choice is not between impeachment and Iraq, or impeachment and ethics, or impeachment and the budget. Impeachment proceedings are not the beginning but the end result of a healing process for the nation that needs to begin now. Impeachment begins with investigations."
Impeachment At Our Peril
David Corn : "The matter of impeachment, like most issues in the real world, cannot be considered in a vacuum. The key question is not whether there is a case, but whether it should be prosecuted. The Democrats would do so at their peril—and at risk to their agenda, which includes stopping the war in Iraq."
Wrap...
Impeachment: Morally Right vs. Politically Wrong
Jennifer Van Bergen David Corn
December 08, 2006
Why Impeachment Is Crucial
Jennifer Van Bergen : "The choice is not between impeachment and Iraq, or impeachment and ethics, or impeachment and the budget. Impeachment proceedings are not the beginning but the end result of a healing process for the nation that needs to begin now. Impeachment begins with investigations."
Impeachment At Our Peril
David Corn : "The matter of impeachment, like most issues in the real world, cannot be considered in a vacuum. The key question is not whether there is a case, but whether it should be prosecuted. The Democrats would do so at their peril—and at risk to their agenda, which includes stopping the war in Iraq."
Wrap...
BushCo: I can torture...No questions allowed..
From TomDispatch :
Impunity and Immunity
The Bush Administration Enters the Confessional
By Karen Greenberg
Confession, the time-honored, soul-soothing last resort for those caught in error, may not survive the Bush administration. It has, after all, long made a mockery of such revelations by manufacturing an entire lexicon of coercive techniques to elicit often non-existent "truths" that would justify its detention policies. And yet, without being coerced in any way, administration officials have been confessing continually these past years -- in documents that may someday play a part in their own confrontation with justice.
The Bush administration trail of confessions can be found in the most unlikely of places -- the very memos and policy statements in which its officials were redefining reality in their search for the perfect (and perfectly grim) extractive methods that would give them the detainee confessions they so eagerly sought. These were the very documents that led first to Gitmo, then to Abu Ghraib, and finally deep into the hidden universe of pain that was their global network of secret prisons.
Strangely enough, the administration confessional was open for business within weeks of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. It could be found wrapped in persistent assertions of immunity, assertions that none of their acts to come could ever be brought before the bar of justice or the oversight of anyone. The first of these documents was issued on September 25th, 2001. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, writing for the Office of Legal Counsel, laid out the reasons for the President of the United States to assume broad executive powers in the war on terror. The last footnote of the memo declared, "In the exercise of his plenary power to use military force, the President's decisions are for him alone and are unreviewable."
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
Wrap...
Impunity and Immunity
The Bush Administration Enters the Confessional
By Karen Greenberg
Confession, the time-honored, soul-soothing last resort for those caught in error, may not survive the Bush administration. It has, after all, long made a mockery of such revelations by manufacturing an entire lexicon of coercive techniques to elicit often non-existent "truths" that would justify its detention policies. And yet, without being coerced in any way, administration officials have been confessing continually these past years -- in documents that may someday play a part in their own confrontation with justice.
The Bush administration trail of confessions can be found in the most unlikely of places -- the very memos and policy statements in which its officials were redefining reality in their search for the perfect (and perfectly grim) extractive methods that would give them the detainee confessions they so eagerly sought. These were the very documents that led first to Gitmo, then to Abu Ghraib, and finally deep into the hidden universe of pain that was their global network of secret prisons.
Strangely enough, the administration confessional was open for business within weeks of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. It could be found wrapped in persistent assertions of immunity, assertions that none of their acts to come could ever be brought before the bar of justice or the oversight of anyone. The first of these documents was issued on September 25th, 2001. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, writing for the Office of Legal Counsel, laid out the reasons for the President of the United States to assume broad executive powers in the war on terror. The last footnote of the memo declared, "In the exercise of his plenary power to use military force, the President's decisions are for him alone and are unreviewable."
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
Wrap...
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wes Clark on "Golden Rules of Behavior"..a reply...
Email from Leif, author and Grad School Professor:
The United States should practice "golden rules of behavior" when mitigating world conflicts because its international preeminence is dwindling, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark told a crowded Salomon 101 Monday evening.
Reply:
Wesley Clark is right, but, perhaps, for the wrong reason(s). In a piece in The Week recently (December 1, 206, p. 3), there appeared the following sentence: "While the United States is the last remaining superpower, it will never get its way -- not in North Korea, and not in Iraq -- through unilateral bullying."
The United States, because of the role we have inherited in the world, that is, leader, cannot avoid "mitigating world conflicts." It is what we must do because of who we are -- "mitigate world conflicts." The last remaining superpower is like the person with the biggest club on the island; that is the one who has to handle (mitigate) the conflicts.
Sometimes the person with the biggest club is enlisted by conflicting others to mitigate. Sometimes the person with the biggest club mitigates because (s)he decides it is in the best interest of the whole to do so. In both cases, the person with the biggest club is resented. When (s)he is asked, the asker resents having to ask. When (s)he is not asked and mitigates anyway, the rest resent because their influence is not part of the mix. In both cases, finally, the mitigation is unilateral, if not in literal fact, certainly in perception, and perception is reality to the perceiver.
So the United States has inherited a role that virtually by definition leads to its demise. Clark didn't describe it correctly. The international preeminence is not "dwindling"; it is gone, and it has been gone for several decades. The press didn't lose in Vietnam, nor the hippies or anyone else on whom we want to blame the catastrophe. The United States lost because it is no longer possible to prevail in a conflict (mitigation) on another's soil. It has never been a slam; now, history tells us, it doesn't happen. It didn't happen in Vietnam, it isn't happening in the Middle East, it didn't happen for the vaunted Soviet military machine in Afghanistan, nor for France in IndoCina. It is hard to find an instance in the last five to six decades when a military mitigation has prevailed in any significant geopolitical problem.
And now it is worse than it has been before for the United States. We have big guns and good military personnel, but we are on the verge, if not there already, of being unable to pay our way out of debt. We are seriously weakened by the economic cancer within. We can't launch an effort to mitigate world conflicts, and the world knows it. The loonies are out there tweaking the United States knowing full well that the United States can't do a thing about it.
No, that isn't precisely correct. We can, in fact, incinerate most of the world. Now isn't that a happy thought?
Leif
Wrap...
The United States should practice "golden rules of behavior" when mitigating world conflicts because its international preeminence is dwindling, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark told a crowded Salomon 101 Monday evening.
Reply:
Wesley Clark is right, but, perhaps, for the wrong reason(s). In a piece in The Week recently (December 1, 206, p. 3), there appeared the following sentence: "While the United States is the last remaining superpower, it will never get its way -- not in North Korea, and not in Iraq -- through unilateral bullying."
The United States, because of the role we have inherited in the world, that is, leader, cannot avoid "mitigating world conflicts." It is what we must do because of who we are -- "mitigate world conflicts." The last remaining superpower is like the person with the biggest club on the island; that is the one who has to handle (mitigate) the conflicts.
Sometimes the person with the biggest club is enlisted by conflicting others to mitigate. Sometimes the person with the biggest club mitigates because (s)he decides it is in the best interest of the whole to do so. In both cases, the person with the biggest club is resented. When (s)he is asked, the asker resents having to ask. When (s)he is not asked and mitigates anyway, the rest resent because their influence is not part of the mix. In both cases, finally, the mitigation is unilateral, if not in literal fact, certainly in perception, and perception is reality to the perceiver.
So the United States has inherited a role that virtually by definition leads to its demise. Clark didn't describe it correctly. The international preeminence is not "dwindling"; it is gone, and it has been gone for several decades. The press didn't lose in Vietnam, nor the hippies or anyone else on whom we want to blame the catastrophe. The United States lost because it is no longer possible to prevail in a conflict (mitigation) on another's soil. It has never been a slam; now, history tells us, it doesn't happen. It didn't happen in Vietnam, it isn't happening in the Middle East, it didn't happen for the vaunted Soviet military machine in Afghanistan, nor for France in IndoCina. It is hard to find an instance in the last five to six decades when a military mitigation has prevailed in any significant geopolitical problem.
And now it is worse than it has been before for the United States. We have big guns and good military personnel, but we are on the verge, if not there already, of being unable to pay our way out of debt. We are seriously weakened by the economic cancer within. We can't launch an effort to mitigate world conflicts, and the world knows it. The loonies are out there tweaking the United States knowing full well that the United States can't do a thing about it.
No, that isn't precisely correct. We can, in fact, incinerate most of the world. Now isn't that a happy thought?
Leif
Wrap...
Air Force and messes in space...
From Secrecy News:
AIR FORCE SPACE OPERATIONS, AND ORBITAL DEBRIS
U.S. Air Force doctrine on space operations is elaborated in a new publication. See "Space Operations," Air Force Doctrine DocumentAFDD 2-2, November 27, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afdd2_2.pdf
The threat posed by debris in Earth orbit is the subject of a recent Master's Thesis, which provides a convenient introduction to the subject and a review of recent literature. See "OrbitalDebris: Technical and Legal Issues and Solutions" by Michael W.Taylor, Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University, Montreal, August 2006:
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/taylor.pdf
Wrap...
AIR FORCE SPACE OPERATIONS, AND ORBITAL DEBRIS
U.S. Air Force doctrine on space operations is elaborated in a new publication. See "Space Operations," Air Force Doctrine DocumentAFDD 2-2, November 27, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afdd2_2.pdf
The threat posed by debris in Earth orbit is the subject of a recent Master's Thesis, which provides a convenient introduction to the subject and a review of recent literature. See "OrbitalDebris: Technical and Legal Issues and Solutions" by Michael W.Taylor, Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University, Montreal, August 2006:
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/taylor.pdf
Wrap...
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
3 Films and a selection of new books...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
NY Giant star and two-time Super Bowl champion Mark Bavaro's first novel, a fictionalized account of life in a scandal-ridden NFL through the eyes of a tough, idiosyncratic athlete at the top of his sport, pitched as a modern-day NORTH DALLAS FORTY, to Marc Resnick at St. Martin's, at auction, by Alex Glass at Trident Media Group.
MYSTERY/CRIME:
James Patterson's co-author on three books Peter de Jonge's IT TAKES A LOT OF HEART, the first in a series about a young NYPD detective, to Claire Wachtel at Harper, at auction, by Lane Zachary and Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
S. Thomas Russell's THE BLIND IN HEAVEN, a naval adventure novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, to Dan Conaway at Putnam, at auction, by Howard Morhaim at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency (NA).Philip Roth's EXIT GHOST, his "ninth and last Zuckerman novel," called "a study of obsession, forgetfulness, resignation, and ungratifiable desire," in which Zuckerman returns to New York after eleven years of living as a reclusive writer in western Massachusetts, where encounters with a new generation of writers and an old, dying friend produce unsettling revelations, to Janet Silver at Houghton Mifflin, for publication in October 2007, 28 years after the publication of THE GHOST WRITER, by Andrew Wylie at The Wylie Agency.lori_glazer@hmco.com
Author of ARABIAN JAZZ and CRESCENT Diana Abu-Jaber's ORIGIN, in which a fingerprint expert's investigation of a series of crib deaths leads her back to the mystery of her own childhood, to Alane Mason at Norton, for publication in spring 2007, in a two-book deal, by Joy Harris at the Joy Harris Agency (world).
WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?, a new series introducing different beliefs from across the world in lively, accessible and intelligent short books, to George Gibson at Walker, in a nice deal, by Angela Rose at Granta Books.Rights previously sold to Uitgeverij Ad. Donker in Holland, Dom Quixote in Portugal, Plan B in Turkey, Vallardi in Italy, Orpheas in Greece, and Otava in Finland.
UK:
THE INSIDE RING author Mike Lawson's two new Joe DeMarco novels, pitched as David Baldacci meets Lee Child, to Wayne Brookes at Harper UK, by Abner Stein.
[NOTE: Very good writer]
NON-FICTION/BIOGRAPHY:
Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff's CLEOPATRA, to Michael Pietsch at Little, Brown, for publication in 2010, by Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit (world).
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:
Barbara Peterson's LIQUID ASSETS, the story of 100 multi-national companies and culture-defining ideas that started off as crude sketches on the back of a paper napkin, from Southwest Airlines to the Clinton Presidential Library, Compaq to "supply side economics," to Colin Dickerman at Bloomsbury, by Jay Mandel at William Morris Agency (NA).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Historian, crime professor and author of three books on George Washington Bruce Chadwick's untitled book about the lethal poisoning of Founding Father George Wythe, the sensationalistic murder trial that followed, and the world of Thomas Jefferson, to Stephen Power at Wiley, by Elizabeth Winick and Jonathan Lyons at McIntosh & Otis (NA).Wesleyan historian and two-time National Book Award nominee Richard Slotkin's untitled history of the Civil War Battle of the Crater, a significant engagement that featured the largest explosion yet detonated by man, and a lens to explore the racial and class tensions that the war both reflected and reinforced, to Will Murphy at Random House, by Carl Brandt at Brandt & Hochman (world).
MEMOIR:
Retired West Point philosophy professor Lieutenant Colonel Alan Bishop's OFF THE HARD PINE PEW: What One Philosophical Redneck Learned in the Army, combining the author's account of his self-described redneck childhood in Mississippi, his discovery of philosophy while in college on an Army scholarship, and its influence on his intellectual life, and a call for fundamental change in the way that young Army officers -- and American youth in general -- are educated, to Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic, by David Kuhn at Kuhn Projects (World).jmonahan@groveatlantic.com
FILM:
Eric Jager's THE LAST DUEL: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France, to Paramount for Martin Scorsese under his new deal there, with Kevin Misher at Misher Films producing.
NYT writer Timothy Egan's 2006 National Book Award Winner THE WORST HARD TIME, a narrative of those who survived the Dust Bowl, optioned by Tagline Pictures with Kirk Ellis (Emmy nominee and writer/producer of HBO's upcoming John Adams miniseries based on David McCullough's book) adapting, by Carol Mann at the Carol Mann Agency.
William Wright's HARVARD'S SECRET COURT, an account of how officials and faculty members at Harvard in the early 1920's hounded a group of gay students into suicide or shameful obscurity and decades later were still trying to derail the careers of those accused, optioned to David Brind, screenwriter/producer of short film DARE, and director of Sandra Bernhard's one-woman show, by Bill Contardi at Brandt & Hochman.
Wrap...
FICTION/DEBUT:
NY Giant star and two-time Super Bowl champion Mark Bavaro's first novel, a fictionalized account of life in a scandal-ridden NFL through the eyes of a tough, idiosyncratic athlete at the top of his sport, pitched as a modern-day NORTH DALLAS FORTY, to Marc Resnick at St. Martin's, at auction, by Alex Glass at Trident Media Group.
MYSTERY/CRIME:
James Patterson's co-author on three books Peter de Jonge's IT TAKES A LOT OF HEART, the first in a series about a young NYPD detective, to Claire Wachtel at Harper, at auction, by Lane Zachary and Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
S. Thomas Russell's THE BLIND IN HEAVEN, a naval adventure novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, to Dan Conaway at Putnam, at auction, by Howard Morhaim at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency (NA).Philip Roth's EXIT GHOST, his "ninth and last Zuckerman novel," called "a study of obsession, forgetfulness, resignation, and ungratifiable desire," in which Zuckerman returns to New York after eleven years of living as a reclusive writer in western Massachusetts, where encounters with a new generation of writers and an old, dying friend produce unsettling revelations, to Janet Silver at Houghton Mifflin, for publication in October 2007, 28 years after the publication of THE GHOST WRITER, by Andrew Wylie at The Wylie Agency.lori_glazer@hmco.com
Author of ARABIAN JAZZ and CRESCENT Diana Abu-Jaber's ORIGIN, in which a fingerprint expert's investigation of a series of crib deaths leads her back to the mystery of her own childhood, to Alane Mason at Norton, for publication in spring 2007, in a two-book deal, by Joy Harris at the Joy Harris Agency (world).
WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?, a new series introducing different beliefs from across the world in lively, accessible and intelligent short books, to George Gibson at Walker, in a nice deal, by Angela Rose at Granta Books.Rights previously sold to Uitgeverij Ad. Donker in Holland, Dom Quixote in Portugal, Plan B in Turkey, Vallardi in Italy, Orpheas in Greece, and Otava in Finland.
UK:
THE INSIDE RING author Mike Lawson's two new Joe DeMarco novels, pitched as David Baldacci meets Lee Child, to Wayne Brookes at Harper UK, by Abner Stein.
[NOTE: Very good writer]
NON-FICTION/BIOGRAPHY:
Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff's CLEOPATRA, to Michael Pietsch at Little, Brown, for publication in 2010, by Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit (world).
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:
Barbara Peterson's LIQUID ASSETS, the story of 100 multi-national companies and culture-defining ideas that started off as crude sketches on the back of a paper napkin, from Southwest Airlines to the Clinton Presidential Library, Compaq to "supply side economics," to Colin Dickerman at Bloomsbury, by Jay Mandel at William Morris Agency (NA).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Historian, crime professor and author of three books on George Washington Bruce Chadwick's untitled book about the lethal poisoning of Founding Father George Wythe, the sensationalistic murder trial that followed, and the world of Thomas Jefferson, to Stephen Power at Wiley, by Elizabeth Winick and Jonathan Lyons at McIntosh & Otis (NA).Wesleyan historian and two-time National Book Award nominee Richard Slotkin's untitled history of the Civil War Battle of the Crater, a significant engagement that featured the largest explosion yet detonated by man, and a lens to explore the racial and class tensions that the war both reflected and reinforced, to Will Murphy at Random House, by Carl Brandt at Brandt & Hochman (world).
MEMOIR:
Retired West Point philosophy professor Lieutenant Colonel Alan Bishop's OFF THE HARD PINE PEW: What One Philosophical Redneck Learned in the Army, combining the author's account of his self-described redneck childhood in Mississippi, his discovery of philosophy while in college on an Army scholarship, and its influence on his intellectual life, and a call for fundamental change in the way that young Army officers -- and American youth in general -- are educated, to Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic, by David Kuhn at Kuhn Projects (World).jmonahan@groveatlantic.com
FILM:
Eric Jager's THE LAST DUEL: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France, to Paramount for Martin Scorsese under his new deal there, with Kevin Misher at Misher Films producing.
NYT writer Timothy Egan's 2006 National Book Award Winner THE WORST HARD TIME, a narrative of those who survived the Dust Bowl, optioned by Tagline Pictures with Kirk Ellis (Emmy nominee and writer/producer of HBO's upcoming John Adams miniseries based on David McCullough's book) adapting, by Carol Mann at the Carol Mann Agency.
William Wright's HARVARD'S SECRET COURT, an account of how officials and faculty members at Harvard in the early 1920's hounded a group of gay students into suicide or shameful obscurity and decades later were still trying to derail the careers of those accused, optioned to David Brind, screenwriter/producer of short film DARE, and director of Sandra Bernhard's one-woman show, by Bill Contardi at Brandt & Hochman.
Wrap...
Guerilla warfare...
An email from an author (Bank's Bandits) and former Green Beret:
Yesterday I received the story and picture again about the marine in Iraq holding the child and rocking her to sleep--a child who had been shot in the head and whose whole family had been executed by insurgents. It was a great picture and story, but it prompted this response from me to the writer (edited and developed in more detail here). I thought I would share these thoughts with you for what they are worth.
Great story and picture.
The bottom line is that this is what it is all about in the long run. Will the fundamental "humanity" of the majority of our troops eventually override, in the minds of the people directly affected, the horrors of war that have been visited upon that region (largely, or at least most recently, by us). When the shooting war for us is finally over and all the dust settles, how will we and our troops be viewed after we leave. If this kind of humanitarian action by our individual troops is not one of the paramount things that "most" of the people of that region think about when they think about us--then we have been whistling in the dark in trying to bring democracy to that area by imposing it at the point of a gun.
We might well ask, aside from the killings and maimings that inevitably characterize our continuing and deadly running war with the insurgents (a war that clearly has grown worse rather than better), what kind of lasting impression will we actually have made upon the people of that region by the collective kindnesses and humanitarian acts of our troops and by those working for us in that region? What acts, performed by our men and women while the heat of battle continued to rage all around them, will the Iraqui people note and remember, share with their children, and talk about in the years to come?
This is what Mao meant when he said that to wage successful guerilla warfare you have to learn "to swim in the water with the fishes." To do this, the great mass of the common people of the country, not just the "currently in power" political or economic leaders, must come to understand and accept what it is you are in their country fighting for. If they do, and if they accept and share your goals, only then can you "swim among them" in safety even if you are "foreigners." If you do not gain that essential support of the mass of the people over time, you are doomed to failure and no amount of modern airpower and weaponry will sustain you. Indeed, that is precisely what happened to us in Vietnam. The mass of the common people of that country rallied to the aims and goals of Ho Chi Min--and so the Viet Cong could "swim safely" among the people. With a few exceptions, we failed miserably to win "the hearts and minds" of the people to our side of that conflict. (One exception were the fiercely independent Montagnard tribesman, who were won over to our side by the teams of Special Forces men who lived and 'swam among them" and obtained their loyal support to the bitter end--and beyond.) A recognition of all the reasons why we failed to gain the support of the Vietnam people in general, despite the millions we spent there for their defense, is still a matter too bitter for most Americans to deal with rationally, but those reasons would have to begin with our indefensible support of the wretchedly venal and corrupt regimes in the South that had always victimized the people for the benefit of the very few.
In sum, if the goals that this President insists are the reasons we invaded Iraq in the first place are ever to be realized, then some real and recognizeable change will have to take place in the attitude toward us as presently held by the great mass of the Iraqi people. Furthermore, if this were going to happen at all, it would have to begin to happen very soon. Any fair evaluation of where we now stand in Iraq would have to recognize that the chances of this happening are diminishing daily rather than gaining in probablility as the factional and religious "civil war" worsens.
At present, the simple fact is that there is no persuasive evidence that a large portion of the Iraqi people, much less the majority, welcomes our presence there and accepts our role in Iraq as an essential tool for bridging the gap between the dictatorship of Sadaam and the establishment of a real democracy. Indeed, many of those who will share in the resolution of these questions, do not want a real democracy at all; they want a country which will advance their own religous and economic priorities. If, when we finally leave Iraq we are viewed primarily as a despised "occupying army," if most of the people there actually view us with nothing but hate and contempt, if they feel that collectively we have "raped and ruined" their country, then everything we have done will avail us naught in terms of the so-called goals of our invasion. If that is the way we are viewed when we leave Iraq, we will have effected no fundamental changes for the better in that region. Indeed, the brutal and deadly internecine strife and warfare which is already underway--the "civil war," if you will--will burst out full-blown when we leave and how the partisan religous and secular leaders of Iraq eventually resolve those differences is the thing that will determine the political and social character of the country for many years to come.
The truth is that we don't know the end to that story yet. We don't yet know how the majority of people in that country (and in that region) view our presence there, although we have every reason to believe the great majority resents our presence and wants us out. History, after we leave, will have the final say on whether our "invasion" of Iraq accomplished anything of real and lasting benefit to that country, and--just as important--to the real and lasting benefit of our country. Only time and the perspective of history will tell whether our terrible sacrifices in terms of human lives, and of the suffering of our military people, and of the total costs to our nation, can ever be justified.
Ed
Yesterday I received the story and picture again about the marine in Iraq holding the child and rocking her to sleep--a child who had been shot in the head and whose whole family had been executed by insurgents. It was a great picture and story, but it prompted this response from me to the writer (edited and developed in more detail here). I thought I would share these thoughts with you for what they are worth.
Great story and picture.
The bottom line is that this is what it is all about in the long run. Will the fundamental "humanity" of the majority of our troops eventually override, in the minds of the people directly affected, the horrors of war that have been visited upon that region (largely, or at least most recently, by us). When the shooting war for us is finally over and all the dust settles, how will we and our troops be viewed after we leave. If this kind of humanitarian action by our individual troops is not one of the paramount things that "most" of the people of that region think about when they think about us--then we have been whistling in the dark in trying to bring democracy to that area by imposing it at the point of a gun.
We might well ask, aside from the killings and maimings that inevitably characterize our continuing and deadly running war with the insurgents (a war that clearly has grown worse rather than better), what kind of lasting impression will we actually have made upon the people of that region by the collective kindnesses and humanitarian acts of our troops and by those working for us in that region? What acts, performed by our men and women while the heat of battle continued to rage all around them, will the Iraqui people note and remember, share with their children, and talk about in the years to come?
This is what Mao meant when he said that to wage successful guerilla warfare you have to learn "to swim in the water with the fishes." To do this, the great mass of the common people of the country, not just the "currently in power" political or economic leaders, must come to understand and accept what it is you are in their country fighting for. If they do, and if they accept and share your goals, only then can you "swim among them" in safety even if you are "foreigners." If you do not gain that essential support of the mass of the people over time, you are doomed to failure and no amount of modern airpower and weaponry will sustain you. Indeed, that is precisely what happened to us in Vietnam. The mass of the common people of that country rallied to the aims and goals of Ho Chi Min--and so the Viet Cong could "swim safely" among the people. With a few exceptions, we failed miserably to win "the hearts and minds" of the people to our side of that conflict. (One exception were the fiercely independent Montagnard tribesman, who were won over to our side by the teams of Special Forces men who lived and 'swam among them" and obtained their loyal support to the bitter end--and beyond.) A recognition of all the reasons why we failed to gain the support of the Vietnam people in general, despite the millions we spent there for their defense, is still a matter too bitter for most Americans to deal with rationally, but those reasons would have to begin with our indefensible support of the wretchedly venal and corrupt regimes in the South that had always victimized the people for the benefit of the very few.
In sum, if the goals that this President insists are the reasons we invaded Iraq in the first place are ever to be realized, then some real and recognizeable change will have to take place in the attitude toward us as presently held by the great mass of the Iraqi people. Furthermore, if this were going to happen at all, it would have to begin to happen very soon. Any fair evaluation of where we now stand in Iraq would have to recognize that the chances of this happening are diminishing daily rather than gaining in probablility as the factional and religious "civil war" worsens.
At present, the simple fact is that there is no persuasive evidence that a large portion of the Iraqi people, much less the majority, welcomes our presence there and accepts our role in Iraq as an essential tool for bridging the gap between the dictatorship of Sadaam and the establishment of a real democracy. Indeed, many of those who will share in the resolution of these questions, do not want a real democracy at all; they want a country which will advance their own religous and economic priorities. If, when we finally leave Iraq we are viewed primarily as a despised "occupying army," if most of the people there actually view us with nothing but hate and contempt, if they feel that collectively we have "raped and ruined" their country, then everything we have done will avail us naught in terms of the so-called goals of our invasion. If that is the way we are viewed when we leave Iraq, we will have effected no fundamental changes for the better in that region. Indeed, the brutal and deadly internecine strife and warfare which is already underway--the "civil war," if you will--will burst out full-blown when we leave and how the partisan religous and secular leaders of Iraq eventually resolve those differences is the thing that will determine the political and social character of the country for many years to come.
The truth is that we don't know the end to that story yet. We don't yet know how the majority of people in that country (and in that region) view our presence there, although we have every reason to believe the great majority resents our presence and wants us out. History, after we leave, will have the final say on whether our "invasion" of Iraq accomplished anything of real and lasting benefit to that country, and--just as important--to the real and lasting benefit of our country. Only time and the perspective of history will tell whether our terrible sacrifices in terms of human lives, and of the suffering of our military people, and of the total costs to our nation, can ever be justified.
Ed
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Carlyle Group....corruption...
From Information Clearing House:
Exposed: The Carlyle Group:
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3995.htm
Wrap...
Exposed: The Carlyle Group:
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3995.htm
Wrap...
Gates good to go. Man, that was fast!!!
From dpa German Press Agency via truthout.org :
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday December 5, 2006
Washington- The Senate panel considering US PresidentGeorge W Bush's choice for new defence secretary, Robert Gates,unanimously approved the nomination on Tuesday.
The full Senate was expected to confirm Gates, 63, in a vote onWednesday.
The 21 member Senate Armed Service Committee moved Gates closer to replacing the embattled Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shortly after Gates testified before the panel.
The chairman of the committee, Republican Senator John Warner, announced the vote.
© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency
Wrap...
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday December 5, 2006
Washington- The Senate panel considering US PresidentGeorge W Bush's choice for new defence secretary, Robert Gates,unanimously approved the nomination on Tuesday.
The full Senate was expected to confirm Gates, 63, in a vote onWednesday.
The 21 member Senate Armed Service Committee moved Gates closer to replacing the embattled Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shortly after Gates testified before the panel.
The chairman of the committee, Republican Senator John Warner, announced the vote.
© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency
Wrap...
Some of this, some of that...
From American Progress:
Think Fast
"A swath of Amazon rain forest the size of Alabama was placed under government protection Monday," the AP reports. The area "contains more than 25 percent of the world's remaining humid tropical forests and the largest remaining unpolluted fresh water reserves in the American tropics."
Hearings for Defense nominee Robert Gates are today. Gates has said "that he supported Bush's decision to invade in 2003 and that leaving Iraq 'in chaos' would harm U.S. interests for many years. Beyond that he has not said how the U.S. might get Iraq moving in the right direction."
Hours after his meeting yesterday with President Bush, powerful Shiite polititian Abdul Aziz al-Hakim gave a speech denying that "Shiite militias are fueling the sectarian strife" and issuing "one of the starkest criticisms of U.S. military strategy by an Iraqi leader.
A semiannual report filed by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general "highlights a litany of staff misconduct: immigration officials demanding sex in exchange for visas, airport screeners stealing money from tourists’ luggage, federal air marshals smuggling drugs, and employees from various DHS agencies committing sex crimes."
The Supreme Court is set to rule against "what is left, if anything, of Brown v. Board of Education." After hearings yesterday on two schools' racial integration programs, "the only question was how far the court would go in ruling such plans unconstitutional."
Although companies are supposed to pay royalties every time they drill for oil or gas on federal property, the Interior Department has audited just 20 percent of companies. "The rest of the time, the payments are made on the honor system. But the government agency 'could not accurately count' its own oil and gas audits."
100,000: The number of government contractors operating in Iraq, "a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there." Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL) said the estimate "further demonstrates the need for Congress to finally engage in responsible, serious and aggressive oversight" over private military contracting.
"The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Replacing, repairing, and upgrading combat equipment will cost at least $17 billion annually for several more years; before the war, "the Army spent $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year on wear and tear."
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) "wants to fast-track efforts to boost the federal minimum wage," and she is pushing for a "stand alone" bill that "will go straight to the floor for consideration."
And finally: Conservative seeking conservative for a radical night out. Last Friday, a "32-year-old married housewife" posted a personal ad on Craigslist.org "looking for guys who work at the Heritage Foundation or other conservative think tanks." "I know I will get some email of someone accusing this of being some scam but it really isn't," she wrote. "I just have a real fetish for intellectual conservatives.
Wrap...
Think Fast
"A swath of Amazon rain forest the size of Alabama was placed under government protection Monday," the AP reports. The area "contains more than 25 percent of the world's remaining humid tropical forests and the largest remaining unpolluted fresh water reserves in the American tropics."
Hearings for Defense nominee Robert Gates are today. Gates has said "that he supported Bush's decision to invade in 2003 and that leaving Iraq 'in chaos' would harm U.S. interests for many years. Beyond that he has not said how the U.S. might get Iraq moving in the right direction."
Hours after his meeting yesterday with President Bush, powerful Shiite polititian Abdul Aziz al-Hakim gave a speech denying that "Shiite militias are fueling the sectarian strife" and issuing "one of the starkest criticisms of U.S. military strategy by an Iraqi leader.
A semiannual report filed by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general "highlights a litany of staff misconduct: immigration officials demanding sex in exchange for visas, airport screeners stealing money from tourists’ luggage, federal air marshals smuggling drugs, and employees from various DHS agencies committing sex crimes."
The Supreme Court is set to rule against "what is left, if anything, of Brown v. Board of Education." After hearings yesterday on two schools' racial integration programs, "the only question was how far the court would go in ruling such plans unconstitutional."
Although companies are supposed to pay royalties every time they drill for oil or gas on federal property, the Interior Department has audited just 20 percent of companies. "The rest of the time, the payments are made on the honor system. But the government agency 'could not accurately count' its own oil and gas audits."
100,000: The number of government contractors operating in Iraq, "a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there." Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL) said the estimate "further demonstrates the need for Congress to finally engage in responsible, serious and aggressive oversight" over private military contracting.
"The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Replacing, repairing, and upgrading combat equipment will cost at least $17 billion annually for several more years; before the war, "the Army spent $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year on wear and tear."
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) "wants to fast-track efforts to boost the federal minimum wage," and she is pushing for a "stand alone" bill that "will go straight to the floor for consideration."
And finally: Conservative seeking conservative for a radical night out. Last Friday, a "32-year-old married housewife" posted a personal ad on Craigslist.org "looking for guys who work at the Heritage Foundation or other conservative think tanks." "I know I will get some email of someone accusing this of being some scam but it really isn't," she wrote. "I just have a real fetish for intellectual conservatives.
Wrap...
Oakland CA planner takes on New Orleans rebuild!
From SFGate.com :
Oakland urban planner who sought leadership will head New Orleans recovery team -
Chip Johnson
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
After working out of the limelight for nearly a decade as a consultant to then-Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, urban planner Ed Blakely tossed his hat into the ring in the 1998 Oakland mayor's race -- and finished a distant second to Jerry Brown.
During the campaign, Blakely said his first run at political office was an expression of his desire to set policy, set the agenda and lead instead of follow.
On Monday, the 69-year-old professor and career scholar finally got his wish.
Blakely was named executive director of recovery for the city of the New Orleans. He will coordinate the rebuilding of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck with a fury in August 2005, making it the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.
He is perhaps uniquely suited for the job.
As a special assistant to Harris in Oakland, Blakely led the city's recovery after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which destroyed the Cypress Freeway, killing 42 people, and severely damaged many downtown buildings.
In 1991, while a professor at the University of Southern California, he helped plan the rebuilding of Los Angeles after the Northridge earthquake.
And after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Blakely, who was living in New York at the time, was tapped by a regional planning association to coordinate a response plan. He responded with an entire downtown plan.
With all that behind him, the rebuilding of the historic city of New Orleans will be the biggest challenges Blakely -- and few others -- have ever attempted.
His appointment comes more than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina smashed through levees and submerged much of the legendary southern city at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River. Much of the city world-renowned for its jazz and blues is still unrecognizable, and its tourism-based economy is ailing, Blakely said in an interview on Monday.
The slow start to recovery should be expected in a city whose social and mechanical infrastructure had been swept away.
"When you have a situation like this, where the whole city has basically been destroyed, it's sometimes hard to figure out how to get started," said Blakely, who has worked most recently as a professor in Sydney, Australia. "I hope to use my experiences in what we did right and didn't do right in Oakland, Los Angeles and New York.
"I think it's going to take a lot of work," he said. There are (racial) black and white issues here,
class issues, and those things can't be ignored.
"The city needs a modern infrastructure, and you have to build something better," Blakely added. "New Orleans needs a modern economy, a new economic base, because you can't live on tourism alone."
Blakely hopes to assemble a 12- to 15-person team and start work next month. The city has appropriated nearly $500,000 in the coming year for the project.
"First we have to bring back the infrastructure -- across the entire city," he said. "We need sewer lines, streets, street lights, traffic lights. ... Power is still out in some quarters. All of that has to be put back before you can begin to put up houses."
His job will be to coordinate the city's recovery jobs into one smoothly running operation in a city and state without the resources and money of a place like California.
Blakely said his office will develop a master plan for the city, which currently is home to about 200,000 residents but that he envisions may one day include up to a half-million people. His work will focus on rebuilding the city's core, and he said a bill before Congress would provide funding to modernize the levee system in the Gulf Coast region to avert another such disaster.
"We are very far behind the Japanese and the Dutch in putting in the types of flood-control systems that we need down here," he added.
If you recall, one of the marvels of the 1998 Oakland mayor's race was Blakely's plan for a monorail to more efficiently transport cargo and freight from the Port of Oakland to rail and truck connections.
As far as original ideas and innovation, Blakely is a master.
If Blakely can master a bureaucracy said to be as thick as the swamps down there, and he can actually see some of his dreams of urban life come to fruition, New Orleans will be back.
His colleagues in urban planning rave about him.
Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Planning Association, the New York group that enlisted Blakely's help for the Sept. 11 planning response, called him a "pillar of integrity" in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday.
But this time, noted John Renne, a urban studies professor at the University of New Orleans, the odds are much higher.
"If the person fails to deliver, it's greater than the individual," he said. "It's really about ... whether the city going to recover."
For a man who has sought the mantle of leadership, there can be no bigger challenge.
Your serve, Mr. Blakely.
Page B - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/05/JOHNSON.TMP
Wrap...
Oakland urban planner who sought leadership will head New Orleans recovery team -
Chip Johnson
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
After working out of the limelight for nearly a decade as a consultant to then-Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, urban planner Ed Blakely tossed his hat into the ring in the 1998 Oakland mayor's race -- and finished a distant second to Jerry Brown.
During the campaign, Blakely said his first run at political office was an expression of his desire to set policy, set the agenda and lead instead of follow.
On Monday, the 69-year-old professor and career scholar finally got his wish.
Blakely was named executive director of recovery for the city of the New Orleans. He will coordinate the rebuilding of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck with a fury in August 2005, making it the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.
He is perhaps uniquely suited for the job.
As a special assistant to Harris in Oakland, Blakely led the city's recovery after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which destroyed the Cypress Freeway, killing 42 people, and severely damaged many downtown buildings.
In 1991, while a professor at the University of Southern California, he helped plan the rebuilding of Los Angeles after the Northridge earthquake.
And after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Blakely, who was living in New York at the time, was tapped by a regional planning association to coordinate a response plan. He responded with an entire downtown plan.
With all that behind him, the rebuilding of the historic city of New Orleans will be the biggest challenges Blakely -- and few others -- have ever attempted.
His appointment comes more than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina smashed through levees and submerged much of the legendary southern city at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River. Much of the city world-renowned for its jazz and blues is still unrecognizable, and its tourism-based economy is ailing, Blakely said in an interview on Monday.
The slow start to recovery should be expected in a city whose social and mechanical infrastructure had been swept away.
"When you have a situation like this, where the whole city has basically been destroyed, it's sometimes hard to figure out how to get started," said Blakely, who has worked most recently as a professor in Sydney, Australia. "I hope to use my experiences in what we did right and didn't do right in Oakland, Los Angeles and New York.
"I think it's going to take a lot of work," he said. There are (racial) black and white issues here,
class issues, and those things can't be ignored.
"The city needs a modern infrastructure, and you have to build something better," Blakely added. "New Orleans needs a modern economy, a new economic base, because you can't live on tourism alone."
Blakely hopes to assemble a 12- to 15-person team and start work next month. The city has appropriated nearly $500,000 in the coming year for the project.
"First we have to bring back the infrastructure -- across the entire city," he said. "We need sewer lines, streets, street lights, traffic lights. ... Power is still out in some quarters. All of that has to be put back before you can begin to put up houses."
His job will be to coordinate the city's recovery jobs into one smoothly running operation in a city and state without the resources and money of a place like California.
Blakely said his office will develop a master plan for the city, which currently is home to about 200,000 residents but that he envisions may one day include up to a half-million people. His work will focus on rebuilding the city's core, and he said a bill before Congress would provide funding to modernize the levee system in the Gulf Coast region to avert another such disaster.
"We are very far behind the Japanese and the Dutch in putting in the types of flood-control systems that we need down here," he added.
If you recall, one of the marvels of the 1998 Oakland mayor's race was Blakely's plan for a monorail to more efficiently transport cargo and freight from the Port of Oakland to rail and truck connections.
As far as original ideas and innovation, Blakely is a master.
If Blakely can master a bureaucracy said to be as thick as the swamps down there, and he can actually see some of his dreams of urban life come to fruition, New Orleans will be back.
His colleagues in urban planning rave about him.
Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Planning Association, the New York group that enlisted Blakely's help for the Sept. 11 planning response, called him a "pillar of integrity" in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday.
But this time, noted John Renne, a urban studies professor at the University of New Orleans, the odds are much higher.
"If the person fails to deliver, it's greater than the individual," he said. "It's really about ... whether the city going to recover."
For a man who has sought the mantle of leadership, there can be no bigger challenge.
Your serve, Mr. Blakely.
Page B - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/05/JOHNSON.TMP
Wrap...
Ouch~Betrayal...
From Publishers Lunch:
A short item in the Boston Globe notes a profile of author Augusten Burroughs in the new issue of Vanity Fair by Buzz Bissinger, out next week.
"I don't know how [Burroughs] lives with himself," Bissinger says. "Running With Scissors contains little strands of fact that were wildly embellished, and if you take those away, you don't have much of a book."
Of the Turcotte family, which is suing Burroughs, Bissinger says: "They took him in and did their best, and he turned around and wrote about them in the most vile way possible. It's totally gratuitous."
Globe
Wrap...
A short item in the Boston Globe notes a profile of author Augusten Burroughs in the new issue of Vanity Fair by Buzz Bissinger, out next week.
"I don't know how [Burroughs] lives with himself," Bissinger says. "Running With Scissors contains little strands of fact that were wildly embellished, and if you take those away, you don't have much of a book."
Of the Turcotte family, which is suing Burroughs, Bissinger says: "They took him in and did their best, and he turned around and wrote about them in the most vile way possible. It's totally gratuitous."
Globe
Wrap...
Monday, December 04, 2006
Congress to EPA: Cease and desist!
From Secrecy News:
DEMOCRATIC REPS TELL EPA TO SUSPEND CLOSURE OF LIBRARIES
In what may be a harbinger of new rigor in Congressional oversight, four Democratic members of Congress told the Environmental Protection Agency to cease and desist from closing public document libraries and dispersing or destroying their contents unless and until EPA obtains specific approval from Congress.
Public interest groups including the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Library Association had expressed alarm over the closure of EPA libraries and the reported destruction of documents.
EPA said that it was modernizing and digitizing its collections and that no information has been destroyed.
"We request that you maintain the status quo of the libraries and their materials while this issue is under investigation and review by Congress," wrote Ranking Members Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN), JohnDingell (D-MI), Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and James Oberstar (D-MN) in a November 30 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/epa113006.pdf
Wrap...
DEMOCRATIC REPS TELL EPA TO SUSPEND CLOSURE OF LIBRARIES
In what may be a harbinger of new rigor in Congressional oversight, four Democratic members of Congress told the Environmental Protection Agency to cease and desist from closing public document libraries and dispersing or destroying their contents unless and until EPA obtains specific approval from Congress.
Public interest groups including the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Library Association had expressed alarm over the closure of EPA libraries and the reported destruction of documents.
EPA said that it was modernizing and digitizing its collections and that no information has been destroyed.
"We request that you maintain the status quo of the libraries and their materials while this issue is under investigation and review by Congress," wrote Ranking Members Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN), JohnDingell (D-MI), Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and James Oberstar (D-MN) in a November 30 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/epa113006.pdf
Wrap...
Finally: Congressional Oversight!!!
From Grist.org :
Dingell All the Way
By Amanda Griscom Little
Grist.org
Friday 01 December 2006
Dingell and other Democrats plan oversight hearings on environmental issues.
"There has been literally no oversight in the last six years," Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), incoming chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Muckraker yesterday. "It's been nothing more than Kabuki theater."
That's why Dingell says he's gearing up to hold oversight hearings investigating the Bush administration's energy and environmental policies, as are his Democratic colleagues Barbara Boxer (Calif.), soon-to-be-chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Henry Waxman (Calif.), incoming chair of the House Government Reform Committee, which conducts oversight of the US EPA.
Said Boxer at a recent press conference, "Since his first day in office, President Bush has worked to roll back more than 350 laws and regulations that protect our public health and the environment. Any one of these rollbacks should be cause for a hearing in the Congress, should be a cause for consternation among the people. And I have to tell you, this has got to stop."
Climate change, Superfund cleanups, clean-air and drinking-water protections, and leaking underground storage tanks are potential topics for such hearings, Dingell told Muckraker. Last month, Dingell also mentioned oil subsidies and Dick Cheney's clandestine energy task force as areas worthy of investigation.
"Oversight is a crucial part of the checks and balances of the federal system," said Dingell, who earned a reputation for investigative zeal when he chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee from 1981 to 1995. "It's what keeps Congress and the executive branch honest." Dingell argues that oversight and policymaking are inextricably entwined: "I don't know where one begins and the other ends."
Beyond oversight, Dingell is planning legislative hearings as well, to gather information from experts on key issues that will come before his committee. Democrats need to build a new record of data and opinions that they can reference when drawing up and advocating bills, said Dingell. "We need to gather the facts, and do so in a balanced way. This system of ours is supposed to be informed from every perspective." A balanced spectrum of views was missing from many hearings held in recent years by Republicans, he contended - perhaps alluding to one-sided hearings on the National Environmental Policy Act put together by House Resources Committee Chair Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), or a climate-change hearing organized by Senate Environment Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) at which conservative novelist Michael Crichton gave "expert" testimony.
Still, Dingell said Democrats need to be prudent in choosing which hearings to pursue. He noted that in the past, oversight hearings had been used as "witch hunts, conducted in malevolent and spiteful ways" - most notoriously by Joseph McCarthy. That, he said, is unconscionable: "Above all, hearings must be fair, well-prepared, and responsible."
Boxer sounded a similar note of restraint recently when asked by NPR's Living on Earth about her plans to hold climate-change hearings: "Right now what I want to do is be positive and move forward.... And to the extent that oversight helps me get things done for the people, we will use it. But clearly if we can do this in a bipartisan way, the people will be well served."
Do You Hearing What I Hearing?
Democrats will have to play a delicate balancing act as they decide how much time to spend on fact-finding exercises and investigations into the past, and how much to spend on drafting and promoting new legislation. Hearings will consume congressional resources at a time when the nation faces a number of urgent crises that need to be dealt with - a botched war in Iraq, a crushing budget deficit, a failed health-care system, escalating climate chaos.
Said National Environmental Trust VP Kevin Curtis, "The new leadership can undoubtedly use hearings to its advantage, and my bet is they will. The danger is that if they have nothing to show for themselves but a long list of hearings come 2009, they will have squandered opportunities to make legislative progress."
Dan Becker, director of Sierra Club's global-warming program, has a different view. "Frankly, I don't think there is the potential to pass major environmental policies in the next two years - they will be either filibustered or stopped by veto," he said. "Which means the role of this Congress is going to be to set the table for the next Congress and the next president." Hearings that expose the corruption behind the Bush environmental record and educate the public about potential solutions, he said, could pave the way for legislative wins in 2009 and beyond.
Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, sees little danger and lots of promise in the prospect of congressional hearings - oversight hearings in particular. "These investigative hearings are going to be fun," she told Muckraker. "We've been waiting for them for many, many years." This week, at the request of incoming majority leaders, she's been drawing up a wish list of oversight hearings she'd like to see. "It's high time that Congress flexes its oversight muscle," Wayland said. "That's the only way to reestablish a respect for the legislative branch, which the White House has gotten into the habit of treating as merely a rubber stamp."
Oversight hearings, in addition to exposing negligence or wrongdoing, can have immediate, practical effects such as prompting agencies to implement rules or enforce laws. In fact, according to Wayland, the mere threat of such hearings seems to be having an impact already. "I've heard any number of congressional staffers say that agency officials who would once ignore their calls are suddenly acting responsive and agreeable," she said.
For her part, Wayland isn't worried that hearings will get in the way of legislative progress. "Dems are very much aware of wanting to make sure they don't sound shrill," she said. "They want to present, above all, a positive agenda."
Dingell - a moderate with many friends across the aisle - insists that he does indeed want to keep hearings constructive. He said a wise mentor once told him that when holding hearings, "first you must be fair, second you must appear fair." Dingell now keeps a picture of Joseph McCarthy on his wall to remind him what not to do.
Amanda Griscom Little writes Grist's Muckraker column on environmental politics and policy and interviews green luminaries for the magazine. Her articles on energy and the environment have also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times Magazine.
Wrap...
Dingell All the Way
By Amanda Griscom Little
Grist.org
Friday 01 December 2006
Dingell and other Democrats plan oversight hearings on environmental issues.
"There has been literally no oversight in the last six years," Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), incoming chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Muckraker yesterday. "It's been nothing more than Kabuki theater."
That's why Dingell says he's gearing up to hold oversight hearings investigating the Bush administration's energy and environmental policies, as are his Democratic colleagues Barbara Boxer (Calif.), soon-to-be-chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Henry Waxman (Calif.), incoming chair of the House Government Reform Committee, which conducts oversight of the US EPA.
Said Boxer at a recent press conference, "Since his first day in office, President Bush has worked to roll back more than 350 laws and regulations that protect our public health and the environment. Any one of these rollbacks should be cause for a hearing in the Congress, should be a cause for consternation among the people. And I have to tell you, this has got to stop."
Climate change, Superfund cleanups, clean-air and drinking-water protections, and leaking underground storage tanks are potential topics for such hearings, Dingell told Muckraker. Last month, Dingell also mentioned oil subsidies and Dick Cheney's clandestine energy task force as areas worthy of investigation.
"Oversight is a crucial part of the checks and balances of the federal system," said Dingell, who earned a reputation for investigative zeal when he chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee from 1981 to 1995. "It's what keeps Congress and the executive branch honest." Dingell argues that oversight and policymaking are inextricably entwined: "I don't know where one begins and the other ends."
Beyond oversight, Dingell is planning legislative hearings as well, to gather information from experts on key issues that will come before his committee. Democrats need to build a new record of data and opinions that they can reference when drawing up and advocating bills, said Dingell. "We need to gather the facts, and do so in a balanced way. This system of ours is supposed to be informed from every perspective." A balanced spectrum of views was missing from many hearings held in recent years by Republicans, he contended - perhaps alluding to one-sided hearings on the National Environmental Policy Act put together by House Resources Committee Chair Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), or a climate-change hearing organized by Senate Environment Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) at which conservative novelist Michael Crichton gave "expert" testimony.
Still, Dingell said Democrats need to be prudent in choosing which hearings to pursue. He noted that in the past, oversight hearings had been used as "witch hunts, conducted in malevolent and spiteful ways" - most notoriously by Joseph McCarthy. That, he said, is unconscionable: "Above all, hearings must be fair, well-prepared, and responsible."
Boxer sounded a similar note of restraint recently when asked by NPR's Living on Earth about her plans to hold climate-change hearings: "Right now what I want to do is be positive and move forward.... And to the extent that oversight helps me get things done for the people, we will use it. But clearly if we can do this in a bipartisan way, the people will be well served."
Do You Hearing What I Hearing?
Democrats will have to play a delicate balancing act as they decide how much time to spend on fact-finding exercises and investigations into the past, and how much to spend on drafting and promoting new legislation. Hearings will consume congressional resources at a time when the nation faces a number of urgent crises that need to be dealt with - a botched war in Iraq, a crushing budget deficit, a failed health-care system, escalating climate chaos.
Said National Environmental Trust VP Kevin Curtis, "The new leadership can undoubtedly use hearings to its advantage, and my bet is they will. The danger is that if they have nothing to show for themselves but a long list of hearings come 2009, they will have squandered opportunities to make legislative progress."
Dan Becker, director of Sierra Club's global-warming program, has a different view. "Frankly, I don't think there is the potential to pass major environmental policies in the next two years - they will be either filibustered or stopped by veto," he said. "Which means the role of this Congress is going to be to set the table for the next Congress and the next president." Hearings that expose the corruption behind the Bush environmental record and educate the public about potential solutions, he said, could pave the way for legislative wins in 2009 and beyond.
Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, sees little danger and lots of promise in the prospect of congressional hearings - oversight hearings in particular. "These investigative hearings are going to be fun," she told Muckraker. "We've been waiting for them for many, many years." This week, at the request of incoming majority leaders, she's been drawing up a wish list of oversight hearings she'd like to see. "It's high time that Congress flexes its oversight muscle," Wayland said. "That's the only way to reestablish a respect for the legislative branch, which the White House has gotten into the habit of treating as merely a rubber stamp."
Oversight hearings, in addition to exposing negligence or wrongdoing, can have immediate, practical effects such as prompting agencies to implement rules or enforce laws. In fact, according to Wayland, the mere threat of such hearings seems to be having an impact already. "I've heard any number of congressional staffers say that agency officials who would once ignore their calls are suddenly acting responsive and agreeable," she said.
For her part, Wayland isn't worried that hearings will get in the way of legislative progress. "Dems are very much aware of wanting to make sure they don't sound shrill," she said. "They want to present, above all, a positive agenda."
Dingell - a moderate with many friends across the aisle - insists that he does indeed want to keep hearings constructive. He said a wise mentor once told him that when holding hearings, "first you must be fair, second you must appear fair." Dingell now keeps a picture of Joseph McCarthy on his wall to remind him what not to do.
Amanda Griscom Little writes Grist's Muckraker column on environmental politics and policy and interviews green luminaries for the magazine. Her articles on energy and the environment have also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times Magazine.
Wrap...
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Helen Thomas wants shock and awe...
From Hearst Newspapers via truthout.org :
Iraq Study Group Won't Rock the Boat
By Helen Thomas
Hearst Newspapers
Friday 01 December 2006
Washington - With Iraq falling apart, it's getting lonely at the top for President Bush.
His hawkish neo-con advisers are deserting him. He had to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Democrats have won control of Congress. U.S. allies are angry at his Iraq policies.
And even Henry Kissinger - one of Bush's foreign policy advisers and a key architect of the Vietnam debacle - has decided Iraq is a can't-win situation. He earlier had told Bush, "The only exit strategy is victory."
Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, has come to his defense. It's Bush 41 rushing to rescue Bush 43.
It's widely assumed that when Bush named his father's close friend and confidante - James Baker - as co-chairman of a bipartisan 10-member Iraq Study Group, he was looking for a diplomatic retreat from the Iraqi dilemma. After all, Baker was secretary of state in the Bush 41 administration and knows his way around the Middle East. Both he and the senior Bush have hobnobbed together in the region representing the Carlyle Group, the privately owned conglomerate that sells weapons, among other items.
In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Baker and Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's national security adviser, warned against the war, triggering speculation that the two were surrogates for the senior Bush who did not want to publicly take issue with his son - especially on such an important issue.
That public loyalty was on full display Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Republics, when the former president was confronted by a female Arab critic during a question-and-answer session after he spoke at a leadership conference.
She bluntly told him: "We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he is doing all over the world."
An Associated Press account said that Bush appeared stunned at the attack and the hostility of the audience that "whooped and whistled in approval."
The nettled Bush replied: "My son is an honest man."
This son is not going to back away. He's not going to change his view because some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the woman who feels deeply in her heart about something.
"You can't be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you're going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It's not easy."
A father's sensitive defense of his beleaguered son is understandable. But Bush senior is also a seasoned politician and knows the stunning upset of the Republican regime in the Nov. 7 midterm election is a mandate for change that is being read as a public call for withdrawal from the war.
The elder Bush, an eminently more cautious president who held off liberating Kuwait in 1991 until he had the backing of a 28-nation coalition and a half million military men and women in the Persian Gulf, has generally refrained from discussing the current war. And he had the good sense not to carry the first Gulf War to Baghdad after kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Despite his father's experience and foreign policy expertise, the president has said he seeks the advice only of a "higher father."
Whatever advice Bush is following has led this country into a quagmire of intolerable carnage.
Don't expect any dramatic recommendations from the Iraq Study Group led by Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind. The nine men and one woman on the panel are cautious Washington insiders who got picked for the job because of their don't-rock-the-boat reputations. After all, they might want to get asked again, sometime in the future, to serve on another White House commission.
This is unfortunate because the dire mess in Iraq demands bold action by the U.S. The real solution is a cakewalk out of Iraq tomorrow. The world would stand in shock and awe.
All it takes is courage.
Wrap...
Iraq Study Group Won't Rock the Boat
By Helen Thomas
Hearst Newspapers
Friday 01 December 2006
Washington - With Iraq falling apart, it's getting lonely at the top for President Bush.
His hawkish neo-con advisers are deserting him. He had to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Democrats have won control of Congress. U.S. allies are angry at his Iraq policies.
And even Henry Kissinger - one of Bush's foreign policy advisers and a key architect of the Vietnam debacle - has decided Iraq is a can't-win situation. He earlier had told Bush, "The only exit strategy is victory."
Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, has come to his defense. It's Bush 41 rushing to rescue Bush 43.
It's widely assumed that when Bush named his father's close friend and confidante - James Baker - as co-chairman of a bipartisan 10-member Iraq Study Group, he was looking for a diplomatic retreat from the Iraqi dilemma. After all, Baker was secretary of state in the Bush 41 administration and knows his way around the Middle East. Both he and the senior Bush have hobnobbed together in the region representing the Carlyle Group, the privately owned conglomerate that sells weapons, among other items.
In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Baker and Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's national security adviser, warned against the war, triggering speculation that the two were surrogates for the senior Bush who did not want to publicly take issue with his son - especially on such an important issue.
That public loyalty was on full display Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Republics, when the former president was confronted by a female Arab critic during a question-and-answer session after he spoke at a leadership conference.
She bluntly told him: "We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he is doing all over the world."
An Associated Press account said that Bush appeared stunned at the attack and the hostility of the audience that "whooped and whistled in approval."
The nettled Bush replied: "My son is an honest man."
This son is not going to back away. He's not going to change his view because some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the woman who feels deeply in her heart about something.
"You can't be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you're going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It's not easy."
A father's sensitive defense of his beleaguered son is understandable. But Bush senior is also a seasoned politician and knows the stunning upset of the Republican regime in the Nov. 7 midterm election is a mandate for change that is being read as a public call for withdrawal from the war.
The elder Bush, an eminently more cautious president who held off liberating Kuwait in 1991 until he had the backing of a 28-nation coalition and a half million military men and women in the Persian Gulf, has generally refrained from discussing the current war. And he had the good sense not to carry the first Gulf War to Baghdad after kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Despite his father's experience and foreign policy expertise, the president has said he seeks the advice only of a "higher father."
Whatever advice Bush is following has led this country into a quagmire of intolerable carnage.
Don't expect any dramatic recommendations from the Iraq Study Group led by Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind. The nine men and one woman on the panel are cautious Washington insiders who got picked for the job because of their don't-rock-the-boat reputations. After all, they might want to get asked again, sometime in the future, to serve on another White House commission.
This is unfortunate because the dire mess in Iraq demands bold action by the U.S. The real solution is a cakewalk out of Iraq tomorrow. The world would stand in shock and awe.
All it takes is courage.
Wrap...
Politicians and bloggers!
From the NY Times:
Op-Chart
New on the Web: Politics as Usual
By K. DANIEL GLOVER and MIKE ESSL
Published: December 3, 2006
THE Netroots.” “People Power.” “Crashing the Gate.” The lingo of liberal Web bloggers bespeaks contempt for the political establishment. The same disdain is apparent among many bloggers on the right, who argued passionately for a change in the slate of House Republican leaders — and who wallowed in woe-is-the-party pity when the establishment ignored them.
You might think that with the kind of rhetoric bloggers regularly muster against politicians, they would never work for them. But you would be wrong.
Over the past few years, bloggers have won millions of fans by speaking truth to power — even the powers in their own parties — and presenting a fresh, outsider perspective. They are the pamphleteers of the 21st century, revolutionary “citizen journalists” motivated by personal idealism and an unwavering confidence that they can reform American politics.
But this year, candidates across the country found plenty of outsiders ready and willing to move inside their campaigns. Candidates hired some bloggers to blog and paid others consulting fees for Internet strategy advice or more traditional campaign tasks like opposition research.
After the Virginia Democratic primary, for instance, James Webb hired two of the bloggers who had pushed to get him into the race. The Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut had at least four bloggers on his campaign team. Few of these bloggers shut down their “independent” sites after signing on with campaigns, and while most disclosed their campaign ties on their blogs, some — like Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits — did so only after being criticized by fellow bloggers.
The trend seems certain to continue in 2008. Potential presidential hopefuls like Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain already are paying big-name bloggers as consultants, and Julie Fanselow of Red State Rebels said on her blog she would entertain job offers from Howard Dean, Barack Obama, John Edwards or Al Gore.
“This intersection isn’t going away,” Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, an elite blogger hired by campaigns, wrote earlier this year, “and I hope more and more bloggers are able to work to influence how campaigns are run.”
Here is a listing of some of the most influential bloggers who went to work for campaigns this year, what they were paid according to campaign disclosure documents, and praiseworthy posts about their employers or critical ones of their employers’ opponents.
K. Daniel Glover is the editor of National Journal’s Technology Daily and the author of its Beltway Blogroll. Mike Essl is a graphic designer.
Wrap...
Op-Chart
New on the Web: Politics as Usual
By K. DANIEL GLOVER and MIKE ESSL
Published: December 3, 2006
THE Netroots.” “People Power.” “Crashing the Gate.” The lingo of liberal Web bloggers bespeaks contempt for the political establishment. The same disdain is apparent among many bloggers on the right, who argued passionately for a change in the slate of House Republican leaders — and who wallowed in woe-is-the-party pity when the establishment ignored them.
You might think that with the kind of rhetoric bloggers regularly muster against politicians, they would never work for them. But you would be wrong.
Over the past few years, bloggers have won millions of fans by speaking truth to power — even the powers in their own parties — and presenting a fresh, outsider perspective. They are the pamphleteers of the 21st century, revolutionary “citizen journalists” motivated by personal idealism and an unwavering confidence that they can reform American politics.
But this year, candidates across the country found plenty of outsiders ready and willing to move inside their campaigns. Candidates hired some bloggers to blog and paid others consulting fees for Internet strategy advice or more traditional campaign tasks like opposition research.
After the Virginia Democratic primary, for instance, James Webb hired two of the bloggers who had pushed to get him into the race. The Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut had at least four bloggers on his campaign team. Few of these bloggers shut down their “independent” sites after signing on with campaigns, and while most disclosed their campaign ties on their blogs, some — like Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits — did so only after being criticized by fellow bloggers.
The trend seems certain to continue in 2008. Potential presidential hopefuls like Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain already are paying big-name bloggers as consultants, and Julie Fanselow of Red State Rebels said on her blog she would entertain job offers from Howard Dean, Barack Obama, John Edwards or Al Gore.
“This intersection isn’t going away,” Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, an elite blogger hired by campaigns, wrote earlier this year, “and I hope more and more bloggers are able to work to influence how campaigns are run.”
Here is a listing of some of the most influential bloggers who went to work for campaigns this year, what they were paid according to campaign disclosure documents, and praiseworthy posts about their employers or critical ones of their employers’ opponents.
K. Daniel Glover is the editor of National Journal’s Technology Daily and the author of its Beltway Blogroll. Mike Essl is a graphic designer.
Wrap...
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Memo: Rumsfeld's last words on Iraq....
From the NY Times:
Rumsfeld’s Memo of Options for Iraq
Published: December 3, 2006
Following is the text of a classified Nov. 6 memorandum that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to the White House suggesting new options in Iraq. The memorandum was sent one day before the midterm Congressional elections and two days before Mr. Rumsfeld resigned.
Nov. 6, 2006
SUBJECT: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action
The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options:
ILLUSTRATIVE OPTIONS
Above the Line: (Many of these options could and, in a number of cases, should be done in combination with others)
¶Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi Government and the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made).
¶Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq.
¶Initiate a reverse embeds program, like the Korean Katusas, by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers with every U.S. and possibly Coalition squad, to improve our units’ language capabilities and cultural awareness and to give the Iraqis experience and training with professional U.S. troops.
¶Aggressively beef up the Iraqi MOD and MOI, and other Iraqi ministries critical to the success of the ISF — the Iraqi Ministries of Finance, Planning, Health, Criminal Justice, Prisons, etc. — by reaching out to U.S. military retirees and Reserve/National Guard volunteers (i.e., give up on trying to get other USG Departments to do it.)
¶Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases. Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007.
¶Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF.
¶Initiate an approach where U.S. forces provide security only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate, with the stipulation being that unless they cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province.
¶Stop rewarding bad behavior, as was done in Fallujah when they pushed in reconstruction funds, and start rewarding good behavior. Put our reconstruction efforts in those parts of Iraq that are behaving, and invest and create havens of opportunity to reward them for their good behavior. As the old saying goes, “If you want more of something, reward it; if you want less of something, penalize it.” No more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence.
¶Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government.
¶Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions — cities, patrolling, etc. — and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.
¶Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.
¶Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period.
¶Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it.
¶Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”
¶Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.
Below the Line (less attractive options):
¶Continue on the current path.
¶Move a large fraction of all U.S. Forces into Baghdad to attempt to control it.
¶Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially.
¶Set a firm withdrawal date to leave. Declare that with Saddam gone and Iraq a sovereign nation, the Iraqi people can govern themselves. Tell Iran and Syria to stay out.
¶Assist in accelerating an aggressive federalism plan, moving towards three separate states — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd.
¶Try a Dayton-like process.
Wrap...
Rumsfeld’s Memo of Options for Iraq
Published: December 3, 2006
Following is the text of a classified Nov. 6 memorandum that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to the White House suggesting new options in Iraq. The memorandum was sent one day before the midterm Congressional elections and two days before Mr. Rumsfeld resigned.
Nov. 6, 2006
SUBJECT: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action
The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options:
ILLUSTRATIVE OPTIONS
Above the Line: (Many of these options could and, in a number of cases, should be done in combination with others)
¶Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi Government and the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made).
¶Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq.
¶Initiate a reverse embeds program, like the Korean Katusas, by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers with every U.S. and possibly Coalition squad, to improve our units’ language capabilities and cultural awareness and to give the Iraqis experience and training with professional U.S. troops.
¶Aggressively beef up the Iraqi MOD and MOI, and other Iraqi ministries critical to the success of the ISF — the Iraqi Ministries of Finance, Planning, Health, Criminal Justice, Prisons, etc. — by reaching out to U.S. military retirees and Reserve/National Guard volunteers (i.e., give up on trying to get other USG Departments to do it.)
¶Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases. Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007.
¶Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF.
¶Initiate an approach where U.S. forces provide security only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate, with the stipulation being that unless they cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province.
¶Stop rewarding bad behavior, as was done in Fallujah when they pushed in reconstruction funds, and start rewarding good behavior. Put our reconstruction efforts in those parts of Iraq that are behaving, and invest and create havens of opportunity to reward them for their good behavior. As the old saying goes, “If you want more of something, reward it; if you want less of something, penalize it.” No more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence.
¶Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government.
¶Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions — cities, patrolling, etc. — and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.
¶Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.
¶Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period.
¶Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it.
¶Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”
¶Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.
Below the Line (less attractive options):
¶Continue on the current path.
¶Move a large fraction of all U.S. Forces into Baghdad to attempt to control it.
¶Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially.
¶Set a firm withdrawal date to leave. Declare that with Saddam gone and Iraq a sovereign nation, the Iraqi people can govern themselves. Tell Iran and Syria to stay out.
¶Assist in accelerating an aggressive federalism plan, moving towards three separate states — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd.
¶Try a Dayton-like process.
Wrap...
Friday, December 01, 2006
DOD's Cambone on his way out...
From Chinaview.cn :
Pentagon's chief intelligence official to resign
www.chinaview.cn
2006-12-02 10:24:02
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Defense Department's top intelligence official, Stephen Cambone, will resign at the end of the year, the Pentagon announced Friday.
"Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence) Stephen A. Cambone will resign from the department on Dec. 31, 2006," the Pentagon announced in a statement.
Cambone was the most senior Pentagon official to resign after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned one day after the midterm elections on Nov. 7 in which Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress.
Cambone, who was confirmed by the Senate as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence in March 2003, had no specific plans after his departure and had said he looked forward to spending more time with his family, the statement said.
Before he was confirmed as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Cambone had worked in the department as director of program analysis and evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
Editor: Nie Peng
Wrap...
Pentagon's chief intelligence official to resign
www.chinaview.cn
2006-12-02 10:24:02
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Defense Department's top intelligence official, Stephen Cambone, will resign at the end of the year, the Pentagon announced Friday.
"Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence) Stephen A. Cambone will resign from the department on Dec. 31, 2006," the Pentagon announced in a statement.
Cambone was the most senior Pentagon official to resign after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned one day after the midterm elections on Nov. 7 in which Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress.
Cambone, who was confirmed by the Senate as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence in March 2003, had no specific plans after his departure and had said he looked forward to spending more time with his family, the statement said.
Before he was confirmed as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Cambone had worked in the department as director of program analysis and evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
Editor: Nie Peng
Wrap...
Dying under torture...
From Information Clearing House:
In case you missed it
Torture Inc.
Americas Brutal PrisonsVideo
It's terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you're not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.
Click to view http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm
Wrap...
In case you missed it
Torture Inc.
Americas Brutal PrisonsVideo
It's terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you're not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.
Click to view http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm
Wrap...
NSA listening...reading...watching...
From Information Clearing House:
Ghosts in the Machine
Encounters With The NSA
By Charles Sullivan
Quite some time ago, I am not sure exactly when, the thought police (National Security Agency) clandestinely moved into my computer.
It did so without my permission and in violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The prying eyes of government are watching my every move, noting my every keystroke and monitoring my every electronic transmission and telephone conversation.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15791.htm
Wrap...
Ghosts in the Machine
Encounters With The NSA
By Charles Sullivan
Quite some time ago, I am not sure exactly when, the thought police (National Security Agency) clandestinely moved into my computer.
It did so without my permission and in violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The prying eyes of government are watching my every move, noting my every keystroke and monitoring my every electronic transmission and telephone conversation.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15791.htm
Wrap...
BushCo's Repub Congress..they call this "bi-partisianship"?
From American Progress:
CONGRESS
The Dump and Run Congress
Next week, the 109th Congress returns for a final lame-duck session. With the election over, lawmakers "don't seem inclined to do any work." "In a blend of pique and laziness," members of the House and Senate "intend to show up and pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running at a basic level for a few more weeks." They plan to "dump everything else onto" the 110th Congress and leave Washington "one week earlier than previously anticipated." The current leadership is "preparing to walk away from their most basic constitutional responsibility - passing a budget," to allow themselves to "run out early." After being dumped by the American people, the 109th Congress is now dumping its remaining responsibilities.
PUNTING APPROPRIATIONS:
"Conservative congressional leaders are expected to punt the issue of completing spending bills to next year's Congress rather than take the time to piece together the legislation, potentially the final act of the Do-Nothing Congress." The leadership has "decided to punt their annual spending bills until next year," a step that will push "almost a half-trillion dollars of spending bills" on incoming lawmakers. The move would leave the new Congress "with the responsibility of passing the nine remaining spending bills, totaling almost $500 billion for government programs ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the national parks." Passing the remaining bills should not be this difficult. "In 1994," GovExec.com reports, "when Republicans swept back to power in the House after four decades, there was no spending mess to clean up - all appropriations bills had been enacted by the Democrats before the end of the fiscal year." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has said he will try to accomplish "what is feasible and achievable," but the delay is a calculated move. "I know a lot of folks just as soon not to see [the spending bills] done this year" to let the next Congress "struggle here next year," Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said.
NO RESOLUTION:
In place of the spending bills, the departing Congress is "reported to be planning nothing more than a cut-and-paste, short-term continuing resolution," or CR. The stop-gap spending bill would be the "third such measure" to pass this year and would extend government operations through February 15, "one week after President Bush submits his budget for the next fiscal year." A continuing resolution could lead to "budget nightmares" for federal agencies. "Under the terms of the CR," National Journal reports, "every agency would be funded at the lower of the House or Senate-passed level or last year's enacted budget, which over the course of the year would trim up to $7 billion from available FY07 funds." "The problems with a CR can start becoming acute even well before the end of the fiscal year." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, could see a 15 percent cut from its FY06 budget, which would lead to nearly 400 full-time employee layoffs. "The Social Security Administration has told congressional staff it might have to furlough every employee," and sources at the Housing and Urban Development Department say cuts could mean "literally thousands of people would be out in the street." Self-described fiscal conservatives such as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have said they will "block all spending bills from advancing" to pass the continuing resolution. Others are not pleased. House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) admitted the situation was "an absolute disaster and a catastrophe" compared to last year. "Not such a great ending," Lewis said.
A FINAL PUSH FROM THE RIGHT:
The right-wing is using its final week in power to push through an agenda meant to be a "last bid for loyalty" to their base. One bill conservatives will push, the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act," "defines a 20-week-old fetus as a 'pain-capable unborn child.'" The 20-week mark is "a highly controversial threshold among scientists." The bill mandates that abortion providers "inform the mothers that evidence exists that the procedure would cause pain to the child and offer the mothers anesthesia for the baby." The legislation is a "grotesque combination of pseudoscience, propaganda," and "big government." Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that "based on the evidence," "discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should not be mandatory."
TRYING TO 'GUM UP' THE AGENDA:
The incoming congressional leadership has promised "longer hours, five-day work weeks and extended stretches without a recess," including an "unusually long seven-week session" in the Senate. "The plan is," a spokesman for incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "we're going to work more hours, and hold Monday and Friday votes." Reid has promised to put in "some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time." The House will also "schedule longer work weeks." But the "bulging workload" left behind by the 109th Congress may force the 110th Congress to "consume time and energy" it would otherwise spend on "raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cutting interest rates on college loans and repealing some tax breaks for oil companies." Conservatives hope the "unfinished budget work" will "gum up" the January agenda.
Wrap...
CONGRESS
The Dump and Run Congress
Next week, the 109th Congress returns for a final lame-duck session. With the election over, lawmakers "don't seem inclined to do any work." "In a blend of pique and laziness," members of the House and Senate "intend to show up and pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running at a basic level for a few more weeks." They plan to "dump everything else onto" the 110th Congress and leave Washington "one week earlier than previously anticipated." The current leadership is "preparing to walk away from their most basic constitutional responsibility - passing a budget," to allow themselves to "run out early." After being dumped by the American people, the 109th Congress is now dumping its remaining responsibilities.
PUNTING APPROPRIATIONS:
"Conservative congressional leaders are expected to punt the issue of completing spending bills to next year's Congress rather than take the time to piece together the legislation, potentially the final act of the Do-Nothing Congress." The leadership has "decided to punt their annual spending bills until next year," a step that will push "almost a half-trillion dollars of spending bills" on incoming lawmakers. The move would leave the new Congress "with the responsibility of passing the nine remaining spending bills, totaling almost $500 billion for government programs ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the national parks." Passing the remaining bills should not be this difficult. "In 1994," GovExec.com reports, "when Republicans swept back to power in the House after four decades, there was no spending mess to clean up - all appropriations bills had been enacted by the Democrats before the end of the fiscal year." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has said he will try to accomplish "what is feasible and achievable," but the delay is a calculated move. "I know a lot of folks just as soon not to see [the spending bills] done this year" to let the next Congress "struggle here next year," Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said.
NO RESOLUTION:
In place of the spending bills, the departing Congress is "reported to be planning nothing more than a cut-and-paste, short-term continuing resolution," or CR. The stop-gap spending bill would be the "third such measure" to pass this year and would extend government operations through February 15, "one week after President Bush submits his budget for the next fiscal year." A continuing resolution could lead to "budget nightmares" for federal agencies. "Under the terms of the CR," National Journal reports, "every agency would be funded at the lower of the House or Senate-passed level or last year's enacted budget, which over the course of the year would trim up to $7 billion from available FY07 funds." "The problems with a CR can start becoming acute even well before the end of the fiscal year." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, could see a 15 percent cut from its FY06 budget, which would lead to nearly 400 full-time employee layoffs. "The Social Security Administration has told congressional staff it might have to furlough every employee," and sources at the Housing and Urban Development Department say cuts could mean "literally thousands of people would be out in the street." Self-described fiscal conservatives such as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have said they will "block all spending bills from advancing" to pass the continuing resolution. Others are not pleased. House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) admitted the situation was "an absolute disaster and a catastrophe" compared to last year. "Not such a great ending," Lewis said.
A FINAL PUSH FROM THE RIGHT:
The right-wing is using its final week in power to push through an agenda meant to be a "last bid for loyalty" to their base. One bill conservatives will push, the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act," "defines a 20-week-old fetus as a 'pain-capable unborn child.'" The 20-week mark is "a highly controversial threshold among scientists." The bill mandates that abortion providers "inform the mothers that evidence exists that the procedure would cause pain to the child and offer the mothers anesthesia for the baby." The legislation is a "grotesque combination of pseudoscience, propaganda," and "big government." Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that "based on the evidence," "discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should not be mandatory."
TRYING TO 'GUM UP' THE AGENDA:
The incoming congressional leadership has promised "longer hours, five-day work weeks and extended stretches without a recess," including an "unusually long seven-week session" in the Senate. "The plan is," a spokesman for incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "we're going to work more hours, and hold Monday and Friday votes." Reid has promised to put in "some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time." The House will also "schedule longer work weeks." But the "bulging workload" left behind by the 109th Congress may force the 110th Congress to "consume time and energy" it would otherwise spend on "raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cutting interest rates on college loans and repealing some tax breaks for oil companies." Conservatives hope the "unfinished budget work" will "gum up" the January agenda.
Wrap...
Intel Committee...what did they do?
From Secrecy News:
Now that the 109th Congress is drawing to a close, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has belatedly issued a report summarizing its activities during the 108th Congress (2003-2004). See, if you care to, "Committee Activities," Senate Report 109-360, November 16:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/srpt109-360.html
Wrap...
Now that the 109th Congress is drawing to a close, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has belatedly issued a report summarizing its activities during the 108th Congress (2003-2004). See, if you care to, "Committee Activities," Senate Report 109-360, November 16:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/srpt109-360.html
Wrap...
Mind Control. Don't think they can't do it....
From Secrecy News:
NAVY MIND CONTROL
U.S. Navy research on "mind control techniques" cannot be performed on human subjects without the authorization of the Under Secretary of the Navy, according to a new Navy Instruction.
"The Under Secretary of the Navy (UNSECNAV) is the Approval Authority for research involving ... severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques)."
The nature and scope of any such Navy research could not be immediately discovered.
See "Human Research Protection Program," Secretary of the Navy Instruction 3900.39D, November 6, 2006 [at section 7(a)(2), page 9]:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/secnavinst/3900_39d.pdf
Wrap...
NAVY MIND CONTROL
U.S. Navy research on "mind control techniques" cannot be performed on human subjects without the authorization of the Under Secretary of the Navy, according to a new Navy Instruction.
"The Under Secretary of the Navy (UNSECNAV) is the Approval Authority for research involving ... severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques)."
The nature and scope of any such Navy research could not be immediately discovered.
See "Human Research Protection Program," Secretary of the Navy Instruction 3900.39D, November 6, 2006 [at section 7(a)(2), page 9]:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/secnavinst/3900_39d.pdf
Wrap...
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