November 7, 2006
I Hope I'm Wrong, but ...
I'm predicting that the Republicans will retain both the House and Senate in today's elections. I don't believe they will do it honestly. Just looking at the smug expression on Karl Rove's face, tells me that the fix is in. Somehow, some way, these people will retain power.
Already the pollsters are saying that the Democratic leads have narrowed - this sets the stage for believablity, should the Republicans win. Tomorrow, the media will say, "Oh well, that's that," and go on to report the next bit of celebrity gossip, like nothing earthshattering has happened. If you're inclined to agree with them, I suggest you read this article from Consortium News. If the Republicans manage to hold on to their power, the end of our Democratic republic and out coutry has come.
If they do not win the majority of the races, I predict they will try to hold power by declaring the election nul and void. Why? The faulty voting machines, of course!
Since before the 2004 election left-wing, liberal and progressive blogs and online press have been warning about these electronic voting machines. They have written billions of pixels about voter suppression and fraud. But no one has paid any mind.
All of a sudden over the last month or so, every mainstream news program has been talking about the issue. How convenient, just in time for the Republicans to say that the Democrats must have stolen the election.
Either that, or some makor catastrophe will happen - a Gulf of Tonkin type attack on the "Ike Strike" group in the Persian Gulf, or an attack by North Korea somewhere. Bush gets to declare martial law. Of course, the election won't matter - we can't change governmental control in the midst of a crisis.
And so it will go. I truly believe that they will do anything necessary to retain power ... anything.
I have never in my life hoped that I am wrong as I do now ...
October 22, 2006
Ticking Bombs and Torture
I was reading this article about Hillary Clinton on Common Dreams. According to the article, she told the New York Daily News that the president should have "some lawful authority" to use torture or other "severe" interrogation methods in a so-called ticking-bomb scenario.
The article defines the ticking-bomb scenario, thusly, "You capture the terrorist who has just placed a nuclear bomb somewhere in a major American city. If you can't locate and disarm the bomb, millions of people will die. If the terrorist won't talk, should you torture him until he tells you what you want to know?"
First, let me say that I used to like and respect Hillary Clinton, but lately she has dropped considerably in my estimation. She grows more and more Lieberman-like every day, and I really think that she is too much of a corporate ally to suit me. Despite the fact that I tend to be moderate and somewhat centrist in my own views, I think that the Republicans have taken the country so far to the right, that only a far left thinking individual as president can get us back to middle ground again. Far left is no longer so far left.
That said, the purpose of this essay is to examine the viability of using torture in an unlikely (IMO) "ticking bomb scenario." Many intelligence experts say that torture is an ineffective method of securing information. Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm told Anne Applebaum, a Washington Post reporter (in an article titled, The Torture Myth January 12, 2005) torture is "not a good way to get information." He is not the only one. Simply Google "torture doesn't work" and you will come up with over 8 million references.
Roger Koppl, a tenured FDU economics and finance professor is quoted in a Morris County Daily Record article as saying "If I want to practice sadism, torture is very effective. It is effective for a lot of things. It is not effective for intelligence gathering." He goes on to say, "The problem is that they (the torturers) cannot make a believable promise to stop torture once the victim tells the truth. Victims know this perfectly well and therefore say anything and everything except what the torturers want to know.""
Say that you have a "ticking bomb" scenario and the FBI or the CIA capture someone they believe has knowledge that will prevent the bomb going off. In a case like this, they probably would pick someone up on uncorroborated evidence that wouldn't stand up in court. They would have no time to investigate if they even had the right person. Say they go on to torture this person anyway. If they have the wrong person, he's going to tell them anything just to get them to stop. And if they have the right person, who knows if what he says is the truth.
So they follow the information and go to the wrong city, or the wrong place in that city and the bomb goes off anyway. What have they accomplished? Perhaps, if they had questioned the suspect using proven methods, that questioning might lead to better information. And perhaps continuing with conventional investigation techniques, they would be more likely to uncover the required information faster.
Either way, the bomb goes off, or it doesn't. I don't believe that torture is justified or effective in any case. I was brought up to believe that two wrongs never make a right.
The key to this bogus and trumped up "War on Terror" (see Robert Dreyfuss' Rolling Stone article, The Phony War) is good solid police and investigative work, not attacking countries that had nothing to do with 9/11.
PEACE.
September 30, 2006
The Day America Died
1776-2006
R.I.P.
I am deeply saddened, and at the same time outraged by what this Congress and this illegitimate president has done to my country. All Americans should hang their head in shame for the bills passed this week that give this criminal administration free rein to torture, free rein to detain people without habeas corpus, free rein to drag this country down to banana republic state.
Bush and Cheney should be impeached for their crimes against the people of the United States and the innocent people in Iraq. Instead our duly-elected (by the people) representatives compliantly give them more power.
The perpetrator of the 911 attacks is alive, and well, and living in Pakistan (our ally???), while we carry on an illicit and uncalled for occupation in Iraq, wasting billions of dollars and countless lives. And all the while our beloved Constitution, the foundation of our country, is being shredded before our very eyes.
September 11, 2006
Remembering September 11, 2001
While we are remembering all those who were lost on this day, 5 years ago, I thought we should also remember this ...
And this ...
Amendment I: Freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly.
Amendment II: Right to bear arms and militia.
Amendment III: Quartering of soldiers.
Amendment IV: Warrants and searches.
Amendment V: Individual debt and double jeopardy.
Amendment VI: Speedy trial, witnesses and accusations.
Amendment VII: Right for a jury trial.
Amendment VIII: Bail and fines.
Amendment IX: Existence of other rights for the people.
Amendment X: Power reserved to the states and people.
A few days after, 9/11/06, I wrote up my recollections of the day. You can read them here ...
September 9, 2006
No Tin Foil Hat Zone
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." --Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
The Merriam-Webster New Collegiate dictionary (my favorite) describes the word conspire thusly:
b : SCHEME
2 : to act in harmony toward a common end
Such a simple word, isn't it - stripped of all the rhetoric and tinfoil hats that generally get attached to it? Basically it's a plot to do something wrong. History is filled with such plots.
- In 44 BCE, sixty Romans conspired to kill Julius Ceasar and they succeeded.
- On July 20, 1944, German officers lead by Oberst Claus Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg conspired to kill Hitler with a bomb placed inside Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair.” They failed.
- In 1995, Timothy James McVeigh and others conspired to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Tragically, they succeeded.
- From 1972 to 1974, Richard Nixon and his cohorts conspired to cover up their bungled break in at the Watergate Hotel. They failed.
And according to the "official" story, 19 hijackers conspired to bring down the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
This is not the stuff of science fiction. These things happen in real life, not just in the realm of fantasy. So why the tinfoil hats? Why is anyone who questions the "official" account of any cataclysmic or tragic event instantly branded a "conspiracy theorist?"
There is nothing wrong with developing a theory either. This word also has a perfectly respectable dictionary definition:
- the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
- abstract thought : SPECULATION
- the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art (music theory)
- a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action (her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn)
- an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances -- often used in the phrase in theory (in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all)
- a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena (the wave theory of light)
- a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
- an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE
- a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject (theory of equations)
All of this serves as a preamble for my thoughts on the events of September 11, 2001 - 5 years later. I'm posting this today rather than on Monday, because I'd like to keep that day as a memorial to those who died - needlessly.
I am one of a growing number of people who do not completely accept the findings of the 911 commission. Were it not for the efforts of the "Jersey Girls" - Kristin Breitweiser, Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, and Monica Gabrielle - all 911 widows, we would not even have had an investigation at all. The worst crime committed in the history of the United States, and no one in any official capacity thought we should investigate. Astounding.
Make no mistake about that - this was a crime of the highest magnitude - all acts of terrorism are crimes. Terrorists are not soldiers in the army of some country. Terrorist organizations are not countries with whom we can go to war. They are criminals and should be treated as such.
I am also one of a growing number of people who believe that our government, either let the events of September 11, 2001 unfold, or that our government - yes the Government of the US of A - took an active role in those events.
Actually all these people are now joining me in my belief, because i have believed this since I read through the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) web site just a few weeks after 9/11/01. Right there on page 63 of this document, I found these chilling words: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor. "
What was 911 if not a "new Pearl Harbor?" How nice of those 19 hijackers (and not an Iraqi among them) to provide exactly what the members of PNAC longed for. And who are these conveniently fortunate fellows? Why they fill various important positions in George Walker Bush's administration!
The Statement of Principles on their web site is signed by the following: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz. Notice any familiar names?
So armed with that alarming bit of information, I began noticing events, and the people involved in those events. I began listening to who was calling for war with Iraq - a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, despite what some in this government would have you believe. I began to wonder just exactly what was transpiring before our very eyes.
There simply are too many convenient coincidences. Now, I'm not one who thinks that coincidences don't happen. I just get very suspicious when they are not only convenient, but serendipitous as well.
If you read this exceptionally thorough and precise explanation by David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of theology. I think you will see why I think the way I do, and I think that you will draw the same conclusions as well.
Dr. Griffin does not believe in some of the flagrantly bizarre theories such as: No planes flew into the buildings, missiles hit the buildings, the buildings were brought down by explosives, etc - and neither do I. I just think that when it comes to the events of September 11, there are fat too many unanswered questions and they are very disturbing questions, indeed. We need the answers, no matter how disturbing they are. We need the truth.
September 4, 2006
Required Reading
This article in Alternet is definitely required reading.
The author - Joshua Holland - does an excellent job of explaining why we are waging "The War on Terror" on the wrong "enemy." He also explains to those, ignorant of the fact, that not all terrorists are Muslims. So many right wing pundits and talk show hosts insist that "not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."
This is so not true. According to the CIA website listing of terrorist organizations 36 out of 58 are NOT Islamic groups. This listing does not include ones that I remember like the Bader-Meinhof and Red Brigade that I remember from a decade or so back.
So check out this article - it will give you plenty of amunition to combat those who insist that Islamists are the only terrorists. Perhaps someone should tell George Bush.
September 3, 2006
Dissent or Disloyalty
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular." --Edward R Morrow, 1954
Keith Olbermann read those wise words from Edward R. Morrow on his program on Aug. 30, 2006, and I take them to heart. It makes me feel good to know that others in our history have wrestled with bullies in their neighborhoods and worse in their government. Bullies who will smear thier patriotic comrades when they try to hold on to the torn and tattered pages of our Constitution. It makes me feel good and hopeful to know that the bullies of the past were defeated.
We need more Keith Olbermans and Edward R. Morrows - men who are not afraid to speak truth to power. We need to have these leaders emerge so we can find the courage in our own hearts to speak up. We all need the courage to say, "Enough" and to say it loudly.
We are not disloyal, in fact just the opposite. We care enough about our country to fight for it. To fight for every line in the Constitution, to fight for the very rights and freedoms this president (not mine) ostensibly sent our men and women to fight for in an illegal war in Iraq
You can find a transcript of Keith Olberman's editorial at Truthout or you can listen to it at Crooks and Liars