"...an established practice in the US..."

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060313/asp/nation/story_5962372.asp

Pakistan weekly spills 9/11 beans

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, March 12: The Pakistan foreign office had paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobbyists in the US to get anti-Pakistan references dropped from the 9/11 inquiry commission report, The Friday Times has claimed.

The Pakistani weekly said its story is based on disclosures made by foreign service officials to the Public Accounts Committee at a secret meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday.

It claimed that some of the commission members were also bribed to prevent them from including damaging information about Pakistan.

The magazine said the PAC grilled officials in the presence of foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan and special secretary Sher Afghan on the money paid to lobbyists.

“The disclosure sheds doubt on the integrity and honesty of the members of the 9/11 inquiry commission and, above all, the authenticity of the information in their final report,” it said.

The report quoted an officer as saying that dramatic changes were made in the final draft of the inquiry commission after the lobbyists got to work. The panel was formed to probe the September 11 terror attack and make suggestions to fight terrorism.

After the commission tipped the lobbyists about the damaging revelations on Pakistan’s role in 9/11, they contacted the panel members and asked them to go soft on the country. The Friday Times claimed that a lot of money was used to silence these members.

According to the report, the lobbyists also helped Pakistan win the sympathy of 75 US Congressmen as part of its strategy to guard Islamabad’s interests in Washington. “US softened towards Pakistan only because of the efforts of the foreign office,” an official was quoted as saying in the report.

The Pakistan foreign office defended the decision to hire the lobbyists, saying it was an established practice in the US.

An observer at the Islamabad meeting said money could play an important role in buying powerful people. The remark came in response to comments made by some US officials after 9/11 that “Pakistanis will sell their mothers for a dollar”.

Pakistan had emerged as front-runner in the fight against terrorism unleashed by the US after the terror strikes. Washington pumped in billions of dollars to win President Pervez Musharraf’s support in launching a crackdown on al Qaida network thriving on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.


Further perspective can be gained from the CounterPunch.org article posted here on 3/11:

EX-STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY OFFICER CHARGES PRE-9/11 COVER-UP


ALSO SEE:


LOBBYIST PAID BY PAKISTAN LED U.S. DELEGATION THERE

PLUS...

FLASH VIDEO: 'DO THE MATH'

AND...

PAKISTAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS: A CHRONOLOGY

WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

http://waynemadsenreport.com/

March 12, 2006 -- Slobodon Milosevic, Serbia's former President, was found dead in his cell in The Hague in the Netherlands. Immediately, the world's corporate media described Milosevic as the "Butcher of the Balkans," even though he had not yet been convicted of any crimes. In fact, Russia had been putting pressure on the UN tribunal to allow Milosevic to travel to Moscow for medical treatment. Milosevic then complained to his attorney that he was worried about being poisoned. The Netherlands, which is governed by a neo-con government aligned with the Bush administration, said its Forensics Institute, part of the Justice Ministry, would carry out an autopsy but independent observers point out that the Dutch immediately stated that Milosevic's death was "probably from natural causes," indicating a predisposition to steer the media away from death by foul play scenario.



Milosevic: knew more than enough to be dangerous to neocons, Republican and Democratic.
With Russia applying pressure for Milosevic's transfer to Moscow, the "other neocons," those in the Clinton administration who supported overt and covert funneling of weapons and funds to anti-Yugoslav forces (MPRI's training contract with Croatian ethnic cleansers and the Richard Perle/Douglas Feith funding, through the Feith&Zell/Riggs Bank Bosnian Defense Fund, of Bosnian regular and irregular forces, including Iranian Pasdarans Revolutionary Guard and Al Qaeda forces, had plenty to be worried about. Milosevic and his intelligence services had collected evidence pointing to the involvement of Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Wesley Clark, Perle, Feith, and others in the political, military, and financial backing of Muslim units in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo associated with Osama Bin Laden and Albanian heroin smugglers tied to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

On March 7, 2002, Milosevic charged that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda helped the Kosovo Liberation Army attack the Balkans. This is from his cross-examination of Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla leader Sabit Kadriu:

CROSS EXAMINATION OF SABIT KADRIU

Pres. Milosevic: You said you heard about the KLA in 1991.

Sabit Kadriu: I read in newspapers that something happened connected with that.

Pres. Milosevic: You were involved in public activities as you say since the beginning of the 1990s. Do you know about the activity of the organization of Osama bin laden in Kosovo & Metohija?

Sabit Kadriu: I heard about bin Laden this year but never before. Only when the crime was committed against American people.

Richard May [ICTY's British chief judge and Laborite who died in July 2004]: Enough about that. Mr. Milosevic.

Pres. Milosevic: Do you know about the Mujahideen and their atrocities in Kosovo & Metohija?

Sabit Kadriu: That is not true that there were Mujahideen in Kosovo. You have invented that. That is the fruit of your imagination.

Pres. Milosevic: Well, just say 'it's not correct' or 'I don't know.' You are spending time. I will read you a passage and you will tell me if that is correct or not. Al Qaeda (Reads) "functions through some of the terrorist organizations that operate under its umbrella or with its support, including..." I'm going to skip over this next bit, "Albania," etc. Do you consider that to be correct? (1)

Sabit Kadriu: That is not right, and that is the fruit of your imagination.

Pres. Milosevic: [Holds the document in the air. It includes an FBI insignia.] Well, this is the congressional statement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

DOCUMENT ONE:

Congressional Testimony December 18, 2001, Tuesday

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND TERRORISM

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, UNITED STATES SENATE

"GLOBAL REACH OF AL-QAEDA "

TESTIMONY-BY: J.T. CARUSO, ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

AFFILIATION: COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

STATEMENT OF J. T. CARUSO ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is J.T. Caruso and I am the Acting Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division. I am pleased to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss Al Qaeda International.

From its inception until approximately 1991, the group was headquartered in Afghanistan and Peshawar, Pakistan. Then in 1991, the group relocated to the Sudan where it was headquartered until approximately 1996, when Bin Laden, Mohammed Atef and other members of Al-Qaeda returned to Afghanistan. During the years Al- Qaeda was headquartered in Sudan the network continued to maintain offices in various parts of the world and established businesses which were operated to provide income and cover to Al- Qaeda operatives.

AL-OAEDA TIES TO OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

Although Al-Qaeda functions independently of other terrorist organizations, it also functions through some of the terrorist organizations that operate under its umbrella or with its support, including: [I';m going to skip over this next bit] the Al-Jihad, the Al-Gamma Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group - led by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and later by Ahmed Refai Taha, a/k/a "Abu Yasser al Masri, "), Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and a number of jihad groups in other countries, including the Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, the Kashmiri region of India, and the Chechen region of Russia. Al-Qaeda also maintained cells and personnel in a number of countries to facilitate its activities, including in Kenya, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. By banding together, Al-Qaeda proposed to work together against the perceived common enemies in the West - particularly the United States which Al-Qaeda regards as an "infidel" state which provides essential support for other "infidel" governments. Al-Qaeda responded to the presence of United States armed forces in the Gulf and the arrest, conviction and imprisonment in the United States of persons belonging to Al-Qaeda by issuing fatwahs indicating that attacks against U.S. interests, domestic and foreign, civilian and military, were both proper and necessary. Those fatwahs resulted in attacks against U.S. nationals in locations around the world including Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, and now in the United States. Since 1993, thousands of people have died in those attacks.

Richard May: What is the date of it?

Pres. Milosevic: December 18, last year. After September 11th.

Richard May: Very well. You can put that into evidence in due course. Meanwhile the witness says he knows nothing of it.

Pres. Milosevic: I am asking the witness, is the paragraph I read correct and he said it was not correct and it was a lie and the fruit of my imagination. And now I am going to ask you [the witness] is the following correct? [Reads] "All Qaeda supports Islamic fighters in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Chechnya and in Kosovo". Is that correct.

Sabit Kadriu: I know nothing about that. I'm not here to talk about Bosnia or Afghanistan. I'm here to talk about Kosovo. There are no Mujahideen in Kosovo and that is the truth.

Pres. Milosevic: But I have asked you what do you know about their activities, not whether they are there since that is indisputable. So you want to say that you know nothing about their activity.

Richard May: No, he says there are no Mujahideen in Kosovo. That's what he says.

Pres. Milosevic: All right but he doesn't need so much assistance. Obviously Al Qaeda fighters have been identified in Kosovo, Bosnia and Albania and is that correct or not according to your knowledge?

MSNBC Webpage entitled, WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN

Here is the relevant text, part of which was quoted by Slobodan Milosevic:

Where does al-Qaida operate?

Al-Qaida is believed to have operations in 60 countries, active cells in 20, including the United States. It is also believed to operate training centers in both Afghanistan and Sudan, the first beginning operations in 1994 with representatives from Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Palestinian extremist groups. Among the countries or regions identified as having active cells of al-Qaida are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Philippines, Egypt, Tunisia.

Sabit Kadriu: I've already said I know nothing about other countries and when you speak about Kosovo I can say that there are no Mujahideen there.

Pres. Milosevic: That last passage I have quoted is from MSNBC and it says, "Sources: Congressional Research Service, Frontline." [Editor's note: Frontline is a US Television program on current issues.]


ALSO SEE:


http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/120306Milosevic.htm

Milosevic feared he was being poisoned: lawyer

Reuters | March 12 2006

Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic feared he was being poisoned in his detention cell in The Hague, his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said on Saturday hours after the tribunal announced Milosevic's death.

"Today, I have filed an official request to the tribunal to have the autopsy carried out in Moscow, having in mind his claims yesterday that he was being poisoned in the jail," Tomanovic told reporters in The Hague.

Acting on a request from Milosevic, Tomanovic said he had made a request for protection for his client to the Russian embassy in The Netherlands and to the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.

"I demanded protection for Slobodan Milosevic over his claims that he was being poisoned. I still haven't received any reply and that's all I have to say at this time," the lawyer said.

Milosevic conducted his own defense at the war crimes trial. Tomanovic acted as his legal representative in other matters as well as helping him prepare his defense.


Additional Supporting Links:

Milosevic said doctors were killing him

Milosevic was murdered


MORE:


http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill03132006.html

March 13, 2006

Rest Easy, Bill Clinton

Slobo Can't Talk Any More

By JEREMY SCAHILL

Slobodan Milosevic is characterized in the obituaries as the "Butcher of the Balkans." If that is the story you want to read about, please go to almost any other media outlet and read it again and again. Some are now suggesting that death is Milosevic's final revenge, that he "ended up cheating history" by dying before judgment was passed. But the world has already passed judgment on Milosevic and what is being cheated by his death is history itself.

What the corporate media overwhelmingly ignores in Milosevic's death is what they ignored in his life as well--his intimate knowledge of US war crimes in Yugoslavia. While Milosevic was undoubtedly a war criminal who deserved to be tried for his crimes, he was also the only man in the unique position of being able to expose and detail the full extent of the US role in the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In fact, that is precisely what he was fighting to do at his war crimes trial when he died.

Because of the rule of victors' justice in the ad hoc tribunal system (a poor and unfair substitute for a true international court), Milosevic's case would have been the only international trial to potentially expose the details of the illegal, US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999. While the US-backed court consistently tried to limit Milosevic's right to speak, stripping him of his right to self-representation, Milosevic battled regularly to raise US war crimes. Sadly, with Milosevic will likely die the last hope the victims of these crimes in Yugoslavia had of getting their day (if it could even be called that) in court--a tragic and unjust reality to begin with--that speaks volumes about the twisted state of international justice.

Milosevic's cause, regardless of what one thinks of it, was a casualty of 9/11--an event that relegated him and his trial to the annals of history before it was even over. Most people in the world--with the exception of those in the Balkans where the proceedings were broadcast live, daily--probably didn't even know Milosevic was still on trial in the Hague. It became an obscure sideshow to the blood and gore unfolding constantly on the international stage.

Milosevic's death means that those who bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days beginning 7 years ago this month, killing thousands, will be, once and for all protected from any public scrutiny for their crimes. However opportunistic Milosevic may have been, he would have been one of the few people to appear at the Hague that could have--and would have--laid out these crimes in great detail. Now, there is almost certain to be no condemnation of the US bombing of Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, the cluster bombing of the Nis marketplace, shredding human beings into meat, the use of depleted uranium munitions and the targeting of petrochemical plants causing toxic and chemical waste to pour into the Danube River. There will be no condemnation of the bombing of Albanian refugees by the US or the deliberate targeting of a civilian passenger train or the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Milosevic also would have discussed how the US supports a regime in Kosovo that has systematically expelled Serbs, Romas and other ethnic minorities from their homes and burnt down scores of churches. He would have discussed the role of the US in funding and arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, which operates like a death squad and how the new prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, is a US-trained war criminal who gained infamy in both the Bosnian war and the 1999 Kosovo conflict. And Milosevic would have talked of the US interference in the Yugoslav elections in 2000 and the ultimate neoliberal takeover that was the aim of Clinton's sanctions and 78 days of bombing. In reality, it would have fallen on deaf ears, but it would have been stated for the record.

It is ironic that Milosevic's last legal battle was an attempt to compel his old friend turned nemesis Bill Clinton to testify at his trial. If successful, Milosevic would have grilled the man who was US president through the entire Yugoslav war in what would have been a fiery direct examination. Clinton and Milosevic were once pals who talked collective strategy in the 1990s. Milosevic had many damning stories to tell and, without a doubt, uncomfortable questions to ask Clinton. The judges in Milosevic's case clearly worked to keep those moments from ever happening and the US government made clear its forceful opposition to such subpoenas of US officials, even considering invading a country that would put a US official on trial. With or without Clinton, Milosevic's defense would have brought to light some serious documentation of US war crimes and he died, muzzled, before he really got started.

Little attention, therefore, has been paid to Milosevic's long-term efforts--which predated 9/11, the 1999 NATO bombing and his own trial--to expose the presence of al Qaeda in the Balkans--from Bosnia to Kosovo. With 9/11, Milosevic's talk of al Qaeda was easily dismissed as laughable, pathetic opportunism. But those who followed Milosevic's career and more importantly the events of the 1990s in Yugoslavia know it was none of those. Those allegations were based on true events the US does not want discussed in an international court. Following the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, many Mujahadeen eventually turned their sights on Yugoslavia where they went to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Once again, the US and bin Laden were on the same team. To this day there are reports of training camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. It is also a likely training ground for future blowback.

In his opening statement, Milosevic alluded to some of the information he would introduce during his defense. "In 1998 when [Clinton envoy Richard] Holbrooke visited us in Belgrade, we told him the information we had at our disposal, that in Northern Albania the KLA is being aided by Osama bin Laden, that he was arming, training, and preparing the members of this terrorist organisation in Albania. However, they decided to cooperate with the KLA and indirectly, therefore, with bin Laden, although before that he had bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania [and] had already declared war." Milosevic concluded that "one day all this will have to come to light, these links."

That, however, is unlikely and more so now that Milosevic is dead.

To be sure, there will never be indictments of these US war criminals at the Hague: Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Jamie Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke and Wesley Clark. For many of Serbia's victims of US war crimes, Milosevic's trial was a "Hail Mary" pass, as awful of an historical irony as that is, aimed at someone recognizing their forgotten suffering.

It is a sad testimony to the state of international jurisprudence that after many attempts to find justice, the only hope for US victims in the Yugoslavia wars was the trial defense of a man many of those same victims despised. If there was an independent international court that was recognized and respected by the US, those responsible for bombing Yugoslavia would have been alongside Slobodan Milosevic in the docks these past years instead of having their responsibility being buried with him.

Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist who spent extensive time reporting from Yugoslavia, including covering the 1999 US-led NATO bombing from the ground. The night Milosevic was arrested in Belgrade, Scahill was beaten by the former president's supporters outside Milosevic's residence. He has also reported from Milosevic's trial in the Hague. Scahill is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He can be reached at jeremy@democracynow.org

AND...

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=8690

Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq?

by Paul Craig Roberts

On March 11, the former Serbian leader and president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, died in his prison cell at The Hague, where he had been on trial for four years and one month for war crimes and genocide. The Serbian Socialist Party leader Zoran Andjelkovic responded to the news of Milosevic's death with the following statement:

"Slobodan Milosevic, the president of the Socialist Party of Serbia and a former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, was murdered today at the Tribunal in Hague. The decision of the Tribunal to disallow Milosevic's medical treatment at the Bakunin Institute in Moscow represents a prescribed death sentence against Milosevic. Truth and justice were on his side and this is why they have used a strategy of gradual killing of Slobodan Milosevic. The responsibility for his death is clearly with the Hague Tribunal."

A partisan accusation or the truth? Milosevic was known to be seriously ill. The Russian government promised to return Milosevic to the Tribunal after treatment. The Tribunal refused. It is easy to conclude that the case against Milosevic had collapsed and that an embarrassed U.S. government, NATO authorities, and Hague Tribunal decided to let him die in his cell rather than admit that his guilt could not be proven even after a trial lasting four years and one month.

Milosevic was caught up in the post-Soviet era breakup of Yugoslavia. Nationalist forces broke up the Yugoslav federation. During 1991-92, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina seceded from Yugoslavia. Large Serbian minorities in Croatia and in Bosnia objected and claimed the identical right of self-determination to remain in the federation as Croats and Muslims claimed to leave it. Croatian and Bosnian Serbs organized and a war against secession began.

Milosevic could hardly remain a Serbian leader and not support the Serbs. Abraham Lincoln was canonized for invading the South to prevent its secession, but Milosevic was damned for trying to protect Yugoslavia's territorial integrity. In the end, Milosevic accepted secession. In 1995, Milosevic negotiated the Dayton Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia. According to Wikipedia, "Milosevic was credited in the West with being one of the pillars of Balkan peace."

In 1998, Milosevic was confronted with a more severe problem. Armed actions by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State, in the ancient Serbian province of Kosovo broke out into warfare. Milosevic was now trying to hold on to a province not of Yugoslavia but of Serbia itself, a province that had been colonized by ethnic Albanians. The Serbian population in Kosovo was outnumbered nine to one and suffered greatly at the hands of the KLA.

Milosevic, already damaged by the wars of secession that destroyed Yugoslavia, lost the media campaign waged by public relations firms hired by contending factions that spun the news that Americans received. Milosevic was demonized, and the Clinton administration had Serbia bombed by NATO forces for 78 days in the spring of 1999. Many Serbian civilians were killed by the air strikes, which hit passenger trains and destroyed the Chinese embassy. In effect, the U.S. interfered in Serbian affairs in behalf of the secession, with the result that Kosovo has been essentially ethnically cleansed of Serbs. Kosovo is apparently still considered to be a part of Serbia, but it is administered by the United Nations. Somehow, this has been presented as a great moral victory for humanity.

If the massive propaganda campaign against Milosevic had many facts behind it, he long ago would have been convicted at The Hague. What was the episode all about?

In my opinion, it was to establish the precedent, later to be employed in the Middle East, that the U.S. government could demonize a head of state geographically distant from any legitimate "sphere of influence" and use military force to remove him. This is precisely the fate of Saddam Hussein, and the Bush regime still hopes to repeat the strategy in Iran and Syria.

The unanswered question is, why does the "international community" go along with it? The numerous civilians killed by U.S. interventions are just as dead as the ones killed by heads of state attempting to hold on to their countries. Why are the latter deaths war crimes but not the former?

As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush criticized President Clinton's intervention in Serbia and disavowed the international policeman role for the U.S. But as soon as Bush got in office, he plotted to invade Iraq. Why?

Americans should be very concerned that Bush still has not come clean about why he invaded Iraq. Americans should be disturbed that despite the disastrous results in Iraq, Bush still intends "regime change" in Iran and Syria.

"...There comes a tipping point, however, when the opposition of the establishment, the public opinion of the citizenry, the disgust of the soldiers--their spreading casualties, diseases and mental traumas - and the corruption of the large corporate contractors to whom much of the military's functions have been outsourced, all congeal and overcome the cowardliness of most members of Congress..."

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader03112006.html

Weekend Edition
March 11 / 12, 2006

Bush at the Tipping Point

A Lawless and Incompetent Leadership

By RALPH NADER

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, two top outlaws smashing our country's rule of law and democratic liberties, are testing the American people's resistance. Every day they are testing. Every day they think by flaunting the words, "war on terror", they can get Americans to concede more and more of what makes the United States a constitutionally-abiding government under the rule of law.

You know what? With not enough exceptions, they are right. Day by day, we're giving up what our forefathers fought to bequeath us since that famous Declaration of Independence of 1776. They were determined that people in this country would not be arrested without charges and jailed indefinitely, that they would not be tortured, or sent to be tortured in dictatorial regimes, or deprived of habeas corpus to take their incarceration to our courts of law, or be snooped on at the whim of the President and his deputies or that people in faraway lands would be destroyed in the tens of thousands due to a fabricated war-invasion-quagmire.

They instituted a constitution so that people would not be jailed without "probable cause", or be lied to about taking this country and its soldiers to war, or have shoved aside the checks and balances represented by American courts and the Congress. All these are being done by two pro-Vietnam war draft dodgers!

What does all this tell you about all of us out there in the great United States of America? A giant yawn of "who cares" by citizens, nearly two-thirds of whom now have turned against these two White House fabricators in poll after poll regarding the war, the surrender to Big Business, the gross incompetence in managing taxpayer dollars and the Katrina disaster.

But listen, the rumble of resistance and opposition is getting louder and not just from the increasing number of public demonstrations around the country.

A new Zogby poll reports that 72% of American soldiers serving in Iraq think the U.S. should get out within the next year, including 58% of the Marines! Three-quarters of National Guard and Reserve units support withdrawal within 6 months. Every month, more former high-ranking military officers, intelligence officials and diplomats are declaring their opposition to the war.

For a few examples of many: Retired four-star General, Joseph P. Hoar, who commanded the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf after the 1991 war, described the Iraq war as "wrong from the beginning". Similar tough criticism has come from John Deutch, former head of the CIA, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter and Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to the first President Bush.

Retired General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency and security adviser to Ronald Reagan, wrote that the Iraq war "is serving the interests of Osama bin Laden, the Iranians, and is fomenting civil war in Iraq." He describes the Iraq war as "the most strategic foreign policy disaster in U.S. history."

More recently, internal memos of criticism or dissent, Inspector General reports from Defense the Justice Department, and former highly-positioned staff within the Bush Administration, like Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell, are taking apart the public relations sheen concocted by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triad.

Now comes the conservative American Bar Association--400,000 lawyers--whose House of Delegates has overwhelmingly approved a task force report accusing President Bush, in polite legal language, of violating both the Constitution and federal law. ABA President Michael S. Greco sent it to Mr. Bush with a cover letter dated February 13, 2006 (see www.abanet.org/op/domsurv for the full report).

The mass media, which has finally produced many exposes of the Bush war, ignored the significance of this condemnation by the nation's largest body of lawyers, written in part by attorneys who have served in the FBI, CIA and NSA. It should have been page one news.

There comes a tipping point, however, when the opposition of the establishment, the public opinion of the citizenry, the disgust of the soldiers--their spreading casualties, diseases and mental traumas - and the corruption of the large corporate contractors to whom much of the military's functions have been outsourced, all congeal and overcome the cowardliness of most members of Congress. Then a surge of Congressional followers and allies of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), war veteran and leading voice against the Bush Iraq policies, will come to the forefront.

The illegal, disastrous (to both Iraqis and Americans) Iraq war is now almost three years of quagmire old. The chaos and bloodshed are worsening.

It is time to make the spring of 2006 the tipping point period for constitutionalism, justice and a sane foreign and national security policy. More yawns must turn into growls from outside Washington, DC. See www.DemocracyRising.US for more information.

ALSO SEE:

"If we stand by and do nothing, we would be complicit in the immoral and illegal activities of the administration. If you do nothing, you are acting illegally and immorally yourself."

Dan DeWalt
Vermont

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0311-05.htm

Published on Saturday, March 11, 2006 by the Toronto Star

Bid to Give Bush the Boot

Residents of a tiny Vermont town have joined forces in a growing fight to impeach the U.S. president But with plunging approval and a slew of scandals, an ouster attempt may be the least of his worries

by Tim Harper

WASHINGTON—When the townsfolk gathered in the tiny Vermont community of Newfane for their annual meeting, the agenda was daunting.

There was the town budget to be approved, then the school budget, plus they needed to approve spending $50,000 on the town's property reappraisal.

And, oh yeah. Move to impeach the president of the United States.

And so, at the end of a five-hour meeting, the assembled were asked to consider:

"Whereas George W. Bush has:

"1. Misled the nation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction;

"2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda;

"3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;

"4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and

"5. Directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law;

"Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office."

All in favour?: 129. All opposed?: 21. Meeting adjourned.

For a president on the run, cratering at record-low approval ratings, losing battles with Republicans who are beginning to consider him toxic, seemingly having lost his political stride like an aging slugger who can't catch up to the fastball, impeachment is likely the least of his worries.

More worrisome for Bush is the perception he is so insulated during this second term that he has lost touch with the concerns of the nation, that he is still surrounded by the same top aides in notorious "burnout'' positions who came to power with him five years ago, that the "trust me" president has squandered that trust.

But as a barometer of discontent with the second-term Bush presidency in a mid-term election year, the fact that impeachment has moved from angry bumper stickers to dinner party discussion is telling.

Democrats in Congress, probably quite wisely, won't touch the question.

Michigan's John Conyers introduced a resolution last December requesting an impeachment inquiry to deal with Bush's "manipulation" of pre-war intelligence, but only 26 of 201 House Democrats backed him.

But that hasn't stopped others.

ImpeachPAC.org has endorsed and raised funds for three Democrats who vow to push for impeachment if elected in November's mid-terms.

The organization, led by Democrat Bob Fertik is an offshoot of AfterDowningStreet.org, founded by David Swanson, a former reporter and press secretary who tried to mobilize opposition to Bush after the release of internal memos from the Tony Blair government indicated the White House was intent on crafting the conditions for an invasion of Iraq.

Newfane is one of nine U.S. communities, all in Vermont and California, to pass impeachment resolutions, the largest of which was San Francisco where city supervisors voted 7-3 for impeachment, saying Bush has destroyed civil liberties in his wiretapping program, and failed miserably in his response to Hurricane Katrina.

Lewis Lapham, the outgoing editor of Harper's magazine and one of the country's most outspoken Bush critics, makes the case for impeachment in the March issue of his magazine.

It includes this indictment:

"We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instil in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil; a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies.

"In a word, a criminal — known to be armed and shown to be dangerous."

Dan DeWalt, the 49-year-old Vermont woodworking teacher, furniture restorer and musician who introduced the Newfane resolution, says he wants to make impeachment a household word.

"We can't take up arms against our government, so we do what we can," he said.

"If we stand by and do nothing, we would be complicit in the immoral and illegal activities of the administration. If you do nothing, you are acting illegally and immorally yourself."

The litany of high crimes and misdemeanours in this grim era for Bush are well known.

It started shortly after his re-election, at a time when he was crowing about his "political capital" and there was talk of a conservative dynasty in the U.S. But when he spent much of that capital on an overhaul of Social Security, he found it couldn't be sold, even within his own party.

Then came the CIA leak investigation, a probe that clearly distracted the White House, ending with the indictment of Lewis "Scooter'' Libby, a top aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

It was during this period that it became clear the political radar on Pennsylvania Ave. was down.

His nomination of White House legal counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court foundered against opposition from the right and ultimately had to be withdrawn.

His laggardly response to last year's Hurricane Katrina became a case study of an administration asleep at the switch, bolstered by the recent release of video showing a seemingly disinterested Bush being briefed on the looming catastrophe.

Since December, when it was revealed in The New York Times, Bush has been fighting to justify a wiretapping program that has been denounced as illegal.

There was the tragicomedy shooting of a hunting pal by Cheney, a gun mishap that turned into a week-long crisis for the White House.

That was quickly followed by the Dubai ports controversy. Whether the deal should have been killed may be open to debate, but again the political skills of this White House were tucked away and the ensuing groundswell of opposition to turning port management over to a company from the United Arab Emirates left Bush belatedly sputtering about using his veto to keep the deal alive.

By week's end, he was in full retreat, having been stared down by a Republican congressional delegation which outflanked him on his vaunted strong suit, national security.

"They didn't see it coming," said New York Republican Representative Peter King who led opposition to the deal.

He told reporters in New York Bush administration officials have "got to get their antenna up much more on issues and bring the issues up in Congress. They need to realize we're now entering into a complex state of a post-9/11 world."

Against all this, is a war in Iraq nearing its third anniversary with an AP-Ipsos poll released yesterday indicating 80 per cent of Americans — including 70 per cent of Republicans — believe Iraq is heading to civil war.

Comic Bill Maher jokes the U.S. is suffering from "f-up fatigue" at the top.

They call it the six-year itch, the second-term cloud that seems to inevitably envelop any president who doesn't need to be elected.

Second-term presidents have dealt with sex scandals (Bill Clinton), out-of-control wars (Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman), arms scandals (Ronald Reagan) and political scandals (Richard Nixon).

But only Nixon has had approval ratings as low as Bush's 38 per cent average on a series of polls released last week.

The mystery in Washington is why Bush will not inject some new blood into his inner circle.

Chief of staff Andrew Card and deputy chief of staff and political strategist Karl Rove have been with him since day one.

"You can lose your political instincts, you become less sensitive to the political cross-currents,'' says presidential historian Robert Dallek.

"When you are falling on your face, faltering, stumbling around, it becomes all the more important to move the deck chairs around and bring in some fresh perspective and some fresh hope, plus a little renewed confidence for the country."

Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, says Bush has faced some big "screw-ups" that have cost him.

"The question on the street, from people who are not necessarily political, is whether the president is competent," he says. "Presidents get tired and I think Bush is tired."

© 2006 Toronto Star

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12261.htm

Logic out the window at the White House

By Gwynne Dyer

03/09/06 "Cyprus Mail"- The biggest pitfall in predicting the behavior of radical groups like the inner circle of the Bush administration is that you keep telling yourself that they would never actually do whatever it is they’re talking about. Surely they must realize that acting like that would cause a disaster. Then they go right ahead and do it.

“(The Iranians) must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means,” U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a group of visiting British politicians last week. “We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down.” In other words, he was calmly proposing an illegal attack on a sovereign state, possibly involving nuclear weapons.

Bolton knew his words would be leaked, so maybe it was just deliberate posturing to raise the pressure on Iran. But on Sunday, addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, Bolton repeated the threat: “The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve… We must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat…” He may really mean it -- and no one in the White House has told him to shut up.

With the U.S. army already mired in Iraq, the Bush administration lacks the ground strength to invade Iran, a far larger country. The National Security Strategy statement of September 2002 declared a new doctrine of “preemptive” wars in which the U.S. would launch unprovoked attacks against countries that it feared might hurt it in the future, and in January 2003 that doctrine was elaborated into the military strategy of “full spectrum global strike.”

The “full spectrum” referred specifically to the use of nuclear weapons to destroy hardened targets that ordinary weapons cannot reach. Earth-penetrating “mini-nukes” were an integral part of Conplan 8022-02, a presidential directive signed by Bush at the same time that covered attacks on countries allegedly posing an “imminent” nuclear threat in which no American ground troops would be used. Indeed, the responsibility for carrying out Conplan 8022 was given to Strategic Command (Stratcom) in Omaha, a military command that had previously dealt only with nuclear weapons.

Last May, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued an “Interim Global Strike Alert Order” putting Stratcom on high military readiness 24 hours a day. Logic says there is no “imminent” danger of Iranian nuclear weapons: last year’s U.S. National Intelligence Estimate put the time needed for Iran to develop such weapons at ten years. But experience says that this administration can talk itself into a “preemptive” attack on a country that really does not pose any threat at all.

So what happens if they talk themselves into unleashing Conplan 8022 on Iran? Thousands of people would die, of course, and the surviving 70 million Iranians would be very cross, but how could they strike back at the United States? Iran has no nuclear weapons, no weapons of any sort that could reach America. Given the huge American technological lead, it can’t even do much damage to U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region. But it does have two powerful weapons: its Shia faith, and oil.

Iran is currently playing a long game in Iraq, encouraging the Shia religious parties to cooperate with the American political project so that a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad will turn Iraq into a reliable ally of Iran once the Americans go home. But if Tehran encouraged the Shia militias to attack American troops in Iraq, U.S. casualties would soar. The whole American position there could become untenable in months.

Iran would probably not try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the choke-point through which most of the Persian Gulf’s oil exports pass, for U.S. forces could easily dominate or even seize the sparsely populated Iranian coast on the north side. But it would certainly halt its own oil exports, currently close to 4 million barrels a day, and in today’s tight oil market that would likely drive the oil price up to $130-$150 a barrel. Moreover, Tehran could keep the exports turned off for months, since recent oil prices, already high by historical standards, have enabled it to build up a large cash reserve. (Iran earned $45 billion from oil exports last year, twice the average in 2001-03.)

So a “preemptive” American attack on Iran would ignite a general insurrection against the American presence in Shia-dominated areas of Iraq and trigger a global economic crisis. The use of nuclear weapons would cross a firebreak that the world has maintained ever since 1945, and convince most other great powers that the United States is a rogue state that must be contained. All this to deal with a threat that is no more real or “imminent” than the one posed by Iraq in 2003.

No American policy-maker in his right mind would contemplate unleashing such a disaster for so little reason. Unfortunately, that does not guarantee that it won’t happen.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

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