Observations on current events

Bush Administration Cut Back Flood Control Spending

Democracy Now! - | Headlines for August 31, 2005
"Questions are also being raised if the federal government could have done more to protect the region from the deadly flooding. In 1995 Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. Over the past decade the Army Corps of Engineers has spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations. But another $250 million in work remained. According to press accounts, the federal funding largely froze up in 2003. Over the past two years the Times-Picayune paper has run at least nine articles that cite the cost of the Iraq invasion as a reason for the lack of hurricane and flood control funding. Earlier this year President Bush proposed significantly reducing the amount of federal money for the project. He proposed spending $10 million. Local officials said six times as much money was needed."

No, Mr. Ashcroft, It's Not 'Hystertical' To Protest Sec. 215 of the PATRIOT Act

New York Times Editorial: Excessive Powers
"When John Ashcroft was the attorney general, he railed against the 'hysteria' of critics of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to search library records. The number of times Section 215 had been used to search libraries was, Mr. Ashcroft declared, zero. But civil libertarians opposed the provision not because they knew it had been used - searches under Section 215 are secret - but because they expected it would be.
It turns out that they were right to be concerned. The American Civil Liberties Union has just reported that the F.B.I. demanded library records from a Connecticut institution by using another troubling Patriot Act provision that authorizes a tool known as a national security letter. The A.C.L.U. says it cannot identify the institution or specify the nature of the request because of federal secrecy rules. But this is the first confirmed instance of the F.B.I.'s use of the Patriot Act to demand library records.
The Connecticut library inquiry follows on the heels of an American Library Association report that law enforcement officials have made at least 200 inquiries to libraries about reading materials and other internal matters since October 2001. In some cases, the officers issued subpoenas; in others, they relied on informal requests.
Both Section 215, which expressly concerns libraries, and the far broader national security letter provision of the Patriot Act are so expansively written that they invite law enforcement to overreach and demand the confidential records of people with no connection to terrorism..."


Question Sweetheart Deals For The Wrong Corp., Loose Your Job:

NY Times: Army Contract Official Critical of Halliburton Pact Is Demoted
"A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.
The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.
The demotion removes her from the elite Senior Executive Service and reassigns her to a lesser job in the corps' civil works division.
Ms. Greenhouse's lawyer, Michael Kohn, called the action an 'obvious reprisal' for the strong objections she raised in 2003 to a series of corps decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which has garnered more than $10 billion for work in Iraq.
Dick Cheney led Halliburton, which is based in Texas, before he became vice president.
'She is being demoted because of her strict adherence to procurement requirements and the Army's preference to sidestep them when it suits their needs,' Mr. Kohn said Sunday in an interview. He also said the Army had violated a commitment to delay Ms. Greenhouse's dismissal until the completion of an inquiry by the Pentagon's inspector general.
Carol Sanders, spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said Sunday that the personnel action against Ms. Greenhouse had been approved by the Department of the Army. And in a memorandum dated June 3, 2005, as the demotion was being arranged, the commander of the corps, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, said the administrative record 'clearly demonstrates that Ms. Greenhouse's removal from the S.E.S. is based on her performance and not in retaliation for any disclosures of alleged improprieties that she may have made.'
Known as a stickler for the rules on competition, Ms. Greenhouse initially received stellar performance ratings, Mr. Kohn said. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown & Root, he said. Often she hand-wrote her concerns on the contract documents, a practice that corps leaders called unprofessional and confusing.
In October 2004, General Strock, citing two consecutive performance reviews that called Ms. Greenhouse an uncooperative manager, informed her that she would be demoted.
Ms. Greenhouse fought the demotion through official channels, and publicly described her clashes with Corps of Engineers leaders over a five-year, $7 billion oil-repair contract awarded to Kellogg Brown & Root. She had argued that if urgency required a no-bid contract, its duration should be brief..."


The Environment:

New York Times Editorial: States to the Rescue
"It's been obvious for some time that state governments are taking the problems of global warming and oil dependency much more seriously than the Bush administration is, and have been far more creative in devising solutions. Hardly a month goes by without another example of the gap between palpable alarm at the state level and Washington's stubborn passivity. This week provided two more.
Exhibit A was the disclosure in The Times that New York and eight other Northeastern states have reached a tentative agreement on a regional plan to reduce power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas. The plan would establish a cap on these emissions as well as a market-based system for trading pollution permits. That system would be aimed at helping utilities meet mandatory targets as cheaply and efficiently as possible.
The plan is the first of its kind in the nation dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, though a similar approach has already been successfully applied to acid rain pollution. The plan is based on a regulatory regime that has explicitly been rejected by the Bush administration in favor of a softer voluntary approach, which has yielded little progress so far. The architects of the new plan, including Gov. George Pataki of New York, hope that it will encourage other states to follow suit, and, ideally, persuade a hitherto reluctant Congress to adopt the kind of unified national strategy embraced in Europe but not here.
Exhibit B was the administration's long-awaited proposal for overhauling fuel economy standards for vehicles like S.U.V.'s, minivans and pickups, which are classified as 'light trucks.' These vehicles account for half of all new automotive purchases, much of the country's increasing demand for imported oil and a significant percentage of its greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal was a major (though not unexpected) disappointment, calling for only a modest increase in fuel efficiency and, by the administration's own testimony, a tiny reduction in oil use - about 10 billion gallons of gasoline over nearly two decades, or less than one month's current consumption..."


On Torture:

Karen J. Greenberg: What the JAG Memos Tell Us about Torture
"Last month, Americans were given a new and persuasive reason for objecting to the use of torture as a tool in administration policy; namely, its potentially harmful impact on any viable counterterrorism strategy that values information as essential in combating Islamic fundamentalist terror. This strategic concern was raised in a set of memos released by the government in its latest 'dump' of documents into the public arena.
Since the spring of 2004, the government has been making public previously classified documents nearly weekly, often in response to Freedom of Information Act law suits (though the numbers of newly classified documents are increasing at a rate that more than nullifies any sense of transparency such releases might suggest). Many of these memos have been about torture - whether to use it; how to use it; and, most of all, how to protect government agents and agencies against prosecution for using it. Among these documents have been memos from the Judge Advocate General's Corps (or JAG), written by military lawyers from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines, and these constitute a welcome oasis of sanity in a desert of compliance with the government's decision to use torture as a weapon in its 'war on terror.'
First brought to public attention in Senate debate on July 25, 2005,
these JAG memos have seen the light thanks to a request from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. They were written in February 2003 as recommendations to a Pentagon working group on 'interrogation policy.' Collectively, they express a clear opposition to the use of the sorts of harsh interrogation techniques that White House lawyers had not only recommended but declared legally viable. Indeed, by August of 2002, lawyers for the administration had infamously suggested, as a basis for reducing legal culpability for the mistreatment of detainees, that the definition of torture itself be narrowed to include only 'physical pain ...equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.'
The JAG memos, on the other hand, warned that abusive interrogation techniques - contrary to the advice administration lawyers were generating - might well be found illegal in courts of law: As one put it, 'Our domestic courts may well disagree with [the administration's lawyers'] interpretation of the law.' The courts, the JAG memos warned, might find that the use of torture, however redefined by the administration, violated not just international law, but domestic criminal law and the laws of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as well..."


Killing The Messenger:

The Nation: Judith Miller: Embedded Over Her Head
"...Miller is still in jail, refusing to talk, even though one of her purported sources, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, supposedly has signed a general waiver freeing journalists to speak to the grand jury about their conversations with him. But the biggest problem with Miller is that her commitment to a biased and manipulative Bush Administration and Iraqi exile sources clearly has been stronger than her commitment to reporting the truth.
Here are some of the front-page headlines for 'scoops' Miller landed before and after the invasion that have since been discredited: 'U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts'; 'Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert'; 'U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs To Germ Arms'; 'Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites for Chemical and Nuclear Arms'
To be sure, Miller didn't make anything up, she just relayed whatever her anonymous sources told her--nearly all of which turned out to be garbage. In this way, Miller and other reporters like her can pretend to follow the letter of journalistic protocol while flouting its spirit and purpose. What she should have done was challenge her sources and then stop protecting them when she found out their information was false.
All of which was conceded by the New York Times in a too-little,
too-late mea culpa about the reporting of Miller and others that appeared on page A-10 in May of last year. '[W]e have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been ... information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged,' wrote the Times. 'Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of [Iraqi] exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq.'
Unanswered was how this embarrassment came to pass. Miller is surely not stupid, so how was she duped so regularly for so long?..."

Killing The Messenger:

Boston Globe Editorial: Rove's Role
"...Rove's record has been consistent. Over 35 years, he has been a master of dirty tricks, divisiveness, innuendo, manipulation, character assassination, and roiling partisanship..."


Linking Iraq To The So-Called War on Terror:

The Observer (UK) - Leak shows Blair told of Iraq war terror link
"The Foreign Office's top official warned Downing Street that the Iraq war was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain a year before the 7 July bombings, The Observer can reveal.
Despite repeated denials by Number 10 that the war made Britain a target for terrorists, a letter from Michael Jay, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, to the cabinet secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull - obtained by this newspaper - makes the connection clear...
...Attached to the letter is a strategy document, also obtained by The Observer, which reveals further concerns. It says Britain is now viewed as a 'crusader state', on a par with America as a potential target. 'Muslim resentment towards the West is worse than ever,' the document, 'Building Bridges with Mainstream Islam', says..."

Tough Words:

Gary Hart: Who Will Say 'No More'?
"...The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating 'Stay the course' even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.

Who now has the courage to say this?"

Congress Fails To Hold The Executive To Account:

Sidney Blumenthal: Questioning the President
"...While Bush has allowed only abbreviated and controlled access for the press, he has been coddled by the Republican Congress, despite the spike in public disapproval of his conduct of the Iraq war.
In February 1966, Sen. J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, held the first hearings on the Vietnam War, which were televised nationally for six days. The public was riveted by the penetrating questioning of administration officials and the debates among the members of the committee. Fulbright had been a friend of President Lyndon Johnson for years. Johnson, after all, had been the Senate majority leader, and Fulbright was a fellow Southerner. But the escalation of the war and the absence of a clear strategy of resolution prompted Fulbright to call the hearings. He held additional hearings in August 1966, in October-November of 1967 and, when Richard Nixon became president, in April-May 1971 for 11 days. Fulbright believed that it was his constitutional duty to exercise oversight of the executive.
No similar Senate hearings on the origins, conduct and strategy of the Iraq war have been held. During the Johnson period, the Democrats controlled both chambers of the Congress. But Fulbright did not feel that partisan discipline under the whip of the White House was a higher principle than performing as a check and balance. Fulbright was a Democrat raising pointed questions about the policy of a Democratic president. But no Republican Senate chairman has seen fit to follow the Fulbright example. The one-party Republican rule of the Congress has resulted in the stifling of inquiry. Abandoning its powers and duties, the Republican Senate as a body refuses to hold the executive accountable..."


When Oil Not Under US Control Is A Threat:

Greg Palast: Pat and Hugo: The Real Story - Part 1 - Rev. Robertson's Call to Assassinate Hugo Chavez
"...For the first time in Venezuela's history, the 80% Black-Indian population elected a man with skin darker than the man in the Jaguar.
So why, with a huge majority of the electorate behind him, twice in elections and today with a nearly two-to-one landslide victory in a recall referendum, is Hugo Chavez in hot water with our democracy-promoting White House?
Maybe it's the oil. Lots of it. Chavez sits atop a reserve of crude that rivals Iraq's. And it's not his presidency of Venezuela that drives the White House bananas, it was his presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. While in control of the OPEC secretariat, Chavez cut a deal with our maximum leader of the time, Bill Clinton, on the price of oil. It was a 'Goldilocks' plan. The price would not be too low, not too high; just right, kept between $20 and $30 a barrel.
But Dick Cheney does not like Clinton nor Chavez nor their band. To him, the oil industry's (and Saudi Arabia's) freedom to set oil prices is as sacred as freedom of speech is to the ACLU. I got this info, by the way, from three top oil industry lobbyists.
Why should Chavez worry about what Dick thinks? Because, said one of the oil men, the Veep in his bunker, not the pretzel-chewer in the White House, 'runs energy policy in the United States.'
And what seems to have gotten our Veep's knickers in a twist is not the price of oil, but who keeps the loot from the current band-busting spurt in prices. Chavez had his Congress pass another oil law, the 'Law of Hydrocarbons,' which changes the split. Right now, the oil majors - like PhillipsConoco - keep 84% of the proceeds of the sale of Venezuela oil; the nation gets only 16%..."


On Torture:

Marjorie Cohn: Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration
"Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when the now famous torture photographs were taken in fall of 2003. She was reprimanded and demoted to Colonel for her failure to properly supervise the prison guards. Karpinski is the highest ranking officer to be sanctioned for the mistreatment of prisoners. On August 3, 2005, I interviewed Janis Karpinski. In the most comprehensive public statement she has made to date, Karpinski deconstructs the entire United States military operation in Iraq with some astonishing revelations.
When Karpinski got to Abu Ghraib, 'there was a completely different story than what we were being told in the United States. It was out of control. There weren't enough soldiers. Nobody had the right equipment. They were driving around in unarmored vehicles, some of them without doors ... So, knowing that they were ill-equipped and ill-prepared, they pushed them out anyway, because those two three-stars wanted their fifteen minutes of fame, I suppose.'
Karpinski said that General Shinseki briefed Rumsfeld that 'he can't win this war, if they insist on invading Iraq, he can't win this war with less than 300,000 soldiers.' Rumsfeld reportedly ordered Shinseki to go back and find a way to do this with 125,000,'..."


The Environment:

NY Times Editorial: Snowmobile Deceit
"It's hard to think of another subject in the history of the national park system that has been as thoroughly studied as the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Since 1996, there have been three major official assessments of snowmobiles' impact on the park in winter. Two of those were done during the Bush administration. Now a fourth major study has been authorized; it is to be completed by 2007, when the current three-year plan for winter use comes to an end. This new study will cost $2 million to $3 million - for a park that is annually underfinanced by nearly $23 million. There is only one conceivable reason for this study. It's part of the tried and true methodology of the Bush administration: if you don't like the results the first time, do it again and change the definitions so you do get the results you like..."

More Death To Honor Death?

New York Times Editoiral: President Bush's Loss of Faith
"It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.
'We owe them something,' Mr. Bush said. 'We will finish the task that they gave their lives for.' It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that 'makes no sense.' No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake..."


Iran:

How will the belligerent Bushites spin this?

Washington Post: No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program
"Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.
'The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions,' said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.
Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.
Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.
The conclusions will be shared with IAEA board members in a report due out the first week in September, according to U.S. and European officials who agreed to discuss details of the investigation on the condition of anonymity. The report 'will say the contamination issue is resolved,' a Western diplomat said..."


Consumer Exploitation:

NY Times:Can't Cancel a Service? AOL Settlement May Show Why
"For all the exasperated customers who have tried to cancel some service or other to no avail, an explanation is at hand: A settlement reached today by America Online confirmed that sales representatives receive bonuses to keep consumers from leaving.
AOL, the country's largest Internet service, agreed to pay $1.25 million in penalties and to refund some customers' subscription fees after the New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, accused the company of making it unduly difficult for customers to drop the service.
AOL admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement but said it would no longer tie bonuses to deflected cancellation requests. According to Mr. Spitzer's office, internal office brochures trumpeted how employees could earn a bonus as high as $3,115 a month by recording 975 'saves,'..."


The Roberts Nomination:

Senator Dianne Feinstein: The Significant Impact for All Americans
"Today, I come to speak to you about the Supreme Court and the unique role that the court plays in our nation. It is a magnificent institution - as powerful in its reach as Congress, and as influential over time as any presidential administration.
And as far as most Americans are concerned, it is probably the least understood of our three branches of government.
For the first time in more than a decade, there is a vacancy on the court. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman justice and often critical swing vote, is retiring.
The President has chosen to nominate Judge John G. Roberts Jr., and over the next several weeks my Senate colleagues and I, first on the Judiciary Committee, and then in the full Senate will exercise our authority under the constitution to evaluate his nomination.
It is certainly the most important responsibility that the Senate will undertake this year, and it is a decision that could determine the course of our nation for generations to come.
It is crucial that the nominee who replaces Justice Sandra Day O'Connor not only be intelligent and well qualified, but balanced and fair. His views should be within the mainstream and considered, and they should be without bias.
In other words, extreme ideology from the right or left is unacceptable.
The only way we can determine if Judge Roberts meets this test is to thoroughly and critically examine his judicial philosophy and temperament.

* Will he maintain a balance on the court?
* Is he respectful of precedent?
* Does he have an open mind or a does he have a radical sense of where he wants to take the country?..."


Our President, A Real Class Act:

Capitol Hill Blue: Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides
"...Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often 'flips the bird' to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to 'go to hell' or to 'go fuck yourself.' His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.
Bush’s behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of 'Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,' is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.'
To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. 'To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear,' he says..."

‘Progress' & ‘positive results’ from ‘hard work’ in Iraq:

As W flies to Salt Lake City to propagandize to the Veterans Of Foreign Wars how his war of choice is supposedly just like World War II, Iraq festers. This man has no idea of how to fix the mess his cabal of Neocon criminals got this nation into.

The Guardian (UK) - Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel
"...A three-day visit by a reporter working for the Guardian last week established what neither the Iraqi government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people by the Euphrates river, is an insurgent citadel.
That Islamist guerrillas were active in the area was no secret but only now has the extent of their control been revealed. They are the sole authority, running the town's security, administration and communications.
A three-hour drive north from Baghdad, under the nose of an American base, it is a miniature Taliban-like state. Insurgents decide who lives and dies, which salaries get paid, what people wear, what they watch and listen to.
Haditha exposes the limitations of the Iraqi state and US power on the day when the political process is supposed to make a great leap - a draft constitution finalised and approved by midnight tonight..."

On Torture:

AP: Beaten Afghan's Body 'Falling Apart'
"An Afghan detainee who died in military custody was injured so severely that his leg muscles were split apart, an Air Force medical examiner testified Tuesday in the trial of a soldier accused in the beating.
Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, who performed the autopsy on the prisoner known as Dilawar, said his muscles were 'crumbling and falling apart.'
She testified that the injuries could have been caused by repeated knee strikes or by a fist...
...No officers in charge of training soldiers involved in the abuse cases or those who oversaw operations at the airfield have been charged. Military officials have said the investigation is continuing..."


War Without End:

If stories like this were to appear in USA Today or be broadcast on CNN, the public's perception of 'progress' in Iraq might shift significantly. But, of course, they do not appear in our media.

Robert Fisk: Secrets of the Morgue: Baghdad's Body Count
"...July was the bloodiest month in Baghdad's modern history - in all, 1,100 bodies were brought to the city's mortuary; executed for the most part, eviscerated, stabbed, bludgeoned, tortured to death. The figure is secret..."

Sidney Blumenthal: The Vacationer
"...From the administration come conflicting statements about strategy in Iraq. The recent fiasco over the attempted rebranding of the 'war on terrorism' as the 'global struggle against violent extremism' reflects internal tensions. While Bush proclaims that he will 'stay the course,' military sources leak stories that the vaunted objectives of the Iraq war, democracy and civil order, are chimerical. Pentagon briefings suggest that U.S. forces may be drawn down soon, but the projections do not flow from any new strategy. Retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey declared: 'The Army's wheels are going to come off in the next 24 months. We are now in a period of considerable strategic peril. It's because [Donald] Rumsfeld has dug in his heels and said, 'I cannot retreat from my position.'
Iraq's confounded constitution writing has further illuminated its centrifugal forces and the increasingly visible hand of Iran. It is becoming undeniable that the outcome of the war will be an Islamic republic closely allied with Iran..."

Marjorie Cohn: Why Bush Can't Answer Cindy
"...Bush didn't talk with Cindy because he can't answer her question. There is no answer to Cindy's question. There is no noble cause that Cindy's son died fighting for. And Bush knows it.
The goals of this war are not hard to find. They were laid out in Paul Wolfowitz's Defense Policy Guidance in 1992, and again in the neoconservative manifesto - The Project for a New American Century's Rebuilding America's Defenses - in September 2000.
Long before 9/11, the neocons proclaimed that the United States should exercise its role as the world's only superpower by ensuring access to the massive Middle East petroleum reserves. To accomplish this goal, the US would need to invade Iraq and establish permanent military bases there.
If Bush were to give an honest answer to Cindy Sheehan's question, it would be that her son died to help his country spread US hegemony throughout the Middle East.
But that answer, while true, does not sound very noble. It would not satisfy Cindy Sheehan, nor would it satisfy the vast majority of the American people. So, for the past several years, Bush and his minions have concocted an ever-changing story line..."

The Roberts Nomination:

Stephen Gillers, David J. Luban, & Steven Lubet: Talking dream jobs with the judge out of court
"...Did administration officials or Roberts ask whether it was proper to conduct interviews for a possible Supreme Court nomination while the judge was adjudicating the government's much-disputed claims of expansive presidential powers? Did they ask whether it was appropriate to do so without informing opposing counsel?
If they had asked, they would have discovered that the interviews violated federal law on the disqualification of judges. Federal law deems public trust in the courts so critical that it requires judges to step aside if their 'impartiality might reasonably be questioned,' even if the judge is completely impartial as a matter of fact. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a 1988 Supreme Court opinion, 'the very purpose of [this law] is to promote confidence in the judiciary by avoiding even the appearance of impropriety whenever possible.' The requirement of an appearance of impartiality has been cited in situations like the one here, leading to the disqualification of a judge or the reversal of a verdict..."

Washington Post: Roberts Papers Missing after White House Review
"A file folder containing papers from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s work on affirmative action more than 20 years ago disappeared from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library after its review by two lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department in July, according to officials at the library and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Archivists said the lawyers returned the file but it now cannot be located. No duplicates of the folder's contents were made before the lawyers' review. Although one of the lawyers has assisted in the Archives' attempt to reconstruct its contents from other files, officials have no way of independently verifying their effort was successful.
It is rare for the Archives to lose documents in its care and the agency has requested an investigation by its inspector general, said Sharon Fawcett, the assistant archivist for presidential libraries..."


Yes, Passing U.S. State Secrets To Israel Is a Crime:

NY Times: U.S. Diplomat Is Named in Secrets Case
"The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.
The diplomat, David M. Satterfield, was identified in the indictment as a United States government official, 'USGO-2,' the people briefed on the matter said. In early 2002, USGO-2 discussed secret national security matters in two meetings with Steven J. Rosen, who has since been dismissed as a top lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, who has been charged in the case.
The indictment said that Mr. Rosen met USGO-2 on Jan. 18, 2002, and March 12, 2002, but provides few details about the encounters. The indictment does not describe Mr. Satterfield's activities in detail nor does it specify what classified information the diplomat discussed with the lobbyist..."

The Lies That Lead To War:

Rep. Conyers: White House and State Department Illegally Ignore FOIA Request
"...The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires your office to respond to a FOIA request within twenty business days from the date of receipt of such a request. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i). The deadline has now elapsed without any response from your office..."


Killing The Messenger:

Think Progress: 21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak
"The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent:

Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez
John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush..."


Iraq:

Robert Fisk: A Constitution That Means Nothing to Ordinary Iraqis
"...In the Alice-in-Wonderland Iraq of Messrs Bush and Blair - inhabited, too, by the elected government of Iraq and its constitutional drafters and quite a few Western journalists - there are no such problems to cope with. The air-conditioners hiss away - there are generators to provide 24-hour power - and almost all senior officials have palatial homes in the heavily protected 'Green Zone' which was once Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace compound. No power cuts for them, no petrol queues, no kidnaps and murders..."

Antonia Juhasz: Bush's Economic Invasion of Iraq
"On Monday, Iraq's National Assembly will release a draft constitution to be voted on by the people in two months. Since February, vital issues have been debated and discussed by the drafting committee: the role of Islamic law, the rights of women, the autonomy of the Kurds and the participation of the minority Sunnis.
But what hasn't been on the table is at least as important to the formation of a new Iraq: the country's economic structure. The Bush administration has succeeded in maintaining a stranglehold on issues such as public versus private ownership of resources, foreign access to Iraqi oil and U.S. control of the reconstruction effort - all of which are still governed by administration policies put into place immediately after the invasion. The Bush economic agenda favors foreign interests - American interests - over Iraqi self-determination.
Over a year ago, orders were put in place by L. Paul Bremer III, then the U.S. administrator of Iraq, that were designed to 'transition [Iraq] from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy' virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat. Those orders were also incorporated into the transitional administrative law - Iraq's interim constitution - and the economic restructuring they mandate is well underway.
Laws governing banking, investment, patents, copyrights, business ownership, taxes, the media and trade have all been changed according to U.S. goals, with little real participation from the Iraqi people. (The TAL can be changed, but only with a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly, and with the approval of the prime minister, the president and both vice presidents.) The constitutional drafting committee has, in turn, left each of these laws in place.
A central component of the Bush economic agenda is foreign corporate access to, and privatization of, Iraq's once state-run economy. Thus, an early Bremer order allowed foreign investment in and the privatization of all 192 government-owned industries (excluding oil extraction)..."

The Lies My President Told Me:

Paul Krugman: Social Security Lessons
"...the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war.
And there are two reasons to study that lesson. One is to be prepared for whatever comes next on Mr. Bush's agenda. Despite the tough talk about Iran, I don't think he can propose another war - there aren't enough troops to fight the wars we already have. But there's still room for another big domestic initiative, probably tax reform.
Forewarned is forearmed: the real goals of reform won't be as advertised, the administration will say things about the current system that aren't true, and the Treasury Department will function in a purely partisan capacity.
The other is that the public's visceral rejection of privatization, together with growing dismay over the debacle in Iraq, offers Democrats an opportunity to make an issue of the administration's pattern of deception. The question is whether they will dare to seize that opportunity, when for some of them it means admitting that they, too, were fooled."


Killing The Messenger:

Editor & Publisher: Media "Lined Up for White House Lies" in Plame Scandal
"In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair (not yet online), Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media - principally Time magazine and The New York Times - who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been 'one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.' Not only that, 'they helped cover it up.' You might say, he adds, they 'became part of a conspiracy.'
If they had burned this unworthy source and exposed his 'crime,' he adds, it would have been 'of such consequences that it might, reasonably, have presaged the defeat of the president, might have even - to be slightly melodramatic - altered the course of the war in Iraq.' In doing so they showed they owed their greatest allegiance to the source, not their readers.
And their source was no Deep Throat, not someone with dirt on the government - the source 'was the government.'
So in the end, he concludes, 'the greatest news organizations in the land had a story about a potential crime that reached as close as you can get to the president himself and they punted, they swallowed it, they self-dealt,'..."

AP: DOJ Shakeup Clouds Plame Probe
"David Margolis, a lawyer at the Justice Department for 40 years, was named Friday to oversee a special prosecutor's investigation of who in the Bush administration disclosed the name of an undercover CIA officer.
Margolis, whose title is associate deputy attorney general, is taking the place of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, whose last day of work was Friday. Comey will be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel.
Comey made the designation of Margolis. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has stepped aside from the probe because he was White House counsel when Valerie Plame's name was leaked in 2003 and he has testified to the grand jury investigating the unauthorized disclosure.
Comey gave broad discretion to US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago when he was appointed to investigate the leak in December 2003. Margolis is not expected to alter Fitzgerald's mandate in what are likely to be the final months of his investigation. The grand jury ends its term in October..."


Bush's Disconnection From Reality In Iraq:

Frank Rich: Someone Tell the President the War Is Over
"...our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout 'don't ask, don't tell' and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.
The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)
As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls 'a global struggle against violent extremism.' A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's number-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost..."


Iraq:

NY Times: The Other Army
"...No one knows how many times gunfire from a private security team has wounded a bystander or killed an innocent driver who ventured too close to a convoy, not realizing that mere proximity would be taken for a threat. When they fire their weapons in defense or warning, the teams rarely concern themselves with checking for casualties -- it would be too dangerous; they are in the middle of a war. Besides, no one in power is watching too closely.
And what rules exist seem to be ignored. A C.P.A. decree, which has now evolved into Iraqi law, limits the caliber and type of weapons that private security personnel employ. But I was told by several people in the business that, especially outside Baghdad, weapons like heavy machine guns and grenades are -- perhaps by necessity -- sometimes part of the arsenal..."


CAFTA:

Salon.com - Big Pharma's Free Ride
"In November 2004, Guatemala's Congress repealed a law that gave brand-name prescription drugs protection from generic competition. The law had allowed brand-name companies to conceal data that generic companies would use to bring their own versions to market, and public health activists hailed the move as a step toward greater access to essential medicines. But four months later, legislators reversed themselves and put those protections back in place. The protests that followed led to many injuries and one death. Why did this small nation, where cheap generic drugs have been key to treating one of Latin America's largest HIV-positive populations, change course?
In a word: CAFTA. Guatemala changed its laws in order to become part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which encompasses five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. CAFTA, which President Bush signed last week after coaxing it through Congress, requires its members to adopt strict rules on intellectual property rights, including those protecting prescription drugs. These drugs cost up to 22 times what Doctors Without Borders, which runs several AIDS clinics in Guatemala, pays for generic equivalents. Some economists say similarly high drug costs would cause the unique universal healthcare system of nearby Costa Rica to collapse..."


Ad Dollars = Suppression of Criticism?

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR): ABC's One-Sided Wal-Mart Report
"This week, the largest class action suit in U.S. history goes to court in California, as plaintiffs representing over 1 million workers accuse Wal-Mart of sex discrimination.
In addition to being the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart also spends considerable money advertising on mainstream media outlets - including regular spots on network newscasts like ABC's World News Tonight, where the discount giant sponsors the show's regular 'Person of the Week' segment. Plastered with huge Wal-Mart ads, it's easy to confuse that feature's web page with a visit to the Wal-Mart website. Wal-Mart regularly airs commercials during the newscasts, and underwrites ABC's daily email preview of the evening newscast (a plug for the company's 'Wal-Mart Facts' website).
The company also sponsors the 'Only in America' series on ABC's Good Morning America, an arrangement that was criticized by the United Food & Commercial Workers union (UFCW). And ABC and Wal-Mart have other commercial ties as well, including a perfume line that was featured on an ABC soap opera and sold at Wal-Mart stores (Broadcasting & Cable, 2/14/05).
So how will ABC's nightly newscast handle the news of Wal-Mart's day in court? In an August 7 preview, reporter Geoff Morrell called the lawsuit the 'biggest civil rights case ever,' and quoted plaintiff
Chris Kwapnoski. But then ABC lined up three sources to criticize the case, starting with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott. His comments were echoed by Steve Bokat from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who called the suit 'fundamentally unfair,'..."

Iraq's New Constitution Fails to Remove Bremer's Illegal CPA Orders:

Democracy Now! - Women, Oil and the Role of the U.S. in Iraq's New Constitution
"JUAN GONZALEZ: There's been quite a bit of attention focused on the continuing debate over the role of women, but very little on the economic aspects of the constitutional - proposed constitutional changes. Could you talk a little bit about what is going on in terms of the economy in the constitution?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yes, essentially what has remained almost off the table are the 100 orders put in place by Paul Bremer, the U.S. envoy to Iraq during the period of the formal occupation, which essentially transitioned all of Iraq's economic laws from a state-controlled economy to a market-controlled economy. These included provisions for the privatization of all of Iraq's state-owned industries, changes to trade laws, patent laws, banking, media, you name it and it was transformed for investment so that foreign companies would have complete access to the Iraqi economy.
There was an initial draft of the constitution in Iraq that returned Iraq to a social welfare state, reflecting the original constitution that had been in place during the Hussein era, which essentially guaranteed maternal and child health benefits, child care, the role of the state in guaranteeing education, that natural resources belonged to the state, etc. That draft was essentially eviscerated and the current draft puts all of that back into the market and probably most importantly makes the condition of natural resources far more difficult to determine what the outcome is going to be for Iraq's oil.
At the same time as the negotiations are moving forward on the constitution, an oil law is set to come into force in Iraq, a new national oil law that eliminates the nationalization, the state control of Iraq's oil, opens up the oil sector to private foreign investment and essentially guarantees the ability of U.S. companies to have at minimum significantly greater access to Iraq's oil..."


The US's Stunning Lack of a Sensible Energy Policy:

While I fully support the types of investment Mr. Lovins suggests ($180 billion is less than the US has spent to date on its two-year-long misadventure in Iraq), and despite the fact that the benefits to the average US citizen would be very tangible, the reality is that the economic forces entrenched in the US's petroleum culture will be unlikely to tolerate a change in the status quo. The question becomes one of the US citizenry waking up to the consequences resulting from continuing down a path where war is the foreign/energy policy tool of choice.

Invading an oil-rich country because its leader refused to modernize by way of massive civil- and petroleum-infrastructure-engineering contracts with US firms is no way for a constitutional republic that grandstands on principles of liberty and freedom to conduct an energy policy.

Amory Lovins: How to Live without Oil
"...It's entirely possible to cut projected U.S. oil consumption in half by 2025, and eliminate it completely by 2050, without compromising rapid economic growth. Demand could be halved simply by using oil twice as efficiently over several decades; the other half could be replaced with saved natural gas and advanced biofuels. According to a U.S. policy analysis we published last year at Rocky Mountain Institute ("Winning the Oil Endgame"), the cost of these changes would average $15 a barrel. Even if, as the U.S. government forecasts, oil comes down in price by 2025 to $26 a barrel, the net saving in the United States would still be $70 billion a year, and the rest of the world would benefit proportionally. Burgeoning economies like China and India have the most to lose from falling into a U.S.-style oil trap, and the biggest opportunity to avoid it by making their vehicles, buildings and factories efficient from scratch.
Doubling oil efficiency wouldn't be hard. A backlog of powerful ways to save and substitute for oil, amassed since the 1973 oil embargo, remains mostly untapped, even in the most energy-efficient countries. Automakers for instance could profitably increase fuel mileage to 66 mpg (3.6L/100km) for light trucks and 92 mpg (2.6L/100km) for cars. Doing so would cost an extra $2,550 for a midsize SUV, but would pay for itself in fuel savings in two years in the United States and in one year in Europe.
This would require combining hybrid-electric propulsion with new lightweight steels or, in a few years, carbon composite parts that absorb six to 12 times more crash energy per kilogram. New manufacturing processes could then make cars big, protective and comfortable with halved weight and fuel use at no extra cost. The U.S. military could pioneer such ultralight, ultrastrong vehicles to modernize its forces.
Modern aerodynamics, tires, engines and materials can cheaply double or triple the efficiency of 18-wheel heavy trucks and jetliners, too. Boeing's new 787 consumes 20 percent less fuel per passenger mile than its predecessor. Retooling the U.S. car, truck and plane industries would require a $90 billion investment. That may sound like a lot, but spread over a decade, it's worth about three weeks of U.S. oil imports a year. Other countries' retooling would typically yield at least as handsome profits in both money and security.
Once the United States has saved half its oil, it can cost-effectively replace an additional 20 percent with advanced biofuels, and the rest with saved natural gas. Biofuels (based on woody, weedy plants - not corn) will need a $90 billion investment, too, but they'll beat $26 oil, revitalize farming, protect topsoil better and preserve food crops' land and water. Harvesting biofuel crops, carbon credits and wind power all from the same land, much of it now unproductive, can also double or triple net farm and ranch income. Again, details will differ in other countries, but the opportunities are broadly similar - even in Japan, which lacks the Great Plains but is 70 percent forested and could substainably harvest both fiber and biofuels there.
Eliminating oil demand in the United States would thus require a $180 billion investment, half for efficient vehicles, half for advanced biofuels. By 2025, that would save $155 billion every year, create a million new jobs, save a million current jobs and generate 26 percent less carbon emissions. Benefits in Europe, Asia and Latin America are proportional or better. Even oil-exporting countries could benefit: oil may well ultimately be worth more for its hydrogen content than for its hydrocarbons..."

On Torture:

Now would be the time to live with the consequences of a policy of torture conceived at the very top of the US regime, but the DoD is having none of it. No matter that a Federal judge ordered the horrific images/videos released. Why are these people above the law?

NY Times: Officials See Risk in the Release of Images of Iraq Prisoner Abuse
"Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York..."


Greed Shows Through:

Michael Scherer: Why Big Business Hearts John Roberts
"It's looking like George W. Bush named a Supreme Court nominee that corporate honchos can love..."

Operation Northwoods Redux?

The Reuters story below leaves out the most interesting part of this story:
"...Other sources however have offered a different explanation for Byrnes' dismissal which ties in with the Bush administration's unpopular plan to attack Iran and the staged nuclear attack in the US which would provide the pretext to do so.
According to reporter Greg Szymanski, anonymous military sources said that Brynes was the leader of a faction that was preparing to instigate a coup against the neo-con hawks in an attempt to prevent further global conflict..."

Why is that?

REUTERS: More Discipline Mulled for U.S. General Over Affair
"The U.S. Army said on Wednesday that further discipline was possible against a four-star general relieved of his command due to what his lawyer called ``a consensual, adult relationship'' outside of marriage.
Gen. Kevin Byrnes was fired as commanding general of the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe in Virginia on Monday by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army said in a statement on Tuesday.
It represented a rare punishment of a four-star officer -- the highest rank in the military -- particularly over personal misconduct such as an affair. The action was all the more unusual because Byrnes already was retiring from the military after serving since 1969..."


Killing The Mesenger:

Sidney Blumenthal: The Informer
"For nearly 50 years, Robert Novak badgered and bullied his way to the top of Washington. His disgrace in the Valerie Plame affair has brought him crashing down - and he has only himself to blame..."


Iraq:

Stirling Newberry: Baghdad Putsch
"If there were any doubt about whether Iraq is headed down the road to being a failed state, yesterday's deposing of the Mayor of Baghdad by the city council, backed by the military arm of the Shi'ite-controlled Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, should be the clincher. The prosecution can rest...
...Yesterday's putsch in Baghdad replaced Alaa al-Tamimi, a secular technocrat, with Hussein al-Tahaan, a member of the Badr paramilitary group. The leader of the elected council backed the change, as has, according to a well placed source, the highest levels of the SCIRI. Their position is that the Mayor was not the legitimate head of government in Baghdad, and his removal is legal. Since he was appointed by Bremer, and not elected, this position has some degree of internal logic. The Prime Minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, had been sitting on al-Tamimi's resignation for weeks, looking for a candidate from his own Dawa Party, rather than from the SCIRI. The elected city council had been pushing back, demanding that either the Mayor be one of their own or that the Mayor's office be reduced in power in relation to the elected body. In short, it is about an internal political feud between the city of Baghdad, whose leaders want a larger budget and control over it, and those in control of the national government, who want Baghdad to be dependent on that government for every droplet of funds it is to get.
This transition means that a large fraction of the armed, organized, and able to govern Shia elite has lost faith in the US backed process, and sees an opportunity to sweep the Sunni completely out of the government. And it means that the unity within the Shia groups is broken. Both of these developments suit the Sunni insurgency just fine - the leading organizations of the insurgency have openly stated that they want a government in the same style as that which Saddam presided over. For them, disenfranchisement of the Sunni minority is a crucial step in the process of radicalizing the Sunni population.
The reason for this move is that the security situation in Iraq itself is disintegrating. One part of the climax at this particular moment is the failure of the constitutional process to come to any form of compromise. The Kurds want a confederation, the Shia a federation with them dominating it, and those Sunni that want to participate, as the minority player, a national government centered in Baghdad. Since the Sunni have the majority of people who have experience in running a central state, this is seen by their moderates as the best possible deal..."

Intelligence Ignored?

NY Times: 9/11 Panel Seeks Inquiry on New Atta Report
"Members of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terror attacks called on Congress to determine whether the Pentagon withheld intelligence information showing that a secret American military unit had identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as potential threats more than a year before the attacks.
The former commission members said the information, if true, could rewrite an important chapter of the history of the intelligence failures before Sept. 11, 2001.
'I think this is a big deal,' said John F. Lehman, a Republican member of the commission who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration. 'The issue is whether there was in fact surveillance before 9/11 of Atta and, if so, why weren't we told about it? Who made the decision not to brief the commission's staff or the commissioners?,'..."


The Legacy of The Bomb:

Juan Gonzalez (NY Daily News): Atomic truths plague prize coverup
"...'It is a thing of beauty to behold, this 'gadget,' ' wrote William Laurence, science reporter for the New York Times, in a macabre description of this ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
Laurence, the only journalist the U.S. government permitted to witness the bombing of Nagasaki, is also the reporter who first coined the term 'Atomic Age.'
On the day of the bombing, he accompanied a group of military scientists and observers in a second B-29 that flew with Sweeney. A month later, the Times published his remarkable eyewitness account, and he followed up with a series for the paper on the creation of the bomb. Those articles won him a 1946 Pulitzer Prize.
But Laurence was no ordinary embedded reporter.
A brilliant and respected pioneer of science reporting at the Times, he was also an unabashed cheerleader and paid government propagandist for nuclear weapons.
In March 1945, Gen. Leslie Groves, military director of the Manhattan Project, secretly recruited him - with the approval of Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger - as a press agent for the War Department.
Laurence promptly took a short leave from the Times, during which he received unlimited access to Manhattan Project facilities so he could write documents and press releases for the program, as well as for President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
Soon after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Laurence launched his Times series, where he extolled the bomb and sought to discredit other accounts about effects of the bomb..."

Amy & David Goodman: The Hiroshima Cover-Up
"A story that the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan...
...when Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter George Weller's 25,000-word story on the horror that he encountered in Nagasaki was submitted to military censors, General MacArthur ordered the story killed, and the manuscript was never returned. As Mr. Weller later summarized his experience with General MacArthur's censors, 'They won.'
Recently, Mr. Weller's son, Anthony, discovered a carbon copy of the suppressed dispatches among his father's papers (George Weller died in 2002). Unable to find an interested American publisher, Anthony Weller sold the account to Mainichi Shimbun, a big Japanese newspaper. Now, on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings, Mr. Weller's account can finally be read..."

Protest In Crawford:

Bush Vacationing While Iraq Burns

Cindy Sheehan: CODEPINK: Blogs From Crawford
"Where do I begin?
Today was a highly eventful day. This entry won’t be artful, but utilitarian.
I conservatively got 3 to 5 phone calls a minute. I did about 25 phone interviews and several TV interviews. I did several right-wing radio interviews. I was supposed to do: The Today Show, MSNBC live interview, Connected Coast to Coast (MSNBC) and Hardball (MSNBC). The Today Show just never showed up and the other 3 MSNBC shows cancelled for no reason.
Another big story that was going on today was about my first meeting with Bush in June of 2004. For you all I would like to clarify a few things. First of all, I did meet with George, and that is not a secret. I have written about it and been interviewed about it. I will stand by my recounting of the meeting. His behavior was rude and inappropriate. My behavior in June of 2004 is irrelevant to what is going on in 2005. I was in deep shock and deep grief. The grief is still there, but the shock has worn off and the deep anger has set in. And to remind everybody, a few things have happened since June of 2004: The 9/11 commission report; the Senate Intelligence report; the Duelfer WMD report; and most damaging and criminal: the Downing Street Memos. The VERY LAST THING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS IS: Why do the right wing media so assiduously scrutinize the words of a grief filled mother and ignore the words of a lying president?
In the early afternoon, we got word that if we were still there by Thursday, we were going to be deemed a 'security threat' to the president. Condi and Rummy are coning in on Thursday for a 'policy' meeting. I just don’t understand why we will be a security threat on Thursday when we aren’t now? If we don’t leave on Thursday, we could be arrested. Well, I am not leaving. There are only three things that would make me leave: if George comes out and talks to me; if August comes to an end, or if I am arrested.
People are heading here from all over the country. I have some more Gold Star Families for Peace members coming tomorrow. We are amazed by the outpouring of love and support we are getting. 62% of the American public are against this war and want our troops home. We need to show the media that we are in the majority. We need to show George Bush and his cabal of neocons that when we say 'bring the troops home, now' we mean 'bring the troops home, now!!!?'
In the late afternoon, many of us left to go back to the peace house in Crawford because there was going to be a major lightening storm. While most of us were gone, the Sheriff came and told us that what we were told was county property really was private property and we would have to remove our stuff to a tiny place, or get it confiscated. I find it interesting that the county sheriff did not know that roads in his county that lead up to the presidential vacation home are private roads. I find it very hard to believe. They think that they are pushing us off, but we will not leave there voluntarily or without handcuffs on. My only hope is, there will be tons of media there when they carry me to the squad car.
Today was so bizarre for me. I got phone calls from famous people pledging their support, and phone calls from mothers with sons in Iraq who are overcome with emotion when they talk to me. And it is so brave for them to call me, because I am their worst fear. We had a young man who is in the US Army at Ft. Hood come this morning and spend hours with us. He has been there and his unit is scheduled to go back in October. How much courage did that take for him to come within earshot of his commander in chief’s home and spend time with some old hippy protestors???
We have lawyer working on getting us closer to the ranch and working on magically turning the private property back into county property again. I have some awesome young ladies from CodePink answering my phone and taking phone calls. We have Veterans for Peace out there putting up banners (our tiny campsite looks real nice). We have concerned citizens from all over America starting to come in. IT IS FREAKIN? AMAZING, FOLKS!!!
Come and join us and let your voices be joined with ours. AMEN!!!"


Media Regulation As An Opportunity To Inject Religion Where It Does Not Belong:

Democracy Now! - Headlines for August 9, 2005
"...The Federal Communications Commission has hired an anti-pornography activist and lobbyist to work as an advisor of indecency issues. The hiring of Penny Nance is expected to expand the FCC's campaign to fight what it views as indecent broadcasts. Penny Nance founded the Kids First Coalition and until recently served as a board member of Concerned Women For America. That group describes its mission as helping QUOTE 'to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy,'..."


Energy Policy:

Independent World Television: Where is the Hirsch Report?
"The U.S. Department of Energy recently commissioned its own study of how declining oil supplies will effect the world's future. It's called the Hirsch Report, and it warns of unprecedented 'economic, social, and political costs' and urges 'immediate, serious attention.' And yet, as author and ecologist Richard Heinberg notes, the report has virtually disappeared from both the web and major media coverage...
...Here, then, is a significant report produced by an independent research company for the US Department of Energy, warning of a global problem of 'unprecedented' proportions with economic, social, and political impacts that are likely to be extremely severe. The authors forecast 'protracted economic hardship' for the United States and the rest of the world. It is a problem that deserves 'immediate, serious attention.'
Yet, half a year after its release, the Hirsch report is nowhere to be found...
...When contacted, Dr. Hirsch replied that the document is 'a public report, paid for and released by DOE NETL, and that it therefore could be reposted at will.' Project Censored is therefore posting the report in full at:
http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/The_Hirsch_Report_Proj_Cens.pdf
If the content of the Hirsch report is to be believed-and there is every reason to think it should be-then this is a document that deserves the close attention of every leader of government and industry in the US. Newspapers and newsmagazines should be running excerpts and summaries. Instead, there is nearly total silence..."

NY Times: Medical Company Sought an Eased Limit on Uranium
"The new energy law weakens limits on exports of highly enriched uranium, a change opposed by people who fear the spread of nuclear weapons and by the top nonproliferation official at the Energy Department.
But a Canadian company that makes an isotope used in the United States in cancer diagnosis argued that it needed the change. Since 1992, the United States has barred exports of highly enriched uranium, except in cases in which there is no way for a reactor to use low-enriched uranium and the United States works to convert the reactor to low-enriched uranium with the reactor operator's cooperation...
...At the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ed Lyman, a senior scientist in its Global Security Program, said that if highly enriched uranium fell into the wrong hands, it would be a great material to make nuclear weapons..."


The So-Called War On Terror:

NY Times: Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in 2000
"More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.
In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.
The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency..."

Killing The Messenger:

Michael Isikoff: Leak Investigation: An Oversight Issue?
"The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is 'likely' to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale. One question: how much authority Comey's successor will have over Fitzgerald. When Comey appointed Fitzgerald in 2003, the deputy granted him extraordinary powers to act however he saw fit—but noted he still had the right to revoke Fitzgerald's authority. The questions are pertinent because lawyers close to the case believe the probe is in its final stages. Fitzgerald recently called White House aide Karl Rove's secretary and his former top aide to testify before the grand jury. They were asked why there was no record of a phone call from Time reporter Matt Cooper, with whom Rove discussed the CIA agent, says a source close to Rove who requested anonymity because the FBI asked participants not to comment. The source says the call went through the White House switchboard, not directly to Rove."


The Right To Lobby Congress:

LA Times: Inquiry into Lobbyist Sputters after Demotion
"A U.S. grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor and the inquiry ended soon after..."


Corporate Media And War:

Norman Solomon: Big Star-Spangled Lies for War
"A lot of people want to believe that the current war on Iraq is some kind of aberration - a radical departure from the previous baseline of US foreign policy. That's a comforting illusion.
Yes, the current administration in Washington is notable for the extreme mendacity and calculated idiocy of its claims. But - decade after decade - the propaganda fuel for one US war after another has flowed from a standard set of lies.
Some of the boilerplate lies are implicit assumptions about Uncle Sam's benign and even noble intent. Other deceptions rely on more specific whoppers endlessly whirling through the news media's spin cycle. From one war to the next, certain themes are played up more than others - but the process always involves building an agenda to start a war, trying to justify the war while it's under way, and then claiming that the war must continue as long as the man in the Oval Office says so.
Sometimes a war begins suddenly, filling the national horizon with a huge insistent flash. At other times, over a period of months or years, a low distant rumble gradually turns into a roar. But in any event, the democratic role of citizens is not simply to observe and obey. In the United States, what we think is supposed to matter. And for practical reasons, top officials in Washington don't want to seem too far out of step with voters.
The president leads a siege of public opinion on the home front - a battleground where media spin is the main weapon. A media campaign for hearts and minds at home means going all-out to persuade us that the latest war is as good as a war can be - necessary, justified, righteous and worth any sorrows to be left in its wake.
Along the way, media outlets routinely march to the drumbeat of key themes:

* America Is a Fair and Noble Superpower
* Our Leaders Will Do Everything They Can to Avoid War
* Our Leaders Would Never Tell Us Outright Lies
* This Guy Is a Modern-Day Hitler
* This Is about Human Rights
* This Is Not at All about Oil or Corporate Profits
* They Are the Aggressors, Not Us
* If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It
* If This War Is Wrong, the Media Will Tell Us
* Media Coverage Brings War into Our Living Rooms
* Opposing the War Means Siding with the Enemy
* This Is a Necessary Battle in the War on Terrorism
* What the US Government Needs Most Is Better PR
* The Pentagon Fights Wars as Humanely as Possible
* Our Soldiers Are Heroes, Theirs Are Inhuman
* America Needs the Resolve to Kick the "Vietnam Syndrome"
* Withdrawal Would Cripple US Credibility

In a society with significant aspects of democracy, persistent spin is necessary to gain and retain public support for war. The war-makers rely on 'perception management' techniques that effectively promote certain themes; the better we understand those ongoing themes, the more clearly we'll be able to see through them. Such understanding can blow away the fog of media war and enhance democratic participation in decisions that are truly matters of life and death."

On Torture:

NY Times: Abuse Cases Open Command Issues at Army Prison
"...Along with other information that has emerged, trial testimony has underscored a question long at the core of this case: what is the responsibility of more senior military personnel for the abuses that took place?
Many former Bagram officers have denied knowing about any serious mistreatment of detainees before the two deaths. But others said some of the methods that prosecutors have cited as a basis for criminal charges, including chaining prisoners to the ceilings of isolation cells for long periods, were either standard practice at the prison or well-known to those who oversaw it.
None of the nine soldiers prosecuted thus far are officers. The 18 others against whom Army investigators have recommended criminal charges include two captains, the military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation group and the reservist commander of the military police guards..."


The Americas:

BBC News: Chavez says US drug agents spying
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the US Drug Enforcement Administration of using its agents to spy on the south American country...'The DEA was using the fight against drug trafficking as a mask, to support drug trafficking, to carry out intelligence in Venezuela against the government,' Mr Chavez said..."


The So-Called War On Terror:

Newsweek: CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away
"...in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. 'He was there,' Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. 'We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001,' Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. 'Bin Laden was never within our grasp.' Berntsen says Franks is 'a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was.'
In his book—titled 'Jawbreaker'—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger..."

Politicizing Energy Security:

Facts are withheld that make the corporate-subsidy-laden Energy Bill look even more hollow. How does this serve the public interest?

NY Times: EPA Holds Back Report on Car Fuel Efficiency
"With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.
But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980's.
Releasing the report this week would have been inopportune for the Bush administration, its critics said, because it would have come on the eve of a final vote in Congress on energy legislation six years in the making. The bill, as it stands, largely ignores auto mileage regulations.
The executive summary of the copy of the report obtained by The Times acknowledges that 'fuel economy is directly related to energy security,' because consumer cars and trucks account for about 40 percent of the nation's oil consumption..."


The Environment:

AP: More US Children Being Sickened by Pesticides in Schools
"Pesticide use in or near US schools sickened more than 2,500 children and school employees over a five-year period, and though most illnesses were mild, their numbers have increased, a nationwide report found.
Sources include chemicals to kill insects and weeds on school grounds, disinfectants, and farming pesticides that drift over nearby schools, according to the report by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and their colleagues.
Dr. Walter Alarcon, lead study author, said one of the largest recent incidents occurred in May when about 600 students and staff members were evacuated from an Edinburg, Texas, elementary school after pesticides sprayed on a cotton field drifted into the school's air conditioning system. About 30 students and nine staff members developed mild symptoms, including nausea and headaches.
The study, which appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, covered events from 1998 to 2002 -- none as big as the Texas incident, Alarcon said..."


Death and US Oil In Nigeria:

The San Jose Mercury News: Chevron Paid Agents Who Destroyed Villages
"The bodies of the dead Nigerian villagers had not yet grown cold when the Nigerian navy captain presented Chevron with a bill: 15,000 naira, or $165 for responding to 'attacks from Opia village against security agents.'
Within 24 hours Chevron paid up. It would be years before the San Ramon-based energy company would acknowledge the role it played in the destruction of Opia and another small village called Ikenyan in Nigeria's oil-rich delta in January 1999.
The receipt for the January 4 army raid, which left four villagers dead and nearly 70 missing and presumed dead, came to light only this summer as part of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the victims in US District Court in San Francisco. It is being reported first on MercuryNews.com. The receipt also is among documents obtained by the Mercury News.
Chevron has denied any responsibility for the death or injuries that occurred that day. Charles Stewart, a Chevron spokesman, said the payment to the captain reflected 'a longstanding industry practice of paying a small amount for each day' to military personnel who protected 'the people and the property of the oil companies located in the Niger Delta,'..."


Domestic Intelligence-Gathering:

The San Jose Mercury News: Schwarzenegger and National Guard Withhold E-mails in Spying Probe
"The Schwarzenegger administration and California National Guard are refusing to make public a series of 20 e-mails between two of the governor's spokesmen and a Guard official regarding a Mercury News story in June that revealed the existence of an intelligence-gathering unit.
Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, who is heading a probe into the unit, said the refusal only furthers suspicion the Guard unit may have engaged in domestic spying.
The Guard also acknowledged Wednesday that seven of its computers went missing around the time the story was published and just recently reappeared. Dunn has demanded to know whether any classified material was removed, but the Guard has said the computers were brand new - never used - and not relevant to the investigation..."

Iran:

Ray McGovern: Pre-empting Cheney on Iran
"Whatever plans Dick Cheney and his neo-conservatives may have had to conjure up a nuclear threat from Iran as 'justification' for military action have been sharply undercut by some timely leaks to the Washington Post. In a redux of President George W. Bush's spin on the 'grave and growing' danger from Iraq, Cheney protégé and newly appointed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is on record warning that Iranian 'deception' must not be allowed to continue much longer: 'It will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons.'
Not for ten more years, report sources close to the U.S. intelligence community in yesterday's lead story in the Post . Several government officials with access to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran have told journalist Dafna Linzer of its main judgments. By doing so, Linzer's sources seem determined not to sit idly by as our country is misled once again into a war favored only by 'neo-conservatives' in Washington and their counterparts in the far-right Likud government in Israel who share a vision of remaking the map of the Middle East.
Linzer has shown commendable tenacity on Iran and the nuclear issue-tenacity highly unusual by today's lax media standards. According to Linzer's sources, the National Intelligence Estimate states that, while there are credible signs that the Iranian military is doing some clandestine work, there is no information to connect that work directly to a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, U.N. inspectors have found no convincing proof that Iran is conducting a nuclear weapons program or that it has a nuclear warhead design.
The NIE concludes that Iran will not be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon until 'early to mid-next decade,' with general consensus among intelligence analysts that 2015 would actually be the earliest.
The exposure of these intelligence judgments is extremely well timed. It comes amid rumors that Vice President Cheney's office has ordered up contingency plans for a large-scale air assault on Iran using not only conventional weapons but also tactical nuclear weapons to take out hardened underground nuclear facilities. The action would be framed as a response to a terrorist act-whether sponsored by Iran or not-on the United States. According to former CIA operative Philip Giraldi, senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are appalled that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked attack but, sadly, no one wants to jeopardize a career by posing objections..."


Nuclear Proliferation:

Apparently, it's OK, depending on the recipient...

The Guardian (UK) - How the UK gave Israel the bomb
"Documents reveal that Britain supplied heavy water without safeguards against military use, enabling the production of nuclear weapons..."


Wholly Unamerican: Detentions Without Charge or Legal Representation

AP: Rare View of CIA Secret Detentions
"Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.
Amnesty and human rights lawyers argued that the report added to long-standing claims that the United States has held 'secret detainees' in its war on terror.
'We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of U.S. secret detentions around the world,' said Sharon Critoph, a researcher at Amnesty International who interviewed the men in Yemen.
Navy Lt. Commander Flex Plexico, noting that it was difficult to respond to a report he hasn't seen said, 'We have said many times that the Department of Defense does not engage in the practice of renditions' - the transfer of terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
Plexico, a spokesman for the department, said it was important to note that training manuals of al Qaida terrorist network 'emphasize the tactic of making false abuse allegations.'
U.S. officials have denied allegations of secret detention facilities, saying they hold terror suspects only at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In June, U.S. officials denied a suggestion from the U.N.'s special expert on torture, Manfred Nowak, that some undeclared holding areas could include American ships cruising international waters. Others have suggested 'high-value' detainees could be held secretly in Diego Garcia, a British-held island in the Indian Ocean that the United States rents as a strategic military base..."

John Roberts: A Not-So-Mainstream Conservative

NY Times: Roberts Helped to Shape 80's Civil Rights Debate
"He produced a torrent of memorandums explaining why the Reagan administration was right to oppose new provisions in the Voting Rights Act that had just passed the House with an overwhelming majority.
He drafted op-ed articles for his boss, Attorney General William French Smith, and he circulated talking points warning that Congress - by trying to make it easier to prove voting rights violations - was on the verge of creating 'a quota system for electoral politics.' He scribbled angry notes on newspaper articles that showed an official from another department was veering off-message.
It was 1981 and John G. Roberts Jr. was 26, two years out of Harvard Law School and an eager combatant in the political wars - including the one over the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was up for renewal in Congress. In general, he wrote to one of his mentors after three months on the job: 'This is an exciting time to be at the Justice Department. So much that has been taken for granted for so long is being seriously reconsidered,'..."


Killing The Messenger:

Democracy Now! - New Information May Reveal Key Details on Judith Miller's Role in the Rove/CIA Scandal
"JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I'd like to ask Murray Waas, the -- where does the case go from here in terms of your sense of the sources that you have of where Fitzgerald is going?

MURRAY WAAS: Fitzgerald keeps his cards close to his vest. There was some interesting action in the last couple days before the Grand Jury. Two of Karl Rove's aides came before the Grand Jury, an assistant and another top aide. We're not sure what they said. We're not sure why they were called. But that would indicate some intensification or moving toward some kind of closure, which way is a little bit difficult to tell, but Fitzgerald does seem stymied still by the lack of testimony by Judith Miller. There was this very, very key meeting between Judith Miller and a senior official in the Bush administration on July 8. I have been able to determine from my reporting that Scooter Libby, the Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Vice President Cheney, was a source for, on at least four occasions, for Miller regarding stories about weapons of mass destruction, or recommended or put her in touch with others in the administration. There was something -- Ambassador Wilson would know the name of the group. I don't have it in front of me, but there was kind of a working group to sell the war to Congress, the media, the American people. I think it was the Iraq Working Group or something like that --

JOSEPH WILSON: Yeah, it was the White House Iraq Group. It was known by its acronym, WHIG, the WHIG Group.

MURRAY WAAS: And Libby played a key role in that, and interestingly, the same people who were selling the war to the American people, who were part of that group, were the same people who then were central to trying to discredit Ambassador Wilson and his wife. And because the two were interrelated or interconnected, they mudded information out, which we have now learned so much of it was false and just not true, telling the American people there were chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities or huge efforts taking place by Saddam to develop those capacities. Those were not true.

So Ambassador Wilson comes forward in The New York Times and on "Meet the Press" and elsewhere and gives his personal knowledge about why some of those things are not true, so that same core group in the White House then begins a very direct and concerted campaign to discredit and retaliate against Joe and Valerie. And I reported, I guess, almost a year ago or -- I'm sorry, more recently, a few months ago, that the Grand Jury, the evidence before the Grand Jury was that there was a very concerted campaign. It wasn't just casual conversations, or officials like Rove were talking to reporters about other things, and this issue just came up, that they actually had meetings and strategies and so forth about it.

So I wrote that story in the Prospect, but not sure when, maybe a few months ago. The Los Angeles Times just had a front page story by a friend of mine, Tom Hamburger, which was a little bit -- which was even more precise and named Lewis Libby, Scooter Libby, the Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, and Karl Rove, as the two key players in that.

So, we're not sure exactly where things are going. One other interesting possibility, if there isn't -- if there aren’t indictments brought, there is the option for special prosecutors to issue a public report. So, Fitzgerald can potentially put out everything that he knows in the public record. But he is kind of a man who is impervious to public opinion, who doesn't see his role necessarily as one of informing public opinion, but simply prosecuting crimes. So, he has had discussions with people in the Department of Justice, and some people have urged him to take that course, but we hope we can find out what actually happened here. If there are indictments, there would be trials, and if there were no indictments, because the evidence doesn't reach a level beyond a reasonable doubt to bring people to trial, that maybe there would be a public report. And lastly, interestingly, there's a movement by Nancy Pelosi, the majority leader -- Democratic leader in the House now, to get behind a Democratic resolution of inquiry by Congress to get to the bottom of this, when Fitzgerald is all done. So hopefully someday we'll learn the truth, we’ll learn all of the facts..."


Turning A Worthwhile Porgram Into Something It's Not, A Place For People Trained To Kill:

Washington Post: Military Targets Peace Corps to Fill Recruiting Gap
"The US military, struggling to fill its voluntary ranks, is offering to allow recruits to meet part of their military obligations by serving in the Peace Corps, which has resisted any ties to the Defense Department or US intelligence agencies since its founding in 1961.
The recruitment program has sparked debate and rising opposition among current and former Peace Corps officials. Some welcome it as a way to expand the cadre of idealistic volunteers created by President John F. Kennedy. But many say it could lead to suspicions abroad that the Peace Corps, which has 7,733 workers in 73 countries, is working together with the US armed forces.
'Does this raise red flags for the Peace Corps community? I'd say yes - emphatically so,' said Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association, an organization of returned volunteers, staff and supporters. 'We think a real or perceived linkage between the Peace Corps and military service could damage the Peace Corps and potentially put the safety of Peace Corps volunteers at risk.'
Congress authorized the recruitment program three years ago in legislation that drew little attention at the time but is stirring controversy now, for two reasons: The military has begun to promote it, and the day is drawing closer when the first batch of about 4,300 recruits will be eligible to apply to the Peace Corps, after having spent 3 1/2 years in the armed forces. That could happen as early as 2007..."