OUR SECRET GOVERNMENT

By William Fisher

From Washington this week came more evidence that the Bush Administration has no plans to change its excessive secrecy policies. The U.S Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) removed more than 20 significant documents from its website, and the Justice Department (DOJ) told an advocacy group it will cost them nearly $400,000 to obtain records they requested about immigrants detained after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Documents removed from the USCCR’s website include a number of reports that could embarrass the Bush Administration. For example: Briefing on Boundaries of Justice: Immigration Policies Post-September 11; Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and North Dakota Post-September 11; Briefing on the Consequences of Government Race Data Collection Bans on Civil Rights; and The Supreme Court Revisits Affirmative Action.

A majority of commissioners on the USCCR voted along party lines to remove the documents. The USCCR is a government agency. Of its seven commissioners, four are chosen by the President (currently Republicans) and three (currently two Democrats and one Independent) by Congress. Its mandate is to investigate complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin; study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice; appraise federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice; and serve as a national clearinghouse for information in respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws.

In another secrecy-related development, an advocacy group, People for the American Way (PAW) requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), all documents related to the decision to seal the records of immigrants detained in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. PAW believes the unusually large price tag is DOJ’s latest move in an ongoing struggle to withhold the information.

The civil rights organization filed the FOIA request more than a year ago. The Justice Department immediately denied the request on the grounds of privacy and then denied the organization’s appeal. PAW, unsatisfied with the Justice Department’s claims, filed a lawsuit in August 2004 seeking the records.

Two days before the deadline for arguing why the lawsuit should be summarily denied, the Justice Department reported that it had changed its position and would search for the requested records. PAW was told that an initial canvass of U.S. Attorneys’ offices led to an estimated search time of 13,314 hours. at $28 an hour, would make the total search fee approximately $373,000.

PAW requested the information so it could produce a public report about the
government’s efforts to use secrecy against hundreds of unidentified detainees
who were arrested and held for months without criminal charges following the
9/11 attacks.

Between 9/11 and the present time, some 5,000 people – mostly Arabs, other Muslims, and South Asians, have been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), part of the DOJ. There have been no terrorist-related convictions. Most of the detainees were held in a prison system operated by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Many were held without charge or access to family or attorneys for months. Many were deported for typically minor visa violations, and some were returned to countries where they would likely be arrested and imprisoned by local security authorities. The DOJ has consistently refused to release the names of the detainees.

One of the architects of the post 9/11 detention policy was President Bush’s lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, who was recently confirmed to be the next Attorney General. Another former DOJ official, Judge Michael Chertoff, is thought to have been a key player in designing the policy; he has been nominated by President Bush to be the next heads of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the immigration prison system.

PAW said it hopes to publish a report about government secrecy efforts against hundreds of unidentified detainees.

The organization’s president, Ralph G. Neas, said the DOJ’s fee demand is “outrageous, and another in a series of strategies to deny access to public information. Apparently, they’ve taken the ‘free’ out of ‘Freedom of Information.’ If you want to learn about secret trials carried out by your government with your money, you’re going to need deep pockets,” said Neas.

“It’s clear that this is just the latest tactic in the Justice Department’s ongoing effort to hide information from the American public, particularly about ‘secret’ legal proceedings for immigrants held for months and sometimes years in the wake of the terrorist attacks,” said Neas.

In an editorial, The New York Times said the DOJ was charging a “huge fee (that) is well beyond established criteria and amounts to an insult to intent of Freedom of Information Act”. The FOIA was signed in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and was intended to give citizens more access to government documents.

PAW’s request was prompted by the secret case of a Deerfield Beach, Fla., resident, Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel, an Algerian native and one of hundreds of men of Middle East origin detained without criminal charge by federal agents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Bellahouel, a waiter, was detained by FBI agents for overstaying his student visa after they learned he'd probably served food to some of the hijackers and may have been seen going into a movie theater with a hijacker.

He spent five months in custody and was called to testify before the grand jury that indicted accused Sept. 11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. He was released in March 2002, without any criminal charge. But his habeas case proceeded secretly for another year until it was mistakenly placed on the docket at the appellate court in Miami.

While he was still in custody, in January 2002, Bellahouel filed a habeas corpus case in The Southern District of Florida. The case proceeded in complete secrecy on orders of U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck. A clerk's error at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2003 briefly let Bellahouel's name surface, allowing a newspaper to discover his case. Now, Bellahouel's name appears nowhere on the Southern District's public docket.

Last year, PAW joined a coalition formed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, including 23 media, law and public interest organizations -- including the New York Times and American Lawyer Media, the Daily Business Review's parent, that unsuccessfully sought to formally intervene in Bellahouel's heavily censored case, which was then before the Supreme Court for possible review. The Daily Business Review is the newspaper that discovered the error made by the court clerk.

Lebanon's Fragmentation Will Ricochet Against Syria

The article below was written by Michael Young, Opinion Editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. It is reproduced here with permission of the author.

By Michael Young

The cruelest punishment inflicted on postwar Lebanese society has been that unarmed citizens must frequently listen to the likes of pro-Syrian parliamentarian Nasser Qandil. Last week he was joined in the oratorical catacombs by Prime Minister Omar Karami, who blithely accused the opposition of being on the foreign payroll.

This theme was picked up on Monday, when a gaggle of politicians went to Ain al-Tineh to pledge allegiance to Syria, under the portentous gaze of the host, Parliament Speaker Nabih Birri, for once not condemned to playing runner-up as he was flanked by Karami and Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Birri said the opposition "was not guiltless of outside interference," while Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh, also Monday, blamed the opposition because it called "for the implementation of the same demands as Israel."

This resort to the basest norms of Stalinism was instructive. It suggested that Syria's friends in Lebanon have fallen back to their last rhetorical retrenchments. Birri ignored an irony: the "outside interference" he referred to was that of the United Nations Security Council, whose Resolution 425 demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon he rode to political prominence ages ago. Surely he could have done better than display double standards to make his point.

As for Franjieh, his charge that the opposition and Israel had parallel interests implied obligatory collaboration. Yet Franjieh's grandfather once fought the Palestinians even as the Israelis did; no one would accuse him of being an Israeli agent. Nor is it clear that Israel seeks an end to Syria's military role in Lebanon. A few months ago Israeli National Security Adviser Giora Eiland even suggested the opposite, warning that a Syrian withdrawal might allow Hizbullah to escalate conflict on Israel's northern border. The Israeli government rebuffed him, but the reasoning was probably more widespread than anyone cared to admit.

There was a revealing moment last week when Syria's deputy foreign minister, Walid Moallem, was asked about the possibility of a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. He sidestepped an answer by saying the matter was better discussed in the joint Lebanese-Syrian military committee. He thus undermined his own authority as a valid interlocutor with the Lebanese by reconfirming that, in relations between Beirut and Damascus, Syrian security officials still made the decisions.

The Syrians are enforcing order on the Lebanese scene, pistol in hand, though they never actually bothered with dialogue. When there was doubt as to whether Prime Minister Rafik Hariri would endorse an extension of President Emile Lahoud's mandate, he was, to quote Walid Jumblatt recently at St. Joseph's University, "made an offer he couldn't refuse, like in that scene from 'The Godfather.'" On his own account, Marwan Hamade learned a similar lesson (minus the offer) soon afterward, when persons yet unidentified tried to murder him.

The latest chapter in this dismal descent into B-movie politics was the round of statements by officials accusing the opposition of assured, yet strangely unproven and unprosecuted, subversion. The bitter exchanges prompted Jumblatt to go further than he ever had when he accused "the debris of the Baath of having, in the name of Arabism, killed Kamal Jumblatt."

Even Michel Aoun, so infuriatingly wary of his brethren in opposition, understood that he had been played for a fool with the bait of a Lebanese homecoming - transformed by Justice Minister Adnan Addoum into an assurance of arrest after the opposition demanded a full Syrian withdrawal last week. That leaves Aoun with few options but to join the Bristol grouping, or else guarantee fragmentation of the front uniting Syria's critics.

In Damascus, the UN's special envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, was apparently made to understand (during a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa) that insistence on implementation of Resolution 1559 was having a "negative impact" on Lebanon. If true, that was an underhanded threat to turn Lebanese stability into a hostage to Syrian interests. Roed-Larsen surely got the message; he reportedly emerged from the meeting with Sharaa looking unhappy, and was initially denied an audience with President Bashar Assad, the man he tried so hard to promote as a peacemaker weeks ago on an earlier Syrian visit.

It was but a small victory for Assad, as Roed-Larsen's backhand, if Syria persists in playing hardball, is likely to be a negative report on implementation of Resolution 1559 in April. Syria earned celebrity status last week as one of the very few states U.S. President George W. Bush listed in his latest gallery of rogues. In Paris on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French President Jacques Chirac demanded that Syria implement Resolution 1559 and allow transparent Lebanese elections. So, if the Syrians believe that heightening domestic friction among its Lebanese allies and opponents is the best way of confronting this growing international impatience with, if not hostility toward, Damascus, then Assad is being as shortsighted as a former ophthalmologist dares.

The Syrians are behaving like the scorpion hitching a ride on the back of a turtle to cross the creek. Midway into the ride, the turtle, none too sure about carrying the scorpion in the first place, feels a sting and knows he's been poisoned. "Why on earth did you do that," the turtle asks, "we're both about to drown because of your stupidity." The scorpion answers, "I know, but I just couldn't help it!"

Syria can help it in Lebanon, because the alternative, namely to smash the country if it is pried from Syrian hands, is suicidal. A broken Lebanon is far more dangerous to its neighbors than an independent one. And does the Syrian regime really believe that anyone, inside Lebanon or out, will give it the time of day if its intention is to beget a Lebanese wasteland to save its own skin?

WHAT FIRST AMENDMENT ?

By William Fisher

While authoritarian states in much of the world are routinely jailing journalists and others for expressing their views, a substantial proportion of U.S. high school students believes the government should censor the American press and that the free speech protections of the Bill of Rights First Amendment go "too far."

These are among the findings of a two-year $1 million study of 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers, and more than 500 administrators and principals, carried out in more than 500 high schools by the University of Connecticut (UCONN). The study, entitled, "The Future of the First Amendment," was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Hodding Carter III, president of the Foundation, said, "These results are not only disturbing - they are dangerous. Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation’s future." Dr. David Yalof and Dr. Kenneth Dautrich of the University of Connecticut conducted the research for the foundation, which promotes excellence in journalism.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1787, is part of the Bill of Rights, which many of the authors insisted on as a condition for adoption. It guarantees freedom of speech, the press, religion, assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Most Constitutional scholars believe all other American freedoms flow from this part of the Constitution.

Among the survey’s other findings:

· Nearly three-fourths of high school students either do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted.

· Seventy-five percent erroneously think flag burning is illegal.

· Half believe the government can censor the Internet.

· More than a third think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.

UCONN’S Center for Survey and Analysis, which carried out the research, found that while 74% strongly agree that Americans should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, only 26% approve of the right to express views in public that might be offensive to religious groups, while 36% strongly disagree. Only 18% strongly agree that it is acceptable to say in public what might be offensive to racial groups, while 46% strongly disagree.

The survey found that educators are failing to give high school students an appreciation of First Amendment’s guarantees. It suggests that First Amendment rights would be universally known if they were classroom staples. It suggested that the more students are exposed to the First Amendment and use the news media in the classroom, and the more involved they are in student journalism, the greater their appreciation of First Amendment rights.

As reported by Bob Herbert in The New York Times, “Among those students who have taken courses dealing with the media or the First Amendment…87 percent believe people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions. Among students who have not taken such courses, however, the number fell to 68 percent.”

The study found that a quarter of U.S. schools offer no media programs to students. Nearly all school principals surveyed agreed students should learn about journalism, but said financial constraints block the expansion of media programs.

Eric Newton, UCONN’S Director of Journalism Initiatives, says, “If a third of nation’s high school students thought the Pledge of Allegiance went too far, and refused to say it, what an uproar that would cause! The First Amendment is even more important. We hope educators are willing to take a serious look at what their students know about America’s most fundamental laws.”

The survey results come at a time when American teenagers are losing ground when compared with their peers in other industrialized nations. The U.S., which once led the world in high school graduation rates, has plummeted to 17th -- well behind France, Germany and Japan. Most educators agree that increased investment in teacher training is one of the keys to improved student performance.

According to Professor Brian J. Foley of the Florida Coastal School of Law "This reflects years of neglect. Many of ours schools have failed to teach students about our Constitution, about what it means to be citizens instead of spectators. Many schools have failed to teach thinking skills -- critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving. When we start teaching those skills widely, the importance of First Amendment values such as getting the most ideas out on the table and subjecting them to searching inquiry and debate will become clear. When we don’t question our government and test what it says and the plans it proposes, the government – and our country – are likely to fail. Call it patriotism, but it’s really just common sense."

The survey results also come at a time when President Bush is seeking to encourage freedom around the world. In his recent inaugural address, he said, “Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government… it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

Meanwhile, repressive governments – including many that are close U.S. allies -- are taking increasingly harsh actions against journalists and others who express opinions they find uncomfortable. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based advocacy group that monitors press freedom world-wide, reports that thus far in 2005, one journalist has been killed, 172 journalists and media assistants imprisoned, and 70 ‘cyber-dissidents’ jailed.

For example, an Egyptian court has jailed the leader of an opposition party, detained a journalist, a lawyer, and a student on charges of “incitement against public order” as they distributed leaflets at the annual Cairo International Book Fair calling for a demonstration on against President Mubarak standing unopposed for a fifth term. In Morocco, several journalists were arrested and sentenced to prison under the anti-terrorism law. Three Jordanian journalists have been sentenced to jail terms over the publication of an article touching on the sex life of the Prophet Muhammad. In Iran, another prominent reformist journalist has been sentenced to a lengthy jail term on charges of spreading untruths and insulting the Islamic system. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has effectively silenced independent media. And in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, thousands of Internet websites are blocked by the government, which also monitors local Internet activity.

Michael Ratner, President of Center for Constitutional Rights, an advocacy group, declares, “Censorship is rampant in this country. The Bush administration opens its mouth to criticize what it does not like and our media, our universities run from robust debate and challenges to social mores like rats abandoning a sinking ship. I fear we are beginning to live in a homogenized society. We are living in a country where to offend anyone is a crime. The crime is the end of the First Amendment.”




.

THE DARK SIDE OF TSUNAMI

By William Fisher

For the fundamentalist wings of Christianity and Islam the South Asian tsunami has meant very different things. Some Christian groups have seen it as an opportunity to thank God for the deaths of sinners, or to use aid as a cover for proselytizing among people of other faiths. For some Muslims, it was “punishment from Allah” of ”infidels, invaders and occupiers, headed by the U.S.”

The website of the Topeka, Kansas, Westboro Baptist Church, thanked God for the tsunami and “any gay Swedes who were killed while vacationing there.” The website also lauded God for killing Americans in the tsunami, as well as Americans killed by jetliners on Sept. 11. “Thank god for all dead Swedes!!!…God Hates Fags (homosexuals), God Hates America, God Hates Canada”, it continued.

The website explained: “Fags have a three point agenda: 1) decriminalize sodomy, 2) add fags to the protected classes as victims like blacks, and 3) criminalize Gospel preaching against fags. Sweden's doom is now irreversible! Sweden has drawn to it the wrath and mocking of God!”

Some Christian missionary groups were accused of using the disaster as an excuse to proselytize. The “Chicago Tribune” reported from India that “Christian evangelists arrived at a disaster area wearing fluorescent yellow T-shirts emblazoned with ‘Believers Church' on the back and ‘Gospel for Asia' on the front.” They gave each tsunami survivor a sleeping mat, a plate, a sari, a 55-pound bag of rice and, in the bottom of a white plastic bag proclaiming "Believers Church Tsunami Relief,'' a book containing biblical verses warning against the dangers of alcohol. They also set up an orphanage for 108 children, including many Hindus, and asked the children to recite Christian prayers six times a day.

Another U.S. group, the International Bible Society, announced plans to send 100,000 Christian texts, including a book translated into Thai, "When Your Whole World Changes,'' to survivors, including those in Thailand.

Church leaders in Sri Lanka appealed to Christian groups not to proselytize. The National Christian Council of Sri Lanka issued a statement expressing “deep concern” at reports that some groups are trying to “exploit the tragedy to further their own ideologies”.

Muslim organizations agreed. "This is a reminder. Do not do this in this kind of situation," Dien Syamsuddin, secretary-general of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, said after Friday prayers in the main mosque of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

He also condemned reports the U.S.-based welfare group, World Help, planned to adopt 300 Acehnese orphans and raise them in a Christian children's home. The plan was abandoned because of widespread criticism.

The International Mission Board responded by saying, “Critics often accuse evangelicals of seizing on tragedies, wars and natural or man-made disasters to rush into places once off-limits to Christians. They don’t care about the victims’ physical needs or long-term welfare, the critics say; they just want to save souls and make converts...Christians walking in the love of God, however, care about bodies and souls. They weep with those who weep, heal the sick, feed the hungry – and yes, look for opportunities to share the good news of Christ wherever it hasn’t been heard.”

But the proselytizing was two-sided. An Islamic militant group in Aceh recruited members as it collected bodies; other Islamic groups handed out thousands of Qurans in relief camps.

From the Islamic world also came criticism of other Muslims. A prominent Islamist Website, “Jihad Unspun”, said, “The tsunami struck Thailand for supporting the Christian crusaders in the war on terror. The other nations on the Indian Ocean that suffered death and destruction were similarly deserving -- India for its "polytheism" and Sri Lanka for giving its full backing to the Christian Crusaders inside the White House."

In Egypt, an editorial in the government weekly, “Akhbar Al-Yawn”, noted that the Arab Doctors Association declined to assist tsunami victims because the disaster is seen as "punishment from Allah." The Association justified its position by saying that this earthquake was “divine punishment because of the Muslims' oppression by the infidels, invaders and occupiers, headed by the U.S.”

Ibrahim Al-Bashar, an advisor to Saudi Arabia's justice minister, explained on
Saudi television, “These countries, in which these things occurred -- don't they refrain from adopting Allah's law, which is a form of heresy? Whoever does not act according to Allah's law is a heretic, that's what Allah said in the Koran.”

A Saudi cleric blamed infidel tourists for the tsunami. It happened “when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world come to commit fornication and sexual perversion," professor Sheik Fawzan al-Fawzan of al-Imam University told Saudi Arabia's ”al-Majd TV”.

In Morocco, the newspaper "Attajdid" called the Tsunami a "serious warning to Morocco that it has become a destination for sexual tourism."

Nor was the disaster lacking for conspiracy theories. An Egyptian opposition weekly, “Al Usbua”, claimed the earthquake was a result of a joint India-Israel-U.S. nuclear experiment that brought about the movement of the tectonic plates located underneath the ocean. The paper said the experiment’s goal was a U.S.-Israel attempt to put an “end to humanity”.

Another website, “The ShiaChat.com”, cited several Muslim clerics as saying that Zionist and American investments in Thailand’s beaches and the prosperous prostitution industry there prompted the earthquake that caused the tsunami.

However, these views appear to be far from the norm among either Islamic or Christian groups.

Some religious observers faulted many of America’s ‘mainstream’ Christian organizations for their slow reaction to the tsunami. As of December 30, four days after the disaster, the largest of these groups still had not posted a word about the disaster on their websites. They included the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, and the Coral Ridge Ministries. These organizations are led by some of the country’s leading televangelists, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Dr. James Dobson, and Rev. Pat Robertson. While huge relief efforts were getting underway throughout the world, their websites continued to fight against same-sex marriage, a woman's right to choose, and embryonic stem cell research.

But by mid-January, however, organizations representing Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and other faiths were conducting active appeals and raising substantial funds.

PERLE'S OF WISDOM

By William Fisher

Good news! The Prince of Darkness has morphed into The Prince of Peace.

Having fixed Iraq, Richard Perle is now ready to advise us on Iran. The former Assistant Defense Secretary in the Reagan Administration, and Neocon darling, appeared on a recent Charlie Rose show on PBS, following his nemesis, Seymour Hirsch of The New Yorker magazine.

When Perle appeared, Rose quoted Hirsch: “The Neocons believe that if we take out Iranian nuke sites with precision airstrikes, the people will rise up and overthrow the mullahs.”

Perle demurred.

He said: “Before we face war, there are things we can do today. Tens of millions of people are unhappy with Iran’s theocracy. We should be providing material support to the opposition…Broadcasting…helping young Iranians who want to publish…helping students, trade unions…(This could) bring about regime change by Iranians for Iranians…(and it) could well take out the Mullahs…We should spread the demand for good governance.”

Perle seemed eager to assign blame for the Iraqi occupation, which he said is "sadly misguided." The US "should have turned over Iraq to the Iraqis immediately" following Saddam's overthrow. We "should have been working with Iraqis" to expedite a quick and bloodless regime change.” He added, “Failed military actions often can lead to destructive occupations.”

Excuse me, but isn’t “working with” Iraqis how we found Ahmed Chalabi?

Perle believes the US "can't exclude the possibility of military action elsewhere in the Middle East," he said, adding, “The Middle East is producing the vast amount of terrorists in the world. " He focused specifically on Syria, which he said is funding and encouraging the insurgency in Iraq.

Perle suggested that an Iraqi Shia government would be Iran’s rival -- not its ally -- despite their religious, ethnic, and cultural similarities. His reasoning was that the Iraqi government will have been elected legitimately.

The jury on the Iraqi government, some would argue, is still out.

But regardless of how our Iraq adventure turns out, one has to feel a sense of profound loss: The Prince of Darkness has become the Prince of Peace. Gone is the man who gave us “If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

Or is he?

A few years ago, many of those who now serve George W Bush launched their “Project for the New American Century (PNAC)”. Its stars included names like Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, James Woolsey, John Bolton, Douglas Feith and, of course, Perle. Its ideology was the proactive assertion of American power in the world. It believed that the kind of rhetoric we heard in the President’s inaugural address was for real.

The PNAC said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor.” A wake-up call to arms and manifest destiny. They wrote, they spoke, they circulated policy papers, they lobbied the corridors of Washington power. And absent 9/11, they might all just be doing the same old things. But Usama Bin Laden was the greatest gift the neocons ever got.

Then came Iraq.

But Iraq was far from Perle’s first bout with controversy -- though it was probably his biggest. His career has been marked by big ups and big downs. Among them:

He is credited with bringing to the Pentagon a number of staunchly pro-Israel activists who dramatically increased weapons sales to Israel.

In 1996, he simultaneously advised both the Dole campaign in the United States and the Netanyahu campaign in Israel.

He was the principal author of a widely circulated policy paper that advised Netanyahu to cancel the Oslo accords concluded with the Palestinians.

During the Camp David negotiations, Perle advised the Israeli delegation to prepare to leave to keep it from appearing to be a pawn of Vice President Gore's campaign. Perle's statements drew a harsh rebuke from the White House, which criticized him for injecting politics into international diplomacy. The Bush camp quickly disavowed the remarks, claiming that Perle had been 'speaking for himself.'

In an article he wrote while he was a member of Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board, he lauded the Pentagon plan to lease tankers from the Boeing Company but failed to disclose that Boeing was a major investor in his venture capital company. "It takes a special government green-eyeshade mentality to miss the urgency of the tanker requirement," Perle and a coauthor wrote in the Aug. 14 article in the Wall Street Journal.

These and other appearances of conflicts of interest resulted in his resigning the chairmanship of the Pentagon advisory group, but he remained a member until he fell off the radar just before the 2004 presidential campaign.

Despite these ups and downs, don’t count Perle out. He’s still with us, looking for another Peal Harbor. Maybe it will happen in Tehran.

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

By William Fisher

While the Commentariat was scratching its collective head trying to figure out what exactly President Bush meant in his ‘spread freedom’ Inaugural speech, he did it for us.

And the answer appeared to be: “Nothing”.

Reporting on a hastily convened White House press conference last week, Peter Baker wrote in The Washington Post: that the president sees his Inauguration Day goal of 'ending tyranny in our world' as a long-term ideal rather than a new policy redefining U.S. relations with repressive governments, as he ratcheted back expectations of a more muscular approach to spreading freedom abroad.

He went on to note, "While saying he had 'firmly planted the flag of liberty' in Iraq, Bush offered no tangible plans for how he would plant it in other countries, suggesting instead that the stirring words of last week's inaugural address were meant as a statement of principles recapitulating his first-term practices."

" 'I don't think foreign policy is an either/or proposition,' Mr. Bush said in answer to a question about how a country's progress in advancing freedom might be balanced against other American interests, such as securing China's aid in disarming North Korea."

This should come as no great surprise. The kind of Olympian rhetoric we heard at the Inauguration has been used by many other American presidents – including Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.

But, as former Senator Gary Hart points out, “the evocation of Woodrow Wilson as the standard-bearer for the export of democracy neglects the important distinction that Wilson believed this to be a mission for the entire democratic world, not just America, and one carried out peacefully, not through the use of force.” When Franklin Roosevelt said “the only thing we had to fear is fear itself”, he immediately started to tackle to the despair of the Great Depression. When in 1947 Harry Truman announced the “Truman Doctrine” for containment of the Soviet Union, he said, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” He did exactly that. John F. Kennedy’s 1961 “ask not” speech -- “pay any price, bear any burden” -- was followed by the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, and the beginning of the end to racial discrimination in the U.S. And when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’ and said, “From here on in we tell the truth”, the U.S. changed policy, and that in part led to the implosion of the USSR.

In other words, these presidents tried to narrow the chasm between idealistic rhetoric and the world as we find it.

Why the world didn’t immediately recognize Mr. Bush’s speech for what it was is in retrospect a no-brainer. First, he is the first born-again evangelical in American history. And his speech, in cadence as well as content, was clearly informed by scripture in which he deeply believes. Who could know how far his faith would take the nation? Second, his record. Most American presidents have not found themselves being inaugurated on the heels of two invasions to effect regime change. And with neither the Afghanistan nor the Iraq adventures anywhere near finished, the world was entitled to wonder ‘who’s next?’

That’s still an open question. During the presidential campaign, neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle virtually fell off the radar. Now they’re back, and their subject of choice is Iran. Perle is saying, “Before we face war, there are things we can do today. Tens of millions of people are unhappy with Iran’s theocracy. We should be providing material support to the opposition…Broadcasting…helping young Iranians who want to publish…helping students, trade unions…(This could) bring about regime change by Iranians for Iranians…(and it) could well take out the Mullahs…We should spread the demand for good governance.”

That’s pretty much what the neocons were saying publicly before the Iraq invasion, while privately urging much more muscular action from the Administration. And it should be remembered that it was “working with the opposition” that brought us Ahmed Chalabi.

Moreover, those of us who dislike theocracies have to wonder whether, even if the Iranian reformers rise up and “take out the Mullahs”, Iran is likely to scrap its nuclear program. Perle and his buddies didn’t seem to understand much about the strength of nationalism before Iraq and they don’t seem to have learned much since.

Thankfully, a reality check on the state of the U.S. military should signal that an armed invasion of Iran is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told us at her confirmation hearing that diplomacy will be her number one priority. She could have no more urgent start-point than Iran. And joining the Europeans in their current negotiations would signal the Administration’s intention to try to resolve the Iran problem multilaterally.

But Dr. Rice also told Senators that the U.S. has “other issues” with Iran that might block agreement on the nuclear issue.

Most observers think she meant its abysmal human rights record. But applying this kind of double standard would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. Many countries that America is proud to call its allies (read: partners in the ‘war on terror’) have equally abysmal human rights records. Thus, the U.S. turns a blind eye to the authoritarian regimes and the human rights atrocities they consistently commit in Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Uzbekistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Libya (which has become the Administration’s poster child for ‘reform’ because it turned over its weapons of mass destruction).

In these countries – many of which receive large amounts in U.S. aid – the real weapons of mass destruction are the police and the security services. Does the president intend to deny America’s blessing and America’s aid to these countries? Not likely. The CIA keeps its fleet of Gulfstream jets busy ‘rendering’ prisoners to many of these countries – where they can do to prisoners what is supposed to be unconstitutional in the U.S.

There is also another kind of double standard today that places the Bush speech squarely in the realm of fantasy. The world no longer believes the United States, thanks to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and raids on the civil rights of citizens, immigrants and visitors alike.

So what we can expect from the administration in the next four years?

Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, writes that no one would suggest that the U.S. “should conduct an amoral foreign policy that ignores what governments are doing to their citizens. We should encourage the rule of law, human rights, and meaningful economic and political participation. But as President Bush acknowledged, ‘The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations’. In the interim, the U.S. needs a foreign policy that deals with the world as it is.”

So the near-term future will be far more about realpolitik than inaugural rhetoric. Given President Bush’s inclination to ‘bring it on’, the status quo may be a blessing.

AMERICA'S HOLY WAR

Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan who is self-employed and active in the political arena. Her concerns are her four-generation family and the continuance of the United States as a democracy with a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people". Comments and criticism may be addressed to mpitt@cox.net .

by Mary Pitt

The assault on our freedoms by the "Old Testament Christians", those who use the Ten Commandments as their lodestar and place great faith in Jewish Law, the advocacy of Holy War, and the justifications of the ancient prophesies in their missionary zeal to control the world, are finally getting some opposition from the devout followers of the example of Jesus Christ. With Jim Wallis of Sojourner Magazine at its head, the horde of "Quiet Christians" is finally on the march, espousing their belief in "a kinder, gentler" religion and the teachings of Jesus as He walked the earth.

For the Bibliophiles among you, Mr. Wallis refers you to Matthew 25 and the words of Christ Himself as regards the standards on which we will be judged by our treatment of our fellow man. Also in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5, Jesus makes it very clear that He was the "fulfillment" of the Law and set an even higher standard for the Christians than that which had governed the Jews. Taking "one-tenth of our increase" to the altar is no longer enough! Not if we drive by in our nice cars on the way to do our "Christian duty" past the homeless who are sleeping in the streets, not if there are hungry children, trying to learn in a seedy, under-funded school or mothers reduced to begging or worse, to keep food in the house for her babies. He tells us, first, to make peace with our adversary, to be reconciled with our brethren, and to give what is asked by those in need. The mandatory stonings and beheadings of the Old Testament were replaced with the eternal forgiveness of a loving God. This was depicted by the statement, "If there be any among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."

This is the true test of Christianity. Jesus did not tell us to go forth into the world and kill those who refuse to agree with us. His instructions were that we go forth in peace, teaching and nurturing, to bring souls to Him by example. He told us not to lust for power and earthly kingdoms or riches, but to aspire to a higher goal of peace and brotherhood. We are admonished to let Caesar be Caesar and neither to support nor oppose worldly governments other than in a non-violent manner, with dignity and love. He specifically enjoins us from the type of radical evangelical militant "Christianity" that is evident in the "religious right" of our time. Indeed, he admonished against the practices of "shouting prayers on the street" in order to vaunt our own piety to the passers-by, but instead to pray in private and to let our behavior testify to our relationship with God. This does not mean that we must deny our faith, only that we must demonstrate it by our actions.

How many of us would open our homes to an orphan, less a subsidized program of reimbursement by a social service agency? Who would open the door to a hungry, homeless beggar? Who would offer to meet the needs of a stranger if it involved a real sacrifice of our own money, our time, or our privacy? That is the true test of our Christianity! It has become so easy to "give to the church" or to "donate to charity" those things which we feel we can spare. We have institutionalized charities so that we do not have to become personally involved, but they cannot fill all the needs. We have made government programs which still fall short of being sufficient and then we snarl at the cost because we are unwilling to make the sacrifice of paying sufficient taxes to fund them. We consider poverty, squalor, and illness as not being our concern but somebody else's problem. "We take care of our own", we cry, "and others could, too, if they would only apply themselves." But, in both testaments, we are adjured that we are not only "our brother's keepers" but that anyone we meet should be treated as our "neighbor" and we must love them as ourselves. In His Book, God tells us that greed and selfishness are as deadly as the other sins which we must avoid..

While we may boast of the "surge" of professed Christianity in our great nation, we have become unforgiveably selfish. We want it all and we want it now! At the time of the greatest affluence in the history of the world we, as a nation, have become more acquisitive and more personally greedy than any since the days of ancient Rome. We send our "all-volunteer army" to destroy innocent familes in Iraq, holding them in involuntary servitude in the manner of the Roman Legions while the sons of the rich and powerful lounge at home, establishing lucrative careers and surviving above the fray. We loot the resources of the world, leaving the inhabitants in poverty while we celebrate our "chosen" position as their "betters". And then we go to church and praise God for His "gifts" as if we truly deserve them.

While those who disapprove of the actions and the proclamations of certitude by the Christians on the right would find it much easier to love them were we not constantly bombarded by those who would befuddle our minds and threaten our souls by telling us that they have a "direct line" to God and that He is telling them things that are at odds with the instructions that He left for us in His Book. We find no place in His Word that we are to persecute those who do not live in our ways, to treat them as less than human, or to hound them to their graves with signs proclaiming, "GOD HATES FAGS"! At no place do we find instructions that we are to mistreat and neglect children who are born out of wedlock, in no place are we commanded to commit such violence as to bomb abortion clinics, and in no place are we commanded to impose our beliefs on others by law or by public condemnation. At no time were we given permission or adjuration to hate the "sons of Ishmael" who live under the same protections of God as do the "sons of Israel". These are transgressions that are hard to acknowledge, much less to forgive and we will leave that forgiveness to God Who, alone, has the ultimate power to do so.

These "Quiet Christians" are performing their responsibility under the charge left us by Christ Himself when they speak out against the godless policies of the current government and advocate for peace rather than war and love rather than hate. We may be able to vanquish the armies of those who dislike and disrespect us, but war will not necessarily bring peace and the threat of death will not create love. We need to begin to think on a higher plane and ask ourselves, with our minds open to truth, "What WOULD Jesus do?" The answer is in His words and in His example.