Mission gone bad

“The best strategic minds in both parties have argued for months that the answer is essentially to muddle our way out, cut our losses carefully and try to salvage what we can from a mission gone bad.”

This isn’t pretty. Not when you think about the glory we reveled in four years ago. A superpower swooped into Iraq, routed a dictator, toppled a statue. Our prez did the equivalent of a dance in the end zone aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Damn, we’re good.

And now? All that glory is something at the back of the refrigerator. “A mission gone bad.” Hold your nose and see what you can salvage. Here’s Time magazine in its July 30 cover story, holding its nose, detailing the ignominy: “U.S. agricultural inspectors insist that, before it re-enters the U.S., Army equipment be free of any microscopic disease that . . . ‘can wipe out flocks of chickens and stuff like that.’”

Bawk-k-k! Bawk-k-k!

Response to Wasserman and Fitrakis's call  

In your article "Will Bush Cancel the 2008 Election?" you call for "every possible scenario to be discussed" that can stop the theft of the 2008 election by Bush.   This is indeed an urgent call, as the Bushes have stolen not only the 2000 and 2004 elections, as are well known, but also the 1980 election, as detailed in my book  October Surprise (Tudor, 1989) subsequently confirmed by a book of the same title three years later by Gary Sick,  and others (Robert Parry, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery; and Ari ben Menasche, Profits of War).  

There is an answer to stopping the obvious plans for  'a new 9/11' or some other pretext to 'suspending'  the 2008 election and/or declaring martial law under  the new Directive 51:   

There must be a credible and immediate Call for  the Court Martial of the President for itemized and detailed abuses of his role as commander in chief  and his complicit chain of command for lying the nation into an immoral, illegal and unilateral war; violating the Geneva Conventions and international law by condoning kidnapping and torture; illegally and

300 towns, cities, states oppose Iraq occupation

John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies opened an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.  Cavanagh announced that with the recent addition of Santa Fe, N.M., a total of exactly 300 towns, cities, and states have passed resolutions against the occupation of Iraq.  These governments, he said, represent about 50% of the people in the United States.

  Karen Dolan, the director of Cities for Peace, explained the project.  Arrayed behind her were dozens of men and women holding signs with the names of their cities and states. 

  Next to speak was an Alderman from Chicago, Joe Moore, who has led the passage of anti-war resolutions in Chicago.  He recalled being in this same room 4.5 years ago with representatives of 160 cities and towns opposing the invasion of Iraq.  Then, as is planned today, they marched from here to the White House to present their resolutions and make their case to the president.  Needless to say, he didn't listen. 

 

People's peace delegation to Iran reports back

On Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., a five-member group of Americans reported on their just-completed 12-day trip through Iran.  As with other delegations of this sort, they reported on a country that bears very little resemblance to the horrifying axis-of-evil member we hear about on U.S. television.

Phil Wileto of the Virginia Antiwar Network and the Richmond Defender said the Iranian people were extremely welcoming.  They were mobbed by 80 school children wanting to practice their English.  They encountered by chance 300 members of the Iranian National Guard who were delighted to meet Americans and spoke immediately of peace and friendship.  There does not appear, Wileto said, to be any campaign in Iran to prepare the people there for war.  The Iranian people view Americans with friendship, admiration, curiosity.

Impeaching Alberto Gonzales

While politicians of both parties have repeatedly denounced Alberto Gonzales for public mendacity and abuse of office, a few of them finally have stepped up to do what must be done. On July 31, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and several colleagues -- including four former prosecutors -- filed a resolution directing the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation of the attorney general.

            The logic of Inslee's initiative is inescapable to anyone who has been listening to the congressional complaints about Gonzales. If legislators from both branches and both parties believe that the attorney general has repeatedly deceived Congress and the public about matters of importance, if they believe that he has committed those deceptions under oath in the Capitol, and if they believe that the president will do nothing to remedy these wrongs, then impeachment is their only serious response.

Future courtroom landmarks

http://mattbors.com

Ohio's 2004 presidential election records missing or destroyed

In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records that would reveal whether the 2004 election was stolen have been "accidentally" destroyed.

Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio's 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists.

"The extent of the destruction of records is consistent with the covering up of the fraud that we believe occurred in the presidential

Will Bush cancel the 2008 election?

It is time to think about the "unthinkable."

The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.

The GOP strategy for another electoral theft in 2008 has taken clear shape, though we must assume there is much more we don't know.

But we must also assume that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the 2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the possibility that they would simply cancel the election. Those who think this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying attention.

The real question is not how or when they might do it. It's how, realistically, we can stop them.


In Florida 2000, Team Bush had a game plan involving a handful of tactics. With Jeb Bush in the governor's mansion, the GOP used a combination of disenfranchisement, intimidation, faulty ballots, electronic voting fraud, a rigged vote count and an aborted recount, courtesy of the US Supreme Court.

A compliant Democrat (Al Gore) allowed the coup to be completed.

Social Security

To the editor:

President Bush and many Republicans in Congress would still like to privatize Social Security. If even 1/3rd of the Withholding Tax is diverted to personal retirement accounts, the current Social Security Fund will be out of money within a decade and the promised disability and retirement benefits will have to be reduced drastically. If 1/3rd of the Withholding Tax of the low paid workers goes to private accounts, they will be destitute when they retire because they will have been unable contribute much to the accounts. This is what happened in Chile and Great Britain when such a scheme was tried. A welfare system had to be instituted to save the poor. Privatizing a significant portion of the Withholding Funds will destroy our current Social Security System, the only safety net many of our citizens have. Fortunately, a recent survey of voters showed that  60% know that privatization will destroy Social Security.     

China in true perspective

President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

Over the past few millennia, China provided the world with a culturally rich civilization. Its people always tended to be laborious and creative. On the whole, the Chinese minded their own business and they demonstrated to be heavily family oriented. In spite of this, China has been perhaps the most invaded and exploited nation on earth. As a result, people there have suffered immensely.

Understanding Chinese History

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