A Call To Action
AlterNet
By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
Posted on July 8, 2005, Printed on July 14, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23440/
When the French government suggested a diplomatic initiative that might interfere with the White House agenda for war, the president responded by saying that the proposed scenario would "ratify terror." The date was July 24, 1964, the president was Lyndon Johnson, and the war was in Vietnam.
Four decades later, the anti-terror rationale is not just another argument for revving up the U.S. war machinery. Fighting "terror" is now the central rationale for war.
"The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their hearts that they will take the lives of innocent folks," President Bush said Thursday after the London bombings. "The war on terror goes on."
A key requirement of this righteous war is that all inconvenient history must be deemed irrelevant. "By accepting the facile cliché that the battle under way against terrorism is a battle against evil, by easily branding those who fight us as the barbarians, we, like them, refuse to acknowledge our own culpability," journalist Chris Hedges has observed. "We ignore real injustices that have led many of those arrayed against us to their rage and despair."
In the aftermath of 9/11, writer Joan Didion critiqued "the wearying enthusiasm for excoriating anyone who suggested that it could be useful to bring at least a minimal degree of historical reference to bear on the event." Overwhelmingly, politicians and pundits were quick to get in a groove of condemning any sensible assertions "that events have histories, political life has consequences, and the people who led this country and the people who wrote and spoke about the way this country was led were guilty of trying to infantilize its citizens if they continued to pretend otherwise."
Voices of reason, even when they've come from within the country's military establishment, have been shunted aside. In late November 2002, a retired U.S. Army general, William Odom, told C-SPAN viewers: "Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism. And it does whip up fear. Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few."
Two years after 9/11, Norman Mailer asked: "What does it profit us if we gain extreme security and lose our democracy? Not everyone in Iraq, after all, was getting their hands and/or their ears cut off by Saddam Hussein. In the middle of that society were hordes of Iraqis who had all the security they needed even if there was no freedom other than the full-fledged liberty offered by dictators to be free to speak with hyperbolic hosannas for the leader. So, yes, there are more important things to safeguard than security and one of them is to protect the much-beleaguered integrity of our democracy. The final question in these matters suggests itself. Can leaders who lie as a way of life protect any way of life?"
The president who lied his way into an invasion of Iraq is now exploiting Thursday's atrocities in London to justify U.S. policies that are bringing daily atrocities to Iraq. Bush is intent on sending a message to "the terrorists" by continuing the Pentagon's war effort.
The idea of communicating by killing is very familiar. There's nothing new about claiming to send a righteous message with bullets and bombs.
In his book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," former war correspondent Chris Hedges writes that he saw such transmissions up close: "Corpses in wartime often deliver messages. The death squads in El Salvador dumped three bodies in the parking lot of the Camino Real Hotel in San Salvador, where the journalists were based, early one morning. Death threats against us were stuffed in the mouths of the bodies." Hedges adds: "And, on a larger scale, Washington uses murder and corpses to transmit its wrath. We delivered such incendiary messages in Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden has learned to speak the language of modern industrial warfare."
And Hedges notes: "It was Robert McNamara, the American Secretary of Defense in the summer of 1965, who defined the bombing raids that would eventually leave hundreds of thousands of civilians north of Saigon dead as a means of communication to the Communist regime in Hanoi."
Forty years later, with a "war on terrorism" serving as the central theme of pro-war propaganda, the United States and its military allies are routinely sending lethal messages. It should not surprise us when such messages are returned to sender.
Norman Solomon’s latest book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” was just published.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/23440/
Friday, July 15, 2005
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Fw: Act now for fair and progressive taxation and needed revenue--FCNL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 3:58 PM
Subject: Act now for fair and progressive taxation and needed revenue--FCNL
What can the Senate leadership possibly be thinking? The Senate is
expected to consider eliminating the estate and gift tax later in July,
a tax cut that would primarily benefit only the wealthiest few. And,
they are considering this when:
* the federal debt is expected to keep growing as far as the eye can see;
* the Medicare trust fund is already facing huge deficits in the years
ahead;
* programs that serve the poor and protect the environment are facing
budget cuts;
* millions lack access to quality, affordable housing, health care,
child care and nutrition;
* and the costs of the ongoing wars are continuing to mount.
The House already passed this unwise and unfair legislation in April
(H.R. 8). Your voice is needed now to make sure the Senate does not
make the same mistake.
ACT NOW
Please contact your senators. Urge them to oppose repealing the estate
and gift tax or any so-called "compromise" that would
dramatically reduce estate and gift taxes for the wealthiest. Repealing
this tax would be unwise and unfair, further shifting the tax burden
from the wealthiest to working families.
FCNL makes it easy to contact your senators by allowing you to send a
message directly from our web site,
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/MPPYEWIJDI/CHSLEWIJYJ/ Be sure to
personalize the sample letter to include your own views. You may also
wish to describe how this tax cut would affect you and your community.
BACKGROUND
This is no time for Congress to be considering more tax cuts for the
wealthiest.
* The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the cost
of repealing the estate and gift tax would be $290 billion between 2006
and 2015. However, the cost of repeal would increase sharply after
2012. From 2012 to 2021, the cost would be almost $1 trillion when
additional interest on the national debt is factored in, according to
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
* Repealing the estate tax would benefit only a very small number of
very wealthy heirs – less than two percent. Today, estates
valued at less than $1.5 million are not taxed at all ($3 million for a
couple), and, by 2009, only the value of estates exceeding $3.5 million
will be taxed ($7 million for a couple) according to CBPP.
* If the 2009 exemption level ($3.5 million for individuals and $7.0
million for couples) were made permanent, by 2011, only an estimated
8,500 estates would be subject to the tax, affecting the estates of
only 0.3 percent of the number of people who are expected to die that
year, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy
Center and CBPP. This exemption level is sufficient to exclude almost
all small businesses and farms from any estate tax.
* The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal debt will grow
by $1 trillion over the next 10 years under current policies. Add the
anticipated costs of additional tax cut extensions, correcting the
alternative minimum tax, and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and the debt will grow $4.1 trillion by 2015, according to the CBPP.
* The Medicare Health Insurance trust fund paid out more than it
received in tax revenues beginning in 2004, according to the Social
Security Administration Trustees. Expenditures are expected to exceed
revenues at an accelerating rate of growth as far as the eye can see
unless Congress intervenes to raise revenues, cut benefits, or control
costs. The Social Security trust fund faces a similar future about 15
years from now.
* In the recently enacted congressional budget resolution for fiscal
year 2006 (FY06), Congress directed key authorizing committees to cut
mandatory spending by $35 billion over the next five years. Food stamps
and Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and elderly, are
being threatened with cuts, despite the fact that millions of eligible
poor still go hungry and lack quality, affordable health care.
* The FY06 budget resolution also calls for cutting funding for
domestic discretionary programs in FY06 by $13 billion below last
year’s levels (adjusted for inflation) and by a total of $158
billion between FY06 and FY10. According to the CBPP, pending FY06
appropriations bills would cut programs such as education for
low-income children, community service block grants, low-income home
energy assistance, job training, child care block grants, and state
grants to enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.
* Meanwhile, the U.S. has already spent more than $300 billion waging
the "war on terror," the war in Iraq, and associated
reconstruction and security measures. Congress has spent this money
while at the same time cutting taxes deeply. Under even the most
optimistic scenario, the future cost of the ongoing wars is likely to
exceed another $150 billion to $200 billion, according to a House
Budget Committee Democratic Staff study.
Where are fairness and compassion for the poor and most vulnerable in
this? Where is the fiscal prudence? When will Congress stop deferring
our country’s debts to future generations?
We at FCNL are concerned about the unprecedented disparity in income
and wealth between the rich and the poor today. We believe that the
wealthiest, those who have prospered the most from living in our
society, have the greatest responsibility to contribute to the common
good through a progressive tax structure. We also believe that Congress
has a responsibility to assure that there is sufficient revenue to
address pressing human needs and to meet social and environmental
challenges at home and abroad.
The estate and gift tax advances each of these values. It is fair, and
it provides much needed revenue. The value of most estates is well
below the taxable threshold, and the vast majority of the tax is paid
by a relatively few very wealthy estates.
This is no time for more tax cuts for the wealthiest. Repealing this
tax would reflect poor stewardship of the public trust and the common
good.
_______________________________________
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________________________________________
Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330We seek a world free of
war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.
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Scandal and Cover-Up, The Perfidy of Karl Rove
By Bruce Rosen
As Republican truth spinners reach new levels of absurdity in trying to defend the traitorous actions of Karl Rove, they have returned to a recurring mantra. Why, they ask, can’t the Democrats just accept the fact that they lost and stop attacking the Bush administration? The question I would ask of the Republicans is why don’t they want a frank and open discussion about the issues we all face and this administration’s record on them?
The Republicans seem to just want to focus on the political game. The election is over. We won. See you in four years. To be fair, they are very good at playing the political game. Some would argue that the Republicans push the envelope of propriety and legality in the way they conduct elections. They were caught in 1972 and paid the price. Instead of learning that there is a right and wrong way to conduct campaigns, the lesson they learned was to not get caught and when they are, to spin, stonewall, accuse and obfuscate. They have also spent thirty years attacking the mainstream press and creating their own right wing media machine to constantly pound home their talking points.
As good as the Republicans are at playing the electoral game, they have shown themselves to be completely incompetent at governing. So of course they just want to focus on politics rather than policy, on form rather than substance. It is perfectly legitimate and patriotic for those who disagree with the policies of this administration to forcefully state their opinions and the factual basis for them. The standard Republican response: spin, stonewall, accuse and obfuscate.
When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exposed the President’s lies about Iraq attempting to procure uranium from Africa, Karl Rove’s response was to attack Wilson and expose his wife, who was working undercover for the CIA, possibly putting her life at risk and ending her usefulness to the CIA. When Richard Clarke, who had served under every President since Ronald Reagan, exposed the fact that the present administration completely ignored multiple warnings about Osama bin Laden, instead focusing from the beginning on Iraq, Clarke was subjected to vicious character assassination from the right wing media machine and the highest members of the administration. The same could be said of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who was taken aback at his first Cabinet meeting in January of 2001 by the immediate focus on getting rid of Sadaam Hussein.
Character assassination and constant spin do not change the fact that over 1700 American soldiers have died in Iraq as a result of the lies of this administration and thousands more are maimed. The toll among innocent Iraqis is far higher. Now the war in Afghanistan, which has bi-partisan support, is heating up and we do not have the forces to effectively deal with it. Because of the needless war in Iraq, we can’t even allocate the troops to kill or capture bin Laden or his equally dangerous second in command, Ayman al Zawahari. It is not ranting to point out that the money wasted in Iraq could be better spent on properly protecting our ports, railways, airports, utilities and factories.
Republican crowing about their political prowess does not change the fact that under Bush, we have undermined global efforts to reverse global warming even though we are the worst transgressors. Bush has undermined environmental controls at factories, chemical and power plants, leading to higher levels of pollution.
Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the budget surplus left by Clinton has turned into record deficits, that our corporations are being bankrupted by the cost of health insurance and that more and more people can’t afford proper medical care? For many, the American Dream has become a nightmare and this administration has morphed into the bogeyman.
The election of 2004 was won for the Republicans by fear and lies. They convinced people to vote against their own interests by lying about John Kerry, lying about Sadaam Hussein and lying about their own actions. If Karl Rove had admitted in 2003 to being the one who betrayed a CIA agent, does anyone think Bush would have been reelected? Is there another source in addition to Rove who betrayed Wilson’s wife to Judith Miller of the NY Times? That would explain why she is in jail and Matt Cooper, the reporter from Time Magazine is not. Who is she protecting? Did the President or Vice-President discuss this with Rove? If so, they are complicit in a cover-up.
At best this nation is being run by incompetents, at worst by scoundrels. Either way they have turned us into a world pariah. It is the right and duty of Americans to expose the truth about our current leaders and strive to limit the damage caused by their reckless actions. Democratic opposition to this ethically bankrupt administration is based on love of this country and the principles we are supposed to stand for.
We have endured four and a half years of disastrous leadership. Given the peculiar reaction by the White House to the growing scandal and cover-up surrounding Karl Rove, it may well grow to envelop the President and Vice-President. It would not be surprising if one or both of them were involved in this from the beginning. If so, perhaps the Republican dominated Congress will have the opportunity to show the country whether lying about treason is as legitimate a reason for impeachment as is lying about sex. If they don’t, 2006 brings an opportunity for patriotic Americans to take back Congress. Given the Republican gerrymandering in recent years and the huge donations of those who have benefited from the irresponsible Bush tax cuts, that will not be easy. The one advantage that Democrats have is the truth. Don’t stop telling it!
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Fw: Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years later--FCNL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 5:28 PM
Subject: Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years later--FCNL
August 6 and 9 this year marks the 60th anniversary of the dropping of
the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Help you community to remember the hundreds of thousands of civilians
who lost their lives in the bombings and to say "never
again." Quaker meetings and churches, FCNL contacts, and peace
groups all over the country are putting together vigils and public
demonstrations. Organize or join an event in your community.
FCNL can help. Download and distribute the new FCNL flyer from our web
page at: www.fcnl.org/nuclear Include information about your local
events on the FCNL flyer, copy and distribute.
Remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a way to make
clear that such weapons cannot serve any reasonable purpose in society.
Yet, 60 years later, the U.S. government is still considering
developing new nuclear weapons, including a "bunker buster"
nuclear bomb that would be 70 times more powerful than the Hiroshima
bomb. Under current U.S. policy, nuclear weapons are still considered a
viable way of projecting U.S. military power and dealing with our
"enemies."
You can make a difference by saying "never again." So far
this year, tens of thousands of people have contacted their members of
Congress to oppose funding for the "bunker buster" nuclear
weapon. These emails and letters are having an effect. This spring the
House of Representatives rejected the idea of developing new nuclear
weapons. While the Senate supported such funding, it did so with fewer
votes than in previous years. The issue will be resolved in a
House-Senate conference committee in September. Ultimately, all funds
may be cut.
Meet your representative and senators in August: Members of Congress
will be on August recess July 30 through September 5. Attend local
public forums or organize a delegation to meet with your legislators
and discuss your concerns about U.S. nuclear weapons policies. Make
your appointments now to ensure the availability of your member of
Congress. For more information on how to organize a group, go to
www.fcnl.org/getin/resources/meet_congress.htm
_______________________________________
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Administration: http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/JZSIEWFBQN/EQLQEWFBWN/
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from this list, please see the end of this message.Subscribe to other
FCNL legislative, policy, and action alert lists:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/JZSIEWFBQN/FQNXEWFBWS/ Committee on
National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330We seek a world free of
war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.
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The real Rove scandal
A Call To Action
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-rscheer12jul12,0,7142498.column?coll=la-home-headlines
ROBERT SCHEER
Robert Scheer
July 12, 2005
If you can't shoot the messenger, take aim at his wife.
That clearly was the intent of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in leaking to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. To try to conceal the fact that the president had lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.
Rove's lawyer now says that Rove didn't break the law against naming covert agents because he didn't know Plame's name and therefore couldn't have revealed it. Perhaps he can use such a technicality in court, but in the meantime he should resign immediately — or be fired by the president — for leaking classified information, trying to smear Wilson and possibly endangering Plame's life.
"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "I trust they will follow through on this pledge."
The background on this story is crucial. Ambassador Wilson had been honored as a patriot by President George H.W. Bush for standing up to Saddam Hussein in a face-to-face confrontation in Baghdad on the eve of the Persian Gulf War. But in 2003, Wilson committed an unpardonable crime in the eyes of the second Bush White House. He exposed its lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
In 16 now infamous words in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, the president — desperate to gain support for an invasion he was dead set on initiating — tried to scare Americans into believing Iraq was close to making nuclear weapons. "The British government," he told the nation, "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But the key documents that the claim was based on had already been proved to be fakes, and other intelligence reports along these lines were extremely speculative.
In fact, it was a CIA-organized mission by Wilson to the African country of Niger (where he had served as ambassador) that determined the reports were false. Wilson was therefore shocked to hear the uranium claims in the president's speech. When he exposed the chicanery in a New York Times commentary, Wilson became a prime target for a White House smear job.
According to e-mails that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper sent to his editor (which were revealed by Newsweek over the weekend), Rove told Cooper that Wilson's devastating expose should be discounted because the Niger fact-finding trip had been authorized by Wilson's wife, who worked at the CIA.
This was three days before Robert Novak, citing two White House sources, outed Plame as a CIA agent in his column and put forward the same notion: that Wilson's information was suspect because the CIA had hired him on the advice of his wife.
In the end, though, what Rove's leak and Novak's column really exposed was the depravity of the administration's deliberate use of a false WMD threat and its willingness to go after anyone willing to tell the truth about it.
It's ironic that the expertise of this couple should be turned against them by a White House that has demonstrated nothing but incompetence in dealing with the WMD issue. But clearly truth and competence are virtues easily shed by the Bush administration in the pursuit of political advantage, even when this partisan game jeopardizes national security.
This is the most important issue raised by the Plame scandal. It has been unfortunately obscured by the secondary debate in the case: whether reporters should ever reveal their sources. Yet what the emerging Rove scandal demonstrates is the ease with which a wily top White House official can subvert the Bill of Rights' protection of the free press to serve the tawdriest of political ends.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
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latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-rscheer12jul12,0,7142498.column?coll=la-home-headlines
ROBERT SCHEER
Robert Scheer
July 12, 2005
If you can't shoot the messenger, take aim at his wife.
That clearly was the intent of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in leaking to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. To try to conceal the fact that the president had lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.
Rove's lawyer now says that Rove didn't break the law against naming covert agents because he didn't know Plame's name and therefore couldn't have revealed it. Perhaps he can use such a technicality in court, but in the meantime he should resign immediately — or be fired by the president — for leaking classified information, trying to smear Wilson and possibly endangering Plame's life.
"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "I trust they will follow through on this pledge."
The background on this story is crucial. Ambassador Wilson had been honored as a patriot by President George H.W. Bush for standing up to Saddam Hussein in a face-to-face confrontation in Baghdad on the eve of the Persian Gulf War. But in 2003, Wilson committed an unpardonable crime in the eyes of the second Bush White House. He exposed its lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
In 16 now infamous words in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, the president — desperate to gain support for an invasion he was dead set on initiating — tried to scare Americans into believing Iraq was close to making nuclear weapons. "The British government," he told the nation, "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But the key documents that the claim was based on had already been proved to be fakes, and other intelligence reports along these lines were extremely speculative.
In fact, it was a CIA-organized mission by Wilson to the African country of Niger (where he had served as ambassador) that determined the reports were false. Wilson was therefore shocked to hear the uranium claims in the president's speech. When he exposed the chicanery in a New York Times commentary, Wilson became a prime target for a White House smear job.
According to e-mails that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper sent to his editor (which were revealed by Newsweek over the weekend), Rove told Cooper that Wilson's devastating expose should be discounted because the Niger fact-finding trip had been authorized by Wilson's wife, who worked at the CIA.
This was three days before Robert Novak, citing two White House sources, outed Plame as a CIA agent in his column and put forward the same notion: that Wilson's information was suspect because the CIA had hired him on the advice of his wife.
In the end, though, what Rove's leak and Novak's column really exposed was the depravity of the administration's deliberate use of a false WMD threat and its willingness to go after anyone willing to tell the truth about it.
It's ironic that the expertise of this couple should be turned against them by a White House that has demonstrated nothing but incompetence in dealing with the WMD issue. But clearly truth and competence are virtues easily shed by the Bush administration in the pursuit of political advantage, even when this partisan game jeopardizes national security.
This is the most important issue raised by the Plame scandal. It has been unfortunately obscured by the secondary debate in the case: whether reporters should ever reveal their sources. Yet what the emerging Rove scandal demonstrates is the ease with which a wily top White House official can subvert the Bill of Rights' protection of the free press to serve the tawdriest of political ends.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
TMS Reprints
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Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
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July 11, 2005
White House Stonewalls on Rove Scandal
Another post on the Rove scandal from my Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com If you've seen it already please scroll down to other postings and don't forget to check out this site's advertisers.
I advise all students of political speech to read the transcript of the press briefing conducted by White House press secretary Scott McClellan today. It was a smorgasbord of stonewalling. He entered the White House press room at 1:00 p.m., his eyes darting about, and started off by reading a statement from President Bush on the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. Then the subject changed. Rather abruptly. Reporter after reporter asked McClellan about Karl Rove and the news--broken by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek--of a July 11, 2003 email written by Time's Matt Cooper that noted that Cooper had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." The email is proof that Rove leaked to a reporter information revealing the CIA employment of Valerie Plame (a.k.a. Valerie Wilson).
This puts Rove and the White House in a pickle. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, says that Rove did not mention Valerie Wilson's name to Cooper. But this is a rather thin defense. (I explain why here, and I also note why George W. Bush, if he takes his own rhetoric seriously, has no choice but to dismiss Rove.) But legal and criminal difficulties aside, the email is undeniable evidence that Rove leaked national security information to a journalist to discredit a critic (Joseph Wilson). How does that square with White House policy as it has been previously stated? Well, it doesn't. And the journalists in the White House press room knew that. Many had a list of previous McClellan statements at the ready. I was there, and I had a list, too. Here are some of the past White House statements I had collected.
On September 29, 2003, Scott McClellan said of the leak (which first appeared in a Bob Novak column on July 14, 2003):
That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No would be authorized to do such a thing.
Asked then about the allegation Rove had been involved in the leak, he said,
Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion....It is simply not true....And I have spoken with Karl Rove.
He also said that the White House would not stand for such conduct:
If anyone in this administration was involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration..
On October 1, 2003, McClellan reiterated the White House position:
The president certainly doesn't condone the leaking.
And he said of Rove:
I made it very clear that he didn't condone that kind of activity and was not involved in that kind of activity.
On October 7, McClellan noted that prior to previously telling the press that Rove and two other White House aides--National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams and Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby--were not involved in the leak, he had spoken to each of the three and determined they had not been part of the Plame/CIA leak:
I had no doubt of that...but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.
How could McClellan defend such a record? His strategy was clear: don't even try. When the reporters began firing Rove-related queries at him, he refused to answer any of them. The first query came from Terrence Hunt of Associated Press: Does Bush stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the Plame/CIA leak? McClellan replied that "while the [leak] investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it." Hunt tried again: "Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June 2004, the president said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak....And I just wanted to know, is that still his position."
McClellan would not say: "We're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation." He claimed that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had "expressed a preference to us" that the White House not comment on the matter. (I later called Fitzgerald's office and asked it to confirm whether Fitzgerald had made such a request. A spokeswoman for Fitzgerald said he would not have any comment regarding any part of the investigation. "Not even to back up what the White House said?" I asked. "No," she replied.)
Next up in the press room was John Roberts of CBS News. He asked if McClellan was contradicting himself since he had freely discussed the matter in the fall of 2003 when he claimed it was "ridiculous" to believe Rove had been involved in the leak. McClellan said, "I appreciate the question." (That was clearly not the truth.) He went on: "I remember very well what we previously said, and at some point would be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete."
NBC's David Gregory than piped up: "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" Again, McClellan went to Index Card No. 1: "this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to that investigation." Did McClellan stand by his previous statements? No answer. A frustrated (justifiably) Gregory noted, "Scott, I mean, just--I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?" McClellan: "There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time."
That was for sure. Other reporters took similar swings at McClellan. He just stood there, counting the minutes, perhaps silently trying to convince himself that he was in his happy place and that he was not being beaten into a pulp. One reporter asked when Fitzgerald had requested the Bush White House not to talk about the investigation. McClellan said the request came in the fall of 2003. A-ha, one reporter said; Bush spoke about the leak investigation in June 2004 and renewed his pledge to fire anyone involved. Had Bush violated the White House policy against speaking about the probe? "You have my response," McClellan said. Of course, the reporter did not.
Carl Cameron of Fox News asked if Bush continues "to have confidence in Mr. Rove?" McClellan wouldn't even touch this down-the-middle pitch: "Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this." And when another reporter asked McClellan to describe the importance of Rove to the Bush administration, he replied, "Do you have questions on another topic?"
By the time my turn came, I realized I was not going to be able to cause any crack in the wall. But I had to try, and I attempted to slightly redefine the issue. I noted,
There's a difference between commenting publicly on an action and taking action in response to it. Newsweek put out a story, an email saying that Karl Rove passed national security information on to a reporter that outed a CIA officer. Now, are you saying that the president is not taking any action in response to that? Because I presume that the prosecutor did not ask you not to take action, and that if he did, you still would not necessarily abide by that; that the president is free to respond to news reports, regardless of whether there's an investigation or not. So are you saying that he's not going to do anything about this until the investigation is fully over and done with?
In other words, how about forgetting the crime and focusing on the leak? He responded,
Well, I think the president has previously spoken to this. This continues to be an ongoing criminal investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States. And we're just not going to have more to say on it until that investigation is complete.
But Bush has not said what he intends to do about Rove now that there is public evidence that Rove leaked information on Valerie Wilson. (And if Bush wants to get to the bottom of this, shouldn't he just whistle Rove into his office and ask, "Karl, what gives?") So I pushed on:
But you acknowledge that he is free, as president of the United States, to take whatever action he wants to in response to a credible report that a member of his staff leaked information? He is free to take action if he wants to?
But there would be no such acknowledging. McClellan said,
Again, you're asking questions relating to an ongoing investigation, and I think I've responded to it.
He hadn't. But then why should my question receive special treatment this day.
Other Rove-related questions were hurled at him. He refused to touch a single one. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post took a stab as well:
Scott, I think you're [being] barraged[d] today in part because we -- it is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false. Now, are you concerned that in not setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?
McClellan showed no such concern:
Again, I'm going to be happy to talk about this at the appropriate time. Dana, you all -- you and everybody in this room, or most people in this room, I should say, know me very well and they know the type of person that I am. And I'm confident in our relationship that we have. But I will be glad to talk about this at the appropriate time, and that's once the investigation is complete.
Everybody in the room--and out of it--should review McClellan's exchange with the reporters to see how he and this White House do business. After what transpired, no reporter should take McClellan's word at face value (if they ever did). Moreover, the larger issue is not his--and Bush's--credibility, but the wrongdoing committed by a senior White House official and the apparent lack of a response from the White House. (And remember, Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer cited two unnamed senior Bush administration officials.) The White House is adopting a familiar media strategy: say nothing, don't fuel the story, wait for it to pass--and ignore the substance of the issue. Bush aides must be hoping that the media lose interest and are not provided any further reasons to headline this story. They are probably also hoping that the Democrats fail to create the sort of political storm that would compel journalists to continue to give the Rove scandal prominent play. Maybe their stonewall will hold. And what's the alternative? Tell the obvious truth and admit that Bush's most important adviser committed an act that Bush has said warrants dismissal? But what's the percentage in that? With McClellan providing no answers related to the Rove scandal, the question is whether the White House's we-can't-comment stance will allow it to dodge yet another troubling and inconvenient reality.
Posted by David Corn at July 11, 2005 09:12 PM
Comments
1
Have you ever compared the statements McClellan made with those of Ron Zeigler of the Nixon White House during the Watergate investigation? Where did stonewalling begin? And weren't Rumsfeld and Cheney "operatives" for the Nixon administration?
Posted by: gtash at July 11, 2005 09:51 PM
2
So what does the applicable law actually say? Does it limit the crime to naming specific names, or could it reasonably be interpreted to include revealing a specific identity?
If this is the straw they're grasping, it'll be a short story.
Posted by: emrys at July 11, 2005 09:51 PM
3
Democrats should pounce on this opportunity to agitate the Whitehouse with their own lame tactics. Why not get a bunch of senators and congresspeople to draft a letter and question the President about the loud, daily comments they made about the Newsweek Koran story WHILE there was an ongoing investigation of prisoner treatment? They really need to keep their mouths shut until the "appropriate" time, according to them. Who authorized the spin machine to talk to the press about Newsweek's report, when they now say the policy to talk about ANYTHING or ANYONE even remotely involved in an investigation is taboo in the extreme?
Posted by: johnd at July 11, 2005 10:02 PM
4
Is it just me, or is Scott McClellan using the exact same words as Robert Novack? He's trying to say in a patronly "all will be told in good time", like Novack did when asked why isn't he in jail, since he was the journalist who actually wrote the leak.
I think some plumber is working behind the scenes like mad to "fix" things with the prosecutor. What is happengin in the span of time they're making "no comment"?
I'm worried justice and truth will never be served regarding the entire Niger forgary/State of the Union speech/Wilson letter/Rove spinning/Plame outing mess. Meanwhile, Iraqis are dying by the dozens every few days for a war sold on lies.
Posted by: beth c at July 11, 2005 10:14 PM
5
Everybody knows that Rove did it directly or indirectly,including Bush, its his MO! The only task is smoking him out. The press should never give up on this for the good of the country. This adminstration is rotten to the top to bottom.
Posted by: Ned Cummings at July 11, 2005 10:15 PM
6
So Rove never "mentioned" Plames name:
By this logic, someone should be able to spin an imaginative tale about , oh, the eldest son of GHW Bush being a drug dealing child molestor or some other yarn and not be found guilty of any sort of personal defamation charges simply beacause his own name didn't "come up".
Ooooh- Kaaay!
Posted by: ardyjay at July 11, 2005 10:19 PM
7
Henry Waxman of California is demanding that Karl Rove testify before Congress. Stupid, stupid move. Until the criminal investigation is over, Congress should stay out of it regardless of the pleasure it would give us all to see Rove on the Congressional hot seat. I say this because this is exactly how Oliver North and John Poindexter got off in Iran-contra. They testified to criminal conduct (under some stupid immunity) and after they did that, Walsh (trying like hell) couldn't get a sturdy conviction because of what they testified to in front of Congress. So, if anyone lives in California, email Waxman and tell him to hold his water. Let Rove do the criminal walk before he does the Congressional walk. I think Bush & Co would welcome Rove testifying before Congress. Not truthfully, as I think we all know. But between Congress and Fitzgerald, I'd rather see him testify before Fitzgerald first. If that doesn't take, then he can testify before Congress. Let the criminal case go forward -- and if that doesn't work, then we bag his doughy ass!!
Posted by: Ellen at July 11, 2005 10:29 PM
8
Rove will get through this unscathed. He is far too important to Bush to be abandoned. But Miller and Novak deserve to be charged as criminals as well.
Here's a different take on their culpability:
Why Novak and Miller are CRIMINALS:
Best lines from this blog:
It was their responsibilty as journalists to inform the public that acts of treason were committed from within an admistration of a president for whom Americans were about to vote.
If the Plame case was about a child molester and not about treason would the public feel more outrage? Would reporters and Bush supporters think that Novak and Miller should spill the beans on the identity of their source had the source been a child molester?
Read the full blog:
HERE
Posted by: Reg at July 11, 2005 10:33 PM
9
Just wanted to say that I am in shock. After all this time and all the unanswered questions and unbelievable statements of this administration... FINALLY the press... reporters... asking questions... Real Questions.
Wow. This is a truly amazing event.
Maybe. Hopefully this may lead to other questions that have been avoided and ignored and left unspoken. Seriously. This is not RealTV... this is RealiTY. And there is a serious gap between what is true and what we see and are told to believe to be. This administration has NO Credibility.
Scotty proved it today.
Posted by: herenow at July 11, 2005 10:34 PM
10
David.
Why do you think the white house is going to come clean on this? Even if they are innocent? After taking down News week, CBS, Dan Rather for gosh sakes; how many writers do you think will be willing to get their 'necks chopped off' because they told the truth?
Whoops; sorrey; you're post 'White House Stonewalls on Rove Scandal' clearley shows that you have 'stones' and are not afraid to put them on the table.
I don't know about Rove; but you surley have earned my respect!
Wandy
Posted by: Andrew Wanielista at July 11, 2005 10:38 PM
11
You ask why Bush doesn't fire Rove, and how McClellan can weasle around, but you do not ask what is an obvious follow-on: was the effort to discredit Wilson known to and fully endorsed by Bush and his whole team, as a necessary step to continue and conceal their major long-term effort to fix the facts and intelligence around the policy? I bet Scott would say that's ridiculous. Reporters who admire Woodward and Bernstein should perhaps be admonished not to aim too low.
Doppler
Posted by: Doppler at July 11, 2005 10:40 PM
12
Look, if McClellan couldn't even answer Carl Cameron's softball, Scotty knows his fanny is toast up there on the podium. Whatever fantasy credibility he thought he had, it evaporated in that out-of-body experience we saw on the tube.
Posted by: Pam's House Blend at July 11, 2005 10:40 PM
13
If Scott McClellan were vertibrate, he would have placed Rove's head on one of those cute little spikes on the White House fence long ago. Unfortunately, he is performing the role of a super in a slum-row tentament.
Posted by: Walt The Man at July 11, 2005 10:55 PM
14
Hey, during the original "frog march" hub bub when Wilson had to sort of recant on his speculation that Rove was one of the two leakers, wasn't part of Rove's and others defense the claim that Novak's story was available to Bush's staff long before publication (like a day or more)?
Is anyone in the administration on the record stating they learned Plame's identity and her CIA "operative" status from Novak or a subsequent news report, but they talked about it a little earlier because they get the news before it goes to print?
The dates on Coopers emails should blow a wide hole in this re-constitution of time defense. If Rove told a reporter fully outside the administration that Wilson's wife worked on WMD issues in the agency, days before Novak's article was published, he most probably wouild have shared it with the rest of the President's senior staff, right?
Otherwise these folks who said they had no pre-Novak knowledge of Wilson's wife working at CIA had less info than reporters about this two day old Whitehouse talking point.
So which is it? Does Rove not trust them with the message, or did they retroactively invent a plausible early conduit of the knowledge that now seems silly seeing as their colleague Rove had known it for days? Who had the special meeting with ONLY Rove to inform him that Wilson's wife worked on WMD at the agency?
Did the other senior staff sleep in that day, or are they simply not to be trusted with Rove's double secret info that he freely dispenses to reporters?
Posted by: johnd at July 11, 2005 11:02 PM
15
jeez louise... well mr. corn, you're a fine writer and journalist, but you've milked this rove/plame action just about long enough in my opinion... even the whore mcMedia has caught up with you on this one.
I believe that it won't make a c-hairs difference if rove goes down or not, or even if bush went down for that matter. would any real issues get resolved? ie: 911,DSM,darfur,the ECONOMY,etc.? no they will not. it doesn't really matter who is the figure head, who is the vice figure head, or who is the secretary of socks...bushco are a collective, and they are all interchangeable/replaceable sock puppet whores.
Posted by: James Ha at July 11, 2005 11:25 PM
16
To have Rove fired or resign would be a great result here but we should not forget the second adminstration source!! If miller's source is Rove, she must have some damning evidence on him.
However, I think it it possible Miller has a different source whom the adminstration will give up Karl to save
Posted by: jmk at July 11, 2005 11:33 PM
17
There once was a weasel named Rove
For Bush's agenda he strove
Now Bush and McClellan are hiding the felon
and all three should wind up on the stove
Posted by: TomSongs at July 11, 2005 11:58 PM
18
Another interesting factoid is the source of some of the recent info: Attorneys for administration witnesses sympathetic to Bush. What's up with that? What would make them want to get Rove fully under the wheels of the bus?
Speculating further, notice that since Rove claims no knowledge of Plame's maiden name OR that her job status was classified, he also is removing ANY reason to keep conversations about Joe Wilson's wife having a hand in his trip to Niger close to his chest among other senior Bush staff. (or anyone for that matter)
His story seems to go that he was very tight lipped (super secret background?) about Wilson's wife with the press not because he was reluctant to out a known spy (he didn't know she was a spook, and didn't even know her name his lawyer maintains), but for some other reason. What reason Mr Luskin?
You say he HAD to combat spurious stories of Cheney hiring Wilson for Niger. If all he knew was that his nameless paper pusher wife at CIA nepotistically sent him on an excursion junket, why all the cloak and dagger super secret background, why not crow it from the steps of the Whitehouse?
If there are others on Bush's staff who are speculating and guessing Rove's going to testify that not only HE knew about Wilson's "unknown staus at CIA" wife and her hand in the Niger trip, but he's going to say THEY knew too, they know they will probably have to either back up his story that they all didn't know her maiden name and that she was covert, or possibly get snared in a trap that Rove himself at least thinks HE can wriggle out of.
Posted by: johnd at July 12, 2005 12:01 AM
19
Where is Jeff Gannon during all of this mess? Wasn't he one of the "leakers," too? Was his information garnered during his paid sexual liaisons in the White House? Did McClellan and Rove, and Dumya pump their "inside reporter?"
Remember, too, congresspeople wrote to the White House months ago, asking how Gannon/Guckert was allowed to happen, and there's been no response. These people just shut up and go on committing crimes, and the media are just letting it go on. However, today's Q&A in the press room shows there may be some signs of serious journalism returning to DC. We'll see.
BB
Posted by: Brendan O'Maidian at July 12, 2005 12:21 AM
20
The WH is stonewalling because the WH are masters of deflecting attention away from this regime. I believe that bush will remove a rabbit from his hollow head and divert attention to some kind of Pentagon terrorist act either in the USA or in some other country. Rover is not going down for his treasonous act. bush will bestow upon rover some kind of medal of honor for meritorious treason.
Posted by: Gerald at July 12, 2005 12:25 AM
21
Mr. David Corn,
Thank you for asking the questions. The lack of a straight answer says more than any words ever will. Has this WH finally found the lies catching up with them, I hope so.
You have been posting some real good stuff. Rove and this WH will only get away if you let them. I cannot count on any other with access as they have destroyed their credibility with five years of lap-dog WH talking points parrot speak.
I hope this misadministration is exposed. I assume this WH will fight the truth with all of the consolidated power they can muster. True of any administration as all have their skeletons in their closets.
The fact that the press has taken a swing at the truth is a good thing. I hope they are in for a long hard slog. Does the compliant "press corps" that has been absent for five years have the stamina and focus to "stay the course" in the pursuit of exposing the ugly truths? I worry they have no recent experience. Time will tell.
There is hope somewhere deep in my cynical, jaded heart when I know you can at least still ask the questions. I hope that never changes.
Thanks
Kirk
Posted by: capt at July 12, 2005 12:35 AM
22
What will be affirmed in the coming months is whether we are a nation that abides by the rule of law or the rule of man. Since the busheviks
*rule* in their own interest, it will probably be that the *rule of man* will prevail.
Because we do not know what other information Fitzgerald holds, it is impossible to know whether a jury would be likely to convict Rove of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- or as John Dean suggests, violating the Espionage Act. But based on what we do know, assuming the accuracy of the leaked email, Fitzgerald appears to have a convincing prima facia case for seeking an indictment against Rove.
Man oh man, I am so sick of hearing that Rove claims neither to have known nor used Valeria Plame's name. THAT is irrelevant! Ask any good attorney. Also, Rove apparently claims never to have asked Cooper to publish the information -- THAT is irrelevant, too.
Posted by: micki at July 12, 2005 12:36 AM
23
Eack time a relevant question is asked the hearts of the people leap up. Each time it is ignored or spun or met with a lie the anger of the people grows. Thank you David, for all that you do.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Posted by: Art Durand AKA Whitebear at July 12, 2005 12:39 AM
24
Oh, BTW, David, I saw you on C-Span today! Way to go! Even though you were one of many being stonewalled!
Keep up the good work!
I was pleased to see that Terry Moran used the word "stonewall" on ABC News tonight.
Posted by: micki at July 12, 2005 12:40 AM
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July 11, 2005
White House Stonewalls on Rove Scandal
Another post on the Rove scandal from my Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com If you've seen it already please scroll down to other postings and don't forget to check out this site's advertisers.
I advise all students of political speech to read the transcript of the press briefing conducted by White House press secretary Scott McClellan today. It was a smorgasbord of stonewalling. He entered the White House press room at 1:00 p.m., his eyes darting about, and started off by reading a statement from President Bush on the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. Then the subject changed. Rather abruptly. Reporter after reporter asked McClellan about Karl Rove and the news--broken by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek--of a July 11, 2003 email written by Time's Matt Cooper that noted that Cooper had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." The email is proof that Rove leaked to a reporter information revealing the CIA employment of Valerie Plame (a.k.a. Valerie Wilson).
This puts Rove and the White House in a pickle. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, says that Rove did not mention Valerie Wilson's name to Cooper. But this is a rather thin defense. (I explain why here, and I also note why George W. Bush, if he takes his own rhetoric seriously, has no choice but to dismiss Rove.) But legal and criminal difficulties aside, the email is undeniable evidence that Rove leaked national security information to a journalist to discredit a critic (Joseph Wilson). How does that square with White House policy as it has been previously stated? Well, it doesn't. And the journalists in the White House press room knew that. Many had a list of previous McClellan statements at the ready. I was there, and I had a list, too. Here are some of the past White House statements I had collected.
On September 29, 2003, Scott McClellan said of the leak (which first appeared in a Bob Novak column on July 14, 2003):
That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No would be authorized to do such a thing.
Asked then about the allegation Rove had been involved in the leak, he said,
Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion....It is simply not true....And I have spoken with Karl Rove.
He also said that the White House would not stand for such conduct:
If anyone in this administration was involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration..
On October 1, 2003, McClellan reiterated the White House position:
The president certainly doesn't condone the leaking.
And he said of Rove:
I made it very clear that he didn't condone that kind of activity and was not involved in that kind of activity.
On October 7, McClellan noted that prior to previously telling the press that Rove and two other White House aides--National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams and Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby--were not involved in the leak, he had spoken to each of the three and determined they had not been part of the Plame/CIA leak:
I had no doubt of that...but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.
How could McClellan defend such a record? His strategy was clear: don't even try. When the reporters began firing Rove-related queries at him, he refused to answer any of them. The first query came from Terrence Hunt of Associated Press: Does Bush stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the Plame/CIA leak? McClellan replied that "while the [leak] investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it." Hunt tried again: "Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June 2004, the president said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak....And I just wanted to know, is that still his position."
McClellan would not say: "We're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation." He claimed that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had "expressed a preference to us" that the White House not comment on the matter. (I later called Fitzgerald's office and asked it to confirm whether Fitzgerald had made such a request. A spokeswoman for Fitzgerald said he would not have any comment regarding any part of the investigation. "Not even to back up what the White House said?" I asked. "No," she replied.)
Next up in the press room was John Roberts of CBS News. He asked if McClellan was contradicting himself since he had freely discussed the matter in the fall of 2003 when he claimed it was "ridiculous" to believe Rove had been involved in the leak. McClellan said, "I appreciate the question." (That was clearly not the truth.) He went on: "I remember very well what we previously said, and at some point would be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete."
NBC's David Gregory than piped up: "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" Again, McClellan went to Index Card No. 1: "this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to that investigation." Did McClellan stand by his previous statements? No answer. A frustrated (justifiably) Gregory noted, "Scott, I mean, just--I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?" McClellan: "There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time."
That was for sure. Other reporters took similar swings at McClellan. He just stood there, counting the minutes, perhaps silently trying to convince himself that he was in his happy place and that he was not being beaten into a pulp. One reporter asked when Fitzgerald had requested the Bush White House not to talk about the investigation. McClellan said the request came in the fall of 2003. A-ha, one reporter said; Bush spoke about the leak investigation in June 2004 and renewed his pledge to fire anyone involved. Had Bush violated the White House policy against speaking about the probe? "You have my response," McClellan said. Of course, the reporter did not.
Carl Cameron of Fox News asked if Bush continues "to have confidence in Mr. Rove?" McClellan wouldn't even touch this down-the-middle pitch: "Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this." And when another reporter asked McClellan to describe the importance of Rove to the Bush administration, he replied, "Do you have questions on another topic?"
By the time my turn came, I realized I was not going to be able to cause any crack in the wall. But I had to try, and I attempted to slightly redefine the issue. I noted,
There's a difference between commenting publicly on an action and taking action in response to it. Newsweek put out a story, an email saying that Karl Rove passed national security information on to a reporter that outed a CIA officer. Now, are you saying that the president is not taking any action in response to that? Because I presume that the prosecutor did not ask you not to take action, and that if he did, you still would not necessarily abide by that; that the president is free to respond to news reports, regardless of whether there's an investigation or not. So are you saying that he's not going to do anything about this until the investigation is fully over and done with?
In other words, how about forgetting the crime and focusing on the leak? He responded,
Well, I think the president has previously spoken to this. This continues to be an ongoing criminal investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States. And we're just not going to have more to say on it until that investigation is complete.
But Bush has not said what he intends to do about Rove now that there is public evidence that Rove leaked information on Valerie Wilson. (And if Bush wants to get to the bottom of this, shouldn't he just whistle Rove into his office and ask, "Karl, what gives?") So I pushed on:
But you acknowledge that he is free, as president of the United States, to take whatever action he wants to in response to a credible report that a member of his staff leaked information? He is free to take action if he wants to?
But there would be no such acknowledging. McClellan said,
Again, you're asking questions relating to an ongoing investigation, and I think I've responded to it.
He hadn't. But then why should my question receive special treatment this day.
Other Rove-related questions were hurled at him. He refused to touch a single one. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post took a stab as well:
Scott, I think you're [being] barraged[d] today in part because we -- it is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false. Now, are you concerned that in not setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?
McClellan showed no such concern:
Again, I'm going to be happy to talk about this at the appropriate time. Dana, you all -- you and everybody in this room, or most people in this room, I should say, know me very well and they know the type of person that I am. And I'm confident in our relationship that we have. But I will be glad to talk about this at the appropriate time, and that's once the investigation is complete.
Everybody in the room--and out of it--should review McClellan's exchange with the reporters to see how he and this White House do business. After what transpired, no reporter should take McClellan's word at face value (if they ever did). Moreover, the larger issue is not his--and Bush's--credibility, but the wrongdoing committed by a senior White House official and the apparent lack of a response from the White House. (And remember, Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer cited two unnamed senior Bush administration officials.) The White House is adopting a familiar media strategy: say nothing, don't fuel the story, wait for it to pass--and ignore the substance of the issue. Bush aides must be hoping that the media lose interest and are not provided any further reasons to headline this story. They are probably also hoping that the Democrats fail to create the sort of political storm that would compel journalists to continue to give the Rove scandal prominent play. Maybe their stonewall will hold. And what's the alternative? Tell the obvious truth and admit that Bush's most important adviser committed an act that Bush has said warrants dismissal? But what's the percentage in that? With McClellan providing no answers related to the Rove scandal, the question is whether the White House's we-can't-comment stance will allow it to dodge yet another troubling and inconvenient reality.
Posted by David Corn at July 11, 2005 09:12 PM
Comments
1
Have you ever compared the statements McClellan made with those of Ron Zeigler of the Nixon White House during the Watergate investigation? Where did stonewalling begin? And weren't Rumsfeld and Cheney "operatives" for the Nixon administration?
Posted by: gtash at July 11, 2005 09:51 PM
2
So what does the applicable law actually say? Does it limit the crime to naming specific names, or could it reasonably be interpreted to include revealing a specific identity?
If this is the straw they're grasping, it'll be a short story.
Posted by: emrys at July 11, 2005 09:51 PM
3
Democrats should pounce on this opportunity to agitate the Whitehouse with their own lame tactics. Why not get a bunch of senators and congresspeople to draft a letter and question the President about the loud, daily comments they made about the Newsweek Koran story WHILE there was an ongoing investigation of prisoner treatment? They really need to keep their mouths shut until the "appropriate" time, according to them. Who authorized the spin machine to talk to the press about Newsweek's report, when they now say the policy to talk about ANYTHING or ANYONE even remotely involved in an investigation is taboo in the extreme?
Posted by: johnd at July 11, 2005 10:02 PM
4
Is it just me, or is Scott McClellan using the exact same words as Robert Novack? He's trying to say in a patronly "all will be told in good time", like Novack did when asked why isn't he in jail, since he was the journalist who actually wrote the leak.
I think some plumber is working behind the scenes like mad to "fix" things with the prosecutor. What is happengin in the span of time they're making "no comment"?
I'm worried justice and truth will never be served regarding the entire Niger forgary/State of the Union speech/Wilson letter/Rove spinning/Plame outing mess. Meanwhile, Iraqis are dying by the dozens every few days for a war sold on lies.
Posted by: beth c at July 11, 2005 10:14 PM
5
Everybody knows that Rove did it directly or indirectly,including Bush, its his MO! The only task is smoking him out. The press should never give up on this for the good of the country. This adminstration is rotten to the top to bottom.
Posted by: Ned Cummings at July 11, 2005 10:15 PM
6
So Rove never "mentioned" Plames name:
By this logic, someone should be able to spin an imaginative tale about , oh, the eldest son of GHW Bush being a drug dealing child molestor or some other yarn and not be found guilty of any sort of personal defamation charges simply beacause his own name didn't "come up".
Ooooh- Kaaay!
Posted by: ardyjay at July 11, 2005 10:19 PM
7
Henry Waxman of California is demanding that Karl Rove testify before Congress. Stupid, stupid move. Until the criminal investigation is over, Congress should stay out of it regardless of the pleasure it would give us all to see Rove on the Congressional hot seat. I say this because this is exactly how Oliver North and John Poindexter got off in Iran-contra. They testified to criminal conduct (under some stupid immunity) and after they did that, Walsh (trying like hell) couldn't get a sturdy conviction because of what they testified to in front of Congress. So, if anyone lives in California, email Waxman and tell him to hold his water. Let Rove do the criminal walk before he does the Congressional walk. I think Bush & Co would welcome Rove testifying before Congress. Not truthfully, as I think we all know. But between Congress and Fitzgerald, I'd rather see him testify before Fitzgerald first. If that doesn't take, then he can testify before Congress. Let the criminal case go forward -- and if that doesn't work, then we bag his doughy ass!!
Posted by: Ellen at July 11, 2005 10:29 PM
8
Rove will get through this unscathed. He is far too important to Bush to be abandoned. But Miller and Novak deserve to be charged as criminals as well.
Here's a different take on their culpability:
Why Novak and Miller are CRIMINALS:
Best lines from this blog:
It was their responsibilty as journalists to inform the public that acts of treason were committed from within an admistration of a president for whom Americans were about to vote.
If the Plame case was about a child molester and not about treason would the public feel more outrage? Would reporters and Bush supporters think that Novak and Miller should spill the beans on the identity of their source had the source been a child molester?
Read the full blog:
HERE
Posted by: Reg at July 11, 2005 10:33 PM
9
Just wanted to say that I am in shock. After all this time and all the unanswered questions and unbelievable statements of this administration... FINALLY the press... reporters... asking questions... Real Questions.
Wow. This is a truly amazing event.
Maybe. Hopefully this may lead to other questions that have been avoided and ignored and left unspoken. Seriously. This is not RealTV... this is RealiTY. And there is a serious gap between what is true and what we see and are told to believe to be. This administration has NO Credibility.
Scotty proved it today.
Posted by: herenow at July 11, 2005 10:34 PM
10
David.
Why do you think the white house is going to come clean on this? Even if they are innocent? After taking down News week, CBS, Dan Rather for gosh sakes; how many writers do you think will be willing to get their 'necks chopped off' because they told the truth?
Whoops; sorrey; you're post 'White House Stonewalls on Rove Scandal' clearley shows that you have 'stones' and are not afraid to put them on the table.
I don't know about Rove; but you surley have earned my respect!
Wandy
Posted by: Andrew Wanielista at July 11, 2005 10:38 PM
11
You ask why Bush doesn't fire Rove, and how McClellan can weasle around, but you do not ask what is an obvious follow-on: was the effort to discredit Wilson known to and fully endorsed by Bush and his whole team, as a necessary step to continue and conceal their major long-term effort to fix the facts and intelligence around the policy? I bet Scott would say that's ridiculous. Reporters who admire Woodward and Bernstein should perhaps be admonished not to aim too low.
Doppler
Posted by: Doppler at July 11, 2005 10:40 PM
12
Look, if McClellan couldn't even answer Carl Cameron's softball, Scotty knows his fanny is toast up there on the podium. Whatever fantasy credibility he thought he had, it evaporated in that out-of-body experience we saw on the tube.
Posted by: Pam's House Blend at July 11, 2005 10:40 PM
13
If Scott McClellan were vertibrate, he would have placed Rove's head on one of those cute little spikes on the White House fence long ago. Unfortunately, he is performing the role of a super in a slum-row tentament.
Posted by: Walt The Man at July 11, 2005 10:55 PM
14
Hey, during the original "frog march" hub bub when Wilson had to sort of recant on his speculation that Rove was one of the two leakers, wasn't part of Rove's and others defense the claim that Novak's story was available to Bush's staff long before publication (like a day or more)?
Is anyone in the administration on the record stating they learned Plame's identity and her CIA "operative" status from Novak or a subsequent news report, but they talked about it a little earlier because they get the news before it goes to print?
The dates on Coopers emails should blow a wide hole in this re-constitution of time defense. If Rove told a reporter fully outside the administration that Wilson's wife worked on WMD issues in the agency, days before Novak's article was published, he most probably wouild have shared it with the rest of the President's senior staff, right?
Otherwise these folks who said they had no pre-Novak knowledge of Wilson's wife working at CIA had less info than reporters about this two day old Whitehouse talking point.
So which is it? Does Rove not trust them with the message, or did they retroactively invent a plausible early conduit of the knowledge that now seems silly seeing as their colleague Rove had known it for days? Who had the special meeting with ONLY Rove to inform him that Wilson's wife worked on WMD at the agency?
Did the other senior staff sleep in that day, or are they simply not to be trusted with Rove's double secret info that he freely dispenses to reporters?
Posted by: johnd at July 11, 2005 11:02 PM
15
jeez louise... well mr. corn, you're a fine writer and journalist, but you've milked this rove/plame action just about long enough in my opinion... even the whore mcMedia has caught up with you on this one.
I believe that it won't make a c-hairs difference if rove goes down or not, or even if bush went down for that matter. would any real issues get resolved? ie: 911,DSM,darfur,the ECONOMY,etc.? no they will not. it doesn't really matter who is the figure head, who is the vice figure head, or who is the secretary of socks...bushco are a collective, and they are all interchangeable/replaceable sock puppet whores.
Posted by: James Ha at July 11, 2005 11:25 PM
16
To have Rove fired or resign would be a great result here but we should not forget the second adminstration source!! If miller's source is Rove, she must have some damning evidence on him.
However, I think it it possible Miller has a different source whom the adminstration will give up Karl to save
Posted by: jmk at July 11, 2005 11:33 PM
17
There once was a weasel named Rove
For Bush's agenda he strove
Now Bush and McClellan are hiding the felon
and all three should wind up on the stove
Posted by: TomSongs at July 11, 2005 11:58 PM
18
Another interesting factoid is the source of some of the recent info: Attorneys for administration witnesses sympathetic to Bush. What's up with that? What would make them want to get Rove fully under the wheels of the bus?
Speculating further, notice that since Rove claims no knowledge of Plame's maiden name OR that her job status was classified, he also is removing ANY reason to keep conversations about Joe Wilson's wife having a hand in his trip to Niger close to his chest among other senior Bush staff. (or anyone for that matter)
His story seems to go that he was very tight lipped (super secret background?) about Wilson's wife with the press not because he was reluctant to out a known spy (he didn't know she was a spook, and didn't even know her name his lawyer maintains), but for some other reason. What reason Mr Luskin?
You say he HAD to combat spurious stories of Cheney hiring Wilson for Niger. If all he knew was that his nameless paper pusher wife at CIA nepotistically sent him on an excursion junket, why all the cloak and dagger super secret background, why not crow it from the steps of the Whitehouse?
If there are others on Bush's staff who are speculating and guessing Rove's going to testify that not only HE knew about Wilson's "unknown staus at CIA" wife and her hand in the Niger trip, but he's going to say THEY knew too, they know they will probably have to either back up his story that they all didn't know her maiden name and that she was covert, or possibly get snared in a trap that Rove himself at least thinks HE can wriggle out of.
Posted by: johnd at July 12, 2005 12:01 AM
19
Where is Jeff Gannon during all of this mess? Wasn't he one of the "leakers," too? Was his information garnered during his paid sexual liaisons in the White House? Did McClellan and Rove, and Dumya pump their "inside reporter?"
Remember, too, congresspeople wrote to the White House months ago, asking how Gannon/Guckert was allowed to happen, and there's been no response. These people just shut up and go on committing crimes, and the media are just letting it go on. However, today's Q&A in the press room shows there may be some signs of serious journalism returning to DC. We'll see.
BB
Posted by: Brendan O'Maidian at July 12, 2005 12:21 AM
20
The WH is stonewalling because the WH are masters of deflecting attention away from this regime. I believe that bush will remove a rabbit from his hollow head and divert attention to some kind of Pentagon terrorist act either in the USA or in some other country. Rover is not going down for his treasonous act. bush will bestow upon rover some kind of medal of honor for meritorious treason.
Posted by: Gerald at July 12, 2005 12:25 AM
21
Mr. David Corn,
Thank you for asking the questions. The lack of a straight answer says more than any words ever will. Has this WH finally found the lies catching up with them, I hope so.
You have been posting some real good stuff. Rove and this WH will only get away if you let them. I cannot count on any other with access as they have destroyed their credibility with five years of lap-dog WH talking points parrot speak.
I hope this misadministration is exposed. I assume this WH will fight the truth with all of the consolidated power they can muster. True of any administration as all have their skeletons in their closets.
The fact that the press has taken a swing at the truth is a good thing. I hope they are in for a long hard slog. Does the compliant "press corps" that has been absent for five years have the stamina and focus to "stay the course" in the pursuit of exposing the ugly truths? I worry they have no recent experience. Time will tell.
There is hope somewhere deep in my cynical, jaded heart when I know you can at least still ask the questions. I hope that never changes.
Thanks
Kirk
Posted by: capt at July 12, 2005 12:35 AM
22
What will be affirmed in the coming months is whether we are a nation that abides by the rule of law or the rule of man. Since the busheviks
*rule* in their own interest, it will probably be that the *rule of man* will prevail.
Because we do not know what other information Fitzgerald holds, it is impossible to know whether a jury would be likely to convict Rove of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- or as John Dean suggests, violating the Espionage Act. But based on what we do know, assuming the accuracy of the leaked email, Fitzgerald appears to have a convincing prima facia case for seeking an indictment against Rove.
Man oh man, I am so sick of hearing that Rove claims neither to have known nor used Valeria Plame's name. THAT is irrelevant! Ask any good attorney. Also, Rove apparently claims never to have asked Cooper to publish the information -- THAT is irrelevant, too.
Posted by: micki at July 12, 2005 12:36 AM
23
Eack time a relevant question is asked the hearts of the people leap up. Each time it is ignored or spun or met with a lie the anger of the people grows. Thank you David, for all that you do.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Posted by: Art Durand AKA Whitebear at July 12, 2005 12:39 AM
24
Oh, BTW, David, I saw you on C-Span today! Way to go! Even though you were one of many being stonewalled!
Keep up the good work!
I was pleased to see that Terry Moran used the word "stonewall" on ABC News tonight.
Posted by: micki at July 12, 2005 12:40 AM
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Saturday, July 09, 2005
Oh Baby, It's Drafty Out There
A Call To Action
AlterNet
By Frida Berrigan, AlterNet
Posted on July 5, 2005, Printed on July 9, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23308/
"Feeling a draft?" asks the Village Voice.
"Talk of a draft is chilling," intones The New York Times.
Even fashion magazines weigh in: "Could Cosmo girl get drafted?"
In city streets, town squares and rural strip malls, military recruiters are beleaguered. The Army is unable to meet recruiting targets even after lowering quotas and standards. At the same time, recruiters are overwhelmed by scandal and scrutiny, and uncomfortable in the face of growing anti-war sentiment.
Though half a world away, the war in Iraq feels close. Mounting U.S. casualties, exhausted soldiers and an intractable civil conflict in which the only thing different factions agree on is that U.S. soldiers are the problem, make military service increasingly unattractive to even the most gung-ho patriot. Meanwhile, Washington is determined to "stay the course" right over the brink.
J.E. McNeil, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War, is preparing for the worst. She sees a "perfect storm" of conditions brewing a return to the draft. So far, more than one million U.S. military personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. An estimated 341,000 soldiers have done double deployments (and many are now entering their third deployment). And they are not just serving, they are dying. More than 1,700 have been killed, and an average of two more soldiers die each day.
Recruiting Nightmares
For more and more young people, joining the military doesn't mean "Be all you can be," it means going to war. And the Army is feeling the chill.
Major General Michael Rochelle, Army Recruiting Commander, worries that the war and other military commitments present the "toughest challenge to the all-volunteer army" since its inception in 1973. Staff Sergeant Spurgeon M. Shelly, a recruiter, complains how tough recruiting is. "I will hear 'No' more times in one day than a child would hear in their entire childhood. If I had hair, I would pull it out."
He signed up four recruits in six months, putting him way below his quota of two recruits per month.
Recruiters are hiding police records, mental illness and physical ailments to make their quotas. An Army investigation into recruitment improprieties found 1,118 incidents involving one in five recruiters. The Army substantiated 320 of these cases in 2004, up from 213 in 2002 and 199 in 1999. Recruiters and some senior army officers admit that for every documented impropriety, there are at least two more that are never discovered. "We have to play fast and loose with the rules just to get by," one recruiter told The New York Times.
Another recruiter laments, "The only people who want to join the Army now have issues; they're troubled, with health, police or drug problems."
After a dismal record of missed quotas each month throughout the spring, the Army stalled on releasing enlistment data for May. Finally in mid-June, the Army reported achieving 75 percent of its monthly recruiting goal of 6,700. But the Army did not attract more recruits; it moved the goal posts, lowering its May target from 8,050 new recruits, asserting it would make up the difference this summer.
Furthest From Our Thoughts?
The Pentagon and the President promise that the draft is a thing of the past. "The D-word is the farthest thing from my thoughts," Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army, told a Washington Post reporter in March, laughing.
The Pentagon's position is that a professional all-volunteer army performs better, has higher morale and is less costly to train. Last October, President Bush was adamant on the question, saying, "I want every American to understand that, as long as I am President, there will be no draft."
The Nixon administration retired the military draft in 1973, but mandatory registration of men at the age of 18 was reinstituted in 1980 under President Carter, and today the Selective Service System has 13.5 million men ages 18-25 registered.
McNeil's perspective that the draft is creeping back is strengthened by recent announcements by Selective Service that it can now register and draft healthcare workers, computer specialists, linguists and other personnel if necessary. In March, the SSS issued a report notifying the President that "it would be ready to implement a draft within 75 days" following Congressional authorization. While spokesman Richard Flahavan says the steps are "strictly in the planning stages," and the report was part of the SSS' annual budget request, these moves agitate fears of a returning draft.
Military expert David Segal believes that a new military conscription policy would galvanize an anti-draft movement that would dwarf that of the 1960s. The expectation that the draft would rouse a complacent populace into a powerful and mainstream anti-war movement fuels the draft-watch fixation of websites like Nodraftnoway.org, Stopthedraft.com and Draftfreedom.org.
The Wrong Question
But, for many in the counter-recruitment movement, "Is the draft coming back?" is the wrong question.
Marti Hiken, co-chair of the Military Law Taskforce, does not see the draft on the far-off horizon; she sees it as existing reality for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
There is the "poverty draft" of young people who are told the military is their only path to a career; the "backdoor draft" of the Stop-Loss program which mandates soldiers stay in active duty for up to 24 months after their contracts have expired; "the senior draft" in which reservists (who make up 40 percent of the fighting force in Iraq) are compelled back into active military service; and finally, there is the "secret draft" of mercenaries and private military contractors.
For Hiken, worrying about the draft is an abstraction compared to the havoc wreaked by these real but covert forms of compulsory service.
For every covert draft, Hiken sees grassroots groups countering and gaining traction. A lot of the energy is focused on the outrages of Stop-Loss, which has been legally challenged eight times so far. One suit, brought by Emiliano Santiago in Oregon, climbed to the Supreme Court before it was rejected and Santiago was shipped off to Afghanistan to re-join his unit. Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) championed Santiago's case, saying on the floor of the House, "Santiago's plight should be known and feared by every high school junior and senior across the country. The ugly little secret in the Pentagon is that Emiliano Santiago's voluntary service is involuntary."
Hiken says that even though Santiago lost his case, the ruling "fanned the fires of counter-recruitment work," and made people "think twice before signing up for the military," playing a "critical role in lowering enlistment levels."
Another case, on behalf of soldier David W. Qualls and seven John Does, was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C in December and is still in the motions phase. Overall, Hiken says, "I have not seen a grassroots movement like the one we have now. In every community people are fighting."
Military Unwelcome
Rick Jahnkow, an organizer with the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft, thinks more people should be joining those fights rather than wringing their hands about a possible draft.
The longtime counter-recruitment activist says it's not "a total waste of time to talk about the draft," but he is quick to add that it is not enough.
"We have to reverse the militarization of school, campus and society," says Jahnkow, listing "military recruitment, the poverty draft, the militarization of curriculum through Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (J-ROTC)" as important targets. He worries that young people's acculturation to the military will make a future draft easier. "We need to undermine and delegitimize those programs, make them unwelcome," he says.
That is exactly what people are doing in communities around the country.
Kevin Ramirez, an organizer with Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, catalogues recent actions making the military very unwelcome in schools and on campuses.
At Seattle Central Community College in January, "students literally chased Army recruiters off campus." The following month, college students in New Haven tabling with counter-recruitment materials "received so much positive attention from other students" that the military recruiters packed up their tables and left. In Bloomington, Minnesota, Ramirez continues, a high school group fought their administration and the American Legion to allow "counter-recruitment tables and information" equal access to their school and they won.
The movement against Stop-Loss, counter-recruitment actions, young people organizing to get the military out of their schools, and the ongoing work to end the war and bring the troops home resonates today and tomorrow, whether or not President Bush asks Congress to vote to reinstate the draft. These movements sustain hope and save lives, while hinting at what a de-militarized United States would look like. These movements prove that we don't have to wait for a draft to have an impact.
Frida Berrigan serves on the National Committee of the War Resisters League.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/23308/
AlterNet
By Frida Berrigan, AlterNet
Posted on July 5, 2005, Printed on July 9, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23308/
"Feeling a draft?" asks the Village Voice.
"Talk of a draft is chilling," intones The New York Times.
Even fashion magazines weigh in: "Could Cosmo girl get drafted?"
In city streets, town squares and rural strip malls, military recruiters are beleaguered. The Army is unable to meet recruiting targets even after lowering quotas and standards. At the same time, recruiters are overwhelmed by scandal and scrutiny, and uncomfortable in the face of growing anti-war sentiment.
Though half a world away, the war in Iraq feels close. Mounting U.S. casualties, exhausted soldiers and an intractable civil conflict in which the only thing different factions agree on is that U.S. soldiers are the problem, make military service increasingly unattractive to even the most gung-ho patriot. Meanwhile, Washington is determined to "stay the course" right over the brink.
J.E. McNeil, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War, is preparing for the worst. She sees a "perfect storm" of conditions brewing a return to the draft. So far, more than one million U.S. military personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. An estimated 341,000 soldiers have done double deployments (and many are now entering their third deployment). And they are not just serving, they are dying. More than 1,700 have been killed, and an average of two more soldiers die each day.
Recruiting Nightmares
For more and more young people, joining the military doesn't mean "Be all you can be," it means going to war. And the Army is feeling the chill.
Major General Michael Rochelle, Army Recruiting Commander, worries that the war and other military commitments present the "toughest challenge to the all-volunteer army" since its inception in 1973. Staff Sergeant Spurgeon M. Shelly, a recruiter, complains how tough recruiting is. "I will hear 'No' more times in one day than a child would hear in their entire childhood. If I had hair, I would pull it out."
He signed up four recruits in six months, putting him way below his quota of two recruits per month.
Recruiters are hiding police records, mental illness and physical ailments to make their quotas. An Army investigation into recruitment improprieties found 1,118 incidents involving one in five recruiters. The Army substantiated 320 of these cases in 2004, up from 213 in 2002 and 199 in 1999. Recruiters and some senior army officers admit that for every documented impropriety, there are at least two more that are never discovered. "We have to play fast and loose with the rules just to get by," one recruiter told The New York Times.
Another recruiter laments, "The only people who want to join the Army now have issues; they're troubled, with health, police or drug problems."
After a dismal record of missed quotas each month throughout the spring, the Army stalled on releasing enlistment data for May. Finally in mid-June, the Army reported achieving 75 percent of its monthly recruiting goal of 6,700. But the Army did not attract more recruits; it moved the goal posts, lowering its May target from 8,050 new recruits, asserting it would make up the difference this summer.
Furthest From Our Thoughts?
The Pentagon and the President promise that the draft is a thing of the past. "The D-word is the farthest thing from my thoughts," Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army, told a Washington Post reporter in March, laughing.
The Pentagon's position is that a professional all-volunteer army performs better, has higher morale and is less costly to train. Last October, President Bush was adamant on the question, saying, "I want every American to understand that, as long as I am President, there will be no draft."
The Nixon administration retired the military draft in 1973, but mandatory registration of men at the age of 18 was reinstituted in 1980 under President Carter, and today the Selective Service System has 13.5 million men ages 18-25 registered.
McNeil's perspective that the draft is creeping back is strengthened by recent announcements by Selective Service that it can now register and draft healthcare workers, computer specialists, linguists and other personnel if necessary. In March, the SSS issued a report notifying the President that "it would be ready to implement a draft within 75 days" following Congressional authorization. While spokesman Richard Flahavan says the steps are "strictly in the planning stages," and the report was part of the SSS' annual budget request, these moves agitate fears of a returning draft.
Military expert David Segal believes that a new military conscription policy would galvanize an anti-draft movement that would dwarf that of the 1960s. The expectation that the draft would rouse a complacent populace into a powerful and mainstream anti-war movement fuels the draft-watch fixation of websites like Nodraftnoway.org, Stopthedraft.com and Draftfreedom.org.
The Wrong Question
But, for many in the counter-recruitment movement, "Is the draft coming back?" is the wrong question.
Marti Hiken, co-chair of the Military Law Taskforce, does not see the draft on the far-off horizon; she sees it as existing reality for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
There is the "poverty draft" of young people who are told the military is their only path to a career; the "backdoor draft" of the Stop-Loss program which mandates soldiers stay in active duty for up to 24 months after their contracts have expired; "the senior draft" in which reservists (who make up 40 percent of the fighting force in Iraq) are compelled back into active military service; and finally, there is the "secret draft" of mercenaries and private military contractors.
For Hiken, worrying about the draft is an abstraction compared to the havoc wreaked by these real but covert forms of compulsory service.
For every covert draft, Hiken sees grassroots groups countering and gaining traction. A lot of the energy is focused on the outrages of Stop-Loss, which has been legally challenged eight times so far. One suit, brought by Emiliano Santiago in Oregon, climbed to the Supreme Court before it was rejected and Santiago was shipped off to Afghanistan to re-join his unit. Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) championed Santiago's case, saying on the floor of the House, "Santiago's plight should be known and feared by every high school junior and senior across the country. The ugly little secret in the Pentagon is that Emiliano Santiago's voluntary service is involuntary."
Hiken says that even though Santiago lost his case, the ruling "fanned the fires of counter-recruitment work," and made people "think twice before signing up for the military," playing a "critical role in lowering enlistment levels."
Another case, on behalf of soldier David W. Qualls and seven John Does, was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C in December and is still in the motions phase. Overall, Hiken says, "I have not seen a grassroots movement like the one we have now. In every community people are fighting."
Military Unwelcome
Rick Jahnkow, an organizer with the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft, thinks more people should be joining those fights rather than wringing their hands about a possible draft.
The longtime counter-recruitment activist says it's not "a total waste of time to talk about the draft," but he is quick to add that it is not enough.
"We have to reverse the militarization of school, campus and society," says Jahnkow, listing "military recruitment, the poverty draft, the militarization of curriculum through Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (J-ROTC)" as important targets. He worries that young people's acculturation to the military will make a future draft easier. "We need to undermine and delegitimize those programs, make them unwelcome," he says.
That is exactly what people are doing in communities around the country.
Kevin Ramirez, an organizer with Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, catalogues recent actions making the military very unwelcome in schools and on campuses.
At Seattle Central Community College in January, "students literally chased Army recruiters off campus." The following month, college students in New Haven tabling with counter-recruitment materials "received so much positive attention from other students" that the military recruiters packed up their tables and left. In Bloomington, Minnesota, Ramirez continues, a high school group fought their administration and the American Legion to allow "counter-recruitment tables and information" equal access to their school and they won.
The movement against Stop-Loss, counter-recruitment actions, young people organizing to get the military out of their schools, and the ongoing work to end the war and bring the troops home resonates today and tomorrow, whether or not President Bush asks Congress to vote to reinstate the draft. These movements sustain hope and save lives, while hinting at what a de-militarized United States would look like. These movements prove that we don't have to wait for a draft to have an impact.
Frida Berrigan serves on the National Committee of the War Resisters League.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/23308/
India and Pakistan's Code of Dishonor
A Call To Action
The New York Times
July 10, 2005
By SALMAN RUSHDIE
IN honor-and-shame cultures like those of India and Pakistan, male honor resides in the sexual probity of women, and the "shaming" of women dishonors all men. So it is that five men of Pakistan's powerful Mastoi tribe were disgracefully acquitted of raping a villager named Mukhtar Mai three years ago. Theirs was an "honor rape," intended to punish a relative of Ms. Mukhtar for having been seen with a Matsoi woman. The acquittals have now been suspended by the Pakistan Supreme Court, and there is finally a chance that this courageous woman may gain some measure of redress for her violation.
Pakistan, however, has little to be proud of. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that there were 320 reported rapes in the first nine months of last year, and 350 reported gang rapes in the same period. The number of unreported rapes is believed to be much larger. The victim pressed charges in only one-third of the reported cases, and a mere 39 arrests were made. The use of rape in tribal disputes has become, one might say, normal. And the belief that a raped woman's best recourse is to kill herself remains widespread and deeply ingrained.
For every Mukhtar Mai there are dozens of such suicides. Nor is courage any guarantee of getting justice, as the case of Shazia Khalid shows. Dr. Khalid was raped last year in the province of Baluchistan by security personnel at the hospital where she worked. A Pakistani tribunal failed to convict anyone of the crime.
Dr. Khalid says that she was subsequently "threatened so many times" that she was forced to flee Pakistan. "I was hounded out," she says, expressing dissatisfaction that the government neither brought her attackers to justice nor protected her from the threats that followed.
That is the same government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, that confiscated Mukhtar Mai's passport because it feared she would go abroad and say things that would bring Pakistan into disrepute; and it is the same government that has allied with the West in the war on terrorism, but seems quite prepared to allow a war of sexual terror to be waged against its female citizens.
Now comes even worse news. Whatever Pakistan can do, India, it seems, can trump. The so-called Imrana case, in which a Muslim woman from a village in northern India says she was raped by her father-in-law, has brought forth a ruling from the powerful Islamist seminary Darul-Uloom ordering her to leave her husband because as a result of the rape she has become "haram" (unclean) for him. "It does not matter," a Deobandi cleric has stated, "if it was consensual or forced."
Darul-Uloom, in the village of Deoband 90 miles north of Delhi, is the birthplace of the ultra-conservative Deobandi cult, in whose madrassas the Taliban were trained. It teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere in the world today. In one fatwa it suggested that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Not only the Taliban but also the assassins of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were followers of Deobandi teachings.
Darul-Uloom's rigid interpretations of Shariah law are notorious, and immensely influential - so much so that the victim, Imrana, a woman under unimaginable pressure, has said she will abide by the seminary's decision in spite of the widespread outcry in India against it. An innocent woman, she will leave her husband because of his father's crime.
Why does a mere seminary have the power to issue such judgments? The answer lies in the strange anomaly that is the Muslim personal law system - a parallel legal system for Indian Muslims, which leaves women like Imrana at the mercy of the mullahs. Such is the historical confusion on this vexed subject that anyone who suggests that a democratic country should have a single, unified legal system is accused of being anti-Muslim and in favor of the hardline Hindu nationalists.
In the 1980's, a divorced woman named Shah Bano was granted "maintenance money" by the Indian Supreme Court. But there is no alimony under Islamic law, so orthodox Indian Islamists like those at Darul-Uloom protested that this ruling infringed the Muslim Personal Law, and they founded the All-India Muslim Law Board to mount protests. The government caved in, passing a bill denying alimony to divorced Muslim women. Ever since Shah Bano, Indian politicians have not dared to challenge the power of Islamist clerical grandees.
In the Imrana case, the All-India Muslim Law Board has unsurprisingly backed the Darul-Uloom decision, though many other Muslim and non-Muslim organizations and individuals have denounced it. Shockingly, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has also backed the Darul-Uloom fatwa. "The decision of the Muslim religious leaders in the Imrana case must have been taken after a lot of thought," he told reporters in Lucknow. "The religious leaders are all very learned and they understand the Muslim community and its sentiments."
This is a craven statement. The "culture" of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honor and shame. Thanks to that code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law must do what it can.
In Pakistan, the Supreme Court has taken one small but significant step in the matter of Mukhtar Mai; now it is for the police and politicians to start pursuing rapists instead of hounding their victims. As for India, at the risk of being called a communalist, I must agree that any country that claims to be a modern, secular democracy must secularize and unify its legal system, and take power over women's lives away, once and for all, from medievalist institutions like Darul-Uloom.
Salman Rushdie is the author of "The Satanic Verses" and the forthcoming "Shalimar the Clown."
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times
The New York Times
July 10, 2005
By SALMAN RUSHDIE
IN honor-and-shame cultures like those of India and Pakistan, male honor resides in the sexual probity of women, and the "shaming" of women dishonors all men. So it is that five men of Pakistan's powerful Mastoi tribe were disgracefully acquitted of raping a villager named Mukhtar Mai three years ago. Theirs was an "honor rape," intended to punish a relative of Ms. Mukhtar for having been seen with a Matsoi woman. The acquittals have now been suspended by the Pakistan Supreme Court, and there is finally a chance that this courageous woman may gain some measure of redress for her violation.
Pakistan, however, has little to be proud of. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that there were 320 reported rapes in the first nine months of last year, and 350 reported gang rapes in the same period. The number of unreported rapes is believed to be much larger. The victim pressed charges in only one-third of the reported cases, and a mere 39 arrests were made. The use of rape in tribal disputes has become, one might say, normal. And the belief that a raped woman's best recourse is to kill herself remains widespread and deeply ingrained.
For every Mukhtar Mai there are dozens of such suicides. Nor is courage any guarantee of getting justice, as the case of Shazia Khalid shows. Dr. Khalid was raped last year in the province of Baluchistan by security personnel at the hospital where she worked. A Pakistani tribunal failed to convict anyone of the crime.
Dr. Khalid says that she was subsequently "threatened so many times" that she was forced to flee Pakistan. "I was hounded out," she says, expressing dissatisfaction that the government neither brought her attackers to justice nor protected her from the threats that followed.
That is the same government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, that confiscated Mukhtar Mai's passport because it feared she would go abroad and say things that would bring Pakistan into disrepute; and it is the same government that has allied with the West in the war on terrorism, but seems quite prepared to allow a war of sexual terror to be waged against its female citizens.
Now comes even worse news. Whatever Pakistan can do, India, it seems, can trump. The so-called Imrana case, in which a Muslim woman from a village in northern India says she was raped by her father-in-law, has brought forth a ruling from the powerful Islamist seminary Darul-Uloom ordering her to leave her husband because as a result of the rape she has become "haram" (unclean) for him. "It does not matter," a Deobandi cleric has stated, "if it was consensual or forced."
Darul-Uloom, in the village of Deoband 90 miles north of Delhi, is the birthplace of the ultra-conservative Deobandi cult, in whose madrassas the Taliban were trained. It teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere in the world today. In one fatwa it suggested that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Not only the Taliban but also the assassins of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were followers of Deobandi teachings.
Darul-Uloom's rigid interpretations of Shariah law are notorious, and immensely influential - so much so that the victim, Imrana, a woman under unimaginable pressure, has said she will abide by the seminary's decision in spite of the widespread outcry in India against it. An innocent woman, she will leave her husband because of his father's crime.
Why does a mere seminary have the power to issue such judgments? The answer lies in the strange anomaly that is the Muslim personal law system - a parallel legal system for Indian Muslims, which leaves women like Imrana at the mercy of the mullahs. Such is the historical confusion on this vexed subject that anyone who suggests that a democratic country should have a single, unified legal system is accused of being anti-Muslim and in favor of the hardline Hindu nationalists.
In the 1980's, a divorced woman named Shah Bano was granted "maintenance money" by the Indian Supreme Court. But there is no alimony under Islamic law, so orthodox Indian Islamists like those at Darul-Uloom protested that this ruling infringed the Muslim Personal Law, and they founded the All-India Muslim Law Board to mount protests. The government caved in, passing a bill denying alimony to divorced Muslim women. Ever since Shah Bano, Indian politicians have not dared to challenge the power of Islamist clerical grandees.
In the Imrana case, the All-India Muslim Law Board has unsurprisingly backed the Darul-Uloom decision, though many other Muslim and non-Muslim organizations and individuals have denounced it. Shockingly, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has also backed the Darul-Uloom fatwa. "The decision of the Muslim religious leaders in the Imrana case must have been taken after a lot of thought," he told reporters in Lucknow. "The religious leaders are all very learned and they understand the Muslim community and its sentiments."
This is a craven statement. The "culture" of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honor and shame. Thanks to that code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law must do what it can.
In Pakistan, the Supreme Court has taken one small but significant step in the matter of Mukhtar Mai; now it is for the police and politicians to start pursuing rapists instead of hounding their victims. As for India, at the risk of being called a communalist, I must agree that any country that claims to be a modern, secular democracy must secularize and unify its legal system, and take power over women's lives away, once and for all, from medievalist institutions like Darul-Uloom.
Salman Rushdie is the author of "The Satanic Verses" and the forthcoming "Shalimar the Clown."
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Fw: London Bombings--War Is Not the Answer--FCNL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 5:23 PM
Subject: London Bombings--War Is Not the Answer--FCNL
Today, the people of London have experienced what the people of Bagdad
and many other Iraqi cities have been experiencing almost daily for
more than a year: a brutal, violent attack on innocent civilians. Our
thoughts and prayers go out to the people of London, today, as we
continue to pray for the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and
elsewhere who daily face the continuing violence, horror, fear, and
disruption of war and terror.
Yet, more war is not the answer to the London bombings. After more than
three years of the U.S.-led "war on terror" and two years of
war in Iraq, the world is no safer, and in many respects it has become
even more dangerous because of these wars to make the world safe from
terror.
Today’s attacks in London, the undiminished violence in Iraq,
and the intensified fighting in Afghanistan reveal how U.S. war
policies have fueled more violence and suffering. Exacting an "eye
for an eye" will only make everyone blind with hatred. Violence
and suffering will only escalate and intensify from retaliation
policies – especially in a world armed with nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons.
We call upon the governments of the United States and the United
Kingdom to take the first, courageous steps to end the cycle of
violence by exercising uncommon restraint in their response to the
London bombings. Let the moral depravity of the attacks stand alone for
the peoples of the world to condemn and unite against. Do not compound
the moral outrage of the mass killings in London with further U.S.-UK
military attacks that will put at risk still more innocent civilians
and fuel further hatred. Those responsible must be held accountable
under the rule of law.
We call upon President Bush and Congress to change course now to
address the root causes of violent extremism and war, to pursue
alternatives to war such as those suggested in the Smart Security
legislation introduced by Representative Lynn Woolsey (CA),
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/HAUKEVXCBY/ and to take
political steps to reduce the level of violence in Iraq such as
declaring that it is U.S. policy to remove all U.S. troops and military
bases from Iraqi soil.
ACT NOW
On recess now, members of Congress who are visiting constituents in
their home states this week need to hear that responding to these
attacks in London with new violence is not the answer. Contact the
local offices of your members of Congress, let them know that you will
support them if they have the courage to search for new approaches that
can break the spiral of violence. Go to
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/DEFJEVXCBZ/ enter your zip
code, and click on the picture of your members to get office phone
numbers.
BACKGROUND
"Finding Safety in the Age of Terrorism: Reflections on September
11, 2001", by Bob Burnett, available at
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/GNIVEVXCCA/ Program for the
Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/JERFEVXCCB/
_______________________________________
Stop New Nuclear Weapons! Find out how,
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/FDBPEVXCCC/
The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign,
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/GNUPEVXCCD/
Contact Congress and the Administration:
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Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign
bumper stickers and yard signs:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/EHFDEVXCCF/
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/OJYMEVXBXV/MEFHEVXCCG/
Contribute to FCNL:
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________________________________________
Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330
We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.
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Friday, July 01, 2005
Fw: U.S. and China: Time for Cooperation, Not Confrontation - FCNL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 3:09 PM
Subject: U.S. and China: Time for Cooperation, Not Confrontation - FCNL
U.S. and China: Time for Cooperation, Not Confrontation
As the U.S. and China scour the globe to secure access to the
world’s remaining oil reserves, the two countries' increasing
demand for oil will be central to U.S.-China relations in the decades
to come. An $18.5 billion bid made by a Chinese oil company (CNOOC) for
a U.S. oil and gas company, Unocal, is the latest illustration of this
looming competition.
Long before the CNOOC bid, analysts and members of Congress were
warning of China's growing ability to make inroads into areas
considered vital to U.S. national security. However, as we examine in
our July/August newsletter, confrontation and conflict will not resolve
the challenges associated with China's emergence as a global power.
Rather, cooperation - especially on energy issues - will be the key to
managing productive U.S.-China relations during the 21st century.
FCNL believes the U.S. should develop a strategy that emphasizes
cooperation with China, rather than destructive competition over oil:
* A concerted effort in both countries to reduce oil and fuel consumption;
* More efficient and comprehensive use of domestic renewable energy sources;
* Vigorous, collaborative international research into alternative fuels
and energy
Watch your mailbox for the next issue of the FCNL Washington Newsletter
which is focused primarily on U.S.-China relations. You can read an
advance copy of the story, "Rising U.S. and Chinese Oil
Dependence: Time for Cooperation, Not Confrontation,"at
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1458&issue_id=103
If you don’t receive our newsletter, sign up to be notified
by email when a new issue is available on the web,
http://www.fcnl.org/now/regform.php
For more information, see the information on U.S. relations with China,
go to http://www.fcnl.org/issues/issue.php?issue_id=103
For more on the specific CNOOC bid to purchase Unocal, see the
Washington Post story at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202040.html.
Free registration is
required.
_______________________________________
Stop New Nuclear Weapons! Find out how, http://www.fcnl.org/nuclear
The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign,
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/index.htm
Contact Congress and the Administration:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/
Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign
bumper stickers and yard
signs:
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________________________________________
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245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330
We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.
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Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Iranian Revolution Is Thriving in Iraq
A Call To Action
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer28jun28,0,2396430.column?track=mostemailedlink
ROBERT SCHEER
Iranian Revolution Is Thriving in Iraq
Robert Scheer
June 28, 2005
Did those wily ayatollahs give us the purple finger again? It sure looks like it after the smashing defeat Iran's religious fanatics dealt reformers in the presidential election Friday.
It was a replay of the election in Iraq, in which candidates groomed by Tehran's theocracy herded loyal Shiite followers to the polls to dip their fingers in purple election ink. Only this time the sight of lines of shuffling, chador-clad women voting away their human rights was not applauded by the White House.
If he were capable of embarrassment or critical thought, President Bush might have caught the irony of celebrating the triumph of democracy in greeting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari in Washington on Friday and on the same day having his administration condemn the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's new president.
Whether the United States approves or not, the most powerful Iraqi behind the scenes since the occupation began more than two years ago has been Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who, along with Jafari was sheltered and nurtured by Tehran's ayatollahs during Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship. It was no accident that the first serious independent initiative of the elected Shiite leadership in Iraq was to welcome Iran's foreign minister and to declare, amazingly, that Iran was the moral party in its 1980s war with Iraq.
The elected leaders of Iraq and Iran are borne by the same ill wind — religious fundamentalism — which unfortunately is the first choice of many voters in Iraq, Iran and even the United States.
Elections are only one component of a thriving democracy. Unless restrained by a respected constitution and functioning balance of powers, democracy can be subverted by demagogic leaders. For the Bush White House, such complexity is irrelevant. Because the U.S. militarily controls Iraq, the flawed election there is seen as a triumph of democracy. Because Iran is an independent nation hostile to the U.S., its flawed election shows the country to be "out of step … with the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon," according to the State Department.
Ahmadinejad "is no friend of democracy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld averred Sunday, probably correctly. Yet when he added, "He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives," he may as well have been talking about Iraq's religious Shiite leaders, who not only beat the United States' handpicked leader in January's historic elections, but are already running much of southern Iraq as an Islamic state.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Shiite militias and religious parties have turned the southern city of Basra into a de facto Islamic theocracy. "Religion rules the streets of this once cosmopolitan city, where women no longer dare go out uncovered," reported The Times. "Conservative Shiite Islamic parties have solidified their grip, fully institutionalizing their power."
Thus, not only is Bush now allied in Iraq with the disciples of the anti-American Tehran tyranny, this foreign policy neophyte claims to be thrilled that the Iraqis have requested the indefinite commitment of U.S. troops to keep them in power by putting down a Sunni-led insurgency.
"I'm not giving up on the mission," Bush promised Jafari on Friday, just hours after more U.S. soldiers were killed and others wounded in a car bombing near Fallouja. Calling it "a mission" implies that our goals in Iraq are clear and finite. In fact, since the moment we easily took Baghdad from Hussein's ragtag loyalists, the situation has become murkier and more open-ended. Is our "mission" to provide security for Islamic fundamentalists hoping to turn Hussein's secular Iraq into Khomeini's theocratic Iran?
The tragic legacy of Bush's overthrow of the defanged secular dictator of Iraq, whom Rumsfeld once embraced as the U.S. ally holding back the Iranian revolution, is the triumph of that revolution in both Baghdad and Tehran.
At the very least, such obvious and looming contradictions in U.S. policy might compel debate in this country about the costs of what has been aptly termed our imperial hubris. So far, the Bush administration has managed to short-circuit that debate with a numbing cheerleader's rant about elections, as if they can always be co-opted.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer28jun28,0,2396430.column?track=mostemailedlink
ROBERT SCHEER
Iranian Revolution Is Thriving in Iraq
Robert Scheer
June 28, 2005
Did those wily ayatollahs give us the purple finger again? It sure looks like it after the smashing defeat Iran's religious fanatics dealt reformers in the presidential election Friday.
It was a replay of the election in Iraq, in which candidates groomed by Tehran's theocracy herded loyal Shiite followers to the polls to dip their fingers in purple election ink. Only this time the sight of lines of shuffling, chador-clad women voting away their human rights was not applauded by the White House.
If he were capable of embarrassment or critical thought, President Bush might have caught the irony of celebrating the triumph of democracy in greeting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari in Washington on Friday and on the same day having his administration condemn the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's new president.
Whether the United States approves or not, the most powerful Iraqi behind the scenes since the occupation began more than two years ago has been Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who, along with Jafari was sheltered and nurtured by Tehran's ayatollahs during Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship. It was no accident that the first serious independent initiative of the elected Shiite leadership in Iraq was to welcome Iran's foreign minister and to declare, amazingly, that Iran was the moral party in its 1980s war with Iraq.
The elected leaders of Iraq and Iran are borne by the same ill wind — religious fundamentalism — which unfortunately is the first choice of many voters in Iraq, Iran and even the United States.
Elections are only one component of a thriving democracy. Unless restrained by a respected constitution and functioning balance of powers, democracy can be subverted by demagogic leaders. For the Bush White House, such complexity is irrelevant. Because the U.S. militarily controls Iraq, the flawed election there is seen as a triumph of democracy. Because Iran is an independent nation hostile to the U.S., its flawed election shows the country to be "out of step … with the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon," according to the State Department.
Ahmadinejad "is no friend of democracy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld averred Sunday, probably correctly. Yet when he added, "He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives," he may as well have been talking about Iraq's religious Shiite leaders, who not only beat the United States' handpicked leader in January's historic elections, but are already running much of southern Iraq as an Islamic state.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Shiite militias and religious parties have turned the southern city of Basra into a de facto Islamic theocracy. "Religion rules the streets of this once cosmopolitan city, where women no longer dare go out uncovered," reported The Times. "Conservative Shiite Islamic parties have solidified their grip, fully institutionalizing their power."
Thus, not only is Bush now allied in Iraq with the disciples of the anti-American Tehran tyranny, this foreign policy neophyte claims to be thrilled that the Iraqis have requested the indefinite commitment of U.S. troops to keep them in power by putting down a Sunni-led insurgency.
"I'm not giving up on the mission," Bush promised Jafari on Friday, just hours after more U.S. soldiers were killed and others wounded in a car bombing near Fallouja. Calling it "a mission" implies that our goals in Iraq are clear and finite. In fact, since the moment we easily took Baghdad from Hussein's ragtag loyalists, the situation has become murkier and more open-ended. Is our "mission" to provide security for Islamic fundamentalists hoping to turn Hussein's secular Iraq into Khomeini's theocratic Iran?
The tragic legacy of Bush's overthrow of the defanged secular dictator of Iraq, whom Rumsfeld once embraced as the U.S. ally holding back the Iranian revolution, is the triumph of that revolution in both Baghdad and Tehran.
At the very least, such obvious and looming contradictions in U.S. policy might compel debate in this country about the costs of what has been aptly termed our imperial hubris. So far, the Bush administration has managed to short-circuit that debate with a numbing cheerleader's rant about elections, as if they can always be co-opted.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
Monday, June 27, 2005
Some other blog stuff
A Call To Action
"Words cannot express the contempt I feel for Karl Rove and for the chorus of brainless little yappers applauding his recent remarks on liberal reactions to 9/11.
"I'd like to ask Karl and his puppies to stand anywhere in the vicinity of Ground Zero and repeat Karl's fatuous, lying remarks to a crowd of New Yorkers.
"Whole lotta liberals in New York. Whole lotta those liberal New Yorkers lost someone in the towers. Whole lotta liberal New Yorkers who lost someone in the towers might want to break Karl's jaw today. Karl would be well advised to keep his sorry ass out of New York from now on."
Blondesense wonders how this is playing in the military:
"Perhaps Mr. Rove believes all American soldiers are conservatives. When he made his callous remarks about the differences in liberals and conservatives, he failed to exclude the liberal soldier. He also failed to exclude the liberal soldier's family. Mr. Rove made a large mistake because he apparently forgot that liberal soldiers bleed and die in war just like conservative soldiers do. What does the family of the liberal soldier feel when they read that Mr. Rove said, 'Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,' and 'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.'? What does the liberal soldier feel when he reads those words?"
Josh Marshall sees a calculated strategy:
"For Rove, the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan have always been nothing more than tools of domestic politics. He speaks for the president and the president speaks for him. So all of that applies to the president too unless and until we hear from him.
"The A-list press folks, especially on TV, are too well trained to call Rove out of bounds. So Dems will have to do it all themselves."
Peter Daou, Salon's blog-watcher, defends himself after criticizing Rove's remarks to the Chicago Tribune:
"I'll keep it simple: I challenge any of those outraged by Durbin to demonstrate that the senator, in his heart of hearts, thinks our troops are Nazis. It's painfully obvious that he was illustrating a point and used a hyperbolic analogy. In Durbin's case the outrage is feigned, and a political tool. It defies common sense to think Durbin actually believes 'all US troops are Nazis.'
"Now the same reasoning doesn't hold true for Rove, who expressed a thought that actually is widely held on the right: that liberals can't or won't defend America. Despite the sheer imbecility of it, many on the right really believe it to be true."
Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is equally impassioned about Reid and other Democrats demanding that Rove apologize, resign or otherwise debase himself:
"Would this be the same Harry Reid who called George Bush a loser and a liar, and later said that he would only retract the 'loser' comment? Could this be the same party that has its chairman calling Republicans people who never did an honest day's work in their lives, the party of 'unfriendly . . . white Christians' and who 'hates Republicans and everything they stand for'?
"Surely the party that has stood up and demanded civil trials for captured terrorists instead of the military detention they require and bemoaned the loss of sympathy that the world had for us on 9/11 cannot have taken offense at Rove's assertion that 'liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'
"What we have here, in this demand for a retraction after a season of personal attacks from Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party is pusillanimity at its most hypocritical. Talk about dishing it out and not being able to take it! That the party of Harry Truman has descended to this jaw-dropping level of political cowardice and sheer crybaby status boggles the mind."
The New York Post editorial page is in Karl's Korner:
"To judge from the rising Democratic outrage, you'd think presidential counselor Karl Rove came to town Wednesday and compared liberals to Nazis, or Stalin, or Pol Pot.
"Oh, sorry.
"That was Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the United States Senate -- slandering U.S. soldiers.
"All Rove did was speak about the comparative attitudes of liberals and conservatives on how best to conduct the War on Terror.
And you know what? He was right. . . . Actually, the Democrats' outrage is understandable -- since they can't defend their own record, better to lash out at the White House."
The other emerging theme is, how bad are things in Iraq? In the LAT, Doyle McManus says Bush is being hit by friendly fire:
"For months, President Bush has struggled to maintain public support for the war in Iraq in the face of periodic setbacks on the battlefield. Now he faces a second front in the battle for public opinion: charges that the administration is not telling the truth about how the war is going. . . .
"But last month, Vice President Dick Cheney broke from the administration's 'message discipline' and declared that the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' The White House has been paying a price ever since. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, complained that the White House was 'completely disconnected from reality.' Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another supporter of the war, charged that Bush had opened not just a credibility gap, but a 'credibility chasm.' Even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself from the vice president's words."
Newsweek examines a different kind of gap?
"How, then, to explain the very different versions of reality in Iraq that come out of the mouths of top Bush administration officials and of senior generals on the ground in Iraq? On Memorial Day, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its 'last throes.' Yet last week, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Abizaid said that, actually, the insurgency has not grown weaker over the last six months and that the number of foreign terrorists infiltrating Iraq has increased. . . .
"No wonder the American public is confused, unsure what to believe, and that support for the war is down to 42 percent in the latest Gallup poll. What is the reality? And why can't the president and his generals seem to agree?"
You know that conservative guy hired by CPB chief Ken Tomlinson who monitored pro- and anti-Bush guests on Bill Moyers's show "Now"? Frank Rich, checking in with Sen Byron Dorgan, says he had other targets as well:
"Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.
"Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and 'anti-administration' was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies."
That is pretty chilling.
"Words cannot express the contempt I feel for Karl Rove and for the chorus of brainless little yappers applauding his recent remarks on liberal reactions to 9/11.
"I'd like to ask Karl and his puppies to stand anywhere in the vicinity of Ground Zero and repeat Karl's fatuous, lying remarks to a crowd of New Yorkers.
"Whole lotta liberals in New York. Whole lotta those liberal New Yorkers lost someone in the towers. Whole lotta liberal New Yorkers who lost someone in the towers might want to break Karl's jaw today. Karl would be well advised to keep his sorry ass out of New York from now on."
Blondesense wonders how this is playing in the military:
"Perhaps Mr. Rove believes all American soldiers are conservatives. When he made his callous remarks about the differences in liberals and conservatives, he failed to exclude the liberal soldier. He also failed to exclude the liberal soldier's family. Mr. Rove made a large mistake because he apparently forgot that liberal soldiers bleed and die in war just like conservative soldiers do. What does the family of the liberal soldier feel when they read that Mr. Rove said, 'Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,' and 'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.'? What does the liberal soldier feel when he reads those words?"
Josh Marshall sees a calculated strategy:
"For Rove, the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan have always been nothing more than tools of domestic politics. He speaks for the president and the president speaks for him. So all of that applies to the president too unless and until we hear from him.
"The A-list press folks, especially on TV, are too well trained to call Rove out of bounds. So Dems will have to do it all themselves."
Peter Daou, Salon's blog-watcher, defends himself after criticizing Rove's remarks to the Chicago Tribune:
"I'll keep it simple: I challenge any of those outraged by Durbin to demonstrate that the senator, in his heart of hearts, thinks our troops are Nazis. It's painfully obvious that he was illustrating a point and used a hyperbolic analogy. In Durbin's case the outrage is feigned, and a political tool. It defies common sense to think Durbin actually believes 'all US troops are Nazis.'
"Now the same reasoning doesn't hold true for Rove, who expressed a thought that actually is widely held on the right: that liberals can't or won't defend America. Despite the sheer imbecility of it, many on the right really believe it to be true."
Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is equally impassioned about Reid and other Democrats demanding that Rove apologize, resign or otherwise debase himself:
"Would this be the same Harry Reid who called George Bush a loser and a liar, and later said that he would only retract the 'loser' comment? Could this be the same party that has its chairman calling Republicans people who never did an honest day's work in their lives, the party of 'unfriendly . . . white Christians' and who 'hates Republicans and everything they stand for'?
"Surely the party that has stood up and demanded civil trials for captured terrorists instead of the military detention they require and bemoaned the loss of sympathy that the world had for us on 9/11 cannot have taken offense at Rove's assertion that 'liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'
"What we have here, in this demand for a retraction after a season of personal attacks from Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party is pusillanimity at its most hypocritical. Talk about dishing it out and not being able to take it! That the party of Harry Truman has descended to this jaw-dropping level of political cowardice and sheer crybaby status boggles the mind."
The New York Post editorial page is in Karl's Korner:
"To judge from the rising Democratic outrage, you'd think presidential counselor Karl Rove came to town Wednesday and compared liberals to Nazis, or Stalin, or Pol Pot.
"Oh, sorry.
"That was Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the United States Senate -- slandering U.S. soldiers.
"All Rove did was speak about the comparative attitudes of liberals and conservatives on how best to conduct the War on Terror.
And you know what? He was right. . . . Actually, the Democrats' outrage is understandable -- since they can't defend their own record, better to lash out at the White House."
The other emerging theme is, how bad are things in Iraq? In the LAT, Doyle McManus says Bush is being hit by friendly fire:
"For months, President Bush has struggled to maintain public support for the war in Iraq in the face of periodic setbacks on the battlefield. Now he faces a second front in the battle for public opinion: charges that the administration is not telling the truth about how the war is going. . . .
"But last month, Vice President Dick Cheney broke from the administration's 'message discipline' and declared that the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' The White House has been paying a price ever since. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, complained that the White House was 'completely disconnected from reality.' Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another supporter of the war, charged that Bush had opened not just a credibility gap, but a 'credibility chasm.' Even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself from the vice president's words."
Newsweek examines a different kind of gap?
"How, then, to explain the very different versions of reality in Iraq that come out of the mouths of top Bush administration officials and of senior generals on the ground in Iraq? On Memorial Day, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its 'last throes.' Yet last week, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Abizaid said that, actually, the insurgency has not grown weaker over the last six months and that the number of foreign terrorists infiltrating Iraq has increased. . . .
"No wonder the American public is confused, unsure what to believe, and that support for the war is down to 42 percent in the latest Gallup poll. What is the reality? And why can't the president and his generals seem to agree?"
You know that conservative guy hired by CPB chief Ken Tomlinson who monitored pro- and anti-Bush guests on Bill Moyers's show "Now"? Frank Rich, checking in with Sen Byron Dorgan, says he had other targets as well:
"Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.
"Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and 'anti-administration' was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies."
That is pretty chilling.
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