Something is happening in the Midwest when the CHICAGO TRIBUNE prints a perspective on Bush as a slick liar and his administration is filled with the same. Here is an excellent breakdown on the immoral lying and corrupt manipulation of the Bush administration in regards to the events leading up to the Iraq war.
Administration's argument long on drama, short on facts
By Michael McConnell. Michael McConnell is regional director of the American Friends Service Committee in Chicago
August 3, 2003 CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Defending the invasion of Iraq, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz recently declared that the United States, in light of Sept. 11, has the right to attack other nations, even on the basis of "murky intelligence." Unable to defend the quality of evidence used for the Iraq war, the Bush administration now wants to defend its ambiguity. Sept. 11, like a good religious savior, absolves us of all sins.
Murky data is itself a dubious, even immoral rationale for war, but the evidence presented by the Bush administration for war in Iraq was not even "murky." It was exaggerated, distorted, selective and fabricated evidence masquerading as absolute certainty.
In the months leading up to the war, the Bush administration portrayed the Iraq threat as certain, imminent and frightening. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice imagined a mushroom cloud. President Bush dramatized links to Al Qaeda, conjuring up smallpox epidemics. Last October he even hyped Iraq's aerial drones as capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction to the U.S., while conveniently omitting that they had a range of only 300 miles.
Kicking off the campaign for war on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "Imagine a Sept. 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000--it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children."
Linking this massive destruction to Sept. 11 was so effective that a Knight Ridder poll showed that 50 percent of respondents believed that some Iraqis were among the hijackers on board the planes that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon, when none was.
Knowledge and certainty
The message from the Bush administration was constantly one of knowledge and certainty based on secret intelligence. In September, Bush told the UN, "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
In a February radio address, the president declared with equal certainty, "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons." Even 10 days into the war, Rumsfeld, speaking of the weapons, told ABC News, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
No doubts, no questions, rather absolute certainty and frightening threats have been the currency of the Bush administration--long on drama and assertion, short on facts. The evidence mounts that this was an unnecessary and manufactured war based on deceptive arguments and outright lies claiming an Iraq nuclear threat, links to Al Qaeda and huge stores of biological and chemical weapons.
The nuclear threat argument started last September when Rice said on television that the only use for aluminum tubes that Iraq recently had obtained was for uranium centrifuges needed for nuclear weapons. Bush reiterated the tube argument in his September address to the UN. Many intelligence analysts were appalled because a debate was raging inside the intelligence community about their use. Many analysts concluded they were for conventional rockets, a viewpoint confirmed by British intelligence.
The Niger uranium purchase, based on forged documents, has been equally discredited. A former ambassador who investigated the purchase claim told The New Republic, "They were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more persuasive."
Bulletproof?
The links to Al Qaeda, central to the fear mongering of the Bush administration, were even more tenuous. In September, Rumsfeld said there was "bulletproof evidence" of a Hussein-Al Qaeda link.
The big evidence was a meeting between an Iraqi agent and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Czech Republic, based on one unreliable source. Hard evidence of receipts and travel documents put Atta in the U.S. at the time.
Another strand to the claim was that Al Qaeda members were being sheltered in Iraq and had set up a camp to provide training in the use of poison weapons. Not mentioned was that the camp was in northern Iraq, an area controlled by the Kurds, not by Hussein. When U.S. troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or biological traces.
But in June, the UN Committee on Terrorism concluded that nothing had been found indicating such a link. On the chemical and biological weapons front, the Bush administration campaigned to discredit the UN inspectors when they found nothing. Now with free reign in the country and Iraqi scientists free to talk--the two conditions the U.S. insisted were necessary to find weapons--no weapons have been uncovered.
In addition to stonewalling the Sept. 11 investigation and the contrived Pfc. Jessica Lynch "rescue," a litany of assertions gone sour characterizes the Bush administration over the past few months. In May, Bush declared that they had found weapons of mass destruction in the form of two trailers. Independent international scientists quickly disproved that assertion.
Rumsfeld refused to answer about the cost of the war and then gave figures that grossly underestimated the tab to taxpayers. They purported to have a solid plan for postwar Iraq but now admit it was based on faulty assumptions. Rumsfeld insisted that no guerrilla war existed in Iraq, only to have Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command, proclaim that indeed such a war was raging.
Since Bush's jet landing on the aircraft carrier declaring, "mission accomplished," more than 50 U.S. soldiers have been killed, with more dying daily. This adds up to a pattern of half-truths, deceptions and outrageous hyperbole that go far beyond a mere 16 words in the State of the Union address.
Trying to mesmerize
The Bush administration knows neither shame nor remorse over any of these errors. In the face of the unfolding reality in Iraq, the president simply reiterates the false claims of Iraq's danger without even trying to justify them. Constantly repeating the past stock answers, he wants to mesmerize us into forgetting that he is avoiding the real questions.
The Iraq war has cost the lives of more than 160 U.S. soldiers and several thousand innocent Iraqi civilians. Will those deaths now justify Iraq's future use of "murky intelligence" to attack others?
The majority of the people in the United States backed the Iraq war because of the certainty of the administration's rationale and a deep trust in the president. It is time to determine whether he and his administration merited that trust. The credibility and integrity of the United States of America are at stake.
We deserve a congressionally appointed independent commission to investigate the justifications for war. How high up does the deception go? What did the president know and when did he know it? A democracy, in matters of war and death, must have standards higher than "murky." We cannot settle for anything less than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God.
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Saturday, August 09, 2003
Friday, August 08, 2003
The White House's handling of the Wilson revelations is not only disgusting, it's criminal and immoral. Worse, it's an act of treason. Here's a President and his administration willing to tar a CIA agent over its own bad judgement and in the process risk the lives of other CIA agents. They should find the bastards that "outed" this agent and throw the book at them (it's certified treason). How much do you want to bet that Bush pardons the White House people responsible for this like his old man did with all the Iran Contra gang? And this boob ran on the platform of bringing "honor and intigrity" back to the White House. The only thing he brought with him to the job was a spoiled, stupid rich kid's sense of entitlement and a false feeling of superiority to reality.
August 8, 2003
WEAPONS INTELLIGENCE
Iraq Arms Critic Reacts to Report on Wife
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 — Joseph C. Wilson IV, a retired ambassador who was a secret envoy of the Bush administration to Africa and who publicly voiced doubts about a reported Iraqi weapons program, says he has become a target of a campaign to discourage others like him from going public.
In the prewar effort to uncover information about weapons in Iraq, Mr. Wilson made a fact-finding trip to Niger in February 2002 at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency. His findings challenged contentions in an unsubstantiated document that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear-weapons material from the West African country.
But it was not until after Mr. Wilson made his account public last month in an op-ed article in The New York Times, to the intense discomfort of President Bush's aides, that the White House acknowledged that it had erred in including the disputed accusations in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address in January.
Days after the column, another chapter opened. Mr. Wilson's wife was identified by name as a covert C.I.A. operative in a column by the conservative columnist Robert Novak, a disclosure that Mr. Novak has attributed to senior administration officials.
Officials are barred by law from disclosing the identities of Americans who work undercover for the C.I.A. That provision is intended to protect the security of operatives whose lives might be jeopardized if their identities are known.
Among those who have cried foul are several Democratic senators, including Charles E. Schumer of New York, who have said that if the accusation is true and if senior administration officials were its source, law enforcement authorities should seek to identify the officials who appeared to have violated the law. Mr. Schumer has asked Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to look into the case.
Mr. Wilson, who as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad in 1990 was the last American diplomat to meet President Saddam Hussein, said the events were evidence of distressing American heavy-handedness.
"The issue was never about her," Mr. Wilson said of his wife in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "The issue was about who so badly staffed the president of the United States that they would put into a State of the Union address something that was so transparently unsubstantiable, and this from an administration that came to office saying it wanted to restore dignity and honor to the White House. It wasn't to intimidate me, because I'd already said my piece. Clearly, this was to keep others from stepping forward."
White House officials have said they would not condone disclosing any undercover C.I.A. operative.
In the run-up to the war, Mr. Wilson appeared frequently on television as an expert on Iraq. He freely offered his opinion that the best American policy would be to postpone any war and focus on intense international inspections to find weapons of mass destruction.
That opinion certainly won him no friends in the administration, which was arguing that the moment for inspections had passed.
The fact that a retired American envoy had traveled to Niger to look into an Iraqi connection was acknowledged by the administration this year. But Mr. Wilson said he had decided to discuss his role publicly early last month after concluding that efforts by senior administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to pass off his findings as having been shared just with low-ranking intelligence officials were "simply inconsistent" with the facts that he knew.
"It was pretty clear that it had gotten to the right people," Mr. Wilson said in the interview.
The deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, has publicly taken responsibility for the inclusion in the State of the Union speech of 16 words that repeated the disputed reports about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear material from Niger.
Mr. Wilson, who had told the C.I.A. and the State Department after his visit that there was no basis for that report, said in the interview that he had "tried to avoid taking a victory lap" after his comments prompted the White House acknowledgments. But he had begun to speak out again, in television interviews including one on "Today" on NBC, "until such time as you got those lowlifes over there deciding they would take some whacks at my wife."
Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is known to friends as an energy industry analyst. In the interview, Mr. Wilson said he had no doubt that those who sought to bring his wife into the controversy intended to sound a warning to others who might take on the White House on the charged issue of whether intelligence about Iraq was reshaped or ignored to fit a political agenda.
Mr. Novak cited administration officials as saying Mr. Wilson was chosen for the Niger mission because of Ms. Plame's connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Wilson said his qualifications — as an Africa expert, a former ambassador to Gabon and the senior director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton — made him more than amply suited for the task.
The broad issue of whether intelligence information about Iraq, its weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism was subjected to undue influence is under investigation by the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence.
Among current intelligence analysts questioned by the committee staffs, just one, Christian P. Westermann of the State Department, has been identified by name as having said Mr. Wilson perceived political pressure in his work on Iraq. Some other former and current intelligence officials who have spoken to reporters have made broadly similar charges.
Mr. Wilson said the Niger trip was prompted by an inquiry from Vice President Dick Cheney to a C.I.A. briefer. The conclusion that there was no basis to the report on nuclear materials was also reached by the United States Embassy in Niamey, the capital, and by an American general who visited there about the same time.
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August 8, 2003
WEAPONS INTELLIGENCE
Iraq Arms Critic Reacts to Report on Wife
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 — Joseph C. Wilson IV, a retired ambassador who was a secret envoy of the Bush administration to Africa and who publicly voiced doubts about a reported Iraqi weapons program, says he has become a target of a campaign to discourage others like him from going public.
In the prewar effort to uncover information about weapons in Iraq, Mr. Wilson made a fact-finding trip to Niger in February 2002 at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency. His findings challenged contentions in an unsubstantiated document that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear-weapons material from the West African country.
But it was not until after Mr. Wilson made his account public last month in an op-ed article in The New York Times, to the intense discomfort of President Bush's aides, that the White House acknowledged that it had erred in including the disputed accusations in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address in January.
Days after the column, another chapter opened. Mr. Wilson's wife was identified by name as a covert C.I.A. operative in a column by the conservative columnist Robert Novak, a disclosure that Mr. Novak has attributed to senior administration officials.
Officials are barred by law from disclosing the identities of Americans who work undercover for the C.I.A. That provision is intended to protect the security of operatives whose lives might be jeopardized if their identities are known.
Among those who have cried foul are several Democratic senators, including Charles E. Schumer of New York, who have said that if the accusation is true and if senior administration officials were its source, law enforcement authorities should seek to identify the officials who appeared to have violated the law. Mr. Schumer has asked Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to look into the case.
Mr. Wilson, who as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad in 1990 was the last American diplomat to meet President Saddam Hussein, said the events were evidence of distressing American heavy-handedness.
"The issue was never about her," Mr. Wilson said of his wife in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "The issue was about who so badly staffed the president of the United States that they would put into a State of the Union address something that was so transparently unsubstantiable, and this from an administration that came to office saying it wanted to restore dignity and honor to the White House. It wasn't to intimidate me, because I'd already said my piece. Clearly, this was to keep others from stepping forward."
White House officials have said they would not condone disclosing any undercover C.I.A. operative.
In the run-up to the war, Mr. Wilson appeared frequently on television as an expert on Iraq. He freely offered his opinion that the best American policy would be to postpone any war and focus on intense international inspections to find weapons of mass destruction.
That opinion certainly won him no friends in the administration, which was arguing that the moment for inspections had passed.
The fact that a retired American envoy had traveled to Niger to look into an Iraqi connection was acknowledged by the administration this year. But Mr. Wilson said he had decided to discuss his role publicly early last month after concluding that efforts by senior administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to pass off his findings as having been shared just with low-ranking intelligence officials were "simply inconsistent" with the facts that he knew.
"It was pretty clear that it had gotten to the right people," Mr. Wilson said in the interview.
The deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, has publicly taken responsibility for the inclusion in the State of the Union speech of 16 words that repeated the disputed reports about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear material from Niger.
Mr. Wilson, who had told the C.I.A. and the State Department after his visit that there was no basis for that report, said in the interview that he had "tried to avoid taking a victory lap" after his comments prompted the White House acknowledgments. But he had begun to speak out again, in television interviews including one on "Today" on NBC, "until such time as you got those lowlifes over there deciding they would take some whacks at my wife."
Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is known to friends as an energy industry analyst. In the interview, Mr. Wilson said he had no doubt that those who sought to bring his wife into the controversy intended to sound a warning to others who might take on the White House on the charged issue of whether intelligence about Iraq was reshaped or ignored to fit a political agenda.
Mr. Novak cited administration officials as saying Mr. Wilson was chosen for the Niger mission because of Ms. Plame's connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Wilson said his qualifications — as an Africa expert, a former ambassador to Gabon and the senior director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton — made him more than amply suited for the task.
The broad issue of whether intelligence information about Iraq, its weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism was subjected to undue influence is under investigation by the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence.
Among current intelligence analysts questioned by the committee staffs, just one, Christian P. Westermann of the State Department, has been identified by name as having said Mr. Wilson perceived political pressure in his work on Iraq. Some other former and current intelligence officials who have spoken to reporters have made broadly similar charges.
Mr. Wilson said the Niger trip was prompted by an inquiry from Vice President Dick Cheney to a C.I.A. briefer. The conclusion that there was no basis to the report on nuclear materials was also reached by the United States Embassy in Niamey, the capital, and by an American general who visited there about the same time.
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Thursday, August 07, 2003
Need the facts? Here's a QuickTime movie showcasing the odyssey of John Kerry's journey seeking the Democratic nomination for President.
Look to the right in the LINKS section for The COURAGE of JOHN KERRY and click on the link.
See the images and hear the words of the most qualified person running for President today and the only one that can beat Bush and the vicious GOP machine that will stop at nothing to keep the White House in the hands of the wealthiest and most powerful elite in the world. John Kerry has the steel in his backbone, tempered by battle in war and hard-nosed debate of our country's leading institutions of government, to take on the monied interests who have co-opted our democracy with a slick Madison Avenue PR front.
Bookmark this link with its call to COURAGE from John Kerry and view it when you need to understand the depth of the man's convictions and his lifetime of service to our country. Pass it along to others who are seeking to find a candidate worthy of their trust in these troubled times.
No other candidate can compare to JOHN KERRY.
Look to the right in the LINKS section for The COURAGE of JOHN KERRY and click on the link.
See the images and hear the words of the most qualified person running for President today and the only one that can beat Bush and the vicious GOP machine that will stop at nothing to keep the White House in the hands of the wealthiest and most powerful elite in the world. John Kerry has the steel in his backbone, tempered by battle in war and hard-nosed debate of our country's leading institutions of government, to take on the monied interests who have co-opted our democracy with a slick Madison Avenue PR front.
Bookmark this link with its call to COURAGE from John Kerry and view it when you need to understand the depth of the man's convictions and his lifetime of service to our country. Pass it along to others who are seeking to find a candidate worthy of their trust in these troubled times.
No other candidate can compare to JOHN KERRY.
The GOP media machine
I keep seeing these rosey reports exaggerating the economy's upside at Yahoo! News. You have to hand it to this White House for understanding how the news media competes for stories and that current headlines trump the one posted five minutes earlier. It keeps its media machine pumping out the slanted headlines over the real stuff by the second. Especially dealling with the economy. You'll read how the jobless rate has dropped in a headline but it won't mention how that rate is still at the bottom of the barrel for the first time since the last Bush administration. You'll see how less people are filing for unemployment in those White House manufactured headlines but you won't see mentioned that's because millions of people have given up on finding a job.
This is one of the most unreported on but most important stories of this GOP (I hesistate to call it a Bush-run administration) Machine that is running this White House. The GOP elite (both the ones IN government and those from the corporate boardrooms that finance and control the party) have an incredible band of media specialists working to tweak the news or take it over completely if only by winning the battle of competing headlines. This is the Madison Avenue crowd that has the best and the brightest money can hire to run its focus groups and come from polling and advertising backgrounds. They are in place at the White House and actually re-write reporters' stories when submitted to clarify certain techincial or policy fine points. They even own a network, Fox, and run its news under cover of "fair and balanced" reporting and use the disclaimer, "you decide", to get them off the hook on their slanted news. Hell, the GOP has even taken to forcing corporations to put GOP activists in as their lobbyists so as to keep the party line sacrosaint.
We're a democracy in name only today. Orwell's warnings play on deaf ears, drowned out by all those rosy commentaries on the TV and radio while the same headlines blind the print media.
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I keep seeing these rosey reports exaggerating the economy's upside at Yahoo! News. You have to hand it to this White House for understanding how the news media competes for stories and that current headlines trump the one posted five minutes earlier. It keeps its media machine pumping out the slanted headlines over the real stuff by the second. Especially dealling with the economy. You'll read how the jobless rate has dropped in a headline but it won't mention how that rate is still at the bottom of the barrel for the first time since the last Bush administration. You'll see how less people are filing for unemployment in those White House manufactured headlines but you won't see mentioned that's because millions of people have given up on finding a job.
This is one of the most unreported on but most important stories of this GOP (I hesistate to call it a Bush-run administration) Machine that is running this White House. The GOP elite (both the ones IN government and those from the corporate boardrooms that finance and control the party) have an incredible band of media specialists working to tweak the news or take it over completely if only by winning the battle of competing headlines. This is the Madison Avenue crowd that has the best and the brightest money can hire to run its focus groups and come from polling and advertising backgrounds. They are in place at the White House and actually re-write reporters' stories when submitted to clarify certain techincial or policy fine points. They even own a network, Fox, and run its news under cover of "fair and balanced" reporting and use the disclaimer, "you decide", to get them off the hook on their slanted news. Hell, the GOP has even taken to forcing corporations to put GOP activists in as their lobbyists so as to keep the party line sacrosaint.
We're a democracy in name only today. Orwell's warnings play on deaf ears, drowned out by all those rosy commentaries on the TV and radio while the same headlines blind the print media.
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It's Official, Dean Is GOP's Dream
It's official. The GOP is pushing for Dean to get the nomination. When George Will starts writing Dean up as a potential "threat" you know the GOP has started its stealth campaign in the media. Will, if you remember your election history, worked with a stolen Carter debating points primer to coach Reagan before a national debate. Then Will went on national TV to perform "unbiased" analysis of that debate and declared Reagan the winner. Later the facts came out that Will was involved with the stolen material and the coaching. Did he ever apologize or fess up for being a liar? What do you think? The underhanded Will is a proven shill for the GOP political elite who have the media talking heads starting the drumbeat. Watch for Rush and the rest to follow suit over the next few weeks.
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It's official. The GOP is pushing for Dean to get the nomination. When George Will starts writing Dean up as a potential "threat" you know the GOP has started its stealth campaign in the media. Will, if you remember your election history, worked with a stolen Carter debating points primer to coach Reagan before a national debate. Then Will went on national TV to perform "unbiased" analysis of that debate and declared Reagan the winner. Later the facts came out that Will was involved with the stolen material and the coaching. Did he ever apologize or fess up for being a liar? What do you think? The underhanded Will is a proven shill for the GOP political elite who have the media talking heads starting the drumbeat. Watch for Rush and the rest to follow suit over the next few weeks.
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Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Karl Rove is such a craven soulless sort of character that he hardly seems to be a real human being. It's as if he fell out of a lost story by Charles Dickens.
August 6, 2003 NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Karl Rove's Water Policy
It's hardly news that Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, keeps a hawklike eye on domestic policies emerging from the executive branch, the better to make sure that everything meshes with his boss's political interests and those of the Republican Party. Yet rarely have Mr. Rove's efforts to bend policy to politics been more transparent than his intervention in a seemingly remote dispute involving water rights in Oregon's Klamath River basin. As detailed in a Wall Street Journal report last week, Mr. Rove has worked almost obsessively behind the scenes to ensure that the outcome satisfies the party's agricultural base at the expense of conservationists and Indian tribes.
At issue is a long-simmering dispute over water flows in the Klamath River, which runs through southern Oregon and Northern California. Even in good years these flows can barely satisfy rival claims. Farmers want water for irrigation, while conservationists and Indian tribes want it for endangered fish species, including downriver salmon. The farmers have prevailed at almost every step of the way. In March 2002, the administration staged an elaborate ceremony in Klamath Falls to release irrigation water that had been held back to help the fish. In May, it unveiled a 10-year plan widely seen as pro-farmer. The fish have done less well. Last year, 33,000 salmon died in the lower Klamath, in one of the country's biggest fish kills. A subsequent report by the state of California blamed federal policies. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that the 10-year plan itself contained flawed science.
The farmers clearly owe a considerable debt to Mr. Rove. He has journeyed to Oregon twice in the past 19 months to solicit their views, and early last year he showed up at a Fish and Wildlife Service retreat to make clear that agricultural interests came first. The Interior Department insists that Mr. Rove did not order any particular "outcome," though it would have been hard to miss the message.
The distressing thing here is that the administration is spending so much time on politics that it is ignoring obvious win-win solutions that could benefit all stakeholders. One idea is to have the federal government buy land from willing sellers, thus reducing agricultural demand for water and freeing up reliable supplies for everyone. That could provide a more lasting gift to the region than Mr. Rove's shortsighted politics can possibly confer.
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August 6, 2003 NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Karl Rove's Water Policy
It's hardly news that Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, keeps a hawklike eye on domestic policies emerging from the executive branch, the better to make sure that everything meshes with his boss's political interests and those of the Republican Party. Yet rarely have Mr. Rove's efforts to bend policy to politics been more transparent than his intervention in a seemingly remote dispute involving water rights in Oregon's Klamath River basin. As detailed in a Wall Street Journal report last week, Mr. Rove has worked almost obsessively behind the scenes to ensure that the outcome satisfies the party's agricultural base at the expense of conservationists and Indian tribes.
At issue is a long-simmering dispute over water flows in the Klamath River, which runs through southern Oregon and Northern California. Even in good years these flows can barely satisfy rival claims. Farmers want water for irrigation, while conservationists and Indian tribes want it for endangered fish species, including downriver salmon. The farmers have prevailed at almost every step of the way. In March 2002, the administration staged an elaborate ceremony in Klamath Falls to release irrigation water that had been held back to help the fish. In May, it unveiled a 10-year plan widely seen as pro-farmer. The fish have done less well. Last year, 33,000 salmon died in the lower Klamath, in one of the country's biggest fish kills. A subsequent report by the state of California blamed federal policies. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that the 10-year plan itself contained flawed science.
The farmers clearly owe a considerable debt to Mr. Rove. He has journeyed to Oregon twice in the past 19 months to solicit their views, and early last year he showed up at a Fish and Wildlife Service retreat to make clear that agricultural interests came first. The Interior Department insists that Mr. Rove did not order any particular "outcome," though it would have been hard to miss the message.
The distressing thing here is that the administration is spending so much time on politics that it is ignoring obvious win-win solutions that could benefit all stakeholders. One idea is to have the federal government buy land from willing sellers, thus reducing agricultural demand for water and freeing up reliable supplies for everyone. That could provide a more lasting gift to the region than Mr. Rove's shortsighted politics can possibly confer.
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Dowd lays it out. Bush is a dullard dragged by his nose by the neocons. What do you expect from a Midland hick who used his brain for nothing more than keeping baseball statistics in it for 50 years?
August 6, 2003
Neocon Coup at the Department d'Etat
By MAUREEN DOWD NY TIMES
WASHINGTON
Let others fight over whether the war in Iraq was a neocon vigilante action disrupting diplomacy. The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy.
The audacious ones have saddled up their pre-emptive steeds and headed off to force a regime change at Foggy Bottom.
President Bush staged a Texan tableau vivant last night, playing host at his ranch to the secretary of state, his wife, Alma, and his deputy, Richard Armitage. Mr. Bush wanted to show solidarity after a Washington Post story on Monday that said that Colin Powell, under pressure from his wife, said he would not be part of a second Bush term, nor would Mr. Armitage.
Mr. Bush might be trying to signal his respect for Mr. Powell, but the president is not always privy to the start of a grandiose neocon scheme.
The scene was reminiscent of last August in Crawford, when Mr. Bush dismissed press "churning" that the administration was on the verge of striking Iraq, saying, "When I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man and that we will look at all options and we will consider all technologies available to us, and diplomacy and intelligence."
We all know how that turned out.
When the neocons want something done, they'll get it done, no matter what Mr. Bush thinks. And they think Mr. Powell has downgraded the top cabinet post into a human resources job, making nicey-nice with the U.N. and assorted bad guys instead of pursuing the neocon blueprint for world domination through what James Woolsey calls World War IV (World War III being the cold war.)
Countering the Post story, Mr. Powell's posse claimed that neither the secretary of state nor his deputy had ever said they intended to step down, and charged that the neocons were leaking a canard to turn the two men they consider lame doves into lame ducks.
"This is the revenge of the neocons for two months of bad news, looking like they're falling all over themselves in Iraq," said a Powell confidant, noting that Alma Powell was furious she had been dragged in.
In The Post, nearly all of the names of those who could move up if Mr. Powell moves out are Iraq hawks: Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Newt Gingrich were mentioned as candidates for secretary of state; Wolfie, Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and Condi deputy Steve Hadley, who may be radioactive after the uranium mistake, were mentioned for national security chief.
Mr. Wolfowitz has been tacitly campaigning for the jobs. He told Charlie Rose about his vice-regal trip to Iraq, where he said at last grateful Iraqis were thronging. "As we would drive by, little kids would run up to the road and give us a thumbs up sign," he said. (At least he thought it was the thumb.)
The move against the popular Powell had all the earmarks of the neocons' pre-emptive strike on Iraq.
1.) Demonize. Reiterating his speech trashing Foggy Bottom last April for propping up dictators and coddling the corrupt, Mr. Gingrich — a Rummy ally who serves on the Defense Policy Board — called for "top-to-bottom reform and culture shock" at State in an article in the July Foreign Policy magazine.
2.) Sex-up the intelligence. The leakers spread word that Mr. Armitage told Condi that he and Mr. Powell would leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration. "Nonsense," said Mr. Powell. "Nonsense," said Mr. Armitage.
3.) Create a false rationale. Everyone knew the pair might not stay for a second term. But the neocons were impatient to give them a push, blaming poor Alma Powell for henpecking her husband when they were.
4.) Bring about regime change.
5.) Fail to prepare for the aftermath. "Newt as secretary of state?" sneered one Powell pal. "Hel-lo?"
6.) Make sure it's good for Ariel Sharon. Just as the neocons made their move on Mr. Powell, pro-Israel hawks scorned the secretary for not being on their team in the peace process. Israel's supporters scoffed at the new threat to cut loan guarantees as a State Department policy, not a White House policy.
7.) Ignore the real threat. While the neocons are preoccupying the country with Iraq and a coup at the department d'état, Al Qaeda may have blown up a Marriott in Indonesia and are plotting attacks here.
8.) Change the subject. Next stop, North Korea.
__________________________________________________________________
August 6, 2003
Neocon Coup at the Department d'Etat
By MAUREEN DOWD NY TIMES
WASHINGTON
Let others fight over whether the war in Iraq was a neocon vigilante action disrupting diplomacy. The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy.
The audacious ones have saddled up their pre-emptive steeds and headed off to force a regime change at Foggy Bottom.
President Bush staged a Texan tableau vivant last night, playing host at his ranch to the secretary of state, his wife, Alma, and his deputy, Richard Armitage. Mr. Bush wanted to show solidarity after a Washington Post story on Monday that said that Colin Powell, under pressure from his wife, said he would not be part of a second Bush term, nor would Mr. Armitage.
Mr. Bush might be trying to signal his respect for Mr. Powell, but the president is not always privy to the start of a grandiose neocon scheme.
The scene was reminiscent of last August in Crawford, when Mr. Bush dismissed press "churning" that the administration was on the verge of striking Iraq, saying, "When I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man and that we will look at all options and we will consider all technologies available to us, and diplomacy and intelligence."
We all know how that turned out.
When the neocons want something done, they'll get it done, no matter what Mr. Bush thinks. And they think Mr. Powell has downgraded the top cabinet post into a human resources job, making nicey-nice with the U.N. and assorted bad guys instead of pursuing the neocon blueprint for world domination through what James Woolsey calls World War IV (World War III being the cold war.)
Countering the Post story, Mr. Powell's posse claimed that neither the secretary of state nor his deputy had ever said they intended to step down, and charged that the neocons were leaking a canard to turn the two men they consider lame doves into lame ducks.
"This is the revenge of the neocons for two months of bad news, looking like they're falling all over themselves in Iraq," said a Powell confidant, noting that Alma Powell was furious she had been dragged in.
In The Post, nearly all of the names of those who could move up if Mr. Powell moves out are Iraq hawks: Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Newt Gingrich were mentioned as candidates for secretary of state; Wolfie, Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and Condi deputy Steve Hadley, who may be radioactive after the uranium mistake, were mentioned for national security chief.
Mr. Wolfowitz has been tacitly campaigning for the jobs. He told Charlie Rose about his vice-regal trip to Iraq, where he said at last grateful Iraqis were thronging. "As we would drive by, little kids would run up to the road and give us a thumbs up sign," he said. (At least he thought it was the thumb.)
The move against the popular Powell had all the earmarks of the neocons' pre-emptive strike on Iraq.
1.) Demonize. Reiterating his speech trashing Foggy Bottom last April for propping up dictators and coddling the corrupt, Mr. Gingrich — a Rummy ally who serves on the Defense Policy Board — called for "top-to-bottom reform and culture shock" at State in an article in the July Foreign Policy magazine.
2.) Sex-up the intelligence. The leakers spread word that Mr. Armitage told Condi that he and Mr. Powell would leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration. "Nonsense," said Mr. Powell. "Nonsense," said Mr. Armitage.
3.) Create a false rationale. Everyone knew the pair might not stay for a second term. But the neocons were impatient to give them a push, blaming poor Alma Powell for henpecking her husband when they were.
4.) Bring about regime change.
5.) Fail to prepare for the aftermath. "Newt as secretary of state?" sneered one Powell pal. "Hel-lo?"
6.) Make sure it's good for Ariel Sharon. Just as the neocons made their move on Mr. Powell, pro-Israel hawks scorned the secretary for not being on their team in the peace process. Israel's supporters scoffed at the new threat to cut loan guarantees as a State Department policy, not a White House policy.
7.) Ignore the real threat. While the neocons are preoccupying the country with Iraq and a coup at the department d'état, Al Qaeda may have blown up a Marriott in Indonesia and are plotting attacks here.
8.) Change the subject. Next stop, North Korea.
__________________________________________________________________
Bush is out to shrink the Federal government at all costs. He's giving huge tax cuts to the rich so he can downsize everything including our national security. Oh, sure. He runs up trillons in debt on wasteful defense spending (did you hear how incredibly huge the salaries of the CEOs of the defense industries salaries went up in the last few years?) but gives nothing to our cops, firemen, air marshalls and everyone else on the front lines here at home.
August 6, 2003 NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Shortchanging Security
The Associated Press headline picked up by newspapers across the country last week said it all: "Air Marshal Program Could Be Cut, Despite Hijacking Threat." That was not exactly welcome news to millions of Americans at the height of the summer travel season, and the ensuing uproar helped kill the proposed spending cuts. Yet sadly enough, the story line was all too familiar. The Bush administration and Congressional leaders in Washington have been too reluctant to devote enough resources to protect the nation against terrorism.
A sense of complacency at this time would be inexcusable under any circumstances, but it is reckless when intelligence points to the likelihood of more terrorist attacks on aviation. President Bush called it a "real threat" at his press conference last week. The government is so concerned, it now requires travelers who need a visa to visit the United States to obtain one when merely changing planes here, say, en route to Paris from Rio.
Federal airport screeners and airlines have also been put on notice that Al Qaeda terrorists may be adapting cameras or other electronic devices into weapons. Aviation security has been substantially upgraded since the Sept. 11 attacks, but airliners remain the most alluring terrorist target all the same.
That is why it would be so wrong to roll back the air marshal program now. As the mounting threats were disclosed, a leaked memo from an official with the federal air marshal service cited budgetary concerns in urging regional offices to drop flights requiring overnight stays. The war on terror, apparently, must be waged on a day trip.
On Sunday, appearing on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Secretary, conceded that the juxtaposition of proposed spending cuts and new threats amounted to an "unusual sequence of events." We'll say. He then reassured viewers that there would be no curtailment in the air marshal program that puts thousands of undercover law-enforcement agents on an undisclosed number of flights.
Mr. Ridge did not address the budgetary constraints faced by the Transportation Security Administration, the agency within his department established in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency has received nearly $1 billion less than it has sought from Congress, forcing layoffs and the postponement of air marshal training.
Inadequate resources have also been devoted to the securing of airport perimeters and cargo facilities, not to mention ports and energy plants. These needs must be addressed.
__________________________________________________________________
August 6, 2003 NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Shortchanging Security
The Associated Press headline picked up by newspapers across the country last week said it all: "Air Marshal Program Could Be Cut, Despite Hijacking Threat." That was not exactly welcome news to millions of Americans at the height of the summer travel season, and the ensuing uproar helped kill the proposed spending cuts. Yet sadly enough, the story line was all too familiar. The Bush administration and Congressional leaders in Washington have been too reluctant to devote enough resources to protect the nation against terrorism.
A sense of complacency at this time would be inexcusable under any circumstances, but it is reckless when intelligence points to the likelihood of more terrorist attacks on aviation. President Bush called it a "real threat" at his press conference last week. The government is so concerned, it now requires travelers who need a visa to visit the United States to obtain one when merely changing planes here, say, en route to Paris from Rio.
Federal airport screeners and airlines have also been put on notice that Al Qaeda terrorists may be adapting cameras or other electronic devices into weapons. Aviation security has been substantially upgraded since the Sept. 11 attacks, but airliners remain the most alluring terrorist target all the same.
That is why it would be so wrong to roll back the air marshal program now. As the mounting threats were disclosed, a leaked memo from an official with the federal air marshal service cited budgetary concerns in urging regional offices to drop flights requiring overnight stays. The war on terror, apparently, must be waged on a day trip.
On Sunday, appearing on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Secretary, conceded that the juxtaposition of proposed spending cuts and new threats amounted to an "unusual sequence of events." We'll say. He then reassured viewers that there would be no curtailment in the air marshal program that puts thousands of undercover law-enforcement agents on an undisclosed number of flights.
Mr. Ridge did not address the budgetary constraints faced by the Transportation Security Administration, the agency within his department established in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency has received nearly $1 billion less than it has sought from Congress, forcing layoffs and the postponement of air marshal training.
Inadequate resources have also been devoted to the securing of airport perimeters and cargo facilities, not to mention ports and energy plants. These needs must be addressed.
__________________________________________________________________
Monday, August 04, 2003
Can the inept political manipulation of this bumbling and corrupt administration be more damning?!!!
The Pentagon has some explaining to do
By KAREN KWIATKOWSKI
The Houston Chronicle / Aug. 3, 2003, 12:03AM
After eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one time, I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
However, while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made.
Those observations changed everything.
What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of "intelligence" found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three prevailing themes.
*Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia.
When The New York Times broke the story last summer of Richard Perle's invitation to Laurent Muraviec to brief the Defense Policy Board on Saudi Arabia as the next enemy of the United States, this briefing was news to the Saudi desk officer. He even had some difficulty getting a copy of it, while receiving assignments related to it.
In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees, in the case of Israel a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and in the case of Iraq, Abe Shulsky and several other appointees. These personnel may be exceptionally qualified; Shulsky authored a 1993 textbook Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence. But the human resource depth made possible through broad-based teamwork with the professional policy and intelligence corps was never established, and apparently never wanted by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld organization.
* Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and that an overwhelming number of these appointees have such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.
Within the Central Intelligence Agency, it was less clear to me who the appointees were, if any. This might explain the level of interest in the CIA taken by the Office of the Vice President. In any case, I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel. This cliquishness is cause for amusement in such movies as Never Been Kissed or The Hot Chick. In the development and implementation of war planning it is neither amusing nor beneficial for American security because opposing points of view and information that doesn't "fit" aren't considered.
* Groupthink. Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view," groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted "fact," and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view.
The result of groupthink has been extensively studied in the history of American foreign policy, and it will have a prominent role when the history of the Bush administration is written. Groupthink, in this most recent case leading to invasion and occupation of Iraq, will be found, I believe, to have caused a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress.
I am now retired. Shortly before my retirement I was allowed to return to my primary office of assignment, having served in NESA as a desk officer backfill for 10 months. The transfer was something I had sought, but my wish was granted only after I made a particular comment to my superior, in response to my reading of a February Secretary of State cable answering a long list of questions from a Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq. The answers had been heavily crafted by the Pentagon, and to me, they were remarkably inadequate, given the late stage of the game. I suggested to my boss that if this was as good as it got, some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be sitting beside Saddam Hussein in the war crimes tribunals.
Saddam is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key decision-makers in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan. Neither may ever be required to answer their accusers, thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress. Ironically, only Saddam Hussein, buried under tons of rubble or in hiding, has a good excuse.
Kwiatkowski is a recently retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent most of her final three years of military service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy.
______________________________________________________________________
The Pentagon has some explaining to do
By KAREN KWIATKOWSKI
The Houston Chronicle / Aug. 3, 2003, 12:03AM
After eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one time, I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
However, while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made.
Those observations changed everything.
What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of "intelligence" found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three prevailing themes.
*Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia.
When The New York Times broke the story last summer of Richard Perle's invitation to Laurent Muraviec to brief the Defense Policy Board on Saudi Arabia as the next enemy of the United States, this briefing was news to the Saudi desk officer. He even had some difficulty getting a copy of it, while receiving assignments related to it.
In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees, in the case of Israel a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and in the case of Iraq, Abe Shulsky and several other appointees. These personnel may be exceptionally qualified; Shulsky authored a 1993 textbook Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence. But the human resource depth made possible through broad-based teamwork with the professional policy and intelligence corps was never established, and apparently never wanted by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld organization.
* Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and that an overwhelming number of these appointees have such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.
Within the Central Intelligence Agency, it was less clear to me who the appointees were, if any. This might explain the level of interest in the CIA taken by the Office of the Vice President. In any case, I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel. This cliquishness is cause for amusement in such movies as Never Been Kissed or The Hot Chick. In the development and implementation of war planning it is neither amusing nor beneficial for American security because opposing points of view and information that doesn't "fit" aren't considered.
* Groupthink. Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view," groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted "fact," and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view.
The result of groupthink has been extensively studied in the history of American foreign policy, and it will have a prominent role when the history of the Bush administration is written. Groupthink, in this most recent case leading to invasion and occupation of Iraq, will be found, I believe, to have caused a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress.
I am now retired. Shortly before my retirement I was allowed to return to my primary office of assignment, having served in NESA as a desk officer backfill for 10 months. The transfer was something I had sought, but my wish was granted only after I made a particular comment to my superior, in response to my reading of a February Secretary of State cable answering a long list of questions from a Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq. The answers had been heavily crafted by the Pentagon, and to me, they were remarkably inadequate, given the late stage of the game. I suggested to my boss that if this was as good as it got, some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be sitting beside Saddam Hussein in the war crimes tribunals.
Saddam is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key decision-makers in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan. Neither may ever be required to answer their accusers, thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress. Ironically, only Saddam Hussein, buried under tons of rubble or in hiding, has a good excuse.
Kwiatkowski is a recently retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent most of her final three years of military service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy.
______________________________________________________________________
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Here's another issue that requires someone with a strong military record to counter the GOP's command on the issue going into the election. Kerry has a proven record IN government chairing Senate committees of and working on the top issues of foreign policy and military preparedness. Not to mention that he's a decorated war hero whose photos from that conflict can NOT be ridiculed nor give veterans pause for giving him their full support. He's fought in combat. He knows battle and when faced with an unjust war he's also worked for peace. This is a key voting factor for conservative Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans.
But beyond all this we need a seasoned leader who has a reasoned world view for dealing with the unthinkable move by our and other nation's military leaders to EXPAND nuclear weapons and making the world a more dangerous place. We need a candidate that can BEAT BUSH!
Kerry is that man.
Facing a Second Nuclear Age
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
This week, ten minutes by car south of Omaha, Neb., the United States Strategic Command is holding a little-advertised meeting at which the Bush administration is to solidify its plans for acquiring a new generation of nuclear arms. Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.
"With an effective earth penetrator, many buried targets could be attacked," the administration said in its Nuclear Posture Review, which it sent to Congress last year.
Welcome to the second nuclear age and the Bush administration's quiet responses to the age's perceived dangers.
While initiatives like pre-emptive war have gotten most of the headlines (understandably, given the invasion of Iraq and its shaky aftermath), the administration is hard at work on other ways to counteract the spread of weapons like nuclear arms. Federal and private experts agree that with the notable exception of North Korea, diplomacy and arms control, for now, have taken a back seat to muscle flexing...
______________________________________________________________________
But beyond all this we need a seasoned leader who has a reasoned world view for dealing with the unthinkable move by our and other nation's military leaders to EXPAND nuclear weapons and making the world a more dangerous place. We need a candidate that can BEAT BUSH!
Kerry is that man.
Facing a Second Nuclear Age
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
This week, ten minutes by car south of Omaha, Neb., the United States Strategic Command is holding a little-advertised meeting at which the Bush administration is to solidify its plans for acquiring a new generation of nuclear arms. Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.
"With an effective earth penetrator, many buried targets could be attacked," the administration said in its Nuclear Posture Review, which it sent to Congress last year.
Welcome to the second nuclear age and the Bush administration's quiet responses to the age's perceived dangers.
While initiatives like pre-emptive war have gotten most of the headlines (understandably, given the invasion of Iraq and its shaky aftermath), the administration is hard at work on other ways to counteract the spread of weapons like nuclear arms. Federal and private experts agree that with the notable exception of North Korea, diplomacy and arms control, for now, have taken a back seat to muscle flexing...
______________________________________________________________________
The Democratic voters in the early primaries want more than anything to beat Bush. And they are beginning to size up the candidates as to who has the "stuff" to do it. By that they want a man that can not be ridiculed on a tank or for his record on the issues. They want a man who other centralist voters will support (liberal and conservative Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans).
That man is John Kerry.
Disdain for Bush Simmers in Democratic Strongholds
By ROBIN TONER NY TIMES
DES MOINES, July 31 — While Democratic leaders in Washington debate strategy and demographics for the 2004 election — the wisdom of campaigning from the left, right or center — something far more visceral is at work in the first caucus state, and in other Democratic redoubts.
There is a powerful disdain for the Bush administration, stoked by the aftermath of the war in Iraq and the continuing lag in the economy. There is also a conviction that President Bush is eminently beatable, and a hunger to hear their party's leaders and candidates make the case against him — straight up, from the heart rather than the polling data.
It is not simply a lurch to the left, many Democrats say; it could, in fact, lead caucus voters to more centrist candidates, if they seem most likely to defeat Mr. Bush in the general election.
Tom Rusk, a state welfare worker who turned out this week to see Senator John Kerry in Fort Dodge, Iowa, describes himself as "pretty liberal." He says he likes what he hears from former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont and from Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, but he worries that both candidates could be "Dukakisized" in the general election.
What Mr. Rusk is looking for, he said, alluding to the infamous image that doomed that past Democratic nominee, is "someone who will look impressive enough at the helm of an M-1 tank."...
____________________________________________________________
That man is John Kerry.
Disdain for Bush Simmers in Democratic Strongholds
By ROBIN TONER NY TIMES
DES MOINES, July 31 — While Democratic leaders in Washington debate strategy and demographics for the 2004 election — the wisdom of campaigning from the left, right or center — something far more visceral is at work in the first caucus state, and in other Democratic redoubts.
There is a powerful disdain for the Bush administration, stoked by the aftermath of the war in Iraq and the continuing lag in the economy. There is also a conviction that President Bush is eminently beatable, and a hunger to hear their party's leaders and candidates make the case against him — straight up, from the heart rather than the polling data.
It is not simply a lurch to the left, many Democrats say; it could, in fact, lead caucus voters to more centrist candidates, if they seem most likely to defeat Mr. Bush in the general election.
Tom Rusk, a state welfare worker who turned out this week to see Senator John Kerry in Fort Dodge, Iowa, describes himself as "pretty liberal." He says he likes what he hears from former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont and from Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, but he worries that both candidates could be "Dukakisized" in the general election.
What Mr. Rusk is looking for, he said, alluding to the infamous image that doomed that past Democratic nominee, is "someone who will look impressive enough at the helm of an M-1 tank."...
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