The King’s Sycophant

[Originally posted on goofyblog 4.11.07]

From Brent Budowsky:

Thomas Paine once wrote that in absolute governments, the King is law, and in free nations, the Law is king.
The fundamental problem is not that Alberto Gonzales lied, prevaricated, misrepresented or played Pinocchio when he falsely stated he was not involved in the decisions to fire the U.S. attorneys.

Gonzales-ism is the problem, not Gonzales.

Gonzales-ism is the notion that the highest legal officer in the land is not the agent of the law, or the Constitution, or the people, but is the sycophant and agent of the Crown.

Gonzales should be removed; Gonzales-ism should be destroyed. It is the hallmark of the corruption of partisan conservatives that they supported policies and practices that every principled conservative should abhor in our democracy, as much as every principled liberal.

Criticize Bush, Forget about Flying

[Originally posted on goofyblog 4.11.07]

Ever wonder just who is really on those “terror watch lists” you hear about? Like when the former pop-singer Cat Stevens (above) was turned back from landing in America a year or so ago. Here’s some news about what it takes to get on that list — nothing having to be with being a terrorist, that’s sure. (from boing boing)

Professor Walter F. Murphy, a Korean war hero and McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) at Princeton, was delayed while flying because he’s on a “terrorist watch list.” The check-in clerk told him that he was probably added because he gave a speech that was critical of the president (who dodged his military service).

“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution.

“That’ll do it,” the man said. “

Secret Government

[Originally posted on goofyblog 2.1.07]

One of the good things about the aftermath of the Vietnam War fiasco, the Watergate break-in and Nixon’s resignation, was an opening up of government. The secretiveness of the Nixon Administration was too much. Laws were passed to open up all the processes of government and laws were passed to restrict the spaying activities of government agencies.

But government behind closed doors is the main philosophy of the Bush Administration. Here’s a short list (from tpm muckracker):

Economy/Employment

In March, the administration announced it would no longer produce the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, which identifies which programs best assist low-income families, while also tracking health insurance coverage and child support.

After the Bureau of Labor Statistics uncovered discouraging data about factory closings in the U.S., the administration announced it would stop publishing information about factory closings.

When an annual report called “Budget Information for States” showed the federal government shortchanging states in the midst of fiscal crises, Bush’s Office of Management and Budget announced it was discontinuing the report, which some said was the only source for comprehensive data on state funding from the federal government.

In December 2002, the administration curtailed funding to the Mass-Layoffs Statistics program, which released monthly data on the number and size of layoffs by U.S. companies. His father attempted to kill the same program in 1992, but Clinton revived it when he assumed the presidency.

After Bush assumed power in 2001, the Department of Labor removed from its Web site “Don’t Work in the Dark — Know Your Rights,” a publication informing women of their workplace rights. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

The Department of Labor also removed from its Web site roughly two dozen fact sheets on women’s workplace issues such as women in management, earning differences between men and women, child care concerns, and minority women in the workplace. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

In February 2004, the appointed head of the Office of Special Counsel — created to protect government employees’ rights — ordered removed from a government Web site information on the rights of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in the public workplace. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

Terrorism

In 2005, after a government report showed an increase in terrorism around the world, the administration announced it would stop publishing its annual report on international terrorism.

No Child Left Behind

When Bush’s Department of Education found that charter schools were underperforming, the administration said it would sharply cut back on the information it collects about charter schools

Climate Change/Environment

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has to date failed to produce a congressionally-mandated report on climate change that was due in 2004. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has called the failure an “obfuscation.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced plans to close several libraries which were used by researchers and scientists. The agency called its decision a cost-cutting measure, but a 2004 report showed that the facilities actually brought the EPA a $7.5 million surplus annually. (Thanks to Mark B. below.)

A rule change at the U.S. Geological Survey restricts agency scientists from publishing or discussing research without that information first being screened by higher-ups at the agency. Special screening will be given to “findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed.” The scientists at the USGS cover such controversial topics as global warming. Before, studies were released after an anonymous peer review of the research. (Thanks to Alison below.)

A new policy at the The U.S. Forest Service means the agency no longer will generate environmental impact statements for “its long-term plans for America’s national forests and grasslands.” It also “no longer will allow the public to appeal on long-term plans for those forests, but instead will invite participation in planning from the outset.” (Thanks to libra below.)

Also in 2002, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission removed from its Web site a document showing that officials found large gaps in a portion of an aging Montana dam. A FERC official said the deletion was for “national security.”

In 2002, Bush officials intervened to derail the publication of an EPA report on mercury and children’s health, which contradicted the administration’s position on lowering regulations on certain power plants. The report was eventually leaked by a “frustrated EPA official.”

In 2003, the EPA bowed to White House pressure and deleted the global warming section in its annual “Report on the Environment.” The move drew condemnations from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Also in 2003, the EPA withheld for months key findings from an air pollution report that undercut the White House’s “Clear Skies” initiative. Leaked copies were reported in the Washington Post.

Records

On November 1st, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order limiting the public’s access to presidential records. The order undermined the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which required the release of those records after 12 years. Bush’s order prevented the release of “68,000 pages of confidential communications between President Ronald Reagan and his advisers,” some of whom had positions in the Bush Administration. More here. (Thanks to Roger A. and nitpicker below.) Update: TPMm Reader JP writes in to point out that Bush did the same thing with his papers from the Texas governorship.

In 2004, the Internal Revenue Service stopped providing data demonstrating the level of its job performance. In 2006, a judge forced the IRS to provide the information.

In 2004, the FBI attempted to retroactively classify public information regarding the case of bureau whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, including a series of letters between the Justice Department and several senators.

Also in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission blocked access to a once-public database of network outages affecting telecommunications service providers. The FCC removed public copies and exempted the information from Freedom of Information Act requests, saying it would “jeopardize national security efforts.” Experts ridiculed that notion.

In early 2001, the Treasury Department stopped producing reports showing how the benefits of tax cuts were distributed by income class. (via the Tax Policy Center, from Paul Krugman)

Sex Education/Information

In March 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services took down a six-year-old Web site devoted to substance abuse and treatment information for gays and lesbians, after members of the conservative Family Research Council complained.

In 2002, HHS removed information from its Web site pertaining to risky sexual behavior among adolescents, condom use and HIV.

War

In October 2003, the Bush administration banned photographs depicting servicemembers’ coffins returning from overseas.

Corruption

For more than a year, the Interior Department refused to release a 2005 study showing a government subsidy for oil companies was not effective.

In 2006, the Federal Communications Commission ordered destroyed all copies of an unreleased 2004 draft report concluding that media consolidation hurt local TV news coverage, which runs counter to the administration’s pro-consolidation stance. (Thanks to Jim Tobias below.)

In 2006, as a number of groups sought records of visits by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates to the White House, the administration quietly made an agreement with the Secret Service, making sure that White House visitor records would no longer be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Drug War

The White House Office of National Drug Policy paid for a 5-year, $43 million study which concluded their anti-drug ad campaigns did not work — but it refused to release those findings to Congress. (Thanks to skeptic below.)

How times have changed. This is just a partial list and doesn’t even begin to get into the insane “classification” of almost everything by a government run amuck, concerned more with covering up its mistakes and errors than the need for the people it represents to know.

Example: for 25 years, Jon Weiner fought the FBI to have some of their files on John Lennon de-classified. The FBI said for 25 years that the information was too sensitive to be de-classified. Last month, they finally released the 10 super-duper classified pages. What’s in them? Some bullshit about Lennon’s association with London members of the New Left, a fact commonly known and reported publicly at the time of his association. See for yourself here.

Escalate?

[Originally posted on goofyblog 1.30.07]

I went through the Pentagon a week after 9/11. One of the Generals…calls me after I’d seen Rumsfeld. He said, “Sir, come in here.” He said, “Sir, we’re going to invade Iraq.” I said, “We’re going to invade Iraq!?! Why?” And he said, “Because,” he says, “I don’t know why. Really,” he said, “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but,” he said, “I guess they don’t know what to do about the problem of terrorism, and if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem has to look like a nail.”

He said, “We don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we can take down governments. So, I guess they’re looking for a government to take down. Meanwhile we started bombing in Afghanistan.

So well, I came back to see the same General in early November [2001]. I said, “Are we still going to invade Iraq?” He said, “Yes, Sir,” he said, “but it’s worse than that.” I said, “How do you mean?” He held up this piece of paper. He said, “I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It’s a, it’s a five-year plan. We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we’re going to come back and get Iran in five years.[emphasis added] I said, “Is that classified, that paper?” He said, “Yes Sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it.”

That was retired-General Wesley Clark giving a speech at the University of Alabama in October 2006. The full transcript can be found here, which includes a Q&A and it makes for enlightening reading.

In other words, we’ve got an out of control militarized leadership who’ve been looking for countries to invade ever since the collapse of the USSR and the end of the fake Cold War. As Sheldon Drobny writes in “The Dark Side of the Domino Theory:”

The idea of a monolithic enemy came from NSC-68 issued in 1950. Paul Nitze was the author of this NSC statement that was the by-product of a George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow in 1946, and the subsequent 1947 article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” that argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be “contained” in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States.

Shortly after NSC-68 became official U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the policies that he had seemingly helped launch. By mid-1948, he was convinced that the situation in Western Europe had improved to the point where negotiations could be initiated with Moscow. The suggestion did not resonate within the Truman administration, and Kennan’s influence was increasingly marginalized–particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed Secretary of State in 1949. As U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more aggressive and militaristic tone, Kennan bemoaned what he called a misinterpretation of his thinking.

The CIA intelligence at the time confirmed that the Soviet Union even under Stalin was not in favor of expanding communism with the exception of its Eastern European satellite states to protect itself from another German invasion. The Truman Administration either ignored or skewed the intelligence that confirmed the Soviet position regarding world-wide expansion was a myth to help scare the American people enough to accept a buildup of the military industrial complex.

In our American History classes we were taught that there had been worries after WWII the U.S. would de-militarize as it had done after WWI and this was thought to be a weakness due to the threat of Communism, which we were scared into thinking was just on the other side of our front doors.

This rationale was proffered for the Korean and the Vietnam wars that followed in the decades immediately after. But, even in the 40s, our own intelligence determined that there was not much need for such a build up.

And there was definitely no excuse for a large military after the Soviets caved so, whoops, along come the Muslims!

For our current leaders, the thinking here is strictly military. Spend, build weapons, find someone to use the weapons on, find reasons to use the weapons on them, use the weapons on them, spend more, build more weapons, etc.

No thought of diplomacy and negotiation. And there have been plenty of times where that could’ve been done instead of a military option (just look at recent reports of Iran offering to talk with Cheney in 2003).

As Drobny says:

The regime change we need to build a peaceful Middle East is the rejection of the current leadership and military dominance that has plagued our nation for nearly 60 years. We in the U.S. have to get our own house in order to reject the insane military confrontation that has been evangelized by the Pentagon and their corporate sponsors. That will be the true test for leadership for the current Congress and the Presidential campaign of 2008.

Regime change begins at home. Are we Sparta or Athens? Let the next 12 months be a time of radical change in direction.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”

~James Madison

Bad Bugs, No Drugs

[Originally posted on goofyblog 1.29.07]

Dangerous bacteria, resistant to all antibiotics, have benefited from our war adventure in Iraq. The Grand daddy of them all is something called Acinetobacter baumannii. It got its start (possibly) from some contaminated medical supplies shipped from Germany to a medical facility in Iraq, Ibn Sina Hospital, at the start of the war. Since then, it has mutated.

“Bacteria that know how to disable or block the efficacy of multiple drugs are highly educated organisms. They’re typically the product of an environment where antibiotics are in frequent use, and they have downloaded genetic cheat codes from other resistant bacteria into their own DNA.

“[Acinetobacter] carries the largest collection of generic upgrades ever discovered in a single organism. Out of its 52 genes dedicated to defeating antibiotics, radiation, and other weapons of mass bacterial destruction, nearly all have been bootlegged from other bad bugs like Salmonella, Pseudomonas, and Escherichia coli.”

-Wired (full article here)

The bacteria can survive for weeks on stethoscopes, a blood-pressure cuff, mattresses, so it colonizes patients in hospitals and medical facilities. Then it’s imported into Europe and the U.S. on the bodies of wounded soldiers, where it spreads to civilian patients.

Different strains of the bacteria have been common for years, it only attacks the weak and older, but the use of multiple antibiotics as part of the highly-successful, survival-rate strategies employed by the US Military has caused a quicker mutation. And although hospitals in Iraq, Europe and the US have adapted new measures for minimizing the infection rate, once it takes hold it can kill, and nothing, save a strong immune system, makes a difference.

Comic Who Killed is Killed

[Originally posted on goofyblog 11.29.06]

An Iraqi comedian, Walid Hasaan, who brought much-needed laughter to that people through his skits on Alsharqiya, an independent channel there, was found dead. “He was a star in the galaxy of Iraqi arts,” said Ali Hanoon, the show’s director. “Now, he’s another sacrifice on the altar of this slaughtered country.”

He worked for the love of performing and to make a difference, making about $400 a month. Although immensely popular, he still fell to an execution-style slaying for what? No one knows.
Though he wouldn’t have been allowed to perform under Sadaam’s regime, he wouldn’t be dead. Freedom of speech has to be protected from persecution if it is to survive, in any country.

“In the months after the U.S.-led invasion, when Iraq exploded with a constellation of television channels, Alsharqiya tapped Hassan and five other actors for “Caricature.” In each 30-minute segment, the actors performed skits that often seemed like Iraq’s version of “Saturday Night Live.” Hassan’s roles ranged from corrupt officials to brown-nosing bureaucrats.

“One skit was about a family who moved their home and all their belongings to an unknown location. By the end of the segment, they had grown long gray hair, their faces wrinkled with age. That’s when the television viewers learned that the family was waiting in one of Iraq’s notoriously long gas lines.”

Full story here.

Photo Id Required to Eat at Restaurant

[Originally posted on goofyblog 12.04.06]

An IHOP in Quincy, MA, required all diners to hand over some form of ID to be seated. Finally, one guy objected and they reversed their policy. However, the security guard at the restaurant (a security guard at an IHOP?) had “at least 40 licenses in hand” when the guy arrived to eat.

Full story is here.

Core Issues

[Originally posted on goofyblog 11.20.06]

Two weeks ago, the clip above, “WTC Core,” appeared on youtube. Using classical music and animation it makes an elegant statement refuting the “pancake theory” for the collapse of the towers on 9/11. I’ve seen many clips regarding this issue, but this one addresses it from the engineering angle. It’s about the core of the towers. Done visually, the illogic of it is much clearer.
In other news, Project Censored, just put BYU physicist Steven E. Jones as number 18 of the top 25 Censored news stories of 2007. His conclusion that the collapse of the towers is implausible according to the laws of physics has been vastly underreported by our corporate media.
A little of the story:

Jones claims that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) ignored the physics and chemistry of what happened on September 11 and even manipulated its testing in order to get a computer-generated hypothesis that fit the end result of collapse, and did not even attempt to investigate the possibility of controlled demolition. He also questions the investigations conducted by FEMA and the 9/11 Commission.
Among the report’s other findings:

No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings, has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosives can effectively sever steel columns.

This is their 30^th year of reporting on stories that are generally ignored by the corporate media. I will have more on some of the other 25 in a future article.

Our Way of Life

[Originally posted on goofyblog 10.20.06]

In honor of the loss of habeas corpus in this country and Keith Olbermann’s intense editorial last night on MSNBC about it, everyone needs a quick review on what rights we still have left as U.S. citizens. The above film is from a group called flexyourrights.org.

Several years ago, I read the excellent book, Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters with Law Enforcement, written by Harvard Law School graduate, Katya Komisaruk. This youTube vid is a short, graphic representation of the concepts detailed in the book. It’s an eye-opener. [NOTE: This short is no longer available. It has been withdrawn because the complete video is being sold here, but you can still see the whole thing here.]

In these days of the futile, wasteful “War” on drugs, now in it’s 4^th decade (whose only purpose is to prop up the prison/law enforcement/military complex), the “no knock” search warrant and the rise of SWAT teams (leading to citizen as well as police deaths during mistaken-address/identity raids such as the Corey Maye case), the largest prison population on earth, the move in California to make certain citizens wear GPS bracelets at all times, this current move of the President is just more of the same “safety/security” bullshit that we’ve been consuming for, well, 40 years now. You may think “this won’t ever happen to me” and you might be right who knows what the future brings, but at the very least, you’ll be entertained and informed.

You’ll never learn this info from the hundreds of cops shows and movies that seem to be about 70% of the “entertainment” on television and in movie theatres. Good luck.

In closing, a few quotes for ya:

“It astonishes me to find … [that so many] of our countrymen … should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty … which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries,”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, 1788.

Found on the Andrew Sullivan’s conservative blog, the Daily Dish.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Ben Franklin

We will not allow the enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms.
-George W. Bush, September 12, 2001

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.
-Adolf Hitler

Fiat Justitia, et Pereat Mundus

[Originally posted on goofyblog 9.25.06]

35 years ago, President Nixon used his executive powers to secretly drop 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia, instructing the pilots to falsify their flight records. He tried to cover up this by putting illegal wiretaps on journalists and other government officials who were investigating and/or leaking the details. In the name of national security, he ordered wiretaps on and had the tax records investigated of dangerous radicals like Paul Newman.

Nixon ordered the CIA to screw with Chile’s economy, then ok’ed a coup there, bringing murderous dictator Pinochet to power after democratically-elected President Allende was assassinated. He ordered the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in, again all in the name of national security.

For none of these actions, did he consult Congress or get Congressional consent. He resigned before he could be impeached and, by the time he resigned, it was a certainty he would have been. President Gerald Ford, pardoned the disgraced ex-President sparing him criminal prosecution, also a certainty, in the name of “healing the nation.”

It was dramatic times. The Supreme Court had backed down the Executive regarding the Pentagon papers, Congress had backed down the Executive and started to impeach. A free press had effectively investigated and reported the abuses of power. Our 3-branch form of representative government had weathered the attempted takeover by a standing President. In a further reaction to Nixon’s abuses, Congress passed laws throughout the 70s to make sure it couldn’t happen again.

All’s well then, right? Not really. The people in power now and their advisors believe that everything Nixon ever did was quite alright. Not only that, they believe that Congress’ role is not to reign in the Executive. In short, these cretins believe that anything a President wants to do, he should be able to do. Break or just ignore laws passed by Congress? Tap phones? Invade countries using falsified evidence? Torture and imprison people without charges or due process? Violate the Geneva Conventions? Act like we are a rogue nation? Ignore diplomacy? All completely ok.

If you’re going: wtf? like I am, you’re probably in the land of the sane. Did we all go to the same American History and Civics classes? How could anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about the founding precepts of the U.S. think the Executive branch has the right to run free? No new world development makes it ok for President Whoeveritis to rule above the laws of the courts and legislature—ever. That’s why we aren’t a monarchy. It’s why we had a revolution against someone in England called King George.

What is the definition of a tyrant? A tyrant is a ruler who believes he can and should operate above the law. Nixon was a tyrant by that definition. Bush is also one. Bush advisors Professor Yoo and Attorney General Gonzales believe he has that right. They believe that the Prez can and should torture anyone he wants to. Torture doesn’t work, but they don’t care about that little detail. Our Leader knows what’s best for the rest of us. He has our best interests at heart therefore, we should let Him do anything He wants to.

There are too many proponents of this theory. Only problem with it is: it’s horseshit! Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, et al, started a republic with values contra to royalist assholes. I fail to understand how anyone in their right mind could go with the theory of unlimited power for the Executive.

Do you think we are somehow better off with a homegrown tyrant in power? How? Afraid of terrorists? Bush has made us less safe. Worried about the economy and your jobs? We now have an enormous world debt, leaving us in a financially unsound position. Many jobs are being shipped overseas (even some attorney work is now done in India). Worried about our ability to compete in the world market and the ability of future generations to compete technically? The Bush administration’s support of creationism and anti-stem cell research is a gigantic step backward from the scientific/technical trends of the rest of the world. We are moving backward.

Clinton eliminated the national debt, left a surplus, kept our foreign relations on an even keel and attempted other reforms that addressed the issues in this modern world. Maybe not the greatest President, but not an incompetent fool. Evidently, his private sex life was somehow more important to a lot of people. But a guy who screws everything up, takes no responsibility for it, calls himself The Decider, well, that’s ok?

Yea, for 30 years, they’ve been working on getting us back to the way it was in 1969. It’s like a monster in a horror film coming back to life—put it down, but it rises up again.

Our American values have influenced the rest of the world, but an all-powerful Executive is not one of those values. That’s another type of government, another country’s legacy. It’s a way of governing that you’d think everyone would understand was stupid without question. Now, the rest of the world is looking at us clearly, saying: what happened to America? What’s going on over there?

Such a foundation for American hegemony is unstable at best and sure to perish in the ill winds that are coming. Soon enough, there will be many storms.

I am a patriot
And I love my county
Because my country is all I know
I want to be with my family
The people who understand me
I’ve got nowhere else to go
And the river opens for the righteous.

-S. Van Zandt

The Latin title of this piece comes from Kant’s Principles of Politics and “is rendered thus: Let righteousness prevail though all the knaves in the world should perish for it. It is thus a bold principle of Right cutting through all the crooked ways that are shaped by intrigue or force…And this is to be held, whatever may be the physical consequences which follow from adopting these political principles…Moral evil has this quality inseparable from its nature that, in carrying out its purposes, it is antagonistic and destructive to itself.”

We must return to being a nation of laws, not tyrants.

On Location: 5 Years On

[Originally posted on goofyblog 9.14.06]

5 years after the worst attack on US soil in history, Osama’s free, Afghanistan isn’t. As President Bush said in March 2002, “I truly am not that concerned about him,” and then began pulling key resources off the hunt for Al Qaeda’s leaders.

Pakistan has signed a truce with Islamic militants in North Waziristan, where bin Laden is most likely hiding—another safe haven adjoining Afghanistan.

Bush has always neglected Afghanistan, providing no peacekeeping troops anywhere but in Kabul and supplying minimal economic aid in the first year after the invasion. Now, war lords and the Taliban rule most of the country, this year NATO forces have sustained a higher fatality rate than coalition troops in Iraq and the country is reverting, becoming a large safe haven for our enemies. More on this can be found here.

But neglect and poor planning are the major themes in Iraq also, as detailed in Peter Galbraith’s article, “Mindless in Iraq,” which reviews several books on the failed reconstruction in Iraq and says in part:

“Trainor and Gordon [authors of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq] present a devastating picture of Rumsfeld as a bully. Convinced of his own brilliance, Rumsfeld freely substituted his often hastily formed opinions for the considered judgments of his military professionals. He placed in the most senior positions compliant yes-men, like Myers, and punished those who questioned his casually formed judgments. He enjoyed belittling his subordinates. The day before the September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld told a Pentagon meeting that the Defense Department bureaucracy ‘disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.’ His aides followed the same approach: Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld’s closest aide, ‘jested that Rumsfeld thought the Army’s problems could be solved by lining up fifty of its generals in the Pentagon and gunning them down.’”

And finally, a major blow to the executive power grab over our lives all in the name of safety: the Hamden case, decided recently by the Supreme Court, strongly refutes the Bush Administration’s illegal strategy of torture, tribunals, secret prisons and illegal wiretapping. The court’s ruling goes beyond a narrow rebuke, trapping both the legislative and executive branches into adhering to the Geneva Conventions and marks an emerging court majority, at least on these issues, with Justice Kennedy taking the place of Sandra Day O’Connor. The article concludes with the following:

“The Bush doctrine views the rule of law as our enemy, and claims it is allied with terrorism. As the Pentagon’s 2005 National Defense Strategy put it:
‘Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.’
“In fact, both the strength and security of the nation in the struggle with terrorists rest on adherence to the rule of law, including international law, because only such adherence provides the legitimacy we need if we are to win back the world’s respect. Hamdan suggests that at least one branch of the United States government understands this.”

The article, which is a detailed analysis of the decision, can be found here.

V for Vendetta?

[Originally posted on goofyblog 8.25.06]

Just rented V for Vendetta a few days ago. What a strange storyline.

Elites within the government execute a terrorist act that kills thousands of people, blaming it on religious extremists. Using the fear generated by the “attack,” all manner of controls and surveillance is put in place, with the people too cowed and fearful to do anything but acquiesce.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about 9/11, concluding with this paragraph:

“Muslims extremists planned an attack on the WTC as they had done in 1993. Neo-cons needed a Pearl Harbor. No chances were taken with potentially inept terrorists. Before the NYFD could fully assess and begin putting out the fires from the jet crashes, the buildings were blown down. A missile was shot into the least-populated side of the Pentagon. Flight 93 was blown out of the sky before it could get to wherever it was going.

“You know what it all means. Although the terrorist’s acts caused several hundred deaths, the remaining deaths, almost 3,000, were caused by some other group. Why? Isn’t it obvious? Look at what’s happened to our country and our world since then. . . and what is yet to come.”

Maybe I can re-write that slightly, let’s see…how about:

Elites within the government execute a terrorist act that kills thousands of people [by well-placed explosives, well-directed missile(s), distracting/disabling NORAD], blaming it on religious extremists [who they had advanced warning about and/or helped facilitate their plans]. Using the fear generated by the “attack,” all manner[Patriot Act, NSA surveillance, bank records, National ID] of controls and surveillance is put in place, with the people[and legislators] too cowed and fearful to do anything but acquiesce.

Funny how life imitates art, isn’t it (V was written in the 80s)? Now, where is the American V?

Infamous “Fat Arab” Terrorist Plot Foiled!

[Originally posted on goofyblog 8.23.06]

Afraid of flying? Don’t be. Our government is busy making sure we are in fear of our lives every day. . . but the reality may be different. The following dispatch reads in part:

British police foiled yet another terrorist plot today, announcing the arrest of a 340-pound Egyptian man planning to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic using homemade explosives derived from his own body.

British authorities say the unidentified man planned to use the on-board lavatory as a mobile chemical lab, where he would render his own fat and refine it into bio-diesel while extracting urea nitrate from his own urine.

According to an NSA terrorism expert who spoke on condition of anonymity, a typical “fat arab” could easily extract sufficient material from his own fluids to mix enough ANFO explosive to bring down a Boeing 747. “This is the nightmare scenario we’ve all been predicting,” the NSA official told Reuters.

In response, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) immediately instructed airport screeners to prevent fat people from boarding planes, and ordered all bathrooms to be locked and sealed on flights of six hours or more. A spokesman for the International Airline Passengers Association called the TSA’s new regulations a “mixed blessing” in terms of its total impact on passenger comfort.

The whole deal in England last week was a load of crap. As is the cell phone detonator scare. Read about why here.

The terrorists are supposed to strike fear in our hearts, NOT our government, but they’re doing a pretty good job of it so far.