Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Cheney's handwritten note, at Libby trial, Implicates Bush in illegal "outing" of undercover CIA agent....

Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
By Jason Leopold and Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 31 January 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107Z.shtml


Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.

Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.

But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks against Wilson. The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador begs the question: Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?

Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.

Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand man."

"Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to the vice president, 'I think the White House ... is trying to set me up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'" said Wells.

Cheney's notes seem to help bolster Wells's defense strategy. Libby's defense team first discussed the notes - written by Cheney in September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan - during opening statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others": a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously rebut Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration knowingly "twisted" intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.

However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written "this Pres." instead of "that was."

During cross-examination Tuesday morning, David Addington was asked specific questions about Cheney's notes and the reference to President Bush. Addington, former counsel to the vice president, was named Cheney's chief of staff - a position Libby had held before resigning.

"Can you make out what's crossed out, Mr. Addington?" Wells asked, according to a copy of the transcript of Tuesday's court proceedings.

"It says 'the guy' and then it says, 'this Pres.' and then that is scratched through," Addington said.

"OK," Wells said. "Let's start again. 'Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy ...' and then what's scratched through?" Wells asked Addington again, attempting to establish that Cheney had originally written that President Bush personally asked Libby to beat back Wilson's criticisms.

"T-h-i-s space P-r-e-s," Addington said, spelling out the words. "And then it's got a scratch-through."

"So it looks like 'this Pres.?'" Wells asked again.

"Yes sir," Addington said.

Thus, Cheney's notes would have read "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." The words "this Pres." were crossed out and replaced with "that was," but are still clearly legible in the document.

The reference to "the meat grinder" was understood to be the Washington press corps, Wells said. The "protect one staffer" reference, Wells said, was White House Political Adviser Karl Rove, whose own role in the leak and the attacks on Wilson are well documented.

Furthermore, Cheney, in his directive to McClellan that day in September 2003, wrote that the White House spokesman needed to immediately "call out to key press saying the same thing about Scooter as Karl."

McClellan had publicly stated in September 2003 that Rove was not culpable in the leak of Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity, nor was he involved in a campaign to discredit her husband, but McClellan did not say anything to the media that exonerated Libby, which led Cheney to write the note. A couple of weeks later, in October 2003, McClellan told members of the media that it was "ridiculous" for them to suggest Libby and Rove were involved in the leak, because he received personal assurances from both men that they had nothing to do with it.

Moreover, Wells insinuated Tuesday that Cheney's note [seemingly] implicating President Bush in the discrediting of Wilson was one of the 250 pages of emails and documents the White House failed to turn over to investigators who had been probing the leak for more than two years.

Wells insinuated that Cheney's note, because it contained a reference to "this Pres." may have been an explosive piece of evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who at the time of the leak was White House counsel, withheld from investigators, citing executive privilege. Addington told Wells that when subpoenas were first issued by the Justice Department in the fall of 2003, demanding documents and emails relating to Wilson and Plame be preserved, he was given Cheney's notes and immediately recognized the importance of what the vice president had written. Addington said he immediately entered into a "discussion" with Gonzales and Terry O'Donnell, Cheney's counsel, about the note, but Addington did not say whether it was turned over to investigators in the early days of the probe.

Wells's line of questioning is an attempt to shift the blame for the leak squarely onto the shoulders of the White House - a tactic aimed at confusing the jury - and will likely unravel because it has nothing to do with the perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges at the heart of the case against Libby. Still, Tuesday's testimony implicating President Bush may be the most important fact that has emerged from the trial thus far.

Addington revealed during his testimony Monday that in June 2003 there were internal discussions - involving President Bush and Vice President Cheney - about declassifying for specific reporters a portion of the highly classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate as a way to counter Wilson's criticisms against the administration. That portion purportedly showed that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger to use for building an atomic bomb - a claim that Wilson had debunked when he personally traveled to Niger to investigate it a year earlier.

In late June or early July 2003, "a question was asked of me - by Scooter Libby: Does the president have authority to declassify information?" Addington told jurors Monday, in response to a question by defense attorney William Jeffress. "And the answer I gave was, 'Of course, yes. It's clear the president has the authority to determine what constitutes a national security secret and who can have access to it.'"

President Bush signed an executive order in 2003 authorizing Cheney to declassify certain intelligence documents. The order was signed on March 23, four days after the start of the Iraq War and two weeks after Wilson first appeared on the administration's radar.

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Truthout will publish a follow-up to this story, with opinions from legal experts on possible implications of these latest developments for the White House.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

The Hillary/Biden/Kerry/DLC wing of the Democrat Party BACK to their COWARDLY WAYS again...

The most INFURIATING, depressing thing about the COWARDLY Democratic "leadership," especially the AIPAC/DLC gonads over in the Senate, is that they CONTINUALLY _GIVE AWAY_ their political power for pennies on the dollar.

On issue after issue after issue, the COWARDLY Senate Democrats SQUANDER donor money, not even creating a video of Bush's OWN HYPOCRITICAL STATEMENTS to run in TV ads or demand that news networks cover, for example Bush's infamous "I'M NOT THAT CONCERNED ABOUT bin LADEN anymore."

As far as we are concerned THAT statement, ALONE, coming from the president who stole an election and then went DERELICTION IN DUTY at doing ANYTHING, EVEN ONE DAMN THING to make the 9-11 plot more difficult for the 9-11 hijackers. is GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT.

Yet the stupid, cowering Senate Democrats ALLOW the recollection of Mr. Bush's horrendous leadership failures and public speaking lies to float away down the memory hole....

An ongoing case of POLITICAL MALPRACTICE as egregious as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney ALLOWING bin Laden to escape the US noose at Tora Bora, and then saying "We're NOT THAT CONCERNED WITH HIM anymore."

==============================================



Bush Bamboozles [stupid] Democrats Again

By Robert Parry
January 27, 2007



As Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates joins in baiting Iraq War critics for supposedly aiding the enemy, the Democrats have been taught once more the value of handing a bipartisan olive branch to George W. Bus

In December 2006, ignoring warnings from former CIA officers who had worked with Gates, Senate Democrats embraced his nomination to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They fawned over Gates at a one-day hearing, spared the former CIA director any tough questions, and then unanimously endorsed him.

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and others hailed Gates’s “candor” when he acknowledged the obvious, that the United States wasn’t winning the war in Iraq, a position that even Bush subsequently embraced.

In December, the “conventional wisdom” was that Bush would bend to the troop-drawdown recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and that Gates – as a former member of the ISG – would guide the President toward disengagement from Iraq.

But in rushing Gates’s nomination through with only pro forma hearings, the Democrats sacrificed a rare opportunity to demand answers from the Bush administration about its war policy at a time when the White House wanted something from the Democrats, i.e. the quick confirmation of Gates.

At minimum, the Democrats could have used an extended confirmation hearing to explore, in detail, Gates’s views about the military challenges in the Middle East and ascertain what he knew about Bush’s future plans.

They also could have taken time to examine exactly who Gates is, whether he is the right man to oversee the complex conflicts in the Middle East, and what his real record was in handling regional issues in the past.

Gates allegedly played important but still-secret roles in controversial U.S. policies toward Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. In addition, former CIA officers have criticized Gates for “politicizing” the CIA’s intelligence analysis as a top CIA official in the 1980s.

Some of the CIA institutional and personnel changes that Gates implemented led to the CIA’s malleability in the face of White House pressure over Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction in 2002-03, former CIA officials said. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret World of Robert Gates."]

So, was Gates a closet neoconservative ideologue hiding behind Boy Scout looks and mild manners? Or was he more a yes man who would bend to the will of his superiors? His record could be interpreted either way. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Robert Gates: Realist or Neo-con?"]

But the Democrats politely evaded these thorny questions.

Rumsfeld’s Lament

The Senate Armed Services Committee also could have called Rumsfeld to explain his Nov. 6 memo which contained recommendations for U.S. troop redeployments similar to those suggested by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania. Two days after that memo was sent to Bush, the President fired Rumsfeld and replaced him with Gates.

The Democrats could have demanded that Rumsfeld explain what had led to his change in thinking and whether his “going wobbly” was the precipitating fact in his firing. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Gates Hearing Has New Urgency."]

By extending the hearings a few days, they also could have asked Rumsfeld and Gates about the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations.

Under White House pressure, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, R-Virginia, scheduled Gates’s one-day hearing the day before former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton released the ISG’s report listing 79 recommendations to address the "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq.

Though then still in the Senate minority, committee Democrats had the power to demand fuller hearings. But they were desperate to demonstrate their bipartisanship and their generosity in victory, extending Bush an olive branch and hoping that Bush would respond in kind.

Immediately after the perfunctory hearing, Gates got unanimous approval from the Armed Services Committee and the next day won confirmation from the full Senate. He was opposed by only two right-wing Republican senators.

In the seven weeks since then, it’s become clear that Bush bamboozled the Democrats again. The “conventional wisdom” of early December turned out to be all wrong.

Bush dashed the Democrats’ hopes for a bipartisan strategy on Iraq by unceremoniously junking the Baker-Hamilton recommendations.

Instead of moving to drawdown U.S. forces, he chose to escalate by adding more than 20,000 new troops. Instead of negotiating with Iran and Syria as the ISG wanted, Bush sent aircraft carrier strike groups to the region and authorized the killing of Iranian agents inside Iraq.

Instead of building on the bipartisan approach of the Iraq Study Group, Bush pronounced himself the “decision-maker” and signaled his surrogates to step up accusations that the Democrats were aiding and abetting the terrorists.

Gates’s Thanks

For his part, Gates has shown his thanks to the Democrats for his cakewalk confirmation by speeding up deployment of the new troops even as Democrats struggle to fashion a non-binding resolution opposing the escalation.

Gates also picked up Bush’s favorite cudgel to pound the Democrats for supposedly helping the enemy.

“Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon on Jan. 26. “I’m sure that that’s not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect.”

Now, as Bush rushes more troops to Iraq, the Democrats are left to debate whether the non-binding resolution on the “surge” should refer to it as an “escalation” or, as some Republicans would prefer, an “augmentation.”

Though vowing stronger action in the future, many Democrats already have ruled out blocking new funds for the war because that would open them to more accusations of disloyalty. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment “off the table,” too.

So, the Democrats are again learning a hard lesson they should have mastered years ago, that this breed of Republicans views Democrats as suckers who can be easily seduced with a few sweet but empty words like “bipartisanship” and “comity.”

In December, the Democrats voluntarily sacrificed a golden opportunity to use the Gates nomination to force an examination of Bush’s war strategy. At that moment, they held real leverage over the administration to get documents and other needed information.

Instead, they engaged in wishful thinking, opted to be nice and are now finding what their gestures of bipartisanship got them.

Dems realize, America doesn't want WIMPS for leaders!

The problem is a structural or bureaucratic one: when not holding nationally elected office (the only nationally elected office is that of the president and vice-president), the most powerful Democrats are those who have been elected to the Senate.

The IMMENSE power of the US senators is understoon when one realizes that there are only 100 US senators, and that NO law, spending bill, cabinet nomination, or other high federal government nomination can be passed without their majority-vote approval.

Or. to put it more simply, the majority vote among only 100 senators determines ALL the TAXATION and SPENDING powers of the entire US government, which is to say the priorities of all American society.

So while on the one hand Senators are immensely powerful, on the other hand they are determined to be "collegial" and cooperational, rather than confrontational, with their fellow senators.

But when faced with BAD government, CONFRONTATIONAL representation may be what Americans NEED in their Senators. For the past dozen years, the Democrats in the senate have DEFFERED to the reactionary, right-wing Republican leadership. As proof, one need look only at the Demcorat's DISMAL record of OPPOSING BUSH NOMINATIONS and USING THE FILIBUSTER - both are close to ZERO in 6 years of White House thuggery and misrule. (And we won't even go into the Senate Dems COWARDLY FAILURE to PUBLICLLY CONFRONT electronic, computerized vote fraud.)

Well, after watching George W. Bush and his Repulican thugs do to America what Ernon did to pensioners, workers, and investors; and what the flooded FEDERAL dikes did to New Orleans; and what HALLIBURTON has done (or NOT done) for Iraq; are the wavering Democrats FINALLY learning that Americans DO NOT WANT WIMPS for their leaders and elected offiicials???

<< Somewhere during the past twelve months, Democrats realized Americans don't feel safe with wimps. >>

=================================================

Democrats on Steroids
by Bob Burnett
January 26, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_burn_070126_democrats_on_steroid.htm

Will Rogers famously quipped: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." For the past six years of the Bush Administration, this has been a common lament among Democratic loyalists. But the times they are a changing. The ferocious response of Democratic Senator Jim Webb to the President's lame State-of-the-Union address indicated that Dems have taken steroids, muscled up, and decided to duke it out with the Bush gang.

For two years in a row, Democratic leadership chose a Virginia politician to give the Democratic response to Bush's SOTU speech. Last year, Governor Tim Kaine and this year, newly elected Senator Jim Webb. Where Kaine came across as mild-mannered nice guy, Mister Rogers, Webb conveyed the toughness associated with Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry: "Go ahead, make my day." Somewhere during the past twelve months, Democrats realized Americans don't feel safe with wimps. Democratic leaders, such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, convey strength and resolve; they understand that Americans worry about national security, wonder which Party is better prepared to defend the USA. Senator Webb was the perfect choice to symbolize the Dems makeover as the toughest guys on Capitol Hill. Who would you rather have watch your back: George Bush or Jim Webb?

A year ago, Governor Kaine's response raised more questions than it answered: Who are the Democrats? What do they stand for? Why don't they hit hard at Bush weaknesses? At long last, Senator Webb answered these questions. Dems started playing offense.

Jim Webb had nine minutes compared to President Bush's forty-five minutes, but managed to convey resolute directness that was notably absent from the State-of-the-Union address. The first theme of Webb's remarks was economic populism. "When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries... the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table." Democrats have "introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people... We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons."

The Senator's second theme was Iraq: "this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years." Webb reminded Americans that his father was an Air Force Captain during World War II, he and his brother were Marines who served in Vietnam, and his son is a Marine, who is now serving in Iraq. Then he zeroed in on the Bush Administration, "Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country... we trusted the judgment of our national leaders." Webb questioned Bush' judgment, "The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from [experts] with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed."
The Virginia Senator concluded with a call to action. He reminded his audience that Republican President Theodore Roosevelt took action to fight class warfare. And noted that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower took action to end the Korean War. Webb ended on a particularly strong note, "These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way."

The strong performance of Senator Webb, coming on the heels of the success of the House Democrats "100 hours" agenda, left little doubt that the Dems are at long last getting organized. They are no longer the Party whose position is defined as "we're not Republicans." Over the past twelve months, Democrats have clarified what they stand for. In terms of economic policy, Dems have become the Party that defends the interests of the middle class, the Party that is willing to tackle the reality of the growing American economic divide.

And, in terms of Iraq, Webb sounded a theme that was echoed by most Capitol Hill Democrats: "We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq." After Webb's response, Democratic Presidential candidates, from Dennis Kucinich to Hillary Clinton echoed these basic themes: diplomacy, our soldiers should not be in the middle of sectarian violence, and there must be a plan to bring them home.
It's a miracle. Democrats are actually getting their act together.

 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and Quaker actvist. He is particularly interested in progressive morality and writes frequently on the ethical aspects of political and social issues.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Jim Webb for President. The stakes are too high for celebrity pols with no executive experience to lead America...


We here at DemocraticNationUSA are not jumping on the Jim Webb bandwagon after a great speech....

(full text at bottom of this post)

The MAIN qualification for a Democratic presidential candidate, ANY Democrat presuming or pretending to lead the nation and Democratic Party, is the willingness and ability to articulately CONFRONT the LIES, CORRUPTION, ELECTION-STEALING THUGGERY, and cesspool "morality" of the corporate sponsored radical, reactionary, regressive Bush-Republican party.

(And the above is not even mentioning the "Christian Zionist"/fundamentalist ferverent wish for a modern, NUCLEAR APOCALPYSE, which as of right now is almost the only "redemptive" option left to the Bush administration, and which thousands of American lunatics are actually praying for.)

Those Democrats who have been in the Senate for the past 2 or 6 years have had plenty of opportunity to CONFRONT the gross mismanagement and out-right, in-your-face CORRUPTION of the Bush White House... but have abjectly FAILED to do so. Just as a reminder of how COWERING the ENTIRE Senate Democratic caucus was before the November 2006 election, Mitch McConnell and other Rethuglicans ARE ALREADY TALKING _FILIBUSTER_ if they don't get their desires granted in the senate.

This is in stark contrast to the cowering Democrats of the Senate, who in the SIX YEARS until November 2006, FAILED to enact EVEN ONE FILIBUSTER, much less sustain one.

ABJECT, QUIVERING, COWERING SERVILITY is NOT a qualification for leading the nation. It is time for some NEW BLOOD to lead the Democratic Party, and Republican ferocity (tagging all opposition as "traitorous" or "aiding the terrorists") will only INCREASE, NOT DECREASE, as Mr. Bush seeks to make an EXPANDING WAR his eternal legacy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response To President Bush's State Of The Union Address From Senator Jim Webb (D-VA)
23 January 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/01/23/dems-respondjim-webb-_n_39418.html

Good evening.

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown - an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President's message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy - how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy - how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy - that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering.
Financially.
The damage to our reputation around the world.
The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.
And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

It's all about the OIL: Bush's war an attempt to assert control over Iraq's oil, and establish US bases in ME....

We Americans can really WALLOW in ignorance and self-delusion when we want to. Millions of Americans claim "RIGHT TO LIFE!" "values," even as they IGNORE the millions of American children who CAN NOT GET HEALTH CARE (a single ear infection can ruin a child's life); much less the TENS OF MILLIONS of children born into squalor, poverty, and misery, as America's government SLASHES reproductive health, family planning, and even MATERNAL CARE programs, now that we Americans NO LONGER NEED "third world allies" since the collapse of the Soviet Union. (And, indeed, the American whore press/media refuses to document the THOUSANDS of Russians who died as that nation underwent its traumatic transition to unfettered crony-extortion markets, aka "free market capitalism.")

But on the Iraq war, Americans conservatives want to have it BOTH WAYS: they BRAG about America's life-and-death loot, plunder, and execute powers in Iraq... even as they claim to desire a "free and democratic Iraq"!

They SAY that the Bush administration's wars are designed to "KEEP AMERICA SAFE," even as photos of Abu Ghraib abuses and babies killed by American bombs and bullets are transmitted throughout the Muslim world, enraging millions and leading the more radical young men to pledge their lives to "Jihad."

Well, the truth is that if it wasn't for OIL, Americans would have NO MORE USE FOR IRAQ... than we have for SOMALIA or SUDAN.

====================================================

Unsolved Mystery: The Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law
by Bob Cesca
01.22.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/unsolved-mystery-the-ira_b_39280.html

Finding information about the much-discussed but barely reported Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been about as easy as finding information about which specific breed of puppy the vice president uses in his top secret ghoul smoothies. (Answer: all of them. The VPOTUS has also mentioned in private that adorable baby orangutans are "crumbelievable.") Hence, my daily search to learn more about the law has met with results ranging from brief mentions by Tony Snow to the repetition of the same information first reported by The Independent.


But TomPaine.com is now reporting that the controversial profit-sharing agreements (PSAs) have been stripped (in theory) from the law.
The PSAs, as originally reported by The Independent, would have allowed Western oil robber barons to slip into Baghdad and hork Iraqi oil for 30 years and, in the near term, the PSAs would've allowed Vice President Cheney's advisors at Shell, Exxon-Mobil and BP to keep around 75 percent of the profits.

The legislation was brokered by the financially embattled BearingPoint corporation in McLean, Virginia, and The Independent further reported that as much as $117,000 was donated to both Bush campaigns, in addition to other contributions to several ranking Republicans on the House defense appropriations subcommittee. BearingPoint's Iraq contract from your federal government? $240 million, according to The Independent.

The president's escalation plan and the passage of the hydrocarbon law, which is expected by March, are converging in a spooky yet well-lubricated coitus and all but confirms many of our suspicions that the president's most excellent adventure has, indeed, been about oil profits and his own 2004 re-election plans (see his remarks regarding war presidents). Reuters reports:

"Passing an oil law to help settle potentially explosive disputes among Iraq's ethnic and sectarian communities over the division of oil reserves has been a key demand of the United States in providing further military support to the government."
That'd be your escalation-slash-oil "coincidence." In the same article, which primarily reported on the passage of the law in the Iraqi Oil Committee, Reuters buried the following quote on page four of their story:

"If the legal problems are solved by the oil law, that's good news," said a senior Western oil executive.
"But security issues are a much bigger issue. The big money will not go to Baghdad unless it's convinced that employees and contractors won't be abducted, shot or killed."

Of course reducing the violence in Baghdad should be a huge priority... so civilians can walk the streets and eat and go to work and worship without, you know, dying. But dammit, securing the streets of Baghdad with American blood so Rich Western Oil Executive White Guy X can breathe easier? Sorry, no.

And now, even without the thievery of the PSAs, it looks like there's still language in the law that will allow the oil companies to get what they were (allegedly) promised in those secret energy policy meetings with Vice President Cheney.

Antonia Juhasz, a visiting scholar at Institute for Policy Studies, reports for TomPaine.com that no-one really knows the actual specifics of the law, including and especially the Iraqi people. Secrecy, after all, is the hallmark of Bush-style democracy (secretive democracy is not unlike, say, pro-Jew Nazism). What is known, however, is:

"[The hydrocarbon law] also grants foreign oil companies "national treatment," which means that the Iraqi government cannot give preference to Iraqi oil companies (whether public or privately owned) over foreign-owned companies when it chooses contractors. This provision alone will severely cripple the government's ability to ensure that Iraqis gain as much economic benefit as possible from their oil."
So here's a thumbnail of what we could be facing in the coming months and years.

--After the hydrocarbon law is passed, an enormous influx in Big Oil lobbyists and negotiators will certainly ride into Baghdad like well-dressed ticks clinging tenaciously to the necks of our soldiers -- thirsty and driven to apply an onslaught of coercive pressure on the weak and vulnerable Iraqi government. Their goal: to attain epic deals not unlike the ones previewed by the apparently defunct PSAs

--As huge oil profits are fleeced from the Iraqi people by Western multinationals, insurgents will be further motivated to continue the civil war. Presuming that security will dictate Big Oil's level of activity in Baghdad, the violence won't be as significant there but you can count on continued and increased bloodshed in Anbar province and elsewhere.

--The Sunnis, who lack any real oil, and their allies in al-Qaeda will be further motivated to seek revenge on Western and Shi'ite targets inside and outside of Iraq. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians will continue to be caught in the middle of it all -- at least until 2009, with blowback stretching deep into the future.

Tell me again, Bush Republicans, how this isn't about oil. Tell me again, Bush Republicans, how this helps to end the civil war and prevents further terrorism.

Tuesday night, in his State of the Union address, the president might comment about the Iraqi oil law and he'll do his very best to make it taste just like a peach -- wealth and unity for the Iraqi people and such. Two years ago, in his 2005 State of the Union, it was all about the purple fingers. Two years ago, he predicted great victories for our soldiers and the Iraqi citizens as the result of the purple fingers. Congressmen embarrassed themselves by strutting around with purple fingers as if they had personal blood invested in the effort for the Iraqi vote. Two years later, things are worse. The destruction and secrecy and the back-room deals continue. The civil war and occupation and profiteering escalates. And the mainstream press continues to ignore this law: a disgusting and perverse side of the Iraq story. In her article, Antonia Juhasz mentioned an opportunity to make some news tomorrow:

On January 23, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will hold a hearing to investigate "oil and reconstruction strategy in Iraq." This offers a critical opportunity to demand a cessation of all U.S. government and corporate influence over Iraqis as to the future of their oil.
Here's the link to contact the members, including Senators Feingold, Boxer, Webb, Obama and Dodd. If we're ever going to get out of there and allow the Iraqi people to prosper in a way that doesn't involve deepening -- escalating -- their resentment, distrust and, ultimately violence, towards the West, now's the time. And it could all hinge on this law, or, rather, how American profiteers will exploit it.

44 pro-war Democrats refuse to call for exit from Iraq...

All we here at DemNationUSA can ask is, "IF these Democrat legislators are so damn "fiscally conservative," WHERE the hell HAVE THEY BEEN as Mr. Bush turns FEMA, the US military and other agencies into DUMPING GROUNDS for INCOMPETENT RethuglicanCRONIES, and indeed Mr. Bush turns the ENTIRE US GOVERNMENT TREASURY into a SLUSH FUND for corrupt Republican cronies, donors, and complicit corporations?"

=================================

'Fiscally conservative' Democratic faction refuses call to end war;
Michael Roston
Published: Monday January 22, 2007
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Blue_Dogs_announce_Iraq_plan_no_0122.html


'Fiscally conservative' Democratic faction refuses call to end war; Plans legislation focusing on accountability for funds Bush wants to spend on Iraq

A group of forty-four "fiscally conservative" Democrats will not call for an end to America's military involvement in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. Instead, the Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats will introduce legislation this week focusing on accountability for money the White House wants to spend on the nearly four year long Iraq War.

In a press conference last Friday, Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat who was formerly the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, announced a bill she would sponsor this week on behalf of the Blue Dog Democrats: "Providing for Operation Iraqi Freedom Cost Accountability." The provisions of the bill focus on Congressional oversight of the funds used to pay for operations in Iraq.

The Blue Dogs will not speak out as a group on whether or not to call for an end to the Iraq war. "They will not draft a resolution or course regarding the troops other than one of support for our soldiers in harm’s way," said Jon Niven, Communications Director for Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR), who co-chairs the caucus.

Niven's language is comparable to a bill introduced by House Republicans leaders which resolves "to pledge the faithful support of Congress to members of the United States Armed Forces serving in harm's way," and states that "Congress will not cut off or restrict funding" for US troops in Iraq. However, several Blue Dog staffers told RAW STORY that the caucus hasn't held any formal meetings with House Republican leadership.

Last Friday, before the Blue Dogs went public with their bill, RAW STORY reported that the Blue Dogs' proposal might signal a split within the House Democratic conference on whether or not the party should seek redeployment or withdrawal of US troops in Iraq, which more than 100 Democratic Members of Congress have already called for in two different bills sponsored by Reps. Jack Murtha and Lynn Woolsey. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has shared Murtha's call for "redeployment" of US troops from Iraq.

Bush & the Blue Dogs

President Bush invited Blue Dog representatives to the White House just before he formally addressed the nation about his "surge" plan, and portions of the Blue Dogs' bill echo the policy put forth in President George W. Bush's January 10th national address.

The last section of the bill, which was sent to RAW STORY by Blue Dog staffers, states, "In furtherance of the partnership that is critical to success in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Administration should firmly condition further American financial, military, and political resources upon steady improvement in Iraqi assumption of principal responsibility for internally policing Iraq."

President Bush in his address pledged that he had "made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people..."

Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA), a Blue Dog member, released a statement after the group's press conference on Friday stating that "Iraqis must steadily progress toward full responsibility for internally policing their country. Without such progress, it is wasteful to continue our investment of lives, limbs and taxpayer dollars in Iraq."

Much of the bill focuses on the fiscal implications of the Blue Dogs' legislation. The bill calls for reports every 90 days from the the Department of Defense Inspector General and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction on how military and reconstruction funds are being spent, including money now awarded to contractors. The bill also calls for Operation Iraqi Freedom funding to be appropriated via the normal appropriations process in the next fiscal year, and not with "emergency supplemental" budgets.

"This proposal will restore full, aggressive congressional oversight to ensure that taxpayer money going to the war effort is being spent efficiently and wisely," said Rep. Dennis Moore, another Blue Dog Co-Chair, in a statement to RAW STORY.

The White House did not respond when asked for comment about the Blue Dog's proposal.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

"Leading Democratic Senators seek to OPPOSE SURGE" news story DOES NOT include AWOL Hillary.....

Hillary Clinton CLAIMS to be "a leader" of the Democratic Party, but on issue after issue after issue after issue, she has been a FOLLOWER of the "major media/New York Times/Washington Post/network 'news'/DC insider" "conventional wisdom."

Which is to say, African-American voters DISENFRANCHISED by Bush Rethuglicans DON'T COUNT; homeless Americans VICTIMIZED by FRAUDULENT FEMA disaster recovery efforts DON'T COUNT; American combat veterans ROBBED of national media attention, and nickled-and-dimed by the Bush-Republican administration's slashing of VA funds DON'T COUNT.... and those who OPPOSE THE INCOMPETENT, CORRUPT, DISASTROUS, and ever-exanding WAR TIME POWERS of Mr. Bush's administration are also marginalized.

When you see "Democrats LEAD resolution OPPOSING President Bush," you can COUNT ON Hillary Clinton being AWOL... as she has been on dozens of other in-your-face Bush-Republican outrages.

=====================================================

Senators seek support against Iraq surge
By Hope Yen, AP Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070121/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq

WASHINGTON - Two leading Senate Democrats sought to build support Sunday for a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush's war strategy in Iraq, cautioning that division over whether it goes far enough could spell defeat.
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"The worst thing we can do is to vote on something critical of the current policy and lose it," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The public doesn't support his policy, a majority of Congress doesn't support his policy."

"If we lose it, the president will use the defeat of a resolution as support of his public policy," Levin said.

The new Democratic-led Congress heads this week toward its first vote on the war, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning debate Wednesday on a resolution condemning Bush's proposal to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and Anbar province. A vote could come as early as that same day.

The proposed nonbinding resolution, which is largely symbolic and would have no affect on money for troops, states that "it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq."

It has generated some division among Democrats who want to go farther by cutting funding for new troops, moderates in both parties who want softer language and Republican leaders who have vowed to filibuster.

On Sunday, Levin and Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., who sponsored the resolution along with Republicans Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record) of Maine, called their proposal a first step that would send a "powerful message" that Bush must change course.

Other congressional steps, such as limiting federal appropriations for the war, could come later if Bush were to continue pushing forward with additional troops in defiance of the resolution, they said.

Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, downplayed the notion that support could splinter over how far lawmakers should go to restrain the president's power to wage war. He said he expected the half-dozen competing proposals to oppose the war each would get an airing.

"I don't think there's any muddled message here," Biden said. "They'll all get a chance to be voted on, with some discussion."

The proposals to limit the war vary.

Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., and Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., say they want to cut funding for new troops to prevent the deployments. Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., has a proposal that would cap troops at existing levels.

Republican Sen. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record) of Oregon said he was wary of the term "escalating" in the resolution and was working with Sens. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, and Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record), D-Neb., on a "constructive, nonpartisan resolution that expresses the opposition of the Senate to the surge."

Collins and Nelson, alongside Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., were expected to announce the details Monday.

And the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats say they would introduce legislation this week calling for greater accountability on how Iraq war funds are spent.

Bush, meanwhile, was expected to address the Iraq war in his State of the Union address Tuesday and renew his calls to work together with Democrats on a bipartisan way forward.

Earlier that day, the Senate Armed Services Committee will also hear from Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, a former division commander in Iraq, who was tapped by Bush to replace Gen. George Casey as the top American commander in Iraq.

On Sunday, Biden said despite the competing proposals, there was overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress against the war. He said Vice President Dick Cheney was absolutely wrong in suggesting that a resolution against the war would "embolden our enemy."

"Every single person out there that is of any consequence knows the vice president doesn't know what he's talking about. I can't be more blunt than that," Biden said. "He is yet to be right one single time on Iraq."

Hagel suggested there may be more Republican support than is generally known for seeking a vote in Congress toward ending the war in Iraq.

"It is wrong to put American troops in the middle of a sectarian civil war," he said. "Are we not to register our sense of where we are going in this country?"

"Let every member of the Senate express themselves," he said, saying they owe that to the American public.

"We have anarchy in Iraq," he said. "It's getting worse."

Biden and Levin spoke on "Fox News Sunday," and Hagel was on CBS' "Face the Nation."

___

Associated Press writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Hillary claims NOT to be afraid of Repub. propaganda machine. WHERE has she been past 6 years of Rethug abuses?


<< “I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in or to face down the Republican machine,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement on her new campaign Web site. “After nearly $70 million spent against my campaigns in New York and two landslide wins, I can say I know how Washington Republicans think, how they operate, and how to beat them.”>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/us/politics/21dems.html

It was NOT Hillary Clinton, or ANY of the other incumbent Democrats, who deserve the full measure of credit for the Democrat's election success in 2006- it was the OUTSIDE OF DC Democratic candidates who MOST VOCALLY OPPOSED THE BUsh administration's REIGN OF RUIN this past half-dozen years who won control of the House and Senate. (We will grant the Democratic establishment with funding many of those 'outsider' campaigns, but then again, the establishment Democratic Party has been part of the problem, SELLING OUT America's government to corporate America and their K-St. lobbyists.)

On abuse afer Abuse after ABUSE, Hillary Clinton has been... AWOL at CONFRONTING the Rethuglican scandal, corruption, incompetence, and lie machine.

- DIEBOLD massive vote fraud and systematic voter disenfranchisement....
- INCOMPETENCE before 9-11, and the corrupt WHITEWASH of the 9-11 Commission
- LIES to war... (which upon review are nothing short of farcical and pathetic)
- "SHOCK AND AWE" - an undeclared war on an opponent unable to defend itself
- Gross, in-your-face contract CORRUPTION by the Bush White House in administering Iraq contracts
- HALLIBURTON, ENRON, BLACKWATER, and other corporate fraud and outrages....
- TORTURE, ILLEGAL SPYING, Attorney General Gonzales' repudiation of HABEAS CORPUS
- CENSORSHIP of Iraq war casualties and the true price of the war...
- SLASHING of veterans funding, and the FRAUD of mandatory repeat tours and recalls to service
- CENSORSHIP and INTIMIDATION of the opposition press/media....
ENERGY ADDICTION... SUBORDINATING America's future to oil company profits...
- STACKING the courts (and DA's offices) with Rethuglican cronies, while...
- ATTACKING the independent judiciary using minions to make veiled threats to "ACTIVIST JUDGES"...
- making the American democratic process DEPENDENT on CORPORATE CASH and CORPORATE MEDIA

On these and ALL THE SIGNATURE, LIFE-&-DEATH ISSUES of American democracy (much less the timid "leadership" of the Democrat Party), Hillary Clinton HAS BEEN AWOL, timid, shy, and RELUCTANT to DEFEND AMERICAN CITIZENS whose rights have been TRASHED by the Bush-Rethuglican Party.


For Hillary to say that "I HAVE NEVER BEEN AFRAID... TO FACE DOWN THE REPUBLICAN MACHINE" is an INSULT to all of us who have been seeking, working, praying for, and demanding SOME VOCAL OPPOSITION to the above THUGGISH, BRUTAL OUTRAGES, especially given Hillary's access to press and media over these past 6 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/us/politics/21dems.html

Saturday, January 20, 2007

China apes the "leadership" of America under Bush: POLLUTES critical satellite orbit with ASAT weapons test debris...

Nature abhors a vacumn, and the world hates a bully.

George W. Bush and his merry band of Republican thugs and maurauders (and their Democrat and industry enablers) take it as privilige of their autocratic arrogance that they have a RIGHT to foul this planet earth with their gluttonous consumption and relentless spewing of toxins, pollutants, and CO2 into our planet's fragile atmosphere. They do the evil villains of ancient history - who poisoned wells and salted the earth to prevent a local population from recovering from a conquest or extermination - one better, US DEPLETED URANIUM DUST now salts the killing fields of Bush's war in Iraq with its ETERNITY of carcinoginic, mutation-causing radioactive dust. Hell, under the Bush-Rethuglicans, America is now ENCOURAGING world NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION; that vanguard of American capitalism, GE corporation, actually selling $5 billion of the latest nuclear processing technology to India with the "understanding" that India's military will use the technology in its 17 "secret" military reactors (to process new weapons material) without ANY international supervision or inespections.

So now America's military-industrial complex paid professionals - the analysts, consultants, engineers, executives, and political operatives - are CRYING-A-TEAR:

"CHINA TESTED an ANTI-SATELLITE MISSILE WITHOUT OUR PRIOR APPROVAL, and now all the space-debris from the explosive impact is JUNKING UP an important orbit for earth-observing satellites!"

"PROVACTIVE, DANGEROUS ACT" - nearly the perfect expression of AMERICA's bloody "our profit above all!" imperialism at the dawn of this new, dangerous century.


<< China's satellite shoot-down isn't just a provocative, dangerous act, writes veteran space analyst Jim Oberg. It also marks the rise of a new kind of satellite-killing technology -- one in which a weapon is shot directly from the ground, to the orbiter up on high. >>
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003184.html

=============================================

Satellite Killer's Big Impact
DefenseTech.org
Jan 20, 2007


There's been immediate fallout -- both physical and political -- from China's satellite killer test.

Debris from the orbital collision has already been spotted, the M-T Milcom blog notes. "As of this writing NORAD has officially cataloged 32 objects... that now pollute a vital area of space (sun-synchronous polar orbit)." The picture to the right is of a few of 'em.

"There are over 125 satellites that operate in this portion of space," the M-T blog observes. Those include reconnaissance satellites, like the Lacrosse and Advanced Keyhole orbiters, as well as weather-monitors, like the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program series. In other words, this test directly affects the American military's ability look for terrorist hideouts, and survey a potential battlefield. These are not small matters. "Our space assets are the first asset on the scene," GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike tells the AP. "They are absolutely central to why we are a superpower - a signature component to America's style of warfare."

Frequent Defense Tech commenter Robot Economist, now with his own blog, warns that "this situation has the potential of becoming the next Katyusha rocket or IED problem for the United States." Even the International Space Station could be at risk. That said, RE reminds us that "it is unlikely that [China's] success... translates into any sort of immediately fieldable capability."

If the spotty record of our ground-based missile interceptors demonstrate anything, it is the difficulty of intercepting even predictable space targets... [And] the Chinese had a pretty good handicap on this test.

Robert Farley sees the anti-satellite trial as "first and foremost... a deterrent move aimed at the United States."

The US military isn't completely dependent on spy satellites (in case of war, the Taiwan Straits would be overflown by enough spy and communications aircraft to make the satellites redundant), but destroying them is a way of chipping away at US capability, and thus indicating that China can inflict real costs in case of a US intervention in a militarized China-Taiwan dispute. The public way in which the Chinese have carried out this test, as well as earlier "blinding" tests, and the recent submarine-stalks-carrier debacle indicates to me that they're as serious as possible about showing the US their capabilities, which is key to a deterrent strategy. Also, Chinese anti-satellite capabilities don't have to be targeted against US military satellites; the Chinese may threaten commercial satellites as well, which would help to metastasize the costs of any US intervention.

No wonder, then, that governments around the world are protesting the move. With one exception, apparently: Russia. Arms Control Wonk notes...

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov commented to reporters that he has heard reports of the Chinese test, but thinks that the rumors are quite abstract and are exaggerated.

In an interview, vice-preseident of the Russian Academy of geopolitcal affairs, General Leonid Ivashov, said that he thinks the Chinese used Russian developments for making their antisatellite missiles.

Monday, January 15, 2007

British journalist PREDICTED, correctly, that US military STUPIDITY would lead to DEFEAT in Somalia - back in first days of US invasion, December 1992

<< Force and FARCE characterised the last US invasion of Somalia. In the early hours of 9 December 1992, Navy Seals slipped ashore at Mogadishu airport. What nobody seems to have told them was that the beach and airport were [already] held by a Pakistani UN battalion. >>

<< As we reached my colleagues, the Americans made their biggest mistake: "Whites over here. Somalis over there." The Somalis were ORDERED TO LIE DOWN TO BE SEARCHED, while non-Somalis were searched standing up. "Treat us like human beings," shouted one Somali, "We are human beings." The Americans did not listen. FROM THAT MOMENT I KNEW Somalia would defeat them. It is the only time I have ever been assaulted in Africa. >>

<< Almost a year later, I was back in Mogadishu after 18 US special forces were killed when they tried to capture General Aideed - the Blackhawk Down incident. More than 1,000 Somalis were killed that night. I went to the site of the helicopter and watched kids swinging and bouncing on the broken blades. A crowd gathered and my translator suggested we move. I asked why. "The crowd, they think you are American," came the reply. I said: "And what if I was American?" He smiled: "They would kill you." >>

[Note: 18 US dead vs 1,000 Somali dead.]

______________________________________________________________________

Richard Dowden: How mistakes of US's 1992 invasion are being repeated
Published: 13 January 2007
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2149729.ece

Force and farce characterised the last US invasion of Somalia. In the early hours of 9 December 1992, Navy Seals slipped ashore at Mogadishu airport. What nobody seems to have told them was that the beach and airport were held by a Pakistani UN battalion.

Worse, they had forgotten to tell them that their own general had invited the 200-strong pack of journalists in Mogadishu to witness the arrival.

Wading through the surf, the Seals walked straight into flashing cameras and microphones. At first, they tried to shield their faces and slink away. One, caught in the bushes with his trousers down to change from wetsuit to chocolate-chip uniform, tried to ignore us. Eventually he turned and pleaded: "Please, leave me alone." Another shouted: "Go away, or we'll shoot." "Shoot away," someone shouted back: "We're rolling."

By now, the Pakistani force was getting interested and a jeepload hurtled across the runway, guns at the ready. Eventually, a major emerged from a patch of shrub and called the journalists over. "We were not expecting this," he said frankly. "Please leave us alone to get on with our work."

I drove to the port with my crew: translator, driver and two gunmen. My life depended on them. Cheerful, cynical and ever ready to expound on the complexities of Somali society, or to kill for me, they explained amid laughter that, in Somali, seal means vagina.

I wandered down the jetty on my own to watch two black-headed terns hovering and diving in the tranquil morning light. Suddenly two sparks flew past my head. Then the crack, crack of a rifle. I was being shot at. I fell over, feeling stupid. A couple of marines sprinted up, still screaming hysterically. "Stay down, you fucker. Don't fucking move," one shrieked. "Roll over. Put your hands out flat."

Boots stopped next to my face and I lifted my head. A gun barrel jabbed into my ear and my head cracked on to the Tarmac. Another gun was sticking in my back. "Identify yourself," screamed the soldier. "I'm a British journalist" I stuttered.

"He says he's a British journalist," the marine parroted back over his shoulder. Then, as if the meaning only sunk in when he said the words, he turned back. "You're a what?" he shouted. "I work for The Independent newspaper of London. What's your problem?"

Another marine pulled my bag away and searched it. I looked up. "Get your fucking face in the dirt," he screamed but then seemed to run out of conversation and waited for someone to tell him what to do.More soldiers ran up. They too seemed hysterical. Fear? Drugs? I tried to calm them. "Go easy. There's no trouble up there, they're all friendly." But my captor shrieked back: "Get your hands above your head and walk ahead up the jetty." Another of his comrades flung himself flat and fired a burst up the jetty.

"There's only journalists up there," I shouted but I realised my crew were there too: Somalis and armed. I had paid them and there was a deal. They would die - and kill - for me. As I approached the gaggle of journalists and their helpers, I saw my two gunmen and screamed: "Put the guns down. Don't shoot. Don't shoot." They looked confused, as if to say, "Why did you hire us then?" But they obeyed.

As we reached my colleagues, the Americans made their biggest mistake: "Whites over here. Somalis over there." The Somalis were ordered to lie down to be searched, while non-Somalis were searched standing up. "Treat us like human beings," shouted one Somali, "We are human beings." The Americans did not listen. From that moment I knew Somalia would defeat them. It is the only time I have ever been assaulted in Africa.

Almost a year later, I was back in Mogadishu after 18 US special forces were killed when they tried to capture General Aideed - the Blackhawk Down incident. More than 1,000 Somalis were killed that night. I went to the site of the helicopter and watched kids swinging and bouncing on the broken blades. A crowd gathered and my translator suggested we move. I asked why. "The crowd, they think you are American," came the reply. I said: "And what if I was American?" He smiled: "They would kill you."

Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society

Democrats MUST develop a response to Dick Cheney and George Bush OWNING the news cycle and CONTROLLING the "Major Media" news narrative....

We (your humble writers & editors here at DemocraticNationUSA.blogspot.com) didn't make it to the MEDIA REFORM CONFERENCE in Memphis, Tennessee this past week, even though many of the writers and participants there have been our heroes, including for example HELEN THOMAS.

But we regret to say: the conference's focus on Media Reform BY REGULATION is entirely PATHETIC.

While we would LIKE to see "THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE" brought back to the American media, and while we would LIKE to see FULL PUBLIC FUNDING of elections, and while we would like to see the Major Media OBLIGATED to PROVIDE FREE, equal-time election advertisements to at least two major parties if not more parties in each election.... IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, at least not in the next one or two critical election cycles.

And even the above "REFORMS" wouldn't address the even more important factor: the ability of Rethuglicans to CREATE SCANDALS OUT OF THIN AIR, while the Democrats CAN'T even investigate REAL SCANDALS that happen right there in broad daylight, such as the THEFT of TWO presidential elections. (We KNOW that George W. Bush did not win the majority of voters' votes in Florida in 2000, and we don't think George W. Bush won the majority of voters' votes in Ohio in 2004... or other "Red State" majorities either, including Iowa, New Mexico, and others.)

The Republicans were able to keep the "VINCE FOSTER MURDER!" in the news-cycle undercurrent, if not front-pages, for YEARS... but the ANTHRAX MURDERS (much less the suspicious Paul Wellstone airplane crash) DISAPPEAR from news coverage immediately.

The Republicans were able to insuate "CLINTON TREASON, SOLD MISSILE TECHNOLOGY TO CHINA!" while keeping Republican culpability for the technology transfer of China rockets launching US satellites to a minimum... not to mention SUPPRESSING the story of Bush Sr/Cheney/Baker/Rumsfeld providing _WMD PRECURSOR TECHNOLOGIES_ to Saddam's regime all through the 1980s to a minimum.

Heck, Al Gore, John Kerry, and JOE LIEBERMAN made NO EFFORT to remind or inform Americans that DICK CHENEY, as CHAIRMAN and CEO of HALLIBURTON corporation, used Halliburton European subsidiaries to SELL SADDAM OILFIELD TECHNOLOGY (which development would have allowed Saddam to fund a WMD program if he had had one!) IN THE LATE 1990s - WHILE Cheney and other Republicans were bashing the Democratic White House for "moral values" failings!

ANY of the above issues, had they been kept on the FRONT PAGES or LEAD story of the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox 'news,' or any of the other networks, would have added another 5- or 10 points to the Democratic vote total in those elections!

Here (below), in a Buzzflash editorial, is YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE of the Bush-Cheney-Rethuglican Party being able to DOMINATE the news cycle and DETERMINE what news is covered, what news is front-page, and what America pays out her blood and treasure on - regardless of the truth, regardless of sane foreign policy, regardless of 100 years of progress that, until 2001, made America the role model for the entire world.

In just 6 short years, the Bush-Cheney administration has REVERSED the image of America as a beacon of international progress and (in Helen Thomas' words) we "have lost the halo as visionaries for a better mankind."

Dick Cheney and George Bush openly desire the AUTOCRATIC, THEOCRATIC model of DICTATORSHIP, ENFORCED CONFORMITY, ENFORCED RELIGIOUS COMPLIANCE, and complete lack of civil and human rights of the SAUDI DICTATORSHIP... and the America "major media" REFUSES to even MENTION that SAUDI ARABIA is now the great model for American governance!

The Bush-Cheney-Rethuglican sell-job is that, just because there are people out there in the world who hate us and may want to kill us (terrorists), we Americans MUST SURRENDER ALL OUR RIGHTS, our control of government, and our treasure (tax dollars) to the Republican Party control of the US government!

The Democrats have found NO ANSWER to contest this horrific model of press/media and government!

Indeed, JOE LIEBERMAN is REPRISING HIS ROLE as GUTTING Democratic efforts to EXPOSE Bush administration mendacity, Lieberman this week informed the press that he WOULD NOT INVESTIGATE contract FRAUD and FEMA INCOMPETENCE re the Katrina disaster and New Orleans' stunted recovery and rebuilding.

Lieberman, Nader, Bill Bradley, John Kerry..... EVERY TIME the Democrats GET AN OPPORTUNITY to EXPOSE the agenda, inconsistencies, and LIES of their Republican opponents, the Democrats seem to find a way to form a CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD and instead shoot each other and (more importantly) GIVE THE RETHUGLICANS A FREE PASS for trying to turn 200 years of American progress BACK TO the 7 century model of THEOCRATIC, MEDIEVAL rule, TYRANTS ruling over PEASANTS and dispensing summary 'justice' at the great lords' pleasure.

As we just mentioned, traitor JOE LIEBERMAN is ALREADY REPRISING HIS ROLE as sabotager of Democratic and progressive outrage and focus, and DICK CHENEY, GEORGE BUSH, KARL ROVE, and the Rethuglicans have ALREADY SWEPT the Democratic NARRATIVE out of the front pages and newshour leads....

(The above is only a partial enumeration of 30 years of Republican OUTRAGES and CRIMNALITY and treasury-busting scandals that have been all but forgotten by timid Dems and the corporate press. For example; the gigantic S&L debacle where AMERICAN TAXPAYERS were FORCED to PAY FOR the PRIVATE FAILURES of SAVINGS & LOANS, most of whose owners were Republican Party donors such as Charles Keatings Lincoln Savings & Loan and Neil Bush's SILVERADO Savings & Loan; we haven't even mentioned Iran-Contra or the "October Surprise" where Republicans WERE ABLE to get Iran to HOLD THE HOSTAGES PAST the 1980 election, which resulted in Reagan and BUSH being elected that November; nor have we mentioneed the recent crop of Republicans CONVICTED for BRIBERY and FRAUD including Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham; nor have we mentioned the Cheney-Bush White House "OUTING" an ENTIRE UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATION (the Valerie Plame "outing"); nor have we mentioned PRIVATIZED voting machines as an INVITATION to vote fraud; nor have we mentioned Republican SEX SCANDALS including MARK FOLLEY, Bush-intimate super-evangelist Ted Haggard, or MALE GAY PROSTITUTE "JEFF GANON" getting Secret Service CLEARANCE to join the White House Press corps, with NO press history, despite Gannon's UP AND RUNNING HOMOSEXUAL "butch" PROSTITUTE SEX SITE, up and running at the time the Secret Service gave him his pass to enter the White House!


IF THE DEMOCRATS do NOT BAND TOGETHER, STRIP joe lieberman of his Committe Chair, and DEMAND news coverage of Republican SCANDALS, we Americans DO NOT have a democratic government - we instead have a Saudi-style ancient Theocratic "off with their heads!" DICTATORSHIP.
----------------------------------------------------
<< Paul's CenTrust Savings Bank of Miami failed in 1990 and cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion >>
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/062003.shtml
(Note: this Boston Globe article notes that John Kerry was also a recipient of David Paul's campaign donations, showing how vulnerable Democrats are to being smeared even in Republican scandals.)
-----------------------------------------------------

Correspondent Helen Thomas lashes out at the 'lapdog media' from the conference [that, along with Democratic passivity, ENABLES Rethuglican HIJACKING of American democracy.)
By Trevor Aaronson
January 13, 2007
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_5278569,00.html

Tapping into one of the strongest undercurrents at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas criticized wha she described as a lapdog media for not erecting roadblocks on the road to war. "I think the American press corps has lost its way," Thomas said, adding: "There’s no reason the media played along with the administration’s shifting rationales, all untrue in the run-up to the catastrophic war in Iraq."

"Congress rolled over, as we did, no questions asked," Thomas said. "But the result of our default has been devastating. We [have] lost our halo as the visionaries for a better mankind."

===========================================

How Bush’s Death Warrant on American GIs Sucks the Air Out of the Democratic Do-Something Congress
BuzzFlash editorial
Mon, 01/15/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/118


Why did Bush wait until the start of a new Democratic Congress to announce his death warrant on American GIs?

Part of it, no doubt, was that Cheney needed time to fire the vocally dissenting generals, whip the Joints Chiefs of Staff – who unanimously opposed the idea – into silence, and try to figure out a way to find additional cannon fodder to send to their doom, since the military and reserves have been so depleted by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Iraq war folly.

But part of the reason for the timing of the "official’ announcement of another doomed military action – basically a variation on a theme of years of disastrous "plans" — had to do with drowning out the accomplishments of the first 100 hours of a Democratic Congress.

Do you think Rove was going to let the Democrats get the message out that they could pass minimum wage, stem cell research, homeland security, student loan relief and competitive bidding for Medicare drug laws – among others – without diverting news coverage?

Not a chance.

Rove saw Bush’s "Groundhog Day" Iraq desperation speech as a chance for a two-fer: a tee-off for the expansion of the war and a way to step on the common sense accomplishments of the new Democratic Congress?

After years of a corrupt Republican Congress, the last thing Rove wanted working Americans to hear – especially the wavering "values" voters – was that the Democrats could do in a hundred hours what the Republicans blocked for more than a decade. Rove couldn’t risk the chance that the Dems could recapture the Kansas middle class voter – let’s say – by helping them out, instead of picking their pocket and shouting out "gay marriage is unAmerican and threatens your marriage," as the GOP has done for oh so many years.

So, the timing of Bush’s dry-drunk speech of Vietnam redux madness was not accidental.

How many Americans know how much good the Democratic Congress has already done for them, with more to come?

Not many, which is just as Karl planned.

And expect those Bush vetoes of the Dem bills to help working and middle class Americans to come late on Fridays, while the Busheviks are conducting some "daring raid" on "suspected" al-Qaida members in Somalia or somewhere.

Only to find out by Sunday that we bombed a wedding party "by mistake."

Friday, January 12, 2007

Bush the PERFECT, perfect Storm... of Destruction. While his trail of ruin include... the REPUBLICAN PARTY?







George W. Bush is the PERFECT, perfect storm of destruction... certainly across Iraq, across much of Afghanistan, and across America. He has TRASHED the US budget surplus, the New York skyline has still not recovered from Bush's August 2001 vacation of Republican photo-op fundraisers and indolence; the president USES US troops as PHOTO-OP backdrops while sending many of them on their FOURTH TOUR of combat in the nerve-fraying hellhole he has made of Iraq; speaking of "fraying" he has FRAYED the US military to a fraction of its confidence and preparadness during the Clinton administration; and he has made boatloads of adversaries, if not enemies, out of millions of people around the world. He has turned the US corporate media into pathetic, semi-facist whores, who STILL would prefer to gather on the steps of the Justice Department to get the lastest Ken Starr salacious tidbit about the Clinton White House, to investigating the tentacles of ENRON, HALLIBURTON, BLACKWATER mercenaries in Iraq, or even the details of CONVICTED BRIBSTER Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House.. much less the SALACIOUS, sexually-charged details of PROFESSIONAL male homosexual prostitue JEFF GANNON's late-night visits (trysts?) to the Bush White House.

The real question is, WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SURVIVE George W. Bush?

Well, David Michael Green says it better than us, so click on over to his "Perfect Storm" of a blog, and lay your bets...


The Perfect, Perfect Storm
by David Michael Green
11 January 2007
http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/A_Perfect_Perfect_Storm.html


<< Which means – especially if there is a whiff or two of Halliburton war-profiteering in the headlines – that what we’ll see in the coming year is a massive Republican cutting of bait, perhaps taking the form of participating in the tossing out of their own homies, Dick and Junior, even if that means anointing the evil San Francisco liberal (and therefore closet lesbian and child molester) Nancy Pelosi as president. (Sorry Hillary!). W is the ultimate Republican ball-and-chain, and if you throw these guys in the water, they’ll chew off their own legs rather than drown. Bush spent six years pissing all over Congress, anyhow, so they can get themselves all worked up into a royal lather if they want, whooping and hollering about the danger of imperial presidencies and the “outrageous” scandals they “had no idea about”, in order to cover their hasty retreat.

It might even save a few of their skins, and it will rid the rest of us of the cancer on the presidency (which happens, once again, to be the president and vice-president themselves), but it will not stop the broader bloodletting. The GOP train-wreck of 2006 is going to become the GOP Chernobyl of 2008, to the point where the party may become so discredited that its very survival is jeopardized. It is seriously possible that the one-man wrecking machine known as George W. Bush may be able to add the Republican Party to the extensive laundry list of destruction he’s already compiled, which presently includes Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, the Constitution, and nearly a million lives, along with America’s reputation, finances and national security. Even if you happen to love your country, you gotta admit that’s an impressive list, ain’t it? I mean, how many people do you know who could single-handedly destroy so much so fast, including whole cities? Jesus Christ, the guy’s like a human MIRV. >>

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Democratic Congress GETS DOWN TO WORK! Enact 9-11 DEFENSE of AMERICA recommendations FIRST THING!

This story leads to one HUGE question: WHY have not the REPUBLICAN WHITE HOUSE and the REPUBLICAN HOUSE and SENATE addressed these serious flaws in America's national security BEFORE NOW??

♦♦♦ Final Report on 9/11 Commission Recommendations ♦♦♦♦

December 5, 2005
http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-12-05_summary.pdf

HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Radio spectrum for first responders F/C *

Incident Command System C

Risk-based homeland security funds F/A*

Critical infrastructure assessment D

Private sector preparedness C

National Strategy for C-
Transportation Security

Airline passenger pre-screening F

Airline passenger explosive screening C

Checked bag and cargo screening D

Terrorist travel strategy I

Comprehensive screening system C

Biometric entry-exit screening system B

International collaboration on D
borders and document security

Standardize secure identifications B-

============================================

Democrats Restore Congress from "Do-Nothing" to "Do-Something;"

Homeland Security Bill Passes House on First Day
BuzzFlash news alert
Wed, 01/10/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/154


In the first regular day of proceedings, the House began its "100 Hours" campaign yesterday by passing a bill to enact the 9/11 Commission's recommendations as promised. The bill, H.R. 1, follows more than five years of Republican inaction on homeland security since September 11th and about half that time since the recommendations were issued.

"It’s a darn shame we didn't do it when we had the opportunity," said GOP Rep. Christopher Shays, one of 68 Republicans to help pass the bill, 299-128. "I can't explain it."

"Here is a chance for Congress to stop dragging its feet – to become the 'do something' Congress," said House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson on the floor before the vote, referencing the previous Congress' "do nothing" label. "We can stand around complaining and pointing fingers or we can finally do the job we were hired to do."

Of course, most Republicans are still complaining and pointing fingers. Thompson mentioned in his speech that Republicans have previously whined that they had already fulfilled the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, but now Republicans are saying the Democratic bill leaves many recommendations unaddressed. "I’m a bit baffled," Thompson noted on the flip-flop.

Many Republican congressmen are also whimpering that they were not included in the authoring or passage of the bill. But Democrats started from exactly where Republicans left off - by starting with nothing! Besides, it is hardly as if Republicans ever asked for Democratic input on anything over the last decade.

Apparently Republicans are a little rusty at the whole business of passing legislation. They are still in good practice, however, with baffling folks through their nonsensical partisan squabbling.

The homeland security bill still has to go through the Senate and the White House, neither of which have displayed the House's ambitious dedication to quickly passing a much needed agenda. One major hurdle includes opposition to a pork-reducing measure to appropriate funds to states based more on actual needs and risks than the current system prescribes. Many Republicans are also hesitant to provide the necessary spending to ensure that all foreign sea and air cargo is inspected before reaching America.

As the Senate debates S.1, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act, the House is currently working on the passage of their next goal, an increase in the minimum wage.

Monday, January 8, 2007

DemocraticNationUSA

DemocraticNationUSA