Editorial from:  

Dick Cheney is not a public relations man for the Bush administration, not a spinmeister nor a political operative. He's the Vice President of the United States, and when he speaks in public, which he rarely does, he owes the American public the truth.

In his appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, Cheney fell woefully short of truth. On the subject of Iraq, the same can be said for President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But Cheney is the latest example of administration mendacity, and therefore a good place to start in holding the administration accountable...

By: Molly Ivins  

If you will recall just three short years ago, this country was a going operation. Eight years of peace, prosperity, and the busy, busy Republican scandal machine trying to convince us it was all an illusion.

Since then, we've started two wars, still don't have Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein and have spent millions on people who make us take off our shoes at the airport, and we are still as vulnerable to terrorist attack as ever. The Republican response on that is their favorite ploy: "Blame Bill Clinton", but the record shows that the Clinton administration was a lot more active in going after Al Qaeda than the Bush administration before Sept. 11.

Perhaps you have noticed, the only terrorists we have actually rounded up have all been caught through police operations, often with the cooperation of the Pakistanis, the French, the Spanish, even the Saudis, sometimes. Bombing two countries doesn't seem to have done anything to Al Qaeda except reinforce and reinvigorate it. A connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda at last! They moved in after we got rid of Saddam Hussein.

"Bush continues to lie about the reasons for staying in Iraq. He's trapped in this big lie and he sees 'staying the course' as his only option. He will sacrifice anyone and anything to save himself. It would take a big man to admit that he was wrong, but the diminutive Bush has shown no capacity for that kind of courage in his life."

- Bud McClure, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota in Duluth

By: Craig Roberts  

It seems to me the only people for whom Schwarzenegger is a true voice is that group of people we call idiots. Schwarzenegger can legitimately be seen as the voice of a people who don't take their responsibilities as citizens or the fiscal plight of California seriously. A people who don't distinguish between real heroes and movie heroes. Who demand politics be entertaining before they are willing to participate. A pathetically infantile and ignorant people, wholly undeserving of the glorious political traditions and institutions they have inherited.

Certainly Schwarzenegger doesn't claim to speak for an informed and responsible people. The public for whom he speaks "doesn't care about figures" and doesn't require him to provide any specifics on how he will address the state's fiscal crisis. Arnold is promising the people everything short of free ice cream, and he promises to fulfill all his promises without raising taxes. You would never think he was running for governor of a state which is so financially strapped it would need Alabama to cosign if it applied for a car loan.

By: Araminta Wordsworth  

The U.N.'s senior weapons inspectors now say they believe Saddam Hussein was telling the truth when he claimed he had no weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, the Iraqi nuclear program was in such a shambles it was unlikely to be able to produce atomic weapons any time soon.

The revelations undercut the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was predicated on the country's possession of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

From:  

So the Bush Administration (1) have once again totally misled America over yet another aspect of the invasion of Iraq. But what's $87 billion between friends? Apparently not much, according to Congressional Republicans (2). And Halliburton (3) is loving it, of course. But while there's $87 billion worth of idiocy this week, it's not all Bush. Take the FCC (4) for example, who have got some funny ideas about what constitutes a "news program". Or Ted Nugent (6) who appears to be yet another right-wing deadbeat dad. And then there's Students For Academic Freedom (7) who have a new affirmative action plan - conservative style. Finally, let's not forget the Drug Enforcement Administration (10) who are making our streets safer by locking up stoner comedians.

By: Frank Rich  

Only in America could a guy who struts in an action-hero's Hollywood costume and barks macho lines from a script pass for a plausible political leader. But if George W. Bush can get away with it, why should Arnold Schwarzenegger be pilloried for the same antics?

At least Mr. Schwarzenegger is a show-biz pro. He never would have signed on for a remake of Top Gun without first ensuring that it would have the same happy ending as the original. He never would have allowed himself to look as scared as the abandoned kid in Home Alone while begging the nation for cash and patience last Sunday night. He would have dismissed B-movie dialogue like "dead or alive" and "bring 'em on" with a curt "hasta la vista, baby!".

And while both men have signed on to the same Hollywood fantasy for fixing an economy spiraling into billions of dollars of debt - cut taxes, spend more - the foreign-born Mr. Schwarzenegger comes by his fiscal pipe dreams the old-fashioned American way. He earned his multi-millions himself rather than through sweetheart deals available exclusively to the well-pedigreed.

"Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, 'Something is out of tune'."

- Carl Jung

By: Gary Leupp  

In late August, the number of U.S. troops killed since May 1 reached 138, the same number that had died between the attack begun March 20 and Bush's triumphant declaration that the war was over. This was a depressing statistic (and it of course rises every couple days), but the Washington Post reported an equally depressing one September 6. Two years after 9-11, 69% of Americans surveyed said they believed that it was at least likely that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

I shouldn't be surprised. National Geographic reports that 85% of young Americans (18-24) cannot identify Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel on an unmarked map. 56% cannot find the Indian subcontinent, dangling there so conspicuously into none other than the Indian Ocean. Only 19% can name four countries that acknowledge having nuclear weapons. Fortunately, a whopping 70% can identify the Pacific Ocean, but that's probably just because it's the biggest thing on the planet. These numbers are not just embarrassing but dangerous, because in such a sea of ignorance swim Bush's neocons, buoyed by it, empowered by it to send U.S. troops to their deaths in a war to conquer and occupy a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11. Repeat: nothing to do with 9-11. Repeat: nothing to do with 9-11. Repeat: nothing to do with 9-11. Repeat: nothing to do with 9-11.

By: George Ochenski  

In his Sunday night address to the nation, President Bush told the American people that "we are fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities". What Bush is really doing, of course, is shamelessly exploiting the nation's fear of the September 11 attacks while twisting the reality of who was responsible for those attacks. So far, no evidence has been offered that links Iraq, or Saddam Hussein, to the 9/11 attack. But then again, many of the premises upon which our nation rejected world opinion, degraded the United Nations, insulted long-time allies, and plunged recklessly into war have been unsupported by evidence.

Obviously, we were lied to - not just by the President, who continues to lie to us about what's at stake, but by virtually all the members of his administration about Iraq's weapons, the cost and length of the war, and what would happen after we "liberated" the Iraqis. Now, adding insult to injury and using outmoded Vietnam-era tactics, Rumsfeld says that if we criticize Bush or are recalcitrant in meeting the president's every request for funding, that we are aiding the enemy.

By: Thom Hartmann  

Imagine a bomb that only kills Caucasians with red hair. Or short people. Or Arabs. Or Chinese.

Now imagine that this new bomb could be set off anywhere in the world, and that within a matter of days, weeks, or months it would kill every person on the planet who fits the bomb's profile, although the rest of us would be left standing. And the bomb could go off silently, without anybody realizing it had been released - or even where it was released - until its victims started dying in mass numbers.

Who would imagine such a thing?

Paul Wolfowitz, for one. William Kristol for another.

By: Paul Krugman  

In the first months after 9/11, the administration's ruthless exploitation of the atrocity was a choice, not a necessity. The natural instinct of the nation to rally around its leader in times of crisis had pushed Mr. Bush into the polling stratosphere, and his re-election seemed secure. He could have governed as the uniter he claimed to be, and would probably still be wildly popular.

But Mr. Bush's advisers were greedy; they saw 9/11 as an opportunity to get everything they wanted, from another round of tax cuts, to a major weakening of the Clean Air Act, to an invasion of Iraq. And so they wrapped as much as they could in the flag.

Now it has all gone wrong. The deficit is about to go above half a trillion dollars, the economy is still losing jobs, the triumph in Iraq has turned to dust and ashes, and Mr. Bush's poll numbers are at or below their pre-9/11 levels.

Nor can the members of this administration simply lose like gentlemen. For one thing, that's not how they operate. Furthermore, everything suggests that there are major scandals - involving energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts, and cooked intelligence - that would burst into the light of day if the current management lost its grip on power. So these people must win, at any cost.

By: David Corn  

Television viewers on Sunday night had a choice of two George W. Bushes. They could see him standing tall on a Showtime docudrama on 9/11 (produced by a prominent Hollywood conservative), in which a heroic Bush all but exclaims "damn the torpedoes" before all but parachuting Rambo-like into Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden single-handedly. (Remember bin Laden?) Or they could watch the real thing stiffly read a speech in which he did little than to urge Americans and allies to buck up and stay his course.

Bush is in a fix. He's stuck in his Iraqmire. He did not prepare the country for a long drawn-out endeavor in Iraq, which keeps on claiming the lives of Americans. In fact, before the war, some Bush aides claimed that this would be a no-fuss occupation. Now Bush has little choice but to resort to the usual rah-rah about resolve. He points fingers at the international community and the Iraqis, failing, of course, to acknowledge his own miscalculations. And he's looking a tad desperate. Don't expect a Showtime sequel covering Bush's days as an occupier.

Post-September 11, George Bush began an unwinnable war on multiple fronts against a nebulous enemy. And two years on, a new study shows, the campaign has had little impact on its targets.

By: Brian Whitaker  

From the very beginning, the war on terrorism was ill-conceived. Amid the trauma of September 11, that was understandable and to some extent excusable, but the U.S. has done little or nothing over the last two years to refine its concept and the objectives of the war are even more muddled today than they were in 2001.

The war on terrorism, almost by definition, is infinite and unwinnable. No political leader is ever going to claim "victory" because that would be tempting fate. The best we can hope for is that it will eventually fade to more manageable proportions.

It is also a war against an undefined, nebulous enemy. Mr Bush insists, in the war on terrorism, that we are either for him or against him - and yet there is no international consensus on what the word "terrorism" means.

By: William Bunch  

No event in recent history has been written about, talked about, or watched and rewatched as much as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - two years ago today.

Not only was it the deadliest terrorist strike inside America, but the hijackings and attacks on New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington were also a seminal event for an information-soaked media age of Internet access and 24-hour news.

So, why after 730 days do we know so little about what really happened that day?

By: Michael Ventura  

Since May 1, when Bush made his carrier landing to announce victory (a stunt that cost the taxpayers $1 million), more American soldiers have been killed in Iraq than during the invasion. In addition, according to the Sept. 1 issue of Newsweek, since May 1 more than 1,000 American troops have been wounded. That issue also reports that our troops are attacked on an average of 15 to 20 times a day. We spend more than a billion dollars a week there, roughly $14 billion since May 1. We'll spend another $14 billion through the end of the year. (The White House hasn't yet told Congress what the invasion cost.) And there's no end in sight. U.S. troops in Iraq number 138,000, with 34,000 in neighboring Kuwait, plus 10,000 in Afghanistan. If another trouble spot flares up, experts doubt our capacity to respond. And after four months of intensive search we've found no weapons of mass destruction. Aug. 28, Los Angeles Times: "The weapons hunters have yet to find proof that any chemical or biological agents were produced after 1991." Just as the U.N. said.

We got into this mess because Bush lied about nearly everything, produced no hard evidence about anything, and most Americans chose to believe him anyway.

"Isn't it time we pushed corporate American off the federal dole? Corporate subsidies and handouts have become pervasive in the federal budget."

- from Restoring the Dream, the Bold New Plan (RNC, 1995)

By: Robert Parry  

In a healthy democracy, the grave act of going to war wouldn't be justified under false pretenses and false impressions. Plus, government officials responsible for spreading false rationales wouldn't be allowed to slide away from the first batch of lies and distortions to begin offering a new set of slippery excuses.

But the United States is not a healthy democracy at this time. It is dominated by a politician who chooses to manipulate rather than lead; who would rather trick the people into following him than engage them in a meaningful debate; who has demonstrated such a shallow regard for democracy that he took office despite losing the national popular vote and then only by blocking a full counting of ballots in one key state.

A healthy democracy wouldn't put up with this trifling of the people's will. But in today's United States, there appears to be little shame in gullibility. Indeed, for some, it is a mark of patriotism. Others just act oblivious to their duties as citizens to be informed about even basic facts, even when the consequences are as severe as those of wartime.

By: Mark Engler  

The success of welfare reform is a faith-based proposition in Washington, DC. This month, as lawmakers debate the reauthorization of welfare legislation, the conservatives on Capitol Hill will offer their regular sermon on the virtues of "personal responsibility", ignoring the steady hemorrhage of jobs from the economy. And since welfare reform was a major legislative focus of President Clinton's "New Democrats", the other side of the aisle is unlikely to question the underlying belief that "ending welfare as we knew it" represented a triumph in social policy.

Welfare reform in practice means that in tough economic times - the very times welfare is needed most - the government has little to offer the poor and the jobless. Those wealthy enough to walk away with one of President Bush's huge tax cuts aren't complaining. Nor are corporations who can hire from an expanding pool of low-wage workers. But the rest of us, who find our jobs ever less secure and our community resources strained, are left to pay for poverty.

"To be perfectly honest, we would love to keep playing Santa Claus. We could pretend the debt doesn't exist; pass out $1.6 trillion of government largesse each year, and let the next Congress deal with the rising sea of red ink... Regrettably, this is precisely the approach the President has chosen with his most recent budget plan. In what we regard as a spectacular abdication of leadership, the President's plan to deal with the debt is to do - nothing..."

- from Restoring the Dream, the Bold New Plan (RNC, 1995)

By: Lynette Clemetson  

With the rise in housing costs outpacing that of wages, there is no state where a low-income worker can reasonably afford a modest one- or two-bedroom rental unit, according to a study issued today by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group based in Washington.

The study, Out of Reach 2003, compared wages in each state, large metropolitan area and county in the nation against fair market rents as determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 40 states, the study found, renters need to earn more than two times the prevailing minimum wage to afford basic housing. In the most expensive states - Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Connecticut - they must earn more than three times the minimum wage.

As Bush spreads lies throughout the land, dissenters are corralled into "Free Speech Zones" - is this America?

By: Mick Youther  

Did you see the coverage of Prime Minister Tony Blair arriving to testify at the Royal Courts of Justice last week? The street was a mob scene with police, security vans, motorcycles, and protesters. The protesters greeted Blair by chanting "Shame on You". and banners accusing him of using "weapons of mass deception". "Bliar" T-shirts and Pinocchio-style noses were the fashion of the day for the protesters collecting signatures demanding Blair's resignation. All and all, it was rude, rowdy, disgusting display of British democracy in action. America doesn't have to worry about that kind of ugly scene anymore.

By: Scott Ritter  

While Iraq has not been shown to possess the alleged mobile biological labs (or any other weapon of mass destruction, for that matter), fear within the U.S. national security community over the potential existence of such labs in Iraq led the United States to order mobile biological laboratories to be constructed in America, ostensibly for training elite U.S. special operations forces on how to disable the Iraqi labs once discovered.

It now appears that the only place in the world where labs similar to those described by Powell actually exist is here, in the United States. Worse, according to the New York Times, the scientist responsible for the design and construction of the U.S. mobile biological lab is under suspicion by the FBI of using this technology to produce the dry powder anthrax used in the October 2001 letter attack that killed seven Americans. This same scientist was allegedly behind similar "defensive" research that identified anthrax- impregnated letters as an ideal platform for delivering the deadly biological agent.

So, when it comes to the only major biological attack conducted against the United States, the available information points to the likelihood that the attack originated in the United States, using technology and techniques developed as part of a defensive biological weapons program that was a product of bad intelligence about Iraq's biological weapons program.

Site content © 2001-2003 J. Mekus - - except wherein noted.
All rights reserved.