BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:37 PM

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2090703

Offensive Kills About 90 Afghan Militants By TINI TRAN

KABUL, Afghanistan Jun 18, 2006 (AP)— Taliban militants killed five people in an ambush Sunday while U.S.-led coalition troops moved deeper into Afghanistan's southern mountains in an offensive that has killed about 90 insurgents in less than a week, officials said.

More than 10,000 U.S.-led troops have spread out over four southern provinces as part of Operation Mountain Thrust, a counterinsurgency blitz aimed at quelling a Taliban resurgence.

Taliban militants ambushed a convoy carrying a former provincial chief in Helmand on Sunday, killing him and four bodyguards, said Ghulam Mohiudin, the governor's spokesman. The former official, Jama Gul, had been traveling along a highway in the southern province.

Police and coalition forces in nearby Zabul province also killed two militants, while two wounded insurgents were arrested, provincial police chief Noor Mohammad Paktin said.

Afghan soldiers along with U.S., Canadian and British troops are spreading out over Helmand, Uruzgan, Kandahar and Zabul provinces to hunt down Taliban fighters blamed for a recent surge in ambushes and bombings.

More than 500 people have been killed in the past month as insurgents, primarily Taliban, have stepped up attacks against coalition and Afghan soldiers.

British troops battled Taliban fighters on Saturday near Kajaki dam in southern Helmand province, killing six insurgents, Capt. Drew Gibson said Sunday. In the past few days, militants had been firing mortars in an attempt to damage the dam, Gibson said, adding that British forces "have tightened security in this area."

In the past week, coalition officials said an estimated 85 other insurgents were killed in the offensive, the largest anti-Taliban military campaign undertaken since the former regime's 2001 ouster in an American-led invasion.

The operation, which began with limited raids in May, rolled out in earnest last week to help prepare for the handover of military control to NATO forces in the southern region next month.

Military officials say the surge in fighting appears to be an attempt by the increasingly bold Taliban to seize an opportunity in the south while the government's influence remains weak and as U.S.-led troops prepare to transfer the regional command to NATO troops from Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Romania. Militants' tactics have included increased bombings, ambushes and suicide attacks as the weather has warmed during the spring.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told CNN's "Late Edition" the Taliban appears to be "trying to test in the south, where the U.S. forces are handing over to NATO." He noted that U.S. airstrikes have increased along with fighting on the ground.

"The Taliban fighters have overwhelmingly been losing," Snow said. "The government is taking control of more and more territory within Afghanistan proper and you can expect there to be pushback by the Taliban."

Air Force officials say the number of air bombardments in Afghanistan about 750 in May alone has surpassed the smaller amount of American airstrikes on Iraq.

U.S. warplanes logged nearly 2,000 strikes in Afghanistan from March through May 2006, about as many as the same period in 2005, Air Force Maj. Michael Young said earlier this month. But he said airstrikes spiked at 750 last month, as opposed to 660 in May 2005.

The U.S.-led coalition invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks and toppled the hard-line Taliban government for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida supporters.

Asked if there had been progress in the hunt for bin Laden, Snow said, "there is," but he did not give details. Bin Laden is believed to be holed up along the border with Pakistan in rugged, remote terrain, protected by loyal tribesmen.

"I don't want to try to characterize anything that's going on, because the moment you try to do that, you could get in the way of ongoing activities," Snow said. "Let's simply say that the United States is determined to do everything in its power, and the president, in the power of the administration, to find him."

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:36 PM

Well, I can offer you a list as long as my arm of terrorist incidents that have been planned and never undertaken, Woody. What is your point?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:29 PM

Al-Qaeda Planned Cyanide Attack on NY Subway

Politics: 18 June 2006, Sunday.

Al-Qaeda had been planning a Cyanide gas attack on the New York subway in 2003, Time magazine reported.

The weekly published excerpts from the book "The One Per cent Doctrine" by reporter Ron Suskind that will hit the stores on Monday. According to the report, the US' Secret Service found out about the poisonous gas attack from the laptop of a Bahraini, who was captured in Saudi Arabia in the beginning of 2003.

Terrorist were plotting spreading the lethal gas around key subway stations and nearby vehicles, Suskind claims. However, forty-five days before the assigned date Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the now deceased Al-Qaeda functionary, called off the whole plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 04:18 PM

America's problem is again a usurping king called George

Bush's determination to impose his own reading of new laws amounts to
a power grab and subverts the US constitution

Martin Kettle
Saturday June 17, 2006
The Guardian

Imagine a country with a different kind of monarch from the one we
are used to. Forget the nation-binding human monarch whom Archbishop
Rowan Williams praised so deftly this week. Imagine instead a monarch
who, like many of Elizabeth II's ancestors, routinely reserved the
right to override laws passed by the legislature, or who repeatedly
asserted that the laws mean something they do not say. Imagine, in
fact, King George of America.

On April 30 the Boston Globe journalist Charlie Savage wrote an
article whose contents become more astonishing the more one reads
them. Over the past five years, Savage reported, President George
Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws
that have been enacted by the United States Congress since he took
office. At the heart of Bush's strategy is the claim that the
president has the power to set aside any statute that conflicts with
his own interpretation of the constitution.

Remarkably, this systematic reach for power has occurred not in
secret but in public. Go to the White House website and the evidence
is there in black and white. It takes the form of dozens of documents
in which Bush asserts that his power as the nation's commander in
chief entitles him to overrule or ignore bills sent to him by
Congress for his signature. Behind this claim is a doctrine of the
"unitary executive", which argues that the president's oath of office
endows him with an independent authority to decide what a law means.

Periodically, congressional leaders come down from Capitol Hill to
applaud as the president, seated at his desk, signs a bill that
becomes the law of the land. They are corny occasions. But they are a
photo-op reminder that American law-making involves compromises that
reflect a balance between the legislature and the presidency. The
signing ceremony symbolises that the balance has been upheld and
renewed.

After the legislators leave, however, Bush puts his signature to
another document. Known as a signing statement, this document is a
presidential pronouncement setting out the terms in which he intends
to interpret the new law. These signing statements often conflict
with the new statutes. In some cases they even contradict their clear
meaning. Increasing numbers of scholars and critics now believe they
amount to a systematic power grab within a system that rests on
checks and balances of which generations of Americans have been
rightly proud - and of which others are justly envious.

More at

Guardian

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 06:40 AM

Impeachment procedures "during a time of war" would be considered a national security risk and could easily trigger the shadow government or code red ,which is in fact martial law and lead to the suspension of Congressional business.

Impeach Cheney first fine, but there will always be someone left to pardon every damn treasonous bastard.

George H W Bush's last day in office saw the pardoning of every Iran Contra criminal. The list is impressive.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 11:39 AM

Impeach Cheney first
by David Swanson
May 5, 2006

We should impeach Vice President Dick Cheney first, and President George Bush immediately thereafter. This idea is not original with me. It's been seen on bumper stickers for quite some time. My attention has been called to it by the fact that Congresswoman and Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters is talking about it. See below.

I'm persuaded of thevalue of this approach for several reasons. Among activists who very much want impeachment, one can hear a long list of fears and concerns about how things might go wrong, how impeachment could help Republicans who come around and back it, how impeachment could take energy away from elections, etc. But by far the most common of the nonsensical fears one hears is this one: "Impeaching Bush would give us Cheney, who is worse."

By proposing to impeach Cheney first, we eliminate this fear.

I cannot conceive of a serious investigation, with subpoena power, of either Bush or Cheney that would not incriminate the other as well. If I'm right about this, then the whole debate over which of these two criminals to impeach first, in one sense, doesn't mean much. But for purposes of organizing activists today it means everything. We need as many people as possible – including those terrified by Cheney – to push for an impeachment investigation. This campaign, and an investigation itself, should we get one, serve educational and political purposes. They further discredit Bush and Cheney while helping to build an opposition.

Our choices are not between impeachment and elections but between both and neither. Polls suggest it will be very difficult to win elections without demanding impeachment.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling

After an investigation, we will have to fight for impeachment, and after that for conviction and removal from office by the Senate, and after that for criminal indictments. While millions of Americans who favor impeachment have announced to each other that this goal is impossible or extremely unlikely to be achieved, almost every single one of them has implicitly determined that conviction in the Senate (which has never been achieved with a president in U.S. history) is a guaranteed lock. Thus "impeachment" is equated with "removal from office." We should bear in mind that Clinton was impeached but not removed from office. We very much need to remove Bush and Cheney from office, but it's remarkable how quickly we jump ahead to that stage when searching for reasons to fear and doubt ourselves.

If we were to impeach Bush and remove him from office and somehow not manage to do the same to Cheney, there would be a number of advantages to this. The man who is running much of the government backstage would be thrust up front. His 18 percent approval rating makes Bush's 32 percent look stellar. A President Cheney would be a lame duck and a walking advertisement against the Republican party and its Democratic allies. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:48 AM

Today I wondered if George W will become more strident or more complient after his parents are dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rufus
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:33 AM

Where's it say that?

I'll admit though, slowin is a good thing it will take more than our life time to get it to stop growin and somebody elses life time to back it up to 0 deficit and that's only IF thins go like they is goin now.

Didja see them deficit numbers for France and Italy. Looks like they is in tha hole worse than us.

I heared in Austraily they got Zero deficit. Izat true?

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 12:18 AM

This seems to me to say, Woody, that the growth of the deficit is being slowed, which, if true, is certainly a good thing. If the budget gets back to zero-deficit for any one year period under Bush, I will be highly surprised. But even if it does, his rampant deficit spending for the last six will still mean a huge national debt incurred by his administration, rather than a reduced national debt. I will be delighted if he stops making the debt worse; but that is a far cry from repairing the damage to our fiscal well being.

Additionally, it won't touch the damage he has done to international repute and the national character with his hijinks. Nor will it do anything for the millions of lives he has brought to ruin through his headstrong recklessness.

Despite all that, it is a good thing the gravedigger is slowing down his digging.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 08:46 PM

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=5&issue=20060612

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 08:36 PM

Wolfgang, but if he makes it small enough, we won't be able to read it at all! :-) And then we won't HAVE to!

BTW, "JED GRAHAM INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY" isn't really suitable as 'Real Internet Attribution' - as it gives no URL, thus can still be faked nonsensical gibberish turned out by some robotic text generator.

If someone WANTS ME to believe something, then you have to show the URL - it's just not worth my time wasting time searching to see if it really exists, or if it has been deliberately tampered with to change the original meaning as originally written. (Wasn't born yesterday!)

And IF the URL is given, then we need merely a few lines, a short paragraph, to indicate what the original was about - not the whole box and dice!

This is the case with BS posts, especially about 'Politics' here on the Mudcat: now MUSIC content is different - this IS a Music, not Politics, site!

Bobert, you WERE being sarcastic, weren't you?

Bobert? Where you gone?

Oops, sorry, forgot you started this thread so as to confine the nutters all to one place...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Cindy
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 12:48 PM

Lets all kibbitz about the way the info looks rather than reading the content.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 11:03 AM

Bobert,

please don't mention the one screen rule again lest Woody uses even smaller print to make the c&p fit the screen.

Diagonal "reading" is so difficult with the small print and more than diagonal reading isn't appropriate for the content.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 10:54 AM

BY JED GRAHAM INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/12/2006

Aided by surging tax receipts, President Bush may make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006 — three years early.

Tax revenues are running $176 billion, or 12.9%, over last year, the Treasury Department said Monday. The Congressional Budget Office said receipts have risen faster over the first eight months of fiscal '06 than in any other such period over the past 25 years — except for last year's 15.5% jump.

The 2006 deficit through May was $227 billion, down from $273 billion at this time last year. Spending is up $130 billion, or 7.9%.

The CBO forecast in May that the 2006 deficit could fall as low as $300 billion. Michael Englund, chief economist of Action Economics, has long expected a deficit of about $270 billion this year. Now he thinks there's a chance the "remarkable strength in receipts" will push the deficit even lower.

With the economy topping $13 trillion this year, a $270 billion deficit would equal less than 2.1% of GDP, easily beating the president's 2.25% goal. Bush made his vow when the White House had a dour 2004 deficit forecast of 4.5% of GDP, or $521 billion. The actual '04 deficit came in at $412 billion, or 3.5% of GDP, before falling to $318 billion, or 2.6% of GDP, in 2005.

A CBO analysis last week noted that withheld individual income and payroll taxes are up 7.6% from a year ago, with the gains picking up in recent months.

"Those gains suggest solid growth in wages and salaries in the national economy," CBO said.

While gains are broad, those at higher-income levels are enjoying bigger salary hikes. Because they pay higher rates, federal tax revenues soar when they do well.

Those making over $200,000 now pay 46.6% of total income taxes, presidential adviser Karl Rove recently said. That's up from 40.5% — despite Bush's tax cuts.

Nonwithheld income tax receipts are up about 20% vs. a year ago. That may reflect year-end bonuses and capital gains.

Corporate income taxes are up about 30% from last year's pace.

While economic growth is producing impressive tax revenue gains, budget experts say they won't be enough to wipe out deficits, especially as baby boomers retire. Englund thinks the deficit could hit $150 billion if the expansion lasts two or three more years. "When we go into a downturn, the numbers reverse," he said.

Long-term growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid "threaten to force either European-style tax increases, unprecedented spending cuts or unprecedented debt," said Heritage Foundation budget expert Brian Riedl. "There's no growing out of the long-term budget problems."

Heritage sees an $800 billion deficit in 2016, assuming tax cuts are extended and spending stays on its present course. If the economy and tax receipts continue to outperform, the deficit would still be at least $600 billion, Riedl said.

He noted Congress has been more disciplined about discretionary spending lately. But that saves a mere $10 billion a year, he said.

Late last week, House and Senate negotiators reached a deal to hold a supplemental spending bill for Iraq, Afghanistan and hurricane relief to under $94.5 billion.

The Senate had tacked on another $14 billion, but Bush vowed to veto any bill above $94.5 billion.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rush & Molloy
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 10:40 AM

Soros against Iraq backtrack

Billionaire George Soros spent a fortune trying to pry President Bush out of the White House. But the Democratic Midas agrees with the President that we can't pull out of Iraq now.

"Unfortunately, many countries have a national narrative that condemns them to keep on defending a cause that is really indefensible," the Open Society founder said Monday at the Core Club party for his book "The Age of Fallibility." "The Turks can't admit the massacre of Armenians, for example. We have been better in the past at recognizing our sins. I'm afraid that we have to recognize that was a terrible mistake.

"I can't expect President Bush to do that," Soros allowed. "That would be out of keeping for anybody. What's worse, I think we actually have to stay in Iraq for a while. If we left, we would have a conflagration. We are sitting on a civil war. Therefore, American soldiers have to continue giving their lives to a bad cause."

Soros said Bush was right to invade Afghanistan, because that "was where Bin Laden was located." He also conceded that, since pre-war Iraq was "a magnet for general terrorists," the U.S. occupation may "have deflected a terrorist attack" here. But Soros argued that, thanks to Bush's policies, "The danger of a terrorist attack is greater since 9/11. We may actually be growing terrorist cells."

P.S.: Soros was downright courtly toward the Bushies compared with Sen. John Kerry's spokesman, David Wade, who yesterday snarled at White House adviser Karl Rove for accusing Kerry and fellow Vietnam vet Rep. John Murtha of "cutting and running" from the war.

"The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison," said Wade. "This porcine political operative can't cut and run from the truth any longer. When it came to Iraq, this administration chose to cut and run from sound intelligence and good diplomacy. … In November, Americans will cut and run from this Republican Congress."

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 08:25 AM

Yeah, well it was very interesting, the first couple of times, but perhaps it's time for the big chopper to come out... I thought they were all 'originals' (longer than 70 words each) only posted here, but if it was just unattributed plaigairism... well, just a link and a précis is fine with me...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 07:35 AM

Hmmmmmmm?

Looks as if GUEST, Woody owes Max a big donation for violating the one-screen cut'n-post rule...

(Must be nice to be a Bushite... Don't have to actually think anything out for yourself with all these corporate sponsored right wing blogs providing long winded and twisted power point presentations ready for cut'n' paste... I doubt if even the Bushites read 'um...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 10:39 PM

Washington -- In a span of 90 minutes Tuesday, three prominent Democrats offered competing visions of how to proceed in Iraq and displayed how difficult it will be to turn what was once the Republican Party's strongest asset into its electoral downfall.

As President Bush was returning from his surprise visit to Baghdad, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a leading contender for the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential nomination, told a gathering of nearly 2,000 liberals that the war was a "strategic blunder,'' but warned it would not be in the nation's interest to "set a date certain'' for withdrawal.

She was followed by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who told the same group the war was a "grotesque mistake,'' and that troops should be withdrawn "at the earliest practical date.''

And moments later, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's standard bearer in 2004, said he had made a mistake by voting to authorize the president to use military force in Iraq, and called for a "hard and fast deadline'' for troop withdrawal.

Democrats have put aside many differences in their common yearning to gain seats in the 2006 midterm congressional elections. Yet when it comes to the war that has polarized the nation, and by some accounts is shaping up as the biggest issue in the November election, Democrats are struggling to speak with a single voice.

A USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday found that most Americans considered the killing of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a "major achievement'' and suggested that opinion which has turned steadily against the war remains volatile.

The poll found that 51 percent of Americans still say it was a mistake to go to war in Iraq, a drop from nearly 60 percent at the end of last year. The new poll found that 48 percent believe the war is winnable, up from 39 percent in April.

And the Democratic disagreements on display Tuesday came on the eve of debates in the House and Senate over the future of the war, which leaders hope will clarify the different views of the two parties.

After months of negotiating, Democrats have united around a common call that 2006 be a "year of significant transition'' in Iraq, a statement so broad that it would be hard for anyone, the president included, to disagree. By comparison, a resolution written by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma calling on Bush to "develop and implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal'' of troops, has attracted just 35 co-sponsors.

Strategists have given Democrats mixed advice; some have called on Democrats to exhibit spine by demanding a swift pullout, while others have warned the party risks a backlash if they are seen either as weak or as trying to exploit violence for political purposes.

The conflict was evident Tuesday as Clinton, long a favorite of the party's left, spoke before liberals at the "Take Back America'' conference in the ballroom of a Washington hotel.

"I have to just say it: I do not think it is a smart strategy either for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment,'' she said, "nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain. I do not agree that that is in the best interest of our troops or our country.''

Many in the crowd cheered. Many booed. Hecklers began yelling "bring the troops home.'' And when Clinton had finished speaking, she was met by a loud chants of "bring the troops home, now!''

By contrast, Kerry who like Clinton is believed to be eyeing a possible presidential candidacy in 2008, delivered an unambiguous indictment of Bush's conduct of the war, displaying clarity and rhetorical resolve that was often missing during his losing campaign against the Republican president in 2004.

Kerry called Iraq and Vietnam, the "two most failed foreign policy choices'' in the nation's history, and made a biting contrast between Bush's surprise visit to Iraq early Tuesday and the president's lack of combat duty in Vietnam.

"Now, I fully understand that Iraq is not Vietnam. After all, President Bush is even there today,'' Kerry said.

Kerry, who earned two purple hearts and a silver medal in Vietnam, went on to draw parallels between the current conflict and the war he protested as a returning veteran in the early 1970s.

In both conflicts, Kerry said, the U.S. intervened "based on official deceptions'' and to fight "a larger global war under the misperception that the particular theater was just the latest battleground.''

"And as in Vietnam, we have stayed and fought and died even though it is time for us to go,'' Kerry said. "It was right to dissent from a war in 1971 that was wrong and could not be won. And now, in 2006, it is both a right and an obligation for Americans to stand up to a president who is wrong today.''

The largely anti-war crowd cheered Kerry, as they did Pelosi when she reminded them that in 2003 as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she had warned that the intelligence did not support the threat being made by the administration.

Pelosi said she stood by the plan promoted by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., which calls for a redeployment of troops "over the horizon'' as soon as is practically possible.

"There are only two directions to take in Iraq: the president's plan of stay the course and let a future president sweep up after you, or the Murtha plan to change the direction of that course. I support the Murtha plan.''

Some party leaders say that Democrats are united in their resolve that the U.S. should not set up permanent military bases in Iraq, and that Bush has botched the execution of the war.

And they insist their differences are being blown out of proportion.

On NBC's Today show Tuesday morning, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean was shown two quotes, one from Pelosi supporting the Murtha plan and one from Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 ranking House Democrat, who said in response to Murtha's plan that "a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists, damaging our nation's security and credibility.''

"I see no difference between what Steny Hoyer just said and what Nancy Pelosi said,'' Dean responded.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Cindy
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 08:29 PM

There you go with those high and mighty intelectual words again. You bring shame to the rest of us Bush haters.

How about this: Bush picks his nose and hides the buggers from the US public.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 08:02 PM

Aside from flying into Baghdad in secret and then boasting about it, why should his ratings be up? Has he come up with a new and better policy about ANY of his past fuck-ups?

And I know perfectly well your name is not Cindy, so don't act foolish. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Cindy
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 07:57 PM

Things are going bad for us bush haters. Rove is off the hook, Abu is dead, GWB's ratings are up. What can we do to counter act this?

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 12:37 AM

The conclusions of the investigative committee that examined seven allegations of research misconduct against University of Colorado ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill:

• Charge A: That Churchill misrepresented the General Allotment Act of 1887 in his writings by incorrectly writing that it created a "blood quantum" standard that allowed tribes to admit members only if they had at least half native blood.

Finding: Falsification and failure to comply with established standards regarding author names on publications.

• Charge B: That Churchill misrep- resented the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 by incorrectly writing that the act imposed a "blood quantum" requiring artists to prove they were one-quarter Indian by blood.

Finding: Falsification and failure to comply with established standards regarding author names on publications.

• Charge C: That Churchill incorrectly claimed there was "some pretty strong circumstantial evidence" that Capt. John Smith introduced smallpox among the Wampanoag Indians between 1614 and 1618.

Finding: Falsification and fabrication.

• Charge D: That in several writings Churchill falsely accused the U.S. Army of committing genocide by distributing blankets infested with smallpox to Mandan Indians in the Upper Missouri River Valley in 1837.

Finding: Falsification, fabrication, failure to comply with established standards regarding author names on publications and serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from research. The committee also found that Churchill was "disrespectful of Indian oral tradition."

• Charge E: That Churchill claimed as his own work a 1972 pamphlet about a water-diversion scheme in Canada titled The Water Plot. The work actually was written by a now-defunct environmental group, "Dam the Dams."

Finding: Plagiarism.

• Charge F: That Churchill plagiarized part of an essay written by Rebecca L. Robbins in a book he published in 1993.

Finding: Research misconduct

• Charge G: That Churchill plagiarized the writings of Canadian professor Fay G. Cohen in a 1992 essay.

Finding: Plagiarism.Source: University Of Colorado Report Of The Investigative Committee

What's next

• Response: Ward Churchill will get time to respond to the report. CU spokesman Barrie Hartman said the university expects response in two weeks.

• Recommendation: CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct will make a recommendation to Provost Susan Avery and Arts and Sciences Dean Todd Gleeson, about what action, if any, should be taken against Churchill.

• Final decision: Avery and Gleeson hope to have a final decision by mid-June.

• Appeal: Churchill can appeal to Privilege and Tenure Committee.

• Termination: If terminated, Churchill, he may appeal to CU president. The Board of Regents must vote to approve any dismissal.

Under fire: from the beginning

• 1978: The University of Colorado hires Ward Churchill as an administrative assistant in the American Indian Equal Opportunities Program, which counsels Indian students. Over the next 10 years, he also lectures on Indian topics.

• 1991: Churchill receives tenure and is appointed an associate professor in CU's communications department.

• 1994: Students vote Churchill winner of Boulder Faculty Assembly teaching award.

• 1997: Churchill is appointed full professor, and his tenure is transferred to the ethnic-studies department.

• 2002: Churchill named chairman of ethnic-studies department.

• Jan. 21, 2005: In advance of a speaking appearance by Churchill, a reporter at a student newspaper in New York writes a story about a little-known essay the professor wrote Sept. 12, 2001. In it, Churchill referred to some victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as "little Eichmanns," after Nazi Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust. In the next few days, the story is picked up by other media and widely publicized.

• Feb. 3, 2005: The CU Board of Regents, under pressure from lawmakers and the public to fire Churchill, apologizes for his "disgraceful comments" and orders an investigation into whether he should be dismissed.

• March 24, 2005: CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano says Churchill's comments about 9/11 were protected by the First Amendment. But he determines allegations of fraud and plagiarism against Churchill warrant further inquiry by CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

• May 24, 2005: Churchill meets with the committee. His attorney later says Churchill told the committee the investigation was a politically motivated "witch hunt."

• June 4, 2005: The Rocky Mountain News publishes an investigation of Churchill's work. In it, the News finds problems in all four major areas being reviewed by the CU panel, as well as new allegations of research misconduct. Less than two weeks later, DiStefano announces he will add some of the News' findings to his complaint against Churchill.

• Sept. 9, 2005: The standing committee announces it is sending seven of the nine charges of possible research misconduct to an ad hoc investigative committee for further review.

• November 2005: Two members of the five-person investigative committee resign amid criticism that they have expressed support for Churchill in the past and would not be impartial. They are replaced by two scholars from outside CU.

• April 13, 2006: CU informs Churchill it is launching another inquiry into his work. The complaint stems from allegations that Churchill fabricated material in two books.

• May 9, 2006: The five-member panel - which includes three CU professors - completes its investigation and turns its findings over to the standing committee. Churchill's attorney sends a letter to CU, calling the newest inquiry harassment and threatening to sue if it is not dropped.

• May 16, 2006: CU releases the investigative committee's report, which concludes Churchill committed deliberate and serious misconduct, including plagiarism and fabrication of material. One committee member recommends he be fired; the others suggest he be suspended without pay for two or five years. Churchill calls the report "a travesty."

Who's who in the Churchill investigation

STANDING COMMITTEE

This 12-member panel reviewed interim Chancellor Philip DiStefano's complaint and decided it should be sent to an investigative committee for further review:

Members

• Joseph Rosse, chairman, director of Office of Research Integrity

• Russell Moore, professor of kinesiology and applied physiology

• Cortlandt Pierpont, professor of chemistry and biochemistry

• Sanjai Bhagat, professor, Leeds School of Business

• Steven R. Guberman, associate professor, School of Education

• Ron Pak, professor of civil engineering

• Bella Mody, professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication

• Richard Collins, professor, School of Law

• Judith Glyde, professor, College of Music

• Uriel Nauenberg, professor of physics

• Linda Morris, assistant, Office of Associate Vice Chancellor for Graduate Education/Research

• Tind Shepper Ryen, graduate student, representative of United Government of Graduate Students

INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE

The five-member panel that conducted the investigation:

Members

• Marianne "Mimi" Wesson, committee chairwoman, professor, CU School of Law

• Marjorie McIntosh, CU professor of history

• Michael Radelet, CU professor of sociology

• Jose Limon, professor of English, University of Texas at Austin

• Robert N. Clinton, professor of law, Arizona State UniversitySource: University Of Colorado

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 07:49 PM

When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.

If the nature of the bombing were not already bad enough – and it should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of international law, as well as every conceivable standard of "civilized" behavior – the death toll has been steadily ratcheted up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers.

All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000 kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25 percent of their age group. Indisputably, the rest have suffered – are still suffering – a combination of physical debilitation and psychological trauma severe enough to prevent their ever fully recovering. In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.

The reason for this holocaust was/is rather simple, and stated quite straightforwardly by President George Bush, the 41st "freedom-loving" father of the freedom-lover currently filling the Oval Office, George the 43rd: "The world must learn that what we say, goes," intoned George the Elder to the enthusiastic applause of freedom-loving Americans everywhere. How Old George conveyed his message was certainly no mystery to the US public. One need only recall the 24-hour-per-day dissemination of bombardment videos on every available TV channel, and the exceedingly high ratings of these telecasts, to gain a sense of how much they knew.

In trying to affix a meaning to such things, we would do well to remember the wave of elation that swept America at reports of what was happening along the so-called Highway of Death: perhaps 100,000 "towel-heads" and "camel jockeys" – or was it "sand niggers" that week? – in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless, many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance. It was a performance worthy of the nazis during the early months of their drive into Russia. And it should be borne in mind that Good Germans gleefully cheered that butchery, too. Indeed, support for Hitler suffered no serious erosion among Germany's "innocent civilians" until the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943.

There may be a real utility to reflecting further, this time upon the fact that it was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had allowed – nay, empowered – their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name.

If the principle was valid then, it remains so now, as applicable to Good Americans as it was the Good Germans. And the price exacted from the Germans for the faultiness of their moral fiber was truly ghastly. Returning now to the children, and to the effects of the post-Gulf War embargo – continued bull force by Bush the Elder's successors in the Clinton administration as a gesture of its "resolve" to finalize what George himself had dubbed the "New World Order" of American military/economic domination – it should be noted that not one but two high United Nations officials attempting to coordinate delivery of humanitarian aid to Iraq resigned in succession as protests against US policy.

One of them, former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halladay, repeatedly denounced what was happening as "a systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide." His statements appeared in the New York Times and other papers during the fall of 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the American public was "unaware" of them. Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Madeline Albright openly confirmed Halladay's assessment. Asked during the widely-viewed TV program Meet the Press to respond to his "allegations," she calmly announced that she'd decided it was "worth the price" to see that U.S. objectives were achieved.

The Politics of a Perpetrator Population
As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations with yawns.. There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned with. Getting "Jeremy" and "Ellington" to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little "Tiffany" and "Ashley" had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And, to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays – for "our kids," no less – as an all-absorbing point of political focus.

In fairness, it must be admitted that there was an infinitesimally small segment of the body politic who expressed opposition to what was/is being done to the children of Iraq. It must also be conceded, however, that those involved by-and-large contented themselves with signing petitions and conducting candle-lit prayer vigils, bearing "moral witness" as vast legions of brown-skinned five-year-olds sat shivering in the dark, wide-eyed in horror, whimpering as they expired in the most agonizing ways imaginable.

Be it said as well, and this is really the crux of it, that the "resistance" expended the bulk of its time and energy harnessed to the systemically-useful task of trying to ensure, as "a principle of moral virtue" that nobody went further than waving signs as a means of "challenging" the patently exterminatory pursuit of Pax Americana. So pure of principle were these "dissidents," in fact, that they began literally to supplant the police in protecting corporations profiting by the carnage against suffering such retaliatory "violence" as having their windows broken by persons less "enlightened" – or perhaps more outraged – than the self-anointed "peacekeepers."

Property before people, it seems – or at least the equation of property to people – is a value by no means restricted to America's boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort zone "pacifists" queuing up to condemn the black block after it ever so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in Seattle.

Small wonder, all-in-all, that people elsewhere in the world – the Mideast, for instance – began to wonder where, exactly, aside from the streets of the US itself, one was to find the peace America's purportedly oppositional peacekeepers claimed they were keeping.

The answer, surely, was plain enough to anyone unblinded by the kind of delusions engendered by sheer vanity and self-absorption. So, too, were the implications in terms of anything changing, out there, in America's free-fire zones.

Tellingly, it was at precisely this point – with the genocide in Iraq officially admitted and a public response demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were virtually no Americans, including most of those professing otherwise, doing anything tangible to stop it – that the combat teams which eventually commandeered the aircraft used on September 11 began to infiltrate the United States.

Meet the "Terrorists"
Of the men who came, there are a few things demanding to be said in the face of the unending torrent of disinformational drivel unleashed by George Junior and the corporate "news" media immediately following their successful operation on September 11.

They did not, for starters, "initiate" a war with the US, much less commit "the first acts of war of the new millennium."

A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" – now proudly emblematized by the United States – against the "Islamic East" since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between. Any way you slice it, however, if what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course.

That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were not "cowards." That distinction properly belongs to the "firm-jawed lads" who delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended airspace of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone unfortunate enough to be below – including tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians – while themselves incurring all the risk one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade. Still more, the word describes all those "fighting men and women" who sat at computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, enjoying air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles into neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else can be said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested the courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own lives in attaining their objectives.

Nor were they "fanatics" devoted to "Islamic fundamentalism."

One might rightly describe their actions as "desperate." Feelings of desperation, however, are a perfectly reasonable – one is tempted to say "normal" – emotional response among persons confronted by the mass murder of their children, particularly when it appears that nobody else really gives a damn (ask a Jewish survivor about this one, or, even more poignantly, for all the attention paid them, a Gypsy).

That desperate circumstances generate desperate responses is no mysterious or irrational principle, of the sort motivating fanatics. Less is it one peculiar to Islam. Indeed, even the FBI's investigative reports on the combat teams' activities during the months leading up to September 11 make it clear that the members were not fundamentalist Muslims. Rather, it's pretty obvious at this point that they were secular activists – soldiers, really – who, while undoubtedly enjoying cordial relations with the clerics of their countries, were motivated far more by the grisly realities of the U.S. war against them than by a set of religious beliefs.

And still less were they/their acts "insane."

Insanity is a condition readily associable with the very American idea that one – or one's country – holds what amounts to a "divine right" to commit genocide, and thus to forever do so with impunity. The term might also be reasonably applied to anyone suffering genocide without attempting in some material way to bring the process to a halt. Sanity itself, in this frame of reference, might be defined by a willingness to try and destroy the perpetrators and/or the sources of their ability to commit their crimes. (Shall we now discuss the US "strategic bombing campaign" against Germany during World War II, and the mental health of those involved in it?)

Which takes us to official characterizations of the combat teams as an embodiment of "evil."

Evil – for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept – was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jaba the Hutt, blandly spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon the unoffending youth of Iraq. Evil was to be heard in that great American hero "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf's utterly dehumanizing dismissal of their systematic torture and annihilation as mere "collateral damage." Evil, moreover, is a term appropriate to describing the mentality of a public that finds such perspectives and the policies attending them acceptable, or even momentarily tolerable.

Had it not been for these evils, the counterattacks of September 11 would never have occurred. And unless "the world is rid of such evil," to lift a line from George Junior, September 11 may well end up looking like a lark.

There is no reason, after all, to believe that the teams deployed in the assaults on the WTC and the Pentagon were the only such, that the others are composed of "Arabic-looking individuals" – America's indiscriminately lethal arrogance and psychotic sense of self-entitlement have long since given the great majority of the world's peoples ample cause to be at war with it – or that they are in any way dependent upon the seizure of civilian airliners to complete their missions.

To the contrary, there is every reason to expect that there are many other teams in place, tasked to employ altogether different tactics in executing operational plans at least as well-crafted as those evident on September 11, and very well equipped for their jobs. This is to say that, since the assaults on the WTC and Pentagon were act of war – not "terrorist incidents" – they must be understood as components in a much broader strategy designed to achieve specific results. From this, it can only be adduced that there are plenty of other components ready to go, and that they will be used, should this become necessary in the eyes of the strategists. It also seems a safe bet that each component is calibrated to inflict damage at a level incrementally higher than the one before (during the 1960s, the Johnson administration employed a similar policy against Vietnam, referred to as "escalation").

Since implementation of the overall plan began with the WTC/Pentagon assaults, it takes no rocket scientist to decipher what is likely to happen next, should the U.S. attempt a response of the inexcusable variety to which it has long entitled itself.

About Those Boys (and Girls) in the Bureau
There's another matter begging for comment at this point. The idea that the FBI's "counterterrorism task forces" can do a thing to prevent what will happen is yet another dimension of America's delusional pathology.. The fact is that, for all its publicly-financed "image-building" exercises, the Bureau has never shown the least aptitude for anything of the sort.

Oh, yeah, FBI counterintelligence personnel have proven quite adept at framing anarchists, communists and Black Panthers, sometimes murdering them in their beds or the electric chair. The Bureau's SWAT units have displayed their ability to combat child abuse in Waco by burning babies alive, and its vaunted Crime Lab has been shown to pad its "crime-fighting' statistics by fabricating evidence against many an alleged car thief. But actual "heavy-duty bad guys" of the sort at issue now? This isn't a Bruce Willis/Chuck Norris/Sly Stallone movie, after all.. And J. Edgar Hoover doesn't get to approve either the script or the casting.

The number of spies, saboteurs and bona fide terrorists apprehended, or even detected by the FBI in the course of its long and slimy history could be counted on one's fingers and toes. On occasion, its agents have even turned out to be the spies, and, in many instances, the terrorists as well.

To be fair once again, if the Bureau functions as at best a carnival of clowns where its "domestic security responsibilities" are concerned, this is because – regardless of official hype – it has none. It is now, as it's always been, the national political police force, an instrument created and perfected to ensure that all Americans, not just the consenting mass, are "free" to do exactly as they're told.

The FBI and "cooperating agencies" can be thus relied upon to set about "protecting freedom" by destroying whatever rights and liberties were left to U.S. citizens before September 11 (in fact, they've already received authorization to begin). Sheeplike, the great majority of Americans can also be counted upon to bleat their approval, at least in the short run, believing as they always do that the nasty implications of what they're doing will pertain only to others.

Oh Yeah, and "The Company," Too

A possibly even sicker joke is the notion, suddenly in vogue, that the CIA will be able to pinpoint "terrorist threats," "rooting out their infrastructure" where it exists and/or "terminating" it before it can materialize, if only it's allowed to beef up its "human intelligence gathering capacity" in an unrestrained manner (including full-bore operations inside the US, of course).

Yeah. Right.

Since America has a collective attention-span of about 15 minutes, a little refresher seems in order: "The Company" had something like a quarter-million people serving as "intelligence assets" by feeding it information in Vietnam in 1968, and it couldn't even predict the Tet Offensive. God knows how many spies it was fielding against the USSR at the height of Ronald Reagan's version of the Cold War, and it was still caught flatfooted by the collapse of the Soviet Union. As to destroying "terrorist infrastructures," one would do well to remember Operation Phoenix, another product of its open season in Vietnam. In that one, the CIA enlisted elite US units like the Navy Seals and Army Special Forces, as well as those of friendly countries – the south Vietnamese Rangers, for example, and Australian SAS – to run around "neutralizing" folks targeted by The Company's legion of snitches as "guerrillas" (as those now known as "terrorists" were then called).

Sound familiar?

Upwards of 40,000 people – mostly bystanders, as it turns out – were murdered by Phoenix hit teams before the guerrillas, stronger than ever, ran the US and its collaborators out of their country altogether. And these are the guys who are gonna save the day, if unleashed to do their thing in North America?

The net impact of all this "counterterrorism" activity upon the combat teams' ability to do what they came to do, of course, will be nil.

Instead, it's likely to make it easier for them to operate (it's worked that way in places like Northern Ireland). And, since denying Americans the luxury of reaping the benefits of genocide in comfort was self-evidently a key objective of the WTC/Pentagon assaults, it can be stated unequivocally that a more overt display of the police state mentality already pervading this country simply confirms the magnitude of their victory.

On Matters of Proportion and Intent
As things stand, including the 1993 detonation at the WTC, "Arab terrorists" have responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq with a total of four assaults by explosives inside the US. That's about 1% of the 50,000 bombs the Pentagon announced were rained on Baghdad alone during the Gulf War (add in Oklahoma City and you'll get something nearer an actual 1%).

They've managed in the process to kill about 5,000 Americans, or roughly 1% of the dead Iraqi children (the percentage is far smaller if you factor in the killing of adult Iraqi civilians, not to mention troops butchered as/after they'd surrendered and/or after the "war-ending" ceasefire had been announced).

In terms undoubtedly more meaningful to the property/profit-minded American mainstream, they've knocked down a half-dozen buildings – albeit some very well-chosen ones – as opposed to the "strategic devastation" visited upon the whole of Iraq, and punched a $100 billion hole in the earnings outlook of major corporate shareholders, as opposed to the U.S. obliteration of Iraq's entire economy.

With that, they've given Americans a tiny dose of their own medicine.. This might be seen as merely a matter of "vengeance" or "retribution," and, unquestionably, America has earned it, even if it were to add up only to something so ultimately petty.

The problem is that vengeance is usually framed in terms of "getting even," a concept which is plainly inapplicable in this instance. As the above data indicate, it would require another 49,996 detonations killing 495,000 more Americans, for the "terrorists" to "break even" for the bombing of Baghdad/extermination of Iraqi children alone. And that's to achieve "real number" parity. To attain an actual proportional parity of damage – the US is about 15 times as large as Iraq in terms of population, even more in terms of territory – they would, at a minimum, have to blow up about 300,000 more buildings and kill something on the order of 7.5 million people.

Were this the intent of those who've entered the US to wage war against it, it would remain no less true that America and Americans were only receiving the bill for what they'd already done. Payback, as they say, can be a real motherfucker (ask the Germans). There is, however, no reason to believe that retributive parity is necessarily an item on the agenda of those who planned the WTC/Pentagon operation. If it were, given the virtual certainty that they possessed the capacity to have inflicted far more damage than they did, there would be a lot more American bodies lying about right now.

Hence, it can be concluded that ravings carried by the "news" media since September 11 have contained at least one grain of truth: The peoples of the Mideast "aren't like" Americans, not least because they don't "value life' in the same way. By this, it should be understood that Middle-Easterners, unlike Americans, have no history of exterminating others purely for profit, or on the basis of racial animus. Thus, we can appreciate the fact that they value life – all lives, not just their own – far more highly than do their U.S. counterparts.

The Makings of a Humanitarian Strategy
In sum one can discern a certain optimism – it might even be call humanitarianism – imbedded in the thinking of those who presided over the very limited actions conducted on September 11.

Their logic seems to have devolved upon the notion that the American people have condoned what has been/is being done in their name – indeed, are to a significant extent actively complicit in it – mainly because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Now they do.

That was the "medicinal" aspect of the attacks.

To all appearances, the idea is now to give the tonic a little time to take effect, jolting Americans into the realization that the sort of pain they're now experiencing first-hand is no different from – or the least bit more excruciating than – that which they've been so cavalier in causing others, and thus to respond appropriately.

More bluntly, the hope was – and maybe still is – that Americans, stripped of their presumed immunity from incurring any real consequences for their behavior, would comprehend and act upon a formulation as uncomplicated as "stop killing our kids, if you want your own to be safe."

Either way, it's a kind of "reality therapy" approach, designed to afford the American people a chance to finally "do the right thing" on their own, without further coaxing.

Were the opportunity acted upon in some reasonably good faith fashion – a sufficiently large number of Americans rising up and doing whatever is necessary to force an immediate lifting of the sanctions on Iraq, for instance, or maybe hanging a few of America's abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry Kissinger comes quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and George the Elder) – there is every reason to expect that military operations against the US on its domestic front would be immediately suspended.

Whether they would remain so would of course be contingent upon follow-up. By that, it may be assumed that American acceptance of onsite inspections by international observers to verify destruction of its weapons of mass destruction (as well as dismantlement of all facilities in which more might be manufactured), Nuremberg-style trials in which a few thousand US military/corporate personnel could be properly adjudicated and punished for their Crimes Against humanity, and payment of reparations to the array of nations/peoples whose assets the US has plundered over the years, would suffice.

Since they've shown no sign of being unreasonable or vindictive, it may even be anticipated that, after a suitable period of adjustment and reeducation (mainly to allow them to acquire the skills necessary to living within their means), those restored to control over their own destinies by the gallant sacrifices of the combat teams the WTC and Pentagon will eventually (re)admit Americans to the global circle of civilized societies. Stranger things have happened.

In the Alternative
Unfortunately, noble as they may have been, such humanitarian aspirations were always doomed to remain unfulfilled. For it to have been otherwise, a far higher quality of character and intellect would have to prevail among average Americans than is actually the case. Perhaps the strategists underestimated the impact a couple of generations-worth of media indoctrination can produce in terms of demolishing the capacity of human beings to form coherent thoughts. Maybe they forgot to factor in the mind-numbing effects of the indoctrination passed off as education in the US. Then, again, it's entirely possible they were aware that a decisive majority of American adults have been reduced by this point to a level much closer to the kind of immediate self-gratification entailed in Pavlovian stimulus/response patterns than anything accessible by appeals to higher logic, and still felt morally obliged to offer the dolts an option to quit while they were ahead.

What the hell? It was worth a try.

But it's becoming increasingly apparent that the dosage of medicine administered was entirely insufficient to accomplish its purpose.

Although there are undoubtedly exceptions, Americans for the most part still don't get it.

Already, they've desecrated the temporary tomb of those killed in the WTC, staging a veritable pep rally atop the mangled remains of those they profess to honor, treating the whole affair as if it were some bizarre breed of contact sport. And, of course, there are the inevitable pom-poms shaped like American flags, the school colors worn as little red-white-and-blue ribbons affixed to labels, sportscasters in the form of "counterterrorism experts" drooling mindless color commentary during the pregame warm-up.

Refusing the realization that the world has suddenly shifted its axis, and that they are therefore no longer "in charge," they have by-and-large reverted instantly to type, working themselves into their usual bloodlust on the now obsolete premise that the bloodletting will "naturally" occur elsewhere and to someone else.

"Patriotism," a wise man once observed, "is the last refuge of scoundrels."

And the braided, he might of added.

Braided Scoundrel-in-Chief, George Junior, lacking even the sense to be careful what he wished for, has teamed up with a gaggle of fundamentalist Christian clerics like Billy Graham to proclaim a "New Crusade" called "Infinite Justice" aimed at "ridding the world of evil."

One could easily make light of such rhetoric, remarking upon how unseemly it is for a son to threaten his father in such fashion – or a president to so publicly contemplate the murder/suicide of himself and his cabinet – but the matter is deadly serious.

They are preparing once again to sally forth for the purpose of roasting brown-skinned children by the scores of thousands. Already, the B-1 bombers and the aircraft carriers and the missile frigates are en route, the airborne divisions are gearing up to go.

To where? Afghanistan?

The Sudan?

Iraq, again (or still)?

How about Grenada (that was fun)?

Any of them or all. It doesn't matter.

The desire to pummel the helpless runs rabid as ever.

Only, this time it's different.

The time the helpless aren't, or at least are not so helpless as they were.

This time, somewhere, perhaps in an Afghani mountain cave, possibly in a Brooklyn basement, maybe another local altogether – but somewhere, all the same – there's a grim-visaged (wo)man wearing a Clint Eastwood smile.

"Go ahead, punks," s/he's saying, "Make my day."

And when they do, when they launch these airstrikes abroad – or may a little later; it will be at a time conforming to the "terrorists"' own schedule, and at a place of their choosing – the next more intensive dose of medicine administered here "at home."

Of what will it consist this time? Anthrax? Mustard gas? Sarin? A tactical nuclear device?

That, too, is their choice to make.

Looking back, it will seem to future generations inexplicable why Americans were unable on their own, and in time to save themselves, to accept a rule of nature so basic that it could be mouthed by an actor, Lawrence Fishburn, in a movie, The Cotton Club.

"You've got to learn, " the line went, "that when you push people around, some people push back."

As they should.

As they must.

And as they undoubtedly will.

There is justice in such symmetry.

ADDENDUM
The preceding was a "first take" reading, more a stream-of-consciousness interpretive reaction to the September 11 counterattack than a finished piece on the topic. Hence, I'll readily admit that I've been far less than thorough, and quite likely wrong about a number of things.

For instance, it may not have been (only) the ghosts of Iraqi children who made their appearance that day. It could as easily have been some or all of their butchered Palestinian cousins.

Or maybe it was some or all of the at least 3.2 million Indochinese who perished as a result of America's sustained and genocidal assault on Southeast Asia (1959-1975), not to mention the millions more who've died because of the sanctions imposed thereafter.

Perhaps there were a few of the Korean civilians massacred by US troops at places like No Gun Ri during the early '50s, or the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians ruthlessly incinerated in the ghastly fire raids of World War II (only at Dresden did America bomb Germany in a similar manner).

And, of course, it could have been those vaporized in the militarily pointless nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There are others, as well, a vast and silent queue of faceless victims, stretching from the million-odd Filipinos slaughtered during America's "Indian War" in their islands at the beginning of the twentieth century, through the real Indians, America's own, massacred wholesale at places like Horseshoe Bend and the Bad Axe, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, the Washita, Bear River, and the Marias.

Was it those who expired along the Cherokee Trial of Tears of the Long Walk of the Navajo?

Those murdered by smallpox at Fort Clark in 1836?

Starved to death in the concentration camp at Bosque Redondo during the 1860s?

Maybe those native people claimed for scalp bounty in all 48 of the continental US states? Or the Raritans whose severed heads were kicked for sport along the streets of what was then called New Amsterdam, at the very site where the WTC once stood?

One hears, too, the whispers of those lost on the Middle Passage, and of those whose very flesh was sold in the slave market outside the human kennel from whence Wall Street takes its name. And of coolie laborers, imported by the gross-dozen to lay the tracks of empire across scorching desert sands, none of them allotted "a Chinaman's chance" of surviving.

The list is too long, too awful to go on.

No matter what its eventual fate, America will have gotten off very, very cheap.

The full measure of its guilt can never be fully balanced or atoned for.

Ward Churchill

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 09:53 AM

From a newslist:

"New Scientist Magazine has discovered that Pentagon's National Security
Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding
research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post
about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet
technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed
by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking
websites with details such as banking, retail and property records,
allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of
individuals."

< snip >

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg
19025556.200

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 09:12 AM

Thanks, Woody, or Kristwrite, or whoever. I am not sure what this post is a response to but it is a good post anyway, strongly felt and reasonably well worded, and a good reminder that there may have been moral justification for wanting to eliminate Saddam. I do not know how true those numbers are, but what the hell.

Funny that to find all those awful numbers in one place we need to dig into an odd Internet forum.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 08:56 AM

Do the math:

In 1959, before Hussein was the leader of Iraq (before he had
completed high school, even), he participated in the assignation of
the then-current Iraqi leader. (“Crimes Against Iraq,â€쳌
http://www.upforanything.net/archives/000664.html )

In 1968, Hussein, actively engaged in “purifying the government and
society of potential dissidents.â€쳌 (“Biography of Saddam Hussein of
Tikrit,â€쳌 Iraq Foundation:
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/research/bio.html )
In 1974, Hussein participated in the killing of five religious
leaders. (“Saddam’s Crimes,â€쳌
http://www.sciri.btinternet.co.uk/English/Saddam_Crimes/saddam_crimes.html
) Hundreds of other religious people were arrested and tortured.
In 1977, Hussein was responsible for the arrest of thousand of
religious people, and the killing of hundreds of them.
In 1978, Hussein participated in the assignation of former
Prime-Minister Abdul Razzaq Al naef in London. Between 1978-79,
Hussein helped “eliminateâ€쳌 7,000 communists in Iraq.
In 1979, Hussein ordered another purge to eliminate political
opponents. Hundreds of top ranking Ba'thists and army officers were
executed.
During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), 730,000 Iranians died. You will
recall that Hussein was the aggressor in this war, because he wanted
full control of the Arvand/Shatt al-Arab waterway at the head of the
Persian Gulf. (For more information on the war, see “Iran-Iraq War,â€쳌
at Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/i/irani1raq.asp
) Approximately 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals were killed in the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait. It’s estimated there were 1,500,000 refugees from
this war, displaced by Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. 750,000 “endured
brutalities, oppression, and torture.â€쳌 Although the date for the end
of the war is usually given as 1988, the struggle continued, and
500,000 Iranians were late killed (the Iranians say it was closer to 1
million), 100,000 by Hussein’s chemical weapons. In one day, 5,000
men, women, and children were gassed. (“Sadaam’s Other Crime,â€쳌 In The
National Interest: http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue29/Vol3Issue29Askari.html
and “Charges Facing Saddam Hussein,â€쳌 BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3320293.stm )

Between 1987-1988, 180,000 Kurds “disappeared,â€쳌 and 4,000 villages
were razed, in an effort at “ethnic cleansing.â€쳌
In 1983, Hussein killed of 8,000 members of the Barzani clan. Also in
1983, Hussein arrested 90 members of Al Hakim family and executed 16
of them.
Between 1988 and 1999, Hussein killed 7,000 prisoners in what was
called “prison cleansing.â€쳌 (“NoBody Count,â€쳌
http://www.blogoram.com/000184.php )
We also know that Hussein killed and tortured many other “enemiesâ€쳌
before the Gulf War. For example: Ayatollah Mohamad baqir Al Sadr and
his sister Amina Al Sadr (Bint Al Huda) were arrested, tortured, and
killed in 1980. In 1981, Haj Sahal Al Salman in UAE in 1981, Sami
Mahdi was killed. In 1987, Ni'ma Mohamad in Pakistan was killed. In
1988, Sayed Mahdi Al Hakim in Sudan was killed.
In addition, we know from Iraqi officials that Hussein put to death
“officers who did not agree to execute people in the street,â€쳌
religious leaders who didn’t lavish praise of Hussein, and Shiite
Muslims (for their religious views). (See, as an example, “Officer's
tale: Iraq's web of assassination, “ Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0424/p01s04-woiq.html ) Remember, too,
that mass graves were found during the FIRST Gulf War. (“Charges
Against Saddam,â€쳌 TalkLeft:
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/004668.html )

In the 1990s, Hussein killed 40,000 Shia’s (or Shiite Muslims) for
their religious uprisings; among those who became prisoners,
approximately 2,000 were executed on November 1993 alone. (“Death
Tolls,â€쳌 http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat5.htm#Iraq For more on
Shia’s, see “Shiites,â€쳌 http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/shiites.htm ) As
further evidence that the Gulf War did not play a role in Shia deaths,
in 1980, before war with Iran, Hussein hanged two leading Shia
figures. (“Radical Shias Worry Bush as well as Sadaam,â€쳌 Daily Times:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-10-2002_pg4_7 )
Since 1974, at least hundreds of Shia leaders have been arrested.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Would fewer people have been
killed if the U.S. had not participated in the Gulf War? Or would
Hussein have continued to kill, even without U.S. intervention?

For a look at the usual figures we hear about Hussein, see “Killer
File:â€쳌 http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hussein-comment.html

Regards,
Kristwrite

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:26 PM

Yean Don,

if the Foo Shits...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 10:00 PM

"In response, Hatch fumed: 'Does he really want to suggest that over
half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?'"

Well. . . ?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 09:57 PM

Not really, LH... The programers are closely tied with pollsters who have their fingers on the pulses of the average Joe-Sixpack... Problem is that. ike Reygun, there were certain wiring problems that made the both of them screw stuff up royally before retiring to cuttin' brush...

Hey, the program is in its infancy so don't be too harsh... Heck, what's a 100,000 dead Iraqis in the big scheme of thing???

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 09:40 PM

So true about Hillary, Bobert! The trouble with Bill Clinton was he just didn't appreciate what he had, that's all. I guess familiarity really does breed contempt. Or maybe he is one of those who figures more of anything is always better.

I have also been wondering if Mr Bush is a cyborg or something like that. He could be an android. Remember the mysterious bump under his suit at the debate? Could be a control mechanism. What argues against this, though, is that it would be difficult to program a machine to speak and apparently think that incoherently with the sort of consistency he has demonstrated. It would involve a tremendously sophisticated software program. This is why I think George W. is really human after all.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 07:59 PM

LH,

How could his every move be so carefully coriographed... Simple... Remember Ronnie Raygun??? Well, sure you do...

Well, there are more thjan a few folks who think that Ronnie had actaully died before the election and his body was taken off to some lab outside of Atlanta, Ga. and it was reworked as a livin', breathin', Frankenprez... Well that does expalerate alot of stuff...

Well, some of these same folkls have suggested that Bush got the some-lab-outside-of-Atlanta makeover after he died of an overdose while Governor of Texas... Yeah, they make them pretzels extra strength down in Texas...

That would explain a lot...

What doesn't need explainin', however, is that Hillary is a lot hotter than Monika....

That's the way I see it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 07:54 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060607/ap_on_go_co/gay_marriage_14

"The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry
into the Constitution," said Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts,
which legalized gay marriage in 2003. "A vote for it is a vote
against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other
efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law."

In response, Hatch fumed: "Does he really want to suggest that over
half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?"

Would he rather we think that they are not bigots at all, but only
cynics who exploit the bigotry of others to win elections so that
they canpush the issue again in 2008? Which is worse?


Public Citizen Litigation Group
1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
[phone]
http://www.citizen.org/litigation

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: bobad
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 07:46 PM

The George W. Bush approval map.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 07:17 PM

There has been some fuss about the CIA allegedly interfering in Aussie Politics - then some US Ambassadors just aren't bright enough to keep their mouth shut sometimes...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: number 6
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 11:44 PM

China is rapidly building their navy and not that far off on having the largest and most sophisticated navy in the world (thank the U.S. for selling off their technology to them) ... in reality, they will succeed not on military might but by economical means.

But i agree, the U.S. is propably the biggest threat to Canadian sovereignty. One good example is Harper, let's face it there was U.S. influence in positioning him to power.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 11:34 PM

Fighting words? Little Hawk, with all due respect -- you knowhumans are 99.9% the same genetic material as chimps?

You're more of a Yank than you are a chimp! I know you've been backpedaling from the truth as hard as you can, but the is-ness of the business is just so, nonetheless.   But, you are in (or very close to) good company.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 11:07 PM

"The Chinese would need to dominate the Pacific Ocean to effectively invade North America."

Only for a MILITARY invasion... They are on track for a FINANCIAL takeover right now...

Like the US has already done to Australia... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 11:02 PM

Well, Number 6, I'm not saying that's impossible...

But it's not too likely. Would they not have to go through eastern Russia first? Would the Russians let them?

I suppose anything's possible eventually, if one waits long enough. The Chinese would need to dominate the Pacific Ocean to effectively invade North America. That would require them having the world's pre-eminent navy, and that is something they are nowhere even near having at this point. The biggest navy is that of the USA, with Russia coming next.

I've studied my WWII history, and I know what it takes to mount an across the ocean invasion of a continental power. Only the USA and Great Britain have possessed such a capability in the last 100 years.

Hitler couldn't manage it across the little strip of water called the English Channel...and he would have if he could have.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: number 6
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:45 PM

"The only country that will ever invade Canada is the USA." ... or China, on the march to invading the U.S.A.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:44 PM

"I think George will be extremely relieved when his term is up. "

I didn't realise that he was going to goal...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:43 PM

Possibly, Russ. Hard to say. He's definitely under pressure these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:42 PM

Don't think I have not had those same unsettling thoughts, Foolestroupe. The only country that will ever invade Canada is the USA. My hope is that they will be so busy fighting other people in the meantime that they won't get around to Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:42 PM

I think George will be extremely relieved when his term is up.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:40 PM

Well, it's a different kind of thing with George W., Bobert. Kind of hard to describe, really. I would love to watch him eat a bowl of cereal. His every move is so carefully considered, so well orchestrated. His every comment so incisive. Hmmm. Have you ever noticed the way his eyes focus when he's bearing down hard on evil? Wow. Yes, definitely Imperial material there...Caesar-like characteristics. And that Condoleeza Rice....Whoa! Scarier than Darth Vader on a bad day. Can you see her pronouncing sentence on fallen gladiators? I sure can.

But you're right about Hillary. Sheer lust. How could Bill Clinton even look at Monica Lewinsky???? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:39 PM

"I am north of that borderline. "

The _physical_ one..... for now.... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:36 PM

Aggggh! Got Me! The Attack of The Nameless Neo-Cons!

Yep! The King loves to have feeble minded subjets...

"It's good to be da King!"



From one of my efforts...

"Johnny loves the little people,
that's why he keeps them on their knees"



Just browsing the "Learning to love a 'bad' song" thread and I have come to the same conclusion...

"It's called 'Brainwashing' in some circles"....

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:34 PM

Maybe Bush will eclipse LH's admiration of Shatner and Hillary.... Okay, maybe lust, rather than admiration, for Hillary....

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:32 PM

Don't call me a Yank, Foolestroupe! Those are fightin' words! ;-)

I'm a Canadian, and a loyal British subject at heart...although I totally disagree with Tony F-ing Bliar (mispelling is deliberate).

I'll tell you, if I WAS an American I'd be scared by this administration. Seriously scared. I thank God I am north of that borderline.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:30 PM

Fun for the feebleminded.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Jun 06 - 10:28 PM

Ah! A Hereditary Dynasty!

Wait on, didn't you Yanks used to live under one of those with a guy named George before?