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[Saundra Hummer]

<<<O>>> DownWithTyranny!
"When fascism comes to America,
it will be wrapped in the flag
&
carrying the cross."
Sinclair Lewis
Friday, April 07, 2006
THE FIX IS IN
DOWN IN TOM DELAY'S
TEXAS DISTRICT

As you probably know, DWT has a team member deep in the heart of Texas, right in DeLay's Sugarland lair. Today Rozius fills us in on the latest shenanigans in Tom Delay's foul little world.

Anyone who was under the impression that the announcement of Tom Delay's upcoming resignation signaled the end of political corruption in Texas' Congressional District 22 should now see how misguided their hopes really were.
According to Texas law an election to replace a dead, convicted or resigned member of Congress must take place on one of the 2 remaining uniform election days, May 13 or November 7. The law further states that such elections require the ballot to be set up 36 days before election day.

That means that Tom Delay must resign today (April 7, 2006) in order for a special election to be held on May 13.

That isn't going to happen. Delay is purposely holding off resigning until after the deadline has passed in order to allow him time to hand pick his own successor setting up a November showdown with Democrat Nick Lampson who, according to the polls, would win the election if it were held today.

Of course, Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry could call a special election at any time to see to it that the people of the 22nd Congressional District do not go unrepresented until next January. But, since Perry is one of Delay's and Dubya's favorite cabana boys that is very unlikely.

Meanwhile, the Delay mob continues "business as usual."

On Wednesday, Democrat Lampson called a press conference on the steps of the Sugarland, Texas Courthouse in order to ask Governor Perry to see to it that the citizens of the 22nd District got a timely chance to elect a Congressman more interested in their hopes and dreams than in furthering the right wing agenda of the Bush Crime Family.

Lampson began his press conference with a small crowd of 40 supporters in attendance. As he answered questions from the local press a crowd of GOP supporters, summoned by Delay's campaign manager via e-mail, swooped in and began to disrupt the meeting.

In a scene right out of the Florida recount these GOP thugs showed their "conservative compassion' by drowning out Mr. Lampson's statement and by roughing up a 70 year old woman. (Video clip here. GO ON-SITE CLICK ON LINK)

The Sugarland police stood by and did nothing.

When asked why they were there the Delay Brownshirts responded:
"I think what you're going to see is Republicans will rally behind a candidate and help get word out that Nick Lampson was one of the worst liberals the Texas delegation has ever seen."

"We just didn't like him coming in to Sugar Land. He surely should have known he was going to get some opposition."

"Nick is Nancy Pelosi's liberal lapdog from Beaumont, and he should get used to being confronted for the next seven months,"

The Lampson campaign responded:
"Rick Perry dances to the tune of Tom DeLay's drum. Their partisan politics are more important than the people of this district having a voice."

So there you have it. The more things change the more they remain the same.

I'll keep you posted as this campaign develops.
-Rozius, April 7, 2006

posted by DownWithTyranny @ 11:26 AM 1 comments

1 Comments:
At 1:02 PM, Rozius said...
DeLay invokes Martin Luther King in Retirement Statement

--Plus, Dirty Campaign Contributions will be used for Delay's defense.

RAW STORY, April 7, 2007

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Hill_newsletter_DeLay_invokes_Martin_Luther_0407.h tml

The following ran in The Hill's e-newsletter this morning. Hat tip to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo who caught it first:

DeLay will pay lawyers with campaign money
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said Thursday that money in his campaign account is headed toward his defense.

“We'll pay lawyers,” he said when asked whether he would turn his war chest over to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

DeLay, the former House majority leader, announced earlier this week that he would resign before his term expires. DeLay has been indicted in a Texas campaign-finance case and two of his former aides have pleaded guilty in a federal corruption probe.

DeLay said Thursday that announcing his resignation has been liberating.

Quoting Martin Luther King. Jr., DeLay said, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.”

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/04/fix-is-in-down-in-tom-delays-texas.html

[Saundra Hummer]

...
Dirty Water Still Making Troops Sick
By
Justin Rood
April 7, 2006, 1:50 PM
Here's a story that bears revisiting -- with some urgency. Back in January, the AP reported that Halliburton was providing U.S. troops serving in Ramadi, Iraq, with dirty water. The soldiers bathed in it, washed their clothes in it, even made coffee with it. They got sick as a result.

On Jan. 23, Senate Democrats held a hearing on the matter. The story was picked up by hundreds of news outlets. Outrage ensued. The water quality at the Ramadi base improved.

But it's happened again -- this time at the Qayyarah Airfield, about 300 kilometers north of Baghdad. As an Army physician at the base wrote in a March 31 email to Senate investigators:

In January I noticed the water in our Showering facility was cloudy and had a foul odor. At the same time (over a 2 week period) I had a sudden increase in soldiers with bacterial infections presenting to me for treatment. All of these soldiers live in the same living area (PAD 103) and use the same water to shower. I had 4 cases of skin abcesses, 1 case of cellulitis, and one case of bacterial conjunctivitis.
The doctor's colleagues investigated. They discovered that workers from Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root division were "filling the water storage tanks with ROWPU concentrate."

ROWPU concentrate is what's left over after the contractor purifies water for drinking. First they pump water from the Tigris river; then they purify half of it for drinking. Then they pump the rest into tanks the troops use to bathe, do laundry, make coffee. That water contained twice the concentration of waste and bacteria of Tigris riverwater -- which is a far cry from Evian to begin with.

After the doctor and her colleagues made formal complaints, investigations were launched and KBR improved the water at the facility.

But here's the problem: the doctor who wrote the email only traced the problem to the dirty water because her mother had first read a January article on the problem, and told her about it. With so many servicepeople stationed around the region, are there other instances of this shameful treatment out there which haven't been discovered?

Go to the Haliburton Watch thread to see more on this story, which was posted a while back. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000318.php

[Saundra Hummer]

~$ $ $~
Lack of Ethics in D.C.
and in
State Capitols Around the Country?

Are we Shocked?
SRH
.
Feds Probe House Dems' Ethics Man
By
Justin Rood
April 7, 2006, 3:56 PM
The Justice Department is conducting an inquiry into the financial disclosures of Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), the Wall Street Journal reports today. The National Legal and Policy Center, a right-wing Virginia political watchdog group, brought the matter to investigators' attention, flagging "at least 200 misrepresentations or omissions in Mr. Mollohan's disclosure forms over the years," according to the newspaper.

When TPMmuckraker called the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, their spokeswoman confirmed to us that there is an investigation, but refused to comment further on the nature or extent of it.

Late Update: DC-based government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington calls for Mollohan to step down from the Ethics committee.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000320.php ...

[Saundra Hummer]

..... TOP FIVE HEADLINES FROM BUZZFLASH.COM

Okay, in case you blinked, the White House staff admitted (in a story buried in the front section of the Washington Post on Friday) that Bush authorized the leaking of classified information to discredit Joe Wilson.

The White House is stonewalling as to when Bush declassified the leak material, but it appears to be several days after he gave the green light for Scooter Libby http://www.libbydefensefund.com to reveal the classified information -- which was apparently still classifed at that time -- to the infamous Judith Miller (with whom Scooter shared at least one romanticized note and "intertwined roots" in Aspen).

We hate to say this, but after five years, we are just a little proud to be vindicated that Bush is an incompetent liar who betrays the nation that he leads after clearly stealing his first elections -- and very possibly stealing the second election through various machinations (and at least guilty of amassing votes by using Goebbels like propaganda to instill fear in voters).

But that little bit of gloating is tempered by the fact that the man who would destroy America, his Machiavelli (Karl Rove), his Rasputin (Dick Cheney), and his Dr. Strangelove (Dick Rumsfeld) are still as ensonced in power as they were 5 years ago.

If you are a witness to someone repeatedly robbing banks, don't you try to stop them?

Apparently, not in the U.S. Congress, where Republican Presidents are free to break the law and betray the nation at will.

Our Elliot Ness, Patrick Fitzgerald, has limited maneuvering room in exposing the White House conspiracy to undermine the law and America for partisan purposes. He is still, technically, part of the Bush/Alberto "Bush Consigliere" Gonzales justice department, although with a degree of independent authority to pursue the PlameGate case. But he can't afford even one minor mistake or they will yank him out of there.

He has an enabling Republican Congress -- with tepid Democratic protests -- who won't follow up in Congess on what Fitzgerald uncovers, but instead are waiting to pounce on him, instead of Bush.

So, he is moving very slowly, and hoping that by making his case airtight, he can alert the public to a conspiracy of betrayal that begins with Bush.

Is anyone besides the Internet giving Fitzgerald back up?

The mainstream media seems to have finally taken THIS revelation seriously, but will it last till Monday?

And why is Bush still in the White House?

So, you can see. We are done with our gloating.

It's back to how to evict the criminal, treasonous squatters in the White House.

The revelation that Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration's political agenda

Prosecutor: "What Mr. Fitzgerald is telling the judge here is that Mr. Libby was expressly authorized to go have these conversations with reporters by the vice president and authorized to release classified information by the president. That is a unique situation and not very forgettable."

Newsweek: President Bush insists a president "better mean what he says." Those words could return to haunt him. After long denouncing leaks of all kinds, Bush is confronted with a statement — unchallenged by his aides — that he authorized a leak of classified material to undermine an Iraq war critic...."The president all the time was looking for himself," Sen. John Kerry.

John Podesta, a former chief of staff in the Clinton White House, said, "Scott McClellan's credibility isn't just in tatters. It is more like confetti."

Al Gore brought corporate executives and environmentally minded investors roaring to their feet with multimedia images of an overheating planet and a call for Americans to reclaim their "moral authority" by tackling global warming. That's leadership.

For More Than 180 Headlines and Stories visit

http://www.buzzflash.com

[Saundra Hummer]

.....
Claiming perch above law portends long, painful fall
04/08/2006

“I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action.”

PRESIDENT BUSH

John Dean had a pretty good fix on the situation, but he underestimated the arrogance of his boss.

President Richard M. Nixon believed the scandal seeded by the Watergate burglary could be contained. Mr. Dean, the president’s lawyer, knew it was a tumor that could grow, metastasize and spread, eventually engulfing the presidency.

“There is a cancer on the presidency,” Mr. Dean famously said, advising Mr. Nixon to come clean with the public and begin distancing himself from the “plumbers” who carried out the break-in and other “dirty tricks” against the president’s political and ideological enemies.

Mr. Nixon, of course, refused. He believed he was above the law, and that he could escape the consequences of his personal and professional corruption by tossing underlings like Mr. Dean to the wolves baying at the Oval Office door. Thankfully, for the nation and the world, he was wrong. The rest, primarily under the bylines of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is history.

History has a trifling way of repeating itself, and anyone watching the wobbly arc of what has come to be known as “Plamegate” can be forgiven for feeling a strong sense of “Deanja-vu.” Since its genesis in July 2003, this scandal has played like a sequel to “All the President’s Men.”

Mr. Woodward has a bit part this time around, more privileged apologist than crusading journalist. Mr. Bernstein has had a cameo or two. Even Mr. Dean is back, hawking a book called “Worse than Watergate.”

Until Thursday, the only element missing was a rogue president who follows the Nixonian logic that states, “If the president does it, it can’t be illegal.”

Surely, President Bush and his administration have used this excuse before. Secretly authorizing the torture of detainees and wiretapping the phone conversations of unsuspecting Americans are just a pair in a laundry list of examples of a White House that plays by its own rules.

While these transgressions outraged many Americans, they have been sanctioned by a criminally negligent Republican Congress and excused by the echo chamber of conservative news outlets. A lack of congressional oversight and a campaign of relentless, concentrated spin has helped the president survive these scandals, but no amount of truth-twisting can excise the tumor now swelling inside the Bush presidency.

Mr. Nixon’s Achilles heel was a man named Liddy.

Mr. Bush’s is named Libby.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, has told investigators President Bush authorized the leak of classified intelligence to discredit Joseph Wilson, an administration critic who dared to challenge the president’s flimsy case for war in Iraq.

His wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA agent specializing in, of all things, curtailing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Now she’s a footnote of history, the victim of a political hit orchestrated by a White House that always puts partisan politics above the people’s business.

In a court filing, “Plamegate” Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald reports that Mr. Libby fingered Mr. Cheney as the “Deep Throat” who ordered him to hit Mr. Wilson where it would hurt most. When Mr. Libby said he was uncomfortable about leaking classified intelligence to the press, Mr. Cheney told him the president authorized the leaks.

So Scooter picked his plumbing tools and went to work.

The administration felt it had to discredit Mr. Wilson, who had put the lie to the president’s claim that Iraq had tried to purchase “yellowcake” uranium to make nuclear weapons. Mr. Libby began meeting with reporters and sharing classified intelligence, including portions of a National Intelligence Estimate supporting the president’s claim.

Mr. Cheney also ordered the outing of Ms. Plame, although it’s not clear from Mr. Libby’s testimony what the president knew and when he knew it.

When the scandal broke, Mr. Bush said he would fire anyone caught leaking, a pledge he later amended to read “anyone who broke the law.”

When Mr. Libby was charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI, he was allowed to resign. Guess you have to be convicted, too.

“I’d like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive information,” Mr. Bush said, revealing himself as either a liar or a fool, perhaps both. Either he authorized the leaks, or Mr. Cheney did so without his permission. Either way, it’s time for a reckoning.

The excuses have already begun. While the White House is dodging questions about Mr. Libby’s testimony, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insists the president has the “inherent authority to decide who should have classified information.” This is the same great legal mind who advocated torture and secret wiretapping. In other words, if the president does it, it’s not illegal.

It all has an eerily familiar ring, but something is very different this time around. We’re no longer talking about a cancer on the presidency, but a presidency that’s a cancer on the nation.


CHRIS KELLY, Times-Tribune columnist, is always springing leaks. E-mail: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com.

http://www.scrantontimes.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16450661&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=418218&rfi=6 .

[Saundra Hummer]

.....
Bush, GOP Struggle for Public Approval ,
By
RON FOURNIERAP Political Writer
Sat Apr 8, 9:20 AM ET

President Bush has hit new lows in public opinion for his handling of Iraq and the war on terror and for his overall job performance. Polling also shows the Republican Party surrendering its advantage on national security.

The AP-Ipsos survey is loaded with grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction — the largest percentage during the Bush presidency and up 13 points from a year ago.
"These numbers are scary. We've lost every advantage we've ever had," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said. "The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one."

Democratic leaders predicted they will seize control of one or both chambers of Congress in November. Republicans said they feared the worst unless the political landscape quickly changes.

There is more at stake than the careers of GOP lawmakers. A Democratic-led Congress could bury the last vestiges of Bush's legislative agenda and subject the administration to high-profile investigations of the Iraq war, the CIA leak case, warrantless eavesdropping and other matters.

In the past two congressional elections, Republicans gained seats on the strength of Bush's popularity and a perception among voters that the GOP was stronger on national security than Democrats.

Those advantages are gone, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted this week for The Associated Press by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

On an issue the GOP has dominated for decades, Republicans are now locked in a tie with Democrats — 41 percent each — on the question of which party people trust to protect the country. Democrats made their biggest national security gains among young men, according to the AP-Ipsos poll, which had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

The public gives Democrats a slight edge on what party would best handle Iraq, a reversal from Election Day 2004.

As for Bush's ratings:

_Just 36 percent of the public approves of his job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling. By contrast, the president's job approval rating was 47 percent among likely voters just before Election Day 2004 and a whopping 64 percent among registered voters in October 2002.

_Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency. That's down 9 points from a year ago. Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.

_Just 35 percent of the public approves of Bush's handling of Iraq, his lowest in AP-Ipsos polling.

"He's in over his head," said Diane Heller, 65, a Pleasant Valley, N.Y., real estate broker and independent voter.

Some past presidents' job approval ratings have dropped lower than Bush's. Harry Truman in 1952, Richard Nixon in 1974, Jimmy Carter in 1979 and the first George Bush in 1992 saw their ratings fall to the mid- to high 20s, according to Gallup polling.

Many have sunk as low as this president. Bill Clinton was at 39 percent in the late summer of 1994 — before midterm elections that were disastrous for Democrats. Ronald Reagan was at 35 percent in January 1983 before rebuilding his support. Lyndon Johnson was at 36 percent in March 1968, just before announcing he would not run for re-election during the Vietnam War.

As bad as Bush's numbers may be, Congress' are worse.

Just 30 percent of the public approves of the GOP-led Congress' job performance, and Republicans seem to be shouldering the blame.

By a 49-33 margin, the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress.

That 16-point Democratic advantage is the largest the party has enjoyed in AP-Ipsos polling.

"I think we will win the Congress," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said, breaking the unwritten rule against raising expectations.

Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., head of the House Republican campaign committee, said Bush's woes won't hurt GOP candidates.

"When we get to the ballot this year, there's not going to be President Bush on the ballot, and there's not going to be in my view, 'Do you want to vote with the Republicans or Democrats?' It's going to be, 'How do you feel about your member of Congress?' And if our members are doing their work and our candidates are connecting with the issues of those districts, they're going to do fine," Reynolds said.

Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate for control, no easy task in the best of circumstances.

The Democratic strategy is to nationalize the elections around a throw-the-bums-out theme keyed to a burgeoning ethics scandal focused on relationships between GOP lobbyists and lawmakers.

Democrats also need hordes of GOP voters to stay home on Election Day out of frustration. Nobody can predict whether that will happen, but a growing number of Republicans disagree with their leaders in Washington about immigration, federal spending and other issues.

Bush's approval rating is down 12 points among Republicans since a year ago. Six in 10 Republicans said they disapproved of the GOP-led Congress.
.
Trevor Tompson, manager of news surveys for The Associated Press, and AP writer Will Lester contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/troubled_republicans;_ylt=Aq15dj8xknBnz.LLP4espg2s 0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--...

[Saundra Hummer]

...

The Century of the Self
How politicians and business learned to create and manipulate mass-consumer society.
Episodes: One | Happiness Machines
Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal.


This is a must watch video. Episode Two will be available 04/08/06

Click Play To View [GO ON-SITE TO ACCESS]
Download file - Real Media - Windows media

You may need to update / download Free Real Player to view this video. Click on this link to download. http://snipurl.com/a75b

Iran: The Next Neocon Target
It’s been three years since the U.S. launched its war against Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Of course now almost everybody knows there were no WMDs, and Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States. Though some of our soldiers serving in Iraq still believe they are there because Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, even the administration now acknowledges there was no connection. Indeed, no one can be absolutely certain why we invaded Iraq. The current excuse, also given for staying in Iraq, is to make it a democratic state, friendly to the United States. There are now fewer denials that securing oil supplies played a significant role in our decision to go into Iraq and stay there. That certainly would explain why U.S. taxpayers are paying such a price to build and maintain numerous huge, permanent military bases in Iraq. They’re also funding a new billion dollar embassy- the largest in the world.

The significant question we must ask ourselves is: What have we learned from three years in Iraq? With plans now being laid for regime change in Iran, it appears we have learned absolutely nothing. There still are plenty of administration officials who daily paint a rosy picture of the Iraq we have created. But I wonder: If the past three years were nothing more than a bad dream, and our nation suddenly awakened, how many would, for national security reasons, urge the same invasion? Would we instead give a gigantic sigh of relief that it was only a bad dream, that we need not relive the three-year nightmare of death, destruction, chaos and stupendous consumption of tax dollars. Conceivably we would still see oil prices under $30 a barrel, and most importantly, 20,000 severe U.S. causalities would not have occurred. My guess is that 99% of all Americans would be thankful it was only a bad dream, and would never support the invasion knowing what we know today.

Even with the horrible results of the past three years, Congress is abuzz with plans to change the Iranian government. There is little resistance to the rising clamor for “democratizing” Iran, even though their current president, Mahmoud Almadinejad, is an elected leader. Though Iran is hardly a perfect democracy, its system is far superior to most of our Arab allies about which we never complain. Already the coordinating propaganda has galvanized the American people against Iran for the supposed threat it poses to us with weapons of mass destruction that are no more present than those Saddam Hussein was alleged to have had. It’s amazing how soon after being thoroughly discredited over the charges levied against Saddam Hussein the Neo-cons are willing to use the same arguments against Iran. It’s frightening to see how easily Congress, the media, and the people accept many of the same arguments against Iran that were used to justify an invasion of Iraq.

Since 2001 we have spent over $300 billion, and occupied two Muslim nations--Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re poorer but certainly not safer for it. We invaded Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden, the ring leader behind 9/11. This effort has been virtually abandoned. Even though the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan, most of the country is now occupied and controlled by warlords who manage a drug trade bigger than ever before. Removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan actually served the interests of Iran, the Taliban’s arch enemy, more than our own.

The longtime Neo-con goal to remake Iraq prompted us to abandon the search for Osama bin Laden. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was hyped as a noble mission, justified by misrepresentations of intelligence concerning Saddam Hussein and his ability to attack us and his neighbors. This failed policy has created the current chaos in Iraq-- chaos that many describe as a civil war. Saddam Hussein is out of power and most people are pleased. Yet some Iraqis, who dream of stability, long for his authoritarian rule. But once again, Saddam Hussein’s removal benefited the Iranians, who consider Saddam Hussein an arch enemy.

Our obsession with democracy-- which is clearly conditional, when one looks at our response to the recent Palestinian elections-- will allow the majority Shia to claim leadership title if Iraq’s election actually leads to an organized government. This delights the Iranians, who are close allies of the Iraqi Shia.

Talk about unintended consequences! This war has produced chaos, civil war, death and destruction, and huge financial costs. It has eliminated two of Iran’s worst enemies and placed power in Iraq with Iran’s best friends. Even this apparent failure of policy does nothing to restrain the current march toward a similar confrontation with Iran. What will it take for us to learn from our failures?

Common sense tells us the war in Iraq soon will spread to Iran. Fear of imaginary nuclear weapons or an incident involving Iran-- whether planned or accidental-- will rally the support needed for us to move on Muslim country #3. All the past failures and unintended consequences will be forgotten.

Even with deteriorating support for the Iraq war, new information, well planned propaganda, or a major incident will override the skepticism and heartache of our frustrating fight. Vocal opponents of an attack on Iran again will be labeled unpatriotic, unsupportive of the troops, and sympathetic to Iran’s radicals.

Instead of capitulating to these charges, we should point out that those who maneuver us into war do so with little concern for our young people serving in the military, and theoretically think little of their own children if they have any. It’s hard to conceive that political supporters of the war would consciously claim that a pre-emptive war for regime change, where young people are sacrificed, is only worth it if the deaths and injuries are limited to other people’s children. This, I’m sure, would be denied-- which means their own children are technically available for this sacrifice that is so often praised and glorified for the benefit of the families who have lost so much. If so, they should think more of their own children. If this is not so, and their children are not available for such sacrifice, the hypocrisy is apparent. Remember, most Neo-con planners fall into the category of chicken-hawks.

For the past 3 years it’s been inferred that if one is not in support of the current policy, one is against the troops and supports the enemy. Lack of support for the war in Iraq was said to be supportive of Saddam Hussein and his evil policies. This is an insulting and preposterous argument. Those who argued for the containment of the Soviets were never deemed sympathetic to Stalin or Khrushchev. Lack of support for the Iraq war should never be used as an argument that one was sympathetic to Saddam Hussein. Containment and diplomacy are far superior to confronting a potential enemy, and are less costly and far less dangerous-- especially when there’s no evidence that our national security is being threatened.

Although a large percentage of the public now rejects the various arguments for the Iraq war, 3 years ago they were easily persuaded by the politicians and media to fully support the invasion. Now, after 3 years of terrible pain for so many, even the troops are awakening from their slumber and sensing the fruitlessness of our failing effort. Seventy-two percent of our troops now serving in Iraq say it’s time to come home, yet the majority still cling to the propaganda that we’re there because of 9/11 attacks, something even the administration has ceased to claim. Propaganda is pushed on our troops to exploit their need to believe in a cause that’s worth the risk to life and limb.

I smell an expanded war in the Middle East, and pray that I’m wrong. I sense that circumstances will arise that demand support regardless of the danger and cost. Any lack of support, once again, will be painted as being soft on terrorism and al Qaeda. We will be told we must support Israel, support patriotism, support the troops, and defend freedom. The public too often only smells the stench of war after the killing starts. Public objection comes later on, but eventually it helps to stop the war. I worry that before we can finish the war we’re in and extricate ourselves, the patriotic fervor for expanding into Iran will drown out the cries of, “enough already!”

The agitation and congressional resolutions painting Iran as an enemy about to attack us have already begun. It’s too bad we can’t learn from our mistakes.

This time there will be a greater pretense of an international effort sanctioned by the UN before the bombs are dropped. But even without support from the international community, we should expect the plan for regime change to continue. We have been forewarned that “all options” remain on the table. And there’s little reason to expect much resistance from Congress. So far there’s less resistance expressed in Congress for taking on Iran than there was prior to going into Iraq. It’s astonishing that after three years of bad results and tremendous expense there’s little indication we will reconsider our traditional non-interventionist foreign policy. Unfortunately, regime change, nation building, policing the world, and protecting “our oil” still constitute an acceptable policy by the leaders of both major parties.

It’s already assumed by many in Washington I talk to that Iran is dead serious about obtaining a nuclear weapon, and is a much more formidable opponent than Iraq. Besides, Mahmoud Almadinjad threatened to destroy Israel and that cannot stand. Washington sees Iran as a greater threat than Iraq ever was, a threat that cannot be ignored.

Iran’s history is being ignored, just as we ignored Iraq’s history. This ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation of our recent relationship to Iraq and Iran is required to generate the fervor needed to attack once again a country that poses no threat to us. Our policies toward Iran have been more provocative than those towards Iraq. Yes, President Bush labeled Iran part of the axis of evil and unnecessarily provoked their anger at us. But our mistakes with Iran started a long time before this president took office.

In 1953 our CIA, with help of the British, participated in overthrowing the democratic elected leader, Mohamed Mossedech. We placed the Shah in power. He ruled ruthlessly but protected our oil interests, and for that we protected him-- that is until 1979. We even provided him with Iran’s first nuclear reactor. Evidently we didn’t buy the argument that his oil supplies precluded a need for civilian nuclear energy. From 1953 to 1979 his authoritarian rule served to incite a radical Muslim opposition led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who overthrew the Shah and took our hostages in 1979. This blowback event was slow in coming, but Muslims have long memories. The hostage crisis and overthrow of the Shah by the Ayatollah was a major victory for the radical Islamists. Most Americans either never knew about or easily forgot our unwise meddling in the internal affairs of Iran in 1953.

During the 1980s we further antagonized Iran by supporting the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran. This made our relationship with Iran worse, while sending a message to Saddam Hussein that invading a neighboring country is not all that bad. When Hussein got the message from our State Department that his plan to invade Kuwait was not of much concern to the United States he immediately proceeded to do so. We in a way encouraged him to do it almost like we encouraged him to go into Iran. Of course this time our reaction was quite different, and all of a sudden our friendly ally Saddam Hussein became our arch enemy. The American people may forget this flip-flop, but those who suffered from it never forget. And the Iranians remember well our meddling in their affairs. Labeling the Iranians part of the axis of evil further alienated them and contributed to the animosity directed toward us.

For whatever reasons the Neo-conservatives might give, they are bound and determined to confront the Iranian government and demand changes in its leadership. This policy will further spread our military presence and undermine our security. The sad truth is that the supposed dangers posed by Iran are no more real than those claimed about Iraq. The charges made against Iran are unsubstantiated, and amazingly sound very similar to the false charges made against Iraq. One would think promoters of the war against Iraq would be a little bit more reluctant to use the same arguments to stir up hatred toward Iran. The American people and Congress should be more cautious in accepting these charges at face value. Yet it seems the propaganda is working, since few in Washington object as Congress passes resolutions condemning Iran and asking for UN sanctions against her.

There is no evidence of a threat to us by Iran, and no reason to plan and initiate a confrontation with her. There are many reasons not to do so, however.

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and there’s no evidence that she is working on one--only conjecture.

If Iran had a nuclear weapon, why would this be different from Pakistan, India, and North Korea having one? Why does Iran have less right to a defensive weapon than these other countries?

If Iran had a nuclear weapon, the odds of her initiating an attack against anybody-- which would guarantee her own annihilation-- are zero. And the same goes for the possibility she would place weapons in the hands of a non-state terrorist group.

Pakistan has spread nuclear technology throughout the world, and in particular to the North Koreans. They flaunt international restrictions on nuclear weapons. But we reward them just as we reward India.

We needlessly and foolishly threaten Iran even though they have no nuclear weapons. But listen to what a leading Israeli historian, Martin Van Creveld, had to say about this: “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t know if they’re developing them, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy.”

There’s been a lot of misinformation regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This distortion of the truth has been used to pump up emotions in Congress to pass resolutions condemning her and promoting UN sanctions.

IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradi has never reported any evidence of “undeclared” sources or special nuclear material in Iran, or any diversion of nuclear material.

We demand that Iran prove it is not in violation of nuclear agreements, which is asking them impossibly to prove a negative. El Baradi states Iran is in compliance with the nuclear NPT required IAEA safeguard agreement.

We forget that the weapons we feared Saddam Hussein had were supplied to him by the U.S., and we refused to believe UN inspectors and the CIA that he no longer had them.

Likewise, Iran received her first nuclear reactor from us. Now we’re hysterically wondering if someday she might decide to build a bomb in self interest.

Anti-Iran voices, beating the drums of confrontation, distort the agreement made in Paris and the desire of Iran to restart the enrichment process. Their suspension of the enrichment process was voluntary, and not a legal obligation. Iran has an absolute right under the NPT to develop and use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and this is now said to be an egregious violation of the NPT. It’s the U.S. and her allies that are distorting and violating the NPT. Likewise our provision of nuclear materials to India is a clear violation of the NPT.

The demand for UN sanctions is now being strongly encouraged by Congress. The “Iran Freedom Support Act,” HR 282, passed in the International Relations Committee; and recently the House passed H Con Res 341, which inaccurately condemned Iran for violating its international nuclear non-proliferation obligations. At present, the likelihood of reason prevailing in Congress is minimal. Let there be no doubt: The Neo-conservative warriors are still in charge, and are conditioning Congress, the media, and the American people for a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Never mind that Afghanistan has unraveled and Iraq is in civil war: serious plans are being laid for the next distraction which will further spread this war in the Middle East. The unintended consequences of this effort surely will be worse than any of the complications experienced in the three-year occupation of Iraq.

Our offer of political and financial assistance to foreign and domestic individuals who support the overthrow of the current Iranian government is fraught with danger and saturated with arrogance. Imagine how American citizens would respond if China supported similar efforts here in the United States to bring about regime change! How many of us would remain complacent if someone like Timothy McVeigh had been financed by a foreign power? Is it any wonder the Iranian people resent us and the attitude of our leaders? Even though El Baradi and his IAEA investigations have found no violations of the NPT-required IAEA safeguards agreement, the Iran Freedom Support Act still demands that Iran prove they have no nuclear weapons-- refusing to acknowledge that proving a negative is impossible.

Let there be no doubt, though the words “regime change” are not found in the bill-- that’s precisely what they are talking about. Neo-conservative Michael Ledeen, one of the architects of the Iraq fiasco, testifying before the International Relations Committee in favor of the IFSA, stated it plainly: “I know some Members would prefer to dance around the explicit declaration of regime change as the policy of this country, but anyone looking closely at the language and context of the IFSA and its close relative in the Senate, can clearly see that this is in fact the essence of the matter. You can’t have freedom in Iran without bringing down the Mullahs.”

Sanctions, along with financial and political support to persons and groups dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian government, are acts of war. Once again we’re unilaterally declaring a pre-emptive war against a country and a people that have not harmed us and do not have the capacity to do so. And don’t expect Congress to seriously debate a declaration of war resolution. For the past 56 years Congress has transferred to the executive branch the power to go to war as it pleases, regardless of the tragic results and costs.

Secretary of State Rice recently signaled a sharp shift towards confrontation in Iran policy as she insisted on $75 million to finance propaganda, through TV and radio broadcasts into Iran. She expressed this need because of the so-called “aggressive” policies of the Iranian government. We’re seven thousand miles from home, telling the Iraqis and the Iranians what kind of government they will have, backed up by the use of our military force, and we call them the aggressors. We fail to realize the Iranian people, for whatever faults they may have, have not in modern times aggressed against any neighbor. This provocation is so unnecessary, costly, and dangerous.

Just as the invasion of Iraq inadvertently served the interests of the Iranians, military confrontation with Iran will have unintended consequences. The successful alliance engendered between the Iranians and the Iraqi majority Shia will prove a formidable opponent for us in Iraq as that civil war spreads. Shipping in the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz may well be disrupted by the Iranians in retaliation for any military confrontation. Since Iran would be incapable of defending herself by conventional means, it seems logical that some might resort to a terrorist attack on us. They will not passively lie down, nor can they be destroyed easily.

One of the reasons given for going into Iraq was to secure “our” oil supply. This backfired badly: Production in Iraq is down 50%, and world oil prices have more than doubled to $60 per barrel. Meddling with Iran could easily have a similar result. We could see oil over $120 a barrel and, and $6 gas at the pump. The obsession the Neo-cons have with remaking the Middle East is hard to understand. One thing that is easy to understand is none of those who planned these wars expect to fight in them, nor do they expect their children to die in some IED explosion.

Exactly when an attack will occur is not known, but we have been forewarned more than once that all options remain on the table. The sequence of events now occurring with regards to Iran are eerily reminiscent of the hype prior to our pre-emptive strike against Iraq. We should remember the saying: “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” It looks to me like the Congress and the country is open to being fooled once again.

Interestingly, many early supporters of the Iraq war are now highly critical of the President, having been misled as to reasons for the invasion and occupation. But these same people are only too eager to accept the same flawed arguments for our need to undermine the Iranian government.

The President’s 2006 National Security Strategy, just released, is every bit as frightening as the one released in 2002 endorsing pre-emptive war. In it he claims: “We face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran.” He claims the Iranians have for 20 years hidden key nuclear activities-- though the IAEA makes no such assumptions nor has the Security Council in these 20 years ever sanctioned Iran. The clincher in the National Security Strategy document is if diplomatic efforts fail, confrontation will follow. The problem is the diplomatic effort-- if one wants to use that term-- is designed to fail by demanding the Iranians prove an unproveable negative. The West-- led by the U.S.-- is in greater violation by demanding Iran not pursue any nuclear technology, even peaceful, that the NPT guarantees is their right.

The President states: Iran’s “desire to have a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.” A “desire” is purely subjective, and cannot be substantiated nor disproved. Therefore all that is necessary to justify an attack is if Iran fails to prove it doesn’t have a “desire” to be like the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, Pakistan, India, and Israel—whose nuclear missiles surround Iran. Logic like this to justify a new war, without the least consideration for a congressional declaration of war, is indeed frightening.

Common sense tells us Congress, especially given the civil war in Iraq and the mess in Afghanistan, should move with great caution in condoning a military confrontation with Iran.


Cause for Concern

Most Americans are uninterested in foreign affairs until we get mired down in a war that costs too much, last too long, and kills too many U.S. troops. Getting out of a lengthy war is difficult, as I remember all too well with Vietnam while serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1968. Getting into war is much easier. Unfortunately the Legislative branch of our government too often defers to the Executive branch, and offers little resistance to war plans even with no significant threat to our security. The need to go to war is always couched in patriotic terms and falsehoods regarding an imaginary eminent danger. Not supporting the effort is painted as unpatriotic and wimpish against some evil that’s about to engulf us. The real reason for our militarism is rarely revealed and hidden from the public. Even Congress is deceived into supporting adventurism they would not accept if fully informed.

If we accepted the traditional American and constitutional foreign policy of non-intervention across the board, there would be no temptation to go along with these unnecessary military operations. A foreign policy of intervention invites all kinds of excuses for spreading ourselves around the world. The debate shifts from non-intervention versus interventionism, to where and for what particular reason should we involve ourselves. Most of the time it’s for less than honorable reasons. Even when cloaked in honorable slogans-- like making the world safe for democracy-- the unintended consequences and the ultimate costs cancel out the good intentions.

One of the greatest losses suffered these past 60 years from interventionism becoming an acceptable policy of both major parties is respect for the Constitution. Congress flatly has reneged on its huge responsibility to declare war. Going to war was never meant to be an Executive decision, used indiscriminately with no resistance from Congress. The strongest attempt by Congress in the past 60 years to properly exert itself over foreign policy was the passage of the Foley Amendment, demanding no assistance be given to the Nicaraguan contras. Even this explicit prohibition was flaunted by an earlier administration.

Arguing over the relative merits of each intervention is not a true debate, because it assumes that intervention per se is both moral and constitutional. Arguing for a Granada-type intervention because of its “success,” and against the Iraq war because of its failure and cost, is not enough. We must once again understand the wisdom of rejecting entangling alliances and rejecting nation building. We must stop trying to police the world and instead embrace non-interventionism as the proper, moral, and constitutional foreign policy.

The best reason to oppose interventionism is that people die, needlessly, on both sides. We have suffered over 20,000 American casualties in Iraq already, and Iraq civilian deaths probably number over 100,000 by all reasonable accounts. The next best reason is that the rule of law is undermined, especially when military interventions are carried out without a declaration of war. Whenever a war is ongoing, civil liberties are under attack at home. The current war in Iraq and the misnamed war on terror have created an environment here at home that affords little constitutional protection of our citizen’s rights. Extreme nationalism is common during wars. Signs of this are now apparent.

Prolonged wars, as this one has become, have profound consequences. No matter how much positive spin is put on it, war never makes a society wealthier. World War II was not a solution to the Depression as many claim. If a billion dollars is spent on weapons of war, the GDP records positive growth in that amount. But the expenditure is consumed by destruction of the weapons or bombs it bought, and the real economy is denied $1 billion to produce products that would have raised someone’s standard of living.

Excessive spending to finance the war causes deficits to explode. There are never enough tax dollars available to pay the bills, and since there are not enough willing lenders and dollars available, the Federal Reserve must create enough new money and credit for buying Treasury Bills to prevent interest rates from rising too rapidly. Rising rates would tip off everyone that there are not enough savings or taxes to finance the war. This willingness to print whatever amount of money the government needs to pursue the war is literally inflation. Without a fiat monetary system wars would be very difficult to finance, since the people would never tolerate the taxes required to pay for it. Inflation of the money supply delays and hides the real cost of war. The result of the excessive creation of new money leads to the higher cost of living everyone decries and the Fed denies. Since taxes are not levied, the increase in prices that results from printing too much money is technically the tax required to pay for the war.

The tragedy is that the inflation tax is borne more by the poor and the middle class than the rich. Meanwhile, the well-connected rich, the politicians, the bureaucrats, the bankers, the military industrialists, and the international corporations reap the benefits of war profits.

A sound economic process is disrupted with a war economy and monetary inflation. Strong voices emerge blaming the wrong policies for our problems, prompting an outcry for protectionist legislation. It’s always easier to blame foreign producers and savers for our inflation, lack of savings, excess debt, and loss of industrial jobs. Protectionist measures only make economic conditions worse. Inevitably these conditions, if not corrected, lead to a lower standard of living for most of our citizens.

Careless military intervention is also bad for the civil disturbance that results. The chaos in the streets of America in the 1960s while the Vietnam War raged, aggravated by the draft, was an example of domestic strife caused by an ill-advised unconstitutional war that could not be won. The early signs of civil discord are now present. Hopefully we can extricate ourselves from Iraq and avoid a conflict in Iran before our streets explode as they did in the 60s.

In a way it’s amazing there’s not a lot more outrage expressed by the American people. There’s plenty of complaining but no outrage over policies that are not part of our American tradition. War based on false pretenses, 20,000 American casualties, torture policies, thousands jailed without due process, illegal surveillance of citizens, warrantless searches, and yet no outrage. When the issues come before Congress, Executive authority is maintained or even strengthened while real oversight is ignored.

Though many Americans are starting to feel the economic pain of paying for this war through inflation, the real pain has not yet arrived. We generally remain fat and happy, with a system of money and borrowing that postpones the day of reckoning. Foreigners, in particular the Chinese and Japanese, gladly participate in the charade. We print the money and they take it, as do the OPEC nations, and provide us with consumer goods and oil. Then they loan the money back to us at low interest rates, which we use to finance the war and our housing bubble and excessive consumption. This recycling and perpetual borrowing of inflated dollars allows us to avoid the pain of high taxes to pay for our war and welfare spending. It’s fine until the music stops and the real costs are realized, with much higher interest rates and significant price inflation. That’s when outrage will be heard, and the people will realize we can’t afford the “humanitarianism” of the Neo-conservatives.

The notion that our economic problems are principally due to the Chinese is nonsense. If the protectionists were to have their way, the problem of financing the war would become readily apparent and have immediate ramifications-- none good. Today’s economic problems, caused largely by our funny money system, won’t be solved by altering exchange rates to favor us in the short run, or by imposing high tariffs. Only sound money with real value will solve the problems of competing currency devaluations and protectionist measures.

Economic interests almost always are major reasons for wars being fought. Noble and patriotic causes are easier to sell to a public who must pay and provide cannon fodder to defend the financial interests of a privileged class.

The fact that Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for oil in an attempt to undermine the U.S. dollar is believed by many to be one of the ulterior motives for our invasion and occupation of Iraq. Similarly, the Iranian oil burse now about to open may be seen as a threat to those who depend on maintaining the current monetary system with the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

The theory and significance of “peak oil” is believed to be an additional motivating factor for the U.S. and Great Britain wanting to maintain firm control over the oil supplies in the Middle East. The two nations have been protecting “our” oil interests in the Middle East for nearly a hundred years. With diminishing supplies and expanding demands, the incentive to maintain a military presence in the Middle East is quite strong. Fear of China and Russia moving into this region to assume more control alarms those who don’t understand how a free market can develop substitutes to replace diminishing resources. Supporters of the military effort to maintain control over large regions of the world to protect oil fail to count the real costs once the DOD budget is factored in. Remember, invading Iraq was costly and oil prices doubled. Confrontation in Iran may evolve differently, but we can be sure it will be costly and oil prices will rise.

There are long-term consequences or blowback from our militant policy of intervention around the world. They are unpredictable as to time and place. 9/11 was a consequence of our military presence on Muslim holy lands; the Ayatollah Khomeini’s success in taking over the Iranian government in 1979 was a consequence of our CIA overthrowing Mossadech in 1953. These connections are rarely recognized by the American people and never acknowledged by our government. We never seem to learn how dangerous interventionism is to us and to our security.

There are some who may not agree strongly with any of my arguments, and instead believe the propaganda: Iran and her President, Mahmoud Almadinjad, are thoroughly irresponsible and have threatened to destroy Israel. So all measures must be taken to prevent Iran from getting nukes-- thus the campaign to intimidate and confront Iran.

First, Iran doesn’t have a nuke and is nowhere close to getting one, according to the CIA. If they did have one, using it would guarantee almost instantaneous annihilation by Israel and the United States. Hysterical fear of Iran is way out of proportion to reality. With a policy of containment, we stood down and won the Cold War against the Soviets and their 30,000 nuclear weapons and missiles. If you’re looking for a real kook with a bomb to worry about, North Korea would be high on the list. Yet we negotiate with Kim Jong Il. Pakistan has nukes and was a close ally of the Taliban up until 9/11. Pakistan was never inspected by the IAEA as to their military capability. Yet we not only talk to her, we provide economic assistance-- though someday Musharraf may well be overthrown and a pro-al Qaeda government put in place. We have been nearly obsessed with talking about regime change in Iran, while ignoring Pakistan and North Korea. It makes no sense and it’s a very costly and dangerous policy.

The conclusion we should derive from this is simple: It’s in our best interest to pursue a foreign policy of non-intervention. A strict interpretation of the Constitution mandates it. The moral imperative of not imposing our will on others, no matter how well intentioned, is a powerful argument for minding our own business. The principle of self-determination should be respected. Strict non-intervention removes the incentives for foreign powers and corporate interests to influence our policies overseas. We can’t afford the cost that intervention requires, whether through higher taxes or inflation. If the moral arguments against intervention don’t suffice for some, the practical arguments should.

Intervention just doesn’t work. It backfires and ultimately hurts American citizens both at home and abroad. Spreading ourselves too thin around the world actually diminishes our national security through a weakened military. As the superpower of the world, a constant interventionist policy is perceived as arrogant, and greatly undermines our ability to use diplomacy in a positive manner.

Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and many of today’s liberals have all at one time or another endorsed a less interventionist foreign policy. There’s no reason a coalition of these groups might not once again present the case for a pro-American, non-militant, non-interventionist foreign policy dealing with all nations. A policy of trade and peace, and a willingness to use diplomacy, is far superior to the foreign policy that has evolved over the past 60 years

It’s time for a change..

Iran: The Next Neocon Target

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
April 5, 2006

Once again we’re unilaterally declaring a pre-emptive war against a country and a people that have not harmed us and do not have the capacity to do so. And don’t expect Congress to seriously debate a declaration of war resolution. For the past 56 years Congress has transferred to the executive branch the power to go to war as it pleases, regardless of the tragic results and costs.

Windows Video and transcript

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/troubled_republicans;_ylt=Aq15dj8xknBnz.LLP4espg2s 0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Saundra Hummer]

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THE IRAN PLANS
by
SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Would President Bush go to war
to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
Issue of 2006-04-17
Posted 2006-04-10


The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. “So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,” Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. “The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?”

When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that “this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.” However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America’s demands or face a military attack. Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.”

One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of “coercion” aimed at Iran. “You have to be ready to go, and we’ll see how they respond,” the officer said. “You have to really show a threat in order to get Ahmadinejad to back down.” He added, “People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11,” but, “in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.” (In response to detailed requests for comment, the White House said that it would not comment on military planning but added, “As the President has indicated, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution”; the Defense Department also said that Iran was being dealt with through “diplomatic channels” but wouldn’t elaborate on that; the C.I.A. said that there were “inaccuracies” in this account but would not specify them.)

“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”

A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.”

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.

Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:

I don’t think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We’d want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.


One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.

A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his view, even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure—it’s feasible.” The former defense official said, “The Iranians don’t have friends, and we can tell them that, if necessary, we’ll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The United States should act like we’re ready to go.” He added, “We don’t have to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on the ground, too, but it’s difficult and very dangerous—put bad stuff in ventilator shafts and put them to sleep.”

But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the former senior intelligence official, “say ‘No way.’ You’ve got to know what’s underneath—to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel generators, or which are false. And there’s a lot that we don’t know.” The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.

The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William Schneider, Jr., an Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. In January, 2001, as President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served on an ad-hoc panel on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. The panel’s report recommended treating tactical nuclear weapons as an essential part of the U.S. arsenal and noted their suitability “for those occasions when the certain and prompt destruction of high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise of conventional weapons.” Several signers of the report are now prominent members of the Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. “The Iranians have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country,” he said. He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?”



With or without the nuclear option, the list of targets may inevitably expand. One recently retired high-level Bush Administration official, who is also an expert on war planning, told me that he would have vigorously argued against an air attack on Iran, because “Iran is a much tougher target” than Iraq. But, he added, “If you’re going to do any bombing to stop the nukes, you might as well improve your lie across the board. Maybe hit some training camps, and clear up a lot of other problems.”

The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”—that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives.

If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.

The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”

The President’s deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations that Ahmadinejad, who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad’s official biography in this period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”

Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”

Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. “Ahmadinejad is not in control,” one European diplomat told me. “Power is diffuse in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program, but, ultimately, I don’t think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take action without his approval.”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that “allowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.” He added, “The whole internal debate is on which way to go”—in terms of stopping the Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans—and forestall the American action. “God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”

While almost no one disputes Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there is intense debate over how soon it could get the bomb, and what to do about that. Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me, “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away” from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, “If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it”—bomb Iran—“without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble.”

Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told the Knesset last December that “Iran is one to two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium. From that point, the completion of their nuclear weapon is simply a technical matter.” In a conversation with me, a senior Israeli intelligence official talked about what he said was Iran’s duplicity: “There are two parallel nuclear programs” inside Iran—the program declared to the I.A.E.A. and a separate operation, run by the military and the Revolutionary Guards. Israeli officials have repeatedly made this argument, but Israel has not produced public evidence to support it. Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term, told me, “I think Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program—I believe it, but I don’t know it.”

In recent months, the Pakistani government has given the U.S. new access to A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb. Khan, who is now living under house arrest in Islamabad, is accused of setting up a black market in nuclear materials; he made at least one clandestine visit to Tehran in the late nineteen-eighties. In the most recent interrogations, Khan has provided information on Iran’s weapons design and its time line for building a bomb. “The picture is of ‘unquestionable danger,’ ” the former senior intelligence official said. (The Pentagon adviser also confirmed that Khan has been “singing like a canary.”) The concern, the former senior official said, is that “Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible, and he’s telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear”—or what might be useful to Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, who is under pressure to assist Washington in the war on terror.

“I think Khan’s leading us on,” the former intelligence official said. “I don’t know anybody who says, ‘Here’s the smoking gun.’ But lights are beginning to blink. He’s feeding us information on the time line, and targeting information is coming in from our own sources— sensors and the covert teams. The C.I.A., which was so burned by Iraqi W.M.D., is going to the Pentagon and the Vice-President’s office saying, ‘It’s all new stuff.’ People in the Administration are saying, ‘We’ve got enough.’ ”

The Administration’s case against Iran is compromised by its history of promoting false intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In a recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled “Fool Me Twice,” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, “The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war.” He noted several parallels:

The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism.


Cirincione called some of the Administration’s claims about Iran “questionable” or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, “What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.” (In August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear power.)

Last year, the Bush Administration briefed I.A.E.A. officials on what it said was new and alarming information about Iran’s weapons program which had been retrieved from an Iranian’s laptop. The new data included more than a thousand pages of technical drawings of weapons systems. The Washington Post reported that there were also designs for a small facility that could be used in the uranium-enrichment process. Leaks about the laptop became the focal point of stories in the Times and elsewhere. The stories were generally careful to note that the materials could have been fabricated, but also quoted senior American officials as saying that they appeared to be legitimate. The headline in the Times’ account read, “RELYING ON COMPUTER, U.S. SEEKS TO PROVE IRAN’S NUCLEAR AIMS.”

I was told in interviews with American and European intelligence officials, however, that the laptop was more suspect and less revelatory than it had been depicted. The Iranian who owned the laptop had initially been recruited by German and American intelligence operatives, working together. The Americans eventually lost interest in him. The Germans kept on, but the Iranian was seized by the Iranian counter-intelligence force. It is not known where he is today. Some family members managed to leave Iran with his laptop and handed it over at a U.S. embassy, apparently in Europe. It was a classic “walk-in.”

A European intelligence official said, “There was some hesitation on our side” about what the materials really proved, “and we are still not convinced.” The drawings were not meticulous, as newspaper accounts suggested, “but had the character of sketches,” the European official said. “It was not a slam-dunk smoking gun.”

The threat of American military action has created dismay at the headquarters of the I.A.E.A., in Vienna. The agency’s officials believe that Iran wants to be able to make a nuclear weapon, but “nobody has presented an inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran,” the high-ranking diplomat told me. The I.A.E.A.’s best estimate is that the Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. “But, if the United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a bomb a matter of Iranian national pride,” the diplomat said. “The whole issue is America’s risk assessment of Iran’s future intentions, and they don’t trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy.”

In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.’s director-general, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Joseph’s message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say anything publicly that will undermine us. ”

Joseph’s heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. “All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”

The central question—whether Iran will be able to proceed with its plans to enrich uranium—is now before the United Nations, with the Russians and the Chinese reluctant to impose sanctions on Tehran. A discouraged former I.A.E.A. official told me in late March that, at this point, “there’s nothing the Iranians could do that would result in a positive outcome. American diplomacy does not allow for it. Even if they announce a stoppage of enrichment, nobody will believe them. It’s a dead end.”

Another diplomat in Vienna asked me, “Why would the West take the risk of going to war against that kind of target without giving it to the I.A.E.A. to verify? We’re low-cost, and we can create a program that will force Iran to put its cards on the table.” A Western Ambassador in Vienna expressed similar distress at the White House’s dismissal of the I.A.E.A. He said, “If you don’t believe that the I.A.E.A. can establish an inspection system—if you don’t trust them—you can only bomb.”

There is little sympathy for the I.A.E.A. in the Bush Administration or among its European allies. “We’re quite frustrated with the director-general,” the European diplomat told me. “His basic approach has been to describe this as a dispute between two sides with equal weight. It’s not. We’re the good guys! ElBaradei has been pushing the idea of letting Iran have a small nuclear-enrichment program, which is ludicrous. It’s not his job to push ideas that pose a serious proliferation risk.”

The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, “The Europeans have a role to play as long as they don’t have to choose between going along with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on something they don’t want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable.”

“The Brits think this is a very bad idea,” Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, told me, “but they’re really worried we’re going to do it.” The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that, “short of a smoking gun, it’s going to be very difficult to line up the Europeans on Iran.” He said that the British “are jumpy about the Americans going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise.”

The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but “to the best of our knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could successfully run centrifuges” to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran’s essential pragmatism. “The regime acts in its best interests,” he said. Iran’s leaders “take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,” believing that “the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold.” But, he said, “From what we’ve seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off.”

The diplomat went on, “You never reward bad behavior, and this is not the time to offer concessions. We need to find ways to impose sufficient costs to bring the regime to its senses. It’s going to be a close call, but I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed”—in sanctions—“is sufficient, they may back down. It’s too early to give up on the U.N. route.” He added, “If the diplomatic process doesn’t work, there is no military ‘solution.’ There may be a military option, but the impact could be catastrophic.”

Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was George Bush’s most dependable ally in the year leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he and his party have been racked by a series of financial scandals, and his popularity is at a low point. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said last year that military action against Iran was “inconceivable.” Blair has been more circumspect, saying publicly that one should never take options off the table.

Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”

Another European official told me that he was aware that many in Washington wanted action. “It’s always the same guys,” he said, with a resigned shrug. “There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The timetable is short.”

A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials that the White House’s interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad’s hostility toward Israel as a “serious threat. It’s a threat to world peace.” He added, “I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”

Any American bombing attack, Richard Armitage told me, would have to consider the following questions: “What will happen in the other Islamic countries? What ability does Iran have to reach us and touch us globally—that is, terrorism? Will Syria and Lebanon up the pressure on Israel? What does the attack do to our already diminished international standing? And what does this mean for Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council?”

Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would not have to cut off production to disrupt the world’s oil markets. It could blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the recently retired defense official dismissed the strategic consequences of such actions. He told me that the U.S. Navy could keep shipping open by conducting salvage missions and putting mine- sweepers to work. “It’s impossible to block passage,” he said. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon also said he believed that the oil problem could be managed, pointing out that the U.S. has enough in its strategic reserves to keep America running for sixty days. However, those in the oil business I spoke to were less optimistic; one industry expert estimated that the price per barrel would immediately spike, to anywhere from ninety to a hundred dollars per barrel, and could go higher, depending on the duration and scope of the conflict.

Michel Samaha, a veteran Lebanese Christian politician and former cabinet minister in Beirut, told me that the Iranian retaliation might be focussed on exposed oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. “They would be at risk,” he said, “and this could begin the real jihad of Iran versus the West. You will have a messy world.”

Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. “The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years,” the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. “This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us.” (When I asked the government consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, “Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish them off.”)

The adviser went on, “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.” The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”

“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”

The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He added, “The window of opportunity is now.”


http://www.buzzflash.com/

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060417fa_fact

This article was also carried by Al Jazeera.com, and I posted it in the Al Jazeera thread in Current Events, however, it does seem no one believes Al Jazeera is a good source of news commentary, so Al Jazeera articles for the most part go unread. ??? Why is that? They read our news, why are we afraid of theirs? There is no more propaganda on theirs than in ours.

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~JACK ABRAMOFF~ALMOST TELLING IT ALL
IF HE WERE TO WRITE A BOOK, HEADS WILL SURELY ROLL
OR MAYBE NOT~DOES ANYONE TRULY CARE?
SRH .
Washington's Invisible Man
By
DAVID MARGOLICK
As the lobbyist who has ignited what might be the biggest government scandal since Watergate, Jack Abramoff—now sentenced to 70 months in jail for conspiracy and fraud—became notorious for tossing around money, much of it from the casinos of his Indian-tribe clients, to influence key lawmakers. As he talks (and talks) to the feds, Washington is waiting to see whom he'll take down with him
By now, Jack Abramoff is known in just about every home and Grange hall and shopping mall, every Middlesex village and farm, in America. He's the Washington lobbyist who bought all those senators and representatives, the man who ripped off all those Indian tribes he represented, the butt of all those late-night-TV jokes. He's the fellow responsible for what might be the biggest government scandal since Watergate, the man whose sullied example could maybe, possibly, help clean up Washington. He's the guy who wore that infamous black hat on the day he admitted it all.
"Abramoff is known everywhere but in two buildings, that is: the United States Capitol and the White House. Sure, he spread around millions of Indian-tribe dollars, to say nothing of golf trips to Scotland and free meals at Signatures, his own fancy restaurant, and luxury-box seats at sporting events—American Indians, of all people, paying for Redskins tickets—among roughly 270 members of Congress. Sure, a few senators and representatives admit to having brushed up against Abramoff, but only long enough for him to have "duped" or "misled" them. And President Bush can barely remember him: for a couple of Hanukkahs, Abramoff apparently stood on grip-and-grin lines at the White House to be photographed with the president, but almost anybody can do that.

Being airbrushed out of a whole community in which he cut so wide a swath for the past 10 years, where he helped revolutionize lobbying, where he was very nearly ubiquitous and invincible—it's enough to hurt someone's feelings. On other matters related to his situation he tiptoes, as would anyone whose fate—the amount of time he will languish in prison—lies in the hands of prosecutors and the judge. But for someone who has fought his whole career to be acknowledged and respected and feared, being treated like a nonperson is simply too much to take. "For a guy who did all these evil things that have been so widely reported, it's pretty amazing, considering I didn't know anyone," Abramoff says sardonically. "You're really no one in this town unless you haven't met me."

Just to cite one typical example, the head of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, said in an interview, "Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper," even though, according to documents obtained by Vanity Fair, Mehlman exchanged e-mail with Abramoff, did him political favors (such as blocking Clinton-administration alumnus Allen Stayman from keeping a State Department job), had Sabbath dinner at his house, and offered to pick up his tab at Signatures. (According to a spokesperson, Mehlman does not recall the e-mail exchange, "because he was often contacted by political supporters with suggestions and ideas," or the Sabbath dinner.) The newly elected House majority leader, John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, also doesn't know Abramoff, but Abramoff's clients gave him $30,000 over the past few years, and ate many meals at Signatures. (For a couple of years, Abramoff's principal liaison with Boehner was David Safavian—a former member of "Team Abramoff" and later head of procurement for the White House Office of Management and Budget—who has been indicted for lying about his Abramoff ties.)

Then there's presidential adviser Karl Rove. He has not spoken of his relationship with Abramoff, but the White House insists Rove, too, barely knew him, acknowledging only that they met at a political event in the 1990s. "He would describe him as a casual acquaintance," a White House spokesman said. But Abramoff was Rove's spiritual heir at the College Republicans in the 1980s; both men headed the group, and the two met from time to time in connection with it. After George W. Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administrative assistant, took the same position with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once. (An eyewitness also recalls seeing Abramoff emerge from a car near the White House and have what looked like a pre-arranged, street-corner meeting with Rove; Abramoff says he can't recall that.) Rove dined several times at Signatures and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box at the N.C.A.A. basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game by Abramoff's side. Recently, three former associates of Abramoff's have told how he frequently mentioned his strong ties to Rove, and one described being present when Abramoff took a phone call from Rove's office.

Then, most important, there's President Bush. "I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," he has said. But how about those 10 or so photographs of him with Abramoff, or with Abramoff's sons, or of Laura Bush with Abramoff's daughters, apparently taken during all of those meetings that never took place? And the time when the president joked with Abramoff about his weight lifting: "What are you benching, buff guy?" How about the invitation to the ranch in Crawford, where Abramoff would have joined all of the other big Bush fund-raisers? Abramoff didn't go to that—it fell on the Sabbath, which, as an Orthodox Jew, Abramoff observes—but how about that speech Bush gave to big donors in 2003, when Abramoff sat only a few feet away, between Republican senators George Allen (Virginia) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), and was the only lobbyist on the dais?

"He has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote of the president in yet another of his notorious e-mails, which have evolved from his principal means of communication to the rope with which he has hanged, and continues to hang, himself. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows."

There are other people from Abramoff's more distant past who also never knew him, such as former Republican House Speaker (and rumored 2008 presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich, who first never met Abramoff during the latter's firebrand days atop the College Republicans. "Before his picture appeared on TV and in the newspapers, Newt wouldn't have known him if he fell across him. He hadn't seen him in 10 years," Gingrich's spokesman, Rick Tyler, tells me. That this especially rankles Abramoff becomes clear as he rummages through a box of old memorabilia with me. "Here's [former Republican Texas congressman and House majority leader] Dick Armey," he tells me. "Here's Newt. Newt. Newt. [Former president Ronald] Reagan. More Newt. Newt with Grover [Norquist, the Washington conservative Republican Über-strategist and longtime Abramoff friend] this time, and with [Seattle arch-conservative Republican] Rabbi [Daniel] Lapin. But Newt never met me. Ollie North. Newt. Can't be Newt … he never met me. Oh, Newt! What's he doing there? Must be a Newt look-alike. I have more pictures of him than I have of my wife. Newt again! It's sick! I thought he never met me!"

After a public evisceration unlike any in recent history, and facing a decade or more in jail, Jack Abramoff, the 47-year-old father of five, who spent 10 hyperkinetic, largely introspection-free years as both Washington's most powerful lobbyist and a key Republican activist, is contrite and humble. He is trying to salvage for himself a modicum of self-respect, along with some mercy and understanding from the judge who holds his fate in her hands. He admits that he stepped over ethical lines, insulted and misled his clients, offended the God to whom he regularly prays. By court decree, he owes the Indian tribes approximately $25 million in restitution, and he owes the I.R.S. at least $1.7 million. On Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, when Orthodox Jews beat their breasts for their sins, he can flagellate himself with great conviction. But for Jack Abramoff, the time for on-the-record rancor is over. However angry he may be with former cronies who supped at his trough and accepted his favors but who now call him a "sleazebag" or a "creep" and wish he'd never been born, he bites his tongue. What really upsets him is all this revisionism, all these people pretending he never existed.

"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying," he says. Such lies are not just, well, lies, but dumb to boot, he adds, for, as his own humiliations suggest, old e-mails never die; they just sit on hard drives, waiting to be subpoenaed and then to be leaked to the press. "This is not an age when you can run away from facts," he declares. "I had to deal with my records, and others will have to deal with theirs."

On January 3, Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud, and tax evasion. Court documents describe how he encouraged at least four Indian tribes to hire his former associate Michael Scanlon, who had his own public-relations company, for grassroots work—largely political campaigning in the field, such as letter writing, phone banks, and media advertisements—without disclosing that Abramoff himself was getting kickbacks of almost half of Scanlon's profits. Both Scanlon's fees and Abramoff's take were enormous: $30,510,000 from the Louisiana Coushattas, of which Abramoff received $11,450,000; $14,765,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaws ($6,364,000 to Abramoff); and $3,500,000 from the Saginaw Chippewas of Michigan ($540,000 to Abramoff).

Similarly, Scanlon received $4,200,000 from the Tiguas of Texas, who were seeking to reopen a casino in El Paso. Abramoff had assured the Tiguas that he would work for free, but under his arrangement with Scanlon he surreptitiously pocketed $1,850,000. In this instance, compounding the deceit was a conflict of interest: Abramoff failed to disclose that, on behalf of another tribe, he had helped shut down the Tiguas' casino to begin with, then aided in killing legislation that might have allowed them to start up again.

"I think Jack is the ultimate con man," said Marc Schwartz, a former consultant to the Tiguas, who watched Abramoff win over tribal members in 2002 with his chartered jet, his wireless laptop and BlackBerry, and what appeared to be his dazzling accomplishments for other Indian tribes. To Schwartz, who became friendly with Abramoff, subsequent revelations about his dishonesty and bribery of public officials have made him the Mark McGwire of lobbyists, a man whose cheating has tainted whatever good he accomplished. "Greed and avarice got to Jack, and his constant references to his Orthodoxy and his self-described passion for righting wrongs made the betrayal I felt so much greater," says Schwartz.

The plea agreement also charges Abramoff with "corruption of public officials," in particular "Representative #1," universally understood to be Republican congressman Bob Ney of Ohio. It states that in exchange for "a stream of things of value"—foreign and domestic travel, golf fees, food, jobs for relatives, and both campaign contributions and a contribution to the National Republican Campaign Committee at his request—Ney became Abramoff's fixer on Capitol Hill.

The offenses don't stop there. Abramoff ripped off the law-and-lobbying firm he worked for by essentially lobbying behind its back. He misused tax-exempt charities such as his own foundation, the Capital Athletic Foundation, in one instance using $50,000 donated to it by a tribal client to help fund an August 2002 golfing trip to Scotland for himself, members of his staff, Ney, Ney staffers, and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed.

Abramoff also funneled $50,000 through a charity to the wife of Tony Rudy, a top aide to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (Republican of Texas), in exchange for Rudy's help in obtaining legislation to block Internet gambling and in opposing postal-rate increases. Rudy subsequently went to work for Abramoff, as did Ney's former chief of staff Neil Volz, who lobbied his former employer within less than a year of his departure—yet another violation of the law. As if that weren't enough, Abramoff in a separate case has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy in the 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casinos, a Florida casino-boat company. That transaction ended in a bankruptcy and a Mob rubout, though no one, including the prosecutors in Miami, has ever linked Abramoff directly to the murder.

In return for what he hopes will be a shorter sentence, Abramoff is spilling his secrets to the Justice Department. In the past 19 months or so, prosecutors and investigators have spent something approaching 200 hours pumping him for information. Allegedly as many as 15 people—from various branches of the Justice Department (including the F.B.I.), the Department of the Interior, the Internal Revenue Service, and other federal agencies—are listening. It is an evolving process, for, with prosecutors (as with reporters), Abramoff has been a work in progress, moving from defiance to denial to self-justification to contrition. As time has passed and the parties have grown accustomed to one another, the information has grown more solid and specific. For Abramoff, unemployed and unemployable, talking with the authorities is as close as he gets these days to a full-time job. Once, his stock-in-trade was whom he knew. Now it is what he knows. "In a different era I'd be killed on the street or have poison poured into my coffee," he says.

What they are all interested in is the nearly $4 million—largely gambling revenues from the casinos of his tribal clients—that Abramoff spread around Washington. Two-thirds of that went either to the Republican Party, his ideological home since college, or to individual Republicans, many of whom could dole out appropriations, move along legislation, or perform a host of other chores that the tribes wanted. Democrats, too, mainly in the Senate, could do Abramoff favors, and, while they may have abhorred his politics, his money still smelled good. They got more than a million dollars.

The other shoe seems poised to drop in Washington, implicating perhaps a handful of senators and congressmen, as well as their staffs, relatives, and other public officials. The most obvious target is Ney. In their heyday, he and Abramoff played golf together, traveled together, philosophized together. Ney was one of the few elected officials Abramoff invited to the Bar Mitzvah of one of his three sons. Now Ney says that Abramoff "duped" and "misled" him. But, according to the plea agreement, Ney threw a lucrative contract to an Abramoff client, intervened with agencies and offices to seek favors for other Abramoff interests, helped a relative of one of Abramoff's Russian clients obtain an American visa, agreed to introduce legislation that would help reopen the Tigua casino, and, to assist Abramoff in buying the SunCruz line, read two statements into the Congressional Record, one in which he described Abramoff's main partner in that deal, Adam Kidan—a man who'd been disbarred, declared bankruptcy, and had Mob ties—as a man of the utmost integrity.

For such services, Ney, according to the plea agreement, got "a stream of things of value" from Abramoff and those he represented: a "lavish" golf trip to St. Andrews, seats in Abramoff's sports boxes, freebie dinners at Signatures (Ney was a "sushiholic," one eyewitness recalls), and at least $37,500 in donations to various political-action committees on his behalf. Rather than go for Ney immediately, prosecutors appear to be encircling him, possibly striking plea deals with frightened staffers, themselves desperate to stay out of jail.

Also in the prosecutorial crosshairs may be Republican senator Conrad Burns, of Montana, one of the largest single recipients of Abramoff loot. As head of the Senate appropriations subcommittee for the Department of the Interior, which handles Indian affairs, he was Abramoff's point man in the Senate for federal goodies.

Burns told a reporter he wishes Abramoff had never been born, and, more recently, has blanketed the airwaves in Montana with ads claiming that Abramoff "lied to anybody and everybody" and "ripped off his Indian clients," but that "he never influenced me." Abramoff won't comment specifically on the ads, clearly tempted as he is. "Every appropriation we wanted [from Burns's committee] we got," he says. "Our staffs were as close as they could be. They practically used Signatures as their cafeteria. I mean, it's a little difficult for him to run from that record." As for Burns's wishing he'd never been born, Abramoff remarks, "That's quite a statement, coming from a pro-life Republican."

Burns, however, ranks only fourth on the list of Abramoff's recipients, having taken $55,590, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (though even Burns's own people put that figure at closer to $150,000). The other four of the top-five largest individual recipients, all Republicans, were: Representative J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, co-chairman of the Congressional Native American Caucus ($69,620); Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi ($65,500); House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois ($58,500); and Representative John T. Doolittle of California ($45,000). Several of them are reportedly targets of the Justice Department's investigation, as is the man who was Abramoff's main liaison at the Interior Department, former deputy secretary J. Steven Griles, a onetime mining-industry lobbyist who a high-ranking colleague told the Senate was Abramoff's water carrier in the department.

The Democrats insist that the Abramoff scandal is strictly a Republican affair. Of the more than $200,000 he gave away of his personal money, not a dime went to the Democrats. He always stipulated that his lobbying activities accord with his staunchly conservative beliefs. But Democrats received money from Abramoff's tribal clients, including: Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada ($30,500); Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota ($28,000); Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa ($14,500); and Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island ($31,000).

Bribery prosecutions are notoriously tough to make; while there was plenty of quid floating around, it can be very hard to prove the quo, at least without smoking guns like wiretapped conversations. Clearly, the voluminous e-mail trail will help. Along with evidentiary problems, there's also the question of political will. Perhaps after a few examples have been made, the Bush administration will declare victory and walk away from further prosecutions, especially if, should Democrats also be implicated, the opposition lets them. In another sense, though, the Abramoff scandal now transcends Abramoff. With congressional staffers and, perhaps, some congressmen willing to say anything to save their own skins, the fire could spread unabated.

For Abramoff's crimes, the statutory maximum is 30 years. But, as calculated in the plea agreement under the federal sentencing guidelines, he is subject to somewhere between 108 and 135 months in prison. That can be substantially reduced for cooperation, though given the notoriety of the case, everyone agrees, Abramoff is certain to do substantial jail time. The best guess is that Abramoff will be sentenced in a year or two, and spend at least a few years behind bars. It all rests with Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, who took Abramoff's plea and heard his abject apology.

Ever since his days as an undergraduate at Brandeis University in the late 1970s, Abramoff has been a right-wing conservative zealot—a "Republican warrior," as he puts it. He has never voted for a Democrat in his life (and now, as a convicted felon, he probably never will). Paradoxically, it was Republicans who did Jack Abramoff in. According to an insider, Abramoff believes his downfall began with competing Republican lobbyists who coveted his clientele and fed damaging information about him to The Washington Post. And it continued with Senator John McCain (Republican of Arizona), whose hearings into Abramoff's dealings with the Indians ran for five gory, highly publicized sessions in 2004 and 2005.

At the top of his game, Abramoff was master of his domain. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal did glowing front-page profiles of him. He had his "Team Abramoff," the cadre of young, hungry associates, many fresh recruits from the Hill, in whom he inculcated his scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs mentality. "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing," he tells me. Few lobbyists in Washington generated more business; in one year, he brought in $12 million. He presided over his empire at Signatures, which he opened in February 2002, between the Capitol and the White House, and which became a kind of command center for him. Abramoff's perch was Table 40, where the movers and shakers of official Washington came to him. "It was like Frank Sinatra," recalls Monty Warner, a Republican media strategist who remains friendly with Abramoff. "I can remember Ney coming up and groveling, saying how much he enjoyed a golf outing or skybox or ball game, and really appreciated Jack's support."

These days Signatures is locked up. And Abramoff, the ultimate lobbyist, now has his most challenging client: himself. In the past couple of years, he has become a cartoon-character bad guy, as he puts it. The image peaked on the day of his plea deal, when he wore the now infamous black hat. He had put it on because Orthodox Jews are supposed to cover their heads, but he feared that the yarmulke he would normally have worn would invite charges of false or newly minted piety. Besides, the forecast had called for rain. But he had unwittingly stepped right into a stereotype: Meet Jack Abramoff—the Fat Cat in the Hat.

Rehabilitation is a delicate maneuver. How do you prostrate and stand up for yourself at once? When Abramoff speaks to a reporter these days, he veers between the cathartic and the strategic. He says something, then thinks better of it. Ultimately, he is savvy enough to know that at this point in his saga the smart money lies with accepting his fate; no one who matters to him now is much interested in his self-pity or rage. When it comes to speaking freely, then, Abramoff's sentence has already begun. For public consumption, he has become something his friends and enemies would never recognize: cautious and conciliatory. He was getting to be too nice, unconvincingly so, I told him at one point. He laughed knowingly. I'd better hurry up and finish, he said; pretty soon, he'd turn into a saint.

For Abramoff, his is not a story of theft or greed; it is a colossal misunderstanding. He still sees himself as an idealist, a philanthropist, a visionary—someone who, as he puts it, "flies at 30,000 feet," too preoccupied with larger, weightier issues to deal with quotidian details, like contractual arrangements or his choice of business partners or the finer points of the law. His corner cutting and legerdemain, he says, were not only never venal, but had a higher purpose. As an Orthodox Jew, Abramoff will not even write out God's name, but he saw himself as his instrument.

Abramoff's orbit now consists largely of his home, his lawyer's office, and the F.B.I. Gone are the skyboxes; he still has Wizards tickets—a remnant of his prior life, expiring at the end of the season—but he doesn't go. From the suite that was his office at the lobbying-and-law firm of Greenberg Traurig—the biggest on the premises, big enough to drive foam golf balls in—and a team of 30, he's been reduced to a cheerless, windowless room not far from the White House (it looks like, well, a cell) and a part-time secretary. He rarely goes there.

Clearly, part of Abramoff feels that he has been unfairly targeted, that he did not invent all of the abuses with which he was charged. He was not the first lobbyist to spread money around, or to throw fund-raisers, or to treat congressmen to exotic trips. He did what other lobbyists did, only more so: more intelligently, more aggressively, more effectively, more unrelentingly, more ruthlessly. Other people surely wrote e-mails every bit as embarrassing as his, in which he called his Indian clients "troglodytes" and "morons" and "monkeys," "the stupidest idiots in the land." In one particularly damning e-mail he counseled Scanlon, "The key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so quickly. So, we have to put up with this stuff."

Abramoff has apologized profusely for those e-mails. They were not meant as racial slurs, he says; he claims he's never made a racist comment, at least consciously, in his life. Most of them, he has pointed out, were written to Scanlon, with whom he spoke a kind of vulgar patois, part locker room, part drill sergeant, part gangsta rap. I ask him whether what he wrote about a tribe in another e-mail—"Oh, well, stupid folks get wiped out"—could be applied to him, the author of all those self-incriminating statements. "Well, here I am," he replies.

He also maintains that whatever he charged the Indians they more than earned back on his results. And it is absolutely true that in the bizarre world of Indian gaming a few strategic moves with the right politicians or bureaucrats are worth millions, billions. It is also true that the very documents that show Abramoff's ridicule of the Indians also illustrate how indefatigably he pushed their interests. So, too, did the final two days of McCain's Senate hearings, which chronicled his extraordinary influence over the Department of the Interior. Now, though, he's been turned into some kind of predator, worse for Native Americans than Andrew Jackson and George Armstrong Custer. "The entire Indian country has come together in a big kumbaya of hatred for me," he says. "It just tears at my soul."

"I was moving a mile a minute and didn't conceive that I could be doing something wrong, and as I got near to the edge I either concealed it or I convinced myself that I wasn't having a problem," he explains. "I was basically so busy winning that I didn't see what I was doing. They say, 'Stop and smell the roses'? I didn't stop and smell the dung heap. Unfortunately, now I'm paying for it dearly."

'You can take one of two points of view about Abramoff," a man familiar with the Senate investigation tells me. "Either he'd always been a bad egg and he was put into a position where he could really flourish, or he was a classic Greek tragic hero: someone who was charismatic, diligent, effective, and a movement conservative adhering to the principles while serving his clients' interests, but who got caught up in the Master of the Universe syndrome." This man subscribed to the first theory. But Abramoff has a third: It's all divine will. God is punishing him for his misdeeds. He's sometimes tempted to complain.

"I could say to God, 'How dare you do this?'" he says. "'I became religious, against every influence in my environment. I fought to be kosher; there were times I didn't eat. There were times I walked to synagogue in bloody feet.' I could say that very easily, but I don't say it for a second. Why? Because I am the bearer of many transgressions, from stuff that is known to all the stuff known only to me."

He remains radioactive. Tom DeLay, who once called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends," no longer talks to him. Nor does Scanlon, who struck a plea deal before he did. "Anyone who is anywhere near anything that has to do with me has been advised by their lawyers not to talk to me," Abramoff says.

Ralph Reed's race for lieutenant governor of Georgia has foundered since it was disclosed that Reed, who says he opposes gambling, accepted gambling money from Abramoff on a lobbying job, then insisted he hadn't known about it. The two are now estranged; when Norquist got married last year, Reed steered clumsily clear of Abramoff's table. And, Abramoff says, Newt Gingrich sneered at him. Doug Bandow, a conservative whom Abramoff paid to write newspaper pieces favoring Abramoff positions, was drummed out of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, and lost his syndicated column. Some think Abramoff's politically ambitious lawyer, Abbe Lowell, was crazy for taking on a client who seems to blacken whatever he touches.

Abramoff's friends—and some still do exist, despite the hordes who have run for the hills—marvel at the vituperation he generates. "Jack wasn't that great when he was on top and he's not that bad now that he's fallen from grace," says Laurence R. Latourette, former managing partner at Abramoff's first lobbying firm and now a headhunter in Washington. "He was an aggressive, occasionally ruthless, and largely effective hired gun. He didn't reach out and screw people because he liked to hurt them. At the same time, he didn't let much stand in the way when pursuing his goals. Jack's not intentionally immoral. He can be amoral."

"In everything he did he was over the top, and not everything he did was bad," said another close friend, a rabbi who asked not to be identified. "He was good over the top and bad over the top."

When I began writing about Abramoff, I assumed he'd hunkered down. That's what most lawyers have their clients do, even when, as in Abramoff's case, silence only exacerbates their problems. I made the obligatory call to Abramoff's law firm and was told, unsurprisingly, that there'd be no interview. Imagine my surprise, then, when an e-mail from him arrived. Very belatedly, he was taking no chances. "This email is off the record and must not be used or forwarded by you to anyone," it unceremoniously began. "If that is agreeable, please continue reading. If not, please delete. Thanks."

Abramoff went on to say he'd heard of my article-to-be, and asked whether it would be "just another in the long line of slam pieces" he'd endured over the previous two years or whether I was "an out of the box thinker/writer who might actually be the one to write the other side of this saga." He went on: "Of the usual slam pieces, there are over 2,100 so far—including a few written by excellent writers who misrepresented to me that they wanted to 'tell the untold story' and 'give me more of a human face' etc., etc." If I could convince him otherwise, he said, he'd consider talking to me.

"I have long prayed for that one chance to have my side told, unblemished by the cartoon image I have been assigned," he went on, "but I am also prepared to have this prayer remain unanswered." I replied that writing the 2,101st "slam piece" didn't interest me, as a journalist or a human being. I also, at his request, presented my bona fides as a Jew. He agreed to meet me a few days later at Eli's, one of only two kosher delicatessens in Washington now that Abramoff's own, short-lived effort, Stacks, had closed. Eli's had the usual bedraggled look of kosher delis in the flyover states. But Abramoff himself surprised me.

He was shorter and stockier than I'd anticipated, with a black felt yarmulke on his head, something I'd not noticed in the pictures. Dressed casually and out of his usual power suits, he was a bit of a zhlub, far less scary than the man who had threatened in his e-mails to crush rival lobbyists "like bugs." He was also far more soft-spoken, polite, friendly, self-deprecating, and funny than I'd have ever expected. At adjacent tables people cast furtive glances at him, then talked into their hands as he passed. He saw it, as did I, but he was not fazed. Abramoff spoke continuously—so much so that I filibustered a bit before his hamburger got cold. He then ate it ravenously. To his acute embarrassment, he's put on 50 pounds. It's all the stress, he says.

'He always had a very vaudevillian, bombastic, exaggerated personality," a classmate of Abramoff's from Beverly Hills High School remembers. "There was clearly some insecurity deep within him that made him have to prove himself in all kinds of ways. There was a side of him that kind of came from the Borscht Belt. He seemed a little out of place in California." In fact, Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1959; his father, Frank, headed golf legend Arnold Palmer's sports marketing company. (Once an 11-handicap golfer, Abramoff took his first lesson from Palmer.) When the elder Abramoff assumed a position with Diners Club, the family moved to Los Angeles. In high school, Abramoff set weight-lifting records and played center on the football team. The family was already Republican but only mildly religious; Abramoff's road to Damascus was Wilshire Boulevard, where he saw the 1971 movie Fiddler on the Roof, then vowed to reclaim his Jewish heritage and headed into Orthodoxy.

At Brandeis—he says another famous family friend, prizefighter Sugar Ray Robinson, helped get him in—Abramoff was a straight arrow who walked out when people began smoking marijuana. There, as in several later incarnations, he became the charismatic center of a loyal entourage, people who enjoyed his company and did his bidding. At this largely Jewish campus in Massachusetts in the late 1970s, there was little competition for the post of Republican big shot. He went on to head the Massachusetts College Republicans, and in 1980 helped Ronald Reagan carry the state George McGovern had won only eight years before. His partner in that effort was Grover Norquist, then a Harvard graduate student and now, as head of Americans for Tax Reform, one of the most important Republican operatives in Washington. (Norquist, whom Abramoff calls "the great unknown genius of politics," is one of the few people who publicly stood by him initially, though he refused to speak with Vanity Fair. "Grover's one of the most brave political strategists, one of the most important political figures in the early part of this century," Abramoff says. "He is also a very decent person. He's been nothing but friendly and sympathetic.")

From Massachusetts, Abramoff and Norquist took the top posts in the College Republican National Committee. Ralph Reed, then the baby-faced state chairman from Georgia, became Abramoff's projects director. To both the exhilaration and, occasionally, the discomfort of Republican grown-ups, Abramoff electrified the once sleepy organization, largely through imaginative right-wing street theater: burning Soviet flags, building and destroying mock Berlin Walls, re-assembling the American medical students who'd been rescued during Reagan's 1983 invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. "That's when I first didn't meet Newt Gingrich," he recalls.

If Reagan had a favorite designated "young person," it was surely Jack Abramoff. Accustomed, from his time as governor of California, to dealing with bearded Berkeley rabble-rousers, the president found this clean-cut, earnest young man a breath of fresh air. In the College Republicans' annual report for 1983 is a picture of the two in the Oval Office, with radiant beams emanating from chairman Jack Abramoff's 24-year-old eyes. "It was like meeting the king," he now recalls. At a birthday party the College Republicans threw for Reagan in the early 1980s Abramoff met his wife, Pamela, who knew Ralph Reed.

Abramoff and Norquist left the College Republicans in 1985 to take over Citizens for America, an organization designed to push Reagan's political agenda. But Abramoff soon crossed swords with the co-founder of the group, former New York gubernatorial candidate Lewis Lehrman—Abramoff and his staffers had "gone hog wild" on their spending, a Lehrman aide told The Washington Post—and was fired. Abramoff then turned to producing films. From 1986 to 1994 he made a few stinkers, most notably Red Scorpion, an anti-Communist parable filmed in Namibia that everyone hated, Abramoff included. But shortly after that, he abandoned show business. It was 1994, and the Republicans now ran Congress. It was time to get back into politics.

Right after the election, Jonathan Blank, Abramoff's next-door neighbor and a senior partner at the Washington office of the law-and-lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, ran into him in synagogue and offered him a job. Like all such firms, Preston Gates (the Gates is Bill's father), based in Seattle, was in sudden, desperate need of Republicans. Abramoff hesitated. To him, lobbying sounded dull, and lobbyists were mainstream, cautious, unimaginative types, very much in the box, anathema to true conservatives. He accepted the offer, but only on his terms: His practice would be ideological, an extension of his conservative Republican activism. Anything politically uncongenial he simply would not do. The firm was just as ambivalent. The parties agreed to a six-month trial marriage.

Abramoff quickly brought in clients such as the government of Pakistan and, most important, the Northern Mariana Islands, an American territory in the Pacific whose exemption from certain American labor laws—factories there could pay their workers a pittance but still label their products "Made in the U.S.A."—was for Abramoff a classic case of free enterprise at work. So, too, he felt, were the Indian reservations. The Indians had always been Democrats, for Democrats were more sensitive to their social-welfare needs. Abramoff landed the Mississippi Band of Choctaws and promptly made their agenda mesh with that of the conservatives, most spectacularly by re-framing a Republican proposal to tax gaming revenues as a tax increase, then helping to kill it. The Choctaws saved hundreds of millions in taxes over the next decade. That paid a lot of bills. In five years, the tribe paid an extraordinary $7 million to Preston Gates, but they weren't complaining.

A key ally in that effort had been DeLay, whom Abramoff met in 1994. "I have admired Tom DeLay and his family from the first meeting with him, and I still do to this day," says Abramoff. I mentioned that DeLay once referred to him as one of his closest friends. "I am honored that he ever thought that of me," he says. "We would sit and talk about the Bible. We would sit and talk about opera. We would sit and talk about golf. I mean, we talked about philosophy and politics." He adds, "I didn't spend a lot of time lobbying Tom for things, because the things I worked on were usually consistent with the conservative philosophy, and I knew Tom would be supportive." Still, whether he was lobbying DeLay or not, his $450,500 to the National Republican Congressional Committee must have made DeLay very happy.

Beginning in the late 1990s, Abramoff hired several DeLay staffers and others closely connected to important congressmen. Mostly, they were long on enthusiasm and deference, short on wisdom—too young, as someone who came to know Abramoff well put it, "to have hair on their nuts." The template was Michael Scanlon, a top aide to DeLay whom Abramoff hired at Preston Gates. Lots of people didn't like him, with all his swagger and football metaphors and cheesy smoothness. But to Abramoff he was creative and tactical and ingenious: "out of the box," to use his highest encomium. Scanlon was "Abramoff's evil elf," as someone calls him.

At Preston Gates, Abramoff remained a divisive figure. The firm didn't like his clients—representing sweatshops made for bad publicity back in liberal Seattle—or his associates: the day he brought in Ralph Reed "all of the liberal Democrats went absolutely fucking nuts," an eyewitness recalls. Nor did they always appreciate his take-no-prisoners style. A former Clinton administration official blames Abramoff for going at him so relentlessly—having him subpoenaed, investigated, fired, and attacked in The Washington Times—that he finally called a mutual acquaintance of theirs. "Isn't this guy ever going to let up and get a life?" he asked this friend. "He's relentless and he's vindictive and he'll never let up," the friend replied. "He sees the world as friends and enemies, and you destroy your enemies." At the rate he was going, one of the firm's heads once warned him, Abramoff would wind up "dead, disgraced, or in jail." But Abramoff persisted.

"Most lobbyists meet with a committee chairman, staff, a few members," Abramoff recalls. "We'd meet with the whole leadership of the House and Senate, the entire committee on both sides, then create a roster of who might ideologically support the idea and get them in the war. Then we'd activate people from the district where the client was. We'd get people firing constantly on the decision-makers. And we'd outwork everyone in the media, pay think-tank people to rile them up in the press. Most Washington lobbyists are lazy, people of limits, people who move glacially slow. For better or worse, I'm a very driven person. I felt my job was to go out there and save the world…. I thought it was immoral to take someone's money and not win for them. And we basically didn't lose."

Still, he felt underappreciated and restless. He was skeptical when Greenberg Traurig, a Miami-based firm with an unremarkable lobbying practice, came courting, but was gradually won over. What clinched the deal was something Abramoff recalls the firm's president, Cesar Alvarez, said: "Better to ask for forgiveness than permission." That suited him fine. He bolted to the firm's Washington, D.C., office, along with all 11 of his acolytes, and a reported $8 million in business.

Here, too, "Team Abramoff" met resistance. Wearing conservative suits and ties in a place that favored more casual wear, they "looked like a cult," said a lobbyist there. But, overnight, Greenberg became the fourth-largest lobbyist in town. Much of that money came from Indian tribes. The Mississippi Choctaws were joined by the Louisiana Coushattas, the Saginaw Chippewas, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Sandia Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, and the Tiguas, among others. Most had, essentially, the same problems: averting efforts to tax the tribes or reduce their sovereignty; securing favorable legislation on health, housing, education, and other services; winning appropriations and grants of land in trust; and protecting their casino licenses against political vicissitudes and rival Indian tribes hoping to open casinos of their own.

Abramoff delivered on these fronts, especially in beating back rival casinos. Several tribes also got visits with President Bush at the White House, or dinner with Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Indeed, with George Bush in the White House, Abramoff had the Interior Department wired. His point man was former deputy secretary J. Steven Griles; various Abramoff e-mails, along with former department legal counsel Michael Rossetti's testimony to the Senate committee, show how faithfully Griles did Abramoff's bidding. (Griles denies any wrongdoing.) "There was a swagger to [Abramoff's] walk," Wayne Smith, deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the Interior Department during Bush's first term, recalls. "He was very clear that he was very well connected. He mentioned that he was a major fund-raiser, very tight with Rove. The impression was 'Hey, I am a force to be reckoned with.'"

Abramoff charged in a variety of ways. There were his fees. There were the contributions he had the tribes make, to his foundation and other organizations, which he would then funnel to politicians or his pet charity. Then, most fatefully, there was his take of the colossal fees that Scanlon (who had opened his own public-relations firm in 2001) charged for services rendered, under-rendered, and unrendered between 2001 and 2004. Greenberg Traurig knew nothing about that, but that was all right by Abramoff, who considered his grassroots work with Scanlon moonlighting that didn't constitute lobbying. The Indians were never explicitly told about the deal, either, Abramoff concedes, but that was also all right because, to him at least, the work he did was so valuable.

"Their casinos were going down the tubes, so it was not an issue of 'Jack, what are you doing?,' it was 'Jack, win, win, win,' and it was Jack saying, 'We're going to win,'" Abramoff says. "Their response was 'If you win, it's worth it. If you lose, it's not worth a dollar. Just go win.' Yes, I did wrong, but I did a hell of a lot right too. Basically, I was the best thing they had going. I knew it, they knew it. My mistake was not informing them [about Scanlon]."

In April 2002, The New York Times ran a front-page profile of Abramoff. "I call Jack Abramoff, and I get results," the vice-chairman of the Coushattas, William Worfel, told the newspaper. Never one to rest on his oars, as Reagan had observed of him, Abramoff cast about for still more Indian clients. But without knowing it he had hit his high-water mark. Rival tribal officials, dismayed by the huge payments to Abramoff and Scanlon, got word to lobbyists eager for some of Abramoff's Indian business, who in turn reached the press.

On the front page of The Washington Post for February 22, 2004, Susan Schmidt broke the story of Abramoff's astronomical fees. His underlings were horrified by what they read. "Lots of damning things in there," one of them e-mailed. "I know more than [the] article and the truth is worse." But Abramoff himself was initially sanguine: the Post was really accusing him of no more than making lots of money. He even weighed posting the piece on his Web site. Two tribes quickly rose to Abramoff's defense, faulting the Post for suggesting that the Indians were either too dumb to protect themselves or too poor to deserve first-class representation. The chief of the Mississippi Choctaws, Phillip Martin, said that Abramoff had done a "fantastic job" and was "definitely worth the money" (though Martin would recant six months later). "Sure, the new lobbyists are 1/10 the cost," the former chief of the Saginaw Chippewas, Maynard Kahgegab Jr., wrote of Abramoff's replacements, "but they are 1/10 the lobbyists." The Post never printed either letter, or, Abramoff says, anything else ever written on his behalf. (The Post's Susan Schmidt, citing materials released by the Senate committee, maintains that Abramoff's team wrote the two chiefs' letters. Both Martin and Kahgegab declined to comment.) But within a week, Greenberg Traurig fired Abramoff. Soon investigators from the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Interior Department, and the F.B.I. were all over the case. So, too, was the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which began its hearings in September 2004 into allegations of misconduct by Abramoff made by the Indian tribes.

Abramoff believes the hearings were unfair and blames McCain, with whom he says he has long had a contentious relationship: Abramoff raised money for Bush in 2000 and urged tribes not to contribute to McCain. McCain staffers deliberately humiliated him, he says, doling out to the press embarrassing e-mails that the Senate committee had subpoenaed—like the one in which he attempted to fabricate a Talmudic scholarship award from a Jewish organization to fortify his application to Washington's prestigious Cosmos Club.

"Mr. Abramoff flatters himself," said Mark Salter, the senator's administrative assistant. "Senator McCain was unaware of his existence until he read initial press accounts of Abramoff's abuses, and had never laid eyes on him until he appeared before the committee."

"As best I can remember, when I met with him he didn't have his eyes shut," replies Abramoff. "I'm surprised that Senator McCain has joined the chorus of amnesiacs."

Even some other Indian lobbyists concede that McCain's hearings presented a distorted picture of Abramoff and his clients. "The Mississippi Choctaw, the Louisiana Coushatta, the Saginaw Chippewa—they are very wealthy tribes with big casinos," says one. "They knew they were spending money on him and they had an agenda which was to shut down other, poor tribes. They were getting ripped off, but the idea that they didn't know they were spending $30 million to kill a rival's casino … Well, let's not pretend the Indians are stupid." McCain's solicitude toward these tribes and their willingness to play victim for him, this lobbyist says, "makes me want to puke."

Abramoff was in Los Angeles when he turned himself in to federal authorities in August 2005. He was handcuffed, held overnight, and brought into court in leg irons and chains to face charges of bank fraud in his purchase of SunCruz Casinos. He and Adam Kidan had led a group of investors in buying SunCruz for $147.5 million in 2000, after long and hostile negotiations with Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, the owner since 1994. Boulis never saw his money, however: Abramoff and Kidan had faked the wire transfer of $23 million which was supposed to be their down payment, and Boulis was shot dead in his car in February 2001. Two of the three men currently on trial for the murder were associates of Kidan, who himself pleaded guilty to the fraud charges in December 2005, tightening the noose around Abramoff. Once Scanlon had pleaded on the Indian-lobbying front, it was only a matter of time before Abramoff did, too.

Abramoff says he'd be saddened by any further indictments. But would he feel responsible for them? "I don't want to answer that question, if that's O.K.," he replies. I asked whether he felt he'd harmed his country. "There were times when I helped the country and the causes that I love and obviously times when I hurt them," he says. "The exposure of my lobbying practice, the absurd amount of media coverage, and the focus—for the first time—on this sausage-making factory that we call Washington will ultimately help reform the system, or at least so I hope." The real problem, as he sees it, is big government: "The only thing that a clever lobbyist cannot manipulate is the absence of something to lobby for or fight against." Thus, to keep future Jack Abramoffs from popping up, government has to slim down. It's what he's been saying all along.

After paying or owing a couple million dollars in legal fees, Abramoff says, he's now living off "the fumes of my savings." Hiding his assets would be incredibly foolhardy, given the consequences at sentencing were he found out. He's dabbling in a few projects—energy businesses, property development—and doing some screenplays, written under pseudonyms. A real job is out of the question. "People don't want to be in pictures with me, let alone business," he says.

Abramoff has one potential short-term source of funds: the photographs of him with Bush, which became much coveted once Time reported their existence. Publications started sending Abramoff offers, and there was frenzied bidding that quickly rose to the low seven figures. For a time he entertained them; he says he thought he could begin to reimburse the Indians. But he ultimately decided against it, in part because the Democrats had announced—stupidly, to his mind—that they'd exploit them. But to him that's not the only stupidity in evidence. He blames the Bush administration for the fuss. "My so-called relationship with Bush, Rove, and everyone else at the White House has only become important because, instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," he says. "The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq. This is why this non-story grabbed headlines for weeks."

Abramoff says he hopes one day to pay back the Indians in full, and to visit them and ask for forgiveness. He also says he's happy so much of his tainted money is being given by embarrassed politicians to charity. "If it makes one kid's day better in some tenement somewhere, then that's good," he says.

He says he is not really readying himself for prison. "How does one prepare?" he asks. "I don't have a grand plan for how to survive. I'm putting myself in God's hands and trusting it will be fine." In fact, it will be excruciating: One can't spend more than a few minutes with him before one of his children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, calls or pops in. Apart from the Sabbath and holidays, he has spoken to his parents every day since he left college. "Hey, Dad, everything O.K.? Apart from everything that's going on?" is how one call began. To his mind, prison for him is pointless. "I can't perpetrate anything, so what does putting me in a prison do?" he asks. "Put me to work as a teacher in an inner-city school. Let me teach English, history, music. Or let me sweep floors at the reservation. Instead you'll be paying to feed me to sit in a jail. It's stupid." It sounds suspiciously liberal, and tardy too, coming from a law-and-order conservative. But he insists it's how he's always felt.

Downstairs from his office, Abramoff handed the parking-lot attendant a $100 bill. It was one of his last, he joked: the rest had gone to all those senators and congressmen. As the men fetched his car, he offered the latest late-night Jack Abramoff jokes. Conan O'Brien had just told a joke about how impressed George Bush was that Abramoff would soon name 20 congressmen; Bush could name only 3. Abramoff laughed heartily at each, though one has to wonder what combination of elements—bitterness, anger, disgust, self-loathing, or maybe even genuine pleasure—made up the mirth. He's the first to admit how peculiar it has all become. "This whole thing is one bizarre movie about some guy named Jack Abramoff," he tells me.

We set out into the solemn, dark, quiet streets of the capital, whose epic empty spaces make it a bleak place on a winter night, chillier than meteorologically colder places to the north. He turned right on 17th Street, passing the Old Executive Office Building and the White House beyond, then continued down toward the Washington Monument. By now the unnaturally enormous Capitol, bathed in an eerie lunar light, loomed in front of us, and I almost asked whether, in his newly humbled state, he felt sufficiently tortured by Washington's enduring landmarks to flee. Then I remembered that he would be leaving soon enough.

We turned down Louisiana Avenue, and he described how, on Christmas Eve, he'd taken in It's a Wonderful Life with his family, and how, by trying to die, the Jimmy Stewart character, George Bailey, learned just how loved he was. But George Bailey was someone without flaws, he said, something that could certainly not be said for himself.

"I was a killer," he said as we pulled into Union Station. "I killed for my clients, and it eventually killed me." He paused, as if he knew that this was no longer enough. That was the old Abramoff, the defiant, zealous, self-righteous Abramoff, and he could not stop there. "Or I eventually killed me," he continued. "And there were a lot of other hands on the knife."
[I]David Margolick is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. His latest book is Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink (Knopf).

Illustrations by TIM SHEAFFER

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060320roco04

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/060320roco04?print=true

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "The vested interests - if we explain the situation by their influence - can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent."
Sir Norman Angell 1872 - 1967

~

"The ideal setup by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering - a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons - a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face." George Orwell, from the book 1984

~

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthralment to those in power.
Leo Toystoy

~

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." Plato (427-347 B.C.)
~

[Saundra Hummer]

*The Century of the Self

Adam Curtis' acclaimed series examines the rise of the all-consuming self against the backdrop of the Freud dynasty.

Part II - The Engineering of Consent

This is a must watch video

How the US government, big business, and the CIA developed techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people.

Click here to view:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12646.htm ***

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~~~ FYI - attached is a new piece running in today's Sunday San Francisco Chronicle that discusses a taboo subject in the immigration debate.
Sadly, despite all the rhetoric, few in the media or political arena
wants to actually talk about the real issue fueling the illegal
immigration problem. - D
*************************************

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/09/EDGO7I4KL61.DTL
{http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/09/EDGO7I4KL61.DTL}
San Francisco Chronicle - 4/9/06

Supply-and-Demand Solutions

By David Sirota

Amid all the rhetoric in the superheated immigration debate, many
have forgotten the key question: Why?

Why do so many Mexicans want to come to America in the first place?
The answers to this question revolve around the concept of supply and
demand -- and they tell us about how to address illegal immigration
and overcome the core economic challenges facing middle-class
Americans.

Fact: Many Mexicans are willing to risk their lives to enter the
United States illegally because they are desperate to find a better
life. In supply-and-demand terms, the supply of jobs in Mexico that
one can subsist on is far less than the demand for such jobs.

But that raises the next and deeper "why" question: Why is the supply
of decent-paying jobs in Mexico so low? Therein lies an issue neither
Democrats nor Republicans want to address, because it touches on
public policies both have supported.

Fact: Both political parties have joined hands in recent years to ink
trade pacts that have destroyed the Mexican economy and created a
supply-and-demand imbalance there. The biggest of these was the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) -- a pact sold to the American
people as a job creator here, and an economic development tool for
Mexico. But, of course, the pact did not include any provisions to
protect or increase Mexican workers' wages, workplace standards or
human rights, thus all it did was open up a cheap labor pool for
companies to exploit.

Fact: A decade after NAFTA's passage, America is still hemorrhaging
the good-paying jobs that NAFTA was supposed to create. As for
Mexico, the Washington Post's report on the 10-year anniversary of
NAFTA told the story: 19 million more Mexicans now live in poverty
than before the pact was signed. Similarly, former U.S. Labor
Secretary Robert Reich points out, "Mexico's real wages are lower
than they were before ." And because NAFTA included no
provisions to force companies to improve Mexican working conditions,
jobs that were created in Mexico still pay near-slave wages For
instance, the Associated Press noted this week that "Many young
[Mexicans] have manual jobs on minimum wage of $5 a day."

Time Magazine recently shed further light on the situation, reporting
that , "Even when new jobs do appear, [Mexico's] unforgiving low-wage
business culture -- the dark shame of Mexico's political and economic
leaders, which NAFTA was also supposed to reform -- makes sure that
they still often pay in a day what similar work would pay in an hour
in the United States."

Not surprisingly, Mexican workers' demand for a better life hasn't
gone away -- in economic terms, the demand is inelastic. And so that
demand is looking for a job supply north of the border.

This is the supply-and-demand reality that no amount of emotional
rhetoric can change -- and in that reality we can find the way to
address illegal immigration: by stopping the demand instead of trying
to block the supply. The Academy Award-winning movie, "Traffic,"
highlighted the perils of waging a drug war that only focuses on
trying to block the supply of narcotics, rather than on eliminating
the demand for them.

These same lessons can be applied to illegal immigration. The best
way to stop illegal entry into our country from Mexico is to tamp
down the demand by Mexicans to enter this country illegally. After
all, no wall, no fence, no border security measure can be as
effective as reducing the demand for entry. This means reforming our
trade policy to include serious wage, workplace and human-rights
provisions so that cross-border commerce actually improves the lives
of Mexican workers to the point where they no longer feel the dire
economic need to break our immigration laws.

Think about it this way: Had NAFTA lifted 19 million Mexicans out of
poverty as promised instead of helping to drive 19 million Mexicans
into poverty, you can bet the flood of illegal immigrants across our
southern border would be a trickle instead of the flood it is today.
To be sure, politicians are talking about amnesty or guest-worker
programs to give workers some kind of legal status. But if those
proposals do not come hand-in-hand with a reform of America's trade
policies, they are destined to be what they have been in the past --
merely short-term, stopgap measures, not real solutions.

Until America's political leaders start making trade policy address
the imbalance between the demand for good jobs and the supply of good
jobs in Mexico, illegal immigration will continue to be a major
problem right here at home.

Siroto Blog on:

http://www.workingforchange.com

Will add more to this article, about our own personal experiences and what we've been told by legal and illegal Mexicans from several different Mexican states. SRH *

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This is Part 1 of a two-part series:
Read Part II •
Surveillance, Infiltration, and Harassment of Environmental Organizations,
Part I
Hope Marston
Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee

t r u t h o u t | Transcript
Friday 10 March 2006Hope Marston, of the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee, spoke on the panel on "Surveillance, Infiltration, and Harassment of Environmental Organizations" at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (pielc.org) held March 2-5, 2006, in Eugene, Oregon.
We have just heard a litany of horrible things that we are all dealing with all the time now and we've been dealing with for the last four years, and I don't know how many of you feel overwhelmed with it, but I do every day. I feel overwhelmed with all that's happening. The executive branch is now so far out of control that I'm really not sure how long it is going to take before we can restore our liberties, our Bill of Rights and our fundamental freedoms. The house cleaning that must take place, the dismantling of the repressive system that has now permeated our society, will be enormous.

We will be very, very old when we've completed this work and that's what I believe, and in order to sustain hope, I look back to people like Ida B. Wells, who, at the beginning of this century was fighting against the lynching of African Americans, the murder, the systemic murder of African Americans in this country - hundreds of human beings killed every year in the south - they were murdered. And Ida B. Wells lived her whole life trying to get Congress to enact a Lynch Law that would stop that kind of murderous behavior, and throughout her life, she never saw Congress take action, and indeed, there is still not a law against lynching in this country. If you recall many of the murders during the civil rights era, those murders were not prosecuted under the kinds of lynching laws that Ida B. Wells was seeking. They were prosecuted under civil rights laws, as if all that was wrong with the killings was that those people's civil rights had been violated. So, even 75 years after her death, we still need anti-lynching laws, and we've got a ton of work to do on the Bill of Rights. We've got a ton of work to do to protect activists. There is no shortage of work to be done.

Despite the fact that we may not live to see all that needs to change, I think it is really important that we keep going. Fortunately, there is a core of people as some people have said, it only takes a small, committed group of people - Margaret Mead said this - it only takes a small group of committed people to change the world.

We can do it, and some of those groups of committed people are the Bill of Rights Defense Committees throughout the country. The movement started with a single Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Northampton, Massachusetts, looking for a way to speak out against the PATRIOT Act, passed in 2001, while it was still warm in the hands of Congressional members, who were asked to pass it in the dead of night, while anthrax spores were being cleaned from Capitol offices.

Despite the passage of the PATRIOT Act, these ordinary people said: there has got to be another way to fight back against this, and so they started forming these Bill of Rights Defense Committees and they started going to their city councils and they started asking their city councils to pass resolutions opposing the PATRIOT Act and some of these other post-9/11 orders that violate our Bill of Rights. The very first resolution that was passed was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it was directly in response to the persecution of a beloved community member named Rabbih Haddad, who ran an Islamic charity. The feds accused him of having funneled that charity money to terrorist groups. It was an allegation. Those charges were never taken to court, and yet they were used to intimidate Rabbih Haddad. It was used to drive him out of the country, and a lot of other Islamic people. A lot of other Arab Muslim people have been driven out of the country based on those kinds of allegations - nothing proven, and you're just deported.

So, we're talking about people on the front lines: Muslim people who were broadsided right after September 11. Eleven hundred Arab and Muslim men were put into jails in places like Passaic, New Jersey, and at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. They were slammed up against walls, faces bloodied on the American flag that hung there with the words, "These Colors Don't Run." And it was only much later that we found out about the abuses that those people suffered. And just this week, the federal government agreed to pay one of the men held in those jails $300,000 for his suffering. So, finally, a little light, a little piece of justice coming in to address some of these abuses.

To address these and other abuses, many communities have passed resolutions against the PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 violations of our Bill of Rights. There are 405 resolutions now. The most recent was the State of California, our country's most populous state. I am giving you this news because I know you have not seen it in the paper. I know you haven't seen it on TV. I have seen only two small articles about it, and I have been looking. The state of California passed a resolution opposing the PATRIOT Act. They passed it in time for Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein to realize that their state was actually standing up in opposition to these kinds of anti-terrorist policies that are really targeting ordinary innocent people and activists, and yet California's groundswell of opposition to the PATRIOT Act was completely ignored.

It took Senator Russ Feingold, from Wisconsin, to stand up in Congress just last week and read to his Senate colleagues the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and the eight resolutions that have been passed by the states of California, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. Besides the eight statewide resolutions he read, 397 resolutions have been passed by community and county governments.

This movement, this grassroots movement to reassert our Bill of Rights exists in communities all over the country. There are people like you who care about our liberties, who have been fighting very hard to get these Bill of Rights resolutions passed in their communities to show Congress the importance of not trading liberty for a false sense of security.

We have a lot of work to do in 2006 and beyond. We need to continue to confront our Congressional representatives and say: "Where were you last week when the PATRIOT Act re-authorization came up, and there were only 10 people in the Senate who were willing to vote against it?" I don't care what you say, Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, when you say, "Oh well, we didn't like it. It wasn't the best it could have been, but we had to go ahead and vote on it." No. Sorry, that doesn't cut it, that doesn't cut it when we're talking about the Bill of Rights. I've got bookmarks of the Bill of Rights here. I want all of you to take one because you are going to need to know what your rights are because Congress and the White House are crossing off big sections of your rights.

During all of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization hearings last year, representatives in the House and Senate were saying to us, "If you can find abuses of the PATRIOT Act, tell us about those abuses. We'd be happy to hear about them." Dianne Feinstein said, "If you can ever find an abuse of the Patriot Act, I'd be happy to not support it." Well, I'm sorry, but the PATRIOT Act is an abuse itself. It's shrouded in secrecy! It's very hard to find out what the abuses are when, if your house has been searched, you don't even know about it, and if your library records were searched, the librarian can't tell you. She or he is under a gag order. So, back in July last year, when the House and Senate passed their reauthorization bills, we didn't have a lot of abuses to report, because the abuses weren't known back then. But then, starting in October, we started learning about some of what was going on behind the scenes - abuses we hadn't known about before because they were still secret.

In October, for instance, we learned that the Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC, had filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get information about how the FBI had been using its PATRIOT Act powers. What EPIC found out from the released information was that the FBI didn't always file its warrants with FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which used to be used only to spy on foreign intelligence agents in the United States, expanded by the Patriot Act so now it can be used against any of us. So, EPIC learned the FBI was not always going to the FISA court right away to ask for those warrants. Some agents would start an investigation without going to FISA. But once this hit the news, it was immediately dismissed. "Well, you know, those FBI agents were not really well-trained. That was the problem. They weren't up on all of the newest procedures." I am looking at this and I'm thinking, "What do you mean they weren't up on the newest procedures? The old procedures were that they had to go to the FISA court. The new procedures were that they still had to go to the FISA court, but the requirements for getting a warrant were just a little more lax."

So, what that told me was that after the PATRIOT Act gave the FBI so many new tools, the FBI standards had become very lax, to the point that these FBI agents seem to think that they can just go ahead and start their investigation without going to FISA. To me, it's a serious abuse, and Congress should have begun holding hearings on these abuses of the PATRIOT Act. We should have been seeing hearings on this, in October, and November, and December, before the 16 provisions of the PATRIOT Act were supposed to sunset.

Then, in November, we learned that the FBI has been using National Security Letters to get information without having to go through the FISA Court. Instead of going to libraries and getting records through Section 215, which would require them to go through FISA, the FBI had been using National Security Letters, which are written by an FBI Special Agent in Charge. So, these are warrants that don't even go to court. This is just a Special Agent in Charge who writes a letter without court oversight.

According to an article in the Washington Post, the FBI has been issuing 30,000 of these National Security Letters in each of the last four years. That means millions of documents, from your rental car agency, your airline agency, your storage unit, your library - they've been issuing national security letters to get this information on ordinary Americans. Then when they look at all these records and see what they've got, they say, "Oh well, that person isn't involved with terrorism, and that person isn't involved with terrorism." Yet they don't throw away those records of innocent Americans. They keep them in a database. Not only do they keep those records, but they are allowed to distribute them to other governmental agencies and private corporations. So, the American public learned about this abuse of the PATRIOT Act in November, and I'm beginning to think, "Hearings - where are the Congressional hearings? Why is it that - now that we've learned of these abuses that Dianne Feinstein wanted to hear about - there are no Congressional hearings?"

And then, the bombshell drops. On December 16, 2005, when the Senate was getting ready to re-authorize the Patriot Act right at the last minute, a bombshell drops. The New York Times reported that President Bush decided shortly after 9/11 that he would use the National Security Agency to wiretap our electronic communications and he dares Congress to stop him because he says it is his inherent right as Commander in Chief. And when Alberto Gonzales went before Congress in January, that was his stance. Wiretapping Americans without a warrant from FISA is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. But now, it looks like Congress is backing down and saying, "Well, I guess we have to re-write the law to make what you did was legal, President Bush."

In November we learned about the Pentagon spying on activists. We learned the government has been spying on activists: groups like PETA, Greenpeace, even the Quakers ... and we have this quote, from John Miller, FBI assistant director of public affairs. "You end up in FBI files, with your name and your group's name, because you're doing stuff."

It sounds like the FBI has done a pretty good job of sticking to those rules, and I now want a definition of "stuff." What does "doing stuff" mean? It doesn't seem to matter. The government appears ready to spy on us when it wants to, and we're really going to have to organize and engage in some serious struggle to make them stop. We all need to stand up, because the more of us who stand up ... they just can't arrest us all, and this really may be time for acts of civil disobedience.

One more little scary thing that is coming your way that was in this PATRIOT Act re-authorization. It was sneaked in, never debated, never discussed. It is one of those things the White House wrote and slipped in there, and there have only been perhaps two newspaper articles about it that I've ever seen.

Section 602 - it's titled Interference with National Special Security Events. It amends Section 1752 of Title 18, United States Code, so that anyone who willfully or knowingly enters or remains in a posted off or cordoned off area, where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is visiting, will be subject to a fine or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both if the person carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or if significant bodily injury results. The second penalty would be a fine or imprisonment for not more than a year or both - that is, if there is no weapon or injury involved.

So, I looked up Section 1752 of Title 18, US Code, and learned that, prior to this provision, if you knowingly and willingly entered or remained in an area that was posted off or cordoned off by the Secret Service you could've gotten a fine or six months in jail. And what we are talking about here is when the President comes to visit. The Secret Service says, "It's going to be in this airplane hanger, and everybody who comes in here is our guest," and if you're there and they want you to leave, you better go, because if you don't leave you can be arrested. So, it used to be a fine or six months in jail for remaining in those exclusion zones. Well, now, it's either a fine and/or a year in prison or a fine and/or 10 years in prison. When I read this sneaked-in provision back in July or August, I thought, "Why is the government trying to over-regulate these presidential and vice presidential events? Then, immediately, I flashed back to 2004 during the presidential election campaign. I don't know how many of you are aware that, in this community and in communities all over the country, there were people who tried to attend Bush/Cheney events, and they were either arrested or they were sent out or they were harassed in some other way.

I mean, this isn't just Perrie Patterson, a soccer mom here in Eugene, who shouted "No!" at a Cheney event and was arrested, and this isn't just the three teachers in Medford, Oregon, who were wearing T-shirts that said "Protect our civil liberties" and were kicked out. This is also a high school kid in Iowa, who had a ticket to a Bush/Cheney event, and was asked to remove his button, which said "Bush/Cheney '04, leave no billionaire behind." That wasn't the scary part. The scary part was when the Secret Service staffer said to him, "If you protest, it won't be me taking you out, it'll be a sniper." The high school student reportedly said, "That kind of scared the heck out of me."

When government employees are starting to talk like this, where is this going? Where are we headed here, when these kinds of innocent actions that are protected by our First Amendment elicit threats from a government employee? The First Amendment clearly protects "the right to ... petition the government for a redress of grievances." It's in the First Amendment, and now our government is isolating our representatives to make sure that they don't hear anything we have to say and that the press don't photograph the President surrounded by people who oppose his policies.

So, I'm really concerned about that. I'm especially concerned about it because it's quiet, and the newspapers aren't reporting it fully, and so people aren't talking about it. And I think this exclusion zone provision is a law we will have to deliberately fight against. More and more people in Eugene are engaging in civil disobedience actions. It's a time-honored tradition - Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. all practiced civil disobedience against repressive governments. Civil disobedience is nothing to be afraid of. It should be a conscious act. It should be taken on with people that you trust and that you know, and you should know exactly what you're doing when you get into it. It's not a lark. Not a spur-of-the-moment event.

I'm not seeing many other options for getting our rights back, quite frankly, seeing how Congress is capitulating. They're ready to write the law just as the White House wants it written. We've got until November to elect representatives who will stand up for our Bill of Rights. We have until 2008 before Bush leaves office, but many years to go before we will be able to completely dismantle the repressive machinery he has built. I hope that you'll join me and join other grassroots groups in doing all the work that is necessary to restore our essential liberties our Bill of Rights.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_031106C.shtml]

I had posted this in the Good Earth thread. I realized not too many people are interested in ecology, but this is important information, so I decided to post it here where more people will see it. Late doing it, as the Patriot Act did pass, but interesting nonetheless. SRH ~

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~~~ New Orleans R&B star begins posthumous mayoral bid
By
Jeffrey Jones
Sun Apr 9, 2006 3:03 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Ernie K-Doe has some big hurdles to overcome to win his bid for mayor of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans: he lacks the political experience and financial clout of many of his rivals.

He's also been dead for almost five years.
No matter, said the widow of the flamboyant rhythm-and-blues singer and one of the city's most enduring characters as she launched his tongue-in-cheek campaign for the April 22 vote.

"He's the only one qualified -- that's my opinion," Antoinette K-Doe said on Saturday at a rally outside the Mother-in-Law Lounge, the nightclub that bears the name of K-Doe's biggest hit song.

"He gets the job done. The guy has soul," she said as supporters enjoyed live music, beer and heaping helpings of red beans and rice. "And I'm speaking like he's still here because in memories he is still here with us. He gets along with everybody and he makes things happen."

K-Doe's not actually on the ballot but his campaign provides some rare levity in an election widely viewed as the most crucial in the city's nearly three-century history. Mayor Ray Nagin faces 23 challengers with a spectrum of views on how to rebuild from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina seven months ago.

The campaign is vintage K-Doe, the self-proclaimed "Emperor of the World" who died in July 2001 at 65 after a colorful music career. His campaign T-shirts feature him grinning with his trademark long hair cascading over his shoulders, decked out as Uncle Sam. "Vote K-Doe Vote," they blare.

Funds raised from the sale of T-shirts and bumper stickers will go to rebuilding the Mother-in-Law Lounge, which remains a shrine to the man and his music despite being damaged in the floods after Hurricane Katrina, as well as the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Born Ernest Kador Jr., K-Doe's major triumph was the chart-topper "Mother-in-Law" in 1961, when he was in league with such R&B stars as James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John and Joe Tex.

He never matched the success of "Mother-in-Law" but became a staple on the rich New Orleans music scene. In the 1990s K-Doe opened the lounge on the edge of the city's Treme neighborhood and it became a favorite of local musicians. It still houses a massive bust of his head even though the interior is gutted to the studs.

Antoinette, 63, said she aims to reopen the lounge for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which starts at the end of this month, regardless of how far along the renovation is.

"Ernie K-Doe was an icon, a legend of New Orleans -- national and international," she said. "His music is great and it still lives on.

"And this lounge is a haven for our musicians, man. They can eat, they can put their music together and they can get in touch with each other."
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=uri:2006-04-09T190334Z_01_N09289130_RTRUKOC_0_US-HURRICANES-KDOE.xml ...

[Saundra Hummer]

$?$*$?$*$?$
Fast cars and fast living at heart of Malibu mystery
James Sterngold,
Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, April 9, 2006

Malibu -- The rich love their toys, and nowhere are such status symbols more plentiful or spectacular than in sun-kissed Malibu, where exotic sports cars are as common as double-decaf, low-fat lattes. So when a million-dollar Ferrari Enzo was wrecked here in February after a 160 mph joyride, it seemed little more than a celebrity smashup.

And then the aliens turned up.
Well, actually there were no aliens, at least not the little green kind. But there is a distinctly odd cast of characters from Sweden and elsewhere and a tale that has only grown more dense and bizarre as information has surfaced about one of the men in the Ferrari, Stefan Eriksson, and his circle of friends.

Long before the mysterious wreck, Eriksson and his group had managed to pull off one of the more amazing disappearing acts in the history of the computer gaming business. Last year, they drove their company, Gizmondo, into the ground, racking up losses of nearly $400 million. The crash case appears to be, much like the Gizmondo debacle, a series of enigmas.

Just to set the scene, here are some of the story's curlicues: Eriksson, 44, was or was not behind the wheel of the Ferrari the morning it crashed, does or does not actually own the wrecked Enzo, is or is not connected to a loaded gun clip found the morning of the crash, and may or may not be an anti-terrorism leader with a shadowy police force.

"I mean, when we got the first call, it was just a crash," said Sgt. Philip Brooks, a spokesman for the Malibu station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "No one is injured, no big deal. And then it just got weirder and weirder. The deputies just kind of got sucked into this."

Capt. Thomas Martin, who heads the Malibu station, said the first sign of trouble came shortly after his deputies arrived at the crash scene, a straight, quiet stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in northern Malibu. It was shortly after 6 a.m. on Feb. 21.

This was no ordinary car, or car crash. Ferrari reportedly made only 400 of the dazzlingly impractical, gull-winged Enzos, worth $1 million and up. With 660-horsepower, V-12 engines and a sleek, road-hugging profile, they look and drive like UFOs with wide tires.

The deputies estimated that Eriksson's red Enzo had been tooling along at about 160 mph (far from its top speed) when it apparently careered off the road and slid sideways onto the banked shoulder, where it was sheared in two, just behind the driver's seat, after slamming into a concrete utility pole.

Bits and pieces of car were left in a trail four football fields long, but, miraculously, Eriksson suffered only a split lip. When the deputies arrived at the scene, he was with a friend, an Irishman named Trevor Karney, and several others.

Eriksson took a Breathalyzer test, which, Brooks said, registered above the legal limit for blood-alcohol level while driving. But since Eriksson said he wasn't driving, that did not appear to be a problem, until the deputies asked who was driving.

Karney told them, according to Brooks, that someone named Dietrich was at the wheel of the Enzo and that it had been racing a silver Mercedes-Benz. Once the Ferrari rolled to a halt, Dietrich supposedly bolted into the adjacent hills, not to be seen again. Karney said he had been in a trailing car.

Eriksson showed the deputies an ID saying he was head of an anti-terrorism police unit, as did two other friends who arrived after the crash.

"I got a call from my guys, and the first thing they said to me was that there were two guys there from Homeland Security -- 'What do we do?' " Martin recalled. "I just said, 'You don't treat them any differently than you normally would. We'll sort it all out down the road. Take care of the crash.' "

Meanwhile, the deputies called for a helicopter and mountain rescue units, but they found no sign of "Dietrich."

What deputies did not know at the time was that Karney had asked the driver of another car that had pulled over if he could borrow a cell phone. Karney sat in the front seat to place his call, Brooks said, and the driver later contacted police with a startling discovery: A fully loaded Glock handgun clip was jammed under his front seat.

When police contacted Karney at the address he had given, they found out it was a luxury yacht -- which had just sailed. The police believe Karney left the country for Ireland.

When they checked out the "Homeland Security" IDs, the police made another odd discovery. Eriksson was a member of a security force for the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority -- a nonprofit organization that used some vans and buses to provide free rides for the elderly and disabled and operated out of a garage called Homer's Auto Service.

"It's not what you think," said Yosuf Maiwandi, who runs the shop and is the head of the bus service.

He explained that it was perfectly legal for a transit authority to register its security unit as a "police" force and provide official-looking ID cards. He said he did it only because as a "police" unit, it was easier to do background checks on drivers. "Everything is legal," he said.

Maiwandi said he met Eriksson -- who immediately made a big impression -- through their mutual attorney, Ashley Posner. A big Rolls-Royce pulled up to his shop -- not a routine sight in the working-class town of Monrovia, where the garage is located -- and Eriksson, a beefy 6-footer, got out.

Eriksson offered to install, for free, an array of high-tech surveillance devices in Maiwandi's buses. That would allow him, he told Maiwandi, to demonstrate his products for prospective investors. In return, Maiwandi let Eriksson join his "police force." Eriksson asked if he could claim to be head of the anti-terrorism section.

"That's the title he chose, so I said, 'Sure,' " Maiwandi said.

Why remains just another mystery. Posner and Eriksson's criminal attorney, David Elden, said that they would not comment on the case and that Eriksson would not comment.

It turned out that Eriksson was something of a car buff with a number of extraordinary automobiles at his $5 million home in a gated neighborhood in Bel-Air. Among them, he kept not one but two Enzos -- the wrecked red model and a black one -- and a souped-up luxury car, a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, worth about $400,000.

Even the ownership of the cars has now been called into question.

Several weeks ago, police in Beverly Hills stopped Eriksson's wife, Nicole Persson, 33, and discovered that she had no driver's license and that the Mercedes McLaren had no U.S. registration. Brooks said police subsequently discovered that the car had been reported stolen in England. And then a British bank got in touch to say it owned the wrecked Enzo.

Brooks said police discovered that Eriksson had imported the two Ferraris and the Mercedes from England last fall through San Diego, but had said they were only for show. Since they had not been modified to comply with American safety and emission codes, they were not legal on U.S. roads.

As the mystery deepened around the crash, a number of Web sites began to focus on Eriksson's involvement with Gizmondo.

Gizmondo managed to pack a lot of action into its relatively brief lifespan. It engaged in a baffling blizzard of transactions that cost the company millions of dollars. Then it abruptly ceased operating last year after it was disclosed that Eriksson and some of his Swedish colleagues had served time in prison, Eriksson reportedly for counterfeiting. One Swedish newspaper described them as members of an organized crime ring.

The tale began a few years ago, when Eriksson, another Swede, Carl Freer, and several others bought a company based in Jacksonville, Fla., called Floor Decor Inc. They sold its assets, renamed it Tiger Telematics and used the company's stock to raise capital and finance Gizmondo, a London-based subsidiary that was developing a handheld computer gaming device. Eriksson and his partners were senior executives in both companies.

According to Tiger's public Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which were reviewed by The Chronicle, Gizmondo paid Freer, Eriksson and other top executives millions of dollars in salaries and provided them with expensive autos. Freer's wife and the girlfriend of another senior executive were put on the payroll with large salaries and no clearly articulated duties.

When Freer ran up a $164,000 personal legal bill, the company paid. Gizmondo also covered a $7.6 million personal debt owed by Freer and Eriksson, according to Tiger's filings.

Eriksson and his colleagues earned even more by having Gizmondo acquire software companies in which they held an interest.

Gizmondo was operated like a booming company. Salaries in the first nine months of 2005 soared to $90 million from $4.9 million in 2004; legal, accounting and consulting costs came to more than $113 million, compared with $11.8 million the previous year. It used money Tiger borrowed or raised by selling stock, and in some instances, it paid salaries and other costs simply by issuing new shares.

Then came the long-awaited introduction last year of the Gizmondo handheld device, which was in direct competition with two industry powerhouses, Nintendo and Sony. It was a spectacular flameout.

Joe Dodson, who reviews games for the Berkeley-based Web site GameRevolution.com, said the kidney-shaped Gizmondo, which was supposed to retail for $400, had a plethora of seemingly useless features, such as a built-in camera and a GPS device. But it had almost no games available.

Gizmondo reported sales of less than $3 million last year. It suffered cumulative losses of more than $382.5 million, according to Tiger's records.

But it is hard to determine how accurate that is, because Tiger's accounting firm, Goldstein Golub Kessler, has refused to certify the results -- in part because of all the transactions Eriksson and the other executives did with other companies they controlled.

Michael Carrender, the chief executive of Tiger Telematics in Jacksonville, said he has handed over some of the company's few remaining assets in a foreclosure proceeding. He is still hoping to find a company that might want to license the Gizmondo technology, but Tiger's stock price has plummeted from more than $30 to less than 10 cents.

Freer and some of the other Gizmondo executives repaid Tiger for some of the personal bills, Carrender said, and all resigned.

People who tried to cash in on the wreck haven't done well. One person sold on eBay a jar filled with some Ferrari debris said to be taken from the Malibu crash site. The winning bid was $5.

Brooks of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said authorities will decide soon if they are going to charge Eriksson with drunken driving or any other crimes. They are fairly certain, he added, that Eriksson was behind the wheel of the Ferrari when it crashed.

E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/09/MNGLKI6FTC1.DTL

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Producer: Film on WWII's official end filled with errors
By
Patrick Gavin
and
Greg Toppo,
USA TODAY
Fri Apr 7, 12:29 PM ET
Editor's note: This article corrects a story published March 13.

An independent short film detailing a curious incident at the end of World War II contains so many errors and fabrications that its executive producer says he has pulled it from a scheduled weekend premiere.


Billed as the true story of how a 16-year-old messenger boy held up the end of the war by stopping for breakfast, The Messenger was scheduled to be shown at this weekend's Philadelphia Film Festival. But producer Pat Croce on March 27 scuttled the debut after receiving word from the film's 25-year-old director, Quincy Perkins, that the filmmaker had fabricated parts of the story, including the death of its subject.
"I feel like I got kicked in the stomach," Croce said in an interview. He had invested about $100,000 in the project. "Almost 100 grand I lost. I could be using that for a foundation or charity or something. I thought I was doing good."

As depicted in The Messenger, featured in a March 14 story in USA TODAY, Thomas E. Jones was charged with delivering a cable to President Harry Truman at the White House in August 1945, confirming Japan's World War II surrender. In the 16-minute film, Jones is portrayed as being unaware of the envelope's blockbuster contents and delaying the end of the war, first by having pancakes at a diner where he flirts with girls and then by being pulled over by a Washington, D.C., policeman for an illegal U-turn.

DVD press materials for the film show a man purported to be the real Jones recalling a police escort to the White House, where he meets "Harry Truman himself," who takes the letter from him.

"He took it and shook my hand and thanked me, and then they went back into their office or somewhere," he says to an off-camera interviewer.

It turns out that Perkins made up the escort, the encounter with Truman, the trip to the White House and the pancakes - he even hired an actor to play an elderly Jones for documentary-style footage, according to Croce.

In The Messenger, the actor delivers the tale from his San Francisco hospital "deathbed." In the closing credits, Perkins dedicates the film to Jones, who, he says, died in 2005.

Jones is alive and quite well, a retired phone company technician, silver-haired and happily living with his wife, Nancy, in a small suburban cottage in Rockville, Md., north of Washington, D.C.

"I have had a lot of health problems because I'm 77, and I've had a heart bypass," says the father of six. "But I'm feeling better now."

He says Perkins never contacted him.

The first he'd heard of the pancakes, the deathbed and the rest? Two weeks ago, after a niece, listening to the radio, caught a reference to the film after USA TODAY wrote about it. His kids Googled it and learned of coverage by other newspapers. Then they tracked down the filmmaker, who finally confessed to Croce last week.

Jones says the kernel of the story is true: A D.C. policeman pulled over the car that a companion was driving that fateful day - they'd made an illegal U-turn on Connecticut Avenue, a few blocks from the White House. The driver initially thought they were headed there, but their destination was actually the Swiss Legation (embassy), in the other direction - thus the U-turn.

While the top-secret message inside the envelope was encoded, Jones says they both knew what it said. And perhaps most significantly: There were no pancakes.

"We delivered the message at four o'clock in the afternoon," he says. "And we knew at the office that it had to do with the Japanese surrender. There wasn't any lollygagging around. It was, 'Take this and go.' "

And he never met Truman.

Sitting in their dining room amid a small stack of yellowed clippings, Jones and his wife say they won't take legal action against the filmmaker. "We'll let it sit by itself," he says.

His wife adds, "Frankly the kids are more incensed about it than he and I are."

Victoria Jones, Thomas' daughter, says, "The thing that is surprising to us is my father would have been very easy to find."

He has lived in the same house for the past 46 years. "He has gotten a couple of calls over the years about this and he's always happy to answer some questions."

In a statement e-mailed Friday, Perkins apologized to the Jones family "for any pain that this film or the recent articles have caused them."

He adds that he "did not mean to declare as fact that the real life Thomas ate pancakes nor that Thomas would have knowingly jeopardized the lives of hundreds of thousands to stop and eat them."

Perkins says he "made substantial efforts to locate and secure an on-camera interview with the real life Thomas E. Jones," but eventually was "led to believe by examination of credible documentation that he was likely deceased."

He adds, "While this film is premised upon a true historical event, it is not a documentary and is not a dramatization. As with all films premised upon historical events, the filmmaker's creative interpretation is imparted to hopefully create an interesting piece of art."

He also apologizes to Croce "for anything that I may have done or said that may have mislead (sic) him to believe that the actor depicting Mr. Jones was the actual individual," but press materials say Perkins "managed to track down a surprised Jones via telephone, residing in Allentown, Pa." He says Jones told him he was "waiting 50 years for someone to call."

Perhaps Croce is more incensed than anyone. A one-time part-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, he financed the film as a favor to Perkins, the son of a friend.

He says he's most angered by the film's final segment, which features an elderly "Jones" in a hospital bed, telling his incredible tale as the credits roll.

Croce says Perkins duped him and the rest of the cast and crew into believing that he had conducted the "deathbed interview" prior to Jones' Dec. 31, 2005 "passing."

As to why Perkins relied on an actor, Croce says, "The only thing he said to me was (that) he thought that Thomas E. Jones was dead. Still, it's no excuse for fabricating an interview with an actor."

http://news.yahoo.com/
.

[Saundra Hummer]

............. IN THE NEWS: A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic;
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story (link on-site)"Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a 'concerted action' by 'multiple people in the White House' -- using classified information -- to 'discredit, punish or seek revenge against' a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq."
-- Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, April 9, 2006

Bush Authorized Leak to Times, Libby Told Grand Jury (link on-site)
"A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush"
-- Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, April 6, 2006

Libby Pressured McClellan To Issue Statement 'Exonerating Him' (link on-site)
"'Scooter Libby “implored White House officials to have a public statement issued exonerating him' even though 'had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment.'"
-- via ThinkProgress.org, April 6, 2006

Libby's Lawyers Call for Case Dismissal (link on-site)
"Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is narrowing the description of his powers in an effort to counter calls for dismissal of the criminal case he brought against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, defense lawyers said Friday." (Note: The Washington Post story has no comment from the Special Counsel's office)
-- Pete Yost, Washington Post, March 31, 2006

Libby Trial May Be Embarrassment for Bush (link on-site)
"Court papers filed late Friday raise the possibility a trial could become politically embarrassing for the Bush administration by focusing on the debate about whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003."

News outlets subpoenaed in CIA leak case (link on-site)
"The New York Times, NBC News and a lawyer for a Time magazine reporter said they received subpoenas from the defense team for Libby, once chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The Washington Post said it expected to receive a subpoena as well."

Judge Says Libby Can See Bush Briefings (link on-site)
"The ruling is a partial victory for Libby, who is charged with lying in the investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity....Any classified evidence that Libby wants to use must be approved by the judge after a secret vetting process established by Congress to ensure protection of government secrets."

Libby Responds to Fitzgerald's CIA Filing (link on-site)
"Libby intentionally misled investigators and the grand jury in an attempt to protect Cheney (see the timeline here), never dreaming that the reporters would be subpoenaed, and now in hindsight is trying to reconstruct not his memory but an alternative explanation for having lied."

Libby Defense Request Strongly Resisted by CIA (link on-site)
"In court papers, Fitzgerald has accused Libby's defense team of engaging in graymail -- demanding unobtainable legal documents to terminate a court proceeding."

Conflict of interest at WETA (link on-site)
"WETA produces the NewsHour and Washington Week in Review. Is it proper that a member of the Board of Trustee to be mixed up in something like this? The NewsHour is watched by the entire diplomatic corps, allied and hostile. It is watched by the foreign press. How does this look to the world?"

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel (link on-site)
"Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction..."

Arianna Huffington: The Full Disclosure Tucker Carlson Isn't Making (link on-site)
"...[Tucker Carlson's] father, Richard Carlson, is on the advisory committee of the Libby Legal Defense Trust, the GOP-heavy-hitter-laden group that has so far raised $2 million."

Read the Injunction (United States VS Scooter Libby) HERE:LINK ON-SITE
Friends of Scooter Libby Launch Web Site, Want Your Money (link on-site)
Media Channel, NY - Feb 22, 2006
... the highlight of the site (www.scooterlibby.org) is a section that, implicitly blasts the media, called “What You Aren’t Hearing About Scooter Libby.”. ...

Scooter Libby Launches Website (link on-site)
Human Events - Feb 21, 2006
... For the past five years, Scooter Libby served selflessly as an Assistant to President Bush and as the Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to Vice ...

Fred Thompson to raise funds for Scooter Libby defense (link on-site)
WBIR-TV, TN - Feb 23, 2006
... Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson will help raise funds for the defense of Vice President Dick Cheney's indicted former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. ...

Scooter Libby’s Home Page (link on-site)
Wonkette (satire), DC - Feb 21, 2006
Should we ever appear on Celebrity Jeopardy, we have our charity all picked out: The Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust, sure to be topping everyone's year-end ... (link on-site)

Scooter Libby's Graymail (link on-site)
Yahoo! News - Feb 17, 2006
Last week, I suggested that Scooter Libby might be trying to orchestrate a "graymail" defense--which is based on the implied threat of blowing national ...

And that is Cheney's replacement for Scooter Libby as his Chief-of ... (link on-site)
Huffington Post, NY - Feb 16, 2006
... The simple answer is that he's Vice President Cheney's former legal counsel and, since the indictment and resignation of Scooter Libby in October, Cheney's ...

Carl Cameron Uses Scooter Libby As One Excuse Of Why The Vice ... (link on-site)
News Hounds, CA - Feb 14, 2006
... Of course Scooter Libby has got legal problems and is not around. (Comment: Do you really want to go there, Carl?) In addition to ...

Fred Thompson offers help to Libby defense (link on-site)
Scripps Howard News Service, DC - Feb 22, 2006
... Lewis "Scooter" Libby, facing trial in January, was indicted in October on five felony counts involving obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements ...

Will Scooter LibbyGraymail the CIA?
(link on-site)
Yahoo! News - Feb 7, 2006
... Still, Libby seems close to making this sort of push. ... But Libby may not stop at PDBs, the CIA damage assessment and information pertaining to Valerie Wilson. ...

Judge OKs press subpoenas in CIA leak case (link on-site)
WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case said Monday that lawyers on both sides in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby ...

Scooter Libby Wants Your Money (link on-site)
Slate - 18 hours ago
By John Dickerson. Scooter Libby has a Web site. He's not running for office, but the site makes it looks like he is. The lead picture ...

Passing the hat for Libby (link on-site)
Boston Globe, United States - Feb 27, 2006
By Nina Easton, Globe Staff | February 26, 2006. The legal defense fund for I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's ...

Identity of Official to Be Kept From Libby (link on-site)
CBS News - Feb 25, 2006
(AP) Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government official ...

Libby gets his shot at reporters (link on-site)
American Thinker, AZ - 12 hours ago
This account offers few details of the judge’s order and makes one puzzling assertion—that Fitzgerald was seeking to subpoena reporters, too, when I see no ...

Libby case update (link on-site)
American Thinker, AZ - 18 hours ago
You cannot rely on the antique media to give an appropriately detailed report of what is happening in the Libby case. Luckily Bryon ...

Fitzgerald Says Plame Irrelevant To Libby Prosecution (link on-site)
The Conservative Voice, NC - 23 hours ago
By Sher Zieve – The original lawsuit against former aide to VP Cheney Lewis “Scooter” Libby was that Libby had leaked information that resulted in the ...

A CIA Leak Trial Without the CIA Leak (link on-site)
National Review Online, NY - Feb 27, 2006
CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argued at a hearing Friday that, as far as the perjury charges against former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby are ...


Monitor Monitor Tracking the news - the latest developments and ... (link on-site)
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA - Feb 26, 2006
The Latest: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald returned to court Friday. Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled ...

Libby's Team to Subpoena Media (link on-site)
NewsMax.com, FL - Feb 25, 2006
Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby say they soon plan to subpoena reporters and news organizations, and a federal judge has set the stage for a showdown in ...

Federal judge grants Libby access to personal notes (link on-site)
Feb 25, 2006
US District Judge Reggie B. Walton Friday granted defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby JURIST news ...

Libby can't be told suspected leaker's name (link on-site)
First Amendment Center, TN
By The Associated Press. WASHINGTON — Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak ...

Ex-White House aide loses -- and wins -- on evidence requests (link on-site)
North County Times, CA - Feb 25, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government ... (link on-site)

Friends of Scooter Libby Launch Web Site, Want Your Money (link on-site)
Media Channel, NY - Feb 22, 2006
... the highlight of the site (www.scooterlibby.org) is a section that, implicitly blasts the media, called “What You Aren’t Hearing About Scooter Libby.”. ...

Scooter Libby Launches Website (link on-site)
Human Events - Feb 21, 2006
... For the past five years, Scooter Libby served selflessly as an Assistant to President Bush and as the Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to Vice ...

Fred Thompson to raise funds for Scooter Libby defense (links on-site)
WBIR-TV, TN - Feb 23, 2006
... Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson will help raise funds for the defense of Vice President Dick Cheney's indicted former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. ...

Libby knew CIA spy by name before it was published, filing shows (links on-site)
Handwritten notes taken by the CIA show Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide knew the name of CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson a month before her cover was blown. It appears to be the first known document in the hands of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that directly contradicts Lewis "Scooter" Libby's claim he learned from reporters in July 2003 that Valerie Wilson was a CIA employee.

Judge in Libby Case Seeks Middle Ground (links on-site)
A federal judge signaled Monday that he is seeking ways to provide Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff general descriptions of highly classified documents to use in his defense against perjury charges.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton issued an order significantly curtailing the number of intelligence summaries that he might order the Bush administration to turn over to lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.


Scooter Libby’s Home Page (link on-site)
Wonkette (satire), DC - Feb 21, 2006
Should we ever appear on Celebrity Jeopardy, we have our charity all picked out: The Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust, sure to be topping everyone's year-end ...

Scooter Libby's Graymail (link on-site)
Yahoo! News - Feb 17, 2006
Last week, I suggested that Scooter Libby might be trying to orchestrate a "graymail" defense--which is based on the implied threat of blowing national ...

And that is Cheney's replacement for Scooter Libby as his Chief-of ... (link on-site)
Huffington Post, NY - Feb 16, 2006
... The simple answer is that he's Vice President Cheney's former legal counsel and, since the indictment and resignation of Scooter Libby in October, Cheney's ...

Carl Cameron Uses Scooter Libby As One Excuse Of Why The Vice ... Link on-site)
News Hounds, CA - Feb 14, 2006
... Of course Scooter Libby has got legal problems and is not around. (Comment: Do you really want to go there, Carl?) In addition to ...

Fred Thompson offers help to Libby defense (link on-site)
Scripps Howard News Service, DC - Feb 22, 2006
... Lewis "Scooter" Libby, facing trial in January, was indicted in October on five felony counts involving obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements ...

Will Scooter Libby Graymail the CIA? (link on-site)
Yahoo! News - Feb 7, 2006
... Still, Libby seems close to making this sort of push. ... But Libby may not stop at PDBs, the CIA damage assessment and information pertaining to Valerie Wilson. ...

Libby's Lawyers Say Prosecutor Acted Unconstitutionally (Go on-site)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 — Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide asked a
federal judge on Thursday to dismiss his indictment, saying the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak
case lacked the authority to bring the charges. Lawyers for the former aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr.,
said his indictment violated the Constitution because the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald,
was not appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. They added that the appointment violated federal law because the attorney general did not supervise the investigation. Only Congress, the lawyers said, can approve such an arrangement.

Ex-Cheney Aide Testified Leak Was Ordered, Prosecutor Says (link on-site)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury that he was authorized by his "superiors" to disclose classified information to reporters about Iraq's weapons capability in June and July 2003, according to a document filed by a federal prosecutor.

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney's Rolelink on-site)
Sunday, November 13, 2005; In the opening days of the CIA leak investigation in early October 2003, FBI agents working the case already had in their possession a wealth of valuable evidence. There were White House phone and visitor logs, which clearly documented the administration's contacts with reporters.And they had something that law enforcement officials would later describe as their "guidebook" for the opening phase of the investigation: the daily, diary-like notes compiled by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, that chronicled crucial events inside the White House in the weeks before the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame was publicly disclosed.

White House Won't Rule Out Presidential Pardon for Libby (link on-site)
The White House refused Tuesday to rule out a presidential pardon for Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
the former vice presidential aide indicted for allegedly obstructing a grand jury investigation
into the White House unmasking of a secret CIA officer.

On Scooter Libby and His White House Friends - David Addington to Replace Libby
“Cheney has tried to increase executive power with a series of bold actions -- some
so audacious that even conservatives on the Supreme Court sympathetic to Cheney's
view have rejected them as overreaching. The vice president's point man in this is longtime
aide David Addington, who serves as Cheney's top lawyer.

Where there has been controversy over the past four years, there has often been Addington. He was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects. He was a
prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts.”


WHILE THIS IS A SERIOUS SUBJECT YOU CAN CLICK ANY LINK, PHOTO OR GRAPHIC FOR MORE INFORMATION AND/OR FUN THROUGHOUT THE SITE. (Go on-site to do this)

Judge OKs press subpoenas in CIA leak case (link on-site)
WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case said Monday that lawyers on both sides in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby ...

Scooter Libby Wants Your Money (link on-site)
Slate - 18 hours ago
By John Dickerson. Scooter Libby has a Web site. He's not running for office, but the site makes it looks like he is. The lead picture ...

Passing the hat for Libby (link on-site)
Boston Globe, United States - Feb 27, 2006
By Nina Easton, Globe Staff | February 26, 2006. The legal defense fund for I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's ...

Identity of Official to Be Kept From Libby (link on-site)
CBS News - Feb 25, 2006
(AP) Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government official ...

Libby gets his shot at reporters (link on-site)
American Thinker, AZ - 12 hours ago
This account offers few details of the judge’s order and makes one puzzling assertion—that Fitzgerald was seeking to subpoena reporters, too, when I see no ...

Libby case update (link on-site)
American Thinker, AZ - 18 hours ago
You cannot rely on the antique media to give an appropriately detailed report of what is happening in the Libby case. Luckily Bryon ...

Fitzgerald Says Plame Irrelevant To Libby Prosecution (link on-site)
The Conservative Voice, NC - 23 hours ago
By Sher Zieve – The original lawsuit against former aide to VP Cheney Lewis “Scooter” Libby was that Libby had leaked information that resulted in the ...

A CIA Leak Trial Without the CIA Leak (link on-site)
National Review Online, NY - Feb 27, 2006
CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argued at a hearing Friday that, as far as the perjury charges against former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby are ...

Monitor Monitor Tracking the news - the latest developments and ... (link on-site)
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA - Feb 26, 2006
The Latest: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald returned to court Friday. Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled ...

Libby's Team to Subpoena Media (link on-site)
NewsMax.com, FL - Feb 25, 2006
Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby say they soon plan to subpoena reporters and news organizations, and a federal judge has set the stage for a showdown in ...

Federal judge grants Libby access to personal notes (link on-site)
Feb 25, 2006
US District Judge Reggie B. Walton Friday granted defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby JURIST news ...

Libby can't be told suspected leaker's name (link on-site)
First Amendment Center, TN
By The Associated Press. WASHINGTON — Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak ...

Ex-White House aide loses -- and wins -- on evidence requests (Link on-site)
North County Times, CA - Feb 25, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government ...


DONATE HERE INSTEAD:
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Alliance for Justice

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AfterDowningStreet.org

American Civil Liberties Union

Thank You...........
LIBBY SUPPORTERS:

The PretzelDunce

Bang, You're dead.

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Ack, Ack, ACK Ack!

Is Rove Next?

Watch what you say, unless you are Libby of course.

WORRY.

This website has no financial or personal connection to the defense fund for the man, Scooter Libby, who betrayed a CIA operative using classified information and betrayed the national Security of the United States of America. This site is to help direct people to organizations and causes that will help protect Americans, instead of taking actions -- as Scooter Libby did -- that threaten the citizens of the United States of America.

This site is sponsored as a public service on behalf of America's national security by BuzzFlash.com and TakeBackTheMedia.com
http://www.libbydefensefund.com/news.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

.~.~.~.
Gangster Government --
A Leaky President Runs Afoul of
"Little Rico"
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast
Exclusive to BuzzFlash.com
It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual, 'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you.
OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a bigger crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail.

Think about that. While Miller sat in a prison cell, Bush and Cheney were laughing their sick heads off, knowing the grand jury testimony, the special prosecutor's subpoenas and the FBI's terrorizing newsrooms were nothing but fake props in Bush's elaborate charade, Cheney's Big Con.

On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, "Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it."

Notice Bush's cleverly crafted words. He says he can't name anyone who leaked this "classified" info -- knowing full well he'd de-classified it. Far from letting Bush off the hook, it worsens the crime. For years, I worked as a government investigator and, let me tell you, Bush and Cheney withholding material information from the grand jury is a felony. Several felonies, actually: abuse of legal process, fraud, racketeering and, that old standby, obstruction of justice.

If you or I had manipulated the legal system this way, we'd be breaking rocks on a chain gang. We wouldn't even get a trial -- most judges would consider this a "fraud upon the court" and send us to the slammer in minutes using the bench's power to administer instant punishment for contempt of the judicial system.

Why'd they do it? The White House junta did the deed for the most evil of motives: to hoodwink the public during the 2004 election campaign, to pretend that evil anti-Bush elements were undermining the Republic, when it was the Bush element itself at the center of the conspiracy. (Notably, elections trickery also motivated Richard Nixon's "plumbers" to break into the Watergate, then the Democratic Party campaign headquarters.)

Let me draft the indictment for you as I would have were I still a government gumshoe:

"Perpetrator Lewis Libby (alias, 'Scooter') contacted Miller; while John Doe 1 contacted perpetrators' shill at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, in furtherance of a scheme directed by George Bush (alias 'The POTUS') and Dick Cheney (alias, 'The Veep') to release intelligence information fraudulently proffered as 'classified,' and thereinafter, knowingly withheld material evidence from a grand jury empanelled to investigate said disclosure. Furthermore, perpetrator 'The POTUS' made material statements designed to deceive investigators and knowingly misrepresent his state of knowledge of the facts."

Statements aimed at misleading grand jury investigators are hard-time offenses. It doesn't matter that Bush's too-clever little quip was made to the press and not under oath. I've cited press releases and comments in the New York Times in court as evidence of fraud. By not swearing to his disingenuous statement, Bush gets off the perjury hook, but he committed a crime nonetheless, "deliberate concealment."

Here's how the law works (and hopefully, it will). The Bush gang's use of the telephone in this con game constituted wire fraud. Furthermore, while presidents may leak ("declassify") intelligence information, they may not obstruct justice; that is, send a grand jury on a wild goose chase. Under the 'RICO' statute (named after the Edward G. Robinson movie mobster, 'Little Rico'), the combination of these crimes makes the Bush executive branch a "racketeering enterprise."

So, book'm, Dan-o. Time to read The POTUS and The Veep their rights.

After setting their bail (following the impeachments and removals, of course), a judge will have a more intriguing matter to address. The RICO law requires the Feds to seize all "ill-gotten gains" of a racketeering enterprise, even before trial. Usually we're talking fast cars and diamond bling. But in this case, the conspirators' purloined booty includes a stolen election and a fraudulently obtained authorization for war. I see no reason why a judge could not impound the 82d Airborne as "fruits of the fraud " -- lock, stock and gun barrels -- and bring the boys home.

And if justice is to be done we will will also have to run yellow tape across the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- "CRIME SCENE - DO NOT ENTER" -- and return the White House to its rightful owners, the American people, the victims of this gangster government. A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Former racketeering investigator Greg Palast is author of "ARMED MADHOUSE: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War," to be released in June. Subscribe to our new podcast of these columns at
http://www.gregpalast.com/gregpalastmedia.rss .~.

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Sunday, Apr. 09, 2006
"Why I Think Rumsfeld Must Go"
A military insider sounds off against the war and the "zealots" who pushed it
By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)
Two senior military officers are known to have challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the planning of the Iraq war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a full-throated critique:
In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem Won't Get Fooled Again. To most in my generation, the song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders, who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture—who became career members of the military during those rough times—the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again. From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq—an unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long enough.

I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.

With the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't—or don't have the opportunity to—speak. Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.

Before the antiwar banners start to unfurl, however, let me make clear—I am not opposed to war. I would gladly have traded my general's stars for a captain's bars to lead our troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And while I don't accept the stated rationale for invading Iraq, my view—at the moment—is that a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake. It would send a signal, heard around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists' message that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to change my position.

I will admit my own prejudice: my deep affection and respect are for those who volunteer to serve our nation and therefore shoulder, in those thin ranks, the nation's most sacred obligation of citizenship. To those of you who don't know, our country has never been served by a more competent and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "we" made the "right strategic decisions" but made thousands of "tactical errors" is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.

Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have believed that the principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent. The consequence of the military's quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort. There have been exceptions, albeit uncommon, to the rule of silence among military leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, when challenged to offer his professional opinion during prewar congressional testimony, suggested that more troops might be needed for the invasion's aftermath. The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense castigated him in public and marginalized him in his remaining months in his post. Army General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, has been forceful in his views with appointed officials on strategy and micromanagement of the fight in Iraq—often with success. Marine Commandant General Mike Hagee steadfastly challenged plans to underfund, understaff and underequip his service as the Corps has struggled to sustain its fighting capability.

To be sure, the Bush Administration and senior military officials are not alone in their culpability. Members of Congress—from both parties—defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight to their views. These are the same news organizations that now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.

So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces. That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we need people in Washington who can construct a unified strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1181587,00.html .

[Saundra Hummer]

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WASHINGTON HASN'T A CLUE ABOUT IMMIGRATION
By
Richard Reeves
Fri Apr 7, 8:06 PM ET

COACHELLA, Calif. -- I went from coast to coast across the United States last week and saw a lot of things and a lot of people: a lot of immigrants, legal and illegal, in California and Texas, a lot of fools and frauds in Washington.

This town of 30,000 people was the end of my trail, 2,500 miles west of Washington and 40 miles north of Mexico. Ninety-seven percent of the people here are Hispanic, most of them Mexican or Mexican-American. The Town Council has voted to make Coachello a "sanctuary," meaning that local police will be ordered not to enforce federal immigration laws if illegal immigration is made a felony instead of a civil offense punishable only by immediate deportation.
In between, I was in Los Angeles, where 500,000 people totally surprised city police by peacefully marching through downtown to protest proposals to put more walls along the California-Mexico border and make it a crime to be or to aid an illegal immigrant. The surprise was a result of the fact that city officials were not listening to the Spanish-language radio stations organizing the giant demonstration of Chicano Power.

I was in Miami, the capital of Latin America, where they say the United States begins in Fort Lauderdale. I stopped in Dallas, too, where high school students left their classrooms to march on City Hall for the same reasons.

In Washington, I was there when members of Congress held a press conference at which Rep. Steve King (news, bio, voting record), an Iowa Republican, stood before a pulpit decorated by a sign that said, "Just Say No to Amnesty," meaning that the 11 million or 12 million Mexicans living and working in the United States without proper documentation should be sent back where they came from. That would take a lot of pickup trucks.

"Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill," said King, "deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter 'A'." That would take a lot of branding irons.

Back to the Coachella Valley, which is part of Riverside County east of Los Angeles. The best-known place in the valley is Palm Springs. There are, according to official figures that probably don't mean much, 233,000 undocumented aliens in the county. There is no figure for the valley itself, which has a year-round population of 285,000, with 100,000 more coming for the sun each winter. But there is a widespread feeling that without "illegals," there would be no valley to speak of anyway.

This is from the local newspaper, The Desert Sun:

"'If we are not here, the very nice area will disappear,' said Sostenes Abalos, owner of SOS Cleaning & Maintenance in Cathedral City, which employs eight. The 41-year-old Abalos jumped the fence at the Mexican border 21 years ago, after paying a smuggler $40. He became a U.S. citizen earlier this year, fearing potential changes coming to immigration laws."Life is different in Southern California, beginning with the fact that middle-class people have servants, underpaid, undocumented, intimidated and desperate Hispanics who build and clean their houses, tend their gardens and care for their children. Folks here, the Anglos, will often speak out against illegal immigration, but it would be foolish to believe they mean it.

The long border between a poor country and a rich one has created situations that are misunderstood in many other parts of the country, including Washington, D.C. The ties that bind and the pressures that separate across that border cannot be unbound or relieved by lawmakers or more fences.

Looking north and east to the capital from here, the press conferences and the compromises seem not only distant but irrelevant to the facts on the ground, including these:

Americans, particularly in the Western states, are addicted to the benfits of immigrant labor, beginning with cheap help around the house and cheaper food prices in markets and restaurants.

The United States needs young people, and Mexico has them. There are only 1.5 Americans under 14 for every one over 65. In Mexico, that ratio is 7-to-1, and many of them are coming here to pay your Social Security.

Legal, documented Mexicans in the United States are related to the undocumentated "illegals." And families stick together.

New walls make things worse because they discourage undocumented workers from going home to Mexico and Central America and then trying to get back in, fostering family breakdown on both sides of the border.

None of this is likely to change until there is more income parity between the national neighbors. Americans make four times and more what Mexicans make. My friend Andres Oppenheimer, the Latin American columnist of The Miami Herald, who has looked at similar situations around the world, says the flow of the poor coming north will end only when that ratio gets close to 2-to-1. And that will take a long time -- or it may never happen, and this problem will be debated and fudged by politicians for our lifetimes.

An OP ED on YAHOO
http://news.yahoo.com/

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Kill Cravings With These Foods
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By Amy Paturel, M.S., M.P.H.If you just can't curb the urge to wolf down chocolate or cookies, you should head straight to the kitchen. That's right. Because even though mindless noshing packs on the pounds like no other pastime, some foods can make a definite dent in your need to nibble.
According to registered dietitian Milton Stokes, eating low-calorie, fiber-rich foods before a meal (salads, soup and fruits) may prevent a dieter from submitting to an all out gorge-fest. But some of the best appetite killers are nibbles that might be hiding in plain sight in your kitchen right now:

Nuts: New research shows the fatty acids in pine nuts initiate the release of an appetite-suppressing hormone called cholecystokinin (CKK). According to Stokes, it’s too soon to tell if these results will stand up. In the meantime, sprinkle pine nuts on your salad or mix them into pesto over whole wheat pasta. Want a more accessible nut? Try almonds. People who consume these nutrient powerhouses lose more weight and fat mass than those who don’t. Why? The cell walls of almonds seem to act as a physical barrier to the total absorption of fat.

Hot Stuff: Spicy foods have a metabolism-boosting benefit and can dull your taste buds so you're apt to eat less. Even foods that are hot in temperature -- like tea and soup -- may diminish your appetite. Just make sure your soup is tomato or broth-based (not cream!) and your tea isn’t of the sugary variety (beware commercial flavored types like Chai). In fact, if you go green, your tea may actually give your metabolism a boost, too.

Apples: Apples pack a lot of fiber -- twice as much in every bite as peaches, grapes and grapefruit. Fiber helps turn on the fullness switch and prevents you from overeating. Get into the habit of eating an apple before dinner. Chances are, you’ll eat less of your meal as the fiber starts to kick in.

Milk: Research shows that dairy foods promote weight loss, but the mechanism isn’t fully understood yet. "It looks like calcium helps break down the fat in cells," says Stokes. "But getting calcium from real dairy foods, like low-fat or nonfat milk or yogurt, help more than taking supplements."

Green Leaves: Two cups of cabbage, celery or lettuce provides almost no calories. And in most cases, you burn off the greens just by digesting them. Pickles and cucumbers count in this category, too.

If snacking doesn’t do the trick, sniffing might. According to Alan Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell and Taste Research Foundation in Chicago, just a whiff of green apple, banana and peppermint might help you drop some weight.

What's Next? See what lurks in The Fridge..http://diets.aol.com/newsandtrends/appetite-suppressants...

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...........Walnuts
There is no better snack or easier way to add extra nutrition, flavor and crunch to a meal than by adding a handful of walnuts. While walnuts are harvested in December, they are available year-round to help us get those all important omega 3 fatty acids.

It is no surprise that the regal and delicious walnut comes from an ornamental tree that is highly prized for its beauty. The walnut kernel consists of two bumpy lobes that look like abstract butterflies. The lobes are off white in color and covered by a thin, light brown skin. They are partially attached to each other. The kernels are enclosed in round or oblong shells that are brown in color and very hard.
History Health Benefits ...
How to Select and Store
How to Enjoy
Safety
Nutritional Profile
References
Health Benefits
When it comes to their health benefits, walnuts definitely are not a hard nut to crack. This delicious nut is an excellent source of omega-3 essential fatty acids, a special type of protective fat the body cannot manufacture. Walnuts' concentration of omega-3s (a quarter-cup provides 90.8% of the daily value for these essential fats) has many potential health benefits ranging from cardiovascular protection, to the promotion of better cognitive function, to anti-inflammatory benefits helpful in asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis. In addition, walnuts contain an antioxidant compound called ellagic acid that supports the immune system and appears to have several anticancer properties. Take Walnuts to Heart
Adding walnuts to your diet can be an important step in improving your cardiovascular health. Walnuts are an important source of monounsaturated fats-- approximately 15% of the fat found in walnuts is healthful monounsaturated fat. A host of studies have shown that increasing the dietary intake of monounsaturated-dense walnuts has favorable effects on high cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors. One particular study compared the effects of a cholesterol-lowering Mediterranean diet with an adjusted Mediterrenean diet in which 35% of the calories derived from monounsaturated fats came from walnuts. When following the walnut-rich diet, the 49 study participants were found to have lower levels of total cholesterol, LDL (the dangerous form) cholesterol and Lp(a) ("lipoprotein a," another lipid compound that increases blood clotting and, when elevated, is considered a risk factor for atherosclerosis).

In addition to their heart-protective monounsaturated fats, walnuts' concentration of omega-3 essential fatty acids is also responsible for the favorable effects walnut consumption produces on cardiovascular risk factors. Omega-3s benefit the cardiovascular system by helping to prevent erratic heart rhythms, making blood less likely to clot inside arteries (which is the proximate cause of most heart attacks), and improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to potentially harmful (LDL) cholesterol. Omega-3s also reduce inflammation, which is a key component in the processes that turn cholesterol into artery-clogging plaques. Since walnuts contain relatively high levels of l-arginine, an essential amino acid, they may also be of special import when it comes to hypertension. In the body (specifically within those hard-working blood vessels), l-arginine is converted into nitric oxide, a chemical that helps keep the inner walls of blood vessels smooth and allows blood vessels to relax. Since individuals with hypertension have a harder time maintaining normal nitric oxide levels, which may also relate to other significant health issues such as diabetes and heart problems, walnuts can serve as a great addition to their diets.

A study published in the August 2003 issue of Phytochemistry sheds further light on walnuts’ cardioprotective benefits. Earlier research had already suggested that several polyphenolic compounds found in walnuts, specifically ellagic and gallic acid, possessed antioxidant activity sufficient to inhibit free radical damage to LDL cholesterol. In this new study, researchers identified 16 polyphenols, including three new tannins, with antioxidant activity so protective they describe it as “remarkable”.

Walnuts improve cardiovascular function by a variety of mechanisms, suggests a study conducted at the Lipid Clinic in Barcelona, Spain, and published in the April 2004 issue of Circulation.

For four weeks, 21 men and women with high cholesterol followed either a regular, low-calorie Mediterranean diet or one in which walnuts were substituted for about one-third of the calories supplied by olives, olive and other monounsaturated fats in the Mediterranean diet. Then, for a second four weeks, they switched over to the diet they had not yet been on.

Not only did the walnut diet significantly reduce total cholesterol (a drop that ranged from 4.4 to 7.4%) and LDL (bad) cholesterol (a drop ranging from 6.4 to 10%), but walnuts were also found to increase the elasticity of the arteries by 64%, and to reduce levels of vascular cell adhesion molecules, a key player in the development of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).

The researchers found that the drop in cholesterol correlated with increases in blood levels of alpha-linolenic acid, a key essential fatty acid from which omega 3 fats can be derived, and gamma-tocopherol, a form of vitamin E. Walnuts are uniquely rich in both of these nutrients, which have shown heart protective benefits in other studies.

The Food and Drug Administration has recently cleared the health claim that “eating 1.5 ounces per day of walnuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.” "This is the first time a whole food, not its isolated components, has shown this beneficial effect on vascular health," said Emilio Ros, who led the study at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona.

Walnuts Improve Cholesterol Profile in Persons with Type 2 Diabetes
In patients with type 2 diabetes, including a daily ounce of walnuts in a diet in which 30% of calories came from fat translated into a significant improvement in subjects' cholesterol profile.

In this study, published in the December 2004 issue of Diabetes Care, 58 men and women with an average age of 59 years, were assigned to one of three diets in which 30% of calories was derived from fat: a low fat diet, a modified low fat diet, and a modified low fat diet including an ounce of walnuts per day.

After 6 months, those on the walnut diet had achieved a significantly greater increase in their HDL-to-total cholesterol ratio than the other groups, plus walnut eaters saw a 10% reduction in their LDL cholesterol. Why such benefit from walnuts? Most likely because walnuts are exceptionally high in their content of monounsaturated fat and the omega-3 fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid. Plus, walnuts combine these heart healthy fats with a hefty dose of the antioxidants including at least 16 antioxidant phenols, vitamin E, ellagic and gallic acid.

Additional research has confirmed that when walnuts are eaten as part of a modified low-fat diet, the result is a more cardiprotective fat profile in diabetic patients than can be achieved by simply lowering the fat content of the diet. In a study published in the July 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, all 55 study participants with type 2 diabetes were put on low fat diets, but the only group to achieve a cardioprotective fat profile (less than 10% of calories from saturated fat, 7-10% of calories from polyunsaturated fats, adequate omega-3 fats, and an omega-6:omega-3 ratio of less than 10) were those who ate walnuts (30 grams—about one ounce—per day).
Walnuts Found to Reduce Levels of Several Molecules that Promote Atherosclerosis
In addition to walnuts' beneficial effects on cholesterol, more insight into the reasons why walnuts reduce the risk of coronary heart disease were revealed in research published in the November 2004 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

The study involved 20 overweight or obese men, 30 to 60 years old, and 3 menopausal women, aged 55-65, all of whom had elevated LDL cholesterol levels. Each subject was assigned to one of the three diets on a rotating six-week basis with a two-week break between each one. The average American diet served as the control diet, while the two experimental diets were a linoleic acid (LA) diet that included an ounce of walnuts and a teaspoon of walnut oil daily, and an alpha-linoleic acid diet (ALA), which added a teaspoon of flaxseed oil, which is especially high in ALA, to the linoleic diet.
Both experimental diets resulted in positive effects, with the ALA diet providing the most benefit. In addition to lowering LDL cholesterol, the walnut-rich ALA diet: lowered levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation strongly associated with atherosclerosis and heart disease
increased levels of the protective omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), (both omega-3 fats can be synthesized in the body from ALA), and
decreased levels of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 and E-selection, all of which are involved in cholesterol's adhesion to the endothelium (the lining of the arteries).
Food for Better Thought
Walnuts have often been thought of as a "brain food," not only because of the wrinkled brain-like appearance of their shells, but because of their high concentration of omega-3 fats. Your brain is more than 60% structural fat. For your brain cells to function properly, this structural fat needs to be primarily the omega-3 fats found in walnuts, flaxseed and cold-water fish. This is because the membranes of all our cells, including our brain cells or neurons, are primarily composed of fats. Cell membranes are the gatekeepers of the cell. Anything that wants to get into or out of a cell must pass through the cell's outer membrane. And omega-3 fats, which are especially fluid and flexible, make this process a whole lot easier, thus maximizing the cell's ability to usher in nutrients while eliminating wastes--definitely a good idea, especially when the cell in question is in your brain.

Epidemiological studies in various countries including the U.S. suggest a connection between increased rates of depression and decreased omega-3 consumption, and in children, the relationship between low dietary intake of omega-3 fats and ADHD has begun to be studied. A recent Purdue University study showed that kids low in omega-3 essential fatty acids are significantly more likely to be hyperactive, have learning disorders, and to display behavioral problems. In the Purdue study, a greater number of behavioral problems, temper tantrums, and sleep problems were reported in subjects with lower total omega-3 fatty acid concentrations. More learning and health problems were also found in the children in the study who had lower total omega-3 fatty acid concentrations. Over 2,000 scientific studies have demonstrated the wide range of problems associated with omega-3 deficiencies. The American diet is almost devoid of omega-3s, except for nuts, such as walnuts, seeds and cold-water fish. In fact, researchers believe that about 60% of Americans are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, and about 20% have so little that test methods cannot even detect any in their blood.
Help Prevent Gallstones
Twenty years of dietary data collected on 80,718 women from the Nurses' Health Study shows that women who eat least 1 ounce of nuts, peanuts or peanut butter each week have a 25% lower risk of developing gallstones. Since 1 ounce is only 28.6 nuts or about 2 tablespoons of nut butter, preventing gallbladder disease may be as easy as packing one peanut butter and jelly sandwich (be sure to use whole wheat bread for its fiber, vitamins and minerals) for lunch each week, having a handful of almonds as an afternoon pick me up, or tossing some walnuts on your oatmeal or salad.
A Source of Bio-Available Melatonin
Want a better night's sleep? Try sprinkling your dinner's tossed green salad, fruit salad or steamed vegetables with a handful of walnuts. Or enjoy a baked apple or poached pear topped with walnuts for dessert.

Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, which is involved in inducing and regulating sleep and is also a powerful antioxidant, has been discovered in walnuts in bio-available form, making them the perfect evening food for a natural good night's sleep.

Melatonin has been shown to help improve sleep for night shift workers and people suffering from jet lag, but maintaining healthy levels of this hormone is important for everyone over the age of 40 since the amount of melatonin produced by the human body decreases significantly as we age, and this decrease in antioxidant protection may be related to the development of free radical-related diseases later in life.

In a study published in the September 2005 issue of Nutrition, Russell Reiter and colleagues at the University of Texas have not only quantified the amount of melatonin present in walnuts—between 2.5 and 4.5 ng/gram—but have demonstrated that eating walnuts triples blood levels of melatonin and also increases antioxidant activity in the bloodstream in animals.

The authors theorize that by helping the body resist oxidative stress (free radical damage), walnuts may help reduce the risk of cancer and delay or reduce the severity of cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease. Walnuts, best known as a heart-healthy nut, are also a rich source of another highly cardio-protective nutrient: omega-3-fatty acids, so Reiter and his team will next investigate possible synergy between walnuts' omega-3 fats and melatonin. To us at the World's Healthiest Foods, this sounds familiar theme in Nature's symphony in which whole, wholesome foods each provide a wealth of nutrients whose harmony promotes our optimal health.
That’s Nut the End of Walnut's Health BenefitsWalnuts are a very good source of manganese and a good source of copper, two minerals that are essential cofactors in a number of enzymes important in antioxidant defenses. For example, the key oxidative enzyme superoxide dismutase, which disarms free radicals produced within cell cytoplasm and the mitochondria (the energy production factories within our cells) requires both copper and manganese.

Walnuts also contain an antioxidant compound called ellagic acid, which blocks the metabolic pathways that can lead to cancer. Ellagic acid not only helps protect healthy cells from free radical damage, but also helps detoxify potential cancer-causing substances and helps prevent cancer cells from replicating. In a study of 1,271 elderly people in New Jersey, those who ate the most strawberries (another food that contains ellagic acid) were three times less likely to develop cancer than those who ate few or no strawberries.
Description
It is no surprise that the regal and delicious walnut comes from an ornamental tree that is highly prized for its beauty. The walnut kernel consists of two bumpy lobes that look like abstract butterflies. The lobes are off white in color and covered by a thin, light brown skin. They are partially attached to each other. The kernels are enclosed in round or oblong shells that are brown in color and very hard.

While there are numerous species of walnut trees, three of the main types of walnuts consumed are the English (or Persian) walnut, Juglans regia; the Black walnut, Juglans nigra; and the White (or butternut) walnut, Juglans cinerea. The English walnut is the most popular type in the United States and features a thinner shell that is easily broken with a nutcracker. The Black walnut has thicker shells that are harder to crack and a much more pungent distinctive flavor. The White walnut features a sweeter and oilier taste than the other two types, although it is not as widely available and therefore may be more difficult to find in the marketplace.
HistoryWhile walnut trees have been cultivated for thousands of years, the different types have varying origins. The English walnut originated in India and the regions surrounding the Caspian Sea, hence it is known as the Persian walnut. In the 4th century AD, the ancient Romans introduced the walnut into many European countries where it has been grown since. Throughout its history, the walnut tree has been highly revered; not only does it have a life span that is several times that of humans, but its uses include, but are not limited to, food, medicine, shelter, dye and lamp oil. It is thought that the walnuts grown in North America gained the moniker "English walnuts," since they were introduced into America via English merchant ships.

Black walnuts and white walnuts are native to North America, specifically the Central Mississippi Valley and Appalachian area. They played an important role in the diets and lifestyles of both the Native American Indians and the early colonial settlers.

Today, the leading commercial producers of walnuts are the United States, Turkey, China, Iran, France and Romania. How to Select and Store
When purchasing whole walnuts that have not been shelled, choose those that feel heavy for their size. Their shells should not be cracked, pierced or stained, as this is oftentimes a sign of mold development on the nutmeat, which renders it unsafe for consumption.

Shelled walnuts are generally available in prepackaged containers as well as bulk bins. Just as with any other food that you may purchase in the bulk section, make sure that the bins containing the walnuts are covered and that the store has a good product turnover so as to ensure its maximal freshness. Whether purchasing walnuts in bulk or in a packaged container, avoid those that look rubbery or shriveled. If it is possible to smell the walnuts, do so in order to ensure that they are not rancid.

Due to their high polyunsaturated fat content, walnuts are extremely perishable and care should be taken in their storage. Shelled walnuts should be stored in an airtight container and placed in the refrigerator, where they will keep for six months, or the freezer, where they will last for one year. Unshelled walnuts should preferably be stored in the refrigerator, although as long as you keep them in a cool, dry, dark place they will stay fresh for up to six months. How to Enjoy
For some of our favorite recipes, click Recipes.
A Few Quick Serving Ideas:
Mix crushed walnuts into plain yogurt and top with maple syrup.
Add walnuts to healthy sautéed vegetables. Walnuts are great in baked goods and breakfast treats. Some of our favorites include zucchini walnut bread, carrot walnut muffins and apple walnut pancakes.

Purée walnuts, cooked lentils and your favorite herbs and spices in a food processor. Add enough olive or flax oil so that it achieves a dip-like consistency.

Sprinkle walnuts onto salads.

Add walnuts to your favorite poultry stuffing recipe.

To roast walnuts at home, do so gently--in a 160-170 degree F oven for 15-20 minutes--to preserve the healthy oils.

Make homemade walnut granola: Mix together aproximately 1/2 cup of honey, 3 to 4 tablespoons of blackstrap molasses, a tablespoon of vanilla, a dash of salt, and a teaspoon each of your favorite spices, such as cinnamon, ginger and/or nutmeg. Place 6-8 cups of rolled oats in a large bowl and toss to coat with the honey-blackstrap mixture. Then spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 275 degrees for 45 minutes. Cool and mix in 1/2 to 1 cup of walnuts.
SafetyWalnuts are not a commonly allergenic food and are not known to contain measurable amounts of goitrogens, oxalates, or purines. Nutritional Profile
Introduction to Food Rating System Chart
The following chart shows the nutrients for which this food is either an excellent, very good or good source. Next to the nutrient name you will find the following information: the amount of the nutrient that is included in the noted serving of this food; the %Daily Value (DV) that that amount represents (similar to other information presented in the website, this DV is calculated for 25-50 year old healthy woman); the nutrient density rating; and, the food's World's Healthiest Foods Rating. Underneath the chart is a table that summarizes how the ratings were devised. Read detailed information on our Food and Recipe Rating System.

Nuts, Walnuts0.25 cup
163.50 calories
Nutrient Amount DV
(%) Nutrient
Density World's Healthiest
Foods Rating
omega 3 fatty acids 2.27 g 90.8 10.0 excellent
manganese 0.85 mg 42.5 4.7 very good
copper 0.40 mg 20.0 2.2 good
tryptophan 0.05 g 15.6 1.7 good
World's Healthiest
Foods Rating Rule
excellent DV>=75% OR Density>=7.6 AND DV>=10%
very good DV>=50% OR Density>=3.4 AND DV>=5%
good DV>=25% OR Density>=1.5 AND DV>=2.5%
In Depth Nutritional Profile for Walnuts References
Anderson K.J.; Teuber S.S.; Gobeille A.; Cremin P.; Waterhouse A.L.; Steinberg F.M. Walnut polyphenolics inhibit in vitro human plasma and LDL oxidation. Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 131, Issue 11: 2837-2842.
Ensminger AH, Ensminger, ME, Kondale JE, Robson JRK. Foods & Nutriton Encyclopedia. Pegus Press, Clovis, California.
Ensminger AH, Esminger M. K. J. e. al. Food for Health: A Nutrition Encyclopedia. Clovis, California: Pegus Press; 1986.
Fortin, Francois, Editorial Director. The Visual Foods Encyclopedia. Macmillan, New York.
Fukuda T, Ito H, Yoshida T. Antioxidative polyphenols from walnuts (Juglans regia L.). Phytochemistry. Aug;63(7):795-801.
Gillen LJ, Tapsell LC, Patch CS, Owen A, Batterham M. Structured dietary advice incorporating walnuts achieves optimal fat and energy balance in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005 Jul;105(7):1087-96.
Morgan JM, Horton K, Reese D et al. Effects of walnut consumption as part of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet on serum cardiovascular risk factors. Int J Vitam Nutr Res 2002 Oct; 72(5):341-7.
Patel G. Essential fats in walnuts are good for the heart and diabetes. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005 Jul;105(7):1096-7.
Reiter RJ, Manchester LC, Tan DX. Melatonin in walnuts: influence on levels of melatonin and total antioxidant capacity of blood. Nutrition. 2005 Sep;21(9):920-4. .
Ros E, Nunez I, Perez-Heras A, Serra M, Gilabert R, Casals E, Deulofeu R. A walnut diet improves endothelial function in hypercholesterolemic subjects: a randomized crossover trial. Circulation. 2004 Apr 6;109(13):1609-14. .
Stevens LJ, Zentall SS, Abate ML, et al. Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Boys with Behavior, Learning, and Health Problems. Physiol Behav 59(4/5) 915-920. 1996.
Stevens LJ, Zentall SS, Deck JL, et al. Essential Fatty Acid Metabolism in Boys with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995 Oct; 62(4): 761-8.
Tapsell LC, Gillen LJ, Patch CS, Batterham M, Owen A, Bare M, Kennedy M. Including Walnuts in a Low-Fat/Modified-Fat Diet Improves HDL Cholesterol-to-Total Cholesterol Ratios in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2004 Dec;27(12):2777-83.
Tsai CJ, Leitzmann MF, Hu FB, Willett WC, Giovannucci EL. . Frequent nut consumption and decreased risk of cholecystectomy in women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Jul;80(1):76-81.
Wood, Rebecca. The Whole Foods Encyclopedia. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall Press; 1988.
Zhao G, Etherton TD, Martin KR, West SG, Gillies PJ, Kris-Etherton PM. Dietary {alpha}-Linolenic Acid Reduces Inflammatory and Lipid Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Hypercholesterolemic Men and Women. J Nutr. 2004 Nov;134(11):2991-2997.
More of the World's Healthiest Foods (& Spices)!
For education only, consult a healthcare practitioner for any health problems.
© 2002-2006 The George Mateljan Foundation
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99#healthbenefits

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~"Iniquity, committed in this world, produces not fruit immediately, but, like the earth, in due season, and advancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who committed it. ...justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved, will preserve; it must never therefore be violated." : Manu 1200 bc

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The powerful have invoked God at their side in this war, so that we will accept their power and our weakness as something that has been established by divine plan. But there is no god behind this war other than the god of money, nor any right other than the desire for death and destruction. Today there is a "NO" which shall weaken the powerful and strengthen the weak: the "NO" to war.: Subcomandante Marcos - Source: No to war, 2/16/03

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"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.": Abraham Lincoln - (1809-1865) 16th US President - 1838

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"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists" J. Edgar Hoover
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>>>>><<<<<Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House
By
LARRY MARGASAK,
Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 10, 4:55 PM ET
Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

The Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case but hasn't accused any White House or national Republican officials of wrongdoing, nor made any allegations suggesting party officials outside New Hampshire were involved. The phone records of calls to the White House were exhibits in Tobin's trial but prosecutors did not make them part of their case.

Democrats plan to ask a federal judge Tuesday to order GOP and White House officials to answer questions about the phone jamming in a civil lawsuit alleging voter fraud.

Repeated hang-up calls that jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center occurred in a Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, 51 percent to 46 percent, on Nov. 5, 2002.

Besides the conviction of Tobin, the Republicans' New England regional director, prosecutors negotiated two plea bargains: one with a New Hampshire Republican Party official and another with the owner of a telemarketing firm involved in the scheme. The owner of the subcontractor firm whose employees made the hang-up calls is under indictment.

The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people.

A GOP campaign consultant in 2002, Jayne Millerick, made a 17-minute call to the White House on Election Day, but said in an interview she did not recall the subject. Millerick, who later became the New Hampshire GOP chairwoman, said in an interview she did not learn of the jamming until after the election.

A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office — between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting.

There also were other calls between Republican officials during the period that the scheme was hatched and canceled.

Prosecutors did not need the White House calls to convict Tobin and negotiate the two guilty pleas.

Whatever the reason for not using the White House records, prosecutors "tried a very narrow case," said Paul Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the criminal and civil cases. The Justice Department did not say why the White House records were not used.

The Democrats said in their civil case motion that they were entitled to know the purpose of the calls to government offices "at the time of the planning and implementation of the phone-jamming conspiracy ... and the timing of the phone calls made by Mr. Tobin on Election Day."

While national Republican officials have said they deplore such operations, the Republican National Committee said it paid for Tobin's defense because he is a longtime supporter and told officials he had committed no crime.

By Nov. 4, 2002, the Monday before the election, an Idaho firm was hired to make the hang-up calls. The Republican state chairman at the time, John Dowd, said in an interview he learned of the scheme that day and tried to stop it.

Dowd, who blamed an aide for devising the scheme without his knowledge, contended that the jamming began on Election Day despite his efforts. A police report confirmed the Manchester Professional Fire Fighters Association reported the hang-up calls began about 7:15 a.m. and continued for about two hours. The association was offering rides to the polls.

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman. The White House declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.

"As policy, we don't discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.

Robert Kelner, a Washington lawyer representing the Republican National Committee in the civil litigation, said there was no connection between the phone jamming operation and the calls to the White House and party officials.

"On Election Day, as anybody involved in politics knows, there's a tremendous volume of calls between political operatives in the field and political operatives in Washington," Kelner said.

"If all you're pointing out is calls between Republican National Committee regional political officials and the White House political office on Election Day, you're pointing out nothing that hasn't been true on every Election Day," he said.

Associated Press at: http://news.yahoo.com/
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[Saundra Hummer]

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The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.: William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, science for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable an ignorable war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." : Albert Einstein

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Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else: Bill Moyers - PBS Commentator

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The principal power in Washington is no longer the government of the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money established priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth--laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more: Richard N. Goodwin - Speechwriter for John F. Kennedy

~

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.": Mussolini
~

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~~~
World's Strongest Glue! Available Only From Nature!
Corey Binns
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com
Mon Apr 10, 12:00 PM ET
The bacterium Caulobacter crescentus uses the toughest glue on Earth to stick to river rocks, and now scientists are trying to figure out how to produce the stuff.

The adhesive can withstand an enormous amount of stress, equal to the force felt by a quarter with more than three cars piled on top of it. That’s two to three times more force than the best retail glues can handle.
The single-celled bacterium uses sugar molecules to stay put in rivers, streams, and water pipes, a new study found. It’s not clear how the glue actually works, however, but researchers presume some special proteins must be attached to the sugars.

"There are obvious applications since this adhesive works on wet surfaces," said study leader Yves Brun, an Indiana University bacteriologist. "One possibility would be as a biodegradable surgical adhesive."

Engineers could use the superior stickum too, Brun and colleagues say.

But making it has proved challenging. Like a mess of chewing gum, the gunk globs to everything, including the tools used to create it.

"We tried washing the glue off," Brun said. "It didn't work."

The research, announced by the university Friday, will be detailed in the April 11 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

High-Tech Dinosaurs Had Tails Like Fiberglass The Real Spider-Man Creates Tough Fiber in Lab Abalone Armor: Toughest Stuff Theoretically Possible New Glue Derived from Clinging Mussels Vines Make Their Own Glue

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
http://news.yahoo.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

.:rant2:!:rant2:!:rant2:!:rant2:.
Report Raises New Questions on Bush, WMDs
By
NEDRA PICKLER,
Associated Press Writer
30 minutes ago

The White House faced new questions Wednesday about President Bush's contention three years ago that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.

The Washington Post reported that a Pentagon-sponsored team of experts determined in May 2003 that two small trailers were not used to make biological weapons. Yet two days after the team sent its findings to Washington in a classified report, Bush declared just the opposite.

"We have found the weapons of mass destruction," Bush said in an interview with a Polish TV station. "We found biological laboratories."
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday that Bush was relying on information from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency when he said the trailers seized after the 2003 invasion were mobile biological laboratories. That information was later discredited by the Iraq Survey Group in its 2004 report.

The CIA and DIA publicly issued an assessment one day after the Pentagon team's report arrived in Washington that said U.S. officials were confident that the trailers were used to produce biological weapons. The assessment said the mobile facilities represented "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

McClellan said it was unclear whether officials at the White House were aware of the contradictory field report when Bush repeated the claim in the television interview.

"If and when the White House became aware of this particular issue, I'm looking into that matter," McClellan said. "The White House has asked the CIA and the DIA to go and look into that issue."

The Post did not say that Bush knew what he was saying was false. But ABC News did during a report on "Good Morning America," and McClellan demanded an apology and an on-air retraction. ABC News said later in a clarification on its Web site that Charles Gibson had erred. McClellan said he had received an apology.

"This is nothing more than rehashing an old issue that was resolved long ago," McClellan said. "I cannot count how many times the president has said the intelligence was wrong."

"The intelligence community makes the assessment," he said. "The White House is not the intelligence-gathering agency."

Navy Cmdr. Greg Hicks, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a written statement that the report from the expert team was sent to the DIA on May 27, 2003, but he said the findings were not vetted until over the summer. The statement did not say whether the information was immediately shared with the White House.

"This further analysis led to the conclusion of the ISG that the mobile units were impractical for biological agent production and almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen," Hicks' statement said.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck declined to speak specifically about the classified field report but said in general that producing a finished intelligence report takes time, coordination, debate and vetting.

"This is not a fast process, especially when dealing with complex issues," she said. "It is not typically something that happens in a matter of hours."

The trailers — along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was believed to be a nuclear weapons program — were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied claims that intelligence was exaggerated or manipulated in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Iraq Survey Group concluded in 2004 that there was no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.
.:rant2:.
Read other reports on the same issue:
On the Net:

CIA/DIA report on mobile trailers: http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraqi_mobile_plants/paper_w.pdf

Duelfer report on the WMD claims:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004
http://news.yahoo.com/[/SIZE][/CENTER]

[Saundra Hummer]

*
More Thoughts From Petition Signers.
THIS IS FROM HERE ON THE CINDY SHEEHAN THREAD. WHILE THERE, READ COOL GUYS POST OF HER ARTICLE. HER MOST HEART WRENCHING, TELLING ARTICLE YET.
Those Against The GW Bush/Dick Cheney Administration,
Those Against The U.S. Attacking Iran - (3417 submissions so far!)

3465. Roswell in Beaverton, OR
As a US Citizen, I am strongly opposed to any preemptive war, including one against Iran. The war on terrorism is as old as civilization itself, and terrorism can only be defused, not defeated. The GOP are using terrorism in a fear mongering media blitz to manipulate the United States into wars that kill, permanently maim, and mentally destroy hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The only benefit of their wars is to siphon the tax payer’s money into the pockets of the greedy, corrupt “chicken hawks”. I fell less safe today than I did pre-Bush. 9/11 was not a defining moment in US history, but a tragedy that we need to learn from and carry those lessons into the future. The current US government does not represent my views. It is time for a drastic change in Congress to put an end to this era of insanity.


3417. Daniel in Brooklyn, NY
Are we becoming the new Nazis? Since when was it legal or 'right' to simply attack any country you want to for any reason you want to? The deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens, UN workers, soldiers from the USA, UK, and others is the direct result of a president breaking the law and lying to attack a soverign country- whether the leader was corrupt or not. We are now virtually an outlaw state with lying corrupt leaders who will do anything to stay in power and rob us blind along the way. Bush, Chaney, Rumsfield, Rice,Rove..all are criminals according to internatilonal laws.

3416. Michael in Anaheim, CA
As William Rivers Pitt recently wrote: "Iran, unlike Iraq, has a formidable military. They own the high ground over the Persian Gulf and have deployed missile batteries all throughout the mountains along the shore. Those missile batteries include the Sunburn missile, which can travel in excess of Mach 2 and can spoof Aegis radar systems. Every American warship in the Gulf, including the carrier group currently deployed there, would be ducks on the pond. The blowback in Iraq would be immediate and catastrophic. The Shi'ite majority that enjoys an alliance with Iran would go indiscriminately crazy and attack anyone and anything flying the stars and stripes. Syria, which has inked a mutual defense pact with Iran and is believed to have significant chemical and biological weapons capabilities, would get into the game. China, which has recently established a multi-billion dollar petroleum relationship with Iran, might step into the fray if it sees its new oil source at risk. Russia, which has stapled itself to the idea that Iran's nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes, would likewise get pulled in. Blair and Britain want nothing to do with an attack on Iran, Berlusconi appears to have lost his job in Italy, and Spain's Aznar is already gone. If the Bush administration does this, I told my boss, they'd instantly find themselves in a cold and lonely place." Mr. Bush, you know all this is true, and these are only some of the physical ramifications to an attack on Iran. Politically, we would be toast. You are fully aware that your illegal war crime in Iraq has been a failure of the highest order. An attack on Iran will bring the entire world down upon our heads. There are a lot of us Americans who don't share your crazed vision. Consider this as well: it looks like a trap. Iran is making all this noise about their nuclear capability to draw us into exactly what you are planning. They believe they can destroy us. And they are right. Take a look at a map and see that Iran is easily 4 times the size of Iraq and infinitely more technically sophisticated. We in America would be sitting ducks. Give it some thought and get back to me.

3415. Zora L. in San Francisco, CA
If you want a war, you put on a uniform, for once, or send your kids!!! IMPEACH!!!http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/iran

GO ON-SITE TO SIGN PETITION AND LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IF YOU ARE AGAINST THIS TALKED ABOUT AND UNWAGED WAR WHICH WE ARE BELIEVING IS ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE, IF WOULD LIKE YOUR VOICE AND REASONS ADDED.

[Saundra Hummer]

*

url]http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=918FA551-BBCF-50EB-BE8D7D2FAA51627B[/url]
{http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=918FA551-BBCF-50EB-BE8D7D2FAA51627B}
Want Proof of the Hostile Takeover? Read This.
By
David Sirota

http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=918FA551-BBCF-50EB-BE8D7D2FAA51627B
{http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=918FA551-BBCF-50EB-BE8D7D2FAA51627B

The basic premise of my upcoming book Hostile Takeover

{http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=sirotablog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F 0307237346%2Fqid%3D1135296981%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dsr_8_xs_ap_bn1_xgl14%3Fn%3D507846%2526s% 3Dbooks%2526v%3Dglance}
is that there is no longer any lines between Big Business and
government. They are one and the same - both looking to fleece the
average American as much as possible. And a new story in the Wall
Street Journal
{http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114480015221523524.html?mod=politics_primary_hs}
today shows exactly what I'm talking about.

Back in 2003, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led a bipartisan group of
lawmakers to introduce an amendment to outlaw so-called "cash
balance" pension conversions whereby companies, without warning,
reduce the pensions they promised workers without giving those
workers a choice to stay in their old pension plan. The amendment
ultimately passed the House of Representatives (though was killed in
the final conference committee) over the strong objections of
Corporate America, including IBM, which had been one of the biggest
companies to try to shaft its workers with these kind of pension
rip-off schemes.

But the amendment didn't pass without the Bush administration quite
literally turning over the Treasury Department to IBM. As the
Washington Post reported at the time
{http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20030917124906.asp}, IBM
sent around a document to congressional offices labeled "Treasury
talking points" that said the Treasury Department "strongly opposes
the Sanders amendment to the Transportation/Treasury appropriations
bill." Treasury soon admitted that "the department had prepared" the
materials, but had never actually released them to corporations to
help them lobby to defeat the bill.

Now, years later, the Wall Street Journal reports that "an
investigation into ties between Treasury Department officials and
International Business Machines Corp. shows the Treasury worked
closely with IBM on pension issues and provided information that was
subsequently misused in the company's lobbying." A report demanded by
Sanders from the Treasury Department's Inspector General "said a
Treasury official disclosed nonpublic information to IBM and failed
to report expenses paid by a lobbyist for a pension-industry trade
group."

Those are shocking revelations, even for a corporate-owned
administration like the one we have now. However, perhaps more
shocking is the fact that the Journal also notes that "the Justice
Department didn't pursue criminal or civil charges in the matters
because they didn't meet the agency's 'prosecutorial threshold.'" In
other words, yeah, they broke the law, and illegally turned the
people's government over to Big Business, but that's not worth
prosecuting.

This is your government, ladies and gentlemen of America - a
government that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business. A
government where an agency as powerful as the U.S. Treasury
Department routinely operates like an arm of the companies such as
IBM that it is supposed to be regulating. A government, in short,
that is the victim of a Hostile Takeover
{http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=sirotablog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F 0307237346%2Fqid%3D1135296981%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dsr_8_xs_ap_bn1_xgl14%3Fn%3D507846%2526s% 3Dbooks%2526v%3Dglance}. from the David Sirota Newsletter

http://www.workingforchange.com/

See the Sirota Blog for the complete story

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~~~~~READ THIS ARTICLE AND GO ON-SITE TO TAKE POLL
Updated: 10:34 AM EDT
Scalia Proud He Stayed on Cheney Case
By
STEPHANIE REITZ, AP
HARTFORD, Conn. (April 12) - Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had some advice Wednesday for those who questioned his impartiality after he refused to recuse himself from a case involving his hunting buddy, Vice President Dick Cheney.



(Getty Images) Outspoken Justice
Antonin Scalia says critics who think he should have recused himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force should ''get a life.'' Post Thoughts
~"For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life," Scalia said.
Scalia, addressing an audience at the University of Connecticut's law school on Wednesday, said recusing himself from the 2004 case - which focused on an energy task force that Cheney led - would only have given fuel to newspaper editorial writers and other detractors who have said he is too close to the vice president.

"I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allowed myself to be chased off that case," Scalia said.

The case in question involved Cheney's request to keep private the details of closed-door White House strategy sessions that produced the administration's energy policy.

The administration fought a lawsuit brought by watchdog and environmental groups that contended that industry executives, including former Enron chairman Ken Lay, helped shape that policy. The Supreme Court upheld the administration position on a 7-2 vote.

Scalia refused to recuse himself from the case, rejecting arguments by critics who questioned his impartiality because of a hunting vacation that he took with Cheney while the case was pending.

Scalia told the audience Wednesday that he would have stepped aside had the case involved Cheney personally, but that he viewed it differently because the vice president was named in his official capacity as head of the group.

Scalia, 70, was appointed in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Reagan nominated him four years later to the U.S. Supreme Court, filling the opening that occurred when William Rehnquist became chief justice.

Scalia takes a very literal approach to the Constitution, telling the audience Wednesday that he strongly disputes the idea that the wording selected by the Constitution's framers should be viewed in light of society's evolving morals and political leanings.

"You can't take the position that these words are expandable in one direction and not expandable in the other," he said. "They obviously meant to set some standards to control future generations."

He also said because of the Supreme Court's time constraints and heavy workload, justices often have to pass on the chance to review many potentially valid cases.

"I can't tell you how many cases I look at and say, 'Boy, they really messed that up,' " he said, then added a motion that pantomimed tossing something aside.

Several UConn law students who attended the speech said afterward that they were surprised by Scalia's candor, though none were surprised that he hewed to his well-documented conservative stances.

"He's definitely a very smart guy, very bright," said third-year law student Kay Williams of Rockville, Ind. "I think from his speech today, it seemed that while he has certain views, he's not looking to impose them on everyone else."

That opinion was not shared by protesters who set up tables and passed out pamphlets on the lawn near the building where Scalia spoke.

At a same-sex kissing booth near the lecture hall, students said they believe some of Scalia's opinions amount to attacks on gays, women and other minorities.

"His visit opened a lot of conversation on this campus," said third-year law student Colby Smith, who was wearing an "I Kiss Boys" T-shirt. "We want to make sure people understand what the concerns are with him, and why his views are particularly offensive."

04/12/06 18:29 EDT
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060412183009990005&ncid=NWS00010000000001

[Saundra Hummer]

BuzzFlash Review:
April 13, 2006
The Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Other Great Documents of American History, 1775-1865 (Paperback)
by John Grafton (Editor)
For patriotic Americans, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are our political Bible. If the Bible were the basis of our government, we wouldn't have needed a Constitution and a Declaration of Independence, right?After all, the monarchies of Europe, including the one the colonists rebelled against, were cemented in the fixed universe of pre-enlightenment Deified hierarchy, including royal lineage.

At times like these, as the anti-Constitutional madmen in the White House, stand, perhaps, on the precipice of starting WW III by nuking Iran, we felt a bit of comfort in returning to the documents that founded this country as a land of freedom, liberty, equality and laws.

Our laws were not set up by any religious order, or by a deranged, egomaniacal man who declares -- like a French monarch -- "Je Suis le Droit," (I am the law). They were constructed in revolutionary language and concepts to create a balance of government invested with its power by the people of the United States of America.

For far too many years, we have been spoon fed distorted, Disneyesque visions of "patriotism," which was just the hypocritical pablum of power-hungry right wing zealots.

So BuzzFlash decided to offer its readers a chance to return to our real national birth certificates, the American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

This Dover edition also includes the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation and several other key documents to our standing as a free nation.

The founding of America was indeed a revolutionary act, as was our evolution into an invigorating democracy. We should not let the Busheviks banish our heritage as a free nation, founded upon the scales of justice, to the ash heap of history.

These documents are the Bible of our democracy. Hold onto them tight. They belong to you. In times like these, they are a comfort.BUZZFLASH REVIEWS http://www.buzzflash.com/reviews/06/04/rev06054.html
To think that these men in their delusional state, believe they know better than our founding fathers; that their values and sets of ideals and even their knowledge is greater than those of Adams, and Jefferson and the other numerous men who had our countries best interest at heart, and that they are better tuned as to how our country should, and can be run, is so far out there as to be ludicrous. They need to have a comeupance and be taken out of office - shown the door, this due to the fact they are unraveling all that took so long to put in place. Look at the damage which they have done in just the few short years after having hijacked our elections.

By the way folks, vote absentee in our next and/or insist on paper ballots if you can't, as Diebold and other machines are open to hijacking with no trail visable, no way to even check them to make sure they recorded the right things. As the church lady says, "How convenient" Voting monitors and guardians of the ballot boxes are needed it seems, especially after having learned after the elections, of the discovery of so many ballots having been found hidden away or thrown out, proving without a doubt, managers of the polls aren't always to be trusted. It seems they will do just about anything to insure their party or man and/or women is elected. Such things going on in our country? I would not have thought it possible. Well, live and learn. We now know the ugly truth. Don't we?

[Saundra Hummer]

***Another general joins anti-Rummy brigade
BY
New York Daily News
HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com
The extraordinary "Revolt of the Generals" continued yesterday with a fourth high-ranking senior military leader calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's head.

Retired two-star Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the Big Red One - the Army's 1st Infantry Division - in Iraq until November, said Rumsfeld must go for ignoring and intimidating career officers.

"You know, it speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," Batiste told CNN.
"I believe we need a fresh start in the Pentagon. We need a leader who understands teamwork, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation," said Batiste, a West Point graduate who also served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is now president of Klein Steel Service in upstate Rochester.

"When decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision-making, sound planning - then we're bound to make mistakes," he said.

The unusual drumbeat of criticism from top generals comes as public support for the war continues to slide. In the latest carnage, a car bomb killed at least 20 people outside a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad yesterday.

And in a video posted today on the Internet, Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri praised insurgents in Iraq and called on all Muslims to support them. It wasn't clear why the video, which apparently was made in November 2005, was being released now.

Batiste was adding his voice to a chorus already made up of retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command; retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who oversaw training of Iraqi forces, and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld shrugged off the criticism earlier this week as not "new or surprising."

http://www.buzzflash.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

***
UPDATE:What Game Were They At? 'Wash Post' Strikes Out on Boos for CheneyBy
E&P StaffPublished: April 11, 2006 10:30 PM ET updated Wednesday
NEW YORK The veteran Associated Press reporter Terence Hunt heard them. Reuters heard them. In fact, virtually every press account of opening day for the Washington Nationals baseball team at RFK Stadium this afternoon mentioned that when Vice President Dick Cheney was introduced to throw out the first pitch he was loudly booed or at the minimum received more jeers than cheers. A video of the event proves it.

But here's how David Nakumura of the hometown Washington Post described it:

"The first pitch of the Washington Nationals' second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider.

"For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon. But the catcalls didn't last long before the fans cheered for the Nationals, who took the field in their white uniforms with red trim against the New York Mets."

No one else suggested that it was the quality of the pitch that set off the booing.

AP: "Greeted with loud boos and some cheers, Vice President Dick Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch Tuesday at the Washington Nationals' home opener. "

Reuters: "The vice president, whose popularity is slumping along with that of President George W. Bush, walked out on the field to cheering and booing from the near-sellout crowd. The boos appeared to be little louder than the cheers."

The New York Times: "(Pedro) Martínez, who proceeded to wave to the crowd, received a slightly warmer reception than Vice President Dick Cheney, who was jeered before and after short-hopping the ceremonial first pitch."

The White House correspondents' pool report noted that Cheney "stepped out onto field dressed in khakis and a Nats bomber jacket to the sound of thunderous boos and catcalls."

UPDATE:

In its Wednesday expansion of the story, the Post made a key change, although it still puts the reporter at odds with most of his colleagues, who did not report any upsurge in booing after he tossed the pitch. Here is the slightly revised section:

"Vice President Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch, a right-handed toss that bounced in the dirt to the outside of the plate before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider. Cheney, booed by some as he walked to the mound, got even more catcalls after his throw -- a far cry from President Bush's fastball at last year's home opener."

E&P Staff

Links referenced within this article
Find this article at:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002315663
...

[Saundra Hummer]

:rant2:
DIRELAND
POLITICS AND MEDIA----ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY FROM VETERAN POLITICAL JOURNALIST DOUG IRELAND
April 13, 2006
VILLAGE VOICE FIRES JAMES RIDGEWAY; SYDNEY SCHANBERG QUITS
The firing of Washington columnist James Ridgeway by the new management of the Village Voice, and the subsequent resignation of the distinguished Pulitizer Prize winner Sydney Schanberg from the paper, is a sad moment in the history of the New York weekly. I was a columnist for the Voice for some seven years. Jim Ridgeway was not only a colleague but someone I considered a comrade in the pursuit of truth for many years. Syd Schanberg (right), whom I also know and admire, is the former New York Times reporter and Newsday columnist who is known to the large public through the movie "The Killing Fields," describing his intrepid work in Cambodia and his indefatigable and devoted search for his Cambodian colleague Dith Pran, is one of the most distinguished names in Americn journalism. That these two superb journalists have now vanished from the Voice is a symbol of what is happening to that paper, and of what will happen to all the weekly papers in the Voice chain (including the L.A. Weekly, for which I have also long written) under the new ownership and management of Michael Lacey's New Times corporation.

"Democracy Now"this morning had an informative discussion with Ridgeway and other Voice writers that I urge you to listen to. You can both read a transcript, and listen to the archived broadcast, by clicking here.

The letter of protest below is signed by Village Voice writers and staffers, including some of the most able and valuable people at the weekly, many of whom I'm proud to call friends. I associate myself entirely with their sentiments:

Ridgeway's track record

For 30 years, James Ridgeway has, in his person, his politics, and his writing, defined what makes the Voice a special publication. From Three Mile Island to 9-11, Ridgeway has provided some of the nation's most incisive and insightful coverage of government misfeasance and malfeasance. He was one of the first journalists in America to spotlight the threat posed by a resurgent racist and neo-Nazi movement, an issue he hammered away at in the pages of the Voice years before anyone ever heard of Ruby Ridge or Timothy McVeigh. His reports on escalating environmental abuses exposed corporate lawbreakers and bureaucratic indifference. Ridgeway's writings on conflicts from Bosnia to Baghdad to Haiti have always provided the otherwise unreported flip side of the world according to the mainstream media, in short reporting that jibes precisely with the exact mission of the Voice. Over the past few years, Ridgeway expanded onto the Web, filing regular
nuggets of breaking news and even posting video reports on the 2004 elections. In light of this distinguished track record, the decision last week by the Voice's new ownership to terminate Ridgeway is shameful. It also sends a terrible message as to the sort of coverage that the new ownership portends. We call on Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey and chairman and CEO Jim Larkin to reverse his discharge.
Posted by Doug Ireland at 01:56 PM | Permalink

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[Saundra Hummer]

.!.!.!.:rant2:.!.!.!.
Outsourcing saves less than claimed Thu Apr 13, 4:32 AM ETOutsourcing of information technology and business services delivers average cost savings of 15 percent, a survey found on Thursday, disproving market claims that outsourcing can reduce costs by over 60 percent.

After professional fees, severance pay and governance costs, savings range between 10 percent and 39 percent, with the average level at 15 percent when contracts are first let, according to outsourcing advisory firm TPI.
"This research proves that the promise of massive operational savings is unrealistic when you take into account the costs of procurement and ongoing contract management," Duncan Aitchison, TPI's managing director, said in a statement.

"In our experience, outsourcing arrangements which focus solely on delivering huge savings often fail to meet client expectations," he added.

Cost reduction remains the primary motivation behind current outsourcing contracts, but an increasing number of companies are outsourcing primarily to improve quality, at 21 percent now versus 11 percent in 2004.

The first three months of 2006 had the largest number of outsourcing contracts ever signed in the first quarter of a year. TPI found that 83 contracts were signed, valued globally at over 18 billion euros ($21.9 billion), compared with 76 deals worth just over 13 billion euros over the same period last year.

IBM, EDS and T-Systems were the main beneficiaries of contracts let in the first quarter of 2006, winning total contract values of 3.7 billion euros, 3.6 billion euros and 1.1 billion euros, respectively.

The pipeline of deals on which TPI is currently advising is led by EDS, IBM and CSC, which are competing for deals totaling 6.4 billion euros, 6 billion and 4 billion, respectively, it added.

http://news.yahoo.com/
.

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Today democracy is a facade of plutocracy.

Because the peoples will not tolerate naked plutocracy, power is nominally turned over to them, while real power rests in the hands of the plutocrats. In democracies, whether republican or monarchical, the statesmen are marionettes, and the capitalists are the wire pullers: they dictate the political guidelines, they control the voters by buying public opinion, through business and social connections [they control] higher government officials ...

The plutocracy of today is more powerful than the aristocracy of the past, because nothing stands above it except the state, which is its tool and helper.":

Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, "Pan-european" publicist and political figure, in his book Praktischer Idealismus ("Practical Idealism"), Vienna, 1925.

~

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.": James Baldwin Biography - Fiction Writer, Essayist, Social Critic, 1924-1987

~


"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.": P. J. O'Rourke - (1947- ) US humorist, journalist, & political commentator

~

The greatest of fault, I should say, is to be conscious of none: Robert Carlyle (1795 - 1881)

~ ~ ~

[Saundra Hummer]

...:tearhair:... IS THIS THE DUMBEST THING YOU'VE EVER HEARD IN YOUR LIFE???

Premature Babies Feel Pain
2 hours, 7 minutes ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A researcher at Arkansas Children's Hospital has submitted findings of a study that suggests premature babies can consciously feel pain instead of reacting to it by reflex.

The study, which is to be published in the medical journal Pain, was conducted by Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand, director of the Pain Neurobiology Laboratory at the hospital's Research Institute.

His research looked at the responses of babies to pain by monitoring changes in heart rate, facial expressions and blood pressure through positive and negative stimuli.

Anand said the new findings support his initial theory on neonatal pain, first published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1987.

The accepted theory is that premature babies react to pain through reflex, but do not actually perceive pain beyond their nerve fibers or spinal cord or in the highest sensory center of the brain, he said.

During the study, electrodes were placed over the sensory cortical areas of the brain. Researchers found that, after stroking the babies' hands with alcohol swabs, both sides of the babies' brains were stimulated, shown by increases in blood flow.

Nurses from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit then drew blood from the babies' veins, which resulted in an increase in blood flow to the sensory cortex. That increase suggested the babies felt pain at the highest sensory level of the brain, Anand said.

"This is the first study to report that when a premature baby feels pain, that acute pain activates the sensory cortex, the highest center of pain processing in the brain," Anand said. "These results prove that babies consciously feel pain, rather than simply reacting to it."

[Saundra Hummer]

.............
Mystery Vibrations Detected Inside Earth Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Thu Apr 13, 4:00 PM ET

Tremors deep inside the Earth are usually produced by magma flowing beneath volcanoes, but a new study suggests they can also be produced by the shifting and sliding of tectonic plates.

Scientists have recorded vibrations from underground tremors at a geologic observatory along the San Andreas Fault, an 800 mile scar in the earth that runs through California. The fault marks the boundary between the Pacific Tectonic Plate and the North American Plate.

Tectonic plates are large pieces of the Earth's crust that bump and grind like chunks of sea ice floating atop the ocean. The Earth's surface is made up of about ten major tectonic plates and many more minor ones.

Tremors are sustained vibrations that occur deep inside the Earth.

"Unlike the sharp jolt of an earthquake, tremors within Earth's crust emerge slowly, rumbling for longer periods of time," explained Kaye Shedlock, the program director for Earthscope at the National Science Foundation.

EarthScope is a project investigating the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the physical processes controlling earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Normally, tremors are produced by the movement of magma in cracks and other channels beneath volcanoes.

But there are no volcanoes located near the Earthscope San Andreas Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) in Parkfield, California, where the new tremors were recorded.

These are the first recordings of non-volcanic tremors deep inside the Earth. They were recorded in deep boreholes that were drilled down to a depth of about 2 miles.

Instead of volcanoes, the scientists think the subterranean rumblings might be caused by processes similar to those that produce tremors near the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an active fault that runs from mid-Vancouver Island to northern California.

Those tremors are caused by the sliding of the undersea Juan de Fuca tectonic plate beneath the North American plate.

The two plates making up the San Andreas Fault are different from those in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, however, in that they slide past another, much like two cars moving very slowly in opposite directions on a freeway, in what scientists call a "slip."

"Right now we have no recorded slip associated with the tremors, so we haven't been able to see the other part," Earthscope facility project director Greg van der Vink told LiveScience.

Earthscope researchers hope to definitively link the two events by installing instruments called laser strainmeters inside the borehole which are capable of measuring slips as the tremors happen.
Quiz: 100 Years After the Great 1906 Quake Ominous Rumbling Under San Andreas Fault Inside an Earthquake: Geologists Penetrate Fault Zone 2 Miles Down New Method Promises Better Earthquake Prediction How Volcanoes Work

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
http://news.yahoo.com/

[the magnificent goldberg]

.............
Mystery Vibrations Detected Inside Earth Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Thu Apr 13, 4:00 PM ET

Tremors deep inside the Earth are usually produced by magma flowing beneath volcanoes, but a new study suggests they can also be produced by the shifting and sliding of tectonic plates.

Scientists have recorded vibrations from underground tremors at a geologic observatory along the San Andreas Fault, an 800 mile scar in the earth that runs through California. The fault marks the boundary between the Pacific Tectonic Plate and the North American Plate.

Tectonic plates are large pieces of the Earth's crust that bump and grind like chunks of sea ice floating atop the ocean. The Earth's surface is made up of about ten major tectonic plates and many more minor ones.

Tremors are sustained vibrations that occur deep inside the Earth.

"Unlike the sharp jolt of an earthquake, tremors within Earth's crust emerge slowly, rumbling for longer periods of time," explained Kaye Shedlock, the program director for Earthscope at the National Science Foundation.

EarthScope is a project investigating the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the physical processes controlling earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Normally, tremors are produced by the movement of magma in cracks and other channels beneath volcanoes.

But there are no volcanoes located near the Earthscope San Andreas Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) in Parkfield, California, where the new tremors were recorded.

These are the first recordings of non-volcanic tremors deep inside the Earth. They were recorded in deep boreholes that were drilled down to a depth of about 2 miles.

Instead of volcanoes, the scientists think the subterranean rumblings might be caused by processes similar to those that produce tremors near the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an active fault that runs from mid-Vancouver Island to northern California.

Those tremors are caused by the sliding of the undersea Juan de Fuca tectonic plate beneath the North American plate.

The two plates making up the San Andreas Fault are different from those in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, however, in that they slide past another, much like two cars moving very slowly in opposite directions on a freeway, in what scientists call a "slip."

"Right now we have no recorded slip associated with the tremors, so we haven't been able to see the other part," Earthscope facility project director Greg van der Vink told LiveScience.

Earthscope researchers hope to definitively link the two events by installing instruments called laser strainmeters inside the borehole which are capable of measuring slips as the tremors happen.
Quiz: 100 Years After the Great 1906 Quake Ominous Rumbling Under San Andreas Fault Inside an Earthquake: Geologists Penetrate Fault Zone 2 Miles Down New Method Promises Better Earthquake Prediction How Volcanoes Work

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
http://news.yahoo.com/

How does that feel to someone living locally, Sandi?

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

How does that feel to someone living locally, Sandi?

MG

Not much going on where we are, but we see rips (faults) in the earth where earthquakes have been severe in Bend and other areas. Schuks Auto Parts is built on top of an old rip in the earth, and behind their building you can see a terrible rift. No one knew anything about them until a survey, maps and photo's of the damaged areas were published in the newspaper and on our local television station.

Where we are, the mountains are all old volcano's. Our area has hot water wells, the water too hot to drink, so people have holding tanks to cool it off. Mt. Hood, which we can see from here, has a steam vent. The butte behind us is monitored for volcanic activity. We're right at it's foot, on a very slight slope, too flat looking to realize we are actually on it.

When Mount Saint Helens went off, both times I could feel it. It is constantly rumbling. Frequent earthquakes, yet minor ones, all too frequently. It has settled down the last month, where before the number of quakes were concerning vulcanologists, It's dome building has slowed down for the time being.

Go on the USGS Earthquake Hazard Page Website. It gives you the latest information on earthquakes around the world. Histories, etc.

The South Pacific and the near East are really getting them lately. It's nothing for that area to have 5.5 or so magnitude quakes. Fiji, Tonga, Iran, Pakistan, they are all having them on a pretty consistant basis, as are Russia and Japan.
Here's the site:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

[Saundra Hummer]

..............
Iran Leader:
Israel Will Be Annihilated
By
ALI AKBAR DAREINI,
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago


The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?"

The land of Palestine, he said, referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, "will be freed soon."

He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."

"The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations."

The three-day conference on Palestine is being attended by officials of Hamas, the ruling party in the Palestinian territories.

Iran has previously said it will give money to the Palestinian Authority to make up for the withdrawal of donations by Western nations who object to Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. But no figure has been published.

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium using a battery of 164 centrifuges, a significant step toward the large-scale production of enriched uranium required for either fueling nuclear reactors or making nuclear weapons.

The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity.

The U.N. Security Council has given Iran until April 28 to cease enrichment. But Iran has rejected the demand.

The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, was quoted Wednesday as saying Iran could develop a nuclear bomb "within three years, by the end of the decade."

The Worlds most prominant leaders are all nut cases, and you'll never convince me otherwise.

Just listen to all that has gone on, what is going on and just look where we are headed. Our leaders, and, it seems.- everyone elses - don't seem to be at all concerned about anyone - just their own wacked beliefs and dreams of money, power and self agrandizement. :rant2: Attitudes need to change and quickly or these leaders need to be impeached and/or thrown out of office, whichever way that can be found around the world;that which works best. A scary group of people are ruling the world, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Dark foreboding times. Let's hope we won't be seeing times much darker.

[Saundra Hummer]

<<<<<.:secret.>>>>>
AT&T, Group Challenge U.S. Spy Program
By
DAVID KRAVETS,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 13, 11:30 PM ET

AT&T Inc. and an Internet advocacy group are waging in federal court a privacy battle that could expose the reach of the Bush administration's secretive domestic wiretapping program.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it obtained documents from a former AT&T technician showing that the National Security Agency is capable of monitoring all communications on AT&T's network.
"It appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the Internet, whether that be people's e-mail, Web surfing or any other data," whistle-blower Mark Klein, who worked for the company for 22 years, said in a statement released by his lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is considering whether to unseal documents that Klein provided and AT&T wants kept secret. EFF filed the documents under seal as a courtesy to the phone company, but is seeking to unseal them.

The EFF lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks to stop the surveillance program that started shortly after the 2001 terror attacks. The suit is based in large part on the Klein documents, which detail secret spying rooms and electronic surveillance equipment in AT&T facilities.

The suit claims AT&T company not only provided direct access to its network that carries voice and data but also to its massive databases of stored telephone and Internet records that are updated constantly.

AT&T violated U.S. law and the privacy of its customers as part of the "massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications" without warrants, the EFF alleged.

Klein said the NSA built a secret room at the company's San Francisco central office in 2003, adjacent to a "switch room where the public's phone calls are routed." One of the documents under seal, Klein said, shows that a device was installed with the "ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets."

Other so-called secret rooms were constructed at AT&T sites in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego, the statement said.

Other documents under seal show that fiber optic cables from the secret room tapped into WorldNet Internet subscribers, Klein said. The documents also instructed technicians how to connect cables to the secret room. Klein said he was required to connect circuits that fed information to the secret room.

The NSA declined directly to address the lawsuit or Klein's allegations, which covered activities at AT&T Corp. before SBC Communications Inc. bought it and became AT&T Inc. late last year.

"Any discussion about actual or alleged operational issues would be irresponsible as it would give our adversaries insight that would enable them to adjust and potentially inflict harm to the U.S.," NSA spokesman Don Weber said.

Michael Balmoris, an AT&T spokesman, said the San Antonio-based telecommunications company "follows all laws with respect to assistance offered to government agencies." He declined further elaboration, saying AT&T is "not in a position to comment on matters of national security or litigation."

President Bush confirmed in December that the NSA has been conducting the surveillance when calls and e-mails, in which at least one party is outside the United States, are thought to involve al-Qaida terrorists.

In congressional hearings last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested the president could order the NSA to listen in on purely domestic calls without first obtaining a warrant from a secret court established nearly 30 years ago to consider such issues.

He said the administration, assuming the conversation related to al-Qaida, would have to determine if the surveillance were crucial to the nation's fight against terrorism, as authorized by Congress following the Sept. 11 attacks.


Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
http://news.yahoo.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

:secret :violin :secret :violin :secret
He's the leakingest
Will Durst
-
WorkingForChange.com

04.13.06 - This is in-leaking-credible. According to leaked grand jury testimony, it turns out the person who instructed Scooter Libby to leak classified information about pre-Iraq war intelligence was the president himself. Can't wait for them play “Hail to the Leaker,” as he enters the Capitol next January for his State of the Union Leakage. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the First Leaker of the United States of America, George Leaky Bush.” I always suspected the president was a sneaky leaker. And now it turns out, he's the Chief Leaker. The Chief Executive Officer of Leakwell Incorporated. Chicken Leaker.
Let's welcome today's guest: the headliner of the 3rd annual Leakapalooza: lead singer, Leaky Leakman of Leaky Leakman and the Leakers. That crafty veteran manager of the five time defending champions, the Texas Leakers. And no, that's not redundant. And because news of his leakage has been leaked, the Leaker-in-Chief is seriously involved in heavy duty leakage control. Trusted in that old adage, “Leak and Learn,” so he leaked his ass off. Fortunately, they have adult garments for that now. I think they're called “Leakenders” or “Leakaways.” “Wear Leakaways and you won't leak a ways.”

Leak is such an ugly word, isn't it? Leaker is even worse. Like a loser with the dribbles. Leak leak bo beak, banana fana fo feak. Fee fie fo feak. LEAKY! When the going gets tough; the tough leak like chronic diarrhea. Leakers unite! And form a trickle. Voted least leakly to succeed. Through the leaking glass. Going to have to face it: he's addicted to leaks. He's going to leak, leak, leak, around the clock. And this ain't the first time. Ever since college there have been rumors he had a leaky beak. The man is positively leakalicious.

He doesn't have to answer to us. He's the leaker of the free world. From the party of Lincoln to the party of Leakin. A lesson learned from Nixon: stonewall and you stonewall alone. Leak and the world leaks with you. Leaking like the confidence of the forward shooters in a Dick Cheney hunting party. As leaky as the roof on the last duplex standing in the 9th Ward. Leakier than a condom on the 50 yard line after an Oakland Raiders double overtime playoff game. The human personification of a rusted rain gutter in Seattle during January. Leaky. As the vice president told Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate: “Go leak yourself!” Leak me? Leak you! This leaking leaker's leaked.

Who knows why he leaked. Plausible leakability perhaps. Might have been an involuntary muscle spasm, or maybe its just the leak of love. One explanation is he didn't mean to leak, he was just being leaksadasical. Morphed into Dr. Kevorkaleaker before our very eyes. Just wanted to assure himself of a major role in the newest production of “Around the Truth in 80 Leaks.” Filmed in Leak-O-Rama. Wasn't really his fault, he and Captain Hazlewood were playing a quick game of “Leak, leak, splash,” when all hell broke loose and his pie hole began to leak partisan ooze. Or maybe it's a simple case of living out his childhood dream of finally becoming one of the lesser known Knights of the Round Table: Sir Leaksalot.

Comic, actor, writer, radio talk show host, cheeseburger aficionado Will Durst will never be able to eat potato leak soup again.
(c) 2006 WorkingForChange. All Rights Reserved

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20639

[the magnificent goldberg]

Not much going on where we are, but we see rips (faults) in the earth where earthquakes have been severe in Bend and other areas. Schuks Auto Parts is built on top of an old rip in the earth, and behind their building you can see a terrible rift. No one knew anything about them until a survey, maps and photo's of the damaged areas were published in the newspaper and on our local television station.

Where we are, the mountains are all old volcano's. Our area has hot water wells, the water too hot to drink, so people have holding tanks to cool it off. Mt. Hood, which we can see from here, has a steam vent. The butte behind us is monitored for volcanic activity. We're right at it's foot, on a very slight slope, too flat looking to realize we are actually on it.

When Mount Saint Helens went off, both times I could feel it. It is constantly rumbling. Frequent earthquakes, yet minor ones, all too frequently. It has settled down the last month, where before the number of quakes were concerning vulcanologists, It's dome building has slowed down for the time being.

Go on the USGS Earthquake Hazard Page Website. It gives you the latest information on earthquakes around the world. Histories, etc.

The South Pacific and the near East are really getting them lately. It's nothing for that area to have 5.5 or so magnitude quakes. Fiji, Tonga, Iran, Pakistan, they are all having them on a pretty consistant basis, as are Russia and Japan.
Here's the site:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

What I meant, Sandi, was how do you feel about it? I'd feel as if the sword of Damocles was continuously creeping down upon my neck.

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

What I meant, Sandi, was how do you feel about it? I'd feel as if the sword of Damocles was continuously creeping down upon my neck.

MG

Not a worry in the world. It doesn't bother anyone. I would rather have the fear of earthquakes than tornado's every year. Bad ones are so seldom and they don't hurl your house or your neighbors, at you in the form of a thousand daggers, like tornado's do. If and when the "BIG ONE" hits, it will be horrific I'm sure, and it could happen within the next breath or it could be in the next 100 years or ?????

One just can't go through life thinking "what if?" all the time. However, having said this, I have packed up some of my favorite things because of all of the shaking, there are just too many things which can't be replaced, and I had been wanting a lot of it out of the way in any case. Gifts from family, odd or unusual things. some favorite colorful California Pottery, etc. and arts and crafts lamps. I want to build some shelving and instead of being out and collecting dust, they will at least be where they won't be hurled across a room, although the last big quake, the one down in California broke all of my girlfriends heirloom crystal, it was on the bottom shelf of her to the floor cupboards, and it flung open the door and threw it all against her stove, and cupboards on the opposite wall, just breaking all of it. She thought it would all be safe there, or somewhat safe. It just goes to show you, one just never knows. Her husband Mike McNulty went around on his bicycle shutting off everyones gas lines, which probably prevented serious damage. Brave of him, that's for sure. This was at their house in Century City.

[the magnificent goldberg]

One just can't go through life thinking "what if?" all the time.

I see what you mean. My wife does that; it was certainly cheaper than buying contents insurance. Now we've moved, we've got contents in with the building insurance, but she still worries. :)

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Money becomes evil not when it is used to buy goods but when it is used to buy power... economic inequalities become evil when they are translated into political inequalities: Samuel Huntington - Political Scientist

~

"The truth is that men are tired of liberty." Mussolini

How Soon We Forget! SRH

~

The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors. : Plutarch (46 A.D.-127 A.D.) Historian of the Roman Republic
~~~

[Saundra Hummer]

.......
Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship
Why Rumsfeld Should Not ResignThe Guardian - Comment
Friday, April 14, 2006
By Greg Palast

Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation.

Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and they still don't get it.
I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy in the rump, in public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot straight.

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleezza?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney?

Yes, Rumsfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense.

Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy.

Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil."

Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and oil-supporting industries." The General knew of the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government -- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms -- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed "liberation" turned into a hated "occupation."

But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab.

On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, Jack, you're fired."

Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired.

Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it.

For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the puppet instead of the puppeteers.

There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in command.

Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.)

President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he's taken all their ammo."

When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished."

Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's the President, stupid.
**********
Read more about the untold story of General Garner and the secret war plans in ARMED MADHOUSE, by Greg Palast, to be released June 6 (US) and July 6 (UK). View Palast's interview with Garner for BBC Television at www.GregPalast.com
.....

http://www.gregpalast.com/
.

[Saundra Hummer]

:rant2:*:rant2:
Subsidizing fish to swim Molly Ivins
-
Creators Syndicate 04.11.06 - AUSTIN, Texas -- We need to keep up with the daily drip, that endless succession of special favors for special interests performed by Congress, or we'll never figure out how we got so far behind the eight ball. While the top Bushies lunge about test-driving new wars (great idea -- the one we're having is a bummer, so let's start another!), Congress just keeps right on cranking out those corporate goodies.

Earlier this month, the House effectively repealed more than 200 state food safety and public health protections. Say, when was the last time you enjoyed a little touch of food poisoning? Coming soon to a stomach near you. What was really impressive about H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," is that it was passed without a public hearing. "The House is trampling crucial health safeguards in every state without so much as a single public hearing," said Erik Olson, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This just proves the old adage, 'Money talks.' The food industry spared no expense to ensure passage."

Thirty-nine attorneys general, plus health, consumer and environmental groups, are opposing the law. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the food industry has spent more than $81 million on campaign contributions to members of Congress since 2000.

The bill would automatically override any state measure that is stronger than federal law, the opposite of what a sensible law would do. The NRDC says state laws protecting consumers from chemical additives, bacteria and ingredients that can trigger allergic reactions would be barred, and that includes alerts about chemical contamination in fish, health protection standards for milk and eggs, and warnings about chemicals or toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead. Happy eating, all.

Here's another little gem, one of those "it was after midnight and everyone wanted to go home" deals. Just a no-cost sweetener to encourage oil and gas companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico -- and who needs more encouragement these days than the oil companies? The poor things are making hardly any money at all. Just have the federal government waive the royalty rights for drilling in the publicly owned waters. Turns out this waiver will cost the government at least $7 billion over the next five years.

I roared with laughter upon reading that Texas Rep. Joe Barton had assured his colleagues the provision of energy bill was "so non-controversial" that senior House and Senate negotiators had not even discussed it. That's one of the oldest ploys in the Texas handbook of sneaky tricks and has been successfully used to pass many a sweet deal for the oil industry.

"The big lie about this whole program is that it doesn't cost anything," Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey told The New York Times. "Taxpayers are being asked to provide huge subsidies to oil companies to produce oil -- it's like subsidizing a fish to swim."

Then there are daily drips so strange it's hard to tell if members of Congress are clear on what they're doing. You may have heard that more and more corporations are backing out of their pension obligations and dumping the responsibility on an under-funded federal agency.

So the push is on to get companies to pony up for the pension agency. According to the Financial Times: "Employers will be able to slash their contributions to under-funded pension schemes by tens of billions of dollars over the next five years under proposed legislation before Congress that was expected to have the opposite effect. The legislation was proposed by the White House last year to lessen the risk of a taxpayer bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal safety net for pension schemes."

Brilliant. Anyone know how the White House went from protecting the Benefit Guaranty Corp. to slashing corporate contributions by tens of billions? Did they send Michael "Brownie" Brown to do the job?

(c) 2006 Creators Syndicate

He's fond of saying, GW Bush, that "We're with ya!" Will he, or any of his crony's be with the elderly in soup lines when this pension debacle all comes crashing down on our most vulnarable? :rant2: Sure.:rant2: Right.:rant2: Give me a break!:rant2:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20624...

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Debate Revives as 9/11 Dust Is Called Fatal
By
Anthony DePalma
The New York Times
Friday 14 April 2006
A motorcycle honor guard stood by in January as the body of former Detective James Zadroga, 34, was taken to a cemetery in New Jersey.
(Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times)
In the cold, clinical language of the autopsy report of a retired New York City detective that was released this week, there were words that thousands of New Yorkers have come to anticipate and to fear.

"It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident," stated the report from the medical examiner's office in Ocean County, N.J.
That "reasonable degree of medical certainty" - coroner language for "as sure as I can be" - provides the first official link made by a medical expert between the hazardous air at ground zero after the trade center collapse and the death of someone who worked in the rescue effort.

The report has reopened old wounds, giving lawsuits brought by first responders and downtown residents new evidence to back up allegations that the toxic mixture of dust and fumes at ground zero was deadly.

The report has also reignited a fierce debate over whether to classify deaths like that of Detective James Zadroga, 34 - who died on Jan. 5 of respiratory failure at his parents' New Jersey home - as being "in the line of duty," making survivors eligible for more benefits.

Dr. Robin Herbert, who has screened thousands of first responders through the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, called Detective Zadroga's autopsy report a "sentinel event" and a warning sign.

"It should be taken very seriously and investigated with great vigor," Dr. Herbert said.

But while acknowledging that those exposed to the dust may develop fatal diseases, many medical experts who have tracked the health effects of the trade center collapse have been reluctant to cross the line in between probability and certainty.

The autopsy report went further than any other medical document to link a death to the dust, but it by no means provides conclusive proof of the dust's general toxicity and its impact on other workers at the site. That, experts generally agree, may take 20 years to play out, depending on the latency period for many cancers and other diseases that could be linked to exposure to the toxic materials.

Proving the cause of a disease, even when the cause may seem obvious, is difficult. Dr. Michael M. Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York and a forensics expert, said the phrase "reasonable degree of certainty" is the standard term used in court to mean that given the available information, "it's very likely that that opinion is correct."

That said, Dr. Baden noted that given the impact of such a finding, he would have expected the medical examiner's office to consult with doctors who had tested or treated other first responders before coming to such a conclusion. Other experts said that tests should have been done on the particles found in Detective Zadroga's lungs to compare them with the dust from the trade center.

Neither step was taken. The autopsy was performed by Dr. Gerard Breton, a 73-year-old retired pathologist who has been on contract to the medical examiner's office in Ocean County for a decade.

Dr. Breton said in a telephone interview yesterday that he did not attempt to classify the "innumerable foreign body granulomas" containing "unidentified foreign materials" in Detective Zadroga's lungs. He also did not consult any doctors besides the detective's physician, who he said had informed him of Detective Zadroga's work at ground zero.

Nonetheless, Dr. Breton said what he found was unmistakable.

"I cannot personally understand that anyone could see what I saw in the lungs, and know that the person was exposed to ground zero, and not make the same link I made," said Dr. Breton.

Detective Zadroga, who joined the New York Police Department in 1992, did not smoke and had no known history of asthma. His family has long believed that the 450 grueling hours that the highly decorated officer spent working on recovery efforts at ground zero in 2001 had filled his lungs with fiberglass, pulverized concrete and a toxic brew of chemicals that fatally scarred his lungs, leading to his death at the age of 34.

For them, the autopsy report was an awful confirmation.

Joseph Zadroga, Detective Zadroga's father, said his son and other officers who had worked at the trade center site knew the air they were breathing would probably cause health problems down the road. "You had to be a fool not to realize that," he said on Tuesday at a news conference in Manhattan.

Detective Zadroga's colleagues have argued that hundreds of officers who were also exposed to the dust will probably suffer from a variety of serious illnesses, including a number of blood cancers, because of their work at ground zero.

Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said that he wanted state pension law amended so that Detective Zadroga's death and others like it are reclassified as occurring in the line of duty, qualifying survivors to receive larger benefits. A bill to make such a change has been proposed in Albany.

In Brooklyn yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg noted that a law was passed last year allowing city workers who got sick after responding to the trade center site to qualify for full disability pensions, even after they retire. He called Detective Zadroga's death tragic, but said the autopsy report may not be definitive.

"We'll see what other doctors say," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Generally, there are lots of other contributing factors."

More than 7,300 people who worked at the trade center recovery site - police officers, firefighters and constructions workers - have joined in a class-action suit seeking damages from their employers.

David E. Worby, the lawyer handling that suit, said about 40 of the plaintiffs have already died. "At a minimum, their diseases were aggravated, and accelerated by the toxic exposure," he said.

Toxic substances known to cause cancer, like benzene and asbestos, take decades to develop the disease. Mr. Worby said the doctors and scientists he had consulted believe that the complex mixture of chemicals that resulted from the collapse of the two towers - along with everything in them - may have created a compound that acts as an accelerant, vastly increasing the speed by which known carcinogens trigger cancer.

"It's a horror show," he said.

In a separate class-action lawsuit against federal environmental officials, residents and schoolchildren from Lower Manhattan claim they were given false assurance that the air around ground zero was safe enough for them to move back in a few days after the attack.

In February, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that statements about safety made by officials after 9/11 were misleading and "without question conscience-shocking." --------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041406L.shtml

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Bush is Against Leaks – Except When He Leaks
Helen Thomas
April 13 - 19, 2006 VOL. XVI

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is piously opposed to leaks, unless he's the person doing the leaking.

The president has now acknowledged that he authorized the leak of a classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq to bolster his case for the invasion of Iraq .

In retrospect, the administration now says much of the information in the top secret report was faulty. But that's another story.

Before Bush declassified the report, it included caveats and dubious assumptions that should have given him pause. But they were conveniently ignored in his rush to go to war.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president was motivated by the "public interest" in releasing parts of the report.

On Monday, Bush said he declassified the document to show the basis for his argument that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the U.S.

"I wanted people to see the truth," he said, explaining that he ordered the declassification because "it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches" about Saddam's pursuit of a weapons program.

However, when the leaks are selective and appear to be vengeful, the president's professed concern for the people's right to know is highly suspect.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called on Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to speak out "to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated again, by the American people."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Bush's rival when he ran for reelection in 2004, told NBC-TV's "Meet the Press"" Sunday it was wrong for Bush to selectively declassify information "in order to buttress phony arguments to go to war."

There are leaks -- and then there are leaks.

One leak that upset the administration was the revelation in the New York Times that Bush had ordered the wiretapping of Americans without a warrant. Bush and his aides have thoroughly denounced that leak.

Another leak that angered the administration was the Washington Post expose of the shameful U.S. practice of transferring some detainees to secret prisons abroad for interrogation and possibly torture.

Bush ordered the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 . By June and July of that year, the president was still trying to justify the attack even as his stated reasons for going to war were falling by the wayside.

Fending off critics became a top priority for the president, whose credibility suffered when former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson shot down the administration's claims that Saddam had tried to purchase uranium to develop nuclear weapons.

The CIA sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger to check out the allegations. Later, he wrote an op-ed essay in the New York Times on July 6, 2003 , that pooh-poohed the White House's claims.

Apparently to discredit Wilson , the White House leaked the fact that Wilson 's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA undercover officer and indicated that she had instigated her husband's journey to Niger .

Wilson told CNN Monday that the White House "made an effort to besmirch my good name and my wife's reputation and damage her career."

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald -- who has been seeking the identity of the person who made public the secret information about Plame's CIA status -- said that I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, had testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from the intelligence report.

According to Fitzgerald, Libby was directed by Cheney and Bush to describe the uranium allegations as a "key judgment" of the intelligence community.

Of course, like all the other administration scares about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the uranium story proved to be a lot of hot air after American forces occupied Iraq and found no traces of WMD or any nuclear weapons development.

In this whole morass, it's clear that Libby -- who has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice -- has no intention of becoming the fall guy. Libby's trial next year may give us a peak inside this ultra-secretive White House and its still-mysterious motives for invading Iraq.
Falls Church News Press
http://www.fcnp.com/606/thomas.htm

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Protection Racket, Inc.
Ellen Goodman
Washington Post Writers Group

04.14.06 - BOSTON -- For those who have ever wondered when a promise of protection becomes a protection racket, this is your moment.

We now have the forced admission that in 2003 George W. Bush himself approved the leaking of classified intelligence gathered before the Iraq War. He didn't let it all leak out. He authorized a trickle of information buttressing his case that Saddam Hussein had been a nuclear threat, information that had already been discredited.

After manipulating this faucet of fear, the president then defended the war in the name of national security, casting himself as the country's father-protector. In short, he sold himself as the person we needed to protect us from the fear he provoked. Welcome to the protection racket. And lest you forget, his re-election campaign was run by the same racketeers. George W. was transformed from a conservative who was compassionate to a commander in chief who was unflappable. John Kerry was accused of the unmanly crime of nuance and caricatured as flip-floppable. We were subjected to an endless strongman debate with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the attack on “girlie men.”

A stock figure of the election cycle was the soccer mom transformed into the security mom. This was the woman scared right -- into the arms of the president. In this favorite story line, women who mock husbands who don't ask for directions fall for the politician who insists that he knows where he's going.

The security mom was something of a cartoon figure and the balloon over her head now reads: “What was I thinking?” There are enough second thoughts in the citizenry to make Bush's approval rating look like the “Summit Plummet” ride at Disney World. But I'm afraid the racketeers aren't filing for bankruptcy yet.

Consider the success of Harvey Mansfield's book, a last-ditch defense of “Manliness.” Harvard's token conservative has written a plea to common sense replete with enough provocative nonsense to make you wonder if he handled public relations for Larry Summers. Women, he asserts manfully, like changing diapers, fear spiders and are cute when they're mad. But the oddball, often-impenetrable mix of Socrates and stereotypes has landed Mansfield attention even in such estrogen-laden bastions as Oprah's magazine.

Mansfield defines manliness as “confidence in the face of risk.” His manly man is something of a drama king who prefers times of conflict and war. He “asserts himself so that he and the justice he demands are not overlooked.' And if an occasional woman who overcomes her love of diapers and fear of spiders also asserts herself -- see Margaret Thatcher -- she is simply declared to be manly.

What makes this a somewhat modest defense is that Mansfield acknowledges good and bad manliness. The same characteristics can lead a terrorist to fly a plane directly into a building or a firefighter to race up the stairs to save lives.

So Mansfield believes we need to bolster the “good” manliness to protect us from the “bad” manliness. “Manliness is the only remedy for the trouble it causes,” he writes. But here is where the scam clicks in. He calls on women to accept, jolly, humor and respect manly men as a way of muting their danger. Protection Rackets Inc.

Despite the existence of women terrorists, soldiers and secretaries of state, most wars have indeed been initiated and waged by men. Tribes and countries do continually look to one group of men to defend them against another group of men.

But sometimes we have to just ask: How well have humoring and jollying muted the dangers of war or honor killings, wife-beating or ethnic cleansing? Haven't we shown too much respect for people whose blood rushes to conflict? In a Time magazine piece, even a retired general chastises the White House for going to war with a “swagger.” What happens when the men who fantasized a nuclear threat in Iraq confront the swagger of such a threat in Iran?

In the past weeks, I've heard any number of people ask whether Katie Couric has the gravitas -- that's Latin for baritone -- to be a sole network news anchor. And whether Hillary Clinton has the cojones -- that's Spanish for, never mind -- to be president. I've taken the pulse of liberals who have a crush on John McCain for his wartime courage even when his convictions have turned the Straight Talk Express into a Right Wing Local.

There's something to be learned in the Bush debacle. Beware the call of the old manliness. Beware the man who ramps up the danger and offers himself as hero and security blanket. And beware the leader whose unwavering, unflappable, unnuanced and unjustified confidence in the face of risk becomes our disaster.

(c) 2006, Washington Post Writers Group

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20644

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*
White House Whopper Becomes Instant Classic
by
Molly Ivins
Published on Thursday, April 13, 2006 by TruthDig
Personally, I think this is a really good time not to keep up. The more you try, the less sense it makes, although getting us used to having it all make no sense at all may be an extremely sneaky Karl Rove ploy to justify the war in Iraq. Hard to say.

The latest development to which the only appropriate response is, “Huh,” is the news that the “mobile weapons labs” introduced to us by President Bush before the war as conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not evidence—conclusive or otherwise—of WMD and were not, in fact, mobile weapons labs.

The only thing new here is the news that George W. Bush likely knew a couple of days before he talked about them in public that the Defense Intelligence Agency had found they were not mobile weapons labs.OK, given everything we already know about the lies before the war, this is not particularly startling—although I do think it’s long past time we stopped referring to the campaign of disinformation and false information that we were fed as anything but lies. No, the startling and funny part of the “mobile weapons lab” lie is the administration’s defense of it, which is so batty it’s an instant classic.

According to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, the DIA report debunking the “weapons labs” is “a complex intelligence white paper and it’s ... one derived from highly classified information (and) takes a substantial amount of time to coordinate and to run through a declassification process.”

If I understand what McClellan is saying, Bush leaked bad information from a classified intelligence report because there wasn’t enough time for the contradictory DIA report to go through a declassification process. All of which would make more sense if we hadn’t just gone through this Valerie Plame episode, where the White House says if the president leaked it, then it’s legal to leak it. No problem, the president can declassify at will, they said. I don’t know about you, but none of it is becoming clearer for me. Does anyone understand why we have to bomb Iran yet?

Meanwhile, Congress can’t figure out how to do a deal on immigration. I’d like to stick my two cents in here to say the reason that deal fell apart and the reason it won’t come back together is because of American business, which hires the illegals and donates the campaign money. Bless your sweet heart if you think the deal came unglued over the Republicans ignoring their base or some other political problem. Money, my friends, talks, and bull walks. Look at who wants illegal workers here. Look at who controls Congress.

Courtesy of the Daou Report on salon.com, I found this item on a blog called The Shape of Days, about the recent demonstrations: “There’s really no other way to say it: Being here is weird. To be surrounded by a crowd of thousands of people, all of whom look alike, none of whom look like me, many of whom are decorated with our flag, none of whom are speaking our language, on our national Mall ... it’s a surreal experience. Despite my best judgment and best intentions, I feel the inklings of xenophobia bubbling up inside. This place isn’t for me; I don’t belong here. It’s time to go.”

I suppose this citizen deserves credit for honesty, but I’m so much more amazed by his or her provincialism. I feel one of those rants about suburbia coming on. Never been in a public place before surrounded by people who speak a different language and look different from you? Can you live in a city and not have experienced that?

I was high just from seeing them all—500,000 in Dallas! Of course, most of us know the immigrants are there—it’s just so interesting to see them en masse. If you’ve ever wondered what this country would be like without illegal workers, now you’ve got the answer. It would come to a halt.

Let me point out again, I don’t have a dog in this fight. There are just some things I know from living in Texas all my life. One is, don’t bother to build a fence. Two is, if you want to stop illegal immigrants, stop the people who hire them—quit punishing people who come because there are jobs. Three, this border has always been porous, and it has always worked to the advantage of the United States.

If you want to do the smart thing and look for a long-term solution, try fixing NAFTA and helping with economic development in Mexico. Meantime, I could do without the drivel about how these people are so different. Of course they’re not. Try getting out a little more.

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In?
© 2006 TruthDig.com, LLC

http://www.truthdig.com/

Truth Dig, Drilling Beneath the Headlines

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0413-21.htm

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~~~
Isahaqi,-Children of Araham: Death in the DesertWritten by Chris Floyd
Animation by Richard Kast
Go On Site to downloasd.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

http://floyd.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

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:laugh: :clap: :laugh:

IRAN: TEXT MESSAGE TELLS PRESIDENT HE SHOULD WASH MORE

Tehran, 14 April (AKI) - Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has apparently been incensed by an anonymous text message suggesting he does not wash enough. Ahmadinejad has taken legal action over the offending text, has fired the president of a phone company and has had four people arrested and accused of colluding with the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, the anti-government website Rooz Online reports.

Poking fun at the president, the regime's senior figures and its policies, has reportedly become a national pastime in Iran. The Iranian authorities are paying particular attention to jokes comparing Iran's nuclear programme with sex. Several people are widely believed to have received court summonses for sending nuclear-related jokes, according to Rooz Online.

"While the outcome of the recent arrests in connection with SMS messaging is not clear yet, what is certain is that SMS jokes have already put some people into serious trouble," wrote Rooz Online.

The clampdown is in line with the authorities' uncompromising stance on Internet bloggers. Large numbers of the nation's estimated 70,000 to 100,000 bloggers have faced harassment or imprisonment. The regime has acknowledged monitoring text message traffic. This apparently began in the run-up to the presidential election last June.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.287519686&par=#

What an abuse of power. Freedoms are unknown in their country? Seems like it. Well not that it seems to be that way, it is that way. It's as we've always heard - that there are none. No personal freedoms, or at least, very few. We've known this for years about several leaders restraints on their citizens, and we've known how it was and how it is in China, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Russia, and all over the Near, Far, and Middle East. How foolish of him, this little man of backward motivations, and anyone else to be, or even halfway thinking of taking such goings on to such an extreme. Punishment? Ridiculous. Public ridicule like private opinions can't be totally controlled, not ever.

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Congress: Only You Can Authorize War on Iran
Contributed by Working Assets
GO ON-SITE TO FILL OUT AND SEND LETTERS TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE'S. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, 48% OF THE PEOPLE POLLED ARE FOR A STRIKE AGAINST IRAN. IT IS PROBABLY, ACCORDING TO THOSE WHO STUDY THESE THINGS, GOING TO HAPPEN, THAT IS UNLESS WE LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD. THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY.
SRH
. Congress: Only You Can Authorize War on IranRecent news reports have indicated that the Bush Administration is planning offensive military operations against Iran, possibly including nuclear weapons, and that these plans are not just "contingencies." Intelligence officials quoted by renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh describe this planning as "enormous," "hectic" and "operational."

Yet our constitution says quite clearly in Article One, Section Eight, that only Congress has the power to declare war. Despite President Bush's expansive views of his own powers, a unilateral bombing attack on another country is in fact an overt act of war.

Make no mistake about it -- the President of Iran and the mullahs who back him are dangerous, anti-semitic theocrats. However, the consensus of American intelligence agencies is that they are at least ten years away, if not more, from developing their first atomic weapon. There is still ample time to engage diplomatically and solve this problem through international agencies such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The neoconservatives' view that American bombing attacks will cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government can most charitably be described as delusional.

Representative DeFazio of Oregon has introduced a resolution to express the sense of Congress that the President cannot initiate military action against Iran without congressional authorization. He is seeking additional support among other House members for the resolution as well.

Call to action

Urge your Representative to co-sign Rep. DeFazio's "sense of Congress" resolution forbidding military action against Iran without Congressional authorization.

Deadline: immediate

I'm writing to ask that you immediately co-sign Representative DeFazio's Sense of Congress resolution that the President cannot initiate military action against Iran without congressional authorization.

You are, no doubt, familiar with Article One, Section Eight of the US Constitution, granting Congress -- and only Congress -- the power to declare war. Despite this President's expansive views of his own powers, it's clear to me that bombing another country is in fact an act of war -- one that must be carefully and thoroughly debated there in Congress.

Some are proposing that bombing raids would cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government. This is a patently ridiculous assumption -- and is being promoted by the very same individuals who predicted we would be greeted with flowers and candy in Iraq.

Make no mistake about it -- the President of Iran and the mullahs who back him are dangerous, anti-semitic theocrats. However, our own intelligence agencies have agreed that Iran is at least ten years away from having enough weapons-grade material for their first atomic bomb. This problem can be solved through strong cooperative diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council and other multinational bodies -- not with a unilateral and unprovoked act of war.

Please, uphold your oath of office and don't abdicate your Constitutional duties. Sign Representative DeFazio's letter and prevent this President from getting us embroiled in a quagmire even larger than Iraq. Please let me know how you intend to proceed on this issue.

Sincerely,
...

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Now He Tells Us
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
Posted on April 12, 2006, Printed on April 15, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34861/The president played the scoundrel -- even the best of his minions went along with the lies -- and when a former ambassador dared to tell the truth, the White House initiated what Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald calls "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." That is the important story line.

If not for the whistle-blower, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, President Bush's falsehoods about the Iraq nuclear threat likely would never have been exposed.

On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us.The harsh truth is that this president cherry-picked the intelligence data in making his case for invading Iraq and deliberately kept the public in the dark as to the countervailing analysis at the highest level of the intelligence community. While the president and his top Cabinet officials were fear-mongering with stark images of a "mushroom cloud" over American cities, the leading experts on nuclear weaponry at the Department of Energy (the agency in charge of the U.S. nuclear-weapons program) and the State Department thought the claim of a near-term Iraqi nuclear threat was absurd.

"The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons," said a dissenting analysis from an assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research (INR) in the now infamous 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was cobbled together for the White House before the war. "Iraq may be doing so but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment."

The specter of the Iraqi nuclear threat was primarily based on an already-discredited claim that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes for the purpose of making nuclear weapons. In fact, at the time, the INR wrote in the National Intelligence Estimate that it "accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose."

The other major evidence President Bush gave Americans for a revitalized Iraq nuclear program, of course, was his 2003 State of the Union claim -- later found to be based on forged documents -- that a deal had been made to obtain uranium from Niger. This deal was exposed within the administration as bogus before the president's speech in January by Ambassador Wilson, who traveled to Niger for the CIA. Wilson only went public with his criticisms in an op-ed piece in the New York Times a half year later in response to what he charged were the administration's continued distortion of the evidence. In excerpts later made available to the public, it is clear that the Niger claim doesn't even appear as a key finding in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, while the INR dissent in that document dismisses it curtly: "[T]he claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment highly dubious."

I queried Powell at a reception following a talk he gave in Los Angeles on Monday. Pointing out that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate showed that his State Department had gotten it right on the nonexistent Iraq nuclear threat, I asked why did the president ignore that wisdom in his stated case for the invasion?

"The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily and Cheney went with that instead of what our guys wrote," Powell said. And the Niger reference in Bush's State of the Union speech? "That was a big mistake," he said. "It should never have been in the speech. I didn't need Wilson to tell me that there wasn't a Niger connection. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I never believed it."

When I pressed further as to why the president played up the Iraq nuclear threat, Powell said it wasn't the president: "That was all Cheney." A convenient response for a Bush family loyalist, perhaps, but it begs the question of how the president came to be a captive of his vice president's fantasies.

More important: Why was this doubt, on the part of the secretary of state and others, about the salient facts justifying the invasion of Iraq kept from the public until we heard the truth from whistle-blower Wilson, whose credibility the president then sought to destroy? In matters of national security, when a president leaks, he lies.

By selectively releasing classified information to suit his political purposes, as President Bush did in this case, he is denying that there was a valid basis for keeping the intelligence findings secret in the first place. "We ought to get to the bottom of it, so it can be evaluated by the American people," said Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I couldn't have put it any better.

Robert Scheer is the author of the new book, Playing President: My Relationships with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan and Clinton -- and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush. Read more Scheer at TruthDig.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34861/

[Saundra Hummer]

A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS:
From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan
Compiled by Zoltan Grossman
(revised 09/20/01)

Grossman: Killing Civilians
The List (Printing)
U.S. military spending ($343 billion in the year 2000) is 69 percent greater than that of the next five highest nations combined. Russia, which has the second largest military budget, spends less than one-sixth what the United States does. Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spend $14.4 billion combined; Iran accounts for 52 percent of this total.

The following is a partial list of U.S. military interventions from 1890 to 1999. This guide does NOT include demonstration duty by military police, mobilizations of the National Guard, offshore shows of naval strength, reinforcements of embassy personnel, the use of non-Defense Department personnel (such as the Drug Enforcement Agency), military exercises, non-combat mobilizations (such as replacing postal strikers), the permanent stationing of armed forces, covert actions where the U.S. did not play a command and control role, the use of small hostage rescue units, most uses of proxy troops, U.S. piloting of foreign warplanes, foreign disaster assistance, military training and advisory programs not involving direct combat, civic action programs, and many other military activities. <

Among sources used, besides news reports, are the Congressional Record (23 June 1969), 180 Landings by the U.S. Marine Corps History Division, Ege & Makhijani in Counterspy (July-Aug. 1982), and Daniel Ellsberg in Protest & Survive. "Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798-1993" by Ellen C. Collier of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service.

SOUTH DAKOTA
1890 (-?)
Troops
300 Lakota Indians massacred at Wounded
Knee.
ARGENTINA
1890
Troops
Buenos Aires interests protected.

CHILE
1891
Troops
Marines clash with nationalist rebels.

HAITI
1891
Troops
Black workers revolt on U.S.-claimed Navassa Island defeated.

IDAHO
1892
Troops
Army suppresses silver miners' strike.

HAWAII
1893 (-?)
Naval, troops
Independent kingdom overthrown, annexed.

CHICAGO
1894
Troops
Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.

NICARAGUA
1894
Troops
Month-long occupation of Bluefields.

CHINA
1894-95
Naval, troops
Marines land in Sino-Japanese War.

KOREA
1894-96
Troops
Marines kept in Seoul during war.

PANAMA
1895
Troops, naval
Marines land in Colombian province.

NICARAGUA
1896
Troops
Marines land in port of Corinto.

CHINA
1898-1900
Troops
Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.

PHILIPPINES
1898-1910(-?)
Naval, troops
Seized from Spain, killed
600,000 Filipinos.

CUBA
1898-1902(-?)
Naval, troops
Seized from Spain, still hold Navy
base.

PUERTO RICO
1898(-?)
Naval, troops
Seized from Spain, occupation
continues.

GUAM
1898(-?)
Naval, troops
Seized from Spain, still use as base.

MINNESOTA
1898(-?)
Troops
Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.

NICARAGUA
1898
Troops
Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.

SAMOA
1899(-?)
Troops
Battle over succession to throne.

NICARAGUA
1899
Troops
Marines land at port of Bluefields.

IDAHO
1899-1901
Troops
Army occupies Coeur d'Alene mining region.

OKLAHOMA
1901
Troops
Army battles Creek Indian revolt.

PANAMA
1901-14
Naval, troops
Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone 1914-99.

HONDURAS
1903
Troops
Marines intervene in revolution.

DOMINICAN REP.
1903-04
Troops
U.S. interests protected in Revolution.

KOREA
1904-05
Troops
Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.

CUBA
1906-09
Troops
Marines land in democratic election.

NICARAGUA
1907
Troops
"Dollar Diplomacy" protectorate set up.

HONDURAS
1907
Troops
Marines land during war with Nicaragua.

PANAMA
1908
Troops
Marines intervene in election contest.

NICARAGUA
1910
Troops
Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.

HONDURAS
1911
Troops
U.S. interests protected in civil war.

CHINA
1911-41
Naval, troops
Continuous occupation with flare-ups.

CUBA
1912
Troops
U.S. interests protected in Havana.

PANAMA
19l2
Troops
Marines land during heated election.

HONDURAS
19l2
Troops
Marines protect U.S. economic interests.

NICARAGUA
1912-33
Troops, bombing
20-year occupation, fought guerrillas.

MEXICO
19l3
Naval
Americans evacuated during revolution.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1914
Naval
Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.

COLORADO
1914
Troops
Breaking of miners' strike by Army.

MEXICO
1914-18
Naval, troops
Series of interventions against
nationalists.

HAITI
1914-34
Troops, bombing
19-year occupation after revolts.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1916-24
Troops
8-year Marine occupation.

CUBA
1917-33
Troops
Military occupation, economic protectorate.

WORLD WAR I
19l7-18
Naval, troops
Ships sunk, fought Germany

RUSSIA
1918-22
Naval, troops
Five landings to fight Bolsheviks.


PANAMA
1918-20
Troops
"Police duty" during unrest after elections.

YUGOSLAVIA
1919
Troops
Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.

HONDURAS
1919
Troops
Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA
1920
Troops
2-week intervention against unionists.

WEST VIRGINIA
1920-21
Troops, bombing
Army intervenes against
mineworkers.

TURKEY
1922
Troops
Fought nationalists in Smyrna (Izmir).

CHINA
1922-27
Naval, troops
Deployment during nationalist revolt.

HONDURAS
1924-25
Troops
Landed twice during election strife.

PANAMA
1925
Troops
Marines suppress general strike.

CHINA
1927-34
Troops
Marines stationed throughout the country.

EL SALVADOR
1932
Naval
Warships sent during Faribundo Marti revolt.

WASHINGTON DC
1932
Troops
Army stops WWI vet bonus protest.

WORLD WAR II
1941-45
Naval,troops, bombing, nuclear
Fought Axis for 3
years; 1st nuclear war.

DETROIT
1943
Troops
Army puts down Black rebellion.

IRAN
1946
Nuclear threat
Soviet troops told to leave north (Iranian
Azerbaijan).

YUGOSLAVIA
1946
Naval
Response to shooting-down of U.S. plane.

URUGUAY
1947
Nuclear threat
Bombers deployed as show of strength.

GREECE
1947-49
Command operation
U.S. directs extreme-right in civil
war.

CHINA
1948-49
Troops
Marines evacuate Americans before Communist victory.

GERMANY
1948
Nuclear threat
Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.

PHILIPPINES
1948-54
Command operation
CIA directs war against Huk
Rebellion.

PUERTO RICO
1950
Command operation
Independence rebellion crushed in
Ponce.

KOREA
1950-53
Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats
U.S.&
South Korea fight China & North Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, & vs. China in 1953. Still have bases.

IRAN
1953
Command operation
CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.

VIETNAM
1954
Nuclear threat
Bombs offered to French to use against
siege.

GUATEMALA
1954
Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat CIA directs exile invasion after new gov't nationalizes U.S. company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.

EGYPT
1956
Nuclear threat, troops
Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; MArines evacuate foreigners

LEBANON
1958
Troops, naval
Marine occupation against rebels.

IRAQ
1958
Nuclear threat
Iraq warned against invading Kuwait.

CHINA
1958
Nuclear threat
China told not to move on Taiwan isles.

PANAMA
1958
Troops
Flag protests erupt into confrontation.

VIETNAM
1960-75
Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; 1-2 million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in 1968 and 1969.

CUBA
1961
Command operation CIA-directed exile invasion fails.

GERMANY
1961
Nuclear threat Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.

CUBA
1962
Nuclear threat
Naval
Blockade during missile crisis; near-war with USSR.

LAOS
1962
Command operation
Military buildup during guerrilla war.

PANAMA
1964
Troops
Panamanians shot for urging canal's return.

INDONESIA
1965
Command operation Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1965-66
Troops, bombing Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA
1966-67
Command operation Green Berets intervene against rebels.

DETROIT
1967
Troops
Army battles Blacks, 43 killed.

UNITED STATES
1968
Troops
After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.

CAMBODIA
1969-75
Bombing, troops, naval Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation, and political chaos.

OMAN
1970
Command operation U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.




LAOS
1971-73
Command operation, bombing U.S. directs South Vietnamese invasion; "carpet-bombs" countryside.

SOUTH DAKOTA
1973
Command operation Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.

MIDEAST
1973
Nuclear threat World-wide alert during Mideast War.

CHILE
1973
Command operation CIA-backed coup ousts elected marxist president.

CAMBODIA
1975
Troops, bombing Gas captured ship, 28 die in copter crash.

ANGOLA
1976-92
Command operation CIA assists South African-backed rebels.

IRAN
1980
Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.

LIBYA
1981
Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.

EL SALVADOR
1981-92
Command operation, troops Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.

NICARAGUA
1981-90
Command operation, naval CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution.

LEBANON
1982-84
Naval, bombing, troops Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim and Syrian positions.

HONDURAS
1983-89
Troops
Maneuvers help build bases near borders.

GRENADA
1983-84
Troops, bombing Invasion four years after revolution.

IRAN
1984
Jets
Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.

LIBYA
1986
Bombing, naval Air strikes to topple nationalist gov't.

BOLIVIA
1986
Troops Army assists raids on cocaine region.

IRAN
1987-88
Naval, bombing US intervenes on side of Iraq in war.

LIBYA
1989
Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down.

VIRGIN ISLANDS
1989
Troops
St. Croix Black unrest after storm.

PHILIPPINES
1989
Jets
Air cover provided for government against coup.

PANAMA
1989-90
Troops, bombing
Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.

LIBERIA
1990
Troops
Foreigners evacuated during civil war.

SAUDI ARABIA
1990-91
Troops, jets Iraq countered after invading Kuwait; 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.

IRAQ
1990-?
Bombing, troops, naval Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; no-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south, large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.

KUWAIT
1991
Naval, bombing, troops Kuwait royal family returned to throne.

LOS ANGELES
1992
Troops
Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.

SOMALIA
1992-94
Troops, naval, bombing U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.

YUGOSLAVIA
1992-94
Naval
Nato blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.

BOSNIA
1993-95
Jets, bombing No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.

HAITI
1994-96
Troops, naval
Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.

CROATIA
1995
Bombing
Krajina Serb airfields attacked before Croatian offensive.

ZAIRE (CONGO)
1996-97
Troops
Marines at Rwandan Hutu refuge camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.

LIBERIA
1997
Troops
Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

ALBANIA
1997
Troops
Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

SUDAN
1998
Missiles
Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be "terrorist" nerve gas plant.

AFGHANISTAN
1998
Missiles
Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.

IRAQ
1998-?
Bombing, Missiles
Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.

YUGOSLAVIA
1999-?
Bombing, Missiles
Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo.

YEMEN
2000
Naval
Suicide bomb attack on USS Cole.

MACEDONIA
2001
Troops
NATO troops shift and partially disarm Albanian rebels.

UNITED STATES
2001
Jets, naval
Response to hijacking attacks.

AFGHANISTAN
2001
Massive U.S. mobilization to attack Taliban, Bin Laden. War could expand to Iraq, Sudan, and beyond.
.
For more information or with comments and additions please contact:
Zoltan Grossman, 1705 Rutledge, Madison, WI 53704 Phone Fax
(608)246-2256. mtn@igc.apc.org
Permission to reproduce this list in its entirety
is granted by the author, please send any published copy to the above
address.<http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=20647&afccode=afchphttp://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=20647&afccode=afchp
.

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~

Nativists for Native Americans
By
Cenk Uygur
Posted on April 12, 2006,
Printed on April 15, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/cenk/34869/This post first appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here with permission.
I'm sick of all this illegal immigration into this country. I think we ought to send every illegal back. But instead of starting with the newest arrivals, I think we should start with the ones that have been here illegally the longest. After all, they've been breaking the law longer.

So, it's about time we threw those English bastards out. Send them back to where they came from! They crossed over into this land uninvited, with their guns and diseased blankets and slave trade, and settled in like they own the place. They didn't pay any taxes on the land, they just took it.

The settlers were the original illegals. They took all the good jobs the Native Americans were perfectly capable of doing at a fair market rate. They killed off all the bison that the Natives made a living from and they spread like a virus throughout the country. If we only had a good nativist movement back then. Nativists for Native Americans! Maybe we could have stopped the original wetback - Christopher Columbus. He didn't just cross a river, he crossed a whole ocean. His back was drenched.

How many people on the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria had green cards? Besides they sound suspiciously Mexican to me. The illegals who snuck in here on those boats also refused to assimilate in to American culture. They wouldn't even learn the language! Send them back!

After the Spanish and the English, came the French, the Dutch and the Germans. All of them trying to take what belonged to Americans. They didn't just want our jobs; they wanted the whole friggin' country.

And that's all before the Italians came in with their criminal gangs and the Irish with all of their Irish flags. It's called America -- if you're going to wave any flag it should be the American flag! The whole thing was a repellent spectacle.
Send them back!
Of course, no one really gave the Native Americans permission to cross the Bering Strait either. I can guarantee you that the original occupants - the bison - weren't too happy to see them. In fact, that's it; let's give America back to the buffalo. They've been here the longest and they've certainly gotten screwed by illegal immigration the most.

But whatever we do, let's make sure we are fair and send everyone who has ever come here without permission back - and all their children. Is it fair that their kids get to stay when the parents crossed over illegally? Besides, they're a burden on the rest of us.

Throw the bums out. I know it sounds impractical, but what's fair is fair. It's about time we made a stand for real Americans - the buffalo!

Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the first liberal radio show to air nationwide.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/cenk/34869/
Benjamin Franklin believed the Germans would never be assimilated, for the same reasons many of us believe the Mexicans can't be. Here in Oregon, they cuss, look down on and discriminate against Californian's. Just human nature I suppose, but pretty silly.
We've known ranchers who wouldn't make it without Mexican labor. They, the Mexican "hired hands", no doubt have "Green Cards", and they are doing work no one else will stick with. They themselves, the Mexicans, don't stick around forever with them either, it is just such hard, back-breaking, out in the elements work, hot or freezing cold, there's just no respite, and as a rule, we've seen and talked to them about them having worked months on end without a day off. It was promised days off would be there for them, but they never came. SRH ...

[Saundra Hummer]

.....

How to frame Iran
By Don Hazen
Posted on April 14, 2006,
Printed on April 15, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/don/34968/There is much discussion and consternation in pragmatic progressiveland about how to frame Iran, and stay relevant in the national dialogue leading up to the Congressional elections in the Fall. Clearly, for the saber rattlers in the White House, the fear engendered by Iran's bragging about their nuclear developments, is an opportunity that will be worked until the cows come home.

The conventional wisdom seems to be there is no easy answer for what to do with Iran. There is a lot of fear of falling into the weak, not-willing-to-protect-America trap. The tried-and-true of diplomacy will likely be ignored by Iran, and US diplomacy is all stick and no carrot anyway.
That Iran is a terrorist supporting state calling for the destruction of Israel seems factual. Yet, bombing Iran seems ludicrous on its face (but then so was invading Iraq). But for the record, warring on Iran would likely send terrorists around the world to do dirty work, launch attacks regionally, and we'd find ourselves in horrible slog of a land war, especially since Iran is not in the terrible shape Iraq was when we invaded.

There is sympathy for the notion that a middle-sized country like Iran is not irrational for wanting the bomb, when neighbors have it, and especially given the fact the Bushies have thumbed their nose at our own obligations to reduce nuclear weapons under non-proliferation treaty.

But in the world of real politik, while that's a sane position, it is a non-starter, since the bellicose mainstream media and the conservative echo chamber will hammer away at the traitor theme -- even if another country has valid security interests -- and many Democrats will not likely venture very far from the Republicans.

One argument is that there are no good options. Progressives don't need to have a position -- make Bush come up with it. That approach worked with social security, where Bush offered various plans that made little sense, and he killed it himself.

So for now, the dialogue continues. But for sure there needs to a push to get lots of people better educated on what is at stake and what the current myths are ...especially promoting the fact that a nuclear bomb for Iran is far away -- maybe ten years, maybe more. For that Juan Cole is a good read...
Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/don/34968/ ...

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Latest White House Whopper
By
Molly Ivins,
AlterNet
Posted on April 14, 2006, Printed on April 15, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34963/Personally, I think this is a really good time not to keep up. The more you try, the less sense it makes, although getting us used to having it all make no sense at all may be an extremely sneaky Karl Rove ploy to justify the war in Iraq. Hard to say.

The latest development to which the only appropriate response is "Huh" is the news that the "mobile weapons labs" introduced to us by President Bush before the war as conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not evidence -- conclusive or otherwise -- of WMD and were not, in fact, mobile weapons labs.

The only thing new here is the news that George W. Bush probably knew a couple of days before he talked about them in public that the Defense Intelligence Agency had found they were not mobile weapons labs.

OK, given everything we already know about the lies before the war, this is not particularly startling -- although I do think it's long past time we stopped referring to the campaign of disinformation and false information that we were fed as anything but lies. No, the startling and funny part of the "mobile weapons lab" lie is the administration's defense of it, which is so batty it's an instant classic.

According to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, the DIA report debunking the "weapons labs" is "a complex intelligence white paper and it's ... one derived from highly classified information (and) takes a substantial amount of time to coordinate and to run through a declassification process."

If I understand what McClellan is saying, Bush leaked bad information from a classified intelligence report because there wasn't enough time for the contradictory DIA report to go through a declassification process. All of which would make more sense if we hadn't just gone through this Valerie Plame episode, in which the White House says if the president leaked it, then it's legal to leak it. No problem, the president can declassify at will, they said. I don't know about you, but none of it is becoming clearer for me. Does anyone understand yet why we had to bomb Iran?

Meanwhile, Congress can't figure out how to do a deal on immigration. I'd like to stick my two cents in here to say the reason that deal fell apart and the reason it won't come back together is because of American business, which hires the illegals and donates the campaign money. Bless your sweet heart if you think the deal came unglued over the Republicans ignoring their base or some other political problem. Money, my friends, talks, and bull walks. Look at who wants illegal workers here. Look at who controls Congress.

Courtesy of the Daou Report on salon.com, I found this item on a blog called The Shape of Days, about the recent demonstrations: "There's really no other way to say it: Being here is weird. To be surrounded by a crowd of thousands of people, all of whom look alike, none of whom look like me, many of whom are decorated with our flag, none of whom are speaking our language, on our national Mall ... it's a surreal experience. Despite my best judgment and best intentions, I feel the inklings of xenophobia bubbling up inside. This place isn't for me; I don't belong here. It's time to go."

I suppose this citizen deserves credit for honesty, but I'm so much more amazed by his or her provincialism. I feel one of those rants about suburbia coming on. Never been in a public place before surrounded by people who speak a different language and look different from you? Can you live in a city and not have experienced that?

I was high just from seeing them all -- 500,000 in Dallas! Of course, most of us know the immigrants are there -- it's just so interesting to see them en masse. If you've ever wondered what this country would be like without illegal workers, now you've got the answer. It would come to a halt.

Let me point out again, I don't have a dog in this fight. There are just some things I know from living in Texas all my life. One is, don't bother to build a fence. Two is, if you want to stop illegal immigrants, stop the people who hire them -- quit punishing people who come because there are jobs. Three, this border has always been porous, and it has always worked to the advantage of the United States.

If you want to do the smart thing and look for a long-term solution, try fixing NAFTA and helping with economic development in Mexico. Meanwhile, I could do without the drivel about how these people are so different. Of course they're not. Try getting out a little more.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34963/ ...

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easer to act than to think: Hannah Arendt

~

Most people would rather opine a lie and "fit in" than profess the truth and be excluded. Just as the majority would rather be lied to and made comfortable than be told the truth and made uncomfortable. Liars have held humanity in the throes of illusion for countless centuries. Governmental, religious, and academic officialdom can and do transform basically decent human beings into unconscious automatons bereft of free will. They do this successfully because a majority of humans are terrified to assume personal responsibility: Michael Godspeed

~

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. "In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. "The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." : James Madison, April 20, 1795

~
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.: Peyton Conway March (1864-1955) US Army General,

~ ~ ~

[Saundra Hummer]

*
Former Joint Chiefs Chair Defends Rumsfeld
By
DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not intimidate members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during planning of the Iraq war as some retired generals have charged, a former chairman said Sunday.

With Rumsfeld described by his critics as a micromanager who did not listen to military leaders, the Pentagon circulated a one-page memo late last week detailing the defense secretary's frequent contacts with numerous military and civilian advisers.

Richard B. Myers, the Air Force general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2001 until last fall, dismissed criticism that military leaders failed to stand up to Rumsfeld and President Bush when they disagreed with those civilian officials. "We gave him our best military advice and I think that's what we're obligated to do," Myers said on "This Week" on ABC. "If we don't do that, we should be shot."

A half-dozen retired generals have called for Rumsfeld's ouster, citing mistakes in the conduct of the war in Iraq. Some have suggested that intimidation by Rumsfeld kept military leaders quiet even when they thought policies were flawed.

"You'd have to believe that everybody in the chain of command is intimidated, and I don't believe that," Myers said. He added that Rumsfeld allowed "tremendous access" for presenting arguments.

"In our system, when it's all said and done ... the civilians make the decisions," he said. "And we live by those decisions."

The Pentagon memo, which was not dated or signed, put onto paper information that had been provided orally to reporters on Friday. It is not unusual for the Defense Department to distribute such information to analysts, military officials and others who might be reporting or commenting on a Pentagon policy.

Senior military leaders "are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process" in the Defense Department, according to the memo. Rumsfeld, it said, had met 139 times with members of the joint chiefs and 208 times with combat commanders from 2005 to the present.

Bush on Friday said that Rumsfeld "has my full support" and praised the defense secretary "for his leadership during this historic and challenging time for our nation."

On Sunday's news shows, Republican lawmakers either backed Rumsfeld or declined to take issue with Bush's support for him. Democrats continued to call for a change in Pentagon leadership.

Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., suggested that people are looking for a "scapegoat," yet he called the retired generals who have criticized Rumsfeld "people of credibility."

Allen, on CBS' "Face the Nation," questioned whether replacing Rumsfeld would have any impact on the insurgents in Iraq, the training of security forces there or on how Iraqi leaders form their government.

Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Bush is making "a good call" in retaining Rumsfeld. Facing a large agenda of foreign-policy issues, the president should not be distracted by operational disputes, said Lugar, R-Ind.

Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., who called for Rumsfeld to resign two years ago, said the issue now is about "the president's decision-making and judgment."

Bush's inability to put more important concerns ahead of keeping Rumsfeld as defense secretary "is not healthy for our country," Bayh said in a joint appearance with Lugar on ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., told "Fox News Sunday" that criticism from retired generals "is a very, very important event."

"We ought to pay a lot of attention," Dodd said. "And the president would be very wise, in my view, asking him to step aside."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/ ...

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Tomgram: History Ambushes the Bush Administration
A project of the Nation Institute
compiled and edited by Tom Engelhardt
This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=77789
[Note for readers: This is the stand-alone conclusion to a two-part dispatch, the first of which, Exporting Ruins, was published two weeks ago.]
In the Rubble
By
Tom Engelhardt

You can count on one thing. All over Washington, Republicans are at least as capable as I am of watching and interpreting the polling version of the smash-up of the Bush administration. With each new poll, the numbers creep lower yet. Presidential approval in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll dropped another 3% in the last month and now sits at 38%, while disapproval of the President continues to strengthen -- 47% of Americans now "strongly disapprove" of the President's handling of the presidency, only 20% "strongly approve." (62%, by the way, disapprove of the President's handling of the war in Iraq.)

Behind these figures lurk worse ones. When asked, for instance, whether they would vote for a generic Democrat or Republican in the upcoming midterm elections, those polled chose the generic Democrat by a startling 55-40%, the largest such gap yet. In addition, Democrats have now become the default party Americans "trust" almost across the board on issues, even in this poll edging the Republicans out by a single percentage point on the handling of terrorism. Commenting on a recent Ipsos-AP poll showing Democrats and Republicans in a tie on the question, "Who do you trust to do a better job of protecting the country," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said: "These numbers are scary. We've lost every advantage we've ever had. The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one." Surprisingly, despite the way Democrats have shied off the subject, a near-majority (45%) of those polled were also in favor of some kind of Feingold-like censure of the President for listening in on citizens without prior court approval.

The words connected to almost any new poll these days are "hit a new low." Other recent new lows were reached by that AP-Ipsos poll and by a Fox News poll where presidential approval was at 36%. Or take a recent state poll in California, where Bush has admittedly never been a popular figure. Still, a 32% approval rating? Or check out the trajectory of Bush polling approval numbers from September 11, 2001 to today. Despite various bumps and plateaus -- including a conveniently engineered, Karl Rovian bump just before election 2004 -- it's been a slow, ever-downward path that, in early 2005, dipped decisively under 50%; by the end of 2004 had crossed the 40% threshold; and is, at present, in the mid-30% range.

There's no reason to believe that the bottom has been reached. After all, these polls precede the recent disastrous flap over the Patrick Fitzgerald federal court filing on I. Lewis Libby and the various "declassification" admissions of the President and Vice-President (of which there is guaranteed to be more to come); these figures arrived before the (retired) generals revolt against Donald Rumsfeld, which is still spreading and to which the President's staunch defense can only contribute fuel ("Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation."); these figures precede by a couple of months the beginning of the next hurricane season along the never-reconstructed Gulf Coast; they precede any indictment of Karl Rove or of other Bush administration figures in the Plame case, and further even more contorted presidential (and vice- presidential) fall-back positions in the same case; these polls come before the predictable happens in Iraq and the sectarian war there worsens while the American position weakens as well as before the Iranian situation really kicks in; they arrive before summer gas prices head above $3 a gallon aiming for the stratosphere; before any real economic bad news comes down the pike; before other as yet unknown crises hit that the Bush administration predictably just won't be able to get its collective head or its waning governmental powers around.

This is the situation before some future round of hideous polling figures sets off a full-scale panic in the Republican Party, leading possibly to a spreading revolt of the pols that could put the present revolt of the generals in the shade. Given the last couple of years, and what we now know about the Bush administration's inability to operate within the "reality-based community" (as opposed to spinning it to death), there is no reason to believe that a polling bottom exists for this President, not even perhaps the Nixonian Age of Watergate nadir in the lower 20% range.

Toppling the Colossus of Washington

A revolt of the Republican pols, should it occur, would highlight the essential contradiction between the two halves of the Bush administration's long-term program, until recently imagined as indissolubly joined at the hip. Domestically, there was the DeLay-style implanting of the Republican Party (and the ready cash infusions from lobbyists that were to fuel it) at the heart of the American political system for at least a Rooseveltian generation, if not forever and a day. This country was to be transformed into a one-party Republican democracy, itself embedded in the confines of a Homeland Security State. Abroad, there was the neocon vision of a pacified planet whose oil heartlands would be nailed down militarily in an updated version of a Pax Romana until hell froze over (or the supplies ran out). If in 2002 or 2003, these seemed like two perfectly fitted sides of a single vision of dominance, it is now apparent that they were essentially always at odds with each other. Both now seem at the edge of collapse.

The dismantling of the domestic half of the Bush program is embodied in the tale of Tom DeLay. Not so long ago, "the Hammer" ("If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules...") was a Washington colossus in the process of creating a Republican political machine built in part "outside government, among Washington's thousands of trade associations and corporate offices, their tens of thousands of employees, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in political money at their disposal." With his K Street Project, he had transformed the generally "bipartisan" nature of money- and influence-peddling in Washington into a largely Republican funding machine. Meanwhile, with the gerrymandering scheme he rammed through the Texas legislature, which chased local Democrats all the way to Oklahoma and back, and added six seats to the Republican House majority in 2004, he seemed to be setting the course of the ship of state for the foreseeable future.

Astride the political world, DeLay then looked invulnerable, while the well-hammered Democrats seemed consigned to the status of a minority party for decades to come. Who could have imagined that, less than two years later, DeLay would be indicted for money-laundering in Texas and, faced with the unraveling Abramoff case, resign his House leadership position, then withdraw from the reelection campaign for his House seat, and finally, with his top staff aides going down, find himself possibly on the verge of indictment in Washington?

Delay's project was meant for life, not for a life sentence. And if you're honest with yourself, a couple of years back I'll bet you didn't expect anything like this either. You can certainly bet that, when they created those fabulous fictions about Iraq and then invaded, it never crossed the minds of George, Dick, Don, Condi, Paul, Stephen and the rest that anything like this might ever happen -- not just to DeLay or to the Republican Party, but to them. Think of it this way: They were never putting forward the "unitary executive theory" of government and launching a commander-in-chief state in order to turn it all over to a bunch of Democrats, no less the thoroughly loathed Hillary Clinton.

How time flies and how, to quote Donald Rumsfeld's infamous phrase about looters in Baghdad, "stuff happens." Looked at in the light of history, the incipient collapse of the Bush project seems to have occurred in hardly a blink. Its brevity is, in a sense, nearly inexplicable, as unexpected as water running uphill or an alien visitation. We are, after all, talking about the ruling officials of the globe's only "hyperpower" who have faced next to no opposition at home. In these years, the Democratic Party proved itself hardly a party at all, no less an oppositional one, and the active antiwar movement, gigantic before the invasion of Iraq, has remained, at best, modest-sized ever since. At the same time, in Iraq the administration faced not a unified national liberation movement backed by a superpower as in Vietnam, but a ragtag, if fierce, Sunni resistance and recalcitrant Shiite semi-allies, all now at each other's throats.

What makes the last few years so strange is that this administration has essentially been losing its campaigns, at home and abroad, to nobody. What comes to mind is the famous phrase of cartoonist Walt Kelly's character, Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us." Perhaps it's simply the case that -- in Rumsfeldian terms -- it's hard for people with the mentality of looters to create a permanent edifice, even when they set their minds to it.

And yet, it wasn't so long ago that every step the Bush people took on either "front" came up dazzling code orange, brilliantly staving off rising political problems. As a result, it took just short of five miserable years, which seemed a lifetime, to reach this moment -- years which, historically, added up to no time at all. Is there another example of the rulers of a dominant global power -- who fancied themselves the leaders of a New Rome -- crashing and burning quite so quickly? In less than five years, Bush and his top officials ran their project into the ground. In the process, they took a great imperial power over a cliff and down the falls, without safety vests, rubber dinghies, or anyone at the bottom to fish us all out.

This process, though hardly noticed at the time, began early indeed -- and at its corrosive heart was, of course, Iraq. How can you explain the way the leaders of the world's preeminent military power were chased through the night by Iraq's unexpected set of rebellions and its no-name resistance? How quickly -- though, unfortunately, not quickly enough -- their various elaborate tales and lies, their manipulated intelligence and cherry-picked stories of Iraqi WMD and Saddam's nefarious links to al-Qaeda were dismantled -- a process that has yet to end. Only last week, another little tale of fraud was done away with by the Washington Post.

On May 29, 2003, in a television interview, the President described two mobile trailers found in Iraq by U.S. and Kurdish soldiers as "biological laboratories" and said: "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." This claim would be cited by senior administration officials for months thereafter and yet, on May 27, a "Pentagon-appointed team of technical experts had strongly rejected the weapons claim in a field report sent to the Defense Intelligence Agency," as would other reports to come.

History's Surprises

Most Americans are now aware that the administration's various pre-war tales have evaporated, including presidential howlers like the possibility that Saddam would place (nonexistent) unmanned aerial vehicles off our East coast (in some unexplained fashion) to spray (nonexistent) chemical and biological weaponry over Eastern cities. (Maybe this was just some sort of displaced Sunbelt wish-fulfillment fantasy.)

We think less, however, about the way another set of tales -- heroic yarns of battlefield derring-do and American-style shock-and-awe triumph -- dissolved almost as they were created. Just two weeks short of May 1st, it seems appropriate to glance back at a moment I'm sure no one has quite forgotten, though the Bush administration would undoubtedly prefer that we had. I'm thinking of May 1, 2003, which David Swanson of the After Downing Street website recently labeled M (for Mission Accomplished) Day, a holiday that, he points out, lasted not even a single year.

Let's return, then, to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier whose planes had released over a third of the three million pounds of ordnance that had just hit Iraq. It had almost reached its homeport, San Diego, the previous day, but was held about 30 miles out in the Pacific because the President, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd would point out, chose to co-pilot an S-3B Viking sub reconnaissance Naval jet onto its deck rather than far less dramatically climb stairs.

That day certainly seemed like the ultimate triumphalist political photo op as well as the launching pad for George Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. British journalist Matthew Engel referred to the President then as "the stuntman in the bomber jacket." It was actually a flight suit, but the phrase caught something of the moment. The Tom Cruise film Top Gun -- made, by the way, with copious help from the U.S. Navy -- was on everyone's mind in what Elizabeth Bumiller of the Times called "one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in American history." It seemed to confirm that George Bush was a more skilled actor-president than Ronald Reagan had ever been.

Unlike his father, the younger Bush was visibly comfortable in the business of creating fabulous fiction. We know that Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer, "embedded" himself on that carrier days before the President hit the deck. Along with Bob DeServi, a former NBC cameraman and lighting specialist, and Greg Jenkins, a former Fox News television producer, he planned out every detail of the President's landing, as Bumiller put it, "even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the ‘Mission Accomplished' banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call ‘magic hour light,' which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush."

So, on that thrilling day, the President landed on what was essentially a movie set. After carefully taking off his helmet in private – no goofy Michael Dukakis moments here -- he made a Top Gun victory speech, avoiding Vietnam as politicians had largely done for two decades. The speech had World War II on the brain right down to the cribs from Churchill. ("We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide…") The President cited "the character of our military through history -- the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima…" Given his frame of reference, he probably meant from The Sands of Iwo Jima to Saving Private Ryan. Then he spoke of "the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies [and] is fully present in this generation."

He also delivered his now-infamous almost-victory line against the background of that Mission Accomplished banner, claiming that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Give George Bush credit: When it came to not-quite-battle footage, he proved he could don a military uniform, get in a military vehicle, and carry it off with panache. His on-deck Tom Cruise "swagger" would be a staple of press coverage for weeks. And above all, he clearly loved landing on that deck, wearing that outfit, making that speech. He was having the time of his life.

But even as his advance men were bringing it off, even as he was glorying in his color-coded tale of battle triumph, something was beginning to devour that moment of presidential glory. A headline that went with the CNN account of his landing that day caught this well: "Bush calls end to 'major combat,'" it said, but there was also a subhead, little noted at the time: "U.S. Central Command: Seven [American soldiers] hurt in Fallujah grenade attack." Those two headlines would struggle for dominance for the next couple of years, a struggle now long over.

Let's consider the odd fate of the perfect fiction Bush's men put together on the Abraham Lincoln, because it was typical of what has happened to administration image-making and story-telling. Only six months later, Time magazine was already writing, "The perfect photo-op has flopped," and claiming that, shades of Vietnam, the President had a "growing credibility problem." By then, instead of preparing for a series of Top-Gun reelection ads, the President and his advance men were busy bobbing and weaving when it came to that fateful "Mission Accomplished" banner. By then, those Iraqi grenades had multiplied into a Sunni insurrection and Fallujah had morphed into a resistant enemy city that, in November 2004, would be largely destroyed by American firepower without ever being fully subdued; and the President was already pinning the idea for creating that banner on the sailors and airmen of the Abraham Lincoln; only to have the White House finally admit that it had produced the banner -- supposedly at the request of those same sailors and airmen; and then, well … not. Long before May 1 rolled around again, "mission accomplished" would be a scarlet phrase of shame -- useful only to Bush critics and despised Democrats.

By July 2003, as we now all know, top Bush officials were in a panic, already sensing that the other part of their victory story -- their far-fetched set of explanations for why we had to invade Iraq -- was being gnawed away at. That was why, when Joseph Wilson, who had emerged as a potentially dangerous administration critic, published his famed op-ed on Niger uranium in the New York Times that July 6th, the administration gathered its forces to whack him and his wife, and so offer a warning to others -- with all the disastrous consequences for Bush and his key officials with which we now live.

By November 2003, George Bush's presidency was already beginning to be eaten alive by a growing, if chaotic, Iraqi rebellion; while the movie version of Bush's War was already guaranteed never to make it into DVD. All its mini-tales -- of the Jessica Lynch rescue, the tearing down of Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, Pat Tillman's last stand in Afghanistan -- would, like those missing weapons of mass destruction, like the American occupation of Iraq itself, crash and burn. In most cases, this happened almost as the stories were being created.

Take Private Lynch, who was "rescued" by American Special Forces arriving at the hospital where she was being treated by Iraqi doctors armed with night-vision cameras and a flag to drape over her. They shot their film of the rescue, and transmitted it in real time to Centcom headquarters in Doha, where it was edited and released. The result was a dreamy media frenzy of patriotism back home, complete with a wave of Jessica T-shirts and other paraphernalia and an NBC movie of the week. And yet Jessica Lynch's story, like the story of that toppled statue in Baghdad, like the story of Saddam's vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, was soon in tatters. An unheroic version that lacked gun or knife wounds, mistreatment, or even Iraqi captors from which to be rescued, practically galloped onto the scene. By the time Lynch herself more or less rejected the story told about her in a book, I Am a Soldier, Too, it was too late. It almost immediately hit not the bestseller lists but the remainder tables because her story had already evaporated.

Americans, of course, like victory. We prefer to be in a triumphalist culture and undoubtedly much of the turn of events of the last couple of years -- including the recent revolt of the generals along with those sagging presidential polling figures and the multiplying conversion experiences of all sorts of conservatives and even former neocons -- can simply be accounted for by the resulting not-victory in Iraq.

Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is not yet out of ammunition, either figuratively or literally. Even as they stand in the rubble of their world, top Bush officials remain quite capable of making decisions that will export ruins to, say, Iran and create further chaos in the oil heartlands of the planet as well as here at home. I don't sell them short, nor do I see a Democratic Party capable of taking the reins of the globe's last standing imperial power and doing a heck of a lot better. Still, there's something consoling in knowing that history remains filled with surprises and that the short, rubble-filled, disastrous career of the Bush administration looks likely to be one of them.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing, has recently come out in paperback.
posted April 16, 2006 at 5:05 pm

Copyright 2006 Tom Engelhardt

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=77789 *

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contract oversight: what's new
POGO's Katrina Contracting Resources Page to learn more » GO ON-SITE TO ACCESS - LINK AT BOTTOM OF THIS POST FOR ALL LINKS HERE AND BELOW:

Competition in Federal Contracting | read more on this topic
POGO releases report, "The Politics of Contracting: Bajagua's No-Bid Deal," March 30, 2006. read this report »

To learn more, read this San Diego Tribune-Union story. read this article »

U.S. Strong Arms Mexican Government on Water Project: Political Influence Behind $600 Million No-Bid Contract. December 21, 2005. read this alert»

Contractor Sweetheart Deals | read more on this topic
POGO opposes the proposed joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin to form the United Launch Alliance. March 16, 2006. read this letter »

Contractor Accountability | read more on this topic
GAO, IRS, and GSA find that many contractors are cheating on their taxes. March 14, 2006.

POGO warns of risky federal buying method. March 6, 2006. read this letter»

POGO Opposes Proposed Reductions in Oversight of Government Contracts. February 9, 2006. read this letter»

Revolving Door | read more on this topic
POGO Hails Introduction of Davis-Waxman Legislation, Calls the "Executive Branch Reform Act of 2006" a Landmark Step On the Road to Open Government, April 6, 2006. read this alert»

POGO promotes government ethics and intregrity in presentation before the Interagency Ethics Council. April 6, 2006. read this presentation»

POGO's Conflict of Interest and Ethics Proposals. February 1, 2006. read this proposal»

Iraq Reconstruction Contracts | read more on this topic
GAO challenges U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq. February 8, 2006. read this testimony»

GO ON-SITE TO VIEW LINKS TO THESE ARTICLES FROM THIS GREAT GOVERNMENT OVERSITE WEB PAGE, POGO.

http://www.pogo.org/ *

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Robert Schlesinger: We Could Bomb Iran in 12 Hours ...
... and other fun facts from today's papers
Robert Schlesinger
Sun Apr 16, 1:19 PM ET
How close are we to bombing Iran? From order to boom, the timeline could be as short as 12 hours, according to William Arkin in the Outlook section of today's Washington Post.

It's one of two Iran-related must-reads in today's papers, the other being a NY Times op-ed on why bombing Iran could lead to something that bears an awful resemblance to World War Three.

Arkin, who has top-notch military sources, writes in some detail about the state and nature of planning for attacks on Iran.

If you liked Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, you re going to love this piece in the Post. Arkin, who blogs about national security for the Post, goes into how the different branches of the military have been planning for an attack on Iran, from "forcible entry" by the Marines to the Army dealing with Iranian missiles, to strike targeting by the Air Force to the Navy figuring out how to keep the Strait of Hormuz (think of it as the oil faucet) open. Click here for the whole piece.

And Arkin makes an interesting and compelling argument about why it's important that this stuff be public:
President Bush dismissed news reports that his administration has been working on contingency plans for war -- particularly talk of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against Tehran -- as "wild speculation." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld chimed in, calling it "fantasyland." He declared to reporters that "it just isn't useful" to talk about contingency planning. But the secretary is wrong.

It's important to talk about war planning that's real. And it is for Iran. In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for "theater Iran near term," was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for "major combat operations" against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form.

None of this activity has been disclosed by the U.S. military, and when I wrote about Iran contingency planning last week on The Washington Post Web site, the Pentagon stuck to its dogged position that "we don't discuss war plans." But it should.

The diplomatic effort directed at Iran would be mightily enhanced if that country understood that the United States is so serious about deterring the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons that it would be willing to go to war to stop that quest from reaching fruition.

Iran needs to know -- and even more important, the American public needs to know -- that no matter how many experts talk about difficult-to-find targets or the catastrophe that could unfold if war comes, military planners are already working hard to minimize the risks of any military operation. This is the very essence of contingency planning.

It is a Dr. Strangelove argument: What's the point of having a doomsday device -- or in this case scenario -- if you do not tell the world about it?

And doomsday it could well be, according to Richard Clarke and Steven Simon, a pair of top Clinton-era counter-terrorism officials who write on Iran in the Times' Week in Review section. They recall that after the Iranian-arranged bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the administration debated how to react.

At that point, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon considered a bombing campaign. But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States. There is s similar situation today. If we bomb Iran, they'll respond, possibly by sinking tankers or trying to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, but more likely by using its global terror network, which is much more -- what's the word? -- real than Saddam's:

Iran could use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States. Iran has forces at its command that are far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field. The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah has a global reach, and has served in the past as an instrument of Iran. We might hope that Hezbollah, now a political party, would decide that it has too much to lose by joining a war against the United States. But this would be a dangerous bet. So. We bomb. They retaliate. We escalate?

Forget defining a civil war. How many countries does it take to make a world war?

(And: Lest we pretend that this is clear-cut, what's the alternative? Is everyone comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran in 10 years?)...http://www.buzzflash.com/ ~~~
No, I'm not. Nor am I happy with so many other countries having nuclear capacites directed at weapons.

I'm not at all happpy with the words this little puffed up man in Iran is always banding about, such drivel, pumped into him by radicalism in his religion. Never have I heard of such hatred in something that should be enlightened and progressive. How is it that they have allowed themselves to be so overcome with mind controlling methods, all in the name of a religious belief.

About the time frame: We do have ten years, or so we've been told, to use diplomatic persuasion, peaceful rational methods, rather than our military might. We all know our capacity to destroy is superior to any nations, and much more deadly, however, having said this, military strikes by us will surely be retaliated against. Such is the stuff of nations and men. Vindictivness is, often times, human nature.

This looming war with Iran has been part of the plan before we even invaded Iraq. It's been on the drawing board before this administration ever stole the election. Such great strategists, at least they are when it comes to hijacking our own nation, but the way they run an occupation would just be laughable if it weren't for the horrors they've inflicted on innocents. The majority of whom are nothing more than civilians caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then look at our own losses, the ones we're learning of each and every day. All of whom have been, and are, caught up in this grandiose plan of these wacked out Neo-Cons.

Iran won't be so easy. Just look at the monumental foul-ups in Iraq. Will they have learned anything? I seriously doubt it. I only hope that we won't be seeing if they have or haven't. SRH

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IT'S BEING SAID HE IS STARTING HIS RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY
SRH.......
Gingrich warns Republicans Americans want changeSun Apr 16, 2006 11:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party is in serious danger of losing political ground in November elections if it does not enact reforms that eliminate waste and hold the federal bureaucracy to higher standards, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Sunday.

"I think they're in very serious danger of having a very bad election this fall," Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.

"You have to respect the right of the American people to say they want change," he said, criticizing the federal government's bungled efforts to cope with Hurricane Katrina and the Republican-led Congress' failure to enact immigration reforms.

"Are they going to learn some lessons and get their act together?" Gingrich asked.

Republicans currently outnumber Democrats 231-201 in the House and have a 55-44 advantage in the Senate.

The former representative from Georgia said the "debacle" over measures to strengthen U.S. borders and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants "was one more piece of the puzzle" for many voters who have lost faith in Republican leadership.

"The country absolutely wants control of the borders," Gingrich said. "The country absolutely wants us to insist that becoming an American citizen requires that you passed a test in English."

A well-designed guest worker program would have the support of 75 percent to 80 percent of the American people, he said.

With the federal budget deficit at record levels, Gingrich said Americans are losing patience with "pork," the discretionary spending earmarked to benefit local political constituencies.

"We were sent here to reform Washington, not to be co-opted by Washington," he said.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-04-16T153557Z_01_N16212029_RTRUKOC_0_US-GINGRICH.xml ~

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>>>>o<<<<
Iranians volunteer for "martyrdom missions"
By
Parisa HafeziSun
Apr 16, 2006
11:51 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Some 200 Iranians have volunteered in the past few days to carry out "martyrdom missions" against U.S. and British interests if Iran is attacked over its nuclear program, a hardline group said on Sunday.

The United States and other Western nations accuse Iran of seeking to master enrichment technology to build atomic weapons, a charge Iran denies. Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution, but has not ruled out a military option.Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, said fresh fears over a possible U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear sites helped attract volunteers during its latest recruitment drive.

"Because of the recent threats, we have started to register more volunteers since Friday," Samadi told Reuters by telephone.

"Some 200 people have registered to carry out operations against our enemies. America and Britain are definitely considered enemies."

Chanting "Death to America" and "Nuclear technology is our right", volunteers registered their names at the former American Embassy in southern Tehran on Sunday.

They signed a document called "Registration form for martyrdom-seeking operations" and pledged to "defend the Islamic Republic's interests".

"We will give a good lesson to those who dare to attack our country," said Ali, a 25-year-old masked volunteer, after filling out registration form.

When asked why he had covered his face, Ali said: "I do not want to be recognized when traveling abroad to harm American and British interests."

TENS OF THOUSANDS REGISTERED

The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, which says it has no affiliation with the government, was formed in 2004. Since then Samadi said some 52,000 people have signed up to be involved in possible attacks.

The Sunday Times of London, quoting unnamed Iranian officials, reported Iran had 40,000 trained suicide bombers prepared to strike western targets if Iran is attacked.

"The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade," the report said.

But Samadi denied the report.

"The Revolutionary Guards have no links to martyrdom-seeking operations. We are the only martyrdom seeking group in Iran," he said. "And we are an independent group."

No Iranians are thought to have directly executed suicide bombings in recent years. But the United States has accused Iran of being a state sponsor of terrorism.

In Sunday's New York Times a former White House counterterrorism expert said Iran's response to any U.S. military attack would be to use "its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world".

"Iran has forces at its command far superior to anything al Qaeda was ever able to field," wrote former White House counter terror chief Richard Clarke and former State Department official Steven Simon.

The "martyrdom" registration coincided with a conference on the Palestinian cause. Iran has refused to recognize Israel and supports anti-Israeli groups like Hamas and Hizbollah.

Inside the embassy, the walls were decorated with pictures of Palestinian suicide bombers. Videos of Israeli army attacks on Palestinians were shown on a wide screen. Books and CDs on the Palestinian uprising were also for sale.

In 1979, the then-American embassy was seized and its staff were taken hostage by militant students in 1979. The 52 hostages were freed after 444 days in captivity.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-04-16T155115Z_01_L16729463_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAN-BOMBERS.xml
Registered? He is calling for suicide bombers?

He will do more damage with them than he will with his standing military. They, Irans standing army, will just be wiped out in the first skirmishes, but suicide bombers, like Israel has learned, they're a force to be recognized, and dealt with in a different manner, and, it seems, nothing is fail safe.[~~~

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"It is the utmost folly -- it is just short of suicide -- to take the position that citizens of any country should hold their tongues for fear of causing distress to the immediate and sometimes tortuous policies of their leaders." : Wendell Lewis Willkie

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What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.
Chris Floyd - Chris Floyd is an American journalist and political watchdog.

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"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.": Elizabeth Cady Stanton Biography - Reformer, Writer, Lecturer, 1815-1902

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"All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
The Declaration of Independence (1776)

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.!.!.!.!.:shrug:.!.!.!.!.
U.S. strike on Iran could make Iraq look like a warm-up boutFallout around the world would be grim
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
"Toronto Star " -- -- WASHINGTON—On the ground, more terror.

Poison-laced missiles raining down on U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the downing of a U.S. passenger airliner, suicide bombers in major cities, perhaps unleashing their deadly payload in a shopping mall food court. It could be 9/11 all over again. Or worse.
On the political front, more anti-Americanism.

Renewed venom aimed at Washington from European capitals, greater distrust from China and Russia, outright hatred in the Arab and Muslim world. Oil prices spiralling out of control, a global recession at hand.

In Iran, a galvanizing of a splintered nation. An end to hopes for political reform, a rally-around-the-leader phenomenon common among the victimized, an ability to rebuild a nuclear program in two to four years.

These are the potential costs of a U.S. military strike in Iran.

"It would be Iran's Pearl Harbor and it will be the beginning of a war, not the end of a war. It will set back American strategic interests for a generation," says Joseph Cirincione, the director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The war will take place at a time and location of Iran's choosing. It will make Iraq look like a preliminary bout."

But the cost of inaction could be even higher: a defiant nation with an apparently unstable leadership steeped in hatred for Americans in the heart of the Middle East with nuclear capabilities.

With Tehran ignoring both threats and cajoling from the international community and declaring itself — prematurely — part of the world's "nuclear club" this week, talk of the Washington stick moved to the forefront, while the carrot, now discredited, was pushed off centre stage.

While the week began with the White House trying to tamp down speculation about military strikes in Iran, reported by The Washington Post and by journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, it was becoming clear the Bush administration was growing impatient with a diplomatic effort that is not working with Tehran.

It may have also welcomed talk of potential military strikes, even if it would be extremely reluctant to use them, simply to remind some recalcitrant United Nations members such as China and Russia that diplomacy does have an end date.

The bluntest assessment of diplomatic success came from Karl Rove, U.S. President George W. Bush's political adviser and deputy chief of staff, who told a Houston audience Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "not a rational human being."

"We are engaged in a diplomatic process with our European partners and the United Nations to keep (Iran) from developing such a weapon," Rove said. "It's going to be tough because they are led by ideologues who have a weird sense of history."

Ahmadinejad announced this week that Iran had taken its nuclear enrichment program to new levels. Before he did so, he dismissed any influence of the United Nations, according to state media. "They know they cannot do a damned thing," he said.

The Iranian government has stated it will construct 3,000 centrifuges at a facility in Natanz and would eventually expand that to 54,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium into fuel rich enough to produce atom bombs. Estimates of their capability date range from 2010 to 2020.

Bush has been clear he wants to stop Tehran from acquiring even the knowledge needed to build nuclear weapons, and last month he vowed U.S. military might could be used to protect staunch allies such as Israel.

But, earlier this week, Bush called reports of potential military strikes on Iran "wild speculation." British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said the stories were "completely nuts."

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld weighed in, saying he wouldn't address things from "fantasy land," but then added: "The last thing I'm going to do is to start telling you or anyone else in the press or the world at what point we refresh a plan or don't refresh a plan, and why. It just isn't useful."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sternly called for action at the UN, but didn't say what it could be, leaving her spokesman sputtering about "re-underlining" the call for Iran to suspend its enrichment program and vowing this time the Security Council will do more than just release a statement.

"This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power," Rice said. "This is a question that the world does not believe that Iran should have the capability and the technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon.

"When the Security Council reconvenes, it will be time for action."

The timing of military strikes is now being openly debated in Washington.Cirincione says he believes there will be secret strikes announced by Bush after they happen. But first, he says, Bush should be expected to go to the U.S. Congress for authorization before mid-term elections in November, while Republicans still control the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Approval before the elections, the strike after the elections, because the almost certain spike in U.S. gas prices following such action will blunt any rally-round-the-flag effect at election time, he says. John Pike, a military analyst at globalsecurity.org, predicts strikes in the summer of 2007, safely away from the presidential election the next year. He argues, as many do, that Bush already has congressional approval and needs not go back to lawmakers. "It will be a surprise," he says. "There's nothing like dropping bombs on evil-doers to give Republicans some political updraft."

Pike argues that, despite all the breast-beating in Congress about misuse of a resolution that got the country into war in Iraq and all the sound and fury about clandestine surveillance in this country, nothing has been done to strip Bush of any power when it comes to war. "He will be looking at atomic ayatollahs. There will be some real downsides (to military action) and there will be efforts to redouble diplomatic moves, but in Tehran, the U.S. is equated with Satan.

"What kind of diplomatic solution do they believe they can get from Satan?"

Other analysts have been blunt in their assessment of the cost to the United States.
"The most dangerous delusion is that a conflict would be either small or quick," says Richard Haass, the president of the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations.

Haass, who until July 2003 was a principal adviser to former secretary of state Colin Powell, says destroying Iran's nuclear capacity would require numerous cruise missiles and aircraft.

"Iran would be sure to retaliate, using terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas and attacking U.S. and British forces and interests in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said in a written analysis this week. "This would require the U.S. to respond militarily against a larger set of targets inside Iran. What would begin as a limited strike would not remain limited for long."

Haass also warned that such a strike would likely push oil prices above $100 (U.S.) per barrel, setting off an economic chain reaction that could lead to global recession. He predicts a certain increase in anti-Americanism in Europe, further rage against the U.S. in the Arab and Muslim world, and a questioning of U.S. ties in Russia and China.

Ken Pollack of the more liberal Brookings Institution argues for sanctions restricting investment in Tehran.

"The world community should force Iranians to have an internal debate — do they want their nuclear program more than a healthy economy?" he told a recent forum.

But Pollack adds a sobering point. If the administration truly believes it cannot live in a world in which Iran has nuclear weapons, the military option may be the only way to prevent that.

But it would be seen as an unprovoked attack on a country that has attacked no one. It would be likened to Osama bin Laden's attack on the U.S., Pollack said, reminding his audience how the United States responded to that.

Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12747.htm .

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Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed. Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed. Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed: Horatius Bonar, D.D.

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The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself: Jane Addams

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The state has, in order to control us, introduced division into our thinking, so that we come to distrust others and look to the state for protection! But the roots of our individualism remind us that what we are is inseparable from the source from which all others derive; that coercive practices that threaten our neighbor also threaten us.: -Butler Shaffer

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It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it: A. A. Hodge

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I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride: William James
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From Information Clearing House - A News Site which tells us the news posted on ICH is news you won't see on FOX, or CNN. To read this newsletter online, click on the following links:

http://www.informationclearing house.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
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Bombs That Would Backfire

By
RICHARD CLARKE
and
STEVEN SIMON

04/17/06 "New York Times" -- -- WHITE HOUSE spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.

Reports by the journalist Seymour Hersh and others suggest that the United States is contemplating bombing a dozen or more nuclear sites, many of them buried, around Iran. In the event, scores of air bases, radar installations and land missiles would also be hit to suppress air defenses. Navy bases and coastal missile sites would be struck to prevent Iranian retaliation against the American fleet and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran's long-range missile installations could also be targets of the initial American air campaign.
These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.

The Iranian legislature responded with a $20 million initiative for its intelligence organizations to counter American influence in the region. Iranian agents began casing American embassies and other targets around the world. In June 1996, the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged the bombing of an apartment building used by our Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans.

At that point, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon considered a bombing campaign. But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States.

While the full scope of what America did do remains classified, published reports suggest that the United States responded with a chilling threat to the Tehran government and conducted a global operation that immobilized Iran's intelligence service. Iranian terrorism against the United States ceased.

In essence, both sides looked down the road of conflict and chose to avoid further hostilities. And then the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran in 1997 gave Washington and Tehran the cover they needed to walk back from the precipice.

Now, as in the mid-90's, any United States bombing campaign would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process. Iran could respond three ways. First, it could attack Persian Gulf oil facilities and tankers — as it did in the mid-1980's — which could cause oil prices to spike above $80 dollars a barrel.

Second and more likely, Iran could use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States. Iran has forces at its command that are far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field. The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah has a global reach, and has served in the past as an instrument of Iran. We might hope that Hezbollah, now a political party, would decide that it has too much to lose by joining a war against the United States. But this would be a dangerous bet.

Third, Iran is in a position to make our situation in Iraq far more difficult than it already is. The Badr Brigade and other Shiite militias in Iraq could launch a more deadly campaign against British and American troops. There is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready.

No matter how Iran responded, the question that would face American planners would be, "What's our next move?" How do we achieve so-called escalation dominance, the condition in which the other side fears responding because they know that the next round of American attacks would be too lethal for the regime to survive?

Bloodied by Iranian retaliation, President Bush would most likely authorize wider and more intensive bombing. Non-military Iranian government targets would probably be struck in a vain hope that the Iranian people would seize the opportunity to overthrow the government. More likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control.

So how would bombing Iran serve American interests? In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer. The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.

The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.

Richard Clarke and Steven Simon were, respectively, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12761.htm .~.

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Neil Young urges Bush impeachment on protest album
By
Steve Gorman
Mon Apr 17, 5:42 PM ET

Veteran rocker Neil Young has recorded a protest album featuring an anti-Iraq war track with "a holy vow to never kill again" and a song titled "Let's Impeach the President," the singer said on Monday.

The 10-track set, called "Living with War," was recorded this month by a "power trio" -- electric guitar, bass and drums -- plus trumpet and a 100 voices, the 60-year-old Canadian-born musician announced on his Web site.

Young's longtime manager, Elliot Roberts, told Reuters the album, which has been the subject of Internet buzz for several days, will be played for executives at his label, Warner Music Group's Reprise Records, on Tuesday."It's devoted to the state of America, or the direction that America is moving in," Roberts said of the album.

In a message crawl along the bottom of his Web site, Young drew parallels to two of the leading protest singers of the 1960s, saying of his new record: "I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan ... metal folk protest?"

The crawl goes on to reveal the lyrics of the album's title track, with such lines as: "I raise my hand in peace ... I never bow to the laws of the thought police ... I take a holy vow ... to never kill again ...

"In the big hotels ... in the mosques and the doors of the old museum ... I take a holy vow ... to never kill again."

Roberts confirmed that a separate song on the album is titled "Let's Impeach the President." He declined to disclose any further details about the record.

But according to some online reports, the song accuses President George W. Bush of "lying" and features a rap with Bush's voice set against a choir singing "flip-flop."

One member of that choir, a California-based musician, wrote on a "blog" entry last Friday that the recording session wrapped with an a capella version of "America the Beautiful."

Young's latest offering comes just seven months after the release of his last album, "Prairie Wind," which has sold about 450,000 U.S. copies as of last week, according to sales tracking service Nielsen SounScan.

Music from that album was featured in the recent concert film "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," directed by Jonathan Demme.

"Living with War" appears to bring Young full circle from a more pro-Bush administration stance he took in the months following the September 11 attacks.

Not long after recording the song "Let's Roll," a tribute to passengers who apparently fought back against hijackers on doomed United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, Young came out publicly in support of the U.S. Patriot Act.

The legislation, which gave law enforcement authorities broad new powers aimed at bolstering the administration's war on terror, was harshly criticized by some as threatening Americans' civil liberties.

"Living with War" is hardly the first work by Young to take on the political establishment. As part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, in 1970, Young wrote and recorded the song "Ohio," a song about the four Kent State University students killed by National Guard troops during an anti-Vietnam war rally.
http://news.yahoo.com/

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~A NEWSLETTER
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NEWS DISSECTOR
WATCH WHAT'S DONE
NOT WHAT'S SAID
NEWS DISSECTOR
April 18, 2006
From MediaChannel.org's Executive Editor,
Danny Schechter...Watch What's Done, Not What's SaidReuters: "Russian police are looking for two mystics who persuaded a student to part with over 91,000 pounds in exchange for lifting a curse…."
DESPITE ALL THE FOCUS ON IRAN, IRAQ WAR ESCALATES
PULITZERS FOR KATRINA COVERAGE
CSPAN VIEWERS WRITE MOVING LETTERSNothing demonstrates the power of media more than the letters that often flood in when you get on TV. I know how transitory that 15 seconds of fame is but it showed us once again that if our views could be part of the national discourse—rather than marginalized on the sidelines—we could find many viewers open to questioning media narratives and deceptive news. Scroll down and read some of the thoughtful letters from people I don’t know as opposed to most of the “usual suspects.” (No offense.) Check out the hunger out there for real debate and media analysis.

Thanks to our partnership with Mediavision, we will be posting some excerpts from Rory O ‘Connor and my hour in the sun of CSPAN. See what you think and help us figure out how to reach more people and encourage more change. Responses welcome.

Meanwhile, the war we discussed continues to dominate the news and remains riddled with some of the media flaws we talked about.IRAQ WAR: WORSE THAN EVER
U.S. military deaths in Iraq have increased sharply in April after reaching the lowest level in two years last month.

This morning on CNN: “Insurgents used a mosque as cover as they fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the governor's compound in Ramadi, Iraq, according to the Pentagon. U.S. Marines responded to the repeated attacks with a tank round.” Note operative phrase in report: “According to the Pentagon.”WILL BAGHDAD BE FULLUJA- IZED?Chris Floyd warns of new plans to destroy the Iraqi Capital to Save it:

”Of all the war crimes that have flowed from the originating crime of President George W. Bush's unprovoked invasion of Iraq, perhaps the most flagrant was the destruction of Fallujah in November 2004. Now, as ignominious defeat looms for Bush's Babylonian folly, some of the key players in fomenting the war are urging that the "Fallujah Option" be applied to an even bigger target: Baghdad.

“What these influential warmongers openly call for is the "pacification" of Baghdad: a brutal firestorm by U.S. forces, ravaging both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in a "horrific" operation that will inevitably lead to "skyrocketing body counts," as warhawk Reuel Marc Gerecht cheerfully wrote last week in the ever-bloodthirsty editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal. Gerecht's war whoop quickly ricocheted around the right-wing media echo chamber and gave public voice to the private counsels emanating from a group whose members now comprise the leadership of the U.S. government: The Project for the New American Century.” context.themoscowtimes.com.THE ZARGAWI DECEPTION?Mike Whitney writes:”In more than 3 years of war, there has never been a positive citing of alleged terror mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi. This has led many to believe that he is merely a creation of Pentagon propagandists working with their agents in the western press. Colonel Derek Harvey strengthened those suspicions last week.”
informationclearinghouse.infoUS MILITARY TRAINS INTERROGATION BRIGADESAmerican Forces Press reports:FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, April 17, 2006 Army leaders are taking lessons learned from the 2003 Abu Ghraib detainee abuse incidents in Iraq to revamp the intelligence field. Changes include the activation of dedicated interrogation battalions and a new joint training center for the intelligence career field.

“The 201st Military Intelligence Battalion is the first of four joint interrogation battalions -- two active and two reserve -- to be activated in the next several years. Its mission is to conduct detainee screening and interrogation missions in support of military operations throughout the world, such as Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

“Being the first dedicated interrogation battalion in the Army, the spotlight is on these fine soldiers and their leadership," said Col. Richard Saddler, commander of the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade and keynote speaker at the ceremony. "Fortunately, they are the finest our nation has to offer, and they will do well in their upcoming missions."Joe Dunphy, Mediachannel’s military affairs specialist, explains:“The astonishing element here is that the "interrogators" are being trained at the same Fort th