Dear True,
No, not love and happiness, not today. I have nothing but disgust and rage for the politicians of this country, ALL of them (well, almost).
As for Mr. No New Taxes Pawlenty, he bears a great share of the responsibility for the lives lost and maimed in the Minneapolis bridge collapse, not to mention the fear and terror of the rest of us who must entrust our lives to structurally unsound bridges, having vetoed a major transportation bill in 2005 that would have addressed the state's aging road infrastructure.
As for the evil cowboy Mr. Photo Op Bush, he bears an even greater burden of this guilt, having squandered the resources paid by taxpayers in the assumption that they will be spent to keep bridges and levees and roads and waterways and sewers and .... well, everything we depend on for life and health, safe. No, better to spend a couple trillion dollars killing off people in Iraq and destroying THEIR infrastructure completely, so his Texas cronies continue to reap megaprofits from oil and get no-bid private contracts to run the war. Who gives a flying fuck that the people of Baghdad don't have any water? That Iraqis working with Americans have separate (presumably not equal) bathrooms and meals? That millions are homeless thanks to the devastation wrought by the US, that people are starving, that there is no electricity for most of the day in devastating heat? Who cares? They are only Iraqis, as one US soldier said.
As for the Congress, shame. They bear the responsibility to reign in a rogue administration, protect the Constitution, and make laws that promote the general welfare. But what do they do? They sling impeachment off the table when the constitutional crimes of this administration challenge our three-tiered government to the very core, and then they proceed to knuckle under to every illegal and outrageous demand made by Bushco. The latest: a secret FISA panel decided Bush's wiretapping was illegal and so what does Congress do? They pass a law to make it legal. I for one am sick of knowing I have no private communications unless I meet someone somewhere where there are no phones, computers, or mail and even then who knows what those satellites are picking up?
It's a sad, sad world but the worst is that it doesn't have to be that way. The American people want good government, good schools, good health care, good communities, good infrastructure, a clean and safe environment, retirement security ... and they are paying enough to get it. Even without new taxes, which in Minnesota is totally stupid because we will pay one way or another.
Us poor people pay so much in fees and sales taxes that we trump even the biggest billionaire who actually does pay tax (if any) in terms of percentage of income. However, almost any of us would gladly pay more to save the lives of loved ones and protect the world for future generations. As for Bushco, he lavishly rewards the richest of the rich, not only with absurd tax cuts but also with his shadow government which pays them billions in contracts that are scrutinized by none. Many of these contracts usurp the lawful function of government, such as intelligence gathering and military forces, and unlawful ones as well, such as murder, torture, rape and spying.These bad politicians, and that includes nearly all of them, know that people don't like what they do. They receive thousands and millions of emails, phone calls and petitions daily from people who feel they must speak out. Bush apologist Sen. Coleman responds with a knee-jerk blip but never a word on any issue. All elected officials in this mega-media, mega-business and mega-shadow government age depend on the millions these people pay them. Who will stand up to the coal industry, the nuclear industry, big oil, when they are major campaign contributors? All the major candidates are beholden to the big multinational corporations and media, without whom they could never be elected. (Except maybe John Edwards who is getting a rilli-rilli-bad media rap....)
Finally, the American people have allowed these travesties to happen. Democracy means that the grass roots don't get mowed down, even if all their heroes are assassinated: John and Bobby Kennedy, MLK, John Lennon, and YES, our beloved Paul Wellstone.... I don't have a nanosecond of doubt that they were removed by the Rich Repug Reich.
Hate and rage.
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
Showing posts with label election 2006. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election 2006. Show all posts
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Power Without Limits - New York Times
Recent executive orders by the Bushco seem to be preparing the way to declare the United States Constitution and laws in abeyance while the Decider takes over. Don't believe it? Well, even the MSM (NY Times) has weighed in on this terrifying power grab.... Check it out:
Power Without Limits - New York Times:
Power Without Limits - New York Times:
Sunday, July 01, 2007
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now! - CommonDreams.org - Sent Using Google Toolbar
True Blue wants the USA to survive the depradations of the Bush & Cheney coup (takeover) that feeds the new empire ruled by corporate CEOs.
Please, friends, gird up your loins,summon your courage,and look the BushCo evil in the face. Just say no. Stand firm for human rights, peace and justice. Many and many of us are watching from the wings.
True
Published on Sunday, July 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now!
by Hank Edson
There is no shortage of reasons why we should impeach President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Their crimes are so extensive and so egregious that it is hard to find time to grasp just how deliberate their pursuit has been over the past several years. Today’s topic, torture and how impeachment for torture is necessary to the representation of humanity in our democracy, does not even cover the subset of impeachable offenses: war crimes. By my count, this subset contains six separate impeachable war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney: (1) the supreme war crime of commencing a war of aggression, (2) torture, (3) extraordinary rendition, (4) termination of habeas corpus, (5) inhumane weaponry (such as daisy cutters, depleted uranium shells, and phosphorus bombs), and (6) the usurpation of Iraqi self-determination in economic and political affairs protected under the Geneva Conventions. If every America could take just fifteen minutes to read nine or ten pages telling the story of Bush and Cheney’s willful commitment to torture, it would go far to reorient the mindset in our country that has so passively accepted conduct by our leadership that is absolutely offensive to our values, aspirations, and responsibilities as a democratic people. With hope for such a transformation in our public discourse, I offer this summary of one of the most disgraceful episodes of a disgraceful presidency.
White House Cowboys and Dungeon Masters
In 1996, Congress passed the War Crimes Act, which made it a criminal act to violate the ban against torture and cruel of degrading treatment found in the Geneva Conventions. The United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955. As a result of congressional ratification, the conventions already carried the force of law in the United States without the need for the 1996 War Crimes Act to make the government’s use of torture illegal.[1] Notwithstanding this doubly clear statement of law, five days after 9/11 Vice President Dick Cheney was already mentally adding dungeons to the defense assessment the Neo-Conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, had prepared for him for use in installing the U.S. industrial-arms complex throughout the Middle East.
On September 16, 2001, Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press,
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side…a lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” [2]
Juvenile George Bush took up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
“I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[3]
What penance will America have to pay for placing such a man in its highest office?
Building the Legal Shield
As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern writes, “‘Dark-side’ operations, using ‘any means at our disposal’ - like, say, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ - by law require a ‘finding’ signed by the president.” [4] To protect himself in the event this “finding” was improper, Bush called upon his counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who provided a January 25, 2002 memo to the president authored by Cheney’s counsel, David Addington. The memo described as “quaint” and “obsolete” a number of provisions of the Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners of war. The memo also concluded that there was a “reasonable basis in law” that Bush could avoid any future criminal prosecution for violating the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. [5]
Secretary of State Powell, however, disagreed with the advice and inserted the following warning in Gonzales’ January 25, 2002 memo:
“A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention of Prisoners of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”
The next day, Powell wrote his own memo, adding that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would “undermine public support among critical allies [and] reverse over a century of US policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops.” [6]
Powell’s objections, however, were fruitless. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed the memorandum ordering our armed forces in the subtlest of language “to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” The qualification, “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity,” meant: “when you get an order to torture, do it.” As with so many of the outrages in the Bush administration, the author of the torture memo, Addington, was later promoted for his good work to take over as Cheney’s Chief of Staff when Lewis Libby was indicted. Addington’s legal work was later condemned by 130 of the nation’s most respected jurists, including twelve federal judges and eight former American Bar Association presidents for failing in his “high obligation to defend the Constitution.”[7]
The Administrative Base for Torture
Once the legal shield had been put in place to permit the White House to order torture, the next step was to give the order, but to do it in such a way that the order would be impossible to trace. After the Iraq invasion, it was the man who General Tommy Franks called “the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth,” Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, who was called upon to do the dirty work. His office was given the responsibility of planning the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.
True to the familiar pattern of White House methodology, Journalist Jim Lobe describes this decision as “effectively exclude[ing] input from Iraqi experts from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even from the Iraqi-American community, who had participated in a mammoth project that anticipated most of the problems occupation authorities have since encountered.”[8]
Working in Feith’s office at this time was Stephen Cambone, who was instrumental in transferring Major General Geoffrey Miller from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to Abu Ghraib prison. Lobe reports that Miller “brought high-pressure interrogation tactics barred by the Geneva Conventions with him from Guantanamo” and that Newsweek, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times all reported that “top officials in the Pentagon, acting on the advice of civilian lawyers, authorized a reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions to permit tougher methods of interrogation of prisoners of war.”[9] It was no doubt this new administration of a “torture policy” that led Secretary of State Colin Powell to call Feith’s operation the “Gestapo Office.”[10]
Despite Powell’s continued opposition, the new interrogation techniques were approved in April 2003. According to Lobe, senior Pentagon officials simultaneously approved excluding JAG officers, who normally are present to ensure the Geneva Conventions are followed. During this time, Scott Horton, a former senior JAG officer then serving as chairman of the committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association was contacted by JAG officers disturbed about the new policy. Lobe writes that “[a]ccording to Horton, the JAG officers identified the main forces behind loosening the rules as Feith and the Pentagon’s general counsel, William Haynes, another political appointee.”[11]
The “Enhanced” Techniques of a “few Bad Apples”
On the ground in Iraq, as many as fifty thousand men and women were being jammed into Abu Ghraib at a time. The cells were twelve-by-twelve and, according to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, were “little more than human holding pits.”[12] After the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld ordered that a secret Pentagon interrogation unit dedicated to collecting intelligence about al-Qaeda be assigned responsibility for interrogating prisoners in Iraq. Hersh wrote, “According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, [the program] ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.’” Hersh further reported in that anonymous military and intelligence sources indicated that Rumsfeld approved the use of interrogation tactics implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Specifically, special “biscuit teams,” as the soldier call them, staffed with psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians knowledgeable about Arab cultures would create conditions specifically designed to inflict maximum psychological pain within the cultural parameters of their prisoner’s psychology. Thus, American soldiers were instructed to make use of deeply seated religious taboos, their prisoner’s cultural anxiety caused by aggressive dogs, and culturally specific forms of humiliation to torture prisoners of war under their charge. Soldiers threatened naked prisoners with attack dogs. They used injections, suppositories, and other “techniques” to make the prisoners chained to the floor of their cells lose control of their bowels. Some prisoners they wiped with fake menstrual blood. Female interrogators questioned men forced to stand naked before them.
A former specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Tony Lagouranis has spoken openly about interrogations techniques he used in Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield, and other locations in Iraq through out 2004, which he admitted were torture. The techniques he used included the use of dogs, waterboarding and prolonged stress positions. At Al Asad Airfield, he witnessed prisoners being shackled and hung from an upright bed frame welded to the wall. Lagouranis says these techniques “take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple, at least for a period of time.” Lagouranis, who reported the detainee abuses, only participated in techniques that “were technically legal.” Lagouranis told one reporter, “I started realizing that most of the prisoners were innocent. We were torturing people for not reason. I started getting really angry and really remorseful and by the time I got back I completely broke down.”[13]
Joseph Polermo writes:
“They bombarded them with loud music for days at a time and kept them under fluorescent lights. Other practices included: ‘Harsh heat or cold, withholding food; hooding for days at a time; naked isolation in cold, dark cells for more than thirty days; and “stress positions” designed to subject detainees to rising levels of pain.”[14]
General Antonio M. Taguba’s report on the Abu Ghraib scandal found repeated instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” including:
“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall of his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”[15]
We all saw the pictures: the pyramids of naked bodies, the forced masturbation in front of female guards, the hooded figure with fake electrodes hooked to his finger tips, the smiling young girl with the snarling dog at leash’s end.
The lawyer of one of the enlisted men court marshaled because of the scandal complained of the absence of accountability up the command chain:
“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?” [16]
All told, seven soldiers were convicted for participating in the torture; one was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whatever the culpability of these grunt soldiers was, these soldiers were committed legally and culturally to a chain of command that did not take lightly unscripted departures from routine duties, explicit orders, and the military’s code of honor. The claim that the torture was but the act of “a few bad apples,” not only defies the overwhelming evidence that such conduct was endorsed, encouraged, and engineered with White House knowledge, but is also a completely unrealistic portrayal of the psychology of enlisted servicemen and women.
It turns out that the photos we all saw were staged by “contract interrogators” working for Titan Corporation, hired under the Rumsfeld Doctrine of privatized war. The photos were to be used as psychological intimidation tools in future interrogations.[17] The use of civilian contractors served to put another layer of insulation between the high command and the troops being blamed, as the civilian contractors are not accountable under the same chain of command as the M.P.’s who were court marshaled were.
The Dungeon Master and the Scapegoat
The highest-ranking military officer reprimanded because of the torture scandal was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the first female to ever command soldiers in a war zone-a fact that ought to be suspicious in and of itself.
Karpinski, who had never run a prison system, was given command of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, as Seymour Hersh points out, “like her, had not training in handling prisoners.”[18] She would eventually be demoted to Colonel because of the torture revelations.
When Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone got Two Star Major General Geoffrey Miller transferred from Guananamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, Miller told Karpinski that he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations. The M.P.’s, however, were under Karpinski’s command, whereas interrogators were answerable to the commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade.
Karpinski says, “I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that’s the location he selected.”[19] Essentially, Miller was going to misuse untrained M.P.s under someone else’s command to insulate himself from the legal consequences of torturing prisoners.
Miller focused his interrogation operation in Cell Blocks 1A of Abu Ghraib, which he put under the charge of Colonel Pappas. Meanwhile, General Sanchez, who was responsible for the entire Iraqi command ordered General Karpinski to Camp Victory near the Iranian border. Karpinski said, “He wanted me away from the situation. He wanted me away from the possibility of finding out about what was going on in interrogations. So he incrementally moved me farther away, took Abu Ghraib away from me, then moved me out of Baghdad completely.” When the scandal broke, however, it would be Karpinski who was targeted by the higher command to take the blame.[20]
Karpinski told journalist Amy Goodman about the first news she got of torture being conducted at her own prison:
About the situation at Abu Ghraib, I was first informed by an email that I received on classified-what they call “classified traffic.” I opened it up late one night on the 12th of January 2004. And it was from the commander of the Criminal Investigation Division. He sent me an email and said, “Ma’am, I just want to make you aware, I’m going into brief the C.G.,” meaning General Sanchez, “on the progress of the investigation at Abu Ghraib. This involves the allegations of abuse and the photographs.” That was the first I heard of it.
I did not receive that email or phone call or a message from General Sanchez himself, who would ultimately attempt to hold me fully responsible for this, but from the C.I.D. Commander. And I was alarmed at just that short email. I was not in Baghdad at the time. I was at another location very close to the Iranian border, so we made arrangements to leave at the crack of dawn to drive down to Abu Ghraib to see what we could find out about this ongoing investigation and went through the battalion over to Cell Block 1A. The people who would normally be working on any shift were not working. The sergeant that I spoke to said that their records had been seized by the investigators, and they started a new log to account for prisoners, make sure that their meals were on time, those kin of things, and he pointed out a memo that was posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. And the memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense…by Donald Rumsfeld. And said-it discussed interrogation techniques that were authorized. It was one page. It talked about stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those kind of techniques. But there was a handwritten note out to the side. And this was a copy. It was a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. But it was unusual that an interrogation memorandum would be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block.[21]
The handwritten note, in the same script as Rumsfeld’s signature, said: “Make sure this happens.” Essentially, Rumsfeld gave an order to Karpinski’s untrained M.P.s to apply “enhanced techniques” that were, at best, only to be applied by the trained “Intelligence Brigade” under a separate command. The order, however, was never passed through General Karpinski.
Rumsfeld, Feith, Cambone, and Miller had “Gitmo-ized” Abu-Ghraib and when they got caught, they blamed the first and only female war zone commander, who they had kept completely out of the loop. Karpinski confirmed that the M.P.s understood the memorandum to come from Rumsfeld, himself. Karpinski further explained that Rumsfeld had also ordered some prisoners to be held without a prisoner number or notation in the prisoner database-omissions which violate the Geneva Conventions. Karpinski says that on several occasions prisoners fell into this category of “ghost detainees.” According to the ACLU, there is documentary evidence that at least 21 detainees were murdered while in detention as a result of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but of course, we cannot know how many undocumented prisoners may have been murdered as well.[22]
Although Karpinski took responsibility for violating the Geneva Conventions in allowing ghost prisoners to be kept undocumented in the prison database, she says she also protested to the prison legal advisor, Colonel Warren, when one such prisoner, prisoner “Triple X,” was ordered by Rumsfeld to be held in secrecy: “It’s a violation. You have to put people on the database. And how much longer are we going to be held responsible for him? You take control of him. If you want to violate a Geneva Convention, that’s up to you, but I don’t want to keep him in one of our camps this way.”
Karpinski asserts that responsibility for the torturing that occurred at Abu Ghraib ought “to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation…” which Bush signed and that the M.P.s who were court marshaled were “unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Linddie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash.”[23]
The Department of Defense Investigates Itself; Bush Does Nothing
When the torture scandal broke in the Press, Rumsfeld appointed a four-person commission to investigate. All four members of the commission were members of the Defense Policy Board, the private advisory board that played an unprecedented role in influencing the decision to go to war and that assisted in the manipulation of evidence presented to the public and the United Nations about the dangers presented by Saddam Hussein. Two of the members of the investigative commission were also past Secretaries of Defense-part of the military-arms complex old-boy network unlikely to place blame on a fellow Secretary of Defense.
Predictably, the commission exonerated the three senior most senior officers responsible for prisoner interrogation, Rumsfeld, Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and Major General George Fay. Instead, the commission concluded that ‘freelancing’ guards on the night watch were responsible for the torture, not any effort orchestrated from higher up to collect more information from prisoners.[24] Human Rights Watch criticized the commission’s report for failing to look into the connection between the torture and Rumsfeld’s approval of interrogation techniques that intentionally used pain, humiliation and abuse of prisoners.”[25] Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman argues, “President Bush failed to ensure a full investigation and to see that the responsible parties, including higher-ups were held accountable. These failures are impeachable offenses.”[26]
Torture’s Lobbyist
Meanwhile, Congress decided that since President Bush did not seem to understand the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, it was necessary in 2005 to pass a new law, once more clearly outlawing torture. When the senate passed the McCain amendment banning torture by a definitive majority of 91 to 9, Cheney proved himself a national embarrassment by lobbying Senator McCain, hard to exempt the C.I.A. Of course, McCain is a man who had personally endured torture as a prisoner of war in the same Vietnam War, which as a young man Cheney promoted, but avoided serving in by obtaining numerous deferments.
Torture’s Anti-Democratic Authoritarian Puppet
When both houses passed the McCain amendment without Cheney’s exemption, President Bush added one of his over 1,000 signing statements to it, declaring that the act of signing the bill into law did not mean that he was legally bound to follow the new law. In this case, Bush used his signing statement to reserve the right to use torture if he thought it was necessary for national security.[27] Thus, after three iterations of an absolute prohibition against torture passed by the legislative branch and signed by the President-once in the ratification of the Geneva Conventions in 1955, again in the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, and a third time in the 2005 McCain anti-torture amendment-George W. Bush still persisted in his determination to use torture in defiance of the law.
Accountability in the White House
In the final assessment, we have Donald Rumsfeld signing memos authorizing violations of the Geneva Conventions and running out of the Pentagon a deliberate effort to expand interrogation techniques to include illegally cruel and degrading treatment specifically developed by the so-called “biscuit teams.” Under Rumsfeld, we have Doug Feith’s “Gestapo office,” in which Stephen Cambone orchestrates the transfer of Major General Miller to Abu Ghraib to get M.P.s outside Miller’s chain of command to assist in the use torture techniques in Iraq previously developed at the infamous Guantanemo Bay detention facility.
We have the pathologically authoritarian Vice President Dick Cheney declaring on national television just five days after the national trauma of the September 11th attacks, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side… without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies… any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”[28] Then after revelations of torture, murder, and perversion cause worldwide revulsion toward the United States and after congress passes a completely unnecessary third law to again outlaw torture, still Cheney continues to lobby obsessively the law’s author for an exception that would allow torture by the CIA to continue.
And finally, we have an incredibly juvenile and himself, psychologically manipulated puppet, president George W. Bush who takes up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[29] Then after the congress has passed the third and completely unnecessary prohibition against torture, Bush goes on to add to the law a signing statement declaring his intention to disregard the law whenever he sees fit.
We Want Our Humanity Represented!
After all these facts are reported in the press, still we have Nancy Pelosi saying, “Impeachment is off the table,” and “the American people want congress to get to work,” not to engage in “partisan struggles.” I beg to differ. The American people want a process for accountability when the President of the United States abuses the power and reputation the American people gave him to torture human beings in violation of three separate legal acts, not to mention the principle set forth in the 8th Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. The American people want their humanity represented and their humanity lies in the application of the democratic process that prevents elected leaders from abusing their power. Passing a law in congress has done nothing to stop Bush’s abuse of power. Getting “to work” is not what we, the people, elected a Democratic congress to do in 2006. We can get by without anti-flag burning amendments and new labels for DVDs. What we cannot do without is an impeachment of a president who willfully defies congress for the purpose of torturing human beings.
As the Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh says:
“If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”[30]
The balance of power in our democracy, however, is not defined by the law in and of itself, but by exercise of the law by those with a legal claim. Thus, under the Constitutional framework that supports our democracy, the limits of the commander-in-chief’s power are ultimately defined by the exercise of the right of impeachment. By failing to exercise the people’s legal claim against the vice president and president, Congress is letting the vice-president and president seize a despot’s hold over our humanity. This is not a moment in history for simply getting to work; it is the moment for dropping everything and making a stand for who we really are.
Hank Edson is an author, attorney, and activist located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His blog, “MP3 - My Politics and Progressive Perspective” can be found at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com
[1] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[2] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[3] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[4] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[5] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[6] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[7] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[8] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[9] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[10] Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, (New York, Simon & Schuster 2004), p. 292.
[11] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[12] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[13] Tara McKelvey, “We Were Torturing People For No Reason,” The International Herald Tribune, March 29, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/29/166.
[14] Joseph Palermo, “Bush’s Shame: From “Buscuit” Teams to PTSD,” CommonDreams.org, March 20, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-28.htm.
[15] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[16] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[17] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[18] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa-fact?printable=true.
[19] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[20] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[21] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[22] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[23] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[24] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[25] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[26] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[27] Phil Worden, “Has Bush Committed Impeachable Acts?,” The Bangor Daily News, April 30, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/875/print/
[28] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[29] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[30] “About John Yoo’s Torture Memo,” The National Lawyer’s Guild, Boalt Hall Chapter, http://nlg.boalt.org/Yoo.html.
Please, friends, gird up your loins,summon your courage,and look the BushCo evil in the face. Just say no. Stand firm for human rights, peace and justice. Many and many of us are watching from the wings.
True
Published on Sunday, July 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now!
by Hank Edson
There is no shortage of reasons why we should impeach President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Their crimes are so extensive and so egregious that it is hard to find time to grasp just how deliberate their pursuit has been over the past several years. Today’s topic, torture and how impeachment for torture is necessary to the representation of humanity in our democracy, does not even cover the subset of impeachable offenses: war crimes. By my count, this subset contains six separate impeachable war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney: (1) the supreme war crime of commencing a war of aggression, (2) torture, (3) extraordinary rendition, (4) termination of habeas corpus, (5) inhumane weaponry (such as daisy cutters, depleted uranium shells, and phosphorus bombs), and (6) the usurpation of Iraqi self-determination in economic and political affairs protected under the Geneva Conventions. If every America could take just fifteen minutes to read nine or ten pages telling the story of Bush and Cheney’s willful commitment to torture, it would go far to reorient the mindset in our country that has so passively accepted conduct by our leadership that is absolutely offensive to our values, aspirations, and responsibilities as a democratic people. With hope for such a transformation in our public discourse, I offer this summary of one of the most disgraceful episodes of a disgraceful presidency.
White House Cowboys and Dungeon Masters
In 1996, Congress passed the War Crimes Act, which made it a criminal act to violate the ban against torture and cruel of degrading treatment found in the Geneva Conventions. The United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955. As a result of congressional ratification, the conventions already carried the force of law in the United States without the need for the 1996 War Crimes Act to make the government’s use of torture illegal.[1] Notwithstanding this doubly clear statement of law, five days after 9/11 Vice President Dick Cheney was already mentally adding dungeons to the defense assessment the Neo-Conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, had prepared for him for use in installing the U.S. industrial-arms complex throughout the Middle East.
On September 16, 2001, Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press,
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side…a lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” [2]
Juvenile George Bush took up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
“I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[3]
What penance will America have to pay for placing such a man in its highest office?
Building the Legal Shield
As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern writes, “‘Dark-side’ operations, using ‘any means at our disposal’ - like, say, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ - by law require a ‘finding’ signed by the president.” [4] To protect himself in the event this “finding” was improper, Bush called upon his counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who provided a January 25, 2002 memo to the president authored by Cheney’s counsel, David Addington. The memo described as “quaint” and “obsolete” a number of provisions of the Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners of war. The memo also concluded that there was a “reasonable basis in law” that Bush could avoid any future criminal prosecution for violating the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. [5]
Secretary of State Powell, however, disagreed with the advice and inserted the following warning in Gonzales’ January 25, 2002 memo:
“A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention of Prisoners of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”
The next day, Powell wrote his own memo, adding that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would “undermine public support among critical allies [and] reverse over a century of US policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops.” [6]
Powell’s objections, however, were fruitless. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed the memorandum ordering our armed forces in the subtlest of language “to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” The qualification, “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity,” meant: “when you get an order to torture, do it.” As with so many of the outrages in the Bush administration, the author of the torture memo, Addington, was later promoted for his good work to take over as Cheney’s Chief of Staff when Lewis Libby was indicted. Addington’s legal work was later condemned by 130 of the nation’s most respected jurists, including twelve federal judges and eight former American Bar Association presidents for failing in his “high obligation to defend the Constitution.”[7]
The Administrative Base for Torture
Once the legal shield had been put in place to permit the White House to order torture, the next step was to give the order, but to do it in such a way that the order would be impossible to trace. After the Iraq invasion, it was the man who General Tommy Franks called “the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth,” Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, who was called upon to do the dirty work. His office was given the responsibility of planning the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.
True to the familiar pattern of White House methodology, Journalist Jim Lobe describes this decision as “effectively exclude[ing] input from Iraqi experts from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even from the Iraqi-American community, who had participated in a mammoth project that anticipated most of the problems occupation authorities have since encountered.”[8]
Working in Feith’s office at this time was Stephen Cambone, who was instrumental in transferring Major General Geoffrey Miller from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to Abu Ghraib prison. Lobe reports that Miller “brought high-pressure interrogation tactics barred by the Geneva Conventions with him from Guantanamo” and that Newsweek, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times all reported that “top officials in the Pentagon, acting on the advice of civilian lawyers, authorized a reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions to permit tougher methods of interrogation of prisoners of war.”[9] It was no doubt this new administration of a “torture policy” that led Secretary of State Colin Powell to call Feith’s operation the “Gestapo Office.”[10]
Despite Powell’s continued opposition, the new interrogation techniques were approved in April 2003. According to Lobe, senior Pentagon officials simultaneously approved excluding JAG officers, who normally are present to ensure the Geneva Conventions are followed. During this time, Scott Horton, a former senior JAG officer then serving as chairman of the committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association was contacted by JAG officers disturbed about the new policy. Lobe writes that “[a]ccording to Horton, the JAG officers identified the main forces behind loosening the rules as Feith and the Pentagon’s general counsel, William Haynes, another political appointee.”[11]
The “Enhanced” Techniques of a “few Bad Apples”
On the ground in Iraq, as many as fifty thousand men and women were being jammed into Abu Ghraib at a time. The cells were twelve-by-twelve and, according to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, were “little more than human holding pits.”[12] After the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld ordered that a secret Pentagon interrogation unit dedicated to collecting intelligence about al-Qaeda be assigned responsibility for interrogating prisoners in Iraq. Hersh wrote, “According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, [the program] ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.’” Hersh further reported in that anonymous military and intelligence sources indicated that Rumsfeld approved the use of interrogation tactics implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Specifically, special “biscuit teams,” as the soldier call them, staffed with psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians knowledgeable about Arab cultures would create conditions specifically designed to inflict maximum psychological pain within the cultural parameters of their prisoner’s psychology. Thus, American soldiers were instructed to make use of deeply seated religious taboos, their prisoner’s cultural anxiety caused by aggressive dogs, and culturally specific forms of humiliation to torture prisoners of war under their charge. Soldiers threatened naked prisoners with attack dogs. They used injections, suppositories, and other “techniques” to make the prisoners chained to the floor of their cells lose control of their bowels. Some prisoners they wiped with fake menstrual blood. Female interrogators questioned men forced to stand naked before them.
A former specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Tony Lagouranis has spoken openly about interrogations techniques he used in Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield, and other locations in Iraq through out 2004, which he admitted were torture. The techniques he used included the use of dogs, waterboarding and prolonged stress positions. At Al Asad Airfield, he witnessed prisoners being shackled and hung from an upright bed frame welded to the wall. Lagouranis says these techniques “take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple, at least for a period of time.” Lagouranis, who reported the detainee abuses, only participated in techniques that “were technically legal.” Lagouranis told one reporter, “I started realizing that most of the prisoners were innocent. We were torturing people for not reason. I started getting really angry and really remorseful and by the time I got back I completely broke down.”[13]
Joseph Polermo writes:
“They bombarded them with loud music for days at a time and kept them under fluorescent lights. Other practices included: ‘Harsh heat or cold, withholding food; hooding for days at a time; naked isolation in cold, dark cells for more than thirty days; and “stress positions” designed to subject detainees to rising levels of pain.”[14]
General Antonio M. Taguba’s report on the Abu Ghraib scandal found repeated instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” including:
“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall of his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”[15]
We all saw the pictures: the pyramids of naked bodies, the forced masturbation in front of female guards, the hooded figure with fake electrodes hooked to his finger tips, the smiling young girl with the snarling dog at leash’s end.
The lawyer of one of the enlisted men court marshaled because of the scandal complained of the absence of accountability up the command chain:
“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?” [16]
All told, seven soldiers were convicted for participating in the torture; one was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whatever the culpability of these grunt soldiers was, these soldiers were committed legally and culturally to a chain of command that did not take lightly unscripted departures from routine duties, explicit orders, and the military’s code of honor. The claim that the torture was but the act of “a few bad apples,” not only defies the overwhelming evidence that such conduct was endorsed, encouraged, and engineered with White House knowledge, but is also a completely unrealistic portrayal of the psychology of enlisted servicemen and women.
It turns out that the photos we all saw were staged by “contract interrogators” working for Titan Corporation, hired under the Rumsfeld Doctrine of privatized war. The photos were to be used as psychological intimidation tools in future interrogations.[17] The use of civilian contractors served to put another layer of insulation between the high command and the troops being blamed, as the civilian contractors are not accountable under the same chain of command as the M.P.’s who were court marshaled were.
The Dungeon Master and the Scapegoat
The highest-ranking military officer reprimanded because of the torture scandal was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the first female to ever command soldiers in a war zone-a fact that ought to be suspicious in and of itself.
Karpinski, who had never run a prison system, was given command of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, as Seymour Hersh points out, “like her, had not training in handling prisoners.”[18] She would eventually be demoted to Colonel because of the torture revelations.
When Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone got Two Star Major General Geoffrey Miller transferred from Guananamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, Miller told Karpinski that he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations. The M.P.’s, however, were under Karpinski’s command, whereas interrogators were answerable to the commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade.
Karpinski says, “I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that’s the location he selected.”[19] Essentially, Miller was going to misuse untrained M.P.s under someone else’s command to insulate himself from the legal consequences of torturing prisoners.
Miller focused his interrogation operation in Cell Blocks 1A of Abu Ghraib, which he put under the charge of Colonel Pappas. Meanwhile, General Sanchez, who was responsible for the entire Iraqi command ordered General Karpinski to Camp Victory near the Iranian border. Karpinski said, “He wanted me away from the situation. He wanted me away from the possibility of finding out about what was going on in interrogations. So he incrementally moved me farther away, took Abu Ghraib away from me, then moved me out of Baghdad completely.” When the scandal broke, however, it would be Karpinski who was targeted by the higher command to take the blame.[20]
Karpinski told journalist Amy Goodman about the first news she got of torture being conducted at her own prison:
About the situation at Abu Ghraib, I was first informed by an email that I received on classified-what they call “classified traffic.” I opened it up late one night on the 12th of January 2004. And it was from the commander of the Criminal Investigation Division. He sent me an email and said, “Ma’am, I just want to make you aware, I’m going into brief the C.G.,” meaning General Sanchez, “on the progress of the investigation at Abu Ghraib. This involves the allegations of abuse and the photographs.” That was the first I heard of it.
I did not receive that email or phone call or a message from General Sanchez himself, who would ultimately attempt to hold me fully responsible for this, but from the C.I.D. Commander. And I was alarmed at just that short email. I was not in Baghdad at the time. I was at another location very close to the Iranian border, so we made arrangements to leave at the crack of dawn to drive down to Abu Ghraib to see what we could find out about this ongoing investigation and went through the battalion over to Cell Block 1A. The people who would normally be working on any shift were not working. The sergeant that I spoke to said that their records had been seized by the investigators, and they started a new log to account for prisoners, make sure that their meals were on time, those kin of things, and he pointed out a memo that was posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. And the memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense…by Donald Rumsfeld. And said-it discussed interrogation techniques that were authorized. It was one page. It talked about stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those kind of techniques. But there was a handwritten note out to the side. And this was a copy. It was a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. But it was unusual that an interrogation memorandum would be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block.[21]
The handwritten note, in the same script as Rumsfeld’s signature, said: “Make sure this happens.” Essentially, Rumsfeld gave an order to Karpinski’s untrained M.P.s to apply “enhanced techniques” that were, at best, only to be applied by the trained “Intelligence Brigade” under a separate command. The order, however, was never passed through General Karpinski.
Rumsfeld, Feith, Cambone, and Miller had “Gitmo-ized” Abu-Ghraib and when they got caught, they blamed the first and only female war zone commander, who they had kept completely out of the loop. Karpinski confirmed that the M.P.s understood the memorandum to come from Rumsfeld, himself. Karpinski further explained that Rumsfeld had also ordered some prisoners to be held without a prisoner number or notation in the prisoner database-omissions which violate the Geneva Conventions. Karpinski says that on several occasions prisoners fell into this category of “ghost detainees.” According to the ACLU, there is documentary evidence that at least 21 detainees were murdered while in detention as a result of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but of course, we cannot know how many undocumented prisoners may have been murdered as well.[22]
Although Karpinski took responsibility for violating the Geneva Conventions in allowing ghost prisoners to be kept undocumented in the prison database, she says she also protested to the prison legal advisor, Colonel Warren, when one such prisoner, prisoner “Triple X,” was ordered by Rumsfeld to be held in secrecy: “It’s a violation. You have to put people on the database. And how much longer are we going to be held responsible for him? You take control of him. If you want to violate a Geneva Convention, that’s up to you, but I don’t want to keep him in one of our camps this way.”
Karpinski asserts that responsibility for the torturing that occurred at Abu Ghraib ought “to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation…” which Bush signed and that the M.P.s who were court marshaled were “unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Linddie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash.”[23]
The Department of Defense Investigates Itself; Bush Does Nothing
When the torture scandal broke in the Press, Rumsfeld appointed a four-person commission to investigate. All four members of the commission were members of the Defense Policy Board, the private advisory board that played an unprecedented role in influencing the decision to go to war and that assisted in the manipulation of evidence presented to the public and the United Nations about the dangers presented by Saddam Hussein. Two of the members of the investigative commission were also past Secretaries of Defense-part of the military-arms complex old-boy network unlikely to place blame on a fellow Secretary of Defense.
Predictably, the commission exonerated the three senior most senior officers responsible for prisoner interrogation, Rumsfeld, Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and Major General George Fay. Instead, the commission concluded that ‘freelancing’ guards on the night watch were responsible for the torture, not any effort orchestrated from higher up to collect more information from prisoners.[24] Human Rights Watch criticized the commission’s report for failing to look into the connection between the torture and Rumsfeld’s approval of interrogation techniques that intentionally used pain, humiliation and abuse of prisoners.”[25] Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman argues, “President Bush failed to ensure a full investigation and to see that the responsible parties, including higher-ups were held accountable. These failures are impeachable offenses.”[26]
Torture’s Lobbyist
Meanwhile, Congress decided that since President Bush did not seem to understand the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, it was necessary in 2005 to pass a new law, once more clearly outlawing torture. When the senate passed the McCain amendment banning torture by a definitive majority of 91 to 9, Cheney proved himself a national embarrassment by lobbying Senator McCain, hard to exempt the C.I.A. Of course, McCain is a man who had personally endured torture as a prisoner of war in the same Vietnam War, which as a young man Cheney promoted, but avoided serving in by obtaining numerous deferments.
Torture’s Anti-Democratic Authoritarian Puppet
When both houses passed the McCain amendment without Cheney’s exemption, President Bush added one of his over 1,000 signing statements to it, declaring that the act of signing the bill into law did not mean that he was legally bound to follow the new law. In this case, Bush used his signing statement to reserve the right to use torture if he thought it was necessary for national security.[27] Thus, after three iterations of an absolute prohibition against torture passed by the legislative branch and signed by the President-once in the ratification of the Geneva Conventions in 1955, again in the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, and a third time in the 2005 McCain anti-torture amendment-George W. Bush still persisted in his determination to use torture in defiance of the law.
Accountability in the White House
In the final assessment, we have Donald Rumsfeld signing memos authorizing violations of the Geneva Conventions and running out of the Pentagon a deliberate effort to expand interrogation techniques to include illegally cruel and degrading treatment specifically developed by the so-called “biscuit teams.” Under Rumsfeld, we have Doug Feith’s “Gestapo office,” in which Stephen Cambone orchestrates the transfer of Major General Miller to Abu Ghraib to get M.P.s outside Miller’s chain of command to assist in the use torture techniques in Iraq previously developed at the infamous Guantanemo Bay detention facility.
We have the pathologically authoritarian Vice President Dick Cheney declaring on national television just five days after the national trauma of the September 11th attacks, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side… without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies… any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”[28] Then after revelations of torture, murder, and perversion cause worldwide revulsion toward the United States and after congress passes a completely unnecessary third law to again outlaw torture, still Cheney continues to lobby obsessively the law’s author for an exception that would allow torture by the CIA to continue.
And finally, we have an incredibly juvenile and himself, psychologically manipulated puppet, president George W. Bush who takes up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[29] Then after the congress has passed the third and completely unnecessary prohibition against torture, Bush goes on to add to the law a signing statement declaring his intention to disregard the law whenever he sees fit.
We Want Our Humanity Represented!
After all these facts are reported in the press, still we have Nancy Pelosi saying, “Impeachment is off the table,” and “the American people want congress to get to work,” not to engage in “partisan struggles.” I beg to differ. The American people want a process for accountability when the President of the United States abuses the power and reputation the American people gave him to torture human beings in violation of three separate legal acts, not to mention the principle set forth in the 8th Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. The American people want their humanity represented and their humanity lies in the application of the democratic process that prevents elected leaders from abusing their power. Passing a law in congress has done nothing to stop Bush’s abuse of power. Getting “to work” is not what we, the people, elected a Democratic congress to do in 2006. We can get by without anti-flag burning amendments and new labels for DVDs. What we cannot do without is an impeachment of a president who willfully defies congress for the purpose of torturing human beings.
As the Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh says:
“If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”[30]
The balance of power in our democracy, however, is not defined by the law in and of itself, but by exercise of the law by those with a legal claim. Thus, under the Constitutional framework that supports our democracy, the limits of the commander-in-chief’s power are ultimately defined by the exercise of the right of impeachment. By failing to exercise the people’s legal claim against the vice president and president, Congress is letting the vice-president and president seize a despot’s hold over our humanity. This is not a moment in history for simply getting to work; it is the moment for dropping everything and making a stand for who we really are.
Hank Edson is an author, attorney, and activist located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His blog, “MP3 - My Politics and Progressive Perspective” can be found at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com
[1] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[2] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[3] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[4] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[5] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[6] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[7] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[8] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[9] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[10] Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, (New York, Simon & Schuster 2004), p. 292.
[11] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[12] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[13] Tara McKelvey, “We Were Torturing People For No Reason,” The International Herald Tribune, March 29, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/29/166.
[14] Joseph Palermo, “Bush’s Shame: From “Buscuit” Teams to PTSD,” CommonDreams.org, March 20, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-28.htm.
[15] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[16] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[17] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[18] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa-fact?printable=true.
[19] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[20] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[21] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[22] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[23] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[24] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[25] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[26] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[27] Phil Worden, “Has Bush Committed Impeachable Acts?,” The Bangor Daily News, April 30, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/875/print/
[28] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[29] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[30] “About John Yoo’s Torture Memo,” The National Lawyer’s Guild, Boalt Hall Chapter, http://nlg.boalt.org/Yoo.html.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don’t Apply to Him - CommonDreams.org
How remarkable. Bushco has authorized war under false intelligence, torture, spying on Americans, signing statements refusing to obey the law, unprecedented corporate corruption disguised as no-bid government contracts, refusal to obey the Bill of Rights including separation of church and state and freedom of the press.... the list goes on, but True is stunned by Cheney's latest: the rules do not apply to him.
Still, a guy who can shoot his pal with impunity, a guy who can trash gay rights even though his daughter is a lesbian, a guy who can plot against Americans who just might vote against him.... well, what else might we expect?
Declaration of being Emperor is just the next step.
Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don’t Apply to Him - CommonDreams.org
Still, a guy who can shoot his pal with impunity, a guy who can trash gay rights even though his daughter is a lesbian, a guy who can plot against Americans who just might vote against him.... well, what else might we expect?
Declaration of being Emperor is just the next step.
Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don’t Apply to Him - CommonDreams.org
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
This is IT, folks! Caging, the felony that stole the 2004 election. We already knew that Florida's Bushies backed by the Supremes stole 2000. What journalist will have the courage to publish this in the MSM?
No wonder they "lost" the emails. We know of the many high crimes and misdemeanors but only Monica Goodling has clued us in to how the election theft was managed.....
While the MSM agonizes over Rosie and American Idol, the truth is once again hidden. What will it take? Nuking Iran? Doubling troops in Iraq? Stealing Iraqi oil reserves while gouging us with gas prices? Torturing prisoners? Secret prisons? Spying on all of us in our homes, our castles?
What will it take for YOU to stand up and be counted, you shy Norwegians?
The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
By Greg Palast
BradBlog.com
Thursday 24 May 2007
And the no longer "missing" Rove emails revealing the cagey scheme to steal 2008...
This Monica revealed something hotter - much hotter - than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One.... And the Committee members didn't even know it.
Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.
Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"???
The perplexed committee members hadn't a clue - and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found "the keys to the kingdom," they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces.
The keys: the missing emails - and missing link - that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.
Kingdom enough for ya?
But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one.
Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.
Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.
The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and - you got to love this - American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.
Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation - and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.
How do I know? I have the caging lists...
I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them - sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.
Here's what you need to know - and the Committee would have discovered, if only they'd asked:
1. 'Caging' voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony. 2. Griffin wasn't "involved" in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove's right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It's in the email I got. Thanks. And it's posted above. 3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin', cagin' Griffin was named, on Rove's personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.
The committee was perplexed about Monica's panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That's because, as Griffin wrote to Goodling in yet another email (dated February 6 of this year, and posted here), their caging operation only made the news on BBC London: busted open, Griffin bitched, by that "British reporter," Greg Palast.
There's no pride in this. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.
And now, not bothering to understand the astonishing revelation in Goodling's confessional, they are missing the real story behind the firing of the US attorneys. It's not about removing prosecutors disloyal to Bush, it's about replacing those who refused to aid the theft of the vote in 2004 with those prepared to burgle it again in 2008.
Now that they have the keys, let's see if they can put them in the right door. The clock is ticking ladies and gents...
No wonder they "lost" the emails. We know of the many high crimes and misdemeanors but only Monica Goodling has clued us in to how the election theft was managed.....
While the MSM agonizes over Rosie and American Idol, the truth is once again hidden. What will it take? Nuking Iran? Doubling troops in Iraq? Stealing Iraqi oil reserves while gouging us with gas prices? Torturing prisoners? Secret prisons? Spying on all of us in our homes, our castles?
What will it take for YOU to stand up and be counted, you shy Norwegians?
The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
By Greg Palast
BradBlog.com
Thursday 24 May 2007
And the no longer "missing" Rove emails revealing the cagey scheme to steal 2008...
This Monica revealed something hotter - much hotter - than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One.... And the Committee members didn't even know it.
Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.
Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"???
The perplexed committee members hadn't a clue - and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found "the keys to the kingdom," they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces.
The keys: the missing emails - and missing link - that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.
Kingdom enough for ya?
But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one.
Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.
Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.
The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and - you got to love this - American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.
Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation - and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.
How do I know? I have the caging lists...
I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them - sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.
Here's what you need to know - and the Committee would have discovered, if only they'd asked:
1. 'Caging' voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony. 2. Griffin wasn't "involved" in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove's right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It's in the email I got. Thanks. And it's posted above. 3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin', cagin' Griffin was named, on Rove's personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.
The committee was perplexed about Monica's panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That's because, as Griffin wrote to Goodling in yet another email (dated February 6 of this year, and posted here), their caging operation only made the news on BBC London: busted open, Griffin bitched, by that "British reporter," Greg Palast.
There's no pride in this. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.
And now, not bothering to understand the astonishing revelation in Goodling's confessional, they are missing the real story behind the firing of the US attorneys. It's not about removing prosecutors disloyal to Bush, it's about replacing those who refused to aid the theft of the vote in 2004 with those prepared to burgle it again in 2008.
Now that they have the keys, let's see if they can put them in the right door. The clock is ticking ladies and gents...
Friday, May 25, 2007
We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Even though True predicted the Dems would cave, the pain remains just the same.... True's heart is broken, for those whose lives will be lost, who will be maimed in both body and spirit, and who will be totally innocent victims of the Iraq civil war.
Apparently the will of the American people is not subject to elections. Last November it was made perfectly clear: end the war in Iraq.
The Dems we elected caved. It is a dark day.
We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Apparently the will of the American people is not subject to elections. Last November it was made perfectly clear: end the war in Iraq.
The Dems we elected caved. It is a dark day.
We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Vote Alert: Dick Cheney Dems Plan to Hide Votes On Iraq - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Oh, Cook County,
The personal is the political.... please don't act like Pelosi and Hillary and just play along... please keep informed with articles like this excellent one:
Vote Alert: Dick Cheney Dems Plan to Hide Votes On Iraq - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
The personal is the political.... please don't act like Pelosi and Hillary and just play along... please keep informed with articles like this excellent one:
Vote Alert: Dick Cheney Dems Plan to Hide Votes On Iraq - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Democrats Cave on Timetable
True really really hates to say I told you so. What the hell did we elect these bozo Dems for? They are lily-livered cowards and just as beholden to special interests as the evil Repugs.
Some Americans and thousands of Iraqis will die because the Dems have no guts. Billions more will be spent that could better be applied to our desperate domestic needs. Hatred of our country will multiply without limits.
The people of the United States will .... what? Cave like those Deficient Dems? or, Just Say No to more evil, unjust, stupid war.....
With just the faintest hope from True
Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Democrats Cave on Timetable
Some Americans and thousands of Iraqis will die because the Dems have no guts. Billions more will be spent that could better be applied to our desperate domestic needs. Hatred of our country will multiply without limits.
The people of the United States will .... what? Cave like those Deficient Dems? or, Just Say No to more evil, unjust, stupid war.....
With just the faintest hope from True
Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Democrats Cave on Timetable
Sunday, May 20, 2007
GAO Says Homeland Security is Breaking Privacy Laws
What kind of country do we want to live in? I won't be flying to Hawaii like one of our luminous locals who found herself on the No-Fly list due to no fault of her own.
Well, I AM at fault in my unflagging criticism of this administration and its policies that increase terrorism and insecurity and death and dislocation and destruction and torture and hatred in our world. So, if I go, it will be across the border to Canada and I won't be coming back.
True
GAO Says Homeland Security is Breaking Privacy Laws
Well, I AM at fault in my unflagging criticism of this administration and its policies that increase terrorism and insecurity and death and dislocation and destruction and torture and hatred in our world. So, if I go, it will be across the border to Canada and I won't be coming back.
True
GAO Says Homeland Security is Breaking Privacy Laws
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The People's Emergency Funding Bill, and other anti-veto outrage
Today the president with all the symptoms of sociopathic personality disorder vetoed the limp and lame bill offered by Congress to fund his illegal, immoral and bloody war just because they suggested in a non-binding way that we might want to start to withdraw. This comes after his humongous hurbris and chutzpah in deciding to "surge" the troops when everybody else wanted to get out.
The agenda was written years ago by the American Reich (read: Rove, Cheney and the ultra-right, ultra-rich), which lets its toadie prez pull his cowboy maneuvers so that they can take over Iraq's oil fields. Yes, people, wake up: this bill requires Iraq to sign over its oil rights to us, it gives every penny asked for including the highly paid and unaccountable "shadow army" of mercenaries hired by Blackwater. Despite the fact that Iraqis and Americans alike want us to get out, that the 2006 elections showed an angry electorate wants us out, despite the fact that we never should have been there in the first place, despite the fact that sooner or later the American people will know what the rest of the world already knows: The president is the most hated guy on the planet. The MSM has done an exemplary job of not covering the issues, or the facts, about this war for oil or what the rest of the world thinks of us, which used to be considered part of statesmanship and diplomacy. These old-fashioned notions no longer apply because the Decider says he doesn't have meet with world leaders unless he feels like it, BUT he can give backrubs at state dinners if they are female.
So. What to do? United for Peace and Justice has some ideas. Seems like folks in Cook County just might be too embarrassed to stand on street corners and kick up a fuss. So, The People's Emergency Funding Bill is something easy, something anybody and everybody can do from the privacy of home.
Just download the "bill," then download addresses and fax numbers, then send the bill to the lawmakers who are apparently too cowed by the Decider to make laws.
True
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
* Join and help build an emergency veto action in your area. And it's not too late to organize an action! Click here for ideas.
* Write letters to the editors of your local news outlets.
* Call into local radio talk shows.
* Call the offices of your members of Congress.
* Show Congress what kind of funding bill YOU want them to pass!
Download and deliver ";The People's Emergency Funding Bill," by fax or in person, to your representative's and senators' local and Washington DC offices. (Click here to find their office addresses and fax numbers.)
The agenda was written years ago by the American Reich (read: Rove, Cheney and the ultra-right, ultra-rich), which lets its toadie prez pull his cowboy maneuvers so that they can take over Iraq's oil fields. Yes, people, wake up: this bill requires Iraq to sign over its oil rights to us, it gives every penny asked for including the highly paid and unaccountable "shadow army" of mercenaries hired by Blackwater. Despite the fact that Iraqis and Americans alike want us to get out, that the 2006 elections showed an angry electorate wants us out, despite the fact that we never should have been there in the first place, despite the fact that sooner or later the American people will know what the rest of the world already knows: The president is the most hated guy on the planet. The MSM has done an exemplary job of not covering the issues, or the facts, about this war for oil or what the rest of the world thinks of us, which used to be considered part of statesmanship and diplomacy. These old-fashioned notions no longer apply because the Decider says he doesn't have meet with world leaders unless he feels like it, BUT he can give backrubs at state dinners if they are female.
So. What to do? United for Peace and Justice has some ideas. Seems like folks in Cook County just might be too embarrassed to stand on street corners and kick up a fuss. So, The People's Emergency Funding Bill is something easy, something anybody and everybody can do from the privacy of home.
Just download the "bill," then download addresses and fax numbers, then send the bill to the lawmakers who are apparently too cowed by the Decider to make laws.
True
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
* Join and help build an emergency veto action in your area. And it's not too late to organize an action! Click here for ideas.
* Write letters to the editors of your local news outlets.
* Call into local radio talk shows.
* Call the offices of your members of Congress.
* Show Congress what kind of funding bill YOU want them to pass!
Download and deliver ";The People's Emergency Funding Bill," by fax or in person, to your representative's and senators' local and Washington DC offices. (Click here to find their office addresses and fax numbers.)
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable - washingtonpost.com
Here's a link to the WaPo story that Dems have already caved on the Iraq timetable. Pelosi and Reid say it isn't so, but the Post isn't backing down. But True thinks the Dems WILL cave, if they haven't already. They are mostly lily-livered polecats, who can't seem to stand on their feet without slipping on any issue from the 2006 elections. Make our Rep. Oberstar an exception; he is still standing, at least.
Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable - washingtonpost.com
Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable - washingtonpost.com
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Spell It Out: "I-M-P-E-A-C-H!"
After house speaker Nancy Pelosi chased her cat "Impeachment" off the table last fall, that sneaky little sucker has jumped back on, in a big way.
Oh, heck, we all know the crimes of Bush and Cheney against the American people, the Iraqi people, international human rights, and too many others to name, are impeachable. Even though the MSM has refused to report most of the evidence, it is well documented and readily available via Google searches. Poor old Tricky Dick Nixon was a cupcake compared to these birds. He opened the door to diplomatic relations with China; he lowered the highway speed limit to save energy. By today's far-reich standards he was a visionary following in the moderate reign of Dwight Eisenhower. Oh, so, he was paranoid, ya you betcha and Vietnam was a major blunder inspired by his rigid anti-Communist agenda. Lots of folks signed on to the Cold War paranoia in those days, including the still-revered Henry Kissinger who guided several administrations into stupid errors. But Dick wasn't guilty of high crimes and treason against the Constitution and humanity.
Local governments are signing on to the Impeachment Bandwagon. Today, April 28th, the people with their bodies are spelling out "Impeach" all over the place.
Read on:
Spell It Out: "I-M-P-E-A-C-H!
Oh, heck, we all know the crimes of Bush and Cheney against the American people, the Iraqi people, international human rights, and too many others to name, are impeachable. Even though the MSM has refused to report most of the evidence, it is well documented and readily available via Google searches. Poor old Tricky Dick Nixon was a cupcake compared to these birds. He opened the door to diplomatic relations with China; he lowered the highway speed limit to save energy. By today's far-reich standards he was a visionary following in the moderate reign of Dwight Eisenhower. Oh, so, he was paranoid, ya you betcha and Vietnam was a major blunder inspired by his rigid anti-Communist agenda. Lots of folks signed on to the Cold War paranoia in those days, including the still-revered Henry Kissinger who guided several administrations into stupid errors. But Dick wasn't guilty of high crimes and treason against the Constitution and humanity.
Local governments are signing on to the Impeachment Bandwagon. Today, April 28th, the people with their bodies are spelling out "Impeach" all over the place.
Read on:
Spell It Out: "I-M-P-E-A-C-H!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Army Extends Iraq Tours to 15 Months
Where is the rage? Who voted last November to get out of Iraq?
This administration has forged full speed aheads with its disastrous escalation. Who will hold it accountable? NOT the newly elected Congress, who has put Impeachment off the table. NOT the legislature who lack the gumption to stand up for what 2/3 of the American people want. Too bad it is not 3/4, the super-majority required to over-ride a veto. BUT, the one-third of fools who think they are pre-ordained by God to control the planet and also get chosen during Armageddon have, unfortunately, the power to prevent a peaceful resolution to this conflict and a mission of peaceful work in our troubled world.
Follow this link to ponder True's latest passionate urge toward activism for peace:
Army Extends Iraq Tours to 15 Months
This administration has forged full speed aheads with its disastrous escalation. Who will hold it accountable? NOT the newly elected Congress, who has put Impeachment off the table. NOT the legislature who lack the gumption to stand up for what 2/3 of the American people want. Too bad it is not 3/4, the super-majority required to over-ride a veto. BUT, the one-third of fools who think they are pre-ordained by God to control the planet and also get chosen during Armageddon have, unfortunately, the power to prevent a peaceful resolution to this conflict and a mission of peaceful work in our troubled world.
Follow this link to ponder True's latest passionate urge toward activism for peace:
Army Extends Iraq Tours to 15 Months
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Still Speaking My Piece!
First of all, mea culpa to Pastor Bill Christ; but to those of you who have yet to take the pledge, read on.
The New Year is off to a decidedly weird start – Anna Nicole, astronauts in diapers, Bush in denial (OK, not new, but still weird), mummified corpses watching TV in Long Island (what was on?), Alberto Gonzales saying there is no habeas corpus, Britney bald, and so much more… thank God we in Grand Marais are free from all this insanity!
Last fall the local electorate chose the path of common sense and threw out Mark Sandbo and Bob Spry by a 2 to 1 margin in a referendum on the marina, cronyism, corruption, and stupidity. Then, in early January, with a new mayor and one new councilman seated, the remnant of the old guard promptly rewarded Sandbo and Spry with seats on the EDA and PUC. One would have thought those commissions would be held in higher esteem.
This was followed by a definite bow to the clear wishes of the November electorate when the entire council opted to rid the city of the sorry partnership Sandbo had crafted with the DNR. Emboldened, the council decided to take a wait and see approach to any final decision on the East Box Sidewalk Snatch. All this, of course, was followed by an immediate storming of city hall by self proclaimed leaders of the business community who decried the council’s return to wisdom under the leadership of Evelyn Larsen.
This week, returning to the East Box Bollix, after a clear opinion from the Attorney General, a unanimous council delivered a more reasonable, if overly generous, agreement on pretty much the original terms crafted by city attorney Don Davison.
What do we get from all this? Well, those very same business leaders formed a new business organization, evidently dedicated to peace and love, and hell bent on dragging us all collectively back to the good old days when our city was run by the few, for the few. Holy herring! Get over it!
And now, last week, this farcical fish cake of a rump commerce klatch, though baked in Grand Marais, got some pro bono frosting from Schroeder, and it was, without a doubt, worth every penny. One can only marvel at the level to which lawyering has slipped in the West End.
True
The New Year is off to a decidedly weird start – Anna Nicole, astronauts in diapers, Bush in denial (OK, not new, but still weird), mummified corpses watching TV in Long Island (what was on?), Alberto Gonzales saying there is no habeas corpus, Britney bald, and so much more… thank God we in Grand Marais are free from all this insanity!
Last fall the local electorate chose the path of common sense and threw out Mark Sandbo and Bob Spry by a 2 to 1 margin in a referendum on the marina, cronyism, corruption, and stupidity. Then, in early January, with a new mayor and one new councilman seated, the remnant of the old guard promptly rewarded Sandbo and Spry with seats on the EDA and PUC. One would have thought those commissions would be held in higher esteem.
This was followed by a definite bow to the clear wishes of the November electorate when the entire council opted to rid the city of the sorry partnership Sandbo had crafted with the DNR. Emboldened, the council decided to take a wait and see approach to any final decision on the East Box Sidewalk Snatch. All this, of course, was followed by an immediate storming of city hall by self proclaimed leaders of the business community who decried the council’s return to wisdom under the leadership of Evelyn Larsen.
This week, returning to the East Box Bollix, after a clear opinion from the Attorney General, a unanimous council delivered a more reasonable, if overly generous, agreement on pretty much the original terms crafted by city attorney Don Davison.
What do we get from all this? Well, those very same business leaders formed a new business organization, evidently dedicated to peace and love, and hell bent on dragging us all collectively back to the good old days when our city was run by the few, for the few. Holy herring! Get over it!
And now, last week, this farcical fish cake of a rump commerce klatch, though baked in Grand Marais, got some pro bono frosting from Schroeder, and it was, without a doubt, worth every penny. One can only marvel at the level to which lawyering has slipped in the West End.
True
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The New City Council
The New City Council
During the Mayoral election, the story was that if Mark Sandbo was re-elected, it was tantamount to a clear mandate to install a mega-marina. Since Mr. Sandbo was defeated in a two-to-one decision, we may safely assume the mandate was not for the mega-marina but rather its opposite, a smaller marina that doesn't overwhelm the natural beauty of the harbor. Logically it follows that the former mega-marina plans with the DNR could be scrapped, something which this Council has done.
This autumn the DNR came up with what can only be described as a "chicken/cow trade" involving the swapping of over-harvested, insignificant, deep woods land in Hovland for prime land on the Gunflint Trail, a proposal which certainly (in my mind anyway) casts a sickly light on their judgement faculties. After that flirtation with insanity, I'd have to look askance at anything the DNR came up with and examine it with a fine-toothed comb.
As for the handicap ramp, the city has an attorney sitting on the Council not to warm the seat but to render valid legal opinion, but Mr. Sandbo over-rode the City Attorney's objections in several instances, such as his involvement in the sale of the East Bay Hotel. Also, Mr. Sandbo freely gave away city sidewalk which was not his to give. The current City Council is merely trying to redress the free gift of public property to a private concern, a violation of public trust. It is my understanding that the matter is now settled in accordance with the Minnesota Attorney General's recommendation.
The current City Council is presently doing mop-up. Give them time to settle in and do what the majority of citizens in Grand Marais elected them to do.
Pam Dorris
Lutsen
During the Mayoral election, the story was that if Mark Sandbo was re-elected, it was tantamount to a clear mandate to install a mega-marina. Since Mr. Sandbo was defeated in a two-to-one decision, we may safely assume the mandate was not for the mega-marina but rather its opposite, a smaller marina that doesn't overwhelm the natural beauty of the harbor. Logically it follows that the former mega-marina plans with the DNR could be scrapped, something which this Council has done.
This autumn the DNR came up with what can only be described as a "chicken/cow trade" involving the swapping of over-harvested, insignificant, deep woods land in Hovland for prime land on the Gunflint Trail, a proposal which certainly (in my mind anyway) casts a sickly light on their judgement faculties. After that flirtation with insanity, I'd have to look askance at anything the DNR came up with and examine it with a fine-toothed comb.
As for the handicap ramp, the city has an attorney sitting on the Council not to warm the seat but to render valid legal opinion, but Mr. Sandbo over-rode the City Attorney's objections in several instances, such as his involvement in the sale of the East Bay Hotel. Also, Mr. Sandbo freely gave away city sidewalk which was not his to give. The current City Council is merely trying to redress the free gift of public property to a private concern, a violation of public trust. It is my understanding that the matter is now settled in accordance with the Minnesota Attorney General's recommendation.
The current City Council is presently doing mop-up. Give them time to settle in and do what the majority of citizens in Grand Marais elected them to do.
Pam Dorris
Lutsen
David Swanson | What Lincoln Really Said
Here's what Abe Lincoln actually said about the role of the Legislature and the Executive in making war....
David Swanson | What Lincoln Really Said
David Swanson | What Lincoln Really Said
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Speaks on Iraq War Resolution
Read the text of Jim Oberstar's excellent speech on the Iraqi War Resolution being debated in Congress:
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Speaks on Iraq War Resolution
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Speaks on Iraq War Resolution
Monday, February 12, 2007
"Congress Decides" Letter Deliveries in Cook County?
Dear readers,
As a member of MoveOn.org, I want to pass this post along to Cook County residents. I of course wish to remain anonymous but perhaps some good soul will be willing to step up and coordinate an event for us here? Suggestion: just contact MoveOn at the link below and use boreal news to spread the word. Of course you can also send a gmail to me for posting.
Sincerely,
True North
Dear MoveOn member,
This week the House of Representatives is likely to condemn the president's plan to escalate the war. This will be an important first step—but it's only the beginning. Over the next few weeks, they'll be deciding how far they're willing to go to stop the president.
Next week, Congress is home for recess. It'll be our best chance to impact that decision. It's really important to keep the pressure up during this critical period—Congress is "the decider"—they can stop this escalation. They need to know that the public is counting on them to do that.
That's why we're organizing "Congress Decides" letter deliveries next Thursday, February 22nd. We'll join other MoveOn members and hand-deliver thousands of letters asking Congress to stop the escalation. We really need someone to step up to lead one in Grand Marais. Can you help?
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/create.html? action_id= 76&id= 9863-1732407-XqzC7Y5.ezMlOADN0GUSRA&t= 3
Leading an event is easy. The deliveries will happen around lunchtime outside of Congressional offices. We'll email other MoveOn members and invite them to attend. We'll provide the signs and we'll give you tips on reaching out to the media. Your job is to select a location to meet, register it with our online tool and then follow a few simple steps outlined in the organizing kit we'll send you.
This week, tens of thousands of MoveOn members are getting together at over 1,200 movie nights around the country to watch a powerful documentary about the human cost of war—The Ground Truth. After the movie, we'll write letters to Congress pushing them to take the next step and start bringing an end to this war.
At the event we're asking you to lead, folks will bring these letters and we'll send you hundreds more.
This is a big moment in the fight to end the war. There hasn't been so much concern about the direction of the war coming from so many people all over the country since it began. Hundreds of thousands of us are getting involved everyday and we have to keep the momentum going.
Stopping escalation is the way to get out of Iraq. If we can show Congress that Americans want escalation blocked, the only other option is a responsible exit.
It's important for our representatives to see the faces of Americans in their district who want to stop the escalation and end this war. Can you lead a letter delivery near you?
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/create.html? action_id= 76&id= 9863-1732407-XqzC7Y5.ezMlOADN0GUSRA&t= 4
Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Marc, Matt, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, February 12th, 2007
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
As a member of MoveOn.org, I want to pass this post along to Cook County residents. I of course wish to remain anonymous but perhaps some good soul will be willing to step up and coordinate an event for us here? Suggestion: just contact MoveOn at the link below and use boreal news to spread the word. Of course you can also send a gmail to me for posting.
Sincerely,
True North
Dear MoveOn member,
This week the House of Representatives is likely to condemn the president's plan to escalate the war. This will be an important first step—but it's only the beginning. Over the next few weeks, they'll be deciding how far they're willing to go to stop the president.
Next week, Congress is home for recess. It'll be our best chance to impact that decision. It's really important to keep the pressure up during this critical period—Congress is "the decider"—they can stop this escalation. They need to know that the public is counting on them to do that.
That's why we're organizing "Congress Decides" letter deliveries next Thursday, February 22nd. We'll join other MoveOn members and hand-deliver thousands of letters asking Congress to stop the escalation. We really need someone to step up to lead one in Grand Marais. Can you help?
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/create.html? action_id= 76&id= 9863-1732407-XqzC7Y5.ezMlOADN0GUSRA&t= 3
Leading an event is easy. The deliveries will happen around lunchtime outside of Congressional offices. We'll email other MoveOn members and invite them to attend. We'll provide the signs and we'll give you tips on reaching out to the media. Your job is to select a location to meet, register it with our online tool and then follow a few simple steps outlined in the organizing kit we'll send you.
This week, tens of thousands of MoveOn members are getting together at over 1,200 movie nights around the country to watch a powerful documentary about the human cost of war—The Ground Truth. After the movie, we'll write letters to Congress pushing them to take the next step and start bringing an end to this war.
At the event we're asking you to lead, folks will bring these letters and we'll send you hundreds more.
This is a big moment in the fight to end the war. There hasn't been so much concern about the direction of the war coming from so many people all over the country since it began. Hundreds of thousands of us are getting involved everyday and we have to keep the momentum going.
Stopping escalation is the way to get out of Iraq. If we can show Congress that Americans want escalation blocked, the only other option is a responsible exit.
It's important for our representatives to see the faces of Americans in their district who want to stop the escalation and end this war. Can you lead a letter delivery near you?
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/create.html? action_id= 76&id= 9863-1732407-XqzC7Y5.ezMlOADN0GUSRA&t= 4
Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Marc, Matt, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, February 12th, 2007
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Send $$$ to Shinners!
Here we go again!
The latest word in Grand Marais is that a certain element of the business community is organizing to thwart any plans to improve the present marina or to implement any of the findings of the visioning process. Allegedly, Shinners and Associates are collecting funds ($200 each contributor for a war chest) from various business owners to form an organization to stop the visioning process from affecting any of their plans for development, and to stop Harbor Friends from collecting the information that is needed to make rational, fact based decisions on the future of the marina.
The problem they have is that the visioning process, like Harbor Friends, has broad community support. The last election told the tale when Mark Sandbo and Bob Spry lost. Sandbo lost by a tremendous margin. The two of them lost mainly on the issues of downtown development (read the East Box, and the related condominium scams) and the marina issue, not to mention the strong smell of favoritism and self dealing.
Time will tell, but the people of Grand Marais spoke once and they will continue to speak in support of the new city council, in the support of development policies that strengthen and not destroy the city, and in support of the efforts of Harbor Friends’ dedicated, open and honest hard work to protect and improve the harbor.
So, if you want to protect the city center, the harbor, and the gains made in the last election, support the new mayor and city council. If, on the other hand, you want more East Boxes, and you want to destroy the harbor with a large marina, sign up with Shinners – and don’t forget the $200 entry fee. Make the check payable to cash.
True
The latest word in Grand Marais is that a certain element of the business community is organizing to thwart any plans to improve the present marina or to implement any of the findings of the visioning process. Allegedly, Shinners and Associates are collecting funds ($200 each contributor for a war chest) from various business owners to form an organization to stop the visioning process from affecting any of their plans for development, and to stop Harbor Friends from collecting the information that is needed to make rational, fact based decisions on the future of the marina.
The problem they have is that the visioning process, like Harbor Friends, has broad community support. The last election told the tale when Mark Sandbo and Bob Spry lost. Sandbo lost by a tremendous margin. The two of them lost mainly on the issues of downtown development (read the East Box, and the related condominium scams) and the marina issue, not to mention the strong smell of favoritism and self dealing.
Time will tell, but the people of Grand Marais spoke once and they will continue to speak in support of the new city council, in the support of development policies that strengthen and not destroy the city, and in support of the efforts of Harbor Friends’ dedicated, open and honest hard work to protect and improve the harbor.
So, if you want to protect the city center, the harbor, and the gains made in the last election, support the new mayor and city council. If, on the other hand, you want more East Boxes, and you want to destroy the harbor with a large marina, sign up with Shinners – and don’t forget the $200 entry fee. Make the check payable to cash.
True
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