By William Fisher
If Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans today, the government would be no better prepared to cope with it than it was last August when it flooded the city, wrecked much of the U.S. Gulf Coast, and killed 1,400 people.
This is the consensus reached by three new government reports and testimony Monday before a Senate Committee.
The reports detail an almost total failure in planning for and dealing with the devastating impacts of the disaster, massive waste in government procurement practices, widespread fraud by recipients of relief and absence of systems to monitor it, price gouging, and questionable no-bid contracts by companies that often did little actual work.
And, in testimony before a Senate committee Monday, witnesses said that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – which has principal responsibility for disaster planning and relief – has taken some steps to improve, these are likely to fall far short of what is needed before the 2006 Hurricane Season begins.
Two of the reports, released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud and mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent.
These two audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who
received aid under FEMA's emergency cash assistance program -- which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees -- were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.
The third report -- "A Failure of Initiative" -- expected to be issued this week by Republicans in the House of Representatives -- claims that Hurricane Katrina “exposed the U.S. government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as leaders from President Bush down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives.”
The 600-page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council.
The report found that "earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response" because President George W. Bush alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance.
The report paints Chertoff, who took over the mammoth DHS six months before the storm, as detached from events. It contends he activated the Government’s emergency response systems "late, ineffectively or not at all," delaying the flow of federal troops and materiel by as much as three days.
The White House did not fully engage the president or "substantiate, analyze and
act on the information at its disposal," failing to confirm the collapse of New
Orleans's levee system on Aug. 29, the day of Katrina's landfall, which led to
catastrophic flooding of the city of 500,000 people. Some 1,400 people lost their lives in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.
And on the ground, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown, who has since resigned, field commanders and the U.S. military's commanding general set up rival chains of command.
In testimony before Sen. Collins’s committee last week, Brown claimed he had kept senior White House aides, including the president’s chief and deputy chief of staff, fully informed about conditions on the ground, including the levee breaks.
He shifted blame for his agency’s performance to Chertoff who, Brown said, has chosen defense against terrorist attacks over protecting the homeland from natural disasters.
Chertoff on Monday rejected this criticism. "I want to tell you I unequivocally and strongly reject this attempt to drive a wedge between our concerns about terrorism and our concerns about natural disasters," he said in a speech.
The House Republican report says the Bush administration was informed on the day Hurricane Katrina hit that the levees had been breached. The president and other top administration officials earlier said that they had learned of the breach the next day.
That delay was significant, the report says. "If the levees breached and flooded a large portion of the city, then the flooded city would have to be completely evacuated," the draft report says. "Any delay in confirming the breaches would result in a delay in the post-landfall evacuation of the city." It adds that the White House itself discounted damage reports that later proved true.
"If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not," the draft says, referring to the potential for a
terror attack. "Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for
prime time."
"It remains difficult to understand how government could respond so
ineffectively to a disaster that was anticipated for years, and for which
specific dire warnings had been issued for days," the report says. "This crisis
was not only predictable, it was predicted."
The homeland security secretary, the report says, should have moved two days before Hurricane Katrina hit — when the National Weather Service issued dire predictions about the storm — to set up a special interagency leadership team to ensure that emergency supplies and rescue squads would be in place ahead of the storm.
His department also should have done more to help evacuate the Gulf Coast, the
report says. The Homeland Security Department, the draft report says, "failed to anticipate the likely consequences of the storm and procure the buses, boats and aircraft that were ultimately necessary to evacuate the flooded city prior to Katrina's landfall."
The House Republican group as well as the Senate committee have charged that the White House failed to provide copies of e-mail messages or other
correspondence by senior advisers to the president.
The report’s criticism also extended to the administrations of Louisiana Governor
Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans.
Mr. Nagin, the report says, waited far too long to issue a mandatory evacuation
order. The city and the state also had no reliable system to ensure that people
in nursing homes or hospitals, or the estimated 100,000 residents without
transportation, could get out of harm's way.
"If 9/11 was a failure of imagination," it says, "then Katrina was a failure of initiative," the House report charges.
A report presented Monday to a Senate Committee by the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), found that “Thousands of applicants for federal emergency relief money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita used duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers or bogus addresses.”
The report suggests that the $2.3 billion program was a victim of extensive fraud.
GAO’s examination of the Expedited Assistance program determined that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) failed to take even the most basic steps to confirm the identifies of about 1.4 million people who sought expedited cash assistance, leaving the program vulnerable to the “significant fraud and abuse.
The report says that FEMA itself found that 900,000 of the 2.5 million applications for all forms of individual assistance were “potential duplicates.”
Even when FEMA’s automated computer system picked out what might be fraudulent applications, payments were at times still sent, says the testimony of Gregory Kutz, managing director of the GAO’s forensic audits unit.
The controls were so lax that auditors were able to secure their own $2,000 relief check by using “falsified identifies, bogus addresses and fabricated disaster stories,” and then simply waiting for the money to arrive in the mail, says the report for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Testimony charged that much of the money disbursed by FEMA was inappropriately used – for such things as bail bonds, payment of prior traffic violations, driver’s license reinstatement, tattoos, massage parlors, alcoholic beverages, condoms, and adult erotica products.
Five dozen Web sites that either asked for money or sought to harvest personal
information for identity theft also have been shut down, the report said.
Thousands of additional dollars appear to have been squandered on hotel rooms
for evacuees that were paid at retail rather than the contractor's lower estimated cost. They included $438 rooms in New York City and beachfront condominiums in Panama City, Fla., at $375 a night, according to the audits.
Almost $900 million was spent by FEMA for 25,000 mobile homes, according to the testimony of the DHS Inspector General (IG), Richard Skinner. But, he said, only about 1,200 have been able to be occupied because they are not suitable for use on a floodplain. The rest are largely standing empty in Hope, Arkansas, where many are deteriorating and others are being cannibalized for parts.
The IG reported that contracts for debris removal, reconstruction and housing, were often hurriedly executed without competitive bids or only limited bidding. He testified that his office is continuing to investigate instances of overcharging and charging for work not performed.
The audits, which are not yet complete, do not try to estimate a total dollar figure on abuse, but GAO auditor Kutz told senators it was "certainly millions of dollars; it could be tens or hundreds of millions of dollars."
The Senate Committee also heard testimony from the Justice Department (DOJ), whose spokesperson said that federal prosecutors have filed fraud, theft and other charges against 212 people accused of scams related to Gulf Coast hurricanes. Forty people have pleaded guilty so far. Many defendants were
accused of trying to obtain emergency aid, typically a $2,000 debit card, issued
to hurricane victims by FEMA and the American Red Cross.
In the Justice Department probe, the largest investigation centered on a Red
Cross call center in Bakersfield, Calif., in which some employees schemed to
steal the emergency money for themselves and others, prosecutors said. Fifty-three people have been charged in this probe.
In a separate but related development, a federal judge ruled Monday that the government could drop some 12,000 families made homeless by the hurricanes from a program that has put them up at hotels. They will receive housing grants instead.
This is a story that's not going away any time soon. Not until the Gulf Coast gets rebuilt -- or until the next hurricane season, whichever comes first. Meanwhile, we continue to wait for Presidential leadership.
Friday, February 17, 2006
WHAT TO DO WITH THE PRISONERS?
By William Fisher
Foreign policy and human rights experts appear to agree with the United Nations report calling on the U.S. to shut down its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – but most believe that simply closing it misses a larger point: What to do with the prisoners?
And many of those interviewed by us were fearful that the George W. Bush administration would use the source of the report – the admittedly flawed United Nations Human Rights Commission -- to discredit its findings.
The report found that U.S. treatment of Guantanamo detainees violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It urges the U.S. to close the facility and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.
Compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, the report is the result of an 18-month investigation ordered by the Commission. The U.N. team was refused access to prisoners and did not visit the facility for that reason.
The human rights body has been widely criticized because its 53 members include representatives of countries with questionable human rights records. These include Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. The U.S. has been among U.N. member states attempting to reform the Commission, denying membership to countries that are known to commit human rights abuses.
The report concluded that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.”
"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys. "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."
Prof. Nowak, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). Since 1996, he has served as Judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.
Human rights and legal advocates hope the U.N.'s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament.
Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky of the Duke University Law School shares that hope. He told us, “I believe that the existence of the prison in Guantanamo and the treatment of the detainees there violates international law. However, if the base at Guantanamo should be closed, it is essential that something worse not replace it. For example, it would be much worse if the prisoners are then transferred to prisons in foreign countries beyond American courts' jurisdiction.”
This view was echoed by Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of Human Rights First (HRF), a New York-based advocacy group. He told us, “Whether or not Guantanamo stays open or is closed addresses only one symptom of a larger question: What will happen to the detainees? If closure means the U.S. is going to open up its legal environment to respect international human rights norms not only at GITMO but in all its detention facilities worldwide, that would be a step forward. If closing GITMO simply means shipping the detainees off to other places and fates where their rights continue to be violated, that would be no step at all. The U.S. needs to live up to its obligations under both U.S. and international law.”
Barbara J. Olshansky, Director Counsel of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), told us, “With each day (GITMO) remains open, it presents a very ugly picture to the world of the U.S. decision to cast aside the rule of law and trample the most fundamental human rights.”
She added, “Guantánamo has become the symbol for our country’s decision to deny human dignity. At the same time, however, we remain very concerned about the actions the U.S. might take if it were to close the base. It has taken a great deal of effort to ensure that detainees are not transferred to indefinite detention or to detention under torture from Guantánamo. For the many detainees who do not have this judicial protection in place (because until very recently we did not have identifying information for them and/or authorization to represent them) we have no way of ensuring that the men are not rendered to indefinite detention or torture either in their countries of birth or some third country. “
Prof. Jonathan Turley of Georgetown University and a widely recognized authority on U.S. Constitutional and international law, told us, “Closing Gitmo would be a welcomed change. However, it will mean little if the underlying abuses continue at a dozen less visible locations. The problem is the underlying legal claims of the President and the continued failure of the government to comply with domestic and international law. The most important recommendation is that these individuals be given legitimate trials in federal court rather than the meaningless proceedings held at GITMO. The current proceedings have little resemblance to legal hearings. They are controlled by rules written by government prosecutors to guarantee conviction and stand as a fundamental affront to the most basic notions of the rule of law.”
Yale Richmond, a veteran of 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, believes that “As long as (GITMO) remains open, it will be used against us. Better to close it.” But, he told us, “That raises the question of whether the prisoners should be tried in US courts, and what Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush (in that order) would say if some of them were found ‘not guilty’."
Christopher J. Roederer, Associate Professor of Law at the Florida Coastal School of Law, told us, “I do think that GITMO should be closed, or fully opened up to full inspection and access. The main problem with the report in my view is that there was no visit and no access to the prisoners – but whose fault is that? Did we accept Saddam’s assurances that there were no WMDs on his say-so? Did we not hold his lack of full cooperation against him?”
Experts we interviewed think there is a good possibility that the Bush Administration will try to use the troubled composition of the U.N. Human Rights Commission to discredit or dismiss the findings of the report.
Patricia Kushlis, a retired U.S. Information Agency officer and a specialist in international politics, public diplomacy and national security, told us, “I suspect the Administration will try to use this as a rationale for questioning the report's veracity, or at least credibility. Whether it will stick, or not, is another question.”
Prof. Roederer told us, “I only think it hurts as a rhetorical matter. It may work rhetorically to defend our actions by pointing back at our accusers as coming from ‘bad’ places, but that retort misses the point of the allegation. If the merits disclose violations it is no answer to say that other states are violating human rights or even that members of the Committee are focusing on the U.S. to move the spotlight off of their own countries. The charge is still left intact - two or more wrongs do not make a right.”
CCR’s Olshansky said, “Although the full membership of the U.N. Human Rights Commission includes states with less than ideal human rights records, the report that we have seen is being issued by unimpeachable sources”. She noted that the five individuals who prepared the report are the “foremost authorities” on the issues addressed in the report. “They have no role or responsibility for the actions of their home governments.”
Gabor Rona of HRF agrees. He told us, “ The people who researched and wrote this report are among the world’s most distinguished human rights scholars. They are independent of the countries that are members of the Human Rights Commission. The Bush Administration should consider their findings carefully and not respond by attempting to shoot the messenger.”
In November, the Bush administration offered three of the five members of the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress. This tour prohibits direct contact with prisoners.
The report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States."
But the U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms. The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.
It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights.
The report said the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.
Prof. Nowak also said the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting.
Coming on the heels of the release of yet more photos of detainee abuse taken at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, widely published photos of British abuse of prisoners in Iraq, the U.N. report has helped to make this a pretty uncomfortable week for the Bush Administration. White House press secretary Scott McClellan attempted to blow off the U.N. report by asserting that, since the investigative team did not visit GITMO, it told only one side of the story.
Yet there is virtual unanimity in the foreign affairs community that the so-called “torture issue” has greatly diminished America’s reputation abroad – and not only in the eyes of Arabs and other Muslims. Notably, it has been the issue on which the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, publicly disagreed with President Bush during her recent White House visit.
President Bush has dug his heels in on the Guantanamo issue. But his administration has a penchant for publicly exhorting the world to “stay the course” – and then privately changing the course. So there may yet be hope for a more rational policy.
Foreign policy and human rights experts appear to agree with the United Nations report calling on the U.S. to shut down its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – but most believe that simply closing it misses a larger point: What to do with the prisoners?
And many of those interviewed by us were fearful that the George W. Bush administration would use the source of the report – the admittedly flawed United Nations Human Rights Commission -- to discredit its findings.
The report found that U.S. treatment of Guantanamo detainees violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It urges the U.S. to close the facility and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.
Compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, the report is the result of an 18-month investigation ordered by the Commission. The U.N. team was refused access to prisoners and did not visit the facility for that reason.
The human rights body has been widely criticized because its 53 members include representatives of countries with questionable human rights records. These include Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. The U.S. has been among U.N. member states attempting to reform the Commission, denying membership to countries that are known to commit human rights abuses.
The report concluded that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.”
"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys. "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."
Prof. Nowak, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). Since 1996, he has served as Judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.
Human rights and legal advocates hope the U.N.'s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament.
Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky of the Duke University Law School shares that hope. He told us, “I believe that the existence of the prison in Guantanamo and the treatment of the detainees there violates international law. However, if the base at Guantanamo should be closed, it is essential that something worse not replace it. For example, it would be much worse if the prisoners are then transferred to prisons in foreign countries beyond American courts' jurisdiction.”
This view was echoed by Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of Human Rights First (HRF), a New York-based advocacy group. He told us, “Whether or not Guantanamo stays open or is closed addresses only one symptom of a larger question: What will happen to the detainees? If closure means the U.S. is going to open up its legal environment to respect international human rights norms not only at GITMO but in all its detention facilities worldwide, that would be a step forward. If closing GITMO simply means shipping the detainees off to other places and fates where their rights continue to be violated, that would be no step at all. The U.S. needs to live up to its obligations under both U.S. and international law.”
Barbara J. Olshansky, Director Counsel of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), told us, “With each day (GITMO) remains open, it presents a very ugly picture to the world of the U.S. decision to cast aside the rule of law and trample the most fundamental human rights.”
She added, “Guantánamo has become the symbol for our country’s decision to deny human dignity. At the same time, however, we remain very concerned about the actions the U.S. might take if it were to close the base. It has taken a great deal of effort to ensure that detainees are not transferred to indefinite detention or to detention under torture from Guantánamo. For the many detainees who do not have this judicial protection in place (because until very recently we did not have identifying information for them and/or authorization to represent them) we have no way of ensuring that the men are not rendered to indefinite detention or torture either in their countries of birth or some third country. “
Prof. Jonathan Turley of Georgetown University and a widely recognized authority on U.S. Constitutional and international law, told us, “Closing Gitmo would be a welcomed change. However, it will mean little if the underlying abuses continue at a dozen less visible locations. The problem is the underlying legal claims of the President and the continued failure of the government to comply with domestic and international law. The most important recommendation is that these individuals be given legitimate trials in federal court rather than the meaningless proceedings held at GITMO. The current proceedings have little resemblance to legal hearings. They are controlled by rules written by government prosecutors to guarantee conviction and stand as a fundamental affront to the most basic notions of the rule of law.”
Yale Richmond, a veteran of 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, believes that “As long as (GITMO) remains open, it will be used against us. Better to close it.” But, he told us, “That raises the question of whether the prisoners should be tried in US courts, and what Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush (in that order) would say if some of them were found ‘not guilty’."
Christopher J. Roederer, Associate Professor of Law at the Florida Coastal School of Law, told us, “I do think that GITMO should be closed, or fully opened up to full inspection and access. The main problem with the report in my view is that there was no visit and no access to the prisoners – but whose fault is that? Did we accept Saddam’s assurances that there were no WMDs on his say-so? Did we not hold his lack of full cooperation against him?”
Experts we interviewed think there is a good possibility that the Bush Administration will try to use the troubled composition of the U.N. Human Rights Commission to discredit or dismiss the findings of the report.
Patricia Kushlis, a retired U.S. Information Agency officer and a specialist in international politics, public diplomacy and national security, told us, “I suspect the Administration will try to use this as a rationale for questioning the report's veracity, or at least credibility. Whether it will stick, or not, is another question.”
Prof. Roederer told us, “I only think it hurts as a rhetorical matter. It may work rhetorically to defend our actions by pointing back at our accusers as coming from ‘bad’ places, but that retort misses the point of the allegation. If the merits disclose violations it is no answer to say that other states are violating human rights or even that members of the Committee are focusing on the U.S. to move the spotlight off of their own countries. The charge is still left intact - two or more wrongs do not make a right.”
CCR’s Olshansky said, “Although the full membership of the U.N. Human Rights Commission includes states with less than ideal human rights records, the report that we have seen is being issued by unimpeachable sources”. She noted that the five individuals who prepared the report are the “foremost authorities” on the issues addressed in the report. “They have no role or responsibility for the actions of their home governments.”
Gabor Rona of HRF agrees. He told us, “ The people who researched and wrote this report are among the world’s most distinguished human rights scholars. They are independent of the countries that are members of the Human Rights Commission. The Bush Administration should consider their findings carefully and not respond by attempting to shoot the messenger.”
In November, the Bush administration offered three of the five members of the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress. This tour prohibits direct contact with prisoners.
The report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States."
But the U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms. The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.
It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights.
The report said the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.
Prof. Nowak also said the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting.
Coming on the heels of the release of yet more photos of detainee abuse taken at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, widely published photos of British abuse of prisoners in Iraq, the U.N. report has helped to make this a pretty uncomfortable week for the Bush Administration. White House press secretary Scott McClellan attempted to blow off the U.N. report by asserting that, since the investigative team did not visit GITMO, it told only one side of the story.
Yet there is virtual unanimity in the foreign affairs community that the so-called “torture issue” has greatly diminished America’s reputation abroad – and not only in the eyes of Arabs and other Muslims. Notably, it has been the issue on which the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, publicly disagreed with President Bush during her recent White House visit.
President Bush has dug his heels in on the Guantanamo issue. But his administration has a penchant for publicly exhorting the world to “stay the course” – and then privately changing the course. So there may yet be hope for a more rational policy.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Porter Goss’ Op-ed: ‘Ignoturn per Ignotius’!
Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers. Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI’s Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege” by Attorney General Ashcroft; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.
By Sibel Edmonds
Dear Mr. Goss:
The timing of your recent op-ed, "Loose Lips Sink Spies" in the New York Times interestingly coincides with the upcoming congressional hearing by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations on National Security Whistleblowers. Your comments are predictably consistent with the pattern of “preemptive strikes” you and the administration have been keen on maintaining. I do not blame you for your opposition to legislation to protect courageous whistleblowers, which will enable the United States Congress to reclaim some of its authority and oversight that it has given up for the past five years. No sir, you have all the right and reason to be nervous. However, I must take issue with your attempt to mislead the American public - another habit of your heart - by presenting them with false information and misleading statements.
Sir, as you must very well know after your years in congress as a representative and as a member of the intelligence committee, there are no meaningful legal protections for whistleblowers. What is troubling is that while you are well aware of the fact that there are no meaningful or enforceable laws that provide protection to national security whistleblowers, you nevertheless state that such workers are covered by existing laws. That is simply false. You state that “the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information.” The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which appears to be the legal channel provided to national security employees, turns out on closer inspection to be toothless. Please refer to the recent independent report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on National Security Whistleblowers on December 30, 2005. The report concludes that there currently are no protections for national security whistleblowers - period. Let me provide you with a recent example illustrating the fallacy of your claim:
In December 2005, Mr. Russ Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and action officer, sent letters to the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and requested meetings to brief them on probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while he was an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. In his letter Mr. Tice, as a law abiding and responsible intelligence officer, stated “Due to the highly sensitive nature of these programs and operations, I will require assurances from your committee that the staffers and/or congressional members to participate retain the proper security clearances, and also have the appropriate SAP cleared facilities available for these discussion.” On January 9, 2006, the NSA sent an official letter to Mr. Tice stating “neither the staff nor the members of the House or Senate Intelligence committees are cleared to receive the information.”
Now, Mr. Goss, please explain this to the American public: What happened to your so-called appropriate congressional channels and protections available to national security whistleblowers? Mr. Goss, what “protected disclosure to congress”? According to the NSA no one in the United States Congress is “cleared enough” to hear reports from national security whistleblowers. Please name one whistleblower to date who has been protected after disclosing information to the United States Congress; can you name even a single case? Or, is that information considered classified? How do we expect the United States Congress to conduct its oversight responsibility and maintain the necessary checks on the Executive Branch, when agencies such as yours declare the members of congress “not cleared enough” to receive reports regarding conduct by these agencies? Where do you suggest employees like Mr. Tice go to report waste, fraud, abuse, and/or illegal conduct by their agencies? Based on your administration’s self-declared claim of inherent power and authority of the executive branch overriding courts and the United States Congress, what other channels are left to pursue?
Okay, now let’s move to this notion you and the administration seem to be so very keen on: Classified & Sensitive Information. Let’s start by asking how we define “classified & sensitive information,” and who decides what is classified and sensitive? According to the statement by Thomas S. Benton, National Security Archive, on March 2, 2005, during the congressional hearing on “Emerging Threats: Overclassification & Pseudo-Classification,” the deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security declared that 50% of the Pentagon's information was over-classified, and the head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was even worse, "even beyond 50%." Don’t you find the percentage of falsely classified information appalling? Well, you should; it is your responsibility, because the executive branch, under the office of the United States President, is solely responsible for classification or pseudo-classification of information. Now, based on this knowledge, what should happen when you tell the public, when you tell the United States Congress and the media “Oh, you are not allowed to have this information; this information is highly sensitive and classified”? This is what should happen: we, the people, the Congress, and the media, should first ask you for the merits of the classification; have you prove to us that the information in question should in fact be classified; and you, the executive branch, have the obligation to truthfully respond.
On the issue of classification in your op-ed you go further and cite the cost of unauthorized disclosure to the American taxpayer, “unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars.” Since you brought up the issue, let’s explore it fully and give the American people the real facts, shall we? The Office of Management and Budget report on classification costs to U.S. agencies (the CIA's are still classified; but of course!), gave us a benchmark number and some sense of comparative expense to the taxpayer - the reported dollar figure was over $6.5 billion in fiscal 2003. Now, since the percentage of falsely classified data has been determined to be in the range of 50%, the cost of our agencies’ pseudo classification to the American taxpayer amounts to over $3 billion. Mr. Goss, you do the math; do you really want to attempt to twist and misuse the cost of classification to try to strike a chord with the taxpayers? It is not going to stick; wouldn’t you agree?
Let’s try your security angle on the subject of classification, where you state “disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation.” The entire 9/11 Commission report includes only one finding that the attacks might have been prevented (Page 247 & 376). They quote the interrogation of the hijackers' paymaster, Ramzi Binalshibh, who commented that if the organizers, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had known that the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had been arrested at his Minnesota flight school on immigration charges, then Bin Laden and KSM would have called off the 9/11 attacks, because news of that arrest would have alerted the FBI agent in Phoenix who warned of Islamic militants in flight schools in a July 2001 memo; a memo that vanished into the FBI's vaults in Washington. The Commission's wording is important here: only "publicity" could have derailed the attacks. Classification is indeed a very important mechanism, if it is applied diligently and wisely; however, as illustrated above, in certain circumstances, even with respect to national security information, classification can run counter to our national interests.
Mr. Steven Aftergood, the Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, so very eloquently stated “the information blackout may serve the short-term interests of the present administration, which is allergic to criticism or even to probing questions. But it is a disservice to the country. Worst of all, the Bush administration's information policies are conditioning Americans to lower their expectations of government accountability and to doubt their own ability to challenge their political leaders. Information is the oxygen of democracy. Day by day, the Bush administration is cutting off the supply.”
Mr. Goss, since you proudly quoted from the Robb-Silberman Report released in March 2005, let me do the same and present you with another quote from the same report: “In just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, U.S. cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of U.S. intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused.” It appears that the only ones not privy to our so-called sensitive government and intelligence information are the American citizens, since our enemies and allies have been successfully penetrating all our intelligence agencies (including yours sir) and nuclear labs and facilities. Sir, with all due respect, you have not even succeeded in protecting your own agencies, offices and facilities against foreign penetration; you seem to be incapable of conducting appropriate background checks on your own employees; you failed to protect us against the 9/11 attacks; and you have failed in gathering intelligence and reporting it accurately on the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. With this kind of record how can you go on lecturing the Congress and the American people on your superiority and inherent authority to do whatever you wish, however you wish, and without having to provide any report or any answer to anybody, including the United States Congress?
Last year, the CIA, your agency, classified the entire findings of the Inspector General’s investigation into the failures of CIA managers prior to 9/11. Sir, I believe you made the case for this classification based on your intention to protect the wrongdoers within the CIA bureaucracy from being “stigmatized.” Is this what your op-ed intended to say? Did you mean to say that these national security whistleblowers may end up stigmatizing the wrongdoers and incompetents within the rank and file of the CIA by divulging information that you decided to classify to prevent exposure of embarrassing and criminal activity? Was that a Freudian slip, since nowadays the lines get blurry between classification for national security purposes and classification to protect the agency’s bureaucrats?
Mr. Goss, I cannot attribute this misleading op-ed to your ignorance, since you were a member of Congress until recently and are surely aware of the lack of meaningful protection for national security whistleblowers; so I won't. I will not attribute it to your stupidity, since obviously our Congress confirmed your position and I do not intend to insult their wisdom and intelligence. Thus, it must be your arrogance, nurtured and fed by your boss on your purported inherent and limitless authority and power, leading you to treat us, the American Public, as stupid.
Sincerely,
Sibel Edmonds
A Proud National Security Whistleblower
By Sibel Edmonds
Dear Mr. Goss:
The timing of your recent op-ed, "Loose Lips Sink Spies" in the New York Times interestingly coincides with the upcoming congressional hearing by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations on National Security Whistleblowers. Your comments are predictably consistent with the pattern of “preemptive strikes” you and the administration have been keen on maintaining. I do not blame you for your opposition to legislation to protect courageous whistleblowers, which will enable the United States Congress to reclaim some of its authority and oversight that it has given up for the past five years. No sir, you have all the right and reason to be nervous. However, I must take issue with your attempt to mislead the American public - another habit of your heart - by presenting them with false information and misleading statements.
Sir, as you must very well know after your years in congress as a representative and as a member of the intelligence committee, there are no meaningful legal protections for whistleblowers. What is troubling is that while you are well aware of the fact that there are no meaningful or enforceable laws that provide protection to national security whistleblowers, you nevertheless state that such workers are covered by existing laws. That is simply false. You state that “the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information.” The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which appears to be the legal channel provided to national security employees, turns out on closer inspection to be toothless. Please refer to the recent independent report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on National Security Whistleblowers on December 30, 2005. The report concludes that there currently are no protections for national security whistleblowers - period. Let me provide you with a recent example illustrating the fallacy of your claim:
In December 2005, Mr. Russ Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and action officer, sent letters to the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and requested meetings to brief them on probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while he was an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. In his letter Mr. Tice, as a law abiding and responsible intelligence officer, stated “Due to the highly sensitive nature of these programs and operations, I will require assurances from your committee that the staffers and/or congressional members to participate retain the proper security clearances, and also have the appropriate SAP cleared facilities available for these discussion.” On January 9, 2006, the NSA sent an official letter to Mr. Tice stating “neither the staff nor the members of the House or Senate Intelligence committees are cleared to receive the information.”
Now, Mr. Goss, please explain this to the American public: What happened to your so-called appropriate congressional channels and protections available to national security whistleblowers? Mr. Goss, what “protected disclosure to congress”? According to the NSA no one in the United States Congress is “cleared enough” to hear reports from national security whistleblowers. Please name one whistleblower to date who has been protected after disclosing information to the United States Congress; can you name even a single case? Or, is that information considered classified? How do we expect the United States Congress to conduct its oversight responsibility and maintain the necessary checks on the Executive Branch, when agencies such as yours declare the members of congress “not cleared enough” to receive reports regarding conduct by these agencies? Where do you suggest employees like Mr. Tice go to report waste, fraud, abuse, and/or illegal conduct by their agencies? Based on your administration’s self-declared claim of inherent power and authority of the executive branch overriding courts and the United States Congress, what other channels are left to pursue?
Okay, now let’s move to this notion you and the administration seem to be so very keen on: Classified & Sensitive Information. Let’s start by asking how we define “classified & sensitive information,” and who decides what is classified and sensitive? According to the statement by Thomas S. Benton, National Security Archive, on March 2, 2005, during the congressional hearing on “Emerging Threats: Overclassification & Pseudo-Classification,” the deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security declared that 50% of the Pentagon's information was over-classified, and the head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was even worse, "even beyond 50%." Don’t you find the percentage of falsely classified information appalling? Well, you should; it is your responsibility, because the executive branch, under the office of the United States President, is solely responsible for classification or pseudo-classification of information. Now, based on this knowledge, what should happen when you tell the public, when you tell the United States Congress and the media “Oh, you are not allowed to have this information; this information is highly sensitive and classified”? This is what should happen: we, the people, the Congress, and the media, should first ask you for the merits of the classification; have you prove to us that the information in question should in fact be classified; and you, the executive branch, have the obligation to truthfully respond.
On the issue of classification in your op-ed you go further and cite the cost of unauthorized disclosure to the American taxpayer, “unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars.” Since you brought up the issue, let’s explore it fully and give the American people the real facts, shall we? The Office of Management and Budget report on classification costs to U.S. agencies (the CIA's are still classified; but of course!), gave us a benchmark number and some sense of comparative expense to the taxpayer - the reported dollar figure was over $6.5 billion in fiscal 2003. Now, since the percentage of falsely classified data has been determined to be in the range of 50%, the cost of our agencies’ pseudo classification to the American taxpayer amounts to over $3 billion. Mr. Goss, you do the math; do you really want to attempt to twist and misuse the cost of classification to try to strike a chord with the taxpayers? It is not going to stick; wouldn’t you agree?
Let’s try your security angle on the subject of classification, where you state “disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation.” The entire 9/11 Commission report includes only one finding that the attacks might have been prevented (Page 247 & 376). They quote the interrogation of the hijackers' paymaster, Ramzi Binalshibh, who commented that if the organizers, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had known that the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had been arrested at his Minnesota flight school on immigration charges, then Bin Laden and KSM would have called off the 9/11 attacks, because news of that arrest would have alerted the FBI agent in Phoenix who warned of Islamic militants in flight schools in a July 2001 memo; a memo that vanished into the FBI's vaults in Washington. The Commission's wording is important here: only "publicity" could have derailed the attacks. Classification is indeed a very important mechanism, if it is applied diligently and wisely; however, as illustrated above, in certain circumstances, even with respect to national security information, classification can run counter to our national interests.
Mr. Steven Aftergood, the Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, so very eloquently stated “the information blackout may serve the short-term interests of the present administration, which is allergic to criticism or even to probing questions. But it is a disservice to the country. Worst of all, the Bush administration's information policies are conditioning Americans to lower their expectations of government accountability and to doubt their own ability to challenge their political leaders. Information is the oxygen of democracy. Day by day, the Bush administration is cutting off the supply.”
Mr. Goss, since you proudly quoted from the Robb-Silberman Report released in March 2005, let me do the same and present you with another quote from the same report: “In just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, U.S. cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of U.S. intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused.” It appears that the only ones not privy to our so-called sensitive government and intelligence information are the American citizens, since our enemies and allies have been successfully penetrating all our intelligence agencies (including yours sir) and nuclear labs and facilities. Sir, with all due respect, you have not even succeeded in protecting your own agencies, offices and facilities against foreign penetration; you seem to be incapable of conducting appropriate background checks on your own employees; you failed to protect us against the 9/11 attacks; and you have failed in gathering intelligence and reporting it accurately on the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. With this kind of record how can you go on lecturing the Congress and the American people on your superiority and inherent authority to do whatever you wish, however you wish, and without having to provide any report or any answer to anybody, including the United States Congress?
Last year, the CIA, your agency, classified the entire findings of the Inspector General’s investigation into the failures of CIA managers prior to 9/11. Sir, I believe you made the case for this classification based on your intention to protect the wrongdoers within the CIA bureaucracy from being “stigmatized.” Is this what your op-ed intended to say? Did you mean to say that these national security whistleblowers may end up stigmatizing the wrongdoers and incompetents within the rank and file of the CIA by divulging information that you decided to classify to prevent exposure of embarrassing and criminal activity? Was that a Freudian slip, since nowadays the lines get blurry between classification for national security purposes and classification to protect the agency’s bureaucrats?
Mr. Goss, I cannot attribute this misleading op-ed to your ignorance, since you were a member of Congress until recently and are surely aware of the lack of meaningful protection for national security whistleblowers; so I won't. I will not attribute it to your stupidity, since obviously our Congress confirmed your position and I do not intend to insult their wisdom and intelligence. Thus, it must be your arrogance, nurtured and fed by your boss on your purported inherent and limitless authority and power, leading you to treat us, the American Public, as stupid.
Sincerely,
Sibel Edmonds
A Proud National Security Whistleblower
Saturday, February 11, 2006
RISING ABOVE PRINCIPLE
By William Fisher
Small government is one of the golden tenets of American conservatism. Small government is more efficient. The smaller the government, the more power will be returned to the people. The smaller the government, the freer our people will be of bureaucratic intrusion, regulation and control. The smaller the government, the closer lawmaking will be to the ‘will of the people’.
There is much to commend this Jeffersonian construct – notwithstanding that it often chooses to ignore the many roles small government simply cannot play in modern society and the many benefits we all receive from big government.
But I am struck by the eagerness of at least one faction of American conservatism is to ‘rise above principle’ when they find it convenient.
Nowhere is this hypocrisy more naked than in the cheerleading of the religious right for the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiative.
For those who may have been tuned to another channel for the past five years, the Faith-Based Initiative is a program President George W. Bush set up in 2001 to provide Federal grants to religiously affiliated charities. Since that time, these charities have received millions of dollars in taxpayer funding from Federal departments and agencies.
I have had the opportunity to witness the work of some of these faith-based charities firsthand, and it has been outstanding. Catholic Charities, for example, carries out a multitude of tasks under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development in some of the most inhospitable venues in the developing world. Other religiously-affiliated groups will be remembered for their splendid performance in providing help to victims of the tsunami.
The work of the overwhelming majority of these and many other similar groups is not about religion or political philosophy. It is about providing food and shelter, or introducing best practices in agriculture, education and public health, or organizing micro-credit programs for the “least of these’.
So what’s the problem?
First, some of these charities have abused their missions by proselytizing. They have used cataclysmic disasters to spread their personal Gospels. For example, more than a few distributed copies of the King James Bible and Jesus T-shirts to tsunami survivors in predominantly Muslim communities. Others have received grants to conduct clearly evangelical programs for prison inmates in the U.S.
Second, some religious charities have been involved in reproductive health programs – and have slavishly toed the Bush ‘abstinence only’ line in providing family planning counseling to women.
But, beyond doubt, the biggest problem with the Faith-Based Initiative is that it allows fund recipients to practice clearly unlawful discrimination in their hiring practices. The Bush plan says if you’re, say, a Baptist organization, it’s OK for you to hire only Baptists, or if your organization is Christian, you can reject employment applications from Jews.
That’s why the Bush Administration has never been able to get the Faith-Based Initiative though Congress, and the President had to launch it by Executive Order.
The question Congress has been unable to answer is: If the aim of a government-funded charity is not proselytizing, what difference should it make if I’m a Muslim working for a Christian organization?
Religiously-affiliated charities ought to stop and reflect on what they’re getting from the government – and what they’re giving up in the process.
Money is what they’re getting. But a conservative tenet every bit as central as small government is community support. Private, individual philanthropy has a long and rich tradition in American culture. Many church-related groups don’t need public funding. And those that are not running mega-churches or multi-million dollar televangelist enterprises should be looking to their own communities for support.
What these groups are giving up by accepting Federal funds is even more important: Their credibility to speak out on issues that may be unpopular, but that cry out for public dialogue. While they may be comfortable with the values of the Bush Administration today, Bush is not our last president.
What reminded me of this issue is Taylor Branch’s splendid book, “At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68”, about Martin Luther King. Branch reminds readers that MLK always had one foot in the Scriptures and the other foot in the Constitution, and never confused the two.
The religious right ought to ask itself if America would ever have had a Civil Rights movement if Dr. King and his allies had been on the government payroll. It was the separation of church and state – not its amalgamation – that empowered that movement to speak truth to power.
Which is exactly what the religious community is uniquely qualified to be doing.
Small government is one of the golden tenets of American conservatism. Small government is more efficient. The smaller the government, the more power will be returned to the people. The smaller the government, the freer our people will be of bureaucratic intrusion, regulation and control. The smaller the government, the closer lawmaking will be to the ‘will of the people’.
There is much to commend this Jeffersonian construct – notwithstanding that it often chooses to ignore the many roles small government simply cannot play in modern society and the many benefits we all receive from big government.
But I am struck by the eagerness of at least one faction of American conservatism is to ‘rise above principle’ when they find it convenient.
Nowhere is this hypocrisy more naked than in the cheerleading of the religious right for the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiative.
For those who may have been tuned to another channel for the past five years, the Faith-Based Initiative is a program President George W. Bush set up in 2001 to provide Federal grants to religiously affiliated charities. Since that time, these charities have received millions of dollars in taxpayer funding from Federal departments and agencies.
I have had the opportunity to witness the work of some of these faith-based charities firsthand, and it has been outstanding. Catholic Charities, for example, carries out a multitude of tasks under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development in some of the most inhospitable venues in the developing world. Other religiously-affiliated groups will be remembered for their splendid performance in providing help to victims of the tsunami.
The work of the overwhelming majority of these and many other similar groups is not about religion or political philosophy. It is about providing food and shelter, or introducing best practices in agriculture, education and public health, or organizing micro-credit programs for the “least of these’.
So what’s the problem?
First, some of these charities have abused their missions by proselytizing. They have used cataclysmic disasters to spread their personal Gospels. For example, more than a few distributed copies of the King James Bible and Jesus T-shirts to tsunami survivors in predominantly Muslim communities. Others have received grants to conduct clearly evangelical programs for prison inmates in the U.S.
Second, some religious charities have been involved in reproductive health programs – and have slavishly toed the Bush ‘abstinence only’ line in providing family planning counseling to women.
But, beyond doubt, the biggest problem with the Faith-Based Initiative is that it allows fund recipients to practice clearly unlawful discrimination in their hiring practices. The Bush plan says if you’re, say, a Baptist organization, it’s OK for you to hire only Baptists, or if your organization is Christian, you can reject employment applications from Jews.
That’s why the Bush Administration has never been able to get the Faith-Based Initiative though Congress, and the President had to launch it by Executive Order.
The question Congress has been unable to answer is: If the aim of a government-funded charity is not proselytizing, what difference should it make if I’m a Muslim working for a Christian organization?
Religiously-affiliated charities ought to stop and reflect on what they’re getting from the government – and what they’re giving up in the process.
Money is what they’re getting. But a conservative tenet every bit as central as small government is community support. Private, individual philanthropy has a long and rich tradition in American culture. Many church-related groups don’t need public funding. And those that are not running mega-churches or multi-million dollar televangelist enterprises should be looking to their own communities for support.
What these groups are giving up by accepting Federal funds is even more important: Their credibility to speak out on issues that may be unpopular, but that cry out for public dialogue. While they may be comfortable with the values of the Bush Administration today, Bush is not our last president.
What reminded me of this issue is Taylor Branch’s splendid book, “At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68”, about Martin Luther King. Branch reminds readers that MLK always had one foot in the Scriptures and the other foot in the Constitution, and never confused the two.
The religious right ought to ask itself if America would ever have had a Civil Rights movement if Dr. King and his allies had been on the government payroll. It was the separation of church and state – not its amalgamation – that empowered that movement to speak truth to power.
Which is exactly what the religious community is uniquely qualified to be doing.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Fight against terror is a latter day edition of Indian wars
John Brown is a former foreign service officer who resigned over the war in Iraq. He compiles the Public Diplomacy Press Review.
By John Brown
Like all historical events, the global war on terror is unique. But I'd like to suggest another way of looking at the war: as a 21st-century continuation of the American Indian wars, on a global scale. This is by no means something that has occurred to me alone, but it has received little attention. Here are a half-dozen reasons why I'm making this suggestion:
-- The essential paradigm of the war on terror -- us (the attacked) against them (the attackers) -- was no less essential to the mind set of white settlers regarding the Indians, starting at least from the 1622 Indian massacre of 347 people at Jamestown, Va. With rare exceptions, newly arrived Europeans and their descendants saw Indians as mortal enemies who started the initial fight against them -- savages with whom they could not co-exist. The Declaration of Independence condemned "the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." When governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson stated: "If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois River. The same world would scarcely do for them and us." President Andrew Jackson, whose "unapologetic flexing of military might" has been compared to George W. Bush's modus operandi, noted in his "Case for the Removal [of Indians] Act" (Dec. 8, 1830):
"What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, ... and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?"
Us versus them is, of course, a feature of all wars, but the starkness of this dichotomy -- seen by war-on-terror supporters as a struggle between the civilized world and a global jihad -- is as strikingly apparent in the war on terror as it was in the Indian wars.
-- The war on terror is based on the principle of preventive strike, meant to put off "potential, future and, therefore, speculative attacks" -- just as U.S. Army conflicts against the Indians often were. We have to get them before they get us -- such is the assumption behind both sets of wars. As Professor Jack Forbes wrote in a 2003 piece, "Old Indian Wars Dominate Bush Doctrines," in the Bay Mills News:
"Bush has declared that the U.S. will attack first before an 'enemy' has
the ability to act. This could, of course, be called 'the Pearl Harbor
strategy' since that is precisely what the Japanese Empire did. But it
also has precedents against First American nations. For example, William
Henry Harrison, under pressure from Thomas Jefferson to get the American
Nations out of the Illinois-Indiana region, marched an invading army to
the vicinity of a Native village at Tippecanoe precisely when he knew that
(Shawnee war chief and pan-tribal political leader) Tecumseh was on a tour
of the south and west."
-- U.S. mainstream thinking about war-on-terror enemies is that they are total aliens -- in religion, politics, economics and social organization -- but there are Americans who believe that individuals in these "primitive" societies can eventually become assimilated and thus be rendered harmless through training, education or democratization. This is similar to the view among American settlers that in savage Indian tribes hostile to civilization, there were some that could be evangelized and Christianized and brought over to the morally right, Godly side. Once "Americanized," former hostile groups, with the worst among them exterminated, can no longer pose any threat and indeed can assist in the prolongation of conflicts against remaining evil-doers.
-- The war on terror is fought abroad, but it's also a war at home, as the creation after Sept. 11, 2001, of a Department of Homeland Security illustrates. The Indian wars were domestic as well, carried out by the U.S. military to protect American settlers against hostile non-U.S. citizens living on American soil. (It was not until June 2, 1924, that Congress granted citizenship to all American Indians born in the United States.)
In the Indian wars, the United States fought without the help of foreign governments; such has essentially been the case with the war on terror, despite the support of a few countries like Israel, the creation of a weak international "coalition" in Iraq, and NATO participation in Afghanistan operations.
-- As for the current states that are major battlefields of the war on terror, Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears that the model for their future, far from being functional democracies, is that of Indian reservations. It is not unlikely that the fragile political structures of these states will sooner or later collapse, and the resulting tribal/ethnic entities will be controlled -- assuming the United States proves willing to engage in long-term garrisoning -- by American forces in fortified bases, as was the case with the Indian territories in the Far West. Areas under American control will provide U.S. occupiers with natural resources (oil), and American business -- if the security situation becomes manageable -- will doubtless be lured there in search of opportunities. Interestingly, the area outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad (where Americans have fortified themselves) is now referred to as the Red Zone -- terrorist-infested territory as dangerous to non-natives as the lands inhabited by the Redskins were to whites during the Indian wars.
-- As the war on terror increasingly appears to be, the Indian wars were a very long conflict, stretching from the 17th century to the end of the 19th -- the longest war in American history. There were numerous battles of varying intensity with no central point of confrontation -- like the war on terror, despite its emphasis on Iraq. And the war on terror is being fought, like the Indian wars over large geographical areas -- as the Heritage Foundation's Ariel Cohen puts it, almost lyrically, "in the Greater Middle East, including the Mediterranean basin, through the Fertile Crescent, and into the remote valleys and gorges of the Caucasus and Pakistan, the deserts of Central Asia, the plateaus of Afghanistan."
By John Brown
Like all historical events, the global war on terror is unique. But I'd like to suggest another way of looking at the war: as a 21st-century continuation of the American Indian wars, on a global scale. This is by no means something that has occurred to me alone, but it has received little attention. Here are a half-dozen reasons why I'm making this suggestion:
-- The essential paradigm of the war on terror -- us (the attacked) against them (the attackers) -- was no less essential to the mind set of white settlers regarding the Indians, starting at least from the 1622 Indian massacre of 347 people at Jamestown, Va. With rare exceptions, newly arrived Europeans and their descendants saw Indians as mortal enemies who started the initial fight against them -- savages with whom they could not co-exist. The Declaration of Independence condemned "the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." When governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson stated: "If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois River. The same world would scarcely do for them and us." President Andrew Jackson, whose "unapologetic flexing of military might" has been compared to George W. Bush's modus operandi, noted in his "Case for the Removal [of Indians] Act" (Dec. 8, 1830):
"What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, ... and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?"
Us versus them is, of course, a feature of all wars, but the starkness of this dichotomy -- seen by war-on-terror supporters as a struggle between the civilized world and a global jihad -- is as strikingly apparent in the war on terror as it was in the Indian wars.
-- The war on terror is based on the principle of preventive strike, meant to put off "potential, future and, therefore, speculative attacks" -- just as U.S. Army conflicts against the Indians often were. We have to get them before they get us -- such is the assumption behind both sets of wars. As Professor Jack Forbes wrote in a 2003 piece, "Old Indian Wars Dominate Bush Doctrines," in the Bay Mills News:
"Bush has declared that the U.S. will attack first before an 'enemy' has
the ability to act. This could, of course, be called 'the Pearl Harbor
strategy' since that is precisely what the Japanese Empire did. But it
also has precedents against First American nations. For example, William
Henry Harrison, under pressure from Thomas Jefferson to get the American
Nations out of the Illinois-Indiana region, marched an invading army to
the vicinity of a Native village at Tippecanoe precisely when he knew that
(Shawnee war chief and pan-tribal political leader) Tecumseh was on a tour
of the south and west."
-- U.S. mainstream thinking about war-on-terror enemies is that they are total aliens -- in religion, politics, economics and social organization -- but there are Americans who believe that individuals in these "primitive" societies can eventually become assimilated and thus be rendered harmless through training, education or democratization. This is similar to the view among American settlers that in savage Indian tribes hostile to civilization, there were some that could be evangelized and Christianized and brought over to the morally right, Godly side. Once "Americanized," former hostile groups, with the worst among them exterminated, can no longer pose any threat and indeed can assist in the prolongation of conflicts against remaining evil-doers.
-- The war on terror is fought abroad, but it's also a war at home, as the creation after Sept. 11, 2001, of a Department of Homeland Security illustrates. The Indian wars were domestic as well, carried out by the U.S. military to protect American settlers against hostile non-U.S. citizens living on American soil. (It was not until June 2, 1924, that Congress granted citizenship to all American Indians born in the United States.)
In the Indian wars, the United States fought without the help of foreign governments; such has essentially been the case with the war on terror, despite the support of a few countries like Israel, the creation of a weak international "coalition" in Iraq, and NATO participation in Afghanistan operations.
-- As for the current states that are major battlefields of the war on terror, Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears that the model for their future, far from being functional democracies, is that of Indian reservations. It is not unlikely that the fragile political structures of these states will sooner or later collapse, and the resulting tribal/ethnic entities will be controlled -- assuming the United States proves willing to engage in long-term garrisoning -- by American forces in fortified bases, as was the case with the Indian territories in the Far West. Areas under American control will provide U.S. occupiers with natural resources (oil), and American business -- if the security situation becomes manageable -- will doubtless be lured there in search of opportunities. Interestingly, the area outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad (where Americans have fortified themselves) is now referred to as the Red Zone -- terrorist-infested territory as dangerous to non-natives as the lands inhabited by the Redskins were to whites during the Indian wars.
-- As the war on terror increasingly appears to be, the Indian wars were a very long conflict, stretching from the 17th century to the end of the 19th -- the longest war in American history. There were numerous battles of varying intensity with no central point of confrontation -- like the war on terror, despite its emphasis on Iraq. And the war on terror is being fought, like the Indian wars over large geographical areas -- as the Heritage Foundation's Ariel Cohen puts it, almost lyrically, "in the Greater Middle East, including the Mediterranean basin, through the Fertile Crescent, and into the remote valleys and gorges of the Caucasus and Pakistan, the deserts of Central Asia, the plateaus of Afghanistan."
Need Congress as Qatchdog, not Groundhog
Former Congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob Barr practices law in Atlanta. The article below originally appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Bob Barr
Groundhog Day took place a few days ago, reminding us that even as a nation priding itself on being the last and only superpower on the face of the planet, we still allow our attention to be captured by events of absolutely no real significance. Yet here we are, less than a week later, watching a spectacle on Capitol Hill, something called an oversight hearing — which, like Punxsutawney Phil, emerges briefly, then slides back, and life goes on as if it never happened.
The event Monday, which drew perhaps as many TV cameras and photographers as Punxsutawney Phil's cameo appearance, was a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning recent revelations that the administration of President Bush has been, for more than four years, engaging in a program of electronic surveillance of reportedly many thousands of persons, including U.S. citizens, without court supervision — all in apparent violation of federal laws prohibiting such conduct.
The hearing got off to an almost comical start, when some Democrats questioned Chairman Arlen Specter (R- Pa.) as to whether he intended to place Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — the sole witness — under oath, as is the committee's custom. Specter rebuffed Democrat efforts to have the witness sworn, on the somewhat novel theory that Gonzales had assured the chairman he would not mind being placed under oath and that his testimony would be the same under oath as it would be not under oath. Thus, Specter apparently reasoned, why bother with the technical and demeaning step of having the attorney general raise his hand and swear to tell the truth. The White House reportedly had requested (demanded?) that the witness not be placed under oath.
The scenario thereafter played itself out along far-too-predictable lines. Gonzales answered those questions he wanted to answer, deferred others, and responded to many others based on what is becoming the administration's own "Fifth Amendment" privilege. The administration refuses to answer questions it doesn't want to answer on the grounds that to do so would endanger national security. This response was invoked time and again, even as to questions relating to what the law is or how it is interpreted by the president, the attorney general, the director of the National Security Agency (the vehicle by which this surveillance program appears to be carried out), or other administration officials.
Essentially, the nation's chief law enforcement officer believes that reciting the law will reveal to al-Qaida operatives top-secret information to which they would not otherwise be privy. Yet, the witness was allowed to invoke such defense to answering legitimate and relevant questions about the scope of the spying program, without penalty.
Another refrain invoked by Gonzales was that the president certainly doesn't have a blank check or unlimited power. Yet, the attorney general's actual responses to numerous questions posed by senators relating to the extent of the president's self-perceived power belied his recitations of limited power. Careful reading of the witness' responses to hypothetical or interpretive questions clearly demonstrated that the attorney general — who actually referred to the president as his "client" — is not willing to concede or admit to any limitations on President Bush's powers as commander in chief. And, of course, to complete the scenario, it is obvious that this president believes he can don the hat of commander in chief whenever he wants, or wear it all the time, at his sole discretion.
Even as the witness was refusing to answer questions, or cavalierly dismissing clear congressional intent in the drafting and passage of legislation such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (which limits presidential authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens in this country), he assured the senators that the administration still believed itself bound by the Bill of Rights. Of course, when the Fourth Amendment (which still remains at least nominally a part of the Bill of Rights) is interpreted according to this administration's rules of interpretation, such assurances ring hollow.
Whether Congress finds its oversight backbone, and reasserts its proper role of ensuring the executive branch abides by rather than ignores the clear language and intent of federal law, remains to be seen. Unfortunately, thus far the leadership of the Congress, unlike even Punxsutawney Phil, appears scared of its own shadow.
By Bob Barr
Groundhog Day took place a few days ago, reminding us that even as a nation priding itself on being the last and only superpower on the face of the planet, we still allow our attention to be captured by events of absolutely no real significance. Yet here we are, less than a week later, watching a spectacle on Capitol Hill, something called an oversight hearing — which, like Punxsutawney Phil, emerges briefly, then slides back, and life goes on as if it never happened.
The event Monday, which drew perhaps as many TV cameras and photographers as Punxsutawney Phil's cameo appearance, was a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning recent revelations that the administration of President Bush has been, for more than four years, engaging in a program of electronic surveillance of reportedly many thousands of persons, including U.S. citizens, without court supervision — all in apparent violation of federal laws prohibiting such conduct.
The hearing got off to an almost comical start, when some Democrats questioned Chairman Arlen Specter (R- Pa.) as to whether he intended to place Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — the sole witness — under oath, as is the committee's custom. Specter rebuffed Democrat efforts to have the witness sworn, on the somewhat novel theory that Gonzales had assured the chairman he would not mind being placed under oath and that his testimony would be the same under oath as it would be not under oath. Thus, Specter apparently reasoned, why bother with the technical and demeaning step of having the attorney general raise his hand and swear to tell the truth. The White House reportedly had requested (demanded?) that the witness not be placed under oath.
The scenario thereafter played itself out along far-too-predictable lines. Gonzales answered those questions he wanted to answer, deferred others, and responded to many others based on what is becoming the administration's own "Fifth Amendment" privilege. The administration refuses to answer questions it doesn't want to answer on the grounds that to do so would endanger national security. This response was invoked time and again, even as to questions relating to what the law is or how it is interpreted by the president, the attorney general, the director of the National Security Agency (the vehicle by which this surveillance program appears to be carried out), or other administration officials.
Essentially, the nation's chief law enforcement officer believes that reciting the law will reveal to al-Qaida operatives top-secret information to which they would not otherwise be privy. Yet, the witness was allowed to invoke such defense to answering legitimate and relevant questions about the scope of the spying program, without penalty.
Another refrain invoked by Gonzales was that the president certainly doesn't have a blank check or unlimited power. Yet, the attorney general's actual responses to numerous questions posed by senators relating to the extent of the president's self-perceived power belied his recitations of limited power. Careful reading of the witness' responses to hypothetical or interpretive questions clearly demonstrated that the attorney general — who actually referred to the president as his "client" — is not willing to concede or admit to any limitations on President Bush's powers as commander in chief. And, of course, to complete the scenario, it is obvious that this president believes he can don the hat of commander in chief whenever he wants, or wear it all the time, at his sole discretion.
Even as the witness was refusing to answer questions, or cavalierly dismissing clear congressional intent in the drafting and passage of legislation such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (which limits presidential authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens in this country), he assured the senators that the administration still believed itself bound by the Bill of Rights. Of course, when the Fourth Amendment (which still remains at least nominally a part of the Bill of Rights) is interpreted according to this administration's rules of interpretation, such assurances ring hollow.
Whether Congress finds its oversight backbone, and reasserts its proper role of ensuring the executive branch abides by rather than ignores the clear language and intent of federal law, remains to be seen. Unfortunately, thus far the leadership of the Congress, unlike even Punxsutawney Phil, appears scared of its own shadow.
"Evolution is Intelligently Designed: Social Darwinism, Silver Spoons, and Our Emperor’s Call to Arms to Sustain the Rich"
Jason Miller is a 39-year-old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. When he is not spending time with his wife and three sons, researching, or writing, he is working as a loan counselor. He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International and Human Rights Watch. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner.
By Jason Miller
The State of the Empire Address
The De Facto Tyrant: Thank you all. Mr. Speaker, Uncle Dick, my Congressional collaborators, my five guaranteed votes on the Supreme Court, distinguished plutocrats, and the rest of you wretched plebs we begrudgingly tolerate (because you grease the wheels of our money-making machine): Today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream. Tonight we are comforted by the fact that my regime is working vigorously to cause that noble dream to unravel at the seams.
Every time I’m invited to this rostrum, I remind you of the working class that you have been humbled by the privilege of serving under the strong and resolute leadership of my cabal. We have gathered under this Capitol dome in moments of national mourning and national achievement, but my fellow patricians and I have prospered, regardless of the state of the rest of the nation. It has been your honor to give your blood, sweat and tears to further our financial interests.
In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there is difference and debate. However, my corrupt, power-hungry colleagues and I have implemented measures to minimize and even eliminate that debate. To confront the great issues before us, I must be empowered as the ultimate authority, unfettered by the inefficiencies and headaches of answering to an empowered Congress or Supreme Court. Tonight the state of our Empire is strong---and my Regime will bleed you and the rest of the world dry to make it stronger.
In this decisive year, I will continue making choices to erode the character of our country. I will choose to continue pursuing fictitious enemies of freedom---rather than ceasing the perpetual war on terror, which would seriously undermine the profits of many of my corporate supporters. I will choose to build our wealthy elites’ prosperity by continuing to facilitate the exploitation of the workers and resources of other nations---in lieu of putting a leash on avaricious US corporations, which might expose the patrician class to loss of income. In a complex and challenging time, the road to becoming a decent, responsible member of the world community may seem broad and inviting---yet it ends in danger to the staggering affluence of my “base” and decline in the influence of the Empire. The only way to protect our investments, the only way to secure more money and power, the only way to control our destiny is through Neocolonialism and military invasion---so the United States will continue to defy international law, plunder resources, engage in torture, utilize slave labor, and murder millions of innocent civilians.
Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal---we seek the end of tyranny in our world by employing our own. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of our corporatocracy depends on it. On September 11th, 2001, we found that our continued oppression and aggression in the Middle East could bring murder and destruction to our country (albeit some say my regime had a hand in the events of that day, but the world will never know the truth). Dictatorships shelter terrorists, feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. For evidence, look no further than Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, Dominionists, and the largest arsenal of nuclear weaponry in the history of mankind. Every step toward America’s domination in the world makes our financial position stronger—so we will act boldly in rapidly concentrating power in the Executive Branch and in expanding the Empire.
Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of tyranny under the guise of democracy is the great story of our time. We’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government. Just as we have with you in America, we will beguile the people of other nations into believing they are free, when in reality, once one scratches beneath the surface, their government will be a plutocracy, by the rich, for the rich and of the rich. Those resisting our spread of pseudo-democracy, like Syria, North Korea, and Iran, will find themselves in our cross-hairs.
No one can deny the success of the Empire, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction to our invasion, murder, and Neocolonialism is radical Islam---the stereotypical description we use for all Middle Eastern people who dare to defy our mighty nation. Terrorists like bin Laden are, like my cabal and me, serious about mass murder. They seek to prevent us from imposing a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East as we utilize our own arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Our aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against Syria and Iran. Lacking the military strength to challenge them directly, we will rely upon air strikes, tactical nuclear weapons, and Israel, the architect of our foreign policy. While the Terrorists have killed a few thousand, including 9/11, Spain, and London, we have killed over a hundred thousand in Iraq. Despite the fact that they were civilians, each of them could easily have become the next bin Laden. The world is safer without them.
Ina time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our oil and war for profit. If we were to leave the vicious attackers from the Middle East alone, they would not leave us alone. They have proven that time and again. Like on 9/11, and...Well....like on 9/11. By leaving radical Islam to work its will, we would signal that we no longer believe that our radical Christianity is morally superior, and that the Empire is too weak to continue its expansion. Our enemies (and two remaining friends) can be certain that the United States will never surrender in its bid to impose its own form of evil upon the world. Not on my watch.
We are one of the nations that contributed greatly to the environment which fostered Hitler. While helping remove him from power was indeed a noble cause, we used World War II to forge the military industrial complex and to impose Pax Americana in the aftermath. We forced a Soviet Union with a much weaker economy into a nuclear arms race. The Cold War greatly enriched corporate America while wreaking financial devastation upon many in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In Iraq, we are once again utilizing the illusion of helping the oppressed to move the world toward perpetual war.
We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan and continue to ravage a nation devastated by decades of war. In Iraq, we also remain on the offensive, oblivious to the cost in human lives. We have a muddled plan, but will eventually achieve the victory of having crushed Israel's chief antagonist and controlling Iraq’s vast oil reserves.
Our work in Iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal. On the other hand, we are fighting in a civilized way. Our depleted uranium, missiles, tanks, cannons, air strikes, and multiple other means of killing are politically correct and legal. We wear uniforms and are an organized military, so when we liquidate civilians, it is not an act of murder, terrorism, or brutality. We are in this fight to win and will annihilate every human being in Iraq if that is what it takes. Yet we are noble liberators and the Iraqi resistance fighters are brutal Terrorists.
In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice, as long as you agree with me. If you do not, you will be sharing a cell with Ms. Sheehan, whom they led out of this hallowed rostrum earlier tonight. Hindsight and second-guessing are worthless, particularly when they incriminate me as a war criminal. Therefore, they will not be tolerated.
A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would save Iraqis from death and prison. It would also put men who would reject American and Israeli domination in charge of a strategic country. We must protect our interests in the region, even if it means the murder of innocents and bloody sacrifices by our own military.
Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful of America. We have inculcated a false sense of duty into the minds of our nation's youth, and used a host of financial enticements and propaganda, to manipulate them into risking, sacrificing, and sometimes dying to perpetuate our ugly agenda. We are grateful to the fallen. Without them, men like Dick Cheney would not enjoy the immense wealth and power he has at his disposal.
Ultimately, the only way to defeat the Terrorists' dark vision of hatred and fear is by killing more people than they have and by pounding the people of the Middle East into submission. The Palestinian people have voted in elections. Now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, accept the Apartheid-like conditions imposed by Israel, disarm, reject terrorism as a tool for themselves but accept the fact that Israel will continue to act as a terrorist state, and work for lasting peace by rolling over for Israel and the United States.
The same is true of Iran. They are a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite. I admire how those clerics could accomplish such a feat when we have been unable to do likewise in Iraq, even with 130,000 occupying troops. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, which we have grossly exaggerated to whip Americans into a frenzy against them. Only the mighty United States, the world's biggest hypocrite on the issue of nuclear ambition, gets to determine which nations can be trusted with nuclear capabilities. We will not permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Despite the fact that they are years away from having them, and that their capabilities to harm the United States would be limited once they got them, America will continue use the "nuclear card" to evoke a regime change in Iran. If a nation is not receptive to the plutocratic, capitalistic way of the Empire, their leadership will be extinguished.
Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America wants your oil and sees your nation as a threat to the Empire. We have had you in our sights since you exiled the Shah and will not rest until we have installed a ruler friendly to our interests.
Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy is lurking around every corner. If you are approached by an individual of Middle Eastern dissent, do not hesitate to eye them warily and to report them to the proper authorities. To aid our superb professionals in law enforcement, and to continue the erosion of the civil liberties stymieing my bid to become an outright tyrant, I urge Congress to serve the interests of the wealthy elite in America by reauthorizing the Patriot Act.
It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. Do not interpret my use of the word conspiracy in place of the word attack to mean that I am admitting that there was a conspiracy involving members of my cabal. My point is that we now know that two of the hijackers made telephone calls to fellow conspirators overseas. So to prevent another attack, I have usurped my executive authority by authorizing my operatives to spy on American citizens. I did so without proper authorization from the FISA court under the false premise that the "War on Terror" has given me unlimited authority as Commander in Chief. If there are people inside our country who are dissenting against my Regime, we want to know about it so we can take advantage of the end of habeas corpus. We have cells awaiting them at Guantanamo Bay.
To spread our foul money-worshipping, bellicose Empire, we need friends and allies, beyond Great Britain and Israel. To draw that support, we must intimidate, bribe, coerce, and extort. The only alternative is the collapse of a tenuous Empire, whose foundation is already sinking into a quagmire of $8 trillion worth of debt and the potential Iranian oil bourse. America's plutocracy is always more secure when tyranny is on the march.
Our own generation is now engaged in an indefinitely long, nebulous, and ambiguous "War on Terror"---a war that will be fought by Presidents of both parties of the corrupt duopoly. We need steady support from Congress to keep the funding flowing. We need the support of the working class of America to ensure a steady supply of young men and women to act as cannon fodder. Together, let us perpetuate the wealth and privilege of America's ruling class.
Here at home, America's wealthy elite (my base) have a great opportunity: build the prosperity of our country by expanding the Empire's economic dominance through the exploitation of the people and resources of other nations.
Our economy is healthy and vigorous. Over the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million jobs, many of them low-paying with minimal benefits. This has enabled executives, CEOs, and major shareholders to profit handsomely at the expense of the working class. The American economy is the envy of the wealthy elite throughout the world as we have a working class willingly working harder for less money, fewer benefits, and less governmental regulation to protect their rights.
We cannot afford to be complacent. In a dynamic world, we are seeing a competitor like China, which creates uncertainty because they hold much of our government's debt my Regime has created. Some say the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy by centralizing more power in Washington and increasing taxes. I have a better strategy. We will continue deregulating businesses, which enables them to increase their bottom line as they are decreasingly concerned about petty issues like employee rights, consumer safety, and the environment. We will make the obscenely high tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. Corporate welfare will continue while social programs for the poor will wither and die. Yes, life is good in the USA if you are rich.
Every year of my presidency, we've reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending. While defense and pork spending has spiraled out of control (remember our obscenely over-funded annual military budget of $600 billion and Ted Steven's $1.5 billion "Bridge to Nowhere"?), last year we cut bills that cut spending on superfluous programs like Medicaid, student loan programs and food stamps. My budget will again reduce or eliminate over 140 of these programs which are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. We will continue to increase spending for the military and Homeland Security, both of which have performed so well in Iraq and New Orleans respectively.
We must also find a way to apply Grover Norquist's notion of drowning government in a bathtub by privatizing Social Security. My friends on Wall Street need and deserve the commissions to be had through managing Social Security investing. If we do not act to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as government entitlement programs, by 2030 Congress will face the same choices they face today---regressive tax increases, immense deficits (you thought $8 trillion was a large debt), or deep cuts in every category of spending (except defense). Congress did not put Social Security into the hands of private investors like I wanted last year. The rising cost of entitlements is not going away, and the simple fact is that the poor and infirm are entitled to nothing. Every year we fail to act, the more money we waste on these inconsequential people.
I will give you a little lip service about tightening America's borders, but the reality is I will do little or nothing to stem the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico. These indigents provide my corporate friends with a labor force comprised of people who can be intimidated into working for next to nothing.
Some muddle-headed bleeding hearts believe that our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly. We are doing our best to undermine those programs, as evidenced by cuts in Medicaid spending and the new Medicare prescription drug program.
We will strengthen health savings accounts, which will encourage employers to abandon offering health care coverage to their employees, thereby eliminating an unnecessary hindrance to corporate profit. And because lawsuits are driving too many good doctors out of practice--leaving too many OB-GYNs unable to practice their love with women all across this country---I ask Congress to further impede the consumer's ability to file lawsuits if they are victimized by medical malpractice.
America is addicted to oil. My family and friends arise each day and thank God for this fact. Unfortunately, oil is often imported from parts of the world which have not embraced the ways of the Empire, like the Middle East. The best way to handle that problem is through military intervention. That way corporations like Halliburton (which services both the defense and petroleum sectors) can continue to enjoy unprecedented profits. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop alternative energy sources, but that was merely to appease those idiotic environmentalists, some of whom actually believe Global Warming is occurring. Exxon Mobile logged earnings of $36.13 billion in 2005, the largest profit in US history. You live in a fantasy world if you think we are truly seeking to overcome our petroleum addiction.
Despite the fact that the No Child Left Behind initiative has further reduced public education's emphasis on critical thinking and analysis while heightening its focus on rote memory and test-taking, I am committed to maintaining the illusion that America leads the world in human talent and creativity. Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to ensure the preservation of our economy to the extent that the upper .1% can continue to prosper. While leaving a majority of American students with dulled intellects to lessen the possibility that they will challenge the ruling elite (and to provide Wal-Mart with a work-force), we will develop a select few in the areas of math and science. The humanities encourage independent, critical thought and an examination of history, society, and politics which could lead to dissent against our tyranny, so those subjects will be de-emphasized. The math and science are essential skills for those we will use to staff the military industrial complex.
America is a great force for exploitation, immediate gratification, xenophobia, and unbridled greed. Our greatness is measured in power and luxuries, not in how we treat people. We strive to appear compassionate, decent and hopeful as we execute our narcissistic, malevolent, and avaricious agenda.
In recent years, America has become a nation based on the theory of Social Darwinism. The prison industrial complex is thriving, with non-violent drug offenders doing hard time while "white collar" corporate executives who have fleeced shareholders and employees of billions do short stints in country clubs. Welfare cases have dropped thanks to significant cuts to entitlement programs. The gap between the rich and the poor in America has widened to a chasm. There have been fewer abortions, and it is likely to be a short time before abortion will again be relegated to back alley butchers.
These gains represent a quiet transformation--a devolution of conscience. My Regime has played a huge role. Wise programs such as tax cuts for the wealthy and deep cuts to programs benefiting the most vulnerable members of our society have seriously eroded the character of our country. And we are proud of that record!
And many Americans, especially our own religious radicals amongst the Domionists and Religious Right, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture. They are deeply alarmed by threats to their fragile psyches as they desperately cling to their heterosexuality, terrified that they might actually discover they are gay. Activist judges threaten to legitimize the sin of homosexuality by allowing the abomination of gay marriage.
To ensure that the legislating that does occur from the bench is slanted toward archaic moral principals (i.e. rigidly defined sexual roles), property rights over human rights, profit over humanity and the environment, and the concentration of power into the Executive Branch (my hands), the Supreme Court now has two new members. Please welcome Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. They are here to ensure the further erasure of progressive gains made throughout the Twentieth Century.
Today marks the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Good riddance to her. Her vote was far too unpredictable.
A society resting on the premise of Social Darwinism disregards the public trust. The members of my Regime are Machiavellian adherents to the philosophies of Leo Strauss. For people like us, and for our friends in corporate America like Ken Lay, ethics and morals are impediments to our success. It is necessary that we strive to give the appearance of adhering to them. Our society would not function if the working class did not buy into their value, but the reality is that for the elite, they are mere hindrances. Our challenge is to achieve our goals through grossly unethical conduct while creating the appearance of propriety.
A society in which the rich prey upon the poor does not come to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency. That is why we allowed 1500 to die in New Orleans and hundreds of thousands to scatter to the wind in a diaspora unparalleled in American history. So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and you can bet we won't waste it on poor, non-whites. Corporate America and my rich cronies will be the beneficiaries of this largess.
Social Darwinists leave fights against diseases like HIV to faith-based groups and churches. Due to their irresponsible behavior and drug addictions, the largest segment of American society infected with HIV is African American. We will not pay for their ignorance.
My Regime is calling you to continue waging war against humanity. History is turning a wide arc, toward the shore described in the Project for the New American Century. The destination of history is determined by human action, and you are either with us, or against us, as we strive vigorously to attain global hegemony.
Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued slavery (which, come to think of it, would not have been such a bad thing). Unfortunately, Martin Luther King did not stop at Birmingham or at Selma, which has necessitated the appointment of Roberts and Alito. The United States is complicit in the oppression of others, but it is for a noble cause: the continued prosperity of our plutocracy. Having come this far in enhancing our abundance, we must decide, will we turn back, or finish wealthier?
Before history is written in books, it is written in courage. While my Regime lacks courage, we have an abundance of deceit, cunning, and motivation to expand the Empire. We will lead tyranny's advance. We will dominate the globe. We will renew the defining Social Darwinism which slipped away at the close of the Gilded Age. And so we move forward--optimistic about our increased opportunities to expand our riches and confident of the profits to come.
May God bless America's plutocracy!
(Essayist's Note to Credit the Author of the Actual State of the Union Address: I acknowledge that fragments of Bush's actual speech are interwoven throughout my version presented above).
--
By Jason Miller
The State of the Empire Address
The De Facto Tyrant: Thank you all. Mr. Speaker, Uncle Dick, my Congressional collaborators, my five guaranteed votes on the Supreme Court, distinguished plutocrats, and the rest of you wretched plebs we begrudgingly tolerate (because you grease the wheels of our money-making machine): Today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream. Tonight we are comforted by the fact that my regime is working vigorously to cause that noble dream to unravel at the seams.
Every time I’m invited to this rostrum, I remind you of the working class that you have been humbled by the privilege of serving under the strong and resolute leadership of my cabal. We have gathered under this Capitol dome in moments of national mourning and national achievement, but my fellow patricians and I have prospered, regardless of the state of the rest of the nation. It has been your honor to give your blood, sweat and tears to further our financial interests.
In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there is difference and debate. However, my corrupt, power-hungry colleagues and I have implemented measures to minimize and even eliminate that debate. To confront the great issues before us, I must be empowered as the ultimate authority, unfettered by the inefficiencies and headaches of answering to an empowered Congress or Supreme Court. Tonight the state of our Empire is strong---and my Regime will bleed you and the rest of the world dry to make it stronger.
In this decisive year, I will continue making choices to erode the character of our country. I will choose to continue pursuing fictitious enemies of freedom---rather than ceasing the perpetual war on terror, which would seriously undermine the profits of many of my corporate supporters. I will choose to build our wealthy elites’ prosperity by continuing to facilitate the exploitation of the workers and resources of other nations---in lieu of putting a leash on avaricious US corporations, which might expose the patrician class to loss of income. In a complex and challenging time, the road to becoming a decent, responsible member of the world community may seem broad and inviting---yet it ends in danger to the staggering affluence of my “base” and decline in the influence of the Empire. The only way to protect our investments, the only way to secure more money and power, the only way to control our destiny is through Neocolonialism and military invasion---so the United States will continue to defy international law, plunder resources, engage in torture, utilize slave labor, and murder millions of innocent civilians.
Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal---we seek the end of tyranny in our world by employing our own. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of our corporatocracy depends on it. On September 11th, 2001, we found that our continued oppression and aggression in the Middle East could bring murder and destruction to our country (albeit some say my regime had a hand in the events of that day, but the world will never know the truth). Dictatorships shelter terrorists, feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. For evidence, look no further than Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, Dominionists, and the largest arsenal of nuclear weaponry in the history of mankind. Every step toward America’s domination in the world makes our financial position stronger—so we will act boldly in rapidly concentrating power in the Executive Branch and in expanding the Empire.
Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of tyranny under the guise of democracy is the great story of our time. We’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government. Just as we have with you in America, we will beguile the people of other nations into believing they are free, when in reality, once one scratches beneath the surface, their government will be a plutocracy, by the rich, for the rich and of the rich. Those resisting our spread of pseudo-democracy, like Syria, North Korea, and Iran, will find themselves in our cross-hairs.
No one can deny the success of the Empire, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction to our invasion, murder, and Neocolonialism is radical Islam---the stereotypical description we use for all Middle Eastern people who dare to defy our mighty nation. Terrorists like bin Laden are, like my cabal and me, serious about mass murder. They seek to prevent us from imposing a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East as we utilize our own arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Our aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against Syria and Iran. Lacking the military strength to challenge them directly, we will rely upon air strikes, tactical nuclear weapons, and Israel, the architect of our foreign policy. While the Terrorists have killed a few thousand, including 9/11, Spain, and London, we have killed over a hundred thousand in Iraq. Despite the fact that they were civilians, each of them could easily have become the next bin Laden. The world is safer without them.
Ina time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our oil and war for profit. If we were to leave the vicious attackers from the Middle East alone, they would not leave us alone. They have proven that time and again. Like on 9/11, and...Well....like on 9/11. By leaving radical Islam to work its will, we would signal that we no longer believe that our radical Christianity is morally superior, and that the Empire is too weak to continue its expansion. Our enemies (and two remaining friends) can be certain that the United States will never surrender in its bid to impose its own form of evil upon the world. Not on my watch.
We are one of the nations that contributed greatly to the environment which fostered Hitler. While helping remove him from power was indeed a noble cause, we used World War II to forge the military industrial complex and to impose Pax Americana in the aftermath. We forced a Soviet Union with a much weaker economy into a nuclear arms race. The Cold War greatly enriched corporate America while wreaking financial devastation upon many in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In Iraq, we are once again utilizing the illusion of helping the oppressed to move the world toward perpetual war.
We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan and continue to ravage a nation devastated by decades of war. In Iraq, we also remain on the offensive, oblivious to the cost in human lives. We have a muddled plan, but will eventually achieve the victory of having crushed Israel's chief antagonist and controlling Iraq’s vast oil reserves.
Our work in Iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal. On the other hand, we are fighting in a civilized way. Our depleted uranium, missiles, tanks, cannons, air strikes, and multiple other means of killing are politically correct and legal. We wear uniforms and are an organized military, so when we liquidate civilians, it is not an act of murder, terrorism, or brutality. We are in this fight to win and will annihilate every human being in Iraq if that is what it takes. Yet we are noble liberators and the Iraqi resistance fighters are brutal Terrorists.
In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice, as long as you agree with me. If you do not, you will be sharing a cell with Ms. Sheehan, whom they led out of this hallowed rostrum earlier tonight. Hindsight and second-guessing are worthless, particularly when they incriminate me as a war criminal. Therefore, they will not be tolerated.
A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would save Iraqis from death and prison. It would also put men who would reject American and Israeli domination in charge of a strategic country. We must protect our interests in the region, even if it means the murder of innocents and bloody sacrifices by our own military.
Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful of America. We have inculcated a false sense of duty into the minds of our nation's youth, and used a host of financial enticements and propaganda, to manipulate them into risking, sacrificing, and sometimes dying to perpetuate our ugly agenda. We are grateful to the fallen. Without them, men like Dick Cheney would not enjoy the immense wealth and power he has at his disposal.
Ultimately, the only way to defeat the Terrorists' dark vision of hatred and fear is by killing more people than they have and by pounding the people of the Middle East into submission. The Palestinian people have voted in elections. Now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, accept the Apartheid-like conditions imposed by Israel, disarm, reject terrorism as a tool for themselves but accept the fact that Israel will continue to act as a terrorist state, and work for lasting peace by rolling over for Israel and the United States.
The same is true of Iran. They are a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite. I admire how those clerics could accomplish such a feat when we have been unable to do likewise in Iraq, even with 130,000 occupying troops. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, which we have grossly exaggerated to whip Americans into a frenzy against them. Only the mighty United States, the world's biggest hypocrite on the issue of nuclear ambition, gets to determine which nations can be trusted with nuclear capabilities. We will not permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Despite the fact that they are years away from having them, and that their capabilities to harm the United States would be limited once they got them, America will continue use the "nuclear card" to evoke a regime change in Iran. If a nation is not receptive to the plutocratic, capitalistic way of the Empire, their leadership will be extinguished.
Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America wants your oil and sees your nation as a threat to the Empire. We have had you in our sights since you exiled the Shah and will not rest until we have installed a ruler friendly to our interests.
Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy is lurking around every corner. If you are approached by an individual of Middle Eastern dissent, do not hesitate to eye them warily and to report them to the proper authorities. To aid our superb professionals in law enforcement, and to continue the erosion of the civil liberties stymieing my bid to become an outright tyrant, I urge Congress to serve the interests of the wealthy elite in America by reauthorizing the Patriot Act.
It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. Do not interpret my use of the word conspiracy in place of the word attack to mean that I am admitting that there was a conspiracy involving members of my cabal. My point is that we now know that two of the hijackers made telephone calls to fellow conspirators overseas. So to prevent another attack, I have usurped my executive authority by authorizing my operatives to spy on American citizens. I did so without proper authorization from the FISA court under the false premise that the "War on Terror" has given me unlimited authority as Commander in Chief. If there are people inside our country who are dissenting against my Regime, we want to know about it so we can take advantage of the end of habeas corpus. We have cells awaiting them at Guantanamo Bay.
To spread our foul money-worshipping, bellicose Empire, we need friends and allies, beyond Great Britain and Israel. To draw that support, we must intimidate, bribe, coerce, and extort. The only alternative is the collapse of a tenuous Empire, whose foundation is already sinking into a quagmire of $8 trillion worth of debt and the potential Iranian oil bourse. America's plutocracy is always more secure when tyranny is on the march.
Our own generation is now engaged in an indefinitely long, nebulous, and ambiguous "War on Terror"---a war that will be fought by Presidents of both parties of the corrupt duopoly. We need steady support from Congress to keep the funding flowing. We need the support of the working class of America to ensure a steady supply of young men and women to act as cannon fodder. Together, let us perpetuate the wealth and privilege of America's ruling class.
Here at home, America's wealthy elite (my base) have a great opportunity: build the prosperity of our country by expanding the Empire's economic dominance through the exploitation of the people and resources of other nations.
Our economy is healthy and vigorous. Over the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million jobs, many of them low-paying with minimal benefits. This has enabled executives, CEOs, and major shareholders to profit handsomely at the expense of the working class. The American economy is the envy of the wealthy elite throughout the world as we have a working class willingly working harder for less money, fewer benefits, and less governmental regulation to protect their rights.
We cannot afford to be complacent. In a dynamic world, we are seeing a competitor like China, which creates uncertainty because they hold much of our government's debt my Regime has created. Some say the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy by centralizing more power in Washington and increasing taxes. I have a better strategy. We will continue deregulating businesses, which enables them to increase their bottom line as they are decreasingly concerned about petty issues like employee rights, consumer safety, and the environment. We will make the obscenely high tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. Corporate welfare will continue while social programs for the poor will wither and die. Yes, life is good in the USA if you are rich.
Every year of my presidency, we've reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending. While defense and pork spending has spiraled out of control (remember our obscenely over-funded annual military budget of $600 billion and Ted Steven's $1.5 billion "Bridge to Nowhere"?), last year we cut bills that cut spending on superfluous programs like Medicaid, student loan programs and food stamps. My budget will again reduce or eliminate over 140 of these programs which are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. We will continue to increase spending for the military and Homeland Security, both of which have performed so well in Iraq and New Orleans respectively.
We must also find a way to apply Grover Norquist's notion of drowning government in a bathtub by privatizing Social Security. My friends on Wall Street need and deserve the commissions to be had through managing Social Security investing. If we do not act to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as government entitlement programs, by 2030 Congress will face the same choices they face today---regressive tax increases, immense deficits (you thought $8 trillion was a large debt), or deep cuts in every category of spending (except defense). Congress did not put Social Security into the hands of private investors like I wanted last year. The rising cost of entitlements is not going away, and the simple fact is that the poor and infirm are entitled to nothing. Every year we fail to act, the more money we waste on these inconsequential people.
I will give you a little lip service about tightening America's borders, but the reality is I will do little or nothing to stem the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico. These indigents provide my corporate friends with a labor force comprised of people who can be intimidated into working for next to nothing.
Some muddle-headed bleeding hearts believe that our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly. We are doing our best to undermine those programs, as evidenced by cuts in Medicaid spending and the new Medicare prescription drug program.
We will strengthen health savings accounts, which will encourage employers to abandon offering health care coverage to their employees, thereby eliminating an unnecessary hindrance to corporate profit. And because lawsuits are driving too many good doctors out of practice--leaving too many OB-GYNs unable to practice their love with women all across this country---I ask Congress to further impede the consumer's ability to file lawsuits if they are victimized by medical malpractice.
America is addicted to oil. My family and friends arise each day and thank God for this fact. Unfortunately, oil is often imported from parts of the world which have not embraced the ways of the Empire, like the Middle East. The best way to handle that problem is through military intervention. That way corporations like Halliburton (which services both the defense and petroleum sectors) can continue to enjoy unprecedented profits. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop alternative energy sources, but that was merely to appease those idiotic environmentalists, some of whom actually believe Global Warming is occurring. Exxon Mobile logged earnings of $36.13 billion in 2005, the largest profit in US history. You live in a fantasy world if you think we are truly seeking to overcome our petroleum addiction.
Despite the fact that the No Child Left Behind initiative has further reduced public education's emphasis on critical thinking and analysis while heightening its focus on rote memory and test-taking, I am committed to maintaining the illusion that America leads the world in human talent and creativity. Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to ensure the preservation of our economy to the extent that the upper .1% can continue to prosper. While leaving a majority of American students with dulled intellects to lessen the possibility that they will challenge the ruling elite (and to provide Wal-Mart with a work-force), we will develop a select few in the areas of math and science. The humanities encourage independent, critical thought and an examination of history, society, and politics which could lead to dissent against our tyranny, so those subjects will be de-emphasized. The math and science are essential skills for those we will use to staff the military industrial complex.
America is a great force for exploitation, immediate gratification, xenophobia, and unbridled greed. Our greatness is measured in power and luxuries, not in how we treat people. We strive to appear compassionate, decent and hopeful as we execute our narcissistic, malevolent, and avaricious agenda.
In recent years, America has become a nation based on the theory of Social Darwinism. The prison industrial complex is thriving, with non-violent drug offenders doing hard time while "white collar" corporate executives who have fleeced shareholders and employees of billions do short stints in country clubs. Welfare cases have dropped thanks to significant cuts to entitlement programs. The gap between the rich and the poor in America has widened to a chasm. There have been fewer abortions, and it is likely to be a short time before abortion will again be relegated to back alley butchers.
These gains represent a quiet transformation--a devolution of conscience. My Regime has played a huge role. Wise programs such as tax cuts for the wealthy and deep cuts to programs benefiting the most vulnerable members of our society have seriously eroded the character of our country. And we are proud of that record!
And many Americans, especially our own religious radicals amongst the Domionists and Religious Right, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture. They are deeply alarmed by threats to their fragile psyches as they desperately cling to their heterosexuality, terrified that they might actually discover they are gay. Activist judges threaten to legitimize the sin of homosexuality by allowing the abomination of gay marriage.
To ensure that the legislating that does occur from the bench is slanted toward archaic moral principals (i.e. rigidly defined sexual roles), property rights over human rights, profit over humanity and the environment, and the concentration of power into the Executive Branch (my hands), the Supreme Court now has two new members. Please welcome Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. They are here to ensure the further erasure of progressive gains made throughout the Twentieth Century.
Today marks the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Good riddance to her. Her vote was far too unpredictable.
A society resting on the premise of Social Darwinism disregards the public trust. The members of my Regime are Machiavellian adherents to the philosophies of Leo Strauss. For people like us, and for our friends in corporate America like Ken Lay, ethics and morals are impediments to our success. It is necessary that we strive to give the appearance of adhering to them. Our society would not function if the working class did not buy into their value, but the reality is that for the elite, they are mere hindrances. Our challenge is to achieve our goals through grossly unethical conduct while creating the appearance of propriety.
A society in which the rich prey upon the poor does not come to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency. That is why we allowed 1500 to die in New Orleans and hundreds of thousands to scatter to the wind in a diaspora unparalleled in American history. So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and you can bet we won't waste it on poor, non-whites. Corporate America and my rich cronies will be the beneficiaries of this largess.
Social Darwinists leave fights against diseases like HIV to faith-based groups and churches. Due to their irresponsible behavior and drug addictions, the largest segment of American society infected with HIV is African American. We will not pay for their ignorance.
My Regime is calling you to continue waging war against humanity. History is turning a wide arc, toward the shore described in the Project for the New American Century. The destination of history is determined by human action, and you are either with us, or against us, as we strive vigorously to attain global hegemony.
Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued slavery (which, come to think of it, would not have been such a bad thing). Unfortunately, Martin Luther King did not stop at Birmingham or at Selma, which has necessitated the appointment of Roberts and Alito. The United States is complicit in the oppression of others, but it is for a noble cause: the continued prosperity of our plutocracy. Having come this far in enhancing our abundance, we must decide, will we turn back, or finish wealthier?
Before history is written in books, it is written in courage. While my Regime lacks courage, we have an abundance of deceit, cunning, and motivation to expand the Empire. We will lead tyranny's advance. We will dominate the globe. We will renew the defining Social Darwinism which slipped away at the close of the Gilded Age. And so we move forward--optimistic about our increased opportunities to expand our riches and confident of the profits to come.
May God bless America's plutocracy!
(Essayist's Note to Credit the Author of the Actual State of the Union Address: I acknowledge that fragments of Bush's actual speech are interwoven throughout my version presented above).
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