People For the American Way believes that “a healthy democracy is an informed democracy,” so they have created WikiThePresidency.org to establish a single place for the public to both acquire and share information about Executive Branch wrongdoings.
It’s a Wiki, so anyone can edit the site, but there are rules. You must post factual claims (no op-eds), with links to credible supporting material. No spouting off.
Take a look. It’s interesting reading.
Applause to West Point Graduates Against the War for honor and courage. Their stated purpose is “to help reclaim the honor of the United States Of America.”
- Instilled by the Cadet Honor System with a fundamental, longstanding respect for truth, we graduates of the United States Military Academy believe that honor is a basic attribute of character. That we are no longer cadets is irrelevant. We stand appalled by the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and, in particular, its widely known malefactors. Lying, cheating, stealing, delivering evasive statements and quibbling not only has demeaned these deceivers and the United States of America, but has placed vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril. We will not serve the lies.
At the top of the excellent listing of laws and treaties violated by the Bush administration, they note that “members of the armed forces have a legal and moral obligation to resist illegal orders, according to their oath of induction.”
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the “lawful command of his superior officer,” 891.ART.91 (2), the “lawful order of a warrant officer”, 892.ART.92 (1) the “lawful general order”, 892.ART.92 (2) “lawful order”. In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.
They have issued a call to action:
West Point Graduates Against The War: Now Is The Time
by James Ryan; West Point Graduates Against the War;
May 12, 2006
Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
Julius CaesarWhy?
We members of West Point Graduates Against The War stand appalled at the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and, in particular, its widely known malefactors. Their lying, cheating, stealing, and rendition of evasive statements not only has demeaned these deceivers and our country, but they have placed vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril as a direct result of their deceptions. We will not serve these lies, that is, we will not work for, be a servant to, provide for, assist, or promote the interests of this dishonorable administration.
By remaining silent we tacitly serve; we are no longer silent.The illegal assault and occupation in Iraq has killed tens of thousands of innocents, both American, Iraqi, and others, causing incalculable damage to Iraq and the Iraqi people, as well as the reputation and honor of the United States of America.
The behavior of this administration is particularly odious since it makes mockery of the code of conduct instilled in us at West Point. “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.” This has provided us with a lifelong respect for the truth, and a sense of responsibility to do the right thing, even if that means admonishing our country’s leadership.
Our position may be counter to the opinion of many of our fellow graduates. Our views are most probably not the views of the official institution that is West Point. It does its work, we ours. Yet, we are undeniably full-blown products of that place, trademarked by the West Point way of
behavior. “Duty, Honor, Country,” the motto of the Academy, our watchwords, as well. And we express our views as an organization of graduates, as retired generals of similar pedigree express their own. The difference? There are more of us than there are generals.What?
Admiral John Paul Jones, the father of the American navy, said it best. “I would lay down my life for America, but I cannot trifle with my honor.” This administration has done neither. Chicken hawks in wolves’ clothing, they have been derelict in duty, honor, and country.
Consider their sending under-equipped troops into battle under false pretenses, the widely-known ignoring of First Amendment protections of the Constitution, the “quaintness”
of the Geneva Convention, or Colin Powell’s ill-starred, mendacious UN presentation. Their lies and misleading statements, detailed in so many places, have become epic. They tried to make their case. They failed. Facts and time have proven these people untrustworty and incompetent. They lied, tens of thousands died, and that is a moral tragedy.Shamelessly, the president of the United States mocks his own deceitful behavior at White House Correspondents’ Dinners. People have perished from his infamous words, and he and his ilk, and the ilk of journalists, all guffaw and wink and preen. Duty, Honor, Country? Be serious.
Who?
We are graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York who are against the war in Iraq, and any other future wars similarly premised. Our ranks include sons, daughters, and spouses of deceased graduates. All of us stand in common cause against the deceitful policies and lies of the Bush administration. We are heartened by supporters from all over the world, but particularly the American taxpayers who gave and maintain the life of the
institution that bore us into the adult world of service to our country. And, in that spirit, we now act.We are not politicians, professional media pundits, retired generals, peace-at-any-price activists, conscientious objectors, Communists or traitors. We seek to overthrow nothing. Except the pattern of deceit by this administration that has so sorely damaged this country, its standing in the world, and the world itself.
We have no historic legacy of public life that we are out to maintain because we have had no public life. We are ordinary people, forged by one unforgettable unifying experience – West Point. We studied there, we trained there, we were inspired there. We are the voice of a growing band of men and women, graduates of West Point, not perfect people, but honorable. And we speak for the many who, because of their circumstance, are reluctant or unable to speak.
We call likeminded graduates of West Point to stand with us and speak out against the deceitful policies of this administration, and the resulting destruction of the honor of the United States, and the dissipation of its military.
Alarum and call to action
Say no to preventive war. Heed President Eisenhower’s words. “When people speak to you about a preventive war,” he said, “you tell them to go and fight it.”
Say no to torture. Demand that the United States government respect the conventions of war. We must lead by example, preserving some aspect of humanity in the carnage and devastation. Today, we gaze into the abyss of perpetual war. Be aware, as Nietzsche warned, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Say no to the trashing of the honor of our country. Stay the forked tongues of this deplorable administration.
This is not a partisan issue. Both sides of the legislative chambers have aided and abetted this corrupt administration. We exhort everyone to stand with us and to write to their political representatives. We will do the same. Tell them that you don’t appreciate their silence on these vital issues. Tell them to support and defend the Constitution as they have sworn to do. Demand honorable behavior from all public officials. Tell them how you feel about what THEY have allowed to happen to our country. And tell them that we, West Point Graduates Against The War, sent you. Tell them that we stand with you. It’s the truth!
“Now is the time!” Martin Luther King said long ago. Indeed, NOW is the time.
We live on the precipice of yet another “arranged” war. This time it’s Iran. As in Iraq, the demonization is well underway. The dogs of war are foaming and gnashing. Deja vu all over again, or, as we used to say at West Point, S.O.S, “Same Old Stuff,” or words to that effect.
And all this in the name of homeland security. Please be serious. As Dwight Eisenhower said, “If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.”
Today, we have clear intimations of just such a government. We think that Americans are not so easily cowed, and that the vast majority demands far more than a diet of false statements, and confinement in endless, immoral wars.
New voices can change the world. They always have. Stand with us!
James Ryan
Cofounder: West Point Graduates Against The War
Yesterday I wrote a very long and detailed post on the Plame leak situation. It had quotations and it had links. It had the whole history, the timeline, and it had several compelling points. Just as I was about to publish it, a site in another window crashed my browser. Bummer. I have really got to start writing these things offline. I’m just too disheartened to reconstruct the whole blasted thing. Since you can easily look up everything to do with it, I’ll just contribute my own thoughts to the public conversation.
I believe that Plame was outed intentionally, which is a felony crime if not outright treason. Either Cheney or Bush authorized it. I actually suspect that it was Cheney (with Rove?), and that the official story is a backdated version for coverup purposes. The outing of Plame was meant to punish Plame’s husband (Wilson) for stating the truth – and it was also a message to the intelligence community that they had better give them the “intelligence” that is wanted, rather than assessing reality.
Although people within the administration knew that Bush’s claims weren’t true – and there were efforts to remove them (including by Tenet), these claims kept getting re-added to Bush’s State of the Union speech, which was delivered. It was just one of the ways in which Americans were manipulated – playing on their fears to drum up support for our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. This has proven to be a disaster, and all of the people who were demonized for speaking their minds at the time have been proven correct. We took over in Iraq for reasons that will become abundantly clear in future, if they aren’t clear enough to you already (hint – permanent bases on the oil pipeline, Cheney’s secret energy meetings, Enron, Halliburton, record oil profits, corruption, fraud…).
Neither American lives nor Iraqi lives (remember, we’re “rescuing” them?) matter enough to this administration for them even to answer the basic question of what cause our soldiers are fighting for. Modus operandi: when in doubt, change the subject – when in doubt, use doublespeak – when in doubt, use your media assets or run commericals as news – when in doubt, change the “reason” we’re there – when in doubt, hide everything. If they had nothing to hide, we’d be getting a lot more information instead of being under surveillance ourselves.
To claim that “declassifying” Plame and leaking her CIA status to their kiss-butt reporter friends (remember, it wasn’t a White House press release) was in the interests of national security is an outright lie.
Tell me – how does disrupting a valuable source of intelligence, undoubtedly along with others who could be tied to her, help our national security? Isn’t it obvious that it is actually a serious breach of our national security? I wonder how many people died as a direct result, and how much real intelligence has been squandered. It is a felony for good reason.
When he was asked about this leak, he stood up and said he’d get to the bottom of it, that whoever was responsible would be fired. Fire Cheney and yourself, Mr. President. Resign. If there wasn’t anything wrong with what your administration did, you would have explained yourself at the time, not years later when Libby was in court.
Oh wait, we still haven’t really gotten an explanation from the mouth of the king. His sycophant messengers have just given us some spin, that’s all.
Whatever voting machines haven’t been hijacked yet will tell you our judgment – if that matters anymore. We’ve seen what the interests of the American people mean to you – that is, nothing at all.
Take a good look around. Our land and water are being polluted. Corporate interests are all but writing our laws. Our system isn’t functioning – ask people from New Orleans, ask people who have to face new interest rates, ask people who are working part-time in more than one job, ask people trying to navigate Medicare and Medicaid, ask the children who are left behind or who graduate from our schools with a substandard education. Many people who believe they are religious have been hookwinked into following false prophets who would like to see this country turned from the land of the free into a pseudo-christian theocracy – money-grubbers of hate and corruption are even attempting to start ’em young with home schooling and bible classes in the public schools. People openly assert claims of empire and world domination. Now you’re deliberating whether we might use nukes on Iran? So what, we’re worse than Hussein now? Wasn’t that the ultimate no-no? Oh, and didn’t you just make a deal on that very topic? What was that all about?
I’m watching to see what happens in November. We know about the election fraud, the hidden programming in the voting machines. We know that even now Diebold technicians are making the rounds. With popularity in the 30-40 percent range, it would be very strange if the Republicans retained control of both houses, wouldn’t it?
So what’s on the menu? Planning to blow up a few more towers? Maybe a Bin Laden sighting in Chicago? A nuclear meltdown in Florida? A small dirty bomb in some suburban neighborhood?
Contact your congresspeople – it’s time for them to show some spine. We still – so far – have only the soft version of fascism. There is still a chance to use our democratic system the way it was intended.
Wherever you are, do whatever you can – while you still can.
How can anyone still support this President, this Vice-President, these cronies of theirs? What more proof do you need?
Vote. Vote. Vote.
The United States has, until now, been a (if not "the") world leader in scientific research and the development of technologies. This has been the backbone of public policies that navigate reality, and it has brought us our highish standard of living and our economy of relative priviledge. But I think we’re on the way out of that role. When ideologies replace knowledge, it is always the people who pay.
Certain fundamentalist groups, suspicious of all intellectuals, "eggheads," and independent thought, have moved us even further into a state of socio-pathology. Their effects on public policy, public higher education, biomedical research, family planning and sex education, environmental issues, the arts and humanities, freedom of inquiry, and even research funding for the common good are monumental, and I suspect that these effects will continue to feed into the sucking vortex of disaster created the skewed priorities of the neocons and crony corporatists.
This administration puts political interests above our well-being as a people. Knowledge and expertise has been pushed aside in favor of unqualified appointments (or those with clear conflicts of interest), the dissolution of advisory committees, and even censorship and suppression of reports from the government’s own scientists.
Across the board, "intelligence" (I use the term in its double meaning) is disregarded unless it supports a conclusion desired by power. There is nothing more deadly to truth than this. I believe such disregard is a substantial security risk that presents a clear and present danger to the American people. We are becoming a danger to ourselves as well as to others. There is still room in our current system for things to change. I hope that the momentum for such change is growing, and I hope that real leaders will emerge – soonest – in this nation’s time of need.
I somehow made it all the way through the State of the Union address last night. Much as I disagree with the Bush administration, I even found him unusually appealing.
I actually had the thought, “Well, maybe most of this administration’s ugliness is Cheney. Maybe Bush means some of what he is saying here.” I thought he really tried to appeal to our hopefulness at a very sour time – that showed some good leadership. But that’s about it.
So many platitudes, so little straight talk.
He opened with the death of Coretta Scott King. At least he kept his remarks short and honored her as best he could, considering everything.
Isolationist? I haven’t heard anyone advocating that America should be isolationist or retreating from the world. I guess everyone can get behind that – attack a position no-one holds. Actually, it seems that this administration might benefit from more open debates on how to engage with the rest of the world in more effective ways. The costs of our invasion of Iraq – all the costs (ethical, diplomatic, financial, etc.) – have yet to be justified. I sincerely hope that his view of Iraq is not as simplistic as his few comments suggest. Probably just dumbing down.
Ditto for terrorists, but this is even more troubling. He seems to view the terrorists as a singular force, when it is really a mutating, changing and global set of loose alliances. He hasn’t got at what it will take to defeat them if he is concentrating on nations.
Interesting that he went back and forth from inaccurate representations of Democratic views to words about bipartisanship and working together. He suggests that they are soft on terrorism? Please. In my darker moments, I wonder how far this administration would go to bolster those claims.
The Rule of Law – I can’t believe he’s trying to wrap his illegal surveillance of Americans in 9/11 again. The claims he is making on the NSA spying scandal are pretty much to be expected – and really it’s probably all he can do right now. Of course, everything he said is problematic from a variety of perspectives, but that’s all playing out elsewhere. Personally, I believe this president violated federal law, but feels secure enough about it to brag. Bad sign.
“Human-animal hybrids”? What? Is there some room from O Lucky Man hiding in North Carolina? Is there an island of Dr. Moreau off New York? Maybe they mean Plum Island?
Well, good to see the value of life expressed. I think about the lives of those people who died in the aftermath of Katrina, the lives of the people of Fallujah or in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib or in our huge domestic prison system which still carries out barbaric if sterile executions, or the lives of people around the world who get HIV for lack of real educational programs beyond “just abstain” and die from it for lack of support for generic drugs. It’s easy to see the values of “life” in cutting anti-poverty programs, in cutting education, in cutting healthcare. Or maybe the value of all our lives is measured in terms of profits and cannon fodder. I felt sorry for that military family standing there. I felt sorry for that soldier’s wife and his parents. What did he die for? Invasion and occupation wasn’t the only option. I’ve now heard rumours of dropping nukes on Iran. Evidently civilian killings are planned to represent our support of their liberty too.
I liked the “switch grass” – it added spice, although I’m not sure where the marshlands could be retrieved for growing it. Can you see the slogan? “Grow Grass for Bush.” Actually, I think the clean reliable and safe energy he’s planning on is primarily nuclear energy. Has that really registered? Do we really want to give terrorists even more underdefended targets here?
I’m not sure I can really believe that an administration so closely tied to oil and gas (and who always supports industry over consumers) will be the ones who will move us out of a petroleum-based economy. He said that the US would replace 75% of our Middle East oil imports by 2025, but only 20% of our imports come from the region anyway, and he gives it about 20 years to happen. The White House has been against efforts to tighten fuel economy standards, and the tax system actually gives SUV drivers an incentive. He pledged support for alternative fuel technologies in previous State of the Union addresses, too, just like every other President I ever remember. Let’s see how it pans out.
Line item veto? Maybe it was a joke? He did grin. Anyway, that power was granted to Clinton but then overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
On the economy, let’s remember that he inherited a $281 billion budget surplus that is now a $400 billion deficit. The national debt is up 44% (trillions and trillions of dollars, folks), but he wants to keep those tax cuts to the rich. The gap in America between the rich and the poor grows.
We’ve created “more jobs than Japan and Europe combined”… and they are all at Halliburton. Seriously, I don’t know if the claim about job creation is true or not, but it is my understanding that in both Japan and most of Europe, there is healthcare whether or not you are employed, a free college education, weeks and weeks of vacation, and generous pension plans. Part-time jobs at Walmart don’t really compare. Let’s also compare the worker populations. I wonder how many new workers entered the market in that time? No mention of how many jobs India or China have created in the same amount of time…. Anyway, there was a reason he didn’t cite the figures from the beginning of his presidency – it would have cut his total by more than half. 2 million jobs over a five-year period isn’t really much to brag about, especially when you look at the jobs.
Healthcare. Again, Bush would rather cut Medicare than allow, for example, negotiated drug prices. A closed-door session just gave away another $22 billion benefit to insurance companies, and some $140 million was spent by drug and insurance companies to lobby Republicans on the Medicare drug benefit alone. How about looking at some of the systemic issues?
Yes, we need to have a debate on healthcare, one that bases decisions on the common good of all Americans – is he really going to have that debate? I hope so. We need everyone’s ideas on this one. He didn’t really make any move toward fixing the current mess that privatizing the drug benefit (or is it “penalty”?) has caused. There seems to be no move (while he’s in the mood to cut needed programs all over, like Pell Grants and Medicare), to optimize or reform the healthcare system or to watchdog the health/drug/insurance industries. Any administrative assistant at any healthcare facility in the country can tell you where the fat is, where the corruption is. How about this as one small measure – insurance companies have to pay bills within 30 days, like the rest of us. Don’t wait around to hear such measures suggested by the Bush administration.
The Patriot Act? How about if we lose some of these provisions, such as the criminalization of protesters (carrying punishments of up to ten years in prison)? Or perhaps the Congress should consider cutting back on the wholesale authority to wiretap your phone, monitor your e-mail and demand your medical, financial and student records from banks, vendors, doctors‚ offices, and libraries – those required to turn over your records are prevented from ever telling you, even if the records turn up no wrongdoing.
The Bush administration has worked hard – to subvert America’s laws regarding open government while it infringes on your constitutional rights. This administration has done everything in its power to block and stall and hide from investigations into 9/11, the way we entered into the Iraq war, the Katrina aftermath, and the outing of Plame. It is a very very secretive administration. It has promoted cronyism at such levels as to have become actual security threats to our nation, and blocked meaningful debate by simply shutting down the conversation.
Just the little detail that adds insult: Cindy Sheehan was arrested and taken away in handcuffs for the crime of wearing a teeshirt that said “2245 How Many More?”. She was an invited guest. She wasn’t the only one in trouble either. Beverly Young (wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee) was removed from the gallery for another teeshirt considered to be a “protest.” It read, “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.”
So while I feel the President has, with practice, improved on his speech delivery skills, we’re still just being had.
Of course, I wasn’t that impressed with the Democrat’s response either, which had a few good points but was dumbed-down wayyyy too much.
I did like the brief comments I saw from Barack Obama. Maybe he should run in 2008. I’d vote for him over anyone else at this point.
So here’s his statement, which makes me a lot more hopeful than any words from this President’s speech:
Tonight, the American people know our union should be stronger. They know we can defeat terror and keep our shores safe. And they know that we can be competitive in a 21st century economy where every hardworking family prospers, not just some.
But the American people are wondering if this Administration can lead us there. Because after five years of the same timid solutions to great national challenges, Americans are more anxious about their future and more uncertain about the direction of the country we love.
They’ve seen their wages go down as their medical, gas, and tuition bills go up. They’ve seen jobs go overseas and wonder if our children will be prepared to compete in a global economy. And they’ve seen scandal and corruption take hold of a Washington that helps high-priced lobbyists at the expense of hardworking families.
Americans everywhere want a leader who speaks to their hopes for a better future and then acts on them.
But tonight, the President barely mentioned his health care plan for people who can already afford health care, ignoring bold, bipartisan proposals that can guarantee affordable and available health care for every American.
He identified America’s addiction to oil, but ignored his Administration’s addiction to oil-industry giveaways that won’t free us from our dependence on fossil fuels.
And after forty-six minutes of speaking, the President used less than sixty words to tell us how he’d clean up Washington and restore the American people’s faith in a government that works for them, not just big donors.
We can have this kind of government in America, face the future with hope, and move our country in the direction of progress. But we need strong leadership to get there – leadership that isn’t afraid to think big, try new ideas, and reach out to Americans of all political stripes. This is how we will restore the American people’s faith in our union and truly make it stronger.
Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal Eavesdropping – New York Times
The two lawsuits, which are being filed separately by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Detroit and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.
Both groups are seeking to have the courts order an immediate end to the program, which the groups say is illegal and unconstitutional. The Bush administration has strongly defended the legality and necessity of the surveillance program, and officials said the Justice Department would probably oppose the lawsuits on national security grounds.
…
The lawsuits seek to answer one of the major questions surrounding the eavesdropping program: has it been used solely to single out the international phone calls and e-mail messages of people with known links to Al Qaeda, as President Bush and his most senior advisers have maintained, or has it been abused in ways that civil rights advocates say could hark back to the political spying abuses of the 1960’s and 70’s?
…
The lawsuits over the eavesdropping program come as several defense lawyers in terrorism cases have begun challenges, arguing that the government may have improperly hidden the use of the surveillance program from the courts in investigating terrorism leads.