The Rag Blog

02/14/07 “ICH” — — “As we debate this nonbinding resolution on Iraq, the Administration is preparing for the next war, in Iran. We are losing our democracy to war, massive debt, fear and fraud. The American people need Congress to surge toward the Constitution, surge toward the truth.

“Some call this resolution a first step. I would like to believe that Congress will respond to the will of the American people expressed in the November election. They expect us to take real action, to assert our constitutional power, to take America out of Iraq by refusing to provide any more funding for the war. That is our right. That is our duty. We have a duty to restrain an Administration which is conducting an illegal war. We have a duty to hold to a constitutional accounting a President and a Vice President who led us into a war based on lies.

“I led the effort against the Iraq War resolution. With unanimous consent I ask to put into the record an analysis of the President’s war resolution which was given to members of Congress back in October of 2002. It pointed out that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, anything to do with 9/11, anything to do with Al-Qaeda’s role in 9/11. It is not as if Congress had no idea the war was based on untruths.

“Now we must tell the truth, not just about escalation, but about the occupation: We are illegally occupying Iraq. We attacked a nation which did not attack us. We must recognize the wrong that has been done and move to right it.

“Instead of debating the end of the war, Congress is ironically preparing to give the war a new beginning. Some have made it clear long before this particular resolution that they will continue to vote to fund the war by approving the upcoming supplemental appropriation, even though money exists to bring the troops home now.

“When we equate funding the war with supporting the troops we are dooming thousands of young Americans who are valiantly following the orders of their Commander in Chief. If we truly cared about the troops, we would not leave them in the middle of a civil war. If we truly cared about the troops, we would not leave them in a conflict for which there is no military solution.

“The war is binding. The resolution is not. This resolution will not end the war. It will not bring our beloved troops home. It will not even stop the Administration from sending more troops. That is because this resolution is non binding.

“The war is binding. The resolution is not. 3,100 U.S. troops are bound in death. 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians are bound in death.

“The war is binding the resolution is not. American taxpayers are bound in debt. The war could cost $2 trillion. We are borrowing money from Beijing to fight a war in Baghdad. Worse, each and every time Congress votes to fund the war, it votes to reauthorize the war. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there are weapons of mass destruction here at home: Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction, lack of education is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction. We must find and disarm those weapons of mass destruction which threaten the security of our own nation. But first Congress must take responsibility.

“The Federal Court has made it abundantly clear that once a war is well underway, Congress’ real power is to cut off funds. Funding the war is approval of the war.

“The American people are waiting for us to provide real leadership to show the way out of Iraq. My 12-point plan responds to that demand. This plan, drafted with the help of experts in international peace-keeping. Specialists with UN experience and veteran military advisers, creates a peace process which will enable our troops to come home and stabilize Iraq.

The Kucinich Plan to End the War in Iraq includes the following:

BAGHDAD, 14 February 2007 (IRIN) – Militia fighters and insurgents responsible for much of the internecine violence in Iraq are also offering humanitarian assistance to their own communities to fill a vacuum left by the government and aid agencies.

“It is the minimum that we can do as the Iraqi government is weak. Some people need medical assistance, others food and since they are our followers, we have to support them,” said Ali Jalil, a spokesman for the Mahdi Army, commanded by religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr and the most powerful Shia Muslim militia in the country.

Because of the high levels of insecurity in Iraq, most international aid agencies have left the country – the United Nations moved its agencies to Jordan in August 2003 following two deadly attacks on its Baghdad compound.

Now, the Iraqi Red Crescent is the only aid agency working throughout the country, and even they have had their operations hampered by violence and it is becoming increasingly difficult for aid workers to gain access to the needy.

In recent months, fighters have been offering all kinds of assistance to their respective sectarian groups, from the provision of food supplies, clothes and blankets to physical security.

“We have been looking for this assistance from different countries and organisations, which I prefer not to name as the [Iraqi] government might think they are supporting us with arms,” Jalil said. “Mainly, we get assistance from all over Iraq, from thousands of donation boxes that are stuffed with cash every week after Friday prayers in mosques.”

Assistance only for supporters

It is clear that such assistance is given only to those families who have relatives supporting a particular militia group, as was explained by Umm Hassan, 53, from Sadr city, a suburb of Baghdad controlled by the Mahdi Army.

“One of my sons was hit by US troops and on the same day my other son had serious convulsions. I went to one of [Muqtadar]al-Sadr’s offices in our district seeking help. The first question they asked me was if my boys were fighting under the name of the Mahdi Army. When I said they were, they gave me everything I wanted,” Umm Hassan said.

At the Morgue.

We were asked to send the next of kin to whom the remains of my nephew, killed on Monday in a horrific explosion downtown, can be handed over. The young men of the family, as was customary, rose to go.

“NO!” cried his mother. “Isn’t my son enough?? Must we lose more of our youth?? You know there are unknowns who wait at the Morgue to either kill or kidnap the men who dare reach its doors. I will go.”

So we went, his mum, his other aunt and I.

I was praying all the way there.

I never thought a day would come when it was the women of the family, who would be safer on the roads. All the men are potential terrorists it seems, and are therefore to be cut down on sight. This is the logic of today, is it not? To kill evil before it even has a chance to take root.

When we got there, we were given his remains. And remains they were. From the waist down was all they could give us. “We identified him by the cell phone in his pants’ pocket. If you want the rest, you will just have to look for yourselves. We don’t know what he looks like.”

Now begins a horror that surpasses anything I could have possibly envisioned .We were led away, and before long a foul stench clogged my nose and I retched. With no more warning we came to a clearing that was probably an inside garden at one time; all round it were patios and rooms with large-pane windows to catch the evening breeze Baghdad is renowned for. But now it had become a slaughterhouse, only instead of cattle, all around were human bodies. On this side; complete bodies; on that side halves; and EVERYWHERE body parts.

We were asked what we were looking for, “ upper half” replied my companion, for I was rendered speechless. “Over there”. We looked for our boy’s broken body between tens of other boys’ remains’; with our bare hands sifting them and turning them.

We found him millennia later, took both parts home, and began the mourning ceremony.

HOUSTON, TX, United States (UPI) — Former Iraq Oil Minister Issam Al-Chalabi paints a bleak picture for the future of Iraq`s oil industry, panning the result of the U.S.-led war, its insistence on passing an oil law, and the situation aboveground hampering development of the resources below it.

‘Iraq offers nothing but misery and mystery,’ Chalabi told a plenary this week during an international energy conference in Houston.

He drew his dire picture and prediction of Iraq during sessions on both global upstream oil and gas issues and Middle East geopolitics and energy at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates CERA Week conference.

‘I was in this hall exactly four years ago … and people realized by then the war was inevitable,’ Chalabi said. ‘So where do we stand today?’

The global energy information firm Platts reports Iraq`s production in January dropped to an average 1.66 million barrels a day from nearly 1.9 million in December.

Around 96 percent of Iraq`s budget comes from selling oil, and exports dropped to about 1.2 million barrels, Chalabi said.

Iraq has around 115 billion barrels of proven reserves, the third-most in the world, and analysts say much more have not been discovered.

Iraq has a capacity to produce nearly 3 million barrels per day but violence, a lack of electricity and the poor condition of the infrastructure is blamed for keeping production numbers well below the 2.6 million bpd pumped before the war.

‘They can`t increase; the only way is for production to go down,’ said Mohamed Zine, regional manager of the Middle East for energy analyst firm IHS.

‘There`s been no improvement, nothing,’ said Zine, whose views on the situation in Iraq are often less dramatic than Chalabi`s. ‘It`s getting worse.’

The northern oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, Turkey, is attacked enough to render it mostly inoperable. Most of the oil produced and exported is from fields in the south.

The January downturn is attributed to that violence, plus bad weather and stoppage for repairs.

Without naming names, Chalabi (no relation to Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon favorite whose faulty intelligence on Saddam Hussein was relied on to make the case for war) took digs at those who said or still say the Iraq war and occupation has been a success.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled the U.S. Congress when she said last week that she had not seen a 2003 Iranian proposal for talks with the United States, a former senior government official said on Wednesday.

Flynt Leverett, who worked on the National Security Council when it was headed by Rice, likened the proposal to the 1972 U.S. opening to China. He said he was confident it was seen by Rice and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell but “the administration rejected the overture.”

Speaking at a conference on Capitol Hill, Leverett said “this was a serious proposal, a serious effort” by Iran to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

“The Bush administration up to and including Secretary Rice is misleading Congress and the American public about the Iran proposal,” he said.

Testifying before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Rice told lawmakers who asked about Leverett’s previous public comments and writings on the Iranian proposal: “I don’t know what Flynt Leverett’s talking about.”

She faulted him for not telling her, “We have a proposal from Iran and we really ought to take it.”

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said: “What she said is she has no recollection of having seen it. She has said that repeatedly.” he said the accusation that she had misled Congress was “just absolutely 100 percent false.”

Leverett and others have represented the proposal as a missed opportunity that could have defused tensions with Iran which have grown to the point that the U.S. administration has been forced to deny it plans military action against Tehran.

Leverett said he deserved an apology from Rice for calling his competence into question.

He said he had left the National Security Council, which advises the president on security issues, in March 2003 before the Iranian proposal was received. He returned to the CIA where he previously worked and soon after that left government.

Hence, he wasn’t in a position to made this case directly to Rice, nor was it his responsibility, he said.

But among other things, Leverett said that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a discussion about the Iranian proposal, told him he “couldn’t sell it at the White House.” This was evidence it had been discussed there, he said.

The proposal was transmitted to the White House in May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, who represented U.S. interests there. Washington has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

*Note: I use ground Thai chiles. Hot, hot !! And it always makes the coffee more exciting the next morning! I actually give the grinder a really careful wipe with paper towel.

“The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.” — Winston Churchill

The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws. Habeas corpus is roughly Latin for “hold the body,” and is used in law to mean that a government must either charge a person with a crime and allow them due process, or let them go free.

Last autumn the House and Senate passed, and the President signed into law The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, which explicitly strips both aliens and Americans of the right of habeas corpus, the right of recourse to the courts (as provided in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution), and denies appeal through mechanisms of the Geneva Conventions to those designated to lose these rights by the President.

As the most conspicuous part of a series of laws which have fundamentally changed the nature of this nation, moving us from a democratic republic to a state under the rule of a “unitary” President, the Military Commissions Act should be immediately reversed. When a demi-tyrant like Vladimir Putin begins lecturing the United States, as he did just a few days ago, on how our various behaviors over the past five years have “nothing in common with democracy,” we should pay attention.

This attack on eight centuries of English law is no small thing. While the Republican’s (and 13 Democrats in the Senate) purported intent was to deny Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp detainees the right to see a civilian judge or jury, it could just as easily extend to you and me. (Already two American citizens have been arbitrarily stripped of their habeas corpus rights by the Bush administration – Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi – and there may be others.)

Section 9, Clause 2, of Article I of the United States Constitution says: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Alberto Gonzales testified on January 18th before Congress that “there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away.”

While there are many countries in the world where all power and all rights are reserved to the government, and then doled out to the people by constitutional, legislative, or executive decree, the first three words of our Constitution clearly state who in this country holds all the power and all the rights: “We the People.”

Our Constitution does not grant us rights, because “We” already hold all rights. Instead, it defines the boundaries of our government, and identifies what privileges “We the People” will grant to that government.

When Gonzales suggested we have no habeas corpus rights because the Constitution doesn’t grant them, his testimony betrayed a breathtaking ignorance of the history and meaning of the United States Constitution. And, because his thinking probably reflects that of his superior, George W. Bush, Gonzales’ testimony demonstrates the urgency with which Congress must act to repeal the many laws, signing statements, and executive orders that have been issued by this administration.

But particularly, and first, with regard to habeas corpus.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina. Those are the only two fully legal suspensions of habeas corpus in the history of the United States (and Lincoln’s is still being debated).

The United States hasn’t suffered a “Rebellion” or an “Invasion” since Lincoln’s and Grant’s administrations. There are no foreign armies on our soil, seizing our cities. No states or municipalities are seriously talking about secession. Yet the Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus, and the Military Commissions Act now backs him up.

Fidel Castro is a hard core revolutionary, and what he said recently about the hanging of Saddam Hussein was pretty indicative of that. At eighty years old, gravely ill, and possibly on his death bed, Castro pledged that he wouldn’t go down the same way as Saddam. “That’s not the way to go,” he told his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, with whom he maintains a close friendship. “If the Yankees ever invade, don’t go hide in a hole like Saddam,” he warned him. “If they ever invade Havana, I’ll be right on the front line waiting for them.”[1]

Just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Castro has endured almost half a century of U.S. aggressions, assassination attempts, and destabilization efforts. The recent documentary film “638 Ways to Kill Castro” documents the hundreds of different attempts on Castro’s life; explosive-laden cigars, hidden snipers, poisoned milk-shakes, a remote airplane with a bomb, bazookas, and grenade attacks. They very nearly succeeded once with a gun hidden in a video camera at a press conference, but the cameraman lost his nerve. Another time they tried to give Castro a poisoned scuba-diving suit, but he preferred his old one and never used it.

In a region of the world that is dominated by Washington, and where unwanted leaders have always been eliminated by either U.S. invasions, coups, or covert wars, Castro is still standing. Even when much of the world was saying that he was nearly dead, two weeks ago he appeared on television visiting with Hugo Chávez. After several operations, it appeared that his health situation has improved as he looked healthier than a few months ago.

The CIA strategies and manipulations have not been able to do with Castro what they have with nearly every other revolutionary leader in Latin America over the last century; Allende in Chile, Arbenz in Guatemala, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Aristide in Haiti, to name a few. In Cuba, Castro’s communist revolution continues to be the path, and although there has always been a lot of controversy surrounding it, I’m told the Revolution isn’t going anywhere. Cuban friends tell me that Castro’s brother Raúl has taken over his position, and that most Cubans on the island still back the revolution.

It was, President Bush must have been thinking, a heck of a lot easier five years ago. Back in 2002, the president had a smoothly running lie factory humming along in the Pentagon, producing reams of fake intelligence about Iraq, led by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans. Back then, he had a tightly knit cabal of neoconservatives, led by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, based in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, to carry out a coordinated effort to distribute the lies to the media. And he had a chorus of yes-men in the Republican-controlled Congress ready to echo the party line.

In 2007, Bush stands nearly alone, and he never looked lonelier than during a bumbling, awkward news conference on the Iraq-Iran tangle Wednesday.

Feith is long gone, and last week his lie factory was exposed by the Pentagon’s own inspector general, who told Congress that Feith had pretty much made up everything that his rogue intelligence unit manufactured. Libby is long gone, apparently about to be sentenced to jail for lying about Cheney’s frantic effort to cover up the lie factory’s work. And the congressional echo chamber is gone: In six weeks, the Democrats have held more than four dozen hearings to investigate the White House’s catastrophic Middle East policy, and even Hillary Clinton is warning that Bush had better keep his hands off Iran, saying: “It would be a mistake of historical proportions if the administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran.”

Without his Orwellian apparatus behind him, the president spent most of his hour-long news conference yesterday shrugging and smirking, jutting his jaw out with false bravado, joshing inappropriately with reporters asking deadly serious questions and stumbling over his words. It was painful to listen to him trying to justify the nonsensical claims that Iran and its paramilitary “Quds Force” are somehow responsible for the chaos in Iraq:

What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That’s a known. What we don’t know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds force to do what they did.

Pressed about what the “head leaders” are doing, he went on:

Either they knew or didn’t know, and what matters is, is that they’re there. What’s worse, that the government knew or that the government didn’t know? … What’s worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening?

The United States corporate television and newspaper media continue to ratchet up their daily barrage against the people and government of Venezuela. In the last two weeks, they have been attacking Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela over the recent Enabling Law, passed by the National Assembly on January 31, 2007. These attacks follow a formula, using perjurative innuendo, inflammatory language, half truths and outright lies. We say enough! Axis of Logic has taken a close look at one such corporate media attack, authored by one Brian Ellsworth (Reuters) and published in the Washington Post on February 13, 2007. We have dissected Ellsworth’s statements under the bright light of the facts about the new Enabling Law and it’s direct impact on the private corporations involved. Our factual analysis is contained within the Reuter’s article below.

Venezuela’s Chavez sets fast nationalization pace
By Brian Ellsworth
Reuters
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; 7:12 PM

Ellsworth: “CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is setting a faster than expected pace in his nationalization drive toward self-styled socialism, striking three takeover deals that push out U.S. firms in about a month.”

Axis of Logic: The corporate media is well-known now for it’s choice of negative terms to tilt the reader’s impressions about Venezuela and to create polarization beween U.S. citizens and the Venezuelan people. Venezuelan socialism is not “self-styled” as Ellsworth chooses to describe it. This is journalism speak. The form Venezuelan socialism will take will be decided by mass participation by the people in seminars and meetings. For example, seminars are now scheduled in Caracas and Valencia for Feb 15 to get the ball rolling. Chávez has stated that the economy will be mixed but all strategic industries – telecommunications, electricity, gas, oil, steel etc. will be taken over by the state and run in tandem with and by the workers. Ellsworth’s phrase “[to] push out U.S. firms in about a month” also suggests that Venezuelan socialism is primarily an affront to the U.S. rather than a new system designed to empower the working class in Venezuela and to strengthen the Venezuelan economy.

Ellsworth: “Chavez, an ally of Cuba who is vehemently opposed to what he sees as U.S. imperialism, is boosting state involvement in Venezuela, the No. 4 supplier of oil to the United States, as he consolidates power after a landslide re-election last year.”

Axis of Logic: Introducing Chávez as “an ally of Cuba” fits well with the tired, old charge that President Chávez is “turning Venezuela into another Cuba”. We’ve heard it over and over from the U.S.-backed wealthy minority during our visits to the country. It also reinforces the red-baiting indoctrination Washington and its corporate media have rained down on the population here for decades. This reference to Cuba is gratuitous on its face and has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of Ellsworth’s article. He writes that Chávez “consolidates power” following his “landslide re-election”. If he had read the new Enabling Law, he would have understood how the law consolidates power to the people and away from the private corporations.

Ellsworth: “Venezuelan authorities said on Tuesday they would buy the assets of U.S. power company CMS for $106 million, a day after cutting a similar deal with telecom giant Verizon for $572 million.

“Last week the government signed an accord to buy the holdings of U.S.-based global power generation firm AES Corp. for $750 million despite analysts’ predictions of protracted takeover battles.

” ‘The government has showed it’s clearly willing to move at a particularly fast pace to deliver on promises,’ said Patrick Esteruelas, an analyst with the Eurasia Group.”

The deals came two weeks after Chavez received special powers to rule by decree and five weeks after he vowed to nationalize the telecommunications and power utilities.