Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Ed. note: Whoops! This was written in the early am of 4/5...was lost in the shuffle, so to speak...
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a lie?"-- Philip James.in the Guardian, paraphrasing Kerry’s 1971 quote.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Coming Apart?
After all the spin about burgeoning democracy, it’s time to look at the meaningfulness of the clashes between Shiite followers of and U.S. troops. Again, these are not foreign fighters, remnants of Saddam’s regime, but Iraqi Shiites who don’t want us there. Not roadside bombs or other paramilitary violence by Sunnis who have been principally responsible for the violence. Seven (7) soldiers were killed, many wounded while killing scores of followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr who has now decided to launch an uprising, since he’s determined that the ruling coalition intends to permanently exclude his group from power. His followers reportedly control police stations in several cities, much of Sadr City (named for his father) and parts of East Baghdad.
The Washington Post article (Anthony Shadid, Sewell Chan) summarizes how U.S. troops must deal with the Shiite revolt and with Fallujah where the U.S. security guards were killed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50349-2004Apr4?language=printer
Bush Scandals:
(1) Plame: Reportedly this investigation continues to broaden. From the NY Times (DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON)
Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say…
The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02LEAK.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1080880497-t6Z8jOY28C04XFYavNO0MQ
(2) 9/11: The blocking of access to documents. This is chapter 724 of the Administration’s opposing, blocking or slowing the work of the Commission. Still another compromise has been reached, as this commission, the press, the Democrats continue to compromise too often in their dealings with this lawless Administration.
The NY Times’ Douglas Jehl and David Sanger report on the task Condi faces on Thursday:
But a review of the record, from testimony and interviews, suggests that Ms. Rice faces a daunting challenge because her own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism, for reasons that had to do with her own background, her management style and the unusually close, personal nature of her relationship with Mr. Bush…
In February 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told Congress that terrorism was the top threat facing the United States.
Even four months later, as intelligence warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda began to surge, a June 2001 address that Dr. Rice delivered to Council on Foreign Relations on "Foreign Policy Priorities and Challenges of the Administration" made no mention of terrorism. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05COND.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
(3) Secrecy:
a) John Dean made an appearance on Bill Moyers (www.pbs.org/NOW where he unequivocally termed Bush offenses to be impeachable, noted in his new book Worse than Watergate.
b) Now some pressure (at last!) as to the secret energy task force that determined the giveaways to industry and the roll back of anti-pollution efforts. From the Washington Post (Carol Leonnig)
A federal judge yesterday ordered several federal government agencies to release documents concerning their work on Vice President Cheney's energy task force or provide a legal reason for withholding them.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman rejected arguments by Bush administration lawyers that employees from the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy can claim special confidentiality privileges for the period when they worked for the task force, which held private meetings with energy industry representatives as it crafted a national energy policy.
Ruling that those employees were not engaged in a deliberative process and were not temporary employees of the White House, Friedman said the agencies must search for and produce records of their employees' task force assignments. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=93b59e6cc9bd8ba10b214160d3efe140&lat=1080917976&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW3RH0596C64DF4672B7593E150085
(c) Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced
House Republicans stopped the Democrats from delving deeper into why the prescription drug bill's true cost estimates were kept from Congress. The LA Times (Vicki Kemper) account:
House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.
At issue are allegations that then-Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.
Thursday's conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy — Scully and White House aide Doug Badger — would not testify before Congress. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-medicare2apr02.story
Pre 9/11: Another Whistleblower Sounds Off
Air America has run this in its news reports. The Independent (Andrew Buncombe) carried this headline:
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514
Bad News for Condi: Philip Shenon in the NY Times summarizes that the 9/11 Commission has reached the preliminary conclusion that the attack was indeed preventable.
The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented.
Their remarks drew sharp disagreement from one of President Bush's closest political advisers, who insisted that the Bush and Clinton administrations had no opportunity to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot. They also offered a preview of the difficult questions likely to confront Condoleezza Rice when she testifies before the panel at a long-awaited public hearing this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=print&position
Bad News for Condi, II Maybe the Commission will quiz her about this, the Administration’s playing footsie with the Taliban. I would!
Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
Robert Scheer
(May 22, 2001, Los Angeles Times)
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.
Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women? http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm
Straight Talk Nancy Pelosi used the fitting word- embarrassing- to describe Bush needing to appear with Cheney before the 9/11 Commission. Refreshing.
The Rest of the Agenda: The Washington Post’s Charles Babington notes that there’s little follow-up by the Administration to most of their initiatives…apart from tax cuts.
Proposals to bar gay marriage, rewrite immigration laws, protect Americans from anthrax bacteria and send astronauts to the moon and Mars are progressing slowly -- or not at all -- even though Bush initially endorsed them at high-visibility events. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50302-2004Apr4.html
Elsewhere: Sudan
(NY Times) Journalist Nicholas Kristof has been pleading for the world to do something to stop the genocide in Sudan. He reports that the government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against three large African tribes, that 1,000 people are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped, 700,000 people have been driven from their homes, and Sudan's Army is even bombing the survivors.
Kristof has been on this since 1992 when he questioned the effectiveness of U.S. Christian groups' efforts to buy slaves out of slavery. No other columnist, newspaper or government official seems to be on this.
-R
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a lie?"-- Philip James.in the Guardian, paraphrasing Kerry’s 1971 quote.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Coming Apart?
After all the spin about burgeoning democracy, it’s time to look at the meaningfulness of the clashes between Shiite followers of and U.S. troops. Again, these are not foreign fighters, remnants of Saddam’s regime, but Iraqi Shiites who don’t want us there. Not roadside bombs or other paramilitary violence by Sunnis who have been principally responsible for the violence. Seven (7) soldiers were killed, many wounded while killing scores of followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr who has now decided to launch an uprising, since he’s determined that the ruling coalition intends to permanently exclude his group from power. His followers reportedly control police stations in several cities, much of Sadr City (named for his father) and parts of East Baghdad.
The Washington Post article (Anthony Shadid, Sewell Chan) summarizes how U.S. troops must deal with the Shiite revolt and with Fallujah where the U.S. security guards were killed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50349-2004Apr4?language=printer
Bush Scandals:
(1) Plame: Reportedly this investigation continues to broaden. From the NY Times (DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON)
Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say…
The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02LEAK.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1080880497-t6Z8jOY28C04XFYavNO0MQ
(2) 9/11: The blocking of access to documents. This is chapter 724 of the Administration’s opposing, blocking or slowing the work of the Commission. Still another compromise has been reached, as this commission, the press, the Democrats continue to compromise too often in their dealings with this lawless Administration.
The NY Times’ Douglas Jehl and David Sanger report on the task Condi faces on Thursday:
But a review of the record, from testimony and interviews, suggests that Ms. Rice faces a daunting challenge because her own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism, for reasons that had to do with her own background, her management style and the unusually close, personal nature of her relationship with Mr. Bush…
In February 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told Congress that terrorism was the top threat facing the United States.
Even four months later, as intelligence warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda began to surge, a June 2001 address that Dr. Rice delivered to Council on Foreign Relations on "Foreign Policy Priorities and Challenges of the Administration" made no mention of terrorism. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05COND.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
(3) Secrecy:
a) John Dean made an appearance on Bill Moyers (www.pbs.org/NOW where he unequivocally termed Bush offenses to be impeachable, noted in his new book Worse than Watergate.
b) Now some pressure (at last!) as to the secret energy task force that determined the giveaways to industry and the roll back of anti-pollution efforts. From the Washington Post (Carol Leonnig)
A federal judge yesterday ordered several federal government agencies to release documents concerning their work on Vice President Cheney's energy task force or provide a legal reason for withholding them.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman rejected arguments by Bush administration lawyers that employees from the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy can claim special confidentiality privileges for the period when they worked for the task force, which held private meetings with energy industry representatives as it crafted a national energy policy.
Ruling that those employees were not engaged in a deliberative process and were not temporary employees of the White House, Friedman said the agencies must search for and produce records of their employees' task force assignments. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=93b59e6cc9bd8ba10b214160d3efe140&lat=1080917976&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW3RH0596C64DF4672B7593E150085
(c) Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced
House Republicans stopped the Democrats from delving deeper into why the prescription drug bill's true cost estimates were kept from Congress. The LA Times (Vicki Kemper) account:
House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.
At issue are allegations that then-Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.
Thursday's conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy — Scully and White House aide Doug Badger — would not testify before Congress. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-medicare2apr02.story
Pre 9/11: Another Whistleblower Sounds Off
Air America has run this in its news reports. The Independent (Andrew Buncombe) carried this headline:
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514
Bad News for Condi: Philip Shenon in the NY Times summarizes that the 9/11 Commission has reached the preliminary conclusion that the attack was indeed preventable.
The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented.
Their remarks drew sharp disagreement from one of President Bush's closest political advisers, who insisted that the Bush and Clinton administrations had no opportunity to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot. They also offered a preview of the difficult questions likely to confront Condoleezza Rice when she testifies before the panel at a long-awaited public hearing this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=print&position
Bad News for Condi, II Maybe the Commission will quiz her about this, the Administration’s playing footsie with the Taliban. I would!
Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
Robert Scheer
(May 22, 2001, Los Angeles Times)
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.
Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women? http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm
Straight Talk Nancy Pelosi used the fitting word- embarrassing- to describe Bush needing to appear with Cheney before the 9/11 Commission. Refreshing.
The Rest of the Agenda: The Washington Post’s Charles Babington notes that there’s little follow-up by the Administration to most of their initiatives…apart from tax cuts.
Proposals to bar gay marriage, rewrite immigration laws, protect Americans from anthrax bacteria and send astronauts to the moon and Mars are progressing slowly -- or not at all -- even though Bush initially endorsed them at high-visibility events. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50302-2004Apr4.html
Elsewhere: Sudan
(NY Times) Journalist Nicholas Kristof has been pleading for the world to do something to stop the genocide in Sudan. He reports that the government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against three large African tribes, that 1,000 people are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped, 700,000 people have been driven from their homes, and Sudan's Army is even bombing the survivors.
Kristof has been on this since 1992 when he questioned the effectiveness of U.S. Christian groups' efforts to buy slaves out of slavery. No other columnist, newspaper or government official seems to be on this.
-R
