Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Re: Gore Vidal Interview With Democracy Now! Dear Friends: I'll be travelling on business through next Tuesday the 15th, and will not be publishing the newsletter during that time. So here' s a treat for you, in my absence. Should you choose a more leisurely read, you can visit The War and Peace Watch web site at warandpeacewatch.com and go to the "Newsletter section." See you next week -  Otoño Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, recently interviewed Gore Vidal, during which they spoke about September 11, the 2000 Election, and the War on Iraq. Gore Vidal is one of America's most prolific and best-known writers, and has written more than 22 books and more than 200 essays. Vidal is the author most recently of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta. Writing in the Scotsman, critic Gavin Esler called Perpetual War "the finest serious critique of America's use and abuse of power in the 21st century that I have read." __________________________________ Democracy Now! May 13, 2003 Gore Vidal on the "United States of Amnesia," 9/11, the 2000 Election and the War in Iraq An Interview with Gore Vidal by Amy Goodman Gore Vidal is one of America's most prolific and best-known writers. He has written more than 22 books and more than 200 essays -- a collection of his essays won the National Book Award in 1993. Vidal is the author most recently of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta. Taken together, the books constitute a comprehensive attack on Americas imperialist ambitions and the military industrial complex. Writing in the Scotsman, critic Gavin Esler called Perpetual War "the finest serious critique of America's use and abuse of power in the 21st century that I have read." Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman recently met up with Gore Vidal for an extensive interview. The interview aired on May 13, 2003. GORE VIDAL:The United States is not a normal country. We are a homeland now under military surveillance and military control. The President asked the Congress right after 9-11 not to conduct a major investigation. "As it might deter our search for terrorism wherever it might be in the world." So Congress obediently rolled over. There was, I remember, Pearl Harbor. I was a kid then. And within three years of it I enlisted in the army. That's what we did in those days; we did not go off to the Texas Air Force and hide. I realize the country has totally changed, that the government is not responsive to the people. Either in protecting us from something like 9-11, which they should've done, could've done. Did not do. And then when it did happen, to investigate, investigate, investigate. So I wrote two little books, one called Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, in which I try to go into the why Osama Bin Laden, if it were he, or whoever it was, why it was done. And I wrote anther one, Dreaming War, on why we were not protected on 9-11, which ordinarily would have led to the impeachment of the President of the United States who had allowed it to happen. They said they had no information. Since then every day the New York Times prints another mountain of people that say they had warned the government, President Putin of Russia, he had warned us, President Mubarek, of Egypt, he had warned us, three members of Mossad claim they had come to the US to warn us that sometime in September something unpleasant might come out of the sky in our direction. Were we defended? No we were not defended. Has this ever been investigated? No, it hasn't. There was some attempt at the midterm election, there was a pro forma committee in Congress which has done nothing thus far, and we"¹re three years later. This is shameful. The media, which is controlled by the great conglomerates, which control the political system, has done an atrocious job of reporting, though sometimes good stories get in. I've worn my eyes out studying the Wall Street Journal, which despite its dreadful editorial policies is a pretty good newspaper of record, which the New York Times is not. If you read the Wall Street Journal very carefully you can pretty much figure out what happened that day. At the time the first hijacking, according to law, FAA, it is mandatory within four minutes of a hijacking, fighter planes from the nearest air military base go up to scramble, that means go up and force the plane down, find out who they are, find out what's happening. One hour and 50 minutes I think it was, no fighter plane went up. During that hour and 20 minutes, we lost the two towers, and one side of the Pentagon. Why didn't they go up? No description from the government, no excuse, a lot of mumbling stories which were then retracted, new stories replaced them. That to me was the end of the republic. We no longer had a Congress which would ask questions, which it was in place to do of the executive. We have a commander in chief who likes strutting around in military uniform, which no commander ever did, as they are supposed to be civilians keeping charge of the military. This thing is surrealistic now and it is getting nastier and nastier, as we are more and more kept in the dark about those things which most affect us, which are war and peace, prosperity and poverty. These are the main things that the government should look after. And we the people should be told about them. We have been told nothing. And every voice is silent. So I wrote two little books, which were then noticed by people who like to look at the Internet, and then a few hundred thousand people have bought them. And I don't come out with conspiracy theories, I never became a journalist, I am a historian. Because journalists give you their opinions. And pretend they're facts. I don't give you my opinions because they may be valuable to my mother, but they are of no value to anybody else. But I give you the facts as I find them, and I list them and they're quite deadly. This government is culpable of, if nothing less, negligence. Why were we not protected with all the air bases' fighter planes up and down the eastern seaboard? Not one of them went aloft while the hijackings took place. Finally two from Otis Field in Massachusetts arrived at the twin towers I think at the time the second one was hit. If anybody had been thinking, they would have gone on the Washington to try to prevent the attack on the Pentagon. They went back to Otis, back to Massachusetts. So I ask these questions, which Congress should ask, does not ask, which the press should ask, but is too frightened. It's a reign of terror now. AMY GOODMAN: A recent expose shows that even a Congressional Committee that's looking into this can't get a hold of documents that are classified, and even public testimony is now being reclassified. GORE VIDAL: Well isn't it pretty clear that the dictatorship is in place. We're not supposed to know certain things and we're not going to know them. They're doing everything to remove our history, to damage the Freedom of Information Act. Bush managed to have a number of Presidential papers, including those of his father, put out of the reach of historians, or anybody for a great length of time, during which they will probably be shredded, so they will never be available. And what I have always called jokingly the United States of Amnesia will be worse then an amnesiac it will have suffered a lobotomy, there will be no functioning historical memory of our history. AMY GOODMAN: How has George Bush accrued so much power? GORE VIDAL: Well, the election of 2000 was the end of the republic. It was the second time that it happened that somebody who got the popular vote did not get the election. 1876, when Governor Tilden, a Democrat of New York, won the election. But they were able -- we still had troops in the south -- they were able to turn the election around, the electoral college, Tilden didn't want another Civil War, so he just withdrew, but there was no sinister group taking charge, it was just a party group of Republicans who wanted to continue the reign of General Grant. That was mildly sleazy. This is major corruption. This is corporate America, as one, putting in place a president who was not elected. Getting the Supreme Court to delay and delay, when under the 10th amendment, every decision about the voting in Florida, should be made by the Florida Supreme Court. Not the U.S. Supreme Court, which the Constitution rules out in matters of election. AMY GOODMAN: How did that happen? Well isn't he your relative, Al Gore? GORE VIDAL: That's nothing that I go through the streets boasting of no, but yes, he's my cousin. And very un-Gore. The Gores are known for their belligerence and he is not known for self-defense let us say. He should have asked ­ it's easy to say he should've, but it was pretty clear at the time. I would've, and I've been in that situation ­ to count the total Florida vote. He has every right to demand that, and they couldn't have played games, cause it's too big of a vote. Instead he asked I think three counties, Dade and Brower and one other, to do their count over again. AMY GOODMAN: Concern that he wouldn't win outside of those? GORE VIDAL: No I think he figured that he had won those, Dade is certainly a large minority vote, which had all voted for him, there's a wonderful book by [John] Nichols, called Jews for Buchanan, and it's a marvelous shot of four Jewish gentlemen looking terribly alarmed, and you see Dade County goes for Buchanan. And even Buchanan goes 'these are not my votes down there, something's wrong.' And it was stolen by the Secretary of State, that lady who now has been rewarded with a seat in Congress, the president's brother, the losing president candidate's brother, was governor, and he took part in it. And the court did by five to four. Two of the five should have recused themselves, should have just withdrawn from the case when Gore vs. Bush came before the court. Why? One of them, [Anthony] Scalia, had a son, who was working for the Bush team of lawyers before the Supreme Court. Did Justice Scalia recuse himself as he should because his son is arguing? No. He wants to kill Gore. He wants to make sure that the bad guys win. Thomas' wife was busy, getting Curricula Viti of potential people to serve in a Bush administration. Clarence Thomas should have recused himself and withdrawn for the case, in which case it would have been 4 to 3 for Gore, who would now be president. And Iraq and Afghanistan I can guarantee would not have been knocked down, in order to benefit Halliburton and Bechtel. AMY GOODMAN: Scalia recently went to Cleveland, he spoke at the Cleveland City Club, which is known as the oldest free speech forum in the country, he allowed no press in, and the night before he spoke in the city, and he said that that vote, choosing George Bush, was his proudest moment. GORE VIDAL: I would impeach him and in a well-run country the Senate should make a move toward the trial of Justice Scalia. And in back of that there's some interesting organization going on, which is hard to determine, Opus Dei, both Scalia and Thomas have connections with Opus Dei, a secret Catholic order, originally fascist. General Franco is Spain was sort of a Godfather to it, and we don't know much about it, and it's all over the place, about 80,000 worldwide, Louis Freeh of the FBI at that time was a member, as was Mr. [Robert] Hanssen, the spy, who had been giving all of our secrets, he was with the CIA, he had been giving our secrets to the Russians for many years. I make no charges, but I simply bring up questions, why not ask questions of these people. Does it suit Opus Dei that Bush is President? Now we're getting into God territory, which I normally would stay away from as any good American should, it's not my business other people's religions. But Bush is Born Again, that's why he used biblical language. (imitating Bush) "He's evil! He's an evildoer!" Well that's theological language. You can say he's a bad man, a dishonest man, a ruthless man. Evildoer? And he believes the end of the world is coming. Born Agains believe in rapture, they don't care about this world. When it ends George W. Bush will be lifted up in a state of rapture into the bosom of our lord. Also among the born-again category, not that kind of protestant, is Tony Blair, who has become likes his wife, Roman Catholic, which is difficult for a British Prime Minister, since the Prime Minister is supposed to be an Anglican ­ what we would call Episcopalian -- as he picks the Bishops of the Anglican Church, so you can't have a Roman Catholic picking Anglican Bishops, but he is. So now we have two boys who think "Jesus wants them for sunbeams," who are willing to put at risk -- I'm extrapolating on my own just from the evidence at hand. This is mostly humorous. You can judge it as you may -- But two believers in our Lord's coming, an Armageddon and the end of the world -- this is the way the Reagan used to talk -- and it made him very popular with the southern states, that's why this big thing was just about South Carolina that's the heart of it ­ why? Well those states don't have much in the way of population, but they have very strong born-again Evangelical Protestants, and they believe in our Lord returning at any moment, and if you can collect them all, by saying you hate abortion and this and that. They have a swing vote in those states because of the Electoral College, they don't have much population, but they have a lot of electoral votes among them. The Electoral College was devised -- you call yourself democracy, you're very un-American, the founding fathers did not want democracy in the US ever. They also did not want tyranny, a king or Hitler, they wanted a Republic. And they devised the Electoral College so the majority could never control anything. So you have a popular vote out there and in those days it was just for congress, so there was one electoral vote per congressmen, one per senator and the state, and they get together and decide the election. So what Scalia was doing was going back to the Electoral College in order to put together a majority to put in his candidate who will probably hasten the end of the world. I don't know where Scalia will be during rapture. He may be [points up and points down.] AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about religion, you've written about Pat Robertson and John Ashcroft. GORE VIDAL: Yes I have, they are very religious men. The wall that Thomas Jefferson thought that he had built, as did John Adams who was pretty much an antagonist of Jefferson, but they were both agreed that religion ought not to in any way intrude itself into politics, it was something quite separate, whatever your religion, you obeyed its laws, if you believed in those laws and nobody would stop you. But once you start raising money in tax free institutions, who's tax-free money you use to influence elections, like Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Falwell then you are out of the constitution, and you should be taxed anyway before you use it, but they are free of taxation and with that the whole country began to change and this very small minority of Evangelicals, mostly in the south and southwest, have achieved great power, in states of small population where their electoral college count, state by state, adds up to quite a lot, in fact added up to a Bush "victory." AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, you've said, I don't see us winning this war, you've also said that this will force Saddam Hussein to use whatever weapons of mass destruction he may have. Maybe you were prophetic, and maybe in fact that was true that if he had them he would have used them, and he didn't. GORE VIDAL: Well, it's pretty plain he didn't have them, nobody in Europe thought he did. The Europeans at least have a free press which we don't, or most of the countries there do. I said he probably would, if we pressed him hard enough. You see when you live with nothing but lies being told to you in the media, nothing but lies, and it's done the way they do advertising, it's repetition: "Weapons of mass destruction! He's got weapons of mass destruction! Mass destruction! Mass destruction! Mass destruction!" When you hear that 10,000 times a day, you finally think he must have, they can't go on like this forever, well he didn't have them, now I'm sure we're busy planting them all over the place, and we'll be: "Oh look what we found! Goodness me! Here's at Atom Bomb! Made in USA. No, scratch that out, scratch that out. He made that mark." I fully expect us to plant something or other, but as it's the United States of Amnesia, why go to the trouble, it's expensive to have troops going around looking for stuff. I think they think the public will have forgotten it, I think the public is forgetting it, doesn't much care. I thought when I said that we would lose the war, I still think we will. Afghanistan the fighting is going on, rather rougher then it was during the so-called war. It will keep right on going as long as we have a presence in Iraq. And we will eventually be driven out. Somebody will have a bright idea, one of those neo-conservatives, we know what they're like, and will decide to kill everybody there, that this would be a very good thing to do. Gotta show force. And all these sissies, all of whom who ran from the idea of going into the army, talk so tough when they get together, we're gonna show our muscle , you look at Mr. Crystal, and Mr., who's the sidekick who rides with him? Fat Boys With Asthma, talking tough, it makes their blood run cold. So I think that we haven't a chance of winning in the Middle East, nobody has, nobody except the Turks, with the Ottoman Empire, which Woodrow Wilson, one of the great fools of our history, decided to break up at the end of WWI, so we get Turkey, which turns out to be really quite a formidable country now, and broke up bits and pieces, into Syria, and Jordan, into this into that, which became British and French mandates, and are now countries which are uneasy, with all sorts of warring religious groups. AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, you developed a relationship with Timothy McVeigh. Can you talk about that? GORE VIDAL: I never met him, nor did we talk on the telephone, but we did exchange letters, he read a piece I wrote in Vanity Fair, about the shredding of the Bill of Rights, which has been further shredded since his death, and he wrote me a letter, and I wrote him back, and he wrote me some very informative letters about himself, he was very smart, knew the constitution backwards and forwards. I was struck by reading about his trial, at first I had no interest, he was the lone crazed killer, that our public must always have, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, we all know that, you can get the Warren Commission to say that, he was obviously not alone. But that worked so well that, the people always fall for it every time, so they decided that Timothy McVeigh, a rather slight young man, with no knowledge of explosives, had put together this two ton bomb, which he himself, and this guy called Nichols loaded on a Ryder truck -- it took at least 9 people it's been figured out, to get that bomb onto that truck, and then a very careful, experienced driver to get that thing without blowing himself up into Oklahoma City in front of the building. He was not alone, and we have a pretty good idea of some of the people he was associated with who might have been in on it. The FBI began quite professionally, they had infiltrated a lot of these Patriot movements out there in the middle-west, people who don't like the government and others who were as angry, as was McVeigh at what the federal government had done to the Branch Dividians at Waco, for McVeigh this was revenge upon at what he regarded was an odious government, a tyrannical government, he had gone out there and watched them using military, army stuff. And remember he was an army hero of the Gulf War, and he watched them break the law. The Posse Commitus Act of 1876. and in one of the letters to me, these are all reprinted in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, if you want to read McVeigh's actual words about it. He said 'You know soldiers are trained to kill. The police are trained to protect persons and property. These are two different functions. The justice dept. called in the army. They wanted tanks and all sorts of things, army material. With which they shot up the buildings that fired oil and people died.' There was once again no proper investigation. In the course of McVeigh's trial, which was a kind of joke, the FBI behaved pretty well, they had a lot of interesting leads, 305s I think they're called, they take down the evidence that people give them, directions in which to look and so on. They followed up nothing. And I wrote Louis Freeh who was then the head of the FBI, a letter which I include in the little book, a letter which I read aloud on the Today Show, just to make sure that he saw it, no answer, but I said there's certain very interesting leads here, and this is all from evidence at the pre-trials, which anybody can get at, and I said these should have been investigated, but they weren't, they decided it was McVeigh and that was it. Now a couple of days ago we find out that the FBI was faking it, some anti-McVeigh stuff in their labs, trying to prove that he built the bomb, that he had ammonia on his trousers or something. Well he may well have been in on it, I don't know, I'm not a prophet, but my impression is that he could not have done it alone. So there were others to follow up, and on television I said you've got to start doing your job, at the FBI, at the Justice Department, your job is to protect persons and property. You didn't follow up there may be 100 McVeighs out there, waiting to take another crack at us. And you did nothing, cause you want to unload Gray's killer, and you wanted the book shut (SHUTS A BOOK). So what sort of government is this. I'd say a bad one. AMY GOODMAN: What effect do you thin that the Persian Gulf was had on Timothy McVeigh? It said that he was involved with bulldozing people in the highway of death, as Iraqi soldiers retreated after surrender. GORE VIDAL: Well he was shocked by it, he also got the Bronze Star, he was a great marksman, and he did his share of shooting soldiers, but he was appalled at the civilians, the children. That's why it's so ironic, 'oh, he killed all those children,' as though he got up in the morning to kill all the children in the nursery in that building. He says in one of his statements, he finally says, I did it, because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in a box, he could live 30-40 more years and then as he wrote me, I'd rather have federally assisted suicide, which is how he termed the injection in the arm, then a lifetime in a box. Because he saw there was no way out. He could have sung, but he didn't, he could have said who else was involved in this, but he did not. He was a complex character, and endlessly interesting I thought, and he should have been kept alive, so we could find out who these other people were. AMY GOODMAN: Would you put Timothy McVeigh in the same category as Mohammed Atta? GORE VIDAL: No no no. We don't know that story either. Mohammad Atta was obviously a Muslim zealot. Also in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace there's another question that goes unanswered, the head of the Pakistan Secret Service, was in Washington a week or so before 9-11, while he was there, it was just a ceremonial visit with the head of the CIA, they worked together, he sent back word to Islamabad about one of his henchman, to wire $100,000 to Mohammad Atta in the United States, which was duly done. The FBI, I think it was the Wall Street Journal where I got the story from, only said American Secret Services found out about this, they complained to the Pakistani Government. 'What is the head of the Secret Service in Washington telling somebody to send $100,000 to a guy that we now know was the lead bomber, lead hijacker just a week before 9-11.' Times of India published the whole story, Wall Street Journal did a pretty good version for them, now shouldn't that be examined? Wouldn't Congress be interested in this guy in Washington meeting with all our top secret people? Says ok, send him $100,000. Not one more word, not one more word. Now in a country with any curiosity, in a public that was informed of anything, there would be a great deal of outcry. I couldn't imagine this happening in England, maybe questions in Parliament, the papers would be full of it until it was solved. It couldn't happen in Italy, which dearly loves a conspiracy, or Germany. In the U.S., everybody listens to 19th Century Fox TV News. In which a bunch of loons just scream and scream and scream. And with each scream they tell another lie. How are we ever going to have an informed citizenry? Which means then how can we have an informed election? AMY GOODMAN: So what's it like for you, Gore Vidal, to go back and forth between Italy and the United States through this period. GORE VIDAL: Let's clear up one thing. The right wing has been desperate to explain to Americans that I live in Italy, that I'm an ex-patriot. "He hates America." Just because I dislike them. I've had a house in California for 30 years. I've had a house in Southern Italy for 30 years. Sometimes I'm there when I'm working, but I've always been involved in American politics, and American history. That's a fact that you can look at a long line of books, to attest to that fact. The idea of geography is very exciting to people, because I think it's only 7% of the American people have passports, only 7% have been abroad. Not counting the ones who were sent in the military of course, but 7% have voluntarily gone abroad. It's a tiny percent of those in congress who've been abroad. Bush had never set foot in Europe before he became President. He had spent 10 minutes in China when his father was Ambassador there, and obviously never went outside of the compound. What I have to do lot of times in Europe is explain to them that Americans are not stupid, when they meet them, they think they're very stupid because they don't know anything, I have to explain the them that we're not stupid, I think we're rather brighter then the average, but we're ignorant, which means not knowing, we have no information because it isn't given to us. Our public schools are a scandal, they stopped teaching geography in 1950 in most of the public schools, by which time we were a global empire, we have a global empire and nobody knows where anything is, nobody knows any languages, so our statesmen go abroad and people laugh at them, because they are so dumb, or seem to be so dumb. © Democracy Now! _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:46:07 PM

Re: Tom Hayden on the "Q" Word Dear Friends: Contrary to the expectations promoted by Bush and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not a cakewalk. Jay Garner is gone. The cheering Iraqis with flowers never appeared. And what of those weapons of mass destruction? We've resorted to bribing and threatening informants to produce something we can claim as justification for our invasion of Iraq. The perfect summing up of this whole mess was made by General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week when he said that "intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. I mean, that's not what intelligence is." ____________________ AlterNet July 7, 2003   Say It: This Is a Quagmire by Tom Hayden On the day U.S. soldiers occupied Baghdad, draped the American flag over Saddam Hussein's statue and pulled it down, 103 GIs had died in the Iraq war. The number killed since that supposedly triumphal moment on April 9 may double in this coming week, in a war that an American general now admits is ongoing. The total number of American soldiers killed since the toppling of Saddam's statue is 93 by July 4, including the nine Americans killed in the bombing in Saudi Arabia. That makes a total of 196 dead so far, not including the six British soldiers killed last month. The media is being forced to recognize this reality, but continues to minimize the numbers. Using the definition "killed in hostile encounters" and May 1 as the date when President Bush declared the cessation of hostilities, the reported death toll is lowered to "about 24" Americans, according to the New York Times front-page spin based on figures from Paul Bremer III. (NYT, July 4). The official non-fatal casualty number acknowledged since May 1 is 177 Americans. Most of the dead and wounded are grunts, "low-ranking ground troops who are performing mundane activities like buying a video, going out on patrol, or guarding a trash pit." The manipulation of the American body count, like the earlier manipulation of the costs of war and occupation, only feeds the growing anger among military personnel and their families, as cited in the New York Times. During the Vietnam war, troop demoralization rose as Americans continued to die while President Nixon promised that the war was winding down. A similar phenomenon appears to be happening already in the 115-degree temperatures of occupied Iraq. No one wants to sacrifice his life for President Bush after he's held an aircraft-carrier press conference declaring "mission accomplished." No family wants the death of a son or daughter minimized to airbrush the President's victory image. Contrary to the expectations promoted by the Administration and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not a cakewalk. Remember Jay Garner? Gone. Remember the cheering Iraqis with flowers? Never appeared. Remember the nukes and weapons of mass destruction? We're bribing and threatening informants. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that "intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. I mean, that's not what intelligence is." No one in the media, military or political establishment can use the "Q-word" apparently, for fear of dredging up the images of Vietnam that they have been trying to erase for the past generation. Quagmire is not a metaphor for Vietnam, but has a specific meaning. It is a strategic defeat. The occupier can't declare victory and can't withdraw. It's too early to be certain, but quagmire is becoming an accurate description of the American crisis: ***The occupation forces are stretched thin, forced into non-military roles such as policing and infrastructure repair, which makes them vulnerable to small-scale ambushes. A single suicide bomber could wreak havoc; ***the occupation forces cannot withdraw, for that would mean humiliation and failure; ***nor can the occupation forces expand significantly, not only for political reasons, but because they are bogged down in Afghanistan, Bosnia and many smaller destination spots in the U.S. Empire; ***the original plan for installing a new regime has stalled for reasons never adequately explained. Gen. Garner was forced out, and the Pentagon's favorite government-in-exile led by Ahmed Chalabi is marginalized and quarreling. ***Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, the imperial mindset is dangerously incapable of understanding its opposition. The Iraqis must be fighting not because they oppose the occupation but because Saddam Hussein is secretly manipulating them from hiding. ***The most dangerous characteristic of quagmires is that there is no way out for the occupiers except through acknowledging the mistake. The longer the denial, the worse the quagmire. ***Opposition parties like the Democrats become sunk in quagmire as well. Some of them can declare "I told you so," but they fear the consequences of an American military withdrawal. ***Often, it takes the military, starting with the soldiers on the ground, to bring the nature of the quagmire to public attention. That may be beginning to happen. Last week, military officials needed military escorts to escape "seething spouses" at a military base in Georgia. (NYT, July 4) Ending a quagmire eventually requires a strong peace movement and public frustration. The American people have little patience with quagmires, at least those with televised casualties. That is why the percentage of Americans who think the war is going badly has shot up from 13 percent to 42 percent since Bush declared it over. In a quagmire, when body counts, costs and credibility are sufficiently worrisome, politicians step forward with plans to save the larger system by strategic retreat. This trapped imperial mindset is always on display in Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, edited by aristocratic neo-conservatives like William Kristol, as in the glory days after President Bush's media adventure aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "Victory!" proclaimed the neo-cons, for "The Restoration of American Awe and the Opening of the Arab Mind." (May 12, 2003). Sounding unconsciously like the Crusades, the magazine announced proudly that we had taken away Saddam's "hayba," his aura of invincible authority. The danger to America and the world is that the Bush Administration believes this analysis, which is nothing more than a projection of our own insecurities onto Saddam as the Other. It is the Bush Administration, after all, that insists on projecting an American hayba, or image of invincibility, as its new National Security Strategy. Who knows, the Americans may overpower the remaining Iraqi resistance, get the electricity and water running in due time, set up some Fort Apache outposts, manage to make the media withdraw, and create another ... Afghanistan. But for now, it's time to break through the denial of the media and the politicians before more Americans die while guarding Baghdad trash pits. It's time to call it what it is, a deepening quagmire. --Tom Hayden is a veteran progressive activist and politician. He has written nine books, including the just published "Irish on the Inside. " © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============== 5:45:27 PM

Re: Bush Admits Error Dear Friends: The Bush administration has finally acknowledged that he should not have alleged in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend Bush's claims in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence. The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war anyway against Iraq later that month. __________________________ The Washington Post July 8, 2003 White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy by Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time yesterday that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. The statement was prompted by publication of a British parliamentary commission report, which raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security. The British panel said it was unclear why the British government asserted as a "bald claim" that there was intelligence that Iraq had sought to buy significant amounts of uranium in Africa. It noted that the CIA had already debunked this intelligence, and questioned why an official British government intelligence dossier published four months before Bush's speech included the allegation as part of an effort to make the case for going to war against Iraq. The findings by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee undercut one of the Bush administration's main defenses for including the allegation in the president's speech -- namely that despite the CIA's questions about the assertion, British intelligence was still maintaining that Iraq had indeed sought to buy uranium in Africa. Asked about the British report, the administration released a statement that, after weeks of questions about the president's uranium-purchase assertion, effectively conceded that intelligence underlying the president's statement was wrong. "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House. The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend the president's remarks in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence. As part of his case against Iraq, Bush said in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war against Iraq later that month. It subsequently emerged that the CIA the previous year had dispatched a respected former senior diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson, to Niger to investigate the allegation and that Wilson had reported back that officials in Niger denied the story. The administration never made Wilson's mission public, and questions have been raised over the past month over how the CIA characterized his conclusion in its classified intelligence reports inside the administration. The report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee followed weeks of hearings by the panel into two intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons programs -- one published in September and the other in January -- that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair used to justify supporting the administration in going to war against Iraq. Questions about the British government's handling of intelligence have mirrored many of the issues being raised in the United States. But they have created a far greater political uproar in London. Parliament's response has been notably different than that of Congress. The House and Senate intelligence panels have moved cautiously, with Democrats and Republicans divided over the necessity of full-blown public hearings into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. The House of Commons moved quickly to investigate the matter, with the Blair government battling accusations that it misled Parliament and members of the Labor Party in persuading them to support an unpopular war. The commission's report issued yesterday found that Blair and his other key ministers "did not mislead" Parliament in describing the threat from Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But the panel did find that the Blair government mishandled intelligence material on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The panel said it is too soon to determine whether the government's assertions about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs will be borne out, but added that the government's actions "were justified by the information available at the time." In a major political issue within Britain, the panel found that Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, "did not exert or seek to exert improper influence" in drafting the September intelligence report or a key statement in the document that "the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes if ordered to do so." The panel did find that this statement "did not warrant the prominence given to it" in the first pages of the dossier because it was based on "intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The panel asked the Blair government to explain why it was given such a prominent position in the report. A senior administration official said yesterday that a classified version of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs, completed last September, contains references to intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from three African countries, not just Niger. The other two countries are Namibia and Gabon, according to intelligence sources. The sources said the reports about other countries have not been confirmed and that some government analysts do not consider the information reliable. A senior intelligence official said that there were reports of "possible attempts" by Iraqis or their agents to buy uranium, but that "they were all somewhat sketchy." One Bush administration official said British and U.S. intelligence agencies got their Niger documents from the intelligence service of one country that he refused to name, but that others have identified as Italy. "We both had one source reporting through some liaison service which said, 'Look what we found,' " this official said. "There were other [intelligence] reporting streams, but it may be that all streams are traced to the same source." © 2003 The Washington Post Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) =========================== 5:45:01 PM

Re: A Second George Custer Dear Friends: International columnist and broadcaster Eric Margolis cannot resist comparing George Bush to that infamous, and self-deluded American commander, General George Armstrong Custer. Both arrogantly tried to impose their wills upon a foreign people, with disaster and heartbreak as the result. Custer did not go down in the annals of history as a noble hero. Neither will Bush. _____________________________ Big Eye July 7, 2003 `Bring'em on Bush' by Eric S. Margolis Vancouver - Here in Canada's `make love, not war' capitol, I am reminded of a French reader who asked me last week, `why was President Clinton impeached for making love, while Bush goes unpunished for making a war over weapons that didn't exist?' Excellent question, monsieur. Asked on TV this week about steadily mounting attacks on US occupation forces in Iraq, Bush narrowed his eyes, and hunched forward aggressively - thrilling his ardent fans from Biloxi to Paducah - and growled, `Bring'em on!,' a call to battle worthy of the famously dimwitted general, George Armstrong Custer who, like Bush, knew what he knew and didn't need advice.. As a US Army vet, listening to such adolescent boasting from a man who never heard a shot fired in anger outside of downtown Washington DC made me gag. Bush, let's recall, dodged real military service during the Vietnam War by making occasional appearances at the Texas Air National Guard. Watching him play John Wayne at Iwo Jima for the benefit of his adoring core voters, many of whom believe Elvis still lives, made me realize how much American politics have been debased by the double whammy of catch-me-if-you can Bill Clinton and truth-deprived George Bush. I mention these points because I am appalled watching Bush and his neo-conservative handlers pursue an imperial war in Iraq that will kill or wound growing numbers of American GI's and turn Iraq into the ugly twin of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Decent, honest, good-natured American soldiers are now being turned into an iron-fisted colonial occupation army. All colonial wars - Algeria, Chechnya, Kashmir, Aceh, Palestine - are similar. Occupying forces in these dirty wars became brutalized, sadistic and cynical. Look back at Vietnam. I shudder watching American GI's kicking down doors of civilian homes in the dead of night, threatening screaming children with their weapons, hooding and beating suspects, firing into crowds of unarmed demonstrators, and calling air strikes on villages. As night follows day, this nasty war will lead, as all colonial wars do, to torture of prisoners, masked informers, mass reprisals against civilians, secret executions. That's what happened in Indochina, and is already taking shape in occupied Iraq. Just this week, Amnesty International sharply rebuked the US for brutalizing and humiliating captives. Bush's claims that mounting attacks on US forces in Iraq are the work of Saddam loyalists and `terrorists' belong in the same trash bin as White House lies about weapons of mass destruction. Yes, there are some Baath Party loyalists fighting US occupation, but so are many more ordinary Iraqis who are reacting as would any other proud people to invasion of their nation. George Bush has well and truly stuck the US into twin quagmires in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These ongoing guerillas wars and their logistical support now tie down some 175,000 men, fully one third of total US ground forces. Back in the 1980's, Osama bin Laden preached that the only way to drive the US from the Muslim World was to bleed it in a score of small guerilla wars. Bush, who now threatens to attack Iran, is falling right into bin Laden's strategic trap. Bravo, Mr President. Iraq is not Vietnam, but we see disturbing reminders of America's Indochina debacle. US pro-consul for Iraq, Paul Bremer just requested more troops, shades of Gen. William Westmoreland. Roads in Iraq are increasingly unsafe. Attacks against US military forces are both of the amateur, spontaneous kind, and well-organized assaults by former military men. Corruption, civic collapse, and political chaos hang over everything. The Iraqi oil that was supposed to be instantly plundered to pay for the Bush-Wolfowitz colonial adventure, and enrich powerful Republican corporate political donors, is barely being pumped due to sabotage. Faced by the growing mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Administration is trying to emulate its role model, the late, unlamented British Empire by hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work in Iraq. Washington is offering billions to India and Pakistan to send 15,000 troops each to pacify Iraq's unruly natives. No one in the west will care if Indian or Pak mercenaries skin Iraqis alive or burn down their homes. Other nations like Poland, Italy and Bulgaria, are being pressured, bribed, or lured with offers of a share of Iraq's oil to send token forces to help pull Bush's chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq. Canada has been browbeaten into sending troops to increasingly dangerous Afghanistan where they have no useful mission other than protecting the widely detested regime of US-installed puppet ruler, Hamid Karzai. The longer US forces stay in Iraq, the uglier the war will get. And the more Americans will realize they were led into this needless conflict by a second George Custer manipulated by a cabal of neo-conservatives. --You may email Mr. Margolis at: margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com You may write to him at: Eric Margolis c/o Editorial Department The Toronto Sun 333 King St. East Toronto Ontario Canada M5A 3X5 Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2003 BigEye.com, Inc. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:44:35 PM