President Addresses the Nation from the USS Abraham Lincoln - See the video here - you won't be disappointed!

Edgy satire of the President's speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln that uses cleverly edited video of his speech, Star Wars images, and Guns N' Roses music. Requires Quicktime video player

Bush Officials Change Tune on Iraqi Weapons

The Bush administration has changed its tune on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the reason it went to war there. Instead of looking for vast stocks of banned materials, it is now pinning its hopes on finding documentary evidence. (in other words, things that are easier to forge, plant, and lie about!)

The change in rhetoric, apparently designed in part to dampen public expectations, has unfolded gradually in the past month as special U.S. military teams have found little to justify the administration's claim that Iraq (news - web sites) was concealing vast stocks of chemical and biological agents and was actively working on a covert nuclear weapons program.

"The administration seems to be hoping that inconvenient facts will disappear from the public discourse. It's happening to a large degree," said Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think-tank which opposed the war.

Few politicians have raised the issue, not wishing to question a popular military victory. However, California Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said last week she was concerned.

"Though I was convinced of the case made prior to the war, I am increasingly concerned about the lack of progress in uncovering the Iraqi weapons. We need a thorough accounting of what intelligence was available to Congress and war planners before and during the conflict," she said.

In a New York Times/CBS poll released on Tuesday, 49 percent said the administration overestimated the amount of banned weapons in Iraq, while 29 percent said its estimates were accurate and 12 percent said they were low. more

Is U.S. foreign policy being run by followers of Leo Strauss, an obscure German Jewish political philosopher whose views were elitist, amoral and hostile to democratic government?

What Bush and the Neo-Cons believe:

1. Within societies, some are fit to lead, and others only fit to be led. Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.

2. Religion is the glue that holds society together and that separating church and state was the biggest mistake made by the founders of the U.S. republic.

3. Secular society is the worst possible thing because it leads to individualism, liberalism and relativism, precisely those traits that might encourage dissent, which in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats.

4. Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other people.

5. The collapse of the USSR, the 'evil empire', threatened America's inner stability and that political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat and if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured..

6. Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because the public need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them. Policy advisers have to deceive their own publics and even their rulers in order to protect their countries.

7. Peace leads to decadence. Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what is needed to keep a country and it's economy vital, and a belligerent foreign policy is necessary.

They really have total contempt for liberalism and democracy, but they're attempting to conquer the world in the name of liberalism and democracy. Democracy stands in their way and yet a pretense of democracy serves their purpose.

(Above excerpted from article below, "Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse" - By Jim Lobe)

Blowback in Riyadh By William Rivers Pitt

The compounds were a holdover from the Saudi oil boom of the 1970s, a place where non-Muslims as well as Saudis seeking distance from the hard social rules in Riyadh could have a drink, a place where their wives could wear a swimsuit to the pool without being covered from head to toe. It was a place where you could be a Westerner in the beating heart of Islam, driving distance from Mecca and Medina. The compounds had names – al Hamra, Vinnell and Eshbiliya – gated and guarded communities for those doing long-term business in the Saudi capital.

At 11:25pm on Monday night, these protected compounds transformed into the newest battleground in George W. Bush's War on Terror. Gunmen clashed with sentries, hands reached through barriers to slap buttons that opened the gates, and three bomb-laden vehicles roared in to explode themselves and their drivers beside the choicest targets they could find. When it was done, at least eight Americans were among the 29 people dead.

Secretary of State Colin Powell rushed out to proclaim that the attacks had the "earmarks of al Qaeda" due to the fact, he said, that the whole thing was staged with multiple impacts brought home by suicide squads. In fact, the evidence of al Qaeda involvement in this attack is almost beyond doubt.

The spokesman for al Qaeda, Thabet bin Qais, was quoted by reporters on May 7 – that is one week ago, for the record - as saying, quite bluntly, that Osama bin Laden's forces were gearing up for a series of attacks. The London-based Al-Majalla magazine received an email the day before the attacks from an al Qaeda operative named Abu Mohammed Ablaj. The email described arms the operatives had stored and martyrdom squads that were about to attack. "Beside targeting the heart of America, among the strategic priorities now is to target and execute operations in the Gulf countries and allies of the United States," Ablaj wrote.

American agents on the ground in Saudi Arabia, upon hearing these warnings, tried in vain to get security beefed up around these soft targets. These pleas were ignored until explosions rocked Riyadh.

George W. Bush, speaking at a rally in Indianapolis to promote his tax cut, said, "The United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice."

Does this sound familiar? It should.

The Bush administration was warned many weeks before the 9/11 attacks that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were planning to attack prominent American targets with hijacked commercial airplanes. The Egyptian, Israeli, Russian and Germam intelligence services delivered these warnings in the strongest possible terms. On the home front, FBI officials like Robert Wright, John O'Neill and the officers in the Minnesota branch were screaming that an attack was impending, that we were unprepared, that we were ignoring the blood-obvious facts staring us in the face.

Nothing, but nothing, was done. The explosions came, the bodies dropped, and here we are. This is a microcosm of September 11, right down to the Presidential reaction.

American justice did a bang-up job on the city of Baghdad, and the thousands of Iraqi civilians who were killed, maimed and continue even today to die there can attest to the callous recklessness behind our idea of "Doing What Is Right." Unsurprisingly, the war in Iraq did exactly nothing to make our citizens at home or abroad safer. The eight American corpses who were blown sideways out of their homes in Riyadh are evidence enough of that. In fact, the scene at the compounds in Saudi Arabia proves that our war did, in fact, make the world a more dangerous place.

The CIA calls what happened in Riyadh 'blowback.' There will be more, as promised by Thabet bin Qais, who said al Qaeda had reorganized and was planning attacks against the United States on the scale of September 11. The bloodstains and smoking craters in Riyadh indicate that these guys always keep their promises.

We went to war in Iraq on a number of flawed and blatantly incorrect premises. There is no fearful arsenal of mass destruction weapons; there is no liberty for the Iraqi people; there were no terrorists, nor was there ever a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. To fight this war, we drastically scaled back our operations in Afghanistan – the new Bush budget has precisely no dollars set aside to pay for operations and democratization/reconstruction there – and allowed al Qaeda to reassemble in safety. We also alienated the entire global community in the process. We need their help, whether we like it or not, to get the intelligence required to stop these attacks.

"The United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice," said George. Will they learn this meaning the way Osama bin Laden, still alive and free after almost two years, has learned it? Will they learn it the way Saddam Hussein, still alive and free as well, has learned it? Thousands and thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians have learned what justice means to George W. Bush. It means a terrible grinding death in the dirt while the real killers get away.

Such a catalog of failure and shame is the Bush administration record to date. They walked away from the Israel/Palestine talks and let that situation turn into a bloody horror. They pointedly ignored a vast array of warnings about impending terror attacks in the summer of 2001 and let that situation turn into the nightmare we currently endure. They fought a war in Afghanistan and walked away before the job was done, allowing the enemy to escape and regroup. They poured vital resources into an Iraq war that did nothing to curb terrorism and did everything to inspire and motivate the terrorists. They passed tax cuts and budgets that steal money from the coffers of Homeland Security – that means cops and fire fighters and emergency response crews – to make sure their wealthy friends and corporate sponsors feel well and truly loved.

September 11 did not remove from the earth the concept of right and wrong. It did not redefine the meaning of the words Lie, Steal and Murder. It did not reinvent reality in the way Bush wishes it did. New York Governor George Pataki, at a pro-Iraq-war rally on April 10, said, "The war started here on Sept. 11, 2001." This statement attempted to directly connect the Iraqi civilians who were getting cluster-bombed with the deaths of those 3,000 who perished on that terrible day. This was a lie, a wretched one, promoted for months by the Bush administration and promulgated by mouthpieces like Pataki.

Now, in Riyadh, we see what we have won. We have been awarded courtside seats at the event of the century. George W. Bush and his handlers believe 9/11 granted them the ability to reinvent America and the world according to their own perverted ultra-conservative views. We will be lucky to live through it. If we are smart, we will get rid of these wretches before too many more bombs go off, before too many more people die, before things go past the point of no return, before America is a burned-out hulk crouching in defeat beside history's wide highway.

Bush: Saudi Terrorists to suffer same fate as Bin Laden, Hussein (which means they get a free pass!)

pResident Bush said today that those responsible for suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia that left dozens dead would be discussed at length in speeches and on cable news, but eventually forgotten.

"These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate," Bush said in Indianapolis on a tour to promote tax cuts. "And the United States will find the planners of this terrorist act, show clips of them on the news, use them as political leverage, invade a country or two in their name, and finally move on to the next thing."

"This tax cut is important, and would represent a major blow against terror," President Bush said. "These hateful men only seek the end of America... the war on terror will never be fully won without my tax cut." more Of course, this is satire - but soooo true!

Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense: Thank Clinton for a speedy victory in Iraq

Well well! This is sure to get reTHUGlican's panties in a wad! After all that crap about Clinton destroying the military, a former aid to the President many republicans feel was the best of the 20th century says it was Clinton's military that defeated Iraq!

While it is understandable that pResident George W. Bush and his secretary of defense are receiving plaudits for the relatively swift military victory in Iraq, the fact of the matter is that most of the credit for the successful military operation should go to the Clinton administration.

As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted, the battle plan that led to the American success was that of General Tommy Franks, an Army officer appointed to head the Central Command by the Clinton administration. More important, the military forces that executed that plan so boldly and bravely were for the most part recruited, trained, and equipped by the Clinton administration.

The first Bush defense budget went into effect on Oct. 1, 2002, and none of the funds in that budget have yet had an impact on the quality of the men and women in the armed services, their readiness for combat, or the weapons they used to obliterate the Iraqi forces.

Given the way that Bush and his surrogates disparaged Clinton's approach to the military in his 2000 campaign, this is ironic. The president and his advisers claimed that Clinton had diminished the armed forces' fighting edge by turning them into social workers and sending them too often on ''useless'' nation-building exercises. These same people also claimed that Clinton had so underfunded the military that it was in a condition similar to that which existed on the eve of Pearl Harbor.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2000, Vice President Dick Cheney summed up the Bush team's sentiment toward what Clinton had done to the military: He went around the country telling the military and the nation that help and additional support were on the way for our troops.

Anyone examining the facts would know that these claims were bogus. The Clinton administration actually spent more money on defense than had the outgoing administration of the first President Bush. The smaller outlays during the first Bush administration were developed and approved by Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who were then serving as secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff respectively.

Clinton's last secretary of defense, William Cohen, turned over to Rumsfeld a defense budget that was higher in real terms than what James Schlesinger had bequeathed to Rumsfeld when he took over the Pentagon for the first time in 1975 at the height of the Cold War.

Not only did Clinton spend a large amount of money on the military; most of it was spent wisely. In the first Persian Gulf War, less than 10 percent of the bombs and missiles that were dropped on Iraq were smart weapons. That number jumped to 70 percent during this war because the Clinton administration ordered large quantities of upgraded munitions that made these ''dumb'' weapons smart. The Clinton administration also invested heavily in the technology that gave the on-scene commanders a much more vivid picture of the battlefield than a decade ago.

It was the Clinton administration that improved the accuracy of the Tomahawk cruise missile and upgraded the Patriot missile, which was so much more effective this time than the original Patriot in the first Persian Gulf War. The Clinton administration also kept the quality of our military personnel high by closing the gap between military and private sector compensation, a gap that the first Bush administration had allowed to grow, and improving retirement and health benefits for military retirees.

So if this latest military effort warrants a victory parade for the troops, let's insist that Clinton and his secretaries of defense are invited. They deserve it. And if the Bush administration wants to learn how to rebuild the nation of Iraq, they might ask their predecessors how to go about it.

Lawrence J. Korb, director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, was assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)



Criticism Grows at U.S. Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons

Criticism is mounting at the failure of the United States to find Iraqi nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs, with some experts raising questions about U.S. intelligence as well as the way the Bush administration justified the war.

Over a month after the end of hostilities launched by President Bush to find and destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, special U.S. military teams have found little to justify the administration's claim that Iraq was concealing vast stocks of chemical and biological agents and was actively working on a covert nuclear weapons program.

Last week's disclosure that a possible biological mobile weapons lab had been found was the most definitive development so far. Even that discovery, if confirmed, fell far short of claims made by Bush and other officials before the war.

"We can conclude that the large number of deployed chemical weapons the administration said that Iraq had are not there. We can also conclude that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was not nearly as sophisticated as the administration claimed," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq. more

More on Job Loss Under Bush mis-Administration from Minority Staff of House Appropriations Committee:

One question: How can the GOP go to the floor of the House today and talk with a straight face about their tax policies creating jobs? Let's take a look at the historical record:

Fact 1: The historical record shows that the nation has lost 1.7 million jobs SINCE Bush's first tax break for the wealthy. Period. It's a fact.

Fact 2: The jobs crisis started well after Bush took office. During the months of Oct, Nov, Dec of 2000 the three months prior to the Bush inauguration, nearly 300,000 jobs were added to the economy. Even in January of 2001, employers hired 63,000 more workers and in February 75,000 more
people were hired. Period. A fact.

Fact 3: The jobs crisis began well BEFORE September 11th and AFTER the first Bush tax cut. In the six months BETWEEN the introduction of the Bush tax cut and the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Labor Department data show that almost 500,000 jobs were lost. Period. A fact.

In reality, the GOP tax package creates two kinds of jobs: corporate lobbying, and hired help at the mansions of the GOP's wealthiest campaign donors.

Pasted are some background materials about more of the historical record of GOP tax cuts over the years and their effect on job creation...you be the judge.

George Bush & Unemployment

With President Bush pushing forward with his economic policy that has helped create a massive unemployment crisis, a closer analysis of the employment data shows that this crisis has now spread to almost every corner of the nation. Specifically, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is possible to see how many jobs have been lost by city and state since Bush took office. Here are some highlights from those findings:

TWENTY-FOUR CITIES LOST OVER 4% OF THEIR WORKFORCE SINCE BUSH TOOK OFFICE: According to BLS data, more than 24 major cities in America have lost more than 4% of their entire workforce since Bush took office. Among the worst hit are Boulder, CO which has lost 16.7% of its workforce; San Jose, CA which has lost 15.9% of its workforce; San Francisco, CA which has lost 10.2% of its workforce; Flint, MI which has lost 7.7% of its workforce; and Greenville, SC which has lost 6.8% of its workforce.

37 STATES AND 173 CITIES HAVE LOST JOBS SINCE BUSH TOOK OFFICE: Out of 300 city/metropolitan areas and 50 states surveyed, 173 cities and 37 states
have seen their workforces reduced since Bush took office.

MORE THAN 2 MILLION JOBS LOST SINCE BUSH TOOK OFFICE: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), total non-farm employment in January 2001
was 132,413,900. The latest data from January 2003 shows that total non-farm employment is now 130,089,400 - a loss of more than 2.3 million jobs in just two years.

EMPLOYMENT WAS STILL RISING WHEN BUSH TOOK OFFICE: During the months of Oct, Nov, Dec of 2000, the three months prior to the Bush inauguration, nearly 300,000 jobs were added to the economy. Even in January of 2001, employers hired 63,000 more workers and in February 75,000 more people were hired. In other words, the recession started under Bush.

UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS STARTED AFTER BUSH TAX CUT AND BEFORE 9/11: In February, Bush introduced his first tax cut proposal, saying "today, I am sending to Congress my plan to provide relief to all income taxpayers, which I believe will help jump-start the American economy...Americans are hearing, and some feeling, the economic slowdown...A warning light is flashing on the dashboard of our economy. And we just can't drive on and hope for the best; we must act without delay" [Bush, 2/28/01]. Instead, the opposite happened. In the six months between the introduction of the tax cut and the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Labor Department data show that almost 500,000 jobs were lost. While the White House has claimed that the unemployment crisis was due to September 11th, this data prove that that clearly is not
the case.

BUSH LOSING MORE THAN 73,000 JOBS PER MONTH - THE WORST IN LAST TWO DECADES: Overall, the economy has shed an average of 73,400 jobs per month since Bush was inaugurated - the worst rate for any Administration in the last two decades. The President would have to create 141,000 jobs per month in order
not to have the worst 4-year job record of any President in the last 60 years.

LONG TERM UNEMPLOYMENT BACK TO BUSH I LEVELS: The long-term unemployment picture (those unemployed for more than 15 weeks) is at the same level it
was during the worst of Bush I. In January 1993, the long-term unemployment rate was at roughly 3.3 million - exactly where it is according to our latest data.

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Commercial Critical of Bush Tax Cuts Rejected by Cable Provider

The local branch of cable provider Cox Communications has refused to air a television commercial critical of President Bush's tax cut plan that re-enacts a blood plasma drive held to help pay a teacher's salary. The spot was turned down because Cox officials in Phoenix found the commercial "in poor taste," said Andrea Katsenes, company spokeswoman. (translation: We don't want to offend the Fuhrer)

The ad recreates an actual event in Eugene, Ore., last month in which 50 parents lined up outside a clinic to sell their blood plasma to help pay a teacher's salary.

"George Bush's tax cuts for the rich" are to blame for shortfalls in education funding, the commercial contends. See the commercial here.

Secret Service Questions High School Students

For years the classroom has been the setting for the free expression of ideas, but two weeks ago certain ideas led to two students being taken out of class and grilled by the United States Secret Service.

It happened at Oakland High. The discussion was about the war in Iraq. That's when two students made comments about the President of the United States. While the exact wording is up for debate, the teacher didn't consider it mere criticism, but a direct threat and she called the Secret Service.

Teacher Cassie Lopez says, "They were so shaken up and afraid."

Now, other teachers are coming to the aid of the two students and crying foul.

"I would start with the teacher, she made a poor judgement," Lopez says.

Teacher Larry Felson says, "What we're concerned about is academic freedom and that students have the right to free expression in the classroom."

Even worse, they say, is the fact that the students were grilled by federal agents without legal counsel or their parents present, just the principal.

"When one of the students asked, 'do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?' they were told, 'we own you, you don't have any legal rights,'" Felson says.

"We don't want federal agents or police coming in our schools and interrogating our children at the whim of someone who has a hunch something might be wrong," Lopez says.
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"I can't believe that the police have not arrested Michael Moore yet for subverting the Bush Administration and speaking out against it?" -- A poster from CBS MarketWatch message board, obviously oblivious to the First Amendment and a big fan of Joseph McCarthy.

Disney's Miramax To Bankroll Michael Moore's Next Documentary Fahrenheit 911

Looks like Michael Moore's recruited some deep pockets for his latest assault on the man he calls the "fictitious President," George W. Bush.

The controversial Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker behind last year's Bowling for Columbine, who turned his acceptance speech into an anti-Bush tirade, will have his next documentary bankrolled by Miramax, Reuters reports.

Moore described the documentary as "in part the story of twin errant sons of different oilmen," in an interview with New York Times columnist Frank Rich last month.

Moore said he plans to investigate the historical ties that the Bush family had with the bin Ladens for many years via the Carlyle Group and the little-publicized report that the Bush administration allowed 24 bin Laden family members to leave the U.S. on a private Saudi jet before the FBI could question them in the months after 9-11.

Though the Roger & Me helmer noted that such talk alleging a link between Bush and bin Laden may ultimately "mean nothing," he believes it's worth bringing up.

"Here's one question I want to pose," Moore told the Times. "What if on the day after Oklahoma City, Bill Clinton, suddenly worried about the safety of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo, allowed a jet to pick them all up and take them out of the country, not to return?" more

Graham: Bush Admin. Blocking 9/11 Report

Bob Graham accused the Bush administration Thursday of stonewalling on the public release of a congressional report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"The only reason that delay has occurred is because the administration does not want our report to be available to the American people," said Graham, Florida's senior senator and the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

After months of investigation and a series of congressional hearings last year, the House and Senate Intelligence panels wrapped up their report Dec. 20 and released a summary. The full report is still under review at the FBI and CIA, which are trying to determine whether any disclosure of information might pose a risk to national security and should remain classified.

Graham, who chaired the committee at the time the report was completed, said he thinks the White House is behind the delay.

"They don't want this report to come out," he said. "There has not been in my memory, and I would question whether there has been in modern American history, an administration that was so committed to secrecy as this Bush administration."

The White House had no immediate comment.

Graham said the administration is using "classification to cover up information that is not a legitimate threat to America's security, but rather to avoid the American people's opportunity to know what happened, why and what this administration has done about it." more

Will the White House block a terror panel’s access to critical documents?

An imminent and potentially nasty confrontation over an independent commission’s authority to investigate the White House’s handling of the September 11 terror attacks was narrowly averted last week—just before President Bush landed a jet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in a carefully crafted ceremony touting the toppling of Saddam Hussein as a major victory in the war on terrorism.

But the battle over the issue is far from over. In fact, NEWSWEEK has learned, President Bush’s chief lawyer has privately signaled that the White House may seek to invoke executive privilege over key documents relating to the attacks in order to keep them out of the hands of investigators for the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States—the independent panel created by Congress to probe all aspects of 9-11.

Some commission members now fear a showdown over the issue—particularly over extremely sensitive National Security Council minutes and presidential briefing papers—could be coming in the next few weeks. “We do think it’s important to engage this issue relatively early—i.e., now,” says Philip Zelikow, the executive director for the commission, who is negotiating with administration lawyers to inspect documents and interview senior officials.

Zelikow says he is still hopeful an accommodation can be reached with administration lawyers and that the issue is now in the hands of senior officials in the White House. But he made it clear that the 9-11 panel has no intention of backing down from its insistence that it receive full access to a wide range of material that has never been reviewed by any outside body—much less made public. “We expect to get what we need,” Zelikow says. “We’re not going to go quietly into that good night.”

Zelikow’s comments, and even stronger ones from some commission members, suggest that last week’s brief contretemps over access to transcripts of secret congressional testimony was only one small flare-up in a much broader and potentially high-stakes struggle that could ultimately wind up in federal court.

Just two weeks ago, one commission member, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, had sought to read transcripts of three days of closed hearings that had been held last fall by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees—hearings that Roemer, as a member of the House panel, had actually participated in.

But when Roemer went down to a carefully guarded room on Capitol Hill to read the classified transcripts—he says to refresh his memory—he was stunned to learn that he couldn’t have access to them. The reason, relayed by a congressional staffer, was that Zelikow had acceded to a request by an administration official to permit lawyers to first review them to determine if the transcripts contained testimony about “privileged” material.

Roemer called the deal “outrageous” and 9-11 family members victims bombarded the panel with angry calls. But late Tuesday, White House lawyers relented, thereby averting an embarrassing public escalation of the dispute—and inevitable charges of a White House cover-up—that could well have marred last Thursday’s highly publicized ceremony aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in which Bush declared the military action in Iraq “one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on.”

But that by no means settled the matter, sources say. Publicly, the White House has pledged cooperation with the panel and two months ago chief of staff Andrew Card even distributed a memo to agency chiefs instructing them to work with the panel and provide them access to documents. But privately, talks have been far more problematic. Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who Bush named to chair the panel, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that in private talks with White House chief council Alberto Gonzales, the president’s chief lawyer, has already told him that he “may seek to invoke executive privilege” over some documents sought by the commission.

Executive privilege is a doctrine traditionally invoked by all White Houses to keep confidential briefings or advice given to the president. But the precise boundaries of the doctrine are hardly settled. And it is far from clear how a White House attempt to withhold material from a congressionally authorized national commission on 9-11 will play out.

Gonzales and the rest of the White House legal staff are known to feel particularly passionate about the sanctity of staff advice given to the president—a view that reflects Bush’s and Vice President Dick Cheney’s adamant opinion that internal executive-branch decision-making should be conducted without fear of congressional or media scrutiny. “Those are like the crown jewels—we’ll never give those up,” one White House lawyer predicted to NEWSWEEK recently when asked about presidential briefing papers that were likely to be sought by the commission.

But some commission members say it might be politically difficult for the White House to sustain that position—especially given the panel’s broad legal mandate to unearth all pertinent facts relating to the events of 9-11. The invocation of executive privilege could fuel suspicions that the White House is stonewalling the panel in order to cover up politically embarrassing mistakes. “I think they have got to be worried about this,” says one panel member. “This is a bipartisan commission, and we’ve got the family members.”

Among the most sensitive documents the commission is known to be interested in reviewing are internal National Security Council minutes from the spring and summer of 2001 when the CIA and other intelligence agencies were warning that an attack by Al Qaeda could well be imminent. The panel is also expected to seek interviews with key principals—such as national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her chief deputy, Stephen J. Hadley—to question them both about advice they gave the president and about what actions they took to deal with the rising concerns of intelligence-community officials about the Qaeda threat.

An equally dicey subject, sources say, is the commission’s expected request to review debriefings of key Al Qaeda suspects who have been arrested—such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh—who played critical roles in the 9-11 plot. The intelligence community has treated those debriefs as among the most highly classified material in the government, and the Justice Department is stoutly resisting a ruling by the federal judge overseeing the Zacarias Moussoui case to make bin al-Shibh available to the defense.

But commission members argue that they can’t possibly do their job to write an authoritative history of 9-11 if they can’t discover what the federal government has learned from Al Qaeda operatives who know the most about how the plot was put together.

TERRORISTS? WHAT TERRORISTS?

After his trip to Damascus last weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell proclaimed new progress in the war on terror. The Syrian government, he announced, had agreed to shut down offices of Hamas and two other militant anti-Israel groups that the U.S. government views as violent terrorist organizations.

It is still far from clear how much the Syrians will actually make good on their promises to Powell. But if they do, Syria may turn out to be more helpful than some of the United States’ supposed European allies in the war on terror. Despite renewed pressure from the Bush administration, the European Union is refusing to crack down on some of the same organizations on the grounds that they aren’t terrorists—despite their role in staging suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The issue came to a head late last year, NEWSWEEK has learned, when Jimmy Gurule—then a top U.S. Treasury official involved in cracking down on terrorist financing—asked his counterparts at the European Union to freeze the assets of six organizations on Washington’s terrorist list. According to a copy of the list obtained by NEWSWEEK, the targeted groups included Hamas, two Hamas-related businesses (the Al-Azsa Religious Bank and Beit al-mal Holdings) and Hizbullah, as well as two others outside the Middle East, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka and the Communist Party of the Philippines. But in the case of Hamas and Hizbullah, the European Union refused. The purported reason: both groups run large-scale social services and medical operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Europeans say that they have no problem going after the terrorist arms of both outfits—but not the entire group, a distinction that Washington rejects as meaningless.

At the moment, sources tell NEWSWEEK, the issue is at a stalemate—one more sign that when it comes to the war on terror, the perspective in Washington can often be sharply different than the view in other capitals, even those of our traditional allies.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Ten Lessons of the Iraq War by David Krieger

There are always lessons to be learned after a war. Often governments and pundits focus only on lessons having to do with military strategies and tactics, such as troop deployments, engagement in battles, bombing targets and the effectiveness of different weapons systems. There are, of course, far bigger lessons to be learned, and here are some of the principal ones from the Iraq War.

1. In the eyes of the Bush administration, the relevance of international organizations such as the United Nations depends primarily upon their willingness to rubberstamp US policy, legal or illegal, moral or immoral.

2. The Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War may be employed against threats that have no basis in fact.

3. The American people appear to take little notice of the “bait and switch” tactic of initiating a war to prevent use of weapons of mass destruction and then celebrating regime change when no such weapons are found.

4. A country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, can achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry.

5. Embedding journalists with troops leads to reporters providing only perspectives sanctioned by the military in their reports to the public. It is analogous to the imprinting of ducklings.

6. The American people can be easily manipulated, with the help of both embedded and non-embedded media, to support an illegal war.

7. An imperial presidency does not require Congress to exercise its Constitutional authority to declare war; it requires only a compliant Congress to provide increasingly large sums of money for foreign wars.

8. It is far easier to destroy a dictatorial regime by military might than it is to rebuild a country as a functioning democracy.

9. If other countries wish to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, they better develop strong arsenals of weapons of mass destruction for protection against potential US aggression.

10. In all wars it is the innocent who suffer most. Thus, Saddam Hussein remains unaccounted for and George Bush stages a jet flight to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, while Ali Ismaeel Abbas lies in a hospital bed without his parents and brother, who were killed in a US attack, and without his arms.

The most important lessons of the Iraq War may be as yet unrevealed, but there is a sense that American unilateralism is likely to continue to alienate important allies, while the triumphalism of the Bush administration is likely to taunt terrorists, making them more numerous and tenacious in their commitment to violent retaliation.

Who Does The GOP Fear Most? Hillary Clinton!

Mailing Seeks Funds to Stop Sen. Clinton

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton repeatedly insists she isn't running for president, but a new nationwide Republican effort aims to raise funds for the 2004 election by suggesting the GOP has to stop her.

"Are you ready for a new Clinton era in Washington?" the letter from the Republican Presidential Task Force begins. "...It could happen. But only if you let it."

The appeal being sent this week continues: "If Republicans don't take immediate steps to counter her, Senator Hillary Clinton will continue to rise unimpeded to the very pinnacle of power in Washington and we will see the dawning of a new, more liberal Clinton era."

The three-page letter points out that the New York senator has said she will not run for president in 2004. Nevertheless, it focuses on Clinton's quick rise through the ranks of the Democratic Party since winning office in 2000, arguing that she has become her party's "top fund-raiser, their top ideologue, their leading voice in opposition to President Bush."

High polling numbers for Clinton among Democrats have fueled speculation about her plans, but she has repeatedly said she will not run in 2004.

The Republican letter, written by Task Force chairman Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, cites several news reports describing Clinton as a burgeoning political force.

Allen, who also serves as the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, writes that his group will launch "a new mission: To stop Hillary."

A $120 donation earns donors "Platinum Member" status and makes them eligible for a membership card, lapel pin and ceremonial American flag.

"Only with your support will we have the resources to battle the multimillions of dollars Hillary Clinton is raising from deep-pocketed liberals," the letter says. more

HA HA! Imagine the American Nazi Party scared of a woman! THAT must really eat then up! Bunch of cave dwelling knuckle dragging dumbasses. GO HILLARY!

Bush's Fighter Jet Ploy Stolen From Vladimir Putin Playbook

Thanks to MWO for bringing this story to light. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who George W. Bush fondly calls Pooty Poot, scored points in Russia in 2000 by making an unannounced trip to Chechnya by SU-27 fighter jet. Mr. Putin even wore a bomber jacket and pilot's mask. One news agency reported he took the controls during the flight. Just like republinazi hero George W. Bush, Putin lacked any viable economic programs when he made the showing and used it a cover for his failed domestic agenda.

Bush is hoping his fighter jet stunt will boost his image as a tough and decisive leader ahead of a presidential election - just like Putin! Meanwhile, unemployment still stands at a troubling 6% and a staggering seasonally unadjected 10%!

Of course, who needs jobs when Bush is such a badass he can land a fighter jet - assisted by a real trained pilot.

Stories: Christian Science Monitor | Associated Press | Other

What is interesting about Bush's copycat move is he is not qualified to pilot the S-3B jet much less make a carrier landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Navy Cmdr. Skip Lussier actually made the landing. Many have been led to believe that the pResident was actually at the controls and executed the landing. This is not true.

The Clinton Wars Part 3: God's whip hand

Convinced he is the instrument of the deity, bug killer Tom DeLay uses money and threats of political extermination to flay House Republicans into voting for impeachment.

The November 1998 midterm election was a smashing victory for the Democrats. Instead of losing 22 seats in the House as Speaker Newt Gingrich had confidently predicted, the Democrats picked up seats -- only the second time in the century when the party of the incumbent president had done so in the midterms. The results gave a sharp, clear statement against impeachment. Instead of enjoying the fruits of victory, Gingrich was suddenly confronted by a rebellion within his own party. Overcome with anger and anxiety, worried that his own extramarital affair would be exposed, he decided in a fit of pique to resign. The Republicans' Robespierre made his last appearance before his Committee for the Public Safety, the House Republican Conference, and then walked out of the room holding hands with his wife, to return to his Georgia redoubt, where he soon left her for his mistress.

The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee inhabited a world of their own and resisted intrusions that might upset it. They had expected they would win the midterm and believed with every fiber of their beings they should have. They knew they had lost the midterm because of their insistence on trying to impeach a popular president, but they could not reverse themselves. The more the White House tried to move forward from the election result, the more they rebelled against it. The more they thought about it, the more they believed they were right. Their losing, they decided, was another of Clinton's offenses. more

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Bush was like Hitler, says weapons inspector

A former United Nations weapons inspector has compared the invasion of Iraq to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

He told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that 130 Americans had died "for a lie", adding: "I see no difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Poland in 1939."

Both invasions were based on what he said was an artificial argument of self defence. President George W Bush had used the September 11 attacks as Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag to repress domestic dissidents. more

Report: Richard Perle Told Investors How They Could Profit From War In Iraq Weeks Before It Started!

The Bush administration is a real class act, huh? Richard Perle, who recently resigned as chairman of Donald Rumsfeld’s Defence Policy Board, briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on possible war in the two countries. Perle also serves on the board of several defense contractors who most definitely profited from Bush's illegal Iraqi war.

Perle attended a Defense Intelligence Agency briefing in February and three weeks later participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call in which he advised investors in a talk titled Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?

A financial advisor who participated in the conference call told reporters that Perle offered "advice on how to cash if war broke out in Iraq and/or North Korea."

One of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's closest advisers, Perle was a vocal advocate of going to war against Iraq. He resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board on March 27 after it was reported he had worked as a consultant to bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd., which was trying to get Pentagon approval to be sold to Asian investors.

In offering his resignation, Perle, 61, denied any wrongdoing and said he didn't want questions about his outside interests to be a distraction to Rumsfeld. He remained a member of the board.

"The guiding principle here is that you do not give advice in the Defense Policy Board on any particular matter in which you have an interest," he said at the time. "And I don't do that. I haven't done that."

A Congressional House Judiciary Committee instigated investigation is looming with far reaching implications. Perle was, after all, a close advisor to Donald Rumsfeld. more

Newsmax: Graham Eyeing Evidence That Bush Blew 9/11

I don't usually quote Newsmax because it's such an ass kisser for the reTHUGlican party. Even when it does post something potentially damaging to Republicans it either spins it into being Bill Clinton's fault or is set up tomprovide talking points for Republicans to defend the action. In this case, Newsmax does both with an interesting story on George W. Bush's complicity in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and Presidential Candidate Bob Graham's knowledge of it.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bob Graham is reportedly sitting on damaging evidence that the Bush administration could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks - but he hasn't released the information yet because it's classified.

"I think Bob Graham has a smoking pistol on the Bush administration," Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford told WABC Radio's John Batchelor and Paul Alexander late Tuesday.

Crawford explained that Graham's mystery evidence has to do with "their failures, particularly intelligence failures, before 9/11."

In recent weeks Sen. Graham, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has charged repeatedly that Bush bungled the war on terrorism. But the ex-Florida governor has never publicly suggested that he thought the president had left America vulnerable to the 9/11 attacks. (Slayer's note: That was Newsmax's first talking point for republicans. They're saying that when this story breaks wide open, point out that Bush never left America vulnerable to the 9/11 attacks which is exactly what happened with Bush's intelligence failures. This is a set-up to blame it on Clinton.)

Crawford, who's been covering the Florida Democrat's presidential run, said that Graham obtained the Bush-9/11 evidence while serving as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"The problem is that what [Graham] knows - and he knows some very damaging stuff about the Bush administration's failures before 9/11 to prevent 9/11 - he can't talk about because it's classified," he explained.

Another reason for Graham's silence: Republicans would likely complain that Graham has abused his position on the Intelligence Committee by turning it into a tool for opposition research. (Slayer's note: Here is another talking point for republicans. When the story breaks, try to spin it into Graham abusing his power so people will forget the information of Bush's failures. We all now which offense is far and away the worse, but the fascist GOP will tell you otherwise.)

Still, Graham has been publicly hinting at what he knows without going into detail, said the CQ reporter. He quoted a recent speech in which the senator claimed, "I know first hand, as former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, how little this administration has done to provide real security at home while it has directed its attention away from the war on terror abroad."

Crawford said that the presidential hopeful is trying to figure out a way to make the 9/11 evidence against Bush public without violating the secrecy rules on the Intelligence Committee.

"He's got something on Bush. He just can't figure out how to use it," he explained.

If Graham does indeed have evidence implicating the administration in 9/11-related negligence, it would be doubly ironic for the Bush White House, which has gone out of its way not to point fingers at the Clinton administration for its role in leaving America vulnerable to a 9/11-style attack. (Slayer's note: Republican talking point number 3. This, of course, is a lie. The Clinton administration had no role in leaving America vulnerable to a 9/11-style attack and there is no evidence to support the assertion that it did. If you really want to debate former Presidents' complicity in the matter, let's talk Reagan and Bush the first. )

Even an acknowledgement last year by ex-President Clinton that he turned down a deal for Osama bin Laden's extradition to the U.S. prompted only yawns from the Bush political operation.

(Slayer's note: This is a typical republican distortion of the facts. The events surrounding a "deal for Osama bin Laden's extradition to the U.S." is well known. Unfortunately, the facts completely destroy the spin conservatives try to put on the story. In fact, I'd be willing to bet there isn't a republican reading this who can successfully debate me on this.

In regards to the "deal," republicans are intentionally misrepresenting an article that appeared in the Washington Post on Oct. 3, 2001, on this topic. In particular, "the Post reported that during secret negotiations in 1996 between American officials and Sudan defense minister Elfatih Erwa, "The [Khartoum] government was prepared to place [bin Laden] in custody and hand him over. Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. Saudi Arabia, he said, was the most logical destination." The Post then detailed efforts by the White House and the State Department to induce the Saudis to accept custody of bin Laden, which the authorities in Saudi Arabia adamantly refused.

Consider the qualifying line above: Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. This is saying the only way Sudan would give up bin Laden is if someone provided an legitimate legal reason to do so. In 1996 - when the "deal" was offered - the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998) and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole (2000) has not yet occurred. The US had no evidence that bin Laden was behind any attacks prior to 1996 and therefore could not legally take custody of bin Laden.

Nowhere does the Post's carefully worded story state that Sudan agreed to "hand bin Laden over to the United States" -- because that never happened.

Further, Sudan had ulterior motives. They only promised to cooperate against terrorism only if the United States ended economic sanctions imposed to punish their genocidal campaign of murder and enslavement against black Christians.

There have been other alleged foreign "offers" to arrest or track bin Laden, but there is little substance to those stories beyond mere speculation.

Of course, we now see how difficult it is to capture bin Laden. After Reagan and Bush the first trained him, Bush the first couldn't reel them in, Clinton missed him by mere hours, and now George W. Bush has given up on catching him. Parts of this were quoted from the Joe Conason article "Don't Blame Clinton."

Wal-Mart Pulls Racy Magazines from Store Shelves

First Sheryl Crow had to go. Then Barbie's pregnant friend was shunned. Now, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. the world's biggest retailer, is axing three men's magazines known for cover photos of scantily-clad models.

Wal-Mart has pulled Maxim and Stuff magazines, published by Dennis Publishing, and Emap Metro LLC's FHM magazine from its shelves, saying some customers were uncomfortable with their covers.

"Wal-Mart has been the most notorious for refusing to carry, for example, music with warning labels," said Marjorie Heins, director of the Free Expression Policy Project based in New York. "Some of these large chains seem to have their marketing decisions driven by ideological rather than truly financial motivations." more

A mean-spirited America: Today, I fear my own government more than I do terrorists (This is a must read!)

These days, a sense of apprehension and foreboding lurks in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach. It’s a gut-wrenching reminder that something very bad has happened and is about to happen anew. It is an anticipation of the next insult and injury in an America that has been defined under the Bush administration by a profound meanness of spirit.

The evidence of this overwhelming meanness of spirit is everywhere, abroad and at home. Even the administration’s efforts to justify the war in Iraq as one of liberation and declare victory cannot mask the human costs to American troops and their families. How many thousands of Iraqis are dead? Where are the ridiculously named “weapons of mass destruction” that Bush used to justify this invasion? Witness the looting of priceless antiquities, kitsch and cash from Iraqi museums and Saddam Hussein’s palaces and homes, allowed and participated in not only by Iraqis but members of the American armed forces and their “embedfellows,” the media...

Yet to question this war and its aftermath is characterized as at worst treason and at best anti-American cynicism. And woe unto those who criticize Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the Bush administration as they line up at the trough of government contracts to rebuild Iraq and control its oil. Now, the armed forces in Iraq have turned to shooting Iraqi demonstrators, the very people they supposedly came to “liberate” with democracy...

Today, I live in an America that makes my stomach hurt and fills me with terror. A nation run by greedy, frightened, violent bullies. It is time to take our country back before it is too late. more

DJs Suspended for Playing Dixie Chicks

Country station KKCS has suspended two disc jockeys for playing the Dixie Chicks, violating a ban imposed after the group criticized President Bush.

Lead singer Natalie Maines told a British newspaper she was "ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas."

"We pulled their music two months ago, and it's been a difficult decision because how can you ignore the hottest group in country music," station manager Jerry Grant said.

He said there has been discussion about whether to reinstate the music, but the DJs, Dave Moore and Jeff Singer, became impatient.

"They made it very clear that they support wholeheartedly the troops, the military. But they also support the right of free speech," Grant said.

The station has received a couple of hundred calls and 75 percent favored playing the music. more

This is what the so-called Dixie Chicks Backlash has done for their record sales



Their latest CD rises back to #2 this week on Billboard and their concerts are selling out. Free Speech - a wonderful thing!

Hillary Backs Bush Into A Corner...

Senator Clinton Calls for Extension of Jobless Benefits

Senator Hillary Clinton is calling on President Bush and Congress to extend unemployment insurance for America's workers.

At a New York City press conference Sunday, she called for swift passage of the "Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of 2003" which would provide relief to more than 4 (m) million workers hurt by the poor economy.

Clinton noted that at the end of the month, more than 2 (m) million Americans... will begin to lose their unemployment benefits. And she said more than one (m) million Americans... have already exhausted their benefits.

The legislation would extend unemployment benefits for another six months, including 13 weeks of benefits for those who have already exhausted their benefits. more

Of course, if pResident Bush's tax cut for the rich goes through, there won't be any money for additional unemployment benefits which puts him in a precarious situation now that Senator Clinton has put this choice before him: Either give the tax breaks to his rich buddies or take care of the millions of Americans out of work because of his economic policies. He can't do both. And the choice he makes will prove to be very telling as to where his piorities are.

The nation's unemployment rate swelled to 6 percent in April, returning to an eight-year high as employers slashed payrolls even deeper. The ailing economy has lost a half million jobs in three months.

Seasonally unadjusted, the unemployment rate is 10.4 percent!

Dick Cheney's Former Company, Halliburton, Has Ties To Terrorism Congressman Charges

Click here to read Representative Waxman's letter to Donald Rumsfeld. (requires adobe acrobat reader)

The Clinton Wars Part 2: Ken Starr's media minions

Starr had believed that Clinton would be gone within days of the story about Monica Lewinsky breaking. He was incensed that the president's popularity had increased rather than collapsed...

Starr established an atmosphere that was contemptuous of the president. ... Prosecutors... in charge regarded Clinton as morally unfit to hold his office. For them anything to get at Clinton was fair game. "There was a general animosity toward Clinton," I was told. "This was fueled by frustration by not getting anywhere, dead ends on other investigations. So we had to see who he is screwing." Their moral indignation and Republican politics could not be disentangled from their prosecutorial work. "I saw decisions made on moral grounds that had nothing to do with criminal grounds," Dash told me. "They believed that someone was a bad person, a sinful person, who ought to be punished for it. They distorted their judgment. Ken allowed his personal concepts of morality to interfere with the role of a prosecutor."

According to Sam Dash, Starr "could have rounded up" his initial investigation within two years of his appointment, "by 1996 or 1997. On all the issues involving the White House, fairly early he had enough information to conclude." Dash carefully reviewed the prosecution memos in each and every case: Whitewater, Susan McDougal, Webster Hubbell, the White House Travel Office, the FBI files. "They had nothing."

"Starr didn't see the difference between sin and crime. His judgments were distorted." Once on the sex trail, Starr sentenced himself to presenting sex from a certain angle through the peephole. Without proof of anything else, it became Starr's only way of making Clinton's position foul. It is the easiest and basest pornographic technique to depict sex -- any sex, even between the happiest of married couples -- as sordid by using graphic detail. Microscopic, clinical documentation removes the human element as it distances and alienates the viewer (or voyeur). Starr used this method to excite and repel simultaneously. Though he did not himself question a single witness before the grand jury, he personally dictated the compilation of sexual question upon sexual question.

Sex had been a label to explain a cluster of ideas and values that had upset Clinton's enemies for decades. He had always been a screen on which were projected conservative feelings about the 1960s, the counterculture, and race. Through it all, sex had been a tracer, a code. Clinton had been accused of miscegenation -- an ancient and recurrent theme in racist Southern politics -- from the start of his career. In politics, sex is rarely just about sex. The prudish and pedantic Starr was setting off cultural depth charges. more

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out... (short update today...)

Evidence that this war was a sham mounts...

US: 'Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction'

Right about now, the Bush regime is sweating. They wasted all this time, money, and lives on a gamble... and lost!

The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had no weapons of mass destruction.
Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted that they would be 'amazed' if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq.

According to administration sources, Saddam shut down and destroyed large parts of his WMD programmes before the invasion of Iraq.

Ironically, the claims came as US President George Bush yesterday repeatedly justified the war as necessary to remove Iraq's chemical and biological arms which posed a direct threat to America.

Bush claimed: 'Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We will find them.'

The comments from within the administration will add further weight to attacks on the Blair government by Labour backbenchers that there is no 'smoking gun' and that the war against Iraq -- which centred on claims that Saddam was a risk to Britain, America and the Middle East because of unconventional weapons -- was unjustified. more

and then there is this..,

Doubts grow over Iraq 'smoking gun'

Saddam Hussein appears to have shut down or destroyed large parts of his unconventional weapons programmes before the war in Iraq, a senior Bush administration official who has been closely involved in the quest to purge Iraq of weapons of mass destruction said this week.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he would be "amazed if we found weapons-grade plutonium or uranium" and it was unlikely large volumes of biological or chemical material would be discovered. He suggested that the sanctions and UN inspections probably prompted Mr Hussein to dispose of much of his stockpile. more

... even former intelligence agents are speaking out against the sham our unelected fraud pulled... From a letter to George W. Bush...

Not Worth the Paper It's Written On? Intelligence Fiasco

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Intelligence Fiasco

We write to express deep concern over the growing mistrust and cynicism with which many, including veteran intelligence professionals inside and outside our movement, regard the intelligence cited by you and your chief advisers to justify the war against Iraq. The controversy over intelligence on Iraq has deep roots, going back a decade. It came to a head over recent months as intelligence was said to be playing a key role in support of your administrationa's decision to make war on Iraq. And the controversy has now become acute, since you have been backed into the untenable position of assuming the former role of Saddam Hussein in refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors. (Chief UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei noted earlier this week, "We have years of experience and know every scientist worth interviewing.") The implications not only for US credibility abroad but also for the future of US intelligence are immense. They need to be addressed without delay.

Prominent pundits (and, quite probably, some of your own advisers) are now saying it does not matter whether so-called "weapons of mass destruction" are ever found in Iraq. Don't let them fool you. It matters a great deal. The Wall Street Journal had it right in its page-one lead article on April 8:

Officials Debate Involving the UN in Verification: American forces in Iraq are rapidly confronting two other tasks (besides hunting down Saddam Hussein) of enormous importance: finding any weapons of mass destruction and convincing the world the finds are real. The weapons search is a critical one for the Bush administration, which went to war charging that the Iraqi leader had hidden huge amounts of chemical and biological weapons and could pass them on to terrorists. If the US doesn't make any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to war."

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction six weeks after US and UK forces invaded Iraq suggests either that such weapons are simply not there, or that those eventually found there will not be in sufficient quantity or capability to support your repeated claim that Iraq posed a grave threat to our countrya's security. Your opposition to inviting UN inspectors into Iraq feeds the suspicion that you wish to avoid independent verification; some even suggest that your administration wishes to preserve the option of "planting" such weapons to be "discovered" later. Sen. Carl Levin recently warned that, if some are found "Many people around the world will think we planted those weapons, unless the UN inspectors are there with us." more

Woes For Dubyah, or, 'I Wanna Be Just Like My Daddy!'

If history is a lesson, President Bush's re-election bid has already been ambushed by rising unemployment, weak economic growth and the bear market.
"Unless the economy stages some sort of miracle comeback, the outlook for the president is grim indeed," said Donald Straszheim, head of independent research boutique Straszheim Global Advisors.

According Straszheim's research, which goes back 40 years, no incumbent president or his party has been returned to office if jobs growth was under 3 percent in the third and fourth years of his term. So with unemployment at 6 percent and headed higher, a dramatic reversal before the 2004 election is unlikely.

With the dismal economic picture overshadowing the U.S. victory in Iraq, it's natural to compare Bush to his father, whose jobless rate cost him re-election, despite success in the first Persian Gulf War.

A better comparison might be to Herbert Hoover, who presided over the Great Depression, suggested Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute think tank.

Bush is on his way to becoming the first president since Hoover to lead an actual decline in employment, said Mishel. He estimates the economy would have to add 140,000 jobs a month to make up for more than the 2 million lost since Bush took office. (From The NY Post) more

Dumbass Move Of The Week: U.S. Hires Christian Extremists to Produce Arabic News

The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for mostly Muslim Iraq. It is being produced in a studio – Grace Digital Media – controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel. That's grace as in "by the grace of God."

Grace News Network is "dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God's presence in the world today."

"Grace News Network will be reporting the current secular news, along with aggressive proclamations that will 'change the news' to reflect the Kingdom of God and its purposes," GNN proclaims. more

Can you say "Crusades?"

The Clinton Wars...

Clinton: "You know there's nothing wrong that Hillary and I did in Whitewater."
Senator Alan Simpson, Republican from Wyoming: "Of course, we all know there's nothing there. It was just politics. And it just got out of hand."

He began his second term with talk of national healing. But Chief Justice Rehnquist knew what the president could expect: "Good luck. You'll need it." Part 1 of an explosive new White House memoir.

About two weeks before Clinton's second inauguration the president asked me to come over to the White House. It was a Sunday night. Clinton was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a sweater with an American flag stitched across its front. He led me to the family kitchen, in a part of the residence I had never seen. It was unlike the large White House kitchen on the ground floor, with its long steel counters and huge refrigerators and sinks, where presidential meals, including state dinners, are prepared. This kitchen was indistinguishable from any kitchen in an ordinary suburban house: Formica surfaces, chairs around a small table, a range, wood cabinets. Clinton set out mugs, boiled some water, and made tea.

Now we had a chance to discuss his inaugural address. I suggested to the president that he use the occasion to deliver a valedictory to the 20th century. He would be the president presiding at the turn of the century. He had campaigned on millennial themes, and he should continue to develop them...

We reviewed the campaign and how it had ended: his frantic but failed efforts in its closing days to help Democrats win the Congress. Clinton wasn't angry, just disappointed, not particularly by his own result, but by the Democrats' lacking the majority. He still had to maneuver his way through a Republican Congress to reach his goals. But his demeanor was of one who felt far more secure and knowledgeable about wielding his power than he had in 1992.

Clinton was frustrated but almost philosophical about the pseudoscandals. He knew that the Republicans knew they had been ginned up for political effect -- and the Republicans knew that he knew that they knew. He related a conversation he had had with Senator Alan Simpson, the Republican from Wyoming, who was retiring.

"You know there's nothing wrong that Hillary and I did in Whitewater," Clinton told him.

"Of course," Simpson replied. "We all know there's nothing there. It was just politics. And it just got out of hand." more

Preorder "The Clinton Wars" Today!

Clinton & Dole 60 Minutes Debate: Clinton Wins... Again!

SENATOR DOLE: Does Hollywood still think Ozzy Osbourne is funny, now that he's shipped his underage son off to drug rehab?

America is awash in reality TV. And the reality is it's debasing and degrading. Mr. President, don't your showbiz pals realize the consequences? They package dysfunctional people like the Osbournes, giggle at the coarseness and the crimes, and sink lower for higher ratings.

For eight years you treated Hollywood like your own piggy bank. Now, how about joining me in demanding a little responsibility? Ask those entertainment executives who wrote you those big, big checks: Isn't there some way to reach the most viewers without appealing to the worst in viewers? Reality exacts a price. Sadly, from Ozzy's son today. And maybe other kids tomorrow. President Clinton, how low can things go?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Senator, that's a great example of un-reality TV. I've never watched “The Osbournes,” but 10 years ago I did challenge the entertainment industry to take violence and what's harmful to kids out of their programming.

I pushed for the first TV ratings system and the V chip to give parents more control over what their kids watched. Reality TV makes money because adults watch it. Fox, the network full of conservative Republicans, has reality shows and you haven't criticized them.

As for kids and drugs, the Republican budget gives a tax cut to you and me paid for by cutting $100 million from the Safe and Drug Free School Program and the Drug Enforcement Administration -- and worst of all by kicking half a million kids out of after-school programs which we know keeps them away from drugs.

The administration's budget will hurt our effort to keep kids drug free a lot more than “The Osbournes.” That's reality.

SENATOR DOLE: You say reality TV makes money. (Rightwing Slayer's note: huh? Clinton didn't say that) So what? Is that all that matters to you? What about the cost? You know this isn't about federal programs. It's about real people, parents who are afraid to turn on the TV. Mr. President, how can you put a price on decency?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I can't, but you Republicans do in your budget. How decent is kicking kids out of after school programs? At least parents can use the V chip to protect their kids from shows they shouldn't see. At least the Osbournes put their son in rehab. You Republicans are addicted to unfair tax cuts. You should put your budget in rehab, too.

Prominent Republican Pleads Guilty To Production Of Child Pornography.

More Republican Hypocrisy; Richard Anthony Delgaudio once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people"

A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography. Richard Anthony Delgaudio, who was sentenced to two years' probation before judgment, admitted to taking lewd photographs of a 16-year-old girl he met in East Baltimore's Patterson Park in 2001. In some of the photos, he was engaged in sex with her, court records show.

Delgaudio (who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people") , 50, of Burke, Va., is a frequent talk-radio guest and national figure in conservative politics. He is president of the Legal Affairs Council, a group that helped pay the legal bills of former Reagan administration officials Oliver L. North and Caspar W. Weinberger after they were charged in connection with the Iran-contra affair.

In other words, he's a hypocritical scumbag! Here is a guy who called our last legally elected president a terrible example to our nation's young people for a totally legal and consensual affair and he's a child pornographer? Look, he wasn't charged with possessing it he was charged with producing it!

There was additional evidence that Delgaudio (who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people") took pornographic images of at least one other little girl but that evidence was not admissible in court because police improperly stopped and searched Delgaudio, a judge ruled.

In a letter to the judge, Delgaudio's attorneys - Bruce Fein and Howard L. Cardin - wrote that he was remorseful and did not know the girls were underage. However, the girls told Delgaudio their ages, according to police.

Delgaudio, who has no prior record, and who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" for a consensual and totally legal affair was arrested in November 2001 with a book of obscene photographs he had taken of 15- and 16-year-old girls, according to court documents. The teen-agers went with him on several occasions to a hotel on Pulaski Highway, where they had sex and he paid them to pose in erotic positions for his camera, records show. more

U.S., U.K. Waged War on Iraq Because of Oil, Blair Adviser Says

The U.S. and U.K. went to war against Iraq because of the Middle East country's oil reserves, an adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Sir Jonathan Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises Blair's government on ecological issues, said the prospect of winning access to Iraqi oil was ''a very large factor'' in the allies' decision to attack Iraq in March.

"I don't think the war would have happened if Iraq didn't have the second-largest oil reserves in the world,'' Porritt said in a Sky News television interview. more

Gay-tolerant societies prosper economically

If you object to homosexuality on moral grounds, as Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., recently did in an interview, you may not be swayed by economic arguments. But if you are a fan of entrepreneurship and business growth, you should know the economic price of intolerance.

The key to understanding America's technological and economic vibrancy lies in our openness to new people and ideas. (liberalism!) Tolerance of immigrants, gays and other minorities is much more important to sustained economic growth and the high-paying jobs than the tax cut President Bush (news - web sites) has in mind.

Research I conducted with Gary Gates, an Urban Institute demographer, shows that the big new-ideas and cutting-edge industries that lead to sustained prosperity are more likely to exist where gay people feel welcome. Most centers of tech-based business growth also have the highest concentrations of gay couples. Conversely, major areas with relatively few gay couples tend to be slow- or no-growth places. Pittsburgh and Buffalo, which have low percentages of gay couples, were two of only three major regions to lose population from 1990 to 2000.

Studies controlling for a wide range of factors also show innovation and economic vitality closely associated with the presence of gays and other indicators of tolerance and diversity, such as the percentage of immigrants and the level of racial and ethnic integration.

Why? Creative, innovative and entrepreneurial activities tend to flourish in the same kinds of places that attract gays and others outside the norm. To put it bluntly, a place where it's OK for men to walk down the street holding hands will probably also be a place where Indian engineers, tattooed software geeks and foreign-born entrepreneurs feel at home. When people from varied backgrounds, places and attitudes can collide, economic home runs are likely. more

Florida Weighs Fate of 2000 Election Ballots

Florida's hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads wreaked havoc in the 2000 presidential election. Now, the 6 million ballots are causing another problem: Should they be destroyed or saved because of their historical significance? We'll give you one guess which choice Bush would make! more

The Secrets of September 11

The White House is battling to keep a report on the terror attacks secret. Does the 2004 election have anything to do with it?

My large and growing conservative reader base will, without a doubt, scream "liberal media! Liberal media!." But Newsweek and MSNBC has your boy Bush cold busted. Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.

AT THE CENTER of the dispute is a more-than-800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks—including provocative, if unheeded warnings, given President Bush and his top advisers during the summer of 2001.

The report was completed last December; only a bare-bones list of “findings” with virtually no details was made public. But nearly six months later, a “working group” of Bush administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure. By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to “reclassify” some material that was already discussed in public testimony—a move one Senate staffer described as “ludicrous.” The administration’s stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the report—Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss. The two are now preparing a letter of complaint to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Graham is “increasingly frustrated” by the administration’s “unwillingness to release what he regards as important information the public should have about 9-11,” a spokesman said. In Graham’s view, the Bush administration isn’t protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political “embarrassment,” the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: “There has been a cover-up of this.”

Graham’s stand may not be terribly surprising, given that the Florida Democrat is running for president and is seeking to use the issue himself politically. But he has found a strong ally in House Intelligence Committee Chairman Goss, a staunch Republican (and former CIA officer) who in the past has consistently defended the administration’s handling of 9-11 issues and is considered especially close to Cheney.

“I find this process horrendously frustrating,” Goss said in an interview. He was particularly piqued that the administration was refusing to declassify material that top intelligence officials had already testified about. “Senior intelligence officials said things in public hearings that they [administration officials] don’t want us to put in the report,” said Goss. “That’s not something I can rationally accept without further public explanation.”

The tensions over the release of 9-11 related material seems especially relevant—if not ironic—in light of recent reports that the president’s political advisers have devised an unusual re-election strategy that essentially uses the story of September 11 as the liftoff for his campaign. The White House is delaying the Republican nominating convention, scheduled for New York City, until the first week in September 2004—the latest in the party’s history. That would allow Bush’s acceptance speech, now slated for Sept. 2, to meld seamlessly into 9-11 commemoration events due to take place in the city the next week.

Some sources who have read the still-secret congressional report say some sections would not play quite so neatly into White House plans. One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States—and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.” more

Current Administration Mirrors Fascist Regimes Of The Past

Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, recently wrote an article about fascism which appeared in Free Inquiry magazine. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), finding the regimes all had 14 things in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The article is "Fascism Anyone?," Lawrence Britt, Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20.

The 14 characteristics are:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symb ols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda i s neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Unimaginable Futures

“In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me – and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

"-Pastor Martin Niemoller, German Protestant minister, Leader of the church's opposition to Hitler, Nazi concentration camp intern, 1937-45"

In the build up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, comparisons made between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler were effectively exploited as part of the propaganda arsenal promulgated by the spin doctors in Washington to convince the populace of the threat that Saddam presents (presented?) to world peace.

But from the beginnings of the U.S. campaign of “shock and awe”, bombing Iraq into a Stone Age de novo, an ominous vision of unrestrained power was laid bare. It is a vision which lingers even as the leading actors of this tragedy – George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and company – continue today to play their scripted public role of ‘benevolent’ occupiers. In the wake of the blitzkrieg against Iraq, a more apt comparison to fascism, many would feel, is one that involves the American regime of George W. Bush.

Indeed, in contradistinction to popular propaganda, a frightening image of fascism is evoked by what is already the most powerful state in human history…

Irrespective of comparisons made, of course, it is becoming increasingly clear that the part of protagonist to be played by common citizens in rejecting and resisting these forces and their foreboding empire – beyond simply protesting in the streets – is crucial to our very survival. more

Are We Numb or Dumb? It is frightening in the extreme when lying matters not at all to a free people.

Forget truth. That is the message from our government and its apologists in the media who insist that the Iraq invasion is a great success story even though it was based on a lie.

In the statement broadcast to the Iraqi people after the invasion was launched, President Bush stated: "The goals of our coalition are clear and limited. We will end a brutal regime, whose aggression and weapons of mass destruction make it a unique threat to the world." To which Tony Blair added: "We did not want this war. But in refusing to give up his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam gave us no choice but to act."

That claim of urgency — requiring us to short-circuit the U.N. weapons inspectors — has proved to be a whopper of a falsehood. Late Sunday, the U.S. Army conceded that what had been reported as its only significant WMD find — two mobile chemical labs and a dozen 55-gallon drums of chemicals — "showed no positive hits at all" for chemical weapons.

But we now live easily with lies. "As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war," writes Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times. The pro-administration rationalization holds that the noble end of toppling one of the world's nastier dictators — assuming that the Iraqi people end up freer and not ensnared in an Iranian-type theocracy — justifies the ignoble means of lying to the world. Or, as Friedman puts it, "Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue.)"

Hyping? Is that how we are now to rationalize the ever more obvious truth that the American people and their elected representatives in Congress were deliberately deceived by the president as to the imminent threat that Iraq posed to our security? Is this popular acceptance of such massive deceit exemplary of the representative democracy we are so aggressively exporting, nay imposing, on the world? _blank">more

US Marine investigated for war crimes

A US Marine sergeant is under investigation for possible war crimes committed in Iraq based on statements he made to his hometown newspaper, military officials said.
Gunnery Sergeant Gus Covarrubias became the target of the preliminary inquiry after he described for the Las Vegas, Nevada, Review-Journal daily how he had hunted down and shot two Iraqi soldiers after a firefight.

"A preliminary inquiry has been initiated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to examine the circumstances surrounding the statements made by Gunnery Sergeant Covarrubias," the statement said. "The preliminary inquiry will determine if the actions described by Gunnery Sergeant Covarrubias during combat operations met the established rules of engagement and complied with the law of war." more

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