On the day after George W. Bush's inauguration, his super-rich backers, who ponied up $40 million to cover the cost of the entertainment, wake up and congratulate themselves on having bought a place at the table. The rest of us, who could not afford to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars, wake up to a $17 million bill for inaugural security. After all, the best kind of party is one where someone else gets stuck with the check.
Looking back on four years and ahead to four more, President Bush gave a speech in which he promised the same thing, only more so. Amid the festivities ostensibly dedicated to the military, he paid lip service to the 1,366 (and counting) American soldiers who gave their lives in pursuit of his obsession with "getting" Saddam Hussein. He exhorted more young men and women to fill the ranks of a military which can't meet recruiting quotas and is forcing retiring soldiers back into uniform en route to Iraq.
"Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants," he said, referring, of course, to his wants.
He declared in almost messianic vocabulary that his second-term mission is nothing less than to export democracy to "every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Sounds good on the surface -- but from this President, and given the post-speech spin, he seems determined to take the very same policy which failed so disastrously in Iraq and apply it to the rest of the world.
Become democratic, Bush implied, or face the consequences. Don’t do it because it's better for everyone involved. Do it because we'll destroy you if you don't.
Having purged his top ranks of all but the most sycophantic of yes-men, the most powerful man in the world has no one nearby to tell him this is a recipe not for a golden age of world peace, but rather for endless and permanent war. And with his resolve to ignore those who don't agree with him 200%, he's not going to listen to anyone who says so.
He called on the Almighty so many times one would be forgiven for thinking he was speaking from a pulpit instead of a podium. He called the spread of democracy a divine mission, all but saying that we know better than everyone else, and that with God is on our side we can't lose. Then again, since he has said numerous times that God speaks to him and that he carries out the heavenly will, one wonders if Bush sees himself as a latter-day Moses, bringing the carrot of freedom and the stick of plagues.
With all this onwarding of Christian soldiers, one wonders if Bush reassured longtime family friend Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan (a.k.a. "Bandar Bush") that Riyadh will once again receive a free ride thanks to longstanding business ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royals. In any event, Saudi Arabia, home to Osama bin Laden, most of the 9/11 hijackers and a royal family with a long and sordid history of supporting Islamic extremists, will likely be exempt from Bush's crusade just as it was exempt from the War on Terror™.
Afterwards, much luxury was on display at the capital's nine inaugural balls, where Republicans and their well-heeled financiers danced and schmoozed the night away to the theme of "Celebrating Freedom and Honoring Service." Mere citizens weren't allowed anywhere near the merriment, not with $1,000 ticket prices, 400 pounds of lobster, and a very exclusive guest list.
Slightly smarting from news reports of fat-cat gluttony, organizers gave free tickets to the "Commander in Chief Ball" to 2,000 military personnel and their families. Of course, the attendees were all handpicked by the Pentagon to ensure an appreciative crowd and to weed out anyone who might say anything uncomfortable. You know, those subversive party-poopers who just have to ask why their friends and relatives continue to be killed fighting in a country which was no threat to America.
Meanwhile, over in free Iraq, our men and women in uniform continue to fight and die defending themselves against the happily liberated Iraqi people. Being told to stop whining and accept "the army we have," they continue to scrounge junkyards for makeshift armor plating for their vehicles and ask their families to pass the collection plate at home in the hopes of getting enough money to buy bulletproof vests.
Some people along the parade route in Washington, and at other locations around the country, did not feel at one with the cheering crowds and made their feelings plain with protest and dissent. Demonstrating that they have taken the inaugural message of freedom to heart, a number of Bush supporters along the route and on talk radio promptly attacked the protesters as "traitors."
Ahead, we see four more years of doubletalk and doublethink, of propagandistic calls to war and calls to spend, of projecting happy illusions while hiding from reality, of cloaking real intentions in soothing language. Hold on tight.
1/21/2005
1/17/2005
No Weapons, No Regrets, No Shame
Well, it's official. The White House quietly announced last week that Charles Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group has packed it in, giving up the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Remember them? They were the huge pile of terrible weapons which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others assured us repeatedly and apocalyptically just had to exist and were doubtlessly going to be used against us.
You may recall Duelfer's preliminary report back in October that Iraq's WMD arsenal was actually destroyed more than a decade ago. As this was not what the White House wanted to hear, the report was buried and the ISG sent back into the field. Of course, now that the election is safely in the past, it doesn't really matter what they report -- from the Administration's standpoint, anyway. From the standpoint of the people whose loved ones have been killed in this splendid little war, it matters a whole lot.
Almost two years have passed since we invaded Iraq, and while we've managed to kill an awful lot of people, turn the rest of the world against us and bog ourselves down in a desert quagmire, no weapons have ever been found. The last-ditch hope from invasion supporters is that Saddam smuggled his WND stockpiles to other countries before the war, but there is no evidence of such a move.
Other justifications for the invasion have likewise disintegrated, from Saddam Hussein's alleged al Qaeda connections to those unmanned poison-spraying drones which didn't work and couldn't do what they were alleged to even if they did work. The sole remaining excuse is the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam's tyranny, but the Iraqi people themselves don't seem terribly pleased to be the hosts of an indefinite American occupation force, especially one which promised the moon and then didn't even deliver green cheese.
For his part, Bush told ABC that he has "no regrets" over his invasion obsession, still insisting that the Iraq War is on track and has made the world a safer place. This shows a denial of reality of such staggering proportions that one has to wonder whether he is living in a dream world.
Perhaps he is. It was recently reported that Bush ordered his aides not to bring him any "bad news" on Iraq and only tell him the good stuff. Combine this with his infamous remark that he never bothers to get the news by himself and you have a perfect example of a child monarch, kept blissfully ignorant by his scheming advisers.
He also told the Washington Post that he sees his re-election squeaker as a complete vindication of his disastrous Iraq policies, therefore no one will be held accountable for anything Iraq-related, from the twisting of pre-war intelligence to justify an already-made decision, to the rejection of any sort of post-war planning beyond flowers-in-the-streets wishful thinking.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who overruled his military generals on required force levels and only last month told front-line troops to stop whining about chronic armor shortages, will keep his job. So will Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who cherry-picked raw intelligence data to manufacture a nonexistent Iraq-al Qaeda link. Ditto for Vice President Dick Cheney, who kept on referring to fictional Iraqi nuclear programs and imaginary Prague meetings long after both were firmly disproved. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who invoked images of phantom mushroom clouds and tried covering up the pre-9/11 intelligence briefing warning of an al Qaeda plot, is actually getting a promotion to Secretary of State. (Colin Powell, the current holder of that job, was pushed aside and finally pushed out entirely for insufficient cheerleading.) And White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who perverted law and morality to justify torturing prisoners in Cuba and Iraq, is likewise being advanced to Attorney General.
Tom Lehrer once famously said that satire died the day Henry Kissinger, one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War, won the Nobel Peace Prize. That thin scream you hear is satire dying another death. How on Earth can one satirize a President so firmly convinced that up is down and black is white? Where is the humor in an Administration which rewards pleasant lies while punishing unpleasant truths?
The only thing preventing total despair is one bright spot: the imminent-disaster fear campaign used so successfully in manipulating us into supporting the Iraq War doesn't seem to be working so well in scaring up support for gutting Social Security. A leaked memo written by one of Karl Rove's aides, bragging about how the neoconservatives who have hated the program since the day it was created finally have a chance to destroy it, provides a window into the inner workings of the White House's thought processes. Numerical analyses showing how such privatization would make the national debt skyrocket beyond all control didn't help, and even some Republicans are backing away from the plan.
The ISG has now officially admitted to reality. But it seems President Bush and his inner circle never will. And the more they try to hide their heads in the sands, the longer this stupid and pointless war will continue, and the more American soldiers will come home in body bags.
You may recall Duelfer's preliminary report back in October that Iraq's WMD arsenal was actually destroyed more than a decade ago. As this was not what the White House wanted to hear, the report was buried and the ISG sent back into the field. Of course, now that the election is safely in the past, it doesn't really matter what they report -- from the Administration's standpoint, anyway. From the standpoint of the people whose loved ones have been killed in this splendid little war, it matters a whole lot.
Almost two years have passed since we invaded Iraq, and while we've managed to kill an awful lot of people, turn the rest of the world against us and bog ourselves down in a desert quagmire, no weapons have ever been found. The last-ditch hope from invasion supporters is that Saddam smuggled his WND stockpiles to other countries before the war, but there is no evidence of such a move.
Other justifications for the invasion have likewise disintegrated, from Saddam Hussein's alleged al Qaeda connections to those unmanned poison-spraying drones which didn't work and couldn't do what they were alleged to even if they did work. The sole remaining excuse is the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam's tyranny, but the Iraqi people themselves don't seem terribly pleased to be the hosts of an indefinite American occupation force, especially one which promised the moon and then didn't even deliver green cheese.
For his part, Bush told ABC that he has "no regrets" over his invasion obsession, still insisting that the Iraq War is on track and has made the world a safer place. This shows a denial of reality of such staggering proportions that one has to wonder whether he is living in a dream world.
Perhaps he is. It was recently reported that Bush ordered his aides not to bring him any "bad news" on Iraq and only tell him the good stuff. Combine this with his infamous remark that he never bothers to get the news by himself and you have a perfect example of a child monarch, kept blissfully ignorant by his scheming advisers.
He also told the Washington Post that he sees his re-election squeaker as a complete vindication of his disastrous Iraq policies, therefore no one will be held accountable for anything Iraq-related, from the twisting of pre-war intelligence to justify an already-made decision, to the rejection of any sort of post-war planning beyond flowers-in-the-streets wishful thinking.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who overruled his military generals on required force levels and only last month told front-line troops to stop whining about chronic armor shortages, will keep his job. So will Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who cherry-picked raw intelligence data to manufacture a nonexistent Iraq-al Qaeda link. Ditto for Vice President Dick Cheney, who kept on referring to fictional Iraqi nuclear programs and imaginary Prague meetings long after both were firmly disproved. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who invoked images of phantom mushroom clouds and tried covering up the pre-9/11 intelligence briefing warning of an al Qaeda plot, is actually getting a promotion to Secretary of State. (Colin Powell, the current holder of that job, was pushed aside and finally pushed out entirely for insufficient cheerleading.) And White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who perverted law and morality to justify torturing prisoners in Cuba and Iraq, is likewise being advanced to Attorney General.
Tom Lehrer once famously said that satire died the day Henry Kissinger, one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War, won the Nobel Peace Prize. That thin scream you hear is satire dying another death. How on Earth can one satirize a President so firmly convinced that up is down and black is white? Where is the humor in an Administration which rewards pleasant lies while punishing unpleasant truths?
The only thing preventing total despair is one bright spot: the imminent-disaster fear campaign used so successfully in manipulating us into supporting the Iraq War doesn't seem to be working so well in scaring up support for gutting Social Security. A leaked memo written by one of Karl Rove's aides, bragging about how the neoconservatives who have hated the program since the day it was created finally have a chance to destroy it, provides a window into the inner workings of the White House's thought processes. Numerical analyses showing how such privatization would make the national debt skyrocket beyond all control didn't help, and even some Republicans are backing away from the plan.
The ISG has now officially admitted to reality. But it seems President Bush and his inner circle never will. And the more they try to hide their heads in the sands, the longer this stupid and pointless war will continue, and the more American soldiers will come home in body bags.
1/11/2005
Political Payola
Back in the 1950s, the world of rock-'n-roll radio was all aflutter over disclosures that disk jockeys routinely took secret payments from record companies to guarantee air time for their songs. The practice, which became known as payola, sparked a big scandal and heartfelt industry promises never to do it again.
As the French would say, plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Armstrong Williams is a highly conservative black commentator who opines on the issues of the day in his syndicated newspaper column and TV show, not to mention the various television pundit shows on which he is a frequent guest. Over the last year or two, he has spoken out strongly in favor of the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act, the education-reform law which is supposed to increase student performance. He made it a constant theme, often inviting Education Secretary Rod Paige on his show to expound on the law's benefits.
Now it turns out he had motives other than mere punditry. USA Today revealed last week that via the Department of Education, the White House secretly gave Williams payola -- $241,000, to be exact -- to provide an Administration-friendly forum for NCLB on his own show, to support it when he went on other shows, and to lobby other black journalists to get in line with the cause.
Not only did Williams never bother mentioning to anyone that his pro-NCLB comments in various media outlets were actually paid political announcements, it took a Freedom of Information Act request to pry the information out of the White House. Somewhat to his credit, he admitted that what he did was wrong, which is putting it mildly. Tribune Media Services has already dropped his column and one TV network has suspended his show. Other newspapers are announcing that they will no longer run his Op-Ed submissions because they'll never know for sure if he's trying to pull the same scam.
Williams will face the music, as well he should. Secretly taking money to promote a partisan political agenda while hiding that minor fact from readers and viewers, not to mention the networks on which he appeared, is way out of line.
What remains to be seen is whether the White House will face any consequences over this. You see, it is extremely illegal for the government to engage in domestic propaganda. And it's not like they haven't gotten caught at this before. Last year, it was revealed that the Administration had produced fake news videos with actors posing as reporters touting the then-pending Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Proving that some people never learn, it was revealed only last week that the same swindle was pulled to sell the White House's illegal-drug policies. In both cases, more than one station was deceived into running the videos as actual news items before the fraud was unmasked.
Disturbingly, the White House says this latest flap is not a big deal and blamed it on Education. They in turn shrugged it off as "a permissible use of taxpayer funds." Permissible to use our tax dollars to pay off so-called journalists into regurgitating government propaganda? Um...no, it isn't. Not by a long shot. And by the way, how wonderful can this law possibly be if the Administration has to resort to flat-out bribery to get it some good press? (Answer: it isn't. The White House has failed to fund it adequately, it's not getting the results it's supposed to get, and even some conservatives are backing away from it.)
Even more disturbingly, Williams admitted that "this happens all the time" and that "there are others" who take White House payola while pretending to be independent. Which leads us to wonder: how many other paid shills are out there masquerading as real journalists? How many other TV appearances are actually Administration-approved infomercials? When we turn on pundit shows and see Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity praising the White House's political agenda, are we seeing actual independent commentary or are we seeing Ministry of Truth propaganda?
The White House claims the Williams payola was an isolated incident, that there are no other journalists on the government payroll parroting what they're paid to say.
Putting it bluntly, I don't believe them. The Administration has been caught too many times telling blatant lies and using anything-goes ad campaigns to sell policy to be trusted on anything they say.
The Bush Administration should end this practice now. But since the White House doesn't seem to realize it did anything wrong (and not for the first time, either) it is up to journalists to uphold ethical standards and refuse such political payola. It sure isn't happening on Pennsylvania Avenue.
As the French would say, plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Armstrong Williams is a highly conservative black commentator who opines on the issues of the day in his syndicated newspaper column and TV show, not to mention the various television pundit shows on which he is a frequent guest. Over the last year or two, he has spoken out strongly in favor of the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act, the education-reform law which is supposed to increase student performance. He made it a constant theme, often inviting Education Secretary Rod Paige on his show to expound on the law's benefits.
Now it turns out he had motives other than mere punditry. USA Today revealed last week that via the Department of Education, the White House secretly gave Williams payola -- $241,000, to be exact -- to provide an Administration-friendly forum for NCLB on his own show, to support it when he went on other shows, and to lobby other black journalists to get in line with the cause.
Not only did Williams never bother mentioning to anyone that his pro-NCLB comments in various media outlets were actually paid political announcements, it took a Freedom of Information Act request to pry the information out of the White House. Somewhat to his credit, he admitted that what he did was wrong, which is putting it mildly. Tribune Media Services has already dropped his column and one TV network has suspended his show. Other newspapers are announcing that they will no longer run his Op-Ed submissions because they'll never know for sure if he's trying to pull the same scam.
Williams will face the music, as well he should. Secretly taking money to promote a partisan political agenda while hiding that minor fact from readers and viewers, not to mention the networks on which he appeared, is way out of line.
What remains to be seen is whether the White House will face any consequences over this. You see, it is extremely illegal for the government to engage in domestic propaganda. And it's not like they haven't gotten caught at this before. Last year, it was revealed that the Administration had produced fake news videos with actors posing as reporters touting the then-pending Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Proving that some people never learn, it was revealed only last week that the same swindle was pulled to sell the White House's illegal-drug policies. In both cases, more than one station was deceived into running the videos as actual news items before the fraud was unmasked.
Disturbingly, the White House says this latest flap is not a big deal and blamed it on Education. They in turn shrugged it off as "a permissible use of taxpayer funds." Permissible to use our tax dollars to pay off so-called journalists into regurgitating government propaganda? Um...no, it isn't. Not by a long shot. And by the way, how wonderful can this law possibly be if the Administration has to resort to flat-out bribery to get it some good press? (Answer: it isn't. The White House has failed to fund it adequately, it's not getting the results it's supposed to get, and even some conservatives are backing away from it.)
Even more disturbingly, Williams admitted that "this happens all the time" and that "there are others" who take White House payola while pretending to be independent. Which leads us to wonder: how many other paid shills are out there masquerading as real journalists? How many other TV appearances are actually Administration-approved infomercials? When we turn on pundit shows and see Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity praising the White House's political agenda, are we seeing actual independent commentary or are we seeing Ministry of Truth propaganda?
The White House claims the Williams payola was an isolated incident, that there are no other journalists on the government payroll parroting what they're paid to say.
Putting it bluntly, I don't believe them. The Administration has been caught too many times telling blatant lies and using anything-goes ad campaigns to sell policy to be trusted on anything they say.
The Bush Administration should end this practice now. But since the White House doesn't seem to realize it did anything wrong (and not for the first time, either) it is up to journalists to uphold ethical standards and refuse such political payola. It sure isn't happening on Pennsylvania Avenue.
12/22/2004
Torture, Ordered
Ever since the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal broke earlier this year, the standard line coming out of the White House is that it was all the soldiers' fault, that it was all because of a few "bad apples." In keeping with the Bush Administration's stay-on-message-no-matter-what motif, they kept on saying the exact same thing even when it was revealed that military higher-ups not only knew about the abuses, at the very least they tacitly approved because they didn't order them to stop. While the story has mostly died down thanks to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and others in the conservative media who insisted it was much ado about nothing, a few more intrepid souls have kept on following the trail.
Now that trail may very well have led right onto George W. Bush's desk.
Thanks to persistent Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU managed to pry out of the Administration a treasure trove of angry memos from FBI agents stationed in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
The memos complain how Department of Defense ("DOD") interrogators, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's approval, passed themselves off as FBI agents while using what the writer called "torture techniques" against prisoners. "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way," one memo says, "DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [be] left holding the bag before the public."
Other memos relay agents' disgust at the use of "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations" in Iraq and Guantanamo, and that Pentagon officials "were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses." In revulsion, FBI supervisors ordered their agents not to take part in such questionings: "We have instructed our personnel not to participate in interrogations by military personnel which might include techniques [allowed] by the Executive Order but beyond the bounds of standard FBI practice."
Yes, it now seems there was an explicit order from President Bush allowing the abuse of captured prisoners, an order the FBI refused to follow. (Astoundingly, the American media has largely glossed over this revelation, preferring instead to dwell on the titillating details of just which tortures were committed.)
One of the released memos, dated May 22, 2004, says that "an Executive Order signed by President Bush authorized the following interrogation techniques, among others: sleep 'management,' use of MWDs (military working dogs), 'stress positions' such as half squats, 'environmental manipulation' such as the use of loud music, sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The letter goes on to say that the week before, after the Abu Ghraib scandal had broken, the order was slightly revised so that "all interrogation techniques previously authorized by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted."
All of this violates the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Some months after 9/11, then-White House counsel (and now Attorney General-designate) Alberto Gonzales wrote a much-publicized memo claiming that mistreatment counted as torture only if the prisoner was killed or permanently injured. He also wrote that the Conventions did not apply to al Qaeda prisoners and that the Government could do pretty much whatever it wanted. The memo sparked a furor when it was leaked, and the White House appeared to back down.
But the FBI memos reveal that abuse and torture continued not just long after the policy was supposedly changed, but it went on even months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. For all we know, it continues even now. And by the way -- given the memo's reference to the order revision allowing such "techniques" only on "very high-level authority," who signed off on the continued abuses?
It appears nobody in the White House realized that the Conventions are there for a reason: to prevent torture and mistreatment of prisoners of war. This is a very slippery slope, if the United States claims it can unilaterally ignore international law and do whatever it likes with captured fighters, what will prevent our enemies from doing the same thing with our soldiers?
Big kudos to the FBI, which is capable of recognizing an illegal order even if the Pentagon is not.
If the FBI E-mails are correct and Bush did indeed issue an Executive Order approving the use of human-rights abuses against prisoners, then ultimate responsibility for Abu Ghraib and numerous other examples of abuse, torture and even summary executions extends all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn't matter how much the Administration tries to make the little guys, who actually carried out their orders, take the fall. They were ordered to do so by their superiors, who must also be held accountable.
The very notion that the President of the United States secretly signed off on the use of torture, no matter how it was defined, is appalling. It's even more appalling to realize they really thought they could get away with it. The moral high ground in the War on Terror is getting further and further away.
Now that trail may very well have led right onto George W. Bush's desk.
Thanks to persistent Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU managed to pry out of the Administration a treasure trove of angry memos from FBI agents stationed in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
The memos complain how Department of Defense ("DOD") interrogators, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's approval, passed themselves off as FBI agents while using what the writer called "torture techniques" against prisoners. "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way," one memo says, "DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [be] left holding the bag before the public."
Other memos relay agents' disgust at the use of "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations" in Iraq and Guantanamo, and that Pentagon officials "were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses." In revulsion, FBI supervisors ordered their agents not to take part in such questionings: "We have instructed our personnel not to participate in interrogations by military personnel which might include techniques [allowed] by the Executive Order but beyond the bounds of standard FBI practice."
Yes, it now seems there was an explicit order from President Bush allowing the abuse of captured prisoners, an order the FBI refused to follow. (Astoundingly, the American media has largely glossed over this revelation, preferring instead to dwell on the titillating details of just which tortures were committed.)
One of the released memos, dated May 22, 2004, says that "an Executive Order signed by President Bush authorized the following interrogation techniques, among others: sleep 'management,' use of MWDs (military working dogs), 'stress positions' such as half squats, 'environmental manipulation' such as the use of loud music, sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The letter goes on to say that the week before, after the Abu Ghraib scandal had broken, the order was slightly revised so that "all interrogation techniques previously authorized by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted."
All of this violates the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Some months after 9/11, then-White House counsel (and now Attorney General-designate) Alberto Gonzales wrote a much-publicized memo claiming that mistreatment counted as torture only if the prisoner was killed or permanently injured. He also wrote that the Conventions did not apply to al Qaeda prisoners and that the Government could do pretty much whatever it wanted. The memo sparked a furor when it was leaked, and the White House appeared to back down.
But the FBI memos reveal that abuse and torture continued not just long after the policy was supposedly changed, but it went on even months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. For all we know, it continues even now. And by the way -- given the memo's reference to the order revision allowing such "techniques" only on "very high-level authority," who signed off on the continued abuses?
It appears nobody in the White House realized that the Conventions are there for a reason: to prevent torture and mistreatment of prisoners of war. This is a very slippery slope, if the United States claims it can unilaterally ignore international law and do whatever it likes with captured fighters, what will prevent our enemies from doing the same thing with our soldiers?
Big kudos to the FBI, which is capable of recognizing an illegal order even if the Pentagon is not.
If the FBI E-mails are correct and Bush did indeed issue an Executive Order approving the use of human-rights abuses against prisoners, then ultimate responsibility for Abu Ghraib and numerous other examples of abuse, torture and even summary executions extends all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn't matter how much the Administration tries to make the little guys, who actually carried out their orders, take the fall. They were ordered to do so by their superiors, who must also be held accountable.
The very notion that the President of the United States secretly signed off on the use of torture, no matter how it was defined, is appalling. It's even more appalling to realize they really thought they could get away with it. The moral high ground in the War on Terror is getting further and further away.
12/21/2004
Adoption for Your Amusement, Again
Back in April, ABC raised hackles with a stunningly ill-conceived promo for a 20/20 episode about open adoption. “Barbara [Walters] will bring you what might be called the ultimate reality show,” co-anchor John Stossel proclaimed as he plugged the upcoming show. “As you watch, a pregnant teenager will decide which of five couples gets her baby." Disgusted by the prospect of adoption's very personal and emotional nature being perverted into some loathsome sort of grand prize, viewers showered the network with complaints and ABC quickly backed down.
Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, the usual suspect has picked up where ABC left off. And then some. For on January 3, 2005, Fox, the network behind such highlights of cultural programming as The Swan and The Littlest Groom, pollutes the airwaves with the first episode of a new reality series about adoption.
The premise is, to put it mildly, repulsive. A young woman who was adopted at birth faces eight men, one of whom is her actual biological father while each of the other seven tries to deceive her into thinking he's the real deal. She has to decide which one is genuine. If she picks correctly she gets $100,000; if not, the misidentified fake gets the cash.
This exercise in degradation is called, of course, Who's Your Daddy?
Even for a network unafraid to get down into the slime of shameless human exploitation, this is a new and very offensive low. The decision by an adoptee to find one's biological parents is fraught with questions about identity and who one really is. Taking that most personal of quests and turning it into a game show laced with deception and greed is truly repugnant. The fact that Fox actually found people stupid and desperate enough to prostitute themselves in this manner says volumes about the sorry state of American television and the lengths to which people will go to get their fifteen minutes of fame.
"I can understand the reservations," executive producer Kevin Healey said in an interview, "but the people came to it with great excitement and a willingness to play the game. It's a fun and healthy way to get to know this person that they've never met."
Fun and healthy? Where's the fun in seeing someone's hope to learn who she is and where she came from dashed to the merry laughter of millions? Perhaps someone out there will see the show, think back on their own adoption, and see it not as an expression of love and family but rather as a way to make a quick buck. Doesn't sound healthy to me.
"The daughters feel bad when they pick wrong," co-executive producer Scott Hallock added, "because they're like, 'I let my dad down.'"
Yeah, we're all crying with you. If you're dumb enough to think the path to self-discovery involves humiliation on a national (international, really, once you count global syndication) scale and comes with a cash prize, you deserve what you get. This hearkens back to the sort of entertainment seen in the Roman Coliseum, where condemned criminals and slaves were forced to hack each other to death for the amusement of the emperor. What fun!
Fox has once again hit bottom with this despicable excuse for entertainment. Until the next time, that is.
An editable form letter with contact list is online at http://simpleasthat.com/actionletter/index.php.
Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, the usual suspect has picked up where ABC left off. And then some. For on January 3, 2005, Fox, the network behind such highlights of cultural programming as The Swan and The Littlest Groom, pollutes the airwaves with the first episode of a new reality series about adoption.
The premise is, to put it mildly, repulsive. A young woman who was adopted at birth faces eight men, one of whom is her actual biological father while each of the other seven tries to deceive her into thinking he's the real deal. She has to decide which one is genuine. If she picks correctly she gets $100,000; if not, the misidentified fake gets the cash.
This exercise in degradation is called, of course, Who's Your Daddy?
Even for a network unafraid to get down into the slime of shameless human exploitation, this is a new and very offensive low. The decision by an adoptee to find one's biological parents is fraught with questions about identity and who one really is. Taking that most personal of quests and turning it into a game show laced with deception and greed is truly repugnant. The fact that Fox actually found people stupid and desperate enough to prostitute themselves in this manner says volumes about the sorry state of American television and the lengths to which people will go to get their fifteen minutes of fame.
"I can understand the reservations," executive producer Kevin Healey said in an interview, "but the people came to it with great excitement and a willingness to play the game. It's a fun and healthy way to get to know this person that they've never met."
Fun and healthy? Where's the fun in seeing someone's hope to learn who she is and where she came from dashed to the merry laughter of millions? Perhaps someone out there will see the show, think back on their own adoption, and see it not as an expression of love and family but rather as a way to make a quick buck. Doesn't sound healthy to me.
"The daughters feel bad when they pick wrong," co-executive producer Scott Hallock added, "because they're like, 'I let my dad down.'"
Yeah, we're all crying with you. If you're dumb enough to think the path to self-discovery involves humiliation on a national (international, really, once you count global syndication) scale and comes with a cash prize, you deserve what you get. This hearkens back to the sort of entertainment seen in the Roman Coliseum, where condemned criminals and slaves were forced to hack each other to death for the amusement of the emperor. What fun!
Fox has once again hit bottom with this despicable excuse for entertainment. Until the next time, that is.
An editable form letter with contact list is online at http://simpleasthat.com/actionletter/index.php.
12/20/2004
Social Insecurity
Remember the fear campaign with which President Bush and his neoconservative cadre scared us into supporting his invasion of Iraq? All those tales of horrible (nonexistent) weapons which could turn Main Street, USA into a smoking hole in the ground? Well, he's at it again, and this time his target is much closer to home. Mistaking his close election win for an actual mandate, Bush has set his "shock and awe" sights on Social Security.
Yes, that Social Security; the program which has provided America's senior citizens, disabled workers and the children of workers who die young with a financial safety cushion for well over half a century. According to Bush, the system is in active crisis because while Social Security currently takes in $1.25 for each dollar paid out and is thus very much in the black, it will be paying out more than it takes in by 2018. The Social Security Administration, the group that actually runs the program, begs to differ, saying that given current economic trends this won't happen until 2042; the Congressional Budget Office says 2052. (The same CBO report says that that extending Social Security's solvency by another century while maintaining benefits would require additional revenues equal to less than three percent of federal spending. This happens to be less than that we're currently spending in Iraq.) Even given the fickleness of the economy, this is hardly an active crisis.
Bush claims it is, however, and his solution is...partial privatization! Yes, his answer to a fiscal problem which may occur a few decades down the road is to allow individuals to some of their payroll taxes into the stock market right now, the theory being that people will make more than enough money from their investments to offset smaller Social Security benefits. It's really just a variation on the old the-market-knows-everything mantra that gave us the Great Depression, the S&L scandal, Enron, etc. This solution has three tiny little problems.
First, every penny taken out of the system has to be made up in order for current benefits to be paid and the trust fund maintained. And Bush is determined to get the money by borrowing it, with total ten-year estimates as high as $2 trillion added to our already $7.5 trillion national debt. This may well make foreign and domestic investors wary about continuing to finance our exploding debt when the Bush Administration itself clearly doesn't care. This makes the dollar and stock market fall, interest rates and unemployment rise, and so on.
Second, privatizing Social Security would be putting the program in the hands of the ilk who gave us such financial triumphs as the seemingly endless stock-market and mutual-fund scandals, not to mention the up-and-down vagaries of the market as is. Who will have to explain the magic of the markets to angry seniors whose entire retirement benefits were stolen by the likes of Ken Lay or went down the drain with a company's bankruptcy?
And third, administrative overhead costs, which currently take up less than one percent of the annual Social Security budget, would multiply more than ten-fold under a privatized system. That's as much as $75 billion a year gone from retirement benefits to line the pockets of Wall Street. Not surprisingly, Wall Street is the one sector of the American economy actively pushing for such "reform." And also not surprisingly, the financial industry gave big bucks to Bush, more than $30 million in the 2004 campaign alone.
That works out to a 250,000% return on their investment. Not too shabby. Better than the S&P 500 and loads better than Hillary Clinton did with her much-maligned cattle futures.
The eventual fiscal problem with Social Security can be almost or entirely solved with one single change. As it stands now, only the first $87,900 of a person's income is subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Meaning that someone earning a bit under ninety grand pays exactly the same amount into Social Security as someone like Bill Gates. Or Tom Cruise. Or, for that matter, George W. Bush. Raising or removing the cap would do away with this inequity and maintain the system's integrity for decades to come.
Of course, the whole notion of Social Security's guaranteed benefits is heresy to Bush's well-heeled friends, who have never hid their desire to blow up the "socialist" system and replace it with a super-capitalist free-for-all in which individuals sink or swim. If you invest in the right stocks, you get to live in a nice comfy house and have all your needs met. If you don't, or if your stock turns out to be run by crooks -- well, those are the breaks, kid. Hope that refrigerator box is warm in winter.
Dismantling Social Security and endangering the livelihood of senior citizens just to satisfy the ideological fantasies of government-hating Republicans and to further enrich the financial industry is a terrible idea. Congress should block it at the first opportunity.
Yes, that Social Security; the program which has provided America's senior citizens, disabled workers and the children of workers who die young with a financial safety cushion for well over half a century. According to Bush, the system is in active crisis because while Social Security currently takes in $1.25 for each dollar paid out and is thus very much in the black, it will be paying out more than it takes in by 2018. The Social Security Administration, the group that actually runs the program, begs to differ, saying that given current economic trends this won't happen until 2042; the Congressional Budget Office says 2052. (The same CBO report says that that extending Social Security's solvency by another century while maintaining benefits would require additional revenues equal to less than three percent of federal spending. This happens to be less than that we're currently spending in Iraq.) Even given the fickleness of the economy, this is hardly an active crisis.
Bush claims it is, however, and his solution is...partial privatization! Yes, his answer to a fiscal problem which may occur a few decades down the road is to allow individuals to some of their payroll taxes into the stock market right now, the theory being that people will make more than enough money from their investments to offset smaller Social Security benefits. It's really just a variation on the old the-market-knows-everything mantra that gave us the Great Depression, the S&L scandal, Enron, etc. This solution has three tiny little problems.
First, every penny taken out of the system has to be made up in order for current benefits to be paid and the trust fund maintained. And Bush is determined to get the money by borrowing it, with total ten-year estimates as high as $2 trillion added to our already $7.5 trillion national debt. This may well make foreign and domestic investors wary about continuing to finance our exploding debt when the Bush Administration itself clearly doesn't care. This makes the dollar and stock market fall, interest rates and unemployment rise, and so on.
Second, privatizing Social Security would be putting the program in the hands of the ilk who gave us such financial triumphs as the seemingly endless stock-market and mutual-fund scandals, not to mention the up-and-down vagaries of the market as is. Who will have to explain the magic of the markets to angry seniors whose entire retirement benefits were stolen by the likes of Ken Lay or went down the drain with a company's bankruptcy?
And third, administrative overhead costs, which currently take up less than one percent of the annual Social Security budget, would multiply more than ten-fold under a privatized system. That's as much as $75 billion a year gone from retirement benefits to line the pockets of Wall Street. Not surprisingly, Wall Street is the one sector of the American economy actively pushing for such "reform." And also not surprisingly, the financial industry gave big bucks to Bush, more than $30 million in the 2004 campaign alone.
That works out to a 250,000% return on their investment. Not too shabby. Better than the S&P 500 and loads better than Hillary Clinton did with her much-maligned cattle futures.
The eventual fiscal problem with Social Security can be almost or entirely solved with one single change. As it stands now, only the first $87,900 of a person's income is subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Meaning that someone earning a bit under ninety grand pays exactly the same amount into Social Security as someone like Bill Gates. Or Tom Cruise. Or, for that matter, George W. Bush. Raising or removing the cap would do away with this inequity and maintain the system's integrity for decades to come.
Of course, the whole notion of Social Security's guaranteed benefits is heresy to Bush's well-heeled friends, who have never hid their desire to blow up the "socialist" system and replace it with a super-capitalist free-for-all in which individuals sink or swim. If you invest in the right stocks, you get to live in a nice comfy house and have all your needs met. If you don't, or if your stock turns out to be run by crooks -- well, those are the breaks, kid. Hope that refrigerator box is warm in winter.
Dismantling Social Security and endangering the livelihood of senior citizens just to satisfy the ideological fantasies of government-hating Republicans and to further enrich the financial industry is a terrible idea. Congress should block it at the first opportunity.
12/15/2004
To Tell the Truth
Remember the old TV game show To Tell the Truth? A group of panelists all claimed to be a single specific person, and the contestant who figured out which one was being honest and not lying through his or her teeth would win prizes.
It's back, sort of.
Three years ago, the Pentagon's proposed Office of Strategic Influence went down in flames after its true purpose became known -- the dissemination of false articles in foreign media publications with the intent of fooling the enemy. What the OSI never figured out was that in this age of global communication, anything published anywhere quickly becomes known everywhere else, so fake news planted abroad could quite easily blow back into the American press.
A more direct example occurred only last month, when the Pentagon admitted planting a CNN story that the attack on Fallujah was underway even though it wouldn't start for another three weeks, with the supposed aim of "smoking out" insurgents in the city. The revelation was greeted by yawns from most of the media, instead of outrage at being turned into an unwitting propaganda tool.
Here we go again. According to The New York Times, the Pentagon is considering "planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles."
Like they don't hate us enough already. American credibility across much of the world, but particularly in the Arab world, is already in the toilet. Recent polls show that solid majorities in most Arab countries now see America as the greatest threat to world peace, and this latest revelation is not about to help matters.
Besides, now that the Pentagon -- and, let's face it, the Bush Administration in general -- has shown they are willing to lie to further American interests, the American people now face a dilemma: every time we hear an official pronouncement, we have to wonder if it's true. Lots of people already disbelieve anything they hear from Washington, and that number can only increase if lying becomes official policy, no matter what the justification.
On the other hand, disseminating propaganda lies instead of real facts to the media does have its upside: no one will ever have to know about such unpleasantries as insufficiently armored vehicles or botched planning. Everything will be perfect. Well, except on the actual ground in Iraq, but as most people wouldn't go there in a million years, who's going to know the difference?
Here's a bright idea: why not try telling the truth for a change? Rather than mount a crude propaganda effort to fake out the purveyors of hatred, we should broadcast and publicize messages of tolerance and inclusivity, so the people who now hear only the voices of jihad get another source of information. The best disinfectant for hatred is always sunlight, and lots of it.
Besides, if we have to lie to people to get them to like us, what does that say about us to begin with?
This was a bad idea three years ago, and it's still a bad idea. The Pentagon should jettison this half-baked plan, and fast.
12/09/2004
Shut Up and Die
Comparing the Bush Administration's everything-is-just-peachy comments on Iraq to the daily mayhem we see from that war-torn country, one can come to the conclusion that there are apparently two Iraqs.
One exists in a world where American soldiers hand out candy to smiling and photogenic children, where the Iraqi people eagerly embrace a perpetual American occupation backing up a puppet government, where people look forward to standing in line as sitting ducks while waiting to vote for a candidate approved by Washington, where people are happy to forget all about their bombed-out homes and their relatives being scooped off the street and the risk of getting killed while going to the store.
The other exists in the real world, where American soldiers trying to secure an entire country cannot even secure a ten-mile stretch of roadway between the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport, where a homegrown insurgency grows more every day, where two fighters are recruited for every one killed, and where an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American invasion began almost two years ago.
The myopia of President Bush and his inner circle gets more and more pronounced every day. Their method of dealing with bad news from Iraq may be a simple one -- just wish it all away -- but it does not exactly help the situation. Instead, they hide behind meaningless slogans ("Freedom is on the march!" "We're making progress!" and so on) whose only apparent purpose is to trick people who don't bother reading beyond the headlines into thinking everything is fine. One wonders if Bush et al believe their own nonsense.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the few first-term Cabinet secretaries not shown the door after the election, showed off his management style while visiting American soldiers in Kuwait yesterday. (Rumsfeld evidently does not believe his own propaganda, as he didn't go anywhere near the Iraqi border, leaving that for the suckers -- oops, soldiers -- who are fighting his war for him.) He asked for questions from the troops, getting the usual collection of softballs and sound bites.
But just once, he got an actual question, from a soldier who put him on the spot by asking, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?" As the mass of soldiers erupted in applause, Rumsfeld shot back, "You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
In other words, shut up, go back to the front lines, and get blown up for the greater glory of -- well, we're still figuring that part out. Anyway, we decided to fight this war on the cheap and we'll do it to the last drop of your blood.
If he said it during a war that was thrust upon us, where we were required to rush into the field or else, it would be one thing. But considering that this was very much a war of choice, and that Rumsfeld et al sneeringly rejected cautions from military professionals about the troops and resources needed, it was absolutely outrageous. And does anyone remember Bush's now forgotten campaign promise that the troops would have all the armor they needed?
It's like the old Groucho Marx line when he was caught with another woman and tried to deny the incredibly obvious: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Bush, Rumsfeld and their band of merry men are determined to take us through the looking-glass, where black is white, where up is down, and where an endless desert quagmire is a fabulous success. They're entitled to their delusions, but they can't make the rest of us go along with it.
One exists in a world where American soldiers hand out candy to smiling and photogenic children, where the Iraqi people eagerly embrace a perpetual American occupation backing up a puppet government, where people look forward to standing in line as sitting ducks while waiting to vote for a candidate approved by Washington, where people are happy to forget all about their bombed-out homes and their relatives being scooped off the street and the risk of getting killed while going to the store.
The other exists in the real world, where American soldiers trying to secure an entire country cannot even secure a ten-mile stretch of roadway between the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport, where a homegrown insurgency grows more every day, where two fighters are recruited for every one killed, and where an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American invasion began almost two years ago.
The myopia of President Bush and his inner circle gets more and more pronounced every day. Their method of dealing with bad news from Iraq may be a simple one -- just wish it all away -- but it does not exactly help the situation. Instead, they hide behind meaningless slogans ("Freedom is on the march!" "We're making progress!" and so on) whose only apparent purpose is to trick people who don't bother reading beyond the headlines into thinking everything is fine. One wonders if Bush et al believe their own nonsense.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the few first-term Cabinet secretaries not shown the door after the election, showed off his management style while visiting American soldiers in Kuwait yesterday. (Rumsfeld evidently does not believe his own propaganda, as he didn't go anywhere near the Iraqi border, leaving that for the suckers -- oops, soldiers -- who are fighting his war for him.) He asked for questions from the troops, getting the usual collection of softballs and sound bites.
But just once, he got an actual question, from a soldier who put him on the spot by asking, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?" As the mass of soldiers erupted in applause, Rumsfeld shot back, "You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
In other words, shut up, go back to the front lines, and get blown up for the greater glory of -- well, we're still figuring that part out. Anyway, we decided to fight this war on the cheap and we'll do it to the last drop of your blood.
If he said it during a war that was thrust upon us, where we were required to rush into the field or else, it would be one thing. But considering that this was very much a war of choice, and that Rumsfeld et al sneeringly rejected cautions from military professionals about the troops and resources needed, it was absolutely outrageous. And does anyone remember Bush's now forgotten campaign promise that the troops would have all the armor they needed?
It's like the old Groucho Marx line when he was caught with another woman and tried to deny the incredibly obvious: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Bush, Rumsfeld and their band of merry men are determined to take us through the looking-glass, where black is white, where up is down, and where an endless desert quagmire is a fabulous success. They're entitled to their delusions, but they can't make the rest of us go along with it.
11/22/2004
Second Verse, Worse Than the First
Three weeks after the presidential election, many progressives are emerging from shock-induced comas, muttering about persistent reports of voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio and studying maps of highways north to Canada. In our absence, many things have happened:
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned, and on his way out the door attacked federal judges who reminded the Bush Administration that it is not above the law when it comes to the War on Terror™. He called the rulings "intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing," apparently preferring that we all simply accept Our Leader's judgments without question or dissent. He was much more pleasant when all he did was protect the public morality by covering up nude statues.
His designated replacement, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, may not be the Bible-thumper his predecessor was, but he is hardly an improvement. As President Bush's chief counsel when he was Governor of Texas, Gonzales was notorious for providing Bush with pre-execution clemency memos so brief, they routinely omitted any extenuating circumstances, proof of innocence, and so on. Thus rendered blissfully ignorant, Bush rejected every single memo without a second thought (or a first one, for that matter) and in doing so very possibly condemned innocent people to death. But Gonzales is even more notorious for his 2002 memo justifying the use of torture of al Qaeda prisoners on the grounds that unless someone is killed or permanently injured, it's not really torture and is thus OK. (This doctrine was, of course, extended for use in Iraq and led to the Abu Ghraib abuses which were exposed earlier this year.)
The last voice of moderation in the Bush Administration also resigned. Long after he was humiliatingly pushed aside in terms of policy, Colin Powell quietly stepped down as Secretary of State. He leaves behind a legacy of failure, of which only the loudest was his UN Security Council briefing on Iraq -- which even he now admits was based on phony data. Let us not forget the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report, which loudly proclaimed that terrorist attacks had declined significantly on Bush's watch, only to be quietly withdrawn and republished with the real information -- that terrorist attacks had significantly increased. But then again, sabotaged from Day One by the resident neoconservative hawks, he never really had a chance.
His replacement is none other than Condoleezza Rice, who distinguished herself in the first term by reducing the role of National Security Adviser to little more than a PR cheerleader for the White House, being forced to admit that Bush had been briefed on the al Qaeda plot weeks before 9/11, and managing to stabilize precisely nothing as head of the Iraq Stabilization Group. But she's a reliable yes-woman, and therefore she stays.
Porter Goss took over as head of the CIA, and one of his first actions set the tone for what will likely be a long and dispiriting term as head of the nation's intelligence agency. In a memo circulated to all staffers and promptly leaked to the press, Goss ordered CIA analysts to "support the Administration and its policies in our work," reducing them to parroting yes-men. In other words, if the facts don't agree with the party line, it's the facts that have to go. It's the same loyalty-above-all-else mindset that gave us the Iraq quagmire, only now it's official policy.
Add to all this Bush's plans for the partial privatization of Social Security (which will enormously enrich GOP backers on Wall Street while endangering the livelihood of millions of senior citizens) and no planning in Iraq other than more of the same, and it looks like we're in for a rough ride.
Fasten your seat-belts; it's going to be a bumpy four years.
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned, and on his way out the door attacked federal judges who reminded the Bush Administration that it is not above the law when it comes to the War on Terror™. He called the rulings "intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing," apparently preferring that we all simply accept Our Leader's judgments without question or dissent. He was much more pleasant when all he did was protect the public morality by covering up nude statues.
His designated replacement, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, may not be the Bible-thumper his predecessor was, but he is hardly an improvement. As President Bush's chief counsel when he was Governor of Texas, Gonzales was notorious for providing Bush with pre-execution clemency memos so brief, they routinely omitted any extenuating circumstances, proof of innocence, and so on. Thus rendered blissfully ignorant, Bush rejected every single memo without a second thought (or a first one, for that matter) and in doing so very possibly condemned innocent people to death. But Gonzales is even more notorious for his 2002 memo justifying the use of torture of al Qaeda prisoners on the grounds that unless someone is killed or permanently injured, it's not really torture and is thus OK. (This doctrine was, of course, extended for use in Iraq and led to the Abu Ghraib abuses which were exposed earlier this year.)
The last voice of moderation in the Bush Administration also resigned. Long after he was humiliatingly pushed aside in terms of policy, Colin Powell quietly stepped down as Secretary of State. He leaves behind a legacy of failure, of which only the loudest was his UN Security Council briefing on Iraq -- which even he now admits was based on phony data. Let us not forget the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report, which loudly proclaimed that terrorist attacks had declined significantly on Bush's watch, only to be quietly withdrawn and republished with the real information -- that terrorist attacks had significantly increased. But then again, sabotaged from Day One by the resident neoconservative hawks, he never really had a chance.
His replacement is none other than Condoleezza Rice, who distinguished herself in the first term by reducing the role of National Security Adviser to little more than a PR cheerleader for the White House, being forced to admit that Bush had been briefed on the al Qaeda plot weeks before 9/11, and managing to stabilize precisely nothing as head of the Iraq Stabilization Group. But she's a reliable yes-woman, and therefore she stays.
Porter Goss took over as head of the CIA, and one of his first actions set the tone for what will likely be a long and dispiriting term as head of the nation's intelligence agency. In a memo circulated to all staffers and promptly leaked to the press, Goss ordered CIA analysts to "support the Administration and its policies in our work," reducing them to parroting yes-men. In other words, if the facts don't agree with the party line, it's the facts that have to go. It's the same loyalty-above-all-else mindset that gave us the Iraq quagmire, only now it's official policy.
Add to all this Bush's plans for the partial privatization of Social Security (which will enormously enrich GOP backers on Wall Street while endangering the livelihood of millions of senior citizens) and no planning in Iraq other than more of the same, and it looks like we're in for a rough ride.
Fasten your seat-belts; it's going to be a bumpy four years.
10/31/2004
Vote
With two days left to go until the election, there is nothing left to be said.
Well, maybe a little.
We have seen how the Bush Administration's inner circle keeps President Bush isolated from the real world, to keep him blissfully ignorant in a bubble of sycophancy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration constructs an alternate reality of Orwellian proportions to avoid facing the real world, to deny or explain away any inconsistency, any failure, any setback.
We have seen how the Bush Administration ignored its own counter-terrorism czar's pre-9/11 pleads for action to be taken against al Qaeda, and even ignored an intelligence briefing barely a month before the attacks, warning of al Qaeda's plans. Afterwards, the Administration politically milked the attack for all it was worth, fought an independent investigation of the attacks every step of the away, and even stonewalled the victims' families in an attempt to cover up their own incompetence.
We have seen how the Bush Administration came into power itching for the opportunity to invade Iraq and "get" Saddam Hussein, then used the 9/11 attacks to play to our fears. We were shamelessly and callously manipulated with lies and distortions about Saddam's phantom weapons arsenal, about his nonexistent role in 9/11 and his barely-there connection with al Qaeda, which those in power still parrot (albeit slightly modified) even today.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed aside anything which countered the official ideology. Military officers who said we needed more troops, intelligence analysts who said there was no real evidence of Iraqi WMDs, professional diplomats who warned of the harsh realities of occupying Iraq -- all were ignored and sometimes retaliated against by a neoconservative cadre who listened only to people who agreed with them.
We have seen how the Bush Administration exploited our post-9/11 fears to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, to draft a truly draconian Patriot Act II and to make a good college try at stamping all dissent into the ground.
We have seen how the Bush Administration deliberately lied to Congress and the public about the cost of the Medicare bill, putting forward knowingly false numbers and keeping the true price secret until after it was safely enacted into law.
We have seen how the Bush Administration took the first federal budget surplus in decades and exploded it in an orgy of tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which went to the wealthiest Americans while giving chump change to most everyone else. We now have half-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, flushing anything even resembling fiscal responsibility down the toilet.
We have seen how the Bush Administration went out of its way to offend, bully and push around everyone else in the world in the drive to attack Iraq, vaporizing all our post-9/11 goodwill and setting back the cause of good international relations by years if not decades.
We have seen how the Bush Administration hides everything behind an obsessive wall of secrecy, fighting to keep anything and everything hidden from the public even after everyone knows what is being concealed. For exhibit A, one need look no further than Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which everyone knows allowed energy industry lobbyists literally to write energy policy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration directs no-bid secret sweetheart deals to politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed its "No Child Left Behind" law through Congress, then simply and repeatedly refused to spend the money to make the law a going concern.
We have seen how the Bush Administration relentlessly demonizes gay and lesbian Americans, weaving ghost stories of homosexual hordes somehow "destroying" marriage for the rest of us and backing a Constitutional amendment relegating them to second-class citizenship.
We have seen how the Bush Administration insists loudly and without fail that black is white, that up is down, that the ongoing disaster in Iraq is a great triumph, and that we have al Qaeda on the run when the terrorist network is gaining new recruits every day, and that it's all the media's fault for pointing out their lies.
We have seen how the Bush Administration uses terrorism alerts for political means, to keep the American public good and scared, and thus susceptible to official propaganda.
We have seen how the Bush Administration cuts domestic spending to the bone and beyond to pay for the continuing adventure in Iraq. Homeland security, education, health care, even military pay and veterans' medical benefits are sacrificed.
I could go on and on and on with reasons why we should vote the Bush Administration out of office on Tuesday. (For a fuller list, see One Thousand Reasons and 525 Reasons to Dump Bush. But now it's all up to you.
On Tuesday, get out and vote.
If you believe that George W. Bush is the savior of Christian civilization and will beat back any threat to America, whether or not it's actually real, vote.
If you believe that John Kerry will do a better job at protecting America and at repairing the frayed fabric of our nation, vote.
If you believe that both Bush and Kerry are tools of the same power interests and a real outsider is needed, vote.
Whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Communist, Socialist, American Tradition, United Fascist Union, United Christian, Prohibition -- heck, even if you vote for the National Barking Spider Resurgence Party, get out and vote.
Remember, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And their interests may not be the same as yours.
Vote!
Well, maybe a little.
We have seen how the Bush Administration's inner circle keeps President Bush isolated from the real world, to keep him blissfully ignorant in a bubble of sycophancy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration constructs an alternate reality of Orwellian proportions to avoid facing the real world, to deny or explain away any inconsistency, any failure, any setback.
We have seen how the Bush Administration ignored its own counter-terrorism czar's pre-9/11 pleads for action to be taken against al Qaeda, and even ignored an intelligence briefing barely a month before the attacks, warning of al Qaeda's plans. Afterwards, the Administration politically milked the attack for all it was worth, fought an independent investigation of the attacks every step of the away, and even stonewalled the victims' families in an attempt to cover up their own incompetence.
We have seen how the Bush Administration came into power itching for the opportunity to invade Iraq and "get" Saddam Hussein, then used the 9/11 attacks to play to our fears. We were shamelessly and callously manipulated with lies and distortions about Saddam's phantom weapons arsenal, about his nonexistent role in 9/11 and his barely-there connection with al Qaeda, which those in power still parrot (albeit slightly modified) even today.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed aside anything which countered the official ideology. Military officers who said we needed more troops, intelligence analysts who said there was no real evidence of Iraqi WMDs, professional diplomats who warned of the harsh realities of occupying Iraq -- all were ignored and sometimes retaliated against by a neoconservative cadre who listened only to people who agreed with them.
We have seen how the Bush Administration exploited our post-9/11 fears to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, to draft a truly draconian Patriot Act II and to make a good college try at stamping all dissent into the ground.
We have seen how the Bush Administration deliberately lied to Congress and the public about the cost of the Medicare bill, putting forward knowingly false numbers and keeping the true price secret until after it was safely enacted into law.
We have seen how the Bush Administration took the first federal budget surplus in decades and exploded it in an orgy of tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which went to the wealthiest Americans while giving chump change to most everyone else. We now have half-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, flushing anything even resembling fiscal responsibility down the toilet.
We have seen how the Bush Administration went out of its way to offend, bully and push around everyone else in the world in the drive to attack Iraq, vaporizing all our post-9/11 goodwill and setting back the cause of good international relations by years if not decades.
We have seen how the Bush Administration hides everything behind an obsessive wall of secrecy, fighting to keep anything and everything hidden from the public even after everyone knows what is being concealed. For exhibit A, one need look no further than Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which everyone knows allowed energy industry lobbyists literally to write energy policy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration directs no-bid secret sweetheart deals to politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed its "No Child Left Behind" law through Congress, then simply and repeatedly refused to spend the money to make the law a going concern.
We have seen how the Bush Administration relentlessly demonizes gay and lesbian Americans, weaving ghost stories of homosexual hordes somehow "destroying" marriage for the rest of us and backing a Constitutional amendment relegating them to second-class citizenship.
We have seen how the Bush Administration insists loudly and without fail that black is white, that up is down, that the ongoing disaster in Iraq is a great triumph, and that we have al Qaeda on the run when the terrorist network is gaining new recruits every day, and that it's all the media's fault for pointing out their lies.
We have seen how the Bush Administration uses terrorism alerts for political means, to keep the American public good and scared, and thus susceptible to official propaganda.
We have seen how the Bush Administration cuts domestic spending to the bone and beyond to pay for the continuing adventure in Iraq. Homeland security, education, health care, even military pay and veterans' medical benefits are sacrificed.
I could go on and on and on with reasons why we should vote the Bush Administration out of office on Tuesday. (For a fuller list, see One Thousand Reasons and 525 Reasons to Dump Bush. But now it's all up to you.
On Tuesday, get out and vote.
If you believe that George W. Bush is the savior of Christian civilization and will beat back any threat to America, whether or not it's actually real, vote.
If you believe that John Kerry will do a better job at protecting America and at repairing the frayed fabric of our nation, vote.
If you believe that both Bush and Kerry are tools of the same power interests and a real outsider is needed, vote.
Whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Communist, Socialist, American Tradition, United Fascist Union, United Christian, Prohibition -- heck, even if you vote for the National Barking Spider Resurgence Party, get out and vote.
Remember, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And their interests may not be the same as yours.
Vote!
10/28/2004
Um...What?
"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander-in-Chief."
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, referring to Democratic criticism over American troops failing to secure hundreds of tons of high explosives in Iraq -- evidently hoping no one will notice that jumping to conclusions is standard operating procedure in his Administration
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, referring to Democratic criticism over American troops failing to secure hundreds of tons of high explosives in Iraq -- evidently hoping no one will notice that jumping to conclusions is standard operating procedure in his Administration
Curse of the Bambino, R.I.P.
Eighty-six years.
Eighty-six years.
EIGHTY-SIX YEARS!
Eighty-six years ago in 1918, American soldiers were marching across Europe in World War I. A Ford Model T pickup truck cost $600. And the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
Four times since that season, in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, the Sox made it to the Series only to lose it all. True fans blamed not the team, but the long-dead Babe Ruth, whom legend says put a curse on the team after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919. The Curse of the Bambino was rolled out every time the Sox lost another heartbreaker.
Well, tonight that curse is history. Eighty-six years after they last won the World Series, the Boston Red Sox are back on top of baseball. They won the American League pennant in a wild come-from-behind playoff series against their hated rivals, the Yankees, then dealt with the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games.
As the party to end all parties fills the streets of New England, victory on the diamond has rarely been sweeter.
Here's to you, Boston. May we not have to wait eighty-six years for the next one.
Eighty-six years.
EIGHTY-SIX YEARS!
Eighty-six years ago in 1918, American soldiers were marching across Europe in World War I. A Ford Model T pickup truck cost $600. And the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
Four times since that season, in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, the Sox made it to the Series only to lose it all. True fans blamed not the team, but the long-dead Babe Ruth, whom legend says put a curse on the team after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919. The Curse of the Bambino was rolled out every time the Sox lost another heartbreaker.
Well, tonight that curse is history. Eighty-six years after they last won the World Series, the Boston Red Sox are back on top of baseball. They won the American League pennant in a wild come-from-behind playoff series against their hated rivals, the Yankees, then dealt with the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games.
As the party to end all parties fills the streets of New England, victory on the diamond has rarely been sweeter.
Here's to you, Boston. May we not have to wait eighty-six years for the next one.
10/16/2004
Shocked, Shocked
During Wednesday night's debate, when asked if "homosexuality is a choice," President Bush replied by once again supporting a constitutional amendment preventing gays from marrying and somehow threatening the marriages of everyone else.
When it was his turn, John Kerry mentioned that Dick Cheney's daughter is gay: "We're all God's children...and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."
Now, everyone knows Mary Cheney is gay. Not only is this not a secret, but it's been quite openly discussed this year, by her father among others. But you'd never guess it from Republican reaction. The White House and the Bush campaign (which are, let's face it, one and the same), acted like Kerry had "outed" her. Either that, or he had said he wanted to see her doing the Midnight Lesbo Show at a local strip joint.
"Now, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more," Lynne Cheney said after the debate, "and the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And of course, I am speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man -- what a cheap and tawdry political trick." The sense of outrage was finely tuned, and was flogged by the GOP's media allies from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News as a "smear."
Unfortunately for the Republicans, their outrage was as false as it was palpable. I don't recall hearing any such flatulence from the right when GOP pundit and Illinois senatorial candidate Alan Keyes said a few weeks back that the VP's daughter was a sinner who practiced "selfish hedonism." Nor were the Cheneys up in arms when Congressional Republicans took to the House and Senate floor earlier this year to flog the anti-gay-marriage amendment, trying to deny gay and lesbian Americans first-class citizenship by denying them the same marriage rights the rest of us take for granted. Or when Republican candidates even now use the issue as a political wedge to bash their Democratic opponents. They even remained silent when the Bush Administration announced it would ignore the Clinton Administration's addition of sexual orientation to the federal government's anti-discrimination rules.
John Kerry said Dick Cheney's daughter is gay. Horrors! Doesn't he realize that Mary Cheney is solely the Republicans' to exploit, and he is not allowed to horn in on their act? Another interpretation is that the Bush campaign was playing to its evangelical Christian base by pretending that being gay is terrible and shameful, and referring to an openly gay person as being gay is a horrible insult, one which must be repudiated loudly and repeatedly.
The GOP's outrage over this fake "smear" is so blatantly phony as to make P.T. Barnum cringe. Then again, since they have no real accomplishments to tout, they've got to run on something. After all, a manufactured incident is better than nothing at all.
When it was his turn, John Kerry mentioned that Dick Cheney's daughter is gay: "We're all God's children...and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."
Now, everyone knows Mary Cheney is gay. Not only is this not a secret, but it's been quite openly discussed this year, by her father among others. But you'd never guess it from Republican reaction. The White House and the Bush campaign (which are, let's face it, one and the same), acted like Kerry had "outed" her. Either that, or he had said he wanted to see her doing the Midnight Lesbo Show at a local strip joint.
"Now, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more," Lynne Cheney said after the debate, "and the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And of course, I am speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man -- what a cheap and tawdry political trick." The sense of outrage was finely tuned, and was flogged by the GOP's media allies from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News as a "smear."
Unfortunately for the Republicans, their outrage was as false as it was palpable. I don't recall hearing any such flatulence from the right when GOP pundit and Illinois senatorial candidate Alan Keyes said a few weeks back that the VP's daughter was a sinner who practiced "selfish hedonism." Nor were the Cheneys up in arms when Congressional Republicans took to the House and Senate floor earlier this year to flog the anti-gay-marriage amendment, trying to deny gay and lesbian Americans first-class citizenship by denying them the same marriage rights the rest of us take for granted. Or when Republican candidates even now use the issue as a political wedge to bash their Democratic opponents. They even remained silent when the Bush Administration announced it would ignore the Clinton Administration's addition of sexual orientation to the federal government's anti-discrimination rules.
John Kerry said Dick Cheney's daughter is gay. Horrors! Doesn't he realize that Mary Cheney is solely the Republicans' to exploit, and he is not allowed to horn in on their act? Another interpretation is that the Bush campaign was playing to its evangelical Christian base by pretending that being gay is terrible and shameful, and referring to an openly gay person as being gay is a horrible insult, one which must be repudiated loudly and repeatedly.
The GOP's outrage over this fake "smear" is so blatantly phony as to make P.T. Barnum cringe. Then again, since they have no real accomplishments to tout, they've got to run on something. After all, a manufactured incident is better than nothing at all.
10/12/2004
Death of a Superman
Christopher Reeve, who died yesterday at 52, refused to accept what fate dealt him. After becoming synonymous in the public mind with the Man of Steel, having played the last son of Krypton in the four Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s, Reeve appeared in a number of Hollywood and TV films. But he generally never outflew his caped character.
Until, that is, he fell from a horse in May 1995, snapping his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the neck down, he seemed condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
But Reeve did not see it as a condemnation, rather as a challenge. While he never walked again, he put himself through years of physical therapy and saw it as a major triumph when he was able to move a finger five years after the accident.
Nor did he let his condition stunt his creative life. He returned to acting, appearing in a number of TV films and series, including "The Practice," the super-teen "Smallville" and a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. He even took the director's (wheel)chair to helm several TV productions, including 1997's "In the Gloaming."
He and his wife opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center in New Jersey, dedicated to helping other paralytics realize their potential and go on living rather than seeing their condition as a sort of living death. When the issue of stem cell research took the spotlight, with its potential for therapy and possibly even cure for paralysis and other conditions, Reeve publicly criticized President Bush for blocking all but a trickle of federally-funded research.
He served as a source of inspiration and hope for people around the world living with paralysis and other medical conditions, teaching them that being unable to move does not mean they are unable to live. Christopher Reeve might not have actually soared through the clouds as he did on the silver screen, but he was a Man of Steel nonetheless. He will be sorely missed.
Until, that is, he fell from a horse in May 1995, snapping his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the neck down, he seemed condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
But Reeve did not see it as a condemnation, rather as a challenge. While he never walked again, he put himself through years of physical therapy and saw it as a major triumph when he was able to move a finger five years after the accident.
Nor did he let his condition stunt his creative life. He returned to acting, appearing in a number of TV films and series, including "The Practice," the super-teen "Smallville" and a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. He even took the director's (wheel)chair to helm several TV productions, including 1997's "In the Gloaming."
He and his wife opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center in New Jersey, dedicated to helping other paralytics realize their potential and go on living rather than seeing their condition as a sort of living death. When the issue of stem cell research took the spotlight, with its potential for therapy and possibly even cure for paralysis and other conditions, Reeve publicly criticized President Bush for blocking all but a trickle of federally-funded research.
He served as a source of inspiration and hope for people around the world living with paralysis and other medical conditions, teaching them that being unable to move does not mean they are unable to live. Christopher Reeve might not have actually soared through the clouds as he did on the silver screen, but he was a Man of Steel nonetheless. He will be sorely missed.
10/07/2004
We Told You So
Just in time for "The Progressive Perspective" to come back on the air from our new world headquarters on the East Coast, comes the final crumbling of President Bush's excuses for invading and occupying Iraq without provocation.
Way back in 2002 and early 2003, Hans Blix, the United Nations’ head weapons inspector, said Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
After the fall of Baghdad, David Kay, the White House’s handpicked weapons-hunter, reported that “we were all wrong” and said there were no weapons.
And now Charles Duelfer, Kay’s replacement, has made his report to Congress. In it, he reports that -- guess what? -- Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Specifically, that were no such weapons when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, having all been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991. That while Saddam did retain the capacity to rebuild a WMD arsenal, it was never maintained. That any remaining programs were at best dormant. And that no attempts to restart weapons programs were conducted after the UN inspectors left in 1998.
When President Bush and his White House cadre of neoconservatives launched their propaganda campaign back in 2002 to scare the American people into backing an invasion, Reason #1 was Saddam's supposed WMD arsenal. We were terrified with tales of unmanned aerial drones spraying anthrax over our cities. We were horrified by scenarios of Saddam gift-wrapping a nuclear weapon and presenting it to Osama bin Laden. And we were cowed into silence by the constant drumbeat of statements telling us we were either with the President or we were with "the evildoers."
We were so frightened by the what-ifs, the coulds, the possiblies, that we stampeded to wave the flag and to tell the Administration, "Yes! Get him before he can get us!"
Of course, he couldn't "get us." It became apparent within days of Baghdad's fall, when people started to realize that no WMD had been found or even used. And as the weeks and months rolled on, when nothing at all was found, the true believers began to panic. "You obviously want Saddam back in power!" they said when the straightforward was pointed out to them, evidently forgetting that the ends do not justify the means.
With this final debunking of the prime invasion rationale, one might expect President Bush to acknowledge it, if only by a little bit.
Of course not.
"There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said at a Pennsylvania rally. "In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."
We now know what was said all along -- that these weapons did not exist.
Indeed, there is a far greater risk that such weapons would be given to terrorist groups by Iran or North Korea, or built with nuclear material smuggled out of Russia. But we see no moves whatsoever to confront Tehran or Pyongyang with the same ferocity that was used against Baghdad. And in a truly idiotic move, the Bush Administration has actually cut spending on helping Russia secure nuclear material and keeping it out of the wrong hands.
In his debate with John Kerry last week, Bush came off as confused and defensive when asked why he did not subject Iran or North Korea to the same "shock and awe" treatment he lavished on Iraq. "The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is involved," he said. "There's a special protocol recently been passed that allows for instant inspections."
This after publicly sneering at the IAEA and whole concept of inspections when it pointed out before the Iraq invasion that Saddam did not possess nuclear weapons.
But it was never really about 9/11 at all. Months ago, it was revealed by various Administration insiders that Bush had demanded the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, that he had used the terrorist attacks to scare us into supporting his plans no matter what.
George W. Bush and his inner circle wanted to invade Iraq. They had a variety of reasons, from getting the oil to "finishing the job" to revenge against the man who "tried to kill [Bush's] daddy." They didn't care whether their reasons were good or even rational.
We now see the price we have paid. Our national credibility is shattered. We have rapidly gone from being the most respected nation in the world to being one of the most hated and feared. We have poured well over $100 billion into the Iraq quagmire, and more than 1,000 Americans have given their lives to -- what?
Did they die defending America from a raving madman? No, because according to Duelfer, Saddam had no intention of taking on the United States and had nothing to do it with anyway.
Did they die to spread democracy in the Middle East? Not likely, with handpicked Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi saying that elections, if held at all, will be held in only part of the country, and with Washington backing him up.
Did they die to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator? Yes, but our welcome was rapidly worn out and this was never realized back at the White House.
Bush has finally been reduced to saying that Saddam was an "evildoer," a bad man. Sorry, but that just isn't a good reason for throwing away lives, money and our national reputation.
At this point, with less than a month before the election and the Bush campaign still unable to come up with a compelling reason, I guess we'll never hear one.
Way back in 2002 and early 2003, Hans Blix, the United Nations’ head weapons inspector, said Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
After the fall of Baghdad, David Kay, the White House’s handpicked weapons-hunter, reported that “we were all wrong” and said there were no weapons.
And now Charles Duelfer, Kay’s replacement, has made his report to Congress. In it, he reports that -- guess what? -- Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Specifically, that were no such weapons when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, having all been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991. That while Saddam did retain the capacity to rebuild a WMD arsenal, it was never maintained. That any remaining programs were at best dormant. And that no attempts to restart weapons programs were conducted after the UN inspectors left in 1998.
When President Bush and his White House cadre of neoconservatives launched their propaganda campaign back in 2002 to scare the American people into backing an invasion, Reason #1 was Saddam's supposed WMD arsenal. We were terrified with tales of unmanned aerial drones spraying anthrax over our cities. We were horrified by scenarios of Saddam gift-wrapping a nuclear weapon and presenting it to Osama bin Laden. And we were cowed into silence by the constant drumbeat of statements telling us we were either with the President or we were with "the evildoers."
We were so frightened by the what-ifs, the coulds, the possiblies, that we stampeded to wave the flag and to tell the Administration, "Yes! Get him before he can get us!"
Of course, he couldn't "get us." It became apparent within days of Baghdad's fall, when people started to realize that no WMD had been found or even used. And as the weeks and months rolled on, when nothing at all was found, the true believers began to panic. "You obviously want Saddam back in power!" they said when the straightforward was pointed out to them, evidently forgetting that the ends do not justify the means.
With this final debunking of the prime invasion rationale, one might expect President Bush to acknowledge it, if only by a little bit.
Of course not.
"There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said at a Pennsylvania rally. "In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."
We now know what was said all along -- that these weapons did not exist.
Indeed, there is a far greater risk that such weapons would be given to terrorist groups by Iran or North Korea, or built with nuclear material smuggled out of Russia. But we see no moves whatsoever to confront Tehran or Pyongyang with the same ferocity that was used against Baghdad. And in a truly idiotic move, the Bush Administration has actually cut spending on helping Russia secure nuclear material and keeping it out of the wrong hands.
In his debate with John Kerry last week, Bush came off as confused and defensive when asked why he did not subject Iran or North Korea to the same "shock and awe" treatment he lavished on Iraq. "The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is involved," he said. "There's a special protocol recently been passed that allows for instant inspections."
This after publicly sneering at the IAEA and whole concept of inspections when it pointed out before the Iraq invasion that Saddam did not possess nuclear weapons.
But it was never really about 9/11 at all. Months ago, it was revealed by various Administration insiders that Bush had demanded the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, that he had used the terrorist attacks to scare us into supporting his plans no matter what.
George W. Bush and his inner circle wanted to invade Iraq. They had a variety of reasons, from getting the oil to "finishing the job" to revenge against the man who "tried to kill [Bush's] daddy." They didn't care whether their reasons were good or even rational.
We now see the price we have paid. Our national credibility is shattered. We have rapidly gone from being the most respected nation in the world to being one of the most hated and feared. We have poured well over $100 billion into the Iraq quagmire, and more than 1,000 Americans have given their lives to -- what?
Did they die defending America from a raving madman? No, because according to Duelfer, Saddam had no intention of taking on the United States and had nothing to do it with anyway.
Did they die to spread democracy in the Middle East? Not likely, with handpicked Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi saying that elections, if held at all, will be held in only part of the country, and with Washington backing him up.
Did they die to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator? Yes, but our welcome was rapidly worn out and this was never realized back at the White House.
Bush has finally been reduced to saying that Saddam was an "evildoer," a bad man. Sorry, but that just isn't a good reason for throwing away lives, money and our national reputation.
At this point, with less than a month before the election and the Bush campaign still unable to come up with a compelling reason, I guess we'll never hear one.
9/15/2004
Going on Hiatus
"The Progressive Perspective" will be off the air for a few weeks for a cross-country relocation.
In the meantime, here are some other progressive news and opinion sites lest you feel the urge to turn to (gasp!) Rush Limbaugh:
Never stop thinking for yourself, and see you in a few weeks!
In the meantime, here are some other progressive news and opinion sites lest you feel the urge to turn to (gasp!) Rush Limbaugh:
Never stop thinking for yourself, and see you in a few weeks!
9/10/2004
What I Really Meant To Say Was...
Earlier this week, Vice President Cheney made headlines by saying that we had better "make the right choice" on Election Day, "because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again." In other words, vote Republican or else.
This did not go over well with many people, and quite a few comments were made on how Cheney apparently cannot gain votes through reasoned discourse or pointing to the Bush Administration's first-term accomplishments (no, wait, there aren't any), so he has to resort to fear and threats instead.
The Vice President has now been let out of his secure undisclosed location to do some damage control, with the first stop being an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer after a rally in Ohio. Surprise, surprise -- he now says he didn't really mean it.
"I did not say if [John] Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry."
He was the voice of reason itself and it was a good college try at spin. But we all know he meant exactly what he said. He really was deadly serious in saying we would face more and worse terrorist attacks should we actually take democracy seriously and vote the "wrong" way on November 2.
Cheney's arrogance is truly breathtaking. Imagine the gall required for someone to actually get up and say that if we dare vote for someone else, we will pay the price. On the other hand, we don't have to imagine it. We see it every time he insists that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were bosom buddies, as he did yet again at yesterday's rally, despite the fact that this has been debunked more times than can be counted, most recently and definitively by the 9/11 commission's final report.
But he is hardly alone in continuing to foist this deception off on the American people. Hardly a campaign speech goes by, whether it's from President Bush or someone else, that rhetorically links the two very separate groups. And it's working, too -- according to a Newsweek poll conducted late last week, 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. (This is down from the 69% of Americans so hoodwinked a year ago, but that's still quite a lot of indoctrinated people.)
Which means that no matter what Cheney says to get re-elected, regardless of its validity, honesty or even sanity, he fits right in with the rest of the crowd.
This did not go over well with many people, and quite a few comments were made on how Cheney apparently cannot gain votes through reasoned discourse or pointing to the Bush Administration's first-term accomplishments (no, wait, there aren't any), so he has to resort to fear and threats instead.
The Vice President has now been let out of his secure undisclosed location to do some damage control, with the first stop being an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer after a rally in Ohio. Surprise, surprise -- he now says he didn't really mean it.
"I did not say if [John] Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry."
He was the voice of reason itself and it was a good college try at spin. But we all know he meant exactly what he said. He really was deadly serious in saying we would face more and worse terrorist attacks should we actually take democracy seriously and vote the "wrong" way on November 2.
Cheney's arrogance is truly breathtaking. Imagine the gall required for someone to actually get up and say that if we dare vote for someone else, we will pay the price. On the other hand, we don't have to imagine it. We see it every time he insists that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were bosom buddies, as he did yet again at yesterday's rally, despite the fact that this has been debunked more times than can be counted, most recently and definitively by the 9/11 commission's final report.
But he is hardly alone in continuing to foist this deception off on the American people. Hardly a campaign speech goes by, whether it's from President Bush or someone else, that rhetorically links the two very separate groups. And it's working, too -- according to a Newsweek poll conducted late last week, 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. (This is down from the 69% of Americans so hoodwinked a year ago, but that's still quite a lot of indoctrinated people.)
Which means that no matter what Cheney says to get re-elected, regardless of its validity, honesty or even sanity, he fits right in with the rest of the crowd.
9/09/2004
Vote Republican...Or Else
Knowing they have no real successes to point to, the GOP has rapidly sunk into the gutter, resorting to name-calling and similarly juvenile tactics. For example, one need merely look at Zell Miller's rambling attack on all Democrats as would-be traitors. Not to mention the allegedly independent Republican merchandise, from the "10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Agree: Anybody But Bush" bumper stickers to the "John Kerry: Osama's Choice" buttons.
But even by these low standards, Vice President Cheney's latest comment raised eyebrows.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice," Cheney said at a rally in Des Moines. "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
So let me get this straight: if we vote for John Kerry, al Qaeda will bomb Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and Disneyland.
But if we vote for George W. Bush, we'll be safe.
It sounds like something out of a gangster movie. I can just imagine some big guy wearing a suit bulging at the armpit from a barely-concealed .45, muscling his way into the voting booth and growling, "Youse know what youse gotta do, right? Just vote duh right way and nobody gets hoit. After all, youse would hate for somet'in' bad to happen, right?"
Does Cheney really believe that Osama bin Laden (remember him?) is quaking in his mountain cave at the thought of a Bush re-election? Why should he? Remember that Bush all but abandoned the hunt for him a few months after 9/11, and indeed handed him a gold-plated recruiting poster by invading and occupying Iraq.
One would think that bin Laden would be praying for Bush to win. After all, John Kerry might actually take this War on Terror stuff seriously and go after the guys who really hit us that awful September morning. But if Bush wins, bin Laden can be assured of four more years of incompetent bumbling and attacking the wrong people.
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling. Rarely has a candidate so blatantly and shamelessly threatened people with the consequences of taking democracy seriously. Cheney might as well walk around holding a sign saying, "Vote Republican...Or Else!"
Cheney's remarks show just how desperate the Bush campaign has become to win at any cost. But even more than being simply dumb, trying to intimidate us into voting a certain way is, as Democratic VP candidate John Edwards rightly pointed out, un-American.
If Cheney cannot win votes other than by bullying us with the promise of devastating attacks "if we make the wrong choice," he does not deserve to win this or any other election. It's so simple, even he can understand it.
But even by these low standards, Vice President Cheney's latest comment raised eyebrows.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice," Cheney said at a rally in Des Moines. "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
So let me get this straight: if we vote for John Kerry, al Qaeda will bomb Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and Disneyland.
But if we vote for George W. Bush, we'll be safe.
It sounds like something out of a gangster movie. I can just imagine some big guy wearing a suit bulging at the armpit from a barely-concealed .45, muscling his way into the voting booth and growling, "Youse know what youse gotta do, right? Just vote duh right way and nobody gets hoit. After all, youse would hate for somet'in' bad to happen, right?"
Does Cheney really believe that Osama bin Laden (remember him?) is quaking in his mountain cave at the thought of a Bush re-election? Why should he? Remember that Bush all but abandoned the hunt for him a few months after 9/11, and indeed handed him a gold-plated recruiting poster by invading and occupying Iraq.
One would think that bin Laden would be praying for Bush to win. After all, John Kerry might actually take this War on Terror stuff seriously and go after the guys who really hit us that awful September morning. But if Bush wins, bin Laden can be assured of four more years of incompetent bumbling and attacking the wrong people.
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling. Rarely has a candidate so blatantly and shamelessly threatened people with the consequences of taking democracy seriously. Cheney might as well walk around holding a sign saying, "Vote Republican...Or Else!"
Cheney's remarks show just how desperate the Bush campaign has become to win at any cost. But even more than being simply dumb, trying to intimidate us into voting a certain way is, as Democratic VP candidate John Edwards rightly pointed out, un-American.
If Cheney cannot win votes other than by bullying us with the promise of devastating attacks "if we make the wrong choice," he does not deserve to win this or any other election. It's so simple, even he can understand it.
9/08/2004
One Thousand
Many reasons have been advanced as to just why we all but abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to pursue our splendid little war in Iraq. Some say we attacked to satisfy George W. Bush's personal quest for revenge against the man who "tried to kill my daddy." Others cite the imperial fantasies of the Administration neoconservatives, or the American oil industry's thirst for Iraq's oil reserves, or other reasons, or all of the above.
Some even believe the official White House reason. Never mind that the reason keeps changing on an almost daily basis, mutating from Saddam Hussein's vast weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenal to his highly advanced weapons programs to his could-possibly-be-a-threat-someday-if-the-stars-are-aligned-properly programs, to his "capability" of having such programs. There was Saddam's hidden hand behind 9/11, which became his propensity for giving WMD to terrorists, which became an undefined "relationship" with al Qaeda. There was also his undeniably brutal dictatorship, but that was just peachy with us during his charnel-house war with Iran back in the 1980s. The constantly shifting justifications seem to have finally centered more or less on the charge that Saddam was a very bad man.
But whatever reason you choose, from saving humanity to a new Crusade for the 21st century, there can be little doubt that what was grandly named Operation Iraqi Freedom has become a nightmare in the desert. We have earned the hatred of the world, have poured more than $135 billion into the sand (just think of what we could have accomplished with that money here at home!), and have now sent our one-thousandth American to his death there.
Sixteen months and more than 800 lives ago, President Bush (who went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and escaped the consequences thanks to his family connections) pulled off his little Top Gun stunt by landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. He declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," in a statement that surely ranks right up there as one of the most blissfully ignorant things ever said.
Since then, we have watched in numb horror as the bodies piled up and the casualty lists grew longer. We were told that the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein would end the fighting. Then we were told that Saddam's capture would end the fighting. Then we were told that the "transfer of sovereignty" to a handpicked group of Iraqis would end the fighting. None of them turned out as planned. The fighting goes on, and the corpses continue to come home.
And every time a family back home got the news no family should ever receive, we were told that their sacrifice was heroic, that their sons and daughters died to win the War on Terror™, regardless of the fact that the Bush Administration discarded it to pursue their little Mesopotamian vendetta.
We do not yet know just who became casualty #1000, but we do know several things about him.
We know that his remains will land at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night, stealthily brought back into the country by a military convinced that the sight of our soldiers returning in flag-draped coffins must be hidden from the American people lest people ask why they had to die in the first place.
We know that Bush will not go to his funeral, just as he has refused to attend the funerals of any of the young men and women who went to Iraq to die at his command.
And we know that he will not be the last to die, as George W. Bush is inexorably committed to "staying the course." Never mind the fact that there is no course to stay, there is only a perpetual holding action with no strategy, no end and increasingly no purpose.
Some may say that I am allowing my anger to leak through as I write these words. You're right, I am angry.
I am angry at the uncaring waste of American and Iraqi life. I am angry at those who never themselves fought in a war but eagerly send others to their deaths on an ideological whim while brushing off the warnings of the veterans who know what combat is like. I am angry at those who praise noble sacrifice with one hand and cut service pay and medical benefits with the other. I am angry at everyone who sees our men and women in uniform not as individual people with families and hopes and dreams, but as faceless numbers to be thrown away.
And I am angry at the puppet masters in power who seem to believe that endlessly telling the same lies over and over again will magically transform them into truths.
Voting George W. Bush and his crowd of ideologues out of power on November 2 will not bring back the people who have died because of their negligence and incompetence. But it will ensure that no one else has to follow in their grim footsteps.
Some even believe the official White House reason. Never mind that the reason keeps changing on an almost daily basis, mutating from Saddam Hussein's vast weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenal to his highly advanced weapons programs to his could-possibly-be-a-threat-someday-if-the-stars-are-aligned-properly programs, to his "capability" of having such programs. There was Saddam's hidden hand behind 9/11, which became his propensity for giving WMD to terrorists, which became an undefined "relationship" with al Qaeda. There was also his undeniably brutal dictatorship, but that was just peachy with us during his charnel-house war with Iran back in the 1980s. The constantly shifting justifications seem to have finally centered more or less on the charge that Saddam was a very bad man.
But whatever reason you choose, from saving humanity to a new Crusade for the 21st century, there can be little doubt that what was grandly named Operation Iraqi Freedom has become a nightmare in the desert. We have earned the hatred of the world, have poured more than $135 billion into the sand (just think of what we could have accomplished with that money here at home!), and have now sent our one-thousandth American to his death there.
Sixteen months and more than 800 lives ago, President Bush (who went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and escaped the consequences thanks to his family connections) pulled off his little Top Gun stunt by landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. He declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," in a statement that surely ranks right up there as one of the most blissfully ignorant things ever said.
Since then, we have watched in numb horror as the bodies piled up and the casualty lists grew longer. We were told that the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein would end the fighting. Then we were told that Saddam's capture would end the fighting. Then we were told that the "transfer of sovereignty" to a handpicked group of Iraqis would end the fighting. None of them turned out as planned. The fighting goes on, and the corpses continue to come home.
And every time a family back home got the news no family should ever receive, we were told that their sacrifice was heroic, that their sons and daughters died to win the War on Terror™, regardless of the fact that the Bush Administration discarded it to pursue their little Mesopotamian vendetta.
We do not yet know just who became casualty #1000, but we do know several things about him.
We know that his remains will land at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night, stealthily brought back into the country by a military convinced that the sight of our soldiers returning in flag-draped coffins must be hidden from the American people lest people ask why they had to die in the first place.
We know that Bush will not go to his funeral, just as he has refused to attend the funerals of any of the young men and women who went to Iraq to die at his command.
And we know that he will not be the last to die, as George W. Bush is inexorably committed to "staying the course." Never mind the fact that there is no course to stay, there is only a perpetual holding action with no strategy, no end and increasingly no purpose.
Some may say that I am allowing my anger to leak through as I write these words. You're right, I am angry.
I am angry at the uncaring waste of American and Iraqi life. I am angry at those who never themselves fought in a war but eagerly send others to their deaths on an ideological whim while brushing off the warnings of the veterans who know what combat is like. I am angry at those who praise noble sacrifice with one hand and cut service pay and medical benefits with the other. I am angry at everyone who sees our men and women in uniform not as individual people with families and hopes and dreams, but as faceless numbers to be thrown away.
And I am angry at the puppet masters in power who seem to believe that endlessly telling the same lies over and over again will magically transform them into truths.
Voting George W. Bush and his crowd of ideologues out of power on November 2 will not bring back the people who have died because of their negligence and incompetence. But it will ensure that no one else has to follow in their grim footsteps.
9/07/2004
Watch What I Say, Not What I Do
It made for great theater. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, President Bush set a markedly different tone than the red-meat rhetoric previously on display from other speakers. Unlike Zell Miller and others, he did not all but accuse the Democratic Party of treason en masse for daring to take democracy seriously and run a candidate in this year's election.
No, the Bush on display was a return to the "compassionate conservative" language of the candidate of old, before the 2000 election was safely in the bag and all that nonsense could go into the trash can. He attempted to make us forget the swaggering, the boasting, the bullying, and reassure us that he really did care.
"I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors," Bush said to loud applause, "so I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare. Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine. Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage, and nothing will hold us back."
Of course, he did not mention that the bill which he so enthusiastically signed into law actually barred Medicare from negotiating volume discounts from pharmaceutical companies as can the VA health system, Medicaid, large insurance plans, and other customers. Nor did he mention that in anticipation of having to give senior consumers discounts on their medications, a number of pharmaceutical firms actually jacked up the prices on their products, ensuring that their profit margins would remain sacrosanct.
Putting such pesky facts aside, the speech did sound good. But the day after so proudly touting this wonderful acheivement, the Bush Administration announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums, from $66.60 a month to $78.20. The very next day. And right before a three-day weekend. Even given the White House's propensity for burying bad news on a Friday or a weekend when nobody will pay attention, that really takes large brass ones.
To put this in perspective, Social Security benefits, upon which many seniors depend to make their premium payments, are increasing by only 3 percent this year.
The Republicans apparently think they can pull a fast one over on Americans by splashily spouting feel-good oratory one day and then quietly delivering the bad news the next day. Will Americans let them get away with it?
No, the Bush on display was a return to the "compassionate conservative" language of the candidate of old, before the 2000 election was safely in the bag and all that nonsense could go into the trash can. He attempted to make us forget the swaggering, the boasting, the bullying, and reassure us that he really did care.
"I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors," Bush said to loud applause, "so I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare. Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine. Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage, and nothing will hold us back."
Of course, he did not mention that the bill which he so enthusiastically signed into law actually barred Medicare from negotiating volume discounts from pharmaceutical companies as can the VA health system, Medicaid, large insurance plans, and other customers. Nor did he mention that in anticipation of having to give senior consumers discounts on their medications, a number of pharmaceutical firms actually jacked up the prices on their products, ensuring that their profit margins would remain sacrosanct.
Putting such pesky facts aside, the speech did sound good. But the day after so proudly touting this wonderful acheivement, the Bush Administration announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums, from $66.60 a month to $78.20. The very next day. And right before a three-day weekend. Even given the White House's propensity for burying bad news on a Friday or a weekend when nobody will pay attention, that really takes large brass ones.
To put this in perspective, Social Security benefits, upon which many seniors depend to make their premium payments, are increasing by only 3 percent this year.
The Republicans apparently think they can pull a fast one over on Americans by splashily spouting feel-good oratory one day and then quietly delivering the bad news the next day. Will Americans let them get away with it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)