Interesting but I think Chimpy Boy is violating the constitution. Treaties must be approved by Congress.

Here's how Lute responded, rjsnj:

"We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress."

Posted by MichaelLink on November 26, 2007 at 07:32 PM
===================================================

Thx Mike Link. There was a good discussion of this with Thomas Ricks on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

It's sort of an "understanding" rather than a "treaty". That means either side can easily discard it.

The real issue though is will we dig in so deep with permanent bases and corporate interests that it's hard to leave.

Michael you are correct of course...but our Dems will roll over and play dead-AGAIN.

I wonder just how far they will let him go-will it be after he formally announces he is the supreme ruler of Americans? Or are they just too lazy/too involved themselves, to stop him?

"joint declaration of 'principles' for 'friendship and cooperation.'" Sounds like a treaty to me - isn't that a constitutional responsibility of Congress ? kind of like a florist selling "flour" pouches filled with an arrangement of cooked apples. The bakerey should have a problem with that.

Bush will have to use the Congress or some other group to help because Bush is unable to think about Iraq, Palestine & Israel, and the economy all at the same time. That is why our Nation is in such bad shape. Bush just isn't capable to run a Country as large and complicated as USA.

Finally Brothers be perfect,be of good comfort, be of one mind,live in peace and God of love and peace shall be with you.IICor 13-11

The only way to have peace is to be of one mind. And it appears Bush is incapable of thinking in love, peace, comfort, and understanding others ideas. He always wants to think only of his ideas. It will never work. Too much like Hitler.

Do you understand what that scripture is saying?
If you want the God of Love and Peace to be with you then you have to follow his pattern.

This should be taken as an opportunity to call for a new round of Base Closure and Realignment considerations, focusing this time on the 750 bases we have overseas, most of them set up under a "Status of Forces Agreement" with the host country.

Also, we need to call for an investigation into the facilities the Air Force has set up in Iraq as part of the missile defense shield and the cyber warfare program. It seems clear that the so-called embassy in Baghdad is designed to be a Pentagon/N.S.A./CIA headquarters east--i.e. a giant spy facility about which the eastern hemisphere is not likely to be happy.

Another show by w to show he runs the show?What foolishness!He wants to show everyone it`s his bat and ball and if he can`t play the game by his rules he`s going home.Really he should have been sent home a long time ago!Meanwhile the repubs in the congress and senate should be made to pay dearly for allowing this travesty to continue instead of caring about the country.We have 2 senators in Maine that dearly need to go!

I remember, I think it was last spring when the Democratic Congress introduced an Iraq war-funding bill with one of the stipulations being that further building on permanent bases in Iraq would stop. Neither enough of the Republican Congress or the President would go along with that stipulation meant to push an end to the physical war in Iraq. Later, the Democrats in Congress then took that stipulation off the table to try to bargain with Republican’s in Congress for the lives of our soldiers and not even 15 Republican’s would or will still go along with the most simple fiscal governmental responsibilities connected with the funding. Two of those responsibilities still being more money for the troops and their families and no money used for any forms of torture in the Iraq war.

So I say let the Democratic Congress play the politics hard on the Iraq war this next year and put the rule that building on permanent bases will stop back in the proposal along with 14 other reasons. Then tell the won’t-die-hard Republican’s in Congress all 15 of them have to do is go along with four of the 14 reasons that guide an end to the Iraq war to get next years funding for the war. Otherwise start to bring the troops home in February. I mean, come on! I have had enough.

Last week the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said that there is still 50 billion dollars in this years Iraq war budget for the President to ask for that he has not asked for. Let the President use that to bring them home and equip the troops in the meanwhile.

The Democratic Chairman also said they want out of Iraq by the end of the next year so that the next administration also does not lose international credibility with the war. The Chairman did not have to say whether he was talking about a Democratic or Republican administration or both... (Must the Democratic Congress fight for America’s honor along with the Republican Party’s because the Republican’s in Congress won’t fight for America’s honor their selves while hiding behind the President's lack of honor?)

Oh and as far as the President’s politics on war finding a verbal agreement with the Maliki Government’s politics on violence...so what 'you and he' say Mr. President? The American Public says it is a little said too late.

The Democratic Party is being way to kind here on this web site as far as I am concerned. I mean, I am not worried about making a post-Nine-Eleven American and an embarrassed pro-Iraq war Republican uncomfortable at all, are you?

You might say that the ‘bushies’ need their hedges trimmed to make the White House look better. Senator Kucinich should get that job as President or Senator because he’s sharp and to the point, don’t you know what I mean?

How about a Senator Kucinich speech in an international public meeting with the Arab leaders talking about Islamic leaders politics on violence? Touche Saudi Arabia! On guard Republican’s!

By definition a TREATY is an AGREEMENT, especially an AGREEMENT BETWEEN NATIONS, signed and approved by each nation.

Bush saying only treaties are approved by Congress and that an agreement between nations is something other than a treaty is a trick to establish precedence for the unitary executive and take power away from Congress. I do not feel the Bush administration is stupid enough to believe an agreement between nations is not a treaty, and no one else should either; but I am of the opinion that the Bush administration feels WE THE PEOPLE are that stupid.

The Bush administration is trying to establish a precedence of a king with the unitary executive branch being the sole and only power in United States government which in and of itself is grounds for impeachment.

Please get behind Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Privileged Resolution and H Res.333 and let's IMPEACH Cheney, Bush and all who stand by him to undermine the Constitution and our constitutional way of life in the United States.

George Orwell's, "1984" Heralds Endless Right Wing War and Lies of the Inner and Outer Parties [Republican & Democrat DLC] of the Bush Administration

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and anyone who does not know this is contrary to the orthodox view and is subject to enforcement authority by the thought police, as a thought criminal.

In the U.S. today, the Republicans and the Democrats have joined together to establish, "The PARTY", an inner-party, the American aristocracy, the REPULICAN PARTY, and an outer-party, the Professional Middle Class, the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, of political orthodoxy and perpetual war. If the American people want to stop the war in Iraq, as well as to stop the march to perpetual war and political orthodoxy by a totalitarian oligarchy, that will permanently enshrine totalitarian government, we, the 70% majority common population of the United States, must do more than end the war in Iraq. We, the 70% majority common population of the United States as a class and culture, must end the push of the American aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class, the Republican and Democratic Parties, as an inner and outer part of "The PARTY", to take over the government of the United States and make "proles" out of the 70% majority common population as a class and culture.

The 70% majority common population as a class and culture must reject "The PARTY" and genuine belief in deliberate lies, before it is too late, if we as a people, the 70% majority common population of the United States, are to avoid being "proles" in a totalitarian oligarchy that are subject to enforcement authority of the thought police.

Excerpts for George Orwell's, "1984", copyright 1949 by Harcourt, Brace and Company:

"If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia [whichever it may be] is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love."

"The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the PARTY is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the PARTY chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed. This holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a year. At all times the PARTY is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now. It will be seen that the control of the past depends above all on the training of memory. To make sure that all written records agree with the orthodoxy of the moment is merely a mechanical act. But it is also necessary to remember that events happened in a desired manner. And if it is necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper with written records, then it is necessary to forget that one has done so. The trick of doing this can be learned like any other mental technique. It is learned by the MAJORITY of PARTY MEMBERS, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, "reality control". In Newspeak it is called Doublethink, although Doublethink comprises much else as well."

"All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown, or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. It is the achievement of the PARTY to have produced a system of thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of the PARTY be made permanent. If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes."

"It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of Doublethink are those who invented Doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane. One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in social scale. Those whose attitude toward the war is most nearly rational are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps too and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them. They are aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favored workers whom we call "the proles" are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening. It is in the ranks of the PARTY, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible. This peculiar linking-together of opposites--knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism--is one of the chief distinguishing marks of Oceanic society. The official ideology abounds with contradictions even where there is no practical reason for them. Thus the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches a contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past, and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at one time peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for that reason. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family, and it calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to the sentiments of family loyalty. Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in Doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is to be forever averted--if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently--then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity."

I think it is crucial right now for Democrats to get out publicly in the media - whether it's Speaker Pelosi or someone else w/ substantial credibility on the Iraq issue - and explain why despite the apparent success of the surge in reducing violence, staying in Iraq beyond the time called for in the $50 Billion spending bill is a bad thing for our national interest and for our troops. This argument must be made promptly and forcefully ASAP because there is a sign that the media tide is turning, and a good chance public opinion might follow and turn against the Dems unless a forceful argument explaining why we STILL should get out is made VERY SOON. I think the argument should probably be that we are wasting extremely valuable resources having them tied down in Iraq indefinitely as Bush would like, that our troops have gone through enough deployments and deserve to come home, and that despite the recent (arguable) successes, the war continues to hurt recruitment and retention of people in the military. These are very compelling reasons why we should STILL get out of Iraq soon. We cannot fail to remind the american public of these reasons in response to the GOP (and recent consensus media) contention that the surge is working and we should stay. Otherwise, Dems risk losing this argument over the $50 Billion. Core Dems will understand and applaud Pelosi & Co's steadfastness in standing up to Bush & Cheney (and I echo that sentiment strongly), but we must remind those independents of the costs of remaining in Iraq even w/ the claimed successes of the surge. I can't stress enough that Dems need to move quickly on this.

What POWER Means To "the PARTY", The Inner Party and Outer Party, The Republican Party and the Democratic Party is defined by O'Brien in the following excerpts from George Orwell's, "1984":

"'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

"Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said."

"'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy--everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parents, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no employment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always--do not forget this, Winston--always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.'"

"He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on: "

"'And remember that it is forever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands--all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live forever. Everyday, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon--and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again, generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible--and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. This is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: An endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning , I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become a part of it.'"

Arms Expert Scott Ritter Says April 2008 Critical For U.S. Plans To Attack Iran

Scott Ritter: Bombs Away?
By Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron
The Detroit Metro Times

Wednesday 28 November 2007

Arms expert Scott Ritter says the US plans to attack Iran. Metro Times asks why he's so sure.

"Everything points to April 2008 being a month of some criticality." - Scott Ritter

It seems that with each passing week there are more stories raising the specter of George Bush turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a bloody trifecta by attacking Iran.

In mainstream daily papers we see pieces like one by Gannett's John Yaukey, who wrote in early November that "confrontation could be near" because "Iran continues to taunt the United States with its aggressive posturing in Iraq and Lebanon while pushing ahead with its nuclear research ..."

We are also witnessing what appears to be a chilling rerun of the Iraq debacle. Confronted with evidence that calls into question the status of Iran's nuclear program, the Bush administration is shifting its rhetoric.

"The Bush administration has charged that Iran is funding anti-American fighters in Iraq and sending in sophisticated explosives to bleed the U.S. mission, although some of the administration's charges are disputed by Iraqis as well as the Iranians," the Los Angeles Times reported in October. "Still, ... diplomatic and military officials say they fear that the overreaching of a confident Iran, combined with growing U.S. frustrations, could set off a dangerous collision."

Look beyond daily papers - from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker to articles in The Nation - and the picture emerges of an administration that is determined to attack Iran.

John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on this course for years."

"It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave," writes Richardson, who details the Bush administration's success at scuttling diplomatic efforts - notably involving then-Secretary of State Colin Powell - to reach a peaceful accord with Iran. "The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline...."

With all this in mind, we decided to talk with the man who literally wrote the book on Bush's intentions. Nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since.

A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter loudly disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.

To learn what he thinks the future holds for Iran, and the consequences of a U.S. invasion, we recently sat down for a 90-minute phone interview with Ritter. What follows is a condensed version of that conversation.

Metro Times: A year ago, when your book Target Iran came out, you were sounding the alarm about war being imminent. Why do you think that attack hasn't occurred?

Scott Ritter: Let's remember that this is an elective war, not a war of necessity. A war of necessity would be fought at the point and time a conflict is required, if somebody is threatening to invade you, to attack, etc. But an elective war is one where we choose to go to war. It will be conducted on a timescale that's beneficial to those who are planning the conflict.

As far as why it hasn't happened, there's any number of reasons. One, the Bush administration has not been able to stabilize Iraq to the level they would like to see prior to expanding military operations in the region. Two, the international community has not rallied around the cause of Iran's nuclear program representing a casus belli to the extent that the Bush administration would like. They were hopeful that there would be more action from the [United Nations] Security Council. It took a long time to get the issue shifted from the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters to the Security Council. And even when it got shifted to the Security Council, the Council took very timid steps, not decisive steps. The Bush administration sort of tied its hands at that point in time. I think you are seeing increasing frustration today at the slow pace.

Also, the need to redefine the Iranian threat away from exclusively being focused on nuclear activity, because now you have the difficulty of both the IAEA saying there is no nuclear weapons program and the CIA saying pretty much the same thing. So the Bush administration needs to redefine the Iranian threat, which they have been doing successfully, casting Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror, getting the Senate resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command a terrorist organization, and creating a perception amongst the American people, courtesy of a compliant media, that talks about the reason why things are going bad in Iraq is primarily because of Iranian intervention.

They have been working very hard to get back on track. I still believe that we are seeing convergence here. The Bush administration is moving very aggressively toward military action with Iran.

Metro Times: Is your conclusion that an attack is imminent based on the administration's statements and actions, like labeling Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, or do you also have sources within the intelligence community and the military and the administration telling you what's going on?

Scott Ritter: I don't have any current sources of the sort you just spoke of. I was plugged in back in 2006 to good quality current information. But I haven't been plugged in recently, so I have to use some sort of analytical methodology as opposed to saying, "Aha, I got it from the horse's mouth." But there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker-busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the summer of 2008.

Metro Times: Last year you expressed hope that if Democrats took control of Congress it might pass legislation that could block the march toward war. Do you see them stepping up?

Scott Ritter: No. They just passed a resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command as a terrorist organization. Unless there is a radical reawakening in Congress, I don't see them passing any sort of pre-emptive legislation of that nature.

Metro Times: But it is now clearer than ever that our invasion of Iraq has been a disaster. How do you explain the lack of opposition?

Scott Ritter: It's difficult to explain. First of all you have to note, from the public side, that very few Americans actually function as citizens anymore. What I mean by that are people who invest themselves in this country, people who care, who give a damn. Americans are primarily consumers today, and so long as they continue to wrap themselves in the cocoon of comfort, and the system keeps them walking down a road to the perceived path of prosperity, they don't want to rock the boat. If it doesn't have a direct impact on their day-to-day existence, they simply don't care.

There's a minority of people who do, but the majority of Americans don't. And if the people don't care - and remember, the people are the constituents - if the constituents don't care, then those they elect to higher office won't feel the pressure to change.

The Democrats, one would hope, would live up to their rhetoric, that is, challenging the Bush administration's imperial aspirations. Once it became clear Iraq was an unmitigated disaster, one would have thought that when the Democrats took control of Congress they would have sought to reimpose a system of checks and balances, as the Constitution mandates. But instead the Democrats have put their focus solely on recapturing the White House, and, in doing so, will not do anything that creates a political window of opportunity for their Republican opponents.

The Democrats don't want to be explaining to an apathetic constituency, an ignorant constituency whose ignorance is prone to be exploited because it produces fear, fear of the unknown, and the global war on terror is the ultimate fear button. The Democrats, rather than challenging the Bush administration's position on the global war on terror, challenging the notion of these imminent threats, continues to play them up because that is the safest route toward the White House. At least that is their perception.

The last thing they are gong to do is pass a piece of legislation that opens the door for the Republicans to say, "Look how weak these guys are on terror. They're actually defending the Iranians. They're defending this Ahmadinejad guy. They're defending the Holocaust denier. They're defending the guy who wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth." The Democrats don't want to go up against that. They don't have the courage of conviction to enter into that debate and stare at whoever makes that statement and say they're a bald-faced liar. They're not going to go that route.

Metro Times: Do you think there is anything that can happen at this point that will stop this attack?

Scott Ritter: You have to take a look at external influences, not internal ones. I don't think there is anything happening inside the United States that's going to stop that attack. I do believe that, for instance, if Pakistan continues to melt down, that could be something that creates such a significant diversion the Bush administration will not be able to make its move on Iran.

To attack Iran, they're going to need a nice lull period. That's what they're pushing with this whole surge right now. They're creating the perception that things are quieting. I don't know how many people picked up on it, but one day we're told that 2007's been the bloodiest year for U.S. forces in Iraq, the next day we're told that attacks against American troops are dropping at a dramatic pace. So, what's the media focus on? The concept of attacks dropping at a dramatic pace. No one's talking about the fact, wait a minute, we've just lost more guys than we've ever lost before.

They are pushing the perception that Iraq is now stable. If you have a situation in Pakistan that explodes out of control, where you suddenly have nuclear weapons at risk of falling into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, that could stop it. If Turkey attacks Kurdistan and that conflict spins out of control, that could put a halt to it. These are things that could overshadow even Dick Cheney's desire to bomb Iran.

And there could be some other unforeseen meltdown globally that's not on the radar at this time, that, unfortunately, we have to be hoping for to stop an attack on Iran. And that says a lot, that we have to hope for disaster to prevent unmitigated disaster.

Metro Times: What's the motivation?

Scott Ritter: The ideologues who are in there believe the United States in the post-Cold War environment needed to fill the gap created by the demise of the Soviet Union so that no nation or group of nations would ever again confront us as equals. And in order to do this, they basically divided the world into spheres of strategic interest and said we will impose our will. And the Middle East is one such area. There's a whole host of reasons to do this.

It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam. It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.

So, there's a lot of complexity at play here. But you say why do they want to do this? It's about as Condoleezza Rice continuously says before the U.S. Congress: It's about regional transformation, inclusive of regime change. It turns the Middle East into a sphere of interest that we have tremendous control over. That's what's behind all this.

Metro Times: And when Bush talks about being an instrument of God, do you think he really believes that or is that just political posturing, playing to the religious base?

Scott Ritter: That's a question that can only be asked of George Bush. But I find it disturbing that an American politician who is supposed to be the head of a secular nation where religion is protected but there is no state religion, and who has control over the world's largest nuclear arsenal, not only openly talks about how God is his final adviser, which pretty much negates the role of Congress or any other system of governmental oversight, checks and balances of the executive, but also embraces a kind of evangelicalism that gives legitimacy to the notion of the rapture, Armageddon, the apocalypse as a good thing.

Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know, if it's a show, its a dangerous show, if its real, we should all be scared to death.

Metro Times: Even going back to before the start of the Iraq war, the national mainstream media just seemed to be beating the drum for it. Why do you think that is?

Scott Ritter: Again, only they can really answer that question, but I think it is clear the mainstream media, while not outright fabricators, are not there to tell the truth, they're there to win over ratings. They will package their programming in ways that sells well to an audience. And we are dealing with a complacent American audience, where in-depth reality stories are trumped by reality TV. I don't see the programming director saying, "Look, we're going to spend an hour explaining to the American people why Ahmadinejad's speech wasn't that big of a deal." Or they can say, "Hell, no; in three minutes we can lead with a story saying he's a Holocaust denier and win everybody's attention."

Metro Times: Do you think the resolutions in 2001 and 2002 authorizing Bush to use military force against Iraq give Bush the authority to attack Iran without first obtaining congressional approval?

Scott Ritter: I'd like to believe it didn't, but unfortunately when you take a look at it, and I've had constitutional scholars take a look at it, the feeling is that, yeah, because of the terrorist threat, if you take a look at the fine print on both of those resolutions, it gives the president authorization to use military force to take out groups, organizations, individuals, etc. who are linked to the events of 9/11. And the president has continued to make the case that Iran is linked to the attacks.

Metro Times: Do you think an attack on Iran would be an illegal war of aggression and a war crime under international law?

Scott Ritter: It depends on what triggers it. If Iran engages in an action that legitimizes a military response, the answer is no.

There are two conditions that we are legally allowed to engage in military operations. Militaries are bound by the charter of the United Nations' Article 51, legitimate self-defense, and a Chapter 7 resolution passed by the Security Council authorizing military force to be used. If we attack Iran void of any of these, especially when it can be shown that we have hyped up a threat in defense of pre-emption - I think the Nuremberg Tribunals from 1946 have set a clear precedent with Judge Jackson condemning German generals to death for invading Denmark and Norway in the same premise of pre-emption. It is quite clear this is illegal. Unfortunately the Nuremberg Tribunals don't have any weight when it comes to prosecution of the law.

The international community has not agreed upon a definition of what pre-emptive aggression is, and what the consequences of such are. Let's keep in mind if we attack Iran we're guilty of no more than what we're already guilty of in attacking Iraq. Hyping up a threat where one doesn't exist, going to war void of any legitimacy, violating everything we claim to stand for. Yet we don't see any war crimes tribunals being convened for the Bush administration over Iraq.

Metro Times: One of the scenarios that's been raised has Israel launching the first strike, prompting a response from Iran that would then pull us in.

Scott Ritter: I think Israel is capable of doing a one-time limited shot into Iran. One has to take a look at the distances involved and the complexity of military operations ... the lack of friendly airspace between corridors into and out of Iran. It's nice to talk about an Israeli attack, but the reality is far different. Israel had trouble dominating Hezbollah right on its own border with air power.

I think Israel could actually go into Iran and get their butts kicked. It may not go off as well as they think it's going to go off. It is too long of a distance, too much warning for the Iranians. The Iranians are too locked-in; they're too well prepared. It doesn't make any sense. Israel doesn't have the ability to sustain a strike. Like I said, they might be able to pull off a limited one-time shot. But I think the fallout from that would be devastating for the United States. As much as we've worked to get an Arab alliance against Iran, that would just fall apart overnight with an Israeli attack. No Muslim state will stand by and defend Israel after it initiated a strike against Iran. It just will not happen. And the United States knows this. I just think it's ludicrous to talk about an Israeli attack.

I think what we're looking at is an American attack. It's the only viable option both in terms of initiation and sustainment of the strike. Israel might be drawn in after that. There's no doubt in my mind the Iranians will launch missiles against Israeli targets, either directly or through proxies, and that Israel will suffer. This is something I try to warn all my Israeli friends about. If you think Saddam Hussein firing 41 missiles was inconvenient, wait until the Iranians fire a thousand of them. It goes well beyond an inconvenience; it becomes a national tragedy. And then the escalation that can occur from there.

I think right now what the Bush administration is conceiving is a limited strike against Iran to take out certain Revolutionary Guard sites and perhaps identified nuclear infrastructure. Not a massive, sustained bombardment, but a limited strike. But we were always told in the Marine Corps that the enemy has a vote and no plan survives initial contact with the enemy. So we may seek to have a limited strike, but if the Iranians do a massive response, things could spin out of control quickly.

Metro Times: What do you foresee as some of the possible consequences? No one is talking about putting troops on the ground in Iran are they?

Scott Ritter: A while back there was talk about having forces move in on Tehran via Azerbaijan. But I think those plans have gone to the wayside. If Iran is successful in shutting down the Straits of Hormuz, it will force our hand and we'll have to put the Marines in to secure the Straits. If the conflict drags on and air power is not sufficient to break the will of the Iranian resistance, the Army may have to activate its option to put a reinforced corps into Azerbaijan and punch down the Caspian Sea coast. But these are definitely not the leading options at this point in time.

Metro Times: When you say a "limited strike," what might that look like in more detail?

Scott Ritter: Iran is a big country. There are a number of target sites we have to look at. To give an example, to take out a number of air defense sites during the Gulf War, a sortie required over 100 aircraft. It's not just one airplane coming in, firing a missile and going out. You have to secure a corridor, you have to put a combat air patrol over it, you have to have air-to-air refueling, you have to have aircraft protecting the refuelers, and then you have to have the strike aircraft themselves. You have to have pre- and post-reconnaissance. When you replicate this, let's say, over 20 targets, we don't have enough airplanes to do it all at once. So, it's something that will occur in phases. What you look at is maybe a three- to five-day bombardment where we take out sites, radar sites and air defense sites the first day, the second we pound the nuclear sites, the third day we take the Revolutionary Guard Command sites, the fourth and fifth days we do follow-up strikes to make sure all targets are destroyed, then we're done. That's probably what we're looking at.

Metro Times: How much damage could be done to the Iranian nuclear program?

Scott Ritter: No damage would be done to it. Remember, the problem the Iranians face isn't the manufacture of this equipment. They've already mastered that. And if you think for a second machine tools that are used to manufacture enrichment equipment are going to be stored out in the open where we can bomb them, you're wrong. They've been dispersed. The Iraqis were masters of this. We spent a lot of money blowing up concrete, but we never got the machine tools, because they were always hidden. They were always evacuated the day before - they'd take it to palm groves or warehouses that we didn't know about, or hidden in narrow streets. And we never detected that, and we never got them. The Iranians are even better. They've been mastering the technology of deep-earth tunneling, so they can hide things underground that we can't reach with our conventional weapons. So I just think it is absurd to talk about bombing these sites, because all we'll do is blow up buildings that can be rebuilt.

A couple of sites are more sensitive; I think the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, that'll be a major blow. It's a site that can be rebuilt however. It was a facility put in by the Chinese, but the Iranians have the blueprints. It'll take time, but they can rebuild it. At the best we are talking about retarding an Iranian program. But what's worse is if we bomb them, we may retard it, but we might also make it a militant program. Meaning that if their objective is only nuclear energy and suddenly they're being attacked and the world is doing nothing, we may push the Iranians into weaponization even though that is something they don't want to do. That's not in the cards right now. But our attack will have little or no impact on anything. That's for certain.

Metro Times: So what do you think the United States should be doing to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?

Scott Ritter: I think that is the wrong question. That presumes Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. So rather than pose a question that legitimizes a certain point, I think the question should be, "What should the United States be doing in regards to Iran?" I think we should be seeking to normalize relations with Iran. We should be seeking stability in the region. This concept that the United States gets to dictate to sovereign people the makeup of their government is absurd. First of all, the theocracy in Iran, while not a model, for instance ... it's an Iranian problem, not an American problem. The day of the exportation of the Islamic revolution is long gone. The Iranians are not seeking to convert by the sword anybody. It's a nation that has serious internal problems. Economic. Huge unemployment. It's a nation that recognizes these problems. And they are in desperate need of not only political stability but also the economic benefits that come with this stability.

The Iranians want a normalization of relations with the United States that would be inclusive of peaceful coexistence with Israel. They've said this over and over and over again.

So what the United States should be doing is exploiting the olive branch that is being held out by the Iranians. We should be engaging them diplomatically. We should be terminating economic sanctions and seeking to exploit the leverage that comes with having American businesses working inside Iran to try and change them from within. We should be doing everything to get Iran to be a positive player in the region, especially considering the debacle that's unfolding in Iraq. Having the Iranians working with us to engender stability as opposed to being at cross-purposes.

The same can be said in Afghanistan and the entire central Asian region. We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi Arabia's.

Metro Times: Even under Iran's current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? It seems like before him, just after 2001, there was a window where the Iranians were seeking rapprochement and doing things perhaps quietly and not well-known to Americans to stabilize things.

Scott Ritter: You have to remember that Ahmadinejad doesn't make any policy. He is more than a figurehead, but constitutionally he's hampered by the reality that the power resides with the theocrats. It's the theocrats we need to be engaging, not Ahmadinejad. You engage the people who make the decisions. In the end we should be sending people to talk to the National Security Council, the Guardian Council, the representatives of the supreme leader. That's where the power is, that's where the decisions are made. Ahmadinejad is in reality just a minor inconvenience. The bottom line is, not only doesn't he account for much, his words haven't created a problem at all. Half the things we claim he said, he never said at all. And the other half we put out of context and exaggerate.

I'm not here to defend what the guy says. But the notion that just because a man dared question a 100 percent interpretation of the history of the Holocaust as put forward by Israel - and again, I'm not saying he's right to do that - I'm just saying that because he dared do that, he's suddenly evil incarnate and we need to go to war against this guy? No. At worst he's a joke. He's a guy whose words mean nothing, have no power, have no relevance. It's the supreme leader that matters. And, yes, today the supreme leader continues to want to seek to normalize relations with the United States.

Metro Times: You are getting ready to go to Iran at the start of December. What's the purpose of that trip?

Scott Ritter: I've been trying to get there for some time now to talk with Iranian government officials trying to ascertain firsthand what's going on in Iran. We get a lot of rhetoric here at home, we get the media saying a lot of things that are derived not so much from on-the-ground truth in Iran but rather from talking points put out by the White House. I think it is imperative that if we are going to have a national debate, discussion and dialogue about Iran, that we get all sides of the story.

Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to meet with Iranian government officials, and have a chance to speak with some religious officials, and maybe even have a chance to talk about hypotheticals, not only what the current situation is, but how the Iranians would like to see this thing resolved and what mechanisms might need to be employed and maybe come back with some ideas that people in Congress might be interested in.

Metro Times: You've been to Iran before, haven't you?

Scott Ritter: Yes. And having been to Iran, I can tell you that it is the last nation in the world we should be saying these are people we have to fight. When you visit Iran and you see the Iranian people and you get the chance to talk to them, you realize that these are peaceful people. These are highly educated people. They are more like us than we can possibly imagine. They are very Western in their approach, although they reject the term Western because they say think those in the West are Neanderthals compared to the Persian culture. But they are very modern in their approach. They are a very modern people.

I always say the best way to stop a war with Iran would be to issue every American a passport and roundtrip ticket and money for a two-week stay and let them go there and when they came back they'd say there's no way we should bomb this place. Once you've been to Iran you realize just how utterly useless the concept of militaristic confrontation is.

Metro Times: I think it is fair to say you are perceived as a champion of the left at this point. But 10 years ago, when you were criticizing the Clinton administration for undermining efforts to root out Saddam's weapons, you were being heralded by the right. Saddam accused you of being an American spy. And you were criticized for being too close with the Israelis and sharing information with them. But when you go to Iraq prior to the war there, people on the right are calling you a traitor. The FBI put you under surveillance. What do you make of all that?

Scott Ritter: What I make of it is my consistency and the inconsistency of those who seek to gain political advantage by manipulating the truth. When the right embraced what I was saying, they didn't embrace the totality of what I was saying. They only embraced that aspect that was convenient for their political purposes. I would say today that the left is guilty of the same thing. I'm only convenient to the left when that which I espouse mirrors what they are pursuing. It will be interesting to see, if Hillary Clinton wins the White House, how popular I will be in certain circles, because I can guarantee I will go after her with all the vengeance I go after the Bush administration. It's not about being Republican, it's not about being Democrat, it's about being American. It's about doing the right thing. And in the 1990s the right thing was to implement the [United Nations] Security Council resolutions calling for the disarmament of Iraq. That was the law. That was what I was tasked with doing, and the Clinton administration was not permitting the task to be accomplished.

By holding them to account, if that suddenly made me popular with the right, then so be it. It's not something that I sought; it wasn't the purpose of what I was doing. But when the complexity of my stance became inconvenient to the right, when they found out it wasn't just about taking down the Clinton administration, but rather criticizing an American political position that put unilateral policy objectives and regime change higher up in the chain of priorities than disarmament, suddenly it wasn't convenient anymore to be saying, "Hey, we like this guy."

One cannot be held accountable for the words and actions of those who seek to selectively embrace what you say.

Metro Times: When Bush talks about World War III, how likely is the scenario that an attack by us would escalate into that?

Scott Ritter: I don't know about likely, but what I say is that I can sit here and spin scenarios that have it going in that direction. And these aren't fantastic scenarios.

Metro Times: Would that be having Russia or China coming in?

Scott Ritter: No, no, no. It would be something more like the destabilization of Pakistan to the point where a nuclear device gets in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who are aligned with al-Qaeda and there's some sort of nuclear activity on the soil of the United States of America. That's more what I'm looking at. I don't think the Russians or the Chinese would become involved. They don't need to. All they have to do is sit back and wait and pick up the pieces - because it is the end of the United States as a global superpower. That's one thing I try to tell everybody. The danger of going after Iran is that it is just not worth it. What we can lose is everything, and what we gain is nothing. So why do it?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/113007S.shtml

Thomas G_,

That's deep stuff and the scary part it's happening right before our eyes. George W Bush is a stupid and dangerous man because of the power he wields. He must have flunked World History because everyone knows that if an occupier comes into an another country. That the invaded country's residents will fight the invaders and win, because the residents have the added advantage of knowing the layout of the land, so they can plant traps along it. We definitely need to impeach Bush and Cheney before they can do even more damage to not only to this country, but to the world. Let's send the two war criminals to the World Court and have them stand trial for their crimes.

The funny thing is that Karl Rove is trying to frame Congress for 'pushing' President Bush into the war.

The only argument that anyone has to make is that let the person that 'initiated' the idea, be the responsible party at fault. Who initiated teh Iraq War Plan?

Oh goodness, just reading all these materials make my head spins. I cant offer any help, but I will offer my prayers.

The world needs to preach 'forgiveness'. So much hatred....

Once upon a time, i heard over the Christian radio, and there was this Japanese man who deeply hated the Americans for dropping the A Bomb and he couldnt get over it. Later, he became a Christian and he was able to forgive the pilot that dropped the bomb on his city.

What a messed up world! The prophecy is coming.....

Another example of how irresponsible this President is. Still no plan to finance a long time occupation, and no plan to provide for the man power for a long time. Raise taxes, and bring back the draft. Two subjects that are political suicide for the Republicans. So we continue to stay the coarse. If the Democrats gain the White House in 08 we will be expected to solve these problems without doing either which is impossible. Answers, Answers something we will never get from Republicans. When England pulls out do we make up their part also?

(You know we are not on Democrats.org to convince Democrats to be Democrats, we want to push a more energetic agenda.)

AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, THE NEW POST-9/11 DEMOCRAT.ORG AGENDA IS TO RECOGNIZE IN FAITH, THAT THE WORLD SAW THE MIDDLE EAST FALL HELPLESS TO THEIR POLITICS ON VIOLENCE ON 9/11, NOT AMERICA FALLING HELPLESS TO TERRORISM.

THEN UNDER POOR REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADERSHIP THROUGHOUT THE IRAQ WAR, WE HAVE SEEN AMERICA APPEAR TO BE FALLING HELPLESS TO REPUBLICAN POLITICS ON MONEY IN FRONT OF THE REST OF THE WORLD. SO DEMOCRATS.ORG HAS A PASSIONATE MISSION TO CLEAN UP NOT ONLY THE IRAQ WAR MESS SOMEHOW BUT THE MESS THE REPUBLICANS MADE OF OUR U.S. DEMOCRATIC CONSCIENCE WHERE THE POLITICS ON MONEY ARE CONCERNED. IN DOING SO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL BE LEADING A GOOD EXAMPLE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST TO CLEAN UP THEIR GOVERNMENTAL AND ISLAMIC POLITICS ON VIOLENCE.

POOR REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP HAS SENSATIONALIZED THEIR POLITICAL PROPAGANDA THAT THEIR REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS CONTROLLED ALL THE MONEY IN AMERICA SO MUCH THAT ANTI-AMERICAN’S IN THE WORLD ARE NOW SPINNING THAT SAME ACCUSATION AGAINST THE WHOLE COUNTRY INTERNATIONALLY. THESE PAST YEARS OF POOR REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP HAS MADE IT LOOK TO THE WORLD LIKE DEMOCRATIC AMERICA DEBATING, DISCUSSING, AND CONGRESS VOTING ON ISSUES OF MONEY ONCE THE ISSUES ARE THOUGHT THROUGH BY THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IS WORTHLESS; WORTHLESS!

SO NOW LETS JOIN FORCES AND SHOW THIS WORLD THE POWER OF EVERY COUNTRY BY FIRST SHOWING THE WORLD WHAT THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAN DO FOR THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM.

(Hey! Some of you people up above really know how to carry on a good conversation and know your stuff. Don't let me interrupt or stop you.)

H.R.1955: Reality of the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

Also, The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
By Matt Renner

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112907J.shtml

The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak
By Robert Weitzel
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120307C.shtml

Monday 03 December 2007

"Political language has to consist largely of euphemisms ... and sheer cloudy vagueness."
- George Orwell

H.R 1955: the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 recently passed by the House - a companion bill is in the Senate - is barely one sentence old before its Orwellian moment: It begins, "AN ACT - To prevent homgrown terrorism, and for other purposes."

Those whose pulse did not quicken at "other purposes" have probably not read George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language," or they voted for the other George both times.

Orwell's jeremiad on the corruption of the English language and its corrosive effect on a democracy was written two years before his novel "1984" spelled out in chilling detail the danger of Newspeak, which renders citizens incapable of independent thought by depriving them of the words necessary to form ideas other than those promulgated by the state.

After its opening "tribute" to Orwell, H.R 1955 is strategically peppered with Newspeak regarding the establishment of a National Commission and university-based Centers of Excellence to "examine and report upon the fact and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence in the United States" and to make legislative recommendations for combating it.

The "sheer cloudy vagueness" of H.R 1955, as well as its terror factor, may account for its bipartisan 404-6 House vote, but how, in an era informed by the Bush-Cheney administration's egregious assault on the Bill of Rights, can the phrase "other purposes" fail to raise the "National Terror Alert" from its current threat level of "elevated" to "severe"?

Future "other purposes" will undoubtedly be justified by the Act's use of the term "violent radicalization," which it defines as "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence ..." or by the folksy, Lake Wobegonesque "homegrown terrorism," defined as "the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born [or] raised ... within the United States ... to intimidate or coerce the United States, the civilian population ... or any segment thereof ...."

In the service of some self-serving "other purposes," will "extremist beliefs" become any belief the temporary occupants of the White House consider antithetical and threatening to their political agenda?

Will "ideologically based violence" or the use of "force" become little more than the mayhem resulting after a peaceful protest, daring to move beyond the barbed wire of the free speech zone, is attacked by a truncheon-wielding riot squad armed with tear gas, German shepherd dogs and water cannons?

Will the unarmed, constitutionally protected dissenters who are fending off blows or dog bites, or who are striking back in self-defense become "homegrown terrorists" and suffer draconian sentences for their attempt to "intimidate or coerce" the state with free thought and free speech?

A clue to future "other purposes" may lie in the Act's parentage. The proud House "mother" of the Patriot Act's evil twin is Rep. Jane Harmon (D-California), chair of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Representative Harmon has admitted to a long and productive relationship with the RAND Corporation, a California based think-tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex. RAND's 2005 study, "Trends in Terrorism," contains a chapter titled, "Homegrown Terrorist Threats to the United States." Is this Act a bastard child?

Keep in mind, the RAND Corporation was set up in 1946 by Army Air Force Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold as "Project RAND," sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Keep in mind also, Donald Rumsfeld was its chairman from 1981 to 1986, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's felonious former chief of staff, and Condoleezza Rice were trustees. Enough said!

RAND maintains "homegrown terrorism" will not be the result of jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who "challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is serving to destroy the world's ecology, indigenous cultures, and individual welfare."

Further, RAND claims anti-globalists and radical environmentalists "exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida" and pose "a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business." Therein lies the real "other purposes."

Predictably then, H.R. 1955 is not about protecting homegrown Americans. That protection is only incidental to its "other purposes" of protecting homegrown corporate interest and its unconscionable manipulation of the American political process to fill its coffers. Any thought or speech or action - however protected it might be by the Bill of Rights - that threatens corporate hegemony and profit will no doubt suffer the "other purposes" clause of the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.

Anyone doubting the Orwellian nature of a "bastard child" that equates anti-globalists and environmentalists with al-Qaeda terrorists will do well to read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" and to acquaint themselves with the fate of Winston Smith in 1984.

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Biography: Robert Weitzel is a freelance writer whose essays appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine, Freethought Today and on popular liberal web sites. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com.

Based on the following quote from the New Testament, I have three questions:

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angel with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left>. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was and hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee and hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethern, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." -- Jesus the Son of God's Words in St. Matthew 25: 31-46

Knowing that the United States' conservative administrations P.N.A.C. [Project For the New American Century] trade agreements for ridiculously high added value for American corporations of business and industry: N.A.F.T.A., C.A.F.T.A and the Peru Trade Agreement that use the poor in other countries for cheap starvation labor, outsourcing and taking living wage work away from the people in their countries as well as our country, and forcing them to seek work in the United States. In light of what the United States is doing with these agreements to cause the problem, how can a national fence to keep these hungry, thirsty, sick and naked strangers from being helped by our nation that is causing the problem be justified? How can these conservative trade agreements be justified by honorable God fearing people when the conservative trade agreements are what is causing the problem? And, how can private wars be legitimately justified when conservative private wars are destroying the social structure, infrastructure and the economy of 3/4th of the population of the United States?

Our Troops Must Leave Iraq
By Walter Cronkite and David Krieger
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120407B.shtml

Tuesday 04 December 2007

The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America. We believe Mr. Bush would like to drag the war on long enough to hand it off to another president.

The war in Iraq reminds us of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Both wars began with false assertions by the president to the American people and the Congress. Like Vietnam, the Iraq War has introduced a new vocabulary: "shock and awe," "mission accomplished," "the surge." Like Vietnam, we have destroyed cities in order to save them. It is not a strategy for success.

The Bush administration has attempted to forestall ending the war by putting in more troops, but more troops will not solve the problem. We have lost the hearts and minds of most of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be even a remote possibility. It is time to end our occupation of Iraq, and bring our troops home.

This war has had only limited body counts. There are reports that more than one million Iraqis have died in the war. These reports cannot be corroborated because the US military does not make public the number of the Iraqi dead and injured. There are also reports that some four million Iraqis have been displaced and are refugees either abroad or within their own country. Iraqis with the resources to leave the country have left. They are frightened. They don't trust the US, its allies or its mercenaries to protect them and their interests.

We know more about the body counts of American soldiers in Iraq. Some 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in this war, about a third more than the number of people who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And some 28,000 American soldiers have suffered debilitating injuries. Many more have been affected by the trauma of war in ways that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives - ways that will have serious effects not only on their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but on society as a whole. Due to woefully inadequate resources being provided, our injured soldiers are not receiving the medical treatment and mental health care that they deserve.

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start. Not only was Congress lied to in order to secure its support for the invasion of Iraq, but the war lacked the support of the United Nations Security Council and thus was an aggressive war initiated on the false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Nor has any assertion of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda proven to be true. In the end, democracy has not come to Iraq. Its government is still being forced to bend to the will of the US administration.

What the war has accomplished is the undermining of US credibility throughout the world, the weakening of our military forces, and the erosion of our Bill of Rights. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz calculates that the war is costing American tax payers more than $1 trillion. This amount could double if we continue the war. Each minute we are spending $500,000 in Iraq. Our losses are incalculable. It is time to remove our military forces from Iraq.

We must ask ourselves whether continuing to pursue this war is benefiting the American people or weakening us. We must ask whether continuing the war is benefiting the Iraqi people or inflicting greater suffering upon them. We believe the answer to these inquiries is that both the American and Iraqi people would benefit by ending the US military presence in Iraq.

Moving forward is not complicated, but it will require courage. Step one is to proceed with the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and hand over the responsibility for the security of Iraq to Iraqi forces. Step two is to remove our military bases from Iraq and to turn Iraqi oil over to Iraqis. Step three is to provide resources to the Iraqis to rebuild the infrastructure that has been destroyed in the war.

Congress must act. Although Congress never declared war, as required by the Constitution, they did give the president the authority to invade Iraq. Congress must now withdraw that authority and cease its funding of the war.

It is not likely, however, that Congress will act unless the American people make their voices heard with unmistakable clarity. That is the way the Vietnam War was brought to an end. It is the way that the Iraq War will also be brought to an end. The only question is whether it will be now, or whether the war will drag on, with all the suffering that implies, to an even more tragic, costly and degrading defeat. We will be a better, stronger and more decent country to bring the troops home now.

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Walter Cronkite is the former long-time anchor for CBS Evening News. David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

by Jeff Morris

The average American has only $50,000 saved when they retire. The average American is counting on Social Security. Dennis Kucinich believes that when people enter their senior years they deserve to reap the retirement benefits they have funded with every paycheck. These senior citizens did their part and America must continue to do its part.

The Republicans would love to privatize Social Security and they have already tried! They want to create individual retirement accounts that would be handled by Wall Street. So they get to gamble with our retirement and the Wall Street Republicans would get to gamble with our money. Guess who wins with that approach?

This is simply not necessary - the Social Security system is in better shape and more secure than ever despite Republican fear mongering to the contrary. America is wealthier than at any time in its history, and the Social Security fund is solid through 2042.

Dennis Kucinich will defend the American lower and middle classes, and preserve what is rightfully theirs. A retirement with dignity and without financial fear thanks to a Social Security program that is strengthened for the benefit of all Americans.

[Dennis Kucinich Campaign Transcript]

To All House And Senate Members

I support House Resolution # 333 calling for the impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney. I also support the impeachment of George W. Bush. As your constituent, I am writing to insist that you and the rest of the House of Representatives carry out your constitutional duties to defend the Constitution of the United States. It is unconscionable that the House has obstructed an open discussion of the activities of the President and Vice-President. This administration has taken this country into a criminal war, is threatening to start a new war, and has violated the constitutional rights of the American people. It is time for the House to fulfill its constitutional obligations in response to these impeachable ... [End Campaign Script]

Please support Rep Kucinich and HR # 333. It is the right and necessary thing to do.

I watched the T.V. news on May 23, May 26, Sept.25, and again on Oct. 27, looking forward to seeing the Impeach Bush crowds give both Bush and Cheney hell! No News station, Network or Cable, carried anything about either demonstration. Although I did hear all about Paris Hilton's latest ordeal, Brittany's comeback, the latest episode of American Idol....

This administration has committed so many Impeachable offenses (Defying the Geneva Conventions, Torturing detainees, Guantanamo Bay, The suspension of Habeas Corpus, The Military Commissions Act, The Patriot Act, NSA warrant less spying on innocent Americans, citing Executive Priviledge to cover up their own law breaking.... yet our leadership in the Congress and Senate completely fail in their duty to uphold and defend our Constitution, and Impeach.

I like what Rep Kucinich has to say. I applaud and fully support his resolution #333 which calls for the Impeachment of VP Dick Cheney for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Congress should find the guts to start the long overdo Impeachment process. We are now five and a half years older since Pres Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. The evidence now clearly shows that Intelligence was cherry picked, manipulated, and sometimes even just made up, to sell the American people and Congress the necessity for why Iraq posed such an imminent threat to the U.S., a preemptive invasion was necessary.

The office of VP Cheney seems to clearly be where the War plans originated, and where the intelligence was cherry picked and manipulated. The best thing for America would be to finally get some accountability from this administration. Taking responsibility for the numerous laws they've broken, both Domestic and International. The numerous Constitutional, Civil, and Privacy Rights Violations, over the past six and a half years. Accountability for their deeds would also send a good message to the rest of the alienated and worried World, that accountability, Justice, and Democracy, are still alive and well in the U.S.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich shows Real Leadership for going against the flow and saying what he truly believes. Holding the Bush administration responsible for all it's Abuses of Power, is the right and necessary thing to do. 1.) The lies and intelligence twisting and cherry picking leading up to the invasion of Iraq. 2.) The Patriot Act, NSA warrant-less spying program, Military Commissions Act, Suspension of Habeas Corpus, Guantanamo Bay, Torturing Enemy Prisoners, Secret CIA Worldwide Prisons, using Executive Priviledge as a way to cover up their own labreaking.... Dennis has spoken out against these and many other questionable Bush Administration Policies. Thanks Rep Kucinich for this display of Courage, Sanity, Social and Fiscal Responsibility, and Moral Clarity.

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VOTE FOR DENNIS KUCINICH IN THE PRIMARY ELECTIONS. DENNIS KUCINICH WILL RESTORE DEMOCRACY, FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObYQiiKoRx4

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