Your Tax dollars at work

Because remember kids PORN KILLS!!!



When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They say there are far more important issues in a high-crime area like South Florida, which is an international hub at risk for terrorism, money laundering and other dangerous activities.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections.

Acosta, who told the Daily Business Review last month that prosecuting obscenity was a priority for Gonzales, did not return calls for comment.

"Compared to terrorism, public corruption and narcotics, [pornography] is no worse than dropping gum on the sidewalk," said Stephen Bronis, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Miami and chair of the white-collar crime division of the American Bar Association. "With so many other problems in this area, this is absolutely ridiculous."

But not everyone agrees. With the rapid growth of Internet pornography, stamping out obscene material has become a major concern for the Bush administration's powerful Christian conservative supporters. The Mississippi-based American Family Association and other Christian conservative groups have pressured the Justice Department to take action against pornography. The family association has sent weekly letters to U.S. attorneys around the country to pressure them to pursue the makers and distributors of pornography.

"While there are crimes like drugs and public corruption in Miami, this is also a form of corruption and should be a priority," said Anthony Verdugo, director of the Christian Family Coalition in Miami. "Pornography is a poison and it's addictive. It's not a victimless crime. Women are the victims."

The federal government generally has not pursued pornography and obscenity for at least a decade. The Clinton administration declined to prosecute cases, and no book stores, video stores or Internet sites -- except those involving children engaging in sex -- were closed.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Christian conservative who stepped down last December, also disappointed social conservatives by not prosecuting porn during his tenure. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ashcroft placed his focus on anti-terrorism efforts.

But the social conservatives have gained traction with new Attorney General Gonzales, a close associate of President Bush who is considered a strong contender for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. In May, Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force under the office's criminal division.

The task force, headed by Deputy Chief for Obscenity Richard Green, will work closely with Bruce Taylor, senior counsel to the criminal division's assistant attorney general.

Taylor is one of the founding members of the Justice Department's National Obscenity Enforcement Unit back in the 1980s. He reportedly has prosecuted more than 100 state and federal obscenity cases and is the prosecutor who went after Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in the early 1980s. He won that case and Flynt spent six days in jail, but the case was overturned on appeal.

The task force, according to a Justice Department news release on May 5, will be "dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court."

In its 1973 landmark ruling on the subject, Miller v. California, the Supreme Court laid out a three-pronged test to separate obscenity from protected First Amendment speech. What the ruling said, essentially, was that if the material is offensive and prurient and has no artistic value, it is obscenity. The court left it up to local juries and communities to make the determination.

The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force will pull together prosecutors from sections covering organized crime and racketeering, asset forfeiture, money laundering, computer crime and intellectual property. They will be joined by prosecutors from the High-Tech Investigative Unit, which has computer and forensic experts. The focus will be on Internet crimes as well as on "peer-to-peer" distribution of pornography, according to the news release.

'WASTING OUR RESOURCES'

Acosta, a Miami native who formerly held a high-level position in the Justice Department, is having a hard time persuading other law enforcement officials in South Florida, including his own assistant U.S. attorneys, to join the anti-porn crusade.

Sources say Acosta was told by the FBI officials during last month's meeting that obscenity prosecution would have to be handled by the crimes against children unit. But that unit is already overworked and would have to take agents off cases of child endangerment to work on adult porn cases. Acosta replied that this was Attorney General Gonzales' mandate.

Acosta's meetings with other law enforcement agencies also were not particularly fruitful, sources said.

Criminal defense attorneys and an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman say they are appalled at the Justice Department's plan to prioritize the prosecution of obscenity when narcotics trafficking, public corruption, and fraud are rampant in South Florida.

Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union and a partner at Duane Morris in Miami, said, "It's amazing that we're wasting our resources on the morality police instead of battling organized crime, illegal drugs, corruption and undocumented immigration. I can't even believe this."

Rodriguez-Taseff said she doubted that Acosta's anti-porn initiative would get off the ground, in part because it could end up discriminating by targeting South Florida's large gay community. "We are far too diverse a community for any such prosecution effort," she said.

Previous efforts by South Florida law enforcement to prosecute sexually explicit artists have fallen flat. Fort Lauderdale attorney Bruce Rogow successfully defended 2 Live Crew, the racy rap group that was charged with obscenity by former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro in the 1990s.

"I'm not surprised that this is happening, because these things go in cycles and this is a conservative environment," Rogow said. "But I think law enforcement has lost its enthusiasm for these types of cases."

But not Sharp of the Family Association. He said any prosecutors who object to prosecuting obscenity don't understand the law. "Most attorneys have been led to believe that what is illegal is not illegal in terms of obscenity," Sharp said. "They have a misconception of what should be prosecuted. They think because it's consenting adults, it's not illegal."

Sharp said the initiative is necessary because local law enforcement and city attorneys get "crushed" by high-powered lawyers hired by adult book stores or video stores when there are efforts to shut those establishments down.

"You need the federal government to assist," said Sharp, who takes credit for closing six adult bookstores in his hometown in Mississippi.

But should porn be a priority in a place like Miami, where serious crime is rampant? "It's all part of the same thing, of the organized crime syndicate," Sharp said. "It has an effect on children."

One Word ...... DUH!

CHICAGO - When Jon D. Miller looks out across America, which he can almost do from his 18th-floor office at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, he sees a landscape of haves and have-nots - in terms not of money, but of knowledge.

Dr. Miller, 63, a political scientist who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the medical school, studies how much Americans know about science and what they think about it. His findings are not encouraging.

While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue." At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.

Over the last three decades, Dr. Miller has regularly surveyed his fellow citizens for clients as diverse as the National Science Foundation, European government agencies and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. People who track Americans' attitudes toward science routinely cite his deep knowledge and long track record.

"I think we should pay attention to him," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, who cites Dr. Miller's work in her efforts to advance the cause of evolution in the classroom. "We ignore public understanding of science at our peril."

Rolf F. Lehming, who directs the science foundation's surveys on understanding of science, calls him "absolutely authoritative."

Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

At one time, this kind of ignorance may not have meant much for the nation's public life. Dr. Miller, who has delved into 18th-century records of New England town meetings, said that back then, it was enough "if you knew where the bridge should be built, if you knew where the fence should be built."

"Even if you could not read and write, and most New England residents could not read or write," he went on, "you could still be a pretty effective citizen."

No more. "Acid rain, nuclear power, infectious diseases - the world is a little different," he said.

It was the nuclear power issue that first got him interested in public knowledge of science, when he was a graduate student in the 1960's. "The issue then was nuclear power," he said. "I used to play tennis with some engineers who were very pro-nuclear, and I was dating a person who was very anti-nuclear. I started doing some reading and discovered that if you don't know a little science it was hard to follow these debates. A lot of journalism would not make sense to you."

Devising good tests to measure scientific knowledge is not simple. Questions about values and attitudes can be asked again and again over the years because they will be understood the same way by everyone who hears them; for example, Dr. Miller's surveys regularly ask people whether they agree that science and technology make life change too fast (for years, about half of Americans have answered yes) or whether Americans depend too much on science and not enough on faith (ditto).

But assessing actual knowledge, over time, "is something of an art," he said. He varies his questions, as topics come and go in the news, but devises the surveys so overall results can be compared from survey to survey, just as SAT scores can be compared even though questions on the test change.

For example, he said, in the era of nuclear tests he asked people whether they knew about strontium 90, a component of fallout. Today, he asks about topics like the workings of DNA in the cell because "if you don't know what a cell is, you can't make sense of stem cell research."

Dr. Miller, who was raised in Portsmouth, Ohio, when it was a dying steel town, attributes much of the nation's collective scientific ignorance to poor education, particularly in high schools. Many colleges require every student to take some science, but most Americans do not graduate from college. And science education in high school can be spotty, he said.

"Our best university graduates are world-class by any definition," he said. "But the second half of our high school population - it's an embarrassment. We have left behind a lot of people."

He had firsthand experience with local school issues in the 1980's, when he was a young father living in DeKalb, Ill., and teaching at Northern Illinois University. The local school board was considering closing his children's school, and he attended some board meetings to get an idea of members' reasoning. It turned out they were spending far more time on issues like the cost of football tickets than they were on the budget and other classroom matters. "It was shocking," he said.

So he and some like-minded people ran successfully for the board and, once in office, tried to raise taxes to provide more money for the classroom. They initiated three referendums; all failed. Eventually, he gave up, and his family moved away.

"This country cannot finance good school systems on property taxes," he said. "We don't get the best people for teaching because we pay so little. For people in the sciences particularly, if you have some skill, the job market is so good that teaching is not competitive."

Dr. Miller was recruited to Northwestern Medical School in 1999 by administrators who knew of his work and wanted him to study attitudes and knowledge of science in light of the huge changes expected from the genomic revolution.

He also has financing - and wears a yellow plastic bracelet - from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, for a project to research people's knowledge of clinical trials. Many research organizations want to know what encourages people to participate in a trial and what discourages them. But Dr. Miller said, "It's more interesting to ask if they know what a clinical trial is, do they know what a placebo is."

The National Science Foundation is recasting its survey operations, so Dr. Miller is continuing surveys for other clients. One involves following people over time, tracing their knowledge and beliefs about science from childhood to adulthood, to track the way advantages and disadvantages in education are compounded over time and to test his theory that people don't wait until they are adults to start forming opinions about the world.

Lately, people who advocate the teaching of evolution have been citing Dr. Miller's ideas on what factors are correlated with adherence to creationism and rejection of Darwinian theories. In general, he says, these fundamentalist views are most common among people who are not well educated and who "work in jobs that are evaporating fast with competition around the world."

But not everyone is happy when he says things like that. Every time he goes on the radio to talk about his findings, he said, "I get people sending me cards saying they will pray for me a lot."

Upcoming Judicial Nomination

Here is a compelling report about Judge John Roberts His nomination hearing starts on September 6th. Also, I was in Crawford over the weekend at Camp Casey II, I will have pictures VERY soon. I have one word to say about standing out there under a tent .... HOT! It was 105 that day.

Anger in public

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.

“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

Bush’s behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,” is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.

To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. “To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear,” he says.

Dr. Frank, in his book, speculates that Bush, an alcoholic who brags that he gave up booze without help from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, may be drinking again.

“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank says. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”

Last year, Capitol Hill Blue learned the White House physician prescribed anti-depressant drugs for the President to control what aides called “violent mood swings.” As Dr. Frank also notes: “In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that ‘the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.’”

Dr. Frank explains Bush’s behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial:

“The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking,” he says. “The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat.”

We dont want your protest here

NEW YORK The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.

The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

In his speech, Cadmus declared: "It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction.”

He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies." This might suggest to some, however, that American freedoms are worth dying for but not exercising.

Without mentioning any current protestor, such as Cindy Sheehan, by name, Cadmus recalled: "For many of us, the visions of Jane Fonda glibly spouting anti-American messages with the North Vietnamese and protestors denouncing our own forces four decades ago is forever etched in our memories. We must never let that happen again….

"We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm's way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies."

Resolution 3, which was passed unanimously by 4,000 delegates to the annual event, states: "The American Legion fully supports the president of the United States, the United States Congress and the men, women and leadership of our armed forces as they are engaged in the global war on terrorism and the troops who are engaged in protecting our values and way of life."

Cadmus advised: "Let's not repeat the mistakes of our past. I urge all Americans to rally around our armed forces and remember our fellow Americans who were viciously murdered on Sept. 11, 2001."

Pictures from Camp Casey 2 weeks ago

Why Bush Wont Be Impeached

On 19 December 1998, the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton. The investigation committee charged him with perjury and obstruction of justice. Kenneth Starr was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate Clinton's Whitewater land transactions, but finally brought charges against him for sexual misconduct.

The Impeachment Process

The President can be removed from office through the process of impeachment. If Congress feels that the President has committed acts of "Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors" (U.S. Constitution) they can impeach him with a majority vote. Out of a total 435 congressmen, 231 are currently Republicans, 201 Democrats. An impeachment resembles a legal indictment, not a conviction, however, and not enough to remove the President from office alone.

The case then goes to the Senate. Overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Senate reviews the case and votes whether or not to convict the President. If they vote in favor of conviction by a two-thirds margin, then the President is removed from office. However, this year, Republicans hold a 55-senate majority since the 2004 elections.

A Futile Investigation

Since Starr could not link Clinton to any violations related to Whitewater, he later submitted to Congress the Starr Report, which led to Clinton's impeachment on charges arising from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (By the way, United States Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked for Starr during his tenure as solicitor general). With the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno, Starr expanded his investigation into Clinton's conduct.

Starr began his hounding investigation of Clinton in 1994 and the Senate acquitted him on 12 Feburary 1999. When Clinton left office at the end of his term, he enjoyed one of the highest after-term, public approval rating (60%) of any U.S. President for performing his job.

Costs of the Investigation

As they stood even prior to any formal consideration of impeachment, the costs of this lengthy and seemingly spiteful investigation merit consideration. Critics often complained about Starr’s expenditures of more than $50 million over four years, a minor part of the real cost. If the investigation were otherwise a constructive means to keep presidents on the straight and narrow, it would have justified the costs.

The massive distraction the investigation caused for the president, Congress, and the public incurs the main costs. We cannot calculate them precisely, but a close comparison suggests their magnitude. Consider what it would cost a commercial or political advertiser to purchase the same amount of public attention nationally for over four years.

This raises the question: Why did the conservatives in the Justice Department and in Congress push this rather bizarre investigation? It did make for a great smear campaign against Clinton personally as well as his Democrat party.

For the most part, history remembers Clinton as a successful president who enjoyed a list of accomplishments both domestically and internationally, not least of all, he presided over a shift from a budget deficit of around $250 billion, inherited from Bush Sr., to a budget surplus of around $523 billion from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his term.

The Court Appointed President with Bad Luck

Sure, one could argue that economic conditions fell favorably during Clinton’s relatively peaceful eight years of office. However, some economists suspect that Bush’s entry to the Presidency in 2000 may have caused a slight recession, especially when questions arose regarding the fairness and accuracy in the voting in Florida where his brother, Jebb, happened to be governor. But then, by way of a Supreme Court decision, not by election, Bush Jr. arrived in the Oval Office and now, his Iraq war places a huge burden on the economy and had stirred enough fear in the hearts of folks in the heartlands to assure him the 2004 election.

As for Bush Sr., so too for Bush Jr., slow economic conditions seem to have just fallen from the sky during the terms of both Presidents. After Bush Jr.’s sixth year in office, he presides over a shift in a budget surplus of $523 billion, from Clinton, to a budget deficit of $413 billion today which is an all time record in red. Meanwhile, the U.S. sinks deeper into a trade deficit, which last year rose to a record $617 billion.

Bush Jr. reminds us that we’re in a war time economy. He tells us in hisspeeches that we wage war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein supported al-Queda. He repeats this even after the 9/11 Commission (which he attempted to call off) concluded that no connection ever existed between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, even years after the U.S. occupies Iraq, no one has found any evidence of WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction).

We’ve already heard that the Downing Street Memo documented a briefing on July 23, 2002 which provides hard and legal evidence that Bush planned to invade Iraq months before he submitted his resolution on Iraq to the Congress and months before he and Blair asked the UN to resume its inspections for alleged WMDs. The Memo reveals that Bush had decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein by launching a war which would be justified by Saddam’s supposed development of terrorism and WMDs. The U.S. intelligence information that Bush used was fixed specifically to fit with his war plans.

The Case to Impeach G.W. Bush

Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about his sex life. Compare Clinton’s case to the current movement in Congress to impeach G.W. Bush.

Considerable evidence has emerged that Bush deceived and misled the Congress and the American people as to the basis for taking the nation into war against Iraq. Evidence has come to light that Bush manipulated intelligence so as to allege falsely that Iraq posed a national security threat to the U.S. In this case, Bush most likely committed a felony by submitting a false report to Congress on the reasons for launching a first-strike invasion of Iraq. And to add insult to injury, Bush's war in Iraq has only resulted in a drastic (four times more) increase in terrorist bombings.

Even though 89 Congressmen have requested that President Bush answers questions regarding the Downing Street Memo, the President refuses to discuss the subject.

Several attorneys specialized in international law have written that by the standards of the Nuremberg trials and international law, the war in Iraq is a crime against the people of the U.S. and against the world.

We have to apply these laws to everyone equally; otherwise we no longer abide by the rule of law. After three months since the surfacing of the Downing Street Memo (May, 2005) and other evidence that Bush has committed high crimes against the U.S., Congress has still not begun any real impeachment procedure. Congress, Democrats in particular, has become a door mat for the Bush Administration. Likewise, the corporate media no longer serves to seek out and expose the truth. Both the Congress and the mainstream media seem to fear losing their corporate sponsors.

The founders of the United States designed impeachment as a means to call to account the President and his high ministers, to bridle the Executive if he engages in excesses. It enables Congress and Senate to bring about an inquest into the conduct of public servants and to curb the President of swollen power.

Given the Republican majority in the Congress, the impeachment of the current President seems an up-hill challenge that few are willing to take on. Since Republicans hold a majority in both Houses, G. W. Bush enjoys a swollen power like that of an autocrat, a despot of circumstances. The Founding Fathers designed the U.S. Government in a way to assure a constant check and balance of power. However, with American voters fearful of terrorism, panic and hysteria seem to shake them off balance. In contrast, the U.S. soliders in Iraq represent American bravery even when caught between a rock and a hot place.

Fear and Trembling in America

Applying the law to Bush’s possible criminal actions depends mainly on the will and bravery of the American people. But until recently, the American people seem numbed into a self absorbed fear after the 9/11 attacks. If the American people supported Congressional hearings regarding Bush’s criminal activity, then and only then does impeachment and the application of the law seem possible. Democracy works only as well as its citizens are capable of keeping themselves informed, active, and brave. In the meantime, Americans express their bravery through "Support our Troops" stickers.

Recent history has shown that President Lyndon Johnson’s manipulation of the truth about the Vietnam War forced him to give up any ambition for re-election. Richard Nixon’s lies about Watergate forced him to resign from office.

By spending taxpayer’s money on military adventures, the Bush Administration has taken billions of dollars away from the people; dollars that could be put to better use in schools and other social and economic developments. More important, Bush’s war has killed tens of thousands of mostly innocent Iraqi civilians, thousands of U.S. soldiers, and squandered hundreds of billions of dollars which become the profits of a few government contracting corporations.

Under fear and trembling of terrorism, the American people have allowed the U.S. Governement to transform itself from the Republic its founders designed, and into an Imperium whose main mission aims to increase military power and supernational corporate profits through a "war on a continual and global scale," as Bush says; "Mission Accomplished." This certainly is not the America the Founding Fathers had in mind when they designed it. Is it really what we want now?

Most Americans haven't yet figured out that it's not the Middle Eastern terrorists who are the main danger to U.S. democracy but rather those in Washington who pretend to be defending our society. The latter are stealing both our money and freedom, not to mention the lives of U.S. soldiers by the thousands.

From the Financial Times

The US is expected to pull significant numbers of troops out of Iraq in the next 12 months in spite of the continuing violence, according to the general responsible for near-term planning in the country.

Maj Gen Douglas Lute, director of operations at US Central Command, yesterday said the reductions were part of a push by Gen John Abizaid, commander of all US troops in the region, to put the burden of defending Iraq on Iraqi forces.

He denied the withdrawal was motivated by political pressure from Washington.

He said: “We believe at some point, in order to break this dependence on the . . . coalition, you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward.

“You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It's very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country.”

While he cautioned that any troop reduction would be conditional on continued political progress and ongoing improvement in Iraqi force training, he said Centcom planners believed “the political process will play out, that we will see a constitution, that we will see, by some political machinations, the Sunnis brought into the process and we will proceed to national elections in December”.

“If we see that and if we see progress on the second front, which is continued progress with the Iraqi security force next year, this time we'll be in the position to make some adjustments in our force structure.”

Last week, Gen Peter Schoomaker, US army chief of staff, said his office was planning for the possibility that troop levels could be maintained until 2009. But Maj Gen Lute said such a worst-case scenario was unlikely.

“I will tell you this, as the operation officer of Centcom, if a year from now I've got to call on all those army troops that Gen Schoomaker is prepared to provide, I won't feel real good about myself,” he said. Gen George Casey, commander of allied forces in Iraq, made similar comments last month on reductions that could come by early next year but they were quickly played down by the White House.

George W. Bush, the US president, has said no decisions have been made on troop levels in 2006. “I think they were rumours. I think they're speculation,” he said at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, this month after meeting his national security team.

Yesterday, the president again insisted: “We will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terror. An immediate withdrawal from Iraq or the greater Middle East would only embolden the terrorists.”

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, insisted that Mr Bush and his top generals remained united on the issue. “Any suggestion that there is disagreement between the President and our military commanders in Iraq is absurd,” he said.

“We are all on the same page when it comes to our strategy of standing up Iraqi forces so we can stand down our forces. We have always said troop levels will be determined by our commanders, based on conditions on the ground.”

But Maj Gen Lute's comments the first to detail extensively the reasons behind such a reduction give credence to reports that Gen Abizaid hopes to hand over to Iraqi forces within the next year large parts of the 14 Iraqi provinces that have remained relatively peaceful.

Maj Gen Lute, who is responsible for the Centcom's plans over the next 12-18 months, said military officials expected troop reductions to occur most rapidly outside the Sunni Triangle.

So starts the spin

DONNELLY, Idaho (AP) -- President Bush suggested Tuesday that anti-war protesters such as Cindy Sheehan, who want the troops brought home immediately, do not represent the views of most U.S. military families and are "advocating a policy that would weaken the United States."

In brief remarks outside the exclusive resort where he is vacationing, Bush gave no indication that he would change his mind and meet with Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq and has emerged as a harsh critic of the war there, when he returns to his Texas ranch Wednesday evening.

Sheehan has been maintaining a vigil outside Bush's ranch, a demonstration that has been joined by more and more other anti-war protesters.

Bush said two high-ranking member of his staff already have met with her.

Bush said most military families have a different viewpoint than Sheehan. "She doesn't represent the view of a lot of families," he told reporters.

Iraq constitution

On Iraq, Bush said a democratic constitution "is going to be an important change in the broader Middle East." Reaching an accord on a constitution after years of dictatorship is not easy, Bush said.

He spoke after the head of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution said Tuesday that three days are not enough to win over the minority Sunni Arabs, and the document they rejected ultimately may have to be approved by parliament as is and submitted to the people in a referendum.

Iraqi leaders completed a draft Monday night and submitted it to parliament by the midnight deadline, but delayed a vote for three days to give them time to convince Sunni Arab negotiators to accept it.

Of the continuing lack of consensus, Bush said, "The Iraqi people are working hard to reach a consensus on the constitution."

"The fact that they are even working on a constitution is vastly different from working under the hand of a dictator," Bush said, speaking outside the Tamarack Resort, in the mountains 100 miles north of Boise.

Bush was asked about the possibility that objections to the constitution as it now stands from the Sunnis, the party of deposed leader Saddam Hussein, could trigger a civil war.

"The Sunnis have got to make a choice -- do they want to live in a society that's free?" Bush said.

He said he thought most mothers, regardless of their religion, would prefer to live in peace rather than violence.

Gaza withdrawal

He congratulated Israeli President Ariel Sharon on the completion of the withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza Strip.

And Bush praised Sharon for making "a tough decision" and said the next step would be to establish a working government there.

Bush, spending a day at the resort with Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican, said he was getting updates on the Iraqi constitutional process from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

He said Rice had assured him that the rights of women were being protected. "Democracy is unfolding," the president said. "We cannot tolerate the status quo."

On Sheehan, the grieving mother who has camped near his ranch since August 6, the president said he strongly supports her right to protest. "She expressed her opinion. I disagree with it," Bush said.

"Those who advocate the immediate withdrawal ... not only from Iraq but from the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States," he said.( Never mind that since we have battle operations have been declared over almost 2 years ago that more soldiers have died from insurgent attacks AND that the US is less safe from terrorist attacks. )

Bush has scheduled more than two hours to meet with family members of slain soldiers Wednesday at Mountain Home Air Force Base near Boise.

Bush said he planned to go on a hike and have dinner later Tuesday with Kempthorne and the Idaho congressional delegation. Bush said he also planned to spend "quality time" with first lady Laura Bush, who is traveling with him.

Growing criticism

Bush, who is seeking to quell growing criticism at home over the Iraq war, told the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Salt Lake City on Monday that "a policy of retreat and isolation will not bring us safety."

Bush made a rare reference of the U.S. military death toll -- more than 2,000 killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

"We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for ... by staying on the offensive against the terrorists, and building strong allies in Afghanistan and Iraq that will help us win and fight -- fight and win the war on terror," he told the VFW convention.

Bush plans to give a second speech on the subject Wednesday when he speaks to military families in Nampa, Idaho.

Recent polls have shown growing public dissatisfaction with the president's handling of the war in Iraq in the face of a persistent insurgency and the mounting U.S. death toll.

An AP-Ipsos poll taken earlier this month showed the percentage of Americans who approve of Bush's handling of Iraq -- a number that had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year -- dipped to 38 percent.

Ok so I lied

I was taking a trip to Austin this weekend (looking for a new apartment) and was listening to some random cds and I came across this song on Oranges and Lemons from XTC and forgot just how damn smart Andy Partridge is as a writer. The song is called "Here Comes President Kill Again"

Here comes President Kill again,
Surrounded by all of his killing men.
Telling us who, why, where and when,
President Kill wants killing again.
Hooray, ring out the bells,
King Conscience is dead.
Hooray, now back in your cells,
We've President Kill instead.
Here comes President Kill again.
Broadcasting from his killing den.
Dressed in pounds and dollars and yen,
President Kill wants killing again.
Hooray, hang out the flags,
Queen Caring is dead.
Hooray, we'll stack body bags,
For President Kill instead.
Ain't democracy wonderful?
Them Russians can't win!
Ain't democracy wonderful?
Lets us vote someone like that in.
Here comes President Kill again,
from pure White House to Number 10.
Taking lives with a smoking pen,
President Kill wants killing again.
Hooray, everything's great,
Now President Kill is dead.
Hooray, I'll bet you can't wait,
To vote for President Kill instead...

A moment of jocularity

One of two posts today

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah television station is refusing to air an anti-war ad featuring Cindy Sheehan (search), whose son's death in Iraq prompted a vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch.

The ad began airing on other area stations Saturday, two days before Bush was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (search).

However, a national sales representative for KTVX, a locabuyers, writing that it was an "inappropriate commercial advertisement for Salt Lake City."

In the ad, Sheehan pleads with Bush for a meeting and accuses him of lying to the American people about Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction and its connection to al-Qaida.

"I love my country. But how many more of our loved ones need to die in this senseless war?" a weary-looking Sheehan asks in the ad. "I know you can't bring Casey back. But it's time to admit mistakes and bring our troops home now."

Salt Lake City affiliates of NBC, CBS and Fox began running the ad Saturday.

The ads were bought for Gold Star Families for Peace by Washington, D.C.-based Fenton Communications, which provided a copy of the e-mail from station sales representative Jemina Keller.

In a statement Saturday evening explaining its decision, KTVX said that after viewing the ad, local managers found the content "could very well be offensive to our community in Utah, which has contributed more than its fair share of fighting soldiers and suffered significant loss of life in this Iraq war."

Station General Manager David D'Antuono said the decision was not influenced by the station's owner, Clear Channel Communications Inc.

Celeste Zappala, who with Sheehan co-founded Gold Star Families for Peace (search), said she was puzzled by the decision.

"What stunned me was that it was inappropriate to hear this message," she said. "How is it that Salt Lake City should hear no questions about the war?"

The e-mail read: "The viewpoints reflected in the spot are incompatible with our marketplace and will not be well received by our viewers." It added that the spot didn't qualify as an issue advertisement.

For the ad to have been considered an "issue" advertisement a ballot measure would have had to be at stake, D'Antuono said.

Mark Wiest, vice president of sales for NBC-affiliated KSL television, said that in the interest of freedom of speech, his station didn't hesitate to run the ad. KSL is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"The bigger picture is, by suppressing the message are we doing what is right under the First Amendment and in an open democratic society?" Wiest said.

Bush received nearly 70 percent of the vote last fall in Utah, one of the most conservative states north of the Bible Belt.

(Note .... this was on a Fox Web Site and I may have been smoking crack on my way back from Austin, but I swear that I heard that the US will have a military presence in Iraq until 2009 .... I'll see if I can find that information and post it here)

Also, from the "You Know Things Are Bad When" file, read this about what Chuch Hagel is saying:

WASHINGTON - A leading Republican senator and prospective presidential candidate said Sunday that the war in
Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and is looking more like the Vietnam conflict from a generation ago.

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel , who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the
Pentagon is preparing.

"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."

Hagel said "stay the course" is not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq ... we're not winning," he said.

President Bush was preparing for separate speeches this week to reaffirm his plan to help Iraq train its security forces while its leaders build a democratic government. In his weekly Saturday radio address, Bush said the fighting there protected Americans at home.

Polls show the public growing more skeptical about Bush's handling of the war.

In Iraq, officials continued to craft a new constitution in the face of a Monday night deadline for parliamentary approval. They missed the initial deadline last week.

Other Republican senators appearing on Sunday news shows advocated remaining in Iraq until the mission set by Bush is completed, but they also noted that the public is becoming more and more concerned and needs to be reassured.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., another possible candidate for president in 2008, disagreed that the U.S. is losing in Iraq. He said a constitution guaranteeing basic freedoms would provide a rallying point for Iraqis.

"I think this is a very crucial time for the future of Iraq," said Allen, also on ABC. "The terrorists don't have anything to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. All they care to do is disrupt."

Hagel, who was among those who advocated sending two to three times as many troops to Iraq when the war began in March 2003, said a stronger military presence by the U.S. is not the solution today.

"We're past that stage now because now we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam," Hagel said. "The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."

Allen said that unlike the communist-guided North Vietnamese who fought the U.S., the insurgents in Iraq have no guiding political philosophy or organization. Still, Hagel argued, the similarities are growing.

"What I think the White House does not yet understand — and some of my colleagues — the dam has broke on this policy," Hagel said. "The longer we stay there, the more similarities (to Vietnam) are going to come together."

The Army's top general, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that the Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 — for four more years as part of preparations for a worst-case scenario.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said U.S. security is tied to success in Iraq, and he counseled people to be patient.

"The worst-case scenario is not staying four years. The worst-case scenario is leaving a dysfunctional, repressive government behind that becomes part of the problem in the war on terror and not the solution," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday.

Allen said the military would be strained at such levels in four years yet could handle that difficult assignment. Hagel described the Army contingency plan as "complete folly."

"I don't know where he's going to get these troops," Hagel said. "There won't be any National Guard left ... no Army Reserve left ... there is no way America is going to have 100,000 troops in Iraq, nor should it, in four years."

Hagel added: "It would bog us down, it would further destabilize the Middle East, it would give Iran more influence, it would hurt Israel, it would put our allies over there in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a terrible position. It won't be four years. We need to be out."

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the U.S. is winning in Iraq but has "a way to go" before it meets its goals there. Meanwhile, more needs to be done to lay out the strategy, Lott said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I do think we, the president, all of us need to do a better job, do more," Lott said, by telling people "why we have made this commitment, what is being done now, what we do expect in the process and, yes, why it's going to take more time."

From the New York Times

LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.

But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's über-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush.

These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Mr. Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7.

Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006.

Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

What people are saying about you .... if you are reading this

Conservatives, others in the media launch smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan

Since Cindy Sheehan -- whose son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq -- began her protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch on August 7, she has been the target of smears by conservatives and others in the media. Media Matters for America has compiled several examples of these attacks:

* Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor: On the August 16 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Krauthammer claimed that Sheehan's protest is "hurting our troops and endangering our troops." Krauthammer went on to state that Sheehan's statements "have to be attacked because they are libeling America, endangering America, and they are untrue from beginning to end." When Fox News contributor Juan Williams questioned whether Sheehan's statements actually endangered American troops, Krauthammer retorted, "You don't think it's encouraging, you don't think it's going to encourage Iraqis who are attacking us, particularly this kind of stuff about American imperialism?"
* Frank J. Gaffney Jr., Washington Times columnist: On the August 16 broadcast of PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Gaffney asserted that Sheehan's statements "emboldened" America's enemies:

GAFFNEY: It will clearly be the case that enemies of this country, in a global war, of which Iraq is one front, will be emboldened and hardened, even as I think they are by these sorts of indications that we're losing our nerve, that we're being bloodied and that we're going to try to -- or at least some of us -- are going to try to compel the president to give up, that will only bring the threat we currently face, principally overseas, to our shores and, I think, do so in a way that will make the losses we've sustained in Iraq pale by comparison.

Additionally, in an August 16 column, Gaffney called Sheehan "the poster child for surrender" and argued that media coverage of Sheehan's protest "has further encouraged the conviction of our Islamofascist enemies that, as they expected, an indolent and self-indulgent United States cannot stand up to determined, ruthless foes." Gaffney added: "That perception can have but one effect: It puts an even bigger premium on the lives of every one of [Casey Sheehan's] comrades in Iraq and elsewhere, and to foreclose the outcomes for which he and the other fallen gave their lives."
* Bill O'Reilly, Fox News host: On the August 9 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly claimed that Sheehan "has thrown in with the most radical elements in this country" and "other American families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq ... feel that this kind of behavior borders on treasonous."
* Kathleen Parker, nationally syndicated columnist: In an August 13 column, Parker wrote that Bush "can't [meet with Sheehan] because he's the president of the United States, because we're at war, and because every move he makes causes ripples around the world. Ripples that, depending on other circumstances, can get other sons and daughters killed." Parker added that, if Bush allows himself to become involved in a public confrontation with Sheehan, "the world is in greater danger. Democrats might be delighted to freeze that image in political time, but so would insurgents planning their next Baghdad ambush."
* Jimmy W. Hall, freelance writer: In an August 11 op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hall wrote: "Cindy Sheehan evidently thinks little of her deceased son, his sacrifice or of those left to do the noble work in his absence," adding, "The lady is on the wrong team. She's disgraceful." Hall asked, rhetorically, "Is the proper answer to her bitterness really to belittle and undermine public support for the efforts of those still serving? ... Would [Casey Sheehan] be proud of her near-treasonous actions?" Hall also offered Sheehan this advice:

My suggestion to her ... is that she think about the lives of those still in Iraq. Undermining public support for our efforts in Iraq helps the enemy, her son's murderers. They love people like her, but hate those like her heroic son.

* Chattanooga Times Free Press: From an August 16 editorial:

[I]t is unfortunate that Mrs. Sheehan's sadness now has caused her to be used as a "front" and a personal "symbol" by a variety of political anti-Bush and anti-war activists who are seeking to undermine the American military effort to establish freedom and defeat terrorism in Iraq and throughout the world.

The Times Free Press added, "It is saddening that Mrs. Sheehan has lost a son. It is saddening that Mrs. Sheehan's demonstration has sought to undermine the purpose of his service in a way that surely encourages his murderers."
* David Horowitz, right-wing pundit: Horowitz wrote the following in an August 12 entry on his FrontPageMag.com weblog:

Cindy Sheehan is the most prominent symbol and chief mouthpiece of a psychological warfare campaign against her own country in time of war that can only benefit its enemies on the field of battle. It is one thing to criticize a war policy. It is quite another to accuse your own country of creating the monster it went to war to remove and fabricating intelligence information to send American youth into battle to die for a lie -- which is what she has done. She has made herself a willing tool of anti-American forces in this country that want America to lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror generally. She is promoting a cause -- immediate withdrawal from Iraq -- that would lead to a bloodbath in the region and in the United States. She has joined forces with an Unholy Alliance on the other side in the epic battle for freedom in the Middle East and has shown that she will do and say anything to discredit the United States and its commander-chief -- acts which serve the enemy and endanger American lives. She is a disgrace to her brave son who gave his life for the freedom of ordinary Iraqis and the security of his countrymen. She has betrayed his sacrifice and embraced his enemies.

And lastly rated yesterdays worst person in the world by Keith Olbermann, your favorite right wing nut job (who has since denied he said it, EVEN though it the statemtn was posted on his memeber section of his web site, Rush Limbaugh:

"Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real."

I guess she made up that dead-son-in-Iraq business! He also referred to her supporters as "dope-smoking FM types."

Does anyone see a pattern forming?

WASHINGTON - The State Department warned U.S. Central Command before the invasion of
Iraq of "serious planning gaps" for postwar security, according to newly declassified documents.

In a memorandum dated Feb. 7, 2003 — one month before the beginning of the Iraq war — State Department officials also wrote that "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally."

The documents were acquired by George Washington University's National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act. They were posted on the research group's Web site Wednesday and first reported by NBC News.

The February 2003 memo was written by three State Department bureau chiefs for Undersecretary Paula Dobriansky. The authors wrote, "We have raised these issues with top CENTCOM officials and General Garner." Retired Army Gen. Jay Garner was the first U.S. administrator in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The bureau chiefs warned that there could be "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance between the end of the war and the beginning of reconstruction."

A State Department report to Congress nine months into the war offered a more optimistic assessment. The Dec. 15, 2003, report said: "Iraqis are playing an increasing role both in routine civil policing and in combating the terror and sabotage ... . More and more Iraqis are coming forward with intelligence information that helps the Coalition conduct increasingly successful operations to prevent planned terrorist attacks, capture insurgents and seize weapons caches."

"At the same time," the report said, "the insurgents have used more sophisticated tactics."

The authors also acknowledged that "restoring public safety remains more challenging than dealing with ordinary crime."

State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper declined to comment on the newly released documents Wednesday night.

More news about Iraq

Washington - A stream of bad news out of Iraq - echoed at home by polls that show growing impatience with the war and rising disapproval of President Bush's Iraq policies - is stirring political concern in Republican circles, party officials said Wednesday.

Some said that the perception that the war was faltering was providing a rallying point for dispirited Democrats and could pose problems for Republicans in the Congressional elections next year.

Republicans said a convergence of events - including the protests inspired by the mother of a slain American soldier outside Mr. Bush's ranch in Texas, the missed deadline to draft an Iraqi Constitution and the spike in casualties among reservists - was creating what they said could be a significant and lasting shift in public attitude against the war.

The Republicans described that shift as particularly worrisome, occurring 14 months before the midterm elections. As further evidence, they pointed to a special election in Ohio two weeks ago, where a Democratic marine veteran from Iraq who criticized the invasion decision came close to winning in a district that should have easily produced a Republican victory.

"There is just no enthusiasm for this war," said Representative John J. Duncan Jr., a Tennessee Republican who opposes the war. "Nobody is happy about it. It certainly is not going to help Republican candidates, I can tell you that much."

Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican who originally supported the war but has since turned against it, said he had encountered "a lot of Republicans grousing about the situation as a whole and how they have to respond to a lot of questions back home.

"I have been to a lot of funerals," Mr. Gilchrest said.

The concern has grown particularly acute as lawmakers have returned home for a Congressional recess this month. Several have seen first-hand how communities are affected by the deaths of a group of local reservists.

In Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Jr., a Democratic challenger to Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, attacked Mr. Santorum on Wednesday for failing to question the management of the war. Mr. Casey said that would be a major issue in what is quite likely to be one of the most closely watched Senate races next year.

Republicans said they were losing hope that the United States would be effectively out of Iraq - or at least that casualties would stop filling the evening news programs- by the time the Congressional campaigns begin in earnest. Mr. Bush recently declined to set any timetable for withdrawing United States troops.

Grover Norquist, a conservative activist with close ties to the White House and Mr. Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, said: "If Iraq is in the rearview mirror in the '06 election, the Republicans will do fine. But if it's still in the windshield, there are problems."

Given the speed with which public opinion has shifted over the course of the war and the size of the Republican majority in the Senate and House, no one has gone so far as to suggest that war policy could return Democrats to power in the House or the Senate.

Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign, said he believed that the war would fade as an issue by next year and that even if it did not the elections would, as typically the case, be decided by local issues.

"I'm not concerned," Mr. Reynolds said. "Fifteen months away is a long time, and I don't see it. It's going to get back to the important issues of what's going on in the district. When it gets down to candidates, it's what's going on in the street that matters."

Some Republicans suggested that the White House was not handling the issue adroitly, saying its insistence the war was going well was counterproductive.

"Any effort to explain Iraq as 'We are on track and making progress' is nonsense," Newt Gingrich, a Republican who is a former House speaker, said. "The left has a constant drumbeat that this is Vietnam and a bottomless pit. The daily and weekly casualties leave people feeling that things aren't going well."

Republicans, Mr. Gingrich said, should make the case for "blood, sweat and toil" as part of a much larger war against "the irreconcilable wing of Islam."

Over the considerably longer term, the Iraqi turmoil raises a possibility that the war could again help shape a presidential nominating contest. Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant with ties to two potential candidates for 2008, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, predicted that there would be a Republican equivalent of Howard Dean, a Republican candidate opposing the war. He also predicted that such a candidate would not succeed.

Pollsters and political analysts pointed to basic opinion shifts that accounted for the political change. Daniel Yankelovich, a pollster who has been studying attitudes on foreign affairs, said: "I think what's changed over the last year is the assumption that Iraq would make us safer from terrorists to wondering if that actually is the case. And maybe it's the opposite."

Richard A. Viguerie, a veteran conservative direct mail consultant, said that Mr. Bush "turned the volume up on his megaphone about as high as it could go to try to tie the war in Iraq to the war on terrorism" last year and argued that the White House could no longer do that.

"I just don't think it washes after all these years," Mr. Viguerie said.

The other changing factor is the continued drop in Mr. Bush's job approval rating that could make him less welcome on the campaign trail.

"If this continues to drag down Bush's approval ratings, Republican candidates will be running with Bush as baggage, not as an asset," Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said. "Should his numbers go much lower, he is going to be a problem for Republican candidates in 2006."

The near success in Ohio by Democrats was achieved after the party had enlisted an Iraq veteran, Paul L. Hackett, who nearly defeated Jean Schmidt.

The chairman of the Democratic Congressional campaign committee, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, said he was talking to four or five other Iraq veterans to run in open seats or against weak Republican incumbents.

The chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee, Charles E. Schumer of New York, said, "There is no question that the Iraq war, without any light at the end of the tunnel apparent to the American people, is becoming more and more a ball and chain rapidly weighing down the administration."

Mr. Schumer, reflecting continued Democratic nervousness at being portrayed as being disrespectful of troops, added, "I have been more supportive of the president's war on terror than many Democrats."

This week in Rhode Island, Secretary of State Matthew A. Brown, a Democratic challenger to Senator Lincoln Chafee next year, called on Mr. Bush to set a six-month deadline to bring American troops home from Iraq.

"You owe it to the American people to get this job done and bring our men and women home to their families," Mr. Brown said on Wednesday.

Mr. Chafee's spokesman, Stephen Hourahan, responded by noting that Mr. Chafee had voted against the war, though he said he did not know whether Mr. Chafee would support the type of deadline urged by Mr. Brown.

In Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey, the prospective challenger to Mr. Santorum, said he would press the incumbent on why he had not taken a lead in raising questions about the war.

"Most people want to know what is the situation with training the Iraqi forces?" Mr. Casey said. "Where are we? Where are we with getting armor to our troops?"

Mr. Santorum's spokesman, Robert Traynham, said Mr. Santorum would not be hurt by supporting the war.

Mr. Traynham read a statement from Mr. Santorum that said, "Doing what is best for this country is always good politics in terms of protecting us from evil dictators such as Saddam Hussein."

Even apart from these problems, the party of the president in power traditionally loses seats in the midterm election of a second term.

"It's tough," Mr. Murphy, the consultant, said. "The press will try to make Iraq the cause of whatever historical problems we would normally have in an off-year election."

Representative Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican who initially supported the war but has begun calling for a pullout, said, "If your poll numbers are dropping over an issue, and this issue being the war, than obviously there is a message there - no question about it."

"If we are having this conversation a year from now," Mr. Jones added, "the chances are extremely good that this will be unfavorable" for the Republicans.

For Cindy

Cyrus Jones 1810 to 1913
Made his great granchildren believe
You could live to a hundred and three
A hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid
So Cyrus Jones lived forever

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Muriel Stonewall
1903 to 1954
She lost both of her babies in the second great war
Now you should never have to watch
Your only children lowered in the ground
I mean you should never have to bury your own babies

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Ring around the rosey
Pocket full of posey
Ashes to ashes
We all fall down

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Little Mikey Carson 67 to 75
He rode his
Bike like the devil until the day he died
When he grows up he wants to be Mr. Vertigo on the flying trapeze
Ohhh, 1940 to 1992

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Feel the rain
I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Gravedigger

And The Geeks Shall Laugh

Personal message from yours truly

Ok, so this will be my first non-news item post. My first "feely touchy" post to gauge who is reading me and see what other people think about what I put on here. So here goes. You know in reading through all the blogsphere (yes unfortunately I am now part of) I see a lot of people talk about Cindy Sheehan and whats going on "out there in Crawford." See heres what I dont get, without naming names and calling people out, we KNOW that we were right about the war not having any basis in reality. We KNOW that there was no exit strategy. We KNOW that the US has had to back-pedal on its initial expectations on what was possible in Iraq. We KNOW that Cindy Sheehan is NOT standing on the corpse of her dead son to make a political statement other than, we need the truth. As a citizen of this country, I (like anyone who can read this) should tolerate only so much misleading information both from the press AND/OR the government (which in some instances are all too easily linked.) I realize that Presidents dont apologize, because that would mean they are fallable and in the eyes of the world that shows weakness. But with President Bushes numbers in the toilet and only about 3 in 10 now thinking hes doing a decent job of handling the war, when will enough be enough? Yes I went to Crawford, yes I stood and listened to Cindy and others talk about the loss of their sons, daughters, husbands and wives. They say that a parent should never have to suffer the death of their child and that pain is very real. I can only imagine what its like to KNOW that your loved one gave their life under false pretense and that NO one will even apologize for it. Ok so this is rambling a big but the point I want to make is this. The people on the other side of the fence ..... the ones shouting to Cindy on Saturday "We dont care" while we had a moment of silence or the one who ran over the crosses on that little road in Crawford, how can you still not see? At what point can we make you realize that we're Americans JUST like you. We want our kids and your kids to be safe and just to come home. That the time for loss of life should be over.

This speaks for itself

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has survived summers of discontent before. But this season's doldrums -- reflected in dismal poll numbers and a surprisingly weak Republican showing in a special Ohio congressional election -- will be harder to surmount. They are the culmination of doubts about Bush that have germinated below the surface of public opinion for much of his presidency.

Typical of the polls was a Newsweek survey released over the weekend. It showed Bush with a 42 percent approval rating, matching the lowest of his presidency. Only 34 percent approved of his handling of the war in Iraq. A remarkable 61 percent disapproved.

The race in Ohio, where Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq War veteran, managed 48 percent of the vote in a district Bush carried with 64 percent last year, has Republicans scrambling for alibis. Many in the party are ascribing the narrowness of former state Rep. Jean Schmidt's victory to flaws in her campaign and her candidacy. The search for a scapegoat is the surest sign the GOP knows something is badly wrong.

Bush's obvious problem is Iraq. The sharp rise in casualties over the last fortnight has pushed the war back into the television news and aggravated opposition. Less noticed is that from its inception, this war was never broadly popular. The president also had a difficult summer in 2002 when he began selling the war. One Republican politician after another returned from that summer's recess reporting, in the popular phrase of the time, that the president had not yet "made the case" for war.

An ABC News poll in early September 2002 found that while 56 percent of Americans favored military action to depose Saddam Hussein, a quarter of that support melted away when respondents were asked if they would still back the war in the face of opposition from American allies. From the beginning, in other words, hard-core support for the war has never amounted to much more than 40 percent.

Yes, the war became more popular whenever the news in Iraq was good. But underlying doubts place a special burden on the president to persuade Americans again whenever the Iraq news goes bad. Instead of making the case for the war itself, the president has preferred to emphasize his steadfastness -- which may, in difficult times, translate to many voters as stubbornness.

Americans, says Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, don't want to "relitigate" the war, but "feel he got into this without a real plan for success." Garin adds: "They're very frustrated that the president has gotten us into a situation where there are no good choices."

A Republican consultant who asked not to be named said that Bush needed to respond to the casualty reports. "If you're going to ask people to make sacrifices, you have to tell them why," this consultant says. "We're not defining this so people understand what the sacrifices are for."

Two other factors are hurting Bush. In misreading his re-election as a "mandate" for his proposals to create private Social Security accounts, the president set off on a mission that few voters felt they had assigned him. And months of gloomy talk about an impending Social Security "crisis" reinforced doubts about the state of an economy that Bush has, only recently, begun to talk up.

Moreover, Bush has in the past engaged in a careful two-step on social issues, presenting himself as a social conservative but using conciliatory language to reassure socially moderate voters. Since the election, the controversy over the Terri Schiavo case -- and, more recently, the president's endorsement of teaching "intelligent design" in the public schools -- have upset the balancing act and painted Bush and his party as firmly in the socially conservative camp.

Iraq certainly played a role in Hackett's showing in Ohio. But the closeness of the contest may also have reflected disaffection among moderate Republicans and independents.

Schmidt, some Republicans believe, may have been too socially conservative for such voters. Moderates may still have harbored unhappiness over the intervention of outside conservative groups in the district's Republican primary against Pat DeWine, the son of Sen. Mike DeWine. The social conservatives' first choice, former Rep. Bob McEwen, also lost that primary, but Schmidt was closer than DeWine to the conservative camp.

Underestimating Bush is always a mistake. In the past, the president has come roaring out of his Texas vacation pursuing strategies for recovery that usually included sharp attacks against his opponents. But attacks may not be enough anymore. Bush's arguments on Iraq are faltering, his Social Security ideas have backfired and his party's intense moral conservatism is becoming a liability. This time, the discontent may not be seasonal.

The "Other" Army

Go Read This

From Ralph

Dear Ms. Sheehan,

From your grief over the loss of your son, Casey, in Iraq has come the courage to spotlight nationally the character of a President who refuses to meet with anyone or any group critical of his illegal, fabricated, deceptive war and occupation of that ravaged country. As a messianic militarist, Mr. Bush turned aside his own father's major advisers who warned him of the political, and diplomatic perils to the United States from an invasion of Iraq. He refused to listen.

Thirteen organizations in early 2003 separately wrote their President requesting a meeting to have him hear them out as to why they opposed his drumbeating, on-the-road-to war policies. These groups represented millions of Americans. They included church leaders, veterans, business, labor, retired intelligence officials, students, women and others. They are among those Americans who are not allowed through the carefully screened public audiences that are bused to arenas around the country to hear his repetitive slogans for carrying on this draining, boomeranging war. They each wrote President Bush but he never bothered even to acknowledge their letters simply to say no to the requested meetings. Not even the courtesy of a reply came from their White House.

Ever since then it has been the same—exclusion, denial, contempt and arrogance for views counter to that of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and the tight circle around them that composes the inner tin ear of this Administration. Why, they even refuse to listen to objections by their own government's military lawyers (JAG) over repeated violations of due process of law. When will he realize that he is supposed to be the President of all the people, not just those misled into supporting his Iraq maneuvers?

Perhaps the breakthrough will begin this hot August in Crawford, Texas, with the devastating loss of a beloved child transformed into a mission for the soul of our country. This rogue regime, led by two draft-dodgers and officially counseled by similar pro-war evaders during the Vietnam War, is not “our country.” Millions of Americans, including military and public servants in his Administration, and many in the retired military, diplomatic and intelligence services, opposed this war, still oppose it and do not equate George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with the United States of America.

Our flag stands for “liberty and justice for all.” Our flag must never be misused or defiled as a bandanna for war crimes, as a gag against the people's freedom of speech and conscience or as a fig leaf to hide the shame of charlatans in high public office, who violate our Constitution, our laws and our founding fathers' framework for accountable, responsive government.

You will be goaded to cross the semantic line against a President who himself has crossed the much graver constitutional line that has cost so many lives on both sides and continues to cost and cost our country in so many ways domestically and before the world. Neglecting America for the Iraq war has become the widening downward path trod by the Bush government.

Authenticity, bereft of contrivances, is what must confront this White House Misleader. And authenticity is what you are and what drives you as you demand to see this resistant President. He is on an intermittent month long vacation, with spells for fundraisers and other insulated events. His schedule provides ample time for such a meeting. You
reflect the hopes and prayers of millions of like-minded Americans.

Should he relent and opens his doors, be sure to ask why he low-balls U.S. casualties in Iraq, deleting and disrespecting soldiers seriously hurt or sickened in the Iraq war theater, but not in direct combat. Remind him of those soldiers back in military hospitals who, with their families, wonder why they are not being counted as they cope with their serious and permanent disabilities. (60 Minutes, CBS program).

Ask him why, despite Pentagon audits and GAO investigations about corruption, waste and non-delivery of services in Iraq by profiteering large corporations totaling billions of dollars, this Commander of Chief accepted campaign contributions from their executives and proceeds to let this giant corporate robbery continue without the requisite law and
order?

Consider bringing to him a copy of President Dwight Eisenhower's famous “Cross of Iron” speech, delivered in April 1953 before the nation's newspaper editors in Washington, D.C. And add statements by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret.), a Middle East specialist who strongly criticized the Bush-Cheney war policy before and after March 2003.

May you and your associates succeed in galvanizing the public debate in this country over why a growing majority of Americans now think it was a costly mistake to invade Iraq and want our soldiers back, with the U.S. out of that country. He knows that his support for how he is handling this war-occupation is falling close to one third of respondents in recent polls—the lowest yet. Even with the mass-media at his disposal everyday, he now represents a minority of public opinion, which should give him pause before closing his oil marinated doors on majority views in this nation.

May you prevail where others have failed to secure an audience with Mr. Bush.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

Occupation

It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation.

Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the US established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. US corporations moved into Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The US framed and imposed, with support from local accomplices, the constitution that would govern Cuba, just as it has drawn up, with help from local political groups, a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation. An occupation.

And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7 2003 the New York Times reported that General Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about the Iraqi reaction to occupation. Pro-US Iraqi leaders were giving him a message, as he put it: "When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family." (That's very perceptive.)

We know that fighting during the US offensive in November 2004 destroyed three-quarters of the town of Falluja (population 360,000), killing hundreds of its inhabitants. The objective of the operation was to cleanse the town of the terrorist bands acting as part of a "Ba'athist conspiracy".

But we should recall that on June 16 2003, barely six weeks after President Bush had claimed victory in Iraq, two reporters for the Knight Ridder newspaper group wrote this about the Falluja area: "In dozens of interviews during the past five days, most residents across the area said there was no Ba'athist or Sunni conspiracy against US soldiers, there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops ... One woman said, after her husband was taken from their home because of empty wooden crates which they had bought for firewood, that the US is guilty of terrorism."

Soldiers who are set down in a country where they were told they would be welcomed as liberators and find they are surrounded by a hostile population become fearful and trigger-happy. On March 4 nervous, frightened GIs manning a roadblock fired on the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, just released by kidnappers, and an intelligence service officer, Nicola Calipari, whom they killed.

We have all read reports of US soldiers angry at being kept in Iraq. Such sentiments are becoming known to the US public, as are the feelings of many deserters who are refusing to return to Iraq after home leave. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on June 17, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush's handling of the situation.

But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.

More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism", ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less.

The Bush administration, unable to capture the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, invaded Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Yet it still does not know where the criminals are. Not knowing what weapons Saddam Hussein was hiding, it invaded and bombed Iraq in March 2003, disregarding the UN, killing thousands of civilians and soldiers and terrorising the population; and not knowing who was and was not a terrorist, the US government confined hundreds of people in Guantánamo under such conditions that 18 have tried to commit suicide.

The Amnesty International Report 2005 notes: "Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times ... When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity".

The "war on terrorism" is not only a war on innocent people in other countries; it is a war on the people of the US: on our liberties, on our standard of living. The country's wealth is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of the young are being stolen.

The Iraq war will undoubtedly claim many more victims, not only abroad but also on US territory. The Bush administration maintains that, unlike the Vietnam war, this conflict is not causing many casualties. True enough, fewer than 2,000 service men and women have lost their lives in the fighting. But when the war finally ends, the number of its indirect victims, through disease or mental disorders, will increase steadily. After the Vietnam war, veterans reported congenital malformations in their children, caused by Agent Orange.

Officially there were only a few hundred losses in the Gulf war of 1991, but the US Gulf War Veterans Association has reported 8,000 deaths in the past 10 years. Some 200,000 veterans, out of 600,000 who took part, have registered a range of complaints due to the weapons and munitions used in combat. We have yet to see the long-term effects of depleted uranium on those currently stationed in Iraq.

Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

From Howard Zinn