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July 26, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Presidential Home Boy

"Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
- U.S. Constitution.

The US Senate investigation of the Justice Department's firing of 9 US Attorneys for political reasons may well result in the undoing of the Bush Whitehouse, and in the process seriously damage what remains of the national Republican Party. It's my opinion the ongoing investigations will result in the indictment of Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, and the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheeney, unless either resigns first, or are able to run the clock out on the truth prior to the 2008 election.

Making Watergate seem like child's play, the investigations will likely lead to the exposure of massive election tampering, voter caging, misuse of the Justice Department to throw elections, illegal wiretapping of Democratic campaign workers, and outright election fraud by the National Republican Party apparatus, across various battle ground States during the 2004 elections, all orchestrated by Karl Rove, with the full knowledge and the explicit complacency of George W. Bush and Dick Cheeney.

Alberto Gonzales was approved for the position of Attorney General--head of the Justice Department and the highest law enforcement officer in the land--by what we now know was a corruption laced Republican Majority in the US Senate and House of Representatives, prior to their 2006 route by voters.

As seen this Tuesday on C-SPAN in full living color, Alberto Gonzales presented himself, baby-faced advisors at his back, as a bald-faced prevaricator and something of a village idiot, not uncommon traits on either count for a garden variety crook. George W. Bush's lawyer since their days in the Texas Governor's Mansion, on Tuesday in the US Senate chambers, the Attorney General attempted to muddy the waters for investigators; by refusing to answer simple questions, offering up extraneous or self serving irrelevant detail with the apparent intent to obfuscate, and when convenient acting confused or dumbfounded, attempting to explain away previous of his statements under oath with which his current accounts were at complete odds (i.e., lying).

He seemed more like a kindergarten kid found with his hand in the cookie jar, denying he was ever in the kitchen, than a fully grown educated man, the head of the US Justice Department. Such tactics apparently must have served him well since childhood, and over the course of his career as a lawyer. It's just too bad he never learned his lesson about telling the truth earlier in life. Had he done so, the President's home boy might have saved his boss, We the People, a lot of grief, and potentially saved thousands of lives on the world geopolitical stage. But as long as he places his loyalty to the President firmly above his oath to uphold the US Constitution, Gonzales will remain lost to the truth that would otherwise set he himself free.

The Administration will continue to stonewall the investigations, abuse the concept of Executive Privilege, and attempt to prevent the Senate investigators from discovering the dirty truth about their nefarious activities on several fronts. By doing so, the Bush Administration places their own political agenda, lawless actions and cover-ups, above the law, above the US Constitution they too swore to uphold, and above the interest of We the People, deserving of a federal government free of corruption and malfeasance.

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it" - William Pitt the Younger - 1770

July 19, 2007

Truth and Consequences

If you want the truth of what's happening on the streets of Iraq--outside the Republican Spin of the Green Zone--the McClatchy News Service is one of the best. I found their blog, Inside Iraq, especially honest and poignant.

George Bush has signed an executive order that allows the government to take everything you own should they decide you may be talking trash about Bush Administration Iraq policies. Read it carefully. Although on the surface, the gyst of it seems simply to add a few more tools to the Iraq War tool box, if you read between the lines--with your Roberto Gonzales weasel-wording glasses on--you can easily see your civil liberties dissapearing before your very eyes!

Bush should be impeached. We the people cannot afford to allow this rogue administration to get away with this kind of decree, as if Bush himself were some kind of king or dictator! Decrees such as these are not unlike those enacted by Hitler in 1930's Germany. Wake Up America! Before it's too late! Terrorists cannot take away our freedoms, only politicians like Bush can, and are doing so as you read this posting.

July 15, 2007

Rightside Upside Down?

Is George W. Bush a Coward?

cow·ard –noun 1. a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.

George W. Bush is the Commander in Chief and a drug store cowboy whose presidency has been a failure by most accounts, but is he a coward?

Having a penchant for lies and spin, to force his agenda down an American public that's slowly coming to their senses, the four and a half year botched Iraq occupation was a hornets nest to kick and kickit he did.

But under the adverse conditions into which their Commander in Chief thrust them, and under whose rules of engagement they were compelled to act, the US Military has probably done about as best they could do. First they were there to get to Baghdad fast as they could, and that they did to protect the Ministry of Oil from looting.

They were told they'd be greeted with flowers as they searched for WMD's. But when there were no flowers or WMD's to be found, we were there, among other things, to torture the locals in Abu Grahab, Saddam's old prison. A few bad apples we were told. But Rumsfeld directed General Sanchez not to investigate up the chain of command. Nice. On all accounts.

But then we were there to find Saddam, kill his sons, and set up an Iraqi trial for him. Had we presumed the Hague was too good for the likes of Saddam? or was it that an International Court might not have found him guilty? Perhaps they would have wanted Rumsfeld there along with him? We may never know.

Then we were there to promote freedom and democracy, as Halliburton profits soared and Blackwater thrived in the business of killing Iraqis, we walled ourselves off into a Green Zone, and watched the Iraqis vote with blue thumbs . . .who watched us set up a Parlamentery government . . .with the Koran as its Holy underpinning.

We stand down as they stand up. Right. And then four years later to secure Baghdad with the so-called "Surge," to put down the "in-Surge-ncy" which has now morfed into: fighting Al Quada in a very rural province where the locals hate them too!

Well, there was no Al Quada in Saddam's Iraq before Bush invaded in 2003. But NOW there is, and a comparatively small contingent of those old "Islamo Fascists," as the administration has labeled them--most of whom are Saudi's by the way--that according to the Iraq Study Group are responsible for about 10% or less of the violence in Iraq, the rest being the insurgency and death by power tool.

Bush had sent our sons and daughters, grandsons and graddaughters in the US Military into the midst of wanton chaos, tribal sectarian murders, and an ever increasing insurgency--as kind of mediators between the escalating Iraqi Civil War, that the Administration never wanted to admit was even happening--Sitting Ducks were the soldeirs, in a bizarre kind of East Meets Wild West Show--ala Bush and his phoney cowboy mystique.

And for ya'll sporting "Support the Troops" bumper stickers? who have not otherwise been paying attention, this entire ordeal has been terribly detrimental to our Military, in countless ways literally destroying thousands of lives along with the costly to replace machinery of war. And if you really mean it? go volunteer at your local VA hospital.

Left without a clear objective other than to remain as TARGETS until the violence subsides--burning tens of billions of dollars a month let alone the loss in life and limb--which could be tomorrow or could be fifty years from now will most likely be the latter . . .considering Bush and the obstructionist Republican Party that continues deluded to this day, stuck in the insanity of staying the course, or fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here, or Al Quada, Al Quada, Al Quada, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, be fearfrul, be fearful, be fearful, they are coming they are coming they are coming here to get us just you wait.

Get a clue!

Two years ago the Iraq Study Group reported the solution will be in political mediation between the countries of the region; Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, etc, and the Kurd, Sunni and Shiite tribes of Iraq. (And Iraq will most likely end up three independent countries in the end, no matter what we do, and Al Quada or other like minded criminals will not even figure into it!)

But George W. Bush ironically is not interested in international diplomacy aside from dog and pony shows. I guess he figures it doesn't fit with the rugged cowboy image. (Did you know he bought his "Ranch" in 1999?) With his personal blend of arrogance, selective memory, and trustworthy incompetence, he is instead willing to sacrifice our soldiers lives, because he himself lacks the courage to admit he was dead wrong for sending them there in the first place, and dead wrong about everything since, including continuing the occupation he seems to beleive is still a war, a war that lasted three weeks and ended four years ago.

Playing the tough guy role, he would rather continue to appear, in his own words as a, "War President," and send a thousand men or more to their deaths before leaving office in January 2009--then to admit he was wrong and put an end to the bloodshed today, as easily he could do so by getting them the hell out of there!

George W. Bush may be a drug store cowboy and a Commander in Chief. He may be an arrogant pawn--who remains controlled by Dick Cheeney and the right wing of the Republican Party and their Neocon ideology--but I do not believe Bush is ignorant. A clown yes but ignorant no.

And so here we are nearly five years later, and he continues to see himself in the grandeur of his delusion, and the worst kind of coward in my view; a man who values his own political image ove the very lives of our Military who serve to protect our country and our people!

Well, the jig is up Mr. President, as the entire electorate slowly comes to thier senses to discover the horrible truth about you and your party. And although today we the people and the troops remain hostage to your administration's state of denial--when sufficient numbers of the remaining obstructionist Republican Senators actually cross over to the Democratic side, the American side--just before the 2006 election, to fein the appearance of courage--so as to be seen as having done the right thing . . . what have we come to as a nation?

~~~

July 7, 2007

Al Gore: "From here on out, each of us must do our part to save the planet from the devastating effect of global warming, created by over consumption of fossil fuels!"

George W. Bush: "The King says the planet need not be saved, only homage to the King shall forever be made, that his multinational corporate backers shall ever be paid."

July 2nd, 2007

Bush and Cheeney think they are
ABOVE THE LAW! Bush gives Scooter Libby
a "Get Out of Jail Free Card!"

This is an open and shut case of Treason easy as ABC to understand. Bush and Cheeney outed Valerie Plame--a covert CIA officer working on weapons of mass destruction. To retaliate against her husband Joe Wilson--for exposing Bush Administration lies about WMD to the American people--they tried to destroy her 20 year career in the CIA and compromised US National Security in the process.

They were angry that her husband had exposed administration lies that attempted to justify their invasion of Iraq, the ultimate purpose of which probably was to line their deep multinational oil industry pockets. (Dick "The Devil" Cheeney went all the way to the Supreme Court to keep from revealing who had attended, and what had taken place at, his "Energy Summit," prior to the Iraq invasion.)

Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitsgerald investigated the Bush administration for the crime of Treason against the United States. Led by Cheeney as in all else, the President and Vice President conspired to conceal their roles in the crime. I. Scooter Libby would take the fall, lying about his first hand knowledge of what had actually taken place inside the Whitehouse regarding the plot to destroy Wilson and his wife. Libby was sucessful at keeping Fitsgerald from finding the whole truth of the administration's deceipt. But he was convicted of purjery by a jury of his peers, for lying to obstruct Patrick Fitsgerald's investigation into the crime, and sentinced by a Federal Judge to serve 30 months in prison.

George "Yes man" Bush and Dick Cheeney had probably planned it this way all along! (which goes a long way to explain the ever-present smile on Scooter's face during his trail, as he was seen walking to and from the courthouse and his black SUV countless times on the evening news). Bush and Cheeney had promised Libby a "get out of jail free card," that he would never see the inside of a jail cell, provided he would lie to protect their vindictive treasonous asses.

IMPEACH BUSH and CHEENEY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

June 10, 2007

Water Seeks Its Own Level

The Root Cause of Illegal Immigration is Poverty

Most Mexican and Central American workers and their families live in extreme poverty. As long as employers in the United States continue hiring illegal workers, without impunity to both the undocumented workers and their employers who break existing labor laws, illegal workers will continue to flood the US job market.

Many undocumented workers send paychecks home to their families, who in time may relocate to the US. The difference between living conditions in their countries of origin compared to conditions in the US today provides the conduit for the flow of illegal immigrants.

Should voters demand existing labor laws be rigorously enforced with fines and/or imprisonment for employers who repeatedly hire undocumented workers, the problem of illegal immigration would be greatly reduced, providing at least a temporary solution to the problem. But until either the root cause of poverty in the neighboring third world countries is eliminated, or standards of living in the US are reduced to third world levels, illegal immigration will continue into the foreseeable future.

So-called free trade policies complicate the problem in two ways. First, corporations outsource their work primarily to lower direct labor costs, taking advantage of meager wage conditions in host countries. Secondly, by exporting higher paying US manufacturing and information age jobs south of the border and offshore, lower paying service sector jobs which generally pay at or near minimum wage now dominate local economies. The problem of illegal immigration is then one of businesses--operating under regulations and labor laws that are either un-enforced and/or written by and specifically for the benefit of corporations--that on the average intend to lower direct labor costs and thus the wages and standards of living for most workers and their families in all of North and Central America.

In this way, having bought into the so-called conservative economic myth--that the free market will solve any and all problems, just get government out of the way--the voting public, embracing the very economic conditions that provide for the flow of illegal workers into the US, has unwittingly accepted the deleterious effects of so-called "free trade policy" on their own wages and benefits.

In the long term, like water seeking its own level, these trade policies will increase corporate and multinational profits, while lowering wages drastically in the US, if perhaps marginally increasing them in third world countries. Illegal immigration will no longer be a problem here in the US, because the standards of living will have adjusted to relative equivalence with the Mexican and Central American third world economies.

But the US will have far worse with which to contend; increasing poverty at home, hunger, an exacerbated health care system, and illiteracy, a true crisis unlike anything we have seen in most of our lifetimes, as the US returns to a 1930's style depression era economy.

This is not one of those hot button issues about religion, race, or sexual orientation. It is however all about our economic future, and that of our children and grandchildren! It's also a story about the have's and have not's in this world.

Our elected representatives must change policy and law when necessary, so that the actions of our government and our society begin to represent the interests of the average working families again. Regardless of what you believe, seven times out of ten, Democrats will represent the interests of the working class, while Republicans when it comes to business, 9 times out of 10 will represent the interest of the corporations over workers. So, vote your own interest . . .vote Democratic.

~~~

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

These wrong headed politicians continue to defy the voice of the American people. And there is a rogue government operating in Washington DC from the office of the Whitehouse.

We the American people have spoken our position on Iraq through our vote in the last election. We want our sons and daughters, our grandsons and granddaughters out of Iraq and we want them out now! Not next year, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Although an apparent majority of Democratic and Republican politicians primarily in the Senate have shown a recent spineless approach, by also failing to carry out the will of the people, by opposing Bush at all cost--to call his bluff by cutting the funding for the war; the only true power the Congress really has at this time, let we the people not forget that it was corrupt Republican politicians of the Executive branch and the Congress who hunkered down for three and a half years now lock step in favor of continuing the neocon bush men's everlasting bloodbath in Iraq.

We the people voted the Republicans out of office in overwhelming numbers last fall. They won hardly a single seat. And let there be no mistake, when the voice of the people is finally complete in November 2008, there will be few if any pro-war Republicans left in the Senate or the House of Representatives.

And any Democrat that wants to keep his job doing the people's business, had better heed the warning as well. The writing is on the wall, the signs are everywhere. So mark my words: if you thought the last election ejection was a route? just you want until 2008. Big changes are in the works in this country.

~~~

Memorial Day, May 28th, 2007

Let us keep dear in our hearts the memory of those men and women who've given life, limb and psyche in the service of the United States of America. And may our politicians serving the people of the United States find the courage to be as trustworthy and honorable in the conduct of their duties--particularly in areas serving the needs of the service men and women and their families--as the latter have been trustworthy and honorable in the service to country.

~~~

Memorial Weekend , 2007

Memorial Day used to be about honoring those men and women who gave their lives in the service of our country. No more.

The holiday has instead become all about camping: The great American pastime, driving out of town for the weekend, pitching a tent, burger barbqueing, maybe some hiking or biking, and then kicking back the first weekend of summer, in the great out-of-doors (although summer is still a month off). And that's why everyone is so fired up about rising gas prices; who can afford to drive to place where a tent can be pitched? let alone camp and have some fun, knowing what it cost to get the family SUV all the way out there, loaded down with the accouterments of the camp life!

So in order of importance on Memorial Day weekend this year, Camping is number 1, and Gas prices number 2, and for many the Indy 500 may be number 3. Fact is, although 75% of Americans now say they want the US out of Iraq now, fully aware of the lives lost each day the war continues, I'd be willing to bet that too few will care enough about the fallen US troops to hold even a moment of silence in their honor this Memorial Day weekend.

The numbers of the dead and wounded including the psychologically damaged as a result of their service to country in this war, will remain largely out of sight and beyond our collective consciousness, while we occupy our days squeezing what fun there is left out of the weekend, before turning back home and our workaday world. After supper, we'll gather around the camp fire, sing some camp songs, brown some marshmallows, and a few of us will even shake our heads about Bush, Cheeney, and their ill-begotten war in Iraq!

This year a few will moan over the demonstrably wimpy Democratic politicians for not forcing Bush's hand to end the blood bath, as the majority of us instructed them to do so in the last elections--and mind you a blood bath Bush himself started on false pretense in the first place. Impeach the bastard! will be the cry of many. But not so fast, after all, it's so confusing, we might have to pick up an actual news magazine to become informed. And if Bush is impeached, then what? We'd be left with the devil himself Dick Cheeney as president? An unpleasant thought no matter how you slice it. So impeach him first like Dennis Kucinich has suggested. And on the discussion goes.

But has anyone out of ten called their Senator or Congressman in protest of this war? Has anyone out of ten actually attended a war protest sometime in the last three years? Has any one out of ten read the US Bill of Rights?

Given the apathetic people we have become, apathetic about life and limb of our soldiers, what of the broken heath care system in this country? What of the quality of our kids education? What of American jobs shipped offshore to bolster the corporate bottom line? leaving primarily low paying service sector jobs to replace those lost to Bush tax cuts for the wealthy among us.

What ever happened to the union wage and benefit package and retirement? What of our very civil rights and liberties, fast becoming a figment of our post 9/11 imagination? The very things our brave men and women in uniform signed up to defend? Apparently we Americans are easily bought-off with shiny trinkets Made in China these days. We'll just give it all away in heartbeat to the likes of Bush, who has never even attended a funeral of a single fallen US Soldier.

~~~

Wednsday May 2nd, 2007

Fact is George W. Bush fully intends to keep this war going for one reason: his own political score card: He wants to be remembered as a President who won the war (he lied us into). Reality means nothing to those who live in eternal spin, where believing your own bullshit is par for the course. Meanwhile our soldiers are dying and Iraqis are dying, 80% of whom say they want us out of their country asap. He said he wanted a Democracy in Iraq, well now he's got one. So let them govern themselves as they see fit!

I repeat: When did the news media become so cynical as to present Peace as a kind of wacky fringe ideology instead of the viable alternative to the current failed policy of this administration? Peace as in withdrawal. And who is not at least responsible in part for allowing the nightmarish cult of death and destruction sold us by the Bushies to permeate our national consciousness?

Aside from shows like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Countdown, and Thom Hartmann on KPOJ and Air America, who speak truth to power on a regular basis, by enlarge the cable and mainstream media and right wing AM radio in this country should be ashamed. The last to admit complacency and culpability on its reporting and commentary on the Bush Administration, their own ignorance of the facts staring them square in the face, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld from all directions, north, east, south and west, as they attempted to cover or contextually cover-up the essence of the news; presenting us instead entertainment over substance, suck-up administration spin over reality for the better part of the decade since Bush took office. God help the USA

Sunday April 29th, 2007

Considering the misdeeds and incompetence, the lying, the running rough shod over the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions, the criminal activity of the Bush administration, increasingly synonymous with the very definition of political corruption, why is it then that concepts presented viewers by most political punditry on cable news, and even on mainstream network news shows like Meet the Press, continue to characterize the administration's actions as somehow politically acceptable, reasonable or even rational?

By reporting in such a manner that supports the wrong headed war mongering rhetorical stance of the Bush Administration directed against Iran today--reminiscent of the lead up to war with Iraq--as somehow credulous the media continues to abdicate its responsibility to inform the public of events in an unbiased and impartial manner. We have come to expect lies and falsehoods from the likes of Fox Noise, but it's all the more insidious when presented as a subtle contextual back drop or blatant mis-reporting by mainstream network news outlets.

The news media ignored documented Republican election tampering across the nation in the days after the last two national elections. It has ignored global warming for five years or more in the context of a nonexistent or incoherent energy policy. It turns a blind eye on the administration's statistical tampering of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and an anemic economy caused by short sighted trade policies that benefit primarily the multinational corporations. It ignores gun control issues and psychological medical care until the unthinkable happens once again. With few exceptions honest and impartial reporting is seldom seen until its too late, at which point the reporting too often descends into hysteria or splash headline infotainment.

During the FEMA Katrina debacle, the media seemed to wake momentarily from its ubiquitous slumber. But somewhere between underreporting the consequences of the Bush tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, to the ongoing plight of the average underpaid worker, unable to afford health insurance or retirement savings, while staring into an uncertain future of Republican fear mongering or tantalizing conspicuous consumption, the news media, in my opinion, has let the country down. From a declining US Dollar and buying power, soaring housing and gasoline prices to unaffordable education for our children and grandchildren, true enough, the stories are out there, but they go largely underreported; either how they presented (context) or when; often relegated to the back pages of the daily papers or presented as minor stories to fill network off-prime time slot voids.

After all that's taken place since Bush and Cheeney purposefully lied the American people into war with Iraq, without a plan or a clue as to where the consequences of their actions and incompetence might lead us, with information to the contrary in full view of the press for decades prior, what are we to make of all this? From the lies and media hype around Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, each allowed to permeate the national consciousness for years, to the Attorney General Alberto Gonzale's lying to Congress and pretending no one would know, much less call him on it, to even the recent horrible events at Virginia Tech presenting a window in the consciousness of the self deluded criminally insane, the irresponsible reporting by the media continues to strain one's credulity. So that when they characterize the administration's actions today as somehow responsible or competent, their rhetoric as somehow miraculously now devoid of double speak, or even to be taken in honesty and all truthfulness, one is left shaking one's head. Everything everything everything happens for a reason.

Could it be that ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN among others are covering up their own complacency and culpability in providing support for the administration's inextricable march to war in Iraq in 2003 and the ongoing devastating in the aftermath, with over 3,333 US Military deaths, tens of thousands wounded and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and wounded? Why do they continue to provide credibility to ideas set forth by the administration that somehow US Military involvement in Iraq is inevitable for decades to come?

When did the news media become so cynical as to present a Peaceful Solution as a kind of wacky fringe ideology instead of the viable alternative to the current failed policy of this administration? And who is not at least responsible in part for allowing the nightmarish cult of death and destruction sold us by the Bushies to permeate our national consciousness?

Aside from shows like MSNBC's Kieth Olbermann on Countdown, who speak truth to power on a regular basis, by enlarge the cable and mainstream media in this country should be ashamed. The last to admit complacency and culpability on its reporting of the Bush Administration, their own ignorance of the facts staring them square in the face, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld from all directions, north, east, south and west, as they attempted to cover or contextually cover up the essence of the news; presenting us instead entertainment over substance, suck-up administration spin over reality for the better part of the decade since Bush took office.

If given a report card, they should receive a flunking grade from the American public, who at one time relied on the press as an unbiased source of information upon which to base one's world view. God help us now!

~~~

Monday April 23rd, 2007

It had been less than a year after 9/11, the whole world was with us. Every country supported the invasion of Afghanistan to route the Taliban and hunt Al Quada in retribution for attacking our country unprovoked. The nation remained traumatized by the events of 911, but also increasingly by the fear mongering talking points and political tactics of George W. Bush, Dick Cheeney and Karl Rove, aimed to scare the public into supporting the Neocon plans to attack Iraq, so as to create "political capital," as Bush put it once, if out of the administration's behemoth failure to protect New York City from those terrorist attacks.

During the months leading up to the invasion, I recall reading stories in the New Yorker written by Sey Hirsh, and several others published by the Newhouse News Service and Night Ridder that cited government sources inside the CIA and the US Military, who accused Dick Cheeney and the other Neocons inside the Bush administration in no uncertain terms of cherry picking intelligence to make the case for war.

Then the faked Niger yellow cake allegations surfaced, and the faulty assumptions regarding aluminum tubes purportedly used to manufacture nuclear weapons, in addition to a whole host of false intelligence coming from Iraqi expatriates, and crooks like Amhed Chalabi with ties to the Iranian intelligence service, championing their own ulterior motives and agendas, and no doubt paid well by the administration to provide just the kind of information needed for the bogus justification of their plans for invading Iraq.

The mainstream press lay right down and went right along with Bush's plans for war, and for the most part reported little of the intelligence hype, as they salivated to sink their teeth into the media blitz about to unfold. And indeed when the time came, most of the papers and networks imbedded reporters with the troops--what better way to control what they saw and wrote home? (Rent the movie Control Room for an inside glimpse)--on their way to Baghdad, the media quickly forgot all about their duty to inform the American public of events in an unbiased way.

The entire Republican Party, joined by many Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate lay right down as well. They said they were only giving Bush and Cheeney the authority to threaten war as a last resort, when they knew full well, all along, if perhaps deep down in their heart of hearts exactly what he was about to do. Joe Wilson appeared to be a lone voice of dissent, and the administration set out to destroy his wife's career because of an editorial he wrote in the New York Times.

Meanwhile the American people stepped right on board the ship of war. After all, "We were attacked and had a right to defend ourselves!" went the talk around the water coolers of America. Too lazy, too busy, too ignorant, or too thick headed to check out the facts for ourselves; we bought hook line and sinker into Bush's lies during the State of the Union that Saddam had WMDs, and Cheeney's claims on Meet the Press that he had been involved in the 9/11 planning if not personally orchestrating the events that fateful morning.

I read all about these things as they were happening in at least some newspapers and magazines back in 2002. Where was the mainstream media and better yet, where were you?

I hear that tomorrow Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) Ohio, will file impeachment papers against VP Dick Cheeney, for his role in outing Valerie Plame, and for hyping the case for war. It's about time, eh? And now that over 70% of the American public has grown weary of the bloodshed in Iraq, simply wanting out of that illegal war, question is: will the TV news media and the other mainstream media outlets report this story as a significant event? Or will they continue the banality of media correctness so prevalent today?

One is left wondering what happened to our free press? Where did it go? Did it exit stage right from the mainstream newspapers and television stations in Anytown USA, now hiding out only in ubiquitous blogs of the "internets", sentenced to a relative measure of oscurity? Perhaps. Or with our malaise, have we sacrificed our right to know the truth? Has it vacated our environs along with the Bill of Rights? gone like the wind with Free Speech at presidential rallies? Search and Seizure inside of our homes and on our computers, or with Due Process down at Guantanimo? and Cruel and Unusual Punishment in Abu Grahab and elsewhere in secret CIA prison camps?

All I can think to say positive at this point is thank God for Air America's Thom Hartmann and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. In the words of my George Family Coat of Arms, "Truth is Mighty and Will Prevail." And let the chips fall where they may, Dick.

!~!

Updated Sunday April 22, 2007

I sent an early version to the Thom Hartmann show on KPOJ, and to my surprise and amasement they emailed me requesting an mp3 of the song. Perhaps Thom will play Uncertain Future on one of his radio shows. The theme is the culture of fear thrust upon the nation by the Bush Administration.

Thursday April 19th, 2007 -

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been doing some song writing during that time. Interestingly enough as most art has been known to do so, the music for this first song wrote itself and in about two hours time. Inspired by the Walter Reed Army Hospital scandal, coincident with my personal resolve to start writing music again, it arrived pretty much in the final form, of course after considerable lyric rewriting and editing, and over about a two week period of playing and practicing after work each night (No kidding I must have played it over 100 times to finally get it down). Anyway, the piece is titled: Uncertain Future, and I've been thinking about posting the mp3 here, so that anyone could have a listen. But since it's not really done yet, but a work in progress, I thought I'd wait a while.

While listening to the Alberto Gonzales testimony before the Senate hearings, the corruption, ineptitude and incompetence of the Bush Administration came through loud and clear once again. The Senators trying to figure out whether the Attorney General is a liar or just incompetent? Get a clue: From day one, this has been the ongoing theme of the Bush Administration; a pattern of purposeful obfuscation designed to conceal their shenanigans. They do as they please, twisting the truth and breaking laws, willy nilly to suit their political agenda--which generally involves extending their lust for power, enriching themselves and their deep pocketed constituents--shrouding the truth in the secrecy of executive privilege, and when compelled to testify under oath, they claim random memory loss, because their jobs are so, so, so vast and overly complicated. . . or could it be early onset Alzheimer's?

~~~

Saturday March 31st, 2007

Here are the retired Generals who served in Iraq advising Bush not to use the wounded and disabled troups at Walter Reed as political props on his visit there Friday. And here is Bush ignoring the General's advise and using the wounded and disabled troops at Walter Reed Hospital s political props.

~~~

Tuesday March 27th, 2007

Five and a half years after 911--long after Bush shifted 99.99% of our military and reconstruction resources from Afghanistan to his oil war in Iraq--aside from the capital city of Kabul most of Afghanistan remains unimproved or destroyed. For all intents and purposes the people there remain as if in the dark ages, living off the fields of poppies they raise for the opium and heroin trade. Having given the UN and US a chance to help them change their lot in life for several years now, the locals are now saying thanks but no thanks. The Taliban are back and this time apparently with a great deal more local support. These turns of event in no small part are complements of George W. Bush and his ass backwards Neocon priorities, and mismanaged foreign affairs, at every step of the way.

It does seem like the soldiers on the ground are trying their best to change their methods at befriending the locals, but without a major commitment for the US and the UN, five years after 911, to rebuild that country? God help the Afghanis and God help us all.

Don't wait for '08, the Democratic Congress should move quickly to impeach Bush and Cheney now!

Sunday March 25th, 2007

How many more reasons do we need to impeach Bush now?

Thrusday March 15th, 2007

Brothers Under the Bridge

Saigon, it was all gone
The same Coke machines
As the streets I grew on
Down in a mesquite canyon
We come walking along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
Up here there's too much brush and canyon
For the CHP choppers to touch down
Ain't lookin' for nothin', just wanna live
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush'll light
Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
We buried his body in the white stone high up along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Had enough of town and the street life
Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
Now I don't want no trouble
And I ain't got none to give
Me and the brothers under the bridge

I come home in '72
You were just a beautiul light
In your mama's dark eyes of blue
I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Come Veterans' Day I sat in the stands in my dress blues
I held your mother's hand
When they passed with the red, white and blue
One minute you're right there and something slips...

Edited Wednesday March 14th, 2007

George W. Bush fashioned a country after his own demented cowboy imagination: An extreme religious ideology, leading a powerless federal government, with all sides armed to the hilt. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Republican Neoconservative's vision for a New Iraq: A cross between the lawless gun slinging Old West and the worst horrors imaginable in the American Civil War.

But that would give Bush too much credit. For Iraq in some ways is no different today than it has been for some 30 odd years; but with one glaring exception: without a ruthless yet apparently effective dictator in Saddam Hussein, who managed to keep the crazed Religious Zealots in line.

The sad fact is: assisted by their Sunni insurgent and Arab terrorist dance partners the United States and the United Nations Security Council have destroyed Iraq. The process started after the Gulf War with UN sanctions. Rumsfeld's Shock and Awe then dealt a crippling blow, but the total annihilation of that country had only begun. And it continues to this day thanks in no small part to a total lack of planning by the former Secretary of Defense, and everyone else involved in the Bush administration prewar planning for the occupation of Iraq. (Read Bob Woodward's State of Denial for the details.)

At some point in the distant future the civil violence will subside. But no matter what some future Iraqi generation does, no matter the actual chain of events, by comparison George W. Bush will try to take credit for the relative peace. And in what we Americans have come to expect from him, in classic Fox News Republican double speak, he will proclaim history has vindicated his war . . .(against a third world country starved by UN sanctions but sitting on top of one of the largest oil reserves in the world).

But by then Bush will either be long retired or impeached from office. Be that as it may, many more Americans and Iraqi lives will have been sacrificed to Bush's war, that he, Cheeney, and his Neocon advisors misled and lied the United States into--for no reason other than because they could--and because to many of us stood by and let them.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The real problem with Bush's irrational plan to keep our troops in Iraq forever is that like the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1970's, its draining our resources and taxing our will, in a war that cannot be won, and at the same time ignoring the real threat to security at home and abroad: Osama Bin Laden, and his new Al Qaida Headquarters and Training Camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or where ever else he may be hiding out. Read The Guardian article linked

In addition, Bush has so stretched our Military in Iraq, and abandoned the middle class trades to extinction here at home, that should a Katrina like disaster; forest fires, floods, tornadoes, be visited in mass upon the country again, one must seriously ask: could FEMA react effectively this time? With Bush still in charge? It's doubtful. I don't trust Bush, Cheeney, Rice, or any of the rest of these morons who call themselves Neocons.

Concept of Fractile Geometry: Oceans act like Water Molecules

A wise friend once told me this story: that the leader of an organization, any organization, is crucial in ways critical to the success of the organization, more than anyone could possibly imagine from the face of it. This goes for team leaders, presidents, CEOs, mayors, supervisors, managers and school principals. You name it, any kind of leader, large or small the organization. The one at the top sets the tone and the context for the entire organization. And now we are getting down to it. Any and all personal issues in his or her own life, will reflect their essence like a vitamin (good), or spread like a malignancy (not so good), throughout the body organization, to strengthen or to weaken it.

And that's why its so very important to elect a President who has conquered his or her own inner demons, and having dealt honestly with his issues, accepts the responsibilities as an adult, and is able to step up to the plate and represent the interest of the people effectively. With his or her intellect then, acting from the heart, guided by his personal inner moral compass, responsibly wields the power lent him for a time by the people to govern them. Sadly George W. Bush has failed almost every test in this regard. We need a new leader, and we need one sooner than later.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Surge Smurge. Didn't Colonialism start in 1590 and end in 1950? That's what Bush's unwinnable war with Iraq reminds me of--colonialism: an outmoded futile attempt to control an unwilling populace. Great Britain learned what not to do a few centuries ago. (Note: they are leaving Iraq soon too, all 7,100 of them.)

Unwinable!

Before our brave and honorable troops (whom by the way, we owe an immense debt of gratitude for their sacrifice and that of their families) and their Iraqi military counterparts go into a neighborhood, the insurgents leave and go somewhere else for a time. As one Chinese American friend put it the other day around the water cooler, it's straight out of Mao's handbook, he said. When the occupying force is strong, the insurgents melt away. When the occupiers become weakened it is then the insurgents attack. I don't know what it is about this that is apparently so difficult for the Bush Administration to understand.

Iraq is a large country, about the size of California, with many parts, and many places to melt into, where our troops are not. You can fill in the blanks. We need our Military out of harms way by getting them out of Iraq!

Now that the I. Scooter Libby trial has ended with his conviction for Lying to the FBI, Perjury and Obstruction of Justice, the Congress should begin investigations in earnest into the actions of Bush, Cheney, Rove, and the rest of the Neocons, for outing an undercover CIA agent; and why the administration lied to and mislead the United States Congress and the country, cherry picking intelligence to take us into their war of choice, totally unprovoked, unnecessary, undermanned, and with no plan for winning the peace, and now we learn with no long term plan for dealing with the military families and the wounded.

They should be investigated for the missing billions in Iraq, and for funding covert operations intended to help Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and others by the DoD with no prior congressional knowledge let alone approval.

The use of private contractors (once known as mercinaries, call a spade a spade) to perform military and other security functions inside the United States should be investigated.

The billions bilked from the federal government by corporate contractors in Iraq and Louisiana should be investigated

The Administration should also be investigated for conducting illegal wire taps Against American citizens before it was made legal to do so, and for warrantless spying on Americans inside their own homes and on their computers.

Guantanamo should be closed down, along with all covert CIA run prisons, the right of habeas corpus must be restored, the Military commissions act repealed, and the rule of law restored.

The Bush administration is a disgrace to this country, to the world, and should be removed from office by process of impeachment, precisely what the constitution provided for dealing with high crimes and misdemeanors by out-of-control government executives and their unethical minions.

~~~

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Apparently the President never properly learned how to win friends and influence people. Understandably what’s going on in Bush's new Iraq is confusing to many. Terrorist attacks are obviously not the primary source of violence there, as the civil war ramps up.

A Shiite drilling a hole through his Sunni neighbor’s head, with a power tool in a Baghdad suburb, may be an example of religious (tribal) sectarian violence associated more with the escalating civil war than for example an Al Quada (Sunni) truck bombing of a police station, intended to destabilize Bush's new Shiite dominated government. Though both would seem to be religious based, I suspect the former may not be counted as a terrorist act where the latter would.

But if we’re going by current threats to Americans, US citizens are up against any number of greater threats than terrorism, or which Muslim sect ends up ruling Iraq. For example heart disease, obesity, or drunk drivers, each kill many more Americans a year than all forms of terrorism combined the world over. Reference: CDC NCTC

The Bush Administration has squandered $400 billion down the rat hole in Iraq, with disastrous results, while doing almost nothing to tighten port security at home, and less to prevent existing nuclear weapons technology from passing through unscrupulous hands in places like the old Soviet Union. Unfortunately those statistics could very well take a turn for the unthinkable, that is, if we the people do not oust this incompetent Administration, along with their reckless policies that are reckoning the ship of state directly onto the rocks.

Americans are a generous people. Public opinion poles indicated we gave Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iraq for almost three years, until the last mid term elections. But the electorate did not mop the floors with Republicans to have Bush continue to force his lame agenda down our collective throats! Unfortunately however, the Democrats control the Senate by only one seat, and not nearly enough to stop Republicans from filibustering everything from the minimum wage increase to an Iraq spending resolution.

But at least now the Democrats in the House of Representatives are beginning to investigate his shenanigans and his crimes. And make no mistake, every citizen who cares about supporting our troops, should be pestering his or her elected representatives 24-7, in person, on the phone, and by E-mail, until they get us the hell out of Iraq.

This nonsense about cutting funding somehow hurting the troops? is just that: pure nonsense. As if continuing to expose them to roadside bombs is somehow doing them a favor? and as if the Congress cannot chew bubble gum and walk at the same time; that is to say, as if they could not cut funding for the war, and at the same time pass an appropriations bill to fund an orderly withdrawal from Iraq? Does the news media think we are just stupid?

The Bush Administration spends more in 3 weeks on the war in Iraq than on all US foreign aid promised the UN in an entire year. And although the United States pledges more foreign aid than any country in total dollars, as a percentage of gross national income (GNI), the US falls 21st in the world, well behind most of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia.

This is a sad testimonial, when if you dream, just a little you can clearly see, the good, the peace, the harmoney that the United States could be waging at home and around the globe, in the name of we the poeple of America the Beautiful. It's your country, and it needs taking back!

~~~

Thursday, March 1, 2007

To date the Bush Administration has spent over $400 billion in authorized funds, in his own words, on "the war against terrorism in Iraq." Bush and Cheney have for six years now preached fear and loathing across the land.

They wave the flag in one hand proclaiming, "Never forget 911," while the other passes bricks of covert cash through Iraq to Sunni Arab radicals in Lebanon, including Muslim militias aligned with those who perpetrated 9/11. That is outrageous!

How deep is the Administration into the pockets of the royal family of Saudi Arabia where 18 out of the 19 world trade center terrorist hijackers came from?

Given this week's revelations by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker , one is left wondering how many attacks next year will have been covertly funded by the Bush Administration in an unholy alliance with Sunni insurgents and their Saudi benefactors?

Just what are these international oil tycoons up to now? Bush parks US war ships off the coast of Iran, threatening the people there because their government is fifteen years away from making nuclear weapons? when Osama Bin Laden's safe house, Pakistan, and that lunatic in North Korea already have them!

To place the threat of terrorism in perspective, according to the CDC during 2005, 16,885 people in the US died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes (NHTSA 2006). And according to the NCTC approximately 11,000 terrorist attacks occurred (worldwide) in 2005 and resulted in 14,600 deaths (including those in Iraq). In other words, fewer people the world over were killed by terrorists in 2005 than Americans killed the same year by drunk drivers.

What is wrong with this 400 billion dollar black hole?

I'll tell you what's wrong: we have screwed up priorities. The fact is, real threats to our national security, and our personal security really do exist: failing grades received for port security, refineries, chemical plants and nuclear plants. And how much do you think the Bush Administration allocated last year for improved auto and highway safety, alcohol addiction rehab, or accident victim medical rehab? I don't know what the number is, but I have a hunch, it's probably less than 1/2 of 1% of what he spends in Iraq in one day, maybe one hour.

We have become in six short years a country that spends like it's on a global gambling junket for multi-billionaires, where resources are sucked out of the room like oxygen from a smokers blackened lungs, leaving a wake of death and destruction, where healing hands are desperately needed--for education, living wage American jobs, the health care crisis, alternative energy, global warming, and everything in between from child care to social security.

Bush and the neocons are draining the treasury. Do they loath government so, that they have set out to purposely destroy it? Or are they just plain incompetent? The worn out question.

Either way, this is a sad state of affairs that to begin with call for Congressional investigations on many fronts. It's a time when our elected representatives in this democracy are called to act swiftly and deftly; to stem the tide of senseless bloodshed from spreading out of Iraq, and indeed out of control into neighboring countries.

Democrats must force Bush to pull the plug on Military spending in Iraq, and pull it soon, or face Congressional hearings on impeachment. The pieces are all in place, the words simply need arranging.

~~~

Sunday, February 25 2007

Shocking Revelation Today: The Bush Administration is now providing covert support--appropriations unknown and unauthorized by Congress--to Sunni Muslim militias, benefitial to and possibly assisting Al Qaeda, funding sectarian violence against Shiite Muslims backed by Iran. The following New Yorker article dated 2-25-07, from the Annals of National Security series by Seymour Hersh is a must read:

THE REDIRECTION
Is the Administration’s new policy
benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

~~~

Thrusday, February 15, 2007

Edited Saturday, February 17, 2007

Experts at interrogation know that bonds of trust must be formed to get good information and that humane and respectful treatment garner trust in people.

I'm no expert but--just as you cannot beat trust into anyone. . . or use torture to extract accurate and trustworthy data from them---institutional violence, i.e., war and occupation will not foster trust between individuals, neighborhoods, tribes or nations. Indeed it accomplishes quite the opposite effect.

The United States together with insurgents and hostile militias in Iraq, each carrying out their own separate agendas, have created a devolution of Iraqi society into retribution killings, mayhem and insurrection; with a unifying principle of violence.

Expert Statesmen know that conflict resolution is best accomplished by astute and mindful negotiation, based primarily on humane social values of respect and mutual trust.

In the final analysis, winning is all about building lasting, peaceful relationships; person to person, neighbor to neighbor, team to team, tribe to tribe, nation to nation.

Monday, February 12, 2007

The longer President Bush, Vice President Cheney and now Defense Secretary Gates prolong the war in Iraq--avoiding the inevitable American de-escalation and withdrawal from that country--the higher the body count and will be, and the longer the senseless slaughter of human life will continue.

It's high time to begin bringing our troops home. Serious negotiations must be started with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others, regarding tribal affiliates engaged in violent confrontation. The longer Bush remains stuck in denial about the nature of this war, the civil conflict and revenge killings, and just what American forces are capable of and are not capable of accomplishing, the more he empowers our enemies; the more dangerous a place the world becomes, and the greater the threat to US national security.

Just for Once Listen

The President looks around his office,

But he e does not see.

Bush hears the sound of war

He doesn't listen

The President believes

When knowing is required.

He thinks he knows

But he cannot know

The devastation wrought

Upon a Country and a People

His own Country, his own People.

Just for once Listen.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Invading Iraq was the Neocon's big idea going back a decade or more. Douglas Feith is one such Neocon.

Hired by the Bush Administration as undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith and his group at the pentagon ginned up a very tall tale about Saddam being in cahoots with Al Quada pre 911. Bush and Cheney, neocons both, needed evidence to feed the American people, upon which they could hang their hats as justification to attack Iraq. An Al Quada link to Saddam sounded pretty good, exactly what they needed.

And to them, it was not about the truth, but what sounded good in the press. No one would check the validity of their claims, not and retain cradentials for the Whitehouse press corps. In essence they could say anything they wanted, make stuff up out of thin air if it so suited them. The lap dog press corps would certainly never have the cajones to question them on it.

Unfortunately Congress, not wanting to be smeared as "unpatriotic", had also abdicated their responsibility to check facts presented them by the Administration.

This same tactic was used countless times by Bush and Cheney, regarding WMDs, aluminum tubes, biological labs, etc. And that's how they started this war; on a hypothetical house of nonsensical cards, but that sounded plausible and so presented as Gospel Truth to the American people.

Now, fast forward to today. You are a US soldier in Iraq. And every day you risk life and limb in your fight against Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, and Arab terrorists. Would you want to know the truth about what got you there in the first place? or would you prefer to stick your head in the sand, buying into the Bush line of spreading democracy like daisies across the Middle East? Would you want your Congress person to get to the bottom of what started this mayhem on your behalf?

Okay, so what's it gonna be? Truth or BS?

Give me truth any day. And I'd bet Ward Carrol, twenty year Navy vet and the editor of Military.com would go for the truth as well.

Friday, February 9, 2007

This is nothing new, but I'm going to write it out again, one more time, because it still needs saying, again and again, until something is finally done about it.

If Dick Cheney's and Karl Rove's defense--for outing a covert and/or undercover CIA agent in the Valerie Plame case--is that because they were senior Bush administration officials at the time and therefor could decide who should be undercover and who should not be undercover, in my view, that reason is not nearly good enough. Both Rove and Cheney should each have been brought before the Grand Jury and tried for treason.

That Valerie Plame dealt with nuclear weapons proliferation, a matter of dire US national security, is all the more reason that the feds should prosecute, and let the criminal justice system sort out their guilt or innocence during the trial phase; better treatment by far than afforded most prisoners at Gitmo during this time of war. The flagrant abuse of power that both Rove and Cheney displayed by attempting to inflict retribution against Joe Wilson by destroying his wife's career simply for crossing their hyped case for war against Iraq, while possibly risking the lives of several undercover agents, and in so doing, sold out the best interest of the American people, if nothing else? demonstrates the total lack of character of these men. Should they be allowed to remain in the Whitehouse? Cheney to finish out his term in office? Rove was not even elected! I don't think so.

These are terribly abusive, power hungry politicians at best. At worst, to paraphrase old man Bush, the worst kind of traitors: those who would out a CIA agent.

Both Cheney and Rove should be fired by George W. Bush immediately, as he promised to do so two years ago, if and when the culprits should be found out. If for no other reason than to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Well Mr. President, now they have been found out! (See the Libby trial coverage by clikcing here) Rove should be jailed, and at the very least, should never again allowed to hold a position of responsibility in government. And if he is indeed found guilty of treason, he should pay his debt to society just like anyone else he would have do so. (For example Tommy Chong, sentenced to prison by the Bush Administration for the crime of making bongs).

And if Attorney General Gonzales won't seek the prosecution of these men in federal court, then at the very least, the United States Congress should proceed with impeachment hearings against Cheney . . .first.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Incompetent and screwed-up as the US Government is today, and in just about every category mandated by the Bush executive branch--none the less thanks to six long years of authoritarian zombie Republican, now + one Independent Democrat mind(less) control--if nothing else, you can be assured of this one thing: that the CIA has absolutely NO business kidnapping ANYONE off the streets of any foreign country in the world, let alone Rumsfeld's "Old Europe."

Check this story out, then do your part and be afraid, very very afraid, and yes saddened for your country. You will not believe this is happening, let alone not reported by major American media outlets: That black operations of the United States government, treading down a path of abuse and lawlessness unparalleled in our nation's history, where anyone can be arrested, kidnapped and refused a trial by one's peers, complements of the sheriff, hanging judge and jury all rolled into the sole persona of George W. Bush, President of the United States (accompanied by his minions cruising around in black unmarked Chevy Suburbans and looking just for you). What was it the Commander in Chief said in the State of the Union address this year? something about creating a civilian service corps (that would read, mercinaries) to fight terrorism abroad and anywhere and everywhere? One question: Is he about to privatize the CIA as he has done so with the US Military using companies like Blackwater?

I believe our only hope is our elected DEMOCRATIC majority in Congress. Now let us pray they do their job and neuter this out of control executive branch once and for all.

In a word, Impeachment, if not on the table now, at least is a helluva strong poker hand. You think? And I've heard tell, they ain't worth it to have if you don't lay em down.

Cluster bombs kill and maim innocent children, women and men.
Human Rights Watch:
United States: Cut Off Cluster Munition Sales to Israel

Sunday, January 28, 2007

US negotiations with all countries in the Middle East are called for NOW; to reach a peaceful solution to the occupation of Iraq. What we are talking here are 24-7 on going talks with anyone who will listen, including Iran, Turkey and Syria, and for as long as it takes, to quell the violence and bring about peace. There is no quitting, no giving up, the peaceful warriors are at hand. A military solution in Iraq is ludicrous, and in the words of Gordon Smith (R) Oregon, may be criminal. I agree.

To encourage people to start thinking and talking about peaceful means of solving problems and creating society from community--as opposed to using car bombs to destroy lives and families--we have to show them with our words and peaceful actions, not now four years after the fact with guns and tanks.

What we need in Iraq are Iraqi patriots, not Iraqi politicians propped up by American military intervention. Peace cannot be forced upon a people, like sex upon a woman; there is another name for that and its not love. We can only foster peaceful means of conduct by our own demonstrations of delivering it, a concept which has thus far apparently escaped our leadership in Washington DC.

One facet to a multifaceted approach: Community leaders would be selected in Baghdad and surrounding provinces, Sunni and Shiite preferably together so that bonds of trust might begin to be formed. Of course first disarmed, they then should be compelled to engage in intensive tribal discussions taken place in ritual space--to delve into the emotional depths of their personal sacrifices, suffering, injustice and losses, before long range vision and short term goal setting can even begin--through Socratic dialogue to indisputable conclusions of what it will take to create community through consensus. Democratic process is meaningless without the underpinnings of basic humanity.

Before this process can begin, America must summon the courage, perhaps the insight, the wisdom, to let the Iraqis exercise their collective free will, in ANY way THEY see fit. The Shiite and the Sunni must be empowered to proceed on their own. This is not an area that can be coerced or forced in any way upon them. To be successful, by definition there can be no American lipstick applied to this pig; it's going to have to be brand X-Iraqi all the way, so get used to it. It may not look like what we think it should, but it's their country, not ours. And let's face it, Iraq, the fertile crescent, the cradle of civilization . . .these people have been about building society allot longer than we have.

To continue to place our brave soldiers in the middle of this sectarian violence is the definition of criminal insanity, and has been so for some time. US troops must be brought home as soon as possible, by way of an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.

What Iraqi's need is food, good paying reconstruction jobs, health care, education, religious freedom, and above all respect. Not military intervention any longer. They have endured enough, the time has come to allow THEM to begin the process of creating their own future for their own country.

There are better ways for America to address the multitude of problems in the world today, than to remain bogged down in this no win turmoil in Iraq. Fighting with the local populace is no way to win friends and influence anyone, but weapons dealers.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Now that the Democratic Party took back the House and the Senate, Rumsfeld is gone, and along with warrantless wiretaps it would appear, Dick Cheeney may be the administration's next casualty. It's increasingly apparent in the unfolding Scooter Libby perjury trail, that Libby lied to protect his boss, the Vice President, who together with Karl Rove, seems to have directed the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent working on weapons of mass destruction.

At least that is what Libby's defense attorney's claim, and what seems to be the story emerging from the testimony of the witnesses thus far. The truth may go something like this: Conspiracy to commit treason, which in Bush senior's own jargon, is the worst kind of treachery, but nevertheless a crime legal experts agree that Cheeney or Libby have not been charged by the Grand Jury because it's extremely difficult to prove. Something to do with how tight the law was written.

But it is clear that personal attacks have been this administration's preferred method of retribution against those whom they perceive as posing a threat to their ideology or their heavy handed agendas. In this case, Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, both American Patriots, opposed the Bush Administration by exposing their lies as hype about waging a preemptive attack against Iraq in 2003.

There is something rotten smelling and it resides very near if not at the top of the chain of command it would appear.

The Congress of the United States should begin investigations into the conduct of the VP in this matter. If this man has broken the law in any way--and in the process sacrificed the safety of our undercover operatives, undermined the information collected by the CIA to protect our country and our citizens--for nothing less than political retribution? and/or to keep the truth from seeing the light of day? This is a disgrace of the office of the Vice President before the world, and precisely for what the founding fathers intended the impeachment provision in the constitution to be.

If he committed crimes and misdemeanors, Cheeney should be impeached by the Congress, and tried by Senate. And if he is found guilty, he should be removed from office.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Rummaging through old scrap books and memorabilia this last week, as part of a long overdue organizational push around the house, I came across this article, one that apparently I had clipped from the LA Times, just two weeks shy of seventeen years ago. Interesting how the times have changed. Although Pravda is today replaced by Fox News as the premier purveyor of propaganda in the universe, even nations capable of obliterating each other from the face of the earth back in the day, at least talked to each other, even trading jabs and insults in the papers, at times even making it to the evening news. But I'll just leave it at that. The article speaks volumes all by itself.

LA Times, Sunday, February 3, 1980

Soviets Deny Plans to Seize Oil Fields

Moscow (UPI) The Soviet Union said Saturday it has no intention of starting a war by seizing Middle East oil fields and suggested that US warning of a Russian thrust toward the Persian Gulf were intended to cover up an American campaign of domination.

"The Soviet Union has never had and does not have now any intention to push its way to the warm seas," the Communist Party newspaper Pravda declared in an article signed by "Alexei Petrov."

The Petrov byline is a pseudonym used to indicate a story has been approved, or perhaps written, by the Kremlin leadership.

The Pravda story, though it emphatically stated the Soviet Union's supposedly peaceful intentions, avoided any personal criticism of President Carter, whose State of the Union address two weeks ago focused on the reported Russian threat to the Persian Gulf.

Neither, however, did the article mention the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which sparked Carter's concern.

"The average American ought to know, "Pravda said, "that all tales about the perfidious plans of the Russians to seize Middle Eastern Oil fields are nothing more than political trickery."

The article charged the United States is intentionally spreading a propaganda campaign of illogical and unproven allegations in order to conceal its own motivations in the Middle and Near East.

American policy makers, "evidently believe that the end justifies the means," Pravda said. "And the United States' aim today is, obviously, to consolidate its military, political and economic penetration into this region, to establish a kind of trusteeship, or to be more exact, military and economic domination over the states of the region and their national natural wealth."

~~~

January 10, 2007

A New Direction in American Foreign Policy

Or The Bush that Cried Wolfowitz

Because of President Bush's wrong headed policy for Iraq and the entire Middle East; the blind acceptance of his naïve plan for spreading democracy across the region--the president and his Neocon think tankers carry the preponderance of responsibility for the catastrophe in progress in Iraq and now spreading to surrounding countries. What exactly did these cons think the unprovoked and violent overthrow of governments there, the completely predictable and resulting ethnic and religious strife, tribal warfare and resulting chaos would produce? Flowers in Dick Cheney's hair?

Tonight Bush has further intimated his willingness to escalate the violence into Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Turkey if need be, indicating having now sent more Navy ships to the region. Apparently the President has in mind for America the escalation