Army officer says Gitmo panels flawed
By BEN FOX,
Associated Press Writer
Fri Jun 22, 7:33 PM ET
An Army officer with a key role in the U.S. military hearings at Guantanamo Bay says they relied on vague and incomplete intelligence and were pressured to declare detainees "enemy combatants," often without any specific evidence.
His affidavit, released Friday, is the first criticism by a member of the military panels that determine whether detainees will continue to be held.
Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence who is an Army reserve officer and a California lawyer, said military prosecutors were provided with only "generic" material that didn't hold up to the most basic legal challenges.
Despite repeated requests, intelligence agencies arbitrarily refused to provide specific information that could have helped either side in the tribunals, according to Abraham, who said he served as a main liaison between the Combat Status Review Tribunals and those intelligence agencies.
"What were purported to be specific statements of fact lacked even the most fundamental earmarks of objectively credible evidence," Abraham said in the affidavit, filed in a Washington appeals court on behalf of a Kuwaiti detainee, Fawzi al-Odah, who is challenging his classification as an "enemy combatant."
The Pentagon had no immediate comment, but a spokesman said Defense Department officials were preparing a response to the affidavit.
An attorney for al-Odah, David Cynamon, said Abraham "bravely" agreed to provide the affidavit when defense lawyers contacted him.
"It proves what we all suspected, which is that the CSRTs were a complete sham," Cynamon said.
Matthew J. MacLean, another al-Odah lawyer, said Abraham is the first member of a Combat Status Review Tribunal panel who has been identified, let alone been willing to criticize the tribunals in the public record.
"It wouldn't be quite right to say this is the most important piece of evidence that has come out of the CSRT process, because this is the only piece of evidence ever to come out of the CSRT process," MacLean said. "It's our only view into the CSRT."
Abraham said he first raised his concerns when he was on active duty with the Defense Department agency in charge of the tribunal process from September 2004 to March 2005 and felt the issues were not adequately addressed. He said he decided his only recourse was to submit the affidavit.
"I pointed out nothing less than facts, facts that can and should be fixed," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his office in Newport Beach, Calif.
The 46-year-old lawyer, who remains in the reserves, said he believe he had a responsibility to point out that officers "did not have the proper tools" to determine whether a detainee was in fact an enemy combatant.
"I take very seriously my responsibility, my duties as a citizen," he said.
Cynamon said he fears the officer's military future could be in jeopardy. "For him to do this was a courageous thing but it's probably an assurance of career suicide," he said.
The military held Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 558 detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and 2005, with handcuffed detainees appearing before panels made up of three officers. Detainees had a military "personal representative" instead of a defense attorney, and all but 38 were determined to be "enemy combatants."
Abraham was asked to serve on one of the panels, and he said its members felt strong pressure to find against the detainee, saying there was "intensive scrutiny" when they declared a prisoner not to be an enemy combatant. When his panel decided the detainee wasn't an "enemy combatant," they were ordered to reconvene to hear more evidence, he said.
Ultimately, his panel held its ground, and he was never asked to participate in another tribunal, he said.
In April, the Supreme Court declined to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement.
Lawyers for the detainees have asked the justices to reconsider and included Abraham's affidavit in a filing made Friday. The administration opposes the request.
___
Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this report.
(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.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The New Media: It's About Time!
Does anyone still watch Tucker?
I, personally, have enough crap in my life without Mr. Carlson.
June 22, 2007
CIA Skeletons, The Mortal Sins of Dick Cheney, The Nobility Of Al Gore
(Brent Budowsky)
@ 3:46 pm
Soon, CIA Director Michael Hayden will release documents that describe major misdeeds of the CIA in darker days, after General Antonio Taguba went public in The New Yorker with charges of an Abu Ghraib cover-up.
A great and noble debate will begin in America. Revelations about past and current misdeeds will bring into focus what went wrong in the Iraq war, and why opponents of these policies are voices of American patriotism.
In a recent show Tucker Carlson and a “pundit” ridiculed and demeaned Al Gore. Rather than discussing the profound points he was making in his new book The Assault on Reason, they engaged in cheap ad hominem attacks on Gore as “over the top” and “rage-filled.”
Gore is brilliantly challenging not only policies that violate American principles. He challenges the institutional power structures that corrupt our national debate, have led America into a catastrophic war, and account for collapsing credibility of both political and media elites.
Gore is not the voice of rage; he is the voice of hope, and the leading conviction politician in America whose playing field far transcends conventional politics. Gore leads the fight against global warming and institutions of power, led by big oil, and the corruptions that perpetuate that power.
Gore brilliantly communicates through motion picture documentary, Academy Awards, a global concert reaching 2 million people, and a possible Nobel Peace Prize, while he moves the market with venture capital.
Far more than any national Democrat, Gore is directly challenging the political elites of the status quo that led to the Iraq war, the media elites that became complicit in it, the political elites that defend it, and the character attacks of demeaning and insulting those who oppose it.
Within days, the CIA’s dirty laundry from the darker days will become public, and Americans will connect what happened then with today.
First we read General Taguba charging a cover-up that protected higher-ups in the Abu Ghraib crimes. Soon we will read about how crimes of the past were committed through wrongdoing covered up by secrecy. Today we read about the vice president’s latest attempt to place himself above the law with secrecy in violation of the rules.
America is not the torture nation. From George Washington rejecting torture as commander of the Continental Army to Justice Jackson’s summation at Nuremberg, America has always stood for the highest values of the rule of law and decency.
From the beginning, Dick Cheney has rejected the standards initiated by General Washington, accepted today by commanders throughout every branch of the military services. He rejects the common belief of all of the great religions, except the spiritual advisers to terrorists, that certain acts of barbarism and torture are simply wrong.
While Al Gore’s extraordinary leadership on global warming is profound, and his opposition to the Iraq war from the beginning was wise, his sweeping defense of the Bill of Rights, his honoring of the Constitution, and his objection to torture and barbarism are equally profound.
America has tried Dick Cheney’s way and we have now seen the results. What is most important about the Cheney way is that these are not matters of mere disagreement; these are matters of high principle, high honor and basic Americanism.
These are deviations from time-honored American values, born from fanaticism, promoted through fear, outside the bounds of law and Constitution, protected through falsehood and secrecy, promoted by insults and slanders, too often given legitimacy by major media, deadly to our troops, disastrous to our country, alien to America.
In this perverted world, war hero Democrats are called unpatriotic, while those who level the charge perpetuate scandals of wounded troops and disrespect toward disabled vets.
Those who hide behind the skirt of secrecy for actions that violate the Constitution, the law, and the Code of Military Justice are usually those who never served in the military. They are ignorant of military strategy and contemptuous of military values.
Those of us who oppose these practices speak for the overwhelming majority of our people, speak for the historic traditions of our military, reflect the private views of our commanders, and stand with the traditions of the great religions. Yet the mass media regularly repeat the litany of lies, insults and propaganda against those who speak truth with patriotism.
In my June 20 op-ed in The Hill titled “New politics, new media, new majority,” I suggested, as Al Gore does, that integral to our democratic society are the means of communication that reflect the diversity of our democracy.
Set aside that women (the majority of voters, people and consumers) are excluded from the cable news host lineup. Set aside that Hispanics are completely excluded from the mass media political host lineup (though the object of countless background shots about immigration).
Set aside that progressives who represent far more people than the political right are largely treated as though they don’t exist in the host lineup of the three cable “news” networks.
Set aside that blacks who represent large numbers of Americans are not permitted to be prime-time cable hosts, and forced to endure indignities, until one host made one too many insulting and demeaning comments.
The Bible says the last shall be first. What will happen, I predict, is that the huge numbers of patriotic Americans who have turned to alternative news and activist sources will mobilize and organize into new media and political alignments.
2006 was only the beginning.
This phenomenon of insulting and demeaning majority constituencies will be overpowered by a new phenomenon equal to the impact of the FDR revolution that paralleled the rise of radio, and the Kennedy years that paralleled the rise of network television. The driving power of the Internet, coupled with progressive radio, will further empower each other and lead to dramatic changes in television.
Stay tuned for more next week.
For now, check out the new news sources that will be essential to this transformation, which include Mark Karlin and buzzflash.com; Rob Kall and opednews.com, Bob Parry and consortiumnews.com, Carolyn Kay and makethemaccountable.com, Jeff Tiedrich and smirkingchimp.com, and progressive publicists such as Ilene Proctor, who is a force you want on your side.
Add these powers to mydd, Daily Kos, moveon, digby and other conviction-politics centers and the power of the movement comes into focus.
There is no cable news show on earth that has the power to build an audience as large as these forces, when they converge.
These sources are as essential as Matt Drudge for those who want to know what will be in the news tomorrow, what will happen in 2008.
Predictions: Stephanie Miller will be the next cable star combining progressive Internet with talk radio. Ed Schultz will surpass Rush in every major market. Air America will stage a major comeback. Rupert Murdoch will have to make the biggest decision of his political television career (that’s my teaser for next week).
If you doubt this, look at the ratings for Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann. Or ask George Allen and Rick Santorum.
Stay tuned.
(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.
I, personally, have enough crap in my life without Mr. Carlson.
June 22, 2007
CIA Skeletons, The Mortal Sins of Dick Cheney, The Nobility Of Al Gore
(Brent Budowsky)
@ 3:46 pm
Soon, CIA Director Michael Hayden will release documents that describe major misdeeds of the CIA in darker days, after General Antonio Taguba went public in The New Yorker with charges of an Abu Ghraib cover-up.
A great and noble debate will begin in America. Revelations about past and current misdeeds will bring into focus what went wrong in the Iraq war, and why opponents of these policies are voices of American patriotism.
In a recent show Tucker Carlson and a “pundit” ridiculed and demeaned Al Gore. Rather than discussing the profound points he was making in his new book The Assault on Reason, they engaged in cheap ad hominem attacks on Gore as “over the top” and “rage-filled.”
Gore is brilliantly challenging not only policies that violate American principles. He challenges the institutional power structures that corrupt our national debate, have led America into a catastrophic war, and account for collapsing credibility of both political and media elites.
Gore is not the voice of rage; he is the voice of hope, and the leading conviction politician in America whose playing field far transcends conventional politics. Gore leads the fight against global warming and institutions of power, led by big oil, and the corruptions that perpetuate that power.
Gore brilliantly communicates through motion picture documentary, Academy Awards, a global concert reaching 2 million people, and a possible Nobel Peace Prize, while he moves the market with venture capital.
Far more than any national Democrat, Gore is directly challenging the political elites of the status quo that led to the Iraq war, the media elites that became complicit in it, the political elites that defend it, and the character attacks of demeaning and insulting those who oppose it.
Within days, the CIA’s dirty laundry from the darker days will become public, and Americans will connect what happened then with today.
First we read General Taguba charging a cover-up that protected higher-ups in the Abu Ghraib crimes. Soon we will read about how crimes of the past were committed through wrongdoing covered up by secrecy. Today we read about the vice president’s latest attempt to place himself above the law with secrecy in violation of the rules.
America is not the torture nation. From George Washington rejecting torture as commander of the Continental Army to Justice Jackson’s summation at Nuremberg, America has always stood for the highest values of the rule of law and decency.
From the beginning, Dick Cheney has rejected the standards initiated by General Washington, accepted today by commanders throughout every branch of the military services. He rejects the common belief of all of the great religions, except the spiritual advisers to terrorists, that certain acts of barbarism and torture are simply wrong.
While Al Gore’s extraordinary leadership on global warming is profound, and his opposition to the Iraq war from the beginning was wise, his sweeping defense of the Bill of Rights, his honoring of the Constitution, and his objection to torture and barbarism are equally profound.
America has tried Dick Cheney’s way and we have now seen the results. What is most important about the Cheney way is that these are not matters of mere disagreement; these are matters of high principle, high honor and basic Americanism.
These are deviations from time-honored American values, born from fanaticism, promoted through fear, outside the bounds of law and Constitution, protected through falsehood and secrecy, promoted by insults and slanders, too often given legitimacy by major media, deadly to our troops, disastrous to our country, alien to America.
In this perverted world, war hero Democrats are called unpatriotic, while those who level the charge perpetuate scandals of wounded troops and disrespect toward disabled vets.
Those who hide behind the skirt of secrecy for actions that violate the Constitution, the law, and the Code of Military Justice are usually those who never served in the military. They are ignorant of military strategy and contemptuous of military values.
Those of us who oppose these practices speak for the overwhelming majority of our people, speak for the historic traditions of our military, reflect the private views of our commanders, and stand with the traditions of the great religions. Yet the mass media regularly repeat the litany of lies, insults and propaganda against those who speak truth with patriotism.
In my June 20 op-ed in The Hill titled “New politics, new media, new majority,” I suggested, as Al Gore does, that integral to our democratic society are the means of communication that reflect the diversity of our democracy.
Set aside that women (the majority of voters, people and consumers) are excluded from the cable news host lineup. Set aside that Hispanics are completely excluded from the mass media political host lineup (though the object of countless background shots about immigration).
Set aside that progressives who represent far more people than the political right are largely treated as though they don’t exist in the host lineup of the three cable “news” networks.
Set aside that blacks who represent large numbers of Americans are not permitted to be prime-time cable hosts, and forced to endure indignities, until one host made one too many insulting and demeaning comments.
The Bible says the last shall be first. What will happen, I predict, is that the huge numbers of patriotic Americans who have turned to alternative news and activist sources will mobilize and organize into new media and political alignments.
2006 was only the beginning.
This phenomenon of insulting and demeaning majority constituencies will be overpowered by a new phenomenon equal to the impact of the FDR revolution that paralleled the rise of radio, and the Kennedy years that paralleled the rise of network television. The driving power of the Internet, coupled with progressive radio, will further empower each other and lead to dramatic changes in television.
Stay tuned for more next week.
For now, check out the new news sources that will be essential to this transformation, which include Mark Karlin and buzzflash.com; Rob Kall and opednews.com, Bob Parry and consortiumnews.com, Carolyn Kay and makethemaccountable.com, Jeff Tiedrich and smirkingchimp.com, and progressive publicists such as Ilene Proctor, who is a force you want on your side.
Add these powers to mydd, Daily Kos, moveon, digby and other conviction-politics centers and the power of the movement comes into focus.
There is no cable news show on earth that has the power to build an audience as large as these forces, when they converge.
These sources are as essential as Matt Drudge for those who want to know what will be in the news tomorrow, what will happen in 2008.
Predictions: Stephanie Miller will be the next cable star combining progressive Internet with talk radio. Ed Schultz will surpass Rush in every major market. Air America will stage a major comeback. Rupert Murdoch will have to make the biggest decision of his political television career (that’s my teaser for next week).
If you doubt this, look at the ratings for Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann. Or ask George Allen and Rick Santorum.
Stay tuned.
(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.
How Many Apologies Does This Make Now?
Campaigners can apologize all they want, but people are only speaking their minds.
That's how it is in America. Nasty and intolerant. So, what's new?
McCain campaign apologizes to Romney
By AMY LORENTZEN,
Associated Press Writer
Sat Jun 23, 12:04 AM ET
John McCain's presidential campaign has apologized to Republican rival Mitt Romney for comments about the Mormon church allegedly made by a volunteer earlier this year.
The incident dates to a meeting of Iowa Republican activists in April, where McCain's Warren County chairman, Chad Workman, is alleged to have made negative comments about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Mormon faith. Romney is a Mormon.
A participant at the meeting said Workman questioned whether Mormons were Christians, and he referenced an article alleging that the Mormon church supports the Islamic militant group Hamas. The participant talked to The Associated Press on Friday on condition of anonymity because he is involved in Iowa politics and wanted to protect his identity.
In response to a question on whether Mormon women were more likely to be stay-at-home mothers, the participant said Workman associated the treatment of Mormon women with the Taliban.
Workman didn't return a call Friday afternoon.
McCain spokesman Danny Diaz said, "we apologize for any comment made concerning Governor Romney's religion. ... Such comments are inappropriate and unacceptable."
Romney's Iowa campaign manager Gentry Collins said the campaign has accepted the apology from McCain's campaign, and "it's our expectation that he'll make sure that these kinds of things don't happen again.
"It's our view that attacks of religious bigotry have no place in politics today," he said.
The apology comes just days after Republican presidential hopeful Sam Brownback issued a similar one for a campaign staffer's e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders that was an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to Romney's Mormon faith.
___
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama on Friday vowed to institute ethics reforms if elected president, including tough restrictions on lobbying by former political appointees.
The first-term Illinois senator, who has backed legislation to reduce the influence of big money and special interest in lawmaking, offered several proposals. Most notable would be prohibiting political appointees in his administration from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of his time in office.
Those who join an Obama administration would not be able to work on regulations or contracts directly related to their former employers for two years.
"When I am president, I will make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama administration is not about serving your former employer, your future employer or your bank account — it's about serving your country, and that's what comes first," he said in a speech at New Hampshire Community Technical College in Manchester, N.H.
Under the current administration, Washington lobbyists have turned government "into a game only they can afford to play," Obama said. "A game played on a field that's no longer level, but rigged to always favor their own narrow agendas."
"In our democracy, the price of access and influence should be nothing more than your voice and your vote," he said.
Obama's plan also calls for ending the abuse of no-bid contracts, restoring objectivity to the executive branch and increasing public access to information. He acknowledged that such promises are common but argued that he has the experience and will to follow through.
In the Senate, Obama has supported legislation that would impose additional restrictions on lawmakers becoming lobbyists and establishes new disclosure rules for lobbyists.
___
NEW YORK (AP) — A billionaire and former CEO, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cast himself as a leader who governs the city like a business, but his predecessor and potential presidential rival, Rudy Giuliani, is taking credit for inventing the concept.
On a campaign swing through Florida, Giuliani was asked about the differences between him and Bloomberg, whose announcement this week that he had left the GOP clears the way for a possible independent presidential run.
"I think there were a lot of differences. But there was one similarity that probably overwhelmed the differences. We both view New York City from the point of solving problems, from a commonsense approach. I used to call it running New York like a business," Giuliani told reporters Thursday.
"I think I started that," he added. "I think I created that revolution, and I think Mayor Bloomberg has continued it, and I admire him very much for doing that. I will always admire him, whether he becomes a Democrat, an independent or whether he becomes a Republican again."
Though its unlikely Bloomberg would have been elected in 2001 without Giuliani's support, the current mayor has declined to endorse Giuliani, offering instead polite praise.
___
WASHINGTON (AP) — In one of the first national polls since New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg left the Republican Party, a Newsweek survey found him having a modest impact so far on the 2008 presidential race.
Only 5 percent said they were very likely to vote for Bloomberg should he run for the White House, with another 21 percent saying they were somewhat likely to do so. Nearly three-fourths of Democrats, two-thirds of Republicans and half of independents said they were unlikely to vote for Bloomberg, a multibillionaire businessman who has not said he will run for president.
In matchups against some of the two major parties' leading contenders, Bloomberg took 4 or 5 points from the Democrat and 5 to 10 points from the Republican. He typically got 10 to 14 percent of the total vote in those trial heats.
For example, the survey showed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., leading former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani by 51 percent to 44 percent. When Bloomberg was added to the mix, it was Clinton 46 percent, Giuliani 37 percent and Bloomberg 11 percent.
On the other hand, Bloomberg may have room to increase his support. Sixty-eight percent of registered voters questioned said they know little or nothing about him, and 57 percent said there should be a third major party.
The survey involved telephone interviews with 1,001 adults and was conducted on June 20 and 21. The margin of sampling error for them, and for the 831 registered voters included, was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
__
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Friday it would be a mistake to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility, a step the Bush administration is considering.
Romney said terrorists housed at the facility need to stay in Cuba — far from the U.S. court system.
"I believe that Guantanamo plays an important role in protecting our nation from violent, heinous terrorists," he said. "Guantanamo is a symbol of our resolve."
The former Massachusetts governor made the comments to reporters after speaking at a convention of Montana Republicans, where he promised, if elected, "there will be a war waged on the terrorists."
Romney said terror suspects need to be kept at Guantanamo so they don't get safe harbor in the legal system. Terrorists, he said, don't get such constitutional rights.
The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere, senior administration officials said Thursday. Recent military court decisions have hampered administration efforts to begin prosecuting dozens of detainees.
___
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Bill Richardson said Friday that if elected president, he would ask potential Supreme Court nominees about their view on abortion and reject those who say Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
Presidents typically say they don't ask potential justices about their views on specific cases, but Richardson said Friday that he would make an exception for the landmark 1973 case, which legalized abortion.
"I know I am going to upset some people, but this is what I would ask them," said Richardson. "I would say, 'Do you believe that Roe v. Wade is settled law?' If they say yes, they have a good chance of being picked. If they say no I will not pick them."
The New Mexico governor was asked how he would select Supreme Court nominees during a forum at Drake University in Des Moines. He was beginning a two-day trip to the early voting state.
___
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton claimed Friday that the Bush administration makes poor Americans feel "invisible" and promised to restore funding to programs promoting economic development, education, crime prevention and the environment in cities.
"Too many Americans feel invisible today," she said at the 75th annual meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors. "And quite often you're the only ones who see this."
Clinton cited as abandoned by the Bush administration a single mother struggling to find affordable child care; a father afraid to allow his son to play outside, fearing an injury would lead to expensive hospital treatment; people still homeless in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina; and a child attending a crumbling school.
"You know these people and they're not invisible to you and they're not invisible to me," the New York senator said. "And I pledge they will not be invisible to the next president of the United States."
The former first lady said that as president she would propose municipal grants for environmental projects that encouraged "green collar" jobs for middle-class workers and restore funding for police departments and Community Development Block Grants that her husband, Bill Clinton, initiated while president.
___
NEW YORK (AP) — Except for the American flag backdrop and the presidential candidate onstage, Sen. Barack Obama's fundraiser Friday night could have been mistaken for a rock concert.
Beer was served in plastic cups, the young crowd snapped photographs with cell phones, and a deafening roar of approval met Obama at the Hammerstein Ballroom — a venue known for rock, rather than rubber chicken.
"How are you, New York City!" Obama shouted, after being introduced by folk singer Ben Harper. "Back in the Big Apple!"
The evening mirrored Obama's campaign aura — youthful, polished and filled with idealistic talk of the future. Invoking the successes of the civil rights movement, he challenged the crowd, which consisted mostly of people under 40, to get involved in politics.
"There's a wind that's blowing," he said. "The air is stirring. People are waking out of their slumber."
Obama's speech encompassed most of his campaign talking points, including the need for universal health care, reforming public education and ending the war in Iraq.
"And while we're at it, we're gonna close Guantanamo," he said, referring to the detention facility for terror suspects in Cuba.
___
Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., Matt Gouras in Helena, Mont., Sara Kugler and Meghan Barr in New York, Laura Wides-Munoz in Hialeah, Fla., Mike Glover in Des Moines, Iowa, Alan Fram in Washington, and Andrew Glazer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
(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.
There is no law
'There Is No Law'
by DAVID COLE
[from the March 19, 2007 issue]
"You are in a place where there is no law--we are the law." That's what US military intelligence officers told Hadj Boudella, a Guantánamo detainee, according to his lawyer, Robert Kirsch. On February 20 a divided federal circuit court in Washington, DC, appeared to back the views of the intelligence officers. It ruled that the 2006 Military Commissions Act had eliminated habeas corpus jurisdiction over lawsuits by Guantánamo detainees and that the Constitution requires no judicial review, even if the detainees are held there for the rest of their lives. If the 2-to-1 decision is affirmed by the Supreme Court, all pending lawsuits regarding the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo will be dismissed.
The DC Circuit found no support for their result in the text of the Constitution. After all, the Fifth Amendment bars government from depriving all "persons" of liberty without due process of law; and surely, even if they have been labeled the "worst of the worst," the Guantánamo detainees are still "persons." And Article I of the Constitution permits Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus--the common law avenue for obtaining court review of detention--only in times of rebellion or invasion, neither of which we are now experiencing.
In the circuit court's view, however, these fundamental rights of due process and habeas corpus simply don't apply to foreign nationals held outside US territory. Had the military taken its prisoners to a base in Florida, the detainees would be entitled to constitutional protection. But because they are kept offshore, on land technically belonging to Cuba but over which the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control, they are without any constitutional rights.
The court found no evidence that when the Constitution was adopted in 1789, the English common law writ of habeas corpus was available to foreign nationals held outside the British Empire, and ruled that therefore the Constitution does not preclude Congress from stripping Guantánamo detainees of all habeas corpus review today.
The court's reasoning is fundamentally flawed. As a historical matter, the court cites no cases that actually preclude habeas review for foreign nationals held outside the British Empire. It simply notes that in the decisions it found that extended habeas review to foreign nationals, the detainees happened to be held inside the British Empire.
In any event the Supreme Court has never held that the suspension clause protects habeas corpus only as it existed in common law in 1789. Most other parts of the Constitution, including the closely related due process guarantee, are understood to have evolved over time. The DC Circuit fails to explain why habeas corpus should be frozen in time.
Most important, there is no justification in the modern era for denying those indefinitely detained by the United States access to judicial review of the legality of their detention, regardless of their national identity or where we happen to hold them. Outsourcing is an increasingly available option for government as well as private industry, but when the government exerts its sovereign authority over an individual, it should be accountable to the legal limits that constrain that authority, wherever it acts. Notions of territoriality once played an important role in the reach of domestic law. But that has become less and less true as the world has shrunk, nations are increasingly able to exert power far from home, and the world community has recognized that fundamental rights are owed to all human beings by virtue of their human dignity, regardless of their passport.
Writing of the critical importance of habeas corpus, Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist that the state's authority to detain may be even more dangerous than the power to take human life. Hamilton wrote, quoting William Blackstone, the pre-eminent scholar of English common law:
To bereave a man of life (says he), or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.
Hamilton had it right. George W. Bush, the Republican Congress and the DC Circuit got it wrong. Now it is up to the Supreme Court or the Democratic Congress to affirm that we are willing to abide by law, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable among us.
(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.
by DAVID COLE
[from the March 19, 2007 issue]
"You are in a place where there is no law--we are the law." That's what US military intelligence officers told Hadj Boudella, a Guantánamo detainee, according to his lawyer, Robert Kirsch. On February 20 a divided federal circuit court in Washington, DC, appeared to back the views of the intelligence officers. It ruled that the 2006 Military Commissions Act had eliminated habeas corpus jurisdiction over lawsuits by Guantánamo detainees and that the Constitution requires no judicial review, even if the detainees are held there for the rest of their lives. If the 2-to-1 decision is affirmed by the Supreme Court, all pending lawsuits regarding the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo will be dismissed.
The DC Circuit found no support for their result in the text of the Constitution. After all, the Fifth Amendment bars government from depriving all "persons" of liberty without due process of law; and surely, even if they have been labeled the "worst of the worst," the Guantánamo detainees are still "persons." And Article I of the Constitution permits Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus--the common law avenue for obtaining court review of detention--only in times of rebellion or invasion, neither of which we are now experiencing.
In the circuit court's view, however, these fundamental rights of due process and habeas corpus simply don't apply to foreign nationals held outside US territory. Had the military taken its prisoners to a base in Florida, the detainees would be entitled to constitutional protection. But because they are kept offshore, on land technically belonging to Cuba but over which the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control, they are without any constitutional rights.
The court found no evidence that when the Constitution was adopted in 1789, the English common law writ of habeas corpus was available to foreign nationals held outside the British Empire, and ruled that therefore the Constitution does not preclude Congress from stripping Guantánamo detainees of all habeas corpus review today.
The court's reasoning is fundamentally flawed. As a historical matter, the court cites no cases that actually preclude habeas review for foreign nationals held outside the British Empire. It simply notes that in the decisions it found that extended habeas review to foreign nationals, the detainees happened to be held inside the British Empire.
In any event the Supreme Court has never held that the suspension clause protects habeas corpus only as it existed in common law in 1789. Most other parts of the Constitution, including the closely related due process guarantee, are understood to have evolved over time. The DC Circuit fails to explain why habeas corpus should be frozen in time.
Most important, there is no justification in the modern era for denying those indefinitely detained by the United States access to judicial review of the legality of their detention, regardless of their national identity or where we happen to hold them. Outsourcing is an increasingly available option for government as well as private industry, but when the government exerts its sovereign authority over an individual, it should be accountable to the legal limits that constrain that authority, wherever it acts. Notions of territoriality once played an important role in the reach of domestic law. But that has become less and less true as the world has shrunk, nations are increasingly able to exert power far from home, and the world community has recognized that fundamental rights are owed to all human beings by virtue of their human dignity, regardless of their passport.
Writing of the critical importance of habeas corpus, Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist that the state's authority to detain may be even more dangerous than the power to take human life. Hamilton wrote, quoting William Blackstone, the pre-eminent scholar of English common law:
To bereave a man of life (says he), or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.
Hamilton had it right. George W. Bush, the Republican Congress and the DC Circuit got it wrong. Now it is up to the Supreme Court or the Democratic Congress to affirm that we are willing to abide by law, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable among us.
(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.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Conyers wants to hold White House in contempt
It's about time.
The bushies have had nothing but contempt for the Congress and the American people since day one!
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_f__vyan__070622_conyers_seeks_contem.htm
June 22, 2007
Conyers seeks Contempt of Congress against White House
By F. Vyan Walton
Showdown at the DC Corral via The Hill
House Judiciary Committee Democrats warned yesterday they would pursue a contempt of Congress motion if the White House fails respond to subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.
The deadline for a response is Thursday, June 28. If the White House does not comply, it opens the possibility of a constitutional showdown between the two branches. In an ironic twist, the Department of Justice (DoJ) would be called on to enforce the contempt motion.
Folks, this ratchets things up to an entire new level because contempt of Congress is a criminal violation which can, and in some cases has, led to both fines of as high as $10,000 and prison terms as long as 6 months, plus 5 years probation (in the case of former EPA Offical Rita Lavelle who was convicted of Perjury in 2004)
More from Conyers.
"The House and Senate judiciary committees have issued subpoenas to the White House for documents and testimony," said Conyers. "We’re still hopeful they may cooperate. But it’s still possible that enforcement action may be taken."
"We want to know where the lines go from the DoJ to the White House," he said. "That’s where these bread crumbs keep leading us and then they get lost in the snow or something."
Right now the specific targets of the Contempt Charges would include White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, whom the subpoenas have been directed to, as well as former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director - and Karl Rove Deputy - Sara "Cummins was Lazy" Taylor.
Although Taylor has accepted her subpoena and agreed to testify just why would Conyers want additional White House documents? Well, maybe because of what Kyle Sampson told them behind closed doors according to Karen Tumulty at Time.
In private testimony that is being released this afternoon by the commitee, Alberto Gonzales’s former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson told investigators that Gonzales himself initially resisted the idea of bypassing the Senators from Arkansas to install Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Pressure to do it, he suggested, was coming from officials at the White House–specifically, White House political director Sara Taylor, her deputy Scott Jennings and Chris Oprison, the associate White House counsel. Sampson described himself and Goodling as "open to the idea," which is not the same as instigating it.
If Conyers' Judiciary Committee passes the contempt vote, the procedures is then for the measure to be referred to the full House - if it passes there as well it becomes a criminal matter, only this is also where things also get a bit sticky.
The standard procedure from this point is for the Contempt charges to be taken up by the sitting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who would then convene a Grand Jury prior to issueing indictments. That U.S. Attorney currently happens to be Jeffrey A. Taylor who was appointed by Alberto Gonzales as an interim replacement USA by-passing Senate Confirmation under a loophole in the Patriot Act (although it should be noted - no one was fired to make room for Taylor as his appointment took place in September of 2006, several months before the "purging of the Big 8".)
Unlike most of the replacement Attorneys, Taylor actually does have some prosecutorial experience from 5 years he spent as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. He's served as Majority Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee (under Senator Orrin Hatch and helped draft many provisions of the Patriot Act) and has been an Conselor at the DOJ assisting both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales on matters of "national security, terrorism, and criminal litigation and policy".
So would Mr. Taylor deign to actually call a Grand Jury to investigate various White House personnel for contempt of congress, when - to some extent - it might essentially involve an investigation of his own appointment!?
Wikipedia isn't so sure.
Under 2 U.S.C. § 194, once either the House or the Senate issues a citation for contempt of Congress, it is referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."[4] It is unclear (as of President Bush's March 20, 2007 declaration that he would not comply with Congressional subpoenas on this matter) whether Mr. Taylor would fulfill this duty to convene a grand jury, or resist Congress at the direction of Bush or Gonzales.
I'm less cynical about this since as I noted above, Taylor actually wasn't a part of the White House Purge and Politicize Plan for the DOJ apparently instigated Taylor, Jennings and Oprison (according to Sampson) - but we won't really know the truth of that until the rubber meats the road on this issue and the full Congress approves the contempt citation, assuming things even get that far.
But as of last week, questions about Taylor's loyalty - or lack thereof - to the rule of law might be a moot point. You see the Patriot Act provision which allowed for Mr. Taylor to be appointed and to remain U.S. Attorney indefinately - was repealed. The passage of this law started a 120 day countdown on the continued service of all intermin U.S. Attorneys including Taylor - who is now has only 113 days left. Once that time expires, and if another U.S. Attorney is not confirmed by the Senate and appointed - the new replacement won't be chosen by Gonzales, it'll be chosen by the District Court.
(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of--
'
(1) the qualification of a United States attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title; or
'(2) the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section.
'(d) If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.'.
The DC District Court has a total of 13 Active Judges (plus a number of magistrates and senior judges), one of whom we all know happens to be Judge Reggie Walton, and exactly which of the 13 might have on his docket the task of replacing Mr. Taylor in October is somewhat unclear. But even if Taylor does decide to punt on any Contempt of Congress charges against the White House - where it should be pointed out he's never served - his court appointed successor probably won't.
Certainly the White House will counter sue arguing that this is a matter of "Executive Priveledge" which is a issue that will be argued by the Disrict Court in DC, previous attempts to avoid producing documents to Congress by the executive branch in this manner have not exactly gone well.
A House Subcommitee voted to find Secretary of Commerce Roger Morton in Contempt in 1975 - Rogers eventually produced the requested documents.
The Senate Select Committe on Intelligence voted to find Henry Kissenger in Contempt in 1975 also - the matter was dropped when the Chairman was satisfied by "sufficient compliance" with the subpoena.
The House Subcommitte on Interstate and Foreign Commerce voted to find Secretary of Heath, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano in contempt in 1978 - Califano complied with the subpoena one month later.
The Full House voted to find EPA Administrator Ann Gorsuch in Contempt in 1983 - The Executive Branches counter suit was dismissed by the courts, and the documents were eventually provided.
The Full House voted to find EPA Official Rita Lavelle in contempt in 1983 also - Lavelle was eventually imprisoned for lying to Congress involving mis-handling of the Superfund program.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committe voted to hold White House Counsel Jack Quinn, White House Director of Administration David Quinn and aide Matthew Moore in contempt in 1996 - the subpoened documents were provided just hours before the full house was to consider the contempt measure.
In most cases (that I've been able to review so far this morning), the Executive Branch has usually caved to Congressional pressure once we start talking about Contempt of Congress.
Clearly that doesn't mean we can expect this White House to do that (when have they ever done what reasonable people expected?), but neither can they hope to have a Taylor as a nice Loyal Bushie in place to protect their backsides as the DC USA for all that much longer.
This game of Face-Off should get very interesting, very soon if this Judiciary Vote passes and begins to move to the House Floor.
Just how many White House Rat-fuckers do you think will by jumping Ship for the Immunity Rope once that happens?
VyanAuthors Website: http://www.truth2powerproject.com
Authors Bio: Born and Bred in South Central LA. I spent 12 years working in the IT Dept. for federal contractor Northrop-Grumman on classified and high security projects such as the B2 Bomber. After Northrop I became an IT consultant with the state of California in Sacramento and worked on projects with the Dept of Consumer Affairs and CalTrans, as well as projects for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. Now living in Los Angeles on my own independant web design company.
(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 murderer
s.
I know just how he feels!
There's A Man Down Houston Way
by Jim Bush Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and watches ships come down the channel.
In one direction, he sees a monument to fallen heroes.
In the other, he sees the city skyline.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge surrounded by storage tanks.
In the tanks is stored the fuel the runs the country.
In the tanks is stored the fuel that pollutes the world
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and is filled with sorrow.
Inside his head, he sees a dark and troubled future.
Inside his heart, he feels the grief the Earth is bound to come to.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and thinks about jumping.
In the depth of his soul, he knows it would be meaningless.
In the bottom of his spirit, he knows this is not his path.
There's a man down Houston wayHe sits on a crossroad bridge of the landAnd he can't find the place inside, where truth is honored.
He can't find the place inside, that will tell him what to do.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and watches the ships come up the channelIn one direction, he sees the city skylineIn the other, he sees a monument to fallen heroes
Jim Bush is a 60 year old, Vietnam-era veteran, currently living in Katy,Texas. He was raised in a military family. His father received the Silver Star for directing troops while under air attack at Clark Field in the Phillipines, survived the Bataan Death March, and spent three and a half years in a Japanese POW camp. He also received the Purple Heart for wounds received while a POW. Jim served as an army photographer in Okinawa and Korea. In 1987 he traveled to the war zones of Nicaragua with a veteran's group dedicated to stopping the Contra War.
(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.
by Jim Bush Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and watches ships come down the channel.
In one direction, he sees a monument to fallen heroes.
In the other, he sees the city skyline.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge surrounded by storage tanks.
In the tanks is stored the fuel the runs the country.
In the tanks is stored the fuel that pollutes the world
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and is filled with sorrow.
Inside his head, he sees a dark and troubled future.
Inside his heart, he feels the grief the Earth is bound to come to.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and thinks about jumping.
In the depth of his soul, he knows it would be meaningless.
In the bottom of his spirit, he knows this is not his path.
There's a man down Houston wayHe sits on a crossroad bridge of the landAnd he can't find the place inside, where truth is honored.
He can't find the place inside, that will tell him what to do.
There's a man down Houston way.
He sits on a bridge and watches the ships come up the channelIn one direction, he sees the city skylineIn the other, he sees a monument to fallen heroes
Jim Bush is a 60 year old, Vietnam-era veteran, currently living in Katy,Texas. He was raised in a military family. His father received the Silver Star for directing troops while under air attack at Clark Field in the Phillipines, survived the Bataan Death March, and spent three and a half years in a Japanese POW camp. He also received the Purple Heart for wounds received while a POW. Jim served as an army photographer in Okinawa and Korea. In 1987 he traveled to the war zones of Nicaragua with a veteran's group dedicated to stopping the Contra War.
(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.
How Can We Not Doubt The Official Conspiracy Theory
After all that has gone on since?
We would have to be in such denia, such as to be labeled comatose.
It's not just the loony left that does not believe the administration!
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_dave_070619_the_new_1_25_doctrine.htm
June 22, 2007
The New 1% Doctrine
By Jay Daverth
As far as I can tell, the Hindenburg pilots masquerading as our executive branch have two goals for media management on Iraq. First and foremost, they must convince us that we are facing a viable and imminent existential threat. But of no less importance, they must also demonstrate that they and they alone can guarantee our collective salvation. Of course, one can’t but help notice that such aims are mutually exclusive – with the success of one, our naked emperor loses the other by default.
Yet balanced efficiently, Jonestown the American people have historically proven willing to cede virtually unlimited authority. Anyone caught paying attention will have noticed an administration quite adept at maintaining such an equilibrium. Sure, it was rocky there for a while with Iraq galloping toward civil war, but it seems our darling Machiavelli’s have found a way to accomplish both aims in one swoop – arrest some flaming idiots and call them terrorists (deepest apologies to Signore Machiavelli for comparing him to our president). The most recent, of course, is the JFK plot which most experts found laughable. But kudos to Schneier for reminding us to rejoice in our other great victories, such as the six morons who planned to attack Fort Dix disguised as pizza boys (caught while developing a home movie of the plan), the so-called Miami 7 who planned to blow up the Sears tower “with no weapons, no bombs, no expertise, no money and no operational skill and Iyman Faris, the Ohio trucker who was convicted in 2003 for the laughable plot to take out the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.”
Evil, perverse, and categorically brilliant! And unfortunately for Dear Leader, no longer enough to polish the stains off of his war. Because no matter how many incompetent boobs we arrest or entrap, this is how far we have come under five years of Bush’s stewardship:
Up to 10,000 U.S. soldiers spearheaded by armored vehicles and covered by helicopter gunships fought their way into an al Qaeda haven in Iraq Tuesday, killing at least 22 extremist fighters, the military said.
Operation Arrowhead Ripper, involving Strykers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles was aimed at smashing al Qaeda operations around Baquba, a hotbed of unrest north of Baghdad, a military statement said.
"The end state is to destroy the al Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek of the 25th Infantry Division.
Nothing spells headlines like a large troop mobilization. But let’s take a step back and look at the math. Ground troops are generally allocated based on a 3:1 ratio which can sometimes go as high as 10:1 depending on external variables. For a dispatch of this magnitude, we can safely assume that some fairly sound intelligence produced estimates of between 1,000 and 3,000 insurgents to be active in the region. For the sake of fairness, let’s split the difference and call it 2,000. So basically, with a 5 to 1 troop advantage aided by armored vehicles and air support, the most advanced military force in world history was able to take out somewhere in the neighborhood of one percent of their target.
With an executive so adept at balancing progress and threat within the media, somehow their reptilian brains can’t grasp that whatever influence al-Qaeda holds is likewise predicated upon convincing Iraqis they are the only bulwark against an existential threat from Western brutality. The idiocy of sending a battalion of centurions to prove them right is exceeded only by the fact that they didn’t even pull it off. And therein lies the great tragedy of leadership – after all this time, they’re still trying to quell an insurgency as though it were purely a mathematical composite.
In a country where malnourished soldiers with rags on their feet repelled the full might of the British Empire, you’d think we’d have figured it out by now.
Authors Website: http://www.thehindsightfactor.com
Authors Bio: Jay Daverth (urthwalker) is an American expatriate currently residing in Dublin where he is completing his Ph.D. in International Peace Studies.
His daily rants and ramblings can be accessed on his blog at http://www.thehindsightfactor.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.
We would have to be in such denia, such as to be labeled comatose.
It's not just the loony left that does not believe the administration!
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_dave_070619_the_new_1_25_doctrine.htm
June 22, 2007
The New 1% Doctrine
By Jay Daverth
As far as I can tell, the Hindenburg pilots masquerading as our executive branch have two goals for media management on Iraq. First and foremost, they must convince us that we are facing a viable and imminent existential threat. But of no less importance, they must also demonstrate that they and they alone can guarantee our collective salvation. Of course, one can’t but help notice that such aims are mutually exclusive – with the success of one, our naked emperor loses the other by default.
Yet balanced efficiently, Jonestown the American people have historically proven willing to cede virtually unlimited authority. Anyone caught paying attention will have noticed an administration quite adept at maintaining such an equilibrium. Sure, it was rocky there for a while with Iraq galloping toward civil war, but it seems our darling Machiavelli’s have found a way to accomplish both aims in one swoop – arrest some flaming idiots and call them terrorists (deepest apologies to Signore Machiavelli for comparing him to our president). The most recent, of course, is the JFK plot which most experts found laughable. But kudos to Schneier for reminding us to rejoice in our other great victories, such as the six morons who planned to attack Fort Dix disguised as pizza boys (caught while developing a home movie of the plan), the so-called Miami 7 who planned to blow up the Sears tower “with no weapons, no bombs, no expertise, no money and no operational skill and Iyman Faris, the Ohio trucker who was convicted in 2003 for the laughable plot to take out the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.”
Evil, perverse, and categorically brilliant! And unfortunately for Dear Leader, no longer enough to polish the stains off of his war. Because no matter how many incompetent boobs we arrest or entrap, this is how far we have come under five years of Bush’s stewardship:
Up to 10,000 U.S. soldiers spearheaded by armored vehicles and covered by helicopter gunships fought their way into an al Qaeda haven in Iraq Tuesday, killing at least 22 extremist fighters, the military said.
Operation Arrowhead Ripper, involving Strykers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles was aimed at smashing al Qaeda operations around Baquba, a hotbed of unrest north of Baghdad, a military statement said.
"The end state is to destroy the al Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek of the 25th Infantry Division.
Nothing spells headlines like a large troop mobilization. But let’s take a step back and look at the math. Ground troops are generally allocated based on a 3:1 ratio which can sometimes go as high as 10:1 depending on external variables. For a dispatch of this magnitude, we can safely assume that some fairly sound intelligence produced estimates of between 1,000 and 3,000 insurgents to be active in the region. For the sake of fairness, let’s split the difference and call it 2,000. So basically, with a 5 to 1 troop advantage aided by armored vehicles and air support, the most advanced military force in world history was able to take out somewhere in the neighborhood of one percent of their target.
With an executive so adept at balancing progress and threat within the media, somehow their reptilian brains can’t grasp that whatever influence al-Qaeda holds is likewise predicated upon convincing Iraqis they are the only bulwark against an existential threat from Western brutality. The idiocy of sending a battalion of centurions to prove them right is exceeded only by the fact that they didn’t even pull it off. And therein lies the great tragedy of leadership – after all this time, they’re still trying to quell an insurgency as though it were purely a mathematical composite.
In a country where malnourished soldiers with rags on their feet repelled the full might of the British Empire, you’d think we’d have figured it out by now.
Authors Website: http://www.thehindsightfactor.com
Authors Bio: Jay Daverth (urthwalker) is an American expatriate currently residing in Dublin where he is completing his Ph.D. in International Peace Studies.
His daily rants and ramblings can be accessed on his blog at http://www.thehindsightfactor.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.
NOLA Still In Danger. Could be drowned again!
New Orleans, in addition to be a unique American city, is an American port city, importaant to the nations well-being. The Feds are responsible or making sure that NO is safe.
But try telling the Bushites that.
June 21, 2007
New Orleans Still at Risk, Army Data Show
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
After nearly two years of work, the Army Corps of Engineers revealed yesterday which New Orleans neighborhoods and blocks were the most vulnerable to flooding, and which were the best protected. The report shows that despite considerable improvement, large swaths of the city are still likely to be flooded in a major storm.
If a big hurricane were to hit today — producing flooding with a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in any year — parts of the Gentilly and Lakeview neighborhoods, in the northern half of the city, would probably still take on at least eight feet of water. Hundreds of flooded homes in those neighborhoods are being rebuilt by owners struggling to return.
But the report shows that the vulnerable areas within those neighborhoods are much smaller than they were before Hurricane Katrina — considered a 1-in-400 storm — thanks to the corps’ substantial improvements to the 350-mile levee system, the floodwalls, pumps and gates.
As part of the report, the corps established a Web site, nolarisk.usace.army.mil, that allows New Orleans residents to study the city on a block-by-block basis and learn what kind of damage they might expect with more than 150 kinds of storms. If it works as promised, the system will allow residents to determine the relative risk of living in the various neighborhoods of New Orleans — and whether nearly two years and $7 billion have made them safer.
The report clearly shows that some areas are less vulnerable than they were in 2005. But it could also potentially lead insurers and investors to think twice about supporting the rebuilding efforts in vulnerable areas or in the city as a whole.
Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, the head of civil works for the corps, said in an interview that local leaders were initially wary of the report and how it would be used, and that some said, “Oh boy, I’m not sure we can do this — because we’re trying to get people to move back in.” But, he said, “after we worked with them and showed them, they said, ‘this can really be a good tool for planning.’ ”
The analysis of the city’s risk, more than a year behind schedule and still a work in progress, is an enormously ambitious attempt to figure out just how risky it is to live in New Orleans, and is the first time the corps has released such a tool to the public anywhere in the nation. The Defense Department’s supercomputers analyzed scores of different storms, estimating wind speeds, storm surges and pathways and how they would affect every street in the city.
Some of the risk to New Orleans has been reduced, largely because of the construction of enormous gates across the mouths of the city’s three main drainage canals, which significantly raised the level of protection. Elsewhere in the greater New Orleans area, where the hurricane protection system was restored but not upgraded in a major way, the probability of damage does not change nearly as much: large parts of the Upper Ninth Ward could be expected to have two to four feet of water in a 1-in-50 flood, then and now.
A flood with a 1 percent chance of occurring would leave much of the Garden District relatively dry, as it remained during Hurricane Katrina, although a smaller patch of the neighborhoods to the north would be likely to flood.
City officials said the new tools would help them plan the city’s halting recovery. Edward J. Blakely, the hurricane recovery chief for New Orleans, said that while the maps show that “quite a bit of the city” remains vulnerable to storms, the dangers would diminish as further protection was built. Eventually, Mr. Blakely said, “the risks aren’t going to be different from those of a city in Florida.”
Karen Durham-Aguilera, the civilian director of the corps’ Task Force Hope, a nearly $6 billion hurricane protection system project in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana, suggested that the facts about New Orleans presented in the report were anything but bad. “This is good, because it shows a lowered risk,” Ms. Durham-Aguilera said.
“There’s no place where you can say the risk is absolutely zero,” she added.
As voluminous as it is, the report will nonetheless seem incomplete to many in New Orleans. The corps is not releasing the data on how the system to protect against 1 percent floods will perform, although officials said Monday that that portion of the report would be ready within weeks. That is the information that many in New Orleans want, because they know that what they have is not adequate but they might be willing to gamble that a major storm will not hit before 2011, when the stronger system is to be in place.
The data from the report will be used to help the corps determine what level of protection will be necessary as it upgrades levees, floodwalls, pumps and gates. President Bush and Congress have committed the corps to bring the level of hurricane protection up to withstand the kind of storm that would have only a 1 percent chance of striking — work that is to be complete by 2011. Congress has also ordered the corps to study ways of improving protection further, commonly referred to as the Category 5 study, referring to the strongest storms.
The risk analysis will also be used by other agencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, for example, will use it to determine the 1-in-100 flood level for insurance purposes.
It is not clear, however, whether the computer model accurately represents what will happen in a storm — whether the corps has captured the complexity of a storm and the ability of the hurricane protection system to stand up to it. Engineers have said that little is known about the rate of erosion of levees from water pouring over the top and what elements of the system will function properly in a storm.
Federal officials acknowledged that it would not be easy to get suspicious local residents to trust the new maps.
“The real issue is going to be: Are the local people going to look at these maps and believe them?” said Donald Powell, the head of Gulf Coast reconstruction for the Bush administration. “And if they trust the maps, will they act upon the information?”
One of the biggest problems, Mr. Powell said, is that people have lived in New Orleans for generations and believe that the city would have been largely undamaged if the levees had held, but the new report says that the force of Hurricane Katrina would have caused extensive damage even if the levees had held.
“It’s that tension,” he said, “between trust and reality and history.”
William Borah, a New Orleans lawyer and an activist on planning issues, said he had not seen the risk analysis but that anything from the corps would be “taken with a grain of salt” because of the failure of the levees.
“Anybody that doesn’t question what the corps does subsequent to Katrina just hasn’t been around,” Mr. Borah said.
But Ed Link, the director of the corps’ investigation into the levee failures, said the report gave a “huge advantage” to New Orleans that no other city has.
“I don’t see it as putting a big target on New Orleans and chasing people away,” Mr. Link said. “I see it as showing that New Orleans is getting its arms wrapped around this issue for the future.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
(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.
But try telling the Bushites that.
June 21, 2007
New Orleans Still at Risk, Army Data Show
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
After nearly two years of work, the Army Corps of Engineers revealed yesterday which New Orleans neighborhoods and blocks were the most vulnerable to flooding, and which were the best protected. The report shows that despite considerable improvement, large swaths of the city are still likely to be flooded in a major storm.
If a big hurricane were to hit today — producing flooding with a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in any year — parts of the Gentilly and Lakeview neighborhoods, in the northern half of the city, would probably still take on at least eight feet of water. Hundreds of flooded homes in those neighborhoods are being rebuilt by owners struggling to return.
But the report shows that the vulnerable areas within those neighborhoods are much smaller than they were before Hurricane Katrina — considered a 1-in-400 storm — thanks to the corps’ substantial improvements to the 350-mile levee system, the floodwalls, pumps and gates.
As part of the report, the corps established a Web site, nolarisk.usace.army.mil, that allows New Orleans residents to study the city on a block-by-block basis and learn what kind of damage they might expect with more than 150 kinds of storms. If it works as promised, the system will allow residents to determine the relative risk of living in the various neighborhoods of New Orleans — and whether nearly two years and $7 billion have made them safer.
The report clearly shows that some areas are less vulnerable than they were in 2005. But it could also potentially lead insurers and investors to think twice about supporting the rebuilding efforts in vulnerable areas or in the city as a whole.
Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, the head of civil works for the corps, said in an interview that local leaders were initially wary of the report and how it would be used, and that some said, “Oh boy, I’m not sure we can do this — because we’re trying to get people to move back in.” But, he said, “after we worked with them and showed them, they said, ‘this can really be a good tool for planning.’ ”
The analysis of the city’s risk, more than a year behind schedule and still a work in progress, is an enormously ambitious attempt to figure out just how risky it is to live in New Orleans, and is the first time the corps has released such a tool to the public anywhere in the nation. The Defense Department’s supercomputers analyzed scores of different storms, estimating wind speeds, storm surges and pathways and how they would affect every street in the city.
Some of the risk to New Orleans has been reduced, largely because of the construction of enormous gates across the mouths of the city’s three main drainage canals, which significantly raised the level of protection. Elsewhere in the greater New Orleans area, where the hurricane protection system was restored but not upgraded in a major way, the probability of damage does not change nearly as much: large parts of the Upper Ninth Ward could be expected to have two to four feet of water in a 1-in-50 flood, then and now.
A flood with a 1 percent chance of occurring would leave much of the Garden District relatively dry, as it remained during Hurricane Katrina, although a smaller patch of the neighborhoods to the north would be likely to flood.
City officials said the new tools would help them plan the city’s halting recovery. Edward J. Blakely, the hurricane recovery chief for New Orleans, said that while the maps show that “quite a bit of the city” remains vulnerable to storms, the dangers would diminish as further protection was built. Eventually, Mr. Blakely said, “the risks aren’t going to be different from those of a city in Florida.”
Karen Durham-Aguilera, the civilian director of the corps’ Task Force Hope, a nearly $6 billion hurricane protection system project in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana, suggested that the facts about New Orleans presented in the report were anything but bad. “This is good, because it shows a lowered risk,” Ms. Durham-Aguilera said.
“There’s no place where you can say the risk is absolutely zero,” she added.
As voluminous as it is, the report will nonetheless seem incomplete to many in New Orleans. The corps is not releasing the data on how the system to protect against 1 percent floods will perform, although officials said Monday that that portion of the report would be ready within weeks. That is the information that many in New Orleans want, because they know that what they have is not adequate but they might be willing to gamble that a major storm will not hit before 2011, when the stronger system is to be in place.
The data from the report will be used to help the corps determine what level of protection will be necessary as it upgrades levees, floodwalls, pumps and gates. President Bush and Congress have committed the corps to bring the level of hurricane protection up to withstand the kind of storm that would have only a 1 percent chance of striking — work that is to be complete by 2011. Congress has also ordered the corps to study ways of improving protection further, commonly referred to as the Category 5 study, referring to the strongest storms.
The risk analysis will also be used by other agencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, for example, will use it to determine the 1-in-100 flood level for insurance purposes.
It is not clear, however, whether the computer model accurately represents what will happen in a storm — whether the corps has captured the complexity of a storm and the ability of the hurricane protection system to stand up to it. Engineers have said that little is known about the rate of erosion of levees from water pouring over the top and what elements of the system will function properly in a storm.
Federal officials acknowledged that it would not be easy to get suspicious local residents to trust the new maps.
“The real issue is going to be: Are the local people going to look at these maps and believe them?” said Donald Powell, the head of Gulf Coast reconstruction for the Bush administration. “And if they trust the maps, will they act upon the information?”
One of the biggest problems, Mr. Powell said, is that people have lived in New Orleans for generations and believe that the city would have been largely undamaged if the levees had held, but the new report says that the force of Hurricane Katrina would have caused extensive damage even if the levees had held.
“It’s that tension,” he said, “between trust and reality and history.”
William Borah, a New Orleans lawyer and an activist on planning issues, said he had not seen the risk analysis but that anything from the corps would be “taken with a grain of salt” because of the failure of the levees.
“Anybody that doesn’t question what the corps does subsequent to Katrina just hasn’t been around,” Mr. Borah said.
But Ed Link, the director of the corps’ investigation into the levee failures, said the report gave a “huge advantage” to New Orleans that no other city has.
“I don’t see it as putting a big target on New Orleans and chasing people away,” Mr. Link said. “I see it as showing that New Orleans is getting its arms wrapped around this issue for the future.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
(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.
Bush has just signed his way into a dictatorship
Bush and Cheney don't plan to leave office.
All it will take is one big national security incident and, as we all know, that can easily be arranged
New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power
National Security & Homeland Security Presidential Directive establishes "National Continuity Policy"
by Larry Chin
Global Research, May 21, 2007
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007 declares that in the event of a “catastrophic event”, George W. Bush can become what is best described as "a dictator": "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." This directive, completely unnoticed by the media, and given no scrutiny by Congress, literally gives the White House unprecedented dictatorial power over the government and the country, bypassing the US Congress and obliterating the separation of powers. The directive also placed the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic “security”.
The full text is below. A critical analysis on the directive can be found here.
This is another step towards official martial law (see “US government fans homeland security fears”), which suggests that a new "catastrophic event" 9/11-type pretext could be in the pipeline.
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51
HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20
Subject: National Continuity Policy
Purpose
(1) This directive establishes a comprehnsive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
Definitions
(2) In this directive:
(a) "Category" refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive;
(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;
(c) "Continuity of Government," or "COG," means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency;
(d) "Continuity of Operations," or "COOP," means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies;
(e) "Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;
(f) "Executive Departments and Agencies" means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C. 103(1), and the United States Postal Service;
(g) "Government Functions" means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches;
(h) "National Essential Functions," or "NEFs," means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and
(i) "Primary Mission Essential Functions," or "PMEFs," means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.
Policy
(3) It is the policy of the United States to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability composed of Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government programs in order to ensure the preservation of our form of government under the Constitution and the continuing performance of National Essential Functions under all conditions.
Implementation Actions
(4) Continuity requirements shall be incorporated into daily operations of all executive departments and agencies. As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received. Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions. Risk management principles shall be applied to ensure that appropriate operational readiness decisions are based on the probability of an attack or other incident and its consequences.
(5) The following NEFs are the foundation for all continuity programs and capabilities and represent the overarching responsibilities of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation during a crisis, and therefore sustaining the following NEFs shall be the primary focus of
the Federal Government leadership during and in the aftermath of an emergency that adversely affects the performance of Government Functions:
(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government;
(b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people;
(c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
(d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations;
(e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
(f) Providing rapid and effective response to and recovery from the domestic consequences of an attack or other incident;
(g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation's economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems; and
(h) Providing for critical Federal Government services that address the national health, safety, and welfare needs of the United States.
(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination.
(7) For continuity purposes, each executive department and agency is assigned to a category in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and
responsibilities in support of the Federal Government's ability to sustain the NEFs. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall serve as the President's lead agent for coordinating overall
continuity operations and activities of executive departments and agencies, and in such role shall perform the responsibilities set forth for the Secretary in sections 10 and 16 of this directive.
(8) The National Continuity Coordinator, in consultation with the heads of appropriate executive departments and agencies, will lead the development of a National Continuity Implementation Plan (Plan), which shall include prioritized goals and objectives, a concept of operations, performance metrics by which to measure continuity readiness, procedures for continuity and incident management activities, and clear direction to executive department and agency continuity coordinators, as well as guidance to promote interoperability of Federal Government continuity programs and procedures with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate. The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive.
(9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch's COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government.
(10) Federal Government COOP, COG, and ECG plans and operations shall be appropriately integrated with the emergency plans and capabilities of State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to promote interoperability and to prevent redundancies and conflicting lines of authority. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.
(11) Continuity requirements for the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and executive departments and agencies shall include the following:
(a) The continuation of the performance of PMEFs during any emergency must be for a period up to 30 days or until normal operations can be resumed, and the capability to be fully operational at alternate sites as soon as possible after the occurrence of an emergency, but not later than 12 hours after COOP activation;
(b) Succession orders and pre-planned devolution of authorities that ensure the emergency delegation of authority must be planned and documented in advance in accordance with applicable law;
(c) Vital resources, facilities, and records must be safeguarded, and official access to them must be provided;
(d) Provision must be made for the acquisition of the resources necessary for continuity operations on an emergency basis;
(e) Provision must be made for the availability and redundancy of critical communications capabilities at alternate sites in order to support connectivity between
and among key government leadership, internal elements, other executive departments and agencies, critical partners, and the public;
(f) Provision must be made for reconstitution capabilities that allow for recovery from a catastrophic emergency and resumption of normal operations; and
(g) Provision must be made for the identification, training, and preparedness of personnel capable of relocating to alternate facilities to support the continuation of the performance of PMEFs.
(12) In order to provide a coordinated response to escalating threat levels or actual emergencies, the Continuity of Government Readiness Conditions (COGCON) system establishes executive branch continuity program readiness levels, focusing
on possible threats to the National Capital Region. The President will determine and issue the COGCON Level. Executive departments and agencies shall comply with the requirements and
assigned responsibilities under the COGCON program. During COOP activation, executive departments and agencies shall report their readiness status to the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary's designee.
(13) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall:
(a) Conduct an annual assessment of executive department and agency continuity funding requests and performance data that are submitted by executive departments and agencies as part of the annual budget request process, in order to monitor progress in the implementation of the Plan and the execution of continuity budgets;
(b) In coordination with the National Continuity Coordinator, issue annual continuity planning guidance for the development of continuity budget requests; and
(c) Ensure that heads of executive departments and agencies prioritize budget resources for continuity capabilities, consistent with this directive.
(14) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall:
(a) Define and issue minimum requirements for continuity communications for executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President;
(b) Establish requirements for, and monitor the development, implementation, and maintenance of, a comprehensive communications architecture to integrate continuity components, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; and
(c) Review quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities, as prepared pursuant to section 16(d) of this directive or otherwise, and report the results and recommended remedial actions to the National Continuity Coordinator.
(15) An official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall:
(a) Advise the President, the Chief of Staff to the President, the APHS/CT, and the APNSA on COGCON operational execution options; and
(b) Consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security in order to ensure synchronization and integration of continuity activities among the four categories of executive departments and agencies.
(16) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:
(a) Coordinate the implementation, execution, and assessment of continuity operations and activities;
(b) Develop and promulgate Federal Continuity Directives in order to establish continuity planning requirements for executive departments and agencies;
(c) Conduct biennial assessments of individual department and agency continuity capabilities as prescribed by the Plan and report the results to the President through the APHS/CT;
(d) Conduct quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
(e) Develop, lead, and conduct a Federal continuity training and exercise program, which shall be incorporated into the National Exercise Program developed pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8 of December 17, 2003 ("National Preparedness"), in consultation with an
official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
(f) Develop and promulgate continuity planning guidance to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators;
(g) Make available continuity planning and exercise funding, in the form of grants as provided by law, to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and
(h) As Executive Agent of the National Communications System, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive continuity communications architecture.
(17) The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall produce a biennial assessment of the foreign and domestic threats to the Nation's continuity of government.
(18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.
(19) Heads of executive departments and agencies shall execute their respective department or agency COOP plans in response to a localized emergency and shall:
(a) Appoint a senior accountable official, at the Assistant Secretary level, as the Continuity Coordinator for the department or agency;
(b) Identify and submit to the National Continuity Coordinator the list of PMEFs for the department or agency and develop continuity plans in support of the NEFs and the continuation of essential functions under all conditions;
(c) Plan, program, and budget for continuity capabilities consistent with this directive;
(d) Plan, conduct, and support annual tests and training, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, in order to evaluate program readiness and ensure adequacy and viability of continuity plans and communications systems; and
(e) Support other continuity requirements, as assigned by category, in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities
General Provisions
(20) This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C.
19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate
support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions.
(21) This directive:
(a) Shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the authorities of agencies, or heads of agencies, vested by law, and subject to the availability of appropriations;
(b) Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect (i) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, and legislative proposals, or (ii) the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures; and
(c) Is not intended to, and does not, create any rights or benefits, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its
agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked.
(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Larry Chin is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Larry Chin
(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.
Economic Collapse Has Begun
It’s Official: The Crash of the U.S. Economy has begun
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, June 14, 2007
It’s official. Mark your calendars. The crash of the U.S. economy has begun. It was announced the morning of Wednesday, June 13, 2007, by economic writers Steven Pearlstein and Robert Samuelson in the pages of the Washington Post, one of the foremost house organs of the U.S. monetary elite.
Pearlstein’s column was titled, “The Takeover Boom, About to Go Bust” and concerned the extraordinary amount of debt vs. operating profits of companies currently subject to leveraged buyouts.
In language remarkably alarmist for the usually ultra-bland pages of the Post, Pearlstein wrote, “It is impossible to predict when the magic moment will be reached and everyone finally realizes that the prices being paid for these companies, and the debt taken on to support the acquisitions, are unsustainable. When that happens, it won't be pretty. Across the board, stock prices and company valuations will fall. Banks will announce painful write-offs, some hedge funds will close their doors, and private-equity funds will report disappointing returns. Some companies will be forced into bankruptcy or restructuring.”
Further, “Falling stock prices will cause companies to reduce their hiring and capital spending while governments will be forced to raise taxes or reduce services, as revenue from capital gains taxes declines. And the combination of reduced wealth and higher interest rates will finally cause consumers to pull back on their debt-financed consumption. It happened after the junk-bond and savings-and-loan collapses of the late 1980s. It happened after the tech and telecom bust of the late '90s. And it will happen this time.”
Samuelson’s column, “The End of Cheap Credit,” left the door slightly ajar in case the collapse is not quite so severe. He wrote of rising interest rates, “As the price of money increases, borrowing and the economy might weaken. The deep slump in housing could worsen. We could also discover that the long period of cheap credit has left a nasty residue.”
Other writers with less prestigious platforms than the Post have been talking about an approaching financial bust for a couple of years. Among them has been economist Michael Hudson, author of an article on the housing bubble titled, “The New Road to Serfdom” in the May 2006 issue of Harper’s. Hudson has been speaking in interviews of a “break in the chain” of debt payments leading to a “long, slow economic crash,” with “asset deflation,” “mass defaults on mortgages,” and a “huge asset grab” by the rich who are able to protect their cash through money laundering and hedging with foreign currency bonds.
Among those poised to profit from the crash is the Carlyle Group, the equity fund that includes the Bush family and other high-profile investors with insider government connections. A January 2007 memorandum to company managers from founding partner William E. Conway, Jr., recently appeared which stated that, when the current “liquidity environment”—i.e., cheap credit—ends, “the buying opportunity will be a once in a lifetime chance.”
The fact that the crash is now being announced by the Post shows that it is a done deal. The Bilderbergers, or whomever it is that the Post reports to, have decided. It lets everyone know loud and clear that it’s time to batten down the hatches, run for cover, lay in two years of canned food, shield your assets, whatever.
Those left holding the bag will be the ordinary people whose assets are loaded with debt, such as tens of millions of mortgagees, millions of young people with student loans that can never be written off due to the “reformed” 2005 bankruptcy law, or vast numbers of workers with 401(k)s or other pension plans that are locked into the stock market.
In other words, it sounds eerily like 2000-2002 except maybe on a much larger scale. Then it was “only” the tenth worse bear market in history, but over a trillion dollars in wealth simply vanished. What makes today’s instance seem particularly unfair is that the preceding recovery that is now ending—the “jobless” one—was so anemic.
Neither Perlstein nor Samuelson gets to the bottom of the crisis, though they, like Conway of the Carlyle Group, point to the end of cheap credit. But interest rates are set by people who run central banks and financial institutions. They may be influenced by “the market,” but the market is controlled by people with money who want to maximize their profits.
Key to what is going on is that the Federal Reserve is refusing to follow the pattern set during the long reign of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in responding to shaky economic trends with lengthy infusions of credit as he did during the dot.com bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of 2001-2005.
This time around, Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, is sitting tight. With the economy teetering on the brink, the Fed is allowing rates to remain steady. The Fed claims their policy is due to the danger of rising “core inflation.” But this cannot be true. The biggest consumer item, houses and real estate, is tanking. Officially, unemployment is low, but mainly due to low-paying service jobs. Commodities have edged up, including food and gasoline, but that’s no reason to allow the entire national economy to be submerged.
So what is really happening? Actually, it’s simple. The difference today is that China and other large investors from abroad, including Middle Eastern oil magnates, are telling the U.S. that if interest rates come down, thereby devaluing their already-sliding dollar portfolios further, they will no longer support with their investments the bloated U.S. trade and fiscal deficits.
Of course we got ourselves into this quandary by shipping our manufacturing to China and other cheap-labor markets over the last generation. “Dollar hegemony” is backfiring. In fact China is using its American dollars to replace the International Monetary Fund as a lender to developing nations in Africa and elsewhere. As an additional insult, China now may be dictating a new generation of economic decline for the American people who are forced to buy their products at Wal-Mart by maxing out what is left of our available credit card debt.
About a year ago, a former Reagan Treasury official, now a well-known cable TV commentator, said that China had become “America’s bank” and commented approvingly that “it’s cheaper to print money than make cars anymore.” Ha ha.
It is truly staggering that none of the “mainstream” political candidates from either party has attacked this subject on the campaign trail. All are heavily funded by the financier elite who will profit no matter how bad the U.S. economy suffers. Every candidate except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich treats the Federal Reserve like the fifth graven image on Mount Rushmore.
And even the so-called progressives are silent. The weekend before the Perlstein/ Samuelson articles came out, there was a huge progressive conference in Washington, D.C., called “Taming the Corporate Giant.” Not a single session was devoted to financial issues.
What is likely to happen? I’d suggest four possible scenarios:
Acceptance by the U.S. population of diminished prosperity and a declining role in the world. Grin and bear it. Live with your parents into your 40s instead of your 30s. Work two or three part-time jobs on the side, if you can find them. Die young if you lose your health care. Declare bankruptcy if you can, or just walk away from your debts until they bring back debtor’s prison like they’ve done in Dubai. Meanwhile, China buys more and more U.S. properties, homes, and businesses, as economists close to the Federal Reserve have suggested. If you’re an enterprising illegal immigrant, have fun continuing to jack up the underground economy, avoid business licenses and taxes, and rent out group houses to your friends.
Times of economic crisis produce international tension and politicians tend to go to war rather than face the economic music. The classic example is the worldwide depression of the 1930s leading to World War II. Conditions in the coming years could be as bad as they were then. We could have a really big war if the U.S. decides once and for all to haul off and let China, or whomever, have it in the chops. If they don’t want our dollars or our debt any more, how about a few nukes?
Maybe we’ll finally have a revolution either from the right or the center involving martial law, suspension of the Bill of Rights, etc., combined with some kind of military or forced-labor dictatorship. We’re halfway there anyway. Forget about a revolution from the left. They wouldn’t want to make anyone mad at them for being too radical.
Could there ever be a real try at reform, maybe even an attempt just to get back to the New Deal? Since the causes of the crisis are monetary, so would be the solutions. The first step would be for the Federal Reserve System to be abolished as a bank of issue and a transformation of the nation’s credit system into a genuine public utility by the federal government. This way we could rebuild our manufacturing and public infrastructure and develop an income assurance policy that would benefit everyone.
The latter is the only sensible solution. There are monetary reformers who know how to do it if anyone gave them half a chance.
Richard C. Cook is the author of “Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age.” A retired federal analyst, his career included work with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, and NASA, followed by twenty-one years with the U.S. Treasury Department. He is now a Washington, D.C.-based writer and consultant. His book “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform,” will be published later this year. His website is at www.richardccook.com.
Richard C. Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard C. Cook
(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.
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, June 14, 2007
It’s official. Mark your calendars. The crash of the U.S. economy has begun. It was announced the morning of Wednesday, June 13, 2007, by economic writers Steven Pearlstein and Robert Samuelson in the pages of the Washington Post, one of the foremost house organs of the U.S. monetary elite.
Pearlstein’s column was titled, “The Takeover Boom, About to Go Bust” and concerned the extraordinary amount of debt vs. operating profits of companies currently subject to leveraged buyouts.
In language remarkably alarmist for the usually ultra-bland pages of the Post, Pearlstein wrote, “It is impossible to predict when the magic moment will be reached and everyone finally realizes that the prices being paid for these companies, and the debt taken on to support the acquisitions, are unsustainable. When that happens, it won't be pretty. Across the board, stock prices and company valuations will fall. Banks will announce painful write-offs, some hedge funds will close their doors, and private-equity funds will report disappointing returns. Some companies will be forced into bankruptcy or restructuring.”
Further, “Falling stock prices will cause companies to reduce their hiring and capital spending while governments will be forced to raise taxes or reduce services, as revenue from capital gains taxes declines. And the combination of reduced wealth and higher interest rates will finally cause consumers to pull back on their debt-financed consumption. It happened after the junk-bond and savings-and-loan collapses of the late 1980s. It happened after the tech and telecom bust of the late '90s. And it will happen this time.”
Samuelson’s column, “The End of Cheap Credit,” left the door slightly ajar in case the collapse is not quite so severe. He wrote of rising interest rates, “As the price of money increases, borrowing and the economy might weaken. The deep slump in housing could worsen. We could also discover that the long period of cheap credit has left a nasty residue.”
Other writers with less prestigious platforms than the Post have been talking about an approaching financial bust for a couple of years. Among them has been economist Michael Hudson, author of an article on the housing bubble titled, “The New Road to Serfdom” in the May 2006 issue of Harper’s. Hudson has been speaking in interviews of a “break in the chain” of debt payments leading to a “long, slow economic crash,” with “asset deflation,” “mass defaults on mortgages,” and a “huge asset grab” by the rich who are able to protect their cash through money laundering and hedging with foreign currency bonds.
Among those poised to profit from the crash is the Carlyle Group, the equity fund that includes the Bush family and other high-profile investors with insider government connections. A January 2007 memorandum to company managers from founding partner William E. Conway, Jr., recently appeared which stated that, when the current “liquidity environment”—i.e., cheap credit—ends, “the buying opportunity will be a once in a lifetime chance.”
The fact that the crash is now being announced by the Post shows that it is a done deal. The Bilderbergers, or whomever it is that the Post reports to, have decided. It lets everyone know loud and clear that it’s time to batten down the hatches, run for cover, lay in two years of canned food, shield your assets, whatever.
Those left holding the bag will be the ordinary people whose assets are loaded with debt, such as tens of millions of mortgagees, millions of young people with student loans that can never be written off due to the “reformed” 2005 bankruptcy law, or vast numbers of workers with 401(k)s or other pension plans that are locked into the stock market.
In other words, it sounds eerily like 2000-2002 except maybe on a much larger scale. Then it was “only” the tenth worse bear market in history, but over a trillion dollars in wealth simply vanished. What makes today’s instance seem particularly unfair is that the preceding recovery that is now ending—the “jobless” one—was so anemic.
Neither Perlstein nor Samuelson gets to the bottom of the crisis, though they, like Conway of the Carlyle Group, point to the end of cheap credit. But interest rates are set by people who run central banks and financial institutions. They may be influenced by “the market,” but the market is controlled by people with money who want to maximize their profits.
Key to what is going on is that the Federal Reserve is refusing to follow the pattern set during the long reign of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in responding to shaky economic trends with lengthy infusions of credit as he did during the dot.com bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of 2001-2005.
This time around, Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, is sitting tight. With the economy teetering on the brink, the Fed is allowing rates to remain steady. The Fed claims their policy is due to the danger of rising “core inflation.” But this cannot be true. The biggest consumer item, houses and real estate, is tanking. Officially, unemployment is low, but mainly due to low-paying service jobs. Commodities have edged up, including food and gasoline, but that’s no reason to allow the entire national economy to be submerged.
So what is really happening? Actually, it’s simple. The difference today is that China and other large investors from abroad, including Middle Eastern oil magnates, are telling the U.S. that if interest rates come down, thereby devaluing their already-sliding dollar portfolios further, they will no longer support with their investments the bloated U.S. trade and fiscal deficits.
Of course we got ourselves into this quandary by shipping our manufacturing to China and other cheap-labor markets over the last generation. “Dollar hegemony” is backfiring. In fact China is using its American dollars to replace the International Monetary Fund as a lender to developing nations in Africa and elsewhere. As an additional insult, China now may be dictating a new generation of economic decline for the American people who are forced to buy their products at Wal-Mart by maxing out what is left of our available credit card debt.
About a year ago, a former Reagan Treasury official, now a well-known cable TV commentator, said that China had become “America’s bank” and commented approvingly that “it’s cheaper to print money than make cars anymore.” Ha ha.
It is truly staggering that none of the “mainstream” political candidates from either party has attacked this subject on the campaign trail. All are heavily funded by the financier elite who will profit no matter how bad the U.S. economy suffers. Every candidate except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich treats the Federal Reserve like the fifth graven image on Mount Rushmore.
And even the so-called progressives are silent. The weekend before the Perlstein/ Samuelson articles came out, there was a huge progressive conference in Washington, D.C., called “Taming the Corporate Giant.” Not a single session was devoted to financial issues.
What is likely to happen? I’d suggest four possible scenarios:
Acceptance by the U.S. population of diminished prosperity and a declining role in the world. Grin and bear it. Live with your parents into your 40s instead of your 30s. Work two or three part-time jobs on the side, if you can find them. Die young if you lose your health care. Declare bankruptcy if you can, or just walk away from your debts until they bring back debtor’s prison like they’ve done in Dubai. Meanwhile, China buys more and more U.S. properties, homes, and businesses, as economists close to the Federal Reserve have suggested. If you’re an enterprising illegal immigrant, have fun continuing to jack up the underground economy, avoid business licenses and taxes, and rent out group houses to your friends.
Times of economic crisis produce international tension and politicians tend to go to war rather than face the economic music. The classic example is the worldwide depression of the 1930s leading to World War II. Conditions in the coming years could be as bad as they were then. We could have a really big war if the U.S. decides once and for all to haul off and let China, or whomever, have it in the chops. If they don’t want our dollars or our debt any more, how about a few nukes?
Maybe we’ll finally have a revolution either from the right or the center involving martial law, suspension of the Bill of Rights, etc., combined with some kind of military or forced-labor dictatorship. We’re halfway there anyway. Forget about a revolution from the left. They wouldn’t want to make anyone mad at them for being too radical.
Could there ever be a real try at reform, maybe even an attempt just to get back to the New Deal? Since the causes of the crisis are monetary, so would be the solutions. The first step would be for the Federal Reserve System to be abolished as a bank of issue and a transformation of the nation’s credit system into a genuine public utility by the federal government. This way we could rebuild our manufacturing and public infrastructure and develop an income assurance policy that would benefit everyone.
The latter is the only sensible solution. There are monetary reformers who know how to do it if anyone gave them half a chance.
Richard C. Cook is the author of “Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age.” A retired federal analyst, his career included work with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, and NASA, followed by twenty-one years with the U.S. Treasury Department. He is now a Washington, D.C.-based writer and consultant. His book “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform,” will be published later this year. His website is at www.richardccook.com.
Richard C. Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard C. Cook
(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.
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