Pevish, Pathetic, Punk President

The Dems won't let him have his way, so not he is going to dictate law and hope someone doesn't do to him what he prescribes for dictators.

To Implement Policy, Bush to Turn to Administrative Orders

By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; A03

The White House plans to try implementing as much new policy as it can by administrative order while stepping up its confrontational rhetoric with Congress after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership, administration officials said.

According to those officials, Bush and his advisers blame Democrats for the holdup of Judge Michael B. Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general, the failure to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills, and what they see as their refusal to involve the White House in any meaningful negotiations over the stalemated children's health-care legislation.

White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration. They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases.

The events of recent weeks have "crystallized that the chances of these leaders meeting the administration halfway are becoming increasingly remote," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Bush himself has been complaining more and more bitterly about congressional Democrats in recent weeks. In a private meeting yesterday with House Republicans in the East Room of the White House, Bush recalled how he had been able to work with Democrats when he was Texas governor and said he had hoped to find the same relationships in Washington.

"He sort of longs for those days, when both sides were genuinely interested in getting along and getting a deal," said Rep. Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, who helped organize yesterday's White House meeting, attended by about 150 Republicans.

Bwahahahahaha! When, exactly, were those days?

The president offered more criticism after the session. "Congress is not getting its work done," Bush said. "We're near the end of the year, and there really isn't much to show for it."

House Democratic leaders fired back at Bush with strong rhetoric of their own. "The president wants the same complacent, complicit Congress that was a co-conspirator in a coverup of what was going on in this country," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

Both sides have their own political calculations for digging in, with the White House and Republicans seeking to reestablish their credentials as fiscal conservatives and with Democrats concluding that they are on the right side politically on children's health care and other issues.

On some issues, the White House has become increasingly left out of the legislative process. Bush's objection to any tax increases, for instance, has pushed Republicans in the House and the Senate to pursue their own negotiations over an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), concluding that a final bill must include a significant tobacco tax increase to offset its cost.

Even as they offer the president public support, some Republicans on the Hill are hinting that they might break with Bush if the price is right. Asked yesterday whether he could support an SCHIP bill that Bush opposes, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested that is a possibility. "He has his position. House Republicans have theirs," Boehner said.

While Bush castigated Democrats for lack of productivity, congressional Republicans have had their own reasons for moving slowly. On SCHIP, for example, they have said that both sides could reach a deal if the Democratic leadership would slow down and let negotiations proceed.

GOP Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) personally appealed to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) for a delay yesterday. Reid agreed and asked the Senate to put off consideration of the latest version of the bill to let bipartisan talks continue. This time, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) objected to the move.

"That makes an interesting statement about the president's press conference this morning, that we just can't get those Democrats to do anything," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), one of the SCHIP negotiators.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Finally, Bush's Mental Health Questioned

Let the Republican party be held accountable for allowing a mentally unstable president and vice president to sit in the White House while the USA is pushed over a cliff.

Kucinich questions Bush's mental health

Tue Oct 30, 6:52 PM ET

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

About time someone asked this question. We have been asking to for 3 years or more

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Tuesday. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."

Kucinich, known for his liberal views, trails far behind the leading candidates in most Democratic polls. He was in Philadelphia for a debate at Drexel University.

Bush made the remarks at a news conference earlier this month.

He said: "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Kucinich said he doesn't believe his comments about the president's mental health are irresponsible, according to a story posted on the newspaper's Web site.

"You cannot be a president of the United States who's wanton in his expression of violence," Kucinich said. "There's a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn't something wrong with him, then there's something wrong with us. This, to me, is a very serious question."

It has been and is a very serious question for us as well.

In response, Republican National Committee spokesman Dan Ronayne said it was hard to take Kucinich seriously.

You had damned well better take it seriously, Mr. Ronayne, because millions of Americans do, as well as millions more around the world. But it isn't just Bush, Cheney is worse

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

WTF? Bizarro e-mails from Petraeus' stooge Col. To Glen Greenwald.

Have they all gone insane?

Sunday October 28, 2007 07:18 EST

A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI - Update VII - Update VIII)

I received this morning an unsolicited email from Col. Steven A. Boylan, the Public Affairs Officer and personal spokesman for Gen. David G. Petraeus (see UPDATE III below). The subject line of the email -- which I am publishing in full, unedited form here -- is "The growing link between the U.S. military and right-wing media and blogs," which is the title of the post I wrote earlier this week regarding the politicization of the Army in Iraq, as evidenced by its constant coordination with, and leaking to, the likes of Matt Drudge, The Weekly Standard, and the most extremist right-wing blogs -- in the TNR/Beauchamp case and also more generally.

I had a prior e-mail exchange with Col. Boylan several months ago when I requested an interview with Gen. Petraeus after he had granted an exclusive interview to far-right partisan Hugh Hewitt (author of the 2006 prescient tract: Painting the Map Red: The Fight to Create a Permanent Republican Majority). In terms of whether the U.S. Army under Petraeus and Boylan is, in fact, becoming a political actor, I'll let multiple passages from Boylan's email to me this morning speak for itself:

The issues of accuracy, context, and proper characterization is something that perhaps you could do a little research and would assume you are aware of as a trained lawyer.

I do enjoy reading your diatribes as they provide comic relief here in Iraq. The amount of pure fiction is incredible. Since a great deal of this post is just opinion and everyone is entitled to their opinions, I will not address those even though they are shall we say -- based on few if any facts. That does surprise me with your training as a lawyer, but we will leave those jokes to another day. . . .

You are either too lazy to do the research on the topics to gain the facts, or you are providing purposeful misinformation -- much like a propagandist. . . .

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a little actual research on your part would have shown that [Cheney P.R. aide Steve Schmidt] is actually not here, but that would contradict your conspiracy theory. . . . .

I am curious as to when you think the media relations or operations changed here in Iraq. I in fact do know exactly the day and time that it changed and want to see if you are even in the same ballpark as reality. . . .

For the third matter concerning the Beauchamp investigation and the documents that were leaked -- it is very unfortunate that they were -- but the documents are not secret or classified. So, there is your third major error in fact. Good thing you are not a journalist. . . .

As for working in secret with only certain media is laughable. The wide swatch of media engagements is by far the most diverse it could be. But you might not think it that way since we chose not to do an interview with you. You are not a journalist nor do you have any journalistic ethical standards as we found out from the last time I engaged with you.

As we quickly found out, you published our email conversation without asking, without permission -- just another case in point to illustrate your lack of standards and ethics. You may recall that a 30-minute interview was conducted with the program that you claim to be a contributor. So instead of doing the interview with you, we went with the real talent, Alan Colmes. . . .

I invite you to come see for yourself and go anywhere in Iraq you want, go see what our forces are doing, go see what the other coalition forces are doing, go hang out with the reporters outside the International Zone since that is where they live and work and see for yourself what ground truth is so that you can be better informed. But that would take something you probably don't have.

Steve

Steven A. Boylan

Colonel, US Army

Public Affairs Officer

Everyone can decide for themselves if that sounds more like an apolitical, professional military officer or an overwrought right-wing blogger throwing around all sorts of angry, politically charged invective. Whatever else is true, it is rather odd that this was the sort of rhetoric Col. Boylan chose to invoke in service of his apparent goal of proving that there is nothing politicized about the U.S. military in Iraq.

As for the specifics of Col. Boylan's claims, such as they are, I'll simply note the following:

(1) Col. Boylan does not deny the central point of my post, because he cannot: namely, throughout the Beauchamp matter, the U.S. Army has copied almost exactly the standard model used by the Republican Party's political arm in trying to manage news for domestic consumption: namely, they deny access to the relevant information only they possess while selectively leaking it to the most extremist and partisan elements of the right-wing noise machine: in this case, the Drudge Report, Weekly Standard, and right-wing blogs.

As TNR's Franklin Foer wrote on Friday, the documents leaked by the Army to Drudge were the very same documents which TNR had repeatedly tried to obtain, but was denied access to them by the U.S. Army. As Foer documents, that is a continuation of a pattern that has repeated itself throughout this "controversy": namely, the Army blocks TNR from obtaining key information and then proceeds to leak it selectively to the most partisan appendages of the right-wing noise machine. That behavior, which Col. Boylan does not deny, by itself is rather compelling -- and self-evidently disturbing -- evidence of how politicized at least certain factions within the U.S. Army have become.

(2) Col. Boylan also does not deny, indeed says nothing about, the other vital piece of evidence I cited, one I believe to be even far more troubling than anything they have done in the Beauchamp case. Specifically, after months of boisterous accusations from right-wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and Charles Johnson that AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein's coverage of the war was sympathetic to Terrorists, the U.S. military detained the AP journalist with no charges (and, a year-and-a-half later, continues to detain him with no charges), refused to provide any information about this to the press (even including AP), but then leaked news of his detention to Michelle Malkin, who then blogged about it.

The evidence for all of this is abundant and was all linked in my original post. Those matters are far more significant and serious than any of the petty insults Col. Boylan hurled in his email, and I wish he had chosen to address those matters instead.

(3) As for Boylan's complaint that I published the prior emails we exchanged without his permission, that is nothing short of bizarre, though quite revealing. I'm not Tim Russert; therefore, I don't consider discussions with government officials presumptively confidential, to be used only if they give me permission. I honor (though try to avoid entering into) explicit agreements to keep communications off-the-record, but since Col. Boylan never requested that and I never agreed to that, it is absurd to suggest that I had some obligation to keep our communications secret.

We communicated as part of a matter of public interest about which I was writing -- namely, Gen. Petreaus' selection of blatant right-wing hacks as his interviewers. Of course I was going to write about the communications I had with his spokesman on that issue -- that was the whole point of my writing to him -- and unlike Tim Russert, I don't write about things I learn only after I first obtain the permission of government and military officials. The fact that Boylan expects journalists (or anyone else) to keep what he says a secret unless he gives permission speaks volumes about the state of our "political press."

(4) Most of Col. Boylan's claims of inaccuracy in what I wrote are grounded in his invention of "facts" that I did not assert. I never, for instance, said that Steve Schmidt (the Bush/Cheney P.R. flack and ex-Cheney "communications" aide) was currently on staff with the U.S. military in Iraq. Rather, I linked to an interview given to Hugh Hewitt by Mike Allen of The Politico, in which Allen reported that it was Schmidt who was sent to Iraq to improve the political efficacy of the U.S. military's war communications in Iraq:

HH: Why don't they put [Steve Schmidt] in charge of war message management, because the Bush White House is just not good at this.

MA: Right, and this is part of the talent drain that's occurring in this White House -

HH: Yeah.

MA: - because as you know, Steve was a very high official in the Vice President's office -

HH: Right.

MA: And he also went over to Iraq to look at the communications capabilities, and he came back with a number of recommendations about even some of the logistical things to help people get those stories out. Now I think the military's getting smarter about it, as you know. . . .

HH: Yeah.

MA: The military organized the O'Hanlon-Pollack tour, and I didn't know until I read your interview with Mike O'Hanlon that they'd had an interview with General Petraeus . . . .

HH: Right.

MA: That had not been reported before. That was very fascinating. But I think that shows you that the military's getting better at this.

The fact that the White House dispatched to Iraq a pure political hack -- the former Bush/Cheney '04 communications official -- to incorporate into the U.S. military those communications techniques is obvious evidence of the White House's deliberate effort to politicize the military's war communications.

Similarly, my reference to Gen. Bergner was linked to a report by The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin -- entitled "Bush's Baghdad Mouthpiece" -- which documents the numerous ways in which the claims of the U.S. military in Iraq have become more political ever since Bergner was dispatched by the White House to take over the military's messaging machine. While casting all sorts of aspersions about "inaccuracies," Boylan denies none of that, choosing instead to attack and deny statements I never made.

Many people, including myself, have documented in detail the palpably increased politicization of the military's war claims this year, ever since the "surge" began under Gen. Petraeus and former White House aide Gen. Bergner took over its communications arm. In this space, I have written about the incomparably propagandistic one-hour exclusive "interview" which Petraeus gave to Fox News' Brit Hume when he was in Washington to testify, as well as what Sen. Jim Webb calls (along with others) the highly coordinated "dog and pony shows" Gen. Petreaus has spent much time performing for the likes of Michael O'Hanlon. Moreover, Gen. Petraeus received a stern warning from GOP Sen. John Warner earlier this year for having made (with Joe Lieberman's prodding) blatantly political and inappropriate statements while testifying.

The leaks by someone in Col. Boylan's Army of highly sensitive documents to Matt Drudge is an extremely serious matter. The same is true for similar, prior leaks -- including ones containing apparently false information -- to The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, along with "exclusive interviews" given by the Army about Beauchamp to the hardest-core partisan right-wing bloggers.

I'm hardly the only one to observe that this behavior smacks of the sort of politicization that has infected all of our government agencies under this administration -- an infection that is far more disturbing and dangerous when the politicized arm in question is the U.S. military. As Think Progress reported the other day, the military had even been providing conference calls and other briefing sessions seemingly reserved exclusively for right-wing, pro-war bloggers (at least until TP's report). At Harper's, both Scott Horton and Ken Silverstein have previously detailed similar, highly inappropriate political steps taken this year by the U.S. military in Iraq.

I would think Col. Boylan would have more important matters to attend to than writing me emails about how Alan Colmes is the "real talent" and how I lack the balls to go visit him in Iraq -- beginning with finding out who has been working secretly with right-wing outlets in the Beauchamp and Bilal Hussein matters, if he does not already know. The linchpin of a republic under civilian rule -- as well as faith in the armed services by a cross-section of Americans -- is an apolitical military. Like all other branches of the government intended to be apolitical, this linchpin is eroding under this administration, and that ought to be of far greater concern to Boylan and Petraeus than hurling petty insults.

UPDATE: For obvious reasons, several commenters have questioned the authenticity of the e-mail. The email address from which it was sent is the same (iraq.centcom.mil) email address as Col. Boylan used to send his prior emails (not knowing if that address is public or private, I didn't include it in the full e-mail I published in order to prevent him from receiving a deluge of emails).

Additionally, all of the adornments (titles and pre-programmed signature lines and the like) and formatting are identical. Most convincingly (to me), Col. Boylan has, as I noticed during my prior email exchange with him, a -- how shall we say? -- idiosyncratic grammatical style that is quite recognizable though difficult to replicate, and the e-mail I received this morning -- from start to finish -- is written in exactly that style. I don't see any reason at all to doubt its authenticity.

UPDATE II: If you are well-versed in analyzing IP addresses, email headers and the like, please email me (GGreenwald@salon.com).

UPDATE III: The following email exchange has now ensued with Col. Boylan:

GG to Col. Boylan:

Col. Boylan - Could you just confirm that this email [email forwarded] is authentic, written by and sent from you?

Thanks -

Glenn Greenwald

Col. Boylan to GG:

Glenn,

Interesting email and no. Why do you ask?

Steven

GG to Col. Boylan:

Only because it comes from your email address, is written in your name, and bears all of the same distinguishing features as the last emails you sent to me:

steven.boylan@iraq.centcom.mil

Did you really not notice that?

Col. Boylan to GG:

Well, since they were on the web, not surprising. If you do a search on the web, you will also see that I have been a victim of identity theft of late in Vermont and at least two other places trying to rent property and that person identified themselves as me and thankfully the State Police were able to get in touch with me about it while I am sitting here in Baghdad.

GG to Col. Boylan:

Well isn't it of great concern to you that someone is able to send out emails using your military email address? Do you plan to look into that?

And you labelled the email I recieved "interesting." What does that mean? Do you agree with its content, have any comments about it?

I'll post more as I receive it. Anyone who would like to have forwarded to them a copy of the email I received originally can email me and I will send it. It contains exactly the same header information as Col. Boylan's emails to me from several months ago (Boylan, Steven COL MNF-I CMD GRP CG PAO (steven.boylan@iraq.centcom.mil) and, when one hits "reply," it sends to his email address. None of that was published "on the web," at least not by me. He seems awfully indifferent about the fact that someone is impersonating him, sending email from what certainly appears to be his official military email address.

Independently, all of my points regarding the politicization of the military still stand, and I'm happy for the opportunity to have written again about this under-discussed topic. If the email I received is not, in fact, from Col. Boylan, then the parts of this post regarding him specifically (and there were very few such parts) would obviously be retracted. But the substantive points about the behavior of the U.S. Army in the Beauchamp and other matters would not be altered in the slightest.

UPDATE IV: After a crash course in tracing email headers and IP addresses and the like, the following appears to be the tracking information for the original email I received this morning from the email Col. Boylan is claiming is fake:

Return-Path:

Received: from 02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil

(02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil [214.13.200.111]) by rich.salon.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id l9SBFSff004148 for ;

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:15:36 -0700

Received: from INTZEXEBHIZN01.iraq.centcom.mil ([10.70.20.11]) by 02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:15:05 +0300 Received: from INTZEXEVSIZN02.iraq.centcom.mil ([10.70.20.16]) by INTZEXEBHIZN01.iraq.centcom.mil with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:15:05 +0300

From: "Boylan, Steven COL MNF-I CMD GRP CG PAO"

To: (ggreenwald@salon.com)

X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 Oct 2007 11:15:05.0804 (UTC) FILETIME=[CAF430C0:01C81953]

The IP address -- 10.70.20.11 -- does not appear to be recognizable from various IP locator programs. Time zones appear to be different, but the IP address on the original email I received matches the IP address used to send to me the following: (a) the emails today from Col. Boylan denying that the original email was his; (b) the emails I received back in July from Col. Boylan regarding an interview with Gen. Petraeus; and (c) the forms sent to me [at Col. Boylan's request (though not at mine)] for a Media Embed Credentials form. All three of those sets of emails came from the same IP address -- 10.70.20.11 -- as the original email I received today, so clearly that is an IP address used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Here is the tracking information from the emails sent to me from Col. Boylan today denying the authenticity of the original email, which matches the prior ones I received from him back in July:

Return-Path: (steven.boylan@iraq.centcom.mil)

Received: from 02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil (02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil [214.13.200.111]) by rich.salon.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id l9SFwT1S017514

for (ggreenwald@salon.com); Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:58:33 -0700

Received: from INTZEXEBHIZN01.iraq.centcom.mil ([10.70.20.11]) by 02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:58:11 +0300

Received: from INTZEXEVSIZN02.iraq.centcom.mil ([10.70.20.16]) by INTZEXEBHIZN01.iraq.centcom.mil with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:58:11 +0300 Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:58:11 +0300

The IP addresses appear to be the same. There's a whole industry of IP address theories around and I'm the last person who is going to claim any expertise in that. I have no basis for claiming or suggesting that Col. Boylan is being anything but truthful in denying that he sent this email this morning. But all appearances -- including the IP address -- had the mark of authenticity, and I posted all relevant information, including his denials, as soon as I received them.

Finally, I received this email from Col. Boylan as I was writing this:

I am interested in this issue. What I am doing about it does not concern you. Interesting is what I find it.

Whether I agree with what the email says or not is not an issue I wish to discuss with you, as I decided after our last exchange that I would not take the time or efforts to engage with you.

Is there a reason why you posted this?

I'll just note again that he seems awfully blithe about the fact that someone is sending around emails in his name. Maybe he'd be willing to discuss with someone else the fact that someone seems to be sending out emails under his name, with his e-mail address, using his IP address. And the hostile attitude he is projecting here (which wasn't actually expressed this way in the last exchange I had with him back in July) does not seem all that different from -- actually, it seems quite similar to -- the original email which began today's process.

I'll continue to post all relevant information, from Col. Boylan and otherwise, and let everyone make up their own minds.

UPDATE V: The full, unedited email headers for every email I have ever received from Col. Boylan and/or MNF-Iraq is now published here. The IP address on each email is the same.

UPDATE VI: Several commenters and emailers have questioned whether Col. Boylan ever clearly denied having written the first email. To rectify that, I sent him the following email:

Just to be clear, since a lot of people are writing to say that it isn't: you do deny that you had anything to do with the sending of that first email that I sent to you at the start of this process today?

I have not received any reply, but will post one if and when I receive it.

UPDATE VII: Peter Boothe, a PhD student in the University of Oregon Computer Science Department, specializing in Internet topology, has published an analysis of the email tracking information and "conclude[d] that these two emails [the "fake" one and the real one] were written by the same person. Or, someone has hacked into the military infrastructure in an effort to discredit this one Colonel by sending cranky emails to bloggers. But one of the two, certainly."

I have received numerous emails from people with varying degrees of IP expertise, and there are numerous comments, suggesting the same thing. Some say that the information is inconclusive, but most reach the same conclusion Boothe has reached. I have nowhere near the knowledge necessary to form an opinion on any of that and offer this solely in the interest of enabling everyone to make up their own mind.

On a different note, John Cole highlights the key point here that should not be lost. Independent of the authenticity of the first email, Col. Boylan's subsequent emails to me were snide, hostile and nonresponsive ("What I am doing about it does not concern you"). Whatever else one might think about the views I have expressed, I don't think anyone can say I was anything but professional and civil in all of my interactions with him, yet his responses today were roughly the same as the ones encountered by The New Republic: arrogant and obstructionist stonewalling (Franklin Foer noted "a months-long pattern by which the Army has leaked information and misinformation to conservative bloggers while failing to help us with simple requests for documents").

As Cole notes, that behavior stands in stark contrast to the extremely eager and cooperative conduct in which they engage when passing on information to the right-wing blogs and pundits whose political views are apparently aligned with theirs. That takes us back to the first and most important point -- the U.S. military, which has an obligation to conduct itself apolitically and professionally, appears in many cases to be doing exactly the opposite.

UPDATE VIII: More here.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

EFPs Not Coming From Iran

More Bushlies for war

Explosive charge blows up in US's face
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - When the United States military command accused the Iranian Quds Force in January of providing the armor-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing US troops, it knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows.

The record also shows that the US command had considerable evidence that the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had received the technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah, rather than Iran.

The command, operating under close White House supervision, chose to deny these facts in making the dramatic accusation that became the main rationale for the present aggressive US stance toward Iran. Although the George W Bush administration initially limited the accusation to the Quds Force, it has recently begun to assert that top officials of the Iranian regime are responsible for arms that are killing US troops.

British and US officials observed from the beginning that the EFPs being used in Iraq closely resembled the ones used by Hezbollah against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, both in their design and the techniques for using them.

Hezbollah was known as the world's most knowledgeable specialists in EFP manufacture and use, having perfected this during the 1990s in the military struggle with Israeli forces in Lebanon. It was widely recognized that it was Hezbollah that had passed on the expertise to Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups after the second Intifada began in 2000.

US intelligence also knew that Hezbollah was conducting the training of Mahdi Army militants on EFPs. In August 2005, Newsday published a report from correspondent Mohammed Bazzi that Shi'ite fighters had begun in early 2005 to copy Hezbollah techniques for building the bombs, as well as for carrying out roadside ambushes, citing both Iraqi and Lebanese officials.

In late November 2006, a senior intelligence official told both CNN and the New York Times that Hezbollah troops had trained as many as 2,000 Mahdi Army fighters in Lebanon.

The fact that the Mahdi Army's major military connection has always been with Hezbollah rather than Iran would also explain the presence in Iraq of the PRG-29, a shoulder-fired anti-armor weapon. Although US military briefers identified it last February as being Iranian-made, the RPG-29 is not manufactured by Iran but by the Russian Federation.

According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, RPG-29s were imported from Russia by Syria, then passed on to Hezbollah, which used them with devastating effectiveness against Israeli forces in the 2006 war. According to a June 2004 report on the well-informed military website Strategypage.com, RPG-29s were already turning up in Iraq, "apparently smuggled across the Syrian border".

The earliest EFPs appearing in Iraq in 2004 were so professionally made that they were probably constructed by Hezbollah specialists, according to a detailed account by British expert Michael Knights in Jane's Intelligence Review last year.

By late 2005, however, the British command had already found clear evidence that the Iraqi Shi'ites themselves were manufacturing their own EFPs. British Army Major General J B Dutton told reporters in November 2005 that the bombs were of varying degrees of sophistication.

Some of the EFPs required a "reasonably sophisticated factory", he said, while others required only a simple workshop, which he observed, could only mean that some of them were being made inside Iraq.

After British convoys in Maysan province were attacked by a series of EFP bombings in late May 2006, Knights recounts, British forces discovered a factory making them in Majar al-Kabir north of Basra in June.

In addition, the US military also had its own forensic evidence by the autumn of 2006 that EFPs used against its vehicles had been manufactured in Iraq, according to Knights. He cites photographic evidence of EFP strikes on US armored vehicles that "typically shows a mixture of clean penetrations from fully-formed EFP and spattering ..." That pattern reflected the fact that the locally made EFPs were imperfect, some of them forming the required shape to penetrate but some of them failing to do so.

Then US troops began finding EFP factories. Journalist Andrew Cockburn reported in the Los Angeles Times in mid-February that US troops had raided a Baghdad machine shop in November 2006 and discovered "a pile of copper discs, five inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order".

In a report on February 23, NBC Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf quoted "senior military officials" as saying that US forces had "been finding an increasing number of the advanced roadside bombs being not just assembled but manufactured in machine shops here".

Nevertheless, the Bush administration decided to put the blame for the EFPs squarely on the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, after Bush agreed in autumn 2006 to target the Quds Force within Iran to make Iranian leaders feel vulnerable to US power. The allegedly exclusive Iranian manufacture of EFPs was the administration's only argument for holding the Quds Force responsible for their use against US forces.

At the February 11 military briefing presenting the case for this claim, one of the US military officials declared, "The explosive charges used by Iranian agents in Iraq need a special manufacturing process, which is available only in Iran." The briefer insisted that there was no evidence that they were being made in Iraq.

That lynchpin of the administration's EFP narrative began to break down almost immediately, however. On February 23, NBC's Arraf confronted Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who had been out in front in January promoting the new Iranian EFP line, with the information she had obtained from other senior military officials that an increasing number of machine shops manufacturing EFPs had been discovered by US troops.

Odierno began to walk the Iranian EFP story back. He said the EFPs had "started to come from Iran", but he admitted "some of the technologies" were "probably being constructed here".

The following day, US troops found yet another EFP factory near Baqubah, with copper discs that appeared to be made with a high degree of precision, but which could not be said with any certainty to have originated in Iran.

The explosive expert who claimed at the February briefing that EFPs could only be made in Iran was then made available to the New York Times to explain away the new find. Major Marty Weber now backed down from his earlier statement and admitted that there were "copy cat" EFPs being machined in Iraq that looked identical to those allegedly made in Iran to the untrained eye.

Weber insisted that such Iraqi-made EFPs had slight imperfections which made them "much less likely to pierce armor". But NBC's Arraf had reported the previous week that a senor military official had confirmed to her that the EFPs made in Iraqi shops were indeed quite able to penetrate US armor. The impact of those weapons "isn't as clean", the official said, but they are "almost as effective" as the best-made EFPs.

The idea that only Iranian EFPs penetrate armor would be a surprise to Israeli intelligence, which has reported that EFPs manufactured by Hamas guerrillas in their own machine shops during 2006 had penetrated eight inches of Israeli steel armor in four separate incidents in September and November, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Center in Tel Aviv.

The Arraf story was ignored by the news media, and the Bush administration has continued to assert the Iranian EFP charge as though it had never been questioned.

It soon became such an accepted part of the media narrative on Iran and Iraq that the only issue about which reporters bother to ask questions is whether the top leaders of the Iranian government have approved the alleged Quds Force operation.

Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.

(Inter Press Service)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Forget Impeachment, Bring on The Straight Jacket

Or so saith the amusing while sickening article below.

Normally, I would agree, but these people don't believe in psychiatric treatment and, therefore, would probably not be what any one could call compliant. BushCo doesn't do compliant, even when they take an oath to to so.

Actually we do have something on the books for just such an occasion as this. It's called the 25th amendment. The problem is, the cabinet would have to institute it and they are apparently just as NUTZ as the big two.

But, given the reports of late, that Gates and Rice are trying to hold off Cheney and his War lusting NeoCons, we might have signs of sanity. The sane, if there really are any, might want to think about what their duties to the country and the constitution are now, before all hell breaks loose and they find themselves in the crosshairs of the angry masses, right along with Junior and the Dick

Straitjacket Bush

The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really.

October 25, 2007

Forget impeachment.

Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.

Because they've clearly gone mad.

Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.

That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."

Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.

Writing in Newsweek on Oct. 20, Fareed Zakaria, a solid centrist and former editor of Foreign Affairs, put it best. Citing Bush's invocation of "the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon," Zakaria concluded that "the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland's. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?"

Planet Cheney.

Zakaria may be misinterpreting the president's remark about World War III though. He saw it as a dangerously loopy Bush prediction about the future behavior of a nuclear Iran -- the idea being, presumably, that possessing "the knowledge" to make a nuclear weapon would so empower Iran's repressive leaders that they'll giddily rush out and start World War III.

But you could read Bush's remark as a madman's threat rather than a madman's prediction -- as a warning to recalcitrant states, from Germany to Russia, that don't seem to share his crazed obsession with Iran. The message: Fall into line with administration policy toward Iran or you can count on the U.S.A. to try to start World War III on its own. And when it comes to sparking global conflagration, a U.S. attack on Iran might be just the thing. Yee haw!

You'd better believe these guys would do it too. Why not? They have nothing to lose -- they're out of office in 15 months anyway. Après Bush-Cheney, le déluge! (Have fun, Hillary.)

But all this creates a conundrum. What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles?

The U.S. is full of ordinary people with serious forms of mental illness -- delusional people with violent fantasies who think they're the president, or who think they get instructions from the CIA through their dental fillings.

The problem with Bush is that he is the president -- and he gives instructions to the CIA and military, without having to go through his dental fillings.

Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant. But despite their impressive foresight in other areas, the framers unaccountably neglected to include an involuntary civil commitment procedure in the Constitution.

Still, don't lose hope. By enlisting the aid of mental health professionals and the court system, Congress can act to remedy that constitutional oversight. The goal: Get Bush and Cheney committed to an appropriate inpatient facility, where they can get the treatment they so desperately need. In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization."

I'll even serve on the jury. When it comes to averting World War III, it's really the least I can do.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Remember The Fake Presser By FEMA? You Won't Believe This!

Actually, the great sadness of it all is that you all probably will believe it, easily.

The Bushites are so arrogant and non-caring at this point, they don't even try to cover up anything anymore. No, not even such anti-democracy, totalitarian, Old-Soviet-Union-type bullshit as this.

The thing is, when the idiots do something like this and Pravda on the Potomac is insinuating that Al Qaeda, or somebody very much like them, set California on fire (seriously, they actually did just that!)it makes us all wonder what is really going on.

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran?

From Think Progress -

On Tuesday, while “wildfires raged” in California, FEMA staged a live press conference at which agency staffers posed as journalists and asked softball questions. One of those staffers, Director of External Affairs John “Pat” Philbin, has now resigned. He has instead landed an “amazing opportunity” to head public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

But, look at this!

Fucking WOW!

Makes sense, though, in a Bushite sort of way. They don't need no damn intelligence on Iran, coz they plan on doing just what they damn well please, even if it kills us all, or worse. So why not promote this lying fucker to Intelligence? What we, the people, don't know won't hurt us, much.

My question is, when is this fiasco going to start hurting the ones it ought to be hurting. Who might that be, you ask? Follow the god-damned money and remember this little fucker's name.

UPDATE: Philbin didn't get the job at the DNI. Not even the medal of honor.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

For BushCo: Mission Accomplished

Greg Palast in Chicago on October 27th at an Event Sponsored by BuzzFlash.com: Toward the end of the Clinton Administration the Price of a Barrel of Oil was Below $20, Now It Has Reached an All-Time Record of More than $90 a Barrel. As Far as Bush and Cheney are Concerned, Mission Accomplished.

A BUZZFLASH ALERT

Speaking before a full crowd in Chicago on Saturday evening, October 27, the indefatigable investigative reporter Greg Palast challenged the conventional wisdom that the Iraq War is a failure for Cheney and Bush.

Palast, of course, agrees that it is a disaster from the perspective of loss of life and a prodigious waste of dollars -- and that it is harmful to the national interests of the United States. But, he contends that from the perspective of Cheney and Bush the war has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Why?

Because, Iraq has become a huge "profit center" for American corporations due to the privatization of the war. Halliburton and Blackwater are only the most visible examples of rampant profiteering, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.

In short, as Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman have also contended, the Iraq War (and the impending Iran attack) are market expansion initiatives for the corporate backers of the Republican Party -- and the most basic economic outlook at the highest levels of the GOP: America is the sole superpower and deserves to assert -- at its will -- its market dominance for the benefit of its corporations.

Once again, that's not to say that terrorists don't exist; it's to simply recognize that they are being used as an excuse to seize new markets -- and to put the hard-earned tax dollars of middle income Americans into the profit column of large "no-bid" contracts for corporations who are the financial backbone of the GOP.

This is not a radical theory; it's actually the reality in Iraq.

This might explain a recent column that BuzzFlash posted from of all places the FOX "News" website by one of their military analysts, Col. David Hunt .

This was the headline that BuzzFlash posted on the October 23rd column:

Red Alert. This is From a FOX "News" Analyst of All People: "We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys — now, pull the damn trigger. Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden. You cannot make this crap up; truth is always stranger and more telling than fiction. Our government, the current administration and yes, our military leaders included, failed to kill bin Laden for no other reason than incompetence." Of course, there is the distinct possibility that the White House doesn't want Osama dead. They need him alive as a bogeyman to scare up Americans. 10/26

Okay, so why would the Bush Administration, on multiple occasions, not pursue the chance to take Osama bin Laden out?

Because, as Thom Hartmann observed when BuzzFlash was recently on his program, the Bush-Cheney crowd needs him as a bogeyman. In order to achieve the corporate profiteering goals of the GOP, you need a distraction to keep Americans from figuring out the sleight of hand that is going on -- and nothing distracts people like fear for their lives.

Patriotic Americans -- true patriots, not the cognac swilling, cigar smoking shills in the right wing echo chamber (bought, owned and salaried by the corporations getting fat off the hog under the Busheviks) -- should be daily reminded that demagoguery is the means by which the Republican Party has maintained control of the terms of the debate over the Iraq War and the impending air attacks on Iran.

It is a primal emotion to fear for your life against people who would do it harm. Giuliani is the symbolic and Bushevik-backed heir to the cudgel of 9/11 used by the demagogues to fatten the pockets of their corporate backers. (Remember that Giuliani's police chief and short-lived Homeland Security Chief appointment by Bush was the mobbed-up and corrupt Bernard Kerik.)

Palast also argues that the goal of the Bush Adminsitration is not to seize the Iraq and Iran oil fields to make more of the black gold available, but rather to control the output so that supply is limited in order to raise the profits of the oil companies. Since Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq, the price of oil has skyrocketed and the oil corporations have pocketed billions and billions of dollars in record windfall profits.

The goal of the Bush Republican Party is not to protect us from terrorism, but rather to use terrorism to advance their international and domestic economic agenda.

That is truly a Halloween frightfest of potential catastrophic proportions.

(Palast spoke at a special event sponsored by BuzzFlash.com and co-sponsored by WCPT (850am), progressive radio in Chicago. The evening was hosted by Columbia College.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Rudy G: 4 More Years of Laughable Lies

At least they would be laughable if there had not been so many deaths on 9/11 and if we were not facing so any more, both here and abroad, thanks to BushCo's Protection Racket/War on Turr

MSNBC: Leaked memos show Giuliani's ignorance of terrorism before 9/11

10/26/2007 @ 8:19 am

Filed by Mike Aivaz and Muriel Kane

David Shuster, substituting for Keith Olbermann as host of Countdown, reported on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani's description of himself as the only candidate who foresaw the danger posed by al Qaeda before 9/11 has now been refuted by a leaked document.

I suppose that' why he put the city's disaster command center in WTC 7, knowing full well that the world trade center was a huge target, as it had been hit before and was right in the middle of the financial center

Typical of Giuliani's claims on the campaign trail is a speech he gave last summer in which he said of the pre-9/11 period, "Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it. ... I thought it was pretty clear at the time -- but a lot of people didn't see it, couldn't see it."

No one knew about bin Laden's declaration of war because it, maybe, got one mention on the news, which was, at the time, focused on something they considered far more important: The presidential penis. But, Bush knew and so did Cheney. They all knew because they had been told, dozens of times by everyone from Putin to Mubarak to some guy in a phone booth in Jamaica. They knew. Are you saying that they didn't bother to tell you?

Wayne Barrett, a reporter for New York's Village Voice and author of Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, has now obtained leaked memos describing Giuliani's testimony before the 9/11 Commission which directly contradict that claim.

Surprise, surprise!!

Barrett told Shuster that taken as a whole, Giuliani's testimony "was a confession of ignorance. He basically said, 'I knew nothing about al Qaeda.'"

For example, Giuliani acknowledged that even though he had received information on threats between 1998 and 2001, "At the time I had no idea it was al Qaeda." He further told the commission that after 9/11, "we brought in people to brief us on al Qaeda. ... We had nothing like this pre 9/11, which was a mistake."

Does it really matter what they call themselves? What seems obvious is that you were warned, mainly by the Clinton administration, which did manage to thwart the plot for new years 2000.

Giuliani's testimony, like that of other witnesses describing New York City's response on 9/11, was supposed to remain secret until after the 2008 presidential election.

This is the kind of thing that makes my head explode. Why should anyone's testimony be kept secret, allowing the American electorate to remain ignorant about the very people who either are there leaders or wish to be. Who gets to decide that testimony will BE kept secret from the people? The fact that the people are kept in the dark and lied to left and right about who these people are who want to be leaders in this country is exactly what got us in the mess in which we find ourselves.

Barrett also emphasized Giuliani's continuing ignorance of technological systems involved in the fight against terrorism. As late as April 2004, when he testified before the commission, Giuliani admitted that he didn't know much about a New York Police Department system called ComStat -- which he's now saying he'd like to see extended nationwide. He was also unable to answer questions about the malfunctioning radios which caused many deaths among firefighters or about a repeater installed in the World Trade Center after the 1993 bombing to amplify radio communications.

"He still wasn't studying the response issues," Barrett said.

He didn't give a crap, until it was clear that he had managed to cover up enough to be able too run for president in 2008.

Poor Rudy G. What he apparently didn't count on is that we would keep our mouths shut about what we know and are still uncovering until the GOP selects him as their standard bearer.

My God, is he in for a surprise.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Only Bush Could Make A Hug, Just Another Lie

Though the author of this seemingly serious piece of hogwash apparently believes that Bush's manly, enthusiastic hugs seem sincere, I don't. How can anyone think anything about George W Bush is sincere, unless one counts insanity; as in sincerely insane.

After NOLA, I have to turn my head or hit the clicker quick when I see him start to go in for the clinch. It's sickening.

Who does he think he is; Jesus, walking on water? Ever since Katrina, he has been racing around the country bringing healing hugs to victims of all kinds of catastrophes,, none of which he could be easily blamed, burning fuel we can ill afford these days, thanks to that god-damned war of his in Iraq, which is about to spin out of control, threatening us all with much worse than a wild-fire.

I'd hate to think what I would do to this president, if my house was 6 feet under water or turned to cinders, with gas prices about to top $100/barrel , if he showed up in by drive way, having just spent over $40,000 of the tax-payers money for a photo op that isn't going to do anyone a whit of good to give me a hug.

Let me just say, it would be much worse than the pretzel incident.

What a jackass.! He would do well to stay the hell away from me, even on a good day.

Bush the Embracer

Interpreting the Presidential Hug

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 27, 2007; C01

The wildfires in Southern California this week have served to remind the world once more about one of the singular and underappreciated skills of George W. Bush: The man is a generous hugger.

There he was, amid the charred remains of some formerly upscale neighborhood, embracing the weary and the dazed victims of the fire. He made a little speech as one of the unfortunate locals was snuggled up to his side, his arm clinching her close. The gesture suggested strength, solidarity, compassion. The resident looked almost reassured.

Long after his presidency is history, some of the most memorable images of Bush's years in office will involve hugs. Flip through the mental photo album: Bush, standing on that legendary rubble pile on Sept. 14, 2001, one arm vise-clamping a firefighter, the other gripping a bullhorn; Bush, in New Orleans and Mississippi, handing out embraces like the Red Cross hands out relief supplies; Bush, at Virginia Tech, hugging the relatives of 32 murdered students.

For a president who doesn't necessarily come across as a touchy-feely guy, he sure does touch a lot. In just the past six months, according to a database search, he has hugged hundreds of people in public: the families of dead firefighters and police officers; the parents of a posthumous Medal of Honor winner; workers at a Nashville bread company; the mayor of Huntsville, Ala.; the jockey who rode the winning horse at the Kentucky Derby; the survivors of a Kansas tornado; departing political mastermind Karl Rove; press secretary Dana Perino. He touches nobodies and world leaders alike.

Like most everything the president does, Bush's hugs come fraught with symbolic meaning. Photos and video of him embracing (or being embraced by; it's not entirely clear) then-Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) and Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) became fodder for Daschle and Lieberman's political opponents. Bush's embrace of an Ohio teenager whose mother had died in the 9/11 attacks became the centerpiece of an emotional campaign ad (funded by a conservative group) in October 2004.

Who hugged this often, this freely, this (seemingly) sincerely while in the White House? Bill Clinton was certainly a copious hugger, but his public displays of affection will forever be overshadowed by a single hug -- that tape-loop of his embrace of Monica Lewinsky at a rally. Richard Nixon's two most famous hugs -- his awkward semi-grapple with Sammy Davis Jr. and his iconic embrace of his wife, Pat, on the day of his resignation -- were the stuff not of uplift but of comedy and tragedy.

Bush the Elder? Yes, Dad could hug it out, but he did so stiffly and tentatively, as if he were still mastering a strange new custom. Did Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan hug? They may have, but not so you'd remember. LBJ could hug with menace. Ford and Kennedy? Eisenhower? No. And no way.

Journalistic skepticism compels us to note that presidential hugs usually are photo ops, staged for the cameras and calculated to deliver the prepackaged sentiment, as Bush 41 once put it, "Message: I care." But the visual evidence also compels us to remark that Bush 43's hugs are among the least stage-y of his mannerisms. There's an athletic, energetic, almost muscular quality to them. They seem, in a word, genuine.

This is something that many men -- at least many men of Bush's background and generation -- have long found difficult. Hugging, particularly hugging another man, is the kind of casual yet intimate PDA that such men shy from. It's acceptable with family members, and on formal occasions, like weddings and funerals, or if you've just won the Super Bowl. But let's not push it.

To these men, hugging suggests an excessive degree of emotion and physical intimacy, both of which violate the macho code (admittedly, this code" varies among different groups). The complicated male attitude toward hugging was once perfectly distilled by another Texan, the animated Hank Hill on "King of the Hill." Overjoyed by something his often-disappointing son has done, the uptight Hank exclaims, "Bobby, if you weren't my son, I'd hug you."

As Hugger in Chief, of course, Bush enjoys the advantage of power and privilege. As a rule, says David Givens, who runs the Spokane, Wash.-based Center for Nonverbal Studies, people of "higher status" can touch others without consequence, but the reverse is not true. Touch, he says, is of particular value to an unpopular president such as Bush. "A lot of people mistrust his words," Givens says, "but it's hard to fake the meaning of a handshake or an embrace. It's more trustworthy. [Touch] is an ancient form of communication that goes back further than words."

Leave it to Junior to turn even these usually hard to fake intimate displays of affection and compassion into presidential, political hogwash

Not all presidential hugs, however, are created equal. Natural disasters lend themselves to the comforting embrace, but not so the battlefield or military cemetery. Bush, like other modern wartime presidents, is less frequently photographed hugging wounded troops or their bereaved.

Perhaps that's considered too intimate an image for public consumption. Or perhaps it's simply too far off-message for any White House, raising uncomfortable questions about cause and effect.

In other words, for even as compulsive a hugger as George Bush, there may be some things any president would rather not embrace.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Rummy Charged In France. (From The Ironicle Files)

The French Police Should have arrested him the minute he stepped of the plane.

Rummy is so damned arrogant, he knows they will do nothing. Who dares mess with Bushland?

Rumsfeld hit with torture lawsuit while visiting Paris

10/26/2007 @ 11:58 am

Filed by Jason Rhyne

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's jaunt to France was interrupted today by an unscheduled itinerary item -- he was slapped with a criminal complaint charging him with torture.

Rumsfeld, in Paris for a discussion sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy, was tracked down by representatives of a coalition of international human rights groups, who informed the architect of the US invasion of Iraq that they had submitted a torture suit against him in French court.

The filed documents allege that during his tenure, the former defense secretary "ordered and authorized" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The head of one of the groups responsible for bringing the charges, the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights, told RAW STORY today by phone that the suit was a long time coming.

"We've been working on cornering Rumsfeld and getting him indicted somewhere going on three years now," said the Center's president, Michael Ratner. "Four days ago, we got confidential information he was going to be in France."

Joined by activists, attorneys for the human rights groups caught up with Rumsfeld on his way to a breakfast meeting. "He was walking down the street with just one person," said Ratner.

"Around 20 campaigners gave Rumsfeld a rowdy welcome...yelling 'murderer,' waving a banner and trying to push into the building," reports AFP.

Ratner, who wasn't personally at the scene, says his sources told him that the former defense secretary made some pre-scheduled remarks at the meeting before ducking through a door leading to the US Embassy.

According to Ratner, France has a legal responsibility under international law to prosecute Rumsfeld for torture abuses.

"If a torturer comes into your territory," he said, "there's an obligation to either prosecute the person or return him to a place where he will be prosecuted."

The rights groups notably cite three memorandums signed by the defense secretary between October 2002 and April 2003 "legimitizing the use of torture" including the "hooding" of detainees, sleep deprivation and the use of dogs.

Although his group has been a part of previous attempts to bring charges against Rumsfeld, including two former tries in Germany, Ratner believes French court has the highest chance of success.

"There are Guantananamo detainees who were tortured that are living in France," he said. "It gives French courts another reason to prosecute."

Ratner says Europe is "getting very hot for Rumsfeld," and suggests a French court could at least issue its version of a subpoena.

"We hope that this case will move forward," he said, "especially as the US says it can continue to torture people."

Other groups involved in the complaint include the International Federation of Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

More details about the lawsuit are available at the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.