Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (584698)	6/22/2004 7:01:36 PM
From: Bearcatbob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

This is June - the election is in November. Look at the trends - not the present. If things progress per trend we will be fine. If things go to hell - then - the situation will not be good. How sad it is that the dems need bad news for America. Can you find any positive changes offered - and how they are funded?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (584698)	6/23/2004 9:42:36 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Harvard Law Professors Urge Congress to Review Interrogation Policy and Hold Executive Branch Accountable ____________________________ Post Date: June 16, 2004 A group of more than 450 professors of law, international relations, and public policy--led by Harvard Law School faculty members--today sent a letter calling on Congress to hold accountable, through impeachment and removal if appropriate, civilian officials from the top of the Executive Branch on down for policies developed at high levels that have facilitated the recent abuses at Abu Ghraib. The letter also calls on Congress to take primary responsibility for any policy on coercive interrogation employed by the United States. In asking Congress to assess Executive Branch accountability, the letter says: "a growing body of evidence indicates that the abuses practiced on detainees under American control are the consequence of policies developed at the highest levels in the months and years immediately preceding the scandal." It argues that prosecution of lower level personnel "while necessary, is clearly insufficient." In asking Congress to take responsibility for reviewing coercive interrogation policies and practices, the letter notes that "official U.S. policy now involves use of coercive methods that are morally questionable and that may violate international and domestic law." It further states: "....any decision to adopt a coercive interrogation policy and the definition of any such policy, if adopted, should be made within the strict confines of a democratic process.... [B]asic principles and policies regarding human rights must be defined by a representative and accountable body acting in transparent and deliberative fashion." Elizabeth Bartholet, one of the Harvard Law professors organizing the letter effort, stated: "The letter arose out of our concern that some of the most fundamental issues raised by these abuses were getting lost in the debate. The use of torture and related extreme coercive techniques goes to the heart of our understanding of our nation, its culture and values. If we take seriously our democratic system, any decision to use such techniques must be made by Congress as the representative body, rather than by Executive Branch officials working in secrecy." Christine Desan, another organizer, stated: "As the letter emphasizes, there can be no doubt that the acts of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison constitute violations of both the domestic and international legal obligations of the U.S. and its agents. Executive Branch officials have admitted as much." Henry Steiner, director of Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program, said: "The policies adopted and the abuses to which they led have hurt not only the immediate victims in terrible ways but also the credibility and effectiveness of our country's efforts in Iraq and elsewhere." U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy will hold a press conference in Washington, D.C. today to demonstrate his support for its demands. "The soldiers responsible for these atrocities need to be held accountable. But they were not responsible for setting the policy," said Kennedy. "We need to know what orders and guidelines they were given, and where those policies originated. No one should be immune to questions, including the President." The letter has been signed by 56 law teachers at Harvard Law School, including former Dean Robert C. Clark, and Professors Laurence Tribe, Alan Dershowitz, Lani Guinier, Detlev Vagts and Frank Michelman. It has also been signed by leading experts on international relations, public policy and constitutional law across the nation, including Yale University Professor Bruce Ackerman; Professor Philip Alston, director of NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; Jose Alvarez, director of the Center on Global Legal Problems at Columbia Law School; Duke Law School Professor Paul Carrington; Georgetown Law School Professor David Cole; Princeton Professor Richard Falk; Columbia Law School Professor Jack Greenberg; Kennedy School of Government Professor Christopher Jencks; UCLA Law School Professor Kenneth Karst; Juliette Kayyem of the Kennedy School of Government; University of Texas Law School Professor Sanford Levinson; David Scheffer, former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues; and Harvard University Professor William Julius Wilson. The letter has also been signed by members of the Faculty of the Tufts University Fletcher School. It has been signed by a total of 481 members of university faculties across the nation, from more than 110 schools in 40 different states. It has been sent to all members of Congress and of the relevant Congressional committees. The letter and the list of signers as of June 14 is available at www.iraq-letter.com. For additional information please contact Harvard Law School Professors Christine Desan (617-495-4613 or desan@law.harvard.edu), Henry Steiner (617-495-3107 or hsteiner@law.harvard.edu), Martha Minow (minow@law.harvard.edu) or Elizabeth Bartholet (617-495-3128 or ebarthol@law.harvard.edu). Please note: Professor Bartholet will be unavailable from June 15-20. law.harvard.edu

To: Rock_nj who wrote (584698)	6/23/2004 10:29:11 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

THE ROAD TO WAR ____________________ James Bamford aims big guns at Bush administration over U.S. role in Iraq By JAMES D. FAIRBANKS A PRETEXT FOR WAR: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. By James Bamford. Doubleday, 420 pp. $26.95. THIS book's title leaves no doubt as to its major thesis. Bamford is one of the growing number of critics who believe the Bush administration was determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein long before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that it used these attacks as a pretext for the war in Iraq. He also agrees with those who charge that the invasion of Iraq diverted resources that should have been used in the pursuit of al-Qaida, inflamed Muslim anger against the United States and increased support for al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden's goal in attacking Americans, according to Bamford, was always to provoke us to strike back and "personally wage the battle against the Muslims." The author's previous books, The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, provided detailed examinations of the National Security Agency, the government's largest and most secretive spy agency. As a former Naval Security Group communications technician, Bamford apparently has good contacts within the intelligence community, though it is sometimes difficult to know how much weight to place on information that comes from unnamed intelligence officials. Several of those interviewed by Bamford acknowledged that American defenses had never anticipated and were unprepared for the kind of attack launched Sept. 11, 2001. The first section of this book details the confusion that existed throughout the national government in the hours immediately after the first plane struck the World Trade Center. Virtually the entire nuclear command structure would eventually be activated, but in the first several hours after the attack many of the nation's leaders knew less about what had happened than ordinary citizens watching television news. Bamford writes that the network news programs were the best source of information because the intelligence community was busy emptying its buildings and running for cover. Bamford's portrait of the president is not flattering. He describes a befuddled chief executive "strangely uninterested in further information" when first told of the attack. He writes that in one of the most critical moments in American history the country had essentially become leaderless. Bamford notes, perhaps a bit unfairly, the stark contrast between the actions of George W. Bush after 9/11 and Lyndon Johnson after the assassination of President Kennedy. Despite concerns that the assassination might be part of a larger conspiracy to topple the American government, Johnson insisted on flying straight back to Washington to reassure the nation and calm its fears. Bush made a secret flight to an underground bunker at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., and remained hidden from the American public for most of the day. Part two of the book is a critique of the many intelligence failings that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur. Departmental jealousies may have kept the CIA from passing on intelligence when one of the hijackers, a known al-Qaida operative, arrived in New York. Bamford quotes an unnamed FBI official as charging that the CIA officials responsible have "blood on their hands ... three thousand deaths on their hands." As testimony before the Sept. 11 Commission later revealed, al-Qaida had never tried to hide the fact that it was at war with America. Bamford gives a detailed account of the 1996 Israeli attack on a refugee camp at Qana in southern Lebanon, an event little noted in the American press but denounced by the rest of world and described here as the "match lighting the fuse that would eventually lead to the World Trade Center." In the third and most controversial section of the book (titled "Deception"), Bamford argues that the Bush administration engaged in a systematic effort to mislead both Congress and the public regarding the threat posed by Iraq and its relationship to al-Qaida. His most startling charge is not that the administration misled the nation regarding the threat posed by Iraq but that the administration's grand design for the Middle East was based on a plan originally prepared for the Israeli government. According to Bamford, the basic blueprint for the administration's Middle East policy had been drawn up in the mid-1990s by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, three neoconservatives who would be named to influential positions in the Bush administration. Described as a kind of "American privy council" to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the three proposed what they called a "Clean Break" plan, which involved getting the United States to pull out of the peace negotiations in order to let "Israel take care of the Palestinians as it saw fit." Under the "Clean Break" plan, Israel would launch pre-emptive attacks against its major Arab enemies and replace Saddam Hussein with a puppet leader friendly to Israel. Bamford records that Netanyahu wisely rejected the plan but that the Perle group found a more receptive audience for their recommendations inside the Bush administration. The fact that several of the key players most aggressively pushing the Iraqi war had originally outlined it for the benefit of another country raises "the most troubling conflict of interest questions," he writes. A possible conflict of interest is but one of many troubling questions raised in A Pretext for War. Many of these questions are currently being pursued in Senate hearings and through other inquiries, so the final chapter in the story of America's first pre-emptive war is still to be written. __________________ James D. Fairbanks teaches political science at the University of Houston-Downtown. chron.com