Eye on Washington

The cost of "war" (newspeak for occupation)

2006-03-22T22:59:00.000-08:00

Bush says US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely

At a White House press conference Tuesday morning President George W. Bush suggested that the US would continue the occupation of Iraq for years, if not decades, to come. Asked if there would be a day when there were no more American forces in that country, Bush replied that that would be "decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." Bush suggested that US troops would remain long after the end of his administration in January 2009, making it clear that the country is to be reduced to the status of a semi-colonial protectorate...

Abizaid said about the same last week. No surprise. It was evident except to cretins.

Meantime, back at the errrr "homeland" (newspeak for nation), the National Priorities Project reports the Iraq cost so far (including the latest $70 billion request): > $315 billions

Estimated cost to MA? $8.9 billion. Read it and weep.
Yet the asses at city hall and the Zionist lobby say that Somerville should not be concerned with "foreign affairs". LOL

As Congress sells the nation

2006-03-18T22:11:00.000-08:00

The U.S. forces in Iraq are about 160,000 + thousands of mercenaries. Troops are being built up in Southern Afghanistan: 20,000 US and 16,000 NATO.

Last year, a military expert wrote that the Pentagon was making plans to come in from the North and march towards Tehran. So the beefing up of NATO forces may be part of this scenario: NATO takes over operations in Afghanistan while the US moves its troops into Iran. There is also talk of taking over the western province of Iran that has most of the oil. This plum falls more towards the Brits area in Iraq. So a guess is that the UK may start building up its forces in the South.

Democrats, Kerry among them, are salivating for the attack on Iran, together with their buddies the Republicans.

Kerry supports attacking Iran. He supports the attack and occupation of Iraq (watch the actions not the words). He supports the continued Israeli pillaging of the Palestinians . He supports stripping people of habeas corpus and making end runs around the courts so that judges have no habeas oversight or enforcement. He supports torture. (Kerry voted for the McCain bill that, thanks to the Graham amendment, opens several loopholes allowing the CIA to continue torturing and does the end runs around the courts).

Recently, neither Kerry nor KENNEDY joined Feingold when Feingold attempted to slow down re-authorization of the Patriot Act. Feingold was only backed up by 2 other Senators: Byrd (the same one who waves the Constitution around but ignomiously caved in to Alito, a man who believes on the "Unitary Presidency", Orwellian for "dictator") and Jeffords. Kerry may vote against it in the final vote but with his vote against Feingold, it is evident that Kerry supports a police-state.

So let's see: civil rights, habeas corpus and Constitution out the window. Torture, war, colonization and domestic surveillance in. Great choices, dear Senators.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

2006-03-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

It is sad but what I said about Kerry:
"In his latest votes, Senator Kerry has voted for kangaroo military courts, torture and stripping people of the right of habeas corpus." is also true for Senator Kennedy.

A refresher on what I'm talking about:

"On 30 December 2005, the “Detainee Treatment Act” was signed by President Bush, following its adoption by the U.S. Chamber of Representatives and Senate. By means of an amendment proposed by Republican Senator Graham and approved by Congress, this new Act strips federal courts of jurisdiction over detainees at Guantánamo. This goes against the Supreme Court’s decision of June 2004 in the case of Rasul v. Bush, in which it ruled that detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detention before US courts (applications for habeas corpus). This last minute amendment authorises the American government to detain prisoners in Guatánamo indefinitely."(FIDH) It also introduces several loopholes so that the CIA may continue to torture as much as it pleases.

What can I say? Our new American values -

Neither supported a filibuster of Alito until the last minute. All those phone calls flooding their offices got them off their arse finally but not soon enough.
Both also sat unconfortably silent when Feingold introduced his resolution for censure this week. (Is there any doubt Bush violated FISA? This putrid act requires a warrant to do wiretapping - none was requested by the Bushistas.) I guess they'll end up by timidly blustering about censure because phone calls are once again flooding their offices (I know - I called). But nothing will come of it.

This is the result of their vote for the Kidnap, Hold and Torture Indefinitely Act (known in Newspeak as "Detainee Treatment Act"):
Bush claims he can violate detainee rights at Gitmo

And who are these detainees? As many have known for a long time, most are unfortunate men and children caught in a very indiscriminate dragnet fueled by bounty money.
Who's really locked up in Guantanamo?

Kerry's record

2006-02-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

In his latest votes, Senator Kerry has voted for kangaroo military courts, torture and stripping people of the right of habeas corpus. Kerry voted for the Iraq attack and occupation. Now he is beating the drum against Iran. Yesterday, neither Kerry (nor Kennedy) supported the Feingold ammendment of the Patriot Act. Both are selling our civil liberties down the river. Does the word "fascist" spring to mind?

To understand how Kerry voted for torture, read historian McCoy's article Why the McCain Torture Ban Won't Work (scroll down to find the article). McCoy is an expert on the U.S. use and development of torture. Here are Links to CIA manuals on torture.

Capuano should end support for foreign wars

2006-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

Karin's Letter to the Editor published in the Dorchester Reporter:

Thursday, January 26, 2006

To the Editor:

I believe that Michael Capuano needs to start representing the interests of his constituents and that means increasing the pressure to end foreign wars and stopping the flow of our tax dollars to Israel and Israel lobbies pushing for war. I thought it was very hypocritical for him to focus on the crimes of Africans when he is sending our money to bulldoze the Holy Land.

Karin Friedemann
Dorchester
--------------
Well said. Congress is marching in lock step towards the neocons' (read Israel's) coming conflicts in Syria (invasion) and Iran (bombing including nukes) that are slated for the Spring. It is a replay of Iraq. The bill for Iraq is estimated to be over $1 trillion and it is destroying a country and its people. How many more deaths do these people want to have in their conscience? Ahhh... there's the rub. They have no conscience.

(I assume Mike thundered against Sudan again. Like SDP Ed. said, it is Human Rights a la Carte)

Capuano's 6 degrees of Israel Bonds

2005-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

FACT: Mike Capuano has come out strongly against divestment in Somerville. QUESTION: Why? ANSWER: Follow the contributions and see what pops up.

According to OpenSecrets, Capuanos's top contributor for 2004 was FMR (FMR PAC) ringing in at $18,000, a significant amount*. "FMR is semper fidelis (ever faithful) to its core business. The financial services conglomerate, better known as Fidelity Investments, is the world's #1 mutual fund company. " This November, The Bridge published an article Israel bonds in Fidelity Mutual Fund reporting that a "total $327.5 million of State of Israel Bonds are held in ... seven Fidelity mutual funds. This data is taken from Fidelity reports ranging from mid-2004 through January 2005, and it is available on the Fidelity Investments website." "No other mutual fund company besides Fidelity appears to include State of Israel bonds in its bond funds."

The largest single Fidelity shareholder is Abigail Johnson, daughter of the current Fidelity Chairman and CEO, Ned Johnson III. Abigail contributed $2000 to Mike in 2004. Her father contributed a total of $3000. Total Fidelity-related contributions: $23,000.

By comparison, Abigail contributed $1000 each to Kerry and to Kennedy and Ned gave $2000 to Meehan.
Besides investing in Israel Bonds, FidelityVentures Fund invests in Israel. FMR Corp. and Fidelity International Limited own 825000 shares in Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Ltd.,(software commerce and Internet security) Tel Aviv.; one of 5 main shareholder and the top one, holding 10% of Orbotech Ltd. (optical inspection industry).

To be continued....

*Recent Abramoff bribery scandal has revealed that Congress members' votes can be bought with contributions of as little as $5000. When is a contribution just that and when does it become a bribe? Or does normally contribution=bribe?

ORG: Under current policies, occupation will last decades

2005-11-26T23:17:00.000-08:00

Oxford Research Group has just published a new report on Iraq. It states that, under current policy, the U.S. and Britain will be occupiers in Iraq for decades. Meantime, caught between the resistance and the American forces, the Iraqis are incurring large number of casualties that are grossly under-reported. This is true also for American deaths: the number of American dead given out by the Pentagon is that of KIAs (killed in action). The Pentagon is not reporting on those that die after leaving theater. This summer, a guest in Democracy Now! estimated that American casualties were closer to ~7,000.

Meantime, Congress talks, not of withdrawing troops but of "redeployment", just like the Israelis did in Gaza. Because it was not economically feasible to continue keeping colonialists and their bodyguards/soldiers there, Israel pulled out its forces to the perimeter and is letting the inmates in the giant prison called Gaza run things. But Israel watches and keeps control of the borders (land and sea and air) and all movement in and out of Gaza happens only if Israel approves. With the aid of the press, Israel has succeeded in transforming occupation into Palestinian "sovereignty". And that is precisely what Congress seems to be aiming for in Iraq: pull out of cities and villages, redeploy to the borders and "enduring" bases while a "friendly" Iraqi government runs things and follows U.S. orders. Israel and the neocons will tick one country off their list to be "atomized", get their Haifa oil pipeline and water to boot. U.S. will get the oil, additional bases in the Middle East, etc. The only ones that will pay the price in blood and treasure (the latter being the rightful patrimony of the children) will be the people, whether Iraqi, Palestinian or American.

Kerry sees the light

2005-10-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

Good news and bad news. The good news? The troops and Iraqis have won one more supporter for setting a timetable and ending the occupation of Iraq: Senator Kerry. He talked of his plan for withdrawl in a speech this week. The bad news? Kerry's plan depends on the WH making course changes to which the neocons - Israel-firsters and empire builders that they are - will not agree. Despite the chaos in Iraq and the deterioration of America, they are carrying on with their PNAC agenda and building momentum against Syria and Iran.

Will action follow words?

2005-10-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

Rep. Capuano was interviewed after a 5-day trip to Iraq and was quoted in the Somerville Journal (20 October) as: "calling on Bush to begin sending troops home 'by mid-February, at the latest'." He is heartily applauded for this statement.

He also said: "Every day that goes by, I have been trying to find different ways to press the administration to either pull out or at least tell the American people what the answer to success is and simply set the parameters for success." To hear that of this effort is very good news, too. On 7 October, Kate Auspitz (works in Capuanos' local office) said that Capuano was taking a "fact-finding trip to Iraq" to gather more information and decide on how to vote on multiple bills before him. What one could gather from the talk with Ms. Auspitz was that his only concrete action so far on Iraq had been to vote for Barbara Lee's H.Con.Res 197.

Most importantly, Rep Capuano also "said he's felt an obligation to the Iraqi people once the United States invaded." In the most recent poll, 80% of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave. Will Rep Capuano's sense of obligation extend to respecting the wishes of the Iraqi people, in addition to that of the majority of Americans?

In the SJ article, Capuano talks a bit about "success", how to know it has been achieved. It is disenheartening that he still thinks on these terms but one could answer that It depends on whom you talk to. Many generals, such as Antony Zinni say that there is no success; the war has already been lost. However, if it is the staunch pro-Israel neocons who launched this war, in great part, on Israel's behalf, success has been the destruction of Iraq and its partitioning.

The neocons talked colorfully of bombing Iraq into the "Stone Age" or until it was "dust" and they've almost achieved it. The infrastructure including many hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, health care is mostly unavailable - no medicines, no anesthetics, no clean water - chaos and crime rule the streets, child malnutrition is skyrocketing, sectarianism has deepened. Success measured in terms of "bringing democracy"? By democracy, what the neocons mean is the creation of client (AKA puppet) states. Only someone deluded believes that democracy comes at the end of gun.
To begin with, under international law, elections can not be held under occupation (but this does not seem to apply to the US in Iraq and Israel in Palestine); those held nonetheless in Iraq earlier this year were rigged. The constitution? It is not a product of the Iraqis; it was written for them by Noah Feldman, a professor at Columbia University. The Iraqis did have a constitution that their legal scholars wanted to use with some modifications but the US. vetoed this. Rule of law? The Iraqis are ruled by Bremer's laws that no Iraqi government is allowed to dissolve. The occupation of Iraq has followed the Israeli model for controlling the Palestinian population as is evident, for example, in Fallujah. Checkpoints at which the Iraqis spend endless hours, raids, bombings of civilian population, detention with no recourse to the law or courts, humiliation, torture.
(There is much more that one can find out from journalists such as Dahr Jamail, Naomi Klein and Robert Fisk (Independent newspaper- UK).)
As measured by the neocons and the pro-Israel lobby such as AIPAC, success is also achieved by building the "enduring" bases and extending the war beyond the borders of Iraq into Syria and Iran making it, in Michael Ledeen (a key neocon strategist) words "a regional war", "a war to remake the world". The U.S. has already crossed the Syrian border and squirmishes have been intensifying. The drive to erect sanctions against Syria and Iran have intensified. Acts of terrorism - bombings - are happening in the southern parts of Iran, on the border with Iraq (check out In the News and its archives).

Homeward Bound

2005-10-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

Homeward Bound: a bipartisan resolution with 60
House co-sponsors requests President Bush to announce plans for a draw-down
by December, and begin withdrawing troops by October 2006.

MA cosponsors: Delahunt, Franks, Meehan, Markey, McGovern,
Neal, Tierney. Absent from this list: Capuano, Olver, Lynch.

Capuano has taken an antiwar position so
why is he not supporting H.J.Res 55?
If enough Reps don't get behind it, the resolution will die in committee.