craig cline: The War and Peace Watch

The War and Peace Watch Revisited....

Tue, 12 Oct 2004 00:03:18 GMT

From the War and Peace Watch Newsletter
April 5, 2004

Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office

Iraq is in danger of costing George Bush his presidency, and the Coalition Provisional Authority's media staff are determined to see that does not happen. Inside the palace hall that serves as the press office of the US-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq, striving to ensure that Americans receive a positive spin on the administration's invasion, occupation, and reconstruction of Iraq. The office is packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees, and ex-Capitol Hill staffers, with one-third of the US civilian workers in the press office having GOP ties. So much for "fair and balanced."
_________________________

Associated Press
April 4, 2004

AP: Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office
by Jim Krane

Baghdad, Iraq (AP) - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq. Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers.

One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election effort with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics.

One of the main goals of the Office of Strategic Communications - known as stratcom - is to ensure Americans see the positive side of the Bush administration's invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, where 600 U.S. soldiers have died and a deadly insurgency thrives.

``Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,'' one press release in late March said in its headline. Another statement last month cautioned, ``The Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television.''

Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said his office is guided by ethical ``red lines'' that prevent it from crossing into the Bush campaign.

``We have an obligation to communicate with the U.S. Congress and the American people, given that they're spending almost $20 billion in Iraq and have committed over 100,000 U.S. troops here,'' Senor said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Earlier in his career, after Hebrew University and Harvard Business School, Senor was with the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with Bush family ties and big defense industry holdings. Senor jogged in a Thanksgiving Day race here wearing a ``Bush-Cheney 2004'' T-shirt.

Known as the Green Room, the press office is inside coalition headquarters in the Republican Palace that used to belong to Saddam Hussein. The palace is in central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

The office counts 21 Republicans - 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush administration before their Iraq posting - among its 58 U.S. civilian staffers, according to figures Senor provided.

More than half a dozen CPA officials in the press office worked on Bush's 2000 presidential campaign or are related to Bush campaign workers, according to payroll records filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top advisers to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries.

The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack.

The drive to re-elect Bush is a sensitive topic. Several coalition officials angered by what they see as CPA politicking - with U.S. accomplishments in Iraq being trumpeted to help Bush - grumbled privately, but would not go on record with complaints.

But Gordon Robison, a former CPA contractor who helped build the Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya television station in Baghdad, said Republicans in the press room intensely followed the Democratic presidential primaries as John Kerry emerged as the presumed nominee.

``Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's media staff are determined to see that does not happen,'' Robison said. ``I had the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration,'' he added.

Robison, a journalist who said his political affiliation is a private matter, left Baghdad in March after finishing his contract with U.S. defense contractor Science Applications International Corp. A new U.S. contractor, Harris Corp., has taken over the Al-Iraqiya operations.

One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted ``good news'' releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries.

Stratcom's schedule of news releases shows that stories were sent to media outlets in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and other states in the days before their Democratic primaries. But the schedule also shows releases sent to Virginia, Ohio and Florida after the primaries were over. Senor said any correlation to the vote was a coincidence.

Rich Galen, 57, a well-known Republican strategist, oversees the daily news releases sent directly to media outlets in the United States. Before joining the CPA press operation late last year, Galen wrote a GOP insider column and appeared on Fox News to harpoon liberal critics of Bush.

Now, he's still writing an Internet column, but he's turned it into what he calls a travelogue about Iraq. And he still appears on Fox - but long-distance via satellite and as a CPA spokesman.

Galen has been press secretary for both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Vice President Dan Quayle during their careers. Galen's 27-year-old son, Reed, is involved in the Bush re-election effort.

Since arriving in Iraq, Galen said he has made sure not to veer into politics in his work in the Green Room, in his column or during his television appearances.

``I understand when the game clock is on and when the game clock is off,'' Galen said. ``The clock is off.''

Were he to get directly involved in the Bush campaign, Galen said he'd be far more effective working at an office in Virginia outside of Washington D.C. than from the Iraqi capital. ``It's as inefficient a way to run a campaign as I can imagine,'' he said of being in Baghdad.

Outside political analysts, however, said Galen's vast expertise lies in political campaigning, not shipping radio and TV spots to local audiences. Putting a sharp strategist like him in the press room is a campaign masterstroke, said Bob Boorstin of the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan political think-tank in Washington.

``You know they're in trouble if they shipped Rich Galen over there,'' said Boorstin, who worked on four presidential campaigns, all Democratic.

``They're desperate to control the story over there. It's a very smart thing on their part. He knows what he's doing.''

Still, Boorstin said the shaping of the American message out of Iraq should come as no surprise. The rigors of election year politics demand the best possible portrayal of key policies, and Bush has staked his presidency on the notion that he's a war president.

``There's some deep questions about whether (the U.S. invasion) was a good idea. Wherever and whenever they can, Bush's political people are manipulating whatever they can,'' he said.

``Is that a surprise? No. Would Democrats do it? Yes. But it's particularly noxious because people's lives are on the line.''

Associated Press Writer Aparna H. Kumar contributed to this report from Washington.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.)

16 Little Words

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:16:34 GMT

Re: 16 Little Words

Dear Friends:

It's more than Bush's 16 words that are the problem--it's a whole pattern
of corruption that we are dealing with. Paul Krugman queries how we got
into this mess. The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn't an isolated
instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted
intelligence. So far, George Tenet, director of the CIA,has been ordered to
fall upon his sword in protection of his boss. Bush can throw officials to
the lions all he wants, but that's not going to make the problem go away.
If you truly desire regime change at home, and an outing of the truth, keep
asking questions and keep the pressure on.
________________________

The New York Times
July 15, 2003

Pattern of Corruption
by Paul Krugman

More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in
Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn't
supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might
have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost
the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for
dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been
extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?

How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium purchases
wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized,
corrupted intelligence.

Literally before the dust had settled, Bush administration officials began
trying to use 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Gen. Wesley Clark says
that he received calls on Sept. 11 from "people around the White House"
urging him to link that assault to Saddam Hussein. His account seems to
back up a CBS.com report last September, headlined "Plans for Iraq Attack
Began on 9/11," which quoted notes taken by aides to Donald Rumsfeld on the
day of the attack: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

But an honest intelligence assessment would have raised questions about why
we were going after a country that hadn't attacked us. It would also have
suggested the strong possibility that an invasion of Iraq would hurt, not
help, U.S. security.

So the Iraq hawks set out to corrupt the process of intelligence
assessment. On one side, nobody was held accountable for the failure to
predict or prevent 9/11; on the other side, top intelligence officials were
expected to support the case for an Iraq war.

The story of how the threat from Iraq's alleged W.M.D.'s was hyped is now,
finally, coming out. But let's not forget the persistent claim that Saddam
was allied with Al Qaeda, which allowed the hawks to pretend that the Iraq
war had something to do with fighting terrorism.

As Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official, said
last week, U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam
did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al Qaeda. Yet administration
officials continually asserted such a connection, even as they suppressed
evidence showing real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia.

And during the run-up to war, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, was
willing to provide cover for his bosses--just as he did last weekend. In an
October 2002 letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made what
looked like an assertion that there really were meaningful connections
between Saddam and Osama. Read closely, the letter is evasive, but it
served the administration's purpose.

What about the risk that an invasion of Iraq would weaken America's
security? Warnings from military experts that an extended postwar
occupation might severely strain U.S. forces have proved precisely on the
mark. But the hawks prevented any consideration of this possibility. Before
the war, one official told Newsweek that the occupation might last no more
than 30 to 60 days.

It gets worse. Knight Ridder newspapers report that a "small circle of
senior civilians in the Defense Department" were sure that their favorite,
Ahmad Chalabi, could easily be installed in power. They were able to
prevent skeptics from getting a hearing and they had no backup plan when
efforts to anoint Mr. Chalabi, a millionaire businessman, degenerated into
farce.

So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by tailoring
statements to reflect the interests of his political masters, rather than
the assessments of his staff--but that's not why he may soon be fired.
Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush administration are
arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be unquestioningly loyal
to the White House as committees demand documents and call witnesses."

Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Senator Pat Roberts,
the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems more concerned
about protecting his party's leader than protecting the country. "What
concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to be a campaign of press
leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president."

In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war,
at the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by
corrupting the system even further.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
________________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and
Peace Watch.
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Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher.
contact: Otoño Johnston
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
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============================================================

Weaponsgate Has Begun

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:15:42 GMT

Re: Weaponsgate Has Begun

Dear Friends:

The momentum regarding the untruths told about the weapons of mass
destruction is growing daily. It's important that we keep our eye on the
prize, and that we keep the pressure on the administration to come clean
about what they knew and when they knew it. What has been done in America's
name will not easily be forgotten by the world, and a regime change will
not be enough to win back our self respect. Dues must be paid.
_______________________________

United for Peace and Justice
July 15, 2003

Demand That Bush Come Clean on Weaponsgate

The Bush Administration is desperately trying to contain the brewing
controversy about its false statements regarding Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. They lied to drive us into a war against a country that posed
no threat, a war which has so far killed over 6000 Iraqi civilians
(http://www.iraqbodycount.net) and over 200 American soldiers. Speak out
now! Help keep this issue in the public spotlight.

Take Action:

Call You Elected Representatives. Contact your Senators and Representatives
and urge them to push for an independent investigation into whether the
Bush Administration misled the public with claims that Iraq was an imminent
threat to the U.S. and its neighbors. Tell them the American public
deserves answers to the tough questions. We want open, thorough, timely
televised public hearings and an investigation with a broad mandate. We
need the truth.

Both Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) have
introduced legislation (H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307 resp.) that addresses
some of these concerns. Each has supported the others bill, although
Tauschers is stronger in several regards--it calls for a House Select
Committee rather than an independent commission and it calls for reporting
before the election.

The Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

Write a Letter to the Editor or Op-Ed. Keep this issue in the public
spotlight by writing a letter to the editor or opinion piece for your local
newspaper. Letters to the editor should be less than 200 words, opinion
pieces about 600 words. Most newspapers post specific guidelines on their
websites, which also have information about where to send your piece. An
excellent resource on lies about the war can be found at
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008

Distribute Flyers. Educate people about how the Bush Administrations claims
compare to the facts. Good places to hand out flyers include bus stops,
subway stations, grocery stores, college campuses, libraries, and churches,
among other sites. Downloadable flyers will soon be available at
www.unitedforpeace.org.

List Your Group's Peace and Justice Events on the UFPJ website:
http://unitedforpeace.org/calendar_gxinput.php

Background: Eight days ago, former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson revealed
that he had been charged by the Bush administration with investigating
claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that the Bush
administration had ignored his report that these claims were false.
Building on earlier reports that the claim was based on crudely forged
documents, this has set off a chain of events that could turn Weaponsgate
into a major scandal. (New York Times, July 6)

Another insider, recently retired State Department intelligence official
Greg Thielmann, has disclosed that intelligence agencies agreed that there
was no meaningful connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He confirmed other
allegations that the administration has systematically distorted and
misused intelligence in order to justify the war on Iraq. (USA Today, July
13)

The Bush administration has moved swiftly to try to contain the brewing
controversy. It has so far succeeded in blocking attempts to have open
congressional hearings on the question. On Friday it pinned the blame for
the Niger claims on the CIA, with director George Tenet taking full
responsibility for their inclusion in Bush's State of the Union address. On
Sunday it stepped back from its earlier admission that the claims were
based on bogus information, saying that the statement in the address was,
in Donald Rumsfeld's words, "technically correct." (New York Times, July
13)

The attempts to pass the buck don't hold water. Ray McGovern, a former CIA
analyst, says that administration claims about their ignorance are
"stretching the truth beyond the breaking point." And in Australia, where
similar revelations have been made (the Defense Intelligence Organization
admits it had information on the Niger forgeries but says it didn't tell
the Defense Minister), ex-intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie points out,
"You've got three intelligence organizations in Australia, the intelligence
organizations in the US, and every one is saying they knew this was bad
information, but not one political leader reckons they were told" It is
unbelievable to the point of fantasy." (Truthout, July 13)

More important, restricting attention to the Niger claims keeps attention
away from all the other information about a systematic pattern of deceit
and denial by the Bush administration. (See "20 Lies About the War") It
includes deception about the link with al-Qaeda, about the alleged massive
stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, about the "unmanned aerial
vehicles" that George W. Bush once claimed could be used to attack the
United States, and about Iraq's level of cooperation with weapons
inspections, and much more.

Furthermore, the administrations extreme dishonesty over the Niger claims
should lead people to question all of its assertions, including the
repeated statements that the war on Iraq and the current occupation is
about liberating Iraq. Instead of democracy, Iraq is getting a council of
political figures hand-picked by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S.-appointed ruler
of Iraq. Instead of having Iraq's oil used for the benefit of the Iraqi
people, Bremer plans to privatize the state oil companies as part of
privatizing over 40 government-owned companies. (New York Times, June 23)
Instead of bringing a new prosperity to the Iraqi people, Bremer has fired
over 500,000 government employees. And, of course, U.S. plans to use Iraq
as a military staging-area for regional "force projection" are openly
admitted. (Reuters, April 28)

At the same time, we have been deceived about how easy and cheap the
occupation would be. The American death toll has mounted to well over 200,
including over 30 killed by hostile action since May 1, the declared end of
the war. The costs of the occupation are double what was projected -- $3.9
billion per month. (New York Times, July 11) And Donald Rumsfeld announced
recently that additional troops would likely be needed in Iraq. (New York
Times, July 14)

Its important to keep the Bush administrations deception over weapons of
mass destruction in the public eye and also to connect that to the larger
deception in the drive to war and to deception over its aims for Iraq.

For Background Info, See These Sources:

-- "What I didn't find in Africa," New York Times, July 6, 2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html or
www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm
-- "Bush overstated Iraq links to al-Qaeda, former intelligence officials
say," USA Today, July 13, 2003.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-13-bush-alqaeda_x.htm
-- "Bush Aides Now Say Claim on Uranium Was Accurate," New York Times, July
13, 2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/international/worldspecial/14INTE.html
-- William Rivers Pitt, "The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet," Truthout,
July 13, 2003. http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403A.shtml
-- "20 Lies About the War," The Independent, July 13, 2003.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008
-- "Overseer in Iraq Plans to Sell off Government-Owned Companies, New York
Times, June 23.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30D1EF93F5F0C708EDDAF0894DB
404482
-- "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq," New York
Times, April 20.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0811F9395E0C738EDDAD0894DB
404482
-- "Israeli Ambassador to U.S. calls for Regime Change in Iran, Syria,"
Reuters, April 28.
-- "Wars Cost Brings Democratic Anger," New York Times, July 11, 2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/11/international/worldspecial/11COST.html
-- "Rumsfeld Says Iraq May Need a Larger Force," New York Times, July 14,
2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/international/worldspecial/14TROO.html

--United for Peace and Justice
http://www.unitedforpeace.org 212-603-3700
_______________________________

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.)
============================================================

Group Demands Cheney's Resignation

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:15:15 GMT

Re: Group Demands Cheney's Resignation

Dear Friends:

A group of senior former intelligence officials have written an open letter
to George Bush, demanding the resignation of Vice-President Dick Cheney. In
the letter they accuse him of using his office to insist that a false claim
about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear
program be included in Bush's State of the Union address---ignoring the
concerns of CIA director George Tenet. Cheney was also accused of
knowingly misleading Congress when the administration sought its
authorization for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein.

The former intelligence officials believe that information from the
intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for
political reasons.

The chickens are coming home to roost.
____________________________

The Independent (UK)
July 16, 2003

Cheney Under Pressure to Quit Over False War Evidence
Anger grows on both sides of Atlantic at misleading claims on eve of Iraq
conflict
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Marie Woolf

Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken
hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was
accused of using false evidence to build the case for war.

He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about
Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear programme
be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding the
concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.

Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the
administration sought its authorisation for the use of force to oust Saddam
Hussein.

The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of
senior former intelligence officials who believe that information from the
intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for
political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the group
have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation.

As the clamour for a full inquest into the African uranium claims grew on
both sides of the Atlantic, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was accused
by MPs of lacking "credibility" after he admitted knowing a month before
the war that documents making the assertion were forgeries. Mr Straw said
in a statement he had known that letters given to the UN nuclear agency,
the International Atomic Energy Agency, about the Niger claim were fake as
early as February.

Mr Straw also claimed that the Government's case for military action was
not based on "intelligence reports".

Labour MPs, including Tam Dalyell, the father of the House, asked why Mr
Straw had not told MPs that the documents were fake in advance of the vote
to approve military action on 18 March. "He now says the Government knew it
was a forgery in February. Why didn't he tell us before Parliament voted
for war?" he said. "Also if the case for war is not based on intelligence,
what is it based on?"

Last night the Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee asked Mr Straw to
reveal what he knew about the Niger claim.

Donald Anderson, the committee's chairman, wrote to Mr Straw asking him
when the CIA first questioned the Niger connection, and why ministers had
not admitted earlier that there were doubts about the claims. The committee
also asked whether the CIA had questioned any other claims in the September
dossier on Iraq's weapons.

The letter, signed by 11 MPs of all parties, called on Mr Straw to confirm
The Independent's report that technical documents and centrifuge parts
found at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Baghdad had lain buried
for 12 years. The letter also asked Mr Straw to reveal when he knew that
the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson had found claims about Niger-Iraq
links to be false.

Last week the White House admitted that the claim that Iraq was seeking
"significant quantities of uranium from Africa" - based on faked documents
provided by the Italian intelligence services - should not have been
included in President Bush's speech of 28 January.

In Washington there is no conclusive proof that Mr Cheney was responsible
for insisting that the claim be made in the speech. But there is clear
evidence of Mr Cheney's interest in the alleged Niger deal. Joseph Wilson,
a former US ambassador, said he was asked by the CIA to go to Niger and
investigate the claim in a request from the Vice-President's office. Mr
Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has admitted that during a briefing
from the CIA "the Vice-President asked a question about the implication of
the report".

There have been reports from CIA officials that in the months before the
war Mr Cheney made a "multiple number" of personal visits to its
headquarters in Virginia to meet officials analysing intelligence relating
to Iraq. "[He] sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output
was desired from here," one senior CIA official told reporters.

The CIA director, Mr Tenet, said he accepted responsibility for approving
the speech but said his officers had only "concurred" with White House
officials that by naming the British Government as the source of the Niger
claim it was "factually correct". Britain has stood by the claim, saying it
has evidence in addition to the Italian documents.

© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
________________________________

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.)
============================================================

Intelligence Professionals Blast Cheney

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:14:14 GMT

Re: Intelligence Professionals Blast Cheney

Dear Friends:

In a blistering memo to George Bush, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS) demand that Cheney be fired for his role in manipulating
evidence to support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The VIPS state
that, "There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to
Niger at the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's
findings were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well.
Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on August
26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and the American
people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons--a
campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early October with you and your
senior advisers raising the specter of a 'mushroom cloud' being the first
'smoking gun' we might observe... We strongly recommend that you ask for
Cheney's immediate resignation."

Ray McGovern is a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a member of the steering
committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. The VIPS is a
group of 30 retired senior intelligence officers formed in January of 2003
to keep watch on the use/abuse of intelligence, primarily regarding Iraq.
Most of them are from the analytic ranks of the CIA, but they have strong
representation from the operations officers as well. Their ranks include
retired officers from State Department Intelligence, Defense Intelligence,
Army Intelligence, and the FBI.
__________________________________________

Memo to the President
from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

July 14, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Intelligence Unglued

The glue that holds the Intelligence Community together is melting under
the hot lights of an awakened press. If you do not act quickly, your
intelligence capability will fall apart -- with grave consequences for the
nation.

The Forgery Flap

By now you are all too familiar with the play-by-play. The
Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery is a microcosm of a mischievous nexus
of overarching problems. Instead of addressing these problems, your senior
staff is alternately covering up for one another and gently stabbing one
another in the back. CIA Director George Tenet's extracted, unapologetic
apology on July 11 was classic -- I confess; she did it.

It is now dawning on our until-now somnolent press that your national
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, shepherds the foreign affairs sections
of your state-of-the-union address and that she, not Tenet, is responsible
for the forged information getting into the speech. But the
disingenuousness persists. Surely Dr. Rice cannot persist in her insistence
that she learned only on June 8, 2003 about former ambassador Joseph
Wilson's mission to Niger in February 2002, when he determined that the
Iraq-Niger report was a con-job. Wilson's findings were duly reported to
all concerned in early March 2002. And, if she somehow missed that report,
the New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff on May 6 recounted chapter and verse
on Wilson's mission, and the story remained the talk of the town in the
weeks that followed.

Rice's denials are reminiscent of her claim in spring 2002 that there was
no reporting suggesting that terrorists were planning to hijack planes and
slam them into buildings. In September, the joint congressional committee
on 9/11 came up with a dozen such reports.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's credibility, too, has taken serious hits
as continued non-discoveries of weapons in Iraq heap doubt on his confident
assertions to the UN. Although he was undoubtedly trying to be helpful in
trying to contain the Iraq-Niger forgery affair, his recent description of
your state-of-the-union words as "not totally outrageous" was faint praise
indeed. And his explanations as to why he made a point to avoid using the
forgery in the way you did was equally unhelpful.

Whatever Rice's or Powell's credibility, it is yours that matters. And, in
our view, the credibility of the intelligence community is an inseparably
close second. Attempts to dismiss or cover up the cynical use to which the
known forgery was put have been -- well, incredible. The British have a
word for it: "dodgy." You need to put a quick end to the dodginess, if the
country is to have a functioning intelligence community.

The Vice President's Role

Attempts at cover up could easily be seen as comical, were the issue not so
serious. Highly revealing were Ari Fleisher's remarks early last week,
which set the tone for what followed. When asked about the forgery, he
noted tellingly -- as if drawing on well memorized talking points -- that
the Vice President was not guilty of anything. The disingenuousness was
capped on Friday, when George Tenet did his awkward best to absolve the
Vice President from responsibility.

To those of us who experienced Watergate, these comments had an eerie ring.
That affair and others since have proven that cover-up can assume
proportions overshadowing the crime itself. All the more reason to take
early action to get the truth up and out.

There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger at
the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's findings
were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well.

Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on August
26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and the American
people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons --
a campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early October with you and your
senior advisers raising the specter of a "mushroom cloud" being the first
"smoking gun" we might observe.

That this campaign was based largely on information known to be forged and
that the campaign was used successfully to frighten our elected
representatives in Congress into voting for war is clear from the bitter
protestations of Rep. Henry Waxman and others. The politically aware
recognize that the same information was used, also successfully, in the
campaign leading up to the mid-term elections -- a reality that breeds a
cynicism highly corrosive to our political process.

The fact that the forgery also crept into your state-of-the-union address
pales in significance in comparison with how it was used to deceive
Congress into voting on October 11 to authorize you to make war on Iraq.

It was a deep insult to the integrity of the intelligence process that,
after the Vice President declared on August 26, 2002 that "we know that
Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," the National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced during the critical month of September
featured a fraudulent conclusion that "most analysts" agreed with Cheney's
assertion. This may help explain the anomaly of Cheney's unprecedented
"multiple visits" to CIA headquarters at the time, as well as the many
reports that CIA and other intelligence analysts were feeling
extraordinarily great pressure, accompanied by all manner of intimidation
tactics, to concur in that conclusion. As a coda to his nuclear argument,
Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press three days before US/UK forces invaded
Iraq: "we believe he (Saddam Hussein) has reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Mr. Russert: ...the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not
have a nuclear program; we disagree?

Vice President Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the CIA, for
example, and other key parts of the intelligence community disagree...we
know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr.
ElBaradei (Director of the IAEA) frankly is wrong.

Contrary to what Cheney and the NIE said, the most knowledgeable analysts
-- those who know Iraq and nuclear weapons -- judged that the evidence did
not support that conclusion. They now have been proven right.

Adding insult to injury, those chairing the NIE succumbed to the pressure
to adduce the known forgery as evidence to support the Cheney line, and
relegated the strong dissent of the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (and the nuclear engineers in the Department of
Energy) to an inconspicuous footnote.

It is a curious turn of events. The drafters of the offending sentence on
the forgery in president's state-of-the-union speech say they were working
from the NIE. In ordinary circumstances an NIE would be the preeminently
authoritative source to rely upon; but in this case the NIE itself had
already been cooked to the recipe of high policy.

Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who visited Niger at Cheney's
request, enjoys wide respect (including, like several VIPS members, warm
encomia from your father). He is the consummate diplomat. So highly
disturbed is he, however, at the chicanery he has witnessed that he allowed
himself a very undiplomatic comment to a reporter last week, wondering
aloud "what else they are lying about." Clearly, Wilson has concluded that
the time for diplomatic language has passed. It is clear that lies were
told. Sad to say, it is equally clear that your vice president led this
campaign of deceit.

This was no case of petty corruption of the kind that forced Vice President
Spiro Agnew's resignation. This was a matter of war and peace. Thousands
have died. There is no end in sight.

Recommendation #1

We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice
President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent that such
attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally pernicious,
from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence analysts will
conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their
judgments, since those above them will not be held accountable. We strongly
recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation.

The Games Congress Plays

The unedifying dance by the various oversight committees of the Congress
over recent weeks offers proof, if further proof were needed, that reliance
on Congress to investigate in a non-partisan way is pie in the sky. One
need only to recall that Sen. Pat Roberts, Chair of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, has refused to agree to ask the FBI to investigate the known
forgery. Despite repeated attempts by others on his committee to get him to
bring in the FBI, Roberts has branded such a move "inappropriate," without
spelling out why.

Rep. Porter Goss, head of the House Intelligence Committee, is a CIA
alumnus and a passionate Republican and agency partisan. Goss was largely
responsible for the failure of the joint congressional committee on 9/11,
which he co-chaired last year. An unusually clear indication of where Goss'
loyalties lie can be seen is his admission that after a leak to the press
last spring he bowed to Cheney's insistence that the FBI be sent to the
Hill to investigate members and staff of the joint committee -- an
unprecedented move reflecting blithe disregard for the separation of powers
and a blatant attempt at intimidation. (Congress has its own capability to
investigate such leaks.)

Henry Waxman's recent proposal to create yet another congressional
investigatory committee, patterned on the latest commission looking into
9/11, likewise holds little promise. To state the obvious about Congress,
politics is the nature of the beast. We have seen enough congressional
inquiries into the performance of intelligence to conclude that they are
usually as feckless as they are prolonged. And time cannot wait.

As you are aware, Gen. Brent Scowcroft performed yeoman's service as
National Security Adviser to your father and enjoys very wide respect.
There are few, if any, with his breadth of experience with the issues and
the institutions involved. In addition, he has avoided blind parroting of
the positions of your administration and thus would be seen as relatively
nonpartisan, even though serving at your pleasure. It seems a stroke of
good luck that he now chairs your President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board.

Recommendation #2

We repeat, with an additional sense of urgency, the recommendation in our
last memorandum to you (May 1) that you appoint Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Chair
of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to head up an
independent investigation into the use/abuse of intelligence on Iraq.

UN Inspectors

Your refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq has left the
international community befuddled. Worse, it has fed suspicions that the US
does not want UN inspectors in country lest they impede efforts to "plant"
some "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, should efforts to find them
continue to fall short. The conventional wisdom is less conspiratorial but
equally unsatisfying. The cognoscenti in Washington think tanks, for
example, attribute your attitude to "pique."

We find neither the conspiracy nor the "pique" rationale persuasive. As we
have admitted before, we are at a loss to explain the barring of UN
inspectors. Barring the very people with the international mandate, the
unique experience, and the credibility to undertake a serious search for
such weapons defies logic. UN inspectors know Iraq, know the weaponry in
question, know the Iraqi scientists/engineers who have been involved, know
how the necessary materials are procured and processed; in short, have
precisely the expertise required. The challenge is as daunting as it is
immediate; and, clearly, the US needs all the help it can get.

The lead Wall Street Journal article of April 8 had it right: "If the US
doesn't make any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure
will feed already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going
to war." As the events of last week show, that skepticism has now
mushroomed here at home as well.

Recommendation #3

We recommend that you immediately invite the UN inspectors back into Iraq.
This would go a long way toward refurbishing your credibility. Equally
important, it would help sort out the lessons learned for the intelligence
community and be an invaluable help to an investigation of the kind we have
suggested you direct Gen. Scowcroft to lead.

If Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity can be of any further help
to you in the days ahead, you need only ask.

/s/

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA

Steering Committee
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

©2003 Veterans for Common Sense
Veterans for Common Sense is an organization of Gulf War veterans working
to ensure the debate over war considers all necessary issues.
________________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

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CIA Left Out of the Loop

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:02:18 GMT

Re: CIA Left Out of the Loop

Dear Friends:

Lack of communication has been rife between the White House, the State
Department, and the CIA. Although the CIA vetoed certain documents as
inadequate or unsubstantial for action, the administration continued to
override this guidance if it did not support the picture they wanted to
present. Such cherry-picking is risky, and has resulted in the shameless
dissemination of a country, its economy, and its people. We've now begun to
reap the whirlwind.
___________________________

Associated Press
July 18, 2003

Analysts Reportedly Missed Faked Documents
by John J. Lumpkin

WASHINGTON (AP) - Documents alleging Iraq sought uranium from Africa were
obtained months before President Bush cited them in making his case for
war, but intelligence analysts did not look at them closely enough to know
they were forgeries until after Bush had made the claim, U.S. officials
say.

U.S. officials offered new information Thursday on the trail of the
documents, which purported to show Iraq tried to obtain uranium from the
African country of Niger for its weapons programs. Their account suggested
a disconnect between the CIA and the State Department over the handling of
what turned out to be a crucial but faulty piece of intelligence used to
make the Bush administration's case for war.

Officials acknowledged that had U.S. intelligence analyzed the documents
sooner, they could have discovered the forgeries before the information was
used as fodder for Bush administration statements vilifying Iraq.

The State Department said Thursday it obtained the documents in the fall of
2002, but intelligence officials said the CIA didn't get them until the
following February. The State Department said it made them available to
other agencies in the government shortly after acquiring them; officials
could not explain why the CIA did not get copies of them sooner.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome obtained the documents, which purported to show
contacts between officials in Iraq and Niger over the transfer of uranium,
from a journalist there in October 2002, officials said. They were shown to
CIA personnel in Rome and sent to State Department headquarters in
Washington. But the CIA's station in Rome did not forward them to CIA
headquarters outside Washington, where they would have been analyzed.

``We acquired the documents in October 2002 and they were shared widely
within the U.S. government, with all the appropriate agencies,'' said State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher. Those agencies included the CIA,
another U.S. official said.

But an intelligence official said the CIA didn't obtain the documents from
the State Department until February 2003. The official suggested analyzing
the documents was not a top priority at the time because the CIA had
already investigated their substance.

The CIA only got the documents to respond to a request from the United
Nations, the intelligence official said. U.N. officials, trying to run a
weapons inspections regime in Iraq, asked for evidence behind the
allegation in Bush's Jan. 28 speech that ``the British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of
uranium from Africa.''

The CIA provided them to the United Nations. U.N. officials announced in
early March the documents were fakes, and the CIA concurred, the
intelligence official said.

The Italian government, which also obtained a copy of the documents, had
passed on their contents - but not their source - to the CIA several months
earlier. The CIA had sent a retired diplomat to Africa to investigate but
found little to substantiate the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from
Niger.

Still, the CIA included the claim, with a note that it was unconfirmed, in
the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the classified document
that summarized information on Iraq's weapons programs.

he estimate also noted the U.S. government had other, ``fragmentary''
intelligence suggesting that Iraq sought uranium for its nuclear weapons
program in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Despite the uncertainties, Bush administration officials tried repeatedly
to use this information in speeches and statements. The CIA protested
several times as the statements were being prepared, but the Niger claim
made it into a State Department fact sheet in December, and the more
general Africa claim was used in the president's State of the Union
address.

The controversy over Bush's claim in his address has raised further
questions about the administration's assertions that Iraq had chemical and
biological weapons, a nuclear weapons program, and ties to al-Qaida.

None of those assertions, which the administration said were backed up by
solid intelligence, have been validated by discoveries in postwar Iraq.

--Associated Press writer Harry Dunphy in Washington contributed to this
report.

© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
________________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
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============================================================
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=======================

The Peace From Hell

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:01:36 GMT

Re: The Peace From Hell

Dear Friends:

That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald
Rumsfeld. Now is not the time to stand back timidly hoping it will work out
well in the end.
________________________

AlterNet
July 15, 2003

The Peace from Hell
by Molly Ivins, AlterNet
July 15, 2003

I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from
hell, but I'd rather not see my prediction come true and I don't think we
have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is
apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. If this thing turns into Vietnam
simply because that man is too vain and arrogant to admit that Gen. Eric
Shinseki was right when he said we would need "several hundred thousand
soldiers" over there, I hope Rumsfeld rots in a hell worse than the one
he's making.

Now is not the time to stand back timidly hoping it will work out well in
the end. The population of Baghdad is broiling through the 115-degree
summer without electricity or water for much of the time. Given the
background poverty and generally hideous conditions, the place is a major
riot waiting to happen.

As we have known ever since the Kerner Commission Report, all it takes is a
couple of bad policing incidents to set one off. It is more than painfully
apparent that the Pentagon did somewhere between inadequate to zero
planning for the occupation, despite the equally apparent fact that this
war was settled on more than a year in advance and then intelligence was
bent to support it.

Hugh Parmer (formerly of Fort Worth), head of the American Refugee
Committee (ARC), was in Iran and Iraq at the beginning of the summer, the
first NGO (non-governmental organization) to go in because ARC had
privately funded relief supplies. He was fairly shaken by what he found.

Among other things, the crack disaster-relief team he had created while he
was with USAID under President Clinton was sitting around filing their
fingernails because the military was rejecting all advice from civilians in
favor of doing it their way. Since the military is in this mess precisely
because it is not well-trained at peacekeeping, you'd think it would have
enough sense to ask people who've been there and done that. That would
include the United Nations and NATO.

Parmer was there while Gen. Jay Garner, Rumfeld's choice, was still in
charge. Clearly that was a mistake, but Paul Bremer, the current viceroy,
also seems to have thin credentials. He is described as a diplomat, but
he's actually a counterterrorism expert with business ties to many major
corporations. We don't need people with credentials as right-wing
ideologues and corporate privatizers -- we need people who know how to fix
water and power plants.

The late Fred Cuny of Dallas, who was killed in Chechnya, is exactly the
kind of person now needed in Baghdad. Cuny was an engineer and a sort of
Milo Minderbinder who could find anything, fix anything and finagle
anything no matter how disastrous the war zone. He was chiefly famous for
his work in Sarajevo during the siege there. He ran a small, private
company out of Dallas and always said the only reason he charged for his
services was that governments don't listen to advice unless they pay for
it.

I don't know whose idea it was to cancel municipal elections in Iraq, but
it looked awful. We fought the war to bring democracy to Iraq, remember?
Anyone there with any sense of public relations? Setting up an "advisory
council" in Baghdad isn't going to cut it.

Maj. Gen. Carl Strock said Monday electricity and water in Baghdad are
still below prewar levels. The New York Times noted, in its Timesly way,
"The assessment appeared to run counter to earlier assurances by the
Pentagon ..." Rumsfeld, with his usual cocksure breeziness, said on May 15:
"A few areas have challenges, to be sure. But most areas are progressing
and a growing number actually have conditions that are today estimated to
be better than prior to the recent war." What number, from what to what?
Out of how many?

When is the Washington press corps going to figure out that's precisely the
kind of statement by Rumsfeld that needs extensive deconstruction? The New
Republic's ruthless dissection of the administration's lies, deceptions and
flimflam in its June 30 issue (don't miss it) is a stinging rebuke to the
disgraceful level of journalism we are now getting in this country.

Have you ever read anything as tortured and ridiculous as Ari Fleischer's
non-admission admission that Bush lied about the supposed Iraq-Niger
uranium deal? Not even Clinton at his most "depends on what the definition
of is is" could top that one. Do look it up.

Ol' "Bring 'em on" Bush talks tough and can't even figure out how to find
the right stick.

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
________________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
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Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher.
contact: Otoño Johnston
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
==================================

Gag Rule for Soldiers?

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:01:01 GMT

Re: Gag Rule for Soldiers?

Dear Friends:

Not all the US soldiers that are stationed in Iraq are happy about it. Many
feel abandoned and let down. And no, it's not because of our protests
against this hellish war, it's because they have been repeatedly told one
thing, only to have it change in the blink of an eye. Remember those
distasteful "Iraqi playing cards?" The circle has now come full circle,
with some disgruntled soldiers creating their own "most wanted lists." The
prime suspects are the gang of 4 responsible for US policy in
Iraq--Rumsfeld, Bremer, Bush, and Wolfowitz.
______________________

ABC News
July 16, 2003

General Unrest
New U.S. Commander Upset by Comments From Troops in Iraq

The new U.S. war commander today took exception with American soldiers who,
angry over extended tours of duty in Iraq, criticized Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld in televised interviews on ABCNEWS.

"None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging
about the secretary of defense, or the president of the United States,"
said Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command.

But several of the wives of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division who
talked to ABCNEWS said today that their husbands spoke the truth and they
wanted those views heard.

"They feel that their mission is completed. They feel that they came, did
what they went over there to do. And, I mean, they're done," said Rhonda
Vega, whose husband is Sgt. Felipe Vega.

Sgt. Vega, in the interview with ABCNEWS' Jeffrey Kofman, said it was not
easy to maintain morale in his platoon when the Army keeps changing the
orders. "They turn around and slap you in the face," he said. When asked if
that's the way it feels, he said, "Yeah, kicked in the guts, slapped in the
face."

Another soldier who was interviewed, Spc. Clinton Deitz, said he had a
message for the defense secretary. "If Donald Rumsfeld was here," he said,
"I'd ask him for his resignation."

Asked about the comments made to him by the soldiers, Kofman said he did
not pre-interview any of them to find soldiers who were critical of the
situation in Iraq before they spoke on camera.

"They just spoke. I simply asked questions. I was utterly astonished by
their candor. They let their guard down and they said what was on their
mind," said Kofman, who is reporting from Baghdad.

Unfortunate Comments

Today, Abizaid said he had seen the interviews and was not happy.

"It's very unfortunate that soldiers, professional soldiers, made comments
like that," he said in his inaugural briefing at the Pentagon after taking
control of Central Command from Gen. Tommy Franks, who retired. "Whatever
action may be taken, whether it's a verbal reprimand or something more
stringent, is up to the commanders on the scene."

Officially, a soldier could be court-martialed for making such comments,
although it is rare and is at the discretion of a commanding officer.

Abizaid said the United States was still, in effect, at war in Iraq as
anti-American fighters are waging a "classical guerrilla-type campaign
against us." The general also said U.S. troops may have to stay for
yearlong tours to meet the threat.

"It's war, however you describe it," Abizaid said.

Abizaid did say definitively that the 3rd Infantry Division would be out of
Iraq by September. But he also made clear that the current troop strength
of 160,000 will be needed for the foreseeable future.

"If the situation gets worse, I won't hesitate to ask for more," he said.

Anxious for Spouses to Return

The delays in getting their spouses home clearly has upset some Army family
members at home.

"This saying one thing and backing out of it, all it does is breed
distrust," said Michelle Brock, wife of a 3rd Infantry soldier based at
Fort Stewart in Georgia. "It's going to be really hard to trust anything
that the military tells us again."

Brock and others had been led to believe that Fort Stewart's soldiers, some
of the first into Baghdad and the ones who saw some of the fiercest
fighting, would be relieved quickly. "In the beginning, they told us they'd
be the first ones back," said Army wife Stacey Gilmore.

But Gilmore's husband, Sgt. Terry Gilmore, remains in Iraq almost a year
after he was deployed. Sgt. Gilmore was one of the soldiers who spoke to
ABCNEWS.

Sgt. Gilmore had to call his wife this week to her that he wouldn't be home
in a few weeks to see her and their two little children after all. He said
he was upset by the repeated delays and the constantly changing orders.

"We couldn't figure out why they do it. Why they can keep us over here
right after they told us we were coming home," he said.

Stacey Gilmore is upset over Abizaid's harsh criticism of her husband and
his colleagues. She said her husband's comments spoke volumes because he is
not one to complain.

"It takes a lot for Terry to get upset and he's been through a lot. He has
the right to complain. I think anybody would," she said.

But there are wives who are willing to be patient, given the uncertainties
in Iraq. "They're doing their jobs and if our government says they have to
stay and do the job longer, that's what they have to do," said Army wife
Mychelle Ostrow.

Abizaid said he understood some of the frustrations.

"It's very, very important to all of us to make sure that our soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines know when they're coming home," he said. "Every
now and then we've got to look at our young people and understand why they
said what they said, and then do something about it."

ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz and Erin Hayes contributed to this report.

Copyright ABCNEWS
________________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com
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============================================================
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=============================

Attempt to Discredit Whistleblower

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:00:31 GMT

Re: Attempt to Discredit Whistleblower

Dear Friends:

Another intelligence analyst has come forward to speak out against the
United States' plans to manipulate prewar intelligence in their favor.
Australian Andrew Wilkie has been enlisted by the Democrats to help
campaign for a full, open inquiry into whether Washington--and, by
association, Canberra--manipulated or ignored prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Already there have been attempts to discredit him, implying that he is
unstable and is having family problems. To this he commented, "It doesn't
surprise me. It's understandable that the Government has decided to try to
discredit me. I don't like it, but I understand what they are trying to
do."
_______________________________

The Sydney Morning Herald
July 17, 2003

Australian Analyst Joins US Push for Weapons Inquiry
by Caroline Overington, Herald Correspondent in Washington

The Australian former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie has been enlisted
by Democrats in the United States to help campaign for a full, open inquiry
into whether Washington - and, by association, Canberra - manipulated or
ignored prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Mr Wilkie, who was invited to Washington DC by one of the nine Democratic
candidates for president, said there was "no doubt that [George] Bush,
[John] Howard and [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair exaggerated the
threat from Iraq, to justify a war."

But he said the truth was being kept from the public, because inquiries
into the matter were being held in secret or, in the case of a British
inquiry last month, "they are just a whitewash".

"I don't hold much hope for the Australian inquiry, behind closed doors,"
he said. "I wait to see what the US inquiry can do."

Mr Wilkie, who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in
protest over the war on Iraq in March, has not been invited to testify at
US hearings into the use of prewar intelligence.

"I'm not surprised," he said. "I was probably invited to the British
inquiry [only] in their hope to discredit me. These inquiries really don't
want to hear what I have to say because I'm threatening to spoil their
war."

Mr Wilkie said the Howard Government had tried to discredit him by saying
that his job with ONA did not include studying the prewar intelligence on
Iraq, and that "I'm mentally unstable, that I'm having family problems".

"It's been hard," he said, of his campaign against governments that
supported the war. "The Government has taken a number of opportunities to
say I wasn't involved in the Iraq issue. They sent a detailed submission to
Britain, and the first 10 minutes [of his testimony there] was them going
through this submission, trying to discredit me. It's also had some ugly
dimensions.

"It doesn't surprise me. It's understandable that the Government has
decided to try to discredit me. I don't like it, but I understand what they
are trying to do."

Mr Wilkie's appearance in Washington on Tuesday was one of a series of
events organised by Democrats, who have been emboldened in their campaign
against the Bush Administration by the continuing attacks on US soldiers in
Iraq, and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction or Saddam
Hussein.

Senator Ted Kennedy told an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies that the Bush Administration's handling of
prewar intelligence was a "disgrace".

"The case for war seems to have been based on shoddy intelligence, hyped
intelligence, and even false intelligence," he said. "They put a spin on
the intelligence and a spin on the truth."

Mr Wilkie's host, Dennis Kucinich, a 2004 presidential hopeful, said the
apparent manipulation of prewar intelligence was "profoundly embarrassing
to this nation".

Mr Wilkie criticised Mr Howard for saying that Australians had "moved on"
and were no longer interested in the arguments about Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction.

"I find statements like that incredibly arrogant," he said.

Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald.
________________________________

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
============================================================
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purposes only.)
============================================================

A Call for Impeachment

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:59:06 GMT

Re: A Call for Impeachment

Dear Friends:

Several years ago, Bill Clinton was charged with lying under oath and
betraying the public trust. In the end, the attempt to convict and remove
Mr. Clinton from office failed. Today we have a person occupying the office
of president who has consistently betrayed the public trust, abused the
power of his office, and contributed to the mental stress, anguish, and
death of thousands of innocent people. And yet, there has been no serious
attempt to impeach Bush. The mere electing of another to fill this office
will not excuse the damage that has been done. The seriousness of what has
been done cannot be glossed over; Americans, and the world, must not forget
what can happen when a country abdicates its will and judgment to another.
The move to impeach is the first step towards regaining our moral compass.
_______________________

Tom Paine
July 4, 2003
Published July 15, 2003

Turning Back Progress
by Thomas Paine Cronin

This address was given at a July 4th demonstration near Independence Hall
in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine Cronin is president of AFSCME (American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) in Philadelphia,
District Council 47.

A few years ago, the president of the United States got caught having an
affair with a White House intern. The media were all over the story. You
couldn't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing Monica Lewinsky.
Monica Lewinsky recently said that even she was sick of seeing Monica
Lewinsky.

So the House of Representatives voted to impeach. The charge: lying under
oath, also called perjury.

In the end, the attempt to convict and remove Mr. Clinton from office
failed, because if indiscretion were an impeachable offense, there wouldn't
be many legislators left in the hallowed halls of Congress.

Today, we have a president who is, in effect, squatting in the White House.
That is, illegally occupying it. His opponent in the election got a half
million more votes than he did. He seized power by using the state
government of Florida, commanded by his brother, and the Supreme Court,
several members of which were appointed by his father.

This same president has dragged this country into war so far with two other
nations. I believe this president directed the Armed Forces to attack Iraq
knowing that there were no weapons of mass destruction there and that Iraq
had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks.

This president is still lying about that and many other things. This
president's biggest corporate campaign contributor was Enron.

And yet the media passes over all this in silence. And no one, in the press
or Congress, utters the word: impeachment.

In the three years since he seized power, Mr. Bush has done many things,
two of which are of particular concern. First, he's created a foreign
policy based on endless, and now pre-emptive, war. Terror is the rationale
and the means to intimidate.

We now live in a world of yellow alerts, orange alerts, bridge and subway
closings, attack rehearsals, the airport shakedowns, the national
equivalent of weekly panic attacks, where library records can be
investigated and non-citizens arrested and held indefinitely without
charge.

And guess what? It costs money. The Homeland Security department has a $35
billion budget. We've paid $80 billion for the Iraq debacle so far.

The second thing Mr. Bush has done is ram his tax cuts through Congress.
Under Bush, every day is Christmas, if you're wealthy in America. That's
who gets the money back. Bush says his tax cuts are about stimulating the
economy. If you believe that, I have some weapons of mass destruction I'd
like to sell you.

Under Bush, every day is Christmas, if you're wealthy in America.

And now that the rich are several hundred billion dollars richer, the
results speak for themselves: economic growth, flat. Unemployment, 6.4
percent: the highest it's been in nine years.

And don't spend your hundred dollar tax refund too soon. State governments
are $75 billion in the red, at least, and forced to cut costs any way they
can, meaning they'll have no choice but to raise property and other taxes
to make up for revenue shortfalls.

Mr. Bush is a man with a mission, and the mission is to return this country
to a time when privilege went unchallenged, when wealth was untaxed,
business unrestricted, and the workforce unorganized, those halcyon days
before Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, OSHA, Head Start, all
the programs government uses to ameliorate poverty and regulate powerful
interests. In other words, Bush wants to go back to the days before social
justice.

He knows he can't openly eliminate programs like Medicare and Social
Security, so he uses war and terror to run up huge deficits, deficits
intended to make these programs unaffordable and unsustainable.

The majority of people in this country who are too old to work rely on
Social Security. Imagine a future without it. Imagine a future without
Medicare. Imagine millions living in the street, or thrown back on the
charity of relatives. Imagine a president, who, steeped in arrogance,
bungles and blunders his way into nuclear war.

It's time we stopped allowing ourselves to be intimidated by the Ashcrofts
and the Rush Limbaughs out there. It's time we blew the dust off the
Constitution.

It's going to take millions of marching feet -- marching in the street and,
next year, to the polls -- to put Mr. Bush and his dog-eat-dog vision of
America where they belong. In the dog house.

This is Thomas Paine Cronin for TomPaine.com.

--Sharon Basco produced this piece.
________________________________

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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
===================================

the obituary of Dr. David Kelly

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:58:28 GMT

Dear Friends:

With great respect, we publish the obituary of Dr. David Kelly. May his
next lifetime be a kinder and gentler one for him.
__________________________

The Guardian
July 19, 2003

Obituary
by Nigel Fountain and Sarah A Smith

Obituary
David Kelly
Biological weapons expert with a reputation for thoroughness

Before this year's Iraq war, the microbiologist David Kelly, who has died
aged 59, would recall that, with Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait,
the pattern of his life for the ensuing decade had been set. Ironically,
his spectacularly professional work in Iraq in the 1990s, was to suck him
towards a media and political quagmire.

Kelly was the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific officer and senior
adviser to the proliferation and arms control secretariat, and to the
Foreign Office's non-proliferation department. The senior adviser on
biological weapons to the UN biological weapons inspections teams (Unscom)
from 1994 to 1999, he was also, in the opinion of his peers, pre-eminent in
his field, not only in this country, but in the world.

After the eviction of the Iraqis from Kuwait in 1991, the UN invited Kelly
to join Unscom to force Saddam into compliance with the peace agreements.
Kelly made 36 visits to Iraq, and, from New York, continued his work into
the late 1990s. What made him the obvious candidate for such work was his
earlier, and continuing, experience in Russia. In autumn 1989, he had been
called in to assist MI6 in debriefing Vladimir Pasechnik, a leading Soviet
biochemist and defector.

Eighteen months later, armed with Pasechnik's evidence of a gross violation
of the 1972 biological weapons convention, Kelly co-led the US/British
delegation to inspect suspect Russian sites. His sympathetic manner was an
asset: at Vektor laboratories in Novosibirsk, Siberia, a researcher
mentioned that the lab was studying the smallpox virus - in contravention
of WHO regulations and the biological weapons convention. This was a major
discovery, which revealed the seriousness of the Soviet undertaking. Later,
he was an observer on the reciprocal trip the Russians made to the US.

More revelations were to come when Kelly co-led the team sent to examine
Russian production and weapons-filling capabilities in October 1993, the
first time the west had been granted such access. Evidence suggested the
potential to grow smallpox in massive quantities, and pointed to a
continuation of an offensive capacity under Boris Yeltsin's supposedly more
friendly, post-Soviet regime. A second visit led by Kelly in January 1994
discovered that Russian work was dormant, rather than halted.

The son of an RAF officer and school teacher, Kelly was born in the Rhondda
Valley, but raised in Tunbridge Wells. His early interests were in
agriculture - and in Oxford, he was an expert on biological pesticides. In
1984, he was appointed head of microbiology at the chemical and biological
defence establishment, Porton Down.

Thus would academics introduce doctoral students to a man who was endlessly
accommodating. He was also, as colleagues emphasise, a scientist who,
completely straight and honest, knew the laboratory bench work, but, unlike
a lot of his fellows, went beyond it. His virtues included a willingness to
share his expertise - though not his secrets - within that world where
non-governmental organisations, academia and public and private
institutions met.

He is survived by his wife Janice and three daughters.

Professor Alastair Hay writes: As an environmental toxologist, I have
covered chemical and biological warfare issues since the 1970s and met
David Kelly at many conferences; notably the Pugwash gatherings, which
brought together scientists from many countries to talk issues through as
professionals, not bound by national or political rivalries.

Pugwash, and those other meetings, simply relied on people like David.
There is no Pugwash party line, it is simply a place where expertise is
paramount. Meetings aside, when I needed to talk to somebody on a key issue
of the moment - like the anthrax-in-the-post scare following 9/11 - David
was there. There was no other person I would have gone to as such a source
of unvarnished truth - and of such funny asides.

The two key areas where his insights were invaluable were around the
biological weapons inspections in Russia in the 1980s, and in Iraq in the
1990s, where, in both cases, he had an central role. He would have
absolutely ensured that the weapons, and the weapons material, were
dismantled. The complete professional, he had such an eye for detail that
nothing got past him.

Such talents served him less well when sucked into the controversies of the
last few months. I dread to think of the pressures he must have been under
within the MoD. To see him on television, before that parliamentary
committee, almost inaudible, was to see him involved in a quite different
process, over which he did not have control.

A week ago, I spent 40 minutes trying to get through to him at the MoD, to
wish him well; they would not put me through to any of his numbers. After I
finally got through by email, telling him to take care, he replied that he
wanted to get back to Baghdad, and some real work.

--David Christopher Kelly, microbiologist, born May 17 1944; died July 18
2003

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
________________________________

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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
============================================================

A Moment of Silence for Dr. Kelly

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:57:38 GMT

Re: A Moment of Silence for Dr. Kelly

Dear Friends:

The tragedy of Dr. David Kelly should not be taken lightly. We ask that you
take a moment of silence in his honor.

Dr. Kelly, a Defense Ministry adviser on Iraqi arms, had recently been
named as the possible "mole" for a BBC report claiming that the government
had "sexed" up its reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction to make a more convincing case for military action. Clearly
overwhelmed by the harshness of the inquiry and by being thrust unwillingly
into the glaring spotlight, he look his life.

For more on this story, please see "Another Tragedy of the War," from the
July 19, 2003 issue of the War and Peace Watch newsletter.
_________________________

The Guardian
July 19, 2003

The Vendetta's Victim
Crisis for the Blair government
by Michael White, Richard Norton-Taylor, Steven Morris and Matt Wells

Tony Blair's government was last night shaken to its foundations by the
apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, the backroom Whitehall scientist caught
in the lethal crossfire over weapons of mass destruction between Downing
Street and the BBC.

Though No 10 moved quickly to concede a judicial inquiry, chaired by Lord
Hutton, into the official handling of Dr Kelly during the last week of his
life, the latest tragedy arising from the Iraq war looked set to cast an
ever-longer shadow over Mr Blair's already troubled second administration.

The prime minister's Boeing 777 was high over the Pacific en route to Tokyo
from his triumphant address to a joint session of Congress in Washington
when news emerged at breakfast time of Dr Kelly's disappearance from his
Oxfordshire home. The timing evoked Greek tragedy: triumph followed by
disaster.

Within hours a body, still officially unidentified, was found shortly
before Mr Blair's flight landed in the Japanese capital on what was meant
to be routine trade and political business.

Alastair Campbell, the No 10 communications director, who is the main
target of opposition and media attacks, had earlier flown home from the US
and was busy last night organising the government's defence.

Mr Campbell has no intention of resigning over the tragedy. And some senior
and well-informed backbench MPs believe that the report of the intelligence
and security committee (ISC), expected in September around the same time as
Lord Hutton's narrower investigation is published, will exonerate him from
the BBC-promulgated charge of "sexing up" the key Iraq intelligence
dossier.

Far from home, on the kind of week-long foreign trip which many voters
mistrust, Mr Blair was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, his
"history will forgive us" claim for the invasion of Iraq instantly
overshadowed by the body discovered on Harrowdown Hill, near Abingdon.

The muted reaction to the tragedy of politicians on all sides is unlikely
to last and there was immediate criticism of the way No 10 and the Ministry
of Defence had, in the view of some MPs, allowed Dr Kelly to become the
"fall guy" in the affair.

A Labour MP, Donald Anderson, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs
committee (FAC), was also forced to defend his panel's conduct, despite
concluding that Dr Kelly was "most unlikely" to be the BBC's mole and
complaining in writing to Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, that the
contract scientist had been "poorly treated by the government" since
voluntarily admitting an "unauthorised" media contact.

The FAC interrogated the soft-spoken Dr Kelly on Tuesday, six days after he
was outed as Whitehall's most likely source for the BBC reporter Andrew
Gilligan. It was a rough session. Next day he endured a gentler grilling by
the more senior intelligence and security committee of MPs and peers, who
extracted "nothing new" from him.

Amid genuine distress expressed by Mr Blair and echoed by Iain Duncan Smith
and Charles Kennedy, some MPs backed complaints that Dr Kelly was unfairly
roughed up - a complaint Gilligan also made on his own behalf after a
second FAC grilling on Thursday.

The FAC has already reported, though it has belatedly concluded Mr Gilligan
is an "unsatisfactory witness". The reporter is unlikely to face ISC
interrogation, though the committee will see transcripts of his and Dr
Kelly's private testimony. So will Lord Hutton if he so wishes.

A key question facing the judicial inquiry is the pressure put on Dr Kelly
by the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, in the attempt to flush out the BBC's
source. Mr Hoon is potentially as much in the frame as Mr Campbell. He and
his senior officials will be crucial witnesses at the inquiry.

Crucial to the inquiry will be the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's
admission to senior MoD officials that he might have been a source for
Gilligan's claim that No 10 had inserted, against intelligence advice, the
claim that Iraq could ready its banned weapons in 45 minutes.

The MoD says Dr Kelly volunteered that he had met Gilligan after reading
the reporter's evidence to the FAC, as he later told MPs himself. Five days
later, the MoD issued a carefully worded statement, agreed with Dr Kelly
but drafted in a way that made it relatively easy for him to be identified.

Mr Hoon, like Mr Campbell, was convinced Dr Kelly was the BBC's source and
relentlessly pursued the corporation in an effort to expose him. The
corporation defied calls to confirm or deny that claim, insisting on
protecting its source.

Both sides dug in, leaving Dr Kelly in no-man's-land. No 10 is adamant that
it played no part in the process, but confirms he was warned that his
agreed anonymity might not last. He was even offered secure accommodation
and faced no disciplinary action other than a mild reprimand, officials
said last night.

Dr Kelly left home, a three-storey 18th-century farmhouse in the south
Oxfordshire village of Southmoor, at around 3pm on Thursday. When he failed
to return after a few hours, friends and neighbours began to hunt for him.
They called the police at 11.45pm. The force helicopter was scrambled and
sniffer dogs were brought in. By morning more than 70 officers were
involved and a body was found at about 9.30am in a wood on Harrowdown Hill,
about two miles from Dr Kelly's home.

Though the body will not be formally identified until today, police are
certain it is that of Dr Kelly. Clothes on the body matched those the
scientist had been wearing.

The manner of his death remained unknown last night but it is understood
investigators quickly ruled out natural causes.

Suggestions that Dr Kelly, a father of three daughters, suffered shotgun
injuries or that a rope was found at the scene were discounted by police
sources. No suicide note has been found at the scene or at Dr Kelly's home.

Police sources said the family did not report the disappearance more
quickly because they were so sure that, despite the pressure he was under,
he would not be driven to take his own life.

However, when Dr Kelly's wife, Janice, spoke to a close friend of her
husband's, the television journalist and author Tom Mangold, before the
body was found she conceded that her husband had been furious at how he had
been treated over the last two weeks. Mangold said: "She said he was very
stressed and unhappy about what had happened. This was really not the kind
of world he wanted to live in."

She told Mangold her husband had felt physically sick after he left the
foreign affairs committee.

The BBC was reeling from the news, appearing unsure how to react. It put
out a short statement, which said: "We are shocked and saddened to hear
what has happened and we extend our deepest sympathies to Dr Kelly's family
and friends."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
________________________________

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.)
============================================================

More Cultural Vulgarity From Bush

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:56:45 GMT

Re: More Cultural Vulgarity From Bush

Dear Friends:

In its latest insult to Iraq and the Middle East, the Bush administration
has begun publishing and propagating a glossy new magazine dedicated to
teaching Middle Eastern youth to love America. How can these youths even
bear to utter America's name after what we've done to their countries?
We've insulted their culture, rounded up their people living in America and
called them terrorists, and had the audacity to send missionaries to "save"
those who choose to profess the Muslim faith.

The magazine even has a feature on life in American universities,
containing interviews with Arab students "enjoying the freedom of thought"
in the US. I wonder if this publication will ever discuss Kent State and
what happened there while students enjoyed this "freedom of thought?" One
would hope that the targeted market is more savvy towards the ways of Bush
and his cronies than are most Americans seem to be.
________________________

The Independent
July 18, 2003

Bush Launches Magazine to Teach Young Arabs to Love America
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington

So what if George Bush is threatening to invade your country? At least the
kids in America have nice, white teeth and listen to the same music as you.
Isn't that enough for you to love the good 'ol US of A?

That, at least, appears to be the message of a glossy new magazine
published by the Bush administration and going on sale across the Middle
East this week, targeting young people with a mix of features, celebrity
profiles and music. The Arabic-language Hi magazine is US propaganda
2003-style. "We're fighting a war of ideas as much as a war on terror,"
said Tucker Eskew, director of the White House's Office of Global
Communications.

Hi, a monthly, will be available for the equivalent of around $2 (£1.25) in
Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Cyprus and
several Gulf states. Saudi Arabia - home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 11
September and where drug dealers are publicly beheaded - has not yet been
deemed ready to get Hi.

The first issue of the magazine, published by the State Department,
contains features on the jazz musician Norah Jones, sandboarding, an
apparent resurgence of interest in Arabic poetry in the US, and yoga. There
is also a section on relationships entitled "Making Marriage Work". A
feature on life in American universities has interviews with Arab students
"enjoying the freedom of thought" in the US.

The administration claims the magazine is designed to show a positive image
of America and highlight the similarities between young people in the US
and the Middle East. The articles have been written by Arab Americans in
Washington and stringers in the Middle East. "There is an editorial board
which reviews all the articles," said a State Department spokeswoman.

While it has an annual budget of $4.2m (£2.6m), the magazine is just part
of a broader media attack on the Middle East. In a speech to the Southern
Centre for International Studies in Atlanta this week, Mr Eskew cited plans
to spend $62m developing an Arabic language television network.

Not everyone is convinced the magazine and the network will succeed. Rani
al-Hajjar, an Atlanta student and co-ordinator for Palestinian Media Watch,
said: "I think if it's coming from a cultural superiority complex, saying
that we are infallible and saying that our policies are best, then I think
it is liable to fail."

© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
________________________________

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.)
============================================================

Gore Vidal Interview With Democracy Now!

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 01:46:07 GMT

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.)
============================================================

Tom Hayden on the "Q" Word

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 01:45:27 GMT

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.)
==============

Bush Admits Error

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 01:45:01 GMT

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
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
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===========================

A Second George Custer

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 01:44:35 GMT

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
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
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contact: Otoño Johnston
============================================================
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============================================================

Turning the Tables Website

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:06:23 GMT

I read about this too. Check it out. It's important.

Re: Turning the Tables Website

Dear Friends:

Not yet ten o'clock in the morning, and I've already been hearing from lots
of you, inquiring about the GIA web site referred to in Hiawatha Bray's
Turning the Tables article from the Boston Globe. The site, said Chris
Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, is ''sort of a
citizen's intelligence agency.'' He and graduate student Ryan McKinley
created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to
the US government's Total Information Awareness program (TIA).

You can find the site through the MIT Media Lab site:
http://nif.www.media.mit.edu/research/ResearchPubWeb.pl?ID=55
Once there, see the Open Government Information Awareness section. Look
around a bit, and enjoy yourself.

A shorter link is http://opengov.media.mit.edu
This second link is the direct one, but due to heavy traffic, you may
experience a slight wait.

[The name of the above-referenced article is "Website Turns Tables on
Government Officials," and appeared in The Boston Globe July 4, 2003. Its
author,Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.]
_______________________________

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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
============================================================

A Duty to the Truth

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:05:28 GMT

Re: A Duty to the Truth

Dear Friends:

Joseph C. Wilson 4th was the US ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, and
a career foreign service officer and ambassador for 23 years. Based on his
experience with the Bush administration in the months preceding the war on
Iraq, he concluded that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear
weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the threat from Iraq. He stresses
that we must uncover the truth-- America's foreign policy depends on the
sanctity of its information.

In the search for this truth, we must be willing to question this selective
use of intelligence to justify the war on Iraq. This is not political
opportunism or what Bush has referred to as "revisionist history." The act
of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave
threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers, and
countless Iraqis, have already lost their lives due to our folly. We have a
duty to them to find out the truth and make it known to all.
__________________________

The New York Times
July 6, 2003

What I Didn't Find in Africa
by Joseph C. Wilson 4th

WASHINGTON

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's
weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to
the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence
related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the
Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and
ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last
American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful
advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George
H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President
Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security
Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the
effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's
nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed
former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence
Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a
particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told
that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of
uranium yellowcake a form of lightly processed ore by Niger to Iraq in
the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to
check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice
president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and
through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to
Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but
by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered
pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting
on behalf of the United States government.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had
been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council
official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal
winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see
camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge),
the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their
faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy.
For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a
close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the
ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to
Iraq and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to
Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent
interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly
took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens
of people: current government officials, former government officials,
people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long
to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever
taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be
exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's
uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run
by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the
government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify
the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International
Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely
regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the
approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the
president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an
industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have
pointed out that the documents had glaring errors they were signed, for
example, by officials who were no longer in government and were probably
forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were
consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her
staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a
detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the
State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or
earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my
trip.

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four
documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The
documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in
Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report
summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of
the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not
seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know
that this is standard operating procedure.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did
take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime
backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September
2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white
paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an
immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase
uranium from an African country.

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the
charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and
suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his
conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied
that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three
African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At
the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a
month before the president's address, the State Department had published a
fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office
asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did
so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated
to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political
leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I
would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was
ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a
legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses.
(It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr.
Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear
weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military
force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions
about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass
destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and
sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used
chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite
possibly a nuclear research program all of which were in violation of
United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in
the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the
dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We
have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its
information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence
to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist
history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a
democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security.
More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We
have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

--Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to
1995, is an international business consultant.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times 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.)
=======================================

New York City Flash Mobs

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:04:56 GMT

Re: New York City Flash Mobs

Dear Friends:

You're probably familiar with the growing phenomenon known as Flash Mobs.
They're fun, sociologically intriguing, and have lots of political
potential. Part performance art, part guerilla theater, the possibilities
are limitless. Just think what you and your community could do....
____________________________

Wired News
July 5, 2003

Mail Mobs Materialize All Over
by Leander Kahney

Inexplicable "flash mobs" are starting to form all over.

Begun in New York City, the gatherings are popping up in San Francisco,
Minneapolis and suburban New York City, just north of the city. There also
is talk of launching a similar group in London.

Flash mobs are performance art projects involving large groups of people.
Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly materializes in a public place, acts
out according to some loose instructions, and then melts away as quickly as
it formed.

In New York, the city's finest turned out in force to block the city's
third mob gathering last Wednesday evening.

Set to gather at 7 p.m. at Grand Central Station for what promised to be an
elaborate "mob ballet," the crowd of about 250 was greeted by a "huge"
police presence, according to the Mob Project's anonymous organizer known
only as Bill.

Bill said the mob moved to the Grand Hyatt next door instead. The crowd
walked quietly upstairs to the hotel's mezzanine and gathered
shoulder-to-shoulder around the balcony.

"At 7:12, we burst into thunderous, screaming applause for 15 seconds, and
then dispersed, just as police cars came screaming around the corner to
where we were," said Bill. "It was fabulous."

In Minneapolis, a mob is planning to gather at an as-yet-undisclosed
location on July 22 at 6:25 p.m., according to the group's organizer, who
asked to remain anonymous.

The organizer said he has created a list of ideas, scripts and potential
locations for mob events, but is worried about the gatherings getting out
of hand.

"The problem with mob events is getting the event at a location that won't
cause a problem," the organizer said. "In Minneapolis, mobs have a real bad
connotation. People think about the Minnesota Gopher hockey team and the
carnage that resulted from just taking part in a hockey tournament. The
last thing we want to see is an unruly mob event."

For the last two years, Gopher fans have rioted in Minneapolis after NCAA
championship games.

"As long as we keep it brief and covert, I see little problem with the
event," the organizer added.

The Minneapolis mob has a discussion list at Yahoo.

In San Francisco, a mob event is promised in "the next few weeks,"
according to organizer Rob Zazueta.

Zazueta, a 28-year-old Web developer who works in the city, said nearly 200
people have signed up for the mailing list. Unlike the NYC mob, which is an
invite-only affair, the San Francisco mob is open to one and all.

"I didn't want it to be an exclusive group," Zazueta explained. "And
besides, the more the merrier."

Zazueta said the nature of the gathering has not yet been decided, but he's
leaning toward some kind of collaborative art project.

"I don't think there's a lot of sustainability to prankish mobs," he said.
"They will have to be ever-increasingly clever to get people to attend and,
eventually, I think some folks might just get bored with them. This is why
I'm trying to think along the lines of organizing around an action or a
creative activity."

Zazueta also is working on a website for groups in other cities hoping to
organize their own mob projects. (The site is not yet live).

"There's a real desire for something like this out there," he said.
"Community has always been a big buzzword in the Web space, and I think the
smart mob concept helps to bring the virtual community into real space. No
matter how good our devices become at allowing us to communicate, I think
we're always going to need some real face time with folks."

NYC's Mob Project organizer Bill said he was pleased with the ever-growing
turnout. The attraction, he said, was that the events are part social, part
political, even though the gatherings are expressly apolitical.

"There seems to be something inherently political about an inexplicable
mob," he said. "People feel like there's nothing but order everywhere --
even crowds these days are forecast and managed -- and so they love to be a
part of just one thing that nobody was expecting."

Sean Savage, a 31-year-old San Francisco designer and weblogger who has
followed flash mobs, said these kinds of semi-anarchic gatherings have
roots that go at least as far back as the late 1970s.

Savage said San Francisco groups like the Suicide Club and the Cacophony
Society have been staging group pranks in the city for decades, while Santa
Rampage has been an annual San Francisco tradition for nearly a decade and
has spread to more than 15 cities worldwide.

"There's a vague, growing interest in grass-roots activity that transcends
more traditional institutions," Savage said. "(They) prove people can still
form ad hoc communities and make things happen that are beyond the reach of
the gigantic, corrupt corporate and governmental powers that seem to
dominate so much of modern life. But maybe I'm reading too much into it."

Wired News
© Copyright 2003, Lycos, Inc. 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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
============================================================

A Rat in the Wheat Fields of Iraq

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:04:30 GMT

Re: A Rat in the Wheat Fields of Iraq

Dear Friends:

The war on Iraq couldn't have come at a worse time for Iraq's beleaguered
farmers. Spring is harvest time in the barley and wheat fields of the
Tigris River valley and planting time in the vast vegetable plantations of
southern Iraq. Though the war is now over, the situation in the fields of
Iraq continues to rapidly deteriorate. The banks, which provide credit and
cash, have been looted, irrigation systems destroyed, road travel
restricted, markets closed, warehouses, and grain silos pillaged. Even if
the crops can be harvested, there's no clear way for the grain to get
stored, marketed, sold ,and distributed to hungry Iraqi families.

Into this dire circumstance strides Daniel Amstutz, the Bush
administration's choice to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq's
agricultural system. His most virulent critic has been Kevin Wilkins,
Oxfam's policy director in London. "This guy is uniquely well-placed to
advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust open
the Iraqi market, but singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction
effort in a war torn country," Watkins warns. "Putting Dan Amstutz in
charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam
Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission."

And the beat goes on....
_________________________

CounterPunch
July 4, 2003

The Rat in the Grain
Dan Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
by Jeffrey St. Clair

The war on Iraq couldn't have come at a more dire time for Iraq's
beleaguered farmers. Spring is harvest time in the barley and wheat fields
of the Tigris River valley and planting time in the vast vegetable
plantations of southern Iraq.

The war is over, but the situation in the fields of Iraq continues to
rapidly deteriorate. The banks, which provide credit and cash, have been
looted, irrigation systems destroyed, road travel restricted, markets
closed, warehouses and grain silos pillaged.

To harvest the grain before it rots in the fields Iraqi farmers need more
than eight million gallons of diesel fuel to power Iraq's corroding armada
of combines and harvesters. But most of the fuel depots were incinerated by
US bombing strikes. There's no easy way to get the fuel that remains to the
farmers who need it most and no desire to do so by the US forces of
occupations.

Even if the crops can be harvested, there's no clear way for the grain to
get stored, marketed, sold and distributed to hungry Iraqi families. Under
the Hussein regime, the crops were bought by the Baghdad government at a
fixed priced and then distributed through a rationing system. This system,
inefficient as it was, is gone. But nothing has taken its place.

Iraqi farmers are still owed $75 million for this year's crop, with little
sign that the money will ever arrive. There's speculation throughout the
country that one intent of the current policy is to force many farmers off
their farms and into the cities so that their lands can be taken over by
favorites of Ahmed Chalabi and his US protectors. The post-Saddam Iraq will
almost certainly witness a land redistribution program: more farmland going
into fewer and fewer hands.

Grain farmers aren't alone. As in the first Gulf War, US bombing raids
targeted cattle feed lots, poultry farms, fertilizer warehouses, pumping
stations, irrigation systems and pesticide factories (the closest thing the
US has come to finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in the country)-the very
infrastructure of Iraqi agriculture. It will take years to restore these
operations.

Many fields in southern Iraq lie fallow, as vegetable farmers have been
unable to secure seeds for this summer's crops of melons, tomatoes, onions,
cucumbers and beans-all mainstays of the Iraqi diet.

"We expect failures," said Abdul Aziz Nejefi, a barley farmer from Mosul,
in a dispatch from the Guardian. "We never had this situation before. There
is no government."

Meanwhile, millions of Iraqis face starvation this summer. A UN staff
report from late May paints a bleak portrait. It notes that Iraq's poultry
industry has effectively been decimated. Millions of chickens perished
during the war. Millions of others face starvation, since nearly of the
chicken feed stored in government warehouses has been looted. Chicken and
eggs are staples of the Iraqi, amounting for more than half of the animal
protein consumed by the population.

Many other farm animals, including sheep and goats, could be ravaged by
disease, since the nation's stockpiles of veterinary medicines and vaccines
have been almost totally destroyed or looted.

Some 60% of Iraq's 24 million people depend totally for their food on the
food ration system that was established after the Gulf War. Each week,
these Iraqis could count on a "food basket" consisting of wheat flour,
rice, vegetable oil, lentils beans, milk, sugar and salt. That system is
now in shambles and is scorned at by US policymakers. And promised grain
imports have yet to materialize.

"Before there is unwarranted military technological triumphalism, let those
setting out to manage the peace think mouths," says Tim Land, professor
food policy at City University in London. "Grumbling stomachs are bad
politics as well as disastrous for the public health. There has to be a
food democracy after decades of food totalitarianism."

Into this dire circumstance strides Daniel Amstutz, the Bush
administration's choice to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq's
agricultural system. Now an international trade lobbyist in DC with a fat
roster of big ag clients, Amstutz once served as a top executive at
Cargill, the food giant which controls much of the world trade in grain.
During Amstutz's tenure at Cargill, the grain company went on a torrid
expansion campaign. It is now the largest privately held corporation in the
US and controls about 94 percent of the soybean market and more than 50
percent of the corn market in the Upper Midwest. It also has it's hands on
the export market controlling 40 percent of all US corn exports, a third of
all soybean exports and at least 20 percent of wheat exports.

Al Krebs, who edits the Agribusiness Examiner, a vital publication on US
farm policy, unearthed a 1982 questionnaire on food, politics and morality
that vividly illustrates the Cargill philosophy. The Joseph Project a
public policy research group sponsored by the Senate of Catholic Priests of
the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St.Paul, asked Cargill executives to explain
the company's attitude toward hunger and famine issues. The executives
responded as follows:

"The assumption that there are moral priorities that are offended in
serving world or domestic markets as economically and efficiently as
possible rests on a confusion about economic facts. It is also a highly
objectionable characterization of business's role. Before one makes moral
judgments and advocates economic actions, one should understand the
economic issues that are involved.

"The business of making moral judgments is both hazardous and potentially
irresponsible unless one is fully satisfied that all the facts and causal
relationships have been explored . . . We are not in a position --- given
time and other constraints --- to provide all the relevant background. Nor
are we anxious to make moral judgments --- or moral defenses --- of our
own."

In 2000, the biggest food companies in the world, Cargill, Archer Daniels
Midland, Cenex Harvest States Co-op, DuPont and Louis Dreyfus, got together
to form Pradium Inc., a kind of secret, internal grain market that offered
real-time, cash commodity exchanges for grains, oilseeds and agricultural
by-products as well as global information services. It also offered ways to
fix price grain prices on a global scale. Amstutz served as Pradium's
chairman.

Amstutz is no stranger to government, either. During the first Bush
administration he served as Undersecretary of Agriculture for International
Affairs and Commodity programs. He was also the chief US negotiator on
agricultural issues for the Uruguay Round of GATT talks, which led to the
WTO.

"Daniel Amstutz, an ex-Cargill executive, is there to push the agribusiness
agenda, not a democratic agenda," says George Naylor, president of the
National Family Farm Coalition. "He will excel in telling the world that
his policy is good for farmers, consumers and the environment when just the
opposite is true."

The small farmers of the grain belt of the Midwest have a particular
loathing for Amstutz. During his stint in the first Bush administration,
Amstutz devised the notorious Freedom to Farm Bill, which eliminated
tariffs and slashed federal farm price supports-all in an effort to lower
grain prices for the benefit of Amstutz's cronies in the big agricultural
conglomerates. As a result, thousands of American farmers lost their farms
and monopolists like Cargill reaped the benefits.

The contours of Amstutz's plan for Iraq are familiar: a combination of
free-market shock therapy and predation by multinational corporations.
Gliding over a decade of UN sanctions that have starved the nation and a
war that ravaged the nation's infrastructure, Amstutz announced that the
real problem facing Iraqi agriculture is, naturally, government subsidies.
"Iraqi farmers have had little incentive to increase production because of
price controls that have kept food very inexpensive," Amstutz announced.
"With a transition to a market economy, we can see health returning to
agriculture and incentives to employ good farming practices and modern
techniques."

The more likely scenario is that Amstutz will use destitute condition of
Iraq's farmlands as a lucrative opportunity to dump cheap grain from
American companies like Cargill, all of it paid for by Iraqi oil. If this
scenario plays out, it will spell disaster for Iraq's struggling farmers.

Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq imported more than one million metric ton
per year of American wheat. Since then, however, no direct sales of
American agricultural products have occurred. Amstutz is anxious to begin
flooding Iraq with Cargill grain.

Moreover, Iraq owes the US Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit
Corp. $2 billion on loans that facilitated pre-1991 ag sales and nearly $2
billion in interest on the loans. Amstutz will certainly demand that those
loans be recouped through oil sales.

"Someone needs to warn the Iraqi people that other third world countries
can already attest that the dependence Amstutz will create surely means
that Iraq's sovereignty will be greatly compromised," says Naylor.

And Naylor argues that cash-strapped American farmers won't see any
benefits, either. "Even if there will be more exports to Iraq, this little
drop in the "Amstutz perpetuates the more exports lie because his
agribusiness cronies are encouraging overproduction all over the world,
thus being able to sell more genetically-modified seeds and chemicals and
buying ever cheaper farm commodities."

Even as millions of Iraqi's face starvation under the stern hand of their
food pro consul, Amstutz's appointment has excited little commentary in the
US. His most virulent critic has been Kevin Wilkins, Oxfam's policy
director in London. Watkins warns that Amstutz is little more than a
carpetbagger seeking to advance the interests of the same food titans that
his lobbying outfit in DC represents, Cargill, DuPont, Cenex and Archer
Daniels Midland.

"This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial interests of
American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market, but singularly
ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a war torn country,"
Watkins warns. "Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural
reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a
human rights commission."

Amstutz was recently spotted in Iowa, pitching his agricultural
reconstruction plan to Iowa feedlot owners. He told the farmers that they
stood to profit handsomely from his plan to bring modern feedlots to Iraq,
those foul-smelling operations that pack thousands of cattle and hogs into
tightly confined pens. "They are meat eaters," he brayed. "Iraq is not a
vegetarian society."

Iowa doesn't have many cattle or sheep operation. Most of the people in his
audience raised hogs. And unless Amstutz has joined in a partnership with
Franklin Graham to Christianize Iraq, there won't be a big market for pork
products in Baghdad.

© Copyright CounterPunch
_______________________________

In peace,

Otoño
________________________________

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Peace Watch.
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contact: Otoño Johnston
============================================================
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Turning the Tables

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:03:57 GMT

Re: Turning the Tables

Dear Friends:

At last, a Total Information Awareness and snooping program on THEM. Thanks
to two researchers at MIT, the tables have been turned, and citizens will
now have the ability to create dossiers on government officials. In a
response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program,
assistant professor Chris Csikszentmihalyi and graduate student Ryan
McKinley have created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project.
''It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency,'' Csikszentmihalyi said.
_____________________________

Boston Globe
July 4, 2003

Website Turns Tables on Government Officials
by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff

Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are celebrating
the Fourth of July with a new Internet service that will let citizens
create dossiers on government officials.

The system will start by offering standard background information on
politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking Internet users to
submit their own intelligence reports on government officials -- reports
that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy.

''It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency,'' said Chris
Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab.

He and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information
Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government's Total
Information Awareness program (TIA).

Revealed last year, TIA seeks to track possible terrorist activity by
analyzing vast amounts of information stored in government and private
databases, such as credit card data. The system would use this information
to analyze the actions of millions of people, in an effort to spot patterns
that could indicate a terrorist threat.

News of the plan outraged civil libertarians and prompted Congress to set
limits on the scope of such activity. The Defense Department then renamed
the program Terrorist Information Awareness, to ease public concern.

But the controversy gave McKinley the idea for the GIA project. ''If total
information exists,'' he said, ''really the same effort should be spent to
make the same information at the leadership level at least as transparent
-- in my opinion, more transparent.''

McKinley worked with Csikszentmihalyi to design the GIA system. It's partly
based on technology used to create Internet indexes such as Google.
Software crawls around Internet sites that store large amounts of
information about politicians. These include independent political sites
like opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by government agencies. McKinley
created software that ferrets out the useful data from these sites, and
loads it into the GIA database. The result is a one-stop research site for
basic information on key officials.

The site also takes advantage of round-the-clock political coverage
provided by cable TV's C-Span networks. McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi use
video cameras to capture images of people appearing on C-Span, which
generally includes the names of people shown on screen. A computer program
''reads'' each name, and links it to any information about that person
stored in the database. By clicking on the picture, a GIA user instantly
gets a complete rundown on all available data about that person.

The GIA site constantly displays snapshots of the people appearing on
C-Span at that moment. If there's a dossier on a particular person,
clicking on the picture brings it up. A C-Span viewer watching a live
government hearing could learn which companies have contributed to a member
of Congress's reelection campaign, before the politician had even finished
speaking.

All of the information currently on the site is available from public
sources. But GIA will go one step further. Starting today, the site will
allow the public to submit information about government officials, and this
information will be made available to anyone visiting the site. No effort
will be made to verify the accuracy of the data.

This approach to Internet publishing isn't new. It resembles a method known
as Wiki, in which a website is constantly amended by visitors who
contribute new information. The best known Wiki site, www.wikipedia.org, is
an online encyclopedia created entirely by visitors who have voluntarily
written nearly 140,000 articles, on subjects ranging from astronomy to
Roman mythology. Any Wikipedia user who thinks he has spotted an error or
wants to add information can modify the article. Unlike at a standard
encyclopedia operation, there is no central authority to edit or reject
articles.

The GIA approach, though, raises the possibility that people could post
libelous information, or data that unreasonably compromises a person's
privacy.

That troubles Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology & Liberty
Program of the American Civil Liberties Union. ''We think that there should
be some restrictions on the publishing of personally identifiable
information, whether it involves government officials or not,'' he said.

But he noted that the public has a right to know some things about a
politician that would be properly kept private about an ordinary citizen.
For instance, voters have a right to know where a politician sends his
children to school, if that politician has taken a strong stand on school
vouchers.

''Do they have the right to publish every piece of data they're going to
publish?'' Steinhardt asked. ''It's going to depend on what they publish.''

In any case, Steinhardt said, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi have a First
Amendment right to set up the GIA project. And he said that it's a valuable
response to the government's TIA surveillance. ''I assume the point of this
is, turnabout is fair play.''

On a page of the GIA website, at opengov.media.mit.edu, McKinley and
Csikszentmihalyi give their answer to questions about the legitimacy of
their actions.

''Is it legal?'' the site reads. ''It should be.''

--Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper 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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
=================

A Fourth of July Treat for You

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:03:26 GMT

Re: A Fourth of July Treat for You

Dear Friends:

Here's a Fourth of July treat for you, posted by Bob Harris on This Modern
World/Tom Tomorrow's blog. Watch closely, and enjoy. Have a great Fourth of
July weekend, and I'll see you back Monday.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

This Modern World/Tom Tomorrow
July 02, 2003

Your First Mission for Today
posted by Bob Harris

1) Pay a visit to Google.

2) Type in (without using any quotes): weapons of mass destruction

3) Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" icon.

You'll see why. Just go...
________________________________

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.)
================

The Bill of Rights

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:02:52 GMT

Re: The Bill of Rights

Dear Friends:

Constitutional Amendments 1-10: The Bill of Rights

The following text is a transcription of the first 10 amendments to the
Constitution in their original form. These amendments were ratified
December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the "Bill of Rights." These
are your heritage as an American citizen. They belong to you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the
consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed
by law.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in
actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein
the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been
previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause
of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried
by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States,
than according to the rules of the common law.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.
___________________________________________________________________________
____

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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only.)
============================================================

Happy birthday, America

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 02:02:21 GMT

Re: Happy birthday, America

Dear Friends:

These time-honored words are perhaps even more important today than they
were 227 years ago.
___________________________________

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has
been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history
of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be
obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to
them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation
in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,
and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to
be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have
returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in
the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and
convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to
pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to
Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing
the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the
most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to
the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in
the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold
the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of
the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these
United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that
all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is
and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States,
they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,
establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent
States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a
firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
________________________________

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
============================================================
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distributed without profit or payment for research and educational
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============================================================