Friday, June 18, 2004
Five excruciating minutes
The Memory Hole has posted still frames, at five second intervals, of a video that shows President Bush watching children read in a Florida classroom as planes were being hijacked and slammed into the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001. It's agonizing and chilling to look at each of these frames and watch the President, after he's been told that the U.S. is under attack, just sit there. And sit there. And sit there. His rationale for not getting up immediately?
The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis. The national press corps was standing behind the children in the classroom; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening.
Right. Cause the American people certainly don't want a leader that springs into action. And it's not like the nation's news cameras were focused solely on him that morning, just watching what he'd do. He was in a classroom full of second-graders, his staff and a few reporters. No one would have minded if he'd suddenly cut the reading lesson short for a matter of national frickin' security.
You should also read about Bush's Interesting Day, a vital timeline of his actions (or inactions) on 9/11. And, you can read the 9/11 Commission's own report here.
(Thanks to Jason for the link.)
posted by chris at 3:00 PM
El Robbin Hood
"Our president is giving me a chance to make my dream a reality," said Castillo, one of thousands of Venezuelans who receive schooling, and a monthly cash payment of $50 to $100, from Petroleos de Venezuela as part of a multibillion-dollar social and political experiment being conducted by President Hugo Chavez that has provoked a storm of criticism.
Chavez's government plans to spend at least $1.7 billion -- and perhaps twice that -- in oil revenue this year on social programs ranging from subsidized food to classes on literacy, farming, hair-styling and auto mechanics. Chavez has said his goal is a "social transformation" that will "redistribute national income" into the hands of the millions of poor people who have long been denied access to this country's vast oil riches.
But critics say Chavez is pandering to the poor to save his political career and gambling irresponsibly with the long-term fiscal health of a state company that provides half the country's revenue.
The article itself is more a discussion about whether Chavez is doing this for political purposes (which he probably is) and is harming the long-term viability of the oil company. But the idea - taking money from a corporation who is profiting off of oil that belongs to the people of Venezuela and using that money to raise the standard of education and living for the people - is intriguing.
posted by chris at 12:13 PM
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Thursday, June 17, 2004
Granny D for Senate
If the voters of New Hampshire approve, "Granny D" would like very much to become "Senator D."
The 94-year-old activist, who won national attention and acclaim from the likes of US Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold when she walked 3,200 miles across the United States to promote campaign finance reform in 1999 and 2000, is preparing to take another unprecedented journey--on the campaign trail.
Doris "Granny D" Haddock will formally announce Thursday that she is challenging Republican US Senator Judd Gregg, who is seeking a third term representing New Hampshire. And her "down home" campaign could well turn out to be one of the most provocative and inspired candidacies this country has seen in years. She is already assured of the Democratic nomination, and calls are coming in from young activists who want to trek to New Hampshire to help the nation's oldest political newcomer.
"We're moving things around in the house to make it a headquarters," Granny D. said from her Dublin, New Hampshire, home. "And we're setting things up in the yard so that the young people who want to work on the campaign can pitch tents."
Story here. Granny's website here.
posted by chris at 4:04 PM
Privatizing public information
For 25 years, the clearest window into the murky world of federal contracting has been an obscure public database available to anyone for a nominal fee. No longer. Under a new deal approved by the White House, the government's voluminous compilation of contracting information has been turned over to a contractor.
Established by an act of Congress in 1979, the Federal Procurement Data System was a rare island of public information, the only complete record of federal contracts. Using the database, journalists, auditors and federal investigators could review the million or so agreements with corporations Uncle Sam signed each year. They could find the companies reaping the largest awards, track the rise in no-bid deals, and measure the recent drive to replace federal employees with corporate employees. But under a new contract, the General Services Administration has now turned over responsibility for collecting and distributing information on government contracts to a beltway company called Global Computer Enterprises, Inc.
In signing the $24 million deal, the Bush Administration has privatized not only the collection and distribution of the data, but the database itself. For the first time since the system was established, the information will not be available directly to the public or subject to the Freedom of Information Act, according to federal officials. "It's a contractor owned and operated system," explains Nancy Gunsauls, a project manager at GCE. "We have the data."
More.
posted by chris at 2:03 PM
More fun with the Geneva Convention
At the request of CIA Director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the military to secretly hold a suspected terrorist in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said.
The suspected terrorist has been held since October without being given an identification number and without the International Committee of the Red Cross being notified, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. Both conditions violate the Geneva Accords on treatment of prisoners of war.
Seriously, isn't that against the law?
posted by chris at 11:42 AM
Torture vs. gay marriage
The Senate voted without dissent yesterday to require the Bush administration to issue guidelines aimed at ensuring humane treatment of prisoners at U.S. military facilities and to report any violations promptly to Congress. . .
. . . Passage of the proposal by voice vote came after Republicans, facing defeat on the measure, agreed to raise no objections and offer no alternatives if the vote was taken by voice instead of putting all senators on record with a roll call, according to Democratic sources.
The Republicans won't go on record on torture, but they want to make sure every vote is recorded on gay marriage.
Senate Republican leaders have scheduled the Senate vote on a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the week of July 12, just two weeks before Democrats convene in Boston for their presidential nominating convention.
Via August.
posted by chris at 11:33 AM
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out
A poll of Iraqis commissioned by the U.S.-governing authority has provided the Bush administration a stark picture of anti-American sentiment — more than half of Iraqis believe they would be safer if U.S. troops simply left.
The poll, commissioned by the Coalition Provisional Authority last month but not released to the American public, also found radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is surging in popularity, 92 percent of Iraqis consider the United States an occupying force and more than half believe all Americans behave like those portrayed in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos.
Whatever happened to "welcoming us with open arms"?
posted by chris at 2:47 PM
How many times do we have to say it?
There is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, including the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, according to a new staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the hijacking plot.
Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein's secular government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing training camps or weapons, the panel's report says.
And still Bush and Cheney continue to try to make the claim that there's a link between them to justify their attack on Iraq. There is no link. There never was.
posted by chris at 10:35 AM
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Monday, June 14, 2004
Reagan's legacy
It was just before Christmas 1983 that Donald Rumsfeld, then US presidential envoy to Iraq, slipped quietly into Baghdad to come face to face with the man who would become one of America's greatest enemies within two decades.
The trip by the current US defense secretary, to pledge US support for Saddam Hussein, marked one of the lowest points of the entire Reagan presidency, and symbolically represents the real legacy of the "Great Communicator". For Reagan was a president who allowed the US to secretly arm the Iraqi dictator with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), supported Iraq's military expansion, turned a blind eye to Saddam using chemical weapons against Iran and thereby set in train the events that would lead to George W Bush's disastrous decision to invade the country in 2002.
While America was selling WMD to Iraq, Reagan was also telling Saddam to increase his brutal campaign against the Iranian fundamentalist regime, even while Iraqi poison gas was falling on Persian battlefields. The Reagan presidency made America complicit in Saddam’s war crimes.
Story. (And more examples).
posted by chris at 4:15 PM
Caught in a lie
In the fall of 2002, in the preparations for possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton Company to develop secret plans for restoring Iraq's oil facilities, Pentagon officials have told Congressional investigators.
The newly disclosed details about Pentagon contracting do not suggest improper political pressures to direct business to Halliburton, the Houston-based company that Vice President Dick Cheney once led.
But they raise questions about assertions by Mr. Cheney and other administration officials that he knew nothing in advance of the Halliburton contracts and that the decisions were made by career procurement specialists, without involvement by senior political appointees.
More.
posted by chris at 4:11 PM
Redefining "torture" so that we can get away with it
In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified," and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted in President Bush's war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo.
If a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, "he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network," said the memo, from the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. It added that arguments centering on "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability" later.
The memo seems to counter the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, assumption that U.S. government personnel would never be permitted to torture captives. It was offered after the CIA began detaining and interrogating suspected al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the wake of the attacks, according to government officials familiar with the document.
Article here and the memos can be found here.
posted by chris at 3:49 PM
Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer
See it here. It opens nationwide Friday, June 25.
posted by chris at 2:54 PM
A little prep work for Michael Moore's new film
Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.
The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.
For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.
But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.
Story here.
PS. . . I'm back!
posted by chris at 2:08 PM
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