Send a letter to the President about Iran

Please join me in signing a letter to President Bush opposing a war with Iran. This can be done at StopWarOnIran.org

You can use the letter that they have written or you can write your own letter, or you canduse their letter as an outling and edit it to suit yourself as I have done.

This is a small thing that only takes a little time but records your voice as a voice against the madman in the White House.

Thanks, Gregory

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, U.N. Secretary-General Ki-moon, Congressional Leaders and media representatives:

You are taking our great nation down the path to war again without the least shred of evidence for your outlandish claims against Iran.

You have seeded the media with false reports of an alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran. You have misled people with your presumed need for the U.S. to take military action. These reports recall your lies about the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" issued before the war on Iraq.

In the lead up to the illegal invasion of Iraq, Mr. President, you and your Administration asserted that Iraq possessed massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that it was capable of launching an attack - nuclear, chemical and biological - on the U.S. within 45 minutes.
Mr. President, you said that the U.S. had to attack immediately, and could not "wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

You lied to the American people then about Iraq, and you are doing it again about Iran.

Iran is not a threat to any US interests. Iran has not invaded any other country in over 200 years. I wish I could say the same about my country. I wish I could say that my country never overthrew the legitimate government of Iran and installed a "royal" dictator on a throne against every true value of American democracy.

I add my voice to oppose a new war in the Middle East. I urge an immediate end to your campaign of sanctions, hostility, and falsehood against the people of Iran. I oppose any new U.S. aggression against Iran. Iran can be a good partner in the world if we only treat them with respect and honesty. The USA needs funds for human needs, not for endless war against fake enemies.

Sincerely,

The Non-sense of the Senate: It's Iraq, Stupid, Not Iran

Fed up with the Democrats who voted for the Kyl-Liberman Amendment? Wondering what the purpose of the non-Sense of the Senate amendment was?

Well, the purpose of the amendment was not really about Iran. It is about continuing the war in Iraq based on the lies of the Bush administration, now officially adopted by the Democrats, about Iran. After all justifications for staying the course in Iraq have proven empty, by now labeling Iran a terrorist organization (weird, huh?) the Democrats join with the Republicans to provide next justification for the continuation of the war in Iraq.

The non-Sense Amendment exposes the underlying structure of the duopoly, the two-party dictatorship, that rules the USA today.

Only Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are outside the political pack of this duopoly mindset. It is up to the regular grass roots Democrats to face this uncomfortable and inconvenient truth.

Yes, the Kyl-Liberman Amendment was modified so the "military instruments" sections were removed from the amendment. So what? The whole amendment is false, and becomes the prelude to another amendment that does include military instruments. And yes it is a provcation against Iran but that is distraction only and not the real purpose at this time.

The real point is that is is an inflamatory escalation of the war in Iraq, not an amendment to end or even cool down the war. It is adopted to justify remaining in Iraq as long as they, both Democrats and Republicans, can sell the falsehood of "terrorist" Iran being there.

The amendment is really for domestic consumption and tells the people of the US that Iran is attacking Iraq, so we have to stay the course in Iraq to protect Iraq from Iran. This has been the Liberman mantra all along.

What about Hillary Clinton supporting it? This amendment contains exactly the same pack of lies that Clinton believed from Bush in the beginning of Iraq. Now she is "believing" them for Iran all over again. Or is she? As I see it she is a direct participant in the plan, not a dupe.

From the text of the version that seems to have been adopted:

The amendment endorses Gen Betrayus' false testimony to Congress (as bad as Powell's lies to the UN) claiming there is evidence that Iran is somehow sending weapons to Iraq. It is the USA that is sending most weapons, and Saudi Arabia that is sending weapons, Not Iran.

The amendment endorses Ambassador Crockers corkers of lies too. Plus all the other lies about so-called "evidence" of Iranian interference.

Not one argument of the 6-pages of introduction used in the bill to support the amendment is truthful or accurate. It is all opinion and supposition.

Then after six pages of lies we get to the resolution itslef on page 7. The Sense of the Senate says:

#1: That Iran poses a threat to Iraq (false) and that the US will keep a military presence in Iraq to counter Iran's influence. (That is prolonged war, not ending the war.)

#2: Says it is a critical national interest of the US to prevent Iran from turning the Shia Militias into a "Hezbollah-like force". (That is false. First, we don't have a national interset, critical or otherwise in Iraq. Second, Iran can't "turn" Iraqis into any thing. The Iraqi Shia militias think for themselves and don't all agree with each other. Third, Hezbollah is a nationalist defense force with representatives in parliament. They are not a terrorist organization like the US claims. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran has invaded and occupied anyone. The US has.)

#3 and #4 which were the worst are crossed out.

#5 says the US should designat Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp "a foreign terrorist organization". (What a joke. That has absolutely no basis in fact or evidence. That's like saying the US Marines are a terrorist organization....opps, I guess that's a bad analogy because the US Marines are a terrorist organization. It's like saying the National Guard is a terrorist organization. The REvolutionary Guards have not invaded and occupied anyone nor engaged in any terroriat activites.)

#6 Says the US treasury should implement sanctions consistent wtih these findings. (only the findings are all false.)

###

With this statement of the non-sense of the Senate, the leaders of the Senate, including Clinton and the majority of the Democrats siding with the Repubicans, are leading Congress right where they want to lead us: continued war in Iraq.

Why? Because this is right where the plutocracy wants them to lead. Sorry to have to be the one to inform you, but we live in a Fascism-lite nation that controls both parties through a two-party dictatorship run by a plutocracy that uses the two parties as a shell game to keep the voters confused.

Check out the Political Compass link (thanks to GreenSooner for posting it) to the picture of political reality. This is a great tool to see what the two-party dictatorship is all about.

The picture of nearly all the candidates in the upper right quadrant is exactly what I mean when I say we have a two-party dictatorship that allows for a small range of argument between the two wings of the "business as usual party" about where to stand in their quadrant.

Only Kucinich and Gravel stand outside this duopoly-certified pack of candidates in another quadrant of political reality. Kucinich's not-for-profit Health Care plan compared to Clinton's for-profit mandatory Health Insurance plan, is the perfect example of the difference in political outlook of the two quadrants of political perspective. And we see how the candidacies of Kucinich and Gravel are treated by the powers-that-be behind and supporting the pack.

I believe Kucinich and Gravel stand with the majority of the people, but that that majority is so dispirited and alienated that they won't look up from being entangled in the weeds of confusion caused by the fake opposition between the two parties.

This Political Compass grid also shows that the elections in Iran are about equal to the elections in the USA as far as giving the voters a real choice between candidates. In Iran the ruling council vetts and chooses the candidates, and in the USA the ruling elite do the same.

The two-party sham works for both parties. The Republican Party does not live up to the Republican PR about small government, no foreign regime change or entanglements, free trade, etc, any more than the Democrats live up to their PR. The Republicans don't deliver on anti-abortion any better than the Democrats deliver on anti-war. But the two parties use their PR organs to divide up the voters, and then the leadership of the two parties vote to keep the plutocrats in power. The two wings only differ on the minor tactics of how to accomplish their common strategy of keeping the rich in control.

For example, the question "should we drill in ANWAR or not?" is jsut a "minor tactic" -- a bump in the road -- to the people who own America. The Republicans say "sure we should drill and get profit everywhere we can." The Democrats say "if you drill in certain places then the people will grumble and maybe become too socialist and nationalize the oil industry, so you have to give them some environmental protections to keep them pacified." That becomes the big shell game that keeps the voters occupied and too confused to see who is making the real decisions and collecting the profits.

For another example, the Democratic Leadership always has been in favor of the War in Iraq and still is, but because the grass roots are not, the Leadership had to shift its PR statements to oppose the war. But the Democratic leadership doesn't really want to end the war and the Kyl-Liberman Amendment is an example of that truth. The Democrats want to "win" the war in Iraq as much as Bush does, so they argue over strategy, such as the bogus Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment, rather than just shuting down the government until the troops are withdrawn. The Democrats plan is to win the election in 2008 so they can be the party that won the war, not the party that ended the war.

The truth, that is, the Big Con, that this amendment exposes yet once again, is that the majority of Democrats in the Senate are Republican-lite. Like Bill Clinton said, "I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans."

Now this amendment on Iran becomes the vehicle that Democrats can distract the voters from the Democratic refusal to stop the Iraq war. Now the Democrats can say "we approve of the war on Iran even though we were lied to by Bush on Iraq." Of course they are supporting this amendment by the same lies now about Iran, but that doesn't matter in the long run. Why. Because the voters live in the United States of Amnesia well known to the likes of Goering, Hitler, Schwartzenegger, and Bush where USA Fascism-lite is as simple as the alphabet:

A. "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
- Hermann Goering, Luftwaffe Commander, From his cell at Nuremberg Trials 1946
- from Nuremberg Diary by G M Gilbert (Signet, New York, 1947)

B. "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out."~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, chapter six.

C. “People need somebody to watch over them. . . . Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger from a 1990 profile in U.S. News and World Report

D. "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
~ George W Bush, 5/24/05

The majority of Democrats, the ones voting for the amendment, are playing from this same play book. They know exactly what they are doing to continue the war in Iraq, which is the real purpose of the Kyl-Liberman amendment.


[This blog was cross posted at Daily Kos]

Sulaimaniya: the Tombstone of Iraq.

Yesterday (9/19/07) I heard a radio piece about a Russian who is opening a casino in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, of all places. Apparently he has the first license and is going to be allowed to serve beer but not other types of alcohol. He said men come carrying their K-47s and have to check them at the door like Tombstone, Arizona, in the wild west days. He said he thinks the casino venture will be successful because the customers have good cars.

Okay, that is an interesting story. Apparently the leaders of this town in the Kurd controlled north, including the Mayor, have figured out a way to make gambling capitalism a part of their new "democracy" in a manner that doesn't offend too many rules of Islam. Perhaps, but I'm sure there is more to this story to come.

And perhaps today's (9/20/07) story in the BBC just might be related. The BBC reports the US has announced that it has captured an Iranian officer who is a member of the Quds force that the US is do determined to demonize.

Here's the beginning to the story:

Iranian officer 'seized in Iraq'

US-led forces in Iraq say they have arrested an Iranian officer operating in the north of the country.

They say the man was a member of the Quds Force - an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

"This individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices," the American military said.

The US has accused the Quds Force of helping arm Shia militias in Iraq. Iran denies any involvement with militants.

A statement by the US military said the arrested man had been involved in the "infiltration and training of foreign terrorists in Iraq".

Did you note the town in whcih the "Iranian officer" was detained, yep, Sulaimaniya.

Okay, they set up the story telling the US press release side of things. We have been conditioned to believe this is an evil man who is involved in "infiltration" and "transporting improvised explosive devises."

But is this real or just more US propaganda passed along by the BBC as a willing conduit?

Let's look at the rest of the story:

According to a spokesman for the regional government in semi-autonomous Kurdistan, he was taken away overnight in a raid on a Sulaimaniya hotel.

A government official in Baghdad said the arrested man had been part of a commercial delegation, but gave no further details.

Tehran says it supports the US-backed Iraqi government, and blames the violence on the continuing conflicts within Iraq since US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Can you do the math? Let's see, he was arrested in a Sulaimaniya HOTEL, not in a camp training people to place IED. And the Iraqi government official says the Iranian was "part of a commercial delegation." That's is as least as reliable and credible as any thing tha tcomes from the US military.

Well now, I don't know, maybe its just my overactive imagination (or maybe its good intuition), but something about these two stories seems to go together. Was this so-called Quds officer actually "on holiday" to go to the new casino in Sulaimaniya? Was he there in cognito as a commercial delegation in a hotel so as not to get caught offending his Islamic community? Or was the commercial delegation there to witness how the new casino was going and possibly become backers or suppliers in the casino?

So far what we can feel is credibly established is (1) that an Iranian guy was kidnapped from his hotel by the US military; (2) the US has until now claimed without any evidence that the Quds force has been supplying IEDs to Iraqi insurgents; (3) the US is now trying to connect the Iranian Quds to provide the missing evidence of their claim, and (4) an Iraqi government official says the Iranian was part of a commercial delegation.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that whatever the Iranian was doing, he wasn't doing what the US military said he was doing.

For comparison with the reliability of the US military version of things, check out Greg Palast's report on the fake Sheik Abu Risha: Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked: The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny and the video reporting that it is based on.

Whatever is going on in Sulaimaniya, it sounds like it is jumping with activity and with promises of get-rich-quick business deals and opportunities under the cover of capitalist democracy. I don't think we've heard the last of Sulaimaniya.

Votes and Vetos

Portside Tidbits
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007
From: Gregory Wonderwheel
Subject: Votes and Vetos.

A veto by any other name is just as effective. The
Democrats are using a double standard when is comes to
impeachement of Bush and funding the war on Iraq. When
it comes to impeachment, the Dems are vetoing putting
the measure forward because they say they don't have
the votes to pass it. Yet when it comes to funding the
war they put if forward becasue they say they don't
have the votes to override a veto.

In practice, the Congress doesn't have to worry about
the presidential veto if they exercise their "veto" of
the funding bill in the same way that they veto
impeachment. The President's funding bills are
effectively "vetoed" if Congress just doesn't let any
funding measures out of committee. While the Democrats
can't vote to override a veto, they should be able to
not vote at all as long as funds are for continuing the
war and thus their veto defunds the war.

The Lessons of History: Juan Cole and George Bush

Juan Cole's recent essay "Pitching the Imperial Republic - Bonaparte and Bush on Deck" published at Tom's Dispatch once again shows why Cole is our most insightful Middle East observer. (This same essay is also available in The Nation retitled as "Bush's Napoleonic Folly".) Using his research for his new book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East he compares President Bush to Napoleon and the relevance and lessons of Napoleon’s expedition in Egypt to our current American occupation of Iraq.

THIS IS A MUST READ for anyone who accepts that history has any value. Otherwise, you might just as well forget all about history and accept the propaganda that Bush feeds you.

Here are a couple excerpts from this marvelous comparison of the two republican tyrants.

My own work on Bonaparte's lost year in Egypt began in the mid-1990s, and I had completed about half of Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East before September 11, 2001. I had no way of knowing then that a book on such a distant, scholarly subject would prove an allegory for Bush's Iraq War. Nor did I guess that the United States would give old-style colonialism in the Middle East one last try, despite clear signs that the formerly colonized would no longer put up with such acts and had, in the years since World War II, gained the means to resist them.

Both men were convinced that their invasions were announcing new epochs in human history. Of the military vassals of the Ottoman Empire who then ruled Egypt, Bonaparte predicted: "The Mameluke Beys who favor exclusively English commerce, whose extortions oppress our merchants, and who tyrannize over the unfortunate inhabitants of the Nile, a few days after our arrival will no longer exist."

Bonaparte's laundry list of grievances about them consisted of three charges. First, the beys were, in essence, enablers of France's primary enemy at that time, the British monarchy which sought to strangle the young French republic in its cradle. Second, the rulers of Egypt were damaging France's own commerce by extorting taxes and bribes from its merchants in Cairo and Alexandria. Third, the Mamluks ruled tyrannically, having never been elected, and oppressed their subjects whom Bonaparte intended to liberate.

This holy trinity of justifications for imperialism -- that the targeted state is collaborating with an enemy of the republic, is endangering the positive interests of the nation, and lacks legitimacy because its rule is despotic -- would all be trotted out over the subsequent two centuries by a succession of European and American leaders whenever they wanted to go on the attack. One implication of these familiar rhetorical turns of phrase has all along been that democracies have a license to invade any country they please, assuming it has the misfortune to have an authoritarian regime.

Liberty as Tyranny

For a democracy to conduct a brutal military occupation against another country in the name of liberty seems, on the face of it, too contradictory to elicit more than hoots of derision at the hypocrisy of it all. Yet, the militant republic, ready to launch aggressive war in the name of "democracy," is everywhere in modern history, despite the myth that democracies do not typically wage wars of aggression.

Here's a great example of the "liberation" of those who oppose "liberation". How does one spell "Falluja"? My how we have evolved! Resistance fighters were then called half-savage barbarians and now we call them terrorists.

"Heads Must Roll"

In both eighteenth century Egypt and twenty-first century Iraq, the dreary reality on the ground stood as a reproach to, if not a wicked satire upon, these high-minded pronouncements. The French landed at the port of Alexandria on July 1, 1798. Two and a half weeks later, as the French army advanced along the Nile toward Cairo, a unit of Gen. Jean Reynier's division met opposition from 1,800 villagers, many armed with muskets. Sgt. Charles Francois recalled a typical scene. After scaling the village walls and "firing into those crowds," killing "about 900 men," the French confiscated the villagers' livestock -- "camels, donkeys, horses, eggs, cows, sheep" -- then "finished burning the rest of the houses, or rather the huts, so as to provide a terrible object lesson to these half-savage and barbarous people."

Cole's history clearly shows that Bush (and those in Congress who continue to vote to fund the Iraq invasion and occupation) have not learned a thing from history. It can't even be said that Bush and his posse had learned from Napoleon's mistakes and crafted a new and improved invasion of liberation. No, instead from the phony rhetoric of "liberation" to the bombing of civilian areas of resistance Bush has merely repeated the pattern of Napoleon's delusions and depredations.

It is interesting to compare Cole's trenchant historical comparisons with Bush's feeble attempt to evoke history in his recent Asia speech. Most of the news reports about Bush's speech focused on his comparison to Vietnam and his claim that to pull out of Iraq now would result in disaster for the Iraqis and their neighbors as the pull-out from Vietnam did for the Vietnamese and Cambodians. Bush of course ignored the facts by conveniently forgetting the role of the US bombing in Cambodia in the rise of Pol Pot. Bush also conveniently forgot that the original partition of Vietnam by foreign powers was a non-starter and that there would be no end to the Vietnam conflict until there was a fair vote on reunification, a vote which the USA had promised Ho Chi Minh and then reneged on. Likewise today, the major news media ignore that the invasion of Iraq by foreign forces was a non-starter in terms of "nation building" and that until the illegally ensconced foreign troops are removed from Iraq that there can be no resolution to the creation of a civil government.

In the virtually unreported other portions of Bush's Asia speech Bush made reference to the continued occupation of Japan by US troops now going on for over 50 years. (Yes, we are still occupying Japan.) Mark Shields, the "liberal" analyst on PBS's The News Hour, pointed out two important differences: first, in the over 50 years of occupation of Japan not a single US soldier has been assassinated by a resistor to the occupation, and second, and most important in my view, during the reconstruction of Japan not a single reconstruction contract went to an American corporation. Thus, even when Japan provided an historical example of an occupation that succeeded, this most fundamental variable (of how to rebuild a nation by giving the contracts for reconstruction to the nationals) was ignored by Bush in favor of making his friends, cronies, and political contributors rich with US tax dollars. This is how the modern republicans and Republicans plunder the treasury.

If you care to learn from history don't believe George Bush, just read Juan Cole.

Kucinich Would Win If People Dared To Vote On The Issues

Kucinich is the only candidate who really has a vision that is from the heart and not from the pocket book.

Kucinich is the candidate who transcends the political cynicism of the plutocracy propaganda. Those words "plutocracy" and "propaganda" probably turn off some people who just can't quite grasp what is going on in politics today. But the propaganda becomes clear when you learn that Kucinich is the candidate who speaks for the most people on most of the issues, yet his candidacy is marginalized by the media, the Democratic Party leaders, and by the Democratic Party rank and file who even acknowledge that he presents their views on the issues but they just can't vote for him because he is not seen as "electable".

I think it is plainly evident that when people speak on the issues and are not blinded by the hype of “electability”, “stature,” “charisma”, or “star power,” then Dennis Kucinich would be the next president of the USA.

Kucinich is the candidate who speaks for the majority of the American people. See the poll below if you don’t believe it. Yes it is unscientific; yes it is limited and skewed to internet users; but even given all of that, you must ask your self why the poll shows nearly 58% ranking Kucinich first place on the issues when the candidates name is NOT known. The next highest candidate gets less than 8% of first place rankings? Why is that? Don't you find this to be shocking?

We should look at all the issues to evaluate the candidate of our choice. I think everyone agrees with that.

So which issues do you look at most importantly? No candidate can be expected to agree with each of us on all the issues, but how is Kucinich wrong on the issues that you hold to be most important?

When people look at the issues in a “blind taste test” asking where they stand on an issue without a candidate’s face attached, the results are startling only to those who live within the media black-out of Kucinich and the propaganda of “horse race” elections. Kucinich speaks for the people. What is shocking is that the people don't get to know that due to the media filtering and manipulation of the reporting. For example, a recent PBS News Hour report on a Democratic debate made is seem that it was a debate between Obama and Clinton with the other candidates merely looking on.

Go to this website http://www.dehp.net/candidate/index.php to see how your views line up with the candidates on 25 issues:

I found the results to be quite accurate in my case, correctly scoring and ranking my agreement with the candidates in order of my preference on the issues: Kucinich 103, Gravel 77, Obama 56, Edwards 55, Clinton 55, Dodd 53, Biden 48, Richardson 47.

Here are some basic stats based on the submissions to the questionnaire at the time of calculation: http://www.dehp.net/candidate/stats.php

At the time of 134,346 people answering:

Measuring how many people had the candidate as their first rank according to how they responded to the issues, NOT KNOWING THE CANDIDATE’S NAME:

Candidate | Number of first | Percentage of
------------ | place ranks -----| people responding
Kucinich - 77,824 -- 57.93%
Gravel - 9,522 -- 7.09%
Paul - 9,182 -- 6.83%
Romney - 5,912 -- 4.40%
Clinton - 4,903 -- 3.65%
Hunter - 4,195 -- 3.12%
Giuliani - 4,069 -- 3.03%
Obama - 3,942 -- 2.93%
Biden - 2,522 -- 1.88%
Richardson - 2,416 -- 1.80%
McCain - 2,256 -- 1.68%
Tancredo - 2,117 -- 1.58%
Edwards - 1,472 -- 1.10%
Dodd - 1,164 -- 0.87%
Huckabee - 986 -- 0.73%
Cox - 941 -- 0.70%
Thompson - 582 -- 0.43%
Brownback - 341 -- 0.25%
Total: 134,346 -- 100.00%


At the time of this response snapshot, nearly 58% of respondents had their positions on the issues rank Kucinich as most agreeing with them. The second highest candidate Gravel has a little over 7%.

When the responses are preference weighted for the top three candidates with a responder’s first rank getting a 3, second rank a 2, and third rank getting a 1, the following order appears:

Candidate | Weighted number ----- | Percentage of all
-------------| of top three ranks ----- | weighted responses.
Kucinich - 266210 -- 33.44%
Gravel - 160516 -- 20.16%
Obama - 61435 -- 7.72%
Clinton - 43352 -- 5.45%
Paul - 38148 -- 4.79%
Romney - 30525 -- 3.83%
Edwards - 27404 -- 3.44%
Hunter - 26314 -- 3.31%
Richardson - 22538 -- 2.83%
Biden - 21518 -- 2.70%
Dodd - 18236 -- 2.29%
Giuliani - 17854 -- 2.24%
Tancredo - 17717 -- 2.23%
McCain - 17286 -- 2.17%
Huckabee - 8031 -- 1.01%
Cox - 7368 -- 0.93%
Thompson - 6358 -- 0.80%
Brownback - 5266 -- 0.66%
Total: - 796076 -- 100.00%


Even with weighting the top three, Kucinich is still by far the number one ranked candidate on the issues by those responding. The difference between these two lists shows the vast number of Democrats who have positions that rank Obama and Clinton as second or third behind Kucinich and Gravel. Remember, these are ranks on the issues WITHOUT the names of the candidates attached, not on a rank of the candidate by name or personality. This shows that the Democratic Party leadership is not following the rank and file of the Party's views.

Iraq was of course the issue ranked most important by the most people, and clearly Kucinich speaks for the most people on this issue, even though the Democratic controlled congress does not follow Kucinich's lead and is still supporting the war.

Here are my important issues:

Kucinich was the first candidate to oppose Iraq and have the good judgement and level thinking to stand against it when 9/11 hysteria was giving in to Bush: right on that.

Kucinich is the only one for not-for-profit health care for all: right on that.

Kucinich is the only one for a Department of Peace to begin the education process away from war and violence as a way of solving both international and domestic issues: right on that one too.

Kucinich is the only candidate who says it is wrong to use war as an instrument of foreign policy (this is probably over the heads of the other candidates): and he is right on that issue.

Kucinich openly opposes nuclear weapons and commits to nuclear disarmament: right again.

Kucinich is the only candidate who is unequivocal about reparations for slavery: right on that one.

Kucinich is the only candidate against land mines, cluster bombs, and uranium munitions: right on that one again.

Kucinich is the candidate who says on his first day in office he will get out of NAFTA and WTO, and join the international criminal court: right again.

Kucinich is against the death penalty: right on that too.

Kucinich is the only candidate who has a plan for universal day care for pre-kindergarten for ages 3 to 5 (Clinton announced her program long after Kucinich had already announced his but her’s will start at age 4): right here too.

Kucinich is the only candidate who says that every American should have the right and opportunity to go to college and he has a program to make that real: right once more.

Kucinich is the only candidate with a comprehensive public works program focusing on green issues: right there as well.

Kucinich is the only candidate I've heard say that the war on terror is fake and that we should instead hunt down so-called "terrorists" as the criminals that they are using the international police structures and not aggrandizing these criminals by calling them combatants in a "war" which is really a sham: right, right, right.

Kucinich is for equal marriage rights: right on that too.

I also find it interesting that Kucinich is asking for the media to look into what it means that Hillary Clinton stands up in a debate and says she regrets that she was "lied" to and misled by Bush. Well, why couldn't she tell Bush was lying? I mean, his lips were moving, weren't they? So far the media is giving Clinton a free pass on this question and instead touts her so-called “experience.” Actually, Obama is quite right to point out he has been in elected office for more years than Clinton or Edwards have been. Of course Obama doesn't point out that Kucinich has been in elected office at the city, state, and federal levels longer than Obama and so has the widest experience at all levels of government.

Yet the propaganda machine doesn’t discuss his experience or his having the positions on issues that reflects the widest swath of the U.S. citizens. If only people would vote the issues by voting their conscience, rather than running scared and voting for horses in a horse race! Then we would have a leader who actually reflected the people and not just the wealthy.

Impeachment Is The Best Strategy

This is a response to the recent opinion piece by Bill Fletcher, Jr., in the Black Commentator titled "Accountability, John Conyers and The Impeachment Controversy." It was passed along recently by Portside in its continuing defense of John Conyers.
Here's the beginning of the article:

So, what do we make of the controversy surrounding the actions taken at the office of Congressman Conyers when protesters demonstrated against his alleged failure to move impeachment proceedings against President Bush? Did it make sense strategically? Was Conyers the right target? Where did race come into this, if anywhere?

The actions taken by Cindy Sheehan and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood aimed to bring attention to the matter of accountability. In that sense, they were morally correct. They protested the failure of the Democratic leadership to hold this lawless administration accountable, with the threat of impeachment being the preferred method of addressing accountability. There is little question but that most of the world views the Bush administration as composed of criminals, and it is equally clear that as a result, both the US government and the people of the USA are viewed with a jaundiced eye by much of the globe, because the people of the USA permitted the re-election of the Bush group.

That being said, does impeachment make sense strategically? This is where I have differences with my friend, the Rev. Yearwood and others. Yes, emotionally, I would love to see the Bush/Cheney team ousted through impeachment proceedings, but I continue to feel that more immediately, we must focus our attention on strengthening the movement against the Iraq war/occupation, as well as building mass and activist sentiment in favor of major structural reforms, such as single-payer healthcare. To that extent I think the impeachment movement is a well-intentioned diversion.
Continued at Impeachment Strategy Debate Part3

I like Bill Fletcher, having enjoyed his insights over cafeteria lunch with him one day at an SEIU sponsored labor event at California’s Sonoma State University many years back. However, I cannot agree with his defense of John Conyers’ refusal to put impeachment on the table. Fletcher asks “does impeachment make sense strategically?” While Fletcher says “No,” I answer this question with a resounding “Yes! How could anyone doubt it?” Rather than a diversion, impeachment is the necessary core to any strategy to getting us out of Iraq.

The first point that Fletcher makes is the old saw about the votes not being there. I really fail to see why good folks like Fletcher even think this is a credible point. Conyers puts the reparations bill on the table every year even though it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in a hot hell to be considered, yet he continues to do it and for good reason. There is no rational argument why reparations should continue to be put forward without votes but impeachment, because it doesn’t have the votes, should not.

Fletcher’s second point, that we need to concentrate on ending the war and occupation of Iraq, also is in favor of impeachment. The war is illegal. The Democrats are refusing to face this question head on. That is why the Democrats have refused to vote to defund the war and instead have continued to vote to pay for the war. We must face the truth that the Democrats won’t lead, they have to be pushed. Sam Irvin didn’t lead us to impeachment of Nixon either. He was pushed by the people and the polls. Nothing the Democrats are planning has any effect on the President’s war plans. Bush has shown that he is willing to use the patriotism card against the Democrats as long as he is in office. Impeachment is the only tool that will provide the Democrats with the political cover against Bush’s use of the patriotism card. Impeachment is the stake in the heart of this vampire president. The Democrats are afraid to use it, so they have to be pushed.

Fletcher argues that the momentum building toward the September 21st Iraqi Moratorium is critical and must be supported. However, if the 9/21 Iraqi Moratorium does not admit that the war is illegal, and instead only makes the claim that it is unwinnable, then I want no part of such a lying deceitful protest. Only impeachment acknowledges that the war is illegal and that Bush got us there by his high crimes and misdemeanors, not by mere mistakes in judgement about how to do successful “regime change” and “nation building” after toppling Saddam

The question “should Conyers generally be considered an ally?” is a red herring as it applies to the argument of impeachment. Obviously, Conyers is an ally on some issues, but he is not now an ally on the impeachment issue. Nobody on the left is treating Conyers as “an enemy.” That is a straw-man argument. Criticizing Conyers for refusing to put impeachment forward is not calling him an enemy. Saying Conyers shows great courage by putting the reparations bill forward does not excuse his apparent cowardice at refusing to put the impeachment bill forward. In fact his courage in support of reparations puts into bright relief the credibility issues around his refusal to do impeachment.

The question of betrayal comes up only because of Conyers’ previous behavior. When he was in the minority party on the committee he could talk tough on impeachment. It was by his own previous tough talk that people got their hopes up that when the Democrats became the majority party and this tough guy actually became the chair of the committee that impeachment could go forward. It is Conyers’ own 180 degree turn on impeachment that is in fact a betrayal of his previous stance and of those in whom his previous rhetoric had encouraged and led on.

The real question is what is causing Conyers’ to appear cowardly when we know he isn’t a coward by character? The only answer to this is that he is being ordered by the Democratic leadership, specifically by Nancy Pelosi, to keep impeachment off the table, and he doesn’t have the courage to oppose Pelosi. Why? Because she can take away his committee chairmanship. Therefore Conyers just can’t say openly, “Gee folks, I’d like to do impeachment, but you know, the Boss Lady says I can’t.” I've kept quite under such conditions and I know it feels awful.

This is the hard strategy decision that Conyers is facing. Whether to be honest about his convictions or face the wrath of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership. Unfortunately Conyers has no easy way out. His friends like Bill Fletcher are doing the best they can to keep up appearances and provide the continuing cover for Conyers to hide the real reason that Conyers can’t act. But the inconsistencies of their defense only points to the real reason that is fundamentally irrational: Conyers can't do it for no reason of his own, but because he is told not to do it.

Conyers’ refusal to act in impeachment highlights the fundamental divide on the left: what is the role of the left in the Democratic Party? The companion question is whether the Democrats are truly a left party or really just the sometimes left leaning center party. The Democratic Party survives as an on-again off-again majority because of one reason alone: it is part of the two-party dictatorship of American politics. As long as the two-party dictatorship remains in place, the corporate centrist’s in control of the Democratic Party know that those on the left have no where else to go for any effective political impact. Therefore when they think it is not going to create any real structural change, the Democratic leadership can allow itself to sound left. There is no better example of this than Hillary Clinton. But when the chips are down, whether it is defunding the war or impeachment, the Democratic leadership refuses to support the real left positions.

The anti-war mobilization has become the proffered distraction to impeachment. “Just support the mobilization and forget impeachment” we are told. But those of us on the left who happen to believe that the Constitution is actually the bedrock of our liberties, also happen to think that the Democratic Party leadership doesn’t really give a damn about the Constitution any more than Bush does. The Democratic leadership’s refusal to put impeachment on the table against the worst President any of us have every seen in our lifetimes for his crimes and unconstitutional conduct speaks of power not truth. Conyers failure to speak truth to power against his own leadership is the real beef against Conyers and is the betrayal of the left.

With the chips going down on impeachment, Conyers is choosing to obey the orders of the centrist Pelosi, rather than to represent the left within the Democratic Party. Though Conyers’ is definitely not an enemy of the left, in Fletchers’ terminology Conyers' kowtowing to Pelosi makes him only “an ally of the moment” on left issues, and thus in this moment on this issue, he is no ally of the left at all. He has beome the centrist gatekeeper keeping the left left out. Impeachment is not only the best strategy to end the war in Iraq, it is the best strategy to expose the corporate powers in control of the Democratic Party who marginalize the left when it counts.

Which raises another important question: why has impeachment been marginalized as an issue of the left? There are plenty of honest conservatives with integrity who support impeachment, because they also believe that the Constitution should be used to protect the nation from a lying cheating deceiving criminal President. Anyone who argues that we should let such a president get a free pass on impeachment merely because of strategy considerations is basically at heart neither a supporter of the rule of law nor of democracy which depends upon it. The USA does not stand a chance of becoming the nation we know in our hearts that it is intended to be until impeachment is liberally exercised to remove president after president, if need be, who continues to do awful, unhumanitarian, and illegal acts in the name of the people and the Constitution.

A Low for Charlie Rose

On April 26, 2007, Charlie Rose interviewed General David Petraeus. I have seen some pretty bad interviews by Charlie Rose, but the interview with General Petraeus was the worst in recent memory. The fawning obsequiousness that Rose showed to this Washington-Pentagon mouthpiece who would say anything to get his paycheck was an example of the worst kind of Washington inside the beltway back slapping that passes for journalism. That Rose would not ask a single challenging question nor would he do anything but accept the pablum being offered was so sad to see.

This interview ranks with Dan Rather saying that he would march to any directions the President gave him at the beginning of the war. This is a perfect example of the belly-up cowardice of the major media passed on the presidential propaganda leading up to the war on Iraq without so much as a whisper of doubt. Rose shows he has not learned a single lesson from the four years of war on Iraq.

Charlie Rose clearly was setting up the General with puff questions and made it obvious that Rose accepts 100% the baloney that the Bush administration is saying through their mouthpiece General Petraeus. Charlie Rose should read on the air the short excerpts from the 1933 speech of Major General Smedley D. Butler who wrote a longer version in pamphlet form "War is a Racket". That would do more to inform the American People than ten hours of General Petraeus.

In contrast to Rose's providing a platform for the president's propaganda, the recent program of Bill Moyers Journal titled "Buying the War" on the cheer leading by the media leading up to the war is the story of the journalists like Charlie Rose who aide and abet the lying criminal activity of this villainous president.

The War IS Lost

Harry Reid, US Senate majority leader, is right: the War in Iraq is lost.

"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week."

He's late in coming to the realization, but in this case, better late than never. Also the War in Afghanistan is lost. And based on its flawed conception from the beginning, Bush's whole phony "War on Terrorism" was lost from day one.

Bush's inchoate wars on the world are so bizarre that they can only be grasped under the category of truth is stranger than fiction.

Today's example of the lost war in Iraq is the BBC story Bombs hit Baghdad police station

Two car bombs have exploded at a police station in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about 82 others, police say.
The attack took place in the southern, mainly Shia neighbourhood of Bayaa.

The first bomber sped through a checkpoint before exploding his car in front of the station, the other detonated his car at the checkpoint.

So much for Bush's "surge" strategy which is all public relations and no reality check. Yet Bush has the continuing unmitigated insanity to state in the face of the facts that his surge is "meeting expectations". Whose, expectations? It must be the private expectations of his perverted fantasy world, because it is not the expectations he has voiced to the American people that are being met.

There is no basis to believe that the surge strategy of adding 30,000 troops to a lost war is going to turn it into victory. The surge of bombings is winning.

An average of 80-90 Americans die each month. And US personnel have just had their tours extended by another three months.

But, as it has always been since the 2003 invasion, it is the Iraqis who suffer most.

No-one knows the exact figures, but at the end of another week of unspeakable, random carnage, hundreds more Iraqi families are grieving.

There is just no way that a US "surge" of any amount of troops, even 300,000, can "win" this war. Why? Because even if 500,000 troops are inserted into the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it will never defeat the spirit of the people of Iraq for self determination. The most that can ever be accomplished by Bush's war of occupation is to turn Iraq into a prison nation under lock down.

In fact this is exactly the US strategy, as it is building the first prison wall around the Sunni enclave of Adhamiya:

US troops in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, are building a wall around the Sunni district of Adhamiya, which is surrounded by Shia communities.
The 5km (three-mile) concrete wall is part of a strategy to "break the cycle of sectarian violence", a US military spokesman said.

At least two more walls are on the drawing board demonstrating only that the twisted imaginations of the Bush administration know no bounds.

Why the surge won't work is clearly evidenced in the occupation scenario. The police who must have the support of a sufficient number of Iraqis to be credible simple cannot establish the requisite level of credibility while they are tied to the hip of an invading and occupying army. As the story about bombs hitting the police station clearly describes:

Police stations are often targeted by insurgents who say officers are betraying the country by working alongside government and US-led forces.

The only way to take away the rationale for attacking the police is to remove the US forces from the equation.

This is not occupied Japan with an Emperor who can maintain continuity and cohesion for the people during the rebuilding process. This is not Germany, divided and occupied by four conquering armies and totally devastated and shocked by its own attack on the rest of the world with a population feeling the guilt of its hubris and defeat.

Iraqis did not attack the world. They didn't attack anyone. They have not one iota of a national sense of defeat caused by their own military adventurism that would provide the mitigating factor to accept the humiliation from the presence of an occupying army. There is no point at this stage in discussing what the US might have done to make a transition possible. The US didn't protect the government structure or the public infrastructure and, instead, allowed wide spread looting of every public facility except the Oil Ministry, including hospitals and museums. Under that scenario after May 2003 the US has had no subsequent ability to appear credible by continuing the occupation.

Today, the only realistic and moral plan is to withdraw immediately and leave the Iraqis to be allowed to settle their own affairs. The war against Hussein was won quickly, but on the other hand, by a complete lack of planning and foresight, the war of occupation against the Iraqi people was lost quickly. This war is still lost. Now we owe the Iraqis reparation funds. We do not owe them an occupying army that only prevents reconstruction and reconciliation.

ADDENDUM 4/27/07
Last night I watched "Afghanistan: The Other War" from Frontline/World, and this story clearly demonstrates why the war in Afghanistan is as lost as the war in Iraq. The program is centered about a NATO unit attempting to make friends with a local village. Everything that could go wrong goes wrong. It is a completely updated demonstration of the old army slang SNAFU ("situation normal, all f**ked up").

A Canadian NATO unit comes to the Afghan village Elbak and makes wants to "win the hearts and minds" of the people. They promise to fix 12 generators used for pumping water. Well they couldn't find or buy the parts, such as spark plugs, anywhere and only end up fixing two. Then they set up a medical treatment day and announce it in the area only to have to close the clinic early with people standing in line wating for their children to see the doctors because, as they announce, they have run out of medications.

Then a US Special Forces unit comes into the area without consulting with the NATO unit and pick up a villager as a suspected Taliban. The villages vouch for the man to the Canadian NATO unit that is there to "make friends" and ask them to get the man released, but the NATO sergeant says she has no authority with the US unit. This of course highlights the complete absurdity of having two separate commands in the same area and demonstrates the fundamental inability of the war makers to understand how to "win" a war of occupation against indigenous resistance fighters. Failing any reasonable ability to "win" they have already lost.

Another more fundamental and completely misunderstood element of the war is that the NATO unit came to the village with the goal of working with the village so the people there would "be on our side" in the war. Words fail to describe the compete idiocy of the premise. From Alexander the Great to Ghengis Khan to NATO, thousands of years of history tell the tale of a people who have watched invading armies pass through. These people are smart enough to be "on the side" of the current invading army, whether they are NATO, US Special Forces, or the Taliban. The moronic notion that fixing some generators and giving a day of medical care (even if they were successful, which they weren't) will cause a people "choose a side" is so completely beyond any historical reality check that one wonders how these people waging war were able to travel the thousands of miles to get there in the first place.

Then to top it all off, after several weeks of setting up a temporary fort outside the village, the NATO unit is told to withdraw and go elsewhere completely taking down Camp Martello as if it was never there. The narrator laments the fact that this is now going to leave the village wide open and defenseless to Taliban retaliation for having cooperated with the invading army. One of the military people says what a shame it is that the villages "brought this on themselves" completely transferring the responsibility for their impending doom to the villagers who had no say in the NATO forces coming in the first place and no say in their departure.

The war in Afghanistan is as lost as the war in Iraq because the war makers are completely clueless about what it is that they are doing there and have no workable or reasonable plan for their presence.