Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.) delivered the Democratic Radio Address

    General Odom has served as Director of the National Security Agency and Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. In his address, General Odom will discuss why he believes President Bush should sign the conference report on the Iraq Accountability Act.

Democratic Radio Address

"Good morning, this is Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired.

"I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party. I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency. I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

"In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

"Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

"To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

"Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats. These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing. They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis. And we are in a crisis.

"Most Americans suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with the President's management of the conflict in Iraq. And they are right.

"The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests.

"But it has served Iran's interest by revenging Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran's influence within Iraq. It has also served al Qaeda's interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

"We cannot 'win' a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Thus continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.

"A wise commander in this situation normally revises his objectives and changes his strategy, not just marginally, but radically. Nothing less today will limit the death and destruction that the invasion of Iraq has unleashed.

"No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us. Withdrawal is the pre-condition for winning support from countries in Europe that have stood aside and other major powers including India, China, Japan, Russia.

"It will also shock and change attitudes in Iran, Syria, and other countries on Iraq's borders, making them far more likely to take seriously new U.S. approaches, not just to Iraq, but to restoring regional stability and heading off the spreading chaos that our war has caused.

"The bill that Congress approved this week, with bipartisan support, setting schedules for withdrawal, provides the President an opportunity to begin this kind of strategic shift, one that defines regional stability as the measure of victory, not some impossible outcome.

"I hope the President seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him. I will respect him greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.

"This is retired General Odom. Thank you for listening."

Tags: Democrats Lt. Gen. William E. Odom Bush

A Letter To Mayor Giuliani

   From Huffington Post

   by  Gary Hart

An Open Letter to Mayor Giuliani

Dear Mayor Giuliani:
Since you have based your presidential campaign almost exclusively on your reaction to terrorist attacks on New York City, and since you have recently accused Democrats of being on the defense against terrorism and therefore guilty of inviting more casualties, I have one question for you: Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?

The first date was when the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century issued its final report warning, as did its previous reports, of the danger of terrorist attacks on America. The George W. Bush administration did nothing about these warnings and we lost 3,000 American lives. What did you do during those critical eight months? Where were you? Were you on the defensive, or were you even paying attention?

Before you qualify to criticize Democrats, Mr. Giuliani, you must account for your preparation of your city for these clearly predicted attacks. Tell us, please, what steps you took to make your city safer.

Until you do, then I strongly suggest you should keep your mouth shut about Democrats and terrorism.

You have not qualified to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.
Gary Hart
(co-chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century)
P.S. You might ask these same questions of George W. Bush while you are trying to find a better reason to run for president.

   I think that Mr. Hart is pretty much straight to the point.

Tags: Gary Hart Rudy Giuliani 9/11 Bush

To Much Oversight By The Democrats? Not Enough Yet!

"This article was created by the Center for American Progress"

Think Again: Oversight, Overload?

By Eric Alterman

April 26, 2007

April 26, 2007 Is Alberto Gonzales’ oft-repeated mantra, “I don’t recall,” destined to become a classic in the genre? Similar to, say, Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook”? We are loathe to predict the future, but as congressional Democrats boldly displayed their commitment to investigations with three new subpoenas on Wednesday—eager to plumb the depths of the administration’s incompetence—much of the media appear eager to construct a narrative about show trials and partisanship rather than examine the actual issues at hand.

The most recent—and dramatic—example of these hearings was Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee session on wartime public relations, which focused on the famous cases of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and Cpl. Pat Tillman, both of whose respective experiences as a prisoner and victim of friendly fire were lied about by the administration and credulously reported on by the media.

Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman’s brother who served with him in Afghanistan, expressed the view of many Americans who support subpoenas for Bush officials and approve of Congress’s work: “It’s a bit disingenuous to think that the administration did not know about what was going on, something so politically sensitive,” he said in his testimony. “So that’s kind of what we were hoping you guys could get involved with and take a look [at].”

I noted David Broder’s column a few weeks ago in The Washington Post where he said, “it seems doubtful that Democrats can help themselves a great deal just by tearing down an already discredited Republican administration with more investigations ... At some point, Democrats have to give people something to vote for.” (Recall that during the election, Chris Matthews tried to get Nancy Pelosi to actually promise not to undertake any special investigations, as if he were on the Republican National Committee payroll.)

Alas, in the interim, Broder and his fellow fan of the Bush administration, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, have each called upon Gonzales to resign—even before his disastrous outing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Krauthammer criticizes the attorney general’s incompetence—which he probably wouldn’t have recognized so clearly without the hearings—while Broder laments President Bush’s Reaganesque refusal to show Gonzales the door in an article in which he reveals, incidentally, that he got the Reagan budget director his first job. So apparently some of this congressional oversight turns out to be useful after all—especially in the case of this administration, where arrogance and dishonesty compete to outpace incompetence and ideology.

And what of the other dreaded investigations? Just take a look at Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee website. The group is scheduled to consider no less than seven new subpoenas on issues ranging from the “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal to potentially illegal political activities by executive branch appointees and the perennial issue of who blew Valerie Plame’s cover, and, more importantly, why. They issued two to the RNC to probe allegations of misconduct by executive branch appointees and, more dramatically, one to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her for information about “the fabricated claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger and other issues.”

In a particularly meta twist, the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel has announced that it will investigate allegations that the White House used government agencies for political purposes—even as the head of the office is under investigation by another executive branch agency, the Office of Personnel Management, for accusations of politicizing his own work. Is this too a waste of time—an avoidance of the responsibilities of governance?

Would this explain why President Bush warned Congress against “[h]ead[ing] down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available. I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse. I hope they don’t choose confrontation. I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials”? Might it speak to the nervousness of Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)—the ranking Republican on the oversight committee—who called the new subpoenas “political theatrics”?

The New Republic editors reminded the rest of us that “congressional Democrats would be derelict if they did not vigorously pursue apparent abuses of power by the Bush administration.” Indeed, it was exactly this dereliction of duty under the Republican Congress that allowed so many scandals to take place during the Bush administration virtually unimpeded. As Elizabeth Williamson reported in The Washington Post, “Before new investigators came on board, some Hill staffers resorted to using Google to search for documents, oblivious to Congress’s power to demand them.”

And while the word “history” is too often deployed in the media as a synonym for “irrelevant,” The New Republic’s editors had the bad manners to recall subpoena-happy Republican House Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), the previous Chair of the Oversight Committee. Burton has been knocked about the blogosphere for his infamous 1,000-plus subpoenas—only 11 of which directed accusations toward Republican misconduct.

Students of the topic might also wish to check out Waxman’s exhaustive look at the ‘90s investigative precedent. Republicans are still somehow reported—with a proverbial straight face—to be concerned that the current Congress “may be abusing its subpoena powers.” And while this concern was expressed in Roll Call, its sentiments were seconded by Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel, who told Chris Matthews, “I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove because it is so bad for them.”

Some pundits are willing to take this argument as far as full fabrication. Media Matters caught Chris Matthews at it when he claimed that two-thirds of Americans think Gonzales should keep his job. (This recalled Andrea Mitchell’s made-up assertion on “Hardball,” hosted at the time by David Gregory, that a majority of Americans wanted to see I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby pardoned. She made that one up too.)

All of this misinformation and misperception in the media only strengthens the tendencies of Mr. Denial-in-Chief, giving him license to make otherwise bizarre statements like his announcement Monday evening that Gonzales’ pathetic Senate performance only “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.” This, after Gonzales’ more than 50 assertions that he could not remember meetings he attended as recently as last October.

But given how long Don Rumsfeld hung around—endorsed by Bush just days before the announcement of his “resignation,” even as American soldiers continued to die needlessly on behalf of a failed strategy the administration consistently refused to reconsider—such Alice-in-Wonderland rhetoric has lost its ability to shock. So, too, alas, the media’s continued gullibility...

Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow of the Center for American Progress and the author of six books. His popular blog, “Altercation,” has moved from MSNBC.com to Media Matters. The new URL is http://mediamatters.org/altercation/.

Research assistance: Tim Fernholz

Tags: Democrats Bush Congress Henry Waxman Chris Matthews

American- Financed Rebuilding In Iraq Is Shoddy

NYTIMES

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: April 29, 2007

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

   This would be the Bush Crime Family off-spring pocketing millions, if not billions, and doing half-assed work. I'm not a bit surprised, are you?

  The Times says that $8.6 million in new generators for the Baghdad International Airport are no longer working. This is out of $11.8 million in total cash that was spent for the generators. You'd think that the airport would be important enough to keep things working properly.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

   Sorry folks, but this is downright disgusting! Our resident up in the White House is as disgusting as they can come. So are the contractors ( Bushies ) who are ripping you and I off and ripping the Iraqis off also!

  As is noted in the Times report, the Iraqis are to blame for some of the problems because they do not trust the new equipment or because they aren't trained to operate certain things.

The dates when the projects were completed and deemed successful ranged from six months to almost a year and a half before the latest inspections. But those inspections found numerous instances of power generators that no longer operated; sewage systems that had clogged and overflowed, damaging sections of buildings; electrical systems that had been jury-rigged or stripped of components; floors that had buckled; concrete that had crumbled; and expensive equipment that was simply not in use.

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

     We have been always hearing how well the reconstruction effort is going in Iraq, but this appears to not be the case. Of course, many Bushies are in denial of the facts.

And those declared successes are heavily promoted by the United States government. A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled “Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!” praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would “keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems.”

But when Mr. Bowen’s office presented the Army Corps with the finding that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, General Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general’s recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on disposing of the waste and maintaining the floors.

  Who will be blamed for this, the janitor?

Tags: Iraq reconstruction Baghdad U.S. Embassy

 

Fascism: Coming Soon To America

      I've stated on more than one occasion that this country is headed towards a communist-like society and that George Bush wants to be the dictator in charge. Most of the people of America respond  by saying things like " that can't happen here " or " not in America."  I just happen to think that you are wrong. Even Bush said that things would be easier for him if this was a dictatorship as long as he was the dictator. That statement should have been a hint for things to come.

    Author Naomi Wolf, in her forthcoming book ( "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot" ), says that there are ten steps to making the move from freedom to fascism, which have occurred in states currently under one person/government rule.

   Naomi Wolf's book will not be released until September but I have a few excerpts for you to read through, from Alternet.

 

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

By Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green Publishing. Posted April 28, 2007.

Editor's note: This is adapted from Wolf's forthcoming book "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down -- the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy, but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree, domestically, as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government -- the task of being aware of the Constitution has been outsourced from citizens to professionals such as lawyers and professors -- we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security -- remember who else was keen on the word "homeland"? -- didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable -- as the author and political journalist Joe Conason has put it -- that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the United States.

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.

After we were hit on Sept. 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on Oct. 26, 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilization." There have been other times of crisis in which the United States accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the Civil War, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the Second World War, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda notes, is unprecedented: All our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space -- the globe itself is the battlefield. "This time," Fein says, "there will be no defined end."

Creating a terrifying threat -- hydralike, secretive, evil -- is an old trick. It can, like Hitler's invocation of a communist threat to the nation's security, be based on actual events (one Wisconsin academic has faced calls for his dismissal because he noted, among other things, that the alleged communist arson, the Reichstag fire of February 1933, was swiftly followed in Nazi Germany by passage of the Enabling Act, which replaced constitutional law with an open-ended state of emergency). Or the terrifying threat can be based, like the National Socialist evocation of the "global conspiracy of world Jewry", on myth.

It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain, which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks, than it is in America. Spanish citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilization as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms.     

   You can read more of this, HERE

Tags: fascism America Bush terrorism

Terrorist Attacks Up In 2006

  Is this a surprise to anyone out there that terrorist attacks are up? I didn't think so. 

McClatchy

Terror attacks up 29%, report says

By Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community's National Counterterrorism Center, the report says there were 14,338 terrorist attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005.

Forty-five percent of the attacks were in Iraq.

Worldwide, there were about 5,800 terrorist attacks that resulted in at least one fatality, also up from 2005.

The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants and don't include strikes against U.S. troops.

Tags: State Department terrorist attacks Iraq

A28.org Pushes Impeachment Issue

On Saturday, A28.org, a group which is pushing for the impeachment of both Resident Bush and Vice Resident Cheney, Have what they call " impeachment actions " going on in various cities around the country. for those of you who may be interested in this, click this link to go visit their website and see what they are planning.

 

Impeachment section of the U.S. Constitution displayed for Senators; 14 true patriots arrested

On Wednesday activists unfurled a three-story high banner in a Senate office bulding which contained the section of the U.S. Constitution spelling out the grounds for impeachment. Fourteen were arrested for their audacity, but we aren't going away...

 

   


The photo above comes from their website.

Tags: impeachment Bush Cheney

A Call For Impeachment Of Bush

Truthdig

No One Should Be Above the Law

Posted on Apr 25, 2007

Editor’s note: Veteran journalist and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges, on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., gave the following speech calling for impeachment.

George Bush has shredded, violated or absented America from its obligations under international law.  He has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, tried to kill the International Criminal Court, walked out on negotiations on chemical and biological weapons and defied the Geneva Convention and human rights law in the treatment of detainees.  Most egregiously, he launched an illegal war in Iraq based on fabricated evidence we now know had been discredited even before it was made public.

This president is guilty, in short, of what in legal circles is known as the “crime of aggression.” And if we as citizens do not hold him accountable for these crimes, if we do not begin the process of impeachment, we will be complicit in the codification of a new world order, one that will have terrifying consequences.  For a world without treaties, statutes and laws is a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state to a great imperial power, will be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations to others.  This new order will undo five decades of international cooperation—largely put in place by the United States—and thrust us into a Hobbesian nightmare. 

We must not allow international laws and treaties—ones that set minimum standards of behavior and provide a framework for competing social, political, economic and religious groups and interests to resolve differences—to be discarded. The exercise of power without law is tyranny.  And the consequences of George Bush’s violation of the law, his creation of legal black holes that can swallow us along with those outside our gates, run in a direct line from the White House to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

George Bush—we now know from the leaked Downing Street memo—fabricated a legal pretext for war.  He decided to charge Saddam Hussein with the material breach of the resolution passed in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.  He had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was in breach of this resolution.  And so he and his advisers manufactured reports of weapons of mass destruction and disseminated them to a frightened and manipulated press and public.  In short, he lied to us and to the rest of the world.  There are tens of thousands, perhaps a few hundred thousand people, who have been killed and maimed in Iraq because of a war that has no legal justification, a war waged in violation of international law.  The grief visited on American and Iraqi families demands that we as citizens begin the process to restore the rule of law.  The murderous rampages in Iraq demand this.  The torture done in our name demands this.  The empowerment of states that will act on our lawless example if we do not impeach George Bush and return to a world of standards demands this.  Simple human decency demands this. 

A rule-based world matters.  The creation of these international bodies and rules, as well as the use of our influence over the last half-century to see they were followed, have allowed us to stand pre-eminent as a nation—one that respects and defends the rule of law.  If we demolish the fragile and delicate international order, if we permit George Bush to create a world where diplomacy, broad cooperation and the law are worthless, if we allow these international legal systems to unravel, we will see our moral and political authority plummet.  We will erode the possibility of cooperation between nation-states, including our closest allies, and see visited upon us the evils we visit on others.

     Let us not forget the fact that if we do not put a stop to Resident Bush and Cheney, these United States of America will become the same as a  Soviet communist state. We are better than half way there already.

   I don't know about you, but I kind of like the freedoms that I have, what's left of them. I'd like to have my other ones back!

                      IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

Tags: George Bush Dick Cheney impeachment America

Republicans Setting Democrats Up For Iraq War Loss?

The "Stab in the Back" Trap
    By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
    TruthOut| Guest Contributors

    Friday 27 April 2007

    The Democrats and the peace movement are walking into a trap.

    The Republicans are preparing with Rovian cunning to focus the mind of the public on the question: Who lost Iraq?

    And they are already giving the answer: The Democrats and the peace movement.

    Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by blaming the failure of the Iraq war on those who "sent a signal" that the US would not "stay the course" whatever the cost. President Bush and Vice President Cheney have already begun to project such a "stab in the back" myth. At a recent Republican luncheon, Cheney told senators that "What's most troubling" about Sen. Harry Reid's recent comment that the war is lost "is his defeatism."

    It's a weak reed right now. But it will be much more serious when Americans are forced to face the chaos and humiliation that will come with recognition not only that America is failing, but that it has failed.

    At the moment, a combination of war weariness and President Bush's unpopularity prevent such an argument from gaining much traction. As long as people are eager for the war to end, they will think of the Republican argument primarily as an obstacle to getting out.

    But that will no longer protect the Democrats or the peace movement once the US occupation is ended and the subsequent regional conflagration and defeat of American surrogates has begun. The Swiftboating machine will go into high gear to blame each new outrage on those in the US who didn't give 100 percent support to the war.

    Democrats in Congress instinctively recognize this danger. Many respond by promoting mild policies like benchmarks and non-binding timetables, notwithstanding their constituents' demand for withdrawal. But the Republican strategy will cleverly ensnare even those who endorse such tepid measures, because it will blame defeat not only on an actual failure to provide material support for the troops, but on any "defeatist" who "sends a message to our enemies" that American domination will not be there forever.

    The crucial problem is that most Democrats seem to be calling for withdrawal or "redeployment" not because the war is wrong, but merely because it is failing. By framing the war as lost because of mismanagement, poor planning or being bogged down in a civil war, Democrats cede the argument that the war itself was a "noble cause." But if the war is right - if, as Bush maintains, it is necessary to prevent horrendous consequences - then the public will predictably blame those consequences on the "defeatists" who made America "cut and run."

    What's necessary to evade this trap is to define the war itself - rather than just the fact that America is losing it - as wrong. It is wrong because we were lied into it by a rogue executive intent on launching an illegal war and occupation, in violation of national and international law, the US Constitution and the UN Charter. And it is wrong because it has imposed an illegal occupation that has systematically violated the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act.

    The means to define Bush's war for the American people are at hand in the power of Congress to investigate executive branch actions. We are seeing that power being flexed in the use of subpoenas for documents and testimony by committees investigating the firings of US attorneys. But, so far, investigation of illegal war, occupation, torture and rendition has been pusillanimous at best.

    What's become of the investigations of the origins and conduct of the war and occupation that Democrats promised when they took over Congress at the start of 2007? According to a Congressional aide quoted in the April 25 Washington Post, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have assigned staff members to monitor "what fights we're picking and how we're picking them." If so, they've assiduously avoided picking any fights that might implicate the Bush administration's "war on terror" in violations of US and international law. (The first break in this complicity of Congressional Democrats in the Bush administration's cover-up may be the 21-to-10 vote of Rep. Henry Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to authorize a subpoena requiring Condoleezza Rice to testify about the yellowcake uranium fraud.)

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) told The New York Times soon after last year's election that "the first order of business" when Democrats take over would be to reinvigorate Congressional scrutiny of the executive branch, with a focus on Iraq. He told Bob Geiger, "We're going to find out how intelligence was manipulated, taking us to war. We have to look back to be able to look forward." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) promised to complete the Senate Intelligence Committee's stalled investigation of the political misuse of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war. What's happened to this "first order of business"?

    Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) said he planed to investigate "extraordinary rendition." In the meantime, European governments have produced extensive documentation on the subject, and CIA officers are currently being tried in absentia in Italy for a kidnapping on the streets of Milan. Why has no administration official been forced to testify and supply documents about extraordinary rendition?

    Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, "The photographs and reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere that have emerged during the past two years depict an interrogation and detention system operating contrary to US law and the Geneva Conventions." The American people deserve "detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism and concern at home and around the world." Where are the subpoenas for that information?

    The Democrats can safely discredit the Bush administration by investigating scandals that illustrate corruption while leaving a criminal "national security" policy and its institutions unscathed. This is highly reminiscent of their strategy in the Watergate impeachment, when crimes like burglary were prosecuted but charges for far greater crimes like the secret, illegal, and deadly bombing of Cambodia were blocked.

    In the aftermath of the Vietnam war, Democrats and the peace movement were smeared for "losing Vietnam." This campaign was largely successful because the public was never given a full picture of the real purposes of the war and the full machinations of those who fomented it. As a result, their anger could be turned against those blamed for losing it, rather than those responsible for starting and perpetuating it. That's why the lessons of Vietnam were never learned - and why simply blaming Bush for defeat in Iraq, rather than educating the public about the real meaning of the war, will lay the groundwork for more Iraq-type wars in the future.

    There's plenty of evidence for the criminal violation of national and international law and the US Constitution by the architects of the Iraq war. But so far this evidence is not being presented to the American people by their representatives. As long as the American people hear that the only thing wrong with the war is that we're losing it, Democrats and the peace movement will be vulnerable to the Rovian trap.

    Many progressive members of Congress head committees that can begin serious investigations of those crimes at any time, but they're being "monitored" by Pelosi and Reid. Fortunately, Democratic leaders in Congress are unusually eager right now to curry favor with the peace movement. They should be told loud and clear: Unleash your committees to reveal the truth about the war to the American people. Otherwise, you'll be shot because you were the messenger who brought the bad news of American defeat.

    ---------

Jeremy Brecher is a historian whose books include Strike!, Globalization from Below and, co-edited with Brendan Smith and Jill Cutler, In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (Metropolitan/Holt). He has received five regional Emmy Awards for his documentary film work. He is a co-founder of WarCrimesWatch.org.

    Brendan Smith is a legal analyst whose books include Globalization From Below and, with Jeremy Brecher and Jill Cutler, In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (Metropolitan). He is current co-director of Global Labor Strategies and UCLA Law School's Globalization and Labor Standards Project, and has worked previously for Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and a broad range of unions and grassroots groups. His commentary has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, CBS News.com, YahooNews and the Baltimore Sun. Contact him at smithb28@gmail.com.

Tags: Democrats Republicans Iraq war Harry Reid

 

Senate Dems Respond To Broder's Article

   The Senate Democratic Caucus response to David S. Broder in his April 26 column, "The Democrat's Gonzalez."

The letter was signed by Sen. Reid's 50 colleagues in the caucus:

Sen. Reid's Fine Leadership
Washington Post
Letter to the Editor
Friday, April 27, 2007; A22

We, the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, contest the attack on Sen. Harry Reid's leadership by David S. Broder in his April 26 column, "The Democrats' Gonzales."

In contrast to Mr. Broder's insinuations, we believe Mr. Reid is an extraordinary leader who has effectively guided the new Democratic majority through these first few months with skill and aplomb.

The Democratic caucus is diverse, and Mr. Reid has worked tirelessly to make sure that the views of each member are heard and represented. No one ideology dominates the caucus, so that a consensus can be reached and unity achieved. It is hard to imagine a better model for leadership.

Because Mr. Reid has the support of members of the caucus, is a good listener and has an amazing ability to synthesize views and bring people together, the Senate has accomplished a great deal during his time as majority leader. Armed with his years of service in the Senate and with a mastery of procedure, Mr. Reid has led the chamber with a slim majority and a minority that is, at times, determined to stop legislation with which it disagrees.

In the first 100 days alone, we made great strides under his leadership on long-neglected legislation concerning stem cell research, the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations and the minimum wage, to name three. In addition, under Mr. Reid's leadership, we have fulfilled our obligation, left uncompleted by last year's Republican-led Senate, to fund the federal government. He has accomplished all of this in the face of stiff opposition and with a commitment to giving ideas full opportunity for debate.

Finally, in this age of scripted politicians speaking only to their base or claiming that they "don't recall" anything, the fact that Mr. Reid speaks his mind should be applauded, not derided. His brand of straight talk is honest, comes from the heart and speaks directly to the people.

THE MEMBERS

OF THE SENATE

DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS

Washington

   David S. Broder  writes for the Washington Post which did have the courtesy to print the letter from the Democratic Caucus.

 

Tags: Senate Democrats Harry Reid David Broder

 

Iraqis Views Of U.S. Troop Withdrawal

By Mussab Al-Khairalla at Yahoo News

  Abu Ali  ( Basra ): "U.S. forces have to leave Iraq but not now. The Iraqi government and its security forces are unable to control security, especially in Baghdad and its neighborhoods."

Tarek Qader ( Kirkuk ): "We demand a withdrawal but not in one go, so that there is no vacuum."

 Ali Adel ( Baghdad  ): "The exit of the occupation has to be preceded by the building of Iraqi forces and national reconciliation."

Hakim ( Baghdad  ) "I'm glad some Americans have finally realized they are no longer welcome here."

 Mohammed Younis: "I would expect a power struggle and the increase of violence."

Bassim Abdulla: "Differences in Washington will encourage militants to increase their attacks after they realize Bush has lost domestic support for the war."

Qassim Uthman: "If the occupation leaves, all acts of violence in Iraq will end due to less suicide bombers, and the interference of neighboring countries will be unjustified."

Tags: Iraqis U.S. troops withdrawal

The Republican Morals

  The following post comes from Zackpunk at  Daily Kos. This hit the Republican morals straight on target.

The Right Wing is not strawberry ice cream

by Zackpunk  Wed Apr 25, 2007

Dear Mr. Sam Waterston,

Hey -- I love Law & Order. I'm a big fan. But this whole Unity '08 idea -- well, it's kind of stupid. I'm sorry, but the notion that you could run a Democrat and Republican on the same presidential ticket is about as feasible as trying to get your cat to mate with your dog.

I think I know how you arrived at this idea. You went to a Baskin Robbins and thought, "Hey, I love chocolate ice cream. And I also love strawberry ice cream. I bet if I mixed them together, they'd taste great!"

Well, I know strawberry ice cream. I've eaten strawberry ice cream. And Mr. Waterston, the Right Wing is not strawberry ice cream.

I know you spend a lot of time on the set of Law & Order. You're in makeup, you're rehearsing your lines -- so you probably don't have a lot of time to catch up on the news. So let me just fill you in on where things are at:

The Right Wing are a pack of lying, murderous thugs, whose criminal policies have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They believe that they have been chosen by God, and that anything they do to maintain their power is just, and moral, and good. They believe in torture. They believe that science is the tool of the devil. They believe that women should be strapped into stretchers, slit open and left for dead, in order to save an unborn fetus that probably wouldn't make it anyway.

They have a single, unified vision: To march us back into the dark ages, where they will rule us like kings.

The Left believes in human rights, and human dignity. The Left believes that we should not be handling the war on terror as if it were a drunken bar fight. The Left believes in advancing the cause of science and reason. The Left believes that in the richest country in the world, it is wrong to let children die, simply because they had the misfortune of being born into a poor family. The Left believes in respecting the constitution. The Left believes that African Americans have the right to vote. The Left believes that we must lead the world in the fight against global warming.

I know you hate all the fighting that's going on in Washington. You complained about that on your Unity '08 website:

This Rhetoric Won't Solve Our Nation's Problems: The same day Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) "are getting very, very close to treason" for opposing the Iraq war, NBC's First Read reports.

Okay. Let's take a deep breath and walk through this.

Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney, because Cheney committed crimes. It's Kucinich's constitutional obligation to hold the administration accountable.

Tom DeLay is also a criminal. That's why you had to put the word former in front of his name. He committed crimes. And you're using him as an example of partisanship? No -- this isn't an example of partisanship. This is an example of a ruthless, power-hungry pack of fascist criminals who are trying to take over our country. Did you even read that quote? He's accusing the House leader of treason for opposing the president. That's not partisanship. That's Stalinism.

Maybe I can put this in terms you'll understand. You know how in Law & Order you have cops who try to keep the peace, and murders who kill people? Well, Kucinich is like the cop, and Cheney and DeLay are like the murderers.

Do you believe that courtrooms are too partisan? Do you believe it would be better if six of the jurors were upstanding citizens, and six of them were convicted felons?

Listen, Sam -- I know you want everyone to just get along and be happy and play nice. I sympathize with that. And I think your idea might work if we had two political parities that were working for America. But we don't -- we have one party that is working for America, and one that is working for themselves. Pairing them together is not the answer.

If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, fight for the rights of African American voters. If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, fight for the reproductive rights of women. If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, fight against poverty. If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, fight for health care. If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, fight against global warming. If you really want unity, Mr. Waterston, vote Democrat.

Tags: Unity 08 Republicans Democrats morals

Officials Not Counting Car Bombings When Citing Drop In Iraqi Violence

    Falsified numbers? There's a surprise. Some will argue that omitting certain numbers is not falsifying them. They  may be right because it should be called lying.

 

Published on Thursday, April 26, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers

U.S. Officials Exclude Car Bombs in Touting Drop in Iraq Violence

by Nancy A. Youssef

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.

Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge’s main goals.

“Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them,” said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at London-based Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank.

Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.

But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24.

Overall, statistics indicate that the number of violent deaths has declined significantly since December, when 1,391 people died in Baghdad, either executed and found dead on the street or killed by bomb blasts. That number was 796 in March and 691 through April 24.

Nearly all of that decline, however, can be attributed to a drop in executions, most of which were blamed on Shiite Muslim militias aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Much of the decline occurred before the security plan began on Feb. 15, and since then radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army militia to stand down.

According to the statistics, which McClatchy reporters in Baghdad compile daily from Iraqi police reports, 1,030 bodies were found in December. In January, that number declined 32 percent, to 699. It declined to 596 February and again to 473 in March.

Deaths from car bombings and improvised explosive devices, however, increased from 361 in December to a peak of 520 in February before dropping to 323 in March.

In that same period, the number of bombings has increased, as well. In December, there were 65 explosive attacks. That number was unchanged in January, but it rose to 72 in February, 74 in March and 81 through April 24.

U.S. officials blame the bombings largely on al-Qaida, which they say is hoping to provoke sectarian conflict by targeting Shiite neighborhoods with massive explosions.

Ryan Crocker, who became the U.S. ambassador in Iraq this month, said the bombings are a reaction to the surge of additional U.S. troops into Baghdad.

“The terrorists like al-Qaida would make their own surge,” Crocker said this week.

U.S. officials have said that they don’t expect the security plan to stop bombings.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to get rid of all the car bombs,” Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said this week. “Iraq is going to have to learn as did, say, Northern Ireland, to live with some degree of sensational attacks.”

But some think that approach could backfire, with Iraqis eventually blaming the Americans for failing to stop bombings.

“To win, the insurgents just have to prove they are not losing,” said Denselow, of London’s Chatham House.

Experts who have studied car bombings say it’s no surprise that U.S. officials would want to exclude their victims from any measure of success.

Car bombs are almost impossible to detect and stop, particularly in a traffic-jammed city such as Baghdad. U.S. officials in Baghdad concede that while they’ve found scores of car bomb factories in Iraq, they’ve made only a small dent in the manufacturing of these weapons.

Mike Davis, who recently wrote a history of car bombs, said that once car bombs are introduced into a conflict, they’re all but impossible to eradicate. A few people with rudimentary skills can assemble one with massive effect.

“They really don’t have to be very sophisticated; they just have to be very big,” Davis said.

Davis said checkpoints are useful in detecting car bombs “until they blow up the checkpoint,” and erecting walls is not practically feasible in communities. When U.S. officials proposed building walls around Baghdad’s most troubled neighborhoods to fend off car bomb attacks, residents balked, saying the walls would further divide the city along sectarian lines.

Bombers also have shown that they can adapt quickly. When the U.S. military blocked off markets to vehicular traffic, bombers wearing explosive vests were able to walk into the areas.

Finding a defense against car bombs has fallen to the Joint IED Defeat Organization, a Pentagon task force created in 2003 to find ways to protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs, which remain the No. 1 killer of Americans in Iraq.

But car bombs aren’t the primary killer of American service members, said Christine Devries, the task force’s spokeswoman. Roadside bombs are.

—

ABOUT IRAQI CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

There are no authoritative statistics on Iraqi civilian casualties. The Iraq Study Group in its report last year found that the Pentagon routinely underreports violence. Other groups have criticized the Iraqi government’s statistics as unreliable - a moot point since the government recently stopped releasing comprehensive totals. On Wednesday, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq chastised the Iraqi government for withholding statistics on sectarian violence.

One study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, estimated that 78,000 Iraqis were killed by car bombings between March 2003 and June 2006.

Iraq Body Count, which keeps statistics based on news reports, finds that there have been just over 1,050 car bombs that have killed more than one person since August 2003, when a car bomb detonated in front of what was the United Nations headquarters, killing 17.

McClatchy gathers its statistics daily from police contacts, and while they’re not comprehensive, they’re collected the same way every day.

A roundup of Iraq violence is posted daily on the McClatchy Washington Bureau Web site, http://www.mcclatchydc.com. Click on Iraq War Coverage.

© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources.

Tags: U.S. officials Bush Iraq

 

John McCain, Geritol Club Member?

         The Huffington  Post                                                                                                     "If we leave Iraq, there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home," the Arizona senator ( John McCain )  said, calling the war against al-Qaida "a struggle between good and evil."

    You know, hearing the same shit over and over again is getting about as bad as watching the same episode of ' The Brady Bunch " over and over. It would make you go throw up and maybe take a dump!

    The terrorist are not going to follow us home. If anything, they more than likely have cells here already. I'd be more concerned with our very own home-grown terrorist.

   If Mr. McCain reads the polls as he has claimed, then he knows that we American's are past the point of frustration with the Iraq mess. WE want our troops out of Iraq.

Tags: John McCain Geritol Iraq

 

Obama And Edwards Speak On Senate Passage Of Iraq Withdrawal Bill

   Reaction from a few of the Democratic Presidential candidates  after  the Senate's passage of the Iraq withdrawal bill.

     Barack Obama: 

“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War. President Bush must listen to the will of the American people and sign this bill so that our troops can come home.”...

“All of us have been touched by the heroic sacrifices troops have made in service to our country. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush can bring them home to the families who love them and to a country ready to give honor them for their service.”

John Edwards:

"Today, the Senate passed a bill that would fund the war in Iraq while bringing the conflict to a close. Both Houses of Congress have now given voice to the will of the American people that we must end the war in Iraq. The President has said he will veto this legislation, which will defy the American people and deny our troops the funding they need. The President will be the one blocking support for our troops, not Congress. If the President does proceed on this stubborn path, Congress must not back down in a false game of chicken. They should send the same bill back to the President -- and should do this again and again, as many times as it takes for him to understand that the American people are right and the war must be brought to an end."

TPM

   So now we wait for Bush to veto this bill and then start all over again. Bush could care less about what the American people think or want. He is basically telling all of us to go fuck ourselves and that we are stupid!

   IMPEACHMENT of Bush and Cheney is the only way to rid ourselves of this mess. INDICTMENT and IMPRISONMENT would be the next steps.

Tags: John Edwards Barack Obama Senate Iraq withdrawal bill

Bush Sinks To A New Low In WSJ Poll

   WSJ Poll

Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.

   Full poll results HERE

    The polls cannot go down as low as Bush can go.

Tags: Bush polls

Bush's Escalation Is Working-Not!

The Escalation is Working

by Devilstower   Thu Apr 26, 2007    DailyKos

Bombings are up.  US troop deaths are up.  Iraqi troop deaths are up.  Bush / McCain / Lieberman denials of reality are way up.

Clearly, we've escalated.

But what about those statistics that Bush keeps giving?  The ones in which "sectarian murders" have dropped?  Is there anything to it?  You're not going to confirm them with the Iraqi government.  

The Iraqi government has refused to provide the United Nations with civilian casualty figures for its latest report on the hardships facing Iraqis, the U.N. said Wednesday, but numbers from various ministries indicate that more than 5,500 people died in the Baghdad area alone in the first three months of this year.

Hold on, 5,500 dead in Baghdad alone in just three months?  That would be a huge increase.  How could we see an increase in deaths and a "decrease in murders?"  Well... Bush didn't hesitate to form a shadow CIA in the Defense Department. Perhaps he also formed a shadow Baghdad Police Department and determined that 5,000 of those deaths were not murders -- Iraqis have just become very accident prone.

Still, the Bush administration really has managed to pass along democracy to the Iraqis.  The Bush form of democracy.  That is, they've taught the Iraqis to feed their people lies, keep the truth hidden, and spew misinformation like a fountain.

At a news conference to unveil the United Nations' report, spokesman Said Arikat said no "official" reason had been given by the government for not issuing casualty figures. But Ivana Vuco, a U.N. human rights officer, said government officials had made it clear during discussions that they believed releasing high casualty numbers would make it harder for the government to quell unrest.

You see?  Iraqis won't know they're being slaughtered by the thousands without the official statistics to confirm what they can see out their window.  Of course, releasing the actual numbers might also make people realize how ridiculous Bush's talking point really is.  Don't worry.  When it comes to lying, Bush can always escalate.

Tags: Bush escalation:Iraq Baghdad

NY Post Blast Harry Reid On Troop Withdrawal Bill

The problem, said Reid, is that "George W. Bush is still the commander-in-chief - and this is his war."

And there's the real problem: From the start, Reid and the Democrats have seen the war in Iraq as a partisan opportunity.      NYPost

   This is an interesting article from the Post as it is basically another slam on Harry Reid. I will say that the title of the article " Reid's Bloody Hands "  is an eye catcher. After reading this piece of trash, it becomes apparent that none of the writing is remotely true. Just another neocon piece of slime meant to stir up the GOP faithful because we all know that no one in their right minds would fall for this bullshit.

   No matter what the writer ( no name provided ) of this may say or think, the fact of the matter is that this is Bush's war. It is the Republican's war all the way around it! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld lied us into this war and even after this was discovered, none of the Republicans in the House or the Senate dared show even the slightest interest in taking Bush to task for it! This was has been constantly rubber-stamped by the 109th Congress and the Senate, so yes, it is Bush's war and the rest of the Republicans who went along with Bush. We can toss a few Democrats in there also!

That is, a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from the region - if Reid thinks the bug-out would stop at Iraq, he's dumber than he sounds - followed by:

* A rapid, al Qaeda/Iranian-driven descent into regional chaos.

* Most likely, a general war.

* And, almost certainly, a Mideast nuclear-arms race as Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and (probably) Turkey rush to arm themselves in anticipation of an Iranian bomb.

At the very least, Reid has to understand that his rhetoric can only encourage short-run insurgent attacks on Americans in Iraq.

Their blood stands to be on his hands.

  Yes, there will be a general war after the U.S. troops are out. This happens when we leave a country after trashing it for a few years. The governments who supported us usually get spanked by other groups for aiding and abetting the U.S. forces and Iraq will be no different.

   We could stay for another decade or two but the result will be the same when we leave, bloodshed and chaos for awhile but these things tend to work themselves out without interference. Does the writer at the Post suggest that we keep our U.S. troops in Iraq until hell freezes over?

    So far as anyone having blood on their hands, that will not be Harry Reid, John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi or any other Democrat in Congress. That blood squarely belongs to the hands of Resident George W. Bush, Vice Resident Dick Cheney and every other Republican since 2003 if not earlier!

Harry Reid needs to put a cork in it.

Today.

   The writer at the New York Post needs to put a cork in it!

   Today!

 

Tags: New York Post Harry Reid Iraq Iran U.S. troops war funding Congress Bush

 

Iraqis Blame U.S. For Last Wednesdays Bomb-fest

   You remember that? More than 300 people were killed and a series of bombings in Baghdad.

  Here's what some of the Iraqis had to say about this mess.

     IPS NEWS

Kaka Kadir:   "We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for our safety. All we receive from our government and the Americans is talk, and holding other people accountable, while it is them who should protect us."

Hussein Rathman: "Karrada is supposed to be very well protected. It seems there is no hope, and everyone should think seriously of leaving the country."

Jabbar Ahmed (  lawyer/human rights activist ): "The problem is that those Americans are still talking about peace and reconciliation in Iraq. They should just leave the country after all the disappointment people here feel towards them. All they are doing is lying all the time, while Iraqi blood has become so cheap."

    Resident Bush has our military in Iraq to do....? Whatever it is, it isn't working and it hasn't been working for six years. the Iraqi people know this and so does our military so why does Bush not understand this? Idiot maybe?

 

Tags: United States Iraq Baghdad Bush

Condi Rice To Ignore Subpoena ?

   Another Republican shithead who is going to ignore a congressional subpoena to appear before the committee to answer questions. Condi is playing the executive privilege game since she was Bush's national security adviser during the period that Congress has questions about.

Rice said she respected the oversight function of the legislative branch, but maintained she had already testified in person and under oath about claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa during her confirmation hearing for the job of secretary of state.

Rice noted that she had been serving as President Bush"s national security adviser during the period covered by the panel's questions and stressed the administration's position that presidential aides not confirmed by the Senate cannot be forced to testify before Congress under the doctrine of executive privilege.

    Condi Rice:   "This all took place in my role as national security adviser. There is a constitutional principle. There is a separation of powers and advisers to the president under that constitutional principle are not generally required to go and testify in Congress.

"So, I think we have to observe and uphold the constitutional principle, but I also observe and uphold the obligation of Congress to conduct its oversight role, I respect that. But I think I have more than answered these questions, and answered them directly to Congressman Waxman."

      Rice will probably end up pleading the 5th Amendment as so many Republicans are apt to do in the coming months.

Tags: Condi Rice Congress executive privilege Iraq

More Americans Agree With Democrats In Congress When It Comes To Iraq

     We all know that Resident Bush is still in denial about the American public and Iraq.  That this punk thinks the citizens are behind him and his stance on Iraq is certainly shows that the boy is delusional, and/or flat out stupid! I say both.

    NBC/WSJ POLL:

WASHINGTON - As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats.

In addition, a nearly equal number believe that victory in Iraq isn't possible, and about only one in eight think the war has improved in the three months since Bush called for a troop increase there.

Yet the poll shows that 56 percent say they agree more with the Democrats in Congress who want to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, versus the 37 percent who say they agree with Bush that there shouldn't be a deadline.

What's more, 55 percent believe that victory in Iraq isn't possible. And 49 percent say the situation in Iraq has gotten worse in the last three months since Bush announced his so-called troop surge. Thirty-seven percent say the situation has stayed about the same, and just 12 percent think it has improved.       More HERE

     So Harry Reid and 55% of Americans agree, basically, that the Iraq fiasco is a lost cause.

 

Tags: Congress Bush Americans Iraq war

Pelosi Meets With General Petraeus, Subpoenas for RNC And Condi Rice

     House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement today regarding her meeting with Gen. Petraeus on Tuesday.

   From The Gavel

April 25th, 2007 by Office of the Speaker

General Petraeus and I had a very informative half-hour discussion yesterday, which included the assessment of the situation in Iraq that he will share with other House Members today. I appreciated his report and his responses to my questions on security and political issues in Iraq. We share a conviction that the war in Iraq will not be resolved militarily, and I look forward to future reports from him on the effects of President Bush’s escalation plan. ( my emphasis )

April 25th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Having postponed debate on the subpoena for former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card regarding the leaking of covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s identity pending negotiations with White House Counsel Fred Fielding, and having cancelled the subpoena vote for documents regarding White House dealings with MZM in light of new White House responsiveness, the Oversight Committee today approved three subpoenas. Two were for emails and documents from the RNC regarding White House records and improper political use of federal agencies and one was for testimony from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Both subpoenas come after repeated formal requests to which the RNC has been largely unresponsive and to which Secretary Rice has been completely unresponsive.

   Maybe the house should consider sending in the military and dragging Condi Rice out by her ankles!

 

Tags: Nancy Pelosi General Petraeus Iraq Condi Rice RNC subpoenas

 

Letter From U.S. Military Soldier

  Here is what one soldier has to say about the war in Iraq. this comes from Craigslist     Authenticity not assured

Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT
I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.
I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse shit? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box.
You fuckers and that god-damn lying sack of shit they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.
And you know what the most fucked up thing about this Iraq shit is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We fucked up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for.
Oh while I'm good and worked up, the government doesn't even have the decency to help out the soldiers whos lives they ruined. If you really believe the military and the government had no idea the veterans' hospitals were so fucked up, you are a god-damn retard. They don't care about us. We're disposable. We're numbers on a page and they'd rather forget we exist so they don't have to be reminded about the families and lives they ruined while they're sipping their cocktails at another fund raiser dinner. If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they'd bring them home so their families wouldn't have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn't coming home. Because you can't explain it. We're not fighting for our country, we're not fighting for the good of Iraq's people, we're fighting for Bush's personal agenda. Patriotism my ass. You know what? My dad served in Vietnam and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
So I'm pissed. I'm beyond pissed. And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.
Fuck you, war supporters, George W. Bush, and all the god damn mother fuckers who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.

Tags: U.S. military soldier Iraq Bush

More on Reid And Cheney

NYTIMES

In his criticism of Mr. Reid, Mr. Cheney noted that the Democratic leader had said the administration’s troop increase ran counter to the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

The study group said that a troop increase might be advisable if commanders thought it would be useful. But Mr. Cheney failed to mention that it also recommended a withdrawal of combat units by the end of the first quarter of 2008, about the same time envisioned in the legislation.

Defending the legislation up for a vote this week, he ( Reid ) said, “We believe the troops should get every penny they need and we have put our money where our mouth is with supplemental appropriations, but we believe there must be a change of direction in the war in Iraq.”

Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Mr. Reid said.    ( my emphasis )

   Give Mr. Reid some credit here! It isn't everyone who stands up to the White House bullies and slays them with the truth.

   Resident Bush said that the enemy was just waiting for the U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq if they had a withdrawal timeline, which is a crock. By the troops staying in Iraq, the enemy has a great recruiting drive going on and Bush/Cheney know this to be fact. They have never intended to leave Iraq no matter how this " war " went.

   IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

Tags: Harry Reid George Bush Dick Cheney Iraq

 

Karl Rove and Hubble Telescope

   From Daily Kos

by Bill in Portland Maine  Wed Apr 25, 2007

Karl Rove's daily exercise routine

 Light stretching

Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete.  (4 sets)

Cool down

Slim-Fast™ shake

CHEERS to Kodak moments.  Seventeen years ago today, the Hubble space telescope was placed into orbit by the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery.  Click here to view crystal-clear images of galaxies far, far away.  Democrats see the wonder of an evolving universe.  Republicans see potential oil fields and Christian converts.

P.S. Jon Stewart pegs 43's legacy: "Basically, first-term president Bush, you invaded to remove the threat of Saddam Hussein. And you, current president Bush, are there to battle the threat created by the lack of Saddam Hussein."  That'll look good on a plaque.

 

Tags: Karl Rove George Bush Saddam Hussein

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Introduces Article Of Impeachment Against Vice President Cheney

After a series of delays, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a candidate for president in 2008, announced a series of charges against Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington, DC, late in the day. Kucinich alleged that the Vice President had committed a series of impeachable offenses, and he was therefore introducing Articles of Impeachment against Cheney in the Congress today.    The Raw Story

The Ohio Congressman, who is running for president for the second time, noted three charges in his Articles of Impeachment, which were submitted as House Resolution 333. The first concerned manipulation of intelligence about Iraq's threat to the US. The second concerned manipulation of intelligence on the Iraq-Al-Qaida relationship. The last concerned what he called having "openly threatened aggression against the Republican of Iran."

          When asked why he wasn't going after  Resident Bush, Kucinich responded:

"There is a very practical reason - each and every charge relates to Vice President Cheney's conduct or misconduct in office. It is very important that we start with Mr. Cheney because if we were to start with the President, Mr. Cheney would then become president. We'd have to go through the constitutional agony of impeaching two presidents consecutively."                                                                                          

     This will be an interesting action since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that, "And frankly, for impeachment, George W. Bush is just not worth it. We have great work to do for the American people."  Source

     Maybe one or two of the top polling services should poll the American people to see if impeachment would be some of the work for the American people that Pelosi is concerned about.

   I would vote to impeach, but we already know that. What about you?

Tags: Dennis Kucinich Dick Cheney Articles of Impeachment Nancy Pelosi Congress