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No, President Bush, it is not your government

No, President Bush, it is not your government

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This about sums it up. Bush really doesn’t seem to be able to accept the differences between American democracy and a kingship.

Bush declares himself absolute ruler: It’s ‘my government’
August 8, 2006 6:28 AM

Once again, President George W. Bush has shown complete disregard and utter contempt for the documents which define this country: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Speaking in Crawford, Texas, Monday, Bush said:

“The loss of life on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border has been a great tragedy. Millions of Lebanese civilians have been caught in the crossfire of military operations because of the unprovoked attack and kidnappings by Hezbollah. The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is of deep concern to all Americans, and alleviating it will remain a priority of my government.”

“My government?” Abraham Lincoln, in the Gettysburg Address, said the Constitution establishes a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” The Declaration of Independence starts with phrase “We the people.” They say nothing of turning the government over to any elected official so that it becomes “my government.”

Presidents have administrations and they can, and usually do, refer to such as “my administration.” But Bush, we believe, feels his power is absolute and the government of this nation belongs not to the people but to him and him alone.

This is not the first time that Bush has disregarded the protections of freedoms that are the cornerstone of our Republic. His widespread abuse of power has forced the Supreme Court to slap him down again and again, especially on the abandonment of Constitutionally-guaranteed rights for detainees at Guantanamo and others held without due course in the hysteria following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The American Bar Association recently issued a report noting his abuse of the Constitution through a deluge of “signing statements” where he declares he does not have to obey laws passed by Congress.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while serving as White House Counsel, wrote a memo that referred to the Constitution as “an outdated document” and Bush himself has expressed contempt for the very document he has twice sworn an oath to uphold and defend.

America is no longer a democracy or a democratic republic. Government no longer belongs to the people. The President of the United States has declared it do be a government of Bush, by Bush and for Bush.

In his own words, Bush calls it “my government.”

As has happened too often in the past, the fate of a nation and the world rests in the hands of a megalomaniacal despot who claims absolute power to wage war, destroy freedom and spread chaos.

© Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue

The Dark Side

The Dark Side

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This was an excellent Frontline. You can watch it online if you missed it.

The Dark Side

“OOOOSH-Whooosh….Luke – I mean George -I am your President….whoosh.”

Oh, and on the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo… isn’t it pretty clear now that this administration is guilty of war crimes? So… what? Are the Republicans so tied to their funding that they will ignore even this?

Soundbites

Soundbites

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“You were in Baghdad for six hours. You weren’t even in the real Baghdad. You were in the Green Zone. That’s like going to the Olive Garden and saying you’ve been to Italy.”
— Jon Stewart,
On Bush limiting his Iraq visit to Baghdad’s Green Zone,
Jun. 15, 2006

“That’s his privilege as Vice President. He was tough, demanding, and when he thought I was out of line, he snapped my garters.”
— Colin Powell,
In an interview with AARP magazine, when asked about his advice being ignored by the White House,
Jun. 13, 2006

“Whenever …I see the weapon I invented to defend my motherland in the hands of these bin Ladens I ask myself the same question: How did it get into their hands?”
— Mikhail Kalashnikov,
Russian gun maker who designed the AK-47,
Jun. 12, 2006

“A good PR move to draw attention.”
— Colleen Graffy
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, describing the weekend suicides of three detainees at Guantanamo,
Jun. 12, 2006

US Concentration Camps?

US Concentration Camps?

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KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co. was awarded a $385 million 1-year contract (with 4 1-year options) from the Department of Homeland Security to establish “temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”

“We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract,” an executive vice president, Bruce Stanski, said in a statement, “because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support.”

It’s amazing someone can stand up and say something like that, given the historical facts. Sigh.

So, the question is, why do we need concentration camps in the US, and who’s really gonna sit in them??

Terrorists? Immigrants to be deported? Victims of natural (or unnatural) events? Poor people? Old people? Whoever doesn’t sign up for the drug benefit written by the insurance industry? (the last a lame attempt at humor, sorry)

American citizens culled for one of the rapidly-developing “new programs”?

What kind of programs require major expansion of detention centers, each capable of holding 5,000 people?

Let’s ask the Bush administration exactly what it means by the “rapid development of new programs,” which might require the construction of a new network of detention / labor / concentration camps across the United States!

“Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters,” says Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military’s account of its activities in Vietnam. “They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ‘special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”

Peter Dale Scott, author of Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina, suggests that it could be a preparation for conditions of martial law, and notes that a multimillion program for detention facilities “will greatly increase NORTHCOM’s ability to respond to any domestic disorders.”

…in April 2002, Defense Dept. officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called this “the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946.”

The NORTHCOM commander, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced, is responsible for “homeland defense and also serves as head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)…. He will command U.S. forces that operate within the United States in support of civil authorities. The command will provide civil support not only in response to attacks, but for natural disasters.”

John Brinkerhoff later commented on PBS that, “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.”

…NORTHCOM conducted its highly classified Granite Shadow exercise in Washington. As William Arkin reported in the Washington Post, “Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.”

For an excellent, but chilling overview of some of the possibilities here (including labor camps, dissident and “Fifth Columnist” roundups, and so on), take a look at “Bush’s Mysterious ‘New Programs'” by Nat Parry, Consortium News, posted February 23, 2006. at AlterNet.

Scalia Gesture after WHAT mass

Scalia Gesture after WHAT mass

So Supreme Court Justice Scalia made a “Sicilian” gesture toward anyone who might question his impartiality on issues involving the separation of church and state -this as he was leaving a mass in Boston.

But this was not just any mass.

He was attending a special mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers’ Guild luncheon.

A special mass for lawyers and politicians?

Isn’t that a sign of the apocalypse or something?

He’s also been spewing his opinions about the Guantanamo detention rights case being brought before the court. If he’s already made up his mind, these public statements are an argument for his recusal. The statute governing inappropriate judicial speech states that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

I place the odds that he will recuse himself on this case at something like 98-against (with a +2/-0 variation – hee hee) unless there is a strong public outcry.

How likely is that – at least while anyone is still watching the Sopranos… We seem to care more about entertainment than we care about our reality.

Scalia, what a guy.

Tracing Torture

Tracing Torture

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Here is a brief excerpt from testimony that claims the authorization to use torture in Iraq came from pretty high up. Read the whole article at TomDispatch.com and Truthout.org.

“Tracing the Trail of Torture: Embedding Torture as Policy From Guantanamo to Iraq,” by Dahr Jamail

While President Bush has regularly claimed – as with reporters in Panama last November – that “we do not torture,” Janis Karpinski, the U.S. Brigadier General whose 800th Military Police Brigade was in charge of 17 prison facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib back in 2003, begs to differ. She knows that we do torture and she believes that the President himself is most likely implicated in the decision to embed torture in basic war-on-terror policy.

While testifying this January 21 in New York City at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, Karpinski told us: “General [Ricardo] Sanchez [commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq] himself signed the eight-page memorandum authorizing literally a laundry list of harsher techniques in interrogations to include specific use of dogs and muzzled dogs with his specific permission.”

All this, as she reminded us, came after Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had been “specifically selected by the Secretary of Defense to go to Guantanamo Bay and run the interrogations operation,” was dispatched to Iraq by the Bush administration to “work with the military intelligence personnel to teach them new and improved interrogation techniques.”

Karpinski met Miller on his tour of American prison facilities in Iraq in the fall of 2003. Miller, as she related in her testimony, told her, “It is my opinion that you are treating the prisoners too well. At Guantanamo Bay, the prisoners know that we are in charge and they know that from the very beginning. You have to treat the prisoners like dogs. And if they think or feel any differently you have effectively lost control of the interrogation.”

Miller went on to tell Karpinksi in reference to Abu Ghraib, “We’re going to Gitmo-ize the operation.”

When she later asked for an explanation, Karpinski was told that the military police guarding the prisons were following the orders in a memorandum approving “harsher interrogation techniques,” and, according to Karpinski, “signed by the Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld.”

That one-page memorandum “authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption -serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs.” In the left-hand margin, alongside the list of interrogation techniques to be applied, Rumsfeld had personally written, “Make sure this happens!!” Karpinski emphasized the fact that Rumsfeld had used two exclamation points.

When asked how far up the chain of command responsibility for the torture orders for Abu Ghraib went, Karpinski said, “The Secretary of Defense would not have authorized without the approval of the Vice President.”

Karpinski does not believe that the many investigations into Abu Ghraib have gotten to the truth about who is responsible for the torture and abuse because “they have all been directed and kept under the control of the Department of Defense. Secretary Rumsfeld was directing the course of each one of those separate investigations. There was no impartiality whatsoever.”

Does she believe the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib has stopped?

“I have no reason to believe that it has. I believe that cameras are no longer allowed anywhere near a cellblock. But why should I believe it’s stopped? We still have the captain from the 82nd airborne division [who] returned and had a diary, a log of when he was instructed, what he was instructed, where he was instructed, and who instructed him. To go out and treat the prisoners harshly, to set them up for effective interrogation, and that was recently as May of 2005.”

Karpinski was referring to Captain Ian Fishback, one of three American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Forward Operating Base Mercury near Fallujah who personally witnessed the torture of Iraqi prisoners and came forward to give testimony to human rights organizations about the crimes committed.