Wednesday, May 5, 2004

Politics & Truth FEATURED ARTICLES - The Military's Mounting Mental Health Problems, AlterNet ( http://www.alternet.org/ ) - The Betrayal Of A Diplomat, LA Times - The Cult That's Running the Country, By Joseph Wilson, Salon.com QUOTE OF THE DAY "Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the alters of good taste and social stability." - -  William Sloane Coffin (From his book, "Credo") KNOW YOUR HISTORY - MAY 5th 1916 -- Large gathering at Carnegie Hall to celebrate Emma Goldman's release from jail.  At the close of the meeting, 100 typewritten notices are handed out including outlawed info about birth control. 1925 -- Biology teacher John T. Scopes arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in a Tennessee school, a violation of state law. 1930 -- Gandhi is arrested by the British. 1960 -- US spokesman announces the spy plane shot down by the Russians on 1 May was a "weather research plane" & pilot Francis Gary Powers was a "civilian employed by Lockheed." 1981 -- Ireland: Bobby Sands (1954-1981), Irish political prisoner & member of Parliament, dies in Maze Prison near Belfast after 66-day hunger strike asking the British government to grant political prisoner status to Irish Nationalist inmates, instead of treating them as common criminals. RHINO HERE: Most Rhino's Blog readers know of Ambassador Joseph Wilson; his courageous outing of the shrub gang lies about weapons grade plutonium from Niger, & the gang's retaliation on him by outing his wife, Valerie Plume, as a CIA agent.  For key coverage of these stories, review, "Shrub's Fantasy World": Rhino's Blog, September 16, 2003 http://radio.weblogs.com/0103207/2003/09/16.html Recently, Carroll & Graf Publishers released Ambassador Wilson's new book, "The Politics of Truth; Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity."   Today Rhino dedicates the blog to Wilson's continuing courage & patriotism.   To that end, I include Saturday's LA Times book review, and the BOTTOM LINE, an excerpt from the book. This is excellent material to send to Republican friends & relatives. As the LA Times reviewer said it, "This is dissent then not from the radical fringe but from the heart of the establishment." But first, an important piece from Alternet about the mounting mental health problems among our youth in the US Military; the continuing creation of what Rhino deemed last year as:  "The Future Crisis: PTSD" Rhino's Blog, November 26, 2003 http://radio.weblogs.com/0103207/2003/11/26.html The Military's Mounting Mental Health Problems By Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet ( http://www.alternet.org/ ) , April 29, 2004 "A Fort Lewis soldier and veteran of the war in Iraq turned himself in [April 21]... saying he had committed a homicide, a Pierce County sheriff's spokesman said. The soldier's 28-year-old wife subsequently was found dead, apparently from homicidal violence. ...The soldier ... returned to Fort Lewis last month after serving for a year in Iraq with the 555th Combat Engineer Group." - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 22, 2004 Over the past year there have been an unusually high number of suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq, and hundreds of soldiers experiencing psychological problems have been evacuated from the country. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld's recent announcement authorizing the extension - by at least three months - of the tours of duty of some 20,000 soldiers set to return home, and the possibility of intensified urban warfare may add to the stress suffered by soldiers serving in Iraq. In response, the U.S. has increased the use of combat stress control teams, established a toll-free crisis hotline for service members having problems dealing with stress, and set up recuperation centers where soldiers can chill out for a few days before returning to the front lines. Questions about whether these actions are too little too late, and how the soldiers will be treated when they return home remain to be answered... MORE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18556 "SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!" BOOK REVIEW:  The Betrayal Of A Diplomat The Politics of Truth; Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity Joseph Wilson vents his professional and personal rage at the Bush administration in 'The Politics of Truth.' By Tim Rutten, LA Times, May 1, 2004 No administration in history ever has approached its reelection campaign with so many insider accounts of its most sensitive deliberations freely circulating through the country's bookstores and libraries. To the expanding shelf of books that propose descriptions of how President Bush and his advisors did or did not meet the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and of how and why they marshaled the march to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we now can add former ambassador Joseph Wilson's "The Politics of Truth," which goes on sale today... ...His account of his service in Baghdad and of his fierce, face-to-face encounters with Hussein and his foreign minister, Tarik Aziz, are frankly gripping. Wilson's conduct of that mission was deemed heroic by then President George Bush, whose warmly congratulatory letter the author still hangs on his office wall. His work was similarly regarded by then Secretary of State James A. Baker III and national security advisor Brent Scowcroft.  Moreover, Wilson is nobody's fool when it comes to dealing with Hussein. He strongly supported the Persian Gulf War and, up until recently, argued that if evidence of Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction were found, the dictator, whom Wilson flatly labels "a sociopath" had to be confronted with force. Wilson's point, which is repeated at rather too much length in too many fashions in the book's concluding section, is that the administration distorted and lied concerning our intelligence on these issues and then behaved abominably toward his family and others when it was discovered.  The author's rage over this alleged bad conduct - indecency, really - is what animates "The Politics of Truth." He is, at the end of the day, a patriot and a public servant, and he is furious over what he feels is a betrayal of those things. Fair play, trust and good manners matter in the world in which he chose to live his life.  This is dissent then not from the radical fringe but from the heart of the establishment... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-rutten1may01,1,6136422.story 7:12:17 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - The Cult That's Running the Country The Cult That's Running the Country By Joseph Wilson, Salon.com, Monday 03 May 2004 Joseph Wilson blasts the secretive neoconservative cabal that plunged America into a disastrous war, in this excerpt from his new book. After making the Sunday rites of passage on the big television news shows, I began cutting back such appearances. I had answered all the questions that were being asked and had nothing else to offer on the subject. It did not matter, as the Right renewed its attack: I was a publicity seeker. The president lied and the White House had attacked my wife, but I was a publicity seeker. Of course, if it was publicity I was after, my campaign was a flop. Prior to Novak's article, I was still known as the last American diplomat to have met with Saddam Hussein. Now I had become Mr. Valerie Plame. "Welcome to the Dennis Thatcher club," a husband of a well-known woman said to me, a reference to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's spouse. The press coverage was very positive toward Valerie and me. So was the outpouring of support from across the political spectrum, from Pat Buchanan on the right to Jesse Jackson on the left. Serious people understood what had happened. It was only a small cadre of right-wing zealots and the White House itself that continued trying to spin the story and make of it something it was not. I was particularly offended when President Bush, asked about the leak on October 7, claimed, "I want to know the truth." However, eager to place the responsibility upon journalists rather than shoulder it himself, he added, "You tell me: How many sources have you had that's leaked information, that you've exposed or had been exposed?" He added, "Probably none," making it clear that his question had been only a rhetorical one. Bush capped off his comments that day with a statement that infuriated me, and many people whom I later heard from: "This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials ... I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers." His lack of genuine concern stunned and disappointed me... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/050404B.shtml "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:08:56 AM    comment

© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.