Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And then, of course ....

There is GUMMINT SECRECY here in OUR America .....

Where pretty soon ....

We won't know nothing at all ...

Because it's a secret ...

So don't tell anyone ...

And they won't know either .....

EVEN IF THEY ARE A DEFENDANT IN A CRIMINAL TRIAL ...

Here in THEIR America ......

Which is to say ...

George W. Bush's warped and twisted version of OUR America ....

Which is no longer a NATION OF LAWS .....

But a nation of the whims and foibles and outright follies of George, instead .....

"Judge upholds terror counts - Federal jurist's sealed order denies mosque case defendants' request to dismiss indictment based on national spy program"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, March 12, 2006

ALBANY - The secrecy enveloping an FBI counterterrorism case against two members of an Albany mosque continues, as a federal judge has issued a sealed order refusing to dismiss the indictment.

U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy handed down the order, which cannot be viewed by the public or defense attorneys, after reviewing a sealed motion filed by the Justice Department.

Defense attorneys Terence L. Kindlon and Kevin Luibrand, who hoped to win dismissal of the suit on the grounds it may have originated from a controversial national spying program, both said they were stunned at how the process unfolded.

Essentially, McAvoy based his decision Friday on a government motion that may never become public, although it's possible the decision will be appealed to the Second Circuit.

The attorneys had hoped their challenge of the government's case against Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, who allegedly took part in a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists, would force federal prosecutors, and the judge, to address a national debate unfolding about whether the National Security Agency violated any laws by eavesdropping on U.S. residents.

Kindlon, Aref's attorney, filed a nine-page motion in January asking for all evidence in the case to be thrown out, and for a dismissal of the indictment.

While defense lawyers have requested access to classified evidence for more than a year, the motion specifically targeted the NSA program.

Kindlon said the secrecy surrounding the government's motion and McAvoy's decision leads him to believe the program was used in this case.

In his motion, he argued:

"The government engaged in illegal electronic surveillance of thousands of U.S. persons, including Yassin Aref, then instigated a sting operation to attempt to entrap Mr. Aref into supporting a nonexistent terrorist plot, then dared to claim that the illegal NSA operation was justified because it was the only way to catch Mr. Aref."

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion trying to intervene in the case on the NSA issue, but it's not clear now whether the effort will be moot.

Kindlon filed his motion several days after The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the NSA spying program may have prompted the FBI to zero in on Aref and Hossain.

An analysis of the spying program by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, a noted constitutional law scholar, called the NSA eavesdropping program "as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied."

Through its sealed motion, Kindlon said, the government appeared to tacitly confirm Aref was targeted through information gleaned in the controversial spy program.

Federal authorities have acknowledged Aref was the "ultimate target" of their investigation, although they have not said why.

Two months before the sting was launched, Aref's name, phone number and Albany address were found in a notebook recovered from a bombed-out Iraqi encampment that the government contends was occupied by terrorists.

Prosecutors have laid out allegations tying Aref to top Middle East terrorist groups.

Aref has admitted he met people who the U.S. government has labeled terrorist figures, but he has denied being involved with their causes.

Officials have not made any similar charges against Hossain.

The NSA's surveillance program has relied on a secret directive President Bush issued more than three years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It allowed the agency to circumvent court-authorized wiretaps as it eavesdropped on phone calls and e-mails exchanged between U.S. residents and people abroad.

The Bush administration has defended the practice, contending it was a matter of national security, and legal, to sift through thousands of phone calls and e-mails without a warrant or court order.

The Albany-based sting began in July 2003 when an undercover FBI informant, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant, went to Hossain's pizza shop to lure the men into a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists.

No trial date has been set.

Hossain is free on bond while Aref remains jailed without bond.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

[Snuffysmith]

Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

A censure resolution, which simply would scold the president, has been used just once in U.S. history — against Andrew Jackson in 1834.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

The five-page resolution to be introduced on Monday contends that Bush violated the law when, on his own, he set up the eavesdropping program within the National Security Agency in the months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush claims that his authority as commander in chief as well as a September 2001 congressional authorization to use force in the fight against terrorism gave him the power to authorize the surveillance.

The White House had no immediate response on Sunday.

The resolution says the president "repeatedly misled the public" before the disclosure of the NSA program last December when he indicated the administration was relying on court orders to wiretap terror suspects inside the U.S.

"Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold said. "And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."

The Wisconsin Democrat, considered a presidential contender for 2008, said he had not discussed censure with other senators but that, based on criticism leveled at Bush by both Democrats and Republicans, the resolution makes sense.

The president's action were "in the strike zone" in terms of being an impeachable offense, Feingold said. The senator questioned whether impeaching Bush and removing him from office would be good for the country.

In the House, Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing legislation that would call on the Republican-controlled Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment.

The program granted intelligence officers the power to monitor — without court approval — the international calls and e-mails of U.S. residents, when those officers suspect terrorism may be involved.

Frist, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that he hoped al-Qaida and other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting.

"The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that is making our homeland safer, is wrong," Frist said.

Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., said on CNN's "Late Edition" that Feingold's announcement on a Sunday talk show was "political grandstanding. And it tends to weaken our president."

A longtime critic of the administration, Feingold was the first senator to urge a withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops in Iraq and was the only senator to vote in 2001 against the USA Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers. He also voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq.

Jackson was censured by the Senate in 1834 after he removed the nation's money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig Party, which controlled the Senate.

On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate failed to gain enough votes to bring a censure resolution against President Clinton. The Senate had just acquitted Clinton after the House impeached him in December 1998, accusing him of committing perjury and obstructing justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Impeachment is the only punishment outlined in the Constitution for a president. But the Constitution says the House and Senate can punish their own members through censure.



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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[Livyjr]

"Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

Frist, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that he hoped al-Qaida and other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting.

"The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that is making our homeland safer, is wrong," Frist said.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said on CNN's "Late Edition" that Feingold's announcement on a Sunday talk show was "political grandstanding."

"And it tends to weaken our president."

"Big BILL" Frist ....

A whole ton of real hot air wrapped up in the form and guise of a United States Senator .....

STOP SIMPERING AND WHINING, BIG BILL .....

There is no war ....

Nothing is going to come and hurt you .....

Your DELUSIONS that you have tried to FOIST OFF on OUR America are simply coming back home to haunt you in your own mind, is all ....

You REPUBLICANS have been telling so many lies that they have become a sort of sick truth with you boys and girls down there in CORRUPT Washington, D.C. ......

And Big Bill .....

And Senator Warner, too ....

HOW CAN ANYONE WEAKEN GEORGE W. BUSH?

I mean ...

Well ...

According to the both of you ...

BIG GEORGE is the WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MAN ...

Besides being omniscient, of course ....

And so ...

If this were really true, which it never was, WHO CAN WEAKEN GEORGE W. BUSH?

What twaddle ...

What absolute crap ...

But the newspapers will still print it .....

And ABC's "This week" likely does not even know where its own head is stuck at any given instant in time ...

And so ...

They suck this PABLUM OF PURE BULL **** AND IGNORANCE up like thin gruel through a soda straw, believing in their own arrogance that they have just fed us AMERICANS with some PEARL OF WISDOM, instead ...

When all it really was .....

Was BIG BILL Frist posturing, playing politics, and mewling and crying and whining ...

Because he has been listening to his own lies for so long now ...

That he has got himself scared half to death .....

How very embarrasing it is to be an American in the world these days with this pack of cravens and outright corrupt fools that someone stuck down there in that place called Washington, D.C. ......

That call themselves the United States Congress ......

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/politics...GZYottYaeUY0rOg

March 13, 2006
News Analysis
A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, March 12 — The president who made pre-emption and going it alone the watchwords of his first term is quietly turning in a new direction, warning at every opportunity of the dangers of turning the nation inward and isolationist, and making the case for international engagement on issues from national security to global economics.

President Bush's cautions on the dangers of pulling back behind American borders — in trade and investment, in immigration and in his effort to make the spread of democracy the signature of his second term — first cropped up in his State of the Union address six weeks ago.

But it accelerated even before the Dubai ports deal was derailed by members of his own party, and before an unexpected uprising began among some neo-conservatives, who are now arguing that Iraq, while a noble effort, has turned into a failed mission that must be abandoned.

In interviews over the past week, Mr. Bush's aides, insisting on anonymity, they say, because they do not want to worsen the fissures, say they fear that the new mood threatens to undermine the international agenda for the rest of Mr. Bush's presidency.

"We're seeing it in everything," said one of Mr. Bush's closest aides last week. "Iraq. The ferocity of an irrational argument over the ports. Guest workers. China and India."

So starting on Monday, just a few days shy of the third anniversary of Mr. Bush's order to topple Saddam Hussein, the president will begin an effort to explain his Iraq strategy anew in the changed environment of increased sectarian killings.

He acknowledged on Saturday that "many of our fellow citizens" are "now wondering if the entire mission is worth it."

But rather than simply delve into the familiar talk about the need to root out terrorists abroad so they cannot strike Americans here, the White House plans to have Mr. Bush expand his discussion of the need for the United States to embrace a new role in the world, even if that means explaining the benefits of globalization to a nation that does not appear to be in a mood to hear that message.

It is yet another change for a man who came to office talking of a "humble foreign policy," and after Sept. 11 used the hammer of the world's sole superpower around the globe.

To his critics, the internationalist approach is too little too late — the price Mr. Bush has paid for a foreign policy that seemed relentlessly focused on building defensive walls and hunting enemies. A search of the White House Web site confirms that Mr. Bush, who in the days before he took office kept the take-no-prisoners speeches of Teddy Roosevelt on a table at his ranch, made little mention of "globalization" for much of his first five years in office, even when European leaders brought it up.

Asked once, several years ago, about his aversion to the topic, one of his senior aides said Mr. Bush associated the word with "mushy Clintonianism."

"It ranks up there with 'nation-building,' " he added.

No longer. Now Mr. Bush is moving into a new phase of his presidency, not by choice or natural inclination, it seems, but by necessity. Mr. Bush changed his tone on nation-building several years ago.

As the invasion turned to occupation, he emphasized the spread of democracy. But even that talk, especially during his re-election campaign, had a unilateralist subtext: the schools and polling places were open because the hammer of the American military made it possible.

His new theme is different, because it is all about interdependence. Two of his aides say the near defeat of the Central American Free Trade Agreement in Congress last summer — it passed by one vote, after arm-twisting by the president brought just enough Republicans back into the fold — jolted Mr. Bush into recognizing a new retreat from the world by his own party.

For the State of the Union address, Mr. Bush instructed his speechwriters to make global engagement a major theme, a big change for a man who ran in 2000 under the banner of a "humble foreign policy." In the speech, he warned that "the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting — yet it ends in danger and decline."

By the time he visited India earlier this month, he argued that while American jobs were often lost to outsourcing, "you don't retrench and pull back."

He said he had to convince Americans that "a 300-million-person market of middle-class citizens here in India" would soon be buying American goods.

"If we can make a product they want, then it becomes — at a reasonable price — and then all of a sudden, people will be able to have a market here," he said.

Mr. Bush's remarks may signal a halting emergence from a mind-set that, by his own acknowledgment, was set by 9/11. "There is a lot of on-the-job training in the modern presidency," said David J .Rothkopf, the author of "Running the World," a history of the National Security Council, and a Commerce Department official under President Clinton.

"Clinton ran on taking a tough line with China, and decided we needed China," Mr. Rothkopf said. "Bush came in with a philosophy that was almost neo-isolationist. When they dealt with Iraq, they did it alone — outside the context of what globalization implies. That's why the second term is the un-first term."

In the next few weeks, Mr. Bush will try to outmaneuver the next Dubai. On immigration, he is fighting in Congress to retain his guest-worker program rather than just strengthen the borders. When President Hu Jintao of China arrives here next month, Mr. Bush must once again do a delicate balancing act, convincing Congress that he is pressing China to close the $201 billion trade gap, while courting Beijing to help disarm North Korea and Iran.

But Iraq is the elephant on the White House lawn. Mr. Bush's speeches on Iraq are intended to shore up fast-ebbing public support, made worse by talk of civil war.

When Mr. Bush gave a set of speeches on Iraq in December, the calls to pull out were mostly from the left. Now, a rising chorus of neo-conservatives, who urged Mr. Bush to topple Mr. Hussein, say that, having liberated Iraq, the rest is up to the Iraqis.

"The administration has, now, to cope with failure," William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in February. "The kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat."

Briefing reporters on Friday about Mr. Bush's coming speeches, a senior White House official, speaking anonymously because he was describing speeches still being drafted, said Mr. Bush would answer those criticisms and "explain why we and the Iraqis must finish the job together." A year ago, Mr. Bush's allies took such statements as a given. Today, that is no longer the case.

[Livyjr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/politics...GZYottYaeUY0rOg

March 13, 2006

News Analysis

"A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism"

By DAVID E. SANGER

For the State of the Union address, Mr. Bush instructed his speechwriters to make global engagement a major theme, a big change for a man who ran in 2000 under the banner of a "humble foreign policy."

In the speech, he warned that "the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting — yet it ends in danger and decline."

You know, Snuf ....

I don't consider myself to be an expert at anything ...

And actually ...

I think that is a real over-rated term ...

"Expert" ...

As if somehow specially endowed .......

Notwithstanding my views on that word ...

It is indeed possible ...

And desirable ...

To be informed ...

And here is where I give myself a tad of creidt ...

For I believe in citizenship responsibilities ....

Along with whatever else I have to do in my day .....

And so ...

I am continually studying ...

Reading books ...

Reading the news ...

And so ...

I am very UNIMPRESSED with George W. Bush ...

Who has to be one of the laziest American presidents that I think we ever had .....

And here I mean mentally lazy .....

For it is said that George W. Bush is a good bicycle rider ....

I wonder if George W. Bush has ever read a book about America ...

Or the history of the world ...

Or the psychology of people .....

I wonder especially if George has ever read the Declaration of Independence of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in July 1776 .....

Because if he had .....

He might be looking at HIS OWN actions a little more closely ...

For by the clear and unequivocal language in OUR UNITED STATES DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE .....

George the Bush appears to be just as much a TYRANT as George the Third .....

And so ...

WHO IS GEORGE W. BUSH TO BE TELLING US HOW WE SHOULD THINK AND FEEL ABOUT ANYTHING?

More to the point, since it is my premise in here that George W. Bush is IGNORANT, and thus, unfit himself to be the head of a CIVILIZED NATION ...

WHAT EVIDENCE DOES GEORGE W. BUSH HAVE TO SUPPORT HIS CONTENTIONS THAT THE ROAD OF ISOLATIONISM AND PROTECTIONISM ENDS IN DANGER AND DECLINE?

From whence comes that alleged PEARL OF WISDOM?

Other than from the tip of the pen of one of George's propagandists .....

WHO BELIEVES, LIKE GEORGE, THAT WE ARE ALL BIGGER FOOLS THAN THEY ARE .....

So that they can CON and GULL us like slick-talking CARNIVAL BARKERS con and gull the yokels and bumpkins at a rural county fair .....

HUCKSTERISM ....

That is what this "presidency" of George W. Bush's has been to date ...

PURE BULL **** AND HUCKSTERISM .....

And now ......

We are to take the word of George W. Bush ...

On the role OUR America should play in the world ...

After George W. Bush has degraded the name of America .....

Down to a level that I never in my life thought could be possible ...

[Livyjr]

"Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

Frist, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that he hoped al-Qaida and other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting.

"The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that is making our homeland safer, is wrong," Frist said.

And one of the ways that this FORUM empowers us, the PEOPLE OF OUR AMERICA, is with respect to the massive "storage memory" that it provides us with ...

COUPLED WITH A TERRIFIC SEARCH ENGINE .....

That allows people like me ...

An older America who dates back to a time when there were no computers ...

Which meant that we had to develop our own memories ....

To remember that back in Volume I of Life in OUR America ...

I had posted an article that made mention of "Big BILL" Frist wanting to USE George W. Bush's ARCHITECT, Karl Rove, as his own ARCHITECT in his presidential bid for 2008 .....

And so ...

It is not at all surprising to hear "Big BILL" simpering on NATIONAL TV that he hoped al-Qaida and other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting .....

OF COURSE AL QAIDA IS LISTENING .....

And what I want them to hear from me ...

IS TO NOT MISTAKE ALL AMERICANS AS BEING LIKE BILL FRIST AND GEORGE W. BUSH .....

Which is to say ...

There are many of us out here in the country ...

Who are not weak .....

Not scared ...

Not afraid ...

And so ....

washingtonpost.com Highlights

"Bush may face more aggressive Congress - Republican lawmakers want a voice in domestic policy"

By Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington

Updated: 12:14 a.m. ET Dec. 20, 2004

President Bush's second-term plans to reshape Social Security, immigration laws and other domestic programs are facing a stiff challenge from a group that was reliably accommodating in the president's first four years: congressional Republicans.

After essentially rubber-stamping much of Bush's first-term agenda, many House and Senate Republicans plan to assert themselves more forcefully to put their mark on domestic policy in the new year, according to several lawmakers.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has privately criticized White House handling of the recent intelligence bill and Bush's plan to postpone tax reform until 2006 or later.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and others have publicly complained about the political and fiscal hazards of overhauling Social Security.

Several senators, including a few 2008 presidential contenders, are rushing to promote their own Social Security plans to compete with Bush's.

And a number of conservative Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who are concerned about states' rights, are threatening to derail the White House plan to impose federal limits on medical lawsuits.

"It's one of the worst bills going," Graham said.

But the president's most nettlesome intra-party issue in early 2005 may be immigration, lawmakers said.

Bush's goal of granting guest-worker status to large numbers of undocumented immigrants is about to collide head-on with House Republicans' push to crack down on illegal immigrants, in part by denying them driver's licenses.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) salvaged the intelligence legislation this month only by telling GOP colleagues that the White House has vowed to allow tough immigration restrictions, including the driver's license proposal, that were removed from the measure to accompany the first "must-pass" legislation of 2005.

Immigration reform

"If the president wants to maintain credibility with House Republicans, he has to be engaged and willing to pass immigration reform that conservatives want," said Rep. Ray LaHood (Ill.), one of 57 House Republicans who voted against the intelligence bill Bush just signed into law.

"If he does that, he will build a bridge" that could open the way to far-reaching changes to Social Security, the tax code and other policies, LaHood said.

"If he's missing in action on that issue, he's going to have big problems."

Bush's ability to navigate these concerns will go a long way toward determining whether he can do what few previous presidents have done: enact broad domestic policy changes in a second term.

To be sure, Bush has shown a knack for bending Congress to his will.

He overcame Republican complaints to enact three tax-cut packages, impose accountability standards on educators and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

He did so with smaller Republican congressional majorities than he will enjoy at the start of a second term.

But the stiff resistance he faced from GOP House members in pushing through a massive restructuring of U.S. intelligence operations hinted at the challenges ahead.

Bush will face a new, and in some ways less predictable, congressional environment in his second term.

There will be 55 Republican senators, four more than during most of the first term, which should strengthen Bush's hand.

But the new crop includes a few such as former representative Tom Coburn (Okla.) who are more conservative than Bush and have reputations for independence.

There will be 232 House Republicans, three more than this term.

But House Republicans such as DeLay are telling colleagues that they, too, have accumulated considerable political capital by holding the House majority for a decade and picking up seats in back-to-back elections.

The bigger a party's majority, often the harder it is to impose party discipline, several GOP observers said.

At a recent GOP leadership retreat, two participants said DeLay appeared to irritate White House political chief Karl Rove by signaling a more aggressive role in the new Congress.

Some Republicans no longer feel tethered to the president politically, as they did in the 2002 midterm elections and this year.

Other senators, including Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), John McCain (Ariz.) and George Allen (Va.), will be animated by White House ambitions of their own.

Some GOP lawmakers contend that they allowed the White House to usurp too much of Congress's institutional power and that they need to reestablish the House's and Senate's role in writing laws.

The White House is aware of frustration among Hill Republicans and is moving to address it, senior White House officials said.

They are including top lawmakers in early talks about key issues, such as Social Security, and making staff changes to improve relations.

Graham says White House officials are acting unusually "gracious" of late.

Powerful allies

Bush certainly has powerful allies on the Hill.

Frist in many ways owes his leadership job to the president and Rove, who helped orchestrate the Tennessee physician's rise to power.

Some Republicans say Frist would like Rove to run his 2008 White House bid, which would provide the party leader even more incentive to please the White House in the 109th Congress.

The president also has forged a close relationship with Hastert, who like Bush is conservative and comfortable working outside the public eye.

Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) continues to serve as a respected middle man between Bush and House Republicans.

But several lawmakers said the president needs to rub elbows with more rank-and-file Republicans to build support for politically tough issues such as adding private accounts to Social Security.

"There's got to be lots more opportunities for schmoozing, one-on-one talks in small groups at the White House," LaHood said.

"That goes a long, long way to building the kind of relationships he needs to pass Social Security reform."

Addressing that issue, the president recently sent Rove and White House congressional liaison David Hobbs to a private retreat with GOP leaders, as part of a broader effort to develop a plan to create private retirement accounts using a portion of payroll taxes.

Participants discussed, among other things, whether Bush or Congress should take the lead in writing the legislation.

Several sources said the president is leaning toward offering a detailed plan around the State of the Union speech next month and spending the next few months promoting it, election-style, at public meetings.

Congressional Republicans are willing to help, but they expect solid White House support for other measures they favor, said Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), a member of the House GOP leadership who voted against the Bush-backed intelligence bill.

"We know the financial woes of Social Security, and we've got to explain that over and over again," he said.

In return, he said, Bush must rein in moderate Senate Republicans such as Arlen Specter (Pa.) who are accustomed to more political leeway than most House members enjoy.

"If Specter starts getting horsy on medical malpractice reform" and on proposed limits to same-sex marriage and stem cell research, Kingston said, "House members are going to be upset" if the White House stands idly by.

House GOP leaders also have warned the White House not to repeat what they considered to be the big mistake of the 2003 Medicare prescription drug debate: not spending enough time explaining the bill's virtues to voters, before and after Congress enacted it.

Davis and as many as two dozen House Republicans have let it be known they consider major Social Security changes a potential political loser because many senior citizens fear the consequences.

At the same time, conservatives such as Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) are calling for larger private accounts than Bush is likely to endorse.

The Senate may be even more problematic.

Graham is pushing a different Social Security plan and challenging Bush's refusal to tinker with the payroll tax to finance the changes.

Bush has ruled out raising taxes to fund the plan, while Graham says the amount of income subject to the payroll tax, which is capped at $87,900, should be lifted to $200,000.

Hagel plans to unveil his own plan early next year.

It takes 60 votes to pass controversial measures in the 100-member Senate, so Bush can ill afford Republican defectors.

[Livyjr]

"Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

The five-page resolution to be introduced on Monday contends that Bush violated the law when, on his own, he set up the eavesdropping program within the National Security Agency in the months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The resolution says the president "repeatedly misled the public" before the disclosure of the NSA program last December when he indicated the administration was relying on court orders to wiretap terror suspects inside the U.S.

"Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold said.

"And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."

The Wisconsin Democrat, considered a presidential contender for 2008, said he had not discussed censure with other senators but that, based on criticism leveled at Bush by both Democrats and Republicans, the resolution makes sense.

The president's action were "in the strike zone" in terms of being an impeachable offense, Feingold said.

The senator questioned whether impeaching Bush and removing him from office would be good for the country.

In the House, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing legislation that would call on the Republican-controlled Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment.

A longtime critic of the administration, Feingold was the first senator to urge a withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops in Iraq and was the only senator to vote in 2001 against the USA Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers.

He also voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq.

And the craven cowardly Democrats ...

Like RABBITS ...

Ran .....

Russ ...

Take a lesson from Jack Abramoff ...

If you want your colleagues down there in Washington, D.C. to do something ...

Well, Russ ...

YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM .....

How else are you going to get them to move?

"Feingold draws little support for censure"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:06 p.m., Monday, March 13, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Democrats distanced themselves Monday from Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold's effort to censure President Bush over domestic spying, maneuvering to prevent a vote that could alienate swing voters.

Republicans dared Democrats to vote for the proposal.

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy," Vice President Dick Cheney told a Republican audience in Feingold's home state.

Feingold, a potential presidential candidate, said on the Senate floor, "The president has violated the law and Congress must respond."

"A formal censure by Congress is an appropriate and responsible first step to assure the public that when the president thinks he can violate the law without consequences, Congress has the will to hold him accountable," Feingold said.

Even as he spoke, Democratic leaders held off the immediate vote that Majority Leader Bill Frist requested.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he didn't know if there ever would be one.

Throughout the day, Feingold's fellow Democrats said they understood his frustration but they held back overt support for the resolution.

Several said they wanted first to see the Senate Intelligence Committee finish an investigation of the warrantless wiretapping program that Bush authorized as part of his war on terrorism.

Asked at a news conference whether he would vote for the censure resolution, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declined to endorse it and said he hadn't read it.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he had not read it either and wasn't inclined simply to scold the president.

"I'd prefer to see us solve the problem," Lieberman told reporters.

Across the Capitol, reaction was similar.

Feingold's censure resolution drew empathy but no outright support from Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi "understands Sen. Feingold's frustration that the facts about the NSA domestic surveillance program have not been disclosed appropriately to Congress," her office said in a statement.

"Both the House and the Senate must fully investigate the program and assign responsibility for any laws that may have been broken."

Feingold's resolution accuses Bush of violating the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It reads in part:

"Resolved that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required."

The resolution says censuring Bush also is warranted by "his failure to inform the full congressional intelligence committees as required by law, and his efforts to mislead the American people about the authorities relied upon by his administration to conduct wiretaps and about the legality of the program."

The only president ever censured by the Senate was Andrew Jackson, in 1834, for removing the nation's money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig-controlled Senate.

In 1999, a censure resolution failed against President Clinton after he was acquitted by the Senate on House impeachment charges that he committed perjury and obstructed justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

"This is clearly more serious than what President Clinton was accused of doing," Feingold reporters after his floor speech.

Cheney said Monday, "The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies' ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders."

"The American people already made their decision," Cheney added.

"They agree with the president."

[Livyjr]

One amazing thing about this BUSHCO REGIME .....

Is the total depth of incompetence that permeates it .....

From the OVAL OFFICE ...

Through the Office of the Vice President .....

And .....

"Prosecutor used transcript to aid witness"

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:36 p.m., Monday, March 13, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The government lawyer who has jeopardized the prosecution of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui used a transcript of the first day of the trial to try to shape future testimony to meet or deflect possible defense attacks, court documents indicate.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema suspended Moussaoui's sentencing trial Monday when she learned from prosecutors of e-mails sent to upcoming witnesses by Carla J. Martin, an attorney in the Transportation Security Administration.

Arguing that Martin's e-mails tainted three government and four defense witnesses beyond repair, the defense has asked the judge to dismiss the government's bid to execute Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Martin could not be reached for comment.

The judge sent the jury home until Wednesday and called a hearing Tuesday with Martin and the witnesses to decide what to do.

Meantime, she ordered Martin's e-mails released to the public because "if the death penalty winds up being dismissed, the public has a right to know how and why it happened."

Prosecutors had asked that the full text of the e-mails be kept from the public and the defense.

In the 16 pages of e-mails, Martin criticizes the government's opening statement about how the Federal Aviation Administration would have responded to prevent the 9/11 attacks if Moussaoui hadn't lied about his terrorist connections when arrested at a Minnesota flight school Aug. 16, 2001.

She told upcoming government witness Lynne Osmus the prosecutors' opening statement left gaps "the defense can drive a truck through."

Martin concluded the government was going to mistakenly argue that if Moussaoui had told agents about buying short-bladed knives, like those used by the 9/11 hijackers, the FAA could have kept all of them off airplanes by airport screening with X-ray and magnetometer machines.

"There is no way anyone could say that the (airline) carriers could have prevented all short-bladed knives from going through," she e-mailed Osmus.

"Dave MUST elicit that from you and the airline witnesses on direct, and not allow the defense to cut your credibility on cross, (just as they did yesterday with the FBI witness). ..."

Prosecutor David Novak told Brinkema on Monday that this was a harmless e-mail because the government never intended to claim airport screening was 100 percent effective.

In an e-mail to government witness Claudio Manno, Martin notes that FAA did not know that FBI agents had found radical Middle Easterners taking flying lessons in Phoenix before 9/11 or that CIA Director George Tenet was briefed on Aug. 23 that an Islamic extremist named Moussaoui was taking pilot lessons.

"The defense will exploit the fact that the FAA was not clued in to what was going on," Martin e-mailed Manno.

"You need to assert that we did not necessarily need to wait until we got all available information, that we acted independently, indeed, we had a statutory mandate, to follow up on any issue that we thought was a threat to civil aviation."

In several e-mails, Martin said, "Today, the FBI agent on the stand got tripped up" by defense lawyer Edward MacMahon.

FBI agent Michael Anticev first asserted "I don't think anybody was looking at using aircraft as weapons."

But MacMahon got him to acknowledge that the FBI knew before 9/11 that al-Qaida operative Abdul Hakim Murad arrested in the Philippines in 1995 told investigators of plans to fly a plane into CIA headquarters.

She e-mailed Manno: "I've asked Matt to pull any unclass. Information on Murad -- as I know we ran down this issue, deemed it not to be credible ... ."

"Dave will need to go over that with you."

Prosecutor Novak told the court he first learned of the coaching, which he called "horrendously wrong," in a voicemail from Martin last Friday evening.

He told the judge he spent the weekend investigating what Martin did and gathering her e-mails.

He said that six of the seven upcoming witnesses had read her e-mails and two of them had read the attached trial transcript.

He was unable to locate one of the defense witnesses.

Martin was admitted to the bar in 1990.

She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and got a law degree from the Washington College of Law.

She worked in the FAA chief counsel's office but now works as a lawyer for TSA.

After 9/11, Congress transferred responsibility for aviation security from FAA to the newly created TSA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and a number of FAA employees transferred to TSA.

------

On the Net:

E-mails released by the court:

http://notablecases.vaed.uscourts.gov/1:01...ocs/71821/0.pdf

[Snuffysmith]

But you know Liv - I think the prosecutorial misconduct is worse than what's portrayed here. They are trying to make the case that but for the lies M told, the plot would have been discocvered and 9/11 prevented. The irony is they knew all about 9/11 through Able Danger and failed to act. I don't believe M should be sentenced to die for the federal govt's inexcusable bureaucratic failure to act. In that sense, his mother is correct when she says she believes her son is being scapegoated. That is not to say that M's hands aren't clean. They aren't. If he had been capable, he would have flown a plane into the WH - that was his dream. But Mohammad Atta flew the plane into the Towers - and the govt. knew about him.

[Livyjr]

But you know Liv - I think the prosecutorial misconduct is worse than what's portrayed here.

They are trying to make the case that but for the lies M told, the plot would have been discovered and 9/11 prevented.

The irony is they knew all about 9/11 through Able Danger and failed to act.

And that "failure to act" was itself an ACTION .....

Which leads to the question of whether or not it was an intentional "failure to act" .....

And there is where my money still lies ...

THAT 9-11 HAD TO GO DOWN ...

For political purposes here in OUR America ...

And so it did .....

And when I say this, people ask me, "DO YOU THINK THAT OUR GOVERNMENT WOULD KILL AMERICANS, OR STAND BACK AND ALLOW THEM TO BE KILLED IN THIS MANNER?"

And my answer is YES ...

Of course they would .....

FOR POWER ...

Which is the DIVIDEND that the REPUBLICANS alone reaped from 9-11 .....

And if it had been prevented ...

Well ...

Let us say that HISTORY would have been a much different thing ...

And the REPUBLICANS would not now have the leverage that they have ...

And so .....

[Livyjr]

Declaration of Independence : July 4, 1776

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes .....

And accordingly ....

All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer .....

While evils are sufferable ....

Than to right themselves .....

By abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed .....

"Bush Expresses Confidence in Iraq's Future"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Despite the gruesome violence in Iraq last weekend, President Bush continues to emphasize the positive, saying, "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace."

Democrats say it's the same old rhetoric, not a real strategy for victory in Iraq.

"Rather than leading a White House public relations blitz, the president should lead by pulling the factions together right away in a summit to develop a unified plan for Iraq's future," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said Monday.

In the first of a series of speeches to mark the third anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Bush warned of more "chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."

He highlighted improvements in the Iraqi security forces and repeated his promise that U.S. troops will stand down as Iraqi forces are able to defend the country.

"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory — with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," the president said.

Police have found at least 65 bodies in Baghdad, including 15 men bound and shot in an abandoned minibus, in a 24-hour period after car bomb and mortar attacks in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in east Baghdad on Sunday in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

Bush urged patience from Americans and coalition allies as Iraqis work to form a new government.

He said the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra "was a clear attempt to ignite a civil war."

"I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," Bush said.

"It will not."

"There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle."

He said the terrorists are using violence in hopes that they can "shake our resolve and force us to retreat."

"They're not going to succeed."

The president, speaking to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies at George Washington University, said the Iraqi military is taking on more responsibility.

He said it was Iraqis, not coalition forces, who restored order after the attack in Samarra.

Bush said Iraqi forces have taken primary responsibility for more than 30,000 of the country's 170,000 square miles.

That's far higher than the Pentagon's Feb. 24 report to Congress, which said Iraqi forces "have assumed ownership of" slightly more than 12,000 square miles of Iraq."

Bush's goal is to have Iraqis in control of most of Iraq by the end of the year.

More than 130 Iraqi battalions are fighting the enemy, Bush said, with more than 60 taking the lead.

That's up from 120 battalions and 40 in the lead last year.

Iraqi forces have planned, conducted and led more than 200 independent operations in the past two weeks, more than those being conducted by coalition forces, Bush said.

"Not all Iraqi units performed as well as others," he said.

"And there were some reports of Iraqi units in eastern Baghdad allowing militia members to pass through checkpoints."

"But American commanders are closely watching the situation, and they report these incidents appear to be the exception, not the rule."

The president said the upheaval in the country is being perpetrated by a violent minority.

He said most Iraqis want to live in peace and freedom, and they will get it with U.S. help.

Bush also touted efforts to fight the enemy's use of improvised explosive devices, which are bombs that can be hidden and detonated remotely.

Leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee met Monday with the head of the military's task force studying the bombs, Ret. Gen. Montgomery Meigs, who said there is "no silver bullet" to stopping the devices.

"I'd say the enemy is coming up with more lethal combinations and we're being able to hold his effectiveness down to an unacceptably low level, but we're making progress in that area," Meigs told reporters after the meeting.
___

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

[Livyjr]

"Bush Expresses Confidence in Iraq's Future"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Despite the gruesome violence in Iraq last weekend, President Bush continues to emphasize the positive, saying, "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace."

And not to disparage the people of IRAQINAM ....

BUT ...

George, they have shown us nothing of the kind .....

THEY DID NOT REVOLT AGAINST SADDAM HUSSEIN ......

They did not revolt back when your pap invaded Kuwait ...

And encouraged the Shiites in Iraq to revolt .....

And they did not revolt when you made your ill-thought-out BLTZKREIG invasion of IRAQINAM in 2003 ....

To seize the oilfields ......

And when they did start shooting .....

IT WAS AT YOU ...

Although the actual shots were directed at your STAND-INS .....

Or SURROGATES ......

Which is to say ...

At OUR American military .....

As for me, I study these words above from OUR United States of America DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE from the tyranny of another TYRANT named George .....

The words of wise and educated men back in 1776 which stated that "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed .....

And I have to wonder, George .....

WHAT EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE THAT CONTRADICTS ANY OF THIS?

WHAT EVIDENCE?

ANYTHING, GEORGE?

And since it might be a hard question for you, involving as it does not only some knowledge of the history of the world, but of human nature, as well .....

Please ...

Lest you be further embarrassed out there on the world stage as a "MENTAL LIGHT-WEIGHT" and dilletante .....

Take your time answering, George ...

Since you have been doing that anyway .....

From the first day of your adminstration ....

Or should I say ...

YOUR GOVERNMENT .....

Back in 2000 ....

And so ...

And of course, George, since this is all probably TOP SECRET ....

Well ...

In that case .....

[Livyjr]

Declaration of Independence : July 4, 1776

The history of the present King of Great Britain .....

Is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations .....

All having in direct object ....

The establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states ......

To prove this .......

Let facts be submitted to a candid world .......

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

As for me, I study these words above from OUR United States of America DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE from the tyranny of another TYRANT named George .....

And as America's George the Tyrannical Bush continues his deadly rampage across OUR world ...

Dealing death and destruction to women and children ......

Along with numerous and assorted "unnatural acts" committed against men ....

To show all the candid world exactly how MANLY a man America's George really isn't .....

"11 Killed in U.S. Raid North of Baghdad"

By ZIAD KHALAF, Associated Press Writer

45 minutes ago

ISAHAQI, Iraq - Eleven people — most women and children — were killed when a house was bombed during a U.S. raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said.

The U.S. military acknowledged four deaths — a man, two women and a child —in the raid that they said netted an insurgent suspect in the rural Isahaqi area, about 50 miles north of the capital.

The victims, some wrapped in blankets, were driven in the back of three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north, relatives said.

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle missed a police patrol and killed at least two civilians Wednesday in Bagouba north of Baghdad, police said.

Six others were wounded in the attack in downtown Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

The provincial police command said the bomber's explosives appeared to have detonated prematurely as he was peddling toward the patrol.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of the killed head of the family — Faez Khalaf — told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.

Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were unidentified visitors.

"The killed family was not part of the resistance; they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said.

"The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq.

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman.

"Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."

"The targeted individual was detained during this raid."

The building and a vehicle were destroyed, the military said.

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor were used in the strike, which destroyed the house.

The 11 people inside were killed, he said.

An AP reporter at the scene said the roof of the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows were killed.

[Livyjr]

"Bush: Port deal collapse sends bad message" 
 
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:56 p.m., Friday, March 10, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Friday he was troubled by the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a company in Dubai to take over take over operations of six American ports, saying it sent a bad message to U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Bush said the United States needs moderate allies in the Arab world, like the United Arab Emirates, to win the global war on terrorism.

"I'm concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, particularly in the Middle East," the president said.

"In order to win the war on terror we have got to strengthen our friendships and relationships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East."

"UAE is a committed ally in the war on terror," Bush added.

March 13, 2006

News Analysis

"A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism"

By DAVID E. SANGER

But rather than simply delve into the familiar talk about the need to root out terrorists abroad so they cannot strike Americans here, the White House plans to have Mr. Bush expand his discussion of the need for the United States to embrace a new role in the world, even if that means explaining the benefits of globalization to a nation that does not appear to be in a mood to hear that message.

His new theme is different, because it is all about interdependence ......

For the State of the Union address, Mr. Bush instructed his speechwriters to make global engagement a major theme ....

He said he had to convince Americans that "a 300-million-person market of middle-class citizens here in India" would soon be buying American goods.

"If we can make a product they want, then it becomes — at a reasonable price — and then all of a sudden, people will be able to have a market here," he said.

Ah, yes ...

GLOBALIZATION .....

Which is what America's George is killing all these women and children for ...

George the Bush is the MAN IN CHARGE OF THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD .....

IT IS HIS OYSTER ALONE .....

And while he makes IRAQINAM unsafe for even the cows over there .....

He sure has made AFGHANISTAN "safe" for some BID-NESS MEN ...

Which is what GLOBALIZATION PER BUSHIANISM is really all about, don't you know ..

FREE TRADE ...

ALL BARRIERS TO FREE TRADE COME DOWN ....

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink .....

SO ....

America ....

Just think about how the American ECONOMY is going to be doing when all this FOREIGN INVESTMENT that George W. Bush is promoting comes HOME TO HERE ....

"Afghans to Drug Lords: Keep Profits Home"

By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer

Tue Mar 14, 2:53 PM ET

LASHKARGAH, Afghanistan - Afghanistan will encourage its powerful drug lords to invest their illegally earned profits in the war-shattered country, according to the governor of the nation's top opium-growing region.

The offer comes amid warnings of another bumper poppy crop that will fuel a booming narcotics trade, which already accounts for 35 percent of the impoverished country's income.

"We as a government will provide them the opportunity to use their money for the national benefit," Helmand Gov. Mohammed Daud said during a trip to the region this week by U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann.

"They must invest in industries."

"They must invest in construction companies," he said.

But he said that so far the government has had no success in attracting the drug traffickers to open new businesses and that most of the money is being sent overseas.

The drug trade employs about one in 10 Afghans and brought in $2.8 billion last year, Afghan and U.S. officials say.

The vast majority of that goes to traffickers and only a small fraction to farmers.

About 345,000 acres of poppies are believed to have been planted this year — an increase of up to 40 percent from 2005.

The opium is refined into heroin before being smuggled out of the country to meet 90 percent of the world's supply.

A U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the drug trade was so entrenched that it was difficult to confront the narco bosses head on.

He said the government could grant them an "informal amnesty" if they end their involvement in drugs, swear allegiance to President Hamid Karzai's government, invest their money at home and pay taxes.

The diplomat said one or two major traffickers have approached the government for talks, but no deals have been reached.

Most of their money is stashed in banks in the United Arab Emirates, he said.

Asked about the offer in an interview Monday at the main U.S.-led coalition base in Helmand, Ambassador Neumann compared it to a broad national reconciliation program with Taliban militants and others that aims to bring peace after a quarter century of war.

"It's part of a larger problem, you have militia commanders, you have drug lords, you have all kinds of people that at the end of the day, some of them need to be arrested and put in prison, but basically Afghanistan has to come back together," he said.

But Neumann said he was unaware of a formal program specifically targeting drug traffickers to get them to invest in Afghanistan.

"There is a lot of effort to get Afghans as a whole to invest ... (but) I don't know of any easy way that we are going to distinguish where the money comes from," he said.

Afghanistan would not be the first nation with a vast drug industry to let barons launder their ill-gotten money.

The U.S. government has accused military-run Myanmar — once the world's top producer of opium and still treated as a pariah for its poor rights record — of allowing drug kingpins and ethnic armies that reached cease-fires with the government to invest in commercial banks and other businesses.

Afghanistan's drug traffickers have acted with virtual impunity since U.S.-led forces in 2001 ousted the Taliban, which in its last two years in power enforced a virtual ban on opium cultivation.

The new judiciary system is weak and has never prosecuted senior traffickers.

Afghan and Western officials say the police force is corrupt with officers suspected of involvement in the narcotics trade.

The government's approach until now in dealing with drugs has been to eradicate poppy fields forcibly as part of a U.S. and British-backed program, while also providing farmers with the means to grow legal crops.

Although last year saw a notable decline in opium cultivation, only a tiny percentage of the opium fields that were planted were destroyed.

That prompted farmers to plant more this year because of the apparent likelihood that they will be able to get away with it, the U.S. diplomat said.

The government has vowed to eradicate more this year, and lines of tractors have already ground up some 12,000 acres of the plants before the milky white, oozing opium gum could be harvested, according to U.S. officials.

Drug agents in recent years have considered using airplanes to spray herbicides on the poppies, but strong opposition from Karzai halted the idea, the diplomat said.

The ground eradication campaign has also met with resistance.

Taliban rebels have vowed to defend the opium farmers.

In some small towns in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces, posters purportedly by the insurgents have been pasted on walls, promising to prevent widespread destruction of the poppies.

Eradication started last month in Kandahar and last week in Helmand, but there have been only small skirmishes in both provinces so far.

end quotes

"The new judiciary system is weak and has never prosecuted senior traffickers."

How very George .....

"A U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the drug trade was so entrenched that it was difficult to confront the narco bosses head on."

Most of their money is stashed in banks in the United Arab Emirates, he said.

HOW VERY GEORGE, INDEED ....

[Livyjr]

One amazing thing about this BUSHCO REGIME .....

Is the total depth of incompetence that permeates it .....

From the OVAL OFFICE ...

Through the Office of the thug-like Vice President .....

And .....

"Prosecutor used transcript to aid witness" 
 
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:36 p.m., Monday, March 13, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The government lawyer who has jeopardized the prosecution of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui used a transcript of the first day of the trial to try to shape future testimony to meet or deflect possible defense attacks, court documents indicate.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema suspended Moussaoui's sentencing trial Monday when she learned from prosecutors of e-mails sent to upcoming witnesses by Carla J. Martin, an attorney in the Transportation Security Administration.

Arguing that Martin's e-mails tainted three government and four defense witnesses beyond repair, the defense has asked the judge to dismiss the government's bid to execute Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Martin could not be reached for comment.

The judge sent the jury home until Wednesday and called a hearing Tuesday with Martin and the witnesses to decide what to do.

Meantime, she ordered Martin's e-mails released to the public because "if the death penalty winds up being dismissed, the public has a right to know how and why it happened."

"Judge in Moussaoui Case Imposes Sanctions"

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer

58 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Faced with a major setback in their death penalty case against a confessed al-Qaida conspirator, prosecutors are considering whether to appeal a judge's decision to bar witnesses who were improperly coached by a government lawyer.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema delayed the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui until Monday to give prosecutors a chance to sort out their options.

Brinkema on Tuesday excluded roughly half of the government's key witnesses from taking the stand after determining their testimony may have been tainted.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos called the decision disappointing.

Without addressing the likelihood of overturning Brinkema's ruling, she stressed that prosecutors have already obtained a guilty plea from Moussaoui and at a minimum he will be imprisoned for life without possibility of release.

Brinkema's ruling rejected a defense request for more serious sanctions — dismissal of the government's entire death-penalty case.

The judge penalized prosecutors after learning Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla Martin had violated trial rules.

Martin had improperly prepared seven witnesses from the Federal Aviation Administration for questions on cross-examination by sending them trial transcripts.

Federal rules of evidence prohibit witnesses from exposure to trial testimony because of the possibility they will alter their testimony based on what they learn.

"I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever been a case with this many significant problems," Brinkema said after Tuesday's hearing uncovered even more government misconduct.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack aircraft and other crimes, but he denies any involvement in 9/11, saying he was training for a possible future attack.

The sentencing trial that began last week will determine Moussaoui's punishment: death or life in prison.

Six witnesses who testified outside the jury's presence Tuesday — all present or former FAA employees — said Martin's exhortations would not have affected their testimony.

But Brinkema said that wasn't clear.

"Whether the witnesses have actually been tainted or not is almost impossible to tell," Brinkema said.

"There are a number of errors so serious that that portion of the government's case has been seriously eroded."

Martin had been expected to testify Tuesday, but she invoked her right to an attorney.

That attorney, Roscoe Howard, later advised her not to testify.

E-mails written by Martin reveal she believed prosecutors had overstated the FAA's ability to prevent the 9/11 attacks in their opening statement to the jury, and the FAA witnesses had to be prepared for aggressive cross-examination as a result.

Tuesday's hearing revealed even more missteps by Martin.

In one instance, defense lawyers sought to meet with two TSA employees who might be called as defense witnesses, but Martin falsely told the defense that the two were unwilling to meet with them.

The aviation witnesses are key to prosecutors' efforts to obtain the death penalty, which they must prove by showing Moussaoui's actions resulted in at least one death on Sept. 11.

The witnesses were expected to testify that they would have issued alerts and implemented security measures at the airports if Moussaoui had revealed his al-Qaida membership and the true intent of his flight training when he was arrested and interrogated by federal agents in August 2001.

Prosecutors can appeal Brinkema's ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

They filed a pretrial appeal in 2003 when Brinkema struck the death penalty as punishment for the government's refusal to allow defense questioning of al-Qaida witnesses in U.S. custody.

The appellate court overruled Brinkema in 2004 and reinstated the death-penalty option.

Outside the courthouse, Abraham Scott of Springfield, Va., whose wife Janice Marie died at the Pentagon on 9/11, called Brinkema's ruling "a fair decision," though he was disappointed that the stricken testimony will not expose some of the FAA's failings prior to the attacks.
___

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

end quotes

"I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever been a case with this many significant problems," Brinkema said after Tuesday's hearing uncovered even more government misconduct.

George W. Bush's "VISION OF JUSTICE" in OUR America is revealed .....

MISCONDUCT by GUMMINT LAWYERS ....

Because the "law" belongs to George and HIS, of course ...

So that they are free to do anything that they want with it ...

Despite some puny words written in some books called the LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ....

Which of course, don't apply to the GEORGISTS .....

Because George the TRYANNICAL BUSH has his own set of laws that he and HIS go by ....

And those laws are TOP-SECRET ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And as America's George the Tyrannical Bush continues his deadly rampage across OUR world ...

Dealing death and destruction to women and children ......

Along with numerous and assorted "unnatural acts" committed against men ....

To show all the candid world exactly how MANLY a man America's George really isn't .....

"11 Killed in U.S. Raid North of Baghdad"

By ZIAD KHALAF, Associated Press Writer

45 minutes ago

ISAHAQI, Iraq - Eleven people — most women and children — were killed when a house was bombed during a U.S. raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said.

The U.S. military acknowledged four deaths — a man, two women and a child —in the raid that they said netted an insurgent suspect in the rural Isahaqi area, about 50 miles north of the capital.

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of the killed head of the family — Faez Khalaf — told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.

Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were unidentified visitors.

"The killed family was not part of the resistance; they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said.

"The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor were used in the strike, which destroyed the house.

The 11 people inside were killed, he said.

An AP reporter at the scene said the roof of the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows were killed.

As any good swordsman knows .....

Or even a "grunt" infantryman like me, for that matter .....

When dueling with an enemy who would take your life in a heartbeat ...

But for your superior awareness of the developing situation .....

It can be fatal to lose control of the momentum ....

And it is fatal ignorance in the extreme ...

To not know ....

That such a thing exists in the first place .....

As is the case with America's George .....

And so ....

"Saddam Urges Iraqis to Unite Against GIs"

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 1 minute ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein, testifying Wednesday for the first time in his trial, called on Iraqis to stop killing each other and instead fight U.S. troops.

The judge reprimanded him for making a rambling, political speech and ordered the TV cameras switched off.

Saddam began his speech by declaring he was the elected president, touching off a shouting match with chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.

"You used to be a head of state."

"You are a defendant now," Abdel-Rahman told him.

Saddam, dressed in a black suit and wearing large reading glasses, repeatedly brushed off the judge's demands that he address the charges against him — the killing of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others during a crackdown in the 1980s.

Instead, he read from a prepared text, addressing the "great Iraqi people" — a phrase he often used in his presidential speeches — and said he was "pained" by the recent wave of Sunni-Shiite violence.

"Let the people unite and resist the invaders and their backers."

"Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency.

"In your resistance to the invasion by the Americans and Zionists and their allies, you were great."

"You were great in my eyes and you remain so."

"... It's only a matter of time until the sun rises and you'll be victorious," he said.

Abdel-Rahman shouted at him again and closed the session for 90 minutes, ordering journalists out of the room and the delayed broadcast cut while Saddam finished reading his speech.

The stormy exchanges were a stark contrast to the past few sessions, when each of Saddam's seven co-defendants took the stand, one by one, and were questioned by the judge and prosecutor about the crackdown in the Shiite town of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt on the then-Iraqi president.

Even Saddam's half-brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim — who has frequently caused an uproar in the court in the past — submitted to more than three hours of questioning earlier Wednesday.

He denied any role in the crackdown, and as prosecutors presented a series of intelligence memos on the arrests allegedly with his signatures, he insisted each was a forgery.

Prosecutors will have another chance to try to question Saddam on the charges when the trial reconvenes April 5.

But in Wednesday's session, Saddam sought to project the image of a man still in power addressing his people in troubled times, even as Abdel-Rahman repeatedly stabbed a button on his desk to shut off Saddam's microphone.

At one point, the judge screamed, "Respect yourself!"

Saddam shouted back: "You respect yourself!"

"You are a defendant in a major criminal case, concerning the killing of innocents."

"You have to respond to this charge," Abdel-Rahman told him.

"What about those who are dying in Baghdad?

"Are they not innocents?" Saddam replied.

"I am talking to the Iraqi people."

In his speech, Saddam told Iraqis that "of all religions and sects ... I do not discriminate among you."

"What pains me most is what I heard recently about something that aims to harm our people," he said, referring to Shiite-Sunni violence that has rocked the country since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in Samarra last month.

He blamed "criminals" for the shrine bombing and the attacks on Sunni mosques that followed, and urged Iraqis to unite.

"What happened in the last days is bad," he said.

"You will live in darkness and rivers of blood for no reason."

"The bloodshed that they (the Americans) have caused to the Iraqi people only made them more intent and strong to evict the foreigners from their land and liberate their country," he said.

After Abdel-Rahman closed the session, Saddam finished reading his speech.

Former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, who is a member of Saddam's defense team, told CNN the speech explained the context of the time period in which the Dujail events took place, arguing the legality of the government actions while Iraq was at war with Iran.

But Clark said the judge "threatened us with prosecution if we release what (Saddam) said."

Saddam argued further with Abdel-Rahman, complaining about the closing of the session and insisting he wanted to help stop the violence.

"I am trying to extinguish the fire with few drops of water," he said, according to a person close to the trial, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the judge's gag order.

When journalists returned to the court, Saddam was sitting alone in the defendants' pen.

The chief prosecutor tried to question him, but he refused, demanding first to see a copy of an affidavit he made to investigators before the trial.

Abdel-Rahman ordered that he be given a copy and adjourned the trial until April 5.

Saddam and the seven former members of his regime face possible execution by hanging if they are convicted in connection with the crackdown launched in Dujail following a July 8, 1982 shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade in the town.

In a March 1 session, Saddam stood up in court and boldly acknowledged that he ordered the 148 Shiites put on trial before his Revolutionary Court, which eventually sentenced them all to death.

But Saddam insisted it was his right to do so since they were suspected in the attempt to kill him.

The defense has argued that Saddam's government acted within its rights to respond after the assassination attempt.

The prosecutor has sought to show that the crackdown went well beyond the planners of the attack to punish Dujail's civilian population, saying entire families were arrested and tortured and that the 148 who were killed were sentenced to death without a proper trial.

end quotes

And of course ...

If they can convict Saddam of killing Iraqis without proper trials .....

Then that would apply to George W. Bush as well ..

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And if INCOMPETENCE alone were an impeachable offense ....

As it ought to be in the case of this present seemingly dim-witted incumbent .....

"Government: Moussaoui Case May Be Lost"

By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writers

1 hour, 17 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Prosecutors acknowledge their only hope of salvaging the death-penalty case against confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui is to reverse a judge's ruling barring key witnesses from testifying.

But the government's avenues of appeal may be limited.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Spencer told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema it would be a waste of time for the government to proceed if her ruling, which tossed out half of the government's case, is allowed to stand.

"We don't know whether it is worth us proceeding at all, candidly, under the ruling you made today," Spencer said in an unusually blunt assessment of the government's prospects during a conference call Tuesday.

Transcripts of the call were made public Wednesday.

"Because without some relief, frankly, I think that there's no point for us to go forward."

Spencer went on to say that resuming the trial under the current conditions would "waste the jury's time and the court's time, and we're all mindful of the expense of this proceeding."

"... We ought just to weigh our rights for reconsideration or our appellate rights."

It's not clear, though, what appeal avenues are open to the government.

Defense attorney Edward MacMahon said during the call that the government can't appeal Brinkema's ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond now that the trial is under way

"We don't think the government has any appellate rights under" federal law, MacMahon said during the call.

But there appears to be no dispute that prosecutors can ask Brinkema to reconsider her order.

And she told them her schedule would permit that on Thursday.

The government's case is teetering following the disclosure that a federal lawyer, Carla Martin, violated trial rules by coaching witnesses on their testimony, sending them trial transcripts that she urged them to read, and warning them to be prepared for certain topics on cross-examination.

She also misrepresented to defense lawyers that witnesses they wanted to call weren't willing to talk with them before trial.

Federal rules of evidence prohibit witnesses from exposure to trial testimony because of the possibility they will alter their testimony based on what they learn.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack aircraft and other crimes, but he denies any involvement in 9/11, saying he was training for a possible future attack.

The sentencing trial that began last week will determine Moussaoui's punishment: death or life in prison.

Brinkema delayed the trial until Monday while prosecutors consider an appeal.

The three government witnesses struck from the case were all current or former employees of the Federal Aviation Administration.

They were expected to testify that they would have issued alerts and implemented security measures at airports if Moussaoui had revealed his al-Qaida membership and the true intent of his flight training when he was arrested and interrogated by federal agents in August 2001.

Moussaoui lied to federal agents after his arrest and led them on what one FBI agent called "wild goose chases."

The aviation witnesses are key because, to obtain the death penalty, the government must prove that Moussaoui's actions directly resulted in at least one death on Sept. 11.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said that on its face, the federal statute governing prosecutorial appeals does not allow the government to appeal midtrial because it would violate a defendant's constitutional protections against being tried twice for the same crime.

But he said the issue is not clear cut.

As a practical matter, he thought prosecutors might have more luck asking Brinkema to reconsider her ruling rather than appealing to the 4th Circuit, which could prompt another long delay of a trial that has been more than four years in the making.

But Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general, thought the appellate court in Richmond could act swiftly in a case of this significance.

"Given ... what is at stake both in terms of defendant's life and what this trial means to this nation, I think an appellate court could and should move a lot faster than they are used to," Holder said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

He expected prosecutors would exhaust all options in pursuing the case.

"Agree or disagree with the decision to seek death, once you have committed to that course of action, you have to do all that you can to obtain that ultimate punishment," he said.

Prosecutors successfully overturned an unfavorable ruling from Brinkema in 2004.

The 4th Circuit overruled her decision to exclude the death penalty then as a sanction for the government's refusal to allow defense access to key al-Qaida witnesses in U.S. custody.
___

On the Net:

Court's Moussaoui site: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/...aoui/index.html

[Livyjr]

And then ...

There is OUR CORRUPT CONGRESS .....

Who seem bent on trying to put another one over on us ...

As if they were a bunch of slick talking carnival barkers out hustling the yokels and bumpkins ....

At a west Texas county fair .....

And we were too stupid to see a mere facade

When it is right in front of our faces ....

"Travel ban proposed in scandal-rocked House"

By Thomas Ferraro

1 hour, 36 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers would have to give up one of the perks of office -- free trips -- for the rest of the year under a proposed ethics overhaul prompted by a lobbying scandal that has roiled the Republican-led Congress.

Drafted largely in response to the wide-ranging investigation involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the proposed ban drew quick fire on Wednesday both on and off Capitol Hill.

A public watchdog group accused Republican leaders of merely seeking to get past the November election without any more reports of congressional junkets arranged by lobbyists seeking to influence legislation and paid for by corporations, unions or nonprofits.

And some Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives complained that the moratorium proposed for them would restrict their ability to attend educational conferences and give university commencement addresses.

Leaders were questioned at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday about the proposal, and others expected to be put in draft legislation later this week.

"Muddled and confused," Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican, said of the session.

"A lot more work has to be done."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, another Illinois Republican, said the proposals that would also require greater disclosure by lobbyists could still be changed.

They must go through more committees before being sent to the full House for a vote.

"What we're going to do is move with our members," said Hastert, who described the proposals as designed to protect "the integrity of this Congress."

While lawmakers in both parties have said they are committed to sweeping reform, Public Citizen and other public advocacy groups complain they are not going far enough.

Craig Holman of Public Citizen called the proposed temporary travel ban "a facade."

"They are trying to defer the issue until after the elections, and then hope it goes away," Holman said.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption probe that could reach a number of lawmakers.

In his plea, Abramoff admitted he showered golf trips, meals, sports tickets and other gifts on lawmakers in return for actions that would help his clients.

Lobbyists are prohibited from funding trips by members of Congress, but can help arrange those financed by outside groups.

Under the proposed ban, House members would be unable to accept trips funded by outside groups for the rest of the year.

The House ethics committee also would make recommendations on possible travel and gift restrictions by December 15.

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8718

American Megalomania
Our 'national security strategy' is crazed nonsense
by Justin Raimondo
The rituals of Empire have their own meaning and structure, and, as we morph from a republic to an imperial hegemon, these are becoming more formalized. Note the proliferation of grandiosely named agencies and other offices, staffed by a multitude of officials with sonorously self-important titles. For example, how many people know that a "Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor" has been created within the State Department, charged with "promoting freedom and democracy and protecting human rights around the world," because, after all, this ideological mumbo-jumbo is "central to U.S. foreign policy"? As Pat Nixon’s plain Republican cloth coat gives way to the imperial purple, a rococo extravagance replaces the unpretentious modesty of the Old Republic as the Washington style.

Another mark of Empire is the codification of its rituals in our laws, and that has given the Boy Emperor a pretext for yet another provocation, this one presumably aimed at Iran, in the form of a new "national security strategy" that reiterates an old Bushian trope: the necessity and morality of preemptive war. Every year, the national security bureaucracy is legally charged with issuing such a document, and, although this has been ignored for the past two years or so, suddenly the Bushies have remembered their legal responsibilities. In the process of slapping it together, however, the State Department’s wordsmiths appear to have plagiarized … George W. Bush. Or, at least, his speechwriters, who can fairly claim credit for the opening line:

"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. In the world today, the fundamental character of regimes matters as much as the distribution of power among them. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way to provide enduring security for the American people."

The opener is, of course, the most appalling statement uttered in Bush’s second inaugural speech, the Doestoyevskian one in which he invoked "a fire in the mind" – a phrase directly lifted from The Possessed, intended by the author to characterize the nihilist mindset – as a metaphor for the revolutionary fervor this inside-out Bizarro World Trotskyism is supposed to inspire. However, if even the most pro-American resident of, say, Iran, or perhaps Belarus, gets past the grandiloquent phrases, and down to the specific goals and tasks of U.S. foreign policy as announced in this document, what is likely to be inspired is fear rather than hope. Fear of war, invasion, occupation, and all they entail. Fear, that is, of a rogue nation on the loose.

What the U.S. government is saying, here, is that it has abandoned the traditional behavior of ordinary nation-states throughout history. This is generally understood to be the preservation and protection its own national interests, somewhat narrowly defined as the defense of its territory and such ancillary overseas interests as are directly related to its continued survival as a nation. But the Americans have now abandoned that paradigm, and are seemingly intent on adopting the old Soviet model, at least the one that predominated in the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik coup, in which the Communist International was proclaimed from the rooftops and the leaders of the Russian state routinely referred to their intention to overthrow world capitalism.

In the minds of its leaders, the Soviet state apparatus was not merely concerned with governing Russia and the captive nations, but was a kind of General Command of the world proletariat, tasked just as much with spreading Commie rule over the rest of the globe as it was in filling the potholes in the streets of Leningrad. In this sense, the Russian commissars were carriers of an ideological cancer, one that insisted on metastasizing until it – finally – collapsed, exhausted by its exertions and inner contradictions. The USSR was, in principle if not always in effect, a "rogue" state, one explicitly committed to fomenting conflict.

Similarly, the Bush administration, in reserving to itself the right to effect "regime change" anywhere and everywhere on earth, by any means necessary, has transformed itself into a "revolutionary" state, one that seeks to spread its own system over the entire earth – by consent of the "liberated," if possible, by force of arms if necessary. In any case, the rulers of the American empire, like their Soviet predecessors, fully realize that their final victory won’t be won overnight:

"Achieving this goal is the work of generations. The United States is in the early years of a long struggle, similar to what our country faced in the early years of the Cold War. The 20th century witnessed the triumph of freedom over the threats of fascism and communism. Yet a new totalitarian ideology now threatens, an ideology grounded not in secular philosophy but in the perversion of a proud religion. Its content may be different from the ideologies of the last century, but its means are similar: intolerance, murder, terror, enslavement, and repression."

The conceptual framework of the new American revolutionary ideology is neatly set out, cast in the context of history and given a dualistic frisson that recalls the old Communist doctrine of "class struggle." In the Bushian version, however, the inevitable conflict between the classes is replaced by a purely ideological war between the United States and various forms of totalitarianism – the latest of which is "the perversion of a proud religion" against the purely "secular philosophy" presumably represented by the U.S. and the West.

I’m not sure, at this point, whose ears the above statement is meant for: if any Iraqis are listening, perhaps the words "intolerance, murder, terror, enslavement, and repression" recall major aspects of their own "liberated" state – all of which can be traced back to the American invasion and occupation. Surely the religious theocracy now being imposed on the Iraqi people is as intolerant a government as one is likely to find anywhere on earth, at least when it comes to manners and morals. We know that murder and terror – in the form of Shi’ite party "militias" – are the instruments of this odious regime. As the Americans tilt toward putting the bloodstained Ba’athist thugs back into power, as a hedge against a Khomeini-ite takeover, it is the Iraqi people who are forced to somehow choose between full-fledged enslavement and mere repression.

The practical implementation of America’s worldwide revolutionary strategy is left largely to the imagination – and to the concrete example of Iraq – but seven current targets in the sights of our American neo-Leninists are singled out as "despotic systems": North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma and Zimbabwe, against whom "all necessary measures" are justified. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," the document declares, taking up a theme constantly reiterated by U.S. officials in recent weeks. There is mention of a "confrontation" that can only be "avoided" if the Europeans succeed in persuading Tehran to back off its insistence on acquiring nuclear power.

Russia is slapped around a bit, reflecting the hectoring tone and increasingly hostile stance toward Vladimir Putin taken by the administration in recent years:

"Recent trends regrettably point toward a diminishing commitment to democratic freedoms and institutions. We will work to try to persuade the Russian Government to move forward, not backward, along freedom's path."

If "freedom’s path" means going the way of Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and other regime-changed American satellites veering toward some form of "democratic" authoritarianism, then one can forgive the Russian people if they answer: Thanks, but no thanks. China is also warned to know, and keep, her place, and is lectured to about the wonders of "democracy." There is no recognition or acknowledgement, naturally, that China’s sclerotic Leninist caste system seems to be withering away of its own accord – quite without outside assistance or intervention, except for the all but invincible socio-cultural influence of the West.

There is, indeed, hardly a corner of the world that doesn’t come under the all-seeing, all-encompassing eye of America’s imperial mandarins. Like the Dark Lord keeping track of events in every shire of Middle Earth, the American hegemon keeps a close watch on what it considers its rightful domain – and woe unto those who even think of resistance! The very thought is bound to provoke a military strike – because defiance must be preempted and crushed before it spreads.

And so we are faced with the irony that the one nation formally committed to universal rights is almost universally hated. This kind of arrogance – the Greeks called it hubris – is simply asking to be smacked down. If the Bush Doctrine doesn’t bankrupt us, first, then it will certainly provoke a worldwide reaction, a wave of violent anti-Americanism that endangers us at home and abroad.

This is what happens when foreign policy, instead of attending to the narrowly-defined national interest, becomes the instrument of ideologues, dreamers, con men, and foreign lobbyists. When "ending tyranny in our world," instead of ending attacks on America and American interests, becomes the central motivating factor in formulating U.S. policy, then the consequences are more than likely to be dangerous and quite possibly lethal.

We have never had a greater need for leadership in the foreign policy arena, and yet politicians in both parties routinely regurgitate the megalomaniacal rhetoric and style that suffuses our 2006 national security strategy. When oh when will we see a return, on the part of American policymakers, to simple common sense? When will America give up the Soviet model, as having demonstrably failed, and return to the time-honored constraints and safeguards imposed by a more traditionally American foreign policy?

Not, I fear, before the blowback becomes pretty intense – and we are forced to pay a high price for the lesson.

[jeffmoskin]

Happy Saint Patty's Day.

Everybody should be green.

Unless they are blue.

Can I be of use here?

Michael?

Anybody?