Author: Synergy

Our common values and goals are what unite us. At present the American electorate is deeply and bitterly divided. Poor leadership and disunity threaten to rend the very fabric of our society.

We on the left are united in agreement that our country is on the wrong track and deteriorating by nearly every measure. In order to solve the myriad problems facing us and the world, humans must move beyond war. Opposing unjust, illegal, unnecessary, and unwinnable wars is the sine qua non for human prosperity.

I rely on blogs like Booman Tribune for information, insight, and inspiration. However the standard blog format doesn’t suit my style of online posting. I prefer the bulletin board format because topics can be continued and updated over an extended period of time without getting buried in chronological order.

I posted for 4 years on The Augusta Chronicle bulletin board which is called “The Forum”. Augusta, Georgia is a bastion for southern white reactionaries. The Chronicle is a rightwing Republican rag with a tabloid editorial mentality. It is important to fight it out in the trenches of red state America, but logic and reason have not persuaded The Chronicle or their reactionary readers of the error of their hate-filled ways.

The definition of stupidity is to continue doing the same thing and expecting different results. Therefore, I have started an alternative bulletin board focusing on the Iraq war and other issues vital to progressive American denizens who take our world citizenship and our common humanity seriously. Please freep my bulletin board and spread the word. Thank you. Peace, love, and understanding is the way.

Augusta Alternative

A Democrat majority in congress is all well and good, but they must get the U.S. out of Iraq. The plan to turn over “responsibility” for Iraq’s security to Iraqi forces by the end of 2007 is RUBBISH especially when one reads the fine print which says that U.S. and British troops will play a “support role” after that.
Here is the undisputable bottom line: AS LONG AS FOREIGN TROOPS OCCUPY IRAQ THE WAR WILL RAGE ON. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq is what triggered this war, and that is what fuels this war. The Shi’ite – Sunni civil war is secondary to U.S. aggression in Iraq.

THE UNITED STATES CAN HAVE NO PERMANENT BASES IN IRAQ. That realization is part of Zbigniew Brzezenski’s 4 point peace plan for Iraq. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST PUBLICALLY RENOUNCE ANY PLANS OR DESIGNS ON MAINTAINING A PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN IRAQ. HE MUST PLEDGE TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY THAT THE U.S. WILL FULLY LEAVE IRAQ, AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, GEORGE W. BUSH, MUST APOLOGIZE FOR HIS DISASTEROUS DECISION TO INVADE AND OCCUPY A COUNTRY THAT NEVER ATTACKED OR THREATENED THIS COUNTRY.

The United States can and must walk away from Iraq. There is no valid reason why we can’t. We must leave Iraq … to Iraqis.

Handover to Iraqi Army ‘set for the end of next year’

The Times (UK) November 10, 2006

By Ned Parker, Michael Evans and Richard Beeston

American and Iraqi officials have set a date for giving Iraq’s forces responsibility for security across the country.

Under a plan to be presented to the UN Security Council next month, the Iraqi Government would assume authority from coalition troops by the end of next year.

Only hours after Donald Rumsfeld was replaced as US Defence Secretary, American, British and Iraqi officials spoke openly about accelerating the handover process.

Baghdad made clear that it would use the Democrat victory in congressional midterm elections to push President Bush for concessions. Confidants of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that they hoped defeat would make Mr Bush more open to ideas that he had previously rejected.

However, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, sought to play down the impact of both the Republicans’ mid-term election losses and the dismissal of Mr Rumsfeld. She said that it was unlikely that there would be a “major upheaval” of US policy in Iraq.

In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank she said: “We will leave when they are confident that they can take the role of security in the country on their own shoulders.

“I ask those who are calling for more precipitate action to consider the consequences of such action: we would be leaving the Iraqi Government without the means to prevent a further escalation in the violence, without the tools to enforce the rule of law and without the authority to prevent their country from turning into a base for terrorism.”

All sides said that Mr Rumsfeld’s departure provided an opportunity to set a clearer timetable for withdrawing all foreign forces.

A new tone was set by President Bush. He said that he was open to ideas that would help the US to achieve its goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq’s democratic Government succeeded.

The plan being drawn up in Baghdad, with Washington’s approval, seeks a one-year extension of the UN mandate for foreign forces in Iraq.

But it also states that by December 2007, security in the country’s 18 provinces, apart from the most violent, be handed over to the Iraqi Army and police. US and British troops would play a support role.

~~~~~snip~~~~~

This is more of the “Do as I tell you to do, not as I do” hypocrisy from the Bush-Cheney war regime which it tries to pass of as diplomacy. Nobody except homo stupidus devolved knuckledragging idiots believe anything that the Neanderthal-in-Chief George W. Bush has to say. This man has the reverse midas touch. Everything he touches turns to shit. Anything that Bush says he is trying to accomplish ends up accomplishing the opposite. No one in history has been as counter-productive to his stated goals as this living anachronism of a warrior whose age has passed. I think that J.Z. Knight was really channeling George W. Bush when she thought we was channeling a 2000 year old ancient warrior spirit she calls Ramtha.

Before posting the news story below on the Bush regime’s “warning” to North Korea about a pending missile test – lets look at a recent U.S. missile test:

Hat tip ilyana

Missile Streaks Through Northern California Sky

   

Jun 14, 2006 7:33 am US/Pacific

    Missile Streaks Through Northern California Sky

    (AP) VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE The Air Force has successfully tested an unarmed Minuteman Three intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    …snip…

    The contrails from the missile could be seen streaking through the Northern California sky.

    It traveled 48-hundred miles in about 30 minutes before its three warheads struck targets at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the western chain of the Marshall Islands.

    The purpose of the launch was to test the weapon’s effectiveness.

US warns North Korea against missile “provocation”

   

US warns North Korea against missile “provocation”

    By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
Fri Jun 16, 4:39 PM ET

    The United States on Friday warned North Korea against conducting a “provocative” intercontinental missile test after U.S. officials said there were signs a test could take place as early as this weekend.

    A test would be Pyongyang’s first launch of a long-range missile since it stunned the world in August 1998 by firing a Taepodong 1 over Japan that landed in the Pacific Ocean.

    “Such a launch would be a provocative act and we would instead urge them to focus their energies and their activities on returning to the six-party talks,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. He was referring to talks on curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear program involving the United States, China, Russia, North and South Korea and Japan.

    The launch — expected to involve a Taepodong 2 missile with an estimated range of 3,500 to 4,300 km — could come as early as this weekend, U.S. officials said.

    They said it seemed increasingly likely Pyongyang would go through with the test — rather than just making preparations to get U.S. and international attention — but that it could still decide to cancel a launch.

    U.S. officials have told Reuters they would not try to shoot down a test missile although McCormack told a news briefing “we will take necessary preparatory steps to track any potential activities and to protect ourselves.”

    American and Japanese “assets” — including satellites and a U.S. guided missile ship — have been moved into position to serve as long-range surveillance and tracking platforms.

    The United States and its allies were caught off guard when Pyongyang last tested eight years ago and they are determined this time to be ready to gather critical intelligence on the North’s capabilities.

    McCormack said that in recent days Washington consulted key countries in a campaign to make clear to North Korea that “a missile launch would be a provocative act that is not in their interests and will further isolate them from the world.”

    A missile launch would be inconsistent with the 1999 moratorium declared by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, which he reaffirmed in 2002, and with a Sept 19, 2005 statement in which Pyongyang and other parties to the six-country talks pledged to stabilize the Korean peninsula, he added.

    …snip…

    Some U.S. analysts believe North Korea, feeling ignored, would test to assert its importance or its pique over President George W. Bush’s willingness to show flexibility to Iran even as he has held a tough line on Pyongyang. …

There has been a worldwide backlash against U.S. unilateralism. This isn’t limited to the Arab and Muslim worlds which are outraged by the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq as well as by their perception that they are being unfairly targeted by President Bush’s so-called War on Terror. The worldwide backlash also extends to unprecedented cooperation between China & Russia in opposing U.S. policies, to Latin America, and even to the Non-Aligned Movement as explained below.

June 6, 2006: The Indonesian Defense Minister spoke words of wisdom to the brilliant-incompetent U.S. Secretary of War, Donald Rumsfeld. Notice, that Rumsfeld immediately took offense at what Sudarsono told him (which was the truth). Recently Retired Major General John Batiste, a harsh of Rumsfeld who has called for his resignation, hit the nail on the head when he said (of Rumsfeld) “You can’t tell that man anything. He knows it all!”

International Herald Tribune    

Indonesia says U.S. alienates Muslims

    By Michael R. Gordon The New York Times

    Published: June 6, 2006

    JAKARTA The Indonesian defense minister warned the Bush administration on Tuesday that its approach to fighting terrorism was alienating Muslims and that it needed to be more sensitive to local governments.

    “In the application of security, including anti-terrorist laws, it’s best that you leave the main responsibility of anti-terrorist measures to the local government in question,” Juwono Sudarsono said at a news conference as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stood by his side.

    Sudarsono added: “It’s important to us because, as the world’s largest Muslim country, we are very aware of the perception, or misperception, that the United States is overbearing and overpresent and overwhelming in every sector of life in many nations and cultures.” …

    … the Indonesians dispensed some advice. An important lesson in the fight against terrorism, Sudarsono said, was the need to show some patience. Washington, he said, should not be so insistent on achieving immediate results at the expense of local sensitivities.

    “So I was telling the secretary just recently, just two minutes ago, that your powerful economy and your powerful military does lend to misperception and a sense of threat by many groups right across the world, not just in Indonesia,” Sudarsono said at the news conference.

    His remarks prompted a response by Rumsfeld, who insisted he has been sensitive to other nations’ concerns from the start. “I have never indicated to any country that they should do something that they were uncomfortable doing,” he said.

June 7, 2006: Yesterday, the Indonesian Defense Minister expressed concern about how Muslims are being treated in Bush’s War on Terror. Today, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia expresses concern that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps Iran are the opening salvos of WWIV (The Cold War is considered by some to have been WWIII). This shows the concern and the backlash against U.S. foreign policy.

DAWN – RSS Feed

Mahathir says US policy in Iraq, Iran prelude to fourth World War

    PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday accused the United States of leading the world into another global conflict in which nuclear weapons could be used. Mahathir said the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington’s threats to attack Iran over its nuclear program were tantamount to a “fourth World War.” He described the Cold War as the third World War. “Maybe this is an alarmist view … but the fourth World War is already on and unless something is done, it will spread from Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran and beyond,” said Mahathir.(Posted @ 14:20 PST 2006/06/07 – 07 June 2006)

In the Arab and Muslim worlds the backlash against Bush’s War on Terror and U.S. unilateralism unites Muslims in efforts to drive foreign occupiers for their lands, and it feeds Muslim resentment at being singled out by Americans for prejudicial treatment.

Muslim backlash tends to take on religious overtones, but in South America the backlash against U.S. unilateralism has been to unify many of the Latin nations in trade agreements that exclude the United States.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is growing in the number of member nations which increases its political clout. That adversely affects the Bush-Cheney regime’s efforts at pushing its programs through the United Nation.

The increasingly assertive third-world. By Mark Leon Goldberg [TPM Cafe]

Finally there is the Shangai Cooperation Organization which unites Russia, China, and several central Asian republics against U.S. hegemony.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Wikipedia entry – see “Relations with the West” section

We have 4 clear examples of backlash against U.S. unilateralism:

1. Insurgency, resentment, and suspicion of U.S. policies towards both Arabs and Muslims in general by denizens of the Arab and Muslim worlds.
2. Unity in Latin America against U.S. trade and foreign policies in that region.
3. Growth of the NAM (non-aligned movement)
4. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization which pits China, Russia, and several central Asian republics against U.S. interests in that region and beyond.

What a difference a year makes, OR NOT! One year ago Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that the Iraqi insurgency was “in its last throes” and predicted that fighting in Iraq would end before the Bush administration leaves office.

Well, Vice was wrong (again). Are you surpised? This is the same man who was certain that Saddam Hussein had “reconstituted” his nuclear weapons program. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have been wrong about EVERYTHING concerning the Iraq war, and THEY CONTINUE TO BE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING REGARDING THE WAR IN IRAQ.

Americans can follow the Fool Bush, The Deceiver Cheney, and the brilliant-incompetent Rumsfeld further into the quagmire, but the price will be high. Don’t complain about higher oil prices, inflation, a weaker dollar, a national security state, loss of privacy, a lower standard of living, and lost American greatness.

Iraq insurgency in ‘last throes,’ Cheney says

One year later the Pentagon has a different assessment of the insurgency in Iraq:

Pentagon: Iraq Insurgency Steady Until ’07

   

Pentagon: Iraq Insurgency Steady Until ’07

    Associated Press
    May 30, 2006

    By ROBERT BURNS – The Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

    In a report assessing the situation in Iraq, required quarterly by Congress, the Pentagon painted a mixed picture on a day when the U.S. military command in Baghdad said 1,500 more combat troops have arrived in the country. The extra troops are part of an intensified effort to wrest control of the provincial capital of Ramadi from insurgents.

    The report to Congress offered a relatively dim picture of economic progress, with few gains in improving basic services like electricity, and it provided no promises of U.S. troop reductions anytime soon.

snip

    ‘MNF-I expects that rejectionist strength will likely remain steady throughout 2006, but that their appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007,’ the report said. The term MNF-I refers to the Multinational Force-Iraq, the top American military command in Baghdad.

    It also said for the first time that the Sunnis who reject the U.S.-based government are collaborating with al-Qaida.

    ‘Some hardline Sunni rejectionists have joined al-Qaida in Iraq in recent months, increasing the terrorists’ attack options,’ the report said.

    It said a separate element of the insurgency that U.S. officials describe as former loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime remains an important enabler of the violence in Iraq. But the Saddam loyalists have ‘mostly splintered’ into other groups. As a result, they are now ‘largely irrelevant’ as a threat to the fledgling Iraqi government, said Lt. Gen. Victor E. Renuart, the head of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who helped prepare the report.

    The report also said that while security in much of Iraq has improved, total attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased in recent months, following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

snip

    The troop move announced Tuesday involves about 1,500 soldiers from an armored brigade on standby in Kuwait and reflects a deteriorating security situation in the volatile provincial capital of Ramadi.

snip

    Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq watcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday there is no clear basis for believing U.S. troop levels can be reduced anytime soon without risking further deterioration in the security situation.

snip

    ‘I think, in honesty, that now looks a lot more like 2007 at the earliest (for) really having serious reductions in the U.S. combat role (and) being certain that the U.S. casualty levels are going down on a lasting basis and being able to reduce the costs of the war,’ Cordesman said in a telephone interview.

snip

A third battalion from the brigade in Kuwait was sent to Baghdad in March as part of a broader plan to improve security in the capital during the formation of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s new cabinet. That cabinet was announced and put in place more than a week ago but still lacks ministers of defense and interior, who control the Iraqi army and police. Whitman said that battalion is still operating in the Baghdad area.

This is a repost of the initial entry in a thread I began on The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle bulletin board titled Bush lies on Memorial Day.  Come help me fight the wingnuts!

Wartime President and Commander-in-Chief George Walker Bush lied again to the American people. In a Memorial Day speech honoring fallen veterans Mr. Bush said that the U.S. has always gone to war reluctantly. This is a lie. This is a damn lie!

There is an offical policy now in effect called The Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine is a policy of pre-emptive warfare. It states that United States will not wait to be attacked or even until a threat is fully materialized but reserves the right to attack any nation or group that the President and Commander-in-Chief deems to be a potential threat to United States security.

There was a rush to war in Iraq. The war in Iraq was not a last resort. Iraq did not threaten or attack United States. Commander-in-Chief Bush’s order to invade and occupy Iraq was a choice. It was not done reluctantly or as a last resort.

We have eye witnesses inside the Bush-Cheney administration in the persons of Paul O’Neil who was U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Richard Clarke who was the White House anti-terror advisor. Messers O’Neil and Clarke say that President George W. Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq from the earliest days of his administration and certainly from almost immediately after the attacks of 9/11 although the President knew that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on United States.

President Bush lied to the American people today on Memorial Day when he said that United States always goes to war reluctantly. Commander-in-Chief ordered the military to launch a war of choice on Iraq. The American people are now suffering the consequences of that rash decision.

Cheney is a goner and here is why. It isn’t because he was negligent and not forthcoming when he shot his hunting partner although that certainly damages him politically. He is damaged goods. He may use a medical excuse as a reason to resign, but here is the real reason Vice President Dick Cheney will resign sooner rather than later. It has to do with the fact that Cheney deliberately authorized the leaking of the name of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson, in a calculated and orchestrated campaign to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, who was critical of the Bush administration’s bogus justification for the war in Iraq.

Now Dick Cheney is making another bogus claim. He is claiming he has the power to declassify information and this somehow excuses his authorization to out CIA agent Valerie Plame. Sorry, Mr. Vice President, but this gambit won’t work or maybe a better analogy, this dog won’t hunt!

Yes, you can declassify intelligence information. You have that power, but you do not have the power to risk the life of a CIA agent and/or her contacts. You certainly do not have the right to declassify intelligence information for purely political motives. Weak, weak argument, Mr. Cheney. Shame on you! Resign! Resign immediately! Take your lawyers, guns, and money and go back to your old Wyoming home!

Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info

Economists predict that China will become the world’s largest economy by 2030 or 2035 (to be eclipsed by India which has a younger demographic profile by 2050). So it is inevitable that that China will be a strong competitor for resources like oil. This safe prediction shoots a big hole in the neo-conservatives’ “Plan for a New American Century” which calls for the U.S. military to be used as an instrument to spread U.S. economic and political domination over the globe. So naturally China is taking big time exception to the Pentagon’s long term plans which have been developed under Donald Rumsfeld’s stewardship – himself a neo-conservative. No one would argue that the United States has to be prepared for future exigencies, but blatant militarism is perceived as a threat no only by China but also by many inside this country including me.

It should also be noted that China currently owns a significant and growing share of U.S. foreign debt, and China is currently the United States’ number one trading partner. Juxtapose those facts with the prediction that Chinese military might may threaten U.S. supremacy, and we have antagonistic forces at work within the Bush administration’s China policy. Of course, the Bush administration uses a future Chinese threat as a reason for increasing the U.S. military budget every year. Is a news arms race with China inevitable?  

Beijing protests US military report singling out China as military threat

Beijing protests US military report singling out China as military threat

02.07.2006, 06:07 AM

BEIJING (AFX) – Beijing protested against a US Pentagon report that singled out China as a potential threat to Washington’s military supremacy and said it had made diplomatic representations over the issue.

The report ‘made groundless accusations over the normal national defense development of China, interferes with China’s internal affairs (and) plays up the theory of a China military threat,’ foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan was quoted as saying in a report by Agence France-Presse.

‘We are opposed to this and have made solemn representations to the US side.’

The four-yearly report on the US military outlook that was released last week, entitled the Quadrennial Defense Review, noted China’s steady but secretive military build-up since 1996.

…

Casual American citizens are inundated 24 X 7 X 365 by big corporate media. The bottom line with these corporate entites is profits. In the past news departments were insulated from the profit driven centers of corporations, but that distinction has ceased to exist. The result is that news today is presented as “info-tainment”. It is our responsiblity as informed and involved citizens to counter disinformation whenever we encounter it. Local newspapers and local media outlets are the proper place to start “setting the record straight”. Here is my response to an editorial that appeared today in The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle:

Yes, Democrats and others are critical of President Bush because he failed to pay attention to threat warnings before 9-11. The Augusta Chronicle says in an editorial posted below that Bush is being criticized for failure to connect the dots. Yes! However, the Augusta Chronicle editorial writer misses the point again. The government agencies had the dots. They didn’t connect them. They don’t need only more dots. They need to interpret the intelligence information they have. Translation of intercepts were not done in a timely manner. Intercepts that indicated an imminent attack lay untranslated until after 9/11 happened.

More spying does not guarantee more intelligence. The FBI says almost all “hot leads” from NSA domestic intercepts have been dead ends. Vice President Cheney says “thousands” of plots have been foiled. There is no evidence that any plot worthy of the name has been foiled unless you think some guy’s hairbrained plan to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch counts as a credible plot. Giving up our freedoms to the national security state will not make us safer. Here is what President Bush can do to start making this country safer:

1. President Bush can announce that the United States will not establish permanent military bases in Iraq and will withdraw U.S. troops immediately.

2. President Bush can renounce the Bush doctrine which says this country reserves the right to attack any other country which the President determines may pose a threat to this country sometime in the future. This doctrine of “pre-emptive” or “preventive warfare” is against international law.

3. President Bush can reaffirm U.S. support for international institutions, respect for international law, and seek international cooperation instead of unilateral military actions.

The United States has the same right to self-defense that all nations do. I see this as rooted in natural law. By expressing respect for other countries’ right to self-defense the U.S. will be on a better legal footing. We certainly have the right to defend and prevent terrorism. Others in the world have the right of self-determination. If the U.S. abides by our own and international legal norms, we will be in a better position to insist on respect for human rights, basic freedoms, equality before the law, justice, international cooperation, nuclear non-proliferation, and a more peaceful and prosperous world. The alternative of “a long war” (a 20 year battle against terrorism) will not produce the desired results. Militarism and fascism are bigger threats to this democracy than Al Qaeda. The biggest danger of trying to deal with terrorism through military action alone is that we will forfeit our freedoms and lose international support and security. That is a lose-lose situation. We have more valid options that intelligent and prudent leaders need to present to the American people. In the deepest sense this is not a partisan issue.

Democrat critics are no help

Democrat critics are no help | Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
Sunday, February 5, 2006

When it comes to al-Qaida and Iran, President Bush can’t win for losing.

First al-Qaida. Bush’s Democratic critics blamed 9-11 on him when the intelligence community failed to “connect the dots” that might have led to the arrest or detention of some of the jihadist hijackers before they killed nearly 3,000 innocent people.

Since the 2001 tragedy, the president has been using the intelligence agencies in ways that could connect the dots. And well he should, given Osama bin Laden’s stark warning last week.

But partisan Democrats, and even some Republicans, are jumping all over the president for unlawfully “spying” on American citizens because he didn’t obtain a court warrant, as required by the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in the wake of Watergate.

Some Bush foes, such as defeated presidential rival Sen. John Kerry, darkly hint at serious criminality and possible impeachment.

Ridiculous. At most, this is an old-fashioned separation-of-powers tiff that will be debated by constitutional lawyers and decided in the courts. It’s about process, not criminality.

As explained by Gen. Michael Hayden, former National Security Agency director and currently the government’s No.2 intelligence official, the NSA surveillance is necessary to intercept U.S.-based communications with suspected al-Qaida operatives abroad.

“Had this program been in effect prior to 9-11,” Hayden told the National Press Club, “it is my… judgment that we would have detected some of the al-Qaida operatives in the United States.”

The constitutionality of the program was carefully researched by White House, Justice Department and NSA attorneys, said Hayden, and all concluded that no FISA warrant was required. Congressional lawyers might disagree, but there’s no evidence that Bush is unlawfully employing a domestic spying network to expand his presidential powers. That notion is just plain nonsense.

<snip>

The loyal opposition is supposed to offer constructive criticism. It’s part of the democratic process, and can be helpful to the nation and even to the ruling party. But blind, partisan opposition where the president is condemned no matter what he does is neither loyal, constructive nor helpful. It is un-American and undermines the credibility of the critics more than it does the president.

Democrats ought to keep that in mind as they head toward November.
From the Monday, February 6, 2006 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle

I had the questionable “priviledge” again yesterday of listening to the Saturday rebroadcast of “Richard Land live” while waiting in the car as my wife and daughters shopped. Richard Land is the former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, a minister, and as much of a political animal as anybody you’ve ever met! He has thrown his lot in with George W. Bush and the Republicans all in the name of his perverted interpretation of Christianity.

(cont’d below)
Dr. Land said “We are winning, we are winning, we are winning in Iraq.” Dr. Land is a liar! We are not winning in Iraq. He cited an AP poll and two stories which didn’t even make the front page of the right wing Washington Times! Of course, in his distorted worldview, he talked about the Washington Times not putting these stories on their front page as indicative of the SCLM (so-called liberal media) not publicizing “good news” from Iraq. This is a right wing newspaper! The poll he cited said 66% of Iraqis are optimistic about their future while only 33% of Americans are. In fairness, few Iraqis long for the return of Saddam – although little evidence has surfaced so far to connect Saddam with the 1982 massacre he is being charged with. But Iraqis do long for stability and security. However, remember that they fought for Saddam (and Iraq) for eight long years against Iran. The current violence no where near approaches the level of violence in the Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, we should not underestimate the ability of Iraqis to wage a protracted insurgency against a foreign occupier. That is us in case you need to be told this fact.

Richard Land’s claims notwithstanding – the war in Iraq isn’t going well. It is almost 3 years old and soon the upfront costs of ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the so-called GWOT (Global War on Terror) will be $440 billion. Recent revelations pointed to corruption of the CPA (Coalition Provision Authority) under Paul Bremer where billions are unaccounted for. The CPA was followed by the interim government of Iyad Allawi (appointed by the U.S. as Prime Minister). That government was also corrupt. The present government of Ibrahim Al-Jafarri is also corrupt, and the government elected back on December 15th has yet to be formed.

Below is a story of ongoing corruption. This story shows that Iraq’s oil revenues are being diverted to fund the insurgency. Now, even assuming that the insurgency is finally extinguished (a proposition I find extremely unlikely) it remains highly probable that Iraq will disintegrate into sectarian violence (read civil war) nevertheless. So you can take the word of a right wing evangelical minister, Dr. Richard Land, that everything in Iraq is on track if we only “stay the course”, or you can take it from a rank amateur like me that the war in Iraq has not accomplished its stated objectives and will never accomplish the stated objectives. This is a failed policy. The best option for the United States is to leave Iraq …. to the Irais. US OUT NOW!

Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say

Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say

By ROBERT F. WORTH and JAMES GLANZ
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 4 — Iraqi and American officials say they are seeing a troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq’s struggling economy.

In Iraq, which depends almost exclusively on oil for its revenues, the officials say that any diversion of money to an insurgency that is killing its citizens and tearing apart its infrastructure adds a new and menacing element to the challenge of holding the country together.

In one example, a sitting member of the Iraqi National Assembly has been indicted in the theft of millions of dollars meant for protecting a critical oil pipeline against attacks and is suspected of funneling some of that money to the insurgency, said Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the chairman of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity. The indictment has not been made public.

The charges against the Sunni lawmaker, Meshaan al-Juburi, are far from the only indication that the insurgency is profiting from Iraq’s oil riches.

On Saturday, the director of a major oil storage plant near Kirkuk was arrested with other employees and several local police officials, and charged with helping to orchestrate a mortar attack on the plant on Thursday, a Northern Oil Company employee said. The attack resulted in devastating pipeline fires and a shutdown of all oil operations in the area, said the employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Ali Allawi, Iraq’s finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 percent to 50 percent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said that the insurgency had infiltrated senior management positions at the major northern refinery in Baiji and routinely terrorized truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents and their confederates to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas themselves.

“It’s gone beyond Nigeria levels now where it really threatens national security,” Mr. Allawi said of the oil industry. “The insurgents are involved at all levels.”

American officials here echo that view. …