Peace back at ya.

• Is God going to "do the right thing?" - gourdpainter
  • All we can hope for - sbMT
    • I want you to know s/m - gourdpainter
      • boy oh boy - with so many of your
        • Of course - gourdpainter
  • She's a female Bush... - HaHaHa
  • You seem to be getting meaner and meaner - AmericanMT
    • Mean???? LOL - gourdpainter
      • She did not say, nor did she imply, - AmericanMT
        • I hate to tell ya American MT, s/m - gourdpainter
    • Non-stop hate rhetoric for weeks and weeks on end - has a tendency to do that. sm
      • First of all, GP started this particular - AmericanMT
    • Maybe you should change... - HaHaHa
  • Quite frankly........sm - sm
    • Ashes are all that's left of the shrub's scorched earth policies. - Pubs will rise again...sm
      • Yup, the Real Republican Party will rise again....new blood is definitely needed, that's for sure - nm
    • HaHaHaHaHa!!! - HaHaHa
      • Sorry, but I have to ask. - AmericanMT
        • Yes, old enough to vote... - HaHaHa
          • I hate to argue, especially when - AmericanMT
            • If you hate to argue - gourdpainter
              • Peace offering up above. - AmericanMT
                • Peace back at ya. - gourdpainter
            • YOU BETCHA!!! - HaHaHa
    • Amen, sister! - Zville MT
  • If McCain/Palin win...heaven help us all! (nm) - Educated Voter
    • If they win, it'll prove there's really no God. - (Would He really let that happen?)
      • We are all praying for Obama and He/She will answer our prayers - God loves Obama
        • God loves McCain too. - cnh
    • If McCain/Palin win, Heaven has answered my - prayers!
  • We should all be very scared of people like this . . . - lom
    • If Obama wins, it has nothing to do with God. - But will put us beyond even his help.nm
      • Wahhhhh!!! - HaHaHa

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deficit in American history, caused by WHAT?

And I just love how anyone who doesn't agree with them is labeled as having no values.

What kind of values does someone have to take a healthy surplus upon entering office and not only SQUANDERING it but then going on to create the biggest deficit in American history?

What kind of values does someone have to send our children to an unnecessary war to die and/or be injured while neglecting to give them inadequate supplies?

What kind of values does someone have to send our children off to a foreign land to die for his own personal bogus war, when he was too much of a coward to serve in combat duty himself?

What kind of values does someone have to take the blood of 9/11 victims and the fear of all other Americans and USE it to wage a bogus war against Iraq when that was his goal before he was even elected President?

What kind of values does someone have to not care enough about securing or borders or our ports or protecting our airspace and chemical/nuclear plants and decreases the budget for rail and subway security?

What kind of values does someone have to have to neglect to develop enough smallpox vaccines FOUR YEARS after the worst attack in American history, when bio attacks using smallpox was felt to be a threat?

What kind of values does someone have to have to make sure that his huge war budget includes FREE comprehensive medical benefits for all Iraqi citizens while he presides over a country where many of his own citizens who work 40 hours or more a week can't even afford health insurance?

What kind of values does someone have to have to deny American scientists the opportunity to study stem cell research, using the argument that he wants to "protect life" when he presides over a country where our children are being routinely molested and MURDERED by animals who the government refuses to keep in jail? 

Out of all the talk on these boards about life being "precious" as it regards stem cell research, I have yet to see ONE SINGLE POST about the multitude of children that have been abducted, sexually abused and murdered in this country in the last six months.  What kind of values does someone have to have to care more about cells in a petrie dish than the children who are already here?

Those examples aren't values. Those examples do nothing but reflect the values that are ABSENT in an egotistical moron of a president who, at his very BEST, is nothing but DANGEROUS.

We all love our country.  Let's focus on that.  No matter who wins, there is a lot of work to be done.

G'night.

    Friday 11 November 2005

    She's just off the plane from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the cheapest route back from a reunion in the little Arkansas town where she grew up in the 1950s. For thirty years, she and her childhood friends have climbed to the top of Penitentiary Mountain, where the local persimmon trees grow, for a persimmon-spitting contest. (All in the great spirit of just having fun and being crazy.) She holds out her hands and says, I probably still have persimmon goop on me!

    We seat ourselves at a table in my dining room, two small tape recorders between us. She's dressed all in black with a bright green over-shirt, a middle-aged blond woman wearing gold earrings and a thin gold necklace. As she settles in, her sleeves pull back, revealing the jewelry she'd rather talk about. On her right wrist is a pink, plastic band. This one was to be a volunteer in the Astrodome for Hurricane Katrina. I did two days work there, then three days in Covington, Louisiana, the first week after. On her left wrist, next to a watch from another age, are two blue plastic bands: And this one, she says with growing animation, fingering the nearest of them, was my very first arrest of my whole life on September 26th in front of the White House with 400 of my closest friends. This is the bus number I was on and this is the arrest number they gave me and then, later on, I had to date it because now I have two. She fingers the second band. Last week 26 of us were arrested after a die-in right in front of the White House in commemoration of the two thousandth American and maybe one hundred thousandth Iraqi who died in this war. So now, she announces, chuckling heartily, I'm a felon for peace.

    When she speaks - and in the final g's she drops from words (It's freezin' in Mongolia!) - you can catch just a hint of the drawl of that long-gone child from Bentonville, Arkansas. In her blunt, straightforward manner, you can catch something of her 29 years in the Army; and in her ease perhaps, the 16 years she spent as a State Department diplomat. Animated, amused by her foibles (and those of her interviewer), articulate and thoughtful, she's just the sort of person you would want to defend - and then represent - your country, a task she continues to perform, after her own fashion, as one of the more out-of-the-ordinary antiwar activists of our moment.

    Last August, she had a large hand in running Camp Casey for Cindy Sheehan at the President's doorstep in Crawford, Texas; then again, that wasn't such a feat, given that in 1997 she had overseen the evacuation of 2,500 foreigners from the war zone that was then Sierra Leone, a harrowing experience for which she was given the State Department's Award for Heroism. That's why I joined the Foreign Service, she comments, her voice still filled with some residual excitement from those years. I wanted to go to places you wouldn't visit on vacation. In fact, the retired colonel opened and closed embassies from Africa to Uzbekistan and took some of the roughest diplomatic assignments on Earth, including the reopening of the American embassy in Kabul in December 2001.

    On March 19, 2003, the day before the first Cruise missiles were launched against Baghdad, she resigned from the Foreign Service in an open letter sent from the U.S. embassy in Mongolia (where she was then Deputy Chief of Mission) to Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it she wrote, in part:

    This is the only time in my many years serving America that I have felt I cannot represent the policies of an Administration of the United States. I disagree with the Administration's policies on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, North Korea and curtailment of civil liberties in the U.S. itself. I believe the Administration's policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place. I feel obligated morally and professionally to set out my very deep and firm concerns on these policies and to resign from government service as I cannot defend or implement them.

    Once used to delivering official U.S. statements to other governments, she now says things like: Everyone should have to be handcuffed with the flexi-cuffs they use now and feel just how unflexible they are, just how they cut, and then imagine Iraqis, Afghans, and other people we pick up in them 24 hours a day. She relaxes, sits back, awaits the first question, and responds with gusto.

    Tomdispatch: I thought we'd start by talking about two important but quite different moments in your life. The first was not so long ago. Let me quote from a New York Times article on a recent Condoleezza Rice appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was a day that echoed the anguish, anger and skepticism that opinion polls show have begun to dominate the thinking of Americans. The hearing was punctuated by a heckler who called for an end to the war, only to be hustled out. Now, I believe this was you.

    Ann Wright: [She chuckles.] Yes! Not a heckler, I was a protester.

    TD: Tell me about it.

    AW: It was as much a protest against the Senators as against Condoleezza Rice, because they were not holding our Secretary of State responsible. I picked up the Washington Post that morning and noticed that Condoleezza was going to testify on Iraq, and I thought, well, I'm free until noon. When I walked in, I was not planning on doing anything.

    But I sat there for two hours and Senators were saying: We've heard the administration is discussing a military option in Syria and perhaps Iran. The committee needs to be brought in on this, because we've only given you authorization for military action in Iraq. In an almost rude, dismissive tone, the Secretary of State essentially replied: We'll talk to you when we want to; all options are on the table; and thank you very much. Then the senators just kind of sat there. It was like: Come on, guys talk! Pin that woman down! We, the people, want to know. I want to know. And then they just started off on something else. It was like: No! Come back to this question. We don't want to go to war in Syria or Iran...

    TD: And did you stand up?

    AW: So I stood up. I was back in the peanut gallery. I've never done anything like it before in my whole life. I took a deep breath and went, Stop the killing! Stop the war! Hold this woman accountable! You, the Senate, were bamboozled by the administration on Iraq and you cannot be bamboozled again! Stop this woman from killing!

    At that point, I ran out of things to say because I hadn't really planned it. [She laughs.] I was looking around. There was only one police officer and he was just ambling toward me. It was like he enjoyed what I was saying. I thought, until he gets here I've got to say something more, so I went: You failed us in Iraq, you can't fail us on Syria! The police office finally said, Uh, ma'am, you've got to come with me. This is the first time - somebody told me later - anyone's ever seen a protester put her arm around a police officer. [She laughs.]

    TD: So you weren't hustled out?

    AW: Noooooo. It was a slow walk and there was silence in the room, so I thought: Well, I can't let this go by and I started another little rant on the way out. That part wasn't mentioned in the news reports.

    TD: At least some papers like the Washington Post mentioned you by name. The Times merely called you a heckler.

    AW: Well, how rude! I wasn't heckling anyway. I was speaking on behalf of the people of America.

    TD: This obviously takes you a long way from your professional life, because you were in the Foreign Service for...

    AW: Sixteen years...

    TD: ... and in all those years this would have been rather inconceivable.

    AW: Having testified at congressional hearings as a Foreign Service officer, particularly on Somalia issues back in '93 and '94, I was always humbled to go into those rooms as a government employee. I always found it interesting when people in the audience stood up to say something. You know, I learned later that most protestors do it in the first ten minutes because that's when the cameras and all the reporters are sure to be there.

    As it happened, the chairman of the committee declined to have me arrested. The police officer said, Well, if you're disappointed, I can arrest you. I replied, If you don't mind, I'll just run on over to my lunch appointment. I was actually on my way to a presentation by Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, where he would describe the secrecy of the administration and the way the State Department was isolated by the White House and the National Security Council.

    TD: Another moment of protest, one I'm sure you thought about very carefully, took place the day before the shock-and-awe campaign against Iraq began. That day you sent a letter of public resignation to Colin Powell which began - and not many people could have written such a sentence - When I last saw you in Kabul in 2002...

    AW: Indeed I had volunteered to go to Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001 to be part of a small team that reopened the U.S. embassy. It had been closed for twelve years. I have a background in opening and closing embassies. I helped open an embassy in Uzbekistan, closed and reopened an embassy in Sierra Leone. I've been evacuated from Somalia and Sierra Leone. And with my military background, I've worked in a lot in combat environments.

    I volunteered because I felt the United States needed to respond to the events of 9/11, and the logical place to go after al-Qaeda was where they trained, knowing full well that you probably weren't going to get a lot of people. The al-Qaeda group is very smart and few of them, in my estimation, would have been hanging out where we were most likely to go after them in Afghanistan. Actually, I was amazed the administration went in physically. I thought, like the Clinton administration, they would send in cruise missiles. Considering the severity of September 11, I guess the military finally said: Well, it looks like we're going into that hell-hole where the Russians got their butts whipped. Everybody knew it was going to be tough.

    TD: You've commented elsewhere that a crucial moment for you was watching the President's Axis of Evil State of the Union address from a bunker in Kabul.

    AW: A bunker outside the chancellery building meant to protect against the rockets the mujahedeen were sending against each other after they defeated the Soviets. We had taken [then interim leader] Hamid Karzai, who had been invited to the State of the Union, to Bagram Air Base and sent him off three days before. We told him, You've got to start getting together some detailed plans for economic development funds because the attention of the United States doesn't stay on any country for long; so, get your little fledgling cabinet moving fast. Well, the President started talking about other interests that the United States had after 9/11 and these interests were Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Just as he said that, the cameras focused on Karzai and you could almost see him going: Hmmmm [she mugs a wince], now I know what they were telling me at the embassy. And we were sitting there thinking, Oh my God...

    TD: You had a functioning TV?

    AW: Barely. We had a satellite dish made of pounded-out coke cans - these were being sold down in Kabul - and a computer chip sent in from Islamabad, because we wanted to hear from Washington what was going to happen with Afghanistan. When, instead of talking much about Afghanistan, the President started in on this axis-of-evil stuff we were stunned. We were thinking: Hell's bells, we're here in a very dangerous place without enough military. So for the President to start talking about this axis of evil... everyone in the bunker just went: Oh Christ, here we go! No wonder we're not getting the economic development specialists in here yet. If the American government was going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and clearing out the Taliban and preparing to help the people of Afghanistan, why the hell was it taking so long? Well, that statement said it all.

    TD: Did you at that moment suspect a future invasion of Iraq?

    AW: I'm a little naïve sometimes. I really never, ever suspected we would go to war in Iraq. There was no attempt at that moment to tie 9/11 to Iraq, so it didn't even dawn on me.

    Anyway, that was the preface to my letter of resignation. I wanted to emphasize that I had seen Colin Powell on his first trip to Kabul. I wanted to show that this was a person who had lots of experience.

    TD: In the whole Vietnam era, few, if any, government officials offered public resignations of protest, but before the invasion of Iraq even began, three diplomats - Brady Kiesling, John Brown, and yourself - resigned in a most public fashion. It must have been a wrenching decision.

    AW: I had been concerned since September 2002 when I read in the papers that we had something like 100,000 troops already in the Middle East, many left behind after the Bright Star [military] exercise we have every two years in Egypt. I thought: Uh-oh, the administration is doing some sneaky-Pete stuff on us. They were claiming they wanted UN inspectors to go back into Iraq, when a military build-up was already underway. It's one thing to put troops in the region for pressure, but if you're leaving that many behind, you're going to be using them. Then, as the mushroom-cloud rhetoric started getting stronger, it was like: Good God! These guys mean to go to war, no matter what the evidence is.

    By November, I was having trouble sleeping. I would wake up at three, four in the morning - this was in Mongolia where it was freezing cold - wrap up in blankets, go to the kitchen table, and just start pouring my soul out. By the time I finally sent that resignation letter in, I had a stack of drafts like this. [She lifts her hand a couple of feet off the table.] I did know two others had resigned, but quite honestly I hadn't read their letters and I didn't know them.

    TD: You were ending your life in a way, life as you had known it...

    AW: Thirty-five years in the government between my military service and the State Department, under seven administrations. It was hard. I liked representing America.

    TD: Was there a moment when you knew you couldn't represent this government anymore?

    AW: I kept hoping the administration would go back to the Security Council for its authorization to go to war. That's why I held off until virtually the bombs were being dropped. I was hoping against hope that our government would not go into what really is an illegal war of aggression that meets no criteria of international law. When it was finally evident we were going to do so, I said to myself: It ain't going to be on my watch.

    TD: Was it like crossing a border into a different world?

    AW: It was a great relief. During the lead-up to war, I had begun showing symptoms of an impending heart attack. The State Department put me on a medivac flight to Singapore for heart tests. The doctors said, Lady, you're as strong as a horse. Are you just under some kind of stress? Yes, I am! The moment I sent in that letter, it was like a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At least I had made my stand and joined the other two who had resigned.

    TD: And what of those you left behind?

    AW: In the first couple of days, while I was still in Mongolia, I received over 400 emails from colleagues in the State Department saying: We're so sad you're not going to be with us, but we're so proud of the three of you who resigned because we think this going-to-war is just so horrible; then each one would describe how anti-American feeling was growing in the country where they were serving. It was so poignant, all those emails.

    TD: Why don't you think more people in the government - and in the military where there's clearly been opposition to Iraq at a very high level - quit and speak out?

    AW: There were a few. [General] Eric Shinseki talked about the shortchanging of the [Iraq] operations plan by a couple of hundred thousand people. He was forced out. But see, in the military, in the Foreign Service, you're not supposed to be speaking your own mind. Your job is to implement the policies of an administration elected by the people of America. If you don't want to, your only option is to resign. I understood that and that's one of the reasons I resigned - to give myself the freedom to talk out.

    There are a lot of people still in government service speaking out, but you've got to read between the lines. The senior military leaders in Iraq, what they've been saying is very different from what Donald Rumsfeld and the gang in Washington say. These guys are being honest and truthful about the lack of Iraqi battalions really ready for military work, the dangers the troops are under, the days when the military doesn't go out on the streets. They're signaling to America: We're up a creek on this one, guys, and you, the people of America, are going to have to help us out.

    TD: ...Let's talk about [Colin Powell's chief of staff] Larry Wilkerson as an example. He assumedly left after the election when Colin Powell did, so almost a year has passed. He saw what he believed was a secret cabal running the government and it took him that long after he was gone to tell us about it. I'm glad he spoke out. But I wonder why there isn't a more urgent impulse to do so?

    AW: If you look at Dick Clarke [the President's former chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security Council], he had all the secrets from the very beginning and he retired in January 2003. Yet he didn't say anything for over a year and a half, until he published that book [Against All Enemies] in 2004. If he had gone public before the war started, that man could have told us those same secrets right then. So could [the National Security Council's senior director for combating terrorism] Randy Beers. I worked with both of them on Somalia, on Sierra Leone. I know these guys personally and it's like: Guys, why didn't you come forward then?

    As you probably know, on the key issues of the first four years of the Bush administration, the State Department was essentially iced out. I mean, look at the Iraq War. Colin Powell and the State Department were just shoved aside and all State's functions put into the Department of Defense. Tragically, Colin Powell, who was trying to counsel Donald Rumsfeld behind the scenes that there weren't enough troops in Iraq, never stood up to say, Hold it, guys, I'll resign if we don't get this under control so that logical functions go in logical organizations and you, the Defense Department, don't do post-combat civil reconstruction stuff. That's ours. He just didn't do it. To me, he was more loyal to the Bush family than he was to the country. His resignation was possibly the one thing that could have deterred the war. Then the people of America would really have looked closely at what was going on. But tragically he decided loyalty to the administration was more valuable than loyalty to the country. I mean, it breaks my heart to say that, but it's what really happened.

    TD: So what is it that actually holds people back?

    AW: I think the higher up you go, the more common it is for people to retire, or maybe even resign, and not say what the reasons are, because they may hope to get back into government in a different administration. Dick Clarke had served every administration since George Washington and maybe he was looking toward being called back as a political appointee again. Sometimes such people don't speak out because they feel loyalty to the person who appointed them. Nobody appointed me to nothin', except the American people. I'm a career foreign service officer and I serve the American people. When an administration wasn't serving the best interests of the American people, I felt I had to stand up.

    TD: And are you now pretty much a full-time antiwar activist?

    AW: [She laughs.] That's the way it's turned out.

    TD: What, if anything, do you think your military career, your State Department career, and this... well, I can't call it a career... have in common?

    AW: Service to America. It's all just a continuation of a real concern I have about my country.

    TD: And what would you say to your former compatriots still in the military and the State Department?

    AW: Many of the emails I received from Foreign Service officers said, I wish I could resign right now, but I've got kids in college, I've got mortgages, and I'm going to try really hard, by staying, to ameliorate the intensity of these policies. All I can say is that they must be in agony about not being able to affect policy. There have been plenty of early retirements by people who finally realized they couldn't moderate the policies of the Bush administration.

    TD: What message would you send to the person you once were from the person you are now?

    AW: You trained me well.

    TD: If in this room you had the thirty-five year-old woman about to go into Grenada, as you did back in 1983, what would you want her to mull over.

    AW: I would say: You were a good Army officer and Foreign Service officer. You weren't blind to the faults of America. In many jobs, you tried to rectify things that were going badly and you succeeded a couple of times. My resignation wasn't the first time I spoke out. For instance, I was loaned, or seconded, from the State Department to the staff of the United Nations operation in Somalia and ended up writing a memo concerning the military operations the UN was conducting to kill a warlord named Addid. They started taking helicopters, standing off, and just blowing up buildings where they had intelligence indicating perhaps he was there. Well, tragically he never was, and here we were blowing up all these Somali families. Of course the Somalis were outraged and that outrage ultimately led to Blackhawk Down.

    I wrote a legal opinion to the special representative of the Secretary General, saying the UN operations were illegal and had to stop. It was leaked to the Washington Post and I got in a bit of hot water initially, but ultimately my analysis proved correct. I was also a bit of a rabble-rouser on the utilization of women in the military back in the eighties, part of a small group of women who took on the Army when it was trying to reduce the career potentials of women. I ended up getting right in the thick of some major problems which ultimately cost the Army millions of dollars in the reassessment of units that had been given incorrect direct-combat probability codings. I was also part of a team which discovered that some of our troops had been looting private homes in Grenada. The Army court-martialed a lot of our soldiers for this violation of the law of land warfare. We used their example in rewriting how you teach the code of conduct and, actually, the Geneva Convention on the responsibility of occupiers.

    TD: You know a good deal about the obligations of an occupying power to protect public and private property, partially because in the 1980s you were doing planning on the Middle East, right?

    AW: Yes, from 1982 to 1984, I was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina when the Army was planning for potential operations using the Rapid Deployment Force - what ultimately became the Central Command. One of the first forces used in rapid deployment operations was the 82 Airborne at Fort Bragg. I was in the special operations end of it with civil affairs. Those are the people who write up the annexes to operations plans about how you interact with the civilian population, how you protect the facilities - sewage, water, electrical grids, libraries. We were doing it for the whole Middle East. I mean, we have operations plans on the shelf for every country in the world, or virtually. So we did one on Iraq; we did one on Syria; on Jordan, Egypt. All of them.

    We would, for instance, take the UNESCO list of treasures of the world and go through it. Okay, any in Iraq? Yep. Okay, mark 'em, circle 'em on a map, put 'em in the op-plan. Whatever you do, don't bomb this. Make sure we've got enough troops to protect this. It's our obligation under the law of land warfare. We'd be circling all the electrical grids, all the oil grids, all the museums. So for us to go into Iraq and let all that looting happen. Well, Rumsfeld wanted a light, mobile force, and screw the obligations of treaties. Typical of this administration on any treaty thing. Forget 'em.

    So everything was Katy-bar-the-door. Anybody could go in and rip up anything. Many of the explosives now being used to kill our troops come from the ammo dumps we did not secure. It was a total violation of every principle we had for planning military operations and their aftermath. People in the civil affairs units, they were just shaking their heads, wondering how in the hell this could have happened. We've been doing these operations plans forever, so I can only imagine the bitchin' and moanin' about - how come we don't have this civilian/military annex? It's in every other op-plan. And where are the troops, where are the MPs?

    TD: If back in the early eighties you were planning to save the antiquities of every country in the Middle East, then obviously the Pentagon was also planning for a range of possible invasions in the region. Do you look back now and ask: What kind of a country has contingency plans to invade any country you can imagine?

    AW: One of the things you are likely to do at a certain point in your military career is operations plans. It did not then seem abnormal to me at all that we had contingency plans for the Middle East, or for countries in the Caribbean or South America. At that stage, I was not looking at the imperialism of the United States. I just didn't equate those contingency plans with empire-building goals. However, depending on how those plans are used, they certainly can be just that. Remember as well that this was in the days of the Cold War and, by God, that camouflaged a lot of stuff. You could always say: You never can tell what those Soviets are going to do, so you better be prepared anywhere in the world to defeat them.

    TD: And we're still prepared anywhere in the world...

    AW: Well, we are and now, let's see, where are the Russians? [She laughs heartily.]

    TD: Tell me briefly the story of your life.

    AW: I grew up in Arkansas, just a normal childhood. I think the Girl Scouts was a formative organization for me. It had a plan to it, opportunity to travel outside Arkansas, good goals - working on those little badges. Early State Department. Early military too. It's kind of interesting, the militarization of our society, how we don't really think of some things, and yet when I look back, there I was a little Girl Scout in my green uniform, and so putting on an Army uniform after college wasn't that big a deal. I'd been in a uniform before and I knew how to salute, three fingers. [She demonstrates.]

    If you look, we now have junior ROTC in the high schools. We have child soldiers in America. We're good at getting kids used to those uniforms. And then there's the militarization of industries and corporations, the necessity every ten years to have a war because we need a new generation of weaponry. Corporations in the military-industrial complex are making lots of money off of new types of weaponry and vehicles.

    TD: While you were in the military, did you have any sense that these wars were actually living weapons labs?

    AW: Particularly seeing the privatization after Gulf War I, going into Somalia. All of a sudden, as fast as military troops were arriving, you had Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown, and Root in Somalia. They started saying, You need mess halls, oh, we'll do the mess halls for you. And it turned out they had staged a lot of their equipment in the Middle East after the Gulf War. So it was in Somalia lickety-split. The privatization of military functions is now so pervasive that the military can no longer function by itself, without the contractors and corporations. These contractors, these mercenaries really, are now fundamentally critical to the operations of the U.S. military.

    TD: So a Girl Scout and...

    AW: In my junior year at the University of Arkansas, a recruiter came through town with the film, Join the Army, See the World. I had been an education major for three years. Nurse, teacher, those were the careers for women. I didn't want any of it. So, in the middle of the Vietnam War, I signed up to go to a three-week Army training program, just to see if I liked it. And I found it challenging. Even though there were protests going on all over America, I divorced myself from what the military actually did versus what opportunities it offered me. I hated all these people getting killed in Vietnam, but I said to myself: I'm not going to kill anyone and I'm taking the place of somebody who will be able to go do something else. All these arguments that... now you look at it and go: Oh my God, what did you do?

    TD: Don't you think this happens now?

    AW: Absolutely! I sympathize with the people in the military right now. The majority didn't sign up to kill anybody. You always prayed that, whatever administration it was, it didn't go off on some wild goose chase that got you into a war you personally thought was really stupid.

    TD: Would you counsel a young woman now to go into the military?

    AW: I think we will always have a military and I think the military is honorable service as long as the civilian leadership uses it in appropriate ways and is very cautious about sending us to war. And yes, I would encourage people to look at a military career, but I would also tell them that, if they're sent to do something they think is wrong, they don't have to stay in, though they may have to take some consequences for saying, Thank you very much but I'm not going to kill anybody.

    In fact, if I were recalled to active duty, which is possible... I put myself purposely at the Retired Ready Reserve so that, if there was ever an emergency and my country needed me, I could be recalled, and in fact there are people my age, 59, who are agreeing to be recalled. The ultimate irony would be resigning from my career in the diplomatic corps and then having the Bush administration recall me, because my specialty, civil affairs, reconstruction, is in really short supply. I'm a colonel. I know how to run battalions and brigades. I can do this stuff. But I would have to tell them, sorry, I refuse to be placed on active duty. And if they push hard enough, then I'd just have to be court-martialed and I'd go to Leavenworth. I will not serve this administration in the Iraq war which I firmly believe is an illegal war of aggression.

    TD: You know, if someone had said to me back in the 1960s that a Vice President of the United States might go to Congress to lobby for a torture exemption for the CIA the way Dick Cheney has done, I would have said: This couldn't happen. Never in American history. I'm staggered by this.

    AW: Me, too. The other thing that's quite interesting is the number of women who are involved in it. There were something like eighty women I've identified, ranging from high officers to CIA contractors being used as interrogators in Guantanamo. Talking about things that will come back to bite us big time, this is it. And we are complicit, all of us, because, quite honestly, we're not standing out in front of the White House every single day, and every time that Vice President leaves throwing our bodies in front of his car, throwing blood on it. We need to get tough with these guys. They're not listening to us. They think we're a bunch of wimps. We've got to get tougher and tougher with them to show them we're not going to put up with this stuff.

    TD: You've quoted Teddy Roosevelt as saying: To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. I was particularly struck by that word servile. Do you want to talk about dissent for a moment?

    AW: Well, we shouldn't be hesitant about voicing our opinions, even in the most difficult of times which generally is when your nation is going to war and you're standing up to say, this isn't right. That's tough and, in fact, the first couple of months after I resigned, oh man, all that TV and nothing on but the war, and very few people wanted to hear me. It probably was a good four months before anybody even asked me to come speak about why I had dissented, and that was a little lonely. [She chuckles.]

    TD: Any final thoughts?

    AW: We now have a two-and-a-half-year track record of being a very brutal country. We are the cause of the violence in Iraq. That violence will continue as long as we're there, and the administration maintains that we will be there until we win. That means to me that this administration is planning for a long-term siege in Iraq. It means that young men and women in America should be prepared for the draft because the military right now cannot support what this administration wants. In fact, yesterday I was talking to about ninety high school seniors in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a very Republican part of the United States. I said: Your parents may support this war, but how strongly do you feel about it? If it drags on for years and there's a draft, how many of you will willingly go? Only three put up their hands.

    We are continuing down a very dangerous road. The United States and its citizenry are held in disdain in world opinion for not being able to stop this war machine. So one of the things I'm doing is ratcheting up my own level of response. A dear friend, Joe Palambo, a Vietnam veteran in Veterans for Peace who went to hear the President in Norfolk when he talked about terrorism, was recently cited in the newspapers this way: There was one protestor in the second row of the audience who stood up and railed against the President, saying: You're the terrorist! This war is a war of terrorism! Joe called me right after that happened and said, Hey, Ann, I heard what you did in the Senate and I thought, I'm going to go do the same thing to the President.

    I mean, we're going to dog these guys all over the country. Our Secretary of State, our Secretary of Defense, our Vice President, our President, our National Security Adviser, the head of the CIA, any of these people who are the warmongers, who are the murderers in the name of our country, wherever they go, the people of America need to stand up to them to say, No! Stop! Stop this war. Stop this killing. Get us out of this mess. Because that's the only time they hear it, when we stand up in these venues. They don't come out to the street in front of the White House to see the hundreds of thousands of people who are protesting. They ignore that. But for those fifteen seconds, if you can stand up so that everybody in that audience sees that there's one person, or maybe even two or three... Who knows?

  -------

http://www.nonukesnorth.net/peacesymbol.shtml 

Someone asked me awhile back about the peace symbol and where it came from. In the event that you do not know this story, it is quite interesting especially in light of the **nuclear** problems we are having 49 years after the symbol's creation. Altho there are those who swear it is the reincarnation of some ancient rune of an evil, Anton LeBay, devil-worsipping, anti-Christ **secret** society, they are referring to the V (for victory sign) that Churchill and Nixon and others have used over the years. The V being evil has something to do with Masons and **secrets** the rest of us are not privy to. Anyway, when Gerald Holtom designed the peace sign as we know it some far-far-far right and fundamental religious groups spread the notion that the symbol was an outgrowth of the **V** and a Satanic Communist symbol.

The real story, especially the semaphores, which I did not know much about before researching this a few years ago, is pretty cool.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/09/arrest-bush-che.html

(I don't know how to make sophisticated links.) 

It's not just about torture of terrorists.  It's many, many other things they have done. 

Nobel Peace Prize winners since 1975

Busted for wearing a peace T-shirt; has this country gone completely insane?

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_956.shtml

You don't consider *unhinged liberal* calling names?!

All you do is come here and pick, pick, pick, fight, fight, fight.  You're boring, and you're terribly unfriendly and unpleasant to be around.  For that reason, I don't think I'm going to continue to provide an audience for any more of your attention-seeking temper tantrums.

Other than that, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by *Did think you could come back on that.*  Is English your second language or is your anger and hatred causing you to become a bit *unhinged* yourself? (Was just a rhetorical question. No need to respond. I won't be reading it.)

ignoring them, Democrat.

Their own board is dead because they can't stand to AGREE with each other and just be NICE people.  They have too much venom that they need to purge or explode, and they've been doing it here.

Not one of them (assuming there is more than one) has posted anything that deserves a response.  Not one.

They're just pitiful, bitter, angry, hateful people, and the more we feed them, the fatter they get.

Not flip-flops by one person...but several:

1. 

2. 

Pelosi and Reid Flip Flop on Implementation of all 9/11 Commission Recommendations

Despite the fact they voted against many of the most important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission over the last few years, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid made the implementation of all their recommendations one of their more prominent campaign promises this year...

Well, now that they've won, promises don't mean a thing, and Speaker-elect Pelosi, in response to a reporter's question, now says you can't do them all.

REPORTER: But your promise though was to enact all of the 9/11 recommendations.

PELOSI: What I am saying to you is that they presented several different options and with the goals they have in mind, we have come up with this proposal which removes the barriers between the house appropriators and authorizers, makes the oversight stronger and makes the American people safer, so if they are giving you different alternatives, implicit in that is that you can't do them all.

They're already breaking promises... Should we have expected anything else from them?

 

3. 

Hillary Flip Flops on Ethanol

« H E » John Kuethe :: email link

Following in the footsteps of Democrat presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton has “Flip Flopped” on an issue that will play a significant part in the 2008 elections.  She is now for ethanol fuel, but she voted against it in June of last year. She failed to learn from Senator Kerry that Flip Flops no longer go unnoticed by voters.  

She spoke at the National Press Club and announced her energy plan for the nation. In addition to several user tips like checking tire pressure etc., she espoused the development of ethanol for motor fuel.  She suggested that we put a billion dollars from the strategic energy fund into research aimed at unlocking the full potential of ethanol. She also wants to expand loan guarantees to help the first one billion gallons of ethanol capacity come online. She proposes that we have ethanol pumps at 50% of gas stations nationwide by 2015 and a hundred percent by 2025. 

This is all well and good, but how could she make 180 degree turn from last June when she voted against ensuring that ethanol is treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments do not have to pay for environmental damage caused by ethanol? The answer is simple, she has flip flopped in order to better her position in Iowa , whose caucus is a crucial start in the primary process in Presidential elections.  In the age of instant information, candidates who change their position with the political winds should take note that their voting record is available to anyone with internet access.  Read the how the votes fell at U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109^th Congress - 1^st Session.

4. 

Hillary Flip-Flops on Immigration

« H E » John Kuethe :: email link

Democrats flip-flop on a regular basis, and in the age of instant information it is becoming increasingly difficult to pull it off.  Kerry tripped over his own statements on his way to defeat in 2004, and Hillary Clinton is well on her way to following in his footsteps. 

In an attempt to appear hawkish on immigration in 2003 she said that she was adamantly against illegal immigration:

I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants, Clinton said in a Feb. 2003 radio interview.

Clinton said the U.S. might have to move towards an ID system even for citizens in order to combat illegal border crossings, or implement at least a visa ID, some kind of an entry and exit ID. Story 

She has now come out is in favor of citizenship for illegal aliens and claimed that Republicans want to impose a “police state”.  In typical Democrat fashion, she is adjusting her position according to the direction in which she believes the winds of politics are blowing:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential White House candidate in 2008, said Wednesday some Republicans are trying to create a police state to round up illegal immigrants. Newsmax
 

This is similar to the strong position she has taken on the Dubai ports deal.  She is adamantly against and Arab company running a handful of terminals at our ports, but is also adamantly against racial profiling.  Playing both sides of the fence is classic Clintonian politics and a tactic she probably learned from her charismatic husband. 

 

5.  Reid Ticket Flip-Flop

The Associated Press reports that Senator Harry Reid has reversed course, and his office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future.

The Nevada senator still believes it was entirely permissible for him to accept ringside seats for three professional boxing matches in 2004 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission but has nonetheless decided to avoid doing so in the future, his office said.

In light of questions that have been raised about the practice, Senator Reid will not accept these kinds of credentials in the future in order to avoid even the faintest appearance of impropriety, spokesman Jim Manley said.

The announcement came after The Associated Press confronted Reid's office early Wednesday with conclusions from several ethics experts that the Senate leader misstated congressional ethics rules in trying to defend his actions.

According to Reid, it was perfectly okay for him to accept the free gifts because they were from his home state.

 

6.  Pelosi - Murtha

Pelosi, in a letter distributed Sunday to newly elected House Democrats, wrote that Murtha's outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq helped change the electoral campaign for the House this fall. Murtha began calling for a U.S. pullout from Iraq a year ago, and his open opposition to the war made him a focus of intense criticism from Republicans and the White House.

(SNIP)

Pelosi added: Your strong voice for national security, the war on terror and Iraq provides genuine leadership for our party, and I count on you to continue to lead on these vital issues. For this and for all you have done for Democrats in the past and especially this last year, I am pleased to support your candidacy for Majority Leader for the 110th Congress.

Here is a few interesting points about Murtha on National Security.

Murtha on Homeland Security:

Voted NO on federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists. (Feb 2005)
Voted NO on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)
Voted NO on adopting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. (Oct 2004)
Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism. (Sep 2001)
Voted NO on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted NO on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
Supports anti-flag desecration amendment. (Mar 2001)
Rated 44% by SANE, indicating a mixed record on military issues. (Dec 2003)

So far, doesn't seem Murtha has shown a strong voice on Security for America. Then again, Pelosi doesn't have to tell the truth, does she? After all, she doesn't even think Iraq is a war... she thinks it is a situation!!!!!

Since it has been reported that al-Qaeda has been trying to enter our country via the Mexican border, lets also take a look at Murtha's record on immigration, shall we?

Voted NO on reporting illegal aliens who receive hospital treatment. (May 2004)
Voted YES on extending Immigrant Residency rules. (May 2001)

To be VERY clear here, al-Qaeda has already informed us that they have smuggled materials across the Mexican border, this was reported on Nov. 2006.

A NEWSCHANNEL 5 investigation reveals what the feds don't want you to know. Suspected terrorists are hiding inside the U.S. and they got here by sneaking across the Mexican border.

What we've been reporting for more than a year has been confirmed by a government report just released. (Click here to download the report.)

And a brand new interview by Pakistani investigative reporter Hamid Mir is bringing in more information. Mir has interviewed some of America's most dangerous terrorist enemies.

This time the Al Qaeda commander he talked to gave a grim warning that another attack on America is coming very soon.

We can attack America anytime, says Abu Dawood during the interview. He also told the reporter that Muslims must leave America.

Murtha also flip flops about as much as John Kerry does.

Murtha voted for the 10 October 2002 resolution that as a last resort authorized the use of force against Iraq. However, he later began expressing doubts about the war. On 17 March 2004, when Republicans offered a “War in Iraq Anniversary Resolution” that “affirms that the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq, when JD Hayworth called for a recorded vote, Murtha then voted against it.

Still, in early 2005 Murtha argued against the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. “A premature withdrawal of our troops based on a political timetable could rapidly devolve into a civil war which would leave America’s foreign policy in disarray as countries question not only America’s judgment but also its perseverance”, he stated

On 17 November 2005, he touched off a firestorm when he called for the redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying, The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily.

I guess liberal political opinion flip flops according to what political season it is.

During debate on adopting the rule for the resolution, Congresswoman Jean Schmidt, a Republican from Ohio, made a statement attributed to Danny Bubp, an Ohio state Representative and Marine Corps reservist, “He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.

 

7. 

Pelosi Flip-Flops on Porter Goss

( 8/10/2004 ) CNN quoted the San Francisco Democrat today in saying she didn't support the nomination: But I will say what I said before is that there shouldn't - a person should not be the director of central intelligence who's acted in a very political way when we're dealing with the safety of the American people. Intelligence has to be the gathering and analysis and dissemination of information, of intelligence, without any political, any politics involved at all. Sorry, Nancy. The Republican National Committee has unearthed this from June 5, in the Chattanooga Times Free Press: If Goss is nominated for the post, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said that she would support him. Pelosi worked closely with Goss during the congressional investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. Whoever replaces Tenet needs to be independent of political pressure, Pelosi said. Goss, who worked for the CIA before becoming a congressman in 1988, has shown that ability as chairman of the House Intelligence panel, she added. 8. Kennedy Flip-Flops on Quizzing High Court Nominees By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer July 28, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts will be expected to answer fully any questions about his views on controversial issues that could come before the court in the future, according to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). But, during the 1967 confirmation debate over future Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kennedy argued that Supreme Court nominees should defer any comments on such matters. In his June 20, floor speech responding to President Bush's nomination of Roberts to the Supreme Court, Kennedy argued that senators must not fail in our duty to the American people to responsibly examine Judge Roberts' legal views. Kennedy listed a number of issues, including workers' rights, health care and environmental regulations, that he considers important. Each of these issues, and many others, [have] been addressed by the Supreme Court in recent years, Kennedy said. In many of these cases, the Court was narrowly divided, and these issues are likely to be the subject of future Court decisions in the years to come. The Massachusetts Democrat said he is troubled by Roberts' strict interpretation of the Constitution's commerce clause and added that other aspects of Judge Roberts' record also raise important questions about his commitment to individual rights. Because Judge Roberts has written relatively few opinions in his brief tenure as a judge, his views on a wide variety of vital issues are still unknown, Kennedy charged. What little we know about his views and values lends even greater importance and urgency to his responsibility to provide the Senate and the American people with clear answers. Kennedy listed examples of conservative positions Roberts had argued on behalf of both private clients and as the principle deputy solicitor general for the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Judge Roberts represented clients in each of these cases, but we have a duty to ask where he stands on these issues, Kennedy continued. I join my colleagues in the hope that the process will proceed with dignity. But the nominee will be expected to answer fully, so that the American people will know whether Judge Roberts will uphold their rights. See Video During the 1967 confirmation debate over the nomination of then-Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, however, Kennedy held a different view about the types of questions the nominee should be required to answer. Film footage obtained by Cybercast News Service shows Kennedy's response to the prospect of senators asking Marshall questions about how he might rule in future cases. We have to respect that any nominee to the Supreme Court would have to defer any comments on any matters, which are either before the court or very likely to be before the court, Kennedy said during a 1967 press conference. This has been a procedure which has been followed in the past and is one which I think is based upon sound legal precedent. See Video Marshall was serving President Lyndon Johnson as solicitor general when he was nominated in the summer of 1967. Prior to that, he had been an attorney for the NAACP, and had successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that racially integrated the nation's public schools. Marshall's nomination was opposed by Southern Democrats who feared his confirmation would further the cause of racial equality in the United States, but he was confirmed by a vote of 69 to 11 on Aug. 30, 1967. Multiple calls to Sen. Kennedy's office seeking comment for this report were not returned. 9.   noted back on the 10th about how Democrats were playing political games with the Iraq war by being before the suggested ’surge’ in troops in Iraq before they were against it. Well guess what? Add another Democrat to the game players: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes. Via the Washington Times: On Dec. 5, Newsweek magazine touted an interview with then-incoming House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes as an “exclusive.” And for good reason. “In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq,” the story began, Mr. Reyes “said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a ’stepped up effort to dismantle the militias.’ ” “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq,” the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, “I would say 20,000 to 30,000.” Then came President Bush’s expected announcement last week, virtually matching Mr. Reyes’ recommendation and argument word-for-word — albeit the president proposed only 21,500 troops. Wouldn’t you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable. “We don’t have the capability to escalate even to this minimum level,” he said. The chairman’s “double-talk” did not go unnoticed. Among others, Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, says such blatant “hypocrisy” undermines both national security and the war on terrorism. Indeed. And just in case anyone doubts the validity of the WashTimes story about this, here’s that Dec. 5 Newsweek story on Reyes: Dec. 5. 2006 - In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.” The soft-spoken Texas Democrat was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade that country. That dovish record got prominently cited last week when Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi chose Reyes as the new head of the intelligence panel. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK on Tuesday, Reyes pointedly distanced himself from many of his Democratic colleagues who have called for fixed timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Coming on the eve of tomorrow’s recommendations from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission, Reyes’s comments were immediately cited by some Iraq war analysts as fresh evidence that the intense debate over U.S. policy may be more fluid than many have expected. “We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States. […] When asked how many additional troops he envisioned sending to Iraq, Reyes replied: “I would say 20,000 to 30,000—for the specific purpose of making sure those militias are dismantled, working in concert with the Iraqi military.” […] Reyes added that he was “very clear” about his position to Pelosi when she chose him over two rivals—Rep. Jane Harman of California and Rep. Alcee Hastings—to head the critical intelligence post. One widely cited reason that Harman, a moderate Democrat who supported the war, didn’t get the nod from Pelosi is that the Speaker-designate wanted somebody who would be more aggressive in standing up to the Bush White House—which Reyes promises to be on other issues like domestic wiretapping and CIA secret prisons. But when asked what he told Pelosi about his thinking on Iraq, Reyes replied: “What I said was, we can’t afford to leave there. And anybody who says, we are going pull out our troops immediately, is being dishonest … We’re all interested in getting out of Iraq. That’s a common goal. How we do it, I think, is the tough part. There are those that say, they don’t care what Iraq looks like once we leave there. Let’s just leave there. And I argue against that. I don’t think that’s responsible. And I think it plays right into the hands of Syria and Iran.” Here’s Reyes’ flip flop, as reported in the El Paso Times on 1/11/07: President Bush’s announcement Wednesday evening that he would send about 21,500 more soldiers and Marines to Iraq drew a mixed reaction from El Paso residents, and local officials said they weren’t aware he planned to use Fort Bliss Patriot missile units to defend U.S. allies in the region. Bush had been expected to announce that he would send a “surge” of troops to Baghdad and to Al Anbar Province in an effort to stop sectarian violence and control the al-Quaida insurgency so the country’s fledgling government can establish itself. “We don’t have the capability to escalate even to this minimal level,” said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, referring to the availability of troops. “The president has not changed direction, but is simply changing tactics.” Reyes, who met with Bush on Tuesday to review the plan, said sending more troops removes any incentive the Iraqi government had to take responsibility for the safety of its own citizens. He added that Bush was continuing his “go-it-alone” approach, rather than trying to find diplomatic solutions. I wrote this in my intial post on Dem flip flops on the surge, and I believe it’s worth repeating today: They simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth, nor can they be trusted to be in the driver’s seat in a time of war. That these shameless, dishonest, disingenuous, anti-war, cut and run, stuck-in-Vietnam clowns are going to be micromanaging the President’s every move over the next two years on the war on terror is a travesty of epic proportions, and is already proving to be disastrous. 10.  Dems Flip Flop on Iraq War http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_CepS8u9wQ A little light listening and watching. 11.  The 16 August 2005 Washington Times has an editorial that digs deeper into two prominent Democrats with aspirations for 2008: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New Arkansas). In Border-control Democrats and President Bush the editors summarize many of the sneaky backtracks and politicking that these two have employed on this crucial national security and economic issue. The opening paragraph alone summarizes the piece perfectly: Democratic hopefuls for 2008 are sensing how vulnerable President Bush is on border control. The latest sign: New Mexico's politically shrewd governor, Bill Richardson, has made a partial about-face on the issue — at least in words — and is throwing money and attention at his state's southern border. If he makes a national comeback from the Energy Department security scandals that all but ruined his reputation in the final years of the Clinton administration, it will owe in part to a seeming shift on border control that mirrors the one that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made in December and then reneged upon. The editors then go on to dispel any doubts of the disingenuousness of their rightward tack on immigration and border control by chronicling their flip-flops. Granted: President Bush has been impotent on border security and weak on immigration — one can only assume because he is playing to his Hispanic voter base. So, I grant Bush no amnesty there. But at least he's consistently frustrating on the issue. Richardson and Clinton, however, have been all over the place, but of course pretend that they haven't. (I guess they just assume the American electorate are too stupid to follow their shenanigans… after all, they have election 2004 as precident that at least 48% of the nation could believe anyone, even an alleged war hero.) Here are some examples of duplicity from The Washington Times regarding Richardson: In 1996, as a New Mexico congressman, he voted against increases in border-control expenditures and against a work-verification program to discourage the hiring of illegals. His last few years as New Mexico governor have been more of the same. …As the state Minuteman leader, Clifford Alford, put it to local reporters last week, Mr. Richardson has never done anything to secure the border and he's not doing anything now. This year Mr. Richardson began changing his tune. In March, he appeared on Fox News Sunday with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and called for tough law enforcement, more border guards, a crackdown on illegal smuggling, better detection of those that overstay their visas, stolen/lost passports. Last week, after a tour of border areas, Mr. Richardson declared a state of emergency in four counties abutting Mexico, citing growing border-area violence, property damage, drug smuggling and problems with illegals crossing the border. He then invited Chris Simcox, a Minuteman leader, to discuss border control — something Mr. Bush has not done and probably cannot do, having labeled them vigilantes in March — and called on Mexico to bulldoze Las Chepas, a staging ground for illegals and smugglers. As regards Hillary, the editors refer to her comment last December that [I do] not think that we have protected our borders or our ports… we can do more and we can do better — I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants… People have to stop employing illegal immigrants, and then observe: Since then, Mrs. Clinton has turned back toward left-liberal orthodoxy. Last month, she gave a fawning speech to the National Council of La Raza in which she endorsed the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minorities (DREAM) Act, which would guarantee illegals in-state college-tuition rates and also grant amnesty to tens of thousands of illegals who graduate from U.S. high schools. The border-control hawkishness had vanished.

12.  Massive Al-Qaeda Iraq flip flop

Thursday, June 15, 2006

I agree.  It would be very traumatizing to the child to be hauled around and raised by a succession of nannies.  The child's needs come before her political ambition.