The most heinous crime of the new millennium
5/25/2003
By Lisa Walsh Thomas
Online Journal Contributing Writer
"We have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities. There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."
—Colin Powell on February 6, speaking to the UN Security Council, demanding their support for the invasion of Iraq
May 23, 2003—The greatest crime? Tall order, even if the millenium isn't three years old yet, because the new leaders of this country have had a running start since before the new millenium bells started ringing.
The long line at the rear is ready to give the honor to George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and others on the payroll to paralyze American hearts with fear of being nuked by Iraq (or whomever) so that Johnny could go marching off to war and see that dollars instead of euros triumph when the US takes over the slushy oilfields. But if you think the administration's imperialism is the greatest crime, remember what Bob Dylan sang to us a generation ago, recalling the murder of Hattie Carroll: "Now ain't the time for your tears." Because it gets worse.
The prize for most heinous crime doesn't go to George or Colin or any of the oily-fingered bunch, not even those who now face charges of war crimes (if we don't knock off Belgium first). It goes to the people of this country, those who are checking the Dow today, those out laughing over dinner as if all's right with the world, those signing new contracts for "better" lives, those with 14 tattered flags bedecking their SUVs, those who sleep well, truly believing that God's on our side even when we fib a little, those who, in blunt terms, simply don't give a damn that thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of innocent Iraqis lie dead, that more than a thousand Iraqi kids will never see summer. Never. Our kids will go to summer camp; a thousand Iraqi kids will rot underground. Therein lies a difference to be noted.
Enough of us marched in the streets and wrote into the late hours, begging the world to make the inexperienced but oil-hungry, power-seeking cowboy who stole our White House stop and take note of what the weapons inspectors were saying: no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. We begged; the pope begged; the leaders of every major Christian church in America except for the Baptists begged; Nobel laureates begged; the Dalai Lama begged; millions of people who care gathered in the streets all over the world and begged: please don't blow off little Ahmed's legs or make him watch his mother die screaming, when you don't have one shred of evidence that his country is any kind of threat to anyone. Please don't blind his little sister just because her father's hut sits on oil. Please don't wipe out those 19-year old Iraqi boys who are going to fight to the death to defend their homeland against foreign invaders and their impressive "shock and awe." Please, for God's sake, let the inspectors find out if there is any danger in Iraq.
We begged until we were blue in the face. We were called commies, traitors, and ignorant fools, but worst of all, we were ignored. I personally received more hate mail than I can count asking me who I thought I was to question the wisdom of our president [sic]. Because I cried for the children whose days were numbered, I—and other writers and activists—were wished horrible deaths ourselves. One evil-wisher expressed the desire that I die in Saddam's arms.
Because somewhere, somehow, someone convinced the people of this country that George W. Bush is a man of God and has a hotline straight to Jesus. And the Jesus of these people was saying, "Kill, kill, kill."
In January George W. Bush put on his "sincere" look (the one reporters describe having seen him practice in the mirror) and faced 83 million people for the 2003 State of the Union, assuring them that Iraq had the materials "to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax—enough doses to kill several million people . . . more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin—enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure . . . as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." That's surely enough to make a loyal patriot choke on his KFC chicken leg.
And they had the evidence. Both he and Colin Powell made that assurance at every opportunity. And the people (of this country) believed him. Terrified of being victims of Iraq, having their faces melted by Iraqi nukes, having their wives raped by the invading Iraqi army, they ran to Wal-Mart and bought flags by the dozens, frantically waved them, and demanded that the entire country "support our troops."
The quotes on the administration's certainty of Iraq's threat to the world could go on and on and on but do not deserve to be dignified by repetition. Worse, some of the things Bush told the 83 million people who watched that night were things that had already been unequivocably refuted by the International Atomic Energy Commission. He knew at the time he read them from his teleprompter that they were lies. The unelected leader of this country, whom we are told to respect come hell or high water, brazenly lied to 83 million people. Without blinking.
We must surely ask whether lies of this magnitude, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents, fall in the same category as a lie about a sexual liason with an intern. If the latter deserved impeachment, does it follow that the former deserves perhaps a hard, uncomfortable chair in a corner of eternal hell?
But never mind George W. Bush. People who have taken the time to study his record already know that he has never shied away from a lie that resulted in any kind of personal gain. Look at his military record and wonder at the gall of his showing up in flight gear on an aircraft carrier to talk as the "warrior king," just as if he had honorably served himself. Unless we were living in caves, or unless we fell into the group who couldn't keep Saddam and Osama (Osama bin Forgotten?) straight and still think the 9–11 hijackers were from Iraq, we knew that Bush habitually runs short on anything even vaguely resembling honesty. Even then, we allowed rings to be placed in our noses and didn't squeak when they were jerked.
And now the lies are out there for everyone to see. So what are we to do? News of Laci Peterson's murder is old hat now, leaving us pacing around for new adventure, new reality TV, a new sex scandal. We can get miffed about the 10 Americans killed in the suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, but we have to be careful not to conclude that the slaughter of innocent Iraqis led to the bombings.
What won't go away, no matter how many sensational stories network television tries to seduce us with, are facts that growing numbers of Americans are having to swallow: knowledge of the forged documents purporting to show Iraq had bought uranium ore from Niger, bugging the UN offices of countries that didn't jump when Bush snapped his fingers, claims that intelligence analysts were forced to stretch facts to fit the theories of superiors at the White House, Pentagon and vice president's office. They're just sitting there, sticking out like a gross blemish on the face as you head out the door to your senior prom.
It's serious. We have this pile of lies now, and there are these piles of bodies in Iraq, and there are these non-piles of chemical and biological weapons that must have zoomed up to heaven in a sneak preview of rapture, and we have to do something if we ever hope to take the family to Europe again and tell the people we meet where we're from. What on earth do we do about the whole mess? Something better than blaming the French and pouring $40 bottles of wine in the streets because France told us to stop the damned jingoism.
We can shop! That's what we can do. We have a leader who tells us to shop until we drop and the economy will improve, as corporate bottom lines improve and make the CEOs more receptive to hiring a few more minimum-wage employees. If we shop hard enough we can perhaps forget that we murdered tens of thousands of innocent people because we were so apathetic that we simply believed the lies that were spoon-fed to us without checking them out. How many "true believing patriots" know anything about the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) and the intentions of the far right in this country to control the globe. One suggestion for coming out of the coma is to try looking at that one, in their own words, at: www.newamericancentury.org/
But 56 percent of the people in this country, even after admitting that the stories of weapons of mass destruction were false, still insist it was a good idea to go kill Iraq, because Saddam was a bad guy (Of course he was a bad guy; he was originally our guy, just like Noriega, Osama bin Laden, Pinochet, Somoza, Batista and almost all members of the bad-guy club)—more than half the people in this country. These are the people, of course, who fell for the business about there being a "coalition of the willing," those unwilling to dig in and find out that the "coalition" was made up of the U.S., UK and those we could threaten or buy off.
These people polled may legitimately feel good that we've rid the world of one dictator even if his people do starve this summer and spawn a thousand future terrorists to go after our grandchildren, even if the depleted uranium has yielded a million-year wasteland, even if kids are still dying every day from the human-rights-condemned cluster bombs that leave little bomblets that look like toys. These people may think it's our right to kill a country if its leader is repressive and a general thug, as was Saddam. But I wonder about the families of the 130 American soldiers who died in Iraq. Do they perhaps wish our president [sic] had told the truth? I wonder if the mothers of those thousand kids we killed are rejoicing in their "liberation." What about our soldiers over there now, fearing for their lives as they see the hate in the eyes of those they "liberated."
What fools we have all been. And what bigger fools we are not to now admit that we were snookered and that possibly George W. Bush may not be the Messiah after all. Who came out happy? We must ask ourselves who came out happy? Defense contractors, the oil oligarchy and companies like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, who are making millions on contracts to rebuild Iraq—contracts not up for public bidding. Cheney is still, by the way, on the Halliburton payroll, a cool million a year. Maybe that didn't have anything to do with Halliburton getting such juicy contracts; maybe being good-looking didn't have anything to do with Brad Pitt breaking into movies; maybe a high IQ didn't have anything to do with Einstein's preoccupation with relativity.
There are fortunes being made on the results of these phantom weapons of mass destruction that whushed off into a black hole as soon as U.S. soldiers got control of the oilfields. And the fortunes are not being made in the smallest way by the families who sent their sons to die in the desert, either.
But who gets the prize? Most Heinous Crime of the New Millenium. In a pool of a thousand atrocities, who, in the end, is the guiltiest, the lowest, the slimiest and truest representatives of heinous crimes? Perhaps those who sit back and, even knowing that we allowed our country to massacre thousands on the basis of lies, just let it go while they focus on their Big Macs. Those who won't take to the streets when Bush goes after the next country on his list (probably after the election). The guy down in Texas with the huge yard sign that says, "Iraq today, France tomorrow."
This was just the beginning, a testing of waters. If you doubt the oracle, go back and read the papers issued by the PNAC. Bush showed the world just how big his guns were, and those questioning him have taken a silent step backward. The U.S. power to financially cripple a country is staggering. Its power to blow them out of existence is now well demonstrated as well. And we let it happen, some with immense pride.
Are we feeling bad yet? Does a triple thick milkshake curdle in our throats yet?
The inimitable Mark Morford answers it best (SF Gate, May 14, 2003):
"Because now it's all done. Like a bad trip to the dentist where your routine cleaning turned out to be a bloody excruciating root canal and 50 hours of high-pitched drilling and $100 billion in god-awful cosmetic surgery, now the bandages come off. Smile, sucker. We're at peace once again. Sort of. But not really. Don't you feel better now? No? Too bad. No one cares what you think."
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Washington vs Cuba After Castro
- by Stephen Lendman
2/25/08
On February 18, at 5:30PM in Havana an era ended when Fidel Castro's written statement announced it. It was read on early Tuesday morning radio and television and reprinted in the Cuban newspaper Granma as follows:
"....I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief....it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer....Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others....who learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.
The path will always be difficult....We should always be prepared for the worst....The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century....
I was able to recover the full command of my mind (and am able to do) much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours....My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's all I can offer.
This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of 'Reflections by comrade Fidel.' It will be just another weapon you can count on....
Thanks.
Fidel Castro Ruz"
The world press reacted….
full article
2/25/08
On February 18, at 5:30PM in Havana an era ended when Fidel Castro's written statement announced it. It was read on early Tuesday morning radio and television and reprinted in the Cuban newspaper Granma as follows:
"....I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief....it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer....Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others....who learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.
The path will always be difficult....We should always be prepared for the worst....The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century....
I was able to recover the full command of my mind (and am able to do) much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours....My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's all I can offer.
This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of 'Reflections by comrade Fidel.' It will be just another weapon you can count on....
Thanks.
Fidel Castro Ruz"
The world press reacted….
full article
Saturday, February 23, 2008
The One Truth That Must Be Faced
by Mary Pitt
2/23/08
In the midst of all the partisan politicking that is going on, it is very easy to lose sight of unpleasant truths. We hear the Republicans railing about the "tax and spend" policies of the Democrats while the Democrats concentrate on the plight of the common folk of the country who have been bled white by paying for the privilege of bidding adieu to their means of employment.
All the Republican candidates have campaigned on the virtue of literally abolishing all taxes, at least on the wealthy, so they can use all their money to make more money and to become even wealthier. Ron Paul even goes as far as pledging to abolish the Internal Revenue Service while Huckabee is an advocate for the "flat tax" which will further shift the burden of supporting the government even more onto the poor and middle class. Of course, they all want to eliminate all Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government charitable institutions, leaving the poor to beg at the doors to churches and panhandle on the streets. Meanwhile, they ignore the enormous national debt that is lurking out there, waiting to bite us hard just when we are trying to restore our democracy.
It is easy for them to ignore the fact that this terrible burden has been foisted on the American public by the fair-haired son-of-a-former- President who now occupies the White House. They would have us forget that it was created by the power greed of a spoiled man who was willing to break his oath by lying to the American people in order to capture Middle Eastern oil and to make a prominent place in history as the man who accomplished what his daddy felt it unwise to do.
But The People know that bills must be paid. The enormity of the bill payable that has been incurred by this runaway President is sufficient to boggle the mind of any ordinary wage-earner. If every safety-net supplied currently by the Federal government were to be ended tomorrow, it would still take years to bring the national debt to a reasonable level and the budget into balance.
The Democrats timidly offer as a solution the end of the war and the timely death of Bush's tax cuts for the rich while the Republicans jump on the old "tax-and-spend" bandwagon again and put the pedal to the metal, hoping that the poor, ignorant peasants will not realize that they have been taken. Not this time. Thanks to the outsourcing and the offshoring of Bush's "Free Trade" policies, the peasants are all to well aware of the pressures of indebtedness. Some may have lived beyond their means, thanks to the easy-credit policies of the national money machine and are paying dearly for it. Others, simply trying to provide for the needs of their families, have been fiscally destroyed by job loss or illness.
We do understand and we will do what is necessary and that is where the unfaced truth rears its ugly head. We all know that the bills must be paid! They cannot be paid by a Defense of Marriage Amendment. They cannot be paid by outlawing abortion or reinstating prayer in the public schools. There is only one way to pay ourselves out of the bankruptcy that President Bush has inflicted up on us all, and that is by paying taxes. Not just from the meager wages of the working poor and the working class, but by everybody! At the end of World War II, the good Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower had presided over a tax which reached 95% on America's top earners, but the bills were paid.
And that is what must be done now. Regardless of the party affiliation of the governing bodies, regardless of personal and political ambitions, unless that debt is paid and paid in full, our nation is not free. So long as our markers are held by foreign powers who may not like us very much, we are hampered in our decisions regarding the rest of the world. We may worry about the recession that is upon us now but it is nothing to compare with the crash that would occur if a couple of those other nations were to call for payment of their debt.
The next Congress should, early on, assess the amount of money that is needed to make substantial payment on the debt in addition to balancing the current budget, and compute from that the amounts of taxes that must be required. This will greatly displease a good many people, particularly those with great wealth, but it is an unpleasant chore that must be done. We have done it before and we can do it again, without ending any safety nets or further disadvantaging our elderly. All that is required is a President and a Congress with the intestinal fortitude to face it and get it done.
For too long, working Americans have given their money, their security, and the blood of their children to accomplish the ambitions of the President and the Friends of George. If we dared to complain, we were charged with lack of patriotism, with being un-American, and it was suggested that we "love it or leave it." For the whiners who have been too long on the high horse of privilege and are crying crocodile tears about the proposed tax rates and the end of their gravy train, I have only one response, "Shut up and pay your damned taxes or get out of my country!"
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
2/23/08
In the midst of all the partisan politicking that is going on, it is very easy to lose sight of unpleasant truths. We hear the Republicans railing about the "tax and spend" policies of the Democrats while the Democrats concentrate on the plight of the common folk of the country who have been bled white by paying for the privilege of bidding adieu to their means of employment.
All the Republican candidates have campaigned on the virtue of literally abolishing all taxes, at least on the wealthy, so they can use all their money to make more money and to become even wealthier. Ron Paul even goes as far as pledging to abolish the Internal Revenue Service while Huckabee is an advocate for the "flat tax" which will further shift the burden of supporting the government even more onto the poor and middle class. Of course, they all want to eliminate all Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government charitable institutions, leaving the poor to beg at the doors to churches and panhandle on the streets. Meanwhile, they ignore the enormous national debt that is lurking out there, waiting to bite us hard just when we are trying to restore our democracy.
It is easy for them to ignore the fact that this terrible burden has been foisted on the American public by the fair-haired son-of-a-former- President who now occupies the White House. They would have us forget that it was created by the power greed of a spoiled man who was willing to break his oath by lying to the American people in order to capture Middle Eastern oil and to make a prominent place in history as the man who accomplished what his daddy felt it unwise to do.
But The People know that bills must be paid. The enormity of the bill payable that has been incurred by this runaway President is sufficient to boggle the mind of any ordinary wage-earner. If every safety-net supplied currently by the Federal government were to be ended tomorrow, it would still take years to bring the national debt to a reasonable level and the budget into balance.
The Democrats timidly offer as a solution the end of the war and the timely death of Bush's tax cuts for the rich while the Republicans jump on the old "tax-and-spend" bandwagon again and put the pedal to the metal, hoping that the poor, ignorant peasants will not realize that they have been taken. Not this time. Thanks to the outsourcing and the offshoring of Bush's "Free Trade" policies, the peasants are all to well aware of the pressures of indebtedness. Some may have lived beyond their means, thanks to the easy-credit policies of the national money machine and are paying dearly for it. Others, simply trying to provide for the needs of their families, have been fiscally destroyed by job loss or illness.
We do understand and we will do what is necessary and that is where the unfaced truth rears its ugly head. We all know that the bills must be paid! They cannot be paid by a Defense of Marriage Amendment. They cannot be paid by outlawing abortion or reinstating prayer in the public schools. There is only one way to pay ourselves out of the bankruptcy that President Bush has inflicted up on us all, and that is by paying taxes. Not just from the meager wages of the working poor and the working class, but by everybody! At the end of World War II, the good Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower had presided over a tax which reached 95% on America's top earners, but the bills were paid.
And that is what must be done now. Regardless of the party affiliation of the governing bodies, regardless of personal and political ambitions, unless that debt is paid and paid in full, our nation is not free. So long as our markers are held by foreign powers who may not like us very much, we are hampered in our decisions regarding the rest of the world. We may worry about the recession that is upon us now but it is nothing to compare with the crash that would occur if a couple of those other nations were to call for payment of their debt.
The next Congress should, early on, assess the amount of money that is needed to make substantial payment on the debt in addition to balancing the current budget, and compute from that the amounts of taxes that must be required. This will greatly displease a good many people, particularly those with great wealth, but it is an unpleasant chore that must be done. We have done it before and we can do it again, without ending any safety nets or further disadvantaging our elderly. All that is required is a President and a Congress with the intestinal fortitude to face it and get it done.
For too long, working Americans have given their money, their security, and the blood of their children to accomplish the ambitions of the President and the Friends of George. If we dared to complain, we were charged with lack of patriotism, with being un-American, and it was suggested that we "love it or leave it." For the whiners who have been too long on the high horse of privilege and are crying crocodile tears about the proposed tax rates and the end of their gravy train, I have only one response, "Shut up and pay your damned taxes or get out of my country!"
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
Sunday, February 17, 2008
a history 080217
What FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds found in translation
by Philip Giraldi
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, February 17, 2008
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-sibeledmonds_17edi.ART.State.Edition1.45b446a.html
Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will.
The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels – sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds' account is full of dates, places and names. And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.
But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Ms. Edmonds' case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation "could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States."
[…]
From The Sunday Times
January 27, 2008
Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe
Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria in Washington
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3257725.ece
AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.
The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.
The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.
The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.
[…]
An Inconvenient Patriot
By David Rose
Vanity Fair
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm
08/15/05 "Vanity Fair" - September 2005 Issue -- -- Love of country led Sibel Edmonds to become a translator for the F.B.I. following 9/11. But everything changed when she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals. Fired after sounding the alarm, she’s now fighting for the ideals that made her an American, and threatening some very powerful people.
[…]
Translator in Eye of Storm on Retroactive Classification
by Anne E. Kornblut
Published on Monday, July 5, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/07/05/translator_in_eye_of_storm_on_retroactive_classification/
WASHINGTON -- Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.
Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy imperative supported by members of the Bush administration.
In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Edmonds case be retroactively classified, even basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in meetings with members of Congress for two years. The Department of Justice also invoked the seldom-used ''state secrets" privilege to silence Edmonds in court. She has been blocked from testifying in a lawsuit brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and was allowed to speak to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks only behind closed doors.
[…]
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
02 April 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-01.htm
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".
She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."
[…]
by Philip Giraldi
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, February 17, 2008
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-sibeledmonds_17edi.ART.State.Edition1.45b446a.html
Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will.
The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels – sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds' account is full of dates, places and names. And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.
But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Ms. Edmonds' case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation "could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States."
[…]
From The Sunday Times
January 27, 2008
Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe
Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria in Washington
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3257725.ece
AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.
The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.
The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.
The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.
[…]
An Inconvenient Patriot
By David Rose
Vanity Fair
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm
08/15/05 "Vanity Fair" - September 2005 Issue -- -- Love of country led Sibel Edmonds to become a translator for the F.B.I. following 9/11. But everything changed when she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals. Fired after sounding the alarm, she’s now fighting for the ideals that made her an American, and threatening some very powerful people.
[…]
Translator in Eye of Storm on Retroactive Classification
by Anne E. Kornblut
Published on Monday, July 5, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/07/05/translator_in_eye_of_storm_on_retroactive_classification/
WASHINGTON -- Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.
Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy imperative supported by members of the Bush administration.
In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Edmonds case be retroactively classified, even basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in meetings with members of Congress for two years. The Department of Justice also invoked the seldom-used ''state secrets" privilege to silence Edmonds in court. She has been blocked from testifying in a lawsuit brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and was allowed to speak to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks only behind closed doors.
[…]
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
02 April 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-01.htm
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".
She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."
[…]
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Defending Torture
Defending Torture, Administration Stoops to the Orwellian
Friday, Feb 08, 2008 - 12:09 AM
By A. Barton Hinkle
Times-Dispatch Columnist
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-02-08-0049.html
Earlier this week the White House called American veterans liars.
The Bush administration didn't say it quite so baldly as that. But after CIA director Michael Hayden acknowledged the use of waterboarding, a White House spokesman said the ad ministration had determined it was a lawful "enhanced interrogation technique" rather than illegal torture.
That's a remarkable shift. During the WWII era the U.S. prosecuted Japanese military leaders for committing torture -- by waterboarding -- in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. As Charles Nielsen, an Army Air Force lieutenant who was captured by the Japanese, testified then: "I was given several types of torture . . . .I was given what they call the water cure." He described the effect: "I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death." Was Nielsen lying?
Retired Army Gen. Stephen Xenakis says that "our nation has regarded waterboarding as torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment since the late 19th century." Is he a liar?
The U.S. Army field manual prohibits warterboarding. U.S. servicemen were convicted for waterboarding enemy soldiers in both 1901 and 1968. And in congressional testimony last year, Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist and instructor at the Navy's SERE -- Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape -- school, described his own experience with waterboarding: "It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts." Is Nance a liar?
U.S. policy, then, seems to be that waterboarding of Americans is torture, and waterboarding by Americans before 9/11 was torture, but waterboarding by Americans after 9/11 is not. This is known as moral relativism, which conservatives used to abhor.
As David Gushee observed in "Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong," a 2006 essay in Christianity Today, people generally "do not want to call torture what it is." The Bush administration has been forced into Orwellian Doublespeak because it wants to pretend an activity that is clearly torturous is not torture. But saying so doesn't make it so. The administration might just as well try to defend the eating of cooked human flesh by saying, "We don't consider that to be cannibalism. It's only cannibalism if you eat it raw." Nope.
BUT STILL -- why not torture alleged enemy combatants? Here, in extremely truncated form, are a number of reasons:
(1) Sometimes we get the wrong guy. See, e.g., the cases of Maher Arar, Khaled el-Masri, and Murat Kurnaz.
(2) Even when we get the right guy, torture isn't likely to produce useful intelligence. As Darius Rejali of Reed College wrote in December: "Between 1500 and 1750, French prosecutors tried to torture confessions out of 785 individuals. Torture was legal back then, and the records document such practices as the bone-crushing use of splints, pumping stomachs with water until they swelled, and pouring boiling oil on the feet. But the number of prisoners who said anything was low, from 3 percent in Paris to 14 percent in Toulouse (an exceptional high). Most of the time, the torturers were unable to get any statement whatsoever."
(3) Statements that can be gotten might be lies. Lies are not only unproductive, they are counterproductive, because authorities have to spend time and investigative resources chasing false leads. The Soviets used to joke about Stalin misplacing his favorite pipe. He ordered an investigation, then called it off when he found his pipe. "But Comrade Stalin," said the head of the secret police, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it!"
(4) This reduces torture to mere sadism. Sadistic torture of patently guilty terrorists might be cathartic. (In fact it is, which is what makes Fox's "24" so popular.) But catharsis is a poor reason to throw away America's reputation as a shining city on a hill. Terrorists might deserve hellish suffering. Hellish suffering is physically degrading to the victim, but morally degrading to the inflicter.
(5) The only rationale for torture rests upon an extremely thin reed: the highly unlikely ticking-time-bomb scenario the White House trotted out the other day.
IT SEEMS worth asking, then, why nobody proposed torturing Timothy McVeigh to find out whether he knew of any other homegrown terrorist plots. Likewise, the argument for torturing terrorist suspects would apply equally to criminal suspects who might have knowledge of ongoing criminal enterprises. Imagine how much easier it would be -- according to the logic of the pro-torture contingent -- if law-enforcement agencies could subject mafia dons, drug kingpins, or even street-corner dealers to waterboarding, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and similar torments.
It does no good to respond that torturing American citizens is unlawful or unconstitutional, because the Bush administration's supporters have argued that the war on terror requires changing -- or simply ignoring -- both the law and the Constitution when the president deems it necessary. The entire pro-torture argument rests on the thesis that if the ends justify the means, rules are irrelevant and anything goes.
There are, of course, some individuals who think it is perfectly fitting to torture anybody, citizen or non-, enemy soldier or mere criminal suspect, if there is any chance whatsoever that torture will produce the desired results.
Many of them -- though not all -- have sworn allegiance to al-Qaida.
My thoughts do not aim for your assent -- just place them alongside your own reflections for a while.
--Robert Nozick.
Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or bhinkle@timesdispatch.com.
Friday, Feb 08, 2008 - 12:09 AM
By A. Barton Hinkle
Times-Dispatch Columnist
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-02-08-0049.html
Earlier this week the White House called American veterans liars.
The Bush administration didn't say it quite so baldly as that. But after CIA director Michael Hayden acknowledged the use of waterboarding, a White House spokesman said the ad ministration had determined it was a lawful "enhanced interrogation technique" rather than illegal torture.
That's a remarkable shift. During the WWII era the U.S. prosecuted Japanese military leaders for committing torture -- by waterboarding -- in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. As Charles Nielsen, an Army Air Force lieutenant who was captured by the Japanese, testified then: "I was given several types of torture . . . .I was given what they call the water cure." He described the effect: "I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death." Was Nielsen lying?
Retired Army Gen. Stephen Xenakis says that "our nation has regarded waterboarding as torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment since the late 19th century." Is he a liar?
The U.S. Army field manual prohibits warterboarding. U.S. servicemen were convicted for waterboarding enemy soldiers in both 1901 and 1968. And in congressional testimony last year, Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist and instructor at the Navy's SERE -- Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape -- school, described his own experience with waterboarding: "It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts." Is Nance a liar?
U.S. policy, then, seems to be that waterboarding of Americans is torture, and waterboarding by Americans before 9/11 was torture, but waterboarding by Americans after 9/11 is not. This is known as moral relativism, which conservatives used to abhor.
As David Gushee observed in "Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong," a 2006 essay in Christianity Today, people generally "do not want to call torture what it is." The Bush administration has been forced into Orwellian Doublespeak because it wants to pretend an activity that is clearly torturous is not torture. But saying so doesn't make it so. The administration might just as well try to defend the eating of cooked human flesh by saying, "We don't consider that to be cannibalism. It's only cannibalism if you eat it raw." Nope.
BUT STILL -- why not torture alleged enemy combatants? Here, in extremely truncated form, are a number of reasons:
(1) Sometimes we get the wrong guy. See, e.g., the cases of Maher Arar, Khaled el-Masri, and Murat Kurnaz.
(2) Even when we get the right guy, torture isn't likely to produce useful intelligence. As Darius Rejali of Reed College wrote in December: "Between 1500 and 1750, French prosecutors tried to torture confessions out of 785 individuals. Torture was legal back then, and the records document such practices as the bone-crushing use of splints, pumping stomachs with water until they swelled, and pouring boiling oil on the feet. But the number of prisoners who said anything was low, from 3 percent in Paris to 14 percent in Toulouse (an exceptional high). Most of the time, the torturers were unable to get any statement whatsoever."
(3) Statements that can be gotten might be lies. Lies are not only unproductive, they are counterproductive, because authorities have to spend time and investigative resources chasing false leads. The Soviets used to joke about Stalin misplacing his favorite pipe. He ordered an investigation, then called it off when he found his pipe. "But Comrade Stalin," said the head of the secret police, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it!"
(4) This reduces torture to mere sadism. Sadistic torture of patently guilty terrorists might be cathartic. (In fact it is, which is what makes Fox's "24" so popular.) But catharsis is a poor reason to throw away America's reputation as a shining city on a hill. Terrorists might deserve hellish suffering. Hellish suffering is physically degrading to the victim, but morally degrading to the inflicter.
(5) The only rationale for torture rests upon an extremely thin reed: the highly unlikely ticking-time-bomb scenario the White House trotted out the other day.
IT SEEMS worth asking, then, why nobody proposed torturing Timothy McVeigh to find out whether he knew of any other homegrown terrorist plots. Likewise, the argument for torturing terrorist suspects would apply equally to criminal suspects who might have knowledge of ongoing criminal enterprises. Imagine how much easier it would be -- according to the logic of the pro-torture contingent -- if law-enforcement agencies could subject mafia dons, drug kingpins, or even street-corner dealers to waterboarding, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and similar torments.
It does no good to respond that torturing American citizens is unlawful or unconstitutional, because the Bush administration's supporters have argued that the war on terror requires changing -- or simply ignoring -- both the law and the Constitution when the president deems it necessary. The entire pro-torture argument rests on the thesis that if the ends justify the means, rules are irrelevant and anything goes.
There are, of course, some individuals who think it is perfectly fitting to torture anybody, citizen or non-, enemy soldier or mere criminal suspect, if there is any chance whatsoever that torture will produce the desired results.
Many of them -- though not all -- have sworn allegiance to al-Qaida.
My thoughts do not aim for your assent -- just place them alongside your own reflections for a while.
--Robert Nozick.
Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or bhinkle@timesdispatch.com.
Lies, Damn Lies and the Murdoch Empire
- by Stephen Lendman
2/7/08
For Big Media, truth is a scare commodity and in times of war it's the first casualty, or as esteemed journalist John Pilger noted: "Journalism (not truth) is the first casualty (of war). Not only that: it('s)....a weapon of war (by its) virulent censorship....by omission (and its) power....can mean....life and death for people in faraway countries, such as Iraq."
Famed journalist George Seldes put it another way by condemning the "prostitution of the press" in an earlier era when he covered WW I, the rise of fascism, and most major world and national events until his death in 1995 at age 104. He also confronted the media in books like "Lords of the Press." In it and others, he condemned their corruption, suppression of the truth, and news censorship before the television age, and said "The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself, (and the press is) the most powerful force against the general welfare of the majority of the people."
read more
2/7/08
For Big Media, truth is a scare commodity and in times of war it's the first casualty, or as esteemed journalist John Pilger noted: "Journalism (not truth) is the first casualty (of war). Not only that: it('s)....a weapon of war (by its) virulent censorship....by omission (and its) power....can mean....life and death for people in faraway countries, such as Iraq."
Famed journalist George Seldes put it another way by condemning the "prostitution of the press" in an earlier era when he covered WW I, the rise of fascism, and most major world and national events until his death in 1995 at age 104. He also confronted the media in books like "Lords of the Press." In it and others, he condemned their corruption, suppression of the truth, and news censorship before the television age, and said "The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself, (and the press is) the most powerful force against the general welfare of the majority of the people."
read more
Cal Thomas’s no-brainer
Cal Thomas writes:
“At a minimum, we should send Iraq and Afghanistan a bill for what we have done and are trying to do for them, or ask for price cuts on Iraqi oil. Thousands of American lives have been lost and the financial cost is enormous, as we seek to advance freedom for others.”
- Allies are contributing chump change for wars The News Press 2/09/08
Well, wouldn’t that be special. We’ve gone in, uninvited, and destroyed their countries, their infrastructure, their people, and poisoned their environment with our DU munitions, and he wants us to send them the bill. Why? Because he’s upset that our allies aren’t investing enough of their treasury in Bush’s wars.
Is this a great country, or what? According to the bush administration and its allies, it would be ok for me to get some hack lawyer to write an opinion saying it’s legal for me to go ahead and go in to his home, beat him up, trash his house, kick his dog, rape his wife and children, and strew his garbage about the street, and he will happily pay the bill. And, I’ll have that hack opinion, so I won’t have to worry about any legal consequences.
Think that’s extreme? Well, that’s exactly what we have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he wants to send them the bill? What’s the matter Cal? Afraid you might have to pay more taxes to pay for what we’ve done? You and your friends wanted the wars, Cal, pay for them out of your own pockets. You all sure made enough through your war-mongering, and war-profiteering.
update 2/17/08
The News-Press printed the letter:
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/OPINION/802130375/1015
“At a minimum, we should send Iraq and Afghanistan a bill for what we have done and are trying to do for them, or ask for price cuts on Iraqi oil. Thousands of American lives have been lost and the financial cost is enormous, as we seek to advance freedom for others.”
- Allies are contributing chump change for wars The News Press 2/09/08
Well, wouldn’t that be special. We’ve gone in, uninvited, and destroyed their countries, their infrastructure, their people, and poisoned their environment with our DU munitions, and he wants us to send them the bill. Why? Because he’s upset that our allies aren’t investing enough of their treasury in Bush’s wars.
Is this a great country, or what? According to the bush administration and its allies, it would be ok for me to get some hack lawyer to write an opinion saying it’s legal for me to go ahead and go in to his home, beat him up, trash his house, kick his dog, rape his wife and children, and strew his garbage about the street, and he will happily pay the bill. And, I’ll have that hack opinion, so I won’t have to worry about any legal consequences.
Think that’s extreme? Well, that’s exactly what we have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he wants to send them the bill? What’s the matter Cal? Afraid you might have to pay more taxes to pay for what we’ve done? You and your friends wanted the wars, Cal, pay for them out of your own pockets. You all sure made enough through your war-mongering, and war-profiteering.
update 2/17/08
The News-Press printed the letter:
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/OPINION/802130375/1015
Friday, February 08, 2008
Empire America's Bread and Circuses
by Richard L. Franklin
2/7/08
Back in the first century, the Roman poet Juvenal, in his 'Satire X', wrote a poem with lines which have forever remained famous and have been endlessly repeated. His satirical poem ridiculed the Roman people for letting their freedoms dwindle and slip away as they contented themselves with the free grain that was given to them in addition to the free circuses held in the Coliseum.
From Juvenal's 'Satire'
Already long ago,
from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties;
for the People who once upon a time handed out military command,
high civil office, legions - everything,
now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses
As I watched and listened to the electoral circus being presented to the people of America, and I took note of their extreme excitement over the ongoing contests, I was simultaneously saddened and angered. I saw the entire huge ritual as a great waste of time and wealth. It is obvious to me that it has been no more than a spectacular diversion for the media and the people of America. I say 'diversion' because the ongoing electoral circus takes the minds of the people off an ongoing dramatic erosion of their liberties, clear hints of a pending national economic collapse, and most significantly, clear signs that a corrupt electoral system has been installed in so-called 'key states'.
Since the last election, which was won by Kerry, but was blatantly fixed to give Bush still another undeserved four years in the White House, America's electronic electoral system has been left untouched by significant reform or the imposition of any rational governmental control over it. There is no federal oversight whatsoever over the new electronic voting systems! Not only that, state after state continues buying huge numbers of corruptible Diebold and ES&S voting machines from the infamous Bob Urosevich and his brother Todd.
Bob once publicly declared that he 'would do anything to elect George Bush'. Amazingly, the media ignored his brazen pledge, and Bob went ahead to fix his Diebold programs with switch levers. In the Ohio elections, his machines performed such manipulations as giving Bush two votes and Kerry one vote every time somebody voted for Kerry. Todd most likely managed to do the same with the ES&S machines in other locales.
Just for starters, only the brothers and their agents are allowed under law to access the computer programming of these machines, an outrage our treasonous Supreme Court has smiled upon. It's so easy to hack these machines, a chimpanzee has been trained to do it in 90 seconds. I kid you not.
Not only that, the voting machines are all linked at any given voting station. This makes it possible to change the program in one machine in about 60 seconds thusly making it a master machine and all the rest of the machines slaves. In short, in 60 seconds, an entire voting station, no matter how big, can be reprogrammed to give the election to a specified candidate.
Exit polls proved that massive vote fraud occurred in Ohio and the election was arrogantly stolen from Kerry. With gross arrogance, Ohio officials still have not corrected this situation. Worse yet, other states have been massively buying and installing Diebold and ES&S machines.
Permit me to repeat a report I once made regarding Wisconsin. For reasons that totally escape me, Karl Rove and associates consider Wisconsin 'a key state'. This made Wisconsin a target for vote fixing for the coming election. The problem was that there weren't enough electronic voting machines in Wisconsin to gain control over voting results.
So how was this resolved? Easily. Miracle of miracles! Suddenly the Wisconsin State Board of Elections decided Wisconsin needs more electronic machines. Their first choice? Why of course, the infamous Diebolds. After contracting with Diebold, the state board announced that they had carefully tested the Diebold machines and found them to be 'absolutely secure', a statement that goes beyond chutzpah and borders on criminality. They then ordered two of the most populous counties in Wisconsin to buy and install Diebold voting machines, even though the citizens of those counties were not happy with that dictatorial order.
I wrote to several newspapers pointing out that preparations for voting fraud were quite possibly underway in those counties because Diebold machines have been proven by top experts all over the country to be absurdly easy to reprogram. I believe somebody managed to influence the Wisconsin State Board of Elections by hook or crook. It was imperative for the media to start screaming for an investigation and a court order to stop the purchase and installation of Diebolds until high level experts had examined the machines and testified as to their reliability or a lack thereof. To my knowledge, not one newspaper printed my letter, thusly making the media partners in crime.
It's clear that Ohio has not corrected the problems that existed, and in fact, things may have gotten worse. Ohio definitely is a key state, and it astoundingly stands ready to do exactly what it did last time.
The Dems have done almost nothing to initiate a reform of the system. Pelosi et al seem fearful of even mentioning the problem. Huge numbers of Diebold machines have been bought and installed all over America for the coming election. Very few states have moved to do much about it. California is one of the few states taking meaningful measures, and there has been some fussing in a few other states, but the picture as a whole looks very bad. In some states, efforts are being made to ban all electronic voting, but these efforts are having little or no success.
While all this is happening before our very eyes, America is now engrossed in an electoral circus. Huge amounts of money, time, effort, and emotion are being invested in this circus. People stay up all night to watch it. Cheers and tears are abundant as vote tallies relatively go up or down. And so on. The excitement and drama are abundant.
Mind you, I'm not harping about the current circus per se. I'd love to look forward to a clean November election for a new president and a change in the composition of Congress. It's just that I want more than diversionary games. Before engaging in a vast, enormously costly carnival, I'd like to see a reliable, honest electoral system in place.
The current scene is a long, drawn out circus, which will finally arrive at two separate smaller circuses known as 'conventions' to select candidates. Then another huge, drawn out national circus will begin. It too will be filled with drama and excitement, a spectacle that is even more exciting.
Of course the grand finale of the circus will take place in November. Once again, people will stay up all night, breathless, anxious, and tense. When one candidate for the presidency finally admits to defeat, great sobbing and great jubilation will spread across the land. What a magnificent circus it had been. And what a great democracy we have in America. What other country has such magnificent circuses every couple of years?
Just as Juvenal rebuked the Roman people for letting their freedoms slip away as they enjoyed their free grain and wonderful circuses, I condemn the whole show and the careless disregard of the American people in preserving their liberties as they wrap themselves in cocoons of reality denial, shells that protect them from the realities of 9/11, the relentless eradication of their liberties, the creation of a fraudulent voting system, and the obvious ongoing shift of America from democracy to fascism.
America is now poised at a hugely dangerous point in its history; yet 90% of Americans seem oblivious to that ugly reality. The circuses and the games go on and on, while Machiavellian figures in our capitol city conspire to strip us of the final remnants of our freedoms.
The clock is ticking as Americans cheer on the circus.
2/7/08
Back in the first century, the Roman poet Juvenal, in his 'Satire X', wrote a poem with lines which have forever remained famous and have been endlessly repeated. His satirical poem ridiculed the Roman people for letting their freedoms dwindle and slip away as they contented themselves with the free grain that was given to them in addition to the free circuses held in the Coliseum.
From Juvenal's 'Satire'
Already long ago,
from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties;
for the People who once upon a time handed out military command,
high civil office, legions - everything,
now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses
As I watched and listened to the electoral circus being presented to the people of America, and I took note of their extreme excitement over the ongoing contests, I was simultaneously saddened and angered. I saw the entire huge ritual as a great waste of time and wealth. It is obvious to me that it has been no more than a spectacular diversion for the media and the people of America. I say 'diversion' because the ongoing electoral circus takes the minds of the people off an ongoing dramatic erosion of their liberties, clear hints of a pending national economic collapse, and most significantly, clear signs that a corrupt electoral system has been installed in so-called 'key states'.
Since the last election, which was won by Kerry, but was blatantly fixed to give Bush still another undeserved four years in the White House, America's electronic electoral system has been left untouched by significant reform or the imposition of any rational governmental control over it. There is no federal oversight whatsoever over the new electronic voting systems! Not only that, state after state continues buying huge numbers of corruptible Diebold and ES&S voting machines from the infamous Bob Urosevich and his brother Todd.
Bob once publicly declared that he 'would do anything to elect George Bush'. Amazingly, the media ignored his brazen pledge, and Bob went ahead to fix his Diebold programs with switch levers. In the Ohio elections, his machines performed such manipulations as giving Bush two votes and Kerry one vote every time somebody voted for Kerry. Todd most likely managed to do the same with the ES&S machines in other locales.
Just for starters, only the brothers and their agents are allowed under law to access the computer programming of these machines, an outrage our treasonous Supreme Court has smiled upon. It's so easy to hack these machines, a chimpanzee has been trained to do it in 90 seconds. I kid you not.
Not only that, the voting machines are all linked at any given voting station. This makes it possible to change the program in one machine in about 60 seconds thusly making it a master machine and all the rest of the machines slaves. In short, in 60 seconds, an entire voting station, no matter how big, can be reprogrammed to give the election to a specified candidate.
Exit polls proved that massive vote fraud occurred in Ohio and the election was arrogantly stolen from Kerry. With gross arrogance, Ohio officials still have not corrected this situation. Worse yet, other states have been massively buying and installing Diebold and ES&S machines.
Permit me to repeat a report I once made regarding Wisconsin. For reasons that totally escape me, Karl Rove and associates consider Wisconsin 'a key state'. This made Wisconsin a target for vote fixing for the coming election. The problem was that there weren't enough electronic voting machines in Wisconsin to gain control over voting results.
So how was this resolved? Easily. Miracle of miracles! Suddenly the Wisconsin State Board of Elections decided Wisconsin needs more electronic machines. Their first choice? Why of course, the infamous Diebolds. After contracting with Diebold, the state board announced that they had carefully tested the Diebold machines and found them to be 'absolutely secure', a statement that goes beyond chutzpah and borders on criminality. They then ordered two of the most populous counties in Wisconsin to buy and install Diebold voting machines, even though the citizens of those counties were not happy with that dictatorial order.
I wrote to several newspapers pointing out that preparations for voting fraud were quite possibly underway in those counties because Diebold machines have been proven by top experts all over the country to be absurdly easy to reprogram. I believe somebody managed to influence the Wisconsin State Board of Elections by hook or crook. It was imperative for the media to start screaming for an investigation and a court order to stop the purchase and installation of Diebolds until high level experts had examined the machines and testified as to their reliability or a lack thereof. To my knowledge, not one newspaper printed my letter, thusly making the media partners in crime.
It's clear that Ohio has not corrected the problems that existed, and in fact, things may have gotten worse. Ohio definitely is a key state, and it astoundingly stands ready to do exactly what it did last time.
The Dems have done almost nothing to initiate a reform of the system. Pelosi et al seem fearful of even mentioning the problem. Huge numbers of Diebold machines have been bought and installed all over America for the coming election. Very few states have moved to do much about it. California is one of the few states taking meaningful measures, and there has been some fussing in a few other states, but the picture as a whole looks very bad. In some states, efforts are being made to ban all electronic voting, but these efforts are having little or no success.
While all this is happening before our very eyes, America is now engrossed in an electoral circus. Huge amounts of money, time, effort, and emotion are being invested in this circus. People stay up all night to watch it. Cheers and tears are abundant as vote tallies relatively go up or down. And so on. The excitement and drama are abundant.
Mind you, I'm not harping about the current circus per se. I'd love to look forward to a clean November election for a new president and a change in the composition of Congress. It's just that I want more than diversionary games. Before engaging in a vast, enormously costly carnival, I'd like to see a reliable, honest electoral system in place.
The current scene is a long, drawn out circus, which will finally arrive at two separate smaller circuses known as 'conventions' to select candidates. Then another huge, drawn out national circus will begin. It too will be filled with drama and excitement, a spectacle that is even more exciting.
Of course the grand finale of the circus will take place in November. Once again, people will stay up all night, breathless, anxious, and tense. When one candidate for the presidency finally admits to defeat, great sobbing and great jubilation will spread across the land. What a magnificent circus it had been. And what a great democracy we have in America. What other country has such magnificent circuses every couple of years?
Just as Juvenal rebuked the Roman people for letting their freedoms slip away as they enjoyed their free grain and wonderful circuses, I condemn the whole show and the careless disregard of the American people in preserving their liberties as they wrap themselves in cocoons of reality denial, shells that protect them from the realities of 9/11, the relentless eradication of their liberties, the creation of a fraudulent voting system, and the obvious ongoing shift of America from democracy to fascism.
America is now poised at a hugely dangerous point in its history; yet 90% of Americans seem oblivious to that ugly reality. The circuses and the games go on and on, while Machiavellian figures in our capitol city conspire to strip us of the final remnants of our freedoms.
The clock is ticking as Americans cheer on the circus.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
As American as Apple Pie
Bush administration acknowledges and defends use of torture technique
By Joe Kay
7 February 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/tort-f07.shtml
The White House publicly acknowledged on Wednesday that President Bush has authorized the use of waterboarding, and that he may do so again in the future. The statements amount to an open admission of criminal activity on the part of the US government.
The acknowledgement from White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto came a day after testimony from CIA Director Michael Hayden before the Senate Intelligence Committee. For the first time, Hayden officially stated that the Bush administration had used waterboarding on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003.
Waterboarding is a form of torture used since the Spanish Inquisition. It involves pouring water over a prisoner’s head to cause drowning, and has been prosecuted as torture by the United States government in the past. While the Bush administration is now stretching language and credulity to claim that it should not be categorized as torture, the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, acknowledged on Wednesday that “taken to its extreme, [the consequences of waterboarding] could be death; you could drown someone.”
Fratto said that whether or not the president would approve waterboarding would “depend on the circumstances,” including whether or not “an attack might be imminent.” Fratto insisted that waterboarding “was brought before the Department of Justice and they made a determination that its use under specific circumstances and with safeguards was lawful.”
The administration feels able to come out openly in defense of waterboarding because it is confident that there will be no serious challenge from within the Democratic Party and the political establishment as a whole.
So far, the only response from Democrats has been a muted call by Senator Dick Durbin for a Justice Department investigation into the legality of waterboarding. That is, Durbin has called for another self-investigation by the administration. The investigation would be carried out under the authority of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Congress despite his refusal to condemn waterboarding as torture.
The Justice Department is currently investigating the CIA’s destruction of videotapes depicting waterboarding. Since this investigation was announced last month, the Democratic-controlled Congress has shelved its own inquiries. The Justice Department investigation, designed from the outset to be a whitewash, explicitly excludes any examination of the legality of waterboarding itself.
On Tuesday, Hayden named the three prisoners subjected to waterboarding: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In December, Hayden acknowledged that in November 2005 the CIA had destroyed videotapes depicting the interrogation of Zubaydah and al-Nashiri.
As the comments by Fratto indicate, the Bush administration is developing the argument that the use of the torture technique was legal because of the specific circumstances under which it was employed. “We used it against three detainees because of the circumstances at the time,” Hayden said. “There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we have had limited knowledge about Al Qaeda and its workings.” Hayden claimed that the circumstances had now changed, but that waterboarding could be used again in the future.
McConnell echoed Hayden on Tuesday, saying that waterboarding “is a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances. You have to know the circumstances to be able to make the judgment.”
Both McConnell and Mukasey have said that waterboarding would be illegal torture if carried out on them personally, but have refused to condemn it as torture when used by the US government. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Mukasey declined to say under what conditions waterboarding would be torture, and he refused to release the secret Justice Department opinions that justify the technique.
In attempting to justify torture, the Bush administration appears to be making it up as it goes along. The “circumstance” argument is a lie and is in direct conflict with international law. According to Article 2 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a signatory, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said on Wednesday that waterboarding is “absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law.” He noted that the legal evidence that waterboarding is torture and illegal is clear: “I’m not willing anymore to discuss these questions with the US government, when they still say that this is allowed. It’s not allowed.”
While claiming that only three individuals have been subject to waterboarding, Hayden said that “fewer than one third” of 100 detainees he acknowledged had been held by the CIA had been subject to what he called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These techniques presumably include the use of stress positions, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, and other methods that would also be categorized as torture and cruel and inhumane treatment under international law.
The term “enhanced interrogation techniques” is a virtual translation of the Gestapo term, Verschärfte Vernehmung, used as a euphemism for torture.
In defending waterboarding, McConnell attempted to explain away comments made to the New Yorker magazine last month. He was quoted at the time as saying that waterboarding would be torture if used on him.
Before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, McConnell said that the discussion with the New Yorker reporter “was framed around being a water-safety instructor” as a youth. McConnell said that if water went up his nose when his head went under water, “that’d be torturous. It’d be very painful for me.” He insisted on Tuesday, “I made no statement or judgment regarding the legality of waterboarding.”
Thus, according to the director of national security, it is torture to have water go up one’s nose while swimming, but it is not torture to strap someone upside down to a board and induce drowning, possibly to the point of death.
In the course of their testimony, McConnell and Hayden also called on Congress to make permanent the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic spying program, and called for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that have facilitated the illegal government program. The Senate is currently debating a bill that would provide immunity. The House passed one that would not provide immunity but would extend the spying program, which Bush has pledged to veto.
The statements by Hayden and Fratto were the product of a calculated decision on the part of the White House to come out openly in defense of waterboarding. Until this week, the administration has carefully avoided making such a statement. It has likely received explicit guarantees from leading Democratic members of Congress that no investigation will be carried out.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, before which Hayden and McConnell delivered their remarks, is chaired by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has been complicit in the CIA torture program since it was launched. Rockefeller was one of six legislators who were briefed on the torture program in 2002-2003, when waterboarding was being practiced. Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, was also included in the briefing.
The White House has certainly also taken notice of the way in which the Democrats have quickly buried any discussion on the CIA’s destruction of the torture tapes—a clear violation of the law and an impeachable offense. The issue has not been raised in the course of the primaries, and it is clear that the leading Democrats have no desire to make opposition to torture a component of their campaigns.
That the government can come out openly in defense of torture techniques with no fear of serious criticism from within the political establishment is testament to the deep decay of democratic rights in the United States. Regardless of who becomes president after the November elections, these antidemocratic policies will continue.
By Joe Kay
7 February 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/tort-f07.shtml
The White House publicly acknowledged on Wednesday that President Bush has authorized the use of waterboarding, and that he may do so again in the future. The statements amount to an open admission of criminal activity on the part of the US government.
The acknowledgement from White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto came a day after testimony from CIA Director Michael Hayden before the Senate Intelligence Committee. For the first time, Hayden officially stated that the Bush administration had used waterboarding on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003.
Waterboarding is a form of torture used since the Spanish Inquisition. It involves pouring water over a prisoner’s head to cause drowning, and has been prosecuted as torture by the United States government in the past. While the Bush administration is now stretching language and credulity to claim that it should not be categorized as torture, the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, acknowledged on Wednesday that “taken to its extreme, [the consequences of waterboarding] could be death; you could drown someone.”
Fratto said that whether or not the president would approve waterboarding would “depend on the circumstances,” including whether or not “an attack might be imminent.” Fratto insisted that waterboarding “was brought before the Department of Justice and they made a determination that its use under specific circumstances and with safeguards was lawful.”
The administration feels able to come out openly in defense of waterboarding because it is confident that there will be no serious challenge from within the Democratic Party and the political establishment as a whole.
So far, the only response from Democrats has been a muted call by Senator Dick Durbin for a Justice Department investigation into the legality of waterboarding. That is, Durbin has called for another self-investigation by the administration. The investigation would be carried out under the authority of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Congress despite his refusal to condemn waterboarding as torture.
The Justice Department is currently investigating the CIA’s destruction of videotapes depicting waterboarding. Since this investigation was announced last month, the Democratic-controlled Congress has shelved its own inquiries. The Justice Department investigation, designed from the outset to be a whitewash, explicitly excludes any examination of the legality of waterboarding itself.
On Tuesday, Hayden named the three prisoners subjected to waterboarding: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In December, Hayden acknowledged that in November 2005 the CIA had destroyed videotapes depicting the interrogation of Zubaydah and al-Nashiri.
As the comments by Fratto indicate, the Bush administration is developing the argument that the use of the torture technique was legal because of the specific circumstances under which it was employed. “We used it against three detainees because of the circumstances at the time,” Hayden said. “There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we have had limited knowledge about Al Qaeda and its workings.” Hayden claimed that the circumstances had now changed, but that waterboarding could be used again in the future.
McConnell echoed Hayden on Tuesday, saying that waterboarding “is a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances. You have to know the circumstances to be able to make the judgment.”
Both McConnell and Mukasey have said that waterboarding would be illegal torture if carried out on them personally, but have refused to condemn it as torture when used by the US government. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Mukasey declined to say under what conditions waterboarding would be torture, and he refused to release the secret Justice Department opinions that justify the technique.
In attempting to justify torture, the Bush administration appears to be making it up as it goes along. The “circumstance” argument is a lie and is in direct conflict with international law. According to Article 2 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a signatory, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said on Wednesday that waterboarding is “absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law.” He noted that the legal evidence that waterboarding is torture and illegal is clear: “I’m not willing anymore to discuss these questions with the US government, when they still say that this is allowed. It’s not allowed.”
While claiming that only three individuals have been subject to waterboarding, Hayden said that “fewer than one third” of 100 detainees he acknowledged had been held by the CIA had been subject to what he called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These techniques presumably include the use of stress positions, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, and other methods that would also be categorized as torture and cruel and inhumane treatment under international law.
The term “enhanced interrogation techniques” is a virtual translation of the Gestapo term, Verschärfte Vernehmung, used as a euphemism for torture.
In defending waterboarding, McConnell attempted to explain away comments made to the New Yorker magazine last month. He was quoted at the time as saying that waterboarding would be torture if used on him.
Before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, McConnell said that the discussion with the New Yorker reporter “was framed around being a water-safety instructor” as a youth. McConnell said that if water went up his nose when his head went under water, “that’d be torturous. It’d be very painful for me.” He insisted on Tuesday, “I made no statement or judgment regarding the legality of waterboarding.”
Thus, according to the director of national security, it is torture to have water go up one’s nose while swimming, but it is not torture to strap someone upside down to a board and induce drowning, possibly to the point of death.
In the course of their testimony, McConnell and Hayden also called on Congress to make permanent the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic spying program, and called for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that have facilitated the illegal government program. The Senate is currently debating a bill that would provide immunity. The House passed one that would not provide immunity but would extend the spying program, which Bush has pledged to veto.
The statements by Hayden and Fratto were the product of a calculated decision on the part of the White House to come out openly in defense of waterboarding. Until this week, the administration has carefully avoided making such a statement. It has likely received explicit guarantees from leading Democratic members of Congress that no investigation will be carried out.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, before which Hayden and McConnell delivered their remarks, is chaired by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has been complicit in the CIA torture program since it was launched. Rockefeller was one of six legislators who were briefed on the torture program in 2002-2003, when waterboarding was being practiced. Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, was also included in the briefing.
The White House has certainly also taken notice of the way in which the Democrats have quickly buried any discussion on the CIA’s destruction of the torture tapes—a clear violation of the law and an impeachable offense. The issue has not been raised in the course of the primaries, and it is clear that the leading Democrats have no desire to make opposition to torture a component of their campaigns.
That the government can come out openly in defense of torture techniques with no fear of serious criticism from within the political establishment is testament to the deep decay of democratic rights in the United States. Regardless of who becomes president after the November elections, these antidemocratic policies will continue.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Debunking The Health Care Bugaboo
by Mary Pitt
2/3/08
Right up there with the economy as an issue for the election is the problem of health care for Americans. We know that some forty million Americans have no health insurance and those who do are faced with ever-rising deductibles, co-payments, and premium increases. The Presidential candidates all believe they have the answers that the voters will approve but most really are aware that their proposals simply will not work. In the meantime, people are dying from neglect.
The President says that everyone has health care and if they need it, "All they have to do is to go to the ER!" That is true in some instances. In the smaller cities, you may be treated at the emergency room but your costs will be added to the "bottom line" of the hospital and they will raise their rates so that the bill will be paid by those who are paying their own bill or by the insurance companies for those who have insurance. In the latter case, the increase will be covered by higher premiums for the fortunate insured. On the other hand, a person appearing in a big city ER may be faced with a wait that could stretch into a whole day and then be treated by a harried and overworked young doctor who hasn't been to bed for a couple of days.
But that is not the end of your treatment. Once you gain the attention of an actual physician and your urgent complaint attended, you are told to see your private physician in his office within a certain time frame. It is called "follow-up care" and is essential to your recovery and, in some instances, failure to do so could again put your life in danger. Once more the same financial arrangements will take place as to the payment of the expense. It goes round and round with the charges being increased, the higher insurance premiums, until some other person finds that they cannot afford to pay for the care of their family.
When one dares to broach the idea that "universal health care" is the only practical answer, all the politicians grab their own wallets and scream about "rationed care" and "socialism". True, it would require the demise of the current health care insurance industry so that the three hundred billion dollars in annual profit for those companies could be used instead for the care of ill and injured people. Also true that there may have to be a wait for some elective surgeries while the system makes the adjustment but, in every country that now has universal health care, the emergencies are cared for at once and the less urgent cases deferred until they can be scheduled.
We are given horror stories about other nations and their "rationing" of health care. Our politicos don't really care much for emulating the European countries for reasons having nothing to do with health care. However, there is one nation that has universal health care and the citizens not only love it but take it for granted that their care will be excellent when they need it. This is a country that apparently can do no wrong in the opinion of our national legislators and their system appears to be a good example of the way it should be done.
This nation is Israel and you can access a good overview of how it works at that this link http://www.israel.org/MFA/aspx_dir/newsletter. The only reason the remaining candidates of either party will not espouse a similar program is that "it would put a whole industry out of business". Of course, we must bear in mind that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are among the major contributors to political campaigns for both parties, the politicians owe them favors for it and are determined to repay them.
This is the reason why Americans cannot have the quality and availability of health care that our own money has fostered in a nation in whose establishment and maintenance we have invested for more than fifty years. While Governor Huckabee tells us that we must be instructed in how to live so healthily that we won't need so much health care, Governor Romney would require us to buy expensive insurance, the rest of the Republicans ignore the problem and the Democrats argue as to whether and how much subsidy the government should give us to feed back into the coffers of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
And they do it because they care? Because they really have our best interests at heart? If you believe that, go ahead and vote for more of the same for that is what we will have until someone appears who can make the American people understand that we have been, are being, and will be used as conduits for the redistribution of wealth.....upward!
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
2/3/08
Right up there with the economy as an issue for the election is the problem of health care for Americans. We know that some forty million Americans have no health insurance and those who do are faced with ever-rising deductibles, co-payments, and premium increases. The Presidential candidates all believe they have the answers that the voters will approve but most really are aware that their proposals simply will not work. In the meantime, people are dying from neglect.
The President says that everyone has health care and if they need it, "All they have to do is to go to the ER!" That is true in some instances. In the smaller cities, you may be treated at the emergency room but your costs will be added to the "bottom line" of the hospital and they will raise their rates so that the bill will be paid by those who are paying their own bill or by the insurance companies for those who have insurance. In the latter case, the increase will be covered by higher premiums for the fortunate insured. On the other hand, a person appearing in a big city ER may be faced with a wait that could stretch into a whole day and then be treated by a harried and overworked young doctor who hasn't been to bed for a couple of days.
But that is not the end of your treatment. Once you gain the attention of an actual physician and your urgent complaint attended, you are told to see your private physician in his office within a certain time frame. It is called "follow-up care" and is essential to your recovery and, in some instances, failure to do so could again put your life in danger. Once more the same financial arrangements will take place as to the payment of the expense. It goes round and round with the charges being increased, the higher insurance premiums, until some other person finds that they cannot afford to pay for the care of their family.
When one dares to broach the idea that "universal health care" is the only practical answer, all the politicians grab their own wallets and scream about "rationed care" and "socialism". True, it would require the demise of the current health care insurance industry so that the three hundred billion dollars in annual profit for those companies could be used instead for the care of ill and injured people. Also true that there may have to be a wait for some elective surgeries while the system makes the adjustment but, in every country that now has universal health care, the emergencies are cared for at once and the less urgent cases deferred until they can be scheduled.
We are given horror stories about other nations and their "rationing" of health care. Our politicos don't really care much for emulating the European countries for reasons having nothing to do with health care. However, there is one nation that has universal health care and the citizens not only love it but take it for granted that their care will be excellent when they need it. This is a country that apparently can do no wrong in the opinion of our national legislators and their system appears to be a good example of the way it should be done.
This nation is Israel and you can access a good overview of how it works at that this link http://www.israel.org/MFA/aspx_dir/newsletter. The only reason the remaining candidates of either party will not espouse a similar program is that "it would put a whole industry out of business". Of course, we must bear in mind that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are among the major contributors to political campaigns for both parties, the politicians owe them favors for it and are determined to repay them.
This is the reason why Americans cannot have the quality and availability of health care that our own money has fostered in a nation in whose establishment and maintenance we have invested for more than fifty years. While Governor Huckabee tells us that we must be instructed in how to live so healthily that we won't need so much health care, Governor Romney would require us to buy expensive insurance, the rest of the Republicans ignore the problem and the Democrats argue as to whether and how much subsidy the government should give us to feed back into the coffers of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
And they do it because they care? Because they really have our best interests at heart? If you believe that, go ahead and vote for more of the same for that is what we will have until someone appears who can make the American people understand that we have been, are being, and will be used as conduits for the redistribution of wealth.....upward!
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
Friday, February 01, 2008
Life in Occupied Gaza
- by Stephen Lendman
1/31/08
Life in occupied Gaza was never easy, but conditions worsened markedly after Hamas' surprise January 2006 electoral victory. Israel refused recognition along with the US and the West. All outside aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate government was isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions, attacks and arrests. Gaza's people have been imprisoned in their own land and traumatized for months. No one outside the Territories cares or offers enough aid. Things then got worse.
full article
1/31/08
Life in occupied Gaza was never easy, but conditions worsened markedly after Hamas' surprise January 2006 electoral victory. Israel refused recognition along with the US and the West. All outside aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate government was isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions, attacks and arrests. Gaza's people have been imprisoned in their own land and traumatized for months. No one outside the Territories cares or offers enough aid. Things then got worse.
full article
Sitting Out the Election
by Mary Pitt
2/1/08
It looks as if the 2008 Presidential campaign may be over at my house. I am considering what other things I can find to do in order to be busy on election day. The choices have been winnowed down until I can find no reason for hope with any of the remaining candidates. I realize that there is much fodder for the talking heads on television as the pseudo rivalry continues but I have now lost interest.
So Rudy bowed out in favor of John McCain. Big deal. Rudy wasn't going anyplace anyway and he would have been a disaster in the White House. The great loss was John Edwards. With the withdrawal of Dennis Kucinich, he was the last best hope for any chance for the common man to receive any real consideration in the future policies of our government.
It is reminiscent of the summer months in television entertainment. All that we have to anticipate is a choice among reruns. On the Republican side, we are left with a Southern Baptist preacher who would prefer that we return to the dark ages, with witch-burning and stocks in the public square. Then there is John McCain who has nothing more to offer than the old men on Memorial Day, stuffed into their uniforms and trying to look as if they are ready to take the next hill. In addition, of course, there is the son of "what's good for General Motors is good for the country". We can choose our reruns between the forties, the fifties or of the Puritans at the Salem witchcraft trials.
It is little better on the Democratic side. Now that Obama has been favored by the Kennedy family, we can look forward to living again in the sixties, to being inspired by eloquent speeches of hope and progress only to be faced with another war for another "good reason". In order to be just a bit more current, we could boost Hillary Clinton and get more rhetoric about lifting up of the poor which will not happen because of the same knuckling under to the opposition that disappointed us in her husband and that she, herself, has so ably demonstrated during her time in the Senate.
Of course, there is still time for a third party to take shape and get sufficient footing to provide a choice in November, ideally Edwards and Kucinich at the head of a Progressive Party, but it is not likely since the establishment candidates have already sucked up all the money available for their campaigns. We are faced once again with the spectacle of our White House once more being up for auction. As President Bush again tries to prop up a dying economy by donating more borrowed money to the taxpayers while ignoring the plight of the truly needy and the Fed cuts interest rates so we can borrow even more, as the Middle East, the Orient, and Europe devalue and debase the dollar and we owe ever more of them to those same entities, we find ourselves facing the same fate as out parents and grandparents suffered at the end of the Hoover administration.
Nothing short of a total overhaul of the government in the manner of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is going to correct the mess that George W. Bush has made of our government and none of the remaining candidates appear to have the intelligence and the drive to do what must be done to save the nation from it. Senator Clinton can't seem to make up her mind whether we should withdraw our troops from Iraq immediately or whether we should leave a large contingency there to "protect our embassy", that sprawling, fortified monstrosity that contractors built at great expense for no conceivable reason. Barrack Obama says that he wants to bring the troops home "as soon as possible" but hasn't voiced any plans for what might happen next. Of course, the election of any of the Republicans means eternal war in the hope that the fiscal mess will not catch up with us.
It's time to plow up the back yard for a vegetable garden and order tomato plants to put in the flower beds in the spring. It's going to be a long time before stability is restored to this benighted land. I cast my first Presidential vote in 1952 for Eisenhower and have voted dutifully in every election since, even if I had to hold my nose while voting for the lesser of two evils. But now I am old and I am tired. Why should I get in a snit because the rest of the country is more interested in the squabbling children playing at debate? If the youth of today are willing to choose those who will be in charge of their future by a remake of "An American Idol", is it not their right?
My generation had ambitions to leave to our children a free nation with honorable leaders in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, living peacefully with equality. It is saddening to find that this ambition is not to be and, unless someone is elected who is able to restore the rights and freedoms which we have lost. I will spend election day sitting at home with a tall cold drink!
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
2/1/08
It looks as if the 2008 Presidential campaign may be over at my house. I am considering what other things I can find to do in order to be busy on election day. The choices have been winnowed down until I can find no reason for hope with any of the remaining candidates. I realize that there is much fodder for the talking heads on television as the pseudo rivalry continues but I have now lost interest.
So Rudy bowed out in favor of John McCain. Big deal. Rudy wasn't going anyplace anyway and he would have been a disaster in the White House. The great loss was John Edwards. With the withdrawal of Dennis Kucinich, he was the last best hope for any chance for the common man to receive any real consideration in the future policies of our government.
It is reminiscent of the summer months in television entertainment. All that we have to anticipate is a choice among reruns. On the Republican side, we are left with a Southern Baptist preacher who would prefer that we return to the dark ages, with witch-burning and stocks in the public square. Then there is John McCain who has nothing more to offer than the old men on Memorial Day, stuffed into their uniforms and trying to look as if they are ready to take the next hill. In addition, of course, there is the son of "what's good for General Motors is good for the country". We can choose our reruns between the forties, the fifties or of the Puritans at the Salem witchcraft trials.
It is little better on the Democratic side. Now that Obama has been favored by the Kennedy family, we can look forward to living again in the sixties, to being inspired by eloquent speeches of hope and progress only to be faced with another war for another "good reason". In order to be just a bit more current, we could boost Hillary Clinton and get more rhetoric about lifting up of the poor which will not happen because of the same knuckling under to the opposition that disappointed us in her husband and that she, herself, has so ably demonstrated during her time in the Senate.
Of course, there is still time for a third party to take shape and get sufficient footing to provide a choice in November, ideally Edwards and Kucinich at the head of a Progressive Party, but it is not likely since the establishment candidates have already sucked up all the money available for their campaigns. We are faced once again with the spectacle of our White House once more being up for auction. As President Bush again tries to prop up a dying economy by donating more borrowed money to the taxpayers while ignoring the plight of the truly needy and the Fed cuts interest rates so we can borrow even more, as the Middle East, the Orient, and Europe devalue and debase the dollar and we owe ever more of them to those same entities, we find ourselves facing the same fate as out parents and grandparents suffered at the end of the Hoover administration.
Nothing short of a total overhaul of the government in the manner of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is going to correct the mess that George W. Bush has made of our government and none of the remaining candidates appear to have the intelligence and the drive to do what must be done to save the nation from it. Senator Clinton can't seem to make up her mind whether we should withdraw our troops from Iraq immediately or whether we should leave a large contingency there to "protect our embassy", that sprawling, fortified monstrosity that contractors built at great expense for no conceivable reason. Barrack Obama says that he wants to bring the troops home "as soon as possible" but hasn't voiced any plans for what might happen next. Of course, the election of any of the Republicans means eternal war in the hope that the fiscal mess will not catch up with us.
It's time to plow up the back yard for a vegetable garden and order tomato plants to put in the flower beds in the spring. It's going to be a long time before stability is restored to this benighted land. I cast my first Presidential vote in 1952 for Eisenhower and have voted dutifully in every election since, even if I had to hold my nose while voting for the lesser of two evils. But now I am old and I am tired. Why should I get in a snit because the rest of the country is more interested in the squabbling children playing at debate? If the youth of today are willing to choose those who will be in charge of their future by a remake of "An American Idol", is it not their right?
My generation had ambitions to leave to our children a free nation with honorable leaders in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, living peacefully with equality. It is saddening to find that this ambition is not to be and, unless someone is elected who is able to restore the rights and freedoms which we have lost. I will spend election day sitting at home with a tall cold drink!
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection."
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