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POPS"War On Terror": Iraqi Civilian Fatalities 151,000 as reported by the World Health Organization, January 2008 An October 2006 study by John Hopkins University estimated the number of Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from the war at 654,965 and Iraq Body Count, as of December 3, 2008, puts the civilian fatality count somewhere between 89,544 – 97,762. No matter the number, every one of these civilian deaths is the result of a Bush Administration lie. infoshout.com
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POPSUS General: Bush committed war crimes, must be prosecuted Maj. Gen. Taguba led the US Army's official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and testified before Congress on his findings in May 2004. Taguba retired in January 2007, later alleging that Pentagon officials had ordered him to retire for being "overzealous" in his criticisms of the military. He writes here, in the Preface to the report "Broken Laws, Broken Lives."
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POPSSupreme Court Rules Detainees Have Constitutional Rights Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court majority: "The detainees in these cases are entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing. . . . Within the Constitution's separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the executive to imprison a person." The court was narrowly split, 5 to 4. The dissenters accused the majority of meddling in a wartime matter better left to the president and the military. The decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissent. President Bush said he would abide by the decision but added: "It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented." About 270 men are still held at Guantanamo. Fewer than 20 are now facing trial before a military commission, and about 60 are in the pipeline.
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POPSJimmy Carter: Make peace with Iran Bush has not seriously tried; his policy a "serious mistake and terrible departure" from the actions of previous US presidents (not to engage with countries with which they differed.) "The president of the administration in Washington is the first one to have ever done this"
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POPSHope, change, and pissing in the wind: Of Obama, Democrats, and the power elite There are systemic contradictions at play that almost force the hand of capitalists to do what they do -- for example, they are now trying to roll back the social democratic gains of the European working class during the postwar period. Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi, and Sarkozy are no accidents. They represent the concerted effort of the European bourgeoisie, egged on by the American elites, to push back on the working class and take it all back under the pretext of “remaining competitive” and a plethora of other fraudulent reasons.
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POPSHow Republicans created executive branch hegemony The Statue of Liberty (La liberté éclairant le monde) symbolizes the United States's wish to be free from oppression and tyranny. It was presented to the United States by France, which is the country of Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, whose idea of separating and balancing the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary power, is the fundament of any reasonable democratic constitution.
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POPSRay McGovern: Creeping Fascism - History's Lessons
Were the appropriate leaders in Congress informed that within days of Bush’s first inauguration the NSA electronic vacuum cleaner began to suck up information on you and me, despite the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment? What’s going on here? Have congressional leaders no sense for what is at stake? Lately the adjective “spineless” has come into vogue in describing congressional Democrats. Are they all complicit? "There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater." (Sebastian Haffner, “Geschichte eines Deutschen” - The Story of a German - “Defying Hitler”). In his journal, Haffner decries what he calls the “sheepish submissiveness” with which the German people reacted to a 9/11-like event, the burning of the German Parliament (Reichstag) on Feb. 27, 1933. You don’t have to be a Nazi. You can just be, well, a sheep.
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POPSUS-America in deep slumber - going to awake in 2008 to another presidential nightmare? Survey reveals candidates' views on scope of executive power - The Boston Globe Biden Clinton Dodd Edwards McCain Giuliani Obama Paul Richardson Romney It's hard to overstate how vital this issue is, or how far off the media radar screen it remains. Indeed, it's hard to think of another issue in which the importance-to-the-public /attention-paid-by-the-media ratio is as out of whack. Alternet.org
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POPSDemocrats in 2007: Majorities in Congress, Still Caving to Bush By their actions in the early days of the Clinton administration, the national Democrats revealed that they viewed the American people more as consumers eager for services than citizens needing honest information to fulfill their duties in a democratic Republic. Clinton also apparently thought that his magnanimous gesture, especially in letting former President George H.W. Bush off the hook, would win reciprocity from the Republicans. Instead, they took the Democratic scrapping of the Reagan-Bush investigations as a sign of weakness and unleashed the emerging right-wing media against Clinton.
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POPSWill there be a Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth) on the Iraq war? Warnings about a new stab-in-the-back myth may seem premature or overheated at this moment in the Iraq War. Yet, if the history of the original version of this myth is any guide, the opposite is true. They are timely precisely because the Dolchstoßlegende was not a post-war concoction, but an explanation cunningly, even cynically, hatched by Rightists in Germany before the failure of the desperate, final "victory offensive" of 1918 became fully apparent. Although Hindenburg's dramatic testimony in November 1919 popularized the myth in Germany, it caught fire precisely because the tinder had been laid to dry two years earlier. It may seem farfetched to compare a Prussian military dictatorship and its self-serving lies to the current Bush administration. Yet I'm not the first person to express concern about the emergence of our very own Iraqi Dolchstoßlegende. Is an American version of this myth really emerging then?
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POPSSeven Bad Assumptions We Make About Iran Continuation: 1. Iran is ripe for regime change. Not true. 2. Iran is irrational and cannot be deterred. Not true. 3. Iran is inherently anti-American. Not quite. 4. Enrichment equals a nuclear bomb. Not necessarily. 5. Iran seeks Israel's destruction. False. 6. The pressure on Iran is working. Questionable. 7. Stability in the Middle East can be achieved only through Iran's isolation. Quite the contrary. Iran poses a complicated challenge to America, but not an irresolvable one. Despite the tremendous distrust between the two countries, history shows that negotiations can work. In 2001 Tehran and Washington worked closely together to defeat the Taliban and install a new government in Afghanistan. Without Iranian help, the new Constitution of Afghanistan would not have been achieved, according to U.S. diplomats involved in the effort.
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POPSAmerica's Armageddonites Push for More War Continuation: These end-timers have great influence over the U.S. government's foreign policy. They are thick with the Republican leadership. At a recent conference in Washington, congressional leader Roy Blunt, for example, has said that their work is "part of God's plan." At the same meeting, where speakers promoted attacking Iran, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay glorified "end times." Indeed the Bush administration often consults with them on Mideast policies. The organizer of the conference, Rev. John Hagee, is often welcomed at the White House, although his ratings are among the lowest on integrity and transparency by Ministry Watch, which rates religious broadcasters. He raises millions of dollars from his campaign supporting Israeli settlements on the West Bank, including much for himself.
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POPSErnest Partridge: TO: The Free World – FROM: The American People – RE: HELP! Continuation: If we the people of the United States are to take back our government, we will need all the help that we can get. And this might include help from abroad. Most emphatically, I don’t mean military help. God forbid! If a foreign army approaches our shores, like the Iraqi “insurgents” I will ally myself with our hated regime to throw off the invaders. Military intervention invites slaughter, and must be avoided at all costs. Four years ago, millions filled the streets throughout the world to protest the pending Iraq war. And time and again we hear from abroad, “we don’t hate Americans, we hate your government.” This international sentiment must be directed toward governments abroad so that they might, in turn, act in defiance of the American government and in support of the disenfranchised American public. That’s how we treated the so-called “captive peoples” behind the “iron curtain” during the Cold War. It worked then, and it can work again.
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POPSBush's Response to 9/11 Was Deadlier Than the Attacks Themselves * Did Islamic religious extremism cause 9/11? * Why did American military preeminence breed delusions of omnipotence ? * How was the war lost ? * How did a tiny group of individuals, with eccentric theories and reflexes, recklessly compound the country's post-9/11 security nightmare? * What roles did Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld play in the Bush administration ? * Why did the U.S. decide to search for a new enemy after the Cold War, as argued by an old cold warrior, Samuel Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster, 1996)? * What role did left-wing ideology play in legitimating the war on terror ? * How did pro-war liberals help stifle national debate on the wisdom of the Iraq war ? * Why is the contemporary American antiwar movement so anemic ?
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POPSDon't Let Oil Drills Ruin One of Alaska's Treasures I am strongly opposed to oil and gas drilling in Teshekpuk Lake area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). One of the most important wetlands in the Arctic, the Teshekpuk Lake region provides habitat for a million birds, including threatened species like the Spectacled Eider, as well as the 45,000-member Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd. The draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could lead to the opening of this ecologically important wetland habitat to lease sales. The region's Native residents have expressed strong opposition to the plan. I ask you to not open the Teshekpuk Lake area to drilling for oil and gas. I also ask that the BLM protect the full range of the area's values, from subsistence to recreation to the health of fish and wildlife populations. Such a decision is the only appropriate one for this globally important wetland habitat. Thank you for your consideration.
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