February 27, 2008

A Mighty Wind

Every once in a while, a mighty wind blows.

The political sentiments now storming America in the form of support for Barack Obama are a mighty wind indeed. For those trying to say this is all just hot air, it's time to point out that so is a windstorm. And storms have a function, in nature and in us. They blow away everything not built on a firm foundation, and make room for a lot of new growth.

I'm a boomer, so I know this feeling. We have been here before. We knew what Bob Dylan meant when he sang, "Something's going on here, but you don't know what it is....Do you, Mr. Jones?" And something is going on again. What we're experiencing here is a new conversation– something qualitatively different than the promises of effective problem-solving that pass for an excitement factor in his opponent's campaign.

Try to dismiss it though she might, someone who has the capacity to change a society's conversation has the capacity to change the society. From Bob Dylan to Gloria Steinem to John Lennon to Martin Luther King, Jr., people who use words to foster new thinking are the ones we see in retrospect to have opened doors to a better world. Hillary was right when she said Dr. King couldn't have passed Civil Rights legislation without Lyndon Johnson, but Johnson couldn't have done it without King, either. Johnson had the Presidency, but King had the vision. Today we have the historic opportunity – one that comes around only rarely – to have President and visionary be the same person.

A great national leader does not speak just to circumstances; he arouses a nation's soul. The idea that Obama could not only arouse our soul but also handle our circumstances (has he not handled a pretty formidable circumstance already, giving her such a run for her money?) seems far more probable to me than that Hillary could not only handle our circumstances but also arouse our soul.

Jefferson. Lincoln. Roosevelt. Kennedy. Damn right, their words mattered. Try googling "great speeches" and see what comes up. Great words and great speeches have changed the world because they have changed the way we see the world.

Washington-think is so old-fashioned, so treat-the-symptom-and-pretend-you-healed-the-disease, protect-the-status-quo type of stuff that millions gave up on it a long time ago as an agent of true social improvement. But while few of us are looking to the American government to save the world, we'd prefer that it not destroy it either. Obama was right when he said that we have to do more than just end the war in Iraq; we need to end the mindset that produced it.

At the end of World War II, in the last speech he ever wrote yet died before having a chance to deliver, President Franklin Roosevelt said, "We must do more than end war. We must end the beginnings of all war." The source of the debacle in Iraq was not an event; it was a mindset. The source of our environmental problems was not an event; it was a mindset. The source of every problem is the mindset that preceded it. And only someone who can speak to the source of a problem can eradicate its roots.

The ability to inspire new thinking is a more important ability in a leader today, than simply being a "problem-solver." We're always trying to solve something.... solve health care...solve the economy... solve social security, and so forth. Yet according to Carl Jung, our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown. Just figuring out who has a better plan with which to treat the symptoms of a problem is not the one who ultimately solves it. What we need is someone with a better state of mind, who will lead us to a better state of ours.

Being swept up in Obama's inspirational ability is not naive; thinking inspirational ability doesn't count for much, is in fact naive. For in the ability to inspire lies the ability to command the most powerful forces of all. No plan, no piece of legislation, no Washington strategy or political maneuvering would alone be enough to change the probability vector of America's future. For that, we would need a mighty wind. And a mighty wind now blows.

----- Marianne Williamson

Posted by mwblog at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2008

Feminism in the Age of Now

"What! You're not voting for Hillary? But I thought you were such a feminist!"

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times. So let me explain why I'm not voting with my vagina…

As a feminist, I believe nurturing and nourishing a world trying to be born is the most effective way to heal the malevolent effects of a world that needs to pass away.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I believe inclusion is more powerful and life producing than is exclusion.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I believe tending and mending is a more effective way to deal with the world's stress points than is fighting or fleeing.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I believe having a vision for what I want the world to become is more important than simply solving the problems that have arisen in the world that is.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I'm more concerned with creating a world my great, great grandchildren can live in than in trying to make things better for me right now.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I am convinced that building authentic relationships is a more effective, creative way to build peace than just strategizing to destroy enemies and manipulating alliances.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I relate more to the honest sharing of a wife who sometimes misses a note, to the too-scripted sharing of a woman who never does.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I look forward to voting for the first woman President; but when I do, I want her to be one whose positions and policies reflect a feminine worldview.

That is why I support Obama.

As a feminist, I get that masculine armor is not our strength, our ability to love is our greatest power, and our urge to repair is our greatest calling.

That is why I support Obama, pray for him unceasingly, try to strengthen his chances…. and will support whoever wins.

----- Marianne Williamson

Posted by mwblog at 08:13 PM | Comments (1)

December 19, 2006

EPA Scrubbing Library Web Site to Make Reports Unavailable

t r u t h o u t | Bulletin From: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Friday 08 December 2006

Agency sells $40,000 worth of furniture and equipment for $350.

Washington, DC - In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of its shuttered libraries, including the hurried auctioning off of expensive bookcases, cabinets, microfiche readers and other equipment for less than a penny on the dollar.

In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them "that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency's receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained." On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA's Washington D.C. Headquarters.

Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agency's only specialized research repository on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides. The web purge follows reports that library staffers were ordered to destroy its holdings by throwing collections into recycling bins.

"EPA's leadership appears to have gone feral, defying all appeals to reason or consultation," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Congress has yet to review, let alone approve, the library closures. "The new Congress convening in January will finally have a chance to decide whether EPA will continue to pillage its library network."

Meanwhile, in what appears to be an effort to limit Congressional options, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of the several libraries that it has already completely shuttered. In its Chicago office, which formerly hosted one of the largest regional libraries, EPA ordered that all furniture and furnishings (down to the staplers and pencil sharpeners) be sold immediately. Despite an acquisition cost of $40,000 for the furniture and equipment, a woman bought the entire lot for $350. The buyer also estimates that she will re-sell the merchandise for $80,000.

"One big irony is that EPA claimed the reason it needed to close libraries was to save money but in the process they are spending and wasting money like drunken sailors," Ruch added, noting EPA refuses to say how much it plans to spend digitizing the mountains of documents that it has removed from library shelves. "While the Pentagon had its $600 toilet seat and $434 hammer, EPA has its 29 cent book case and file cabinets for a nickel."

In spite of its pleas of poverty, EPA is spending millions on a public relations campaign to improve the image of its research program, as well as a $2.7 million program (more than its estimated savings from library closures ) to digitize all employee personnel files, in a program called "eOPF."

"No one believes that EPA is closing libraries and crating up irreplaceable collections for fiscal reasons," Ruch concluded. "Instead, the real agenda appears to be controlling access by its own specialists and outside researchers to key technical information."

Posted by mwblog at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2006

Iran eyes badges for Jews

Law would require non-Muslim insignia

Chris Wattie
National Post

Friday, May 19, 2006

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."

Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again," he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."

Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could come into force as early as next year.

It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.

Mr. Behroozian said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he said.

The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.

"We are not here to answer such questions."

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.

"The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power -- and we were all wrong."

Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called "chilling," and his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.

"There are some very frightening parallels here," he said. "It's time to start considering how we're going to deal with this person."

Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."

He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, but Tehran believed by Western nations to be developing its own nuclear military capability, in defiance of international protocols and peace treaties. The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity.

Posted by mwblog at 03:52 PM | Comments (4)

May 02, 2006

Zogby Poll: Americans Favor Rehabilitation

Dear Friends,
I think the article below shows a very encouraging trend... and another reason why it's so important to support the Dept. of Peace! (www.ThePeaceAlliance.org)
Best,
Marianne

National survey by Zogby International reveals "striking support" for rehabilitation both in and after prison

From every age, gender, economic, political, cultural and ethnic group and every geographic area, Americans overwhelmingly support the rehabilitation of non-violent criminals both before and after they leave prison, a new poll by Zogby International shows.

Three out of four Americans expressed either fear or concern about the 700,000 prisoners who are leaving U.S. prisons each year, and the fact that 60% of them are likely to commit crimes that send them back to prison, Zogby International's national survey showed. The poll explored what people think ought to be done about the situation.

The survey, sponsored by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a leading criminal justice research organization, reveals that by almost an 8 to 1 margin (87% to 11%), the U.S. voting public is in favor of rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to a punishment only system. Of those polled, 70% favored these services both during incarceration and after release from prison.

Likely voters appear to recognize that our current correctional system does not help the problem of crime, the survey indicates. By strong majorities, Americans said they feel that a lack of life skills, the experience of being in prison, and the many obstacles faced upon reentry are major factors in the crimes that prisoners commit following their release.

By an overwhelming majority (82%), people feel that the lack of job training and job opportunities were significant barriers to those released prisoners who wanted to avoid committing subsequent crimes. Similar large majorities saw the lack of housing, medical and mental health services, drug treatment, family support and mentoring as additional barriers and thought that all of these services should be available to returning prisoners. Most of the respondents felt that these reentry services needed to be introduced to prisoners long before they are released.

When asked about pending legislation that would make federal funds available to communities for these services in support of successful reentry (The Second Chance Act), 78% were in support -- and 40% of those strongly supported such assistance.

Dr. Barry Krisberg, the President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said "these survey results tell us that Americans have looked at the 30-year experiment on getting tough with offenders and decided that it is no longer working. We have built up an unprecedented prison population of over 2 million inmates, but most of these offenders are returning home each year with few skills or support to keep them from going back to lives of crime"

The survey was conducted Feb. 15-18, 2006, and included 1,039 respondents. The poll carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Please click the link below to view the full news release:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1101

Posted by mwblog at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2006

Why I Fully Support Bush Censure

By Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa
Tomharkin.com

March 16th, 2006

We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises - and broken faith - with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.

In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. And, despite getting caught red-handed, he refuses to stop.

Let's be clear: No American - and that must include the President - is above the law. And if we fail to hold Bush to account, then he will be confirmed in his conviction that he can pick and choose among the laws he wants to obey. This is profoundly dangerous to our democracy.

So it is time for Congress to stand up and say enough! That's why, this week, Senator Russ Feingold proposed a resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the FISA law. And that's why I fully support this resolution of censure.

Nothing is more important to me than the security of our country. Of course, we need to be listening to the terrorists' conversations. And sometimes there is not time to get a warrant. That's why the FISA law allows the President, when necessary, to wiretap first, and obtain a warrant afterward. But that's not acceptable to this above-the-law President. He rejects the idea that he should have to obtain a warrant before or after wiretapping.

We have an out-of-control President whose arrogant and, now, illegal behavior is running our country into the ditch. It's time to rein him in. And a fine place to start is by passing this resolution of censure. I hope that Senator Feingold's measure will be brought to the floor. And when it is, I will proudly vote yes.

Posted by mwblog at 10:04 AM | Comments (2)

March 01, 2006

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

by Marianne Williamson

It's that time again: a campaign year. All of a sudden all your political friends are calling you. You know why, and they know you know why. The system is so corrupt that the only way anybody can mount a successful campaign for the extraordinarily important job of guiding our country at what is arguably the most critical time in our history, is if they raise more money raise more money raise more money - and fast. While war and terror and disasters of every conceivable kind loom large around us, candidates have to spend God knows how many hours on the phone, and traveling, trying to do everything they possibly can to raise another buck. Unless they're independently wealthy, of course.

It is preposterous that in the United States today, we do not have publicly financed political campaigns. The cost to our democracy, and potentially to the fate of our country, is beyond measure. Anybody who has no access to cash, or the talent for raising it, would not have a chance at running for political office today. Is this what so many have fought and died for, and are fighting and dying for today? So that only those with access to money - regardless of whether or not they are the smartest and wisest among us - can make decisions in our name that affect the entire world?

Several years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to give money to political candidates amounted to a right to free speech. Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that determined in 2000 that votes don't really matter all that much, so it's not exactly a shocker anymore when they come down on the side of insanity. But if we don't start figuratively yelling - from every rooftop, as loud as we can - that something has gone horribly wrong in this country, and that if we don't fix it then the most exquisite experiment in world history could go down the drain before our very eyes, then perhaps we don't even deserve to be the custodians of this experiment. I don't know how many hours of the History Channel anyone has to watch before recognizing that freedom isn't guaranteed. We need the very best and brightest that America has to offer, to be running for office and with relative ease. We need federally mandated hours of television made available, not for political ads, not for Madison Avenue to do its thing, but for brilliant Americans to have a chance to strut their stuff and give us their best ideas. For all our talk about campaign finance reform, even that is just an incremental effort. Campaigns shouldn't simply be less corrupted by money. They simply shouldn't be for sale.

As it is, we'll get through this season and then another one two years from now, with hundreds of millions of dollars that could and should be spent on other things, paying instead for political TV ads and all their related nonsense. What that will get us, most probably, is more of what we have now: political decisions that are way too green, and I don't mean environmental.

Publicly financed political campaigns. Say it, see how it feels and repeat it to your friends. Then repeat it some more, and some more, and some more. The only thing that will be stronger than the resistance to doing it is a country that decides it's really truly what we want.

Posted by mwblog at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

Flickering Dreams of Peace All you have to do is wake up...

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER Tribune Media Services

December 8 , 2005

Ever try to shift a paradigm? I salute the brave souls scattered around the continent — some of them are in Congress — who are doing just that, who are daring, right now, to challenge the conventional wisdom of war and peace at the highest levels at which the game of geopolitics is played, and are calling for the establishment of a Cabinet-level Department of Peace.

When long-time correspondent Bill Bhaneja, a senior research fellow at the University of Ottawa and retired Canadian diplomat, recently e-mailed me the proposal he co-authored with Saul Arbess for such an addition to Canada's government — inspired by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich's H.R. 3760 — I confess to a queasy skepticism that such a project was just too darn idealistic.

Then I thought about bird flu — and George Bush's wild musings two months ago about combating it with National Guard troops, that is, by implementing martial law to enforce quarantines. This from the man who has "degraded" (in the words of one high-level health official) the nation's public health system and underfunded and politicized every branch of government created to deal with national emergencies.

And it hit me with a jolt: The level of public awareness is deteriorating. We're now whelping leaders who haven't got a clue how to deal with complex social issues except to start shooting at them. And there's no adequate challenge to this in the media or from the opposition party, and apparently no public context big enough even to allow for debate.

For instance, there was Hillary Clinton the other day telling potential supporters of her run for the presidency, who I'd wager are against the war by a large margin, that the United States must "finish what it started" in Iraq, as though there's a consensus what, exactly, we started and what "finishing" it would mean, and how many more dead Iraqis and U.S. servicemen we might expect before we attain our unarticulated goal.

It was sheer politician-speak, in other words, betraying no courageous intelligence, no insight that our brutal occupation might be fueling the insurgency and creating the terrorists we're obliged to keeping fighting. But the media have already pegged Hillary a frontrunner, which means they're condemning America's anti-war majority, once again, to a campaign season without a presidential candidate who represents their ardent hopes.

This is intolerable. This is why I support and heartily endorse what is, in fact, a global movement to raise awareness by challenging the blood-myths of the nation-state and the inevitability of war, and the geopolitical canard extraordinaire that high-tech, high-kill, earth-poisoning modern wars have any chance of achieving controllable ends and do not spew incalculable suffering and future wars in their wake.

"What we seek," write Bhaneja and Arbess, "is a world in which peaceful relations between states are a systematically pursued norm and that the numerous non-aggression pacts between states become treaties of mutual support and collaboration. We envision a world in which a positive peace prevails as projected most recently in the U.N. International Decade for a Culture of Peace (2001-2010) Programme of Action."

The establishment of a peace academy, the training of peace workers, the promotion of nonviolent conflict resolution at every level of human interaction — there's no reason why such projects should be nothing more than the flickering dreams of protestors at candlelight vigils. There's no reason why they should not be the business of government. I have no doubt whatsoever that the public is ready to move beyond the barbarism history has bequeathed us, and would do so in an eye blink if enough respected voices said, "Now is the time."

And respected voices are saying this, if only we could hear them.

"What is quite clear — and would become clear as you go along with this campaign — is that you are trying, and I consider myself with you on this in every way . . . (to create) not only a massive but a basic change in our culture, in our entire approach to our relationships with other human beings. . . . It's not a matter of simply getting another department of government. You're speaking of an entire philosophical revolution."

This is Walter Cronkite, in conversation with Kucinich last September at a Department of Peace conference in Washington, D.C. Kucinich, the hero of this movement, first introduced Department of Peace legislation in 2001. The bill now has some 60 sponsors in the House and, in September, was introduced in the Senate (S. 1756) by Mark Dayton of Minnesota.

The architects of the war on terror have minds stuck in old paradigms of domination and conquest. Their enemy is always the same: Evil Incarnate. Today's jihadist was yesterday's Communist, playing the same game of dominos.

This war is doomed to create nothing but losers, and more and more people — including many who are in or close to the military, such as Jack Murtha — are grasping this. As they wake up, the Department of Peace will be waiting for them.

"Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." — Albert Einstein

Posted by mwblog at 01:44 PM | Comments (2)

October 24, 2005

CIA Inquiry Widening

By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources.

This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration.

Fitzgerald's inquiry is expected to conclude this week and despite feverish speculation in Washington, there have been no leaks about his decision whether to issue indictments and against whom and on what charges.

Two facts are, however, now known and between them they do not bode well for the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Karl Rove, President George W Bush's senior political aide, not for Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The first is that Fitzgerald last year sought and obtained from the Justice Department permission to widen his investigation from the leak itself to the possibility of cover-ups, perjury and obstruction of justice by witnesses. This has renewed the old saying from the days of the Watergate scandal, that the cover-up can be more legally and politically dangerous than the crime.

The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated. This was the same charge that imperiled the government of Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, after a BBC Radio program claimed Blair's aides has "sexed up" the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

There can be few more serious charges against a government than going to war on false pretences, or having deliberately inflated or suppressed the evidence that justified the war.

And since no WMD were found in Iraq after the 2003 war, despite the evidence from the U.N. inspections of the 1990s that demonstrated that Saddam Hussein had initiated both a nuclear and a biological weapons program, the strongest plank in the Bush administration's case for war has crumbled beneath its feet.

The reply of both the Bush and Blair administrations was that they made their assertions about Iraq's WMD in good faith, and that other intelligence agencies like the French and German were equally mistaken in their belief that Iraq retained chemical weapons, along with the ambition and some of technological basis to restart the nuclear and biological programs.

It is this central issue of good faith that the CIA leak affair brings into question. The initial claims Iraq was seeking raw uranium in the west African state of Niger aroused the interest of vice-president Cheney, who asked for more investigation. At a meeting of CIA and other officials, a CIA officer working under cover in the office that dealt with nuclear proliferation, Valerie Plame, suggested her husband, James Wilson, a former ambassador to several African states, enjoyed good contacts in Niger and could make a preliminary inquiry. He did so, and returned concluding that the claims were untrue. In July 2003, he wrote an article for The New York Times making his mission -- and his disbelief -- public.

But by then Elisabetta Burba, a journalist for the Italian magazine Panorama (owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi) had been contacted by a "security consultant" named Rocco Martoni, offering to sell documents that "proved" Iraq was obtaining uranium in Niger for $10,000. Rather than pay the money, Burba's editor passed photocopies of the documents to the U.S. Embassy, which forwarded them to Washington, where the forgery was later detected. Signatures were false, and the government ministers and officials who had signed them were no longer in office on the dates on which the documents were supposedly written.

Nonetheless, the forged documents appeared, on the face of it, to shore up the case for war, and to discredit Wilson. The origin of the forgeries is therefore of real importance, and any link between the forgeries and Bush administration aides would be highly damaging and almost certainly criminal.

The letterheads and official seals that appeared to authenticate the documents apparently came from a burglary at the Niger Embassy in Rome in 2001. At this point, the facts start dribbling away into conspiracy theories that involve membership of shadowy Masonic lodges, Iranian go-betweens, right-wing cabals inside Italian Intelligence and so on. It is not yet known how far Fitzgerald, in his two years of inquiries, has fished in these murky waters.

There is one line of inquiry with an American connection that Fitzgerald would have found it difficult to ignore. This is the claim that a mid-ranking Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, held talks with some Italian intelligence and defense officials in Rome in late 2001. Franklin has since been arrested on charges of passing classified information to staff of the pro-Israel lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Franklin has reportedly reached a plea bargain with his prosecutor, Paul McNulty, and it would be odd if McNulty and Fitzgerald had not conferred to see if their inquiries connected.

Where all this leads will not be clear until Fitzgerald breaks his silence, widely expected to occur this week when the term of his grand jury expires.

If Fitzgerald issues indictments, then the hounds that are currently baying across the blogosphere will leap into the mainstream media and whole affair, Iranian go-betweens and Rome burglaries included, will come into the mainstream of the mass media and network news where Mr. and Mrs. America can see it.

If Fitzgerald issues no indictments, the matter will not simply die away, in part because the press is now hotly engaged, after the new embarrassment of the Times over the imprisonment of the paper's Judith Miller. There is also an uncomfortable sense that the press had given the Bush administration too easy a ride after 9/11. And the Bush team is now on the ropes and its internal discipline breaking down, making it an easier target.

Then there is a separate Senate Select Intelligence Committee inquiry under way, and while the Republican chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas seems to be dragging his feet, the ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, is now under growing Democratic Party pressure to pursue this question of falsifying the case for war.

And last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, introduced a resolution to require the president and secretary of state to furnish to Congress documents relating to the so-called White House Iraq Group. Chief of staff Andrew Card formed the WHIG task force in August 2002 -- seven months before the invasion of Iraq, and Kucinich claims they were charged "with the mission of marketing a war in Iraq."

The group included: Rove, Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and Stephen Hadley (now Bush's national security adviser) and produced white papers that put into dramatic form the intelligence on Iraq's supposed nuclear threat. WHIG launched its media blitz in September 2002, six months before the war. Rice memorably spoke of the prospect of "a mushroom cloud," and Card revealingly explained why he chose September, saying "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

The marketing is over but the war goes on. The press is baying and the law closes in. The team of Bush loyalists in the White House is demoralized and braced for disaster.

Posted by mwblog at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

October 06, 2005

LETTER FROM JOHN McCAIN, MARCH ON GLOBAL WARMING

Dear Fellow Marcher,

Recently, a number of my Senate colleagues and I traveled to Canada and Alaska to witness the devastating impacts of global warming on the Arctic. We left even more convinced of what we already knew: global warming is real and it's not some future phenomenon – it's here now. The impacts are visible if we just open our eyes to them. Visit my travel log at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/campaigns/sgw/newsroom to learn more about the consequences of global warming that are clearly visible today.

Just as in Canada and Alaska, the impacts of global warming in other areas of the country are real and they are happening now. This week, the March is stopping in Buffalo Creek Minnesota. Read more about the impact of global warming on Buffalo Creek at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/march/buffalocreek.

I'm marching so that we don't hand our children and grandchildren a world vastly different from the one that we now inhabit. The March is almost halfway through its yearlong virtual tour around the United States. Our voices are amplified by the power of over 130,000 other voices marching together!

Visit http://www.StopGlobalWarming.org to read more about my travels and details about our current stop at Buffalo Creek.

Thank you for the joining the March, and adding your voice to the many speaking out to raise public awareness of the urgent problem of global warming.

Sincerely,

Senator John McCain
Marcher

Posted by mwblog at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2005

FEMA

POLITICAL ANUMAL
by Kevin Drum
9/1/05
from Washington Monthly

CHRONOLOGY....Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

* January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

* April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said.
"Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

* 2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

* December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy and former college roommate, Michael Brown, who has no previous experience in disaster management and was fired from his previous job for mismanagement.

* March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

* 2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

* Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

* June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

* June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St.
Tammany parishes.

* August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007023.php

Posted by mwblog at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

A Can't-Do Government

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 2, 2005

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

Posted by mwblog at 10:31 AM | Comments (7)

An Open Letter from Michael Moore

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Posted by mwblog at 08:49 AM | Comments (9)

August 03, 2005

Hiroshima, America and Humanity's Future

By David Krieger

We are again in the season of Hiroshima. Many will gather at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to remember that fateful day 60 years ago when an atomic weapon was first used on a human population and obliterated the city of Hiroshima.

In America, unfortunately, far too few individuals will take note of this anniversary. Many of those who do remember Hiroshima will recall it as an event of triumph, not disaster.

Throughout most of the world, the name Hiroshima has come to represent man's technological capacity for massive destruction. Hiroshima was the culmination of the high-altitude bombing and long-range killing that came increasingly to characterize World War II.

Hiroshima opened the door upon a new world, a world in which it is possible for humanity to destroy itself by its own inventions of highly destructive weaponry. Hiroshima was the world's first look at a technology that could destroy countries, end civilization, and foreclose a human future.

Following the bombing on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was a wasteland. It might have been left this way as a monument and reminder of the new dangers confronting humanity. But that wasn't to be.

The bombed Hiroshima is the Hiroshima of death. It is a harbinger of what may befall humanity. It is a warning, but a warning that seems far distant in our fast-moving, materialistic world.

The physical evidence of the crime has been largely covered over and a thriving new Hiroshima has been built from the ruins – a Hiroshima that demonstrates humanity's capacity for healing and rebuilding. Sixty years after the bombing, Hiroshima itself is a place of hope. It is a city resurrected, and filled with life.

What remains of the destroyed Hiroshima can now be found in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and in the hearts of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. They cling to the message, "Never Again! Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist." They also cling to the hope that humanity can rise above its destructive impulses.

The rebirth of Hiroshima reflects the power of the human spirit, but the problem presented to humanity by Hiroshima has not gone away. As the leading scientists who signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto put it fifty years ago: "There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?"

Many of the scientists who created nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project thought that they should not be used on human populations. They warned that if nuclear weapons were used on Japan, the result would be a nuclear arms race. They unsuccessfully tried to convince US political leaders that the atomic bomb should first be demonstrated to Japanese leaders in a remote, uninhabited place, in order to allow them a chance to surrender. But the pleas of the scientists were unsuccessful. They had lost control of their creation, and government leaders chose to use the bomb before the Soviets entered the war in the Pacific.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred at the end of a terrible war, but it marked the beginning of a new collective madness that would result in the US and USSR each threatening the other with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Today the numbers of weapons is lower than at the height of the Cold War, but the collective insanity continues.

Fifteen years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US and Russia have friendly relations. Yet, each side still maintains more than 2,000 long-range nuclear weapons targeted on the other on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. Can this be described in any other way than collective madness?

Do the people of the world, particularly Americans and Russians, understand what this means? Opinion polls indicate that 85 to 90 percent of people everywhere would choose to eliminate nuclear weapons, so long as all countries do so. They understand that it would improve their security, as well as be morally and legally correct. But among politicians, there is little movement toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

In the year 2000, the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including an "unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals…." It seemed to be a significant breakthrough. Yet, five years later, at the 2005 NPT Review Conference, the United States had fulfilled none of its obligations under the 13 Practical Steps, and refused to allow an agenda for the conference that even made reference to them.

The Bush administration wants funding for new nuclear weapons, particularly earth penetrating nuclear weapons or "bunker busters." They want a world in which there is no place outside the range of their nuclear weapons. It is a frighteningly dangerous world in which the United States would remain reliant upon nuclear weapons and continue to threaten their use for the indefinite future.

At Hiroshima, the bomb dropped by the United States killed 140,000 people, mostly civilians, and it was celebrated in the US as a military victory. In doing so, the US made victims not only of the people of Hiroshima, but of all humanity, including ourselves. In today's world, any city anywhere is subject to being destroyed at a moment's notice.

It is painful, yet necessary, to recall details of that fateful day. On the morning of August 6, 1945, people in Hiroshima set off to work or school. Earlier a US plane had flown over the city, and an alarm had sounded. Then came the all-clear signal. Then another plane, this one the US B-29, Enola Gay. It dropped its single bomb, which fell for 43 seconds, and at 8:15 a.m. the city of Hiroshima was destroyed. Individuals close to the epicenter were incinerated. Those further away were killed by blast and fire. Many of the initial survivors developed "radiation sickness," and died in the coming days, weeks, months and years of cancers and leukemias.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki was bombed and destroyed with another atomic weapon. On the same day, Harry Truman told the American people about Hiroshima. He struck a religious note in talking about the bomb, "We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes."

Herbert Hoover, a former American president, had a far different reaction: "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."

Leading American generals and admirals were equally appalled by the use of atomic weapons. Eisenhower later said, "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman's Chief of Staff, wrote: "…the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children…."

Nuclear weapons do not discriminate. They kill men, women and children. In this way, among others, they are illegal under International Humanitarian Law, as the International Court of Justice ruled in 1996.

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon of cowards. Those who would possess nuclear weapons need only find men and women willing to make them, service them and press the button to release them.

Nuclear weapons destroy the destroyers. Reflecting on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gandhi said, "What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see. Forces of nature act in a mysterious manner."

As Americans look back at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we, too, should be reflecting on what has happened to our collective soul. We should be reflecting on who we are, as we cling to our weapons of massive destruction, and lead the world in opposing nuclear disarmament.

It may be a dangerous world, but our future lies in forgiveness and decency, not force of arms. In the US, we spend half of the world's total military expenditure, more than $500 billion annually, and we still are not secure. We seek inexpensive sources of oil, and we pay the price in blood, our own but mostly that of others.

If we continue on the path we are on, an American Hiroshima will be in our future. It is inevitable. If the disillusioned and disaffected extremists of the world obtain nuclear weapons, they will use them and the US will be a likely target. The irony of this is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons will make us any safer. In fact, they make us less secure by creating a situation in which others will also keep nuclear weapons and some of these may end up in the hands of extremists.

But when it comes to nuclear weapons, there are no moderates. All nuclear policies are dangerous and extreme, except those that contribute to the elimination of nuclear weapons. All possessors of nuclear weapons are extremists. If terrorism is threatening or killing innocent civilians, then nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon of terrorism and those who possess them are the ultimate terrorists.

How are we to change? Perhaps Hiroshima provides a place to begin. The horrors of Hiroshima are not only the past, but potentially in the future as well. We can begin with finding our sorrow. We can begin with recognizing the suffering we have caused and are causing still. We can begin with apologies and forgiveness.

Hiroshima has largely recovered from its wounds. The city has been rebuilt. The flowers have returned. The survivors have made it their mission to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. They have forgiven the crime.

But America will not heal from the trauma of the devastation we have caused and continue to cause until Americans say No to wanton power, No to nuclear weapons, No to war and No to leaders who lie us into war. Until we summon the power to resist, we will continue to be victims of our own massive and unbridled power. It is within our power to change, but not without ending our addiction to power and our double standards that support this addiction. America must reassert its commitment to decency, not destruction.

The 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto – issued ten years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as thermonuclear weapons were being developed and tested – concluded with these words: "We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."

We have a choice, and where there is choice there is hope. If we do nothing, we will remain on the path of universal death. If we choose to change the world, it is within our power to do so. Hiroshima is our past; it doesn't need to be our future. We can join with the survivors of Hiroshima in committing ourselves to assuring that atomic weapons will never again be used by taking the sensible and reasonable step of abolishing these instruments of genocide.

Unfortunately what is reasonable is not always possible. To end the threat to humanity and other forms of life created by nuclear weapons, there are two different sets of problems to be solved. The first is to articulate what needs to be done. The second is to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of accomplishing these goals.

Let us look first at what needs to be done. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we have proposed the following eight commitments by the nuclear weapons states.

1. Commitment to good faith negotiations to achieve total nuclear disarmament.

2. Commitment to a timeframe for marking progress and achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

3. Commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and to No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.

4. Commitment to irreversibility and verifiability of disarmament measures.

5. Commitment to standing down nuclear forces, removing them from high alert status.

6. Commitment to create no new nuclear weapons.

7. Commitment to a verifiable ban on the production of fissile materials, and placing existing materials under strict international control.

8. Commitment to accounting, transparency and reporting to build confidence and allow for verification of the disarmament process.

We view these as a minimal level of commitment to demonstrate the "good faith" effort to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons that is required by international law. Other commitments could be added to these, such as support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and agreement to refrain from weaponizing outer space.

Essentially, the international community knows what needs to be done to achieve the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the larger problem is with not what is needed but what is politically possible. This leaves behind the realm of what is reasonable and sensible, and enters the realm of prerogatives of political decision makers.

Despite the threat to humanity and despite reason, none of the commitments above have been acted on by the United States, the world's most powerful nuclear weapons state. Without US commitment to these goals, it is unlikely that less powerful nuclear weapons states will commit to them. Thus, progress on nuclear disarmament is stalled by US intransigency. The US is not the leader in nuclear disarmament, but rather its major obstacle. This was apparent at the 2005 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, where the US pointed the finger at others, such as Iran and North Korea, but was unwilling even to discuss its own obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament under the treaty and under international law in general.

Within the US, democracy is the province of the people and their representatives, with the mass media playing a critical role in educating the people so that they may make reasoned political choices and give their informed consent to the actions of leaders. It is the political leaders of the US who have been the obstacle to global nuclear disarmament, and for the most part the people are unaware of this because they do not learn about it from the mass media.

The only way to change the policies of the government is for the people to voice their concerns, but largely the people are not informed of the positions of their government on nuclear issues. Nor are they given reasonable analyses of the pros and cons of US nuclear policies because the media has been lax in doing its job.

Humanity's best hope for ending the nuclear weapons threat that confronts us all is for the American people to engage this issue as if their lives depended upon its outcome. The truth is that our lives, and those of people throughout the world, do depend upon US nuclear policies. We cannot wait for leaders who will recognize and solve these problems for us. We must speak up and we must educate our neighbors and our elected officials.

The choices are clear. One way is to continue on the disastrous path we are on, a path on which our nuclear arsenal plays a pivotal role in providing a false sense of security. Or we can change the direction of our policies, with the US seeking to strengthen its own security and global security by providing leadership to achieve the phased and total elimination of nuclear weapons. To move to this path, the American people are going to have to wake up and demand that their government, acting in their names, end its reliance on nuclear weapons and fulfill its moral and legal obligations to end the nuclear weapons era.

David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org http://www.wagingpeace.org/). He is the author of Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

Posted by mwblog at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

Letter from Eve Ensler

Dear America,

I am longing to reach you -- crossing this river of indifference and consumption and denial. I am trying to find you, reaching out through the desperate limitations of words and descriptions, swimming through the rhetoric of terror and God.

I need you to wake up. The house is on fire and you are still sleeping, lulled by the intoxication of smoke and mirrors. I need you to wake up and I know that shaking you, scaring you will only make you cling to your sleep and sleep more.

How then do I tell you what's going on? How do I tell you about the one hundred thousand dead Iraqi people that you and I are responsible for murdering. Each one of them valued their life, longed for their morning, cherished their first cup of milk or coffee or tea. In what way shall I deliver what I learned? The substance identical to illegal napalm that melted tender five year old skin; the cluster bombs that have left their murderous and disguised offspring, throngs of bomblets set to explode, scattered on the Iraqi earth; the depleted uraninum from the Bunker Busters we dropped that now lives in lungs and livers and soil.

How do I tell you about the strategic planning of such atrocities in the boardrooms, the backrooms, the back seats of limos, the organized take over and looting of Iraq right out from under the terrorized, hungry, thirsty Iraqi people. How do I get you to listen to the stories of our solidiers who are trying to kill themselves now, longing to escape the madness of murdering and maiming for no reason.

Please don't go back to sleep. I know how hard it is to hear of the massive black holes, called prisons we have dug to hold thousands without charging them, without trials or the torture, the meanness, the cruelty we are inflicting upon them.

America, those who now control our country have changed and ended law. I do not believe you are so calloused or selfish that you do not care. Your sleep is induced. You are distracted and derailed. The corporations have concocted and perfected these sleeping potions for years, developing ingredients to make you despise every bit of yourself, to feel ugly and fat and stupid and poor and not enough. And so you spend your time and every bit of the money you do not have buying products that will make you better, skinnier, lighter, whiter, tighter. And as you consume and consume, the corporations consume you. They take your money and your time and your voice and your instincts and your outrage and your sorrow and your anger and your grief. They consume your courage and leave fear in its place. They devour your conscience and and your memory and your compassion.

And how do I speak when they are sure to tie my tongue? When they will say I do not love my country or support the troops or honor the dead or believe in their God? How do I break through your sealed wrapping, your self-obsession, your TVheadphonedDVDcell pod?

America I am getting desperate and I know this will not get me published or heard. Those who control the information will say I'm extreme, that I've gone mad. But I have heard the cries of childen in the exploding houses of Falluja. I have seen the agonized faces of the sleepless Iraqi women who still clutch the outline of their charred dead babies in their arms. I have watched as we as a nation grow more isolated, despised and alone.

America, there is not much time left. The fire is spreading, consuming the world. We are the arsonsists. We will need each other to find our way out out through the lies and haze. It will take our greatest imagination, courage and skill to subdue these flames.

Eve Ensler

Posted by mwblog at 01:20 PM | Comments (3)

July 24, 2005

Iraqi Women May Lose Basic Rights Under New Constitution

Published on Saturday, July 23, 2005 by the lnter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS - The irony is not lost either amongst women's groups in Baghdad or activists in the United States: Iraqi women who enjoyed basic human rights under one of the world's most repressive regimes headed by former President Saddam Hussein are now on the verge of losing their hard-won freedoms under a U.S.-blessed administration in the insurgent-ravaged country.

"We express our deepest concern and worry about the drafts lately released by the (Iraqi) Constitutional Committee, specifically relating to the chapter on duties and rights, in which the (Islamic) sharia law was clearly stated as the main source of legislation in the new Iraqi constitution," the Iraqi Women's Movement said in an appeal to the United Nations.

I think that the United States should be held accountable for its disregard of the impact on women's rights of the (military) occupation -- something many people said in advance when the Bush administration tried to claim the war would benefit women, and many pointed out that Iraq had some of the best laws and policies regarding women's rights already.

Charlotte Bunch of the U.S.-based Center for Women's Global Leadership According to this draft, the new Iraqi transitional government acknowledges the equal rights of men and women in all fields -- "as long as it doesn't contradict with sharia law."

If implemented, the proposed new laws will restrict women's rights, specifically in matters relating to marriage, divorce and family inheritance. A marriage enjoined by a woman's free will is likely to be made more difficult, and divorces by men relatively easier.

Several key rights that were included in the interim Iraqi constitution are also at risk of being taken out of the new constitution by the drafting committee.

Appealing to the United Nations, parliamentarians and to international women's organizations, the Iraqi Women's Movement says: "We want the constitution to recognize women's human rights as mother, worker and citizen, and also prevent all kinds of violence and discrimination against women."

The Movement is also asking for a quota of not less than 40 percent for women in all decision-making positions. Additionally, it wants the government to recognize international conventions the country has signed and ratified.

Jessica Neuwirth, president of the U.S.-based women's advocacy group Equality Now, told IPS: "We believe that the constitution of Iraq should be compatible with fundamental human rights and with Iraq's obligations under international law."

She pointed out that Iraq is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which sets forth the obligation to embody the principle of equality of men and women in their national constitutions.

"Women in Iraq, who have been disproportionately excluded from representation on the panel drafting the constitution, support and are publicly protesting for this right to equality," she said.

"We would hope that the international community as a whole would support the call of these women for inclusion of this basic human right in the Iraqi constitution and respect for all international human rights standards," Neuwirth added.

"The women of Iraq are counting on the international community for help," says Basma AlKhateeb, the Amman-based Iraq program coordinator for the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

"Yes, the threat is big, and many political compromises are expected to take place between the different influential political groups in the Iraqi National Assembly," AlKhateeb told IPS.

She said the political maneuvering will continue until the last minute, before a final draft is approved by Aug. 15, which in turn will have to be ratified in a constitutional referendum by Oct. 15.

AlKhateeb also said that Iraqi women feel that since there is very little time left, there should be urgent international pressure on Iraqis responsible for drafting the constitution.

She said that Iraqi women have started to mobilize against the current documents and are lobbying Iraqi political leaders and government officials. But they are also appealing to donors and the international community to make sure that the new constitution will ensure the basic human rights of women.

Hanaa Edwar of the Iraqi Al-Amal Association, which organized a demonstration and a "sit-in" in Baghdad last week, says that despite the deteriorating security situation, "brave women from different governorates have taken the initiative to raise their voices demanding equal rights for women."

She said her organization was not only protesting against the attempt to marginalize the role of women but also to complain about depriving civil society organizations a role in drafting the constitution.

Edwar said their three-hour protest last week "has inspired us to widen our campaign in involve both men and women, in supporting our just demands."

Expressing her sympathies with Iraqi women fighting for their rights, Charlotte Bunch of the U.S.-based Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) described the issue as "complicated."

Firstly, she said, "I do think that the United States should not be in Iraq and should leave as quickly as possible." But since it still has a military presence in that country, "it has a lot of responsibility for the situation there."

"Therefore, I think that the United States should be held accountable for its disregard of the impact on women's rights of the (military) occupation -- something many people said in advance when the Bush administration tried to claim the war would benefit women, and many pointed out that Iraq had some of the best laws and policies regarding women's rights already," Bunch told IPS.

"So yes, I think that the U.S. government should respond to the call from women's groups in Iraq and work to ensure that equality is guaranteed in the constitution and that more women are involved in this process," she added.

"After all, the United States had much to do with picking people to be involved in reconstruction and has done little to bring women's rights advocates into the process. It can and should still do so now," Bunch said.

© Copyright 2005 IPS - Inter Press Service

Posted by mwblog at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

Senator Barbara Boxer on the War in Iraq

For all of us to consider....
Best,
Marianne

*"Iraq: Credibility, Responsibility, Accountability"*
By Senator Barbara Boxer
t r u t h o u t Speech

Wednesday 06 July 2005

Thank you, Dr. Fink, for that very kind introduction.

It is a great honor to be back at the Commonwealth Club.

When I decided to give a speech about Iraq, I knew I wanted to give it here. That's because of the pivotal role the Commonwealth Club has played for more than 100 years, fostering real dialogue on the critical challenges that define the times in which we live.

Today, those challenges are vast, from the Supreme Court vacancy to the attack on Social Security. But the war in Iraq is the most daunting because the status quo - of Americans dying, of Iraqis dying, of young soldiers coming home by the thousands with injuries to mind and body - weighs so heavily on all Americans.

As a policy maker, I must push as hard as I can for a strategy that can succeed in Iraq and bring our brave men and women home. That will only happen if we immediately bring credibility, accountability, and responsibility to a war that has been lacking in all three.

Last week, President Bush had a chance to regain credibility when it comes to Iraq. In my opinion, he did not.

He mentioned 9/11 five times in 30 minutes, despite the fact that there is absolutely no connection between Iraq and that tragic day.

Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity. The war of necessity was the war against Osama bin Laden that we launched after 9/11...the war that every single Senator voted for...the war that was a clear response to the vicious attack of that day.

That's why I was incredulous when Karl Rove said: "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war"

Therapy? By rewriting history, President Bush's chief advisor is either trying to divide our nation, or divert attention from what is happening in Iraq.

Let me read you directly from my speech on the Senate floor on September 12th.

"We are resolved to hold those who planned these attacks and who harbor these people absolutely 100 percent accountable. They must pay because this is the test of a civilized nation...We will not back down. I stand proudly with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and with our President. We will be resolved to do everything - and do it well and do it right - to bring justice..."

After 9/11, the Congress was determined to dedicate as many resources as necessary to find the people who planned the attack. We knew they were in Afghanistan. We knew the Taliban was complicit. And, very important, we knew that the entire world was standing with us.

Instead, the Administration took its eye off the ball and focused on Iraq.

On September 12, the same day that I spoke on the Senate floor, the top terrorism expert at the White House, Richard Clarke, sat down with the president and a few colleagues in the Situation Room. He describes this scene in his book. I quote:

"'Look,' [the President] told us, 'I know you have a lot to do and all...but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.'

"I was once again taken back, incredulous, and it showed,' Clarke wrote. 'But, Mr. President, al Qaeda did this.'

'I know, I know, but...see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred.'

'Absolutely, we will look...again.' I was trying to be more respectful, more responsive. 'But, you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq. Iran plays a little, as does Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Yemen.'

'Look into Iraq, Saddam,' the President said testily and left us."

No link was found. And yet, according to Bob Woodward, two months later, the President took Rumsfeld aside and asked, "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret."

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says that going after Saddam was raised at a meeting just 10 days after the first inauguration.

And then there's the now-famous Downing Street memo. In July, 2002, months before Bush asked Congress for authority to wage war in Iraq, the head of British intelligence reported that, and I quote: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [Weapons of Mass Destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

So, what happened to the President's aides who misled the public about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq, those who falsely claimed that this war was about terrorism, and that it wouldn't cost us much - in lives, troops, or dollars?

Condi Rice, who said "We do know that there have been shipments going...into...Iraq...of aluminum tubes that...are really only suited for nuclear weapons programs," was promoted to be our Secretary of State.

Paul Wolfowitz, who said, "Like the people in France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator," got the top job at the World Bank.

George Tenet, who called the WMD claims a "slam dunk" was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

And the President? He had to know al Qaeda was not in Iraq before the war. [SHOW CHART]. His own State Department issued a report right after 9/11. It lists 45 countries in which al Qaeda operated. Guess who was not on that list? Iraq.

Now, there were some who tried to speak the truth. But they didn't last long in the Bush Administration.

Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill are both gone.

Army Vice Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki estimated that it could take "several hundred thousand" soldiers to successfully stabilize Iraq, Wolfowitz called that number "wildly off the mark." Shinseki retired early.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey said that a U.S. intervention in Iraq could cost between $100 and $200 billion. He was disputed, and ultimately left. We've now surpassed $200 billion.

The rest of us were told we had no right to criticize the President in a time of war.

Twenty six months ago, President Bush told us our mission was accomplished. It wasn't. And do you know why? The Administration knew how to win phase one - the military invasion - but had absolutely no plan to win phase two - the peace. As former NSC Advisor Brzezinski said, "This war has been conducted with "tactical and strategic incompetence."

So, where we are now? We have already lost 1,746 Americans in Iraq, 13,190 have been wounded. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, up to 17 percent of Iraq veterans suffer from major depression, generalized anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder. Divorces for active duty and enlisted personnel has nearly doubled and 8,000 Iraqis have been killed.

Here is the unvarnished truth. The Bush Administration's failures thus far have left us with no good choices. If you went to the doctor with a diseased kidney and he took out the wrong one, you would feel distressed, angry, and frustrated about your options.

And that's how many Americans feel now - distressed, angry and frustrated at the difficult situation facing our country and troops. All Americans love, support, and pray for our soldiers. The point is that our troops deserve far more than the status quo.

So, we must, as I have said, start being credible, truthful, if we want to succeed.

But it is also long past time for accountability, and that is my second point.

Last month, I co-sponsored Senator Feingold's resolution asking the President to submit to Congress the remaining mission in Iraq, the time frame needed to achieve that mission, and a time frame for the subsequent withdrawal of our troops. Why?

Because after two and a half years at war, the American people finally need to hear what our mission is and a detailed plan to accomplish it. That will give our soldiers and citizens hope and confidence.

It is difficult to keep track of all the missions we've had so far in Iraq. There was the weapons of mass destruction mission. Then the regime change mission. Then the rebuilding mission. Then the democracy mission.

And finally, terrorism, which the president mentioned more than 30 times in his speech. "Our mission in Iraq is clear," he said. "We will hunt down the terrorists."

That mission is a guarantee of a never-ending cycle of violence because our open-ended presence in Iraq is itself fueling the recruitment of terrorists. With that as a mission, we will find ourselves on a treadmill that never stops. We stay there to hunt down the terrorists and more terrorists are recruited, so we fight them and more terrorists are recruited and so the cycle goes.

Let's be clear: "What we have done in Iraq," terrorism expert Peter Bergen explained, "is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams...It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism."

A report issued by the CIA's think tank found that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists. But, the tragic irony is, terrorism was the result of the war, not a reason for waging it and so we are in greater danger.

I believe our mission in Iraq is this: Security for Iraqis provided by Iraqis. We need a Manhattan project to train the Iraqi soldiers and a successful plan to tighten the borders, which should include troops from around the world.

And what about our democratic goals? Yes, we must help the Iraqis create a government in which everyone has a stake, including the Sunnis. But, while we will likely continue to play an advisory role if asked, we cannot tie current troop levels to the goal of a well-functioning democracy, which, even under the best circumstances, takes generations to perfect. Ours certainly did.

And that brings me to this point. The Administration continually compares Iraq's struggle for democracy to our country's struggle for democracy. Fine. But we fought for it with our own people. That's what countries do. Others helped us, sure. But the people power was American.

If there is to be a free Iraq, and I certainly hope there will be, then the Iraqis must want that freedom - and be willing to defend it - as much as we want it for them.

We need to hear from the Administration exactly how many Iraqi forces are needed; how to meet that goal; and by when. And the current pace will not cut it.

In March, I went to Iraq with six other Senators of both parties. You can read or hear about it. But nothing can prepare you for seeing the security challenges we face there.

Outside a meeting room I sat in, located in the safe green zone, two people had recently been killed. In the building where the Assembly gathers, the security was even more intense. Two guards with machine guns had to stand beside each of us everywhere we went.

We watched the dynamic U.S. Army Lieutenant General, David Petraeus, train the Iraqi security forces. He told us he has enormous confidence in the ability of the Iraqis to take over their own security soon.

Yet when we talked to the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jafari, he was in no rush at all, emphasizing that you can't build an army overnight.

So how many Iraqi troops do we have right now? The answers are all over the map. Recently, the Pentagon said they have 107 battalions, totaling 169,000 men.

But of those 107 battalions, military commanders consider that only about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers are capable of carrying out missions on their own. That's especially troubling when you consider the size of the insurgency, which has been estimated at anything from 12,000 to 50,000 with many more supporters.

We must enlist all the countries willing to train Iraqi security forces outside of Iraq. France has offered. Egyptians have offered. The Jordanians have offered. Yet, Senator Biden says that none of these offers has been taken up. It's time. It's past time.

When the Administration said that our allies who opposed the war need not apply for reconstruction contracts, the message was clear and counterproductive. What a mistake. Leadership is now needed to turn this around, and make reconstruction truly the world's responsibility.

Because inside Iraq, water, electricity, and fuel are in short supply. Sewage still runs through the streets. The situation in Baghdad is so bad that the Mayor has threatened to resign in protest.

Despite all those claims that Iraqi oil would pay for its reconstruction, we are still paying most of it. I believe more of the reconstruction money now going to Halliburton - who just over-billed our government by $1 billion - should go to the Iraqis so they can rebuild their own country.

So, where is the Congress in all of this? In every other war, Congress has played an oversight role. We are the voice of the American people. And the American people, who are fighting in and paying for this war, deserve to know the truth about everything. The truth about how we are measuring up to our highest ideals, including what happened at Abu Ghraib, a scandal that sickened everyone who saw those photos and has placed our brave troops in more danger.

And they deserve to know the truth about whether we are meeting our clearly-stated goals in Iraq - and, if not, why?

The Administration should come to the Hill often to report on specific progress. And the president himself should meet with the Senate in private sessions. Quite frankly, there are Senators of both parties - including Inouye, Warner, Lautenberg, McCain, Kerry, and Hagel - who have seen far more battles than the President and his core national security team. It would be wise to listen to these Senators.

We have no idea - none - how long the Administration plans to be in Iraq. Is it two years, ten, twenty? Condi Rice now calls it"a generational commitment." The President's message of 'as long as it takes' is counterproductive.

Retired General Gregory Newbold, who was one of the central planners of phase one of the war, told us: "We have to understand that the fundamental reason for the insurgency, the thing that ties all the various groups together, is their view that we are an occupying power."

It is time for the President to send a clear message that we do not intend to remain in Iraq indefinitely or maintain permanent bases there. That doesn't mean we should set an exact date for withdrawal. But it does mean we need a general timeframe to complete the mission.

And that brings me to my third and final point - responsibility. Responsibility to our troops and to the next generation.

In his speech, the President told us how important it was to honor the courageous young men and women of the military on the 4th of July. And I couldn't have agreed more.

But, to me, we need to do more than that. We must also honor our soldiers every day by giving them the equipment they need while they are deployed and the health care they deserve when they come home.

Many of us have heard the heartbreaking stories about the soldiers sent to Iraq without proper armor to protect their bodies or vehicles. One wrote: "My mother, an elementary school teacher, shipped the bullet-proof ceramic plates to me from the states. Other soldiers weren't so lucky, having to raid buildings and patrol dangerous streets while wearing inferior Vietnam-era flak jackets."

Another wrote: "I was driving a high-back humvee with no armor...I lost three fingers on my left hand and took shrapnel in my legs and chest. Would an uparmor kit have kept my fingers from being blown off? No one will ever know for sure, but I think so."

When roadside bombs are now the weapon of choice for insurgents, how can we fail to give our soldiers the jamming devices they need to protect themselves?

But, in April, I had to fight - too hard - for an amendment to provide $60 million for jamming devices. And, we had to fight - too hard - to get the Administration to finally admit that it was $1 billion short of funds to provide health care for soldiers returning from war.

It's also no secret that we are facing a serious recruiting crisis, which the chief of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command called "the toughest recruiting climate ever faced by the all-volunteer army."

More pressure on recruiters is making some so desperate they are encouraging recruits to lie about their education and fitness to serve. And new aggressive ways of gathering data on high school students is angering parents, and not respecting family values.

But those who are bearing the brunt of this recruiting crisis are our soldiers and their families. Many are forced to serve on multiple tours in Iraq, missing birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and the small moments that make up our life stories. National Guard and reserves are being kept away from both their families and their jobs.

And what about those who make the ultimate sacrifice? Shouldn't we honor, not hide, them? We should see photos of their flag-draped coffins. We should see the President or his personally appointed representatives meeting the coffins when they arrive - every single one.

But we must do far more. We owe it to the fallen, to all those who serve bravely now, and those who will do so in the future, to get this war right. We cannot rewrite the history of the last three years, but we can write a new chapter in this war.

On December 11, Bob Woodward had just finished his second interview with President Bush. They stood by the glass doors looking out on the Rose Garden. And Woodward asked him, "Well, how is history likely to judge your Iraq war?"

"And he said, 'History,' and then he took his hands out of his pocket and kind of shrugged and extended his hands as if to say this is a way off. And then he said, 'History, we don't know. We'll all be dead."

Imagine if our forefathers fighting for independence had thought that way? Or those who fought in the Civil War? Or in the World Wars? Or those who risked their lives - like Martin Luther King Jr. - for civil rights? Or suffragists who almost died in a hunger strike for the right of women to vote.

When Americans dedicate, and even sacrifice, their lives for what is right, we do it because we have a sacred responsibility to those who come after us to leave behind a world that is better, not worse, than the one we found.

Because, 20, 50, even 100 years from now, another group will gather in this spot to discuss issues of war and peace. And, when they do, I hope they look back and say that the summer of 2005 is when Americans, brought credibility, accountability, and responsibility to a very tough situation.

I hope they say that we finally began to level with the American people. That we articulated a winnable mission and a detailed plan to fulfill it. And that we gave our troops the support they needed and deserved in Iraq and upon their return to our beloved shores.

Posted by mwblog at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2005

An Essay on Death and President Bush

An essay by E.L Doctorow

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted be what they could be.

They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life.... They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war in Iraq has licensed it.

So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.

This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children.

He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million of us who live in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does not feel.

But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.

But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time.

But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.

E.L. Doctorow

***********************

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. He is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Doctorow has received the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the residentially conferred National Humanities Medal.

Doctorow was born in New York City on January 6, 1931. After graduating with honors from Kenyon College in 1952, he did graduate work at Columbia University and served in the U.S. Army. Doctorow was senior editor for New American Library from 1959 to 1964 and then served as editor in chief at Dial Press until 1969. Since then, he has devoted his time to writing and teaching. He holds the Glucksman Chair in American Letters at New York University and over the years has taught at several institutions, including Yale University Drama School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of California, Irvine.

Posted by mwblog at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)

May 20, 2005

The Third Annual Department of Peace Conference

Make sense. Make peace. Make history.

Support a U.S. Department of Peace
September 10th, 11th, and 12th, 2005
Washington D.C.

Join us in our nation's capitol to lobby for a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, as the legislation is re-introduced in the House of Representatives as a tribute to victims of September 11th.

Featuring:
Marianne Williamson, Hon. Dennis Kucinich, Patch Adams, Judy Collins, Azim Khamisa, Tim Reynolds, and more...
From a culture of peace will come a world without war.

************************************
At the Conference:

~ Join with hundreds of citizens from across the country.

~ Develop a comprehensive understanding of the Department of Peace
legislation.

~ Discover and practice effective lobbying strategies.

~ Network with citizens from around the country: Visit Capitol Hill and
walk the halls of Congress, Meet your representatives, Make your voice
heard.

~ Form a new political constituency with the power to make an historic
impact.

************************************

Every generation has its moment.
This is ours...

We hope to see you there!

Register now and learn more at:
http://www.thepeacealliance.org/events/sept_conf_05.htm

Posted by mwblog at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2005

Barry Goldwater on Religion and Politics

"However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"

Barry Goldwater
(1909-1998)
US Senator (R-Arizona)
Republican Nominee for US President in l964, often called the Founder of modern Conservatism

Posted by mwblog at 02:08 PM | Comments (1)

Network of Spiritual Progressives

The Religious Right in the U.S. has taken a much more aggressive stand since the re-election of George Bush, seeking to pack the courts with extremists who question the validity of the First Amendment, running public campaigns claiming that secular people are engaged in a campaign to destroy religion and Christianity, and of course escalating the struggle against abortion rights and civil rights for homosexuals. They will continue to grow in power as long as they are the only force in the public arena articulating a spiritual agenda. So, it is of the greatest importance that you join a new effort to create an alternative—a voice for people who have liberal and progressive politics and who are spiritually sensitive (including secular as well as religious forms of spirituality). It is called The Network of Spiritual Progressives, and its founding gatherings will take place July 20-23 at the University of California, Berkeley (sponsored by Tikkun, Pacific School of Religion, Dragonfly Media, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Pace e Bene progressive Catholics, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, and more) and also Feb. 10-13, 2006 at American University in Washington, D.C. Among the speakers at the Berkeley gathering are the founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and also Jim Wallis (editor of Sojourners and author of the current best seller God’s Politics), Carole Flinders, Riane Eisler, Thandeka, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Arun Gandhi (grandson of the Mahatma), John Cobb, Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, Robert Inchausti, Michael Nagler, Ched Meyers, Mubarak Awad and many more! But most important is YOU—because you can help make this whole thing real. So even if you can’t come to either conference, please join the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

To join or to register for the conference or to get more info: www.Tikkun.org.

Posted by mwblog at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Department of Peace on CNN

Marianne Williamson and Dennis Kucinich discussing the Dept. of Peace on CNN.

(To watch click on the appropriate player for your system)

Windows Media Player

Posted by mwblog at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

Department of Peace Workshop in Southern California

Los Angeles Area

Saturday, April 30th from 1:00 to 5:00

Location: Center for Universal Truth
27121 Calle Arroyo Ste. 2200, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

To Register: email: Christopher Belknap
cbelknap@designEARTHsynergy.com or call (949) 632-8787

You will learn:
• How to clearly communicate your commitment to peace to your Congressional Representative
• What the process is for getting the Department of Peace bill passed
• How to reach out to our communities to create awareness and gain support of the Bill

Who should attend:
•Anyone interested in learning more about the Bill and what is currently being done
•Anyone wishing to learn how they can help in creating awareness and getting the Bill passed.

Featuring: Lynn McMullen, Department of Peace Campaign Coordinator

More information at: http://www.thepeacealliance.org/events/training/la_apr05.htm

Posted by mwblog at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2005

A Message from Barack Obama

A Message about Senator
Robert Byrd from Barack Obama

"Senator Robert Byrd has spoken out passionately against a Bush foreign policy that has alienated our allies throughout the world. Today, he is fighting an attempt by Republicans to ram federal judges through the Senate. . . In 2006, Senator Byrd will be the target of Republicans because he stands up for what he believes. Will you join me in supporting Senator Byrd's campaign for re-election, before a critical deadline this Thursday?" — Senator Barack Obama
Donate to Support Senator Byrd Now!
https://www.moveonpac.org/give/byrd.html

Dear MoveOn member,

Below, I've attached a note from Senator Barack Obama about the key moment Senator Robert Byrd faces in the next few days. But before we get to the note, here's why Senator Byrd is so important to us:

Two and a half years ago, when Congress was voting on the use of force against Iraq, Senator Byrd from West Virginia stood on the Senate floor and delivered a fiery speech. He told his colleagues that, "I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is 'in the highest moral traditions of our country.' This war is not necessary at this time." For those of us who opposed the war, he became a hero. And he's remained one, on many issues: just last week, Senator Byrd joined us at a MoveOn PAC rally to make a passionate appeal against the Republican plan to seize total control of judicial nominations in the Senate.

Now the senator needs our help. He's up for re-election in 2006. Because of his courageous stands, Republicans in the Senate have made him a primary target. They're already raising money to defeat him. And a critical deadline is coming up: on March 31st, Senator Byrd will report his campaign expenses to the FEC. He needs to show the press and public that he's got strong support.

Can you chip in now to support Senator Byrd?

You can give online at:

https://www.moveonpac.org/give/byrd.html

Thank you for everything you do,

--Eli Pariser
MoveOn PAC
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005

Posted by mwblog at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

US Federal Spending (In billions per year)

Pentagon (not counting Iraq or Afghanistan) $401
Children's Health $41
K-12 Education $34
Humanitarian Foreign Aid $10
Head Start $7
Reducing Reliance on Foreign Oil $2

*******************************

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched , every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the geniuses of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
--- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Posted by mwblog at 10:49 AM | Comments (1)

March 14, 2005

The FCC Media Ownership Rules Battle

On June 2, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission — charged with regulating media in the public interest — voted 3-2 to change several of its remaining media ownership rules, such as those limiting the number TV stations one corporation can own and banning the cross-ownership of a TV station and newspaper in the same market. The loosening of these rules would lead to a massive wave of media consolidation.

The largest firms would be able to swallow up other media firms they set their eyes upon, and industry observers all expect a flurry of large deals. At the local level, we should expect a single firm, or perhaps two or three firms, to own the vast majority of the media — daily newspaper, TV stations, radio stations, cable TV systems — in a single community.

Such media concentration not only violates the premises of a competitive marketplace, but it makes a mockery of the notion of a free press enshrined in the Constitution.

To learn more and take action, visit: http://www.freepress.net/rules/page.php?n=home

Posted by mwblog at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2005

Conference on Spiritual Activism

Help Create a Network of Spiritual Activists:
The Best Way To Beat Bush

Conference on Spiritual Activism
July 20-23
Berkeley California
sponsored by the University of California Peace and Conflict Studies Program and by the Tikkun Community.

The goal of the conference is to create a Network of Progressive Spiritual Activists who will work to a. challenge the anti- religious and anti-spiritual biases in liberal culture b. create a Prophetic Spiritual Agenda for American politics which will help liberal and progressive forces re-think the way they address the central issues facing our society, integrating into our search for a world of peace, social justice and ecological sanity some of the wisdom of the religious and spiritual communities and thereby reshaping the public discourse in ways that are respectful to secularists but also respectful to those rooted in religious and spiritual traditions; and c. challenge the misappropriation of God and religion to serve the purposes of hatred, war, and the selfishness of the wealthy while ignoring the plight of the poor and the powerless.

Learn More at:
http://www.tikkun.org/community/spiritual_activism_conference/spiritual_conference_event

Posted by mwblog at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2004

Did Kerry Get "Gore-d" in Ohio?

Did Kerry Get "Gore-d" in Ohio? or Maybe It's Time for America to Discover Columbus

by Steve Bhaerman

About ten days ago, I attended a community event featuring former Congressman Dan Hamburg (D-California), who recently returned from Columbus, Ohio where he and his wife got arrested -- yes, arrested -- for trying to get a petition to Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Although you wouldn't know it from the mainstream press (if Will Rogers were alive today, he'd be saying "All I know is what I /don't/ read in the papers"), Ohio is the Florida of the 2004 election. In the orgy of self-blame that Democrats indulged in following the election, they faulted themselves for being too liberal, too out-of-touch, too strident. Most wouldn't go near the fraudulent vote issue afraid of being called "sore losers.?" Meanwhile, a few brave souls like the Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik raised the money to petition for a recount. They were soon joined by Michigan Congressman John Conyers and Jesse Jackson -- and now by John Kerry himself. Finally, Democrats are stirring from their comfortable bed of victimhood and awakening to the possibility that maybe they aren?t sore losers after all -- maybe they're sore winners. As for the particulars of the electile dysfunction, they are truly unbelievable.

*TRULY UNBELIEVABLE /Amazing True Facts About Electile Dysfunction!/*

*Next Level in Voting Machine Technology: A Voting Machine That Can Cast a Vote Without Voter?s Help!*

/Election observers have testified under oath that more than a dozen voting machines in Mahoning County regularly switched Kerry votes to Bush votes while voters watched in amazement./ http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1018

What?s even more amazing is that not one of these voting machines came out for Kerry, and why should they? Their manufacturers are all Republicans. http://nov2truth.org/article.php?story=2004121115234497

*Next Level Beyond the Rule of Law: * *The Overrule of Law.*

O/n December 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's elections results in the case Moss v Bush et al. But Republican Blackwell's attorney at the Secretary of State?s office told the attorneys issuing the notice of deposition and subpoena that Blackwell will not testify under oath. The Republican-controlled Attorney General's office has labeled any attempt to put Blackwell under oath, ?harassment.? Blackwell supervised the November 2