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Friday, August 20, 2004

CIA Sr. Intelligence Officer Speaks Out

We Could Have Stopped Him
By Julian Borger, The Guardian
Friday 20 August 2004
The CIA has taken much of the blame for the security lapses that led to 9/11 and the false intelligence on Iraq's WMDs. But now one spy has broken ranks to point the finger at the politicians - and warn that the war on terror could plunge the US into even greater danger.
These are not happy times at the CIA. In the space of a few short months, two official reports have found the agency principally to blame for failing to prevent the September 11 al-Qaida attack and for claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt there is a lot of blame to go round. The twin fiascos rank as the worst intelligence failures since the second world war. But the two reports, by the September 11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee respectively, were also testaments to political expedience. Both panels were made up of Republican and Democratic loyalists who reached a political compromise by going relatively easy on both Clinton and Bush administrations, and focused on institutional culprits. The CIA, without a defender after the resignation in July of its long-serving director, George Tenet, presented the easiest target.
Yet most of the agency's rank and file believe they have done little wrong. They were the first to raise the alarm over the danger posed by Osama bin Laden, long before the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. In 1996 they set up a unit called the Bin Laden Issue Station, codenamed "Alex", dedicated to tracking him down, only to have one operation after another aborted as too politically dangerous.
There are a lot of angry spies at Langley, and one of the angriest is Mike Scheuer, a senior intelligence officer who led the Bin Laden station for four years. While some of his colleagues have vented their frustrations through leaks, Scheuer has done what no serving American intelligence official has ever done - published a book-length attack on the establishment. His book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, is a fire-breathing denunciation of US counter-terrorism policy. In it, Scheuer addresses the missed opportunities of the Clinton era, but he reserves his most withering attack for the Bush administration's war in Iraq.
He describes the invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage". He even goes so far as to call on America's generals to resign rather than execute orders that "they know [...] will produce more, not less, danger to their nation". Bin Laden, he believes, is not a lonely maverick, but draws support from much of the Islamic world, which resents the US not for what it is, but for what it does - supporting Israel almost uncritically, propping up corrupt regimes in the Arab world, garrisoning troops on the Saudi peninsula near Islam's most holy sites to safeguard access to cheap oil.
"America ought to do what's in America's interests, and those interests are not served by being dependent on oil in the Middle East and by giving an open hand to the Israelis," Scheuer argues. "If we're less open-handed to Israel over time we can cut down Bin Laden's ability to grow. Right now he has unlimited potential for growing." What makes these comments the more challenging to the Bush administration is that they come from a self-described conservative and instinctive Republican voter.
It seems extraordinary that Scheuer's bosses allowed him to publish his book at all. They had already permitted him one book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes, written anonymously, but that was a more analytical work on Bin Laden and al-Qaida. Imperial Hubris is altogether different: a bitter polemic against orthodoxy and the powers that be.
Scheuer was given the green light only on condition that he stuck to a set of ground rules: he would continue to write as Anonymous, he would not reveal his job or employer, and he would refer only to information that is already "open source" - ie in the public domain. Inevitably, however, given the controversy surrounding the book, his identity has been leaked (first by a liberal weekly, the Boston Phoenix, then this week by the New York Times). Even now, he sticks closely to his employers' guidelines, refusing formally to confirm his identity, while describing his employers vaguely as "the intelligence community". (It is for this reason that he is not permitted by the CIA to be photographed except in silhouette.) Having initially been allowed to give media interviews to promote his book, Scheuer was told earlier this month that he has to ask permission for every interview and to submit an outline of what he is going to say. So far, no interviews have been granted under the new guidelines.
His interview with the Guardian is one of Scheuer's last before being gagged. Burly, bearded and in jeans and a loose shirt, his forceful vocabulary is a far cry from the cautious obfuscation that is the native tongue in Washington. Not that he minds rocking the boat a little. "If getting in somebody's face [helps] prevent the death of 3,000 Americans in New York or the sinking of the Cole in Yemen, or two embassies in East Africa, then I'm in your face," he says.
His bosses at the CIA have not confronted him over the book, other than to tell him what he can or cannot do with the press. "I don't think they get it yet. I still think there's a large group in the American intelligence community who talk about the next big attack but really believe 9/11 was a one-off," he says. "I think they believe their own rhetoric that they've killed two-thirds of the al-Qaida leadership, when they killed two-thirds of what they knew of."
Scheuer says that nearly three years after the September 11 attacks the US intelligence team dedicated to tracking down Bin Laden is still less than 30 strong - the size it was when he left in 1999. The CIA claims that the Bin Laden team is hundreds strong, but Scheuer is insistent that the apparent expansion is skin-deep. "The numbers are big, but it's a shell game. It's people they move in for four or five months at a time and then bring in a new bunch. But the hard core of expertise, of experience, of savvy really hasn't expanded at all since 9/11."
The morass in Iraq, meanwhile, is a "big factor in not allowing us to develop much expertise" on Bin Laden. "I think [director of central intelligence George Tenet] said we had enough people to do two wars at once, and clearly that was a fantasy."
The conclusion of the September 11 Commission - that the al-Qaida plot might have been broken up if the intelligence agencies had cooperated better and shared more information - was accompanied by recommendations for the creation of a national counter-terrorist centre and a national director of intelligence to coordinate the CIA, FBI and other agencies. Scheuer believes this is a classic bureaucratic fix. "I've never known a dysfunctional bureaucracy made better by being made bigger." His answer to the al-Qaida threat, unsurprisingly, is to give his old unit at the CIA, the Bin Laden station, more resources and more firepower.
It is a solution forged by the accumulated bitterness of missed opportunities. In one year under his watch, from May 1998 to May 1999, Scheuer reckons the US had up to a dozen serious chances to kill or capture Bin Laden. Only one was taken - a missile attack on an Afghan training camp in August 1998 - but either the al-Qaida leader was not there, or he had left before the missiles landed.
Months earlier, however, Scheuer believes there was a far better opportunity to grab Bin Laden. The CIA had made a deal with a group of Afghan tribesmen to raid Bin Laden's headquarters near Kandahar and then take him to a desert landing strip, where a US plane would take him either to America or another country for trial. The plan, rehearsed several times over many months, was in Scheuer's view "almost a perfect operation in the sense that there was no US hand visible". But on May 29 1998, according to the narrative in the September 11 Commission's report, Scheuer was informed that the operation had been cancelled because of the risk of civilian casualties.
The pattern was repeated on December 20 the same year, when Scheuer's agents were virtually certain that Bin Laden would be staying the night at a guest house in the Kandahar governor's compound. President Clinton's principal national security advisers once more decided that the danger of collateral damage was too high. Afterwards Scheuer wrote to the top CIA agent in the region, Gary Schroen, saying that he had been unable to sleep after this decision. "I'm sure we'll regret not acting last night," he predicted. Yet another opportunity, in Afghanistan, was missed in 1999.
Other intelligence veterans are more sympathetic to the policymakers' dilemma, pointing out that if the US had shot and missed Bin Laden, while killing others, the country would have been condemned around the world, potentially winning more recruits for al-Qaida. "Mike's is the viewpoint of the soldier versus the viewpoint of a general," argues Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA's Counter-Terrorist Centre. "There are political judgments made at a higher pay grade. I've been at both sides of that equation and they are difficult judgments to make."
Scheuer counters that the policymakers are just not asking the right questions. "The question is always what happens if we do this and we fail. The question is never what happens to Americans if we don't try this," he says. "When I took my oath of office, it was to preserve and protect and defend the constitution of the US. It wasn't 'to preserve and protect and defend as long as you don't kill an Arab prince, as long as you don't offend the Europeans, as long as you don't hit a mosque with shrapnel'." Scheuer's constant complaints eventually got him removed from his position at the head of the Bin Laden unit and shifted to a more nebulous training role.
To his detractors in the administration, Scheuer is no more than a rogue spy whose career did not turn out the way he had hoped. Certainly he is bitter at being "sidetracked for the past five years without any sort of explanation from my employers", but he insists that the issues he raises are far more important than his career. He says his recent adoption of a child deepened his anxiety about the future of the next American generation if the country sticks to its present course.
But even if the US scores some significant victories against al-Qaida, Scheuer believes the conflict with Islamic extremism will continue to spiral without a fundamental rethink of US priorities in Iraq and a relationship with Israel that "drains resources, earns Muslim hatred and serves no vital US national interest". It is a depressingly pessimistic assessment. Ultimately, "we only have the choice between war and endless war".

Trader Joe's...Corporate Responsibility

On the eve of a scheduled series of demonstrations at Southern California Trader Joe's stores, the privately-held company released a statement acknowledging that they are no longer issuing purchase orders to Weyerhaeuser for paper bags. The move follows the launch of BuyGoodWood.com, a Web-based initiative encouraging more American corporations to purchase environmentally ethical products while spotlighting Weyerhaeuser's destructive logging practices in Canada's Boreal forest and around the world.

From the Guerrilla News Network

Spin of the Week
PR Watch, August 20, 2004
White House Regulatory Actions Overlooked"The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the [White House Office of Management and Budget] to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses," the Washington Post reports in a 3-part series on the direction of regulatory action under George W. Bush. "Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science," the Post writes. The New York Times also recently looked at the regulatory issue, writing, "Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives." Source: Washington Post, August 16, 2004

PASS IT ON....

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More From Tom at Mother Jones

War Words: Who's Writing this Stuff?
The media use language on Iraq that might have been taken from Bush press releases.
August 19 , 2004
By Tom Engelhardt
What do we call the enemy? George and Laura Bush were the guests on Larry King Live this Sunday. In the context of the latest fighting in Najaf, King said to the President: "We've had more today, there are more eruptions in Iraq. And it seems never-ending, does[n't] it? What does it do to you?"
The President replied:
"We've got a great leader in Prime Minister Allawi. He's a tough guy who believes in free societies. And more and more Iraqis are being trained. And more and more Iraqis are stepping up to do the hard work of bringing these terrorists, these former Baathist and some foreign fighters to justice. And that's why we are going to prevail."
So the President thinks that in Najaf we're up against Baathists, foreign fighters, and terrorists. In a similar vein, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the following of the fighting in Najaf at a recent press conference:
"In this case, the violence is being perpetrated by outlaws and by former regime elements and by terrorists who respect no truce, respect nothing except force. And as long as those individuals don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation, are not willing to work for democratic, free Iraq, they have to be dealt with. And so your question really should not be addressed to us. It should be addressed to those who are causing the violence, who are setting off the bombs, who are destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people."
Now statements like Powell's tend to be reported quite straightforwardly in our press even though the one thing you certainly couldn't say about the Mahdi Army in Najaf is that it's made up of former "regime elements" or "Baathists." These are, after all, the Shiites of southern Iraq whom Saddam brutally repressed in 1991 and whom we claimed our invasion was meant to liberate. It should be remembered, in fact, that the last army to reach the Imam Ali Shrine with intent to harm was Saddam's.
Should you want to imagine what the present situation looks like from the point of view of many Shiites and you're willing to search, you can probably find the odd comment buried somewhere in our torrent or Iraq reportage ("Saddam made mass graves in 1991," Abbos fumed. "Now the Americans are making mass graves in 2004, filled with Shiites again."), or you can go offshore or into cyberspace, where, for instance, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service offers the following in the Asia Times on-line, quoting (the ubiquitous) Juan Cole:
"'What's going on right now looks a lot like April 1991, when it was [Iraqi president] Saddam [Hussein] who was crushing a Shi'ite uprising. But now it's the Marines who are playing the role of the Republican Guard,' Cole told Inter Press Service, adding that US policy in Iraq was looking increasingly like 'Ba'ath-lite,' particularly under Allawi."
Or you can read the piece (mentioned above) by Scott Balduff, who has done some superb on-the-spot reporting from Najaf, and writes:
"If the Americans and Iraqi Army do end up assaulting the Shrine of Ali, they will not be the first. Hussein threw the full force of his military against the shrine in 1991 after Shiite rebels launched an abortive rebellion. Artillery barrages damaged the shrine complex and special-forces soldiers killed the rebels inside the complex itself. The brutality of this crackdown at such a holy site turned most Shiites against Hussein, even those who had defended him in the past."
Of course, the labeling of guerrillas, rebels, and insurgents, religious or otherwise, as "outlaws" and "terrorists" has a long history in European colonial wars as also, for instance, in Japanese depredations in China in the 1930s. Similarly the language in the statements coming out of our military in Iraq these days has a familiar ring for anyone who knows something of the history of counterinsurgency warfare. For instance, here's part of a statement quoted in the Washington Post by Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, identified by the Post reporter as "Deputy Director for Operations of the U.S. led multi-national force":
"Clearing operations by Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces today in Najaf continue to further isolate the militia and restore control of the city to the government and people of Najaf… The combined Iraqi and multi-national security forces continue to operate in strict compliance with guidance from the Prime Minister [interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi] to safeguard and prevent possible harm to these holy shrines as well as protect the citizens and future of Iraq."
Our operations involving Predator drones, Apache helicopters, and jets in downtown Najaf, then, are "clearing operations" (though who exactly is being "cleared" isn't made particularly clear), and the forces, almost totally American, conducting these clearing operations are dubbed "multinational," and all this is supposedly being done under the "guidance" of Prime Minister Allawi to "safeguard… these holy shrines." Of course, it's obviously in the interest of American policy makers and military men to put forward such lies even at a moment when the only non-American troops fighting on our side in Najaf, the sparse Iraqi battalions we've trained, are evidently deserting in droves, as Hannah Allam, Tom Lasseter and Dogen Hannah of Knight Ridder have recently reported. ("'I'm ready to fight for my country's independence and for my country's stability,' one lieutenant colonel said. 'But I won't fight my own people.'") But if this sort of language is simply reproduced without comment in our news, then Americans will have little way to grasp the nature of what's happening in Iraq.
Who is Muqtada al-Sadr?
In the Washington Post Outlook section this Sunday, correspondent Robin Wright wrote a particularly execrable piece (Not Just A Battle For Najaf) about the situation in Iraq, whose language might have been taken directly from Bush administration press releases. There are fantasy passages like the following, no less pure in their deceptions than those of Brig. Gen. Lessel: "A deepening backlash [in Iraq] could further complicate this second phase of the three-part political transition and damage the quest to build a model new democracy that would inspire a wider transformation in the Arab and l[sl]amic worlds." I'm sorry, but you'll have to remind me: What was the first phase of that three-part transition? And I was under the obviously mistaken impression that the new, silent American occupation regime inside Baghdad's Green Zone had left all thoughts of building "a model new democracy that would inspire…" etc. behind and opted instead for an ex-Baathist thug who has an iron fist tied behind his back.
But I wander. What I wanted to focus on was a relatively innocuous sentence about Muqtada al-Sadr and his men in Wright's piece: "The stakes are now far greater than whether a rogue cleric and his renegade militia can diminish the fledgling Iraqi government and its U.S. patrons." It's a modest but interesting example of how word choice sets the frame within which we view the world. On the one side Wright has marshaled two negative adjectives: "rogue" and "renegade." Both work well within the framework laid out by Colin Powell. After all "rogue clerics," like "rogue elephants," and their "renegade militias" fit easily enough into the category of "outlaws." In such a context, you couldn't even bring to mind an adjective like "nationalist" or "patriot" (even though we, here in the U.S., don't necessarily find any necessary contradiction between American religious fundamentalism and American patriotism). On the other side, you have that wonderful adjective "fledgling" linked to "government." No rogue elephants here just a fragile little government chick in a nest overseen by "patrons" (a word which, while it may have some modest negative connotations, brings to mind rich people who give money to the arts or museums).
As a start then Wright accepts that, whatever Allawi's group may be, it is indeed a "government," and we are nothing but its "patrons." No "puppets" and "masters" possible here. Not even "interim administration" and "occupiers." So before you get near the supposed content of what she's writing about, so much is already settled -- and settled in favor of a useful official fantasy about the nature of reality in Iraq; useful, that is, for an administration trying desperately to limp through to November.
Perhaps it's the nature of reporting, a trade done on the run and at top speed, that much of reality must regularly fall into a series of easily re-used set phrases and descriptions. After all, familiar modifiers have been wielded this way since Homer ("the fleet-footed Achilles") to remind, identify, and categorize. So it's always interesting when you see one or two of those identifying phrases change, as I did last week in reports by Alex Berenson and John Burns of the New York Times on the fighting in Najaf. It's always a small indication that journalists are registering a change in the landscape. So twice in that week in front page stories those two reporters put an adjective in front of al Sadr that hadn't been used before -- "populist" ("Guns fell silent across most of the city as Iraqi government representatives met into the night at the provincial governor's headquarters with emissaries of Mr. Sadr, the populist Shiite cleric.") That description was followed by another word that, I believe, had simply not appeared previously in Times reportage: "insurrection." In regard to the Sunni areas to the north, the word "insurgency" and "insurgents" had long been used to describe what was happening (a cautious usage I adopted myself), but here they suddenly wrote of a "widespread insurrection," as in general uprising. ("His stand against American forces here has stirred a widespread insurrection across southern Iraq, starting in Najaf and then quickly setting off fighting in at least eight other predominantly Shiite cities.")
Burns and Berenson used these two words on Saturday and then repeated them on Sunday. This represented a small but telling shift in the Times' assessment of what's happening in Iraq.
What to call -- how to label and categorize -- Muqtada al-Sadr has been a curious problem for American reporters and the Times reporting has reflected that. In one of the earliest Times references to Sadr, on May 12, 2003, Susan Sachs referred to him as "another ambitious cleric, Moktada al-Sadr" ("Iraqis More Bemused Than Enthused by Cleric"). Generally, when he appeared as a bit player in the paper's pages in the early months after Baghdad fell, he was little more than "young" or "ambitious." In his initial appearance on the Times op-ed page on August 29, 2003, Reuel Marc Gerecht referred to him as "a 22 year old firebrand" (though the age was wrong). On September 24, al-Sadr was still imagined to be nothing but a "marginal" figure and Noah Feldman wrote of him as "the rejectionist Moktada al-Sadr." ("Wisely, the coalition has declined to arrest Mr. Sadr; his hopes for a living martyrdom denied, he increasingly looks more like a small-time annoyance than the catalyst of a popular movement" -- from "Democracy: Closer Every Day"). In October 2003, in "Bomb at Turkish Embassy In Baghdad Kills Bystander," Alex Berenson and Ian Fisher spoke of him as " a radical, anti-American Shiite cleric." In May 2004, Ed Wong uniquely spoke of him as "the maverick Shiite cleric" ("U.S. Military Says Shiite Rebels Seem to Have Ceded Karbala"), but generally in these months he was referred to in headlines and texts simply as "the radical cleric."
In a headline for a piece reported by "Alex Berenson; Sabrina Tavernise and Iraqi employees of The Times, whose names have been withheld for security" ("Radical Cleric in Iraq Sets Off Day of Fighting) on August 6, just eleven days ago, he was still being called this. But on August 11, a change set in. In the very first paragraph of a Berenson piece that day (U.S. Forces, Close to Attack in Najaf, Decide to Hold Off), he was referred to as "the rebel Shiite cleric," as he was again the next day before, on the 13th, he morphed into a "populist" cleric (populist, or agrarian rebel, still has quite a positive ring in the American lexicon) "sparking" a "widespread insurrection," before today in two front-page pieces (Alex Berenson and John Burns, 8-Day Battle for Najaf: From Attack to Stalemate and Alex Berenson and Sabrina Tavernise, Cleric in Najaf Refuses to Meet Iraqi Mediators), he once again became a "rebel Shiite cleric" or a "rebel cleric." (The Berenson and Burns piece, by the way, quotes for the first time in a while "Senior officers in Baghdad, as well White House officials," who throw the blame for the launching of the Najaf offensive largely onto the shoulders of local Marine commanders, with Ambassador Negroponte only later deciding "to pursue the case." Although anything is possible, this seems unlikely to me.)
If you want a fuller picture of al-Sadr, you might -- and I apologize for directing you to his work so often -- check out Juan Cole's piece, It Takes a Following to Make an Ayatollah in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook section on him, his movement, and the larger Shiite context of the moment and consider the wonderful, unexpected adjective he uses to describe him (along with "lower-ranking cleric" and "fiery") -- "beefy." Or consider the Scott Balduff piece mentioned above, which quotes "Amatzia Baram, a noted scholar on Shiite Islam at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington" as calling him a 'shrewd politician.'" Not a description we would normally read here.
In fact, while most of the Times' descriptive adjectives seem to catch something of al-Sadr, they do so within the context of his relationship to us, or at least within the context of the words available to us to describe political actors who fall somewhere between Colin Powell's very American "outlaw" and the Times' recent very American "populist." None of them surely catch al-Sadr in his Iraqi context particularly well and, given the general lack of Iraqi voices in our media, we're not soon likely to find out what the Iraqi descriptive range might be.
How the naming of embattled reality is brokered in our newsrooms and how it changes is a fascinating subject, though one you're unlikely ever to find discussed in the press itself. A couple of passing phrases from that inadvertently revealing Howard Kurtz mea-almost-culpa in the Washington Post might, however, offer a little help. For instance, the editorial decision-making that resulted in the highlighting of administration prewar propaganda and the burying of all critical thought in the back pages of the paper is referred to in the piece as "groupthink," or as Karen DeYoung, reporter and former assistant managing editor, commented bluntly: "'We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power… If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said.'" Amen.
Read additional dispatches by Tom Engelhardt at Tomdispatch.com, a web log of The Nation Institute.

yeah, uh huh Posted by Hello
"To sin by silence, when they should protest ... makes cowards of men."
– Abraham Lincoln



Where He Should Be, for our Own Protection Posted by Hello

Bush Bros are Conspiring Again...

Stealing the Election Again?
The Bush Thugs Get to Work
August 20, 2004
By Brad Friedman
The Florida 2000 election was clearly an aberration of our democracy on more levels than one may care to count. From the elderly Jews "voting" for Pat Buchanan on the butterfly ballot, to the grossly racist and inaccurate corporate purging of "felons" from the voter rolls, to the military absentee ballots postmarked days after the election but left unchallenged by a cowed Gore campaign, to the staged demonstrations - meant to look like a voter uprising - of "angry" Republican campaign workers storming the vote counters, to the Florida Secretary of State/Bush Campaign Co-Chair "confirming" the count of uncounted ballots... etc., etc., etc.
To put it bluntly, it was a debacle and a blight on our country's record of free, fair, honest and open elections.
And yet, I was prepared to look back at it all it as a one-time anomaly of a bitterly divided country and a virtually tied state run by the brother of the Republican nominee as he was looking to find that one foot in the door to snatch the deciding edge in a nearly evenly divided national electorate.
In other words, it sucked, it was un-American, un-democratic and un-seemly, but it was over and it could never happen again.
Am I naïve, or what?
That "one-time anomaly" was likely nothing of the sort. And it looks like the Bush Bros. may be preparing a repeat performance, seeking any and all opportunities to squeeze out just enough votes to win again. Or perhaps more appropriately, squeeze out enough votes to make it look as though they've won again.
This column from Bob Herbert in Monday's New York Times may be an ominous sign of who and what is at work in Florida again for this year's crucial Presidential election. The elderly black vote in Florida is crucial to a Kerry win, and so the piece is particularly ominous and frightening:
State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.
The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.
Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.
...
The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.
I asked [Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement] in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.
"I can't talk about that," he said.
I asked if all the people interrogated were black.
"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.
He also said, "Most of them were elderly."
When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."
Chilled yet?
One woman who was questioned is quoted in the column as asking "Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?"
Joseph Egan, an attorney for one of the 73-year-old vote workers being "investigated," speaks of the blanket of fear and intimidation that is beginning to emanate through the community:
According to Mr. Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."
If this is the one story that has been picked up by the media about possible chicanery in the Sunshine State, imagine what may be going on that we don't yet know about down there.
When I received an email last night asking me to become an "Election Protection Volunteer," it seemed perhaps to be a bit of overkill. This morning however, I'm beginning to think differently. If the people won't step up to ensure a free and fair election this time around, who will? Jeb's thugs? James Baker? The Supreme Court?
And with the margin of victory as close as it could be, how naïve would we be to make the assumption that BushCo won't do anything and everything again this time to "win" the election once more.
As it's been said: "Fool me once... shame on... shame on you... ... ... if ya fool me, ya can't get fooled again."
Pay attention.

Brad Friedman is a freelance writer and software designer. He is also a proud "Liberal Hollywood Elitist" sharing all of the great esteem and many rewards that come with it. His blog can be read at http://www.BradFriedman.com/BradBlog.

This is Pretty Funny if it wasn't so Scary...

RESUME of GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House USA
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; the company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. My companies had significant ties to Bin Laden
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With my father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR:
I changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
I set the record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
I became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I attacked two countries.
I spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
I shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for the most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In the first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history. After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips taken by any president in US history, preparing for my 2004 re-selection campain less than one year after my initial selection..
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs, my promised jobs stimulus has failed.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
I cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for the most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest against me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. The "poorest" multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, had a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant. I withdrew from the World Court of Law. I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations. My biggest lifetime campaign contributor, who's also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I, with a policy of disengagement, created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive".
I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects. In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
I removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
In a little over two years I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
I ordered the concealment of EPA records regarding post 9/11 air quality
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
I refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group which has been accused of war-profiteering.)

Women on the Front Lines of Peace Posted by Hello

From the Woman at the Front....

WOMEN FOR PEACE NOT WELCOME IN NEW YORK

Four Activists Arrested During Mayor Bloomberg’s “NYC Welcomes the Protestors” Press Conference
New York – As the debate intensified Tuesday with regard to the civil rights of peaceful demonstrators flocking to NYC to express their dismay with the Bush administration, four activists from the group CODEPINK: Women for Peace were arrested in the Sheraton New York Towers Hotel. The women were in the process of unfurling a 40 foot long pink banner reading “You Say Welcome, We Say Where -- 8/29 Central Park?” in response to the press conference being held by NYC Mayor Bloomberg unveiling the city’s discount program for demonstrators. Claire Droney and Colleen Galbraith, both 23, were released yesterday afternoon. Andrea Buffa, 37, of Oakland and Manhattan resident Danielle Ferris, 24, are expected to be arraigned on charges today. The banner was in reference to permits denied to the group to rally peacefully in Central Park. The NYC mayoral press conference Tuesday took place at NYC and Co. Headquarters, 810 7th Ave, and Mayor Bloomberg was flanked by former Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins.

“By presenting a pink slip to Mayor Bloomberg, CODEPINK wanted to draw attention to the discrepancy between the Mayor’s words in front of the TV cameras and his actions behind closed doors,” explained Jodie Evans, one of the founders of the organization. “Requests for permits to rally peacefully in the park have been categorically denied. We do not need discounts at Applebee’s; we need an administration that sets a course for peace and respects our right to speak.”

This latest action staged by CODEPINK continues the tradition of giving “pink slips” to the Bush Administration and other elected officials. CODEPINK has been an active presence in the lead up to the Republican National Convention. Activities have included a legion of pink Statues of Liberty at the New York City Public Library bearing messages that “NYC Loves Free Speech” and to “Give Bush a Pink Slip,” and (wo)manning a pink lemonade stand in Bryant Park, complete with information about supporting our troops by bringing them home from Iraq.

"I find it the height of hypocrisy that the Mayor is issuing an NYC welcome mat to protestors, at the same moment the city is authorizing the arrest of four peaceful women trying to oppose the city's egregious censorship of space," stated Galbraith after being released from jail. "New York City has denied not only the United for Peace and Justice Central Park rally permit, but has systematically made it virtually impossible for activists to speak out in public space, print media, and public art."

CODEPINK is sponsoring a “Women Against War” event to be held at the historic Riverside Church on Saturday, August 28. They are organizing a women’s rally and march to join with the massive United for Peace and Justice anti-war march on Sunday, August 29. On Tuesday, August 31, they are co-sponsoring a “Shut-up-a-thon” outside Fox News.

CODEPINK,
www.codepinkalert.org is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement that seeks positive social change through proactive, creative protest and non-violent direct action. Founded in late 2002 to oppose pre-emptive strike, Code Pink has architected a 4 month vigil in front of the White House and a 10,000 woman march to oppose the war in Iraq. CodePink is now a thriving movement of women with 90 chapters throughout the United States and around the world. All of their actions involve their signature color, PINK.


Be Ever Vigilent Posted by Hello

More Attacks on "People's Right To Know"

Scranton Papers Mystified by Secret Probe, Subpoenas Not Served
By Mark Fitzgerald
Published: August 20, 2004 1:23 PM EST
CHICAGO With the recent flurry of subpoenas served on newsrooms, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said this week, "the number of journalists facing jail in the United States to protect their sources is unprecedented." Yet, at the jointly owned Tribune and Scranton Times in Pennsylvania, the newsroom buzz is about the subpoenas that have not arrived. The Times-Shamrock Communications papers learned only this week that since April a special prosecutor has been investigating an alleged leak of grand jury information to the newspapers. The special prosecutor, Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Terence P. Houck, was appointed without public notice April 13 by senior Northampton County Judge Isaac S. Garb to investigate the alleged leaks. Garb said he expects a final report from the special prosecutor "fairly soon," an Aug. 19 story by Times-Shamrock News Writer David Singleton reported. What's puzzling those inside the Tribune and Times is that Houck has not subpoenaed or otherwise contacted anyone at the papers."I have no idea what to make of it," said Larry Beaupre, managing editor for both papers. The unannounced appointment of the special prosecutor was also surprising, Beaupre said. "We learned way back in spring when the grand jury was taking testimony that the judge said he would investigate (the alleged leaks)," he added, "but we took that to mean he would get one of his clerks to talk to people."The grand jury convened to investigate allegations of abuse at Lackawanna County Prison that were disclosed in a series of investigative articles in the Times-Tribune papers. The series described beatings of inmates, drug smuggling, the use of prison labor for political officials, and even electioneering by prisoners, who printed campaign posters in the print shop. A deputy warden and two guards have been indicted on charges relating to the alleged abuse.In January, the Times-Tribune papers published stories, citing an unnamed source close to the investigation, that described the testimony of two Lackawanna County commissioners as "vague and evasive." The two blamed the state attorney general's office for the leak and in March asked Garb to impose sanctions on the office.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.

Does Dubya ever Work???

Bush Begins Weeklong Stay at Ranch
President Working on Convention Speech
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush and first lady Laura Bush are involved in a little he-said, she-said business here at the presidential ranch.
He's working on the acceptance speech he'll deliver in two weeks at the Republican National Convention. She's working on one she'll deliver earlier at the convention.
"One of the things he'll stay in touch with staff about over the next few days is the convention speech," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters here Thursday.
"While, of course, he'll talk about the clear differences that voters face, it'll very much be a forward-looking speech talking about his agenda for America that builds upon his record of results."
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for Laura Bush, said she's working on a speech to persuade voters to re-elect her husband -- probably along the lines of her remarks Wednesday at a campaign stop in Lakewood, Colorado, when she said:
"These are times that require a particularly strong and determined leader, and I'm proud that my husband is that kind of leader."
While Bush's rival, Democrat John Kerry, continues to campaign, the president is scheduled to be at his ranch for about a week, taking a break from re-election appearances. It's his 38th presidential trip to his ranch where he spends time outdoors fishing, clearing brush and exploring its rocky terrain, waterfalls and canyons. On Thursday, he took a bike ride, and has been watching some of the Summer Olympics, McClellan said.
Bush made political points with the games on Wednesday during a campaign stop in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, when he noted the work of twin gymnasts Paul and Morgan Hamm from Wisconsin.
"I know you join me in congratulating the Hamm brothers from the great state of Wisconsin, for their performance in the Olympics," Bush said. "I know they made the people of Wisconsin proud. They made this Texan proud, too."

He's Got Bush for Brains"

From Australia:
Bush speaks of 'Soviet dinar'
From correspondents in Hudson, Wisconsin
19 aug04 US
President George W, Bush spoke today of "the Soviet dinar," – appearing to mix up the Russian rouble and the Iraqi dinar.Recalling a White House meeting earlier this year with an Iraqi man who had his arms cut off by the Saddam Hussein regime, Mr Bush said the man, who worked as a jeweller, was accused of illegal currency trading.
"And he had sold dinars on a particular day to buy another currency, euros or dollars, so he could buy gold to manufacture his product," Mr Bush said.
"And because the Soviet dinar had devalued, Saddam Hussein plucked this guy out of society to punish him, and six other small merchants, for the devaluation of their currency. He just summarily said, 'you're it, come here' – and cut his hand off."

Patriotic Bullying

What. A. Mess.
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on August 19, 2004, Printed on August 20, 2004
AUSTIN, Texas – Remember what it was like just before the war? Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction – Colin Powell told us to the pound how many tons of this, that and the other – Saddam had a reconstituted nuclear program, he had numerous ties to Al Qaeda, and he was an imminent threat.
As the president put it, we couldn't afford to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.
"To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man... Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."
The quote is from Thucydides, the Father of History, writing about the day in 415 B.C. when Athens sent its glorious fleet off to destruction in Sicily. I have not been re-reading Thucydides, but found the quote in a footnote in a splendid little book called "Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy" by Lewis Lapham, in my opinion the most incisive essayist in America.
I bring this up only because it doesn't look as if anyone else is gonna. John Kerry is running such a cautious campaign that George W. Bush can get away with falsely claiming that Kerry would have supported the war even if he had known then what he knows today. This does, of course, raise the awkward question of whether George W. Bush – had he known then there were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program, no ties to All Qaeda and no imminent threat – would have gone to war himself. The one legitimate excuse they always had – that Saddam Hussein was a miserable s.o.b. – was the one they specifically rejected before the war.
It is so painful to read about what is happening in Iraq today (can we put the old dog about how the news media are ignoring "the good news" to rest now?), it is not clear whether we should barf or go blind. With the best will in the world, one cannot pull a positive outlook out of this tragedy. I never advocate despair, but ignoring reality is just as destructive. What. A. Mess.
Still trying for something useful, I'm on the Lessons to Be Learned program. It took the Bush administration months and months and months of false claims to persuade a majority of the American people that declaring war on a country that had done nothing to us was a necessary thing to do. Almost to the day the fighting started, polls showed most Americans had grave doubts about the enterprise. Then most of us went along because, hell, if our people are over there fighting, then we're behind them.
What we need to figure out is why so many of us then became so invested in this awful enterprise. As the president says, fool me once, shame on, uh, somebody or other. John Kerry isn't going to remind any of us we were wrong – that would be rude. (Sooner or later, someone is going to ask Kerry the question he so famously asked about Vietnam: "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" He'd better have an answer ready.) The reason Kerry won't "blame America first," as the Rush Limbaughs would put it, is not just because none of us likes to have our nose rubbed in our mistakes, it's a political calculation. In case you hadn't noticed, John Kerry is winning this presidential race – that's why he's running such a cautious campaign.
The patriotic bullying that went on in this country over Iraq should not be forgotten. It is brilliantly described and dissected in Chris Hedges' important little book, "War Is a Force That Gives Life Meaning." In one of the great ironies of the Iraq War, Hedges himself became the victim of the very group-think he had analyzed after starting a speech with the observation, "War in the end is always about betrayal; betrayal of the young by the old, soldiers by politicians, and idealists by cynics." He was booed off the stage.
Wretched excess always accompanies war fever – in World War I, "patriots" used to go around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that they were "German dogs." As I have noted elsewhere, people like that do not go around kicking German shepherds.
Some of that bullying, swaggering tone remains with us, in our politics. To treat with contempt any effort at "nuance" or "sensitivity" – in one of the most fraught and sensitive situations we've ever been in – is just ugly know-nothingism. As Republicans used to say to Democrats abut the election debacle in Florida last time, "Get over it."
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Clean Water Act Gutted by Bush

On January 15, 2003, the Bush administration instructed its agencies not to enforce Clean Water Act protections for many wetlands and small stream without first obtaining permission from headquarters. As a result, many waters are at risk of losing longstanding protections. According to EPA’s own analysis, at least 20 million acres of wetlands (20 percent of U.S. wetlands) could become vulnerable.
The Bush administration’s directive replaces a 25-year-old rule defining the scope of the Clean Water Act. The policy has had the effect of denying safeguards for wetlands, ponds and small streams that the law has previously protected from unregulated pollution and filling.
Every region of the country contains unique types of aquatic ecosystems — some so rare that they are found only in part of a single state. These wetlands, ponds, lakes, and streams support a wide variety of life, supply clean drinking water, sustain imperiled species, provide natural flood control, and perform a host of other functions important to both human and wildlife communities. These waters are varied in their names and descriptions — including arroyos, prairie potholes, intermittent and ephemeral streams, bogs, playa lakes, forested vernal pools, and desert springs — but all are an important part of our natural and cultural heritage.
This report illustrates how federal officials are using the January 2003 policy directive to deny Clean Water Act jurisdiction over waters that had been included in the Clean Water Act’s protective scope for over thirty years. The case studies in the report provide several examples of the Corps declining to enforce federal restrictions against water pollution in lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands across the country, such as a 150-mile-long river in New Mexico, thousands of acres of wetlands in one of Florida’s most important watersheds, headwater streams in Appalachia, playa lakes in the Southwest, a sixty-nine-mile long canal used as a drinking-water supply, and even an eighty-six-acre lake in Wisconsin that is a popular fishing spot. The implementation of the Bush administration’s policy has effectively left all of these waters — and many, many more — without the Clean Water Act to protect them.
As the examples in this report demonstrate, the Bush administration’s policy has given developers and other polluters a green light to ignore the Clean Water Act where it legally applies. The administration must immediately withdraw the January 2003 policy directive and replace it with clear instructions to Corps and EPA staff that they shall enforce existing Clean Water Act limits on water pollution to the full extent of the law. In addition, Congress should act to ensure that the nation’s waters remain protected.


Anarchists From Italia... Posted by Hello

Democracy in Distress

If the US Wants to Restore Confidence in its Voting System it Must Learn Lessons from the Recent Elections in Venezuela.
Philip James
Friday August 20, 2004
The GuardianThe recent recall election in Venezuela has given us a disturbing preview of what may be in store for the United States in November: an election result held in doubt by many of the voters that took part in it. A cloud hangs over Hugo Chavez's reaffirmation as Venezuela's president, despite a thumbs-up from international election observers. The source of the scepticism is a new technology that was supposed to take inaccuracies out of elections: touch-screen balloting.
Even though the electronic equipment used for Venezuela's election was designed to leave a paper trail that could be audited, the opposition suspects some kind of electoral foul play may have been written into the system's software, limiting the number of "yes" votes on the recall.
As far-fetched as this may sound, it underlines one thing: a democratic system is only as strong as its participants' belief in its validity. When voters' confidence in the accuracy or fairness of the system is eroded, the system itself is undermined.
Confidence in the democratic principles and practices of the US was severely tested, if not ruptured, in the elections four years ago. While there is an opportunity to restore that confidence this year, there is also a risk of further damage.
In the US, just as in Venezuela, the source of that danger is the very technology that was intended to provide cast-iron assurance - electronic balloting. Only here, in the one place that needs the biggest confidence boost, the new balloting system differs in one crucial way from the one-road tested in Venezuela.
In Florida the ballot on offer will be paperless. That means no auditable trail; no way of verifying that the information entered into the device will correspond to the information it spits out.
Florida has already had a dry run of one possible nightmare scenario US voters may be heading for in November. Last month state election officers quietly admitted that thousands of electronic voter records from gubernatorial primaries in 2002 disappeared when a massive computer crash wiped the databases of the new machines in use in Miami/ Dade County.
The data in question related to votes between the Democratic contenders vying to challenge Jeb Bush, Janet Reno and Bill McBride. In this case the overall vote was not close, but you can imagine the crisis that would ensue from a close presidential election, where the only way of verifying the actual count has suddenly vanished.
You might think that this ballot box debacle would have Florida scrambling to address the problem before the presidential contest by ensuring a paper back- up of all votes cast. But Jeb Bush has declined to consider such changes, declaring that he has confidence in the system. I'm glad someone in Florida does.
In other states where the margin of victory in November may be slim there have also been breathtaking examples of the leap of faith required by virtual voting. In North Carolina a software bug deleted hundreds of electronic votes from six paperless machines in two counties in the state's 2002 election for governor. The firm which built the terminals concluded that the machines mistakenly thought their memories were full and stopped counting, even though voters kept casting ballots.
In the aftermath of the hanging-chad fiasco of Florida 2000, Congress determined to find a way to fix a system that only works in elections that produce a clear majority. Cyber-balloting was hailed as the solution, but has become part of a much bigger problem, because of congressional inertia.
Lawmakers sat for two years before passing the Help America Vote Act, legislation that provides no real federal standards for balloting, leaving it up to individual states to decide their own.
The inevitable result is a system that is arbitrary and uneven. In California, the top election official, secretary of state Kevin Shelley, scrapped the use of paperless ballots after a recent election exposed serious software irregularities. He's required all electronic ballots to issue a paper receipt to each voter, similar to the one you get from an ATM machine. No one expects the presidential election to be close in California.
In Florida, however, where a repeat of the razor thin contest of 2000 is very much on the cards, secretary of state Glenda Hood has refused to consider a similar requirement, despite calls from both Democrats and Republicans to do just that. As it stands, 15 out of Florida's 67 counties have the new paperless machines, making the potential margin of error or mischief far greater than the margin of victory and defeat.
It's not as if Florida would have to look far for a machine that combines the ease of touch-screen voting with the assurance of a paper trail. The one used in Venezuela - and which passed muster with the Carter Center's election monitors - was developed and built in Boca Raton in Palm Beach County.
· Philip James is a former senior Democratic party strategist

The Daily MoJo

What's the deal with Zell Miller?
August 19, 2004 11:44 AM
The Republicans have named the keynote speaker for their convention in New York later this month. And they've decided a yellow-dog Democrat is the right guy to encapsulate the GOP message. Retiring Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga., sort of) will deliver the keynote Wednesday night. GOP chairman Ed Gillespie seems excited about it:
"In 1992, Senator Miller delivered the keynote address in the very same arena at the Democrats' convention. We're honored he'll be taking the stage at the Garden this year for President Bush."
Granted, Miller was speaking about a different George Bush in his 1992 address. But some of the content just screams out for a revival:
"I am a Democrat because we are the party of hope. For 12 dark years the Republicans have dealt in cynicism and skepticism. They've mastered the art of division and diversion, and they have robbed us of our hopeŠ"
"Americans cannot understand why the rich can buy the best health care in the world, but all the rest of us get is rising costs and cuts in coverage, or no health insurance at all. And George Bush doesn't get it?
"Americans cannot walk our streets in safety, because our "tough-on-crime" president has waged a phony war on drugs, posing for pictures while cutting police, prosecutors and prisons. And George Bush doesn't get it?
"Americans have seen plants closed down, jobs shipped overseas and our hopes fade away as our economic position collapses right before our very eyes. And George Bush does not get it!"
Twelve years later, Zell Miller is willing to argue against all those points he made so eloquently in 1992. Maybe he's the one who doesn't get it.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.
© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress

HYPO-CRITIC OATH

Doctors Faulted in Torture

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 20, 2004 ONDON -
Doctors working for the U.S. military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist charges in The Lancet medical journal.In a scathing analysis of the behavior of military doctors, nurses and medics, Dr. Steven Miles of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine calls for reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role played by physicians and other medical staff in the torture scandal.He cites evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured. No reports of abuses were initiated by medical personnel until the official investigation into Abu Ghraib began, he found."The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations," Miles said in this week's edition of Lancet."Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib."The analysis does not shed light on how many doctors were involved or how widespread medical complicity was, aspects Miles said he is investigating. Miles is a doctor at the medical school's Center for Bioethics.A U.S. military spokesman said the incidents recounted by Miles came primarily from the Pentagon's own investigation."Many of these cases remain under investigation and charges will be brought against any individual where there is evidence of abuse," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, Army spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq.Photographs of prisoners being abused and humiliated by U.S. troops in Iraq have sparked worldwide condemnation. Although the conduct of soldiers has been scrutinized, the role of medical staff in the scandal has received relatively little attention."The detaining power's health personnel are the first and often the last line of defense against human rights abuses. Their failure to assume that role emphasizes to the prisoner how utterly beyond humane appeal they are," Miles said in an interview.Miles gathered evidence from congressional hearings, sworn statements of detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts and media reports to build a picture of physician complicity, and in isolated cases, participation by medical personnel in abuse at the Baghdad prison, as well as in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.In one example, cited in a sworn statement from an Abu Ghraib detainee, a prisoner collapsed and was apparently unconscious after a beating. Medical staff revived the detainee and left, allowing the abuse to continue, Miles reported.A military police officer reported a medic inserted an intravenous tube into a detainee's corpse after torture to create evidence he was alive at the hospital, Miles said.At prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, "Physicians routinely attributed detainee deaths on death certificates to heart attacks, heatstroke or natural causes without noting the unnatural [cause] of the death," Miles wrote.He cites an example from a Human Rights Watch report in which a beaten detainee was tied to his cell door and gagged.The death certificate indicated "natural causes ... during his sleep." However, after media coverage, the Pentagon changed the cause of death to homicide by blunt force injuries and suffocation.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

What is Happening to our Rights?...

FEC Moves to Further Gag Political Groups
The Federal Election Commission yesterday enacted new regulations that will make it more difficult for independent political groups to continue to raise and spend millions of dollars in contributions after the 2004 election. In “The Reform Regime: What's next for campaign finance?” John Samples, director of Cato’s Center for Representative Government, writes: “The groups that want to further restrict campaign finance still have a lot of money at their disposal, no shortage of political skill, and a limitless desire to limit the rights of Americans to spend money on politics. If conservatives expect to stop future restrictions, they have to fight this battle all the time and not just in the courts and Congress. Unless conservatives invest in the struggle to defend the First Amendment, McCain-Feingold will be only the first of many laws that punish criticism of government.”

From AlterNet...

The First Lady of the Press
By Elizabeth DiNovella, The Progressive
Posted on August 19, 2004, Printed on August 20, 2004

Helen Thomas, known as "the first lady of the press," has been reporting on the Presidency for forty-four years. As a White House correspondent for United Press International, she began covering the Kennedy White House. She was not assigned to the beat – she just started showing up. For decades, Thomas could be seen sitting in the front row during Presidential press conferences, often asking the first question. In her memoir, "Front Row at the White House," she writes, "When it comes to the Presidential news conference, I have never lost my sense of awe that I am able to quiz a President of the United States – politely I hope, but if necessary to hold his feet to the fire." Elsewhere in the book, she quotes Richard Nixon as telling her, "You always ask tough questions, tough questions not in the sense of being unfair, but hard to generalize the answers."
Thomas has built a remarkable career as a journalist. She rose through the ranks to become UPI White House bureau chief. She's covered the day-to-day workings of the White House longer than any other correspondent. And she was the first woman to hold posts in the White House Correspondents' Association and the National Press Club. She left UPI in 2000 and now writes a syndicated column twice a week for the Hearst newspapers.
Thomas no longer sits in the front row during Presidential news conferences, a privilege traditionally reserved for wire service reporters. When I caught up with her in Washington, D.C., in April, I asked her if she missed asking the first question. "No. I just want the questions to be asked," Thomas replied. "It doesn't matter whether I ask them. No leader should get off the hook when they take people to war."
I also called her in late June to ask her opinion of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The White House press corps was pretty tame after 9/11, but now they are starting to challenge the President. What happened?
I think they are coming out of their coma. They finally are realizing they've been had. They finally realized that we went into a war based on false pretenses. And we were very much a part of that. We were the transmission belt for all of the spin and the alleged threats.
But there was the aura of 9/11. At these televised briefings there was an atmosphere among the reporters that you would be considered unpatriotic or un-American if you were asking any tough questions. Then it segued into a war where the public thought you were jeopardizing the troops if you asked certain questions. So I think we walked the line too much. The press corps is finally waking up to the fact that its job is to ask the questions that are so obvious. The American people were asking the questions. And they were wondering why the reporters rolled over and played dead.
60 Minutes held the Abu Ghraib torture story for nearly two weeks. Should the press hold stories upon the request of the Pentagon?
They would have to have a real good reason. You don't want to do anything to jeopardize lives. But otherwise I wouldn't abide by the request. I think definitely it should be done if it involves the lives of human beings.
Why do Bush's press conferences sound so scripted?
Bush has a seating chart and he knows who he is going to call on. He picks the people. He's been told to not call on me because I am going to ask a very tough question, such as, Why are we there? Why are we killing people in their own country? How can we? On what basis? I mean, if you want to go after terrorists, good. But Iraq had nothing to do with it.
This President has not had many press conferences. Do you think the Bush administration values the opportunity to talk with the press?
Hell, no. He's forced to. It's absolutely necessary because we are there in their face. But he doesn't hold enough news conferences. It's far short of anybody else. And when he appears with a head of state and they try to act like it's a news conference, it's not. He says, "I'll take two questions here and two questions on that side," and there's no follow-up. He gets mad if it is a two-part question. I mean, c'mon. The President of the United States should be able to answer any question, or at least dance around one. At some time – early and often – he should submit to questioning and be held accountable, because if you don't have that then you only have one side of the story. The Presidential news conference is the only forum in our society, the only institution, where a President can be questioned. If a leader is not questioned, he can rule by edict or executive order. He can be a king or a dictator. Who's to challenge him? We're there to pull his chain and to ask the questions that should be asked every day, for every move.
Has President Bush given you a nickname?
I'm sure it's profane, but I don't know what it is. I don't blame him for not liking me; I ask very tough questions. He doesn't have to like me. I would prefer that he respect me. We don't have to be liked. We didn't go into this business to be liked or loved. If we did, we're making a big mistake. It's not the point. You cannot have a democracy without an informed people.
In a June 2003 column, you wrote that we should have an open mind while asking tough questions of the Bush administration regarding its credibility on weapons of mass destruction. A year later, do you think the Bush administration is losing credibility?
Absolutely. Where are the weapons? Where's the smoking gun? Where's the mushroom cloud? Where's the imminent threat? Where was ever the threat? Are you kidding?
They have no credibility on the reasons for going to war. And to this moment we don't know why this President wanted to go to war so badly. It was very clear there was no threat. We were not attacked. We had a choke hold on Saddam Hussein for twelve years. He couldn't make a move.
Your book "Front Row at the White House" gives the impression that administrations have become more secretive.
All administrations are secretive, but this one is more so. I think there's too much secretiveness and arrogance of power. They really walk in lockstep. It's a lockdown administration. This President in particular abhors any leaks. And to me a leak is just the truth that someone wants to get out. Other Presidents have managed to have some dissenting voices or devil's advocates around. But in this administration, there's no tolerance for anyone who has an opposite opinion. We can see what they've done to Colin Powell. You're on board or you're not. You're with us or against us.
What effect have the disclosures by Richard Clarke and Medicare actuary Richard Foster had on this administration?
I don't think they have made the administration more honest, but they've had an effect on the American people, who know they were misled in the most drastic way – life and death, war and peace, Medicare being underpriced by $150 billion so they could sell it. It's the boy who cried wolf. How many more times can we be deceived?
Polls show that Bush still has a lot of support from Americans.
People always want to believe their President to the very end. I found that true with Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. It wasn't until his last weeks practically when he was finally forced to say that he had not been credible, had not told the truth, that everything went downhill. But even then he had 23 percent approval. People want to believe their leaders, and that's a good thing.
How has television changed news reporting?
It's dominant now. Can't blame a President to prefer TV. He can reach sixty million people rather than talk to you and me and reach maybe a few newspapers. With TV you get a much wider audience. And it's good for the American people to actually see the person so they can decide with their own eyes.
But I think newspapers are indispensable. You have to read a newspaper because it grabs you, it wraps you all around. And you have to read the stories you never intended to read. You get a much broader view. Television and newspapers are both necessary. But I notice the TV people get most of the interviews with the President.
How did you see your role when you were a wire service reporter?
Straight reporting. Just the facts, ma'am. I wrote dull copy because I was afraid even a verb would sound pejorative or judgmental. But now I go for broke. I have to be curbed. I can honestly say I was never accused of slant in my copy. But I tell everyone – this is my cliché – that I never bowed out of the human race since the moment I was born. I permitted myself to think, to care, to believe. But I was not paid for that. At the wire service, you had to have straight factual reporting and I did it for fifty-seven years.
What's an average day like for you?
Now, I'm loose. I go to the White House briefings, which they call a gaggle, in the morning, at 9:45 a.m., and then a briefing at 12:30 p.m. I write two columns a week. I have to decide what to write and what to be outraged about, which is plenty.
And what were your days like when you were a wire service reporter?
I used to go to the White House around 5:30 in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, read the wires, hang out outside the press secretary's office around 8 o'clock and see if I could buttonhole them early. Attend the morning briefing and the afternoon briefing, always checking with the office because when we are sleeping, half the world is making trouble. So you try to catch up. Do your homework. Things are happening during the day and you try to get reaction. You write many, many stories a day.
Who was your favorite President to cover?
Kennedy and Johnson. Kennedy because I think it was the most inspired. I thought he had his eyes on the stars, that he knew where the country should be going. He told young people to give something back to the country. He had ideals. And Johnson moved a mountain the first two years in office. He got through Medicare, civil rights, voting rights for blacks in the South, federal aid to education at all levels from Head Start through college, child and maternal health, public housing, you name it. It was phenomenal.
How has the relationship between the President and the White House press corps changed since you started covering the Presidency?
It was much more intimate before because it was a much smaller press corps. You could walk around the South Lawn with Lyndon B. Johnson. We were very close to Kennedy. There wasn't this whole cordon of security. And you didn't have wave after wave of TV and other electronic outlets. The press corps now is humungous on a big story. Since 9/11, of course, there's been heavy, heavy security, and even before that with the attempts on the life of the President. There's always been one more step to tighten security and keep us further away.
Even after 9/11, when the press was really tame, there were still charges by some people in the press that there was a liberal media. Do you agree?
I'm dying to find another friend. I am a liberal. I was a liberal the day I was born, and I will be until the day I die. What's a liberal? I care about the poor, the sick, and the maimed. I care whether we go to war for unjust causes. I care whether we shoot people who are innocent. There's no such thing as a liberal media. I think we have a very conservative press. Read the columnists. They are predominantly conservative. I don't relate to them at all. I'm looking for another liberal.
But there was a time when there were more liberal voices.
There were more. But the press has moved with the country to the right. There was a Ronald Reagan revolution. There were many more liberals in the Great Depression, World War II. They had heart and soul and compassion. Reporters see so much more than anyone else, really, if they open their eyes. It's their job to take a very human approach. I don't see how you can see what's all around you and not be liberal. You see the poor. You see the hungry. You see the suffering.
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

"Web of Connections"...Bush's Desperate and Dirty Tactic

Report Exposes Bush Connections to Swift Boat Vets.
Some Who Now Rip Kerry Previously Praised Him
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:54 p.m. ET Aug. 20, 2004

A newspaper investigation into the veterans' group behind the controversial TV ads about Sen. John Kerry's Vietnman war record has found a "web of connections" to the president and his family and many inconsistencies in the veterans' public statements on the matter.
How the group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970's allied themselves with Texas Republicans," The New York Times reported in Friday's editions.
The group's ads accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of exaggerating his war record to win war medals and say he is unfit to be president.
"A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove," the Times reported. "Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry 'unfit' had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.
The story appeared in the Times a day after Kerry fought back against the veterans' allegations, accusing Bush of using a Republican front group “to do his dirty work” and challenging Bush to debate their wartime service records.
“Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring it on,” said the Democratic presidential candidate, reviving an old war and campaign slogan amid strong urging from party leaders for him to respond to two-week-old GOP assertions.
As Kerry denounced the criticism as “lies about my record,” aides privately acknowledged that they and their boss had been slow to recognize the damage being done to his political standing.
Three Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver StarsKerry won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and Silver Star for Vietnam War combat. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard. Both men say the other served honorably, but their supporters are pouring tens of thousands of dollars into television ads and other tactics to insist otherwise.
MoveOn.org, a liberal group funded by Kerry supporters, is airing an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War. It also asks the president to denounce an ad that aired early this month by “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” a GOP-leaning group of Vietnam veterans who say Kerry exaggerated his actions to win Vietnam War medals.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said the charge that Bush was in league with the group criticizing Kerry’s war record “is absolutely and completely false. The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam.”
In a campaign shadowed by the war on terrorism and in Iraq, Kerry’s valorous combat experience is a cornerstone of his campaign. After using the Democratic National Convention to improve his poll ratings on national security, Kerry remained silent as the criticism led to growing indications — much of it anecdotal, some in polling, party officials say — that his gains were eroding.
Supported by Navy documentsHis medals are supported by Navy documents and the memories of all but one of the swift boat crewmates who served beneath Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant. The anti-Kerry group, funded by Republican donors, includes several veterans who say they witnessed Kerry’s actions from nearby swift boats.
One of his most vocal critics, Larry Thurlow, has disputed Kerry’s Bronze Star-winning assertion that he came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory. But Thurlow’s own military records contained several references to small arms fire that day, according to The Washington Post.
Thurlow said in a statement Thursday that his records were based on Kerry’s account.
Knowing several news organizations, including the Post, were investigating the claims of anti-Kerry veterans, the Democratic campaign swung into action late Wednesday — rewriting the candidate’s speech to a firefighters’ union overnight, flying two of his swift boat colleagues to Boston and producing a new campaign commercial, despite earlier plans to stay off the air until September.
The 30-second ad features a former Green Beret saying Kerry saved his life under fire. “He risked his life to save mine,” Jim Rassmann says.
Kerry advisers said they had heard from several Democratic politicians that voters were starting to ask questions about the candidate’s war record. The politicians urged him to fight back. Internally, there was an initial reluctance from senior advisers for Kerry to respond — because they believed that Bush would condemn the critical ad, or that the allegations would blow over.
Kerry had enoughAs for the candidate himself, this was personal, aides said. He had heard the group was raising money for more ads, and was tired of his integrity being assaulted.
“Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts,” Kerry said. “Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.”
Kerry aides said they will maintain the offensive through surrogates, if not Kerry himself. Democrats welcomed the response.
“Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran,” said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. “Today’s the start of the mother of all backlashes.”
Kerry surrounded himself with friendly veterans and union workers to criticize the group airing the ad against him.
“They’re a front for the Bush campaign,” Kerry said. “And the fact that the president won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know. He wants them to do his dirty work.”
There is no irrefutable evidence that the group is a front for Bush or that MoveOn.org is a front for Kerry, though there are at least slender ties between the groups’ major donors and both campaigns.
Bush and the White House refused to condemn the anti-Kerry ad, which stopped airing this week. When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Kerry to condemn the MoveOn.org ad, Kerry quickly did so — though he has personally raised questions about Bush’s Vietnam-era service.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.