Donle’s Daily Dispatches

Volume 1 Issue 184        Today’s News and Views     Friday, June 30, 2006

Volume 1 Issue 185                                                   Saturday July 1, 2006

Sign My Guest Book

View My Guest Book

Get Your Free Guest Book

Donle's Daily Dispatches RSS News Feeds

Latest news and opinion headlines from NPR, BBC, NY Times, etc.

See the cost in your community

Update of US Casualties in Iraq: 2535

Update of US Casualties in Afghanistan: 314

Figures provided by

the Iraq Coalition Causality website

Support Our Troops

IMPEACH Bush/Cheney

Listen to Air America Radio while reading today's news and views

Today's News and Views

Concert to Benefit World Can't Wait Indianapolis July 1, 2006 info

The narrow margin of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rebuke to George W. Bush on military tribunals highlights the stakes on the table for the November 2006 congressional elections – nothing short of the survival of a meaningful constitutional system in the United States.

The majority opinion, which stopped Bush from proceeding with a kangaroo court that stripped Guantanamo Bay detainees of basic legal protections and mocked the Geneva Conventions, carried a profound secondary message – that the Court was not prepared to endorse Bush’s vision of his “war powers” as limitless and beyond challenge.

But it was equally noteworthy that only five of the nine justices believed that the rule of law and constitutional limits on Bush’s powers should prevail. Four justices – Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts – have made clear that they are prepared to rubber-stamp any judgment that Bush makes.

In dissenting opinions on the tribunal case, Scalia, Thomas and Alito embraced legal arguments that bowed before Bush’s imperial presidency. Chief Justice Roberts would surely have joined them, except that he had already ruled in Bush’s favor in the case while sitting on the U.S. Appeals Court and thus was forced to recuse himself.

The one-vote fragility of the Supreme Court’s embrace of constitutional principles over one-man rule was further underscored by the fact that the landmark ruling was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, a decorated World War II veteran who is now 86. Another justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is known to have battled health problems.

It is a strong possibility that if the Republicans retain control of the U.S. Congress in the November 2006 elections, Bush will get to fill at least one more Supreme Court vacancy with the likes of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts. Then, the court’s majority will flip in the opposite direction, granting Bush the authoritarian powers he so covets.

Even now, the court balance is being maintained by the swing vote of Republican Anthony Kennedy, the author of the infamous Bush v. Gore decision in December 2000 that prevented a full counting of votes in Florida and handed Bush the presidency.

But, at least in the near term, the Court’s ruling means that Bush will be forced to negotiate with Congress over creating new standards for the tribunals that will try some of the 450 detainees now held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Rebuffing Bush

In that ruling on June 29, the Supreme Court majority rejected Bush’s long-held contention that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to detainees in the “war on terror.” The justices also repudiated Bush’s tribunal rules that allowed a defendant to be excluded from his own trial and permitted hearsay evidence, unsworn testimony and evidence secured through coercive means.

“The Executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction,” Stevens wrote in the majority opinion.

“The Court’s conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground,” added Justice Stephen Breyer. “Congress has not issued the Executive a blank check.”

Implicitly the Court’s slim majority was saying, too, that the Constitution does not countenance the notion that the President as Commander in Chief can assert “plenary” – or unlimited – powers indefinitely, any way he sees fit.

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, Bush has maintained that he possesses virtually all the legal power of the U.S. government; that he can decide which laws will be enforced and which ones ignored; that he can take the nation to war without congressional consent; that he can order torture and assassination; and that he gets to parcel out constitutional protections to Americans, overriding such guarantees as the habeas corpus right to a fair trial and the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

By asserting that the “war on terror” exists everywhere, Bush has claimed powers that know no bounds and no boundaries, reaching from the farthest corners of the earth to the corner of Main Street and Elm.

In effect, Bush has negated the fundamental American concept of “unalienable rights,” heralded by the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Today, under Bush’s legal theories, Americans have rights only at his forbearance. Bush’s vision of his unlimited powers also would obliterate the constitutional “checks and balances” by subordinating the Legislature and Judiciary to the Executive.

Bush implemented these radical changes to the American political system by combining what his legal advisers call the “plenary” powers of the Commander in Chief with the concept of a “unitary executive” in control of all laws and regulations.

One of the legal theorists who developed these concepts of an all-powerful Executive was Samuel Alito, who became Bush’s second appointee to the Supreme Court, after Chief Justice Roberts.

Rights As ‘History’

Yet, maybe because Bush’s assertion of power has been so extraordinary, almost no one has dared connect the dots. After a 230-year run, the “unalienable rights” – as enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the other Founders – were history.

The Justice Department spelled out Bush’s rationale for his powers on Jan. 19, 2006, in a 42-page legal analysis defending Bush’s right to wiretap Americans without a warrant.

Bush’s lawyers said the congressional authorization to use force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks “places the President at the zenith of his powers” and lets him use that authority domestically as well as overseas. [NYT, Jan. 20, 2006]

According to the analysis, the “zenith of his powers” allows Bush to override both the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against searches and seizures without court orders, and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created a special secret court to approve spying warrants inside the United States.

In its legal analysis, the Justice Department added, “The President has made clear that he will exercise all authority available to him, consistent with the Constitution, to protect the people of the United States.”

While the phrase “consistent with the Constitution” sounded reassuring to many Americans, what it meant in this case was that Bush believes he has unlimited powers as Commander in Chief to do whatever he deems necessary in the “war on terror.”

Yet, since the “war on terror” is a vague concept – unlike other wars fought by the United States – there also is no expectation that Bush’s usurpation of traditional American freedoms is just a short-term necessity. Instead it is a framework for future governance.

It was this historic and unprecedented assertion of presidential power that was the real backdrop for the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was accused of conspiracy because of his alleged work as a driver for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

In demanding reasonable legal safeguards for Hamdan and other Guantanamo detainees, the Supreme Court majority also was declaring that Bush’s powers are not without limit. The Court was asserting that other human beings who share the planet with Bush have rights, too.

Election 2006, however, may well decide whether the future of the United States will be as a nation of laws with citizens who continue to possess “unalienable rights” – or whether Bush becomes a modern-day king and all other Americans become his subjects.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

GOP's New `values Agenda' Item Fails

- By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

(06-28) 15:41 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

House Republicans failed Wednesday to advance a bill protecting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Only a day earlier, the GOP had placed the measure on its "American Values Agenda" in hopes of bolstering the party's prospects in the fall election.

But Republicans could not muster a simple majority on the issue in a committee where they outnumber Democrats by six.

The legislation tries to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over cases challenging the pledge. It responds to a federal appeals court ruling in 2002 that the pledge is unconstitutional because it contains the words "under God." A district court judge made a similar ruling last fall, citing the appeals court precedent.

A simple majority is required to report a bill to the House floor with a favorable committee recommendation. The House Judiciary Committee split 15-15 on the pledge bill Wednesday; Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., joined 14 Democrats to oppose it.

Inglis said he is concerned that if the Republican-dominated Congress passes "court-stripping" legislation, a future Democrat-dominated Congress might pass its own bill denying courts jurisdiction of more issues. In addition, he said, the legislation would allow state courts to rule on issues related to the Pledge of Allegiance while denying litigants the ability to appeal to a federal court.

Seven of the committee's 23 Republicans did not show up for the vote, while three Democrats were absent. The chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he would try again for a majority on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Senate Republican leaders failed by a single vote to pass a constitutional amendment to ban the burning of the American flag.

The GOP's "American Values Agenda" also includes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which died in the Senate before it even reached a vote; a prohibition on human cloning; and possibly votes on several popular tax cuts.

©2006 Associated Press

© Copyright 2005 Chris Floyd

What About the Russians?

Along with all Americans, save the generation now in high-school and younger, I grew up and lived under the shadow of the Cold War, and behind it the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. We all remember it well.

But I also dimly remember a time when we thought well of the Russians – our allies in World War II, a war against the stereotyped "Japs" and "Krauts."

All that changed a mere ten months after the surrender of Nazi Germany when, in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill spoke these enduring words:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere...

Many historians mark that speech as the beginning of the Cold War.

A year later, in March, 1947, President Harry Truman requested and received from the Congress an appropriation of $400 million to aid the Greek and Turkish governments in their struggles against Communist rebels – or "insurgents," as we would call them today. This policy became known as "The Truman Doctrine," the effect of which was an open-ended commitment to fund anti-communist regimes around the world.

Concerned that the American public might resist an increase in military appropriations so soon after victory in the World War, Truman was advised by Arthur Vandenburg, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that in order to succeed with his confrontational policy, the President would have to "scare Hell out of the American people."

And so we the people have lived in fear, up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989, and that of the Soviet Union in December, 1991. After a hiatus of a mere decade, the fear resumed on September 11, 2001, to once again captivate the American people and their government.

Though constantly preoccupied, like all Americans, with "the Soviet Menace," in the early days of the Cold War, I rarely encountered a "real live Russian," much less a Russian communist. On one occasion, while enrolled in some graduates course at Columbia University, I happened to meet a young correspondent from Radio Moscow, and seeing an opportunity to get better acquainted, invited him to lunch for an extended conversation. "Be careful, he’s probably KGB," my parents warned. Then, for the next three decades, I had no further personal contact with any Russians. Throughout that time, the dark, abstract specter, "the Soviet Threat," chilled my consciousness, as it also dominated the news and public policy.

It is noteworthy that for the vast majority of Americans, "the Russians," like "the Germans" and "the Japanese" earlier, and "the Arabs" and "the Muslims" today, are perceived abstractly, as a collective gathered under a label, without faces or individual personalities. All the better to serve as "targets" in a war, either cold or hot.

Even so, for several decades I wondered, "Just who are these people, as individuals, whom we are prepared to annihilate by the millions, as they are equally prepared to annihilate us? Surely, they too have families that they love, and friendships, joys, griefs, aspirations, and traditions, just as we do. And they must also have ideas to challenge us. Is our common humanity less important than the mutual antagonisms and mutual threats that separate us?"

I was to have my first answer in June, 1989, when I was invited to participate in a summer seminar on "Global Security and Arms Control" at the University of California, Irvine, sponsored by the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. As it happened, the seminar convened less than three weeks after the massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Assigned a dorm room with a visiting Chinese scholar, I saw in his face and heard in his voice his personal agony at the repression of his friends and colleagues "back home."

Also at the seminar were four articulate, intelligent and personable Russians, whom we soon came to call "the gang of four." In the discussions, it soon became clear that these individuals were not "the enemy," but rather like ourselves, victims of the shared insanity that had befallen our respective governments.

A sample of that insanity was distributed to the members of the seminar for their critical analysis.  It was the 1988 edition of the US Department of Defense report, "Soviet Military Power: An Assessment of the Threat." Primarily directed to the Congress, it was, in effect, a wish-list and a sales pitch in behalf of the Military Industrial Complex. After the fall of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent inspection of the Soviet military capability, the report was found to be, by and large, a fraud. Of special interest was the report’s assessment of the Soviet government, three years into the Administration of Mikhail Gorbachev and the advent of "Perestroika" and "Glasnost:"

Gorbachev’s "new thinking" primarily reflects a change in style, while his diplomatic initiatives embody new tactics. By cultivating a less threatening international image, Moscow aims to deflect attention away from Soviet militarism and adventure in its foreign policy. In Moscow’s view, the consequent international climate will improve Soviet prospects for maintaining an advantageous "correlation of forces: worldwide, especially in an era of economic stagnation. At the same time, Moscow will aim to expand its power and influence... (31.  See also, my: "If Peace Were at Hand, How Would We Know It?"  [1989]).

At about the same time, George Will put it more succinctly: "Gorbachev is Brezhnev with a tailored suit and a thin wife." It is instructive to recall these words in the light of events in the Soviet Union subsequent to the release of this DoD report on "Soviet Military Power."

That following November (1989) I was invited to present a paper at a conference on "The Ethics of Non-Violence," sponsored by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. This was to be the first of seven visits to Russia, during which I presented five papers at scholarly conferences. My most recent visit was in the Summer of 1999. I devoutly hope that it will not be my last. To this day, I remain in close contact with many Russian friends and colleagues.

In June,1990, before my departure to a conference at Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia, I happened to pick up a copy of the New York Times. There I found an article by Bill Keller: "Ex-KGB Officer, Speaking Out, Asserts Spy Agency is Unchanged." The article profiled Oleg Kalugin, a retired KGB Major General, who was speaking candidly, critically and publicly against the agency that he had served for thirty-two years. The KGB, he proclaimed, has no place in the reformed Soviet Union. This was an extraordinarily audacious and courageous act, and soon thereafter, Kalugin, who had resigned from the Communist Party, was stripped of his rank, his pension, and his decorations. He might also have lost his freedom or even his life, but for his candidacy and election to the Soviet Parliament, and a subsequent intervention by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Oleg Kalugin is the Radio Moscow correspondent that I invited to lunch in New York City, some thirty years earlier. And, yes, he was in fact a KGB agent at the time.

Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union December, 1991, Kalugin moved to Washington, DC where, ironically, he became a close friend of his previous adversary, William Colby, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Called to Congress to testify, he was as a result tried and convicted in absentia in Russia for treason. This means, of course, that he can never return to Russia.

I sent a letter to Kalugin in 1993, reminding him of our lunch thirty years earlier. We have been in frequent contact ever since. When I last spoke with him a couple of months ago, he told me that he had become an American citizen. (Kalugin’s amazing life story is told in his 1994 book, "The First Directorate").

As I relate these personal encounters, I can readily anticipate a retort by my critics on the right: "Why all this fascination with Russia? Aren’t you aware of the horrors of the Soviet regime? What are you, a Communist?"

I reply that I am not now nor have I ever been a Communist (under oath, right hand raised). If I had ever entertained the idea of endorsing communism (which I have not), it would have been permanently banished by my encounters with Russia and the Russians.  I have seen Communism, and it doesn’t work.  And if you want to meet some individuals who, more than anyone on the far right, hate communism, visit Russia. Yes, I am aware of the horrors of the Soviet regime, but not as much as my friends in Russia, who hang on the walls of their apartments, pictures of relatives who were exiled and murdered during Stalin’s purges.

I am fascinated by Russia precisely because of the endurance of the Soviet people (less than half of them ethnic Russians) through seven decades of Communist despotism, followed by their eventual overthrow of that evil regime. No, Ronald Reagan did not defeat communism, the peoples behind "the iron curtain" defeated communism: the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Hungarians, the Lithuanians, the Ukrainians, and of course, the Russians.

Ronald Reagan used to say that "the Russians do not understand freedom, in fact they don’t even have a word for ‘freedom.’ in their language." Had he bothered to pick up his Oval Office phone and call the State Department, he would have been told that the Russian word for "freedom" is "svoboda."

"No concept of freedom?" Tell that to the Soviet dissidents of the sixties and seventies, many of whom paid for their defiance with prison sentences or incarceration in psychiatric hospitals. Tell it to Elena Bonner, the widow of the great Andrei Sakharov.  Tell it to families and admirers of Daniel, Sinyavsky, Solzhenitzyn, the Medvedev brothers, and others too numerous to mention. Tell it to the valiant Soviet submarine captain, Alexandr Nikitin, who was imprisoned for publicizing the nuclear pollution of the Barrents Sea. Tell it to Judge Sergei Golets, who defied Putin’s government and overturned Nikitin’s conviction. And tell it to the thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens who jammed the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnius and elsewhere, some putting their bodies in front of the Red Army tanks, to defeat the Communist Party counter-coup in August, 1991.

I’ve read of many Americans, and have met a few, who have kindly offered "to teach freedom and democracy" to the Russians. What arrogance! Instead, it is we who are in need of instruction.

Teach freedom and democracy to the Russians?

• Who in our Congress has the courage and integrity to openly criticize the repressive and corrupt regime, as did Andrei Sakharov and Oleg Kalugin in the Soviet parliament? Congressional dissenters put their offices and their convenience at risk; in the Soviet Union, dissenters put their lives on the line.
   

• What CIA agents will, like Kalugin, stand up and denounce "the system" that they have served. Ray McGovern and Larry Thompson immediately come to mind. But why must they stand alone?
   

• Why does each and every individual in secret possession of compelling evidence that the most recent national elections were stolen, remain silent and thus passively complicit in this betrayal of our democracy?  Why does the mainstream media refuse to investigate this, the most serious political crime in our history?
   

• What prominent news media personalities will break ranks and denounce the GOP-mainstream media "noise machine"? Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel and now Dan Rather have retired. Why are they silent? Where is our new Ed Murrow?
   

• What GOP politicians will at last pause to search their souls and reflect upon our political legacy, and then, putting their honor, their country and their Constitution above their party, join a coalition dedicated to the restoration of the Constitution, of the rule of law, and of our international reputation?
   

• When the Communist apparatchiki attempted to overthrow Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika, the people of the Soviet Union filled the streets in protest, and prevailed. So too the people of Ukraine, when in November 2004 it became clear that the presidential election had been rigged and stolen. Why do the streets of the United States remain empty?

"Why this fascination with the Russians?" Because Russia has a rich history and culture that long precedes the seventy-year aberration that was the Soviet Union. Its contributions to science are substantial, and its legacy of literature and music is unrivaled.

To be sure, Russians, like all peoples, exemplify the full moral spectrum, from saints on the one hand, to some truly despicable villains on the other: Stalin (a Georgian, actually), Beria, and the ruthless scoundrels in the "Russian Mafia." But, as I have personally discovered, when it comes to loyalty, integrity, and hospitality, most Russians are unmatched.

Vladimir Putin, who has apparently not rid himself of the bad habits that he acquired during his service with the KGB, is cracking down on the dissenting media and on independent civic organizations. There’s a whiff of the old despotism in the air. Can the Russian people, covetous of their new, hard-won freedom, resist and prevail? My money is on the people.

The history of Russia in the past century offers us a crucially significant lesson; a lesson which the ignorant and arrogant Bush/Cheney administration has ignored, to our profound sorrow, and to the greater sorrow of the Iraqi people.

When the German Wehrmacht invaded Russia in June, 1941, the army posed as "liberators" from the Bolshevik despotism of Stalin. In effect, they expected to be "greeted with flowers." And, to be sure, at first in many regions, they were. Many Ukrainian and other ethnic units defected to join the "liberators." But soon the cruelty of the Nazi invaders was manifest, as it became clear that this was no liberation, it was conquest and occupation. Given the choice between overthrowing Stalin’s despotism by accepting occupation, and defending "Mother Russia," the Soviet people chose the latter.

In March, 2003, as the people of Iraq were suffering under the despotic rule of Saddam Hussein, the American military and its "coalition of the willing," launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The American public was assured by the Vice President, among others, that the troops would be "greeted with flowers." In fact, there was much jubilation in Iraq at the overthrow of the despised Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the "liberation" soon morphed into an occupation, and today, the occupiers are facing an "insurgency," consisting overwhelmingly of Iraqis who apparently desire nothing more than the departure of the US military forces from their country.

"Greeted with flowers?" As the sixties protest song asks, "Where have all the flowers gone?"

And the song ends with the unanswered question: "When will they ever learn?"
 

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy.  He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin.   He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org). His book in progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/^toc.htm . Send comments to: crisispapers@hotmail.com .

After all the sound and fury of the past few years, how is the U.S. doing in its fight against terrorism?

Not too well, according to a recent survey of more than 100 highly respected foreign policy and national security experts. The survey, dubbed the "Terrorism Index," was conducted by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine. The respondents included Republicans and Democrats, moderates, liberals and conservatives.

The survey's findings were striking. A strong, bipartisan consensus emerged on two crucial points: 84 percent of the respondents said the United States was not winning the war on terror, and 86 percent said the world was becoming more — not less — dangerous for Americans.

The sound and fury since Sept. 11, 2001 — the chest-thumping and muscle-flexing, the freedom fries, the Patriot Act, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the breathtaking expansion of presidential power, Guantánamo, rendition, the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars — seems to have signified very little.

An article on the survey, in the July/August edition of Foreign Policy, said of the respondents, "They see a national security apparatus in disrepair and a government that is failing to protect the public from the next attack." More than 8 in 10 of the respondents said they believed an attack in the U.S. on the scale of Sept. 11 was likely within the next five years.

Many of the respondents played important national security roles in the government over the past few decades. They included Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as secretary of state under George H. W. Bush; Anthony Lake, a national security adviser to Bill Clinton; James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Richard Clarke, who served as counterterrorism czar in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was in that post on Sept. 11th; and Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan.

Noted academics and writers who specialized in foreign policy and national security matters also participated in the survey.

"Respondents," according to a report that accompanied the survey, "sharply criticized U.S. efforts in a number of key areas of national security, including public diplomacy, intelligence and homeland security. Nearly all of the departments and agencies responsible for fighting the war on terror received poor marks.

"The experts also said that recent reforms of the national security apparatus have done little to make Americans safer. Asked about recent efforts to reform America's intelligence community, for instance, more than half of the index's experts said that creating the office of the director of national intelligence has had no positive impact in the war against terror."

The respondents seemed, essentially, to be saying that the U.S. needs to be smarter (less like a bull in a china shop) in its efforts to combat terrorism. "Foreign policy experts have never been in so much agreement about an administration's performance abroad," said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a participant in the survey. "The reason is that it's clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force."

The respondents stressed the importance of ending America's dependence on foreign oil, saying that could prove to be "the single most pressing priority in winning the war on terror." Eighty-two percent of the respondents said that ending the dependence on foreign oil should have a higher priority, and nearly two-thirds said the country's current energy policies were making matters worse, not better.

"We borrow a billion dollars every working day to import oil, an increasing share of it coming from the Middle East," said Mr. Woolsey, the former C.I.A. director.

The respondents also said it was crucially important for the U.S. to engage in a battle of ideas as part of a sustained effort to bring about a rejection of radical ideologies in the Islamic world. That kind of battle requires more of a reliance on diplomacy and other nonmilitary tools.

If the respondents to this survey are correct, the U.S. needs to be moving in an entirely different direction. The war against terror cannot be won by bombing the enemy into submission. The bull in the china shop may be frightening at first, but after a while it's just enraging. We need a better, smarter way.

Fair Use Notice: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, economic, democratic, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

An Epic Week of Cutting and Running

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on June 28, 2006, Printed on July 1, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/38257/

And then along comes Cut'n'Run Casey. We spend all last week listening to cut'n'run Democrats talking about their cut'n'run strategy for Iraq, and the only issue is whether they want to cut'n'run by the end of this year or to cut'n'run by the end of next year, and oh, by the way, did I mention that Republicans had been choreographed to refer to the Democrats' plans as cut'n'run?

As Vice President Dick ("Last Throes") Cheney said Thursday, redeployment of our troops would be "the worst possible thing we could do. ... No matter how you carve it--you can call it anything you want--but basically it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don't have the stomach for this fight."

Then right in the middle of Cut'n'Run Week, the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., held a classified briefing at the Pentagon and revealed his plan to reduce the 14 combat brigades now in Iraq to five or six. And here's the best part: Rather than wait till the end of this year or, heaven forefend, next year, Casey wants to start moving those troops out in September, just before whatever it is that happens in early November. They don't call him George W. Jr. for nothing.

One has to admit, the party never ends with the Bush administration. The only question about Cut'n'Run Week is whether they meant to punctuate a weeklong festival of referring to Democrats as the party of "retreat" and "the white flag" with this rather abrupt announcement of their own cut'n'run program. Was it an error of timing?

I say no. I say Karl Rove doesn't make timing mistakes. This administration thoroughly believes the media and the people have a collective recollection of no more than one day. Five days of cut'n'run, one day off and BAM, you get your own cut'n'run plan out there.

Republicans have, in fact, a well-developed sense of aesthetics. Regard the superb pairing of the decision not to raise the minimum wage with the continued push to repeal the estate tax. House Republicans had almost opened their marble hearts and raised the minimum, now at $5.15 an hour, to a whopping $7.25 an hour by 2009. (Since 1997, when they last raised it, members of Congress have hiked their own pay by $31,000 a year.)

This might have gone well with their decision to reduce the estate tax yet again, so that only the top half a percent of estates will pay it, while it will cost the treasury $602 billion over the first 10 years--but even better, no increase in the minimum wage to match the vote to decrease taxes on the very, very, very richest. Is that suave or what?

Also, very slick move on the Voting Rights Act extension. No amendments, no exemptions, the South rose again and blocked the whole deal. Which Southern state do you think will be the first to pass laws to hold down the black vote? My money is on 'Bama--for sentimental reasons.

And now, on to flag burning. What flag burning, you may well ask. Just because something doesn't happen is no reason not to outlaw it. Or, for that matter, not to amend the Constitution of the United States.

I am considering introducing an amendment to require everyone in the audience at "Peter Pan" to clap for Tinkerbell. I believe 99.8% of them do, but that's no reason not to amend the Constitution. I don't believe we should allow people to be different. If someone wants to burn a flag as symbolic political protest, I believe they should be beheaded. Also, flipping the bird at George W. should merit the same--but not flipping off Clinton, Bill or Hillary.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute.

Of course being a Democrat he is by that very association deemed `unpatriotic' and a `coward' in using the dastardly labeling of Frist, Karl Rove and the rest of the unscrupulous and yellow thugs who control the government, the media, the courts and by extension are the operators of the message machine that spits out the hateful swill that motivates the most reactionary and ignorant segments of the populace who represent their base. This anti-American political party could never carry the torch were it not for their deception and demagoguery in playing to the most base and vile instincts of the perennially angry. Like any good purveyor of tyranny enabling double speak and race baiting, they have a little something for everybody.

Festering resentment towards women? Welcome to the party.

Hate Mexicans and Blacks? Step right in.

Think that the liberals are destroying the country? We do too.

Are you on God's side? Hallelujah, so are we.

Do you want to defeat the homosexual agenda? We are on your side and God is too.

The Constitution? It's just a goddamned piece of paper, we have the flag!

As if it should be any surprise the GOP also plans to load their legislative calendar with other contentious issues including another constitutional amendment to discriminate against American citizens who are gay, more attacks on liberalism, whipping up the armed to the teeth militia fanatics by fear mongering that the Democrats are coming to take their guns away and inciting the overthrow of the judicial system. Denny's House of Pork will be very busy as the rotund rascal of the rotunda has promised:

"Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built. We hope to restore some of those basic values through passing this legislative agenda and renewing our country's commitment to faith, freedom and life"

The values volk are anything but patriotic and their value system is anything but American.
Flag desecration? Let the Republicans wrap themselves in it, what could be more disrespectful than that. Consider their collective military service, the majority of them have never worn a uniform, or at least never worn one in the service of their country.

The Big Kahunas:

George W. Bush: Served in National Guard through the grace of a rich and influential daddy (then he didn't bother to show up for his last year and fuck what the right-wing activists say, Dan Rather was the victim of a Rove setup to derail the story)

Dick Cheney: Never Served (multiple draft deferments)

Tom DeLay: Never Served ("so many minority youths had volunteered that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself")

Condi Rice: Never Served

Karl Rove: Never Served

Sen. Bill Frist: Never Served

Dennis Hastert: Never Served

The Patriotic Peanut Gallery:

Gov. Jeb Bush: Never Served

Sen. Rick Santorum: Never Served

Sen. John Kyl: Never Served

Sen. John Cornyn: Never Served

Sen. George Allen: Never Served (*-see excellent story at end of post on this douchebag)

Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger: Never Served (although his daddy once served in Adolf Hitler's military)

The Neo Cons (the architects of the war)

Donald Rumsfeld: He actually served! (which makes him stick out like a turd in a punchbowl with the rest of this crowd)

Paul Wolfowitz: Never Served

Richard Perle: Never Served

Eliot Abrams: Never Served

Doug Feith: Never Served

The Flag Waving Electronic Demagogues:

Bill O'Reilly: Never Served

George Will: Never Served

Bill Bennett: Never Served

Chris Matthews: Never Served

Sean Hannity: Never Served

Ann Coulter: Never Served (and Godlessly so I might add)

Michael Weiner (aka Michael Savage): Never Served

Rush Limbaugh: Never Served (by the way, when you were caught with the Viagra nobody bothered to ask this question: were you fucking girls or boys?)

Beginning to notice a pattern here?

I have neither the time nor the space to continue with the chicken hawk roll call but rest assured the aforementioned have plenty of company amongst their cowardly ranks.

They are Armchair Patriots, those who detest American values but wave the flag as though it were some sort of shield for their fascism.

Armchair patriots believe in war without their own personal sacrifice, they believe that war is the simplistic jingoism of the John Wayne, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone movies that they have been weaned on.

By the way, John Wayne never served either.

According to a survey/poll just released by the National Research Center at the University of Chicago, that incubator of neocon icons like Leo Strauss and Milton Friedman America is tops in national pride....God bless the USA and may the rockets red glare now be just a little brighter come Tueday.

What this survey means is absolutely nothing, just more agit-prop and red meat for the 4th of July BBQs. Interestingly enough if you apply the same sort of pretzel logic utilized by FOX News White House adjunct Tony Snow whose time traveling reference to polling Americans in the aftermath of the `Battle of the Bulge' to make a bizarre analogy to `cutting and running' from Iraq can be invoked here as well. Conversely if you could take a trip through Tony's time tunnel and conduct the exact same survey in say the mid-1930s, which country do you think would have won the hallowed national pride/most patriotic honor?

A nice little patriotic swastika adorned lapel pin is the prize to the lucky winner.

GOD BLESS AMERICA and our holy flag!

* - This is fucking brilliant:

Va. Senate race heats up over flag burning

By BOB LEWIS, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 28, 2:41 PM ET

Republican Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) attacked his Democratic challenger's opposition to a flag-burning amendment, and James Webb retaliated by calling Allen a coward who sat out the Vietnam War "playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

The statement by a senior adviser to Webb, a decorated veteran and former secretary of the Navy, went to extraordinary lengths to question Allen's fortitude, even repeatedly using the middle name the senator detests and never uses, Felix.

"While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada," said Webb strategist Steve Jarding in the statement Tuesday.

Allen adviser Dick Wadhams called Jarding's comments pathetic and said they raise questions about Webb's fitness for office.

"They're saying we questioned (Webb's) patriotism, and that's a lie," Wadhams said. "We just raised a legitimate question about whether he supports a flag amendment or not. How is that questioning his patriotism?"

The rhetorical crossfire began after an Allen news release noted Webb's opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to ban desecration of the U.S. flag.

Allen voted in favor of the amendment Tuesday evening when the measure failed by one vote to get the two-thirds majority required.

The news release by Allen's campaign said Webb's opposition to the amendment shows he is beholden to liberal Sens. John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer, who all voted against the amendment.

Within hours, Webb lashed back, calling Allen's news release "weak-kneed attacks by cowards."

"People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield," Jarding said.

Webb left the Republican party over Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. He has written novels informed by his Vietnam experience and a recent non-fiction book "Born Fighting."

Allen is a first-term senator mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate. While he was a student at the University of Virginia, Allen worked summers at ranches in the Southwest.

And GetYour Official 52 Card Deck of GOP Chickenhawks HERE

posted by Charon at 7:05 AM

Ark. governor seeks gay foster parent ban

By ANDREW DEMILLO, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 30 minutes ago

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday he hopes the Legislature considers reimposing a ban on gay foster parents, struck down a day earlier by the state Supreme Court.

"I'm very disappointed that the court seems more interested in what's good for gay couples than what's good for children needing foster care," Huckabee said through his spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court decision that threw out a ban on homosexuals serving as foster parents. Four people sued after the policy was put in effect in 1999. The state Child Welfare Board dropped the policy after losing a court fight in 2004.

Arkansas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell said the four who successfully challenged the policy have not applied to be foster parents.

Thursday's court ruling left open the possibility that legislators could enact a ban by law or possibly give a state board authority to do so.

But Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arkansas, said the court ruling itself could make legislation difficult to pass. She cited language in the ruling that said there was no connection between homosexuality and a child's welfare.

In the unanimous ruling, the court said testimony in the state's appeal demonstrated that "the driving force behind adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board's views of morality and its bias against homosexuals."

Being raised by homosexuals doesn't cause academic problems or gender identity problems, as the state had argued, the Supreme Court said.

Huckabee is leaving office in 2007 because of term limits. Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson said he was disappointed by the ruling.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Beebe said Friday he was opposed to allowing gay people to become foster parents. Spokesman Zac Wright said Beebe would supporting passing a ban if it was researched and found to be constitutional.

A Florida ban on adoptions by gays and lesbians was upheld in a federal court and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the ACLU. Utah and Mississippi also restrict gay adoptions.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc.

Where's the Plan, Democrats?

by ARI BERMAN

[from the July 17, 2006 issue]

It was the morning of June 6 and Democrats were hopeful. That Tuesday there was a special election in San Diego to replace Republican Duke Cunningham--who had pleaded guilty to bribery charges. The district was Republican, but Democrats saw the contest between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray as an opportunity to pick up a seat--and gain a boost en route to the November Congressional elections. As voters were heading to the polls in Cunningham's district, I asked Democratic Party chair Howard Dean about his party's plan to mobilize voters in the coming mid-term elections. "We're using it in Busby's district," Dean said.

If that was the case, Democrats have reason to worry. And some are--which has led to a bruising fight in Democratic strategy circles between Dean's Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other key party operatives. Busby lost to Bilbray by four percentage points, and worse, a massive Democratic mobilization never materialized.

Dean says the DNC has two plans, short-term and long-term. His long-term plan is to rebuild the party by hiring full-time field organizers in all fifty states. Dean and his supporters, including recent convert Bill Clinton, contend that Democrats must do that if they hope to command an electoral majority in the years to come.

But the question of the moment is: Where and what is the DNC's plan for 2006? A number of top party operatives believe the DNC should take the lead in building a strong get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation for November. That means identifying probable voters, persuading them to care about the election and getting them to the polls November 7. Thus far, the operatives say, the DNC has failed to prepare adequately for the coming ground game, causing concern that Dean's long-term strategy is squandering the Democrats' best short-term opportunity in a decade to retake Congress.

Dean's immediate focus in Busby's district, as he explained to me, was to target people who voted in 2004 but not in 2002. Yet Republicans out-hustled and out-mobilized Democrats on the ground in Bilbray's victory, spending twice as much money, making six times as many phone calls to voters and airlifting in 100 staffers from Capitol Hill. "There was dramatically lower turnout than we expected," said one Democratic operative in the district. Busby got half as many votes as Kerry, and only improved upon Kerry's 44 percent take by less than 1 percent.

"That was a tough district any way you look at it," says DNC executive director Tom McMahon. "But the people we targeted turned out."

Although you can't read too much into the results of a special election in a heavily Republican area thirty miles from the Mexico border, the Busby race demonstrated that--despite all the current anti-GOP kinks in the electoral environment--Republicans are better at running the machinery of politics: raising money, working together, harnessing new technology, motivating the base, exploiting hot-button issues and getting voters to the polls.

In an off-year election, when voter participation is generally 15 to 20 percent lower than in a presidential year, turnout is critical. For Democrats that means the party has to excite its base, pursue the "dropoff voters" (who voted in 2004 but not in 2002) and court independents and disaffected Republicans. Polling suggests that the public would prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. But politics has a lot to do with mechanics--especially when control of the House and Senate will turn on a few dozen contests come November.

"The current measures of potential Democratic turnout and enthusiasm are not impressive," Democratic pollsters James Carville and Stan Greenberg wrote in a sharply worded strategy memo a day after Busby's defeat. In mid-June only 3 percent of voters showed up for the Democratic primary to choose a Senate challenger to George Allen in Virginia, five times lower than the last contested Democratic primary. "Democrats have not yet felt the fire and energy that they felt in 2004," EMILY's List president Ellen Malcolm ominously wrote to donors recently.

Who will energize the voters is perhaps an even bigger concern. The largest progressive GOTV operation in 2004, America Coming Together (ACT), was disbanded after the election. In this vacuum, Democrats have been sparring for months over how and where to spend resources in 2006. Little more than four months from election day, Democrats are wondering if they can assemble what the Republicans already have waiting for them. How they address this problem will play a major, possibly decisive role in who controls Congress.

Elections are decided by the 3 M's: message, money, mobilization. The Democratic message, particularly on Iraq, remains a work in progress. Their money situation is better than usual. But after considerable talk about the last M, during the 2004 election, Democrats are only belatedly returning to mobilization. "You can advertise and persuade all you want," House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told a group of reporters in May. "But if you don't turn out the vote, you're just having a conversation." In decades past the big city machines and powerful labor unions, aligned with the Democratic Party, pummeled Republicans at GOTV. But Democrats grew complacent, and Republicans aggressively organized locally.

In the 2002 mid-term elections, Karl Rove blindsided Democrats with an impeccably planned turnout blitz known as the 72-Hour Plan, rapidly expanding the Republican vote in fast-growing suburbs in states like Georgia and driving up GOP turnout in rural areas Democrats didn't even know existed. In 2004 Rove expanded the plan and borrowed Amway's famous volunteer-based organizing model, using churches, gun clubs and other local groups. By February 2004 the RNC knew precisely how many volunteers they needed on the ground in Ohio, where they would be and what they'd be doing. The Democrats didn't even begin organizing in key swing states like Florida until after the Democratic convention in July. Democrats were so weak locally in battlegrounds like Ohio, they had to outsource their ground game to the new 527 groups like ACT.

After running one of the most impressive grassroots campaigns in recent memory, Howard Dean was elected DNC chair in 2005, promising to make the party competitive again in every state. It sounded simple, but the "50 State Strategy" was a radical idea for a party accustomed to organizing only around election time, in toss-up states. Dean delivered immediately, giving each state a minimum of two to three field organizers. In places like Mississippi, that was more staff than the party had previously employed altogether. "I'm basically trying to rebuild the infrastructure of a party that doesn't have any," Dean says. With a few exceptions, state DNC chairs rave about him. "I couldn't be more impressed by the DNC," says Chris Redfern, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. "We're way ahead of the curve," says Dan Parker, Indiana's Democratic chair.

But the 50 State Strategy faced resistance from some key party operatives, who worried that Dean's spending on the states would sap resources needed for the '06 election. Fiery Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Rahm Emanuel directed an expletive-filled tirade at Dean in May, demanding more money for TV ads and wanting the DNC to take the lead on GOTV so he wouldn't have to. "We need the DNC on the field in this election," Emanuel later told the Washington Post. (Spokespersons at the DCCC and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee [DSCC] declined to comment for this article.)

"There's frustration inside the Beltway because I want to do things differently," Dean says. "But if we don't do things differently we'll be extinct as a party." Dean stressed that while Emanuel and the DSCC's Chuck Schumer must focus on '06, he's planning long-term. Dean's grassroots supporters say Emanuel and Schumer never respected Dean in the first place. But like it or not, Dean will be judged on how the party performs in this mid-term election.

Party leaders like Emanuel worry that the DNC's effort will be too little, too late--and wonder whether Democrats are doing enough to win the game on the ground. "I think Dean has a plan to rebuild the party in red states," says one labor leader. "I'm not sure that's a plan for '06." As Karl Rove himself said before the '02 elections, "A massive effort to turn out voters is not a casual undertaking and can't be thrown together at the last moment."

The DNC's McMahon says the short-term GOTV plan is already being executed and will be "refined" throughout the summer. The DNC points to what it has done already. On April 29 Democrats knocked on 1 million doors as part of a nationwide door-to-door canvass, the first test of their 50 State Strategy and new field organizers. Similar GOTV activities are planned for July 29 (100 days before election day) and September. Meanwhile, the new field staffers have already made an impact in long-neglected states like Indiana, which has three competitive Congressional elections this cycle.

But whatever short-term plan the DNC has for GOTV, leaders in labor, the progressive community and the House and Senate working on '06 strategy have yet to see it, prompting fears that Democrats are once again lagging behind the other side. "By now, groups like labor should be seeing late drafts of a significant number of plans," says one Democratic operative who's worked closely with the DNC. That means helping state parties and campaigns target voters by phone, mail and in person; recruiting local volunteers; organizing events and rallies; and planning for the election day turnout blitz. In coordination with the local campaigns, state parties should be submitting GOTV blueprints for national approval. "I'm not convinced the DNC has any plan come November," says Randy Button, former Democratic chair in Tennessee, where Harold Ford Jr. is trying to became the first black senator elected from the South since Reconstruction.

If and when the DNC produces a short-term plan that party counterparts see, there are concerns from House and Senate strategists that it will be unable to fund it. Democrats are currently doing better than average in the money war. The DCCC and DSCC are ahead of Republicans in fundraising, for the first time in recent memory. In six of the ten most competitive House races with no incumbent, Democratic candidates have more money than their Republican challengers.

But the DNC and the state parties lag behind their GOP rivals. Dean did keep pace with DNC fundraising in '04, but he has been on a spending spree, pouring millions into updating voter technology and boosting state party organizations. As a result the RNC, as of May, has four times as much cash to spend on November as the DNC--$43 million to $10.3 million. This has caused Democrats to fear that Republicans can fund last-minute ad campaigns and turnout efforts that Democrats will be unable to counter. And Republican state parties boast a financial advantage in thirty-two states. "Voters start paying attention late in the game," says the Democratic operative. "That's when you need resources. And there's a worry those resources won't be there." Button, who is coordinating the campaigns in Tennessee, agrees. "I asked Dean point blank a month ago: How much money can I count on you for? He said they've done all they're gonna do."

Dean believes such criticism is much ado about nothing. "We're going to put a lot of money into House and Senate races," Dean said at a recent fundraiser. "More than has ever been put into a nonpresidential year." On the morning of Busby's election in California, Dean was meeting to decide which House and Senate races to invest in. The DNC typically looks to pour money into contests where they can get the most bang for the buck. As of late June, the list was still being finalized.

No matter what the party does, left-leaning groups aligned with the Democrats seem equipped to pick up some of the slack. Even with the loss of ACT, the progressive groups remain active--and they're preparing for '06. Labor plans to spend more money than in any off-year election, targeting millions of its members at the door, on the phone and at work in key battleground states. EMILY's List will add $45 million, courting 2.5 million prochoice women in eight swing states. MoveOn.org's 3 million members will make GOTV phone calls in fifteen to twenty competitive House districts. The Sierra Club is courting environmentally conscious voters in the exurbs of key swing cities like Philadelphia, Columbus and Cincinnati. And the coalition that holds roughly thirty of these groups together, America Votes, has grown from a staff of five to eighty and from a budget of $2 million to $13 million, with offices in nine battleground states.

An organized progressive movement, however, is no substitute for a strong Democratic Party. "People in DC need to understand that the ground game has to be a permanent game," Dean says. "That's why the Republicans are so good at it." A centralized, top-down Republican Party in 2004 out-organized a Democratic operation with many moving parts. Officials at the DNC talk about stealing the Republican playbook. But in reality Dean is performing a difficult juggling act, devolving power to the states while trying to win respect for his long-term vision inside the Beltway. "The number-one sport in Washington is to take shots at the DNC chair," the Democratic operative jokes.

Dean's 50 State Strategy could be the blueprint for his party's revival. But winning elections--particularly this November--would help, too.

Copyright © 2006 The Nation