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Pat Thurston's Radio Weblog
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 |
This Just In….
FDA Reopens Probe Into Contaminated Soda
It’s been 15 years since the FDA closed their investigation into soft drinks contaminated with cancer-causing chemical benzene. But the agency has reopened the probe amid evidence that the industry has failed to take care of the problem - recent tests have revealed levels of benzene from two and a half to five times above the World Health Organization limit for drinking water.
Benzene is considered a poisonous chemical shown to increase the risk of leukaemia and other cancers. The testing results were revealed by a former chemist for Cadbury Schweppes who decided to blow the whistle on the situation.
(CEE-Food Industry.com)
Prez’s Pitch
“The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats Monday.”
The Department of Defense spent the most on media contracts, with pacts worth $1.1 billion, according to the study. The Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $300 million, the Department of Treasury spent $152 million, and the Department of Homeland Security spent $24 million during the period.
The six largest recipients of ad and PR dollars were Leo Burnett USA, $536 million; Campbell-Ewald, $194 million; GSD&M, $179 million; JWT, $148 million; Frankel, $133 million; and Ketchum, $78 million. The agencies received more than $1.2 billion in media contracts, according to the report.
The PR and ad contracts included providing “expert advice and support in the development of several marriage-related research initiatives,” an educational campaign regarding the “Medicare Modernization Act, and its coverage and benefits,” and a contract regarding “message development that presents the Army’s strategic perspective in the global war on terrorism,” the study said.
(BrandWeek)
[Muckraked]
10:36:33 AM 
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What’s Brownie Really Doing?.  Does former FEMA director Michael D. Brown’s consulting firm really exist?
Brown, who recently testified on Capitol Hill regarding his role in the federal government’s reaction to Hurrican Katrina, started a disaster preparedness consulting firm a few months ago. According to an AP story back in November:
“Brown said companies already have expressed interested in his consulting business, Michael D. Brown LLC” which Brown plans to run “from the Boulder [Colorado] area, where he lived before joining the Bush administration in 2001.”
But it seems that Brown hasn’t registered this business anywhere in the country - according to our research (checking a national database of incorporated businesses and phone calls to the Secretary of States in Colorado, DC, Virginia and Maryland).
So, what’s going on here? Is Brownie lying? Or is he actually working with another consultancy to win Katrina-related contracts from the government because he’s embarrassed that his reputation might damage the prospects for any company with his name in the title?
[Muckraked]
10:34:52 AM
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Katrina Contracts: Corruption?. It’s been almost six months since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The federal government has handed out billions in contracts ranging from over $500 million for the giant construction company Bechtel to provide short-term housing to people displaced by the hurricane to a $185 contract with RT’s Plumbing in New Iberia, LA to service portable toilets.
In the rush to respond to the crisis, FEMA and other federal agencies sidestepped normal protocol and gave out many no-bid contracts. Some of those deals have come under scrutiny due to the fact that insiders seemed to be profiting from the disaster - two of former FEMA director-turned-lobbyist Joseph Allbaugh’s corporate clients, Shaw Group and Halliburton, have reaped hundreds of millions in contracts. And Bechtel’s CEO, Riley P. Bechtel, was named by President Bush to his Export Council.
So, we decided to take a look at government figures involved in the Katrina recovery effort, primarily examining the political leaders in Louisiana and Mississippi and prominent members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority and the Mississippi Development Authority, to see if any of their companies or organizations have been awarded contracts related to the recovery. (*Note that these records do not take into account contracts awarded by the Department of Defense.) Here are the results:
 Joe Allbaugh (former FEMA director)
- $348 million (Shaw Group)
- $178 million (Halliburton’s Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary)
 Rosemary Barbour (married to Mississippi governor Haley Barbour’s nephew)
- $6.7 million (Alcatec LLC - install and maintain portable showers, deliver tents)
 Jerry St. Pe (member of Governor’s Commission on Recovering, Rebuilding and Renewal in MS)
- $1.5 million (Northrop Grumman - various services)
 Dan Packer (chair of Bring New Orleans Back)
- $71,000 (Entergy - electric services to EPA and GSA)
 Anthony Topazi (leader of Mississippi Development Authority’s Momentum Mississippi board)
- $49,403 (Mississippi Power - electrical utility services)
 Jim Barksdale (head of Governor’s Commission on Recovering, Rebuilding and Renewal in MS)
- $32,121 (SRA International - hold pre-proposal conference)
Gray Swoope (deputy director and COO of the Mississippi Development Authority)
- $10,000 (Pearl River Community College - rent space in Poplarville, MS)
James Reiss (leader of Bring New Orleans Back commission)
- $2,600 (Smith & Associates Consulting - pallets in Gulfport, MS)
Joseph C. Canizaro (leader of Bring New Orleans Back)
- $0 (Galleria Operating - lease of office buildings in Metairie, LA)
[Muckraked]
10:31:47 AM
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UAE’s Reputation: Smuggling Haven?.  In the midst of bipartisan outrage over the White House’s decision to allow a United Arab Emirates-owned company to oversee operations at U.S. ports, it’s worth considering the safety record of Dupai Ports World.
Most maritime experts attest to the firm’s solid reputation and Kim Petersen, head of SeaSecure, a U.S.-based maritime security company, and executive director of the Maritime Security Council told CNN, “This whole notion that Dubai is going to control or set standards for U.S. ports is a canard … is factually false.” Dubai Ports World, like all port owners, must abide by the Maritime Transportation Security Act passed by Congress in 2002 and International Ship and Port Facility Security codes enacted in 2004, he said. Both sets of security measures are enforced in the United States by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the chairman of DP World, often recounts the days when his grandfather was a pearl diver to illustrate his country’s history in trading. “We are merchants, and we’ve been trading since the days of our ancestors,” he recently said. Unfortunately, over the last ten years, some merchants have used the country’s ports to trade weapons and to evade trading sanctions on Iran and other countries.
Since DP World is a state-run company, it seems reasonable to examine the record of the UAE. Although they have cooperated with the U.S. in the capture and arrest of several suspected terrorists, the country has a troubling history of weapons smuggling. Last year, the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a non-partisan research institue, compiled a chronology of smuggling and illicit transfers that have occurred in the UAE:
1994 - 1995: Bukary Syed Abu (B.S.A.) Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in Dubai, allegedly organizes the transshipment of two containers of centrifuge components from Dubai to Iran, on behalf of A.Q. Khan, for $3 million.
October 1995: Seven persons are indicted by the United States for conspiring to export, without the required license, $500,000 of sensitive U.S. electronics to Iran between 1991 and 1994. Controlled goods, including encryption devices, were allegedly shipped via Hanofeel General Trading Est. of Dubai to Iran’s Tak Neda Co. Ltd. Elham Abrishami, of Afshein, Inc. in the U.S., pleads guilty in 1997.
1996: The German government warns its exporters that Iranian companies active in procurement for weapons programs are present in Dubai. Among the entities that arrange and finance technology transfers via front companies in Dubai are Iran’s State Purchasing Organization, and Bonyad Mostazafan and Janbazan Foundation.
June 1996: Dubai’s Guide Oil Equipment Company is identified in a U.S. court as a corporation that ships impregnated alumina, which can be used in the manufacture of nerve gas, through Dubai or the United Kingdom to Iran. In 1998 Abdol Hamid Rashidian and Henry Joseph Trojack are convicted for conspiring to ship impregnated alumina to Iran.
July 1996 - March 1998: IGI, Inc. sold $400,000 of poultry vaccine from the U.S. to Iran via Dubai, violating the U.S. embargo on Iran.
1997 - 1998: Pars Company Inc. of the U.S. exports two STX gas monitors to the U.A.E. and transships them to Iran. Pars Company did not obtain the required license for the monitors, which can be used in chemical and biological weapons production, and is fined $10,000. The U.S. Department of Commerce subsequently imposes a nine year denial of export privileges in 2002. The U.S. firm Industrial Scientific Corporation is also implicated, and pays a $30,000 fine.
1998: According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Jabal Damavand General Trading Company of Dubai transfers U.S.-origin ferrography laboratory equipment to Iran without authorization. In 2002 the U.S. bans Jabal Damavand for ten years from engaging in any activity subject to the Export Administration Regulations.
March 1998: According to the U.S. government’s Iraq Survey Group (I.S.G.), the Iraqi Intelligence Service uses bribes to circumvent customs inspections in Dubai, which is a transshipment point for military equipment being sought from Romania.
May 1998: A new Sun Ultra Enterprise 1 Work Station is located in Iraq’s National Computer Center, which was involved in Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. Iraq claims to have imported workstations from the U.A.E. and Jordan.
May 1998 - June 1999: According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Dubai’s Ibn Khaldoon Drug Store Est. participates in the unauthorized export of medical equipment from the U.S. to Iran, in contravention of the U.S. embargo. Ibn Khaldoon is ordered in 2004 to pay a $40,000 fine.
May 1998 - May 2002: Biocheck Inc. of the U.S. allegedly exports medical diagnostic kits without authorization to Iran via Italy and the U.A.E. Biocheck is later fined $32,000 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and pays the U.S. Department of Commerce $22,500.
September 1998 - February 2001: NEC Engineers of India allegedly sends 10 shipments of materials used in the manufacture of rocket propellant and missiles to Dubai and Jordan without the required export license. Indian court documents state that the consignments, shipped for $791,343, “appear to have been diverted to Iraq for assisting their weapon building programme,” violating the U.N. embargo. NEC Engineers is accused of mis-declaring goods and attempting to export consignments in the name of associated companies. The Dubai companies Target General Land Transport and Indjo Trading are reportedly involved.
November 1998 - February 2000: Mohammad Farahbakhsh, co-owner and managing director of Dubai’s Diamond Technology LLC, allegedly tries to export U.S. computer items to Iran via Diamond Technology. The alleged purchaser is Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, which is a branch of the Iranian Ministry of Defence and subject to U.S. sanctions for its involvement in cruise and ballistic missile development.
1998 - 2000: Mazyar Gavidel and his company Homa International Trading Corp. violate the U.S. trade embargo against Iran by illegally transferring approximately $2 million of laundered money through Dubai. Gavidel and Homa International are convicted by the U.S. in August 2002.
January 1999: Abu Bakar Siddiqui, a British exporter of Pakistani origin and an alleged procurement agent for A.Q. Khan, allegedly attempts to ship special aluminum sheets to Dubai.
May 1999: British customs authorities reportedly seize up to 20 tons of components, including high-grade aluminum, believed to be ultimately destined for Pakistan. The cargo arrived from the U.S. and was allegedly about to be shipped to Dubai. The exporter is allegedly Siddiqui, who is convicted in the United Kingdom in 2001 for illegally exporting strategic materials to Pakistan, including high-strength aluminum bars.
2001: U.A.E. companies act as intermediaries in the partial delivery of fiber-optic and military communications contracts from South Korea to Iraq, according to the I.S.G.
2001: Dubai’s Ports, Customs & Free Zone Corporation is established to take over customs operations from the Dubai Ports Authority and Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority.
June 2001: Bef Corp. allegedly exports photo finishing equipment to SK of Dubai, which transships the equipment to Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions.
September 2001: The U.A.E.’s Advance Technical Systems purchases $16,000 of military radar components from the U.S. and transships them to Pakistan after declaring that they were for the Bangladeshi Air Force. Following guilty pleas delivered in June 2003 for the illegal export of parts for howitzers, radars and armored personnel carriers, two U.S. citizens and one Pakistani are imprisoned.
October 2001: A U.A.E.-based firm acts as an intermediary to facilitate the trade in ballistic missile-related goods from China to Iraq, according to the I.S.G.
May 2002: The German government warns its exporters that since 1998 Iraq has been increasingly engaging in procurement activities through Dubai. Germany believes that North Korea has also increased its operations in Dubai.
August 2002: The U.S. firm Mercator, Inc. agrees a $30,000 settlement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which had alleged that Mercator had exported chemicals to Dubai with the knowledge that they would be re-exported to Iran without prior authorization.
December 2002: The U.S. Navy accuses Dubai’s Naif Marine Services of smuggling to Iraq polymers that could be used to manufacture explosives.
January 2003: Spare parts for Mirage F-1 aircraft and Gazelle attack helicopters are transferred to Iraq. U.S. intelligence reportedly believes that parts were purchased from France by Dubai’s Al Tamoor Trading Co., and then smuggled to Iraq through at third country, reportedly Turkey.
May 2003 - February 2004: U.A.E.-based Diamond Technology LLC and its managing director Mohammad Farahbakhsh allegedly export a U.S. satellite communications system to Iran without the required license.
June 2003: 311 companies attend the third U.A.E. Trade Exhibition in Iran. Trade with Iran exchanged through Dubai’s ports was 12 billion dirhams in 2001, an increase from 4.3 billion in 1997.
October 2003: 66 triggered spark gaps, which can be used to detonate nuclear weapons, are shipped without the required license from the United States to Top-Cape Technology in South Africa. They are subsequently transshipped via Dubai to AJMC Lithographic Aid Society in Pakistan. In 2004 Asher Karni, an Israeli living in South Africa, pleads guilty to conspiring to export controlled commodities to Pakistan without validated export licenses. In 2005 the U.S. indicts Humayun Khan of the Pakistani company Pakland PME for violating export restrictions and being the ultimate purchaser.
October 2003: Five containers of centrifuge components, sent by B.S.A. Tahir and shipped through Dubai, are seized en route to Libya. The items are part of four shipments made by Malaysia’s Scomi Precision Engineering (SCOPE) between 2002 and 2003 to Dubai’s Aryash Trading Company. One of the four consignments lists the addressee as Gulf Technical Industries, but is diverted to Desert Electrical Equipment Factory, also based in Dubai.
October 2003: According to B.S.A. Tahir, the BBC China, the ship carrying the seized centrifuge components, was also transporting an aluminum casting and dynamo for Libya’s centrifuge workshop. The consignment was allegedly sent via Dubai by TUT Shipping on behalf of Gunas Jireh of Turkey.
October 2003: Two weeks after the seizure of the centrifuge components, B.S.A. Tahir arranges the transshipment to Libya, via Dubai, of an electrical cabinet and power supplier-voltage regulator on behalf of Selim Alguadis, an associate of A.Q. Khan.
December 2003: Hamid Fathaloloomy, principal of Dubai’s Akeed Trading Company, allegedly attempts to export U.S. pressure sensors to Iran.
April 2004: The U.A.E. freezes the accounts of SMB Computers as part of its investigation into B.S.A. Tahir, who is the Group Managing Director.
April 2004: Elmstone Service and Trading FZE is sanctioned for two years by the United States for transferring to Iran equipment and/or technology of proliferation significance since 1999.
August 2004: The U.S. indicts Khalid Mahmood, of Dubai, for breaking the U.S. embargo to Iran. Mahmood allegedly attempted to arrange the sale of forklift radiators from the U.S. to Iran, by concealing the final destination in the sale.
September 2004: The I.S.G. lists 20 U.A.E. firms that are suspected of having acted as intermediaries or front companies for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and says that the U.A.E. was a transit location for prohibited goods, with companies using deceptive trade practices. The I.S.G. also concludes that the U.A.E. and Iran were the most frequent destinations for Iraqi smuggled oil and owned the majority of smuggling vessels involved.
December 2004: The U.A.E. agrees to join the U.S.’ Container Security Initiative (C.S.I.), becoming the first country in the Middle East to do so. U.S. customs officials will be stationed in Dubai to help target and screen suspect cargo bound for the United States.
2005: More than 300 Iranian companies are known to have operated in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone.
May 2005: Dubai signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. to join the Megaports Initiative. Dubai will be the first government in the Middle East to participate in the scheme, which is intended to detect and seize shipments of radioactive material.
[Muckraked]
10:23:39 AM
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Security at Other Ports. The true test of DP World’s security capabilities should be how well they’ve safeguarded the few dozen ports they run around the world from India and Germany to Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
One example is their operation of Djibouti, a major port in East Africa. Long plagued by smuggling, DP World took over the port’s operation in 2000 promising better security and increased efficiency. Yet in recent years, the port’s security measures were deemed inadequate by both Ethiopia and the United States, both of which called in their own military forces to safeguard the port during major shipments (according to Stars and Stripes and Afrol News).
[Muckraked]
10:22:50 AM
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UAE’s Publicity Blitz. In addition to DP World’s invitation to the U.S. government for a new security review, the United Arab Emirates-owned company is also working the aisles to help win over members of Congress and policymakers.
 And they’ve got some powerful lobbyists on their side, including Bob Dole. The former Senator works for Alston & Bird, a law firm which helped navigate DP World’s application through the federal bureaucracy in recent months. (That firm’s other clients include Indonesia - helping burnish that country’s reputation amid accusations of human rights violations.) And Alston & Bird has benefited from the legislating-to-lobbying revolving door endemic to the Beltway: former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and former Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley also work for the firm.
In addition, the United Arab Emirates has the Gabriel Company working for them to win over the hearts and minds of Congress. That firm is headed by Edward M. Gabriel, the former U.S. ambassador to Morocco and White House adviser on Mideast policy. He’s given $30,000 to the Democrats in recent years, including $2000 to Hillary Clinton and $27,000 to John Kerry.
Several years ago, Gabriel was the president of the American Task Force on Lebanon, the only Lebanese-American lobbying group that opposed the 2002 Syria Accountability Act. That draft bill, which was endorsed by the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, mandated economic sanctions against Syria if it did not end its sponsorship of terrorist organizations, discontinue its development of weapons of mass destruction, refrain from violating UN sanctions on Iraq and end its military occupation of Lebanon.
[Muckraked]
10:22:11 AM
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Big Oil’s Big Friends.  It’s all about priorities for some members of Congress when it comes to treating America’s “addiction to oil.”
As reported by columnist Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News, Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has launched a probe into possible antitrust violations by Citgo. Could it be related to accusations of price gouging by ExxonMobil, Chevron or other oil giants?
“No, the good congressman has set his sights on the only oil company that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest Americans.”
“In a Feb. 15 letter to Citgo, the Houston-based company owned by the Venezuelan government, Barton demanded that company officials produce by tomorrow all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo’s novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.”
Why the animosity against Citgo? Because it’s promoted by Hugo Chavez, the populist president of Venezuela and outspoken critic of the Bush administration.
“The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how,” Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton’s committee, said yesterday.
[Muckraked]
10:21:30 AM
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EPA Shutting Off Access to Info. Tucked away in the Bush administration’s recent budget is a proposal that has alarmed scientists and environmentalists. Under the plan, the Environmental Protection Age ncy will shut down its network of libraries serving the public and its own staff scientists.
In addition, the agency will discontinue its electronic catalog, “which tracks tens of thousands of unique documents and research studies that are available nowhere else,” reports Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The agency library’s $2.5 million budget will be cut by $2 million. That includes the $500,000 budget for the EPA Headquarters library and its electronic catalog which allows users to search for documents through the entire EPA library network.
In total, the proposal includes about $300 million in cuts to the agency’s budget. Some areas will see increases in research funding: nanotechnology, air pollution and drinking water system security as part of Bush’s “American Competitive Initiative.”
[Muckraked]
10:20:28 AM
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David Sirota: Still Say There's No Security Risk From the UAE Deal?.   Yesterday, I noted that the corporate punditocracy was unifying in an adamant denial that the UAE port security endangers U.S. national security. Some are even calling those who have raised security concerns "borderline racists" - a disgustingly insulting and dishonest charge, considering the UAE has very recent ties to Osama bin Laden, terrorist financing and some of the 9/11 hijackers. Raising security concerns about a country like that controlling our ports isn't "borderline racist" or extreme - it's entirely rational, as long as you are willing to put America's national security interests above Big Business's profit motive, as most Americans outside the Beltway want (but most insulated pundits do not).
But now, in a major story, we see that it's not just writers like me who have pointed out these security concerns - it's also the U.S. Coast Guard which previously told the Bush administration that it had serious national security concerns about this deal. As Republican Sen. Susan Collins (ME) said to administration officials today:
"I'm trying to reconcile your assurance today that there were no security concerns that were not addressed with the Coast Guard's report that there were many intelligence gaps that precluded an overall threat assessment."
The Bush administration tried to dodge Collins inquiry - and in the process publicly embarrassed itself. That's not surprising - it's now impossible for this supposedly "tough on terrorism" administration to hide its national security hypocrisy and negligence in pursuit of its Big Money donors' agenda.
But if you don't believe the Coast Guard, how about Joseph King, who headed the customs agency's anti-terrorism efforts under the Treasury Department and the new Department of Homeland Security? Here's what the Washington Post reported today about him:
"[King] said a company the size of Dubai Ports World would be able to get hundreds of visas to relocate managers and other employees to the United States. Using appeals to Muslim solidarity or threats of violence, al-Qaeda operatives could force low-level managers to provide some of those visas to al-Qaeda sympathizers, said King, who for years tracked similar efforts by organized crime to infiltrate ports in New York and New Jersey. Those sympathizers could obtain legitimate driver's licenses, work permits and mortgages that could then be used by terrorist operatives. Dubai Ports World could also offer a simple conduit for wire transfers to terrorist operatives in the Middle East. Large wire transfers from individuals would quickly attract federal scrutiny, but such transfers, buried in the dozens of wire transfers a day from Dubai Ports World's operations in the United States to the Middle East would go undetected, King said."
Make no mistake about it - expect no apologies or corrections from the corporate punditocracy even in light of these explosive new revelations. The pundits have built up such a track record of out-of-touch dishonest shilling for corporate interests that they will likely try to come up with an even more convulted rationale to prioritize the corporate profit motive over the need to protect America's national security.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:28:51 AM
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Cenk Uygur: We Got Him. It's over. Bush's house of cards has just come crumbling down. We suspected it might just be a matter of time, but now it's officially over!
No one recovers from a 34% approval rating. I'll tell you why -- because even the most inept politician realizes you run away from a 34, not towards it. The entire United States Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have no choice but to run from this President -- as fast as they possibly can (ironically, some of the Democrats will be the slowest to leave this sinking ship -- and Lieberman will be the very last one on board).
George Bush is the quick sand that is pulling the Republican Party underground. If they don't realize that now, they soon will when they do the next poll in their home districts. No party can survive trying to pull up a President so universally disliked (let alone a Vice President that is nearly loathed at an 18% approval rating -- I don't think Pinochet was ever that low and I know Nixon wasn't).
The question the Republicans in Congress have to deal with now is -- do they go down with the ship and risk destroying the party all together or do they finally cut Bush loose like they did with Nixon? Could the Republican Party have survived if they decided to go to the bitter end with Nixon? We never found out because no party has been that suicidal since the Federalists.
I knew they were in trouble when Fox put up the banner: "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" That sounds so pathetically desperate that for the first time I felt sorry for Fox and the Bush administration.
There are some things that are unspinabble. A civil war is one of them.
This long slide downward started with the Terry Schiavo fiasco (politically; policy wise the slide down started when Bush ignored the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" PDB and stayed on vacation). The downward spiral built up momentum with the abysmal response to Hurricane Katrina. And it culminated in the Port Debacle. The Republican congressional leaders thought this might be a safe issue to distance themselves from the administration without doing too much damage, but when they pulled their finger out of the dam, the flood rushed in and the levees were breached.
It allowed die-hard Republican voters for the first time to feel that it was okay to criticize the President. Once they opened up to that possibility, the whole edifice of party loyalty (for the sake of party loyalty) started to crumble. And then someone pulled the critical card out of the house of cards ... the Iraqi Civil War.
Ronald Reagan once said, "Facts are stubborn things." It turns out they're even more stubborn than Fox News Channel and Karl Rove. It took a long time for facts to wear down spin, but it has, at long last, happened.
Several months ago I said that Bush's poll numbers would never recover and would not go back above fifty percent. Now, I think we are beyond that. At this point, there is a chance that this administration does not make it to 2008. The card has been pulled, this house is coming down. And we might all be surprised at how quickly that comes about.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:26:09 AM
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Danielle Crittenden: The President's Secret IMs: A Prince, a Party Gurl, and a Storm in a Port. 
AIM IM with Party_gurl
12:03 p.m.
Party_gurl: daddy!
Kickass43: hey jen
Kickass43: wazzup punkin
Party_gurl: im liek soooo piss'd
Party_gurl: im liek rlly piss'd
Kickass43: ?
Party_gurl: u wdnt believe it
Kickass43: wat
Party_gurl: so OUTRAJUS
Kickass43: uh sweetiepie
Kickass43: ur dad's kinda busy
Kickass43: pls get 2 tha pt
Party_gurl: well liek SORRY
Party_gurl: but summa us have problems 2 K?
Party_gurl; liek im ur baby gurl
Party_gurl: & this is ttlly majr
Kickass43: sry 2 b impashunt
Kickass43: but ive got tha sheik of dubai IMing me
Kickass43: hes super p.o.'d
Party_gurl: not as piss'd as me!!!!!!!!!!!
Party_gurl: look at this bs!
AIM IM with SheikMo
12:08 p.m.
SheikMo: Are you still there your Excellency?
Kickass43: sry ur highness
Kickass43: sumthin droppd on my desk
Kickass43: im here
SheikMo: A thousand pardons Mr. President!
SheikMo: Everyone in the world wants your ear
SheikMo: and yet you only have two.
SheikMo: I was only just saying
SheikMo: that his Excellency your esteemed father
SheikMo: was a true friend...
Kickass43: im ur bud 2 ur highness
SheikMo: Kuwait was magnificent...
Kickass43: I jus need sum time...
SheikMo: It was our pleasure to donate $1 million
SheikMo: to the erection of his library...
SheikMo: and yet so inadequate a gesture
SheikMo: given what he did for our people.
SheikMo: But we do what we can for our friends.
Kickass43: tha family rlly aphreshiatd it
SheikMo: and his Excellency the esteemed President Clinton...
SheikMo: such a true friend also!
SheikMo: To miss an opportunity to blow up that miserable dog Bin Laden
SheikMo: so as not to risk killing any members of our royal families
SheikMo: with whom he may have been falconing at the time.
SheikMo: A true, true friend.
SheikMo: (and "entre nous"
SheikMo: how nobly he endures
SheikMo: that burden God inflicted upon him as a wife!
SheikMo: I have told him numerous times that should he choose to retire
SheikMo: at one of our many five-star world-class luxury resorts
SheikMo: "The Best Golf on the Gulf"
SheikMo: and undergo a small conversion
SheikMo: he could have as many beautiful wives as he chooses!)
SheikMo: Of course you are a great friend of ours as well--
SheikMo: which makes this nasty and unfortunate business over the Dubai Ports
SheikMo: that much more painful...
AIM IM with Party_gurl
12:21 p.m.
Party_gurl: DADDY
Party_gurl: Hel-LO
Party_gurl: liek r u evn lissenin 2 me
Kickass43: hon I don't have time 2 chk dat link
Kickass43: wat duz it say?
Party_gurl: its a SHOW
Party_gurl: bout ME
Party_gurl: "The Miss Education of Jenna Bush"
Party_gurl: "In the comedy, the President's notoriously rebellious daughter - having just awoken from a blow-out kegger - prepares for her new job teaching fourth graders on the eve of her first day at school. From underage drinking citations and (alleged) pot smoking to America's public school system - 'Miss Jenna' rewrites history with a lesson plan you'll never forget."
Kickass43: gr8 hon!
Kickass43: im proud
Kickass43: u shud b proud
Kickass43: theyr makin a bio of ur life
Kickass43: & accomplismunz
Kickass43: so soon
Party_gurl: did u even READ the f-in thing ?!
Kickass43: yes
Kickass43: let ur ma & I kno wen it airs...
Party_gurl: daddy itsa PLAY
Party_gurl: a COMEDY!!!!!!!!!
Party_gurl: xcept its NOT funny
Party_gurl: gunna play @ Aspen Comedy Festival...
Kickass43 has left this chat.
AIM IM with SheikMo
12:27 p.m.
SheikMo: I seem to have lost your attention again Mr. President...?
Kickass43: no im here
Kickass43: eatin a sandwich
Kickass43: a BIG sandwich
Kickass43: sumtimes gets in tha way of tha screen
SheikMo: Forgive me if I say that you Americans...
SheikMo: do not know how to enjoy the pleasantness...
SheikMo: of a leisurely lunch.
SheikMo: Imagine the leader of the greatest world power...
SheikMo: history has ever known...
SheikMo: eating at his desk!
SheikMo: May I also say that it is bad for the digestion...
SheikMo: to eat in this rushed fashion.
SheikMo: In any case Mr. President...
SheikMo: I was only remarking that...
SheikMo: his Excellency the esteemed President Clinton...
SheikMo: was just in Qatar again...
SheikMo: He is such a favorite of the royal family...
Kickass43: a hero
SheikMo: It is generous of you to describe him as such.
SheikMo: We of course view him the same way.
Kickass43: no
Kickass43: I'm EATIN a hero
Kickass43: dats wat we call big sandwichs
SheikMo: How amusing to use the same word for a sandwich
SheikMo: that you also use to describe the courageous troops
SheikMo: who have so selflessly shed blood and given their lives
SheikMo: for those few Arab friends and allies
SheikMo: who believe in the great western causes of freedom
SheikMo: and democracy
SheikMo: and free trade.
SheikMo: Let us not forget also how many UAE "heroes"
SheikMo: have shed blood and given their lives in this cause.
Kickass43: I shur don't 4get it sheik
Kickass43: & tha merikan ppl don't 4get it
SheikMo: You know the hearts and minds of your people so well.
SheikMo: That is why, if I may say, all this unpleasantness over the ports
SheikMo: is so surprising.
SheikMo: Such a generous people!
SheikMo: Such BIG people!
SheikMo: Such heroes!
SheikMo: And yet that unfortunate strain of bigotry...
SheikMo: that runs through your society...
SheikMo: below the surface...
SheikMo: like oil beneath the sands...
SheikMo: occasionally exploding with tragic consequences...
SheikMo: I worry greatly, your Excellency, is at work here...
SheikMo: undermining our port deal.
Kickass43: I can ashur u ur highness
Kickass43: its not "bigotry"
Kickass43: (tho sumtimes politicly useful 2 call it dat)
Kickass43: its FEAR
Kickass43: tha dems hav scared that shit outta ppl
Kickass43: man
Kickass43: you'd think al qaeda wuz gonna b inspectin tha containers
SheikMo: I was unaware this Doctor Frist was a "dem" as you put it?
SheikMo: And are not other Republicans joining in the general enragement?
Kickass43: uh yeh
Kickass43: summa them don't like it
SheikMo: Democracy is a great gift to humanity.
SheikMo: Truly, your Excellency, I believe that.
SheikMo: But in times of national crisis
SheikMo: it is helpful for the leaders of a society
SheikMo: to present a unified front to the people.
SheikMo: Certainly no one in our world
SheikMo: would dare to question the decisions of the rulers
SheikMo: especially as they know we make all our decisions
SheikMo: based on the example of the Prophet himself
SheikMo: who always did what was good and merciful for his people.
SheikMo: Can you not silence these outspoken party members?
AIM IM with Party_gurl
12:43 p.m.
Party_gurl: DADDY U HAFTA STOP THIS!!
Party_gurl: Im DYIN
Party_gurl: dya hav any idea how BAD THIS IS?
Party_gurl: SOS!!!
Kickass43: pls can we talk l8r??
Party_gurl: WEN
Kickass43: 2nite?
Kickass43: come 4 dinnr
Party_gurl: cant
Party_gurl: hav plans
Party_gurl: meetin my girls after wrk @ dragonfly
Kickass43: so come aftr
Party_gurl: cant
Party_gurl: we're all goin 2 Play
Kickass43: if its "soooo" srious
Kickass43: cant u play anudder time??
Party_gurl: ur so outta it
Party_gurl: "Play" is a CLUB
Party_gurl: ull be asleep
Party_gurl: I need u 2 fix this NOW
Kickass43: jen I don't hav time 2 talk bout this!!
Party_gurl: u can stop it!
Kickass43: HOW
Party_gurl: ur like the PRESIDENT
Party_gurl: itsa stupid low-life comdy fest
Party_gurl: pull ther grant!
Party_gurl: nuke em!!
Party_gurl: I DON'T CARE
Kickass43: pls IM ur ma
Party_gurl: I did alrdy
Party_gurl: she can't help
Party_gurl: sez she only duz book fests
Party_gurl: sed 2 ask u
Kickass43: giv me sum time
Party_gurl: how much?!
Kickass43: L8R
Kickass43 has left this chat.
AIM IM with SheikMo
12:50 p.m.
SheikMo: But I have been going on at great length.
SheikMo: I fear by your silence that I may have caused offense.
SheikMo: I know there can be no truer friend to us than your Excellency
SheikMo: The President of the mighty United States.
SheikMo: I think of America's mightiness every time
SheikMo: I have the occasion to ride upon
SheikMo: one of our national airline's American-made Boeings
SheikMo: as opposed to the Airbuses made by France.
SheikMo: Yes, we could have saved millions by purchasing them instead.
SheikMo: And the Airbus is not an inferior aircraft, as you know.
SheikMo: Although I hasten to add it is not a Boeing.
SheikMo: But the French are such unreliable friends!
SheikMo: And naturally we must preserve our greatest hospitality
SheikMo: and patronage
SheikMo: for our truest friends.
Kickass43: no offens takn ur highness
Kickass43: & I appreshiate ur pashuns
Kickass43: & patronaj
Kickass43: jus need mor time
Kickass43: a lttl more time...
Kickass43: 2 solv this "storm ina port"
Kickass43: heh heh
Kickass43: u can rly on me
Kickass43: Im tha PRESIDENT
Kickass43: aftr all...
SheikMo: We don't forget that, your Excellency.
SheikMo: And we won't forget it, your Excellency.
Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has left this chat.
The President's Secret IMs appears every Tuesday.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:24:49 AM
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I AM A TALK SHOW HOST (THE PAT THURSTON SHOW, KSRO RADIO, SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA - MONDAY THRU FRIDAY, 1p-3p), YET I TRY TO AVOID TALK-SHOWIZATION OF MY OWN SHOW. I DON'T ALWAYS SUCCEED AND IT IS CRAMMED FULL OF OPINIONS. THAT'S FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. FACTS ARE IMPORTANT AS THEY LEAD US TO THOSE OPINIONS. BUT OPINIONS MUST ALSO BE SHARED. SUCH IS THE NATURE OF A FREE SOCIETY.
ALL THAT SAID, I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY WITH THE SENTIMENT BEHIND THIS PIECE.
Steve Young: The Talk Showization of The Mainstream Media. I recently moderated a panel of experts intent of informing their audience as to why we must withdraw from Iraq, much sooner than later. The word "immediately" found its way into most rationales.
Different than most of these anti-this-particular-war recipe for get-out was that it was made with both Democratic and Republican ingredients. Even more different than discussions that now lather the airwaves in blather, this one was fact heavy.
Facts not opinion. Reality not fabrication. Truth not lies. Dissemination of the evidence rather than the ignorance that talk radio/TV thrives on and which this administration has joyfully fused itself to. That the White House calls this truth ought to cause truth to sue the White House for irreparable damages.
Say like when a president stands up for a new port sell-out that he fully stands behind but first found out about it by reading that it had already been approved.
Or that the deal was fully vetted and there no problems, unless, of course, you consider it a problem that the U.S. Coast Guard raised concerns weeks ago that, because of U.S. intelligence gaps, it could not determine whether the UAE company, DP World, might support terrorist operations
Or when a federal study and our top general say that the military is stretched beyond their capabilities and a Secretary of Defense -- who admits he hadn't read the study -- says that's not true.
How about the dark-of-the-night at the administration's Department of Word-Mangling when WMD aren't found so the war rationale then becomes WMD-related. Or when Abramoff donations (sometimes known as bribes) are not found to be applicable to Democrats, the donations become Abramoff client-related.
The word "related" should get a kickback from this White House.
And just like that, the Mainstream Media accepts the spin as one side of the truth and has let the talk show mentality bastardize the facts in a political shakedown of obscene proportions. They've become unintended colleagues of snake oil salesman like Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh who poison the debate under the guise of truth-telling; using circuitous arguments that are an insult to anyone with a single brain cell; twisted logic so tortured that the Geneva Conventions would object. That it continues 24/7 is a sin against humanity. If there be a reason to believe there is no God, look at right wing talk radio.
Yet the Right has been able to place the fear of God so much into the fourth estate that the Mainstream Media has made a clear decision to make its way into the dark side allowing political balance to mean that lies must get equal space with the truth.
Under fear of being called biased by the biased Right, the LA Times gives the vicious David Horowitz space on the front page of their Sunday oped page. Right wing apologists like Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg spread propaganda on the Times daily opinion pages while condescending blowhards like Dennis Prager and David Gelernter got to spit out divisive rants under the pretense of speaking the word of God.
The bastion of liberal ink-think, the New York Times, releases the NSA spying story after a year of collusion with the White House, ONLY because one of the own writers would have exposed it in his new book which would have made them even look less credible then, say, allowing someone like Judy Miller to mask White House drive to war propaganda as news.
The Washington Post ombudsman distorts the Abramoff information while Saint Bob Woodward goes mute on the sins of the administration.
The Today Show brings on Bill O'Reilly to give us intellectual insight into the news.
CNN brings on Bob Bennett. Headline News, obviously forgetting the brilliant MSNBC Michael Savage experiment, brings on Glenn "Hate The 9-11 Families/Katrina Survivors Are Scumbags" Beck.
The supposed watchdogs for the public, the (excuse me while I wretch) liberal media, except perhaps for NBC's David Gregory and absolute goddess, Helen Thomas, have let us down. The rest of the White House press corp sits back while Scott McClellan is allowed to stonewall that "There is a serious investigation going on so we can't comment further." If that's the truth, they'll never be able to comment on anything because everything this White House does needs serious investigation.
Every Sunday morning news talk show anchor poses RNC debunked talking points as if they're legitimate questions, and they're permitted to get them get away with it by mainstream anchors.
Even supposed Democratic wunderkind, Barack Obama, fell into the right wing talking point trap on a recent Meet The Press by intimating that, re: Abramoff scandal, "The problem of money in politics is bipartisan." Senator, it only serves the devil to say the devil's in us all. We've got to stop giving this Talkization of America credibility.
Instead of letting Tim Russert or Brit Hume or George Stephanopolous or God-forbid, even a Hannity, frame some RNC talking point in the context of an acceptable question and just responding it, the answer must begin with a complete dismissal of the question.
"Tim, Brit, George, Seanie, why would you take an already confirmed misrepresentation and hold it up as a legitimate question? Surely your crack research staff could have easily checked this out and found it to be wholly untrue long before you embarrassed yourself by asking it on your show. Next question."
Another words -- Dean, Perry, Biden, Obama, Shumer, Durbin, Gore, Clinton, everyone -- instead of just reacting, wasting time trying to defend some fiction that isn't worth valuable network time, you call a spade a spade right from the gitgo. Then, you can spend that freed up time selling America on what you can do for them, instead of letting the media sell America down the river.
If not, when we do the Judgement at Nuremberg redux, they'll have to build a defendant section just for the Goering wannabes.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:17:26 AM
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John Zogby: On a New Poll Of U.S. Soldiers During Their Service in Iraq. In wars of America's century just past, we have sent our soldiers to far-off fields of battle and were left to wonder about their opinions of the life-and-death conflicts in which they were involved.
Letters home, and more recently telephone calls and emails, would give us a peek into their states of mind. Some who returned would regale friends and family with tales from the front lines.
Times have now changed. A first-ever survey of U.S. troops on the ground fighting a war overseas has revealed surprising findings, not the least of which is that an overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year.
Further, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows that more than one in four (29%) thought the U.S. should pull its troops immediately.
The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies, also showed that another 22% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq in the next six months. One in every five troops - 21% - said troops should be out between six and 12 months. Nearly a quarter - 23% - said they should stay "as long as they are needed."
The troops have drawn different conclusions about fellow citizens back home. Asked why they think some Americans favor rapid U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, 37% of troops serving there said those Americans are unpatriotic, while 20% believe people back home don't believe a continued occupation will work. Another 16% said they believe those favoring a quick withdrawal do so because they oppose the use of the military in a pre-emptive war, while 15% said they do not believe those Americans understand the need for the U.S. troops in Iraq.
At 55%, reservists serving in Iraq were most likely to see those back home as unpatriotic for wanting a rapid withdrawal, while 45% of Marines and 33% of members of the regular Army agreed.
The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. Nearly nine of every 10 - 85% - said the U.S. mission is "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," while 77% said they believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."
Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there. Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in the minds of 68% of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein.
Just 24% said that "establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war. Only small percentages see the mission there as securing oil supplies (11%) or to provide long-term bases for US troops in the region (6%).
More than 80% of the troops said they did not hold a negative view of Iraqis because of continuing insurgent attacks against them. Only about two in five see the insurgency as being comprised of discontented Sunnis with very few non-Iraqi helpers.
On this question there appears to be some confusion among the troops, but two in every three do not agree that if non-Iraqi terrorists could be prevented from crossing the border into Iraq, the insurgency would end.
To control the insurgency, a majority of respondents (53%) said the U.S. should double both the number of troops and bombing missions, an option absolutely no one back in Washington is considering.
Reservists were most enthusiastic about using bombing runs and a doubling of ground troops to counter the enemy, with 70% agreeing that would work to control the insurgency. Among regular Army respondents, 48% favored more troops and bombing, and 47% of Marines agreed. However, 36% of Marines said they were uncertain that strategy would work, compared to just 9% of regular Army, 6% of National Guard respondents, and 2% of reservists who said they were not sure.
Those in Iraq on their first tour of duty were less optimistic that more troops and bombing runs would work. While 38% of first-timers agreed, 62% of those on their second tour and 53% in Iraq at least three times favored more U.S. troops and firepower.
As new photos of prisoner abuse in Iraq surface, a majority of troops serving there said they oppose harsh interrogation methods. A majority - 55% - said it is not appropriate or standard military conduct to use harsh and threatening methods on possible insurgent prisoners to information of military value.
Among all respondents, 26% said they were on their first tour of duty in Iraq, while 45% said they were on their second tour, and 29% said they were in Iraq for a third time, or more. Three of every four were male respondents, with 63% under the age of 30.
The survey included 944 military respondents interviewed at several undisclosed locations throughout Iraq. The names of the specific locations and specific personnel who conducted the survey are being withheld for security purposes. Surveys were conducted face-to-face using random sampling techniques. The margin of error for the survey, conducted Jan. 18 through Feb. 14, 2006, is +/- 3.3 percentage points.
In other words, the poll is a sound, solid measurement of what is going through the minds of our front-line warriors. It's no letter home, but it's still good to hear from them.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:11:32 AM
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The Court's Money Moment. Today, the Supreme Court has an historic opportunity to free elections from the taint of unlimited spending—and evidence from abroad shows it's good for democracy. [TomPaine.com]
9:10:41 AM
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Monday, February 27, 2006 |
Marty Kaplan: Soft Bigotry, Hard Bucks. Looks like no contractor is being left behind, either. Dick Cheney's corporate alma mater is the most recent victim of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Turns out that Halliburton will get nearly all of the quarter-of-a-billion dollars in excessive or unjustified Iraq charges that the Pentagon's auditors uncovered. According to a New York Times story, Halliburton did "as well as could be expected" with its $2.41 billion no-bid contract; said an Army spokesperson, "the contractor is not required to perform perfectly to be entitled to reimbursement."
If I were Ken Mehlman (I can't believe I just typed that), I'd grab and run with this below-sea-level standard. The Republicans who run Washington shouldn't be required to perform perfectly to be entitled to stay in power. Iraq? Katrina? Energy independence? Ethics? As long as the GOP does as well as could be expected on those fronts -- that is, abysmally, miserably, incompetently and criminally -- then they should enjoy the same kid-glove treatment that Halliburton's getting.
But why stop there? Don't the Administration and Congress deserve a performance bonus each time one among them is indicted? Since we expect them to be morally corrupt, ideologically fanatical, culturally divisive and constitutionally unaccountable, surely they're as entitled to social promotions as those incurious and illiterate students who were nevertheless pushed along toward graduation at low-bar institutions like Andover and Yale.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
11:22:42 AM
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Deepak Chopra: "We Only Torture the Bad Guys". The first photos from Abu Ghraib prison were released in 2003, and much of America has done its best to forget them. Now that a new batch has surfaced, the administration is wheeling out its old excuses about enlisted personnel acting on their own, the need to stop showing the photos lest they inflame violence around the world, and so on. In truth, not only was Abu Ghraib torture deeply immoral--and obviously planned by those in charge--but suppressing the photos is just as immoral.
It's as if the U.S. had dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima but didn't want anyone to see what it caused. The point of showing the horrors of Hiroshima to the world was to stir global conscience about never using nuclear weapons again. (I doubt that common citizens in Arab countries who are gleeful about the Islamic bomb have ever seen those sickening photos--they should.) The point of Abu Ghraib is the same. The U.S. should never condone torture again. The world should never forget that we used it here, and in a just society there would have been an immediate vote of no-confidence in the government that condones torture.
Instead, what we get is the self-justifying words "We only torture the bad guys." What makes this argument self-justifying is that someone is usually defined as "bad" because they were tortured in the first place; it's a label that covers all manner of sins. The administration is using the same reasoning over surveillance. If you call someone in the Middle East and we monitored you, you must be a suspicious character.
Of course, this is a tricky issue. There are Arab sympathizers of Al Qaida living in the U.S. , and one gets the impression that a casual sympathy may be the norm rather than the exception among Arab-Americans. But the administration is aggressively pursuing the erosion of human rights and humane values. They don't seem to be the people one would trust in delicate situations. The reality is that when a society is tempted to snoop and torture, cast suspicion and engender fear, the right people for the job show up. Clearly President Bush has surrounded himself with such people, forgetting that when civilization is at peril, the snoopers and torturers are the last ones that should be called upon. They constitute a risk to civilization on their own and a deep offense to morality that this generation of Americans will have to live with for a long time. Abu Ghraib is their My Lai.
Click: www.intentblog.com
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
11:21:45 AM
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RJ Eskow: Rancho Notorious Meets the Pentagon: Halliburton Shoots U.S. Army in the Face. Unnamed Pentagon officials (wonder who?) rode roughshod over Army auditors and paid Halliburton for charges that were initially rejected by auditors as gross overbilling and mismanagement. That's a great financial boon for Dick Cheney, and very possibly for Katherine Armstrong's family too. I guess it's time for the U.S. Army to apologize to the Vice President, isn't it?
The New York Times and others report that although "questionable business practices ... had in some cases driven up the company's costs," unspecified Army officials had determined that "it had largely done as well as could be expected" and it would be paid nearly all the disputed amount.
For example, the Times reports that "the fuel transportation costs that the company was charging the Army were in some cases nearly triple what others were charging to do the same job." This is war profiteering, and it takes money away from where it's needed: to protect our soldiers in the field and heal them when they're wounded.
This is the same military, you will recall, that is trying to reject post-traumatic medical claims to lower its health expenses, has failed to provide adequate body armor, and is planning to give our troops the lowest salary increase since 1994.
Once again, the rules were bent for Cheney and his friends. The co-director of the postconflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington called the decision "ridiculous," and the Times reports that other Pentagon audits were handled very differently. In cases where the Vice President doesn't benefit personally, the military withheld fees for Iraq contacts at annual averages that ranged from 56% to 72% since 2003.
And make no mistake about it: Cheney will profit personally. He was lying to the American public on "Meet The Press" in 2003 when he said:
"And since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years."
He continues to receive "deferred salary" from the company and, more importantly, holds extensive unexercised stock options - 433,000 shares that have increased in value now that the company has evaded major penalty or prosecution.
Katherine Armstrong's mother Anne was on the Board of Directors of Halliburton when they decided to appoint Cheney to be CEO. It is highly possible that the Armstrong family still holds Halliburton shares. That might explain why Katherine was willing to file a police statement that now looks like it might be false - "there was no alcohol involved," she says in the report - based on her (and Cheney's) subsequent admissions that drinking had in fact taken place.
(And by the way - the police reports released last week did not include a statement from Cheney. If he also gave a statement indicating there had been no drinking, isn't it possible that an impeachable offense occurred? Not slandering, just asking: Where's the Cheney police statement?)
There should be an immediate investigation into whether Dick Cheney was involved in the decision to over-ride Army auditors, and into whether Halliburton committed any crimes in its handling of Iraq contracts. A special prosecutor would be appropriate, perhaps one with a broad enough mandate to investigate other possible Cheney crimes.
But, of course, Cheney is absolutely innocent in this whole matter. Those Army auditors who discovered Halliburton's malfeasance forgot to "announce their presence" as they approached the scene of the crime. They should've kept their heads low.
A Night Light
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
11:20:28 AM
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Guantanamo But Worse: #s At Bagram. Average length of stay of the approximately 500 prisoners kept in wire cages at Bagram Air Base , without any legal representation or ability to challenge their detention, in conditions described as "more bleak" than Guantanamo: 14.5 months... [TomPaine.com]
11:11:45 AM
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Friday, February 24, 2006 |
Miles Mogulescu: Why Are Any U.S.Ports Owned or Operated by Foreign Corporations or Governments?. There are plenty of good, non-jingoist, reasons to oppose the sale of 6 US ports to a corporation controlled by the government of the United Arab Emirates. But the bigger question is: why are US ports and other strategic infrastructure being privatized, particularly to companies owned by foreign governments?
Before the UAE controversy erupted, most Americans probably did not know that many US ports are already owned or run by private corporations, some of which are owned by foreign governments. According to the New York Times, foreign-based companies own and/or manage over 30% of US port terminals. According to Time Magazine, over 80% of the terminals in the Port of Los Angeles are run by foreign-owned companies, including the government of Singapore. In fact, APL Limited, controlled by the Singapore government, operates ports in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Chinese government-owned companies control terminals in the Port of Los Angeles and other West Coast ports, as well as both ends of the Panama Canal.
You don't have to be an economic nationalist to think that certain strategic infrastructure should not be owned by foreign companies, particularly those owned by foreign governments. Ports certainly fit into that category. Other examples include airports, railroads, and nuclear power plants. If we're going to sell off strategic facilities to foreign companies and governments, why not sell off the FAA, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, or the New York City Police? (I'm sure some Saudi or Chinese security personnel know how to crack heads better than New York's finest.)
Senators Clinton and Menendez have announced that they are introducing legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from purchasing port operations in the United States. But they should go one step further. Profit-making corporations, foreign or domestic, should not be allowed to own key strategic infrastructure. Corporation's responsibility is to their shareholders, not to the nation. If there's a conflict between security and profits, profits will come first. Strategic infrastructure should be owned and controlled by institutions that put the interests of the American people above profits. This could take the form of government ownership, or more likely ownership by non-profit joint government/private entities.
In the end, the issue comes down to the Bush Administration's ideology of privatizing everything from social security to port ownership.
The Democrats, if they're not too timid, should expand congressional hearings on the UAE deal to include the larger issues of port security and the ownership and control of America's strategic infrastructure. They should make clear that while Bush may sacrifice constitutional liberties in the name of national security, he will sacrifice national security to further the interests of the global business elite.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
8:53:44 PM
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PLEASE READ THEN SIGN.
Bob Cesca: Petition: Replace O'Reilly with Donahue. This week, Bill O'Reilly has circulated a petition asking NBC Chairman Bob Wright to replace Keith Olbermann with Phil Donahue -- out of concern for MSNBC's ratings. Oh that O'Reilly. So devilishly clever.
In response, I've started a petition calling for Roger Ailes to replace O'Reilly with Donahue out of concern for O'Reilly's growing mental instability.
Join me in signing the petition here.
"Dear Your Honor Roger Ailes,
We, the undersigned, are becoming increasingly concerned about the mental health of the host of your 8:00 PM EST show. This host has claimed:
1) San Francisco should be attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists ("homicide bombers").
2) There's a conspiracy to cancel the extremely popular Christmas holiday, even though the culture of Christmas is prevalent in America for nearly three months of every year.
3) That opponents of his show favor personal attacks and smearing, while he routinely employs the pejorative "pinheads" to describe anyone who disagrees with him.
4) That he never used the phrase "shut up" even though he's on-record saying that phrase dozens of times.
5) He has yet to publicly address his sexual penchant for soapy falafel sandwiches and female underlings.
6) He routinely misrepresents factual information (often called "lying"), then claims he told the truth, but will occasionally recant and admit to flagrantly misleading his viewers.
(For more citations of your 8:00 PM EST host's growing level of dysfunction, please visit: http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/billoreilly where there are approximately 400 instances of your host's mental instability.)
As a result, we recommend that you uphold your "fair and balanced" reputation and replace your 8:00 PM EST host with popular talk show host Phil Donahue.
In a recent petition to MSNBC, your host praised Mr. Donahue's ability to draw a large audience and referred to Mr. Donahue's "honor and dignity" -- a perfect fit for Fox News Channel as your current host obviously endorses Donahue's ability to perform in prime time. So he's a perfect replacement for your 8:00 PM EST host who clearly could use some professional psychological assistance.
It is now apparent to everyone that a grave injustice has been done to the previous host for that time slot, Phil Donahue, whose ratings, at the time of his show's cancellation three years ago, were demonstrably stronger than those of the current host.
We look forward to the premiere of The Donahue Factor, weeknights at 8:00 PM on Fox News Channel.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned "
Sign the petition.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
8:51:04 PM
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Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
Published on Thursday, February 23, 2006 by the Guardian / UK
MPs Recall Straw as Air Traffic Controllers Confirm 200 CIA Flights
· Revelations 'fly in face' of government answers
· Ministers criticised over attitude to human rights
by Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Cobain
MPs will today chastise ministers over their stance on the US practice of "extraordinary rendition" amid the first official admission that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace.
In a report highly critical of the government's attitude towards human rights abuses, the Commons foreign affairs committee accuses ministers of failing in their duty to find out whether Britain has been complicit in the US policy of secretly transferring detainees to places where they risked being tortured.
Members of the committee say they have not been told the full story despite months of trying. They are to summon the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to give evidence again on an issue which has serious political and legal implications. The move was agreed after Mr Straw suggested he would be questioned in private only by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, Paul Keetch, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons foreign affairs group, said yesterday.
National Air Traffic Services (Nats) confirmed yesterday that two aircraft believed to have been chartered by the CIA made "around 200 journeys" through British airspace within the past five years.
The flights of the two planes, one a Gulfstream, the other a Boeing 737, were identified by the Guardian last September. Britain and the US have not denied reports that the planes were chartered by the CIA. Flight plans do not record the purpose of the flights, a Nats spokesman said yesterday. "They might have been CIA flights taking officials rather than people in orange boiler suits," he added.
The disclosure came as the Council of Europe in effect named and shamed five countries which failed to explain what steps they were taking to protect people from being detained and mistreated through rendition.
The council, which oversees the implementation of the European convention on human rights, said that Belgium, Bosnia, Georgia, Italy and San Marino had missed the deadline of midnight on Tuesday for submissions which were expected to explain how they were meeting their obligations under international law.
The Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Foreign Office have all said in answers to parliamentary questions - notably from the Lib Dems and the Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie - that they are unaware of any rendition flights since 1998, that they do not keep records, or that records they did have had been destroyed.
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, yesterday wrote to the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, saying he would complain to the parliamentary ombudsman unless the MoD gave details of flights which landed at RAF airfields. Mr Ingram has said they could be provided only at "disproportionate cost".
The Guardian has seen evidence that the MoD has details of the flights, including their origin and destination.
Mr Clegg also said that the disclosure by Britain's air traffic control service "flies in the face of the answer we received from the government that only two or three cases of rendition ever took place".
Mr Straw said yesterday: "We know of no occasion where there has been a rendition through UK territory, or indeed over UK territory, nor do we have any reason to believe that such flights have taken place without our knowledge."
Terry Davis, the Council of Europe's secretary general, said that all five countries he named had "failed to comply with their legal obligation" under the human rights convention. These, he added, "include positive obligations, meaning that governments are required to take action to prevent violations from taking place".
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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10:19:50 AM
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Kristen Breitweiser: Coming to a Port Near You--where Dubya stands for Dubai. Dear President Bush,
As a citizen concerned with your latest illogical decision to outsource America's critical infrastructure to a nation with established terrorist ties, I implore you to recognize that the Dubai Deal will have lasting negative effects on our country's internal security. I suggest you reconsider your latest bad decision. Here are some facts and statements that perhaps you need to review.
"YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR WITH THE TERRORISTS"
Recognize those words, Mr. President? You should, because you uttered them immediately after the 9/11 attacks. And, that's why I now question your recent approval of the outsourcing of our port security to an Arab nation that funded the 9/11 hijackers.
Need proof of the financial assistance provided by the UAE to the 9/11 hijackers? Then, perhaps, you should review the Moussaoui indictment laid out by the United States Justice Department. And first, remember that Moussaoui is the ONLY terrorist that we are currently "bringing to justice" (since you have yet to capture Bin Laden "dead or alive"). And, hopefully with all your recent arrogant, assumed Absolute Executive Powers, you might even persuade Attorney General Gonzales (you know, the guy who runs the Justice Department) to actually read the Moussaoui indictment, as well, since he also thinks this Dubai Deal passes the smell test.
Specifically, you and Gonzales should read the following counts in the Moussaoui indictment:
21. On or about June 29, 2000, $4,790 was wired from the United Arab Emirates ("UAE") to Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) in Manhattan.
22. On or about July 19, 2000, $9,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
24. On or about August 7, 2000, $9,485 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
25. On or about August 30, 2000, $19,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
26. On or about September 18, 2000, $69,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohamed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
61. On July 18, 2001, Fayez Ahmed (#175) gave power of attorney to Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi for Fayez Ahmed's Standard Chartered Bank accounts in UAE.
62. On July 18, 2001, using his power of attorney, Al-Hawsawi picked up Fayez Ahmed's VISA and ATM cards in UAE.
63. Between July 18 and August 1, 2001, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi caused Fayez Ahmed's VISA and ATM cards to be shipped from UAE to Fayez Ahmed in Florida. (The VISA card was then used for the first time on August 1, 2001, in Florida.) Jarrah (#93) Travels to Germany
66. On or about July 30 and 31, 2001, in Hamburg, Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, using the name "Ahad Sabet," received two wire transfers, totaling approximately $15,000, from "Hashim Abdulrahman" in UAE.
76. On or about August 22, 2001, Fayez Ahmed (#175) used his VISA card in Florida to obtain approximately $4,900 cash, which had been deposited into his Standard Chartered Bank account in UAE the day before.
87. On or about September 3, 2001, in Hamburg, Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, using the name "Ahad Sabet," received approximately $1500 by wire transfer from "Hashim Ahmed" in UAE.
88. On or about September 4, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) sent a FedEx package from Florida to UAE.
90. On or about September 6, 2001, Satam al-Suqami (#11) and Abdulaziz Alomari (#11) flew from Florida to Boston. The Hijackers Return Excess Money to Al-Hawsawi in UAE.
92. On or about September 8, 2001, an Arab male retrieved the package from Mohammed Atta (#11) at FedEx in Dubai, UAE.
93. On September 8, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) wired $2,860 to "Mustafa Ahmed" in UAE.
94. On September 8, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) wired $5,000 to "Mustafa Ahmed" in UAE.
95. On September 9, 2001, Waleed M. al-Shehri (#11) wired $5,000 to "Ahamad Mustafa" in UAE.
96. On September 10, 2001, Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) wired $5,400 to "Mustafa Ahmad" in UAE.
97. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, approximately $16,348 was deposited into Al-Hawsawi's Standard Chartered Bank account.
98. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, at about 9:22 a.m. local time (the early morning hours of Eastern Daylight Time), Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi moved approximately $6,534 from the $8,055 in Fayez Ahmed's (#175) Standard Chartered Bank account into his own account, using a check dated September 10, 2001 and signed by Fayez Ahmed; Al-Hawsawi then withdrew approximately $1,361, nearly all the remaining balance in Ahmed's account, by ATM cash withdrawal.
99. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, approximately $40,871 was prepaid to a VISA card connected to Al-Hawsawi's Standard Chartered Bank account.
"WE ARE TAKING THE FIGHT TO THE ENEMY SO WE ARE SAFER AT HOME"
Mr. President, because of your ridiculous, myopic belief that we are winning the war on terror by "taking the fight to the enemy," you have consistently ignored logic and left our homeland sorely and recklessly under-protected. (Our port security is just one element among a slew of other vital components of homeland security that you have completely and unabashedly ignored in the past 5 years.)
Do you know that our ports handle two billion tons of freight per year - only 5% of which gets inspected and/or examined upon arrival? Do you know that our ports comprise a vital part of our nation's infrastructure and since you have not properly funded port security and made it a real priority in the past 5 years, our nation's ports remain a soft target favored by al Qaeda terrorists?
Are you really concerned about nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons being used against American citizens by al Qaeda sleeper cells--or is that just hollow rhetoric?
And, if you are certain that this Dubai Deal will not harm our national security, then why don't you put your money where your mouth is, Mr. President. Why don't you pass an Executive Order that will give the next group of terrorist victims the right to hold you personally accountable in a court of law if one of these six ports becomes a terrorist-door-of-entry for the next terrorist attack against this country.
"WE DON'T WANT TO SEND A BAD MESSAGE TO OUR ALLIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST"
Futhermore, Mr. President, since you have been singularly focused on your unjustified and fraudulent attack of Iraq (a nation that only became a real terrorist threat after your illegal invasion of it), nations like North Korea, Iran, and Syria have re-constituted and strengthened their nuclear weapons programs. Mr. President perhaps I need to spell this out for you: when a nation re-constitutes its nuclear weapons program, it means that it is a real, credible threat. Real nuclear weapons=real problem--get it?
Do you realize Mr. President that your little so-called "ally"--the UAE--happened to be one of the main thoroughfares through which those nuclear components traveled to North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Sir, respectfully, how can you consider that being an ally?
By the way, if you want to talk about sending "bad messages" to the Arab world, perhaps you should take a good hard look at your "torture" and "enemy combatant status" policies. Sir, those are actions that send a dangerous message to the Arab world.
But, really, how is it logical for you to condone the torture of some of the "co-conspirators" of 9/11, and cut business deals with others? Frankly Mr. President, that is a conflicted message not a bad message.
"WE ARE ADDICTED TO OIL"
President Bush, I suppose this might explain why you think Dubai is our ally. This might also explain why you think the Dubai Deal should commence without delay. We need their oil, right? (Dubya stands for Dubai?)
Or, are you going to try and tell me that they are providing us with valuable intelligence that is aiding us in our ongoing (read 100 year war against nameless, stateless, faceless enemy that demands unchecked power in your name) fight against the terrorists. Mr. President, I beg you, please do not use the "Pakistan-justification" on me because it is getting a tad tiresome.
As an aside Mr. President, perhaps you should have spent the past 5 years decreasing our dependency on foreign oil from nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia so that maybe this deal might not have been so necessary for you to rubber stamp.
But, that is just a thought and a dream. A dream that won't come true until you and all your oil-rich friends have sucked this planet dry of every drop of oil and in the meantime cornered the market on alternative energy resources, right? Power-grab; Power-shift?
"WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS"
You seem to be right on this one President Bush. We don't "negotiate" with terrorists; we get blackmailed or "oil-mailed" by them, huh.
But, hey, if you are so confident that the UAE is truly our ally, why not release the 28 classified pages of the Joint Inquiry of Congress that investigated the 9/11 attacks. Those 28 pages remain classified and detail the foreign nations that funded the 9/11 hijackers. Until de-classified and shown to the American public, how can we--the people that you work for--really know who the terrorists are.
Unlike you, Mr. President, we are not comfortable having a floating, vacuous definition of who a "terrorist" is depending upon your power-grab of the day. We would like the facts, sir. Because, as long as those 28 pages remain classified, to quote Mr. Rumsfeld--"we don't know, what we don't know." (Or, maybe you like it like that, huh?)
My opinion? No business deals in this country with any nation that funded the 9/11 hijackers. Release those 28 pages. Let the American people see exactly who were the "co-conspirators" of the 9/11 hijackers and sever ALL U.S. business ties with those foreign sponsors of terrorism--with or without the approval of your secret little group, CFIUS. And, while we are at it, let's get a working list of what other things this cute little group has sold to the foreigners.
And know this, refusing to conduct business with nations that funded the 9/11 hijackers is not bigotry, Mr. President. It is patriotic and responsible; it is providing real homeland security during a time of war. You spout about that all the time, yet your actions do not match your words. Respectfully, Mr. President, as some Texans like to say, you are "all hat and no cattle."
Sir, an integral part of your presidential oath of office is/was to protect this country. If this has become too difficult a task for you, perhaps it's time you and your cabal stepped down and rode off into the proverbial sunset because the rest of us are not willing to sell our souls or our country to the highest bidder--we aren't in this for the money, the oil, or the power. Remember that.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:28:03 AM
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Wednesday, February 22, 2006 |
LOTS OF ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN THE DUBAI PORTS WORLD BROUHAHA, BUT ONE SEEMS TO BE MISSING FOR SOME REASON.
THE HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD OF THIS SHEIKHDOM AND OF ALL OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. IT IS DEPLORABLE. TORTURE, BRUTALITY, HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND ENSLAVING CHILDREN TO BE CAMEL JOCKEYS. THE LATTER ARE OFTEN STARVED TO KEEP THEIR BODY WEIGHTS AS LOW AS POSSIBLE.
GREAT.
11:54:32 AM
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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 |
Iraqi Police Tied to Death Squads. A 1,500-member Iraqi police force with close ties to Shiite militia groups has emerged as a focus of investigations into suspected death squads working within the country's Interior Ministry. [t r u t h o u t]
12:59:56 PM
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Monday, February 20, 2006 |
THIS IS THE ADDRESS TO SEND DONATIONS FOR IRAQI SCHOOL CHILDREN. THEY NEED SUPPLIES - PENCILS, PAPER, TAPE, STICKERS, ERASERS ... WHATEVER SCHOOL KIDS USE, ANY SUPPLIES YOU CAN THINK OF. THESE KIDS ARE NEEDY, YOU CAN MAKE A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRAQI CHILD.
1LT Eric Spencer
B Co. 3/67 AR, 4ID
Unit 41503
APO AE 09390-1503
2:51:29 PM
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Thursday, February 16, 2006 |
Arianna Huffington: Armstrong Ranch: A GOP Bada Bing?. We've only scratched the surface, but the more we learn about the Armstrong Ranch, site of the Cheney shooting, the more it feels like the GOP equivalent of Tony Soprano's joint, the Bada Bing.
CNN described the remote 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch as "a private getaway." It's the kind of place the goodfellas of the Republican crew can go to kick back, put their feet up, have a beer (or two) with lunch, talk a little business, raise a little money, make a few deals, maybe meet a girl.
Of course, at the Bada Bing the girls are strippers; at Armstrong they're the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. But both hot spots feature quite a bit of gunplay.
According to Austin American-Statesman reporter Robert Elder, the Armstrong is "a favored destination spot for this type of Republican with social connections, a fair amount of wealth... Certainly if you have access to the vice president or other high level administration officials, corporate officials, it gives you really a unique opportunity to kind of relax, talk, and who knows what happens from there."
Well, Dick Cheney knows. He's been kicking back at Armstrong for over 30 years. Also in the know: President Bush and Laura, Bush 41 and Barbara, Karl Rove, and James Baker, all of whom have been frequent guests at the ranch.
The rest of us can get an idea of "what happens from there" by piecing together some of the very cozy connections between the Armstrong Ranch Mafia.
Take ranch proprietress, shooting eyewitness, and in-a-pinch vice-presidential press secretary Katharine Armstrong, who has parlayed her hunting relationships into a number of well-paying gigs.
For instance, in 1999, back when he was Governor, ranch regular George W. Bush appointed her to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Two years later, she became the Commission's chairman.
In a 2003 interview, the Dallas Morning News asked Armstrong what had she done to "gain an appointment to the TP&W Commission, which is considered one of the plums of gubernatorial appointments?" Replied Armstrong: "I didn't do anything. In fact, I was shocked when Governor Bush's office called me... What Governor Bush told me is that my name just came to him in a 'eureka' moment."
Give her points for honesty: "I didn't do anything." Except hanging out with W, polishing their shotguns, flushing coveys of quail, and bagging their limit. Eureka!
Her bird-hunting bud James Baker has also flushed some lucrative lobbying deals her way. According to NBC News (via Attytood), Baker's law firm Baker Botts paid Armstrong $160,000 in 2004 to lobby the White House. When asked what she did in return for the money, Armstrong told NBC she'd set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client. She also said that she'd gotten fellow dove-killing enthusiast Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. Hmm, 160 Gs for setting up a meeting and a Karl Rove speech? Nice work if you can get it.
Of course, Katharine learned how to leverage a shared love of blasting small animals for political advancement the old-fashioned way -- at her mother's cocked elbow. Anne Armstrong first met Dick Cheney when they both worked in the Nixon White House. Soon after, he began visiting the family ranch. In 2000, Anne's late husband Tobin described the idyllic Cheney/Armstrong outings to the AP: "We go out when the dew is still on the grass and then hunt until we shoot our limit. Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch." Unless we accidentally shoot one of our hunting party in the face. Then we put off the wild game picnic until dinner.
Â
Anne and Dick seem to have developed a mutual admiration while tromping around the Armstrong ranch, shooting their limit. While Dick was Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, Anne was appointed ambassador to Great Britain. Anne later returned the favor: she was a member of the Halliburton board when Dick was hired as the company's CEO.
Â
Put it all together and I think I'm starting to get a better picture of why Dick Cheney was "so confident that Katharine [Armstrong] was the right one" and "an excellent choice" to put the shooting story out.
Â
Eureka! And bada bing!
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
2:59:20 PM
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Arianna Huffington: Armstrong Ranch: A GOP Bada Bing?. We've only scratched the surface, but the more we learn about the Armstrong Ranch, site of the Cheney shooting, the more it feels like the GOP equivalent of Tony Soprano's joint, the Bada Bing.
CNN described the remote 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch as "a private getaway." It's the kind of place the goodfellas of the Republican crew can go to kick back, put their feet up, have a beer (or two) with lunch, talk a little business, raise a little money, make a few deals, maybe meet a girl.
Of course, at the Bada Bing the girls are strippers; at Armstrong they're the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. But both hot spots feature quite a bit of gunplay.
According to Austin American-Statesman reporter Robert Elder, the Armstrong is "a favored destination spot for this type of Republican with social connections, a fair amount of wealth... Certainly if you have access to the vice president or other high level administration officials, corporate officials, it gives you really a unique opportunity to kind of relax, talk, and who knows what happens from there."
Well, Dick Cheney knows. He's been kicking back at Armstrong for over 30 years. Also in the know: President Bush and Laura, Bush 41 and Barbara, Karl Rove, and James Baker, all of whom have been frequent guests at the ranch.
The rest of us can get an idea of "what happens from there" by piecing together some of the very cozy connections between the Armstrong Ranch Mafia.
Take ranch proprietress, shooting eyewitness, and in-a-pinch vice-presidential press secretary Katharine Armstrong, who has parlayed her hunting relationships into a number of well-paying gigs.
For instance, in 1999, back when he was Governor, ranch regular George W. Bush appointed her to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Two years later, she became the Commission's chairman.
In a 2003 interview, the Dallas Morning News asked Armstrong what had she done to "gain an appointment to the TP&W Commission, which is considered one of the plums of gubernatorial appointments?" Replied Armstrong: "I didn't do anything. In fact, I was shocked when Governor Bush's office called me... What Governor Bush told me is that my name just came to him in a 'eureka' moment."
Give her points for honesty: "I didn't do anything." Except hanging out with W, polishing their shotguns, flushing coveys of quail, and bagging their limit. Eureka!
Her bird-hunting bud James Baker has also flushed some lucrative lobbying deals her way. According to NBC News (via Attytood), Baker's law firm Baker Botts paid Armstrong $160,000 in 2004 to lobby the White House. When asked what she did in return for the money, Armstrong told NBC she'd set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client. She also said that she'd gotten fellow dove-killing enthusiast Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. Hmm, 160 Gs for setting up a meeting and a Karl Rove speech? Nice work if you can get it.
Of course, Katharine learned how to leverage a shared love of blasting small animals for political advancement the old-fashioned way -- at her mother's cocked elbow. Anne Armstrong first met Dick Cheney when they both worked in the Nixon White House. Soon after, he began visiting the family ranch. In 2000, Anne's late husband Tobin described the idyllic Cheney/Armstrong outings to the AP: "We go out when the dew is still on the grass and then hunt until we shoot our limit. Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch." Unless we accidentally shoot one of our hunting party in the face. Then we put off the wild game picnic until dinner.
Â
Anne and Dick seem to have developed a mutual admiration while tromping around the Armstrong ranch, shooting their limit. While Dick was Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, Anne was appointed ambassador to Great Britain. Anne later returned the favor: she was a member of the Halliburton board when Dick was hired as the company's CEO.
Â
Put it all together and I think I'm starting to get a better picture of why Dick Cheney was "so confident that Katharine [Armstrong] was the right one" and "an excellent choice" to put the shooting story out.
Â
Eureka! And bada bing!
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
2:58:02 PM
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As the New York Times reports that "top political appointees in the NASA press office exerted strong pressure during the 2004 presidential campaign to cut the flow of news releases" on global warming and other sensitive topics, the Wall Street Journal cites NOAA scientists as saying that "the agency has begun keeping closer tabs on their comments to journalists," with public affairs "minders" sitting in on more interviews. [Cursor.org]
2:43:12 PM
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James Moore: The News Is What They Say It Is. "Gather the facts as quickly as you can. And then distort them at your leisure."
Mark Twain
The truth always disappears a little at a time. But in the era of the Bush administration we often are given the opportunity to watch it vanish before our eyes. This happens without many of us even being aware of the loss. The latest vanishing acts were on ABC News Nightline and FOX News. But you have to pay close attention to notice the absence.
When Terry Moran anchored Nightline's report Wednesday, the program led, naturally, with the Brit Hume interview of Vice President Dick Cheney. The show's reputation, acquired during Ted Koppel's able tenure, was to go after the facts with relentlessness. Moran's piece on Cheney was more of an insipid feature story about a beleaguered public servant who had been sorely wronged by the countrymen and media he was trying lead. And he was now, graciously, opening up to his constituents.
"It was," Moran's saccharine-laced voice intoned, "a different side of Dick Cheney," which, I suppose, we were all getting to see. Neither Moran nor his producers bothered to mention the conservative, Republican tenor of FOX News as a possible reason that the vice president chose the network. Cheney need not worry about getting grilled over the varying versions of events when he was sitting across from the admittedly conservative Hume. Instead, the VP got a venue where he struggled to show he was empathetic and almost, but not quite, sorry. The near miss to actual reporting was when Hume dared to ask a question about drinking.
But what about all the others that never got asked? "Mr. Vice President, can you reconcile Katharine Armstrong's varying explanations of what she did or didn't see? First, she said that Harry Whittington didn't alert you that he was behind him and that it was his fault for that reason. But she later said she was 100 yards away sitting in a pickup truck. She couldn't have heard him from that distance. She also said she saw Mr. Whittington fall but later said the first thing she knew something had happened was when she saw your medical team racing toward him. What the hell is true and what isn't, Mr. Vice President? If Ms. Armstrong is so inconsistent with information, why'd you trust her to talk to reporters? And do you think that if you weren't the vice president, and you discharged a shotgun and sent someone to the hospital, that the police would have let you get away with not talking to them until 16 hours, the next morning?"
None of that from Brit Hume, though. Mostly, we got a lot of, "How did you feel?" questions from the FOX anchor. And Nightline, which had hours and hours to seek out alternative sources for questions to be raised in its own reporting, in many respects, failed even more miserably. The piece that Moran narrated asked no real questions about what had transpired on the Armstrong Ranch and, when it sought out reaction, ABC's producers managed to round up two sympathetic Republican operatives, Ed Rollins and Tori Clarke. Unchallenged by Moran or the producers who conducted the interviews, they both spent their respective on camera time minimizing the VP's failure to act responsibly and their confidence in how little of a political effect it would have on the White House and the GOP. The piece concluded by leaving viewers with a departing thought delivered by Clarke, who admonished that the Democrats would be making a mistake by trying to utilize the incident for their political advantage.
What in the hell happened to objectivity, or at least its pretense? Were there no Democrats or any other skeptics in Washington that Nightline might have interviewed? No critics available on deadline? The tone of the entire Moran piece was that of an apologia from both the network and Cheney. The VP was, of course, forced into his acknowledgement but ABC willingly leaned over to polish his boots for the appearance on FOX.
Songwriter John Prine might have been right long ago. It's time to "blow up your TV, move to the country...." Ted Koppel has left the building. The demographers and the marketeers are in charge.
And for now, we are acting like unwitting consumers.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
11:35:01 AM
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Cenk Uygur: What if Cheney Wasn't the Shooter?. On the fifth day of the cover-up we get into speculation I'm not sure I even believe. But the less the Vice President answers, the more questions we have. This hypothesis seems a little unlikely, but it's still significantly more likely than the official story - and certainly a question worth asking:
What if Cheney wasn't the shooter?
Here's an excerpt from the Vice President's "interview" today with Brit Hume:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, probably 10 people. We weren't all
together, but about 10 guests at the ranch. There were three of us who
had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had
been pointed by the dogs. Covey is flushed, we've shot, and each of us
got a bird. Harry couldn't find his, it had gone down in some deep
cover, and so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then
turned and walked about a hundred yards in another direction --
Q Away from him?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Away from him -- where another covey had been
spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right --
Q There was just two of you then?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just two of us at that point.
So, has anyone asked if it might have been the "other hunter" who actually shot Harry Whittington? It's clear that Katharine Armstrong didn't actually see the shooting. She said that she was first worried that the Vice President had a heart attack when she saw people rushing towards the scene. That doesn't sound like someone who saw the Vice President shooting someone else.
The "other hunter" is Pamela Willeford, former ambassador to Switzerland, and current companion to Dick Cheney on this weekend getaway. She was apparently his "hunting partner."
Now, I am clearly not the first person to suggest that the Vice President might have been hunting a little more than quail with Pamela Willeford. For the record, I'm not even really suggesting it, I'm just offering up a possibility - a possibility that has gained more credence because of Cheney's cult of secrecy. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
But what's clear is that Willeford's name didn't arouse much attention until the fourth day of the cover-up. Now imagine the kind of attention she would have received if she was the shooter.
There would have been a lot of questions directed at her. Who is she? What was she doing there? Why is the Vice President on a weekend get together with this woman? What is the history of their friendship?
A lot of news story have described the 28 gauge shotgun as a smaller, less powerful gun. Some have called it a woman's gun. What if it was? What if Willeford was less experienced with a gun or if she was the one that was drinking a little too much?
It's possible that the only thing more damaging than the Vice President shooting someone might be his mistress shooting someone. I know this is terrible. Sheer speculation. How dare I? I'm a bad, bad man.
None of these questions would have even come up if all of the evidence were turned over to the sheriff's office right away. If the Vice President and the "other hunter" had talked to the authorities that night and undergone breathalyzer's tests, then there would be no doubt. Is the Vice President not savvy enough to realize this? Of course, he is. Then, it is perfectly natural to ask what he was trying to hide in the meanwhile.
Has anyone ever even looked at the guns the two hunters on the scene were carrying? Which one was the shooter's gun? Whose fingerprints were on it? Where did they shoot it from? Where did Mr. Whittington get shot?
Who had gun residue on them that matched the Whittington shot? Monica's blue dress got Bill Clinton in trouble. Would Willeford's orange hunting vest done the same for Cheney?
It's possible that the least damaging story is the one where the Vice President simply made an honest mistake during the hunt. It's possible that the most damaging story in politics is always the sex scandal. It's one thing to shoot a guy, but God forbid you should be sleeping around. Especially, after all you said about Bill Clinton.
In some ways, Dick Cheney better hope it was him who shot Harry Whittington. Otherwise, he might be in bigger trouble than he already is.
UPDATE: I just read RJ's piece where Tucker Carlson confronted him with the "fact" that Willeford's husband was also on the ranch. First of all that's pretty kinky, Dicky. Second of all, how do we know they didn't chopper the dude in after the quail hit the fan? Third of all, this theory was fun while it lasted -- which by the way was a record low one and a half minutes.
Nonetheless, it proves the point that it is always better to be upfront than it is to hide facts -- it only gets you in bigger trouble and causes more speculation about what's actually happening. So, you see how I was right while I was wrong. And it didn't even take me five days to admit it.
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
10:39:21 AM
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Steve Clemons: Can Cheney be His Own Declassification Machine?. 
In my view, the law says "No". . .but I have little doubt Alberto Gonzales and his minions will construct a rationale that says otherwise.
But I have run across some interesting information -- and have some questions that we should all pose to those at the helm in the White House.
Executive Order 12958 on "Classified National Security Information" was promulgated by President Clinton on April 17, 1995.
This Executive Order "prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information."
In this 1995 Executive Order, the VICE PRESIDENT is mentioned only one time -- and only in such a way that the automatic, 25-year declassification of historically important documents can be preempted if declassification would "impair the ability of responsible United States Government officials to protect the President, the Vice President, and other individuals."
Now, let's move to the March 25, 2003 Executive Order by President Bush, No. 13292, that amends President Clinton's Executive Order on National Security Information.
The Vice President's "presence" in the Executive Order increased by 1000%. Instead of just one mention in the Executive Order, Cheney's office is referred to eleven times.
This hyping of Cheney's and his staff's role in the management of secrets is a further testament to the historically unique power that Cheney's vice-presidency amassed in the period after 9/11/2001.
Briefly, in the amended Executive Order, Dick Cheney and presumably future VPs are affected by this National Security Information presidential order in the following ways:
1. The Vice President, in the context of his duties, has the authority to "classify" information;
2. The Vice President, in the context of his duties, can give a "top secret" classification to information;
3. The Vice President can give a "secret" or "confidential" classification to information;
4. Like in the previous 1995 Executive Order, the automatic, 25-year declassification of national security information can be preempted if it would impair the ability to "protect" the Vice President from physical harm;
5. Mandatory declassification review (by a designated process) is required of information originating from the Vice President;
6. Mandatory declassification review is required from the Vice President's staff;
7. Access to certain national security information can be provided to individuals who occupied policy-making positions appointed by the Vice President (or President of course)
8. Rules barring access to certain classified national security information will be waived for the Vice President;
9. Waivers to rules of access to classified national security information will only apply to Vice Presidential appointees in areas of their policy work while working as an Executive Branch appointee;
10. This mention of the VP only relates to the above line saying that access to classified national security information will only be provided to Presdidential and Vice Presidential appointees in the area of his or her policy work that was done during the tenure of that respective President or Vice President;
11. "'Original classification authority' means an individual authorized in writing, either by the President, the Vice President in the performance of executive duties. . ." This is a definitional item in the Executive Order.
There is NOTHING HERE that indicates that the Vice President has any embedded authority to be a declassification machine unto himself.
This matter is important because Vice Presdident Cheney slipped into his interview with Brit Hume yesterday his belief that he has the ability to declassify national security information -- and implying that there is an Executive Order that allows him to do it.
Here is the exchange:
Q Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.
Q There is.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Have you done it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --
Q You ever done it unilaterally?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.
Vice President Cheney is right that he has the ability to classify materials; that is clear from the Executive Order.
It is also clear, however, that the rules and processes for CLASSIFYING national security information are completely different than DECLASSIFYING information. That is evident from reading the structure of the Executive Order itself.
So, Cheney is engaged in Executive Branch over-reach again, implying he has a power that is not designated.
This is the issue that the nation should be focused on -- and in my view, it is far more important than Cheney's hunting accident and even his obsession with making the White House opaque to this country's citizens.
If Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified national security secrets, then Cheney broke the law and should be investigated. GOP presidential hopeful George Allen agrees.
One lucid observer shared with me the thought this morning that there may, in fact, be "classified" aspects to the March 2003 Executive Order that we mere members of the public are not privy too.
But let's warn the White House now: Secret Orders that give the President or Vice President secret new powers are not consistent in any way with democracy and this nation's heritage.
I doubt that the authority to classify or declassify information would have been issued in a secret way -- as it is clear that one of the purposes of the 2003 Executive Order amendment was to give Vice President Cheney and his office much more presence in the management of secrets -- and the White House wanted to make VP Cheney's role overt, not hidden.
Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note, and posts frequent commentary on Huffington Post. Clemons is also Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.
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10:35:09 AM
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Karen Kwiatkowski: Cheney Latest Chapter (and Verse). Our man Dick has had a life changing experience. For the first time in his life, he's shot a man. As Cheney shared publicly just four days later, there was no time for an 6th deferment. He'll never forget the in-the-moment exhilaration of shooting at flushed quail transformed into stark emotional shock and fear of realizing he just shot, maybe killed a guy. The man who epitomizes "The Man" has now become one. Almost.
Sure, he didn't follow all the normal procedures relating to a hunting accident investigation, and he doesn't have to. A coverup? I suspect it never occurred to Cheney. I mean, he did nothing wrong. Sh^% happens. At least Nixon was worried about people finding out what he was doing.
The Bushco chorus is as right as rain. The White House Press Corps is indeed angry and betrayed. I mean, they throw nothing but softballs, hold stories of national and legal interest for years on end, back-page the serious issues, and as a group, secretly share the Bush-Cheney lust for war and more bloody war. The payback for this eternal prostration, devotion and shared values is the occasional offering by the administration of a non-story, that in its sheer glossy inanity will sell a few papers. But noooooooooooo, Cheney decides to break this juiciest of non-stories through a local reporter.
It is enough to make you go nuts. A student of mine from years ago sent me some Cheney inspired poetry. He is a former bartender and a former Republican who, in his own words, "prefers getting mad to going mad."
It is accompanied by the music of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues...
Yeah, I'm a manly hunter. Hey, dig my bright orange vest.
But my buddy now has birdshot in his face and neck and chest.
I shot a man in Texas as the quail did fly.
We were gonna keep it secret-- turns out he didn't die.
When I am on vacation down on some crony's ranch
we start each day with cocktails. Make mine bourbon, splash of branch. We never hunt when sober-- that would be a drag. Let's just say it's more than quarry that's halfway in the bag.
Break
I didn't have a license. Don't need no stinkin' stamp.
My power is unitary. You may not my style cramp.
I rang up Judge Scalia (he'd not come along.)
Ex officio, he told me, I could do no wrong.
Break
I like my monthly outings. The next trip that I take
I'm callin' up Phil Spector and maybe Robert Blake.
They say that O.J. Simpson is handy with a knife.
If we're lucky we'll get through it without the loss of life.
Brilliant, and hilarious -- written by a former Republican, sent to a former Republican. Our dear America is contaminated with concentrated power, abuse of same, arrogance, cowardice and criminality in Washington. This banality infects both major parties, as Iraq veteran and former senatorial candidate Paul Hackett can attest. But it is the common regular people in this country who refuse to go mad, who trust their own eyes and their own judgment, and aren't afraid to say so who will take back the place.
May Cheney's victims, whether Mr. Whittington, American rule of law, our faded Constitution and several modern foreign countries, recover and eventually return to their natural state of health and autonomy. Meanwhile, about the only thing true patriots can do is write poetry, laugh, grit their teeth and shake their heads.
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10:31:32 AM
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Joshuah Bearman: Fox Floats Cheney's Trial Balloon. Did anyone catch Brit Hume and Cheney working together to roll out an early foundation for Cheney's defense for outing -- or rather "declassifying" -- Valerie Plame's status? (Courtesy Ice House Gang.) This exchange, irrelevant to Cheney's hunting accident, came right at the close of the interview:
Q: Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.
Q: There is.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q: Have you done it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --
Q: You ever done it unilaterally?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.
Q: There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible facilities in Europe; and another that pertained to this NSA matter. There are officials who have had various characterizations of the degree of damage done by those. How would you characterize the damage done by those two reports?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There clearly has been damage done.
Q: Which has been the more harmful, in your view?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into just sort of ranking them, then you get into why is one more damaging than the other. One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of these leaks.
Q: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for blah, blah, etc.
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10:25:32 AM
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Wednesday, February 15, 2006 |
Jane Hamsher: Ten Questions We'd Like To See Dick Cheney Answer Tonight. 
1. If you were not in fact drunk as a skunk at the time you shot a 78 year-old man in the face, Dick, why did you go to so much trouble to get MSNBC to scrub Katharine Armstong's comments about alcohol at the hunt out of their article? Boy you guys sure gets a lot of media service for that $1.6 billion a year.
2. The official story says that the buckshot migrated to Whittington's heart through the bloodstream. How did your crack medical team get the blood to flow backwards in Mr. Whittington's body such that the buckshot "sprayed into his skin" ("like little raindrops") got sucked back into the coronary artery? This story should really be eclipsing all others.
3. Did you enlist the help of Arlen Specter, author of the Warren Commission's "Magic Bullet theory," to help you out with yours? It would take some magic BB's indeed from a distance of 30 yards to ricochet back into such a tight pattern (see above). But if it's good enough for JFK, I suppose Mr. Whittington should feel honored.
4. How happy are you that the State of Texas did not handle this like they would have if you had been graced with an Hispanic surname? An indictment for manslaughter and a $20 million judgment against the ranch owner is probably nothing a white Republican boozehound such as yourself should have to worry about, after all.
5. You must be equally grateful that the former Chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division was not only the property owner but the witness to the event. And that she was able to call the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division to come out and write up a report clearing the you of any use of drugs and alcohol before any law enforcement officer actually spoke to you. Case o'cocktail weenies to the Armstrong Ranch for her!
6. If the guards at the Armstrong Ranch didn't know to let the sherrif's office onto the property because they didn't know the shooting had happened, what did they think the ambulance was for?
7. Can you tell us if, in the future, a Texas divorcee always be responsible for deciding whether or not the American people are entitled to know that the Vice President of the United States has put an old man in the ICU?
8. Did George Bush really know what had happened on Saturday night, and was thus simply unable to control the actions of you (his boss) with regard to the press, or did you just not think he needed to know anything until Sunday morning like the obviously superfluous Scott McClellan?
9. How low will you and the rest of the Cheney Administration go to badmouth an old man who may be dying in all of this, and how long will the media cooperate? Maureen O'Dowd called the efforts of Alan Simpson, Norm Coleman and the compliant *journalists* who have engaged in "blame the stupid victim" game as both "outsourcing smear" and "Swift-bb-ing." Should we expect news of Whittington's Al-Quaeda connections soon?
10. Although the Wittington family was initially eager to give you a pass in all of this, are they still quite so happy to do so after watching their father blamed and backstabbed in the media this week? We've heard precious little from them as the week has worn on, and his co-workers seem to be getting mighty angry at the Swift-bb-ing. Are they in line for any Iraq security or Hurricane Katrina reconstruction contracts?
Because enquiring minds want to know.
(graphic by Jesus' General)
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1:07:00 PM
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An NBC story was scrubbed of the ranch owner's comment that "There may be a beer or two in there, but remember not everyone in the party was shooting," and CNN's Bruce Morton said that while Bush "likes to hunt quail with family and friends" and Cheney "loves to hunt," Kerry "spent time posing with guns." [Cursor.org]
10:51:29 AM
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RJ Eskow: Cheney's Chappaquiddick II: The Real Story Emerges. The real story is already emerging, if you're willing to do a little digging. Cheney and Whittington went hunting with two women (not their wives), there was some drinking, and Whittington wound up shot. Armstrong didn't see the incident but claimed she had, Cheney refused to be questioned by the Sheriff until the next morning, and a born-again evangelical physician has been downplaying Whittington's injuries since they occurrred. Neither the press nor law enforcement seems inclined to investigate.
Before the right-wing commenters howl - there's documentation for all of these statements. Let's take them one by one: In addition to Cheney and Whittington, the hunting party included Katherine Armstrong (who was in the car at the time of the shooting: more on that later). After lots of evasive comments that only referred to a "third hunter," we now know her identity: Pamela Willeford, the US Ambassador to Switzerland.
Then there was this Armstrong quote on MSNBC and picked up by Firedoglake (later dutifully scrubbed, but preserved on Google cache): "There may be a beer or two in there," (Armstrong) said, 'but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.'"
Interestingly, Armstrong's playing with words here. She later said that she (Armstrong) hadn't had anything to drink, so at least one of the other three must have been drinking - and the other three were shooting. So while her statement was literally correct ("not everyone ... was shooting"), it gives the false impression that nobody drank and shot.
Then there was this item (courtesy kos):
Armstrong said she saw Cheney's security detail running toward the scene. "The first thing that crossed my mind was he had a heart problem," she told The Associated Press. In other words, she didn't see the accident. All of her statements, replete with colorful sidebars about getting "peppered pretty good," gave the false impression she was an eyewitness. She wasn't.
And what about Dr. David Blanchard, who made such light of Whittington's injuries? Before the heart attack occurred, Blanchard gave no indication that pellets had entered Whittington's torso or major organs (we now know that at least one other pellet entered his liver). I found an interesting quote. After asserting that spiritual beliefs help people recover more quickly (which studies have suggested may be true), Blanchard said this of people with out of body and near death experiences:
"These people do quite well in their disease processes," he said. "The Lord wasn't quite ready for them yet . . . It makes believers out of them." It's likely that Blanchard is also the same "Dr. David Blanchard" who is listed as Vice Chairperson of World Hope International, a Christian evangelical aid group.
Blanchard's certainly entitled to his own beliefs, and World Hope International (if he's the same Blanchard) has done some good work, albeit with a proselytizing bent. But most evangelicals in this country are ardent supporters of the Bush/Cheney Administration. This may explain the otherwize puzzling word choices Dr. Blanchard made to play down Whittington's injuries, especially before the heart attack made that more difficult to do.
So was Cheney drinking, and was there anything inappropriate about this hunting party? We don't know, and nobody's investigating. There's reason to be suspicious. We do have the suggestion that drinking was taking place, we have inconsistencies and a pattern of deception in Armstrong's statements, we have a shooting injury that's far more serious than originally claimed ... and a Sheriff's Department and national press that have already proclaimed the VP innocent of all wrongdoing.
I was right to call this Cheney's Chappaquiddick. The parallels get stronger every day. Of course, Chappaquiddick happened almost forty years ago, and Ted Kennedy's turned his personal life around. Cheney's actions happened this weekend. There's reason to be suspicious of the Vice President's behavior, starting with the cover-up itself.
They're trying to spin it as just a badly handled case of press relations, but it's could be a whole lot more than that.
A Night Light
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9:31:26 AM
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Monday, February 13, 2006 |
The New York Times | The Trust Gap. We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers - and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less, writes The New York Times. [t r u t h o u t]
2:03:21 PM
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Michael Hirsh | Where's the Oversight?. The untold tale of the latest Pentagon budget is the wastage and overpricing that continue to lard it up to the tune of perhaps $100 billion - with Congress scarcely paying attention remarks Michael Hirsh. [t r u t h o u t]
1:05:54 PM
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Bush Spent Over $1.6 Billion on Advertising and Public Relations Contracts. Today Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Representative George Miller, Representative Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office report finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span. [t r u t h o u t]
1:04:53 PM
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Ray McGovern | Who Will Blow the Whistle Before We Attack Iran?. With no perceptible demurral from inside the government, George W. Bush launched a war of aggression, defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal as "the supreme international crime." If this doesn't qualify for whistle blowing, what does? Let us hope that administration officials, or analysts - or both - will find the courage to speak out loudly, and early enough to prevent the "disconnected-from-reality" cabal in the Bush administration from getting us into an unnecessary war with Iran, writes Ray McGovern. [t r u t h o u t]
1:04:13 PM
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Report: Katrina response a 'national failure'. A congressional report due out this week slams the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, calling it a "failure of leadership" that left people stranded when they were most in need. "Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare," the report says. "At every level -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina. In this cautionary tale, all the little pigs built houses of straw." [CNN.com]
12:59:43 PM
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Steve Clemons: Cheney Team's Plame Leak Sabotaged America's Iran-Watching Intelligence Effort. 
An important and provocative report has just been published that suggests that Iran was the target of much of Valerie Plame's covert investigative work and that outing her identity had far worse consequences than has thus far been acknowledged.
This information also dovetails with information I have been digging up on Iran's interests in Niger uranium.
Raw Story has just published this piece by Larisa Alexandrovna.
The core of the article is:
The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran.
This is rather huge news. The Washington Note had some knowledge of this Raw Story article before it hit the net and mentioned it was on the way on the WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show earlier today.
There are different directions this story may go.
The first might be that one of the reasons that Plame was outed had to do with bureaucratic and/or political enemies who were predisposed against the intelligence results of her team's Iran WMD-watching efforts. I would have to be further convinced of that case -- as I think that internal pettiness inside the Bush White House over Joe Wilson's public outing of the contrived Iraq-Niger-Uranium gambit is a pretty compelling rationale for Cheney's machine to out Plame.
But another dimension of this story has to do with an assessment of the damage that her outing caused this nation. As we now start down a path towards harder-edged threats against Iran, allies will naturally question the quality of our intelligence given our failures on Iraq WMDs.
If Cheney & Co. outed one of the key intelligence operations monitoring the inputs and outputs of Iran's nuclear program -- then Cheney & Co. did vast damage to our ability to know what is real and contrived inside Iran.
One other piece to this that I need to review in my notes -- so please take the following with a grain of salt until further sourced -- has to do with Joe Wilson's findings in Niger.
Someone with knowledge of the classified report that Joe Wilson "orally" filed after his now famed investigative trip to Niger shared with me that there were two notes in that report that had nothing to do with Iraq and its purported activities in Niger.
These two notes focused on Iran's interests and possible activities in Niger.
The question is "why would Iran be interested in Niger uranium when it has more than adequate domestic sources of uranium?"
The response that has come from various intelligence sources that I have consulted is that if Iran was trying to access external sources of uranium -- somewhere like Niger -- it is because those "secret efforts" would be outside the international intelligence monitoring of Iran's domestic mining operations.
I do not have the fully articulated "notes" from Joe Wilson's Niger report (in fact, I have just learned that those written "notes" were destroyed), but I have just learned that these Iran-Niger references appear in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Joe Wilson's Niger trip. (I will link as soon as I secure the electronic version).
What is fascinating is that one of the staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence mistakenly recorded in the published report that Iraq -- rather than Iran -- attempted to purchase 400-500 tons of uranium. Wilson apparently made clear that it was Iran and not Iraq attempting to make such purchases.
The Washington Post, which reported this inaccuracy -- had to issue a correction that the purchase effort, as reported by Joe Wilson, was made by Iran and not Iraq.
More soon.
-- Steve Clemons
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12:59:09 PM
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"60 Minutes" also obtained a memo in which the Baghdad airport's security director wrote that contractor "Custer Battles has shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war profiteers. Other than that, they are swell fellows." Plus: 'Baghdad Embassy Bonanza' [Cursor.org]
11:30:43 AM
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Saturday, February 11, 2006 |
Glenn Greenwald: Silencing Bush critics with prison. The significance of this article from today's New York Times cannot be overstated. In essence, while the President sits in the White House undisturbed after proudly announcing that he has been breaking the law and will continue to do so, his slavish political appointees at the Justice Department are using the mammoth law enforcement powers of the federal government to find and criminally prosecute those who brought this illegal conduct to light:
Federal agents have interviewed officials at several of the country's law enforcement and national security agencies in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding a New York Times article published in December that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program, according to government officials.
The investigation, which appears to cover the case from 2004, when the newspaper began reporting the story, is being closely coordinated with criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department, the officials said. People who have been interviewed and others in the government who have been briefed on the interviews said the investigation seemed to lay the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges.
Alberto Gonzales last week spent 8 hours testifying before Congress, during which he made clear that he considers George Bush to be his "client." Isn't it plainly inappropriate for Gonzales to be making decisions regarding who should be prosecuted for having exposed his "client's" wrongdoing to the public?
Beyond that, consider the effects of these threats on other people who may be tempted to come forward and expose other serious wrongdoing on the part of the Administration. They hear that the Justice Department is "laying the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges" -- might that have an effect of intimidation against anyone who might consider blowing the whistle on other forms of serious misconduct by the Bush Administration?
And it isn't just potential whistle-blowers whom they are attempting to intimidate, but journalists as well:
At the same time, conservatives have attacked the disclosure of classified information as a illegal act, demanding a vigorous investigative effort to find and prosecute whoever disclosed classified information.
An upcoming article in Commentary magazine suggests that the newspaper might be prosecuted for violations of the Espionage Act and said, "What The New York Times has done is nothing less than to compromise the centerpiece of our defensive efforts in the war on terrorism."
So now we're a country which allows its leaders to flagrantly violate the law -- even cheering them on as they do it -- and we imprison the journalists who report that illegal behavior to the public. That sounds like a lot of things. The United States isn't one of them.
The Administration has been making threatening noises like this all week:
[CIA Director Porter] Goss, speaking at a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Feb. 2, said: "It is my aim, and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information. I believe the safety of this nation and the people this country deserve nothing less."
Those were the comments about which Dick Cheney remarked on right-wing radio that, while he agreed with them, he thought they were "rather restrained." If Goss' statement that there should be a criminal investigation into the leakers and journalists is too "restrained," what more aggressive measures would Cheney like to see be taken against them?
Whatever one's views are on the NSA scandal, disclosure by The New York Times has accomplished exactly what newspapers are designed to achieve -- ensuring that highly controversial government programs, particularly ones of dubious legality, are subject to public debate and not concealed by the Government. Thomas Jefferson long ago warned us:
"Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."
It has long been clear that the Times disclosed only that information necessary to enable such public discussion without disclosing any operational details and without even arguably jeopardizing national security. Indeed, one of the most frivolous claims we've heard from the Bush Administration and its followers is that national security was damaged by the Times' disclosure that the Administration eavesdrops without judicial oversight (rather than with it), and that this disclosure somehow helped Al Qaeda.
For that reason, this flamboyant use of the forces of criminal prosecution to threaten whistle-blowers and intimidate journalists are nothing more than the naked tactics of street thugs and authoritarian juntas. There is much speculation over whether other eavesdropping programs exist, including domestic eavesdropping programs, as well as whether other lawless programs have been authorized based on the Administration's theories that it has the right to wield war powers against American citizens on American soil.
Our hope for finding out about the existence of other illegality depends upon the willingness of whistle blowers to come forward and journalists to investigate and report such misconduct. That is precisely why the Administration is so aggressively seeking to attack and silence those two groups, and it is also why the significance and danger of those attempts really can't be overstated.
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5:57:10 PM
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Friday, February 10, 2006 |
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Our "Downing Street Memo"?. For those who had any doubts that the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence to take us into a disastrous, unprovoked and unnecessary war, Walter Pincus's front page story in Friday's Washington Post is must reading. Pincus's fine reporting in the months preceding the invasion exposed the divisions about the war within the intelligence community, and its anger about how information was being politicized. But his stories were almost always buried in the Post's inside pages.
Today's story, in my view, is the equivalent of America's Downing Street Memo. Paul R. Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated US intelligence on the Middle East until last year now publicly accuses the Bush White House of "cherrypicking" intelligence on Iraq to justify its decision to go to war. "Intelligence," Pillar asserts, " was misused publicly to justify decision already made..." This is an eerie echo of the famous words from the Downing Street Memo--in which Britain's MI-6 Director Richard Dearlove told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that " the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. "
As Pincus notes, this is the first time that such a senior intelligence officer "has so directly and publicly condemned" Bush & Co's handling of intelligence. Pillar's critique is also one of "the most severe indictments of White House actions by a former Bush official since Richard C. Clarke , a former National Security council staff member, went public with his criticism of the administration's handling of the September 11, 2001, attacks."
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6:47:55 PM
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Robert Schlesinger: If it's the end, it's their own undoing. Arianna thinks that the revelation that "Scooter" Libby got the word from higher up to leak classified information could be the tipping point. And she may be right.
If it so it will be their own undoing. Take today's bad news buffet:
- On the hill, "Brownie'" spilled like a New Orleans levee. Left hung out to dry by the administration, he left them all wet.
- In the pages of a prominent foreign policy journal a former top CIA official becomes the latest insider to confirm what many of us already suspected: "That official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," according to Paul Pillar, a 30-year CIA vet and the agency's leading counter-terrorism intelligence analyst.
- And a slew of Jack Abramoff emails are suddenly on the Internet, describing a much chummier relationship than the White House had led us to believe.
- And of course the biggie -- the Libby testimony that Cheney and "other White House superiors" authorized him to release classified information. (Libby's mistake was trying to do it on the QT. He should have just had the information declassified first and then gotten Bush to announce it in a speech.)
These tidbits each have two things in common: None is surprising and all are self-inflicted wounds.
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6:33:08 PM
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Thursday, February 9, 2006 |
ADMINISTRATION
Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
According to sources with firsthand knowledge, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. Later, after the war began in 2003, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.
Previous coverage of the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas
Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized to share parts of the NIE with journalists in the summer of 2003 as part of an effort to rebut charges then being made by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war.
Wilson had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to investigate allegations that the African nation of Niger had sold uranium to Iraq to develop a nuclear weapon. Despite the fact that Wilson reported back that the information was most likely baseless, it was still used in the President's 2003 State of the Union speech to make the case for war.
But besides sharing details of the NIE with reporters during the effort to rebut Wilson, Libby is also accused of telling journalists that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had worked for the CIA. Libby and other Bush administration officials believed that if Plame played a role in the selection of her husband for the Niger mission, that fact might discredit him.
A federal grand jury indicted Libby on October 28, 2005, on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, alleging that he concealed his role in leaking information about Plame to the media. He resigned his positions as chief of staff and national security adviser to Cheney the same day. Libby has never claimed that Cheney encouraged him to disclose information about Plame to the media.
In a January 23 letter, related to discovery issues for Libby's upcoming trial, Fitzgerald wrote to Libby's attorneys: "Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate ("NIE") [sigma] in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003.[sigma] We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."
Although it is not known if Cheney had told the special prosecutor that he had authorized Libby to leak classified information to reporters, Dan Richman, a professor of law at Fordham University and a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said, "One certainly would not expect Libby, as part of his defense, to claim some sort of clear authorization from Cheney where none existed, because that would clearly risk the government's calling Cheney to rebut that claim."
The public correspondence does not mention the identities of the "superiors" who authorized the leaking of the classified information, but people with firsthand knowledge of the matter identified one of them as Cheney. Libby also testified that he worked closely with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in deciding what information to leak to the press to build public support for the war, and later, postwar, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
In the correspondence, Fitzgerald also asserted that Libby testified that he had met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, with the "purpose" of intending "to transmit information" to her "concerning the NIE."
That particular meeting has been key to Fitzgerald's investigation because the special prosecutor alleges that Libby lied both to the FBI and to his federal grand jury by saying that he had not discussed Plame with Miller on that date, when in fact he did tell her of Plame's work for the CIA.
In an account of her grand jury testimony, Miller has written that Libby discussed the NIE with her: "Mr. Libby also cited a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, produced by American intelligence agencies in October 2002 [sigma] which he said had firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking uranium." Portions of the NIE were later declassified, but the material in it related to Niger was still classified at the time.
Libby, through a spokesperson, declined to comment, and the vice president, through a spokesperson, also declined to comment for this story.
The new disclosure that Libby has claimed that the vice president and others in the White House had authorized him to release information to make the case to go to war, and later to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence, is significant for several reasons. First, it significantly adds to a mounting body of information that Cheney played a central and personal role in directing efforts to counter claims by Wilson and other administration critics that the Bush administration had misused intelligence information to go to war with Iraq.
Second, it raises additional questions about Libby's motives in concealing his role in leaking Plame's name to the press, if he was in fact more broadly authorized by Cheney and others to rebut former Ambassador Wilson's charges. The federal grand jury indictment of Libby alleges that he had lied to the FBI and the federal grand jury by claiming that when he provided information to reporters about Plame's CIA employment, he was only passing along what he understood to be unverified gossip that he had heard from other journalists.
Instead, the indictment charges that Libby had in fact learned of Plame's CIA status from at least four government officials, Cheney among them, and from classified documents. Indeed, much of Libby's earliest and most detailed information regarding Plame's CIA employment came directly from the vice president, according to information in Libby's grand jury indictment. "On or about June 12, 2003," the indictment stated, "Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division."
Libby testified that Cheney told him about Plame "in an off sort of, curiosity sort of, fashion," according to other information recently unsealed in federal court. Not long after that date, Libby, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and a third administration official began to tell reporters that Plame had worked at the CIA, and that she had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger.
Finally, the new information indicates that Libby is likely to pursue a defense during his trial that he was broadly "authorized" by Cheney and other "superiors" to defend the Bush administration in making the case to go to war. Libby does not, however, appear to be claiming that he was acting specifically on Cheney's behalf in disclosing information about Plame to the press.
Libby's legal strategy in asserting that Cheney and other Bush administration officials authorized activities related to the underlying allegations of criminal conduct leveled against him, without approving of or encouraging him to engage in the specific misconduct, is reminiscent of the defense strategy used by Oliver North, who was a National Security Council official in the Reagan administration.
North, a Marine lieutenant colonel assigned to the National Security Council, implemented the Reagan administration's efforts to covertly send arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages held in the Middle East, and to covertly fund and provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras at a time when federal law prohibited such activities. Later, it was discovered that North and other Reagan administration officials had diverted funds they had received from the Iranian arms sales to covertly fund the Contras.
If Libby's defense adopts strategies used by North, it might be in part because the strategies largely worked for North and in part because Libby's defense team has quietly retained John D. Cline, who was a defense attorney for North. Cline, a San-Francisco partner at the Jones Day law firm, has specialized in the use of classified information in defending clients charged with wrongdoing in national security cases.
Among his detractors, Cline is what is known as a "graymail" specialist-an attorney who, critics say, purposely makes onerous demands on the federal government to disclose classified information in the course of defending his clients, in an effort to force the government to dismiss the charges. Although Cline declined to be interviewed for this story, he has said that the use of classified information is necessary in assuring that defendants are accorded due process and receive fair trials.
In the Libby case, Cline has frustrated prosecutors by demanding, as part of pretrial discovery, more than 10 months of the President's Daily Brief, or PDBs, the president's morning intelligence briefing. The reports are among the most highly classified documents in government, not only because they often contain sensitive intelligence and methods, but also because they indicate what the president and policy makers consider to be the most pressing national security threats. In the past, the Bush administration has defied bipartisan requests from the Intelligence committees in Congress to turn over PDBs for review.
After Cline demanded the PDBs, Fitzgerald wrote to him on January 9 that the prosecutor's office has only "received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs" and "never requested copies of PDBs" themselves, in part because "they are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified." Moreover, Fitzgerald wrote, only a relatively small number of PDB pages included reference to Wilson's trip to Niger.
But Cline has insisted that it is imperative for his client's defense to be able to review the PDBs because part of Libby's defense is that he may have had a faulty memory regarding conversations he had with government officials and reporters regarding Plame, in that he had so many other pressing issues to consider every day as chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice president.
In a January 31 court filing, attorneys for Libby argued: "Mr. Libby will show that, in the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake, faulty memory, rather than a willful intent to deceive."
In the North case, the Iran-Contra independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, was forced to dismiss many of the central charges against North, including the most serious ones-that North defrauded taxpayers by diverting proceeds from arms sales to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contras-because intelligence agencies and the Reagan administration refused to declassify documents necessary for a trial on those charges.
Walsh and many of his deputies believed that the Reagan Justice Department refused to declassify documents necessary to try North because officials were personally sympathetic to him. A North trial would also have politically embarrassed the Reagan administration, and a North conviction might have led to charges against higher officials.
In court filings, Walsh said that much of what intelligence agencies and the Reagan administration had refused to declassify had long before been published in the media or made public in some other way.
"It was a backdoor way of shutting us down," said one former Iran-Contra prosecutor, who spoke only on the condition that his name not be used, because his current position as a private attorney requires frequent dealings with attorneys who were on the other side of the North case at the time. "It was a cover-up by means of an administrative action, and it was an effective cover-up at that."
The former prosecutor added: "The intelligence agencies do not declassify things on the pretext that they are protecting state secrets, but the truth is that we were investigating and prosecuting their own. The same was true for the Reagan administration. Cline was particularly adept at working the system."
Is it possible that a prosecution of Libby might be impeded or even derailed entirely by the refusal of the Bush White House or its Justice Department to declassify information that might be necessary to try Libby? "Under the current statute, it may well be the attorney general's call-or whomever he designates-to ultimately decide what should be declassified, and what might not be, in the Libby case," said Michael Bromwich, a former associate Iran-Contra independent counsel and a former Justice Department inspector general.
William Treanor, the dean of Fordham University's Law School, and also a former associate Iran-contra special counsel, said that it is less likely that the Bush administration would challenge Fitzgerald as former administrations did with special prosecutors. Walsh, dealing with the Reagan and elder Bush administrations, and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, dealing with the Clinton administration, often alleged that political appointees in the Justice Department worked purposely to undermine their investigations.
"Walsh and Starr were not appointed by an attorney general," Treanor said, noting that Walsh, Starr, and earlier special prosecutors had been appointed by a three-judge federal panel instead of by the Justice Department. Currently, he pointed out, special prosecutors are appointed by the attorney general or their designate.
"With Walsh or Starr, the president and his supporters could more easily argue that a prosecutor was overzealous or irresponsible, because there had been a three-judge panel that appointed him," Treanor said. "With Fitzgerald, you have a prosecutor who was appointed by the deputy attorney general [at the direction of the attorney general]. The administration almost has to stand behind him because this is someone they selected themselves. It is harder to criticize someone you yourself put into play."
There are other reasons why it might prove difficult to undercut Fitzgerald, including outstanding questions about the role that Cheney and others in the Bush administration played in the effort to discredit Wilson, and the fact that Cheney is still the point man in defending the White House's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
And the new disclosure, that Libby is alleging that Cheney and other Bush administration officials "authorized" him to disclose classified information as a means to counter charges that the administration misused prewar intelligence, might also make it difficult for this administration to refuse to declassify information for Libby's trial.
But a Libby defense strategy asserting that he released classified information or took other actions as broadly authorized by Cheney might have other advantages, if the North case is any guide. At North's trial, the counts on which the jury acquitted him tended to be those involving actions that appeared to be authorized by superiors. He was found guilty of three felonies on which the evidence indicated that he was acting on his own initiative or for his own financial benefit.
"It was a memorable and powerful moment when North told the jury that he was 'a pawn in a chess game played by giants,'" Treanor said.
The claims by North that his activities had been broadly authorized by higher-ups, including even the president, also worked to his advantage when he was sentenced. Despite the fact that North had been convicted of three felonies and that Iran-Contra prosecutors argued before sentencing that letting North off with "only a slap on the wrist [sigma] would send exactly the wrong message [sigma] [only] 15 years after Watergate," he was sentenced to only probation, a fine, and community service.
North's trial judge, U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell, took note that the jury had acquitted North of criminal charges mainly where it appeared that his conduct might have been authorized by higher authorities: "Observing that many others involved in the events were escaping without censure or with prosecutorial promises of leniency or immunities, [the jury] used their common sense. And they gave you the benefit of a reasonable doubt."
Explaining his own leniency in sentencing the former NSC aide, Gesell told North: "I do not believe you were a leader at all, but really a low-ranking subordinate to carry out initiatives of a few cynical superiors. You came to be a point man in a very complex power play developed by higher-ups."
Later, North's convictions were overturned on appeal because of concerns that some of the evidence used against him during his trial might have been derived from his testimony before the House-Senate Iran-Contra investigating committee. North had been given immunity for that testimony.
But most outside legal observers say that Libby, because he was himself such a high-ranking official, will most likely face a much more difficult time than North did in arguing that, in some of his activities, he was just carrying out orders from Cheney or other senior White House officials.
"A defendant can make a claim that he is just a victim of Washington politics or doing the bidding for someone else," said Richman, the former prosecutor, "But there may be limits to a jury's sympathy when that defendant himself was so high-ranking. Given Libby's position in the White House, the jury is less likely to view him as a sacrificial lamb than as a sacrificial ram."
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4:34:58 PM
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Published on Thursday, February 9, 2006 by the Associated Press
Ex-FEMA Chief: I May Tell All about Katrina
Michael Brown asks White House if they want him to stay quiet
WASHINGTON - Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support.
Brown's stance, in a letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, follows senators' complaints that the White House is refusing to answer questions or release documents about advice given to Bush concerning the August 29 storm.
Brown quit as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency days after Katrina struck. He left the federal payroll November 2.
In a February 6 letter to White House counsel Harriet Miers, Brown's lawyer wrote that Brown continues to respect Bush and his "presidential prerogative" to get candid and confidential advice from top aides.
The letter from Andrew W. Lester also says Brown no longer can rely on being included in that protection because he is a private citizen.
"Unless there is specific direction otherwise from the president, including an assurance the president will provide a legal defense to Mr. Brown if he refuses to testify as to these matters, Mr. Brown will testify if asked about particular communications," the lawyer wrote.
Brown's desire "is that all facts be made public."
White House spokesman Trent Duffy declined to comment on the letter, instead pointing to remarks two weeks ago in which Bush avoided directly including Brown among his advisers.
At the time, Bush defended his administration's stance on withholding some information, saying that providing all the material would chill the ability of presidential advisers to speak freely. The White House said it has given 15,000 documents about the storm response to Senate investigators.
Brown is set to testify Friday at a Senate inquiry of the slow government response to Katrina.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut., who blasted the White House last month for what he called attempts to stonewall the Senate inquiry, said he expects Brown, now a private citizen, "to answer every question the committee puts to him truthfully."
"I see no basis for him to refuse to answer any of our questions, and I hope the White House will not try to direct him not to answer our questions," Lieberman said.
Contacted Wednesday, Brown referred questions about the letter to Lester. The lawyer described his client as "between a rock and a hard place" between the administration's reluctance to disclose certain high-level communications and Congress' right to demand it.
"Mr. Brown is going to testify before Congress. If he receives no guidance to the contrary, we'll do as any citizen should do -- and that is to answer all questions fully, completely and accurately," Lester said.
The letter set a 5 p.m. EST deadline Wednesday for the White House to reply to Brown. That passed without a response, Lester said.
Some administration officials have refused interviews by Senate investigators or have declined to answer even seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House.
The leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have accused the White House of crippling their inquiry after FEMA lawyers prohibited Brown from responding to some questions during a January 23 staff interview.
At that interview, Brown told investigators he was aware of management problems at the agency that were highlighted in a consultant's report months before Katrina. He attributed some of the problems to the agency's merger with the Homeland Security Department in 2003.
"What I wish I had done was, frankly, just either quit earlier or whatever and gone to certain friends that I can't talk about and said we got to fix this -- I mean, what's going on is nuts," Brown said, according to a Senate transcript of the meeting.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said if the problems been addressed earlier, "the response to Hurricane Katrina could have been better organized and perhaps we could have lessened the devastating impact on the people of the Gulf Coast."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press
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4:34:27 PM
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VA Nurse in New Mexico accused of sedition. Here is part of the text of a letter to the editor written by Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist in Albuquerque, New Mexico:
I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government. The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!...The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder....
Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence....This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.
Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.
Berg, who works at Albuquerque's VA Medical Center, wrote the letter to the weekly paper, the Alibi. When it was published in late September, VA officials seized Berg's computer, accusing her of using it to write the letter, and accusing her of sedition.
The head of the human resources management services later acknowledged that Berg's office computer hard drive did not contain the letter, but he defended the sedition charge.
In your letter...you declared yourself "as a VA nurse" and publicly declared the Government which employs you to have "tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence" and advocated, "Act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit."
The ACLU of New Mexico has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to the incident, and is asking for a public apology to Berg. In the meantime, Berg has learned that the VA may have contacted the FBI about her, a charge the VA denies. [MoJo Blog]
2:27:20 PM
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Tuesday, February 7, 2006 |
A survey of Iraqi children is said to find that "the only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the U.S. occupation," while Iraq's Labor Ministry now says that two million Iraq families now earn less than one U.S. dollar per day, with children paying "the silent cost." [Cursor.org]
12:49:48 PM
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Friday, February 3, 2006 |
ADMINISTRATION
Iraq, Niger, And The CIA
By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006
Vice President Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were personally informed in June 2003 that the CIA no longer considered credible the allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger, according to government records and interviews with current and former officials. The new CIA assessment came just as Libby and other senior administration officials were embarking on an effort to discredit an administration critic who had also been saying that the allegations were untrue.
The campaign against Joseph Wilson continued even after the CIA concluded that Iraq had not tried to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger.
CIA analysts wrote then-CIA Director George Tenet in a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, "We no longer believe there is sufficient" credible information to "conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." The memo was titled: "In Response to Your Questions for Our Current Assessment and Additional Details on Iraq's Alleged Pursuits of Uranium From Abroad."
Despite the CIA's findings, Libby attempted to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger the previous year to investigate the claims, which he concluded were baseless.
Previous coverage of the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas
The campaign against Wilson led to the outing of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer -- less than a month after the CIA assessment was completed. Libby resigned as Cheney's chief of staff and national security adviser on October 28, 2005, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice for concealing his role in leaking Plame's identity to the media.
Tenet requested the previously undisclosed intelligence assessment in large part because of repeated inquiries from Cheney and Libby regarding the Niger matter and Wilson's mission, although neither Cheney nor Libby specifically asked that the new review be conducted, according to government records and to current and former government officials. Tenet also asked for the assessment because information about Wilson's mission to Niger had begun to appear in the media, and Tenet thought that the press or Capitol Hill might raise additional questions about the matter.
The new disclosures raise questions as to why Libby and other Bush administration officials continued their efforts to discredit Wilson -- even as they were told that claims about Iraq's having procured uranium from Niger were most likely a hoax.
The answer may lie in part with the already well-known misgivings about the CIA by Cheney, Libby, and other senior Bush administration officials. At one point during that period -- the summer of 2003 -- Libby confronted a senior intelligence analyst briefing him and the vice president and accused the CIA of willfully misleading him and the administration on Niger. Libby was said to be upset that the CIA, in his view, had routinely minimized the extent to which Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and was now prematurely attempting to distance itself from the Niger allegations.
Libby had also complained about the CIA's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control. WINPAC, as the center is known, scrutinizes unconventional-weapons threats to the United States, including the pursuit by both foreign nations and terrorist groups of nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons.
Libby, according to people with knowledge of the events, said that he and Cheney had come to believe that WINPAC was presenting Saddam Hussein's pursuit of such weapons in a far more benign light than Iraq's intents and capabilities reflected. Libby cited CIA bureaucratic inertia and caution and his view that many of WINPAC's analysts were aligned with foreign-policy elites who did not support the war with Iraq.
Libby and others in the office of the vice president apparently were even more suspicious because they mistakenly believed that Plame worked for WINPAC, according to these sources. When they also learned that Plame possibly played a role in Wilson's selection for the Niger mission, their suspicions only intensified.
One indication of Cheney's personal interest in the subject was that some of Libby's earliest and most detailed information regarding Plame's CIA employment came directly from the vice president, according to information contained in Libby's grand jury indictment.
"On or about June 12, 2003," the indictment stated, "Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."
It would not have been improper or illegal for Cheney to discuss Plame's CIA employment with Libby or other government officials with high security clearances. No public evidence has emerged during the two-year grand jury probe by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Libby acted at the vice president's behest in leaking details of Plame's CIA employment to the press, or that Cheney even knew that Libby was doing so.
Contemporaneous notes of Libby's that were obtained by federal investigators in the CIA leak case indicate that Cheney had originally learned about Plame from then-CIA Director Tenet. Tenet has confirmed that Fitzgerald interviewed him, but Tenet has refused to make public any details of what he told investigators. He declined to comment for this story.
Sources said that Tenet may have discussed Plame with Cheney because of requests from Cheney, Libby, and other administration officials for more information about the Niger matter and Wilson's mission. Cheney's and Libby's interest in Niger was apparently rekindled after New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote on May 6, 2003, that the CIA had sent an unnamed former ambassador to the African nation in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Kristof wrote that the ex-ambassador reported back to the CIA and the State Department that the allegations were "unequivocally wrong" and "based on forged documents."
The column led Cheney and Libby to inquire about the then-still-unnamed ambassador and his trip to Niger. On May 29, 2003, Libby asked then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman for information about the mission. Grossman in turn assigned the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report on the matter. Cheney's and Libby's interest in the issue led Tenet to seek more information as well.
On June 11 or 12, according to the grand jury indictment of Libby, Grossman reported back that "in sum and substance Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and the State Department personnel were saying that Wilson's wife was involved in the planning of his trip."
Also on June 11, 2003, according to the indictment, "Libby spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson's trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip." On the very next day, June 12, the indictment said, Cheney more specifically informed Libby that Plame worked at the CIA's "Counterproliferation Division."
Tenet received the highly classified memo on Niger from his analysts on June 17, 2003, five days after Cheney and Libby spoke with each other about Plame's working for the CIA. Sources familiar with the matter say that both Cheney and Libby were informed of the findings in the June 17 memo only days after Tenet himself read and reviewed it.
In the memo, the CIA analysts wrote: "Since learning that the Iraqi-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq purchased uranium from abroad."
The memo also related that there had been other, earlier claims that Saddam's regime had attempted to purchase uranium from private interests in Somalia and Benin; these claims predated the Niger allegations. It was that past intelligence that had led CIA analysts, in part, to consider the Niger claims as plausible.
But the memo said that after a thorough review of those earlier reports, the CIA had concluded that they were no longer credible. Indeed, the previous intelligence reports citing those claims had long since been "recalled" -- meaning that the CIA had formally repudiated them.
The memo's findings were considered so significant that they were not only quickly shared with Cheney and Libby but also with Congress, albeit on a classified basis, according to government records and interviews.
On June 18, 2003, the day after the new Niger assessment was sent to Tenet, Robert D. Walpole, the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, briefed members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the findings. And on the following day, June 19, 2003, Walpole briefed members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence as well.
Six days after the memo was sent to Tenet, on June 23, 2003, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and -- as part of an effort to discredit Wilson -- passed along to her what prosecutors have said was classified information that Wilson's wife, Plame, worked for the CIA, according to allegations contained in Libby's indictment.
On July 6, 2003, Wilson himself went public with his allegations that the Bush administration had misused the Niger claims to make the case to go to war. Wilson made his arguments in an op-ed in The New York Times and an appearance that same morning on NBC's Meet the Press.
On July 8, 2003, Libby and Miller met again. During a two-hour breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, according to testimony Miller gave to the federal grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case, Libby first told her that Plame worked for the CIA's Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Office.
Around the same time, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and at least one other senior Bush administration official leaked information to a number of journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her role in recommending her husband for the Niger mission.
Columnist Robert Novak, on July 14, 2003, published his now-famous column identifying Plame as a CIA "operative" and alleging that she had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger.
The disclosure did little to discredit Wilson. Instead, it had unintended and unforeseen consequences for Libby and the Bush administration: A special prosecutor would be named to investigate the leak; Judith Miller would spend 85 days in jail for refusing to testify regarding her conversations with Libby before ultimately relenting; and a federal grand jury would indict Libby on charges that he obstructed justice and committed perjury to conceal his own role in the leak of Plame's CIA status to the press.
As Libby awaits trial, one of the unresolved mysteries is why Libby insisted in interviews with the FBI and during his grand jury testimony that he learned about Plame's employment from journalists, when investigators already had Libby's own copious notes indicating that he had first learned many of the details of Plame's CIA employment from Cheney and other senior government officials.
One possibility examined by investigators is that Libby was attempting to cover for Cheney because of the political or legal fallout that might occur if it was determined that the vice president had been involved in the effort to discredit Wilson.
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said, "The prosecutor's implicit inference before the jury may well likely be that Libby lied to protect the vice president. Even in a plain vanilla case, a prosecutor always wants to be able to demonstrate a motive."
That Cheney was one of the first people to tell Libby about Plame, and that Libby had written in his notes that Cheney had heard the information from the CIA director, Gillers said, might make it more difficult for Libby to mount a credible defense of a faulty memory. "From a prosecutor's point of view, and perhaps a jury's as well, the conversation [during which Libby learned about Plame] is the more dramatic and the more memorable because the conversation was with the vice president" and because the CIA director's name also came up, Gillers said.
The disclosure that Cheney and Libby were told of a CIA assessment that the agency considered the Niger allegations to be untrue, and that Tenet requested the assessment as a result of the personal interest of Cheney and Libby, would "demonstrate even further that Niger was a central issue for Libby," said Gillers, and would "make it even harder, although not impossible, to claim a faulty memory."
-- Murray Waas is a Washington-based journalist.
3:04:33 PM
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Published on Friday, February 3, 2006
by the Associated Press
Judge Slams Ex-EPA Chief over Sept. 11
by Larry Neumeister
A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.
U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the destruction of the World Trade Center.
"No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," the judge said.
She called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking," saying the EPA chief knew that the collapse of the twin towers released tons of hazardous materials into the air.
Whitman had no comment, according to a spokeswoman. A Justice Department spokesman said the government had no comment.
Spokeswoman Mary Mears said the EPA was reviewing the opinion but was pleased that the court had dismissed two of four civil claims against the agency, including allegations brought under the federal Superfund law.
"The EPA will continue to vigorously defend against the outstanding claims," she said.
The judge let the lawsuit proceed against the EPA and Whitman, permitting the plaintiffs to try to prove that the agency and its administrator endangered their health.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and reimbursement for cleanup costs and asks the court to order that a medical monitoring fund be set up to track the health of those exposed to trade center dust.
In her ruling, Batts noted that the EPA and Whitman said repeatedly [~] beginning just two days after the attack [~] that the air appeared safe to breathe. The EPA's internal watchdog later found that the agency, at the urging of White House officials, gave misleading assurances.
Quoting a ruling in an earlier case, the judge said a public official cannot be held personally liable for putting the public in harm's way unless the conduct was so egregious as "to shock the contemporary conscience." Given her role in protecting the health and environment for Americans, Whitman's reassurances after Sept. 11 were "without question conscience-shocking," Batts said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said in a statement that New Yorkers are still depending on the federal government to describe any ongoing risk from contaminants.
"I continue to believe that the White House owes New Yorkers an explanation," she said.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat whose district includes the trade center site, said the many people who worked at the site and developed respiratory diseases deserve answers.
"It is my assumption that thousands of people [~] workers and residents [~] are being slowly poisoned today because these workplaces and residences were never properly cleaned up," Nadler said in a telephone interview.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press
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3:03:14 PM
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Michael Vlahos: World War II - GWOT: Not!. The President's State of the Union message reminds us that war is more than violent activity -- it is also symbolic activity.
But what kind of symbolic activity? War is about meaning: war's symbols celebrate who we are, and wars do this by telling us a sacred story. The best wars moreover become mythic journeys marking society's passage. Through them societies are tested, triumph over adversity, reach cherished goals, and live up to the shadows of old ancestors.
The Global War on Terrorism is all of these things, and it bears out that war makes for grand narrative. The President called on that grand narrative again and again, as he does in almost every speech. It is worth taking a closer look at this generalissimo narrative, because it reveals what is symbolically important in this war -- and to this administration. It also shows us why we continue, however unwillingly, to support this "big story."
The GWOT -- including Iraq -- is all about World War II. For example in his most recent December 7 speech, the President made the tie explicit, when he declared
On December 7, 1941, our peaceful nation awoke to an attack plotted in secret and executed without mercy ... On September 11, 2001, our nation awoke to another sudden attack. In the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor.
9-11 thus authorizes us to symbolically configure the GWOT as "our generation's" World War II. Thus it must be made to fulfill almost sacred requirements. Hence Iraq: an experience that the administration assumed would resemble World War II. But more pointedly, once the initial invasion was over, the administration strove to make the aftermath still fit this World War II-like story.
Since about mid-summer 2003, when Iraqi insurgency could no longer be ignored, this has meant pushing three themes. Think of them as three World War II vignette narratives in the larger story line.
The first is "the nemesis." There is a great evil abroad in the world. Will be rise to meet it, or will we shirk it like cowards? The model evil of course is Hitler. Thus Saddam was another Hitler. After he was gone, "Islamofascism" (whatever that is) must carry the Nazi torch.
The second is "the world's liberator." Downtrodden by dictators, the wretched of the earth will be freed from tyranny and uplifted by us. We all remember how Chalabi among others promised flowers and sweets on Liberation Day in Baghdad.
The third is "selfless rebuilder." We also should remember how the administration promised us yet a satisfying sequel to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan. America knows how to do these things, we were assured, especially an administration under "adult supervision."
But each of these stories has failed. Moreover the failure is failure on the administration's own terms. This presents a rhetorical and symbolic problem, which the administration has met by simply altering its own terms.
"The nemesis" failed. The Iraq insurgency is an establishment Sunni opposition to American occupation. Furthermore the majority of all Iraqis say they want the US out in the wake of the December 15 elections. There is no evil content in Iraq save a few hundred Jihadists, now the process it seems of being rejected by Sunni insurgents who apparently despise them.
"The world's liberator" failed. Afghanistan was liberated back to its forever future of warlord gangs. Iraq was liberated into nascent Shi'a theocracy. Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" pushed Hezbollah revival. Semi-real elections in Egypt empowered the Muslim Brotherhood. In spite of American bucks backing a corrupt Fatah, Hamas is the victor in newfound Palestinian democracy. We are the bringer of change to the Muslim world alright, but it is not change that fits this administration's story.
"Selfless rebuilder" has failed most of all. The promised dollar bounty has dried up, and what is there to show for it? The critical infrastructure -- oil refining, electrical grid, and sewage treatment -- was neither properly repaired nor replaced. The result? Mile-long lines at every gas pump, power out much of the day in Baghdad, and filthy streets that prolong Iraq's worst public health problem. No one is comparing Iraq anymore to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan.
But for the administration failure has merely been a rhetorical and symbolic problem, which was for several years successfully addressed by aggressive propaganda and a constantly redefined definition of victory.
However, time is running out on "good news" news stories and endless spin. The truth is that Iraq is a mess, a divided sectarian society. Indeed civil strife's ultimate resolution is only being postponed by US occupation. The narrative sub-stories from Iraq can no longer be made to fit their World War II counterparts.
A bigger problem now looms. For the GWOT to continue, it must continue to advance the sacred narrative laid down by World War II. Therefore a new enemy and a new theater of struggle and transcendence must arise, or the entire enterprise is at risk.
The already anointed candidate as successor evil is Iran. But war with Iran, rather than renewing and extending World War II-like narrative, would most likely completely explode it. But then again, World War II ended on apocalyptic terms, with the atomic bomb. Surely an Iranian war has apocalyptic potential aplenty; so from this standpoint fighting Persia would be a satisfying way to finish up a GWOT framed to fit the World War II story. But no matter how horrifying this "fit" sounds, this administration will never give up the World War II story of its war.
Then who will make the case that "World War" is not only a bad fit, but an absurd fit for the situation we face in the Muslim world? To make this case, certain realities must of course be addressed. Certainly there are criminal Islamists -- aka, terrorists -- that we must track down. But the majority of Islamist groups are political in nature -- the Islamic Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and our Shi'a government of Iraq. Certainly we need to help resolve national-sectarian strife in Iraq, and there are many ideas here on our best course. Perhaps the biggest problem we face over the long term is what to do about the really big tyrannies, like Pakistan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that we still call "our friends and allies."
These are particular problems. They are not the subsidiary problems of a Great War, let alone a World War. Our big problem right now as a nation is that we still let the President and his circle get away sternly asserting the rhetoric of World War. Even worse we give the President and his circle all the political perks and bonuses that traditionally go hand-in-hand with a nation in grand struggle mode: lots of money, control over domestic society, choice of strategy and weapons, etc. But this is not that war. This is not World War II or World War III or IV.
It is not even a war.
Why are we so afraid of telling our elected Commander-in-Chief the news?
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9:42:51 AM
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Kathleen Reardon: Congressional Wiretap Briefing Scenarios. So how did those briefings go? Don't you wonder? Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan said, "Congressional leaders at a minimum tacitly supported the program." What does that mean? Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote about a means of achieving "tacit" agreement. The strategy is called "tact" (not to be confused with politeness); it involves saying something in a manner that allows, should the true offensive intention be discovered, deniability of that intention. In a business meeting conversation it might work like this.
(Looking at the clock) "Time flies, doesn't it?"
"Am I boring you?"
"Don't be silly."
"Are you in a hurry?"
"Not at all. By my estimation we're making superb progress. (Looks again at his watch) So much so that we'll likely be done in, I don't know, ten minutes?"
(Looks at his watch) "You're right. We have accomplished a lot in a short time. We're almost done."
"My sentiments exactly."
A gesture made, offensive implications of its meanings denied and skillfully redefined as a compliment, the desired meeting end thereby achieved - and without having to specifically request or suggest it.
Now apply this tactic to the reported Congressional briefings. Was the "tacit agreement" accomplished through "tact"? If so, could it have been of type (A) or (B)?
(A)
President Bush: "There are few people in whom I can confide."
Senator Surething: "I'm confident that's true, Mr. President."
President Bush: (winking) "In Texas we find the snakes in the grass before they bite us."
Senator Surething: "That must be helpful."
President Bush: So you see what I'm saying here?"
Senator Surething: "I know little about snakes in Texas, Mr. President."
President Bush: "And yet, I see you have no questions."
Senator Surething: "About what, Mr. President?"
President Bush: (Jovially patting the senator's back as the two move toward the Oval Office Door) "Precisely."
(B)
President Bush: "I need to talk turkey with you, Congressman."
Congressman Nononsense: "Of course, Sir."
President Bush: "I'm going to eavesdrop on Americans without FISA warrants."
Congressman Nononsense: "Not really I hope."
President Bush: "I'm also dying my hair blue this afternoon and getting an eagle tattoo on my forehead."
Congressman Nononsense: "Really?"
President Bush: "Just a little Presidential humor, but I see you catch my drift."
Congressman Nononsense: "I'm a bit in the dark."
President Bush: "That works for me."
Or, were Democrats complicit in explicit conversations about wiretaps without warrants - scenario C? They should be asking themselves if they were duped, made vitims of "tact" -- told little, yet accused of a lot. Maybe there's a scenario D. In any case, the Democrats do seem to be losing momentum on this one, perhaps allowing themselves to feel cornered -- again, which may explain the last-ditch, futile feather flying on the Judge Alito vote. "We're mad as hell and we're thinking perhaps of not taking at least some of this, for a while anyway, anymore!"
It's All Politics
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9:39:34 AM
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Ari Berman: Can DOJ Be Trusted with Abramoff?. Now that Jack Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress have drawn criminal indictments, the disgraced lobbyist's ties to the Bush Administration are starting to get attention. Little notice has been paid, however, to the Justice Department, charged with prosecuting Abramoff. Evidence has emerged that the department played an active role in shutting down an investigation of Abramoff's dubious lobbying activities in Guam in November 2002. The story raises questions about whether Justice can be trusted with this historic investigation--and whether top White House officials actively abetted Abramoff's shady dealings as early as 2001.
For the full story, read my new Nation article Can Justice Be Trusted?
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9:32:54 AM
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Thursday, February 2, 2006 |
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Wednesday, February 1, 2006 |
A Pittance for Research. In his State of the Union last night, the president got all environmental on us and proposed a few million dollars in subsidies for clean-energy research. About $264 million, according to David Roberts of Grist[~]not nothing, but a pittance compared to the billions of dollars in subsidies that Congress is giving oil and gas companies to drill and explore the earth last year. (In a year that Exxon earned a record $36 billion in profit, no less.) Oh, and that also comes after last year, during which funding for carbon-free energy sources was cut 3.6 percent.
Sorry to get critical[~]yes, yes, the president was making a baby step towards some sort of decent goal for once in his life[~]but this really won't cut it. Dramatic climate change is on the way, and little half-gestures won't help change course. Meanwhile, the president's proposal to increase spending on federal research and development by an additional $6 billion was a good call, and genuinely needed[~]most of this basic research is responsible for some of the major inventions of our time, including a variety of breakthrough drugs and of course the internet, and the U.S. is falling behind other countries on this front[~]but the betting line is that the Republican-controlled Congress won't actually approve anywhere near that much. Oh well, I'm sure it made for a good applause line, and that's all that counts, right? [MoJo Blog]
12:59:35 PM
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The Costs of Single-Payer. Economist Kash Mansori has a great post about the costs that would come with switching to a single-payer system in the United States. In some respects, a single-payer system would be more expensive than what we have now: people would end up consuming more health care, especially the 45 million who are currently uninsured. But on the plus side, these extra expenses would be outweighed by the cost savings that would come from eliminating a lot of the $400 billion we spend on administrative overhead and allowing the government to bargain down the price of services. Is there any evidence for this? Sure, look at Taiwan:
As another useful data point we can examine the case of Taiwan, a country that replaced a collection of different insurance schemes with a National Health Insurance program in 1995. The percent of Taiwanese with health insurance rose from about 60% in 1994 to 96% a few years later. It turns out that in Taiwan's case, the forces that would increase costs roughly balanced the forces that would decrease costs. Moreover, providing preventive care to all people, especially those who are currently uninsured, would likely save money by preventing later, costlier hospital visits[~]it's much cheaper, for instance, to treat diabetes early on than wait for a patient to get rushed to the ER. According to the Institute of Medicine, covering all Americans continuously would save the country anywhere from $65 billion to $130 billion in better health outcomes. Note that this is more than the estimated $80 to $100 billion it would cost to cover the uninsured. On the surface at least, universal coverage makes economic sense.
The catch that's always mentioned, of course, is that some sort of single-payer system would force rationing of health care and stifle innovation. Innovation is a harder problem, but it's worth noting that we already do ration care[~]by income, by location, by age. But the case for switching to a system that would cost roughly the same, if not less, as our present dysfunctional mess, and would lead to universal coverage, has a lot going for it. [MoJo Blog]
12:59:10 PM
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© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.
Last update: 2/28/06; 2:04:45 PM.
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