Monday, October 08, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Can we handle the truth?
"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations." Thomas Jefferson
Signed, sealed and delivered.
Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy
Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com
October 01, 2007
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
It is an exceedingly dangerous time. Vice President Dick Cheney and his hard-core “neoconservative” protégés in the administration and Congress are pushing harder and harder for President George W. Bush, isolated from reality, to honor the promise he made to Israel to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
On Sept. 23, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned pointedly:
"If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us...I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq."
So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic—for Israel and for the U.S.? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer—what the Chinese used to call "great power chauvinism"—and oil.
The truth can slip out when erstwhile functionaries write their memoirs (the dense pages of George Tenet’s tome being the exception). Kudos to the still-functioning reportorial side of The Washington Post, which on Sept. 15, was the first to ferret out the gem in former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s book that the Iraq war was "largely about oil."
But that’s okay, said The Post’s editorial side (which has done yeoman service as the White House’s Pravda ) the very next day. Dominating the op-ed page was a turgid piece by Henry Kissinger, serving chiefly as a reminder that there is an excellent case to be made for retiring when one reaches the age of statutory senility.
Dr. Kissinger described as a "truism" the notion that "the industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend." (Curious. That same truism was considered a bad thing, when an integral part of the "Brezhnev Doctrine" applied to Eastern Europe.) What is important here is that Kissinger was speaking of Iran, which—in a classic example of pot calling kettle black—he accuses of "seeking regional hegemony."
What’s going on here seems to be a concerted effort to get us accustomed to the prospect of a long, and possibly expanded war. Don’t you remember? Those terrorists, or Iraqis, or Iranians, or jihadists...whoever...are trying to destroy our way of life. The White House spin machine is determined to justify the war in ways they think will draw popular support from folks like the well heeled man who asked me querulously before a large audience, "Don’t you agree that several GIs killed each week is a small price to pay for the oil we need?"
Consistency in U.S. Policy?
The Bush policy toward the Middle East is at the same time consistent with, and a marked departure from, the U.S. approach since the end of World War II. Given ever-growing U.S. dependence on imported oil, priority has always been given to ensuring the uninterrupted supply of oil, as well as securing the state of Israel. The U.S. was by and large successful in achieving these goals through traditional diplomacy and commerce. Granted, it would overthrow duly elected governments, when it felt it necessary—as in Iran in 1953, after its president nationalized the oil. But the George W. Bush administration is the first to start a major war to implement U.S. policy in the region.
Just before the March 2003 attack, Chas Freeman, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia for President George H.W. Bush, explained that the new policy was to maintain a lock on the world’s energy lifeline and be able to deny access to global competitors. Freeman said the new Bush administration "believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them" and that, with the end of the Cold war, the U.S. is uniquely able to shape global events—and would be remiss if it did not do so.
This could not be attempted in a world of two superpowers, but has been a longstanding goal of the people closest to George W. Bush. In 1975 in Harpers, then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger authored under a pseudonym an article, "Seizing Arab Oil." Blissfully unaware that the author was his boss, the highly respected career ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, committed the mother of all faux pas when he told a TV audience that whoever wrote that article had to be a "madman." Akins was right; he was also fired.
In those days, cooler heads prevailed, thanks largely to the deterrent effect of a then-powerful Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in proof of the axiom that bad ideas never die, 26 years later Kissinger rose Phoenix-like to urge a spanking new president to stoke and exploit the fears engendered by 9/11, associate Iraq with that catastrophe, and seize the moment to attack Iraq. It was well known that Iraq’s armed forces were no match for ours, and the Soviet Union had imploded.
Some, I suppose, would call that Realpolitik. Akins saw it as folly; his handicap was that he was steeped in the history, politics, and culture of the Middle East after serving in Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia—and knew better.
The renaissance of Kissinger’s influence in 2001 on an impressionable young president, together with faith-based analysis by untutored ideologues cherry picked by Cheney explain what happened next—an unnecessary, counterproductive war, in which over 3,800 U. S. troops have already been killed—leaving Iraq prostrate and exhausted.
A-plus in Chutzpah, F in Ethics
In an International Herald Tribune op-ed on Feb. 25, 2007, Kissinger focused on threats in the Middle East to "global oil supplies" and the need for a "diplomatic phase," since the war had long since turned sour. Acknowledging that he had supported the use of force against Iraq, he proceeded to boost chutzpah to unprecedented heights.
Kissinger referred piously to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which left the European continent "prostrate and exhausted." What he failed to point out is that the significance of that prolonged carnage lies precisely in how it finally brought Europeans to their senses; that is, in how it ended. The Treaty of Westphalia brought the mutual slaughter to an end, and for centuries prevented many a new attack by the strong on the weak—like the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003.
It was, it is about oil—unabashedly and shamefully. Even to those lacking experience with U.S. policy in the Middle East, it should have been obvious early on, when every one of Bush’s senior national security officials spoke verbatim from the talking-point sheet, "It’s not about oil." Thanks to Greenspan and Kissinger, the truth is now "largely" available to those who do not seek refuge in denial.
The implications for the future are clear—for Iraq and Iran. As far as this administration is concerned (and as Kissinger himself has written), "Withdrawal [from Iraq] is not an option." Westphalia? U.N. Charter? Geneva Conventions? Hey, we’re talking superpower!
Thus, Greenspan last Monday with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:
"Getting him [Saddam Hussein] out of the control position...was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important. But it’s clear to me that, were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture...would have been different."
Can we handle the truth?
"All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
—Schopenhauer
As the truth about our country’s policy becomes clearer and clearer, can we summon the courage to address it from a moral perspective? The Germans left it up to the churches; the churches collaborated.
"There is only us; there never has been any other."
—Annie Dillard
Signed, sealed and delivered.
Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy
Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com
October 01, 2007
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
It is an exceedingly dangerous time. Vice President Dick Cheney and his hard-core “neoconservative” protégés in the administration and Congress are pushing harder and harder for President George W. Bush, isolated from reality, to honor the promise he made to Israel to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
On Sept. 23, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned pointedly:
"If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us...I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq."
So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic—for Israel and for the U.S.? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer—what the Chinese used to call "great power chauvinism"—and oil.
The truth can slip out when erstwhile functionaries write their memoirs (the dense pages of George Tenet’s tome being the exception). Kudos to the still-functioning reportorial side of The Washington Post, which on Sept. 15, was the first to ferret out the gem in former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s book that the Iraq war was "largely about oil."
But that’s okay, said The Post’s editorial side (which has done yeoman service as the White House’s Pravda ) the very next day. Dominating the op-ed page was a turgid piece by Henry Kissinger, serving chiefly as a reminder that there is an excellent case to be made for retiring when one reaches the age of statutory senility.
Dr. Kissinger described as a "truism" the notion that "the industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend." (Curious. That same truism was considered a bad thing, when an integral part of the "Brezhnev Doctrine" applied to Eastern Europe.) What is important here is that Kissinger was speaking of Iran, which—in a classic example of pot calling kettle black—he accuses of "seeking regional hegemony."
What’s going on here seems to be a concerted effort to get us accustomed to the prospect of a long, and possibly expanded war. Don’t you remember? Those terrorists, or Iraqis, or Iranians, or jihadists...whoever...are trying to destroy our way of life. The White House spin machine is determined to justify the war in ways they think will draw popular support from folks like the well heeled man who asked me querulously before a large audience, "Don’t you agree that several GIs killed each week is a small price to pay for the oil we need?"
Consistency in U.S. Policy?
The Bush policy toward the Middle East is at the same time consistent with, and a marked departure from, the U.S. approach since the end of World War II. Given ever-growing U.S. dependence on imported oil, priority has always been given to ensuring the uninterrupted supply of oil, as well as securing the state of Israel. The U.S. was by and large successful in achieving these goals through traditional diplomacy and commerce. Granted, it would overthrow duly elected governments, when it felt it necessary—as in Iran in 1953, after its president nationalized the oil. But the George W. Bush administration is the first to start a major war to implement U.S. policy in the region.
Just before the March 2003 attack, Chas Freeman, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia for President George H.W. Bush, explained that the new policy was to maintain a lock on the world’s energy lifeline and be able to deny access to global competitors. Freeman said the new Bush administration "believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them" and that, with the end of the Cold war, the U.S. is uniquely able to shape global events—and would be remiss if it did not do so.
This could not be attempted in a world of two superpowers, but has been a longstanding goal of the people closest to George W. Bush. In 1975 in Harpers, then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger authored under a pseudonym an article, "Seizing Arab Oil." Blissfully unaware that the author was his boss, the highly respected career ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, committed the mother of all faux pas when he told a TV audience that whoever wrote that article had to be a "madman." Akins was right; he was also fired.
In those days, cooler heads prevailed, thanks largely to the deterrent effect of a then-powerful Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in proof of the axiom that bad ideas never die, 26 years later Kissinger rose Phoenix-like to urge a spanking new president to stoke and exploit the fears engendered by 9/11, associate Iraq with that catastrophe, and seize the moment to attack Iraq. It was well known that Iraq’s armed forces were no match for ours, and the Soviet Union had imploded.
Some, I suppose, would call that Realpolitik. Akins saw it as folly; his handicap was that he was steeped in the history, politics, and culture of the Middle East after serving in Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia—and knew better.
The renaissance of Kissinger’s influence in 2001 on an impressionable young president, together with faith-based analysis by untutored ideologues cherry picked by Cheney explain what happened next—an unnecessary, counterproductive war, in which over 3,800 U. S. troops have already been killed—leaving Iraq prostrate and exhausted.
A-plus in Chutzpah, F in Ethics
In an International Herald Tribune op-ed on Feb. 25, 2007, Kissinger focused on threats in the Middle East to "global oil supplies" and the need for a "diplomatic phase," since the war had long since turned sour. Acknowledging that he had supported the use of force against Iraq, he proceeded to boost chutzpah to unprecedented heights.
Kissinger referred piously to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which left the European continent "prostrate and exhausted." What he failed to point out is that the significance of that prolonged carnage lies precisely in how it finally brought Europeans to their senses; that is, in how it ended. The Treaty of Westphalia brought the mutual slaughter to an end, and for centuries prevented many a new attack by the strong on the weak—like the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003.
It was, it is about oil—unabashedly and shamefully. Even to those lacking experience with U.S. policy in the Middle East, it should have been obvious early on, when every one of Bush’s senior national security officials spoke verbatim from the talking-point sheet, "It’s not about oil." Thanks to Greenspan and Kissinger, the truth is now "largely" available to those who do not seek refuge in denial.
The implications for the future are clear—for Iraq and Iran. As far as this administration is concerned (and as Kissinger himself has written), "Withdrawal [from Iraq] is not an option." Westphalia? U.N. Charter? Geneva Conventions? Hey, we’re talking superpower!
Thus, Greenspan last Monday with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:
"Getting him [Saddam Hussein] out of the control position...was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important. But it’s clear to me that, were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture...would have been different."
Can we handle the truth?
"All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
—Schopenhauer
As the truth about our country’s policy becomes clearer and clearer, can we summon the courage to address it from a moral perspective? The Germans left it up to the churches; the churches collaborated.
"There is only us; there never has been any other."
—Annie Dillard
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
"Progress"
or lack thereof...
Year of racial unrest in La. town
Stiff charges for the 'Jena Six,' black teens who beat a white youth, draw wide attention. The raw atmosphere started with nooses in a tree.
By Miguel Bustillo
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
JENA, La. — In December, six black boys jumped a white boy at the high school here and beat him while he lay unconscious.
The victim was taken to the hospital, but he was not gravely hurt. He attended a class ring ceremony later that evening.
The black boys were charged with attempted murder, which threatened to put them in prison for most of their lives. The district attorney alleged they'd used a deadly weapon: their sneakers.
The case of the so-called Jena Six has elicited outrage around the world -- not only because of the stiff charges brought against the black teenagers, but because of the stark contrast between the way black boys and white boys in the same town were treated.
The assault was the culmination of months of racial unrest in Jena (pronounced JEE-nuh), a former sawmill town of about 3,000 people in the backwoods of central Louisiana. It started at the beginning of the last school year, when a black freshman at Jena High School asked the vice principal during a school assembly whether he could sit under the "white tree," a gnarled oak on campus where white students gathered to escape the stifling Southern heat. He was told to sit wherever he wanted.
The following day last September, three hangman's nooses were dangling from the oak's branches. Two months later, the school was set on fire.
The three white boys who hung the nooses were identified but not expelled or charged with a hate crime; they were suspended for three days. No one has been charged in the arson.
The Jena Six were kicked out of school last school year. Five were charged as adults with crimes that carry long prison sentences. (The other boy is being tried as a juvenile and was recently allowed to return to classes.)
One of the six, Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted of aggravated battery by an all-white jury this year, a crime that carries a maximum punishment of 15 years. On Friday, a state appeals court overturned his conviction after his defense attorneys argued that he was unlawfully tried as an adult.
Still, Bell remained behind bars late Friday, as he had been for the last nine months. It is unclear whether LaSalle Parish Dist. Atty. Reed Walters will seek to drop the charges, retry him as a juvenile or ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to overturn the appellate court's decision. Walters did not return requests for comment.
"It's not a complete victory; we can't celebrate yet," said Louis Scott, one of a team of Louisiana lawyers defending Bell pro bono. "But when we got in this game, we were a couple of touchdowns behind. Now the game is tied."
The "white tree" at the high school was recently cut down by local leaders, and Walters has been reducing the charges against the Jena Six to aggravated battery; attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of more than 50 years.
But those actions have done little to quell the criticism of the way Jena authorities have handled the case.
"If a black person does something in Jena, they do more time than a white person. It's always been that way," said Bell's mother, Melissa Bell. "The white kids here can run loose, drink beer, whatever. But if you are black, don't you dare act like that."
African American leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III argue that the case has raised disturbing questions about lingering racism and uneven justice in the Deep South.
Bloggers and student activists have taken up the Jena Six cause, saying the case is not unique: Studies have shown that black youths often receive harsher penalties than white youths.
Rallies to support the Jena Six are taking place around the country, and the Nation of Islam and other religious organizations had been planning a bus trip to Jena for Mychal Bell's sentencing, which had been scheduled for Thursday.
It was unclear Friday whether the rally, which was expected to draw thousands including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, would still take place. Jena officials have called off classes at six schools in anticipation of possible unrest.
"Jena is a 1960 town in a 2007 world. It's like going 47 years in the past," said the Rev. Raymond Brown, a New Orleans civil rights activist. "The message being sent here is: 'Don't you touch any white people, because if you do you will get locked up for life.' "
But in Jena, about 230 miles northwest of New Orleans, some whites say their town is suffering the real injustice. They blame out-of-state activists and the news media for painting a sensationalized picture of Jena as a throwback to the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow era. They would prefer that the camera crews and ministers leave for good.
The noose incident was "nothing more than a bad joke. Whites and blacks stuck their heads in the nooses, poking fun at it," said Billy Fowler, a local school board member. "The black students -- it caused some tension for them, I'm sure, but it's not as crazy as it's been made out to be."
Fowler said that though he and many others agreed that the Jena Six were being excessively punished, many had lost sympathy for the boys because of damage to the town's reputation.
"If they'd kept their mouths shut, they might have gotten those charges taken off," he said. "But with the way this town's been done wrong, I don't think that's going to happen now."
Fowler and others assert that there's no direct connection between the noose incident and the later beating, a position supported by U.S. Atty. Donald Washington, who has been reviewing the case for possible federal intervention.
But supporters of the Jena Six argue that the nooses divided the town and sparked an ugly series of racial fights that culminated in the six-on-one beating.
After the nooses were hung, Jena High Principal Glen Joiner recommended expulsion for the white students responsible. But he was overruled by LaSalle Parish Schools Supt. Roy Breithaupt -- a decision that angered Jena's 350 or so black residents. Breithaupt did not respond to requests for comment.
After the decision, black students at Jena High gathered under the tree in protest.
Fights between blacks and whites broke out for days, and the principal ultimately called an assembly in which Dist. Atty. Walters, flanked by armed police, addressed the school.
"With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear," Walters said. In a court hearing where an attorney tried to have Walters removed from the beating case on grounds that he was biased, Walters, who is white, admitted making the statement. But he denied that he had been looking at black students when he said it, as some have said he had been.
Just before the incident that resulted in stiff charges for the Jena Six, white youngsters had attacked one of the six black boys, Robert Bailey, 17, striking him with beer bottles as he tried to enter a party. Only one of the attackers was charged -- with simple battery.
The next day, a white man who had been at the party brandished a shotgun during an altercation with Bailey and several other black boys.
He was not charged, but the boys, who wrestled the gun away from him, were charged with stealing it.
At a hearing last month in which Mychal Bell's new attorneys tried to get him released on bail, prosecutors revealed that Bell had been on juvenile probation and had been involved in other violence. Supporters of the stiff charges called the disclosure proof that the charges were just.
On Friday, Bell's attorneys said they would now seek school reinstatement for Bell -- an honor student and star running back who was being courted by top football colleges including Louisiana State University -- while he fought his legal battles.
"I just hope this doesn't mess up his mind, being locked up with grown men," Melissa Bell said tearfully as she stared at a picture of her son in black-and-white prison stripes. "He had such a bright future in front of him. I really hope he can get his life back."
Year of racial unrest in La. town
Stiff charges for the 'Jena Six,' black teens who beat a white youth, draw wide attention. The raw atmosphere started with nooses in a tree.
By Miguel Bustillo
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
JENA, La. — In December, six black boys jumped a white boy at the high school here and beat him while he lay unconscious.
The victim was taken to the hospital, but he was not gravely hurt. He attended a class ring ceremony later that evening.
The black boys were charged with attempted murder, which threatened to put them in prison for most of their lives. The district attorney alleged they'd used a deadly weapon: their sneakers.
The case of the so-called Jena Six has elicited outrage around the world -- not only because of the stiff charges brought against the black teenagers, but because of the stark contrast between the way black boys and white boys in the same town were treated.
The assault was the culmination of months of racial unrest in Jena (pronounced JEE-nuh), a former sawmill town of about 3,000 people in the backwoods of central Louisiana. It started at the beginning of the last school year, when a black freshman at Jena High School asked the vice principal during a school assembly whether he could sit under the "white tree," a gnarled oak on campus where white students gathered to escape the stifling Southern heat. He was told to sit wherever he wanted.
The following day last September, three hangman's nooses were dangling from the oak's branches. Two months later, the school was set on fire.
The three white boys who hung the nooses were identified but not expelled or charged with a hate crime; they were suspended for three days. No one has been charged in the arson.
The Jena Six were kicked out of school last school year. Five were charged as adults with crimes that carry long prison sentences. (The other boy is being tried as a juvenile and was recently allowed to return to classes.)
One of the six, Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted of aggravated battery by an all-white jury this year, a crime that carries a maximum punishment of 15 years. On Friday, a state appeals court overturned his conviction after his defense attorneys argued that he was unlawfully tried as an adult.
Still, Bell remained behind bars late Friday, as he had been for the last nine months. It is unclear whether LaSalle Parish Dist. Atty. Reed Walters will seek to drop the charges, retry him as a juvenile or ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to overturn the appellate court's decision. Walters did not return requests for comment.
"It's not a complete victory; we can't celebrate yet," said Louis Scott, one of a team of Louisiana lawyers defending Bell pro bono. "But when we got in this game, we were a couple of touchdowns behind. Now the game is tied."
The "white tree" at the high school was recently cut down by local leaders, and Walters has been reducing the charges against the Jena Six to aggravated battery; attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of more than 50 years.
But those actions have done little to quell the criticism of the way Jena authorities have handled the case.
"If a black person does something in Jena, they do more time than a white person. It's always been that way," said Bell's mother, Melissa Bell. "The white kids here can run loose, drink beer, whatever. But if you are black, don't you dare act like that."
African American leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III argue that the case has raised disturbing questions about lingering racism and uneven justice in the Deep South.
Bloggers and student activists have taken up the Jena Six cause, saying the case is not unique: Studies have shown that black youths often receive harsher penalties than white youths.
Rallies to support the Jena Six are taking place around the country, and the Nation of Islam and other religious organizations had been planning a bus trip to Jena for Mychal Bell's sentencing, which had been scheduled for Thursday.
It was unclear Friday whether the rally, which was expected to draw thousands including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, would still take place. Jena officials have called off classes at six schools in anticipation of possible unrest.
"Jena is a 1960 town in a 2007 world. It's like going 47 years in the past," said the Rev. Raymond Brown, a New Orleans civil rights activist. "The message being sent here is: 'Don't you touch any white people, because if you do you will get locked up for life.' "
But in Jena, about 230 miles northwest of New Orleans, some whites say their town is suffering the real injustice. They blame out-of-state activists and the news media for painting a sensationalized picture of Jena as a throwback to the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow era. They would prefer that the camera crews and ministers leave for good.
The noose incident was "nothing more than a bad joke. Whites and blacks stuck their heads in the nooses, poking fun at it," said Billy Fowler, a local school board member. "The black students -- it caused some tension for them, I'm sure, but it's not as crazy as it's been made out to be."
Fowler said that though he and many others agreed that the Jena Six were being excessively punished, many had lost sympathy for the boys because of damage to the town's reputation.
"If they'd kept their mouths shut, they might have gotten those charges taken off," he said. "But with the way this town's been done wrong, I don't think that's going to happen now."
Fowler and others assert that there's no direct connection between the noose incident and the later beating, a position supported by U.S. Atty. Donald Washington, who has been reviewing the case for possible federal intervention.
But supporters of the Jena Six argue that the nooses divided the town and sparked an ugly series of racial fights that culminated in the six-on-one beating.
After the nooses were hung, Jena High Principal Glen Joiner recommended expulsion for the white students responsible. But he was overruled by LaSalle Parish Schools Supt. Roy Breithaupt -- a decision that angered Jena's 350 or so black residents. Breithaupt did not respond to requests for comment.
After the decision, black students at Jena High gathered under the tree in protest.
Fights between blacks and whites broke out for days, and the principal ultimately called an assembly in which Dist. Atty. Walters, flanked by armed police, addressed the school.
"With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear," Walters said. In a court hearing where an attorney tried to have Walters removed from the beating case on grounds that he was biased, Walters, who is white, admitted making the statement. But he denied that he had been looking at black students when he said it, as some have said he had been.
Just before the incident that resulted in stiff charges for the Jena Six, white youngsters had attacked one of the six black boys, Robert Bailey, 17, striking him with beer bottles as he tried to enter a party. Only one of the attackers was charged -- with simple battery.
The next day, a white man who had been at the party brandished a shotgun during an altercation with Bailey and several other black boys.
He was not charged, but the boys, who wrestled the gun away from him, were charged with stealing it.
At a hearing last month in which Mychal Bell's new attorneys tried to get him released on bail, prosecutors revealed that Bell had been on juvenile probation and had been involved in other violence. Supporters of the stiff charges called the disclosure proof that the charges were just.
On Friday, Bell's attorneys said they would now seek school reinstatement for Bell -- an honor student and star running back who was being courted by top football colleges including Louisiana State University -- while he fought his legal battles.
"I just hope this doesn't mess up his mind, being locked up with grown men," Melissa Bell said tearfully as she stared at a picture of her son in black-and-white prison stripes. "He had such a bright future in front of him. I really hope he can get his life back."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
"Strict constitutionalist" indeed
I think future historians will look at the ease with which a small cabal was able to undermine the very premise of the Constitution and nod their heads in wonder. I'm reminded of the movie Blazing Saddles, when Gene Wilder's Jim is consoling Clevon Little's Bart, "You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
A Constitution to “Chain the Dogs of War”
by John Nichols
Two-hundred and twenty years ago this week, the patriots who had stuck through the long process of drafting a Constitution for the new United States finally approved the document. The primary purpose of their creation was, in the language of their time, to “chain the dogs of war.”
The American colonies has suffered the cruel fates of wars plotted and pursued by the royal families of distant Europe, and they set about to assure that the nation they had freed from the grip of British imperialism would not, itself, be subjected to the imperial whims of presidents who might someday imagine themselves to be kings.
“The executive should be able to repel and not to commence war,” explained Roger Sherman, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Connecticut, who moved to make clear the intent of the founders that nothing in their exposition of the powers of the executive branch should be conceived as authorizing the president to “make war.” An executive could assume the mantle of commander-in-chief only when it was necessary to defend the country; never to wage kingly wars of whim.
Sherman’s resolution was approved overwhelmingly by the Philadelphia convention that finished its work September 17, 1787.
George Mason, the Virginia delegate who was the strongest advocate for restraint on the executive, summed up the sentiments of the delegates when he said: “I am for clogging rather than facilitating war.”
So was the Constitution defined. Indeed, in arguing for its ratification, Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson explained, “This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important part in declaring war is vested in the legislature at large.”
The procedures are clearly outlined. Wars must be declared by the houses of Congress. And the power to continue any war is rested entirely in the funding authority that is given Congress. The president does not enjoy the privilege of declaring or maintaining a war. He is merely a manager of military affairs in a time of conflict; and even in that he is required to defer on matters of consequence to the Congress.
This, we know, to be the law of the land.
Yet, as we mark the 220th anniversary of the Constitution, more than 160,000 young Americans are mired in the quagmire of an undeclared war in Iraq. More than 3,700 of them have died already, and the toll expands on a daily basis - as does the rate at which innocent Iraqis are killed, maimed and rendered homeless. More than $200 million is extracted from the federal treasury each day to pay for this war, despite the fact that it is, by any Constitutional standard, entirely illegitimate.
The founders would not question for a moment that the Congress has the authority to use the power of the purse to end this war. Indeed, they would argue today as they did in their time, that a failure to do so would imperil the Republic.
But the founders would be even more worried about the precedent set by the current president’s seizure of ungranted authority for warmaking and so much else, and they would remind us, as George Mason did, that with regard to the Constitution: “No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued.”
The voters dealt with last fall with the Republican Congress that had collaborated with Bush to thwart the rule of law. The unfortunate reality of the moment is that a Democratic Congress that was elected to restore a measure of balance to the federal stage has responded to necessity with caution. But that does not change the eternal reality of the Republic, which is that this “opposition” Congress has a simple, basic, yet essential Constitutional duty. Members of the House and Senate must impeach and try a president who is assaulting the most basic precepts of the American experiment. Anything less is a mockery of the document they swear an oath to defend - and an invitation to this and future presidents to further unchain the dogs of war that the founders struggled so mightily to contain.
A Constitution to “Chain the Dogs of War”
by John Nichols
Two-hundred and twenty years ago this week, the patriots who had stuck through the long process of drafting a Constitution for the new United States finally approved the document. The primary purpose of their creation was, in the language of their time, to “chain the dogs of war.”
The American colonies has suffered the cruel fates of wars plotted and pursued by the royal families of distant Europe, and they set about to assure that the nation they had freed from the grip of British imperialism would not, itself, be subjected to the imperial whims of presidents who might someday imagine themselves to be kings.
“The executive should be able to repel and not to commence war,” explained Roger Sherman, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Connecticut, who moved to make clear the intent of the founders that nothing in their exposition of the powers of the executive branch should be conceived as authorizing the president to “make war.” An executive could assume the mantle of commander-in-chief only when it was necessary to defend the country; never to wage kingly wars of whim.
Sherman’s resolution was approved overwhelmingly by the Philadelphia convention that finished its work September 17, 1787.
George Mason, the Virginia delegate who was the strongest advocate for restraint on the executive, summed up the sentiments of the delegates when he said: “I am for clogging rather than facilitating war.”
So was the Constitution defined. Indeed, in arguing for its ratification, Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson explained, “This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important part in declaring war is vested in the legislature at large.”
The procedures are clearly outlined. Wars must be declared by the houses of Congress. And the power to continue any war is rested entirely in the funding authority that is given Congress. The president does not enjoy the privilege of declaring or maintaining a war. He is merely a manager of military affairs in a time of conflict; and even in that he is required to defer on matters of consequence to the Congress.
This, we know, to be the law of the land.
Yet, as we mark the 220th anniversary of the Constitution, more than 160,000 young Americans are mired in the quagmire of an undeclared war in Iraq. More than 3,700 of them have died already, and the toll expands on a daily basis - as does the rate at which innocent Iraqis are killed, maimed and rendered homeless. More than $200 million is extracted from the federal treasury each day to pay for this war, despite the fact that it is, by any Constitutional standard, entirely illegitimate.
The founders would not question for a moment that the Congress has the authority to use the power of the purse to end this war. Indeed, they would argue today as they did in their time, that a failure to do so would imperil the Republic.
But the founders would be even more worried about the precedent set by the current president’s seizure of ungranted authority for warmaking and so much else, and they would remind us, as George Mason did, that with regard to the Constitution: “No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued.”
The voters dealt with last fall with the Republican Congress that had collaborated with Bush to thwart the rule of law. The unfortunate reality of the moment is that a Democratic Congress that was elected to restore a measure of balance to the federal stage has responded to necessity with caution. But that does not change the eternal reality of the Republic, which is that this “opposition” Congress has a simple, basic, yet essential Constitutional duty. Members of the House and Senate must impeach and try a president who is assaulting the most basic precepts of the American experiment. Anything less is a mockery of the document they swear an oath to defend - and an invitation to this and future presidents to further unchain the dogs of war that the founders struggled so mightily to contain.
The long honored tradition
of military commanders. 'Nuff said
A General Dissembles by Robert Scheer [posted online on September
12, 2007]
Of course, Gen. David Petraeus predicts success in the Iraq War. What wonders couldn't generals achieve with more troops and more time? The battle is always going well until it is lost, and then they blame defeat on the politicians and the public.
There's no shortage of retired generals who will tell you we could have won in Vietnam, if only we had sent more troops, or bombed the dikes in the North, or been willing to kill more than the 3.4 million Vietnamese who died along with 59,000 American soldiers. Instead, the politicians and public, led by that bleeding heart President Richard Nixon, lost the will to win. Thus, the dominos fell to communism, and Red China and Red Vietnam now rule the world by dint of military force. Have you been to Wal-Mart lately? The triumph of communism is total.
Once again, we have a general repeatedly promising to save western civilization by turning the corner in yet another intractable and unnecessary foreign war. Back on Sept. 26, 2004, in the weeks before the midterm congressional elections, Petraeus took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post to make sure the voters didn't vote wrong. Despite appearances, he claimed the war in Iraq was going very well: "I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up," Petraeus wrote. "The institutions that oversee them are being re-established from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously ... there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security, something they are keen to do."
So keen, it makes one's heart swell. So keen that three years later, after the expenditure of $450 billion more in taxpayer funds, and more US troops in proportion to the Iraqi population than, at the height of the Vietnam War, we had in Vietnam, the good general now insists it would be disastrous to even think about bringing any American troops home before next summer.
That's at least another $150 billion and many more Iraqi and US lives wasted. But wait--Ryan C. Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, also testified before Congress this week with Petraeus, and he has more good news about what he still celebrates as the "liberation of Iraq." Remember that Bush Administration promise that the oil-rich Iraqis would pick up the check for the cost of their liberation? Well, Crocker is bullish on that front: the Iraqi economy is on schedule to grow by 6 percent, according to his testimony. Perhaps he is referring to the additional money dumped into Iraq's economy by American taxpayers chipping in for the surge.
He certainly wasn't basing his estimate on any improvement in Iraqi oil production or any other economic component. As the International Monetary Fund reported last month in its annual review of Iraq's economy, "Economic growth has been slower than expected at the time of the last (review) mainly because the expected expansion of oil production has failed to materialize." In case you haven't noticed, oil is the Iraqi economy, yet a recent GAO report stated an additional $57 billion in US tax dollars will be needed to bring oil and electricity production to the level where it can satisfy Iraq's domestic demand by the year 2015.
Ambassador Crocker actually had the nerve to compare the bloody religious fratricide in Iraq, which our inane invasion unleashed, to the American battle over state's rights, once again reducing the complexities of world history to an easily understood but totally irrelevant example from the American experience. In that case, a better analogy might have been made to the American Indian wars, given that the only thing the United States has been able to do effectively in Iraq is unleash superior firepower. At the current rate, Iraq will be liberated when there are no Iraqis.
Perhaps that is why this week's ABC/BBC poll shows that 70 percent of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated since the surge and that 60 percent believe attacks on US forces are justified. And 93 percent of Sunnis, whom the general and ambassador claim are joining our side, want to see us dead.
As for optimism, only 29 percent of Iraqis now think the situation will get better, as opposed to 64 percent who shared that optimism before the surge--which almost 70 percent of Iraqis believe has "hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development."
So, ambassadors and generals lie. Get used to it.
A General Dissembles by Robert Scheer [posted online on September
12, 2007]
Of course, Gen. David Petraeus predicts success in the Iraq War. What wonders couldn't generals achieve with more troops and more time? The battle is always going well until it is lost, and then they blame defeat on the politicians and the public.
There's no shortage of retired generals who will tell you we could have won in Vietnam, if only we had sent more troops, or bombed the dikes in the North, or been willing to kill more than the 3.4 million Vietnamese who died along with 59,000 American soldiers. Instead, the politicians and public, led by that bleeding heart President Richard Nixon, lost the will to win. Thus, the dominos fell to communism, and Red China and Red Vietnam now rule the world by dint of military force. Have you been to Wal-Mart lately? The triumph of communism is total.
Once again, we have a general repeatedly promising to save western civilization by turning the corner in yet another intractable and unnecessary foreign war. Back on Sept. 26, 2004, in the weeks before the midterm congressional elections, Petraeus took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post to make sure the voters didn't vote wrong. Despite appearances, he claimed the war in Iraq was going very well: "I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up," Petraeus wrote. "The institutions that oversee them are being re-established from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously ... there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security, something they are keen to do."
So keen, it makes one's heart swell. So keen that three years later, after the expenditure of $450 billion more in taxpayer funds, and more US troops in proportion to the Iraqi population than, at the height of the Vietnam War, we had in Vietnam, the good general now insists it would be disastrous to even think about bringing any American troops home before next summer.
That's at least another $150 billion and many more Iraqi and US lives wasted. But wait--Ryan C. Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, also testified before Congress this week with Petraeus, and he has more good news about what he still celebrates as the "liberation of Iraq." Remember that Bush Administration promise that the oil-rich Iraqis would pick up the check for the cost of their liberation? Well, Crocker is bullish on that front: the Iraqi economy is on schedule to grow by 6 percent, according to his testimony. Perhaps he is referring to the additional money dumped into Iraq's economy by American taxpayers chipping in for the surge.
He certainly wasn't basing his estimate on any improvement in Iraqi oil production or any other economic component. As the International Monetary Fund reported last month in its annual review of Iraq's economy, "Economic growth has been slower than expected at the time of the last (review) mainly because the expected expansion of oil production has failed to materialize." In case you haven't noticed, oil is the Iraqi economy, yet a recent GAO report stated an additional $57 billion in US tax dollars will be needed to bring oil and electricity production to the level where it can satisfy Iraq's domestic demand by the year 2015.
Ambassador Crocker actually had the nerve to compare the bloody religious fratricide in Iraq, which our inane invasion unleashed, to the American battle over state's rights, once again reducing the complexities of world history to an easily understood but totally irrelevant example from the American experience. In that case, a better analogy might have been made to the American Indian wars, given that the only thing the United States has been able to do effectively in Iraq is unleash superior firepower. At the current rate, Iraq will be liberated when there are no Iraqis.
Perhaps that is why this week's ABC/BBC poll shows that 70 percent of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated since the surge and that 60 percent believe attacks on US forces are justified. And 93 percent of Sunnis, whom the general and ambassador claim are joining our side, want to see us dead.
As for optimism, only 29 percent of Iraqis now think the situation will get better, as opposed to 64 percent who shared that optimism before the surge--which almost 70 percent of Iraqis believe has "hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development."
So, ambassadors and generals lie. Get used to it.
Monday, September 17, 2007
You can always - I MEAN ALWAYS - follow the money to the truth
Krugman on following the oil money in Iraq
To understand what’s really happening in Iraq, follow the oil money, which already knows that the surge has failed.
Back in January, announcing his plan to send more troops to Iraq, President Bush declared that “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.”
Near the top of his list was the promise that “to give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.”
There was a reason he placed such importance on oil: oil is pretty much the only thing Iraq has going for it. Two-thirds of Iraq’s G.D.P. and almost all its government revenue come from the oil sector. Without an agreed system for sharing oil revenues, there is no Iraq, just a collection of armed gangs fighting for control of resources.
Well, the legislation Mr. Bush promised never materialized, and on Wednesday attempts to arrive at a compromise oil law collapsed.
What’s particularly revealing is the cause of the breakdown. Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.
Now here’s the thing: Ray L. Hunt, the chief executive and president of Hunt Oil, is a close political ally of Mr. Bush. More than that, Mr. Hunt is a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a key oversight body.
Some commentators have expressed surprise at the fact that a businessman with very close ties to the White House is undermining U.S. policy. But that isn’t all that surprising, given this administration’s history. Remember, Halliburton was still signing business deals with Iran years after Mr. Bush declared Iran a member of the “axis of evil.”
No, what’s interesting about this deal is the fact that Mr. Hunt, thanks to his policy position, is presumably as well-informed about the actual state of affairs in Iraq as anyone in the business world can be. By putting his money into a deal with the Kurds, despite Baghdad’s disapproval, he’s essentially betting that the Iraqi government — which hasn’t met a single one of the major benchmarks Mr. Bush laid out in January — won’t get its act together. Indeed, he’s effectively betting against the survival of Iraq as a nation in any meaningful sense of the term.
The smart money, then, knows that the surge has failed, that the war is lost, and that Iraq is going the way of Yugoslavia. And I suspect that most people in the Bush administration — maybe even Mr. Bush himself — know this, too.
After all, if the administration had any real hope of retrieving the situation in Iraq, officials would be making an all-out effort to get the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to start delivering on some of those benchmarks, perhaps using the threat that Congress would cut off funds otherwise. Instead, the Bushies are making excuses, minimizing Iraqi failures, moving goal posts and, in general, giving the Maliki government no incentive to do anything differently.
And for that matter, if the administration had any real intention of turning public opinion around, as opposed to merely shoring up the base enough to keep Republican members of Congress on board, it would have sent Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, to as many news media outlets as possible — not granted an exclusive appearance to Fox News on Monday night.
All in all, Mr. Bush’s actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you’d expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor.
In fact, that’s my interpretation of something that startled many people: Mr. Bush’s decision last month, after spending years denying that the Iraq war had anything in common with Vietnam, to suddenly embrace the parallel.
Here’s how I see it: At this point, Mr. Bush is looking forward to replaying the political aftermath of Vietnam, in which the right wing eventually achieved a rewriting of history that would have made George Orwell proud, convincing millions of Americans that our soldiers had victory in their grasp but were stabbed in the back by the peaceniks back home.
What all this means is that the next president, even as he or she tries to extricate us from Iraq — and prevent the country’s breakup from turning into a regional war — will have to deal with constant sniping from the people who lied us into an unnecessary war, then lost the war they started, but will never, ever, take responsibility for their failures.
To understand what’s really happening in Iraq, follow the oil money, which already knows that the surge has failed.
Back in January, announcing his plan to send more troops to Iraq, President Bush declared that “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.”
Near the top of his list was the promise that “to give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.”
There was a reason he placed such importance on oil: oil is pretty much the only thing Iraq has going for it. Two-thirds of Iraq’s G.D.P. and almost all its government revenue come from the oil sector. Without an agreed system for sharing oil revenues, there is no Iraq, just a collection of armed gangs fighting for control of resources.
Well, the legislation Mr. Bush promised never materialized, and on Wednesday attempts to arrive at a compromise oil law collapsed.
What’s particularly revealing is the cause of the breakdown. Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.
Now here’s the thing: Ray L. Hunt, the chief executive and president of Hunt Oil, is a close political ally of Mr. Bush. More than that, Mr. Hunt is a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a key oversight body.
Some commentators have expressed surprise at the fact that a businessman with very close ties to the White House is undermining U.S. policy. But that isn’t all that surprising, given this administration’s history. Remember, Halliburton was still signing business deals with Iran years after Mr. Bush declared Iran a member of the “axis of evil.”
No, what’s interesting about this deal is the fact that Mr. Hunt, thanks to his policy position, is presumably as well-informed about the actual state of affairs in Iraq as anyone in the business world can be. By putting his money into a deal with the Kurds, despite Baghdad’s disapproval, he’s essentially betting that the Iraqi government — which hasn’t met a single one of the major benchmarks Mr. Bush laid out in January — won’t get its act together. Indeed, he’s effectively betting against the survival of Iraq as a nation in any meaningful sense of the term.
The smart money, then, knows that the surge has failed, that the war is lost, and that Iraq is going the way of Yugoslavia. And I suspect that most people in the Bush administration — maybe even Mr. Bush himself — know this, too.
After all, if the administration had any real hope of retrieving the situation in Iraq, officials would be making an all-out effort to get the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to start delivering on some of those benchmarks, perhaps using the threat that Congress would cut off funds otherwise. Instead, the Bushies are making excuses, minimizing Iraqi failures, moving goal posts and, in general, giving the Maliki government no incentive to do anything differently.
And for that matter, if the administration had any real intention of turning public opinion around, as opposed to merely shoring up the base enough to keep Republican members of Congress on board, it would have sent Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, to as many news media outlets as possible — not granted an exclusive appearance to Fox News on Monday night.
All in all, Mr. Bush’s actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you’d expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor.
In fact, that’s my interpretation of something that startled many people: Mr. Bush’s decision last month, after spending years denying that the Iraq war had anything in common with Vietnam, to suddenly embrace the parallel.
Here’s how I see it: At this point, Mr. Bush is looking forward to replaying the political aftermath of Vietnam, in which the right wing eventually achieved a rewriting of history that would have made George Orwell proud, convincing millions of Americans that our soldiers had victory in their grasp but were stabbed in the back by the peaceniks back home.
What all this means is that the next president, even as he or she tries to extricate us from Iraq — and prevent the country’s breakup from turning into a regional war — will have to deal with constant sniping from the people who lied us into an unnecessary war, then lost the war they started, but will never, ever, take responsibility for their failures.
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