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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (3826)	8/5/2003 6:59:00 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Molly Ivins continues to question things... 9-11 Report Offers Findings That Were Obvious From the Get-Go By Molly Ivins Creators Syndicate Monday 04 August 2003 AUSTIN, Texas - The congressional report by the committees on intelligence about 9-11 partially made public last week reminds me of the recent investigation into the crash of the Columbia shuttle -- months of effort to reconfirm the obvious. In the case of the Columbia, we knew from the beginning a piece of insulation had come loose and struck the underside of one wing. So, after much study, it was determined the crash was caused by the piece of insulation that came loose and struck the underside of the wing. Likewise in the case of 9-11, all the stuff that has been blindingly obvious for months is now blamed for the fiasco. The joint inquiry focused on the intelligence services, concluding that the FBI especially had been asleep at the wheel. And that, in turn, can be blamed at least partly on the fact that the FBI, before 9-11, had only old green-screen computers with no Internet access. Agents wrote out their reports in longhand, in triplicate. Although the process is not complete, the agency is now upgrading its system: Many agents finally got e-mail this year. My particular bete noir in all this is the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), which distinguished itself by granting visas to 15 of the 19 hijackers, who never should have been given visas in the first place. Their applications were incomplete and incorrect. They were all young, single, unemployed males, with no apparent means of support -- the kind considered classic overstay candidates. Had the INS followed its own procedures, 15 of the 19 never would have been admitted. The incompetence of the INS was underlined when it issued a visa to Mohammad Atta, the lead hijacker, six months after 9-11. In the wake of the attacks, the Bush administration promised to increase funding for the INS, to get the agency fully computerized with modern computers and generally up to speed. All that has happened since is that INS funding has been cut. Much attention is being paid to the selective editing of the report, apparently to protect the Saudis. I think an equally important piece of the report is on the bureaucratic tangle that prevents anyone from being accountable for much of anything. The CIA controls only 15 percent to 20 percent of the annual intelligence budget. The rest is handled by the Pentagon, despite widespread agreement that it needs to be centralized. The Bush administration has ignored these calls, mostly because Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld doesn't want to give up any power. Time magazine reports, "It was striking that the Pentagon came under such heavy fire in last week's bipartisan report for resisting requests made by CIA director Tenet before 9-11, when the agency wanted to use satellites and other military hardware to spot and target terrorists in Afghanistan." But the most striking thing about this report is that none of its conclusions and none of its recommendations have anything to do with the contents of the PATRIOT Act, which was supposedly our government's response to 9-11. All the could-haves, would-haves and should-haves in the report are so far afield from the PATRIOT Act it might as well be on another subject entirely. Once again, as has often happened in our history, under the pressure of threat and fear, we have harmed our own liberties without any benefit for our safety. Insufficient powers of law enforcement or surveillance are nowhere mentioned in the joint inquiry report as a problem before 9-11. Yet Attorney General John Ashcroft now proposes to expand surveillance powers even further with the PATRIOT II Act. All over the country, local governments have passed resolutions opposing the PATRIOT Act and three states have done so, including the very Republican Alaska. The House of Representatives last week voted to prohibit the use of "sneak and peek" warrants authorized by the PATRIOT Act. The conservative House also voted against a measure to withhold federal funds from state and local law-enforcement agencies that refuse to comply with federal inquirers on citizenship or immigration status. All kinds of Americans are now waking up to the fact that the PATRIOT Act gives the government the right to put American citizens in prison indefinitely, without knowing the charges against them, without access to an attorney, without the right to confront their accusers, without trial. Indefinitely. The report was completed late last year, but its publication was delayed by endless wrangles with the administration over what could be declassified. Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who served on the committee, said the report's release was deliberately delayed by the White House until after the war in Iraq was over because it undercuts the rationale for the war. The report confirms there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. "The administration sold the connection to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war," Cleland said. "What you've seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends." truthout.org

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (3826)	8/5/2003 7:13:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Dems vs. GOP: Best Weapons Are the Facts by Walter Williams Published on Monday, August 4, 2003 by Long Island (NY) Newsday Next month, progressive Democrats will open a new think tank, the American Majority Institute, that has an expected yearly operating budget of at least $10 million. This level of support means the institute can challenge the conservative Republican policy shops that in recent years have been much more heavily funded and have clobbered their Democratic counterparts in selling ideas to the public. The key question is whether the new institute has to emulate the Republicans from President George W. Bush on down in using deceptive information to mislead American citizens about their policies. Its decision whether to employ such chicanery goes to the fundamental democratic issue of informed consent. But it makes sense for the institute to emulate the conservative policy shops in three ways. First, a big annual budget is needed in the face of the well-funded array of right-of-center think tanks. Second, aggressively pushing the message is essential. John Podesta, former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton and the institute's president, has noted that most Democratic policy shops "don't have the communications muscle and focus that is important in influencing pubic opinion." Third, the American Majority Institute should hire staffers who write well and have good media connections. Also needed is quality control by a cadre of policy analysts with state-of-the-art research techniques. The latter can vet questionable Republican claims and ensure that the American Majority Institute's data and arguments are valid. Now comes the hard part. The American Majority Institute must avoid the temptation to spin its arguments by pushing the available information too far and engaging in trickery to justify a claim. In the first place, a primary means of attacking the Republicans will be to expose the dishonesty of their cooked information and deceptive commentary. That is best done when the accuser's claims rest on sound data and honest analysis. The second reason is that informed consent by the American people is essential to a viable democratic system. Efforts by Republican politicians and public policy shops to purposely dupe citizens on major policy issues have undermined the foundation of the nation envisioned by the founding fathers. It's no use trying to finesse the shameful cowardice of the Democrats during most of the Bush presidency. The biggest problem for the new institute and the party is not finding honest numbers, but finding the courage to use them. The Republicans have been zealots without regard to veracity or consistency. Yet, the Democrats have been fearful of taking on the popular president and the partisan think tanks that have supported his distorted claims. These unscrupulous practices also can be the Republicans' Achilles heel. Exposing the dishonesty, however, requires that the American Majority Institute attack the Republicans with a hard-nosed relentlessness. It should use the available honest numbers to expose the legerdemain on the tax cuts for the wealthy and other clear policy deception. Now that the Democrats have challenged the Bush administration's deception on the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - and drawn blood - hard-hitting critiques of the fraud in other Bush policies can be reinforcing. Continued Democratic timidity will fail. Nor are Democrats likely to out-spin the Republicans. Forceful use of honest data is the best option. The Democrats have a mother lode of reliable information that shows the pattern of calculated deception of the Bush administration. It is a rare opportunity that can be used effectively by a tough think tank that is scrupulous in analyzing and packaging data and commentary that can help Democrats in attacking the Bush administration. When sound numbers support a strong case, the American Majority Institute should go for the jugular. The attack on Republican politicians and think tanks must be unrelenting in exposing deceptive information and dishonest analysis. Be partisan and be honest - it is not an oxymoron. Such an effort can serve the interests of the Democratic Party and the public. Fighting deception with deception to win the presidency and Congress makes a mockery of the critical concept of having an informed electorate. Both the Democrats and the Republicans need to recognize this basic point: For a nation that aspires to lead the Mideast toward democracy, lying to the American people about major policies is the antithesis of constitutional democracy. ____________________ Walter Williams, a professor emeritus of public affairs at the University of Washington, is the author, most recently, of "Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy." Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc. commondreams.org