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

[Snuffysmith]

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/lazarus/20060316.html

The Moussaoui Trial: It's High Time The Death Penalty Is Taken Off the Table
By EDWARD LAZARUS
elazarus@findlaw.com
----
Thursday, Mar. 16, 2006

This week, Leonie Brinkema, the judge presiding over the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, declared, "I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever been a case with this many significant problems."

The occasion for Brinkema's despair was the revelation that government attorneys had engaged in a panoply of misconduct in trying to obtain the death penalty. Moussaoui is the only person so far convicted of a crime even tenuously connected to the 9/11 attacks; the government wants the death penalty badly in this case, and has gone to extremes to get it.



In this column, I'll argue that the government's conduct has so tainted this case, that, at a minimum, the death penalty option should be withdrawn.

It is hard to imagine a more noble endeavor than bringing a terrorist before the bar of justice and exacting punishment and revenge and, perhaps for a few people, deterrence.

There was a solemn and searing beauty to the trial, conviction, and sentencing of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing, the worst act of home-grown terrorism this country has ever seen. It was not a process without flaws. But it was fundamentally fair; it channeled the nation's retributive impulse on the man most deserving of that ire; and it provided all of us, but especially the victim's families, a true measure of catharsis.

The Moussaoui trial is a farce by comparison, and has taken place with not just the nation but the whole world watching.

The Misconduct: Transforming Fact Witnesses Into Government Lackeys

Here are a few more details of the misconduct in which the government engaged: First and foremost, a government lawyer had improperly coached Transportation Safety Administration witnesses about how best to advance the government's case. This same lawyer also improperly instructed witnesses not to talk to the defense, while falsely telling the court that the witness were unwilling to do so. Government counsel also repeatedly violated a court order barring lawyers from telling witnesses about trial strategy or prior testimony in the case.

This misconduct is especially serious because it violates our core ideal as to what a witness should be: A person who provides, under oath, a recounting of relevant factual events. When factual accounts are mixed with government arguments, the line between witness testimony and lawyers' statements - openings and summations - can be fatally blurred. The chance of a conviction based not on facts, but on rhetoric, looms.

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Judges specifically tell juries that lawyers' statements are not statements of fact, so that juries can rely on the fact that witness testimony, by contrast, is factual. When witnesses are prepped to advance one side's arguments, and withheld on false pretenses from contact with the other side, judges' admonitions, too, become unwitting lies.

What Moussaoui Did, and What He Didn't Do

Here is the most that can be said with any degree of confidence about Zacarias Moussaoui: He is an unstable, fervent, and dangerous adherent of Al Qaeda who appears to have been tapped to carry out a post-9/11 assault on the White House, but who was arrested on immigration charges before he could effectuate the plan.

What charges would these facts support? They would support charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts - but not the acts of 9/11; Moussaoui had heard about them, but did not even know their operational details. On 9/11, he was sitting in jail. He had not planned to be part of the 9/11 attacks; early references to him as a possible "twentieth hijacker" have turned out to be inaccurate. Nor did Moussaoui help plan the attacks.

Nevertheless, the government has somehow made the case against Moussaoui, a case about 9/11. It is easy to sympathize with the impulse to hold someone accountable to the full measure of the law for the 3000 lives mercilessly extinguished on 9/11. But Moussaoui has always been a troubling choice - one that serves mainly to underscore the failures plaguing our investigation and prosecution of terrorists.

The Shaky Case for The Death Penalty, and the Nonexistent 9/11 Link

From the beginning, the government's push to obtain the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui has been a strained and problematic enterprise - for it rests directly on the gaping flaw in the government's case: its attempt to link Moussaoui to 9/11.

Moussaoui was charged with and, after several false starts, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. But his admission to being a part of Al Qaeda's overall plot against the United States is not sufficient on its own to make Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty.

To open that door, the government must show that Moussaoui's conduct had a direct connection to the terrorist acts of 9/11, and actually helped cause those murderous acts. And the only way the government has figured out to try and make this showing is to argue that, if Moussaoui had only told the truth to government agents when he was arrested in August 2001, then the information he would have provided would have permitted the FBI to connect the dots to foil the 9/11 attacks.

The perversity of all this is uncomfortable to confront. It was bad enough that the government had to use as its showcase the prosecution of an apparently schizophrenic peripheral player because its other much-touted terrorism arrests have badly misfired. Now it has compounded its mistake with misconduct designed to bolster a shaky case. The government could have made a simple, accurate case that put Moussaoui away for life. Instead, it has made a misguided bid for death, based on inaccuracy and misconduct.

The latest turn of events - with the judge appalled at government misconduct -- only underscores the tragedy of an ill-advised choice based on an ill-advised theory that, under the intense pressure of the moment, almost inevitably was going to produce a cascade of governmental overreaching.

By breaking elementary rules regarding communication with witnesses while also violating a court order, the government has let slip the moral high ground in a case that, in a fundamental sense, is about the comparative morality of our way of life and of governance against those the terrorists seek to impose.

It is too soon to know what effect the government's misconduct will have on the outcome of Moussaoui's trial.

The judge is prohibiting testimony from six witnesses from the Transportation Safety Administration, who were to have testified about what measures the government could have taken to thwart the 9/11 attacks if only Moussaoui had been forthright when federal agents questioned him in August 2001. Again, the issue with respect to these witnesses is that they were improper coached not to recount the facts they knew, but rather to advance the government's case as best they could.

Still, the judge is not prohibiting the government from seeking the death penalty, even though it appears that several of the now-excluded witnesses were to testify for the defense.

All of which means that the trial is likely to be burdened with a government appeal now -- and a very substantial defense appeal down the road if the jury imposes the death penalty.

It's Time to Get Rid of the Death Penalty Option in This Irrevocably Tainted Trial

Reportedly, the Department of Justice is considering putting a stop to all this by foregoing the death penalty. It should. Let Moussaoui rot in jail.

This was never the right case through which to seek emotional release for the families victimized by the 9/11 terrorists. And now it has become a disastrous case, sure to be counterproductive when it comes to achieving any conceivable polity objectives it might once have imperfectly served.

There is nobility in having the courage to abandon a death penalty fight that the government probably should never undertaken, and now has tainted irremediably by striking a series of low blows. Such courage would far better reflect the American values we seek to project, than a stubborn insistence on obtaining a death sentence that has lost the moral weight that is its only justification.

[Snuffysmith]

How Long Do We Have?


About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution,
Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of
Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic
some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist
as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to
exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves
generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the
majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most
benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every
democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is
always followed by a dictatorship."


"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following
sequence:

1. -From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. -From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. -From courage to liberty;
4. -From liberty to abundance;
5. -From abundance to complacency;
6. -From complacency to apathy;
7. -From apathy to dependence;
8. -From dependence back into bondage ."

[jeffmoskin]

Sad, but true.

Where is the outrage?

Where are the demonstrators?

People in the streets, like in Ukraine?

We are no longer citizens; we are now consumers, content to have all the stuff we can buy at Wal Mart, but what a price we have paid.

[Livyjr]

Well ....

I'm finally back ......

And that was a traumatic experience .....

Being suddenly cut off like that .....

Of course, in the end, it is my own fault .....

For making an assumption ....

That a computer-based forum as sophisticated as this ....

That can let you know you have a new message from someone ....

Would have an automatic "subscription about to expire" message go out to the subscribers .....

So that we would know in advance that we needed to get a remittance in by a certain date ....

Rather than come on one day and simply be locked out because of an oversight .....

But again ...

In the end, it was my fault ...

And so ....

But enough of that ...

I am back ...

And to me ...

That is what matters ...

And so ...

[jeffmoskin]

Glad to see you are back.

Had us worried for a while.

Here in BushWorld, which is only a bad dream.

And I will awake and it will be all gone.

Soon, please.

[Livyjr]

Glad to see you are back.

Had us worried for a while.

Here in BushWorld, which is only a bad dream.

And I will awake and it will be all gone.

Soon, please.

My wish, too, jeffmoskin .....

But fat chance of that, say I ...

The LONG HARD RIDE for OUR America has begun ...

And all we can do is to hang on ...

Or get bucked off in the dust .....

[Livyjr]

And while we are on that subject of the sick and twisted world inside the head of America's TYRANT KING, George the MALIGNANT BUSH ......

As that sick and twisted world is "expressed" for all the candid world to see by the apparently perverted Donald "Saddam's best buddy" Rumsfeld ....

And his crowd .....

Which seem to do nothing but sully the image and reputation of the American "fighting man" .....

While seemingly restoring the "GLORY" of the Waffen SS of Nazi Germany in WWII .....

Which nation was supported financially by George W. Bush's grandfather Prescott "Cottie" Bush ....

And his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker ....

Until FDR slapped their hands for it, anyway, as being an un-American activity ....

"Abuse beyond Abu Ghraib - Elite U.S. military unit routinely mistreated detainees, rebutting assertions that conduct was confined to a few rogue soldiers at infamous Iraq prison"

By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL, New York Times
First published: Sunday, March 19, 2006

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center.

There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into own interrogation cell.

They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.

Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26.

Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL."

The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it."

According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges.

"The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one.

But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret CIA detention centers around the world.

The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.

The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq.

The CIA was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.

American generals were also alerted to the problem.

In December 2003, Col. Stuart A. Herrington, a retired Army intelligence officer, warned in a confidential memo that medical personnel reported that prisoners seized by the unit, then known as Task Force 121, had injuries consistent with beatings.

"It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees," Herrington concluded.

It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross.

The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.

For an elite unit with roughly 1,000 people at any given time, Task Force 6-26 seems to have had a large number of troops punished for detainee abuse.

Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners, and at least 11 members have been removed from the unit, according to new figures the Special Operations Command provided in response to questions from The New York Times.

Five Army Rangers in the unit were convicted three months ago of kicking and punching three detainees in September 2005.

Declassified documents and interviews with more than a dozen military and civilian Defense Department and other federal personnel reflect a culture clash between the free-wheeling military commandos and the more cautious Pentagon civilians working with them that escalated to a tense confrontation.

At one point, one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's top aides, Stephen A. Cambone, ordered a subordinate to "get to the bottom" of any misconduct.

Most of the people interviewed for this article were midlevel civilian and military Defense Department personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26 and said they witnessed abuses, or who were briefed on its operations over the past three years.

Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified.

But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit's treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively.

The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.

Cases of detainee abuse attributed to Task Force 6-26 demonstrate both confusion over and, in some cases, disregard for approved interrogation practices and standards for detainee treatment, according to Defense Department specialists who have worked with the unit.

Some complaints were ignored or played down in a unit where a conspiracy of silence contributed to the overall secretiveness.

"It's under control," one unit commander told a Defense Department official who complained about mistreatment at Camp Nama in the spring of 2004.

The task force also used small field outposts for interrogations.

At the outposts, some detainees were stripped naked and had cold water thrown on them to cause the sensation of drowning, said Defense Department personnel who served with the unit.

In January 2004, the task force captured the son of one of Saddam's bodyguards in Tikrit.

The man told Army investigators that he was forced to strip and that he was punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited.

Army investigators were forced to close their inquiry in June 2005 after they said task force members used battlefield pseudonyms that made it impossible to identify the soldiers involved.

The unit also asserted that 70 percent of its computer files had been lost.

Senior military commanders insist that the elite warriors, who will be relied on more than ever in the campaign against terrorism, are now treating detainees more humanely and can police themselves.

The CIA has resumed conducting debriefings with the task force, but does not permit harsh questioning, said a CIA official.

Human rights advocates and leading members of Congress say the Pentagon must still do more to hold senior-level commanders and civilian officials accountable for the misconduct.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating complaints of detainee abuse by Task Force 6-26, a senior law enforcement official said.

The only wide-ranging military inquiry into prisoner abuse by Special Operations forces was completed nearly a year ago by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica, and was sent to Congress.

But the U.S. Central Command has refused repeated requests from The New York Times over the past several months to provide an unclassified copy of Formica's findings despite Rumsfeld's instructions that such a version of all 12 major reports into detainee abuse be made public.

end quotes

It takes a REAL HERO to slap around unarmed prisoners, eh, what, Donald ...

REAL HEROS in your mold ....

But not in the real America's at all .....

ZEIG F***** HEIL, Herr Donald ....

ZEIG HEIL ....

[Livyjr]

This morning, on FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED YOU DECIDE .....

I heard some nabob of something or other over there in George W. Bush's MOTHER COUNTRY of GREAT BRITAIN saying that GREAT BRITAIN was .....

NOT GOING TO ALLOW IRAQINAM TO DESCEND INTO CIVIL WAR ......

And as usual .....

FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED YOU DECIDE simply let that statement stand ...

Without any comment at all as to JUST HOW RIDICULOUS a statement it was ...

Especially coming from a Brit .....

Which nation is probably as responsible for much if not most of the turmoil on this earth of OURS in the last 300 or so years ....

And which nation was itself unable to do anything of real lasting positive consequence in IRAQINAM the last time it tried ....

Just as it, along with "HALF-BAKED" Rumsfeld and "EVEN LESS BAKED THAN THAT" Bush are unable to prevent that slide now ....

At least according to the MAIN-STREAM NEWS that I read every day .....

And that brings up this article from the past ...

On that exact subject .....

Which is an indication of just how long this BARRAGE OF PURE BULL **** by not only OUR government, but George W. Bush's OVERLORDS in Britain, has been going on now ......

To nobody's benefit .....

But the propagandists, or as they are now called, BROADCAST SPECIALISTS .....

They make good bucks for telling a lot of lies ...

And that is what the American economy is based on ...

And so ....

NY Times

May 24, 2005

"Cowboys and Indians"

By NIALL FERGUSON, London

"I think that this could still fail."

Those words - uttered by a senior American officer in Baghdad last week - probably gave opponents of the war in Iraq, particularly those clamoring for a hasty exit, a bit of a kick.

They should be careful what they wish for.

For history strongly suggests that a hasty American withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster.

"If we let go of the insurgency," said another of the officers quoted anonymously last week, "then this country could fail and go back into civil war and chaos."

As many of the war's opponents seem to have forgotten, civil war and chaos tend to break out when American military interventions have been aborted.

Think not only of Vietnam and Cambodia, but also of Lebanon in 1983 and Haiti in 1996.

To talk glibly of "finding a way out of Iraq," as if it were just a matter of hailing a cab and heading for the Baghdad airport, is to underestimate the danger of a bloody internecine conflict among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites.

Instead of throwing up our hands in an irresponsible fit of despair, we need to learn not just from past disasters but also from historical victories over insurgencies.

Indeed, of all the attempts in the past century by irregular indigenous forces to expel regular foreign forces, around a third have failed.

In 1917 British forces invaded Mesopotamia, got to Baghdad, overthrew its Ottoman rulers and sought - in the words of the general who led them, Sir Stanley Maude - to be its people's "liberators."

The British presence in Iraq was legitimized by international law (it was designated a League of Nations mandate) and by a modicum of democracy (a referendum was held among local sheiks to confirm the creation of a British-style constitutional monarchy).

Despite all this, in 1920 there was a full-scale insurgency against the continuing British military presence.

Some may object that warfare today is a very different matter from warfare 85 years ago.

Yet the striking thing about the events of 1920 is how very like the events of our own time they were.

The reality of what is sometimes called "asymmetric warfare" is how very symmetrical it really is: an insurgency is about leveling the military playing field, and exploiting the advantages of local knowledge to stage hit-and-run attacks against the occupiers, as well as anybody thought to be collaborating with them.

Indeed, if there is asymmetry it lies in the advantages enjoyed by the insurgents.

The cost of training and equipping an American soldier is high; by contrast, life is tragically cheap among the young men of Baghdad and Falluja.

Even if the insurgents lose 10 men for every 1 they kill, they are still winning, not least because the American side takes its losses so much harder.

How, then, did the British crush the insurgency of 1920?

Three lessons stand out.

The first is that, unlike the American enterprise in Iraq today, they had enough men.

In 1920, total British forces in Iraq numbered around 120,000, of whom around 34,000 were trained for actual fighting.

During the insurgency, a further 15,000 men arrived as reinforcements.

Coincidentally, that is very close to the number of American military personnel now in Iraq (around 138,000).

The trouble is that the population of Iraq was just over three million in 1920, whereas today it is around 24 million.

Thus, back then the ratio of Iraqis to foreign forces was, at most, 23 to 1.

Today it is around 174 to 1.

To arrive at a ratio of 23 to 1 today, about one million American troops would be needed.

The United States also faces two other problems that the United Kingdom did not 85 years ago.

The British were able to be ruthless:

They used air raids and punitive expeditions to inflict harsh collective punishments on villages that supported the insurgents.

The United States has not been above brutal methods on occasion in Iraq, yet humiliation and torture of prisoners have not yielded any significant benefits compared with what it has cost the country's reputation.

The Americans' other problem has to do with timing and expectations.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that American forces should aim to work to a "10-30-30" timetable: 10 days should suffice to topple a rogue regime, 30 days to establish order in its wake, and 30 more days to prepare for the next military undertaking.

I am all in favor of a 10-30-30 timetable - provided the measurement is years, not days.

For it may well take around 10 years to establish order in Iraq, 30 more to establish the rule of law, and quite possibly another 30 to create a stable democracy.

Those American officers who say that it could take years to succeed in Iraq are therefore right.

But the Bush administration has just three and a half years left.

Is it credible that American troops will still be in Iraq for even another four years after that?

The insurgents don't think so.

They know that American democracy puts time on their side.

Once again, the contrast with the British experience is instructive.

Although Iraq was formally granted its independence in 1932, there was still some form of British presence in the country until the late 1950's.

So, if we acknowledge that the United States simply does not have the luxury of time that the British enjoyed and cannot be similarly ruthless, can it at least increase the manpower at its disposal in Iraq?

The official answer from Washington is that Iraqi security forces will soon be ready to play an effective role in policing.

Few who have seen those forces on the ground find this strategy realistic.

Some fear that the training that Iraqi soldiers are receiving may prove useful only when they fight one another in an Iraqi civil war.

What, then, of America's own resources?

Almost no one (least of all the Pentagon) wants to go back to the draft.

So could today's all-volunteer force somehow be expanded to double (at least) the troops available?

That too seems unlikely.

Indeed, the current system is already showing alarming signs of stress and strain as more and more is asked of the "weekend warriors" of the reserves and National Guard, who account for roughly two-fifths of the force in Iraq.

In December, the Army National Guard acknowledged that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the preceding two months.

Many members of the Individual Ready Reserve have been contesting the Army's right to call them up.

How did the British address the manpower problem in 1920?

By bringing in soldiers from India who accounted for more than 87 percent of troops in the counter-insurgency campaign.

Perhaps, then, the greatest problem faced by the Anglophone empire of our own time is very simple: the United Kingdom had the Indian Army; the United States does not.

Indeed, by a rich irony, the only significant auxiliary forces available to the Pentagon today are none other than ... the British Army.

But those troops are far too few to be analogous to the Sikhs, Mahrattas and Baluchis who fought so effectively in 1920.

No one should wish for an overhasty American withdrawal from Iraq.

It would be the prelude to a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence, with inevitable spillovers into and interventions from neighboring countries.

Rather, it is time to acknowledge just how thinly stretched American forces in Iraq are and to address the problem: whether by finding new allies (send Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi?); radically expanding the accelerated citizenship program for immigrants who join the army; or lowering the (historically high) educational requirements demanded by military recruiters.

YES, as that anonymous officer said, the Bush administration's policy in Iraq could indeed still fail.

But too few American liberals seem to grasp how high the price will be if it does.

That is a point, unfortunately, that also eludes most of this country's allies.

Does it also elude the secretary of defense?

If "10-30-30" are the numbers that concern him, I begin to fear that it does.

The numbers that matter right now are 174 to 1.

That is not only the ratio of Iraqis to American troops.

It is starting to look alarmingly like the odds against American success.

Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire."

[Livyjr]

NY Times

May 24, 2005

"Cowboys and Indians"

By NIALL FERGUSON, London

So, if we acknowledge that the United States simply does not have the luxury of time that the British enjoyed and cannot be similarly ruthless, can it at least increase the manpower at its disposal in Iraq?

The official answer from Washington is that Iraqi security forces will soon be ready to play an effective role in policing.

Few who have seen those forces on the ground find this strategy realistic.

Some fear that the training that Iraqi soldiers are receiving may prove useful only when they fight one another in an Iraqi civil war.

And jumping ahead to today ....

"War in Iraq costing U.S. more than lives - After three years, price of invasion continues to mount amid uncertainty"

By BOB DEANS, Cox News
First published: Sunday, March 19, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Three years after President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, the war grinds on amid escalating costs -- in lives, money and U.S. influence abroad.

Saddam Hussein and his repressive regime are no longer in power and democracy has taken some important, if shaky, first steps.

Iraq has a "hopeful future," Bush said, despite the problems there.

"We will finish what we started in Iraq," the president said in a speech.

"We will complete the mission."

But sectarian violence verges on civil war.

More than 130,000 troops remain in Iraq.
'
And the toll on Iraq and the United States is far beyond anything the administration prepared Americans for in the leadup to the March 19, 2003, invasion.

The war has divided the United States, set it at odds with friends and rivals alike abroad and dominated an often-ugly national political debate.

Three years on, the costs continue to mount.

U.S. casualties

According to Pentagon figures (as of March 15), 2,310 U.S. military members have died in Iraq since the launch of the invasion three years ago.

Of those, 1,808 were killed in combat and 502 died there from accidents, illnesses or other causes.

An unofficial count by The Associated Press puts the death toll at 2,314 (as of March 18).

Another 17,124 American troops have been wounded.

Of those, 9,212 were returned to duty within 72 hours.

The rest had more serious wounds, including about 400 who have lost a limb.

The figures do not include American civilians killed or wounded in Iraq while working for the U.S. government, private businesses and non-governmental aid organizations.

Iraqi casualties

There are no independently verifiable estimates of the number of Iraqi soldiers killed during the first several weeks of the war, and no official estimates of civilian casualties.

Bush recently estimated the Iraqi dead at somewhere near 30,000.

A London-based human rights group called Iraq Body Count estimates that at least 33,638 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of the war and up to 37,754 may have died in the conflict, based on the group's independent tabulation of deaths confirmed in media reports.

The number includes civilians killed by insurgent attacks as well as operations by U.S. and coalition forces, on the premise that the shootings, roadside bombs and suicide attacks employed by insurgents and criminals were not taking place on any systematic basis before the war and are, therefore, a consequence of the war.

The group posts its findings on its Web site -- http://www.iraqbodycount.org.

Taxpayers' tab

Americans have spent $250 billion on military operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, a war that is currently costing the Pentagon roughly $6 billion a month, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, an arm of Congress.

This spending does not include so-called fixed costs that are part of Pentagon spending -- such as pay for the troops -- but accounts for only the direct war costs, such as bonus pay for combat operations, as well as fuel, munitions and other war-related expenses.

The war's true price tag will include expenses not included in this reckoning, particularly the long-term costs of providing lifetime health care to soldiers wounded in the war or suffering from mental health issues related to the conflict, recurring expenses certain to range in the billions per year.

Nor do these costs include the interest on the additional debt incurred to finance the war.

[Livyjr]

NY Times

May 24, 2005

"Cowboys and Indians"

By NIALL FERGUSON, London

The Americans' other problem has to do with timing and expectations.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that American forces should aim to work to a "10-30-30" timetable: 10 days should suffice to topple a rogue regime, 30 days to establish order in its wake, and 30 more days to prepare for the next military undertaking.

I am all in favor of a 10-30-30 timetable - provided the measurement is years, not days.

Donald Rumsfeld seems to be re-living, IN HIS HEAD, of course, the GLORY of Adolf Hitler's PANZERS, as they swept across Europe in what were at that time "lightning strikes", or BLITZKREIGS ......

And apparently, "backwards-looking" Donald and his NEW CON MEN don't seem to recall or remember what fate ultimately befell Adolf .....

And that is because, like Adolf before them ....

Donald and the rest of this BUSHIANISTIC CROWD seem to think that they are immune from the lessons of history .....

BECAUSE THEY, LIKE ADOLF, THINK THAT THEY ARE THE WRITERS OF HISTORY, INSTEAD .....

Which was true in Adolf's case ...

He wrote some history alright .....

And so ....

"Ethnic strife spreads after fall of Saddam - U.S. invasion prompts rise of militancy, threats beyond Iraq's borders"

By WARREN P. STROBEL and HANNAH ALLAM, Knight-Ridder
First published: Sunday, March 19, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Three years after the United States invaded Iraq in pursuit of a freer, more stable Middle East, the country's deepening ethnic conflict is spreading tension across Iraq's borders, fueling terrorism and nurturing gloom about the future.

President Bush cited Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to international terrorism -- neither of which turned out to exist -- when he ordered a pre-emptive war that began March 19, 2003.

He predicted payoffs for the wider Middle East: spreading democracy, deterred enemies, more secure oil flows, a less hostile environment for Israel.

None of that has happened.

Instead, said officials and analysts in the United States, Arab countries, Israel and Europe, the invasion has produced a vortex of unintended consequences.

Militancy is on the rise.

Terrorists are using Iraq as a training base and potential launch pad for attacks elsewhere, according to U.S. officials and documents.

Democratic reform remains largely stymied.

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and especially the Reserves and National Guard, are feeling the strain of repeated deployments.

Public support for the war is declining in America and almost nonexistent elsewhere.

The war has cost more than 2,300 American lives, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that its total financial cost may exceed $500 billion.

"The region is pushed further toward extremism," said Mohamed el Sayed Said, the deputy director of the Cairo-based Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"The Bush administration was warned that it's moving into an area of shifting sand."

"... This is a very complex region with legacies of sectarian violence and religious strife."

In Jordan to the west, Saudi Arabia to the south and Turkey to the north -- even in Israel -- U.S. allies are voicing growing concern that Iraq's chaos could seep across their borders and infect them.

The President has said the Middle East was anything but stable before the invasion.

Success in Iraq will leave the region better off and America safer, Bush said Monday in the first of three speeches to mark the anniversary.

"By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will inspire reformers across the Middle East."

"And by helping Iraqis build a democracy, we'll bring hope to a troubled region, and this will make America more secure in the long term," he said.

Yet, so far at least, the reality in the Middle East is much different:

Regional stability

Shortly after last month's bombing of a sacred Shiite Muslim mosque in Samarra, Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Persian Gulf leaders in the United Arab Emirates.

Afterward, she said they'd told her they were worried that those who are provoking sectarian tension in Iraq "might try and stoke sectarian tensions in other parts of the region."

Last September, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, warned that civil war in Iraq could drag in Iran, Turkey, the Kurds and Arabs.

Iraq's Arab neighbors, dominated by Sunni Muslims, have watched in horror as Shiites gain political ascendancy in Iraq.

So far they've supported Iraq's unity, fearing that the country's breakup could set off a regionwide scramble.

But a report last month by the private International Crisis Group warned that that could change if religious and ethnic tensions or Shiite power continues to grow.

"Increased sectarian polarization in Iraq will be viewed menacingly by neighboring states, and could draw them into Iraq and hasten its break-up, a development in which, ironically, they have no interest," the report said.

Terrorism

Counterterrorism experts and U.S. government documents seen by Knight Ridder say there are signs that terrorist-recruitment networks created to funnel foreign insurgents into Iraq are being "reversed," with battle-trained militants flowing out of the country to try to destabilize other nations.

In November, suicide bombers apparently under orders from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed at least 60 people in coordinated attacks on luxury hotels in Jordan's capital, Amman.

Last month, would-be bombers were stopped during an attack on the world's largest oil-processing plant, in Saudi Arabia.

How much regional terrorism is due to the invasion itself is open to debate.

Some experts say Iraq is beginning to resemble Afghanistan in the 1980s -- a place for jihadists to rally and confront a superpower.

Liberalization

Few of Iraq's neighbors see a model in its bloodshed and chaos.

"Who could possibly look at anything in Iraq and think, 'I want some of that'?" said Yusuf Kanli, the editor of the Turkish Daily News.

The Bush administration has pushed Middle East dictators to open up, leading to small signs of political liberalization.

Yet authoritarian regimes continue to hoard power, brutally quashing opponents and claiming that the only alternatives are an Islamic takeover or the kind of chaos seen in Iraq.

In the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Egypt, voters have turned out in large numbers to support the militant group Hamas, Hezbollah guerrillas and the conservative Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, respectively.

"War has increased the wave of Islamism," said Essam el Erian, a spokesman for the influential Muslim Brotherhood.

The United States' moral authority to condemn human rights abuses has been damaged by revelations of abuse in American-run detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Iran

Iran has tried to use the war to extend its influence.

"Iran so far clearly is benefiting from events in Iraq, where friendly parties have come to power, and the U.S. finds itself embroiled," the International Crisis Group report said.

Iran appears to be banking that the United States is too tied up in Iraq to confront it militarily over its suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Still, others are worried.

"There is this overwhelming gloom about a possible strike against Iran," said Prince Hassan of Jordan.

Oil

Iraq has the world's second-largest known oil reserves.

Securing energy supplies was an implicit goal of the invasion, and top U.S. officials predicted that Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction.

Instead, due to insurgent attacks and the dislocations of war, Iraq's 2005 oil production was below prewar levels, according to Energy Department figures.

Iraq's instability is a "fiasco" that has transformed the country "from being an important exporter of crude oil and refined products to being an importer of refined products," said Labib Kamhawi, the president of the Jordanian petrochemical, oil and gas consulting firm Cessco.

[Livyjr]

Donald Rumsfeld seems to be re-living, IN HIS HEAD, of course, the GLORY of Adolf Hitler's PANZERS, as they swept across Europe in what were at that time "lightning strikes", or BLITZKREIGS ......

And apparently, "backwards-looking" Donald and his NEW CON MEN don't seem to recall or remember what fate ultimately befell Adolf .....

And that is because, like Adolf before them ....

Donald and the rest of this BUSHIANISTIC CROWD seem to think that they are immune from the lessons of history .....

BECAUSE THEY, LIKE ADOLF, THINK THAT THEY ARE THE WRITERS OF HISTORY, INSTEAD .....

Which was true in Adolf's case ...

He wrote some history alright .....

And so ....

NY Times, March 19, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

"A Top-Down Review for the Pentagon"

By PAUL D. EATON, Fox Island, Wash.

DURING World War II, American soldiers en route to Britain before D-Day were given a pamphlet on how to behave while awaiting the invasion.

most important quote in it was this:

"It is impolite to criticize your host; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies."

By that rule, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces.

First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called "old Europe" has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary.

Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input.

In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.

Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.

In the five years Mr. Rumsfeld has presided over the Pentagon, I have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of the senior leadership.

I thought we had a glimmer of hope last November when Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced off with Mr. Rumsfeld on the question of how our soldiers should react if they witnessed illegal treatment of prisoners by Iraqi authorities.

(General Pace's view was that our soldiers should intervene, while Mr. Rumsfeld's position was that they should simply report the incident to superiors.)

Unfortunately, the general subsequently backed down and supported the secretary's call to have the rules clarified, giving the impression that our senior man in uniform is just as intimidated by Secretary Rumsfeld as was his predecessor, Gen. Richard Myers.

Mr. Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his cold warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower.

As a result, the Army finds itself severely undermanned — cut to 10 active divisions but asked by the administration to support a foreign policy that requires at least 12 or 14.

Only Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff when President Bush was elected, had the courage to challenge the downsizing plans.

So Mr. Rumsfeld retaliated by naming General Shinseki's successor more than a year before his scheduled retirement, effectively undercutting his authority.

The rest of the senior brass got the message, and nobody has complained since.

Now the Pentagon's new Quadrennial Defense Review shows that Mr. Rumsfeld also fails to understand the nature of protracted counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and the demands it places on ground forces.

The document, amazingly, does not call for enlarging the Army; rather, it increases only our Special Operations forces, by a token 15 percent, maybe 1,500 troops.

Mr. Rumsfeld has also failed in terms of operations in Iraq.

He rejected the so-called Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force and sent just enough tech-enhanced troops to complete what we called Phase III of the war — ground combat against the uniformed Iraqis.

He ignored competent advisers like Gen. Anthony Zinni and others who predicted that the Iraqi Army and security forces might melt away after the state apparatus self-destructed, leading to chaos.

It is all too clear that General Shinseki was right: several hundred thousand men would have made a big difference then, as we began Phase IV, or country reconstruction.

There was never a question that we would make quick work of the Iraqi Army.

The true professional always looks to the "What's next?" phase.

Unfortunately, the supreme commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, either didn't heed that rule or succumbed to Secretary Rumsfeld's bullying.

We won't know which until some bright historian writes the true story of Mr. Rumsfeld and the generals he took to war, an Iraq version of the Vietnam War classic "Dereliction of Duty" by H. R. McMaster.

Last, you don't expect a secretary of defense to be criticized for tactical ineptness.

Normally, tactics are the domain of the soldier on the ground.

But in this case we all felt what L. Paul Bremer, the former viceroy in Iraq, has called the "8,000-mile screwdriver" reaching from the Pentagon.

Commanders in the field had their discretionary financing for things like rebuilding hospitals and providing police uniforms randomly cut; money to pay Iraqi construction firms to build barracks was withheld; contracts we made for purchasing military equipment for the new Iraqi Army were rewritten back in Washington.

Donald Rumsfeld demands more than loyalty.

He wants fealty.

And he has hired men who give it.

Consider the new secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, who when faced with the compelling need to increase the service's size has refused to do so.

He is instead relying on the shell game of hiring civilians to do jobs that had previously been done by soldiers, and thus keeping the force strength static on paper.

This tactic may help for a bit, but it will likely fall apart in the next budget cycle, with those positions swiftly eliminated.

So, what to do?

First, President Bush should accept the offer to resign that Mr. Rumsfeld says he has tendered more than once, and hire a man who will listen to and support the magnificent soldiers on the ground.

Perhaps a proven Democrat like Senator Joseph Lieberman could repair fissures that have arisen both between parties and between uniformed men and the Pentagon big shots.

More vital in the longer term, Congress must assert itself.

Too much power has shifted to the executive branch, not just in terms of waging war but also in planning the military of the future.

Congress should remember it still has the power of the purse; it should call our generals, colonels, captains and sergeants to testify frequently, so that their opinions and needs are known to the men they lead.

Then when they are asked if they have enough troops — and no soldier has ever had enough of anything, more is always better — the reply is public.

Our most important, and sometimes most severe, judges are our subordinates.

That is a fact I discovered early in my military career.

It is, unfortunately, a lesson Donald Rumsfeld seems incapable of learning.

Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general, was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

[Livyjr]

NY Times, March 19, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

"A Top-Down Review for the Pentagon"

By PAUL D. EATON, Fox Island, Wash.

DURING World War II, American soldiers en route to Britain before D-Day were given a pamphlet on how to behave while awaiting the invasion.

most important quote in it was this:

"It is impolite to criticize your host; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies."

By that rule, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces.

First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called "old Europe" has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary.

Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input.

In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.

Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.

So, what to do?

First, President Bush should accept the offer to resign that Mr. Rumsfeld says he has tendered more than once, and hire a man who will listen to and support the magnificent soldiers on the ground.

"Rumsfeld: Leaving Iraq like giving Nazis Germany"

47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Leaving Iraq now would be the same as handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a column published on Sunday, as retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton called Rumsfeld incompetent and urged him to resign.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an essay published in The Washington Post on the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

He said "the terrorists" in Iraq were attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war, but that they must be "watching with fear" the progress in the country over the past three years.

"The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq."

"I believe that history will show that to be the case," Rumsfeld said.

But in an opinion piece published on Sunday in the New York Times, Eaton said Rumsfeld had proven himself "not competent to lead our armed forces" and therefore "must step down."

"First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called 'old Europe' has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary."

"Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input," Eaton said.

"In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq," Eaton said.

Eaton, who was in charge of training Iraqi military forces from 2003 to 2004, said President George W. Bush should replace Rumsfeld with someone like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, who could "repair fissures that have arisen both between parties and between uniformed men and the Pentagon big shots."

DEMOCRATS STEP UP PRESSURE

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed Eaton's call, telling CNN's "Late Edition" Rumsfeld's departure would "energize American forces" and help the United States to accomplish its goals in Iraq.

"Imagine what would happen if it were announced tomorrow in the headlines of the papers of in America and throughout the world that Rumsfeld was fired," said Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat.

"It would energize, energize the rest of the world."

"They'd be willing to help us."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, told CNN he would only give any advice he has on the issue privately to Bush -- and only if asked.

Rumsfeld has said he twice offered to resign during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, but Bush did not accept it.

Deep doubts about the Iraq war have helped drive Bush's approval ratings to their lowest level ever.

In a new Newsweek poll released on Saturday, only 36 percent of Americans said they approved of his performance as president.

Sixty-five percent disapprove of his handling of the situation in Iraq, once one of his strongest suits.

Bush used his weekly radio address on Saturday to urge Americans to resist a temptation to retreat from Iraq, but Democrats pressed him to offer a plan for drawing down U.S. troops and said Iraq was moving closer to a civil war.

Rumsfeld wrote that if U.S. forces leave Iraq now, "there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again."

(additional reporting by Doug Palmer)

[Indianhead]

Sad, but true.

Where is the outrage?

Where are the demonstrators?

People in the streets, like in Ukraine?

We are no longer citizens; we are now consumers, content to have all the stuff we can buy at Wal Mart, but what a price we have paid.

Well said.

Glad to see ya here Livyjr.
CGCS without Livyjr is like a day without sunshine.
Most the time I just read your prolific postings, but
you are a column in the building. Again, glad to see ya.

[Livyjr]

And leaving off with our incompetent Secretary of Defense .....

Who should be called America's MINISTER OF WAR AND OTHER PERVERTED PRACTICES ......

Which would be a much more accurate description for what America's Donald Rumsfeld does than Secretary of Defense ....

What a joke that title is when applied to Donald Rumsfeld .....

We jump over to OUR CORRUPT Congress .....

Where the LOBBYISTS are laughing right in OUR faces .....

As they continue to buy and sell OUR representatives and senators ...

Like so many trinkets .....

At a cheap flea market .....

Out in a parking lot somewhere ....

In Podunk, America .....

"Lobbyists Foresee Business As Usual - Post-Abramoff Rules Expected to Be Merely a Nuisance"

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 19, 2006; Page A01

Some of Washington's top lobbyists say that they expect to find ways around congressional efforts to impose new restrictions on lobbyists' dealings with lawmakers in the wake of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, and that any limits will barely put a dent in the billions of dollars spent to influence legislation.

Though Congress may ultimately vote to eliminate a few of the more visible trappings of special pleading, such as gifts, free meals and luxurious trips, lobbyists say they have already found scores of new ways to buy the attention of lawmakers through fundraising, charitable activities and industry-sponsored seminars.

An estimated $10 billion is spent annually to influence legislation and regulations, and that spending is not likely to be diminished by the proposed lobbying changes, these lobbyists contend.

"I wouldn't classify those changes as major," said Dan Danner, executive vice president of the National Federation of Independent Business.

"Between charitable events and fundraising events, there will still be lots of ways to get in front of members [of Congress]."

Abramoff's guilty plea in January -- to charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials with lavish trips, luxury skybox fundraisers, meals and campaign contributions -- triggered a new push in Congress to rewrite the rules governing lobbying.

An emerging Senate bill, which has yet to be completed, would bar lawmakers from accepting meals and gifts such as sports tickets from registered lobbyists.

The leading House measure, which has been proposed by GOP leaders, would rely more heavily on additional disclosures but would also impose a temporary ban on privately paid travel.

But many lobbyists said they consider these bills more of a nuisance than an impediment to their ability to work their will.

"Even if all lunches and sporting tickets are banned, legislation and regulations are so complex that the need for professional lobbyists will not diminish," said Frederick H. Graefe, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist.

"If meals are heavily restricted, we're likely to see executives from the home office picking up checks because they're not lobbyists," added J. Steven Hart of Williams & Jensen, a major lobbying firm.

"And there are lots of other ways we can still get our cases before members of Congress."

Besides, experts said, industries and interest groups have turned to more sophisticated tactics in recent years, and such tactics are generally not addressed in the new bills on Capitol Hill.

Lobbyists are increasing their campaign contributions, widening their use of the Internet to stir voter activism, and donating large sums to think tanks and charities affiliated with such big names as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

The Business Roundtable, which represents big-business chieftains, has embraced a new technique of advertising on Web sites for grass-roots advocates.

And organizations from the left and the right are increasingly offering meetings with top government officials in exchange for hefty dues.

Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by conservative strategist Grover G. Norquist, invites contributors who give more than $15,000 a year to receptions and dinners, often at Norquist's home.

Featured speakers have included Republicans such as Sens. George Allen (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Bill Frist (Tenn.), the majority leader.

Third Way, a group that devises policies for moderate Democrats, invites its $25,000-a-year donors (many of whom are lobbyists) to regular discussions around Washington that have spotlighted Democratic Sens. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Ken Salazar (Colo.).

The most important framework for lobbying clout -- campaign finance laws -- would not be altered in the Senate approach, while House GOP leaders have proposed putting limits on the contributions made to big-money independent groups known as 527s.

But without Senate support, the effort to clamp down on the independent groups will fail.

As a result, lobbyists would still be able to contribute to lawmakers' coffers, host and organize major fundraising events, and arrange trips subsidized by their clients to encourage electoral giving -- just as they do now.

Total federal giving in this election cycle is expected to rise by at least 20 percent, to more than $3 billion, compared with the 2002 midterm-election cycle, according to Michael J. Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

Such campaign-related activities are "the most significant benefits lobbyists use to influence members of Congress," said Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The proposed ethics changes would not restrain the fastest growing part of lobbying: grass-roots activities.

This ginning up of letters, telephone calls and, increasingly, e-mails from back home has become a $1 billion-a-year business, said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), an activist for lobbying law changes.

Congress might require that such lobbying costs be disclosed but is not likely to limit them.

In fact, lobbying in its many forms would continue unabated under the coming legislation.

In 2004, the most recent full year about which data are available, lobbying was a $10 billion industry, according to estimates by James A. Thurber, a political science scholar at American University.

Of the total, $2.1 billion was used to pay the salaries of registered lobbyists, while the rest was spent on more subtle forms of persuasion.

Lobbying is done even at charity events.

Lobbyists say privately that they are all but required to contribute to an annual dinner that helps low-income Roman Catholic schools in the District.

The dinner is co-hosted each September by Boehner and Kennedy.

Boehner has solicited contributions for the $10,000 tables, a request that lobbyists say they are loath to ignore.

"Some lobbyists might consider this a lobbying opportunity," said Michael L. Smith, the dinner's director.

"But we see it as a very worthy charitable event."

The communications industry has its own lobbying-and-charity gala.

Every December, the Federal Communications Bar Association fills the Washington Hilton's grand ballroom for a fancy dinner that raises money for D.C. schoolchildren and honors the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the interests of the dinner's patrons.

At the 2004 Chairman's Dinner, FCC commissioners dined at an elaborately set table while then-Chairman Michael K. Powell gave a lengthy speech and showed a video about himself.

Interest groups also pay to participate in social activities, which double as lobbying venues.

State societies, for example, offer lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists numerous opportunities for informal encounters.

The California State Society's fall 2005 newsletter featured a photograph of Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and former congressman Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), who is a lobbyist for an electric utility and a defense contractor.

Both are active members.

According to its Web site, the society's Platinum ($10,000) corporate sponsors in 2005 included Fleishman-Hillard, a lobbying and public relations company, and Sallie Mae, a Virginia-based provider of student loans that lobbies in Washington.

Lawmakers and their staffers have lately reduced their social interactions, especially meals, with lobbyists in anticipation of a possible crackdown under a new law.

But interests will always find a way to be heard, lobbyists say.

One is through think tanks.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a "major donor" largely as a result of its effort to push that position.

"I think what attracted them to us was our position on global warming," said Sam Kazman, CEI's general counsel.

"And we hope to get support from other industries that agree with us."

[Livyjr]

Glad to see ya here Livyjr.

Hello back, Indianhead ....

Good to see you over in here .....

And I trust that with you ....

All is well ...

And the wind is at your back .....

And the road rises upwards to meet your feet ....

And so ....

Peace, Indianhead ....

For us old vets ....

Let there be peace ...

If just for an instant ...

Before we must go ...

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"Look at the past ....."

"Empire succeeding empire ..."

"And from that ...."

"Extrapolate the future ..."

"THE SAME THING ..."

"No escape from the rhythm of events ..."

"Which is why ...."

"Observing life for forty years ..."

"Is as good as a thousand!"

"Would you really see anything new?"

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[Livyjr]

And talk about "taking cold comfort" from something .....

"Millions of Britons struggle to pay sizzling fuel bills"

Sun Mar 19, 5:24 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Around two million households in Britain will struggle this year to pay domestic gas and electricity bills, which have surged in line with soaring wholesale energy costs, according to a recent study.

By the end of 2006, the number of households facing fuel poverty -- spending over 10.0 percent of their total income on fuel -- will have doubled since 2003, according to the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group (FPAG).

Domestic energy prices in Britain will have rocketed by some 35.0-percent over the same three-year period, government advisory body FPAG said last week.

FPAG has called for an extra 1.0 billion pounds (1.44 billion euros, 1.76 billion dollars) in funding from the British government, over the next four years, to help eliminate fuel poverty by 2010.

"The price increases are causing great hardship to vulnerable people," said FPAG chairman Peter Lehmann.

The most vulnerable homes include those with children, disabled residents or pensioners.

The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group has appealed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's ruling Labour administration and industry regulator Ofgem, to ensure that fewer people struggle to keep warm.

"The prices of gas and electricity in the wholesale markets have been driven way above costs to the detriment of customers, and this needs to be resolved," Lehmann said.

In the wake of the report, charities also called for fresh government assistance for families on low incomes.

"Both the energy industry and the government need to ensure that customers on low incomes can counter the recent increases," Child Poverty Action Group boss Kate Green said.

And a spokesman for the Help the Aged charity added: "Pensioners demand and deserve more help to meet increased cost of keeping warm this winter."

Since the start of the year, Britain-based energy suppliers including Powergen, nPower and British Gas have announced significant hikes in the prices of domestic electricity and gas.

Last Tuesday saw the wholesale price of gas -- a key cost for domestic utility companies -- reach a historic record 255 pence per therm, as freezing weather across Britain boosted demand for winter fuel.

National Grid, the biggest British supplier of gas, issued an unprecedented warning last week that gas demand was outpacing supply, and advised major industrial customers to cut back their usage.

Consumer body EnergyWatch added that it was "inevitable" that the higher prices currently being paid by suppliers would translate into higher fuel bills for consumers at some stage.

There are several reasons behind the rising cost of wholesale gas.

Britain's depleted North Sea gas fields are no longer as productive as they once were and the country is frequently classed as a net importer of gas.

Supplies are also tight owing to the closure of a key gas storage facility in the North Sea, production concerns in Norway and a strike by gas workers in France.

Colder-than-usual weather across Europe has placed also severe constraints on supplies.

And the key "Interconnector" pipeline -- which brings gas from Europe to Britain via Belgium -- is not operating at full capacity, according to industry analysts.

The European Commission recently said the lack of open access across continental energy markets had been a key factor behind the shortfall in gas supplies coming into Britain.

The six main domestic energy providers in Britain are Powergen, which is a subsidiary of German giant E.ON, the British arm of Electricite de France, Centrica's British Gas unit, nPower, Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.

[Livyjr]

And the "environment" .....

The "environment" ....

The "bug-a-boo" ......

We, of course, are supposed to have "mastery" over the earth ...

And all things upon it ...

And the damned environment ...

Well .....

What I really think ...

Is that the environment is just against George W. Bush and his people ...

Like all these TAY-RISTS are, of course ...

And so ...

What that environment needs is just a real good ***-whupping .....

Like the one that George W. Bush is throwing on to those INSURGENTS over there in IRAQINAM .....

Or the women and children and old folks, anyway ....

Who, for OUR George, will suffice ...

After all ...

Nits breed lice, what, what ....

And so ......

"Cyclone Larry Lashes Northeast Australia"

By MERAIAH FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 21 minutes ago

CAIRNS, Australia - The most powerful storm to hit Australia in decades laid waste to its northeastern coast on Monday, mowing down sugar and banana plantations and leaving possibly thousands of people homeless.

But there were no reports of serious injuries, reflecting the preparedness of residents in the storm-prone region.

About 30 people were treated at hospitals for minor cuts and abrasions, said Ben Creagh, a spokesman for Queensland state Department of Emergency Services.

Many people had fled their homes to shelter in evacuation centers ahead of the storm, while some hunkered down in their homes.

"This is far north Queensland and most people live with cyclones year in, year out."

"They do take precautions," said spokesman Jim Guthrie of Queensland's health department.

"We've come out of it extremely well."

Cyclone Larry crashed ashore about 60 miles south of Cairns as a Category 5 storm, packing winds of up to 180 mph.

Cairns is a popular jumping-off point for visits to the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral system which runs parallel to the coast for more than 1,400 miles.

Authorities said it was too early to assess possible damage to the reef, visited by nearly two million tourists each year.

In Innisfail, a farming town of 8,500 that was hardest hit, Mayor Neil Clarke estimated that thousands were left homeless.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the airport was being cleared to house people in tents.

More than 100,000 people were without power, authorities said.

"It looks like an atomic bomb hit the place," he said.

The storm was so bad at its height overnight that police were unable to venture out and help terrified residents who called to say the winds had ripped roofs off buildings and destroyed their homes.

As emergency services fanned out across the region later to assess the damage, they encountered scenes of devastation.

"The damage to dwellings is very extensive," Prime Minister John Howard told the Nine Network from Melbourne.

"Thank heavens it does not appear as though there have been any very serious injuries."

Howard said he would visit the stricken region in coming days and the government would provide aid to homeless families.

He said he was confident the cyclone would not cause the kind of chaos seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina last year.

"Australians are very good at responding to these things because everybody pitches in without restraint," he told reporters.

The main street of Innisfail was littered with the mangled remains of corrugated tin and iron roofs and shredded fronds from beach side palm trees.

Queensland state leader Peter Beattie said more than half the homes in the town were damaged.

"Some have been flattened, roofs have been taken off," he told Macquarie Radio.

"The property damage has been immense."

Creagh said many people evacuated voluntarily over the weekend and would likely return to their homes Tuesday.

Some who did not flee the town sheltered in a local college, he added.

"Tomorrow is going to be a big day" with residents returning to their homes, he said.

"There will be some devastated people."

The storm also devastated banana and sugar cane plantations, the region's economic mainstay.

Officials said damage would run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Des Hensler, an Innisfail resident, took shelter by himself in a church, with water up to his ankles.

"I don't get scared much, but this is something to make any man tremble in his boots," he told the Seven television network.

Australia's military said it would send a medical team to the region.

Helicopters would conduct low-level damage assessment flights.

State Disaster Coordination Center spokesman Peter Rekers warned residents to stay on their guard for deadly animals stirred up by the storm.

"Most of the casualties and deaths resulting from cyclones happen after the storm has passed," he warned.

"Keep your kids away from flooded drains, be aware of snakes and crocodiles."

"Those guys will have had a bad night too."

The storm was the most powerful to hit Australia since Christmas Eve in 1974, when Cyclone Tracy destroyed the northern city of Darwin, killing 65 people.
___

On the Net:

Brisbane Tropical Cyclone Warning Center: http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/qld/cyclone/

[Livyjr]

Kew, 1st July, 1775

"I am of his opinion that when once these rebels have felt a smart blow, they will submit; and no situation can ever change my fixed resolution, either to bring the colonies to a due obedience to the legislature of the mother country or to cast them off!"

Letter from King George III to Lord Sandwich concerning his thoughts on what the fate of his American colonies was going to be .....

Once he had old Billy Howe and "Jackie Brag" Burgoyne put the TEXICAN STOMP on them rebels in OUR America who were OUR forefathers in Liberty ....

Here in OUR America .....

Just as George W. Bush is doing to those rebels over there in IRAQINAM .....

"Bush Asks U.S. to Look Past Iraq Bloodshed"

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

26 minutes ago

CLEVELAND - Beginning the fourth year of an unpopular war, President Bush defended his Iraq record on Monday against skeptical questioning.

He said he could "understand people being disheartened" but appealed to Americans to look beyond the bloodshed and see signs of progress.

Bush fielded questions for nearly an hour at the City Club, a forum known for its tough interrogations of world leaders.

Not only was he grilled on Iraq, but he was also asked to justify his warrantless wiretapping program, U.S. relations with Pakistan and his domestic priorities.

The president was asked why he deemed Iraq — which turned out not to have weapons of mass destruction — as enough of a threat three years ago to launch an invasion, in contrast to nuclear-ambitious Iran today.

"One difference was that, in Iraq, there was a series of unanimous (U.N. Security Council) resolutions that basically held the Iraqi government to account, which Saddam Hussein ignored," Bush said.

Still, he said Iran was a concern, on the question of nuclear weapons and on its role in Iraq.

The White House has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi politics and of supporting armed militias in Iraq by sending men and weapons, including components for increasingly lethal roadside bombs.

Iran and the United States have agreed to talk about Iraq, but Bush said, "It's very important, however, for the Iranians to understand that the discussion is limited to Iraq."

"We feel like they need to know our position."

As the president delivered the latest installment in an upbeat defense of his Iraq policy, opponents used the day after the third anniversary of the invasion to step up their criticism.

Three potential 2008 presidential candidates — Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — offered critical assessments in separate speeches to the International Association of Firefighters' legislative conference in Washington.

Biden said it was time for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to "be told to go home" and for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff "be given his walking papers."

Richardson said U.S. involvement in Iraq had been "badly mismanaged by the administration."

Hagel said many of the predictions and promises made by the administration have fallen short, such as that oil revenues would pay for the war and the conflict would be short.

He also pointed to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion last May that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

"There's been a credibility erosion for three years," Hagel said.

On Capitol Hill, some Democrats said there had been progress in Iraq, as Bush asserted, but they said it was clouded by problems across the country.

They said Bush had gone to war without enough troops.

"Some positive signs do not mitigate this administration's gross miscalculations and stunning incompetence in Iraq," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the "policies of the Bush administration and the civilian leadership of our military have made America less safe and left Iraq on the precipice of all-out civil war."

Bush pointed to success in stabilizing an insurgent stronghold in Tal Afar, a northern Iraqi city of 200,000 near the Syrian border.

"The strategy that worked so well in Tal Afar did not emerge overnight," Bush said.

"It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq."

"The example of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy," the president said.

One woman asked Bush whether he saw terrorism as a sign of the biblical Apocalypse, and a man followed up with how he could restore confidence in U.S. leadership after several reasons for going to war with Iraq later proved false.

"Like you, I mean, I asked that very same question: Where'd we go wrong on intelligence?" Bush said.

He said he was working to improve intelligence gathering because "the credibility of our country is essential."

As for the Apocalypse, Bush said, "I haven't really thought of it that way."

"... I guess I'm more of a practical fellow."

Bush bantered with the audience at times.

And despite the probing questions, he received several rounds of enthusiastic applause.

"Anybody work here in this town?" Bush joked to laughter as he responded to question after question.

The White House made no attempt to screen either the audience or the questions, said spokesman Scott McClellan.

However, much of downtown near the hotel where Bush spoke was barricaded off.

About 100 anti-war protesters chanted for the Republican president to leave the heavily Democratic city, held signs with peace messages and banged on drums.

Inside, not all the questions challenged Bush's war rationale.

One member of the audience invited him back for the Cleveland Hungarian Revolution 50th Anniversary next October.

Others complimented him on his vision for a nuclear treaty with India and for his "very enlightening" comments about Iraq.

Vice President Dick Cheney, attending a political fundraiser in Hanoverton, in northeast Ohio, also defended U.S. involvement in Iraq and said decisions on troop levels would be made without political consideration.

"Our coalition is also helping to build an Iraqi security force that is well trained and well equipped," Cheney said.

end quotes

"One difference was that, in Iraq, there was a series of unanimous (U.N. Security Council) resolutions that basically held the Iraqi government to account, which Saddam Hussein ignored," Bush said?

What kind of double-talking hogwash is that now, for OUR George to be spewing?

George got those resolutions based on a pack of lies ...

And because they were based on a pack of lies ...

Saddam couldn't comply with them ....

Unless he wanted to pretend that he really did have weapons of mass destruction ....

Just to appease George W. Bush ...

Who had previously lied to the world, and the U.N., through his surrogates ....

That Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ......

What a crock of pure BULL **** OUR George can spew .....

And that is a fact ......

Fertilize a forty acre field in five seconds flat .....

And that is something .....

A record that only Dick Cheney could likely meet ...

Or exceed ...

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And speaking of the BIG GRIZ himself ....

And fertilizing forty acre fields .....

With the pureness of the output of his mouth .....

We have .....

"White House Shake-Up Isn't Needed, Says Cheney"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, AP

03-19-06 1330EST

WASHINGTON (March 19) -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday dismissed suggestions that the Bush White House, hampered by a weak response to Hurricane Katrina and stumbles on policy questions, needs a shake-up.

"I don't think we can pay any attention to that kind of thing," Cheney said on CBS "Face the Nation."

"The president has got a job to do."

"... He ignores the background noise that's out there in the polls that are taken on a daily basis."

Bush's job approval in March was at 37 percent, which tied for his lowest rating in the AP-Ipsos poll.

Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood and ideas.

Cheney, in a rare Sunday morning television interview, told CBS that he heard similar grumbling 30 years ago when he was chief of staff for President Ford.

"Administrations go through peaks and valleys," he said.

"When you're down in the polls you're going to take shots that you don't deserve, and when you're up in the polls you're probably going to get praise you don't deserve."

Asked if he and Bush had a "good cop, bad cop" partnership in which Cheney took the heat for controversial policies, the vice president said:

"It may look that way."

"It's not conscious."

Added Cheney, who has said he will not seek the presidency:

"My job is to do what I can to support him and to support the administration."

"My advice to him is untainted by any concern I might have on how the folks in Iowa look at me in connection with the 2008 Iowa caucuses."

Cheney chuckled when asked if he himself had ever considered resigning amid low poll numbers and suggestions by commentators that he was a liability for the administration.

"It's been a highlight of my career to be a part of this administration," he said.

"I've now been elected to a second term, and I'll serve out my term."

To political strategists who say that he should step aside with a year or so remaining in his term to give someone a jump on gaining the Republican nomination for president, Cheney said such a move would not make sense to him.

"Nobody has suggested it to me," he said.

Cheney and the White House were criticized for not immediately notifying the national press corps after he accidentally shot a companion while hunting in Texas last month.

On Sunday, the vice president said he still thought the situation had been handled appropriately.

Calling the circumstances unusual, the vice president quipped, "It's probably the first time the Secret Service ever had to worry about a protectee shooting somebody else instead of being shot at."