News -- November 27, 2005

The Phony War Against the Critics - "Interestingly, the administration no longer claims that Hussein actually had such weapons at the time Bush led the country into war in order to eliminate them. "The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight," Cheney said on Monday. So-called WMD (weapons of mass destruction) were not the only argument for the war, but the administration thought they were a crucial argument at the time. So the administration now concedes that the country went to war on a false premise. Doesn't that mean that the war was a mistake no matter where the false premise came from? ... Until last week, the antiwar position in the debate over Iraq closely resembled the pro-war position in the ancient debate over Vietnam. That is: It was a mistake to get in, but now that we're in we can't just cut and run. That was the logic on which Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger took over the Vietnam War four years after major American involvement began and kept it going for another four. American "credibility" depended on our keeping our word, however foolish that word might have been."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400477.html

Is Bush lying about his lies? - "Not only did the Bush administration deceive the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, it is now deceiving them about the deceptions. In a burst of political tantrums, the president and the vice president have shouted that it was "irresponsible" to assert that there had been deception and it was unfair to the troops fighting in Iraq. Is the administration lying about its lies? That many of the arguments in favor of the war were false is beyond question. Nor can there be any serious doubt that the new argument that it is irresponsible to question the old arguments is also false. But if a lie is a conscious effort to deceive, then the charge that the president and the men around him deliberately lied and are now lying again, then that issue must be left to heaven. It is enough to say they spread falsehoods three years because they had made up their minds that there had to be a war and are now spreading falsehoods about the original falsehoods. The president is not a man who likes to admit he was wrong. Therefore, one must cover up the mistakes."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel25.html

Replant the American Dream - "I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years. The public opinion polls tell us that America isn't just disliked or feared overseas -- it is reviled. We are seen as hypocrites who boast of our democratic values but who behave lawlessly and with contempt for others. I hate this America-bashing, but when I try to defend the United States and its values in my travels abroad, I find foreigners increasingly are dismissive. How do you deny the reality of Abu Ghraib, they ask, when the vice president of the United States is actively lobbying against rules that would ban torture? Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, this may be the worst. We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines what it means to be an American."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400474.html

DANGEROUS DENIAL - "It should not come as a surprise to Karen Hughes that, thanks largely to the Internet, an awful lot of people in the Middle East and elsewhere know that the Justice Department lawyer, Jay Bybee, who wrote the now-famous memo justifying torture, got promoted to a lifetime appointment as a Federal judge. Or that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who sold that memo to President Bush, was elevated to Attorney General of the United States. Or that some of the more egregious prisoner interrogation practices were approved by none other than our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Or that others were okayed by General Ricardo Sanchez, our top Army field commander in Iraq, who is now awaiting his fourth star. Or that General Geoffrey Miller, our commandant at Guantanamo, was sent to Iraq to “migrate” GITMO’s interrogation methods to Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan – and that a top Army general overruled a military investigator’s recommendation that he be reprimanded. Or that Vice President Dick Cheney has been lobbying Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from Senator John McCain’s anti-torture proposal. Or that the Bush Administration will neither confirm nor deny press reports that the United States runs a network of ‘black site’ prisons in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.When people have access to that kind of information, it gets harder and harder to con them."
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2005/11/dangerous-denial.html

Americans’ anger at an all-time high - "The Americans need to step back and think, is their president taking their nation to prosperity or to hell?"
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9867

'Trophy' video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers - "A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/wirq27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/27/ixworld.html

Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes - "We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1647998,00.html

Dutch Remind Washington: 'Torture is a Criminal Offense' - "The American Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is an absolute disgrace for President George W. Bush. The heinous treatment of al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo is well documented. The American torture practices - no secret but still shocking and disgusting all the same - are well documented. Human rights organizations, the Red Cross and - yes - even the FBI, have all reported on torture by American troops at Guantanamo and Iraq. Internationally, the Americans are being pressured to immediately halt the illegal treatment of prisoners. It is the subject of ongoing debate in politics and society as a whole. However in the end, nothing is being done about it. Guatanamo Bay is a place where the Americans demonstratively ignore international human rights."
http://www.watchingamerica.com/nrchandelsblad000020.shtml

RITUAL ABUSE OF OUR MARINES - " This attack was hushed up. But there are many other ordeals awaiting new recruits, said our marine." -- Oh, this is just terrific.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml

Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity - "The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage. The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public. "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857.html

FAA records for four years listed both 9/11 United jetliners as still on the 'active' list. Now planes only 'deregistered' in September after snoopy researchers questioned FAA officials a month earlier. - "According to BTS statistics, both 11 and 77 officially never took-off on 9/11. The meticulous data kept on every airliner taking-off at every airport in the country also showed no elapsed run-way time, wheels-off time and taxi-out time, not to mention several other categories left blank on 9/11 concerning the two flights. Although Flights 11 and 77 have the above data meticulously logged on 9/10, it was suspiciously absent on 9/11, even when every other plane that took of that day had been recorded and logged by the BTS."
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/38048.htm

Wanted Posters Make a 'Huge' Comeback in the U.S. - "Once upon a time, saloons in the American West had the inevitable "wanted" poster up near the doorway. Now, so long after abandoning the practice, some parts of the U.S. have decided revive it, but in grand style. No longer are the fugitive photo and details displayed on small billboards: Now they are huge-sized billboards along roadways."
http://www.watchingamerica.com/larepubblica000011.shtml

U.S. Religious Right Crusades Against 'American Girl' Dolls - "A retail chain that encourages young girls to be "strong, smart and bold," was targeted by a group of protesters that consider dolls like Molly, Kit and Felicity to be a cover-up for radical-feminists. ... "The more you read about it, the more you discover that it is nothing but a radical-feminist group," says Ann Scheidler, director of the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago. Until recently, American Girl Dolls were extremely popular in religious conservative circles. But now the tides have turned. Scheidler is the self-appointed spokesperson. "American Girl always pretended to defend American values," she says. "Those are Christian values. But now we discover that they support an organization that speaks out for abortion and a lesbian way of life. It is horrifying.""
http://www.watchingamerica.com/devolkskrant000001.shtml




Quote of the Day
"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."
~ George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003