Sandals at the Gate

by Mike Whitney

The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day.

A report in The Sydney Morning Herald stated, "Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello has called on East Asia's central bankers to 'telegraph' their intentions to diversify out of American investments and ensure an 'orderly adjustment'....Central banks in China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong have channeled immense foreign reserves into American government bonds, helping to prop up the US dollar and hold down interest rates,' said Costello, but 'the strategy has changed.'"

Indeed, the strategy has changed. The world has come to its senses and is moving away from the green slip of paper that is currently mired in $8.3 trillion of debt.

The central banks now want to reduce their USD reserves while trying to do as little damage to their own economies as possible. That'll be difficult. If a sell-off ensues, it will start a stampede for the exits.

There's little hope of an "orderly adjustment" as Costello opines; that's just false optimism. When the greenback begins listing; things will turn helter-skelter quickly.

In September, we saw early signs that the dollar was in trouble. The trade deficit registered at $70 billion but the Net Foreign Security Purchases (NFSP) came in at a paltry $33 billion. That means that our main trading partners are no longer buying back our debt which puts downward pressure on the greenback. The Fed had two choices; either raise interest rates substantially or let the currency fall. Given the tenuous condition of the housing bubble and the proximity of the midterm elections, the Fed did neither.

A month later, in October, the trade deficit hit $69.9 billion but, then, without warning, a miracle occurred. The Net Foreign Security Purchases skyrocketed to a "historic high" of $116.8 billion; covering both months' shortfalls almost to the penny.

Coincidence?

Not likely. Either the skittish central banks decided to "stock up" on their dollar-denominated investments or the Federal Reserve (and their banking-buddies) is buying back its own debt to float us through the elections.

This is exactly the kind of hanky-panky that people expected when Greenspan stopped publishing the M-3 last March keeping the rest of us in the dark about what was really going on with the money supply.

Are we supposed to believe that the skeptical central banks suddenly doubled up on their T-Bills while they're (publicly) moaning about the dollar's weakness and threatening to diversify?

That's a stretch.

According to the Wall Street Journal the Chinese Central-bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan stated unequivocally that "We think we've got enough." The Chinese presently have nearly $1 trillion in USD and US Treasuries.

"Enough"?

The United States runs a $200 billion per year trade deficit with China. If they've "got enough" we're dead-ducks. After all, it doesn't take a sell-off to kill the dollar, just unwillingness on the part of the main players to stop purchasing at the same rate.

Of course, everyone in Washington already knew that doomsday was approaching. That's the way the system was designed from the very beginning. It's all part of the madcap scheme to "starve the beast" and transfer the nation's wealth to a handful of western plutocrats. That's explains why the Fed and the White House whirred along like two spokes on the same wheel; every policy calculated to thrust the country headlong toward disaster.

The administration never created a funding mechanism for the $400 million tax cuts or for the 35% expansion of the Federal government.

Defense spending increased by leaps and bounds as did the "no-bid" contracts for friends of the Bush clan. At the same time, interest rates were lowered to rock-bottom to put as much money as possible into the hands of people who couldn't meet the traditional criteria for a mortgage. And, if gluttonous waste, reckless overspending and "Mickey

Mouse" loans were not enough; the Fed capped it off by doubling the money supply in 7 years; a surefire prescription for hyper-inflation.

So, which one of these policies was not deliberate?

The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America's debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishments.

The avatars of neoliberalism invariably use crooked politicians to spawn enormous "unsustainable" debt so that the nations' riches can be transferred to ruling elites. It works the same everywhere. It's a form of corporate colonization, only this time the victim is the good old USA.

"The Phase of Impact"

According to Richard Daughty in his prescient article "The Phase of Impact" the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept have already manned the battle-stations. Here's an excerpt:

"Mr. Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, by virtue of his ascension to the throne, now the head of the shadowy President's Working Group of Financial Markets (which was created by Presidential Order 12631) and he is insisting that they meet more often, namely every 6 weeks!

This whole Working Group thing was originally set up as a fallback, ad-hoc, if-then defense to deal with possible economic emergencies, but now they are routinely meeting every 6 weeks. He has even ordered Jim Wilkinson, his chief of staff, to 'oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis"! (Wall Street Journal) World-wide!! The American government is moving to take control of the world-wide economy as the result of an anticipated crisis? Yikes!"

Daughty goes on to say: "So a lot of the hubbub is obviously being caused by some approaching upheaval, perhaps reflected in something sent to me by Phil S., which is the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin No8 which reminded us that last May they predicted that the economy would have a 'phase of acceleration' that would begin in June, and it "would be spread out over a period of a maximum of 6 months', which it subsequently did. They said then, and are saying again now, that a 'phase of impact will begin in November 2006', and that this impact phase would be the 'explosive phase of the crisis'.

This 'phase of impact' that is due to begin momentarily is, they explain, 'a period when a series of brutal crises starts affecting by contamination the total system. This explosive phase of the crisis, which will last 6 months to one year, will affect directly and very strongly financial players and markets, the owners of investment schemes with fixed incomes in dollars, pension funds and the strategic relations between the United States on the one side, and Europe and Asia on the other." (Richard Daughty; "The Phase of Impact" Kitco.com)

Predictions, of course, are rarely reliable and Daughty's scenario may be a bit too apocalyptic for many. But if we accept the premise that the tax cuts, the expansion of the federal government, the doubling of the money supply, and the $10 trillion that was sluiced into the housing bubble were not merely "honest mistakes" made by "supply side" enthusiasts; then we must assume that this is all part of a loony plan to demolish the economic foundation-blocks of the current system and remake society from the ground up.

Domestically, that plan appears to involve the activation of the police state.

In the last few weeks the Bush administration has passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which allows the president to arrest and torture whomever he chooses without charging him with a crime.

Also, unbeknownst to most Americans, Bush signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy, will allow the president to unilaterally declare martial law. By changing The Insurrection Act, Bush has essentially overturned the Posse Comitatus Act which bars the president from deploying troops with the United States. The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (as it is called) also allows Bush to take control of the National Guard which has always been under the purview of the state governors. Bush now has absolute power over all armed troops within the country, a state of affairs which the constitution purposely tried to prevent. The administration's dream of militarizing the country under the sole authority of the executive has now been achieved although the public still has no idea that a coup that has taken place.

Internationally, the falling dollar means that America's debt will be reduced proportionate to the percentage-loss of the dollar in relation to other currencies. This is a great deal for the U.S. First the Fed prints fiat money to buy valuable resources and manufactured goods and then it nabs a discount by depreciating its currency. It's a "win-win" situation for Washington, although it will undoubtedlycheat unwitting foreign-creditors out of their hard-earned profits. It's doubtful that their interests will weigh very heavily on the money-lenders at the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve.

The dollar faces a second crisis at home which is bound to play out throughout 2007. The $10 trillion dollar housing bubble is quickly losing air causing a precipitous drop in GDP. The housing industry is seeing its steepest decline in 30 years and home equity is beginning to shrivel. Housing has been the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak economic landscape. With the housing market slowing down and prices decreasing, the $600 billion of consumer spending which was extracted in 2005 from home equity will quickly evaporate triggering an overall slowdown in the economy. (Consumer spending is 70% of GDP)

By the Fed's own calculations; "The total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006 up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion. ("Times Online") If these figures are accurate than we can assume that much of America's "perceived" growth has been nothing more than the expansion of debt. In fact, that seems to be the case. Wages have been stagnant since the 1970s, 3 million manufacturing jobs have been outsourced, savings have shrunk to below 0%, and personal debt is soaring. We have become an "asset-based" society and when the principle asset begins to loose its value, we are in deep trouble. As housing prices continue to decline through 2007 we can expect a full-blown recession. If energy prices rear their ugly head again, (were they lowered for the elections?) it will just be that much worse.

So, how will recession affect the dollar? Capital has no loyalties. It follows the markets. When America's bustling consumer market stalls, we'll undergo capital flight just like everywhere else. The 3 million lost manufacturing jobs, the 200,000 lost high-paying high-tech jobs, the tax incentives for major corporations doing business outside the country; all signal that corporate America has already loaded the boats and is headed for more promising markets in Asia and Europe. A sluggish consumer market could further weaken the dollar and force Americans to begin saving again but, (and here's the surprising part) the decision-makers at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept don't really care if the face-value of the greenback goes down anyway.

What really matters is that the dollar retains its position as the world's reserve currency. That allows the Federal Reserve to continue to print the money, set the interest rates, and control the global economic system. The dollar presently accounts for 66% of foreign currency reserves in central banks across the globe, an increase of nearly 10% in one decade alone. The dollar has become the international currency, a de-facto monopoly. This is thegoal of the globalists and the American ruling elite who dream of one system, the dollar-system;with usrunning it.

So, how will this cadre of plutocrats coerce the other nations to continue to use the dollar while it plummets from its perch?

Oil.

As long as oil is denominated in dollars, the central banks will be forced to stockpile American scrip regardless of its value. It's no different than holding a gun to someone's head. They will use our debt-plagued greenbacks or their cars and trucks will sputter, their tractors and factories will wheeze, and their economies will grind to a halt. It's just that simple.
America cannot maintain its superpower status unless it continues to control the global economic system. That means the linkage between the dollar and oil must be preserved. The Bush troupe sees this as an existential issue upon which the future of America's ruling class depends. By 2020, 60% of the world's oil will come from the Middle East. Bush will do everything in his power to control the resources of the Caspian Basin, thereby expanding US dollar-hegemony and paving the way for a new American century.

technorati tags:mikewhitney, usdollar, recession, economicmeltdown, oilhegemony, militarism

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Br. Karekin M Yarian, BSG
punkmonksf@gmail.com

The reason being an American is worth bothering with, is because America has tried to find a way of being a country that is neither tightly centralized nor just a loose federation of essentially independent states - a country that is seeking to be a coherent family of communities hoping to discover the common good for all citizens, and to celebrate unity in the future vision of an international community of nations. That, is what the word America means for its citizens, and it is a vision that has taken clearer shape in many of our historical domestic and international dialogues.

By the latest actions of our recent US Congress, the constitutional basis of this country's governance has not just been impaired but broken. The Congress has broken the American vision by refusing to exercise oversight of the Executive and by encouraging violations of the Constitutional separation of powers. It abrogated its responsibilities by failing to reign in a Chief Executive whose disregard of the Constitution cannot be accepted by many Americans, [including many of those in San Francisco], nor by the majority of world wide nations, nor by our chief allies – the functional democracies of Europe and Asia.

Both aspects,  this impaired governance and broken international relations, are embodied in our current President. By his actions as President and Chief Executive, in his statements during previous State of the Union addresses, and in his most recent speech in defense of a failed war strategy, he has made it pointedly clear that he intends to pursue an agenda that patently ignores the Constitution, is contrary to its plain teaching regarding habeas corpus, and affronts this nation's doctrine of separation of powers by turning our Constitution into a "goddamned piece of paper”

As a President whose authority several of us in the United States and throughout the world cannot accept, he breaks the unity of the American republic which he is supposed to represent and has destroyed the bipartisan cooperation of a two-party system essential for the unity of any particular community of Americans. In spite of his election as President of the United States, he cannot be Chief Executive to those who believe he is neither obedient to the Constitution nor an effective leader in international relations. For those Americans some sort of alternative arrangement is now necessary.

A collection of American citizens in local communities will now plan to appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations for “alternative presidential oversight and care.” As of now at least five local communities across the nation have chosen to follow suit. These appeals in no way affect our citizenship in the United States, but simply recognize that someone who is instrumental in breaking the democratic processes of the republic, both constitutionally and politically, cannot be our chief executive. We therefore have to look elsewhere.

Alternative presidential oversight and care will not affect our legal relationship to the rest of the United States nor the juridical authority of its future President as granted him by our constitution and laws.  But it will enable those citizens who uphold the constitutional and political understanding of the American nation to appeal to a designated President or Chief Executive in sympathy with their position on moral guidance and leadership in domestic and international issues.  Also, through alternative presidential oversight, the relationship between a particular citizen and his sense of participation in the rest of the American society will be enhanced and solidified.

Finally, it is hoped that individuals and communities in unsympathetic regions may also benefit from alternative presidential oversight by affiliating with those communities where such oversight has been granted.

technorati tags:alternativeoversight, satire, punkmonksf, constitution, anglicancommunion

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by David Phinney

Things began looking more sketchier than ever to John Owen as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Iraq in March 2005 following some R&R in Kuwait city.

Employed by First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, the lead builder for the new $592-million US embassy in Baghdad, Owen remembers being surrounded at the airport by about 50 company laborers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai -- not to Baghdad.

"I thought there was some sort of mix up and I was getting on the wrong plane," says the 48-year-old Floridian who was working as a general construction foreman on the embassy project.

He buttonholed a First Kuwaiti manager standing near by and asked what was going on. The manager waved his hand, looked around the terminal and whispered to keep quiet.

"'If anyone hears we are going to Baghdad, they won't let us on the plane,'" Owen recalls the manager saying.

'Not Valid for Iraq'

The secrecy struck Owen as a little odd, but he grabbed his luggage and moved on. Everyone filed out to the private jet and flew directly to Baghdad. "I figured that they had visas for Kuwait and not Iraq," Owen offers.

The deception had all the appearances of smuggling workers into Iraq, but Owen didn't know at the time that the Philippines, India, and other countries had banned or restricted their citizens from working in Iraq because of safety concerns and growing opposition to the war. After 2004, many passports were stamped "Not valid for Iraq."

Nor did Owen know that both the US State Department and the Pentagon were quietly investigating contractors such as First Kuwaiti for labor trafficking and worker abuse. In fact, the international news media had accused First Kuwaiti repeatedly of coercing workers to take jobs in battle-torn Iraq once they had been lured to Kuwait with safer offers.

The Kuwait-headquartered, Lebanese-run company has billed several billion dollars on US contracts since the war began in March 2003. Much of its work is performed by cheap labor largely hired from South Asia and the company has an estimated 7,500 foreign laborers in the theater of war.

Now, with a highly secretive contract awarded by the US State Department, First Kuwaiti is in the midst of building the most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

But Owen says that working on the project proved to be one of the worst jobs he has ever had in his 27 years of construction work.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites Owen had worked on around the world previously compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. First Kuwaiti is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says "I've never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken."

Seven months after signing on with First Kuwaiti in November 2005, he quit.

In the resignation letter last June, Owen told First Kuwaiti and US State Department officials that his managers physically assaulted and beat the construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.

And it was all happening smack in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone -- right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract in July 2005.

He also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in the labor camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers lived. Those workers, recruited on the global labor market from the Philippines, India, Pakistan and other poor south Asian countries, earned as little as $10 to $30 a day. As with many US-funded contractors, First Kuwaiti prefers importing labor because it views Iraqi workers as a security headache not worth the trouble.

Despite numerous emails and phone calls about such allegations, neither First Kuwaiti general manager Wadih Al Absi nor his lawyer Angela Styles, the former top White House contract policy advisor, have responded. After a year of requests, State Department officials involved with the project also have ignored or rejected opportunities for comment.

Your Passports Please

That same March Owen returned to work in Baghdad, Rory Mayberry would witness similar events after he flew to Kuwait from his home in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

The gravely voiced, easy-going Army veteran had previously worked in Iraq for Halliburton and the private security company, Danubia. Missing the action and the big paychecks US contractors draw Iraq, he snagged a $10,000 a month job with MSDS consulting Company.

MSDS is a two-person minority-owned consulting company that assists US State Department managers in Washington with procurement programming. Never before had the firm offered medical services or worked in Iraq, but First Kuwaiti hired MSDS on the recommendation of Jim Golden, the State Department contract official overseeing the embassy project. Within days, an agreement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical care was signed.

The 45-year-old Mayberry, a former emergency medical technician in the Army who worked as a funeral director in Oregon, responded to a help wanted ad placed by MSDS. The plan was that he would work as a medic attending to the construction crews on the work site in Baghdad.

Mayberry sensed things weren't right when he boarded a First Kuwaiti flight on March 15 to Baghdad -- a different flight from Owen's.

At the airport in Kuwait City, Mayberry said, he saw a person behind a counter hand First Kuwaiti managers a passenger manifest, an envelope of money and a stack of boarding passes to Dubai. The managers then handed out the boarding passes to Mayberry and 50 or so new First Kuwaiti laborers, mostly Filipinos.

"Everyone was told to tell customs and security that they were flying to Dubai," Mayberry explains. Once the group passed the guards, they went upstairs and waited by the McDonald's for First Kuwaiti staff to unlock a door -- Gate 26 -- that led to an unmarked, white 52-seat jet. It was "an antique piece of shit" Mayberry offers in a casual, blunt manner.

"All the workers had their passports taken away by First Kuwaiti," Mayberry claims, and while he knew the plane was bound for Baghdad, he's not so sure the others were aware of their destination. The Asian laborers began asking questions about why they were flying north and the jet wasn't flying east over the ocean, he says. "I think they thought they were going to work in Dubai."

One former First Kuwaiti supervisor acknowledges that the company holds passports of many workers in Iraq -- a violation of US contracting.

"All of the passports are kept in the offices," said one company insider who requested anonymity in fear of financial and personal retribution. As for distributing Dubai boarding passes for Baghdad flights, "It's because of the travel bans," he explained.

Mayberry believes that migrant workers from the Philippines, India and Nepal are especially vulnerable to employers like First Kuwaiti because their countries have little or no diplomatic presence in Iraq.

"If you don't have your passport or an embassy to go to, what you do to get out of a bad situation?" he asks. "How can they go to the US State Department for help if First Kuwaiti is building their embassy?"

Deadly 'Candy Store' Medicine

Owen had already been working at the embassy site since late November when Mayberry arrived. The two never crossed paths, but both share similar complaints about management of the project and brutal treatment of the laborers that, at times, numbered as many as 2,500. Most are from the Philippines, India, and Pakistan. Others are from Egypt and Turkey.

The number of workers with injuries and ailments stunned Mayberry. He went to work immediately after and stayed busy around the clock for days.

Four days later, First Kuwaiti pulled him off the job after he requested an investigation of two patients who had died before he arrived from what he suspected was medical malpractice. Mayberry also recommended that the health clinics be shut down because of unsanitary conditions and mismanagement.

"There hadn't been any follow up on medical care. People were walking around intoxicated on pain relievers with unwrapped wounds and there were a lot of infections," he recalls. "The idea that there was any hygiene seemed ridiculous. I'm not sure they were even bathing."

In reports made available to the US State Department, the US Army and First Kuwaiti, Mayberry listed dozens of concerns about the clinics, which he found lacking in hot water, disinfectant, hand washing stations, properly supplied ambulances, and communication equipment. Mayberry also complained that workers' medical records were in total disarray or nonexistent, the beds were dirty, and the support staff hired by First Kuwaiti was poorly trained.

The handling of prescription drugs especially bothered him. Many of the drugs that originated from Iraq and Kuwait were unsecured, disorganized and unintelligibly labeled, he said in one memo. He found that the medical staff frequently misdiagnosed patients. Prescription pain killers were being handed out "like a candy store ... and then people were sent back to work."

Mayberry warned that the practice could cause addiction and safety hazards. "Some were on the construction site climbing scaffolding 30 feet off the ground. I told First Kuwaiti that you don't give painkillers to people who are running machinery and working on heavy construction and they said 'that's how we do it.'"

The sloppy handling of drugs may have led to the two deaths, Mayberry speculates. One worker, age 25, died in his room. The second, in his mid-30s, died at the clinic because of heart failure. Both deaths may be "medical homicide," Mayberry says -- because the patients may have been negligently prescribed improper drug treatment.If the State Department investigated, Mayberry knows nothing of the outcome. Two State Department officials with project oversight responsibilities did not return phone calls or emails inquiring about Mayberry's allegations. The reports may have been ignored, not because of his complaints, but because Mayberry is a terrible speller, a problem compounded by an Arabic translation program loaded on his computer, he says.

Accidents Happen

Owen's account of his seven months on the job paints a similar picture to Mayberry's. Health and safety measures were essentially non-existent, he says. Not once did he witness a safety meeting. Once an Egyptian worker fell and broke his back and was sent home. No one ever heard from him again. "The accident might not have happened if there was a safety program and he had known how to use a safety harness."

Owen also says that managers regularly beat workers and that laborers were issued only one work uniform, making it difficult to go to the laundry. "You could never have it washed. Clothing got really bad -- full of sweat and dirt."

And while he often smuggled water to the work crews, medical care was a different issue. When he urged laborers to get medical treatment for rashes and sores, First Kuwaiti managers accused him of spoiling the laborers and allowing them simply to avoid work, he says.

State Department officials supervising the project are aware of many such events, but apparently do nothing, he said. Once when 17 workers climbed the wall of the construction site to escape, a State Department official helped round them up and put them in "virtual lockdown," Owen said.

Just before he resigned, hundreds of Pakistani workers went on strike in June and beat up a Lebanese manager who they accused of harassing them. Owen estimates that 375 laborers were then sent home.

'Treated Like Animals'

Recent First Kuwaiti employees agree that the accounts shared by Owen and Mayberry are accurate. One longtime supervisor claims that 50 to 60 percent of the laborers regularly protest that First Kuwaiti "treats them like animals," and routinely reduces their promised pay with confusing and unexplained deductions.

Another former First Kuwaiti manager, who declines to be named because of possible adverse consequences, says that Owen's and Mayberry's complaints only begin "to scratch the surface."

But scratching the surface is the only view yet available of what may be the most lasting monument to the US liberation and occupation of Iraq. As of now only a handful of authorized State Department managers and contractors, along with First Kuwaiti workers and contractors, are officially allowed inside the project's walls. No journalist has ever been allowed access to the sprawling 104-acre site with towering construction cranes raising their necks along the skyline.

Even this tight security is a charade, says on former high-level First Kuwaiti manager. First Kuwaiti managers living at the construction site regularly smuggle prostitutes in from the streets of Baghdad outside the Green Zone, he says.

Prostitutes, he explains are viewed as possible spies. "They are a big security risk."

But the exposure that the US occupation forces and First Kuwaiti may fear most could begin with the contractor itself and the conditions workers are forced to endure at this most obvious symbol of the American democracy project in Iraq.

technorati tags:slavelabor, iraqembassy, davidphinney

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush Backpedals: "We've Never Been 'Stay The Course'"...

During an interview today on ABC's This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker's plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is "between 'stay the course' and 'cut and run.'"

Bush responded, 'We've never been stay the course, George!' Watch it:

technorati tags:doublespeak, bushlies

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted on Oct 19, 2006

Courtesy the Tillman Family

Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.

By Kevin Tillman

Editor's note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice... until we get out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to beliberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra padin a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

technorati tags:protest, iraqwar, pattillman, kevintillman

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. casualties surge in Iraq - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

technorati tags:iraqcasualities

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Report: Iraq Study Group Will Rule Out Victory In Iraq, Propose Redeployment

A 10-member bipartisan commission, headed by Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James Baker, that is charged with assessing Bush's Iraq strategy has reportedly "ruled out the prospect for victory."The New York Sun reports:

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission -- headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker -- is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

The commission was established at the instigation of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), and was intended to "devise a fresh set of policies to help the president chart a new course." Bush noted at his press conference this week that he "supported the idea" of the so-called Iraq Study Group and that he "looks forward to listening" to the commission's recommendations. Among the leading options being considered by the task force is a redeployment plan:

The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go.

Redeployment offers the last best chance for Iraq. The longer Bush refuses to accept that, the weaker the U.S.'s position unnecessarily becomes.

The Center for American Progress released its Iraq strategy -- Strategic Redeployment -- in September 2005. It called for the drawdown of troops over 2006 and 2007 to refocus their mission on the war against terrorist networks in the surrounding region. At the time the plan was first proposed, just over 1,900 members of the U.S. military had died in the war. Today, the count stands over 2,750.

technorati tags:redeployment, iraqwar, iraqstudygroup

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Jason Miller | Oct 9 2006 - 8:47pm | permalink
article tools: email | print | read more Jason Miller | add new comment

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves."

--attributed to Dresden James

A caricature of a man who has wrought havoc in virtually every endeavor throughout his miserable existence has found his calling. Exuding false bravado and contrived machismo, he has swaggered his way into the deepest recesses of America's collective psyche, fulfilling the inculcated need for a "manly" patriarch. Chest thumping, bullying, and ultimately unleashing the Hell of the Pentagon's death machine upon those brazen enough to resist conversion to the American Way, King George IV has succeeded the tyrant American Revolutionaries toppled over 200 years ago.

While the tyrant may be intellectually challenged, his court is filled with cunning Artful Dodgers like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Conscienceless people for whom guile, deceit, and exploitation are ways of being write his scripts and pull his strings. But ultimately it is George Bush, a morally bankrupt cur of a man, who gleefully issues proclamations and decrees that victimize the working class and the poor of the world. Bullies take such delight in plying their craft. Yet as vigorously as they have striven to realize the dream of the US aristocracy and reestablish an overt tyranny, Bush and his handlers have devoted equal volumes of sweat to maintaining the illusion that America is a "democracy".

Buoyed by a virtually omnipresent corporate media equally dedicated to spiritually and intellectually enslaving the poor and working class, sacrificing them as cogs in the corporate machine and as cannon fodder, and relieving them of their hard-earned dollars via irresistible lures of immediate gratification and an increasingly regressive system of taxation, a privileged class comprised of the wealthy, intellectual elites, and well-connected has become the "power behind the throne" in an oligarchy disingenuously portrayed as a democracy.

In November of 2003, George Bush assured his constituency that:

"It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's most influential nation was itself a democracy."

Serving up an even bigger "Whopper" to a nation of people conditioned to be addicted to fast food and clever sound bites, Bush proudly proclaimed in September of 2004:

"Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace."

As is true with most concepts, there is no universally accepted or simple way to capture the meaning of democracy. However, Wikipedia offers concise definitions of the four fundamental types of democracy:

"Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens vote on all major policy decisions. It is called direct because, in the classical forms, there are no intermediaries or representatives.

Representative democracy is so named because the people select representatives to a governing body. Representatives may be chosen by the electorate as a whole (as in many proportional systems) or represent a particular district or constituency), with some systems using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate some elements of direct democracy, such as referenda.

Liberal democracy is a representative democracy (with free and fair elections) along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property.

Conversely, an illiberal democracy is one where the protections that form a liberal democracy are either nonexistent, or not enforced. The experience in some post-Soviet states drew attention to the phenomenon, although it is not of recent origin. Napoleon for example used plebiscites to ratify his imperial decisions."

At best, the United States is an illiberal democracy. Which really is not too surprising. While the Founding Fathers forged a Constitutional Republic that incorporated many of the values of the Age of Enlightenment, the government they crafted was largely representative of a patriarchal society dominated by White male land-owners. Women had no right to vote, chattel slavery remained legal, the indigenous population was excluded, and the Bill of Rights was an afterthought that many of the Founders initially opposed.

George Bush and propagandists who have been intellectually assaulting US Americans for years would have us believe that the oligarchs masquerading as democratic leaders have blessed "the masses" of humanity in the United States and beyond with unprecedented advances for human rights and social justice.

Are their claims grounded in reality? Let's put them to the test.

"We believe in human dignity". Abu Ghraib certainly reflects the commitment of the United States government to human dignity. What could be more dignified than abject humiliation and torture? And to further reinforce the United States' resolve to preserve human dignity, the Bush Regime and the "representatives of the people" in Congress recently negated Article Three of the Third Geneva Convention, Article VI of the US Constitution, and the Eighth Amendment of the Bill of Rights by legalizing torture.

And let's not forget the "dignity" of state-sanctioned murder. The United States is one of the very few "democracies" that has not abolished the death penalty. In 2003, China, Vietnam, Iran and the United States accounted for 84% of the world's executions.(1) If one accepts the corporate media spin on China, Iran and Vietnam, the "leading democracy" is hanging out with the wrong crowd. Or is there just the tiniest of possibilities that the United States government engages in oppressive policies too?

Would the US "democracy's" government's "protection of minorities" include the perpetuation of slavery, the execution of abolitionist John Brown, Jim Crow laws facilitated by Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Native American genocide, the Japanese Internment, racist drug laws, and lack of response to Katrina?

What would best exemplify the US government's efforts to "secure the rights of labor"? The state-sanctioned murders of Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel? How about the 26 workers killed (and 172 arrested) by the National Guard at the Ludlow mining colony? Or the government's rush to enforce George Pullman "right" to exploit his workforce? Would the Taft-Hartley Act be a shining example? Perhaps the pompadoured darling of the US aristocracy and his firing of striking PATCO workers? Maybe it would be the sub poverty level minimum wage stagnated since 1997? Or the 46 million Americans without health insurance? Perchance could it be the NLRB's recent decision which will prevent 8 million workers from unionizing? With such a dizzying array of choices, one can hardly settle on just one.

And how has the world's "shining beacon of democracy" acted to "raise the status of women"? Women Suffragists battled long and hard to amend the Constitution so that women could vote. It only took 130 years of tireless effort by the people to overcome government obstructions (i.e. the Supreme Court's Minor vs. Happersett ruling that enabled states to limit suffrage to men in spite of the Fourteenth Amendment). The Equal Rights Amendment was conceived in 1923 and is still not incorporated into the US Constitution. Hiding behind the claim that it would threaten national sovereignty, the US "democracy" has refused to ratify the international women's bill of rights called CEDAW (since 1980). In 2002, the nation which has done so much to "raise the status of women" accounted for 70% of women murder victims amongst industrialized countries.(2) While women have outnumbered men throughout most of its history, the United States is one of the few developed nations where a woman has not served as head of state and currently only 15.1% of the US Congress is female.(3)

According to Bush and his script-writers, the nation from which democracy bubbles forth like pure water from the mouth of a spring has "done more to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace" than any "other system of government". Given the magnitude of that deception, Orwell would probably have identified it as Quadruplespeak. With 5% of the Earth's human population, the United States accounts for half of the world's war expenditures. Over 100 countries are subjected to the "benign" presence of US military bases. The US is home to the world's largest stockpile of WMD's and is the only nation to have unleashed nuclear weapons on civilian populations. American military intervention led to the slaughter of anywhere from 250,000 to one million Filipino civilians(4) and an estimated four million Vietnamese.(5) 200,000 Central Americans died thanks to the "pursuit of peace" by the Reagan Regime.(6) Over one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians are dead thanks to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. Positing the United States as a champion of peace is akin to praising Jeff Skilling's selfless concern for Enron employees and shareholders.

No abundance here

Obviously, democracy is in very short supply in the United States. And it has been from the nation's birth. Even the Constitutional Republic which the Founding Fathers intended has steadily frayed over time. But why stop with these examples of the rapidly approaching extinction of the populist visions of the more enlightened Founding Fathers when there are so many more?

How democratic is the United States' income tax system? Using the oppressive threat of the nearly omnipotent IRS, the federal government extorts money and spends it according to the whims of a president placed in office by the Electoral College (or Katherine Harris and Diebold) and a Congress rife with members so beholden to corporations that they don't dare cross their patrons by truly representing voters' interests. Riddled with loopholes, tax laws too complex for a Cray supercomputer to decipher enable corporations and the wealthy to shelter their income from taxation in a multitude of ways. And the federal tax burden is increasingly shifting onto the backs of working class people. Between 1977 and 2003, the percentage of tax revenues collected from corporations fell from 14.4% to 7.7% while the percentage derived from payroll taxes rose from 29.9% to 40%.(7)

Ironically, the world's "leading democracy" has the highest rate of incarceration. As of April of 2005, there were 2.1 million US Americans under the supervision of the penal system, an increase of 2.3% from the previous year.(8) China, a nation with four times the population of the United States and a frequent target of critics of human rights violators, jails fewer people than the "paragon of democracy".

Sixty percent of US Americans now oppose the war in Iraq.(9) As of October 8, 2006, George Bush had a 41% job approval rating(10), an April Washington Post poll showed that 33% of Americans wanted George Bush impeached and removed from office(11), and the shocking violations of domestic and international law by the Bush Regime leave Nixon and Clinton looking like little leaguers.(12) Yet in the "great democracy", Bush and company continue to commit mass murder and grand larceny with impunity as they implement an agenda which favors their aristocratic "base" and exploits most of those they "represent".

Oppressive legislation advanced by the Bush Cabal and timorously rubber-stamped by Congress has finally relieved the US plutocracy of the onerous burden of the Bill of Rights. The Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act of 2006 effectively torpedo most of the US citizenry's Constitutional protections from the tyranny of its "democratic government".

Certainly the United States ruling elite can truthfully credit themselves for allowing a high degree of free speech. In fact, when their democratic nature is attacked, their tolerance of free expression by dissidents is usually their first line of defense. Yet in a nation in which 90% of the media market is controlled by just six major corporations(13) and where a majority of the inhabitants are bribed and conditioned to reflexively reject challenges to the "American Way" as products of irrational minds, godless Communists, spoiled whiners, or terrorists, how much does "free speech" actually contribute to true democracy? While dissenting messages do win some hearts and minds, they are usually drowned out by a blaring chorus of mind-numbing corporate media reassurances that the United States is God's gift to humanity that is incapable of wrong-doing.

Yes, democracy in the United States is but a pleasant fiction that never existed. And with the passage of time, it has become more of an unattainable fantasy than a dream to be realized.

What to do?

It is unlikely that a significant number of people in the United States will find the motivation to pierce the simulacrum until they have experienced severe hardship or pain. Many US Americans are not even aware that their enslaved psyches condemn them to an existential hell of spiritual vacuousness, blind loyalty to a ruthless empire, and obsessive devotion to a predatory economic system. And many of those who do become aware don't care as long as they can continue to relish heaping portions of fat-laden addictive repasts from the ubiquitous Golden Arches, to intellectually gorge themselves with the brain candy eagerly proffered by the corporate media as propagandistic seeds sown into the rich soil of otherwise fallow minds, to make Faustian bargains with Visa to adorn their walls with plasma televisions of elephantine proportions , and to drive urban assault vehicles capable of transporting small armies and ensuring that they will dominate the road.

Given humankind's United States-led pursuit of self-destruction, aneconomic, ecological, or humanitarian cataclysm is virtually inevitableat some point. However, there is a silver lining. The survivors whorise from the ashes like the mythical Phoenix will be blessed with asecond chance. And let's hope those Founding Parents will have thewisdom to remake civilization according to truly democratic, just, andhumane principles.

Sources:

(1) http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761570630_3/Capital_Punishment.html

(2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press04172002.html

(3) http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts.html

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_American_War

(5) http://www.vietnam-war.info/casualties/

(6) http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699a1.html

(7) http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Images/rasmus1105.html

(8) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4481261.stm

(9) http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/09/iraq.poll/

(10) http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

(11) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_immigration_041006.htm

(12) http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=127726

(13) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership

technorati tags:jasonmiller, civilliberties, democracy, constitution

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

technorati tags:jonstewart, bushjob, dailyshow

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I never in my life imagined we would have such a hero as this man in our American press today. His commentary is incisive and so desperately necessary...

Keith Olbermann on the difference between terrorists and critics
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC

Updated: 8:19 a.m. PT Oct 6, 2006

While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool ...

While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ...

The president of the United States - unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality - has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, "177 of the opposition party said, 'You know, we don't think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.'"

The hell they did.

One hundred seventy-seven Democrats opposed the president's seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn't be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said, "Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we're attacked again before we respond."

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind reader.

"If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party," the president said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, "it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is - wait until we're attacked again."

The president doesn't just hear what he wants.

He hears things that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Yet they do.

It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies of treason.

But it is the context that truly makes the head spin.

Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, "We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us."

Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.

If your commitment to "put aside differences and work together" is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they've said, then the questions your critics need to be asking are no longer about your policies.

They are, instead, solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office.

No Democrat, sir, has ever said anything approaching the suggestion that the best means of self-defense is to "wait until we're attacked again."

No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday ... nor whatever is next.

You have dishonored your party, sir; you have dishonored your supporters; you have dishonored yourself.

But tonight the stark question we must face is - why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?

In less than one month you have gone from a flawed call to unity to this clarion call to hatred of Americans, by Americans.

If this is not simply the most shameless example of the rhetoric of political hackery, then it would have to be the cry of a leader crumbling under the weight of his own lies.

We have, of course, survived all manner of political hackery, of every shape, size and party. We will have to suffer it, for as long as the Republic stands.

But the premise of a president who comes across as a compulsive liar is nothing less than terrifying.

A president who since 9/11 will not listen, is not listening - and thanks to Bob Woodward's most recent account - evidently has never listened.

A president who since 9/11 so hates or fears other Americans that he accuses them of advocating deliberate inaction in the face of the enemy.

A president who since 9/11 has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack - attack by terrorists, or by Democrats, or by both - it is now impossible to find a consistent thread of logic as to who Mr. Bush believes the enemy is.

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president - in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month - has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

How often do we find priceless truth in the unlikeliest of places?

I tonight quote not Jefferson nor Voltaire, but Cigar Aficionado Magazine.

On Sept. 11th, 2003, the editor of that publication interviewed General Tommy Franks, at that point, just retired from his post as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command - of Cent-Com.

And amid his quaint defenses of the then-nagging absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or the continuing freedom of Osama bin Laden, General Franks said some of the most profound words of this generation.

He spoke of "the worst thing that can happen" to this country:

First, quoting, a "massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western World - it may be in the United States of America."

Then, the general continued, "the Western World, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years, in this grand experiment that we call democracy."

It was this super-patriotic warrior's fear that we would lose that most cherished liberty, because of another attack, one - again quoting General Franks - "that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution."

And here we are, the fabric of our Constitution being unraveled, anyway.

Habeus corpus neutered; the rights of self-defense now as malleable and impermanent as clay; a president stifling all critics by every means available and, when he runs out of those, by simply lying about what they said or felt.

And all this, even without the dreaded attack.

General Franks, like all of us, loves this country, and believes not just in its values, but in its continuity.

He has been trained to look for threats to that continuity from without.

He has, perhaps been as naïve as the rest of us, in failing to keep close enough vigil on the threats to that continuity from within.

Secretary of State Rice first cannot remember urgent cautionary meetings with counterterrorism officials before 9/11. Then within hours of this lie, her spokesman confirms the meetings in question. Then she dismisses those meetings as nothing new - yet insists she wanted the same cautions expressed to Secretaries Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld, meantime, has been unable to accept the most logical and simple influence of the most noble and neutral of advisers. He and his employer insist they rely on the "generals in the field." But dozens of those generals have now come forward to say how their words, their experiences, have been ignored.

And, of course, inherent in the Pentagon's war-making functions is the regulation of presidential war lust.

Enacting that regulation should include everything up to symbolically wrestling the Chief Executive to the floor.

Yet-and it is Pentagon transcripts that now tell us this-evidently Mr. Rumsfeld's strongest check on Mr. Bush's ambitions, was to get somebody to excise the phrase "Mission Accomplished" out of the infamous Air Force Carrier speech of May 1st, 2003, even while the same empty words hung on a banner over the President's shoulder.

And the vice president is a chilling figure, still unable, it seems, to accept the conclusions of his own party's leaders in the Senate, that the foundations of his public position, are made out of sand.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But he still says so.

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida.

But he still says so.

And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads-around him and before him-darkness, like some contagion of fear.

They are never wrong, and they never regret -- admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

Thus, the sickening attempt to blame the Foley scandal on the negligence of others or "the Clinton era"-even though the Foley scandal began before the Lewinsky scandal.

Thus, last month's enraged attacks on this administration's predecessors, about Osama bin Laden-a projection of their own negligence in the immediate months before 9/11.

Thus, the terrifying attempt to hamstring the fundament of our freedom-the Constitution-a triumph for al Qaida, for which the terrorists could not hope to achieve with a hundred 9/11's.

And thus, worst of all perhaps, these newest lies by President Bush about Democrats choosing to await another attack and not listen to the conversations of terrorists.

It is the terror and the guilt within your own heart, Mr. Bush, that you redirect at others who simply wish for you to temper your certainty with counsel.

It is the failure and the incompetence within your own memory, Mr. Bush, that leads you to demonize those who might merely quote to you the pleadings of Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

It is not the Democrats whose inaction in the face of the enemy you fear, Sir.

It is your own-before 9/11 - and (and you alone know this), perhaps afterwards.

Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.

It is not our freedom, nor our country-your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.

You want to preserve a political party's power. And obviously you'll sell this country out, to do it.

These are lies about the Democrats -- piled atop lies about Iraq -- which were piled atop lies about your preparations for al Qaida.

To you, perhaps, they feel like the weight of a million centuries -- as crushing, as immovable.

They are not.

If you add more lies to them, you cannot free yourself, and us, from them.

But if you stop -- if you stop fabricating quotes, and building straw-men, and inspiring those around you to do the same -- you may yet liberate yourself and this nation.


Please, sir, do not throw this country's principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics.

technorati tags:keitholbermann, americanpress, bushlies, opposition, civilliberties, dissent

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

San Francisco's premier literary festival is almost here. I was asked to read my work, but unfortunately can't make it. Anthony has an art opening in NYC the same night! Go figure.

I encourage you, dear readers, to go and visit in any event. Poets and authors from all over the Bay Area will be performing their work.

Br. Karekin

technorati tags:litquake, literature, sanfrancisco

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)