"If we were to depend on New York Times narratives, we would be left with the impression that think tanks come in two flavors – liberal and conservative – red and blue. That is an incredible exaggeration. Because, in the case of Iraq, think tanks only offer a single blended choice with the telltale yellow coloring of the war party."
On any given day, anti-war bloggers vent their frustrations by tallying the inventory of damages from this war of choice. Their articles invariably begin by critiquing the bogus WMD rationale for the war and lamenting the escalating cost in blood and treasure.
There is no arguing with these peace activists – if only because they have all the facts on their side. To get an idea of the state of this enterprise, consider that Condi Rice is now owning up to “thousands of tactical errors” in what General William Odom has more precisely described as the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”
The evidence keeps piling up to back up Lawrence Wilkerson’s contention that pre-war intelligence was a ‘hoax on the American People.’ Every few weeks, another memo surfaces to confirm that Bush and Blair paved their path to war by fabricating mass delusions about ‘nuclear mushroom clouds.’
Among the ranks of the peace movement one finds many card-carrying conservatives like Pat Buchanan, ex-Pentagon heavyweights like Gen. Anthony Zinni, pro-military congressmen like John Murtha and now – war boosters like Bill Buckley and Andrew Sullivan. It is hard to think of another war – even Vietnam – where a vast majority of the population from the far left to the far right have rallied behind the troops and demanded that they be repatriated to American shores.
Regardless, the elaborate WMD scam still resonates with an unhealthy minority of Americans who continue to believe the fairy tale about Iraq’s phantom chemical warheads. Even this late in the game, a majority of the grunts in Iraq are fighting, killing and dying under the false assumption that their assignment in Iraq was designed to settle accounts with Saddam for his fictional role in 9/11.
What else could they possibly think? Stranded out in the air-conditioned Green Zone and the ‘enduring’ bases of Mesopotamia, they are serving their time as a captive audience held hostage by CNN and FOX. Their meager nightly news rations are carefully tailored to confuse one and all about the nature of their mission and the non-existent rationales for the war.
The conduct of our current crew of mass media charlatans has often been compared to the yellow journalism that ignited the Spanish/American war of 1898. But with the Iraq conflict we have a new combustible ingredient – yellow think tanks. When the pundits of the American Enterprise Institute speak, the New York Times listens and then proceeds to report their opinions as gospel truth. Every time the Brookings Institute sneezes, FOX catches a cold.
If we were to depend on New York Times narratives, we would be left with the impression that think tanks come in two flavors – liberal and conservative – red and blue. That is an incredible exaggeration. Because, in the case of Iraq, think tanks only offer a single blended choice with the telltale yellow coloring of the war party.
The chores of marketing the war were equally distributed between the likes of Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk and Richard Perle. While Likudniks from the Brookings Institute were busy promoting the war on the Democratic side of the isle, their fellow travelers from the ‘conservative’ American Enterprise Institute where drawing up battle plans under the able guidance of Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith.
One of the untold stories behind the Iraq debacle involves the Democratic Leadership Committee – the neocon cabal planted deep in the heart of the blue party. The DLC is the home of Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman, both stalwart supporters of unilateral war mongering. To date, their only criticism of Bush is his unwillingness to escalate the conflict by throwing more troops into this quagmire. They like the war but hate the ‘wimpy’ tactics.
Who are these Democratic Leadership Council people? The DLC promotes a philosophy they call 'progressive internationalism' - a slight variation of neo-con ideology.
In the run up to the Iraq war, the DLC launched a campaign to enlist Democrats in Bush's march to war. Leading the charge, was none other than Will Marshall, The President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the DLC’s in-house think tank. This outfit is a mirror image of the American Enterprise Institute - the Likudnik bastion that served as a launching pad for Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and other veterans of the ‘weapons of mass deception’ campaign.
Blueprint Magazine, the official publication of the DLC, is essentially a plagiarized edition of Commentary and the Murdoch’s Weekly Standard. On its pages, one can find the stale neo-con mantras from war party hawks like Kenneth Pollack, the author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq". That bit of Pollack fiction was credited with lining up many reluctant Democrats behind Bush’s unilateral venture in Iraq.
To back up Pollack’s arguments, Will Marshall wrote an essay titled 'Making the Case on Iraq.' As can be seen from the titles, imitation was more than just a form of flattery. Rather, it was a full subscription to the same war mongering agenda.
Even after things started going to hell in Iraq, Marshall and the DLC were unrepentant. Here is a sample from a pre-election Blueprint Magazine article:
"What the United States needs now is not an exit strategy but a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. The key elements of such a strategy are more supple military tactics, more money, and more allies. But that requires more troops, not fewer, and it means deploying them in ways that could raise the risk of U.S. casualties. The administration has rightly made the democratic transformation of the greater Middle East the grand American project of the 21st century. That job starts in Iraq. If we fail here, our hopes for liberalizing the region will be stillborn.”
Does that sound like Bush Lite or Bush Heavy?
If the DLC's in-house think tank is the Progressive Policy Institute, their offshore operations are sub-contracted to Martin Indyk, The former AIPAC president who later served as Clinton’s ambassador to Israel. Indyk is currently employed as the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. The center’s name honors Haim Saban, the Israeli/American media tycoon, who finances Indyk’s ‘brain trust’. Saban was the largest Democratic Party donor in 2002. After dropping $5 million into the party's coffers, Haim had enough change left over to pony up another $7 million for the new Democratic National Committee building.
In an article titled 'A Squandered Opportunity' that appeared in Blueprint Magazine in November 2003, Martin Indyk opined that "There is nothing in itself wrong with promoting a little instability" in the region. Within neo-con circles, they refer to this process as “creative destruction” - and there is no limit to the amount of mayhem these charlatans are willing to unleash to indulge their creativity.
No one should be surprised that Indyk, the DLC guru, has effusive praise for Bush. "The president argued correctly that if we achieved regime change in Iraq, it could help our efforts to make Israeli-Palestinian peace, reform the Arab world, and pressure the rogue states to end their evil ways."
At their core, think tanks are nothing more than lobbies attired in pseudo-academic garbs. The Brookings Institute is not Harvard and the American Enterprise Institute is not Yale. It’s a mistake to confuse neo-con think tank ‘experts’ with serious academics. Invariably, they tend to be infatuated with all things Israeli and enraged by all things Arab.
On both sides of the political divide, the neo-con actors involved in this charade have a long and disgraceful history of being apologists for Israel's bloody repression of the Palestinians. So, it seems improbable that they are now possessed with a sudden passion to spread the blessings of liberty to Mesopotamia. More likely, their goal is to give Israel a free hand in shaping the future of the whole region. The confiscation of native land to establish exclusive Jewish settlements is the kind of ‘progress’ Indyk is promoting. Or as Hillary Clinton would put it “it takes a destroyed Palestinian village to raise a new Jewish settlement.”
These 'neo-imperialists' are not interested in American Empire; they are motivated by an obsession to fulfill their Likudnik real estate fantasies. Their one item agenda is to create a Greater Israel - not a Greater Middle East. If in the process, we end up with a lesser America, it will not disturb their sleep patterns.
The influence of the DLC helps explain why the ‘wimps’ of the Democratic Party are such reliable foot soldiers in Bush’s war party. The only thing that is really baffling is the failure of the peace movement to grasp the full extent of the Democratic Party’s institutional commitment to the neo-con agenda.
How many Democrats are aware that a neo-con think tank resides in the inner sanctums of their sacred blue party temples? And how many party activists have any clue that Haim Saban and Martin Indyk play a crucial role in shaping their party's foreign policy agenda? Rank and file Democrats incensed with this fiasco should consider calling up their Senators and asking them point blank if they are charter members of the DLC. It’s politically healthy to know that sort of thing before you start getting enthusiastic about Hillary’s presidential prospects.
Moving on the yellow journalists who collaborated with the war party. If the neo-con architects of this debacle were to be accurately graded on their foul produce – they would get a ‘W’ for being ‘wildly off the mark.’ Only a fool can fail to see that the current state of chaos is light years away from their promised ‘cake-walk.’ So, why are these Likudnik wizards regularly paraded on CNN and FOX to entertain us with their latest analysis of the situation in the Middle East? How many more tactical and strategic errors do they have to make before losing every shred of credibility?
Next time you watch Wolf Blitzer’s ‘Situation Room’ on CNN, try to notice how many of his guests are neo-con holdovers from Blitzer’s “War Room.” And always keep in mind the Judith Miller saga. She didn’t do her Likudnik chores without Sulzberger’s enthusiastic support. It’s hard to imagine that the publisher of the New York Times was AWOL while his paper was being systematically converted into a conveyor belt for spreading WMD canards to an unsuspecting audience.
Why, after their abysmal failure in Iraq, are these Likudnik cranks still allowed to tinker with the super power equipment at the Pentagon and the foreign policy machinery in the State Department?
What we are witnessing in Iraq is just a sample of what you get when you permanently imbed yellow journalists in yellow think tanks and deploy a few yellow tank commanders at the heart of the Democratic Party.
A lot of this goes a long way in explaining what I call anti-war fatigue. The peace movement keeps winning the argument but when it comes to mass delivery of the score – only the neo-cons are allowed access to the bully pulpits of the cable giants. A handful of ‘think tank’ ideologues still manage to control the debate and drown out the voices of the multitudes. As a nation, the same cable wires that lured us into this disastrous war of choice are systematically gagging us.
The British peace movement has come to understand the nature of this new political beast - the think tank and media controlled unilateral war mongering state. They are now taking the fight to the front doors of the BBC – accusing their management of promoting the war in Iraq and marginalizing anti-war voices.
Iraq is not Vietnam. Mass demonstrations in front of an empty White House will not work. Waiting for the Democratic Party to grow a spine is an exercise in futility. The DLC and its in-house neo-conservative think tank have the final say on the party’s foreign policy agenda – end of story.
We can never hope to neutralize the yellow think tanks and their neo-con ‘experts’ without first derailing the main weapon in their arsenal – the mass media titans. If yellow journalism is the disease, cable TV provides the facilities to spread the infection. To take out the neo-con ‘cabal’ – disable your cable. Boycott CNN, FOX and the corporations that advertise on them. Follow the example of the British and move the anti-war demonstrations to CNN’s studios in Atlanta.
In the meantime, be scared – be very scared – whenever you see the foot soldiers of the yellow think tank brigades mixing it up with the yellow journalists on CNN and FOX.
Posts: 145 | Location: Canada | Registered: 16 November 2005
Women by Nurit Peled-Elhanan, lecturer in language and education at Hebrew University, Israel, addresses the European Parliament.
Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you.
However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R`aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder.
When I asked the people who invited me here why didn't they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.
I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.
It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA.
This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.
Great France of "la liberte égalite et la fraternite" is scared of little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat.
Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This, in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.
I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished , who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.
But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children.
Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may have various illustrious names--such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland--are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.
We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.`
All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is, either pray for our sons to come back home, or be proud of their dead bodies.
And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.
I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals.
Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world in putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.
Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, Europeanindifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation is.
It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.
I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet.
Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova--another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children--asked: Why does that streak of blood, rip the petal of your cheek?
Posts: 145 | Location: Canada | Registered: 16 November 2005
If only they had a plan-- they are really Machiavellian failed CEO's in a reactive mode to maintain their power. BushCo surrendered to the terrorists to stop attacks in the US.
Prior to 9/11 Bin Laden stated the al Qaida goal as the removal of US military from the Muslim holy lands of Saudi Arabia. Their worlwide 'terror' attacks created pressure on the Saudi Royals. After the 9/11 attacks, in January 2002 the Saudi Royals asked the US to remove the airbase in Saudi Arabia, so the Royals wouldn't appear weak and so that further attacks in the US and SA wouldn't shine the spotlight on their relationship with the US again. But the US couldn't withdraw because the airbase was necessary for the 'no fly zone' in Iraq and symbolically couldn't be stopped as long as Saddam was in power. BushCo motivations for invading Iraq may be various and non-exclusive, e.g. stealing oil (although total lack of post invasion planning makes that less likely)-- the clearest motivation and the one that BushCo was in the greatest panic about was getting out of Saudi Arabia so that there wouldn't be more attacks by Saudis in this country. They were in such a rush, that Rumsfeld announced the withdrawal from Saudi Arabia April 30, 2002 which was three days before the 'mission accomplished' photo op on the Lincoln. How many Iraq war supporters would be inclined to pour money into the quagmire if they understood it as a retreat and concession to the 'terrorist' demands? The more worrisome question is why reporters don't ask Bush why he pulled out of Saudi Arabia and wasn't it necessary to depose Saddam to do so? Why aren't isn't the opposition asking that question every day?
Lord Brian Griffiths on Globalization Interview With Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International
By Viktoria Somogyi
ROME, NOV. 13, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A prominent Anglican supporter of "Centesimus Annus" insists that "we haven't realized the potential the Church has to tackle poverty."
Lord Brian Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, recently participated as a key lecturer in an Acton Institute conference in Rome on "Globalization and Poverty." The title of his speech was "'Centesimus Annus, Globalization and International Development."
Born in 1941 in Wales and educated at the London School of Economics, Griffiths was a lecturer in economics at that institution from 1965-76.
He served as a director of the Bank of England from 1985-1986. He also served as head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit and as Special Adviser to Margaret Thatcher from 1985 to 1990.
He shared his ideas with ZENIT about Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical.
Q: What does "Centesimus Annus" have to say about globalization and international development?
Grffiths: Coming 100 years after "Rerum Novarum," the new development in "CA" was the collapse of communism. Today's conference is about the major new developments since 1991: first, the extent of globalization, and second, the concern of so many countries with the scandal of world poverty as shown by the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000. So what I am trying to do today is to relate the teaching of "CA" to these two new developments.
Q: Is globalization a new phenomenon?
Griffiths: Globalization has expanded enormously since the 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world economy. Since then, there has been dramatic success in China, as there now is in India. The amount of foreign investment going into China is more than the whole of foreign aid given to the developing countries.
But globalization is not a new phenomenon. You saw a lot of globalization in the 19th century and probably the "belle époque" of globalization was 25 years before World War I.
Q: What are the significant concerns over globalization?
Griffiths: There are many, but people presenting these concerns come from various ideological backgrounds.
I would say one concern is that institutions like IMF [International Monetary Fund] or the World Bank have imposed their worldview too much on developing countries and especially poor countries not in a position to resist them.
Secondly there is a concern that globalization is leading to environmental problems for which there is no real control.
Thirdly -- and this is something that John Paul II emphasized -- some people feel globalization has become a vehicle for a very libertarian and non-Christian culture.
I would say that the major criticisms of globalization come from people who lose, as there are winners and losers of globalization. The demonstrations during the G-8 meeting in Genoa and those against the IMF and the World Bank were held by people who are ideological Marxists.
But there are also members of the American trade unions who fear they will lose jobs, that jobs are moving to China. There are people who represent farming lobbies who also lose out to globalization.
In Britain, people are worried about jobs in the service industry moving from London to India. These jobs are in the back offices of accounting firms, investment banks, reading X-rays, etc. These can be easily done overnight in India and the results sent back the next day conveniently.
Q: What does Christian social teaching has to say about the issues of globalization and world poverty?
Griffiths: "Centesimus Annus" laid a very good foundation because its main thrust was to analyze why Marxist economies in Eastern Europe failed and why market economies were more successful. It said the key difference was between two approaches to life and views of the human person.
A Marxist sees the human person as just an atom in a society, totally materialistic, culturally determined, the product of evolution. Whereas a Christian sees the individual as created in the image of God, needing freedom to express himself and develop himself, which therefore requires private property rights, the freedom of a market and so on, but obviously within the context of justice.
The success of globalization depends on a Christian view of the human person rather than a Marxist view on the human person.
The Christian faith is directly relevant to issues of world poverty. When Jesus started his ministry in the synagogue, he said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the good news to the poor." As Christians, we have taken that very seriously and the Catholic Church has expressed it as a preferential option for the poor. If anything, we haven't realized the potential the Church has to tackle poverty.
You know in Africa the Christian Church is an amazing institution. In 1960 there were 60 million people who called themselves Christian in sub-Saharan Africa; today there are nearly 400 million. If you think of the potential of those people in terms of their own economic development, it is tremendous. The challenge to us in the West is find ways we can help them develop.
Q: What role has faith played in your work?
Griffiths: I am a member of the Church of England, but I have to say that Roman Catholic social thought, as it has developed from 1891, has had a great impact on me personally.
When I was advising Margaret Thatcher it was a frame of reference, a way of thinking about social, economic and political problems which I think is really very profound.
And I would say that the great danger today is that the whole debate on globalization is seen almost entirely in secular terms. The terms of the debate and the way it is conducted, it is all about money, it's all about foreign aid, it's about trade liberalization. It's that kind of debate.
But we know as Christians that the heart of life is fundamentally spiritual. The challenge is how can we as Christians express our concerns as Jesus did for the poor, but also how can we ensure that we are not simply doing the same thing as government departments, international agencies.
How do we really bring that Christian spirit to bear in the way that we do things? In "Deus Caritas Est," Pope Benedict XVI makes it very clear that the Church is an expression of something unique because it is the spirit of Christ. I have found that over 40 years that this is most relevant to our current economic challenges.
Q: After the failure of communism, why is capitalism still criticized so much, even in Eastern Europe? What are people missing or deliberately ignoring?
Griffiths: First of all, I don't like the word "capitalism" because it is an ideology and it comes with a lot of baggage. I prefer the expression "market economy."
The market economy is far from perfect because companies want to be monopolies, and sometimes you get enormous imbalances in the market economy, in income distribution. People can become very successful, they can make a lot of money and some of them have no regard for others, so we can't justify all outcomes in the market economy.
But if you compare the market economy with all its faults to a Marxist system, there is no question in my mind that it is infinitely better for anyone.
If you ask, "Why don't people in Eastern Europe recognize the failings of socialism?" I think it is because people have very short memories. There are young people who know nothing of communism. Someone who was 5 years old in 1989 is today 22 or 23, so they didn't really experience communism.
People can be very naive and idealistic about socialism. They think socialism is about justice; in fact, Marxism was about power. When people have political power, they use it for their own interests and the result is a disaster for the rest of us.
Somewhere in the Bible it is said that the god of this world has blinded the minds of people. There are seriously intelligent people who, in my judgment, can't think straight in this area. When you confront them with the past, they always say that was a special case, if we did it again in a slightly different way today, the outcome would be different.
Referring again to Pope John Paul II, what they lack is a Christian vision of the human person, created in the image of God, but nevertheless very willful and fallen -- whereas they think of the human person as somebody who can be perfected. This is the ultimate fallacy of socialism. When people get power, what they do is abuse it, misuse it.
I think socialism and Marxism is a religion for them. They will not accept the evidence because they deny the reality of sin; they still feel human beings can be made perfect.
ZE06111325
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the occupation of Iraq. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me on this important matter.
Like you, I believe that as the world's leading democratic nation, the United States has the responsibility of setting an example for the rest of the world to follow. After more than three years of warfare, 2,900 American soldiers have given their lives for this misguided and illegitimate occupation. Yet, Iraq remains as, if not more, unstable today as it was in May 2003, when the President declared an end to major combat operations. Sadly, despite this staggering loss of life, neither the U.S. nor Iraq have become safer from the threat of international terrorism. We need to face the fact that the situation in Iraq is not improving - nor will it improve as long as our troops remain there, because the presence of nearly 150,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil is the main catalyst fueling Iraq's insurgency.
That's why I introduced legislation in last Congress, H. Con. Res. 35, calling upon the President to begin drafting a plan to bring our troops home and to provide the Iraqi people with the opportunity to completely control their internal affairs. Thirty-four other members of Congress have joined me as cosponsors of this resolution thus far. The Bush Administration must ensure that the people of Iraq control their own affairs as Iraq transitions towards democracy. We can do this by supporting the Iraqi people - not through our military - but through international cooperation to help rebuild Iraq's economic and physical infrastructure. Additionally, in the 109th Congress I introduced H.R. 5875, the War Powers Repeal Act of 2006. This bill would repeal Public Law 107-243, the legislation passed by Congress on October 11, 2002, which gave the President the authority to use force in Iraq and return the power back to Congress.
Also, you may be interested to know I held a third Congressional forum on the occupation of Iraq. This forum enabled Members of Congress and interested people to hear experts discuss possible strategies to bring our troops home from Iraq and examine how the costs of Iraq's occupation have led us to neglect our nation's most pressing priorities. I hope this event will facilitate an ongoing public discussion about how to end the occupation, bring our troops home, and achieve real progress on Iraqi reconstruction and reconciliation. You may be interested to know that you can view witness testimony from the forum at http://www.woolsey.house.gov/bringttroopshome.asp. Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as I continue to fight in Congress for an end to the occupation of Iraq.
Again, it's good to hear from you. The people of Marin and Sonoma counties are the most important voices I listen to as I serve in Congress.
Sincerely,
Lynn Woolsey Member of Congress
PS - Visit my web site and sign up to receive e-mail updates on legislative issues that are important to you. The address is: http://woolsey.house.gov/emailupdates.asp .
Posts: 5 | Location: California | Registered: 20 October 2006
Very informative Thom. Not all of it is new information to me but it puts everything into context very well.
Ronald, did you even watch the documentary? I do not think there are any communists here.. Although I may get one of those shirts, they are pretty funny.
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Posts: 127 | Location: Keizer OR | Registered: 16 June 2006
There is a great piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Eric Mink today. He has extensive quotes from a book called "The Arrogance of Power" written in 1966 by a Democratic Senator, J. William Fulbright.It was already clear to Sen. Fulbright what direction the country was headed in, and he was amazingly and depressingly accurate. The Neo-Cons preach just the opposite of this message, and it brings tears to your eyes to think about how different things could be without the message of fear and anger everyday.
What's interesting is that the book was sent to Eric Mink by a lifelong Republican and WWII vet, Harvey Schulman, who cannot tolerate what he sees going on in the Republican party and what it is doing to our country and the world. He has spent time and money to get the message out. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/er...080B9C7?OpenDocument
Posts: 10 | Location: st. louis, missouri | Registered: 17 October 2006
9/11 and the "war on terror" are not simply manifestations of a lunacy of a small clique of deranged Straussians. When seen in a larger context it becomes clear that the Jekyll Island conspiracy, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the National Security Act of 1947, the JFK assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Mena cover up, WTC 93, Waco, the OKC bombing, Flight 800, 9/11, and the war on terror, are all related events orchestrated by a longstanding criminal elite.
If you are at all familiar with the allegations made by Kay Griggs, that should provide a clue.
About radio show discussion of the SIMS psychological warfare discussion on the 13th--after my careful reading of the New York Times publication 10 or so years ago of Freedom of Information Act newly released papers on the British Intel-CIA-oil corporation Iranian regime change to the Shah, Tenet's "slam Dunk" WMD salesmanship leaves me in near paranoia about intelligence agencies with no compuntions against carrying out similar covert disinformation campaigns in the US to manipulate the American people and the US Congress....In that mood, a wild paranoaid speculation--Rove resigned because Mafia arms sales to Iraq is connected to former Italian Prime Minister Bertalucci's problems and his having provided the fake Niger yellowcake memo Amb. Wlson went to Niger to investigate for Plame's WMD CIA group--hey, Rove could easily be so narrowly focused on getting his own way he failed to see snapping alligators clearly inside his peripheral vision...
Posts: 1 | Location: Detroit | Registered: 13 April 2007
-The Petraeus report brings us another attempt to stall our departure from Iraq, so the war profiteers, the corporate looters, the religious crusaders and the Neo-Con imperialists can continue their work a little longer, while lives are lost and our national wealth is transferred from the many, to just a few.
-The Bush strategy in Iraq all along has been simple, stay and keep the “war” going as long as possible. To demonstrate this I’ll give you a brief history of announcements related to the Iraq war.
-On 2 May 2003 Bush announced “Major combat operations have ended.”
He did thus under a huge banner that said “Mission Accomplished.”
Then when everyone realized we were not done in Iraq and the situation was worse, not better,
we were told (not necessarily in this order);
-Everything will improve after the provisional government is in place.
-Conditions will improve after the constitution is written.
-Conditions will improve after the constitution is ratified.
-Conditions will improve after the elections.
-Conditions will improve after the hand over of power.
-Conditions will improve after the new government is in place.
-Conditions will improve after we kill or capture Saddam.
-Conditions will improve after we kill or capture Saddam’s sons.
-Conditions will improve after we kill or capture Zarqawi.
-Conditions will improve after we clean up Abu Ghraib.
-Conditions will improve after we secure this area, that area or some other area.
-Conditions will improve after we train 100,000 Iraqi troops.
-Conditions will improve after we train 125,000 Iraqi troops.
-Over and over we here Bush say; “When the Iraqi’s stand up, we will stand down.”
-In June 2005, Bush says; “We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer.”
-November 2005, Bush outlines a new “Plan for Victory in Iraq” and wants us to give it a chance.
-Feb. 2006 Bush tries to string us along by insisting that “We are winning”.
-March 2006, Bush spins invasion anniversary, as the anniversary of the beginning of the liberation.
-May 2006, the Whitehouse suggests possible troop draw downs & says, wait & see.
-In August 2006, Bush says, “We're not leaving, so long as I'm the President.”
-After the Nov. 2006 election & a call for a new direction, Bush says no announcement until Jan.
-In January of 2007 a troop surge is announced and we should see results in 60 to 90 days.
-In the spring of 2007 we are told the surge needs at least 6 months to work.
-During the summer of 2007 Bush says we must wait for the Petreaus report in September,
-and now Petraeus says we should stay at least until the spring of 2008.
-Are they just stringing us along? You better believe they are. Stop them NOW.
Posts: 1 | Location: NY | Registered: 02 November 2006
Please watch and talk about the movie "No End In Sight". It's about what America has done in Iraq. Here's the website for it http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/
The truth is a solution...
Posts: 2 | Location: St. Paul, MN | Registered: 26 September 2007
No candidate, either on the Democratic or Republican side, is telling the American people what his or her FOREIGN POLICY priorities will be if elected president. What will replace the neocon plan for a global American plutocracy if a Democrat gets into the presidency?
I think Americans are so jaundiced by the diastrous track this president has taken that they want to know ahead of time what are the visions of presidential candidates regarding forein relations. But no one is bringing this up for discussion, at least not in the candidate debates.
It is one thing to talk about vacating Iraq, being opposed to Iranian intervention, both points of view that on the surface could be misinterpreted to be isolationist tacts. Also, legitimate concerns like addressing global warming, correcting trade and labor imbalances and inequities, overpopulation, contributing to AIDS elimination, foreign aid to the 3rd world nations, global education and agriculture, etc., though necessary and noble in themselves, do not get at the heart of a candidate's practical foreign relations position. We hunger for specifics!
We are facing some very serious decisions about our actual diplomatic and economic relations to the big global nations, their military, economic, and cultural priorities.
The candidates who outlines clear and distinct foreign relations directions will have get a jump on the others, at least in the minds of Americans who think about these things.
Talk show programs which bring in foreign policy people to provide perspective are invaluable at this time.
Just some thoughts.
Bart
Bart
Posts: 2 | Location: Gresham OR | Registered: 27 September 2007
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