In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
State-sponsored Arrogism- Friday, March 26, 2004 -
A cold war mind is a terrible thing to lose:
According to the classically "realist" mindset, only states can pose a significant threat to the national security of other states, because lesser actors simply do not have the capacity, sophistication and resources to do so. Hence, if terrorists suddenly became effective in destabilizing countries like Italy, they couldn't possibly have acted on their own. They must have had state sponsors, and it was only by tackling the state sponsors (in this case, the Soviet bloc), that you could root out the terrorists.
During the cold war, the paradigm of "state-sponsored terrorism" was useful, if not entirely correct. Most terrorists did receive help from states, and there were some links between disparate groups, although not to the extent that many in the United States believed. And some of the worst atrocities — like the 1983 attack on United States military headquarters in Beirut — were in fact carried out by groups that had been created by "rogue states" like Iran, Libya and Syria.
With the end of the cold war, however, things changed. While there was no longer a prime state sponsor for any "terror network," there was also no longer any need for one. It became easy to travel from one country to another. Money could be collected and transferred around the globe. Cell phones and the Internet made it possible to maintain tight control of an elusive group that could move its "headquarters" across continents. In fact, by the end of the decade, it seemed as if the model of state-sponsored terrorism had effectively been reversed: Al Qaeda was now in charge of a state — Afghanistan under the Taliban — rather than vice versa.
But the Washington hawks failed to see what was happening. The world around them had changed, but their paradigm hadn't. For them, states continued to be the only real movers and shakers in the international system, and any serious "strategic" threat to America's security could only come from an established nation.
Don't forget, folks, that when questioned in the second presidential debate about the wisdom of turning tail at the first sign of trouble in Beirut in 1983 -- under Dick Cheney's watch -- George Bush said it was "the right thing to do" and that he'd do it again. So there you have it. When it's not the Axis of Evil, run away, fuck it. Unless of course you own the country. Condoleezza Rice is a Sovietologist, and was chosen exactly for that. Cold warriors all around, missile shields, nukes and Armegeddon, all the good ol' bad ol' fears. Jihadist swarm? What's that? We don't care is the answer.
Now the cold warriors and statists are turning up the heat trying to discredit Clarke, whose only crime is pointing all this out. But mudslinger David Brooks, in his nonideological, nonpartisan cries for honest truth-telling (!), berates the truth teller with an illiberal smear:
But that wonky [i.e., pre-book/9-11 commission] Richard Clarke doesn't become a prime-time media sensation or sell hundreds of thousands of books. Because in this country, we speak only one language when it comes to public affairs, the language of partisan warfare. So out goes Mr. Wonk. Clarke turns himself into an anti-Bush attack machine, and we get a case study of how serious bipartisan concern gets turned into a week of civil war.
Yeah, at whose hands, buddy? This guy was hand-picked by Ronald Reagan and served under both Bushes. Not fair-minded enough for you, huh? Maybe he should go fight in a cave next to Osama bin Laden, that other traitor. Name calling is always an effective way to frame an argument. It helps too when the conservative Republican majority in every branch controls the terms of debate -- which is none at all; remember, the U.S. government is faith-based -- under God -- not rule oriented. When has George Bush ever made one single concession, or ever played by the rules, even once? And nothing a formerly unquestioning detractor says or does will convince supporters otherwise. But Brooks got one thing right: The whole intractable country has its heels dug in, and the rest of the world sees nothing but a colossus on the rampage. Why don't those in power understand the danger of that perception? Our carefully nurtured emnity at the hands of our political masters has made everyone blind and crazy. And dangerous to ourselves.
The cold war article goes on:
Sept. 11, 2001, brought about a quick re-orientation of foreign policy. What didn't change, however, was the state-centered mindset of the people who were in charge. According to Mr. Clarke, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld immediately suspected Saddam Hussein, and suggested military strikes against Iraq. While cooler heads prevailed at the time, and there was a real effort to track down and destroy the Qaeda network, there was also a reluctance to abandon the idea that terrorism had to be state-based. Hence the administration's insistence that there must be an "axis of evil" — a group of states critical in sustaining the terrorists. It was an attempt to reconcile the new, confusing reality with long-established paradigm of state sponsorship.
This is what happens when a young fogey surrounds himself with his daddy's fossil cabinet and winds the country back to 1950, while ideologically driven mass murderers grab ahold of the latest technology and stay ahead of the learning curve, adapting to and thwarting every new method devised to strike them. After all, what's a paradigm shift if you don't pay it anything?
- Michael 12:35 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Terror aides strangely keep turning on Bush
It’s hard to remember another president who has suffered more abuse and betrayal from the government’s career civil service than George W. Bush. Again and again, it seems, the president hires some seemingly seasoned career counterterrorism hand, only to find out later that he’s actually a Democratic plant, a partisan stooge or just a plain fool.
We already know the story of that notorious turncoat, retired Ambassador Joe Wilson, and his wife, CIA clandestine operative Valerie Plame (whom Rep. Jack Kingston [R-Ga.] pegged as a “glorified secretary”). The CIA foolishly entrusted Wilson with a fact-finding mission to the African nation of Niger to find out whether Saddam Hussein was buying “yellowcake” uranium there for his allegedly reconstituted nuclear weapons program. After getting this plum assignment, Wilson turned on the president with all manner of unfounded accusations.
Now we have Richard Clarke, whom we’re now told was either a liar (Paul Wolfowitz), a fraud out to sell a bunch of books (Scott McClellan), an out-of-the-loop rube (Dick Cheney), or just a moron who couldn’t get the job done (National Security Council [NSC] spokesman Jim Wilkinson and just about everyone else on the White House payroll).
Clarke, of course, worked for the last four presidents (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II) in a series of national-security and counterterrorism roles. Condi Rice kept him on as counterterrorism czar at the NSC when the Bush administration took over from Clinton. And then later, after Sept. 11, the White House appointed him to a less central, but still critical, post as top NSC aide on cyberterrorism and critical infrastructure.
Clearly the White House thought he was top-flight, but now it seems he was just another mix of backstabber and boob of the Joe Wilson variety — a hapless egomaniac or, as columnist John Podhoretz called him yesterday in the New York Post, a “a self-regarding buffoon.”
...
The first possibility is that the Bush White House is so freewheeling, inattentive and just plain unlucky that it keeps appointing senior counterterrorism aides who actually turn out to be both policy incompetents and closet Democratic partisans.
The second that these malefactors leave the White House, they show their true colors and start leveling all manner of baseless charges against the president.
The second possibility is that every counterterrorism expert the White House hires who isn’t (a) a hidebound ideologue or (b) a dyed-in-the-wool Bush loyalist eventually becomes so disgusted with the mix of incompetence and mendacity that is the White House’s counterterrorism policy that he eventually quits and then immediately sets about trying to drive the president from office.
Which seems more likely to you? Choice one or choice two?
- rob 12:48 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Remember: Even if Bush crashes in the polls... it doesn't mean he's out.
found this on Bartcop.
- rob 12:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Rice expected to meet 9/11 panel again
Clarke charges seen as devastating; commission could insist on oath
"I imagine that at some point along the way it will happen," he [commission spokesman Al Felzenberg] said of Rice testifying again. But he said the "commission needs to discuss" the request that Rice not be required to testify under oath.
Rice testified once before, last February in a private session. But that was before criticism emerged from former White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke.
Rice has come under heavy criticism for refusing to testify before the commission under oath or in public. She said Wednesday on “NBC Nightly News” that she had a responsibility to protect the president’s constitutional guarantee of executive privilege, arguing that the president could not rely on his advisers to speak to him openly if they could be questioned about their advice to him.
Okay, so in defense of the President's constitutional guarantee of executive priviledge she won't testify under oath. Why? Because the president could not rely on his advisers to speak to him openly if they could be questioned about their advice to him. So by testifying, but not under oath, she keeps that protection because she's just going to lie.
Seriously. Am I missing something here. She doesn't like what someone says so she wants to refute what he says, but, unlike him, she wants to reserve the legal right to lie.
- rob 12:33 PM - [PermaLink] -
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'This guy' sends Bushies reeling
At the White House, nailing Clarke is now Job 1.
"We're all on Clarke patrol," said a senior Bush political strategist.
And you wonder why the anthrax mailer hasn't been caught yet, because he/she hasn't written a truthful book about bush.
- rob 12:10 PM - [PermaLink] -
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9/11 Committee hearings weren't the only hearings bad for Bush this week. Clarke's testimony at worst is criminal negligence. These hearings are about criminal acts by the Bush adminstration (probably we you didn't hear about them).
Actuary: I was told to conceal costs of Medicare
Testimony comes as administration readies for new drug discount card and as Bush touts landmark measure while campaigning
WASHINGTON -- The government's chief Medicare numbers expert Wednesday described a period last summer when he wrestled over whether to quit when his boss threatened to fire him if he revealed high cost estimates for the Medicare legislation.
Richard Foster said he felt obligated to give lawmakers the estimate, but had essentially been gagged. He said an attorney told him that under the law his then-boss, Tom Scully, could direct his activities.
"I was not happy about that," Medicare's chief actuary told the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. "I had a difficult choice."
- rob 12:06 PM - [PermaLink] -
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In the same blind, but out of the loop- Thursday, March 25, 2004 -
Bob Herbert calls it the Wrong War, quoting Richard Clarke's new book, "Against All Enemies":
"I expected to go back to a round of meetings examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were. . . . Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq."
Soon would come the now-famous encounter between Mr. Clarke and President Bush in the White House Situation Room. According to Mr. Clarke: "[The president] grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. `Look,' he told us, `I know you have a lot to do and all . . . but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.' "
"I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. `But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.'
" `I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred. . . .' "
The president wanted war with Iraq, and ultimately he would have his war. The drumbeat for an invasion of Iraq in the aftermath of the Qaeda attack was as incessant as it was bizarre. Mr. Clarke told "60 Minutes" that an attack on Iraq under those circumstances was comparable to President Roosevelt, after Pearl Harbor, deciding to invade Mexico "instead of going to war with Japan."
Here's what some New York Times letter writers think about Clarke's testimony to the 9/11 commission:
To the Editor:
It was a particularly cynical ploy for Richard A. Clarke to apologize to the families of the 9/11 victims, a small proportion of whom were present (front page, March 25). Exploiting their misery was a theatrical ploy beyond decency.
The simple fact is that the 9/11 attack on America was the most audacious terrorist action since the Trojan horse. No one of either political party could have been expected to anticipate it.
All the finger-pointing in the world will not change that fact. Let's get on with the war on terrorism, and base our votes in the coming election on which party is more apt to succeed in protecting us.
JACK B. SHAPIRO
Beachwood, Ohio, March 25, 2004
Wonder whom he's voting for? Notice the usual Continental Divide: never mind the facts when all things are political. Never mind that we wouldn't even have an investigation if it weren't for four suburban moms who lost their families and got nothing but stonewalling and utter apathy from this arrogant administration; it's forever Us versus Them -- even when Americans of every political stripe lost their lives on American soil, along with international visitors who had every reason to feel safe -- or thought they did. Now it's the familiar piping tune, "Let's move on" as if this were all water under the soon-to-be-blown-up bridge.
It bears repeating: As entirely predicted, the Bush attack comes full force, but this time there's a difference: people are under oath, and it's a bipartisan investigation about facts -- in other words, allegations that either are or are not backed up. In this context, the kneejerk Republican smear tactic may seriously backfire, and their scrambling makes it worse and worse. Under oath makes everyone look like a liar, especially when someone says something true, like "I failed you."
What're gonna say to that, "No he didn't"?
The cynical attempt to turn this into Them versus Us is also unconvincing: If it were Clinton's fault for not acting quickly or efficiently enough to thwart ominous warnings, well, how come? Because he WAS BEING IMPEACHED at the time. The blame machine in this case turns into a two-way Finger Pointer.
"Trust us" --- Um, two skyscrapers are down and a jumbo jet crashed into the Pentagon --- "we know everything": You do? Then how come you didn't do anything to prevent the catastrophe?
I think the Republican right wing should constitutionally amend their political mantra to "We know everything, except when we didn't know anything, we're in the same blind, though not always in the loop, trust us."
- Michael 11:39 AM - [PermaLink] -
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READ
Four 9/11 Moms Watch Rumsfeld And Grumble
- rob 6:10 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Sloganator Memorial
In memory or "Anti-Bush/Cheney posters, paid for by Bush/Cheney." Requires Flash.
- rob 5:59 PM - [PermaLink] -
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GOP split by environment strategy
WASHINGTON -- Republican House leaders are warning their members that "Democrats will hit us hard on the environment" this election year.
Their advice? Tell voters that global warming has not been proved, that there are no clear links between air pollution and childhood asthma and that America’s rivers and lakes aren’t nearly as polluted as the Environmental Protection Agency says they are.
Moderate Republicans fear the "talking points" in a memo from the House Republican Conference could make their party appear indifferent to the health threats of smoggy skies or mercury-contaminated fish. And that could hurt them in tight races where they must appeal to middle-of-the-road voters.
...
Among the memo’s assertions: "Global warming is not a fact," "links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy" and the EPA is exaggerating when it says at least 40 percent of U.S. streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming.
"Republicans can’t stress enough that extremists are screaming ‘Doomsday!’ when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day," says the Feb. 4 memo put out by the communications office of the House Republican Conference.
A conversation from 2017 after constant Republican rule:
"Oh my God! Last night's Acid Rain Storm completely dissolved our new SUV."
"Don't worry dear! See the brown sky is turning a beautiful brick red, its the start of a new and better day. Oh and don't forget that today we've got to replace the filter on Little Jimmy's Iron Lung, and let's always be thankful that our county has the state's lowest per capita cases of Asperger's.*"
*Asperger's and Autism seem to be linked to mercury/heavy metal toxicity.
- rob 2:58 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The Power and Strength of an honest apology
from Clarke's opening statement:
Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.
- rob 12:50 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Har Har Har
Bush Pokes Some Fun During Media Dinner
There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.
Hahahahaah....(people dying in Iraq)...heherrrrr... oh. Um.
The guy's a comedian... and his pResidency's a very sick joke.
- rob 12:33 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Kerry's '350 Tax Increases'
The purpose of a phony statistic such as this one isn't to convince people of its own accuracy. The purpose is to trap your opponent in a discussion he doesn't want to have (in this case about his past votes on taxes), bog down the discussion in silly details that few people will follow, and leave a general impression that where there's smoke there must be fire. And certainly, if what matters to you above all else is paying fewer taxes, you'd be a fool to choose Kerry over Bush. But this isn't about taxes; it's about honesty. Honesty means more than factual accuracy, it means avoiding disingenuousness: not talking rot when you know it's rot. If that matters to you above all, you may be out of luck with either candidate this election. But if you wish to measure comparative rot, this 350-tax-increases business may be hard for Kerry to top.
Counting tax increases is an absurd way to measure a candidate's general propensity on taxes. George the elder's list of Clinton tax increases included such things as an extension of the dog-racing season, on the logic that a longer season meant more tax revenue. George the younger's first item asserts that "In 1995, Kerry Voted For [a] Resolution That Said Middle Class Tax Cuts Were Not Wise." This turns out to be a vote in the midst of that nearly forgotten frenzy, the Gingrich revolution. It was a vote against a particular tax cut of $700 billion, on a resolution declaring with almost tautological justice that subtracting $700 billion from revenue would make it harder to balance the budget. The resolution passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, but a decade later the Republican president uses it to tar his Democratic opponent.
The documentation on the GOP Web site about Kerry's supposed 350 votes to increase taxes lists only 67 votes "for higher taxes." Most of these are votes against a tax cut, not in favor of a tax increase. The 67 include nine votes listed twice, three listed three times, and two listed four times. The logic seems to be that if a bill contains more than one item (as almost all bills do), it counts as separate votes for or against each item. The Bush list also includes several series of sequentially numbered votes, which are procedural twists on the same bill. And there are votes on the identical issue in different years. The only tax increase on Bush's list (counted twice, but hey . . . ) is Kerry's support for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan. That's the one that raised rates in the top bracket and led to a decade of such fabulous prosperity that even its most affluent victims ended up better off.
Bah 350 or 1... what's the difference?
Standard Bush Logic:
SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction, as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still --
BUSH: So what’s the difference?
- rob 12:27 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Let Us Pray
As a nonbeliever, I'd like to start by leading a prayer to the Fates and to Serendipity, that unpredictable Muse, that the tide may truly shift for George W. Bush. Yesterday's Clarke testimony before the 9/11 commission, charged with investigating who knew what and when, may turn out to be a watershed in this year's presidential election. The Bushies are running scared. What this guy did essentially was to apologize to the families of the victims of 9/11, which no one -- and I mean no one, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise -- had done until yesterday. His remarkable words, that the government had failed them, "and I failed you," may turn out to be the straw that breaks Bush's back come November. This is the "Trust us, we know everything" government, and its central thesis, the reigning political philosophy throughout Washington in every branch, is to never admit you're wrong about anything ever. Clarke added, "We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed."
Now that wisdom will be put to the test. Americans will forgive a thief, but never a liar. What got Nixon wasn't the crime but the cover up. If this White House is caught trying to suppress evidence that it knew something about 9/11 when it said it didn't, which seems more and more likely, it's finished. The "Trust us" part of the credo will be wiped out, and the "we know everything" mantra will blow up in their faces.
Amen.
- Michael 12:06 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Eschaton/Atrios has problems following the constantly shifting lies coming from the White House this week.
- rob 10:28 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Reject George Bush’s Credit- Wednesday, March 24, 2004 -
Clickback America - Petition
Sign the petition and $1 will be contributed to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund.
A petition you want to sign anyway, and a buck towards an organisation that can help get Bush out of office. Definitely worth the 30 seconds it takes to fill out the form.
The petition reads in part:
As American tax payers, we regret to inform you that your request for a loan of $4,500 against our future earnings is being denied. Your loan does not meet the credit standards we look for in a borrower for the following reasons:
- Too much outstanding debt.
- Failure to properly prioritize spending.
- Failure to accurately estimate actual budget costs.
- Too many recent requests for credit.
I added:
Given your extremely privilidged upbringing you've probably never had to request a personal credit line just to get by (and I'm not talking "get by" in your style, I'm talking small house, beat up car, and food... that's all).
Many people who've worked much harder than you all their lives have little to show for it, and some times the bank comes calling. This time the American tax payers are the bank, and we're calling you.
- rob 10:08 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Clarke Testifies, Slams Bush On Counterterrorism
WASHINGTON -- In perhaps the most anticipated testimony before the 9/11 panel, Richard Clarke opened his testimony Wednesday by saying his frustration with the Bush administration's approach to the al-Qaida threat led him to ask to be reassigned.
Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser for presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, repeated his assertion from recent days that the Bush administration didn't see the al-Qaida threat as an "urgent problem."
The federal panel's first question asked how urgently the two administrations approached the threat from al-Qaida.
"I would say fighting Osama bin Laden ... was given an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration," Clarke said. "I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent issue."
He said he and CIA Director George Tenet tried to create "a sense of urgency."
Clarke said his concerns to the new administration were outlined in a Jan. 25, 2001 memo to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, including such advice as sending aid to the Northern Alliance, which was fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Listened to Clarke today on NPR briefly. He is articulate, intelligent, and devastating in his attacks against the Bush administration. This plus O'Neil's revelations have got to have hurt Bush.
Kerry has got to watch out. The only way Bush can win now is if Kerry is caught with a dead girl or a live boy, and Rove knows it. Kerry should hire Vance International away from Bush.
- rob 4:33 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Who'd of thunk?
The Howard Stern Show Website is a running list of anti-bush, anti-clear channel, anti-FCC news articles.
Howard Stern: a source for news. Well since NYTimes and Washington Post have given up reporting news, I guess Howard Stern thought he should fill the gap.
- rob 2:47 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Repost / Update: Now available on DVD
The Magdalene Sisters
(originally posted on 9/2/03)
I Saw this movie this weekend. I knew of the story before hand, but even so, I was unprepared for the overpowering dread this film left me with (as one moviegoer said to another as we left the theater, “well now what do you have planned for us, hitting our heads with a hammer?"), nonetheless I recommend this film.
Here’s Roger Ebert’s explanation of what the film is about:
Here is a movie about barbaric practices against women, who were locked up without trial and sentenced to forced, unpaid labor for such crimes as flirting with boys, becoming pregnant out of wedlock, or being raped. These inhuman punishments did not take place in Afghanistan under the Taliban, but in Ireland under the Sisters of Mercy. And they are not ancient history. The Magdalene Laundries flourished through the 1970s and processed some 30,000 victims; the last were closed in 1996.
"The Magdalene Sisters" is a harrowing look at institutional cruelty, perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and justified by a perverted hysteria about sex. "I've never been with any lads ever," one girl says, protesting her sentence, "and that's the god's honest truth." A nun replies: "But you'd like to, wouldn't you?" And because she might want to, because she flirted with boys outside the walls of her orphanage, she gets what could amount to a life sentence at slave labor.
This film has been attacked by the Catholic League, but its facts stand up; a series of Irish Times articles on the Internet talk of cash settlements totaling millions of pounds to women who were caught in the Magdalene net. What is inexplicable is that this practice could have existed in our own time, in a Western European nation. The laundries were justified because they saved the souls of their inmates--but what about the souls of those who ran them?
…
... the closing credits remind us once again that the Magdalene Laundries existed and did their evil work in God's name. The Church in Ireland has changed almost beyond recognition in recent years, and is now, like the American church, making amends for the behavior of some clergy. And the Irish Times articles report that some Protestant denominations had (and have) similar punishments for sexuality, real or suspected. The movie is not so much an attack on the Catholic Church as on the universal mind-set that allows transgressions beyond all decency, if they are justified by religious hysteria. Even today there are women walled up in solitary confinement in closed rooms in their own homes in the Middle East, punished for crimes no more serious, or trivial, that those of the Magdalene laundresses.
We look at Afghanistan and we think “well that could never happen in the west.” We read about this and think, “well that could never happen in America.” So we try to forget the Mission Schools Native Americans were forced to go to, where their mouths would be literally washed with soap if they spoke a word of their native tongue. And we try to forget the sterilization of orphans in the fifties (or that a charity now will pay drug addicts $200 to get sterilized) . And we definitely try to forget the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (that didn’t end until 1972).
A great source of evil is an institution. Institutions are not evil in and of themselves, of course not, society needs institutions, it’s a mandatory ingredient. But an institution diminishes personal guilt. When you work at an institution and do horrible things, you are just doing your job. When you combine institutions with religion (like the laundries) you create an opportunity for true evil to arise, now your horrid acts are not just your job, they are acts of a greater good. One does not feel guilty of beating a young girl if this beating will save the girl's soul (but alas, look what it does to both their souls).
Ashcroft and Bush must know that separation and Church and State is both for the good of the people and the good of religion. No one wants to see their religion used for such wickedness as described above. But if a church (any church) becomes the defacto law in this nation the Taliban will happen here. Afghanistan isn’t a victim of Islamic law gone made, it is a victim of religious law gone mad. That wouldn’t happen with Protestants you say? Please ask the victims of witch burnings on their opinion of that.
Separation of church and state saves the soul of both.
Freedom of religion allows the religions to flourish in decency. Undo influence of any religion draws that religion to evil. The same goes for political parties. One should never have all the power, neither republican nor democrat. Constant competition of who is better, who represents the people more, etc is what keeps them and anyone in check.
- rob 12:33 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Kay implores US to admit mistakes in Iraq
CAMBRIDGE -- The former chief US weapons inspector in Iraq warned yesterday that the United States is in "grave danger" of destroying its credibility at home and abroad if it does not own up to its mistakes in Iraq.
"The cost of our mistakes . . . with regard to the explanation of why we went to war in Iraq are far greater than Iraq itself," David Kay said in a speech at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
"We are in grave danger of having destroyed our credibility internationally and domestically with regard to warning about future events," he said. "The answer is to admit you were wrong, and what I find most disturbing around Washington . . . is the belief . . . you can never admit you're wrong."
Kay's comments came as the White House sought to fend off accusations from its former antiterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who said President Bush ignored the Al Qaeda threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and focused on Iraq, rather than on the Islamic militant group, afterward.
Last year, the White House cited Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the main reason for going to war.
Kay resigned in January, saying that he believed no such weapons existed and that the failure to find them raised serious questions about the quality of prewar intelligence.
Clarke, Kay, O'Neil. All Republicans. All with similar stories.
All are heroes.
Bush and Cheney had a personal obsession with Iraq that is leaving our country less secure. And they think they should be re-elected?
- rob 12:08 PM - [PermaLink] -
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How to choose an enemy in a war against terror.
A: Do you go against the country that harbors the very terrorists who just attacked you?
B: Do you go against another country that you've always hated (for many valid reasons... and some not so valid)?
The answer is B! Because B has more targets! For more explanation let's listen to Donald "Dr. Strangelove" Rumsfeld"
(From: Text: Public Testimony Before 9/11 Panel)
Afghanistan, as I said publicly on one occasion, didn't have a lot of targets. I mean, you can go from an overhead and attack Afghanistan, and in a very short order, you run out of targets that are lucrative. You can pound the rubble in Al Qaida training camps 15 times and not do much damage. They can put tents right back up.
- rob 12:03 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth
Why he's right about Bush's negligence on terrorism.
I have no doubt that Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council official who has launched a broadside against President Bush's counterterrorism policies, is telling the truth about every single charge. There are three reasons for this confidence.
First, his basic accusations are consistent with tales told by other officials, including some who had no significant dealings with Clarke.
Second, the White House's attempts at rebuttal have been extremely weak and contradictory. If Clarke were wrong, one would expect the comebacks—especially from Bush's aides, who excel at the counterstrike—to be stronger and more substantive.
...
Most pertinent, Rand Beers, the official who succeeded Clarke after he left the White House in February 2003, resigned in protest just one month later—five days before the Iraqi war started—for precisely the same reason that Clarke quit. In June, he told the Washington Post, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terror. They're making us less secure, not more." And: "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged, and generally underfunded." (For more about Beers, including his association with Clarke and whether there's anything pertinent about his current position as a volunteer national security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign, click here.)
Clarke's distinction, of course, is that he was the ultimate insider—as highly and deeply inside, on this issue, as anyone could imagine. And so his charges are more credible, potent, and dangerous. So, how has Team Bush gone after Clarke? Badly.
To an unusual degree, the Bush people can't get their story straight. On the one hand, Condi Rice has said that Bush did almost everything that Clarke recommended he do. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's show, acted as if Clarke were a lowly, eccentric clerk: "He wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." This is laughably absurd. Clarke wasn't just in the loop, he was the loop.
- rob 11:59 AM - [PermaLink] -
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What Kerry is up against
The anatomy of a smear campaign
Having run Senator John McCain's campaign for president, I can recount a textbook example of a smear made against McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential primary. We had just swept into the state from New Hampshire, where we had racked up a shocking, 19-point win over the heavily favored George W. Bush. What followed was a primary campaign that would make history for its negativity.
In South Carolina, Bush Republicans were facing an opponent who was popular for his straight talk and Vietnam war record. They knew that if McCain won in South Carolina, he would likely win the nomination. With few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear.
It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.
Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.
Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.
Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"
- rob 11:52 AM - [PermaLink] -
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- rob 11:39 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Flash Animation- Tuesday, March 23, 2004 -
The Right Wing Ring
Keep listening at the end.
Link sent by the Southwest branch office.
- rob 10:45 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Analysis: Iraq Charges Against Bush Begin to Mount
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Criticism of President Bush's motives and decision-making in attacking Iraq last year may be acquiring critical mass with voters following criticism by former top counterterrorism official Richard Clarke.
Political consultants and analysts said Clarke's allegation that Bush ignored the al Qaeda threat before the Sept. 11 attacks and was obsessed by a desire to invade Iraq were especially damaging because they confirmed other previous revelations from policy insiders.
...
The response from the White House, especially to Clarke, has been fierce and sometimes personal. It rejects any suggestion that Bush, running for re-election this year as a "war president," failed to take the al Qaeda threat seriously.
"The administration can huff and puff but if there are enough bricks in the structure, they can't blow the house down any more," said American University historian Allan Lichtman.
I like that analogy... except... umm... I'm not a pig, not that I don't like pigs, just that, you know, I'm not one, sure I like to eat, but I like to eat bacon, and as I'm not a cannibal, I really can safely say I'm not a pig....
- rob 5:24 PM - [PermaLink] -
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BAD ATTITUDES: Just Gets Better, or Worse
So Dick Cheney is making the rounds claiming that Clarke was “out of the loop” in the administration’s counter-terror efforts. Therefore, Clarke doesn’t know what he's talking about and anything he says should be instantly discounted.
It’s amazing that Cheney does not seem to realize what he is actually saying: That the Bush administration’s top expert on terrorism was not consulted about their counter-terrorism efforts. This presents several unpalatable choices:
- Cheney is lying for political gain. If the public picks up on this, the backlash could be out of all proportion to the damage Cheney is trying to control.
- The administration deliberately ignored its in-house expert, with September 11 being the result. This eliminates one more scapegoat, since the White House cannot simultaneously blame Clarke for failing to stop 9/11 while claiming he was “out of the loop” on counter-terrorism.
- Assuming Cheney speaks the truth, it actually bolsters Clarke’s claim to Cassandra-hood. Cut out of the loop, his warnings went nowhere and were ignored. That, too, is pretty damning of the administration.
- rob 5:12 PM - [PermaLink] -
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We aren't fighting Klingons!
Even some of my more (neo)conservative friends are beginning to agree that the war on Iraq may not have been the most effective method of fighting terrorism, and yet they still support the war and Bush.
As far as I can tell, they just to the core feel reassured that at least we are doing something, and most importantly that we are showing them that we fight back.
Why is that important I ask? And as far as I can tell the answer seems to boil down to: They (vague, I know) are a warrior people. Strength is what they understand. When we fight back in the streets of Iraq we are showing them that we are an honorable people. Seriously.
So as a public service TCS would like to announce: They (whoever) are NOT Klingons.
Fighting back isn't necessarily bad either, its just good to know that we're fighting the right people, for the right reasons. You know?
- rob 5:03 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Cool side benefit of this new ugly site layout: wide comic strips don't mess it up.
- rob 4:57 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Must Read
Floor Statement of Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle on the Administration Attacking Good People for Telling the Truth
Daschle stands tall and he realizes a spine is a good thing.
- rob 4:30 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Lifting the Shroud
From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government. After 9/11, the administration's secretiveness knew no limits — Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do." Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration's version of events, not ask awkward questions.
But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution — yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science — to the war on terror.
It's important, when you read the inevitable attempts to impugn the character of the latest whistle-blower, to realize just how risky it is to reveal awkward truths about the Bush administration. When Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that postwar Iraq would require a large occupation force, that was the end of his military career. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV revealed that the 2003 State of the Union speech contained information known to be false, someone in the White House destroyed his wife's career by revealing that she was a C.I.A. operative. And we now know that Richard Foster, the Medicare system's chief actuary, was threatened with dismissal if he revealed to Congress the likely cost of the administration's prescription drug plan.
- rob 4:15 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Thanks to The Daily Kos
The White House Tailspin
One day after counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke's well-documented criticism of the Bush Administration's lackadaisical attitude towards terrorism, the White House is deploying top officials in a vicious barrage of personal attacks on a man with 30 years of public service under four Presidents. The attacks reveal the vicious tactics this Administration uses to intimidate and threaten truth-tellers, but is so filled with inconsistencies, contradictions and lies that it actually bolsters Clarke's credibility. As Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "This is a serious book written by a serious professional who's made serious charges, and the White House must respond to these charges" – something that, despite the personal attacks, the White House has not yet done.
...
LIE – CLARKE NEVER VOICED HIS CONCERNS:
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice claimed that Clarke "chose not to" voice his concerns about the Administration's counterterrorism policy, or lack thereof. But the White House itself acknowledges Clarke sent a memo to Rice on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending al Qaeda attack, and that top officials rejected Clarke's request, saying they "did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." Of course, Rice is the same person who denied ever being warned about putting the false uranium claim into the 2003 State of the Union Speech. When her dishonesty was exposed, she claimed, "I either didn't see the memo [or] I don't remember seeing the memo" from the CIA.
LIE – THERE WAS NO DOMESTIC THREAT:
Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley – the same man who ignored CIA orders to remove false uranium claims from the President's pre-war State of the Union – defended the Administration by saying, "All the chatter [before 9/11] was of an attack, a potential Al Qaeda attack overseas." But according to page 204 of the bipartisan 9/11 congressional report, "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon found out that bin Laden associates "had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
LIE – BUSH "EXPEDITED" ARMING OF PREDATOR:
On Fox's Hannity and Colmes, Bush National Security spokesman Jim Wilkinson called Clarke's accusations a "work of fiction," and said the Bush Administration was focused on terror before 9/11. As proof, he claimed "it was this president who expedited the deployment of the armed Predator" (the unmanned plane). But according to Newsweek, it was the Bush Administration which "elected not to relaunch the Predator" and threatened to veto the defense bill if it "diverted $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" programs like the Predator. As a result, AP reports, "though Predator drones spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times in late 2000, the Bush administration did not fly the unmanned planes over Afghanistan during its first eight months." While "the military successfully tested an armed Predator throughout the first half of 2001," the Bush Administration failed to resolve a bureaucratic "debate over whether the CIA or Pentagon should operate" the system, and it did not get off the ground before 9/11.
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CONTRADICTION – WE TOOK TERROR SERIOUSLY, BUT DOWNGRADED TERRORISM:
Top Bush officials claimed Clarke's criticism was not credible because, as Vice President Cheney said, Clarke "was out of the loop" after the White House counterterrorism office was downgraded from the top position it occupied under previous Administrations. But this attack implicitly acknowledges that counterterrorism was downgraded as a priority at the White House, and thus disproves the Administration's claims that it was taking terrorism seriously before 9/11. And such downgrading is consistent with other internal Administration documents. As columnist Paul Krugman notes, before 9/11 not only did the Administration "completely drop terrorism as a priority — it wasn't even mentioned in his list of seven 'strategic goals' — just one day before 9/11 it proposed a reduction in counterterrorism funds."
CONTRADICTION – WE TOOK TERROR SERIOUSLY, BUT TASK FORCE NEVER MET:
Vice President Cheney claimed "a process was in motion throughout the spring" to develop a "more effective" terrorism policy – an allusion to the counterterrorism task force he was asked to head in May. But, while Cheney convened his energy task force at least 10 times (and had 6 other meetings with Enron executives), he never once convened the counterterrorism task force. Similarly, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett claimed, "President Bush understood the threat of terrorism when he took office." But when pressed to prove this claim in the face of Cheney's task force negligence and internal documents proving otherwise, Bartlett could only muster, "George Tenet personally briefed [the President about terrorism] every single morning."
- rob 2:13 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Yes the site got even uglier. But is it easier to read?- Monday, March 22, 2004 -
- rob 1:54 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Rice will not testify before 9/11 panel
WASHINGTON - Starting Tuesday, the most important Sept. 11 Commission hearings yet will scrutinize counterterror efforts of two presidential administrations, but a star witness will not be there.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify under oath, insisting that presidential advisers need not answer to legislative bodies.
As I understand it the commission exists to determine what mistakes were made in an effort that WE DO BETTER NEXT TIME. But Rice doesn't care about American security I guess. She's too busy making a bogus point about separation of powers.
- rob 6:09 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Updated the template.
Biggest change is that I've removed the links to Dean and Clark's campaigns from the left side of the site, because this site is nothing if not timely.
In its place we've placed a little callout for the Kerry Campaign. Click that link and you'll go straight to a contribution page (our own Kerry contribution page if you can believe that).
Oh, and speaking of contributing: we don't take contributions, but we do have a TCS Store where you can buy strange things, and if you happen to be buying something from Amazon, well, why not click on the little thing on the left, and then go shopping (we'll get some of that purchase, and it won't cost you a dime).
- rob 3:13 PM - [PermaLink] -
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This is a post for fellow contributor Michael, and to those of you that think he is too paranoid.
Bush-Cheney Inc. and their payments to Vance International
Yesterday I posted that Vance International, a firm that specializes in, among other things, Secret Service-like personal protection, surveillance, and corporate security during labor disputes, had received almost $200,000 from the Bush-Cheney campaign committee. I was wrong. Since July, Bush-Cheney Inc. has paid Vance International and one of its subsidiaries approximately $750,000. Should they continue at their current rate, by election day the Bush campaign will have paid over $1.5 million to a firm known for high-tech security and surveillance and low-tech picket line thuggery.
Read on for scary stuff. Read the comments to learn even more scary things about Vance International.
Like this:
In addition to setting up shop in Iraq, Vance Int'l is also replacing National Guard units here at home (so that the Guard can be deployed overseas). I found references to Vance Int'l filling in for National Guard folks in at least eight locations her ein the U.S. to allow for NG deployment to Iraq. For example, see here and here.
- rob 2:32 PM - [PermaLink] -
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My mom sent me this, and I thought TCS readers and especially Michael would appreciate this.
Vietnam II, you are cleared for takeoff"Vietnam II, you are cleared for takeoff."
- Cabal of oldsters who won't listen to outside advice? Check.
- No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check.
- National boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check.
- Secretary of Defense pushing a conflict the Joint Chiefs never wanted? Check.
- Fear we'll look bad if we back down now? Check.
- Corrupt Texan in the White House? Check.
- Right-wing unhappy with outcome of previous war? Check.
- Soldiers about to be exposed to our own chemicals? Check
- Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
- Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night? Check.
- Locals accustomed to conflicts lasting since before the USA has been a country? Check.
- Against advice, Prez won't raise taxes to pay for war? Check.
- Unpopular war? Check.
Edited slightly, go to the article for the full list.
- rob 12:10 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Iraq and the war on Terror - Bush's biggest weakness
Bush can't run on the economy so he's been running on his record of being a strong leader in a war against terror. But with the bad economy he can just beg stupidity, but in the war against terror his stupidity is actually criminal negligence.
And the public may finally be catching on, with the publishing of: Against All Enemies : Inside the White House's War on Terror--What Really Happened
At the very least it is getting the news media to finally wake up a little:
Did Bush Press For Iraq-9/11 Link?
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.
The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes.
...
Clarke also tells CBS News Correspondent Lesley Stahl that White House officials were tepid in their response when he urged them months before Sept. 11 to meet to discuss what he saw as a severe threat from al Qaeda.
"Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
The No. 2 man on the president's National Security Council, Stephen Hadley, vehemently disagrees. He says Mr. Bush has taken the fight to the terrorists, and is making the U.S. homeland safer.
Well, he did take it to the terrorists, and just when our brave soldiers and intelligence agents were doing some real good there, they were told to concentrate on a country that had nothing to do with al Quaeda: Iraq.
White House Rebuts Ex-Bush Adviser Claim
Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel investigating the attacks, recounted his early meeting with Rice as support for his contention the administration failed to recognize the risk of an attack by al-Qaida.
He said that within one week of Bush's inauguration he "urgently" sought a meeting of senior Cabinet leaders to discuss "the imminent al-Qaida threat."
Three months later, in April 2001, Clarke met with deputy secretaries. During that meeting, he wrote, the Defense Department's Paul Wolfowitz told Clarke, "You give bin Laden too much credit," and he said Wolfowitz sought to steer the discussion to Iraq.
Ex-Adviser Blasts Bush's Terror Response
Clarke harshly criticizes Bush personally in his book, saying his decision to invade Iraq generated broad anti-American sentiment among Arabs. He recounts that Bush asked him directly almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.
"Nothing America could have done would have provided al-Qaida and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country," Clarke wrote.
Clarke added: "One shudders to think what additional errors (Bush) will make in the next four years to strengthen the al-Qaida follow-ons: attacking Syria or Iran, undermining the Saudi regime without a plan for a successor state?"
The Eschaton/Atrios blog has numerous entries about this story. Including this interesting piece shooting down another one of Bush's attacks against Clarke.
Stahl thinks the important issue is that Clarke's demotion may have caused him to throw a hissy fit. I think the important issue is the fact that when the Bush administration came into power, they decided that the position of National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism wasn't important enough to be a Cabinet level position.
It seems more and more that Bush wasn't interested in securing our nation, but in fighting a personal vendetta against Saddam. Even after 9/11 they weren't interested in securing our nation:
FBI Budget Squeezed After 9/11
Request for New Counterterror Funds Cut by Two-Thirds
In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.
The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative capabilities."
The document was one of several administration papers obtained and given to The Washington Post by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.
Okay, just an aside here, but what happened to investigative journalism? The only reason the Post is reporting the pretty damning story above is because they were handed a document that told them about it. Liberal and Conservative groups do investigations and give press releases and newspapers run the stories. Even this whole discussion is only being discussed because Clarke want to sell books. Has any report investigated anything it the Bush administration? Ever?
Okay, back to the story at hand.
Bush didn't consider terrorism a real threat before or after 9/11 it seems. It was all about the war on Iraq. And that has left us open for truly horrific attacks:
Al-Qaida No. 2: We Have Briefcase Nukes
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.
In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market. It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.
In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.
"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.
"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.
Could we have prevented this from happening (if it happened)? Maybe.
Bush Plans to Slash Spending on Nuclear Safety Aid to Russia.
US budget cut brings fears of trafficking and a scientific brain drain
Throughout the 1990s the US spent billions of dollars on various programmes in Russia aimed at securing nuclear stockpiles against theft, decommissioning weapons-grade uranium and plutonium or converting it for civilian use, and retraining and paying Russian nuclear scientists in order to discourage them from taking their expertise elsewhere.
But then Bush came into office.
The Bush administration is planning to slash spending on nuclear safety projects in Russia, raising fears that slacker controls on the porous Russian nuclear industry could bring an upsurge in the trafficking of radioactive materials.
...
The policy has been widely seen as one of the few relatively successful aid programmes to Russia and the Clinton administration had signalled a 50% increase in funds this year for the projects run mainly by the Pentagon and the US Department of Energy.
But White House budget plans from the Bush team have scrapped the proposed increases and instead cut the $800m (£571m) allocated to the energy department by around $100m or more than 12%.
The above quotes were from an article written in May, 2001. The cuts did happen, but I couldn't find the article that happened after the cut. Maybe it didn't get big press.
It was obvious in 2001 that an underfunded Russian nuclear weapons program would create a black market in nukes. But the Bush administration needed that money to fund the tax cuts (I guess).
Meanwhile, the Russian nuclear weapons program has unpaid soldiers guarding missiles. Probably everything from the Russian nuclear weapons program is for sale. Heck even on eBay you can buy Cold War Doomsday Soviet ICBM Launch Keys. (Seems to be a popular item). Imagine what you can buy on the black market.
Bush/Cheney 04: Because in our first four years we've only made it so this century could suck. Give us four more years and the whole millennium will stink.
- rob 11:45 AM - [PermaLink] -
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9/11: For The Record by Condoleezza Rice- Sunday, March 21, 2004 -
As you know from the post above the administration is on the defensive (finally, but unfortunately not enough) about how it didn't and still doesn't really consider the war on terror a real war, and how its obsession with Iraq weakened the security of our nation.
So, being on the defensive, they go out and lie... i mean... they go out and try to set the record straight. Ms. Rice says:
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the president, like all Americans, wanted to know who was responsible. It would have been irresponsible not to ask a question about all possible links, including to Iraq -- a nation that had supported terrorism and had tried to kill a former president. Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
So as of September 17, 2001 the White House knew there was no evidence to connect Iraq to 9/11, and that al Qaeda was connected with the Taliban in Afghanistan (not Saddam in Iraq).
And yet:
- “You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.” – President Bush, 9/25/02
- “There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.” – President Bush, 9/17/03
- "There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there." - Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04
- “There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.” – Vice President Cheney, 9/14/03
- "Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal nonaggression discussions." – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 9/26/02
- "There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented." – National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, 9/25/02
thanks to Atrios for the quotes.
- rob 10:44 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Quid Pro Quack
Maureen Dowd got it right:
Justice Scalia proffers that while he accepted the vice president's offer of a ride on Air Force Two to Louisiana for a duck hunting trip, taking along his son and son-in-law, there was no quid pro quack. "I never hunted in the same blind as the vice president," he says. No need for justice to be blind when the blinds are just.
Here's an interesting New York Times letter writer:
To the Editor:
When I was called for jury duty, I was asked if I knew any of the participants in the case. I had met the prosecutor once on a canoe trip arranged by a friend. It was a large group of people, and I was not in the canoe with the assistant district attorney. We did not socialize at all because we were in separate canoes.
Yet when I told this to the judge, he excused me, saying I might have difficulty being impartial.
Why is it that it would have been improper for me to serve on that jury with 11 other people, yet it is not improper for Justice Antonin Scalia to judge a case involving his good friend Dick Cheney (front page, March 19)?
SANDI SCHIFFMAN
New York, March 19, 2004
I wonder why the greatest legal mind on America's highest bench fails to grasp this nuance? Here's what other legal thinkers have to say:
"The question, simply put, is whether someone who thought I could decide this case impartially despite my friendship with the vice president would reasonably believe that I cannot decide it impartially because I went hunting with that friend and accepted an invitation to fly there with him on a government plane. If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined." [Scalia]
Freedman: After earlier stating it correctly, he misstates the legal standard here. The statute says not "would" but "might" and not "cannot decide it impartially" but whether "his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
Notice the word "misstates": we're talking about a written document here, not an interview. This is the man who is most famous for his literalism, his "strict interpretation of the letter of the Constitution" -- as opposed to its meaning and spirit. The words -- and their literal meaning -- are twisted by this Supreme Court Justice. This ought to give you pause.
Here's another interesting account from an "impartial" and "objective" right-wing Court:
Mr. Rehnquist and his colleagues took the Florida case in their capacity as judges, with the implicit promise that they would make a legal determination.
In the eyes of their critics, however, that is just what they failed to do. The Bush v. Gore majority, made up of Mr. Rehnquist and his fellow conservatives, interpreted the equal protection clause in a sweeping way they had not before, and have not since. And they stated that the interpretation was "limited to the present circumstances," words that suggest a raw exercise of power, not legal analysis.
Buried in that flawed decision is a bold vision of democracy. The court stopped the Florida recount because the procedures did not "satisfy the minimum requirement for nonarbitrary treatment of voters." Critics of the ruling charged that it created a "class of one," Mr. Bush, entitled to an extraordinary level of protection. The way for the court to prove them wrong is to start taking the right to vote more seriously, and to apply the standard in future election cases.
With sitting Justices like Rehnquist and Scalia, ruling for the rest of our lives, can there be any doubt? I've got a 21-page explanation to prove it.
- Michael 1:20 PM - [PermaLink] -
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fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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