Lieberman talks to troops in Baghdad
By
Leila FadelMcClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.
The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.
He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:
"When are we going to get out of here?"
The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?
Williams missed six months of his girlfriend's pregnancy when he was given six days' notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy's birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.
"He looks just like me," he said. "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up."
Williams wasn't sure if he'd say how he really felt. But if he could, he'd ask about body armor.
"I don't want him to snap his fingers to get things fixed," Williams said, referring to Lieberman. "But he has influence."
Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.
"We're not making any progress," Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. "It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."
But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he'd never voice his true feelings to the senator.
"I think I'd be a private if I did," he joked. "It's just more troops, more targets."
In the past two months, the unit has lost two men. In May alone, at least 120 U.S. troops died in Iraq, the bloodiest month in 2007 and the highest number since the battles of Fallujah in 2004.
Spc. Kevin Krasco, 20, of Medford, Mass., and Spc. Kevin Adams, 20, of Moosup, Conn., chimed in with their dismay before turning the conversation to baseball.
"It's like everything else in this war," Adams said, referring to Baghdad. "It hasn't changed."
Then Lieberman walked in, wearing a pair of sunglasses newly purchased from an Iraqi market that the military had taken him to in southeast Baghdad. He'd been equipped with a helmet and flak vest when he toured the market, which he described as bustling.
Earlier, Lieberman had met briefly with Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police at a Joint Security Station; there are 31 throughout the city now. The senator, who's steadfastly supported the Iraq war along with the current surge of more than 28,000 additional American troops, said things were better.
"I think it's important we don't lose our will," he said. "To pull out would be a disaster."
The soldiers smiled and greeted him, stood with him for pictures and sat down to a lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches. It was unclear if they ever asked their questions.
As Lieberman walked out, he said that congressionally mandated withdrawal would be a "victory for al-Qaida and a victory for Iran."
"They're not Pollyannaish about this," he said referring to the young soldiers he ate lunch with. "They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."
It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.
"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.
Bush Makes Power Grab
Of course, the Democratic majority will wag a stern finger at the President!
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.
That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the President can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government."
Translated into layman's terms, when the President determines a national emergency has occurred, the President can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
Ironically, the directive sees no contradiction in the assumption of dictatorial powers by the President with the goal of maintaining constitutional continuity through an emergency.
The directive specifies that the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism will be designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. Further established is a Continuity Policy Coordination Committee, chaired by a senior director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, to be "the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination."
Currently, the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism is Frances Fragos Townsend. Townsend spent 13 years at the Justice Department before moving to the U.S. Coast Guard where she served as assistant commandant for intelligence. She is a White House staff member in the executive office of the president who also chairs the Homeland Security Council, which as a counterpart to the National Security Council reports directly to the president.
The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the president may declare a national emergency but requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."
A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the President "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."
The CRS study notes that the National Emergency Act sets up congress as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority," if Congress believes the president has acted inappropriately.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of National Continuity Coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 also makes no reference whatsoever to Congress. The language of the May 9 directive appears to negate any a requirement that the President submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists, suggesting instead that the powers of the executive order can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesperson Russ Knocke affirmed that the Homeland Security Department will be implementing the requirements of NSPD-51/HSPD-20 under Townsend's direction.
The White House had no comment.
Matthew Hine
Chattanooga
MattHine@excite.com h/t
BuzzFlash
Three Missing American Soldiers
I want our military forces to leave no stone unturned to find the
three missing American soldiers. As the father of a son in the military, my heart is pained for the families of these young men. I hope they get news of their safe return soon.
With that said, one has to wonder what our Commander-in-Chief would say if a press release comes out on some middle eastern website that says, "The three invaders are enemy combatants. They will be held indefinately. They have no rights to attorneys or humanitarian groups. They are not entitled to trials. They are not entitled to protections afforded by our constitution. We will have military tribunals that will decide their fate."
What will our Commander-in-Chief say when they release pictures of these three being forced into naked piles and covered in human waste?
What will he say if we see pictures of them being forced to masturbate each other or with broom sticks shoved up their asses?
What will his response be if we find out they've had electrodes hooked up to their testicles or if they've been waterboarded?
Our President has said this is all legal now. Rush Limbaugh said it was just a bunch of fraternaty pranks when our people did it... a little "blowing off some steam". What will he say if it is done to our own?
What will they say when they realize they are no longer speaking from the moral high ground, but rather from the gutter in which they put us?
Falwell
I thought I would be jumping up and down and celebrating the death of Jerry Falwell. I can’t.
I believe that Jerry Falwell was a vile person… a puss from an open sore of America’s shame. I know many spiritual people that would have nothing to do with Jerry Falwell because of the venom he spewed was a disgrace to their view of what religion should be about.
The Carpetbagger Report offers this detail of some of the worst examples of the inflamed ooze with which he burdened American discourse:
March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals” on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.” When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened, Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,” but rather an “honest portrayal” of Carter’s position.
August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.” After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “God hears the prayers of all persons…. God hears everything.”
July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.” When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did so, Falwell refused to pay and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.
October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.
February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell for “emotional distress” he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v. Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech.
February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour program were illegally funneled to a political action committee. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s tax-exempt status for 1986-87.
March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a “Christian nation,” Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”
1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”
November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes.
April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.
January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”
February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay.
September 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”
November 2005: Falwell spearheads campaign to resist “war on Christmas.”
February 2007: Falwell describes global warming as a conspiracy orchestrated by Satan, liberals, and The Weather Channel.
While I can’t bring myself to celebrate his passing, I certainly won’t mourn him either. But, I think it is important to note a vicious contamination, responsible for much of the hateful nature in our public conversation in America is gone.
Christian Terrorist
Extremist Taunts His Victims From PrisonBy JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer
Victims of Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who pulled off a series of bombings across the South, say he is taunting them from deep within the nation's most secure federal prison, and authorities say there is little they can do to stop him.
Rudolph, who was captured after a five-year manhunt and pleaded guilty in deadly bombings at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and a Birmingham abortion clinic, is serving life in prison at the "Supermax" penitentiary in Florence, Colo.
Housed in the most secure part of the prison, he has no computer and little contact with the outside world aside from writing letters.
But Rudolph's long essays have been posted on the Internet by a supporter who maintains an Army of God Web site. The Army of God is the same loose-knit group that Rudolph claimed to represent in letters sent after the blasts.
In one piece, Rudolph seeks to justify violence against abortion clinics by arguing that Jesus would condone "militant action in defense of the innocent."
More...It could easily read,
Victims of Osama Bin Laden, the anti-America extremist who pulled off a series of bombings across the world, say he is taunting them from deep within the nation's most secure cave, and authorities say there is little they can do to stop him.
But Osama's long essays have been posted on the Internet by a supporter who maintains a Taliban web site. The Taliban is the same loose-knit group that bin Laden claimed to represent in letters sent after the blasts.
In one piece, bin Laden seeks to justify violence against Americans by arguing that Allah would condone "militant action in defense of the innocent."
A giggle break in the midst of mayhem and madness
What's more clever: Thinking of using these as barstools, or getting 5 nuns to sit in them?
After the Veto - Sen. Feingold
The ink on the President's veto is barely dry, and already, a lot of Washington insiders - including some Democrats -- are saying Congress should just give in to the President. Never mind how hard people have pushed to bring Congress to this point, when we are finally standing up to the President's disastrous Iraq policy -- they want to give up on the binding language in the bill requiring the President to begin redeploying troops from Iraq.
But that's just letting the President have his way all over again. That's the kind of thinking that got us into this war in the first place, and it's not going to cut it anymore.
We can't keep giving in to this Administration on Iraq. Every time the Administration gets its way, it means that our troops will remain stuck in the middle of Iraq's civil war, and our national security will continue to be undermined. With so many Americans demanding that our involvement in this war come to an end, backing down is not the answer. No one else should die in Iraq to give political comfort to dealmakers in Washington.
I won't support a supplemental spending bill that doesn't have binding language to redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq. There's a lot of talk right now about Democrats getting the President to sign a bill that only has benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet. But we're long past the point when just setting benchmarks was enough. Even if funding for the Iraqi government is conditioned on it meeting those benchmarks, that misses the main point -- which is that, whether or not the Iraqis meet their benchmarks, we need to get out of Iraq so that we can focus on the national security threats we face around the world. And if those benchmarks aren't binding, then they are nothing more than suggestions. The American people aren't asking us to offer suggestions to the Iraqis -- they are asking us to bring our troops out of Iraq.
The next step to ending the war isn't to give in, but to step up the pressure on the President. I'm pleased to be working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a bill to end our open-ended military commitment in Iraq. Now that the President has rejected the will of the American people with this veto, our bill, or some other proposal to end funding for a failed policy, should be the next step to end the war.
We are in the middle of a real test for the new Democratic Congress. No matter what Washington insiders say about cutting a deal or scoring political points, we need to hang tough to get our troops out of Iraq. The President has refused to budge on his Iraq policy from the beginning -- he has repeatedly gotten his way, and our country has paid a terrible price for that. Today, 150,000 U.S. troops are in the middle of a civil war that is straining our military, and hurting our ability to go after al Qaeda worldwide. Too much is at stake for us to back down -- the new Congress has got to stand firm. It's a time to listen to the American people and finally start to bring our troops out of Iraq. Their lives and our national security depend on it.
HuffPo
Hypocritical Piece of Whale Dung! (Nothing sinks lower)
George W. Bush, 6/5/99
“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 6/5/99]
VERSUS
George W. Bush,
6/24/05:
“It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you’re — you’re conceding too much to the enemy.”
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