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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (162828)	5/24/2005 6:07:30 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Newsweek didn't create White House image _________________________________________ By HELEN THOMAS HEARST NEWSPAPERS Tuesday, May 24, 2005 seattlepi.nwsource.com WASHINGTON -- It was an act of desperation when the White House tried to blame Newsweek magazine for the United States' low esteem around the world, particularly in the Middle East. The Bush administration could look in the mirror and see that the real cause for rampant anti-Americanism is the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Newsweek has apologized for its report that a copy of the Quran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 500 prisoners, though released prisoners have in recent months told interviewers that they had witnessed similar acts of desecration. The Newsweek report is being blamed for inciting riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the l7 deaths that ensued. White House press secretary Scott McClellan -- who has fobbed off questions about mistreatment of U.S.-held prisoners in the past -- told reporters that the Newsweek report "caused serious damage to the United States abroad." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was appalled that the story about the Quran got out. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of all people -- said: "People need to be very careful about what they say just as they need to be careful about what they do." This is the same Rumsfeld who ignored for months the first of the devastating reports about abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. You don't have to draw a diagram for the Arab world to know what country invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 -- against the wishes of every nation in the region -- and tried to justify the attack with a rationale that shifted each time the previous version was shown to be false. There's a sense of hypocrisy that pervades the huffing and puffing by Bush administration officials as they rush to criticize Newsweek. Where was their outrage when they saw the photographs of the shameful mistreatment of the prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib facility, with forced nudity, humiliation, sexual harassment, brutal interrogation, dogs? After those shocking photos were published around the world, Rumsfeld banned cameras from military prisons. Daoud Kuttab, a news media critic and professor in Bethlehem, referring to claims by former prisoners of Quran desecration, told The New York Times: "Newsweek can recant as long as they want, but as long as people are coming out of prison and telling the same story, it will not matter." The Pentagon is still investigating the charges contained in the Newsweek account. Former broadcaster Marvin Kalb, now at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said, "This is hardly the first time the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic." Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said the administration is chastising Newsweek "for a story that contained a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war." One reporter asked McClellan what further, beyond an apology, Newsweek could do. He had no suggestions except that the magazine should "move forward and do all it can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report." Sorry, Scott. The damage was done with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq in defiance of all international law. For some time the administration has been worried enough about its current standing in the world to appoint yet another woman to conduct a "public diplomacy" campaign to repair the U.S. image. The newcomer, Karen Hughes, takes the job after two other women quit. My suggestion is to allow reporters to go to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib as well as the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan and let them question prisoners about their treatment. Then we may get a truly impartial picture of the situation. But don't hold your breath on that happening. _____________________ Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com. Copyright 2005 Hearst Newspapers. © 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (162828)	5/24/2005 6:27:18 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Is Bush a Sith Lord? ___________________________ by Paul Craig Roberts* May 24, 2005 The current episode of Star Wars is dynamite for the duplicitous Bush administration. Palpatine, a Sith lord masquerading as a galactic republican, becomes chancellor of the Galactic Republic through deception. Palpatine uses wars that he instigates to elevate security over the power of the Senate and to become dictator. In a moment of triumph, Palpatine tells the Senate: "In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society." The senators respond with sustained cheering and applause. Padme says, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause." Sith lords use the powers of the dark side of the force. Jedi knights use the power of the good side. The Jedi are selfless and use their incredible powers to protect the Republic. Sith are evil and crave absolute power. Palpatine, who is really Darth Sidious, manipulates the Senate and enlists the Jedi Council's patriotism to "defend" the Republic against a "separatist" army that he secretly directs. The purpose of the orchestrated war is to erode liberty in the name of security. The naïve Jedi catch on too late and are decimated. The Republic falls. Bush's "war against terrorism" is no less orchestrated than Palpatine's war and has led to the same result: a society dominated by security concerns. The top secret British government memo that was leaked to the London Times proves beyond all doubt that Bush invaded Iraq for none of the changing reasons that he has given a too-trusting public. Bush did not invade because of weapons of mass destruction or because he wanted to bring democracy to Iraq. Why did Bush invade Iraq? No one, least of all the Bush administration, has come up with a believable reason. Yet there is no shortage of patriotic Republicans who sincerely believe that Bush has made America safer by turning the Muslim world against us and stirring up a hornet's nest of terrorists united by their hatred of America. Moreover, like Palpatine's war, Bush's war in Iraq appears to be interminable. U.S. military commanders say we will be fighting in Iraq for years to come. Forecasts are that the war will have cost taxpayers $600 billion by 2010. Meanwhile, Bush, like Palpatine, has brought civil liberties to a crisis. In the U.S., civil liberties are everywhere biting the dust. Not content with the Orwellian "PATRIOT Act," the Bush administration is pushing for expanded secret police powers. Even conservative Republican Bob Barr writes that provisions of the "PATRIOT Act" go far beyond fighting terrorism "and undermine our constitutional freedoms and Fourth Amendment rights." Barr is chairman of a coalition, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances. In other words, dear readers, the checks and balances are gone. Bush has enabled the police to bypass the courts. Executive power rules, and there are no Jedi knights. The Sith, however, are everywhere. In our day, the Sith masquerade as neoconservatives. Neocons deal in absolutes. They believe the end justifies the means. As the Jedi master Obi-Wan tells Anakin, who is turning to the dark side and emerging as Darth Vader, "only a Sith lord deals in absolutes." Anakin to Obi-Wan: "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Palpatine is able to manipulate the Galactic Senate with the clever use of words that play upon emotions. People want to feel secure. They want their side to prevail and will do whatever it takes to win, including trading their Republic for an Empire. Palpatine prevails because people deceive themselves. Republicans have become adept at self-deception. They will believe any argument that justifies Bush and no news report that casts doubt on Bush's war. The leaked British government memo is dismissed as just more anti-Bush propaganda from the liberal media, like Dan Rather and Newsweek. Newsweek's retraction of its story that U.S. soldiers flushed a Koran down a toilet proves to Republicans that the only problem is an anti-American liberal media. The fact that Newsweek was absolutely correct in reporting desecration of the Koran by U.S. troops – and only got wrong the particular way in which the holy book was desecrated – has been totally ignored by Republicans. Republicans believe everything Bush says. When he tells them he needs a police state to save them from terrorists, they believe him. Who will save us from Bush's police state? Just as Child Protective Services has had to frame innocent parents and child care providers as child abusers in order to justify its budgets and a massive bureaucracy, the vast Homeland Security apparatus will have to "find" terrorists. Otherwise, there is no point to all the expanded police powers and the huge budget. Just as the indignities of airport security and its assorted searches fall on loyal American citizens, the police-state measures will also fall on loyal American citizens. With the courts bypassed, a terrorist is whoever the secret police say is a terrorist. The U.S. government is already committing the crime of kidnapping people mistakenly identified as terrorist suspects and flying them to brutal regimes to be tortured. Police states have an insatiable need for enemies. In Stalin's time, the secret police conducted "street sweeps." People waiting for buses and shopping for food were carted off to prison, where they were tortured until they implicated others. Thus was the gulag filled with innocents. "It can't happen here," but the beginnings of it already have. The U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is full of mistaken identities and people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – including, according to the Associated Press, a chicken farmer and an invalid. Bush's brand of democracy – a regime that holds people in prison for three years without charges – does not have civil liberties at heart. Republicans are cheering. According to news reports Congress has passed – and Bush is about to sign – a law requiring a national identity card (Real ID) containing invasive digital information about the person. How long will it be before the card specifies whether the person is a gun owner? If it is dangerous for air travel to permit a passenger to have a toothpick or nail clippers, how can a terrorist-threatened society permit mass gun ownership? If the constitutional protections of civil liberties can be suspended in order to better fight terrorism, the Second Amendment doesn't have a chance. A government that spies on its citizens will not trust them with guns. When gun control becomes an essential feature of Homeland Security, the National Rifle Association and talk radio conservatives will be as astounded as Bail Organa and Padme when they hear Palpatine declare "an empire … and a sovereign ruler chosen for life." ___________ * Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Find this article at: antiwar.com