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Bush Draws Terrorism Law Into Campaign By ADAM NAGOURNEY, NYTimes

”Those who criticize the Patriot Act must listen to those folks on the front line of defending America,” Mr. Bush said with a glance at the police chief from the nearby town of Amherst, sitting crisply in his uniform two stools away. ”The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States.” [mjh: Lies Are Truth, War Is Peace!]

This was the third time in just four days that Mr. Bush had publicly invoked the USA Patriot Act. And it reflected what aides said would be systematic references to it in his speeches and television advertisements through Election Day, as this signature statute of his administration becomes a crucial part of his campaign strategy. …

There are even reservations within Mr. Bush’s own party about some provisions, which, conservatives maintain, invite government abuse. …

Not coincidentally, Mr. Bush has wrapped himself in the Patriot Act at the very time that his own credentials as a terrorism-fighter have been under challenge….

Politics and the Patriot Act, NYTimes Editorial

President Bush campaigned in Buffalo yesterday, wrapping himself in the Patriot Act and urging Congress to extend parts of the law that do not expire until the end of next year. The Patriot Act has always been a tempting bit of election-year politics, an easy way to seem tough on terrorism. But it also is bad law, and the president should be heeding calls from conservatives and liberals to remove provisions that trample on civil liberties.

The Patriot Act sailed through Congress just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, in a climate, and bearing a name, that made it difficult to raise questions. Instead of conducting a serious investigation of the law enforcement flaws that made the nation vulnerable, its drafters came up with a rushed checklist of increased police powers, many of dubious value in fighting terrorism.

Among the most troubling provisions is Section 215, which allows the F.B.I. to order libraries, hospitals and others with personal records to hand over such information about individuals. People like librarians can be jailed if they refuse, or if they notify the targets. Another authorizes ”sneak and peek” searches, in which the government can secretly search people’s homes and delay telling them about the intrusions. As troubling as specific provisions like these is the ”mission creep” that has inevitably occurred. Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department told Congress last fall that the act’s loosened restrictions on government surveillance were regularly being used in nonterrorism cases, like drug trafficking and white-collar crime. …

It is not hard to see the attraction of making a political issue out of the Patriot Act, with an independent commission raising questions about the administration’s vigilance before 9/11. But Mr. Bush’s sweeping praise for the act sidesteps the real debate. Members of Congress from both parties, including conservatives like Senator Larry Craig, the Idaho Republican, and Congressman Don Young, the Alaska Republican, have expressed concern about features of the act, like the expanded search powers, that could harm civil liberties.

With more than a year and a half before central provisions of the act are due to expire, even its supporters do not need to rush to reauthorize it. It would be more productive for Mr. Bush and Congress to spend the time finding ways to fight terrorism that do not take away important liberties.

The Patriot Act was thrown together in a rush without any congressional review. It is very suspicious how quickly it was put together and passed, as if large pieces had been sitting on the shelf for months or years before. Now, long before parts of the act expire (a provision used to persuade a few doubters to pass it), Bush is making it a campaign issue and doing everything to discourage discussion or consideration. mjh

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison
[Thanks, NewMexiKen!]

Administration ignored inconvenient facts about post-war Iraq By Trudy Rubin

How, then, to explain White House failure to act on information about what was likely to happen in Iraq?

Those dangers were not unimaginable. The CIA, the State Department, legislators, a plethora of Iraq experts foresaw the chaos that could follow The Day After. But no one at the White House seems to have listened.

Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki famously warned that several hundred thousand troops would be required to ensure postwar Iraq security. He was sharply rebuked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz.

The State Department’s Future of Iraq project detailed how to reconstitute the Iraqi army to provide ready security. But the project was junked by Pentagon civilian officials who disbanded the Iraqi army. Most Iraq experts had warned against such a step.

U.S. officials didn’t train new Iraqi security forces to confront an insurgency. I was told by a senior U.S. official in Baghdad in October that U.S. special forces could handle any insurgents so long as they had good intelligence. Iraqi forces would serve merely as adjuncts.

And so we watch as ill- equipped Iraqi police and paramilitary forces scatter before the threat of insurgent violence. And more U.S. troops are being ordered up.

So we must ask why prewar warnings were so willfully disregarded by the Bush team. … I believe top officials blocked out any information they didn’t want to hear. …

When looting and crime exploded in Baghdad after the war, Rumsfeld famously said, ”Freedom is messy,” and left it unchecked. Never mind that Iraq experts, and the best U.S. military commanders, warned that first impressions would be crucial. The early chaos in Iraq set the tone for everything that followed.

Iraqis, schooled for decades to the order of dictatorship, expected a new and better order. Its lack of and U.S. inability to produce it destroyed trust and bred conspiracy theories about U.S. intentions. These still haunt the occupation. And, of course, instability has hurt efforts to rebuild the country and attract foreign investment. …

This was not a failure of imagination. It was a willful rejection of inconvenient facts.
—
(Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

Bush believes it’s all in god’s hands. Facts don’t mean much; scripture is everything to a huge number of our fellow citizens. mjh

I went looking for this AssKraft quote and found just what I was looking for on Lush Limbaugh’s website. mjh

From Rush’s Sack of Shit™: NPR on Rush: Shades of OK City

ASHCROFT: Full disclosure compels me to inform you that the author of this memoranda is a member of the commission.

TOTENBERG: That member, of course, was Jamie Gorelick. Within 48 hours House GOP leader Tom DeLay and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner were calling for Gorelick’s resignation and conservative talk shows were taking up the battle cry.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Who are the Clinton people? Who were they, Jamie Gorelick, Clinton, Gore, all these people, they are sixties relics. These are people who grew up hating the FBI. These are the people who gave law enforcement the name ”pigs.” And they now are in charge of it when Clinton assumes office? And what’s the first thing they do? Handcuff the FBI.

GORELICK: After John Ashcroft testified, there was an escalation. … Someone called the house and threatened to blow it up and blow me up.

TOTENBERG: FBI agents were soon swarming over Gorelick’s house and office. She had received hate mail at the office, she says, as have other commissioners but it had suddenly intensified.

Notice how Lush explicitly blames Clinton for 9/11 but takes no responsibility for his role in rabble-rousing. Of course, you don’t need to take responsibility for anything when you are doing god’s work — ask Bush or Bin Laden. mjh

Here’s another example of the peaceful rhetoric of the Radical Right:

”Other than assassination, all we can do is censure her,” committee chairman Richard Gibbs said before the vote. The resolution of censure says the clerk ”has brought disgrace to the party as a whole.” The Albuquerque Journal Online [What did Sandoval County NM Clerk Victoria Dunlap do — lie to the country?]

Plundering a New Mexico Treasure
Houston-based El Paso Corporation hopes to use close ties to the White House to gain drilling access to Valle Vidal. But not without a fight.
By Jeremy Vesbach, Alibi

Bush and Cheney aren’t exactly counting on the environmentalist vote this fall; however, there are around 47 million sportsmen in the United States, and of those who voted, around 68 percent voted for Bush-Cheney in 2000, according to estimates by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, a D.C.-based advocacy organization whose board of directors includes corporate representatives from outdoor gear and apparel manufacturers.

Without that overwhelming support of hunters and fishermen, the people now in charge of lands managed by the federal government would still be working for the oil and gas industries. And this has angered a growing number of conservative sportsmen who are beginning to speak of a double-cross.

Tony Dean, the host of a popular outdoors show on television, has written in the publication Outdoors Unlimited that, ”Saying you are a friend of sportsmen because you support gun ownership, while using it to hide the dismantling of America’s conservation policies, is patently dishonest.”

Ryan Busse, vice president of the Kimber Manufacturing Company, (a high-end rifle-maker located in Kalispell, Montana), traveled to D.C. with Raton’s Alan Lackey and told reporters that because of the administration’s support for drilling in Montana hunting grounds, ”This year’s presidential election will probably be the first time in my life that I will have voted for somebody other than a Republican in a national election.”

Lackey also voted for Bush in 2000, believing what Bush said about the importance of conservation.

”Bush said that we can use the best technology to provide protection for the environment while providing energy for the country, but that was all double-speak,” said Lackey, ”What they have going is just the opposite. It’s a raid on our public resources and a double-cross to sportsmen and outdoors people.”

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has already shown an interest in trying to win over some of the reel and rifle crowd, now that he has demonstrated his prowess as a snowboarder and windsurfer. On an Iowa pheasant hunting trip, Kerry told reporters of his desire to extend the assault weapon ban and require unlicensed dealers to do background checks at gun shows, which was obviously antithetical to the die-hard gun lobby. But he did prove that he’s a good shot (two dead pheasants in two shots) and that he’s willing to take flak from animal rights activists to win over sportsmen.

Compare that to George W. Bush’s most famous hunting trip. In 1994, Bush staged a dove hunt to help win over the sportsmen while he was running for Texas governor. But in one of seven shots, he accidentally shot a protected shorebird known as a killdeer and had to pay the fine. Still, just how many hunters and fishermen will give Bush the ultimatum over public lands oil and gas development remains to be seen.

”I think it’s a real galvanizing issue for the hunter and angler,” says Lackey. ”We are ready to lose the last wild places that we can enjoy as a public, and I’m trying to get the word out to as many people as I can.”

TERROR IS LOSING By PAUL WOLFOWITZ, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense

One such [web] site shows Iraqi women demonstrating against Resolution 137, passed by the Iraqi Governing Council, which threatened women’s rights.

These women – who were exercising their right of free speech to demonstrate for women’s rights – were dressed in very conservative Muslim fashion. Yet, as one of them put it: ”We didn’t wait all these years without the most basic rights to be denied them now.”

An Arab reporter asked if she were Sunni or Shi’a. She snapped: ”I’m an Iraqi citizen first and foremost, and I refuse to be asked such a question.”

In increasing numbers, likeminded Iraqi women – and men – are making it clear they expect basic rights. People are listening. Not only did this pressure force the repeal of Resolution 137, but, when the new Iraqi interim constitution was signed March 8, it contained assurances of equal rights – and substantial representation – for women.

It also provides for other fundamental pillars of true democracy, including separation of powers and an independent judiciary, rule of law, fundamental civil rights and civilian control of the military. That’s a significant step forward that came from heated and healthy political debate – debate that would have been impossible a year ago.

While such debates do show that Iraqis disagree among themselves, they demonstrate – more importantly – that Iraqis can debate those issues openly and democratically. Significantly, in a recent opinion poll of Iraqis, 56 percent said things were going better today than a year ago; 71 percent said they thought they would be better off a year from now.

This is a long and disturbing article about what we are dying for in Iraq. mjh

President George W. Bush says that for the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein’s removal ”was the beginning of their deliverance”:

”The liberation of Iraq was good for the Iraqi people, good for America, and good for the world. The fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression, and instability from the Middle East.”

Women Under Siege by Lauren Sandler, The Nation (Posted December 11, 2003)

Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April [2003]. …

[A]s women here will remind you, the advantage to living under a police state is that the streets feel safe. As demeaning, terrifying and tragic as life under a dictator was for Iraqis, threats were not random acts from random criminals but rather tightly controlled, deliberately deployed terrors. These days the sheer unpredictability of violence is what makes the fear so pervasive. Then, women may have been afraid to step out of line, but now they’re afraid even to step outside their homes alone. …

”All cases that have to do with kidnapping, they are lies, they are not real. And after the war we haven’t received any case of rape,” says a thickly mustached Lieut. Khalil Majid Ahmed, who manages the all-male-staffed precinct. My questioning of this assertion was met with livid bellowing. ”Has anyone tried to assault you? No? So how can you judge? This subject should be closed!” His second in command–with matching mustache–named Lieut. Col. Ra’ad Heider, elaborated vehemently, ”Iraqi society has customs and traditions that keep us very well served. No American values are practiced here. Things that have to do with women, rape, that kind of thing–we will never follow American values!” …

For women, moreover, the sad irony is that while many Iraqis would see any attempt to help them as a US ploy, the coalition is doing nothing to help them anyway. … [T]he coalition failed to grapple with the human rights consequences of a power shift in that direction, especially as far as women, who make up 65 percent of Iraq’s war-ravaged population, are concerned. While new governmental ministries were created to support various causes like the environment and displaced people, a ministry of women’s affairs was immediately rejected. … Over dinner in the palace cafeteria one night, when I discussed the accelerating crisis for women with two high-ranking American officials in the Interior Ministry–which oversees police and security–I was told with shocking candor as my pen perched over my reporter’s notebook: ”We don’t do women.” It’s hardly a dirty secret that our government abroad views women’s rights as at most a secondary concern, yet it was thoroughly sobering to hear this lack of interest so casually discussed. … The Americans’ utter lack of comprehension of what Iraqi women have to offer was apparent at a meeting about women’s work prospects, when one well-meaning camouflage-clad officer said to rows of female attendees, including many professionals such as judges and doctors, ”Under the occupation, you can think about what work is appropriate for women to do–you don’t have to just sew anymore.”

Sad State: The Status of Women’s Rights Throughout the World – American Jurist – Features By Angela N. White, American Jurist [WARNING: shocking photo at the previous link]

Ironically, before Hussein took over – and even during part of his reign – women in Iraq enjoyed an unusual amount of freedom in the Middle East. For the past 40 years, Iraq’s civil code protected women by prohibiting marriage below the age of 18, as well as outlawing arbitrary divorce and polygamy. But now in post-war Iraq, women are fighting simply to retain the rights they once had.

The Iraqi Governing Council – backed by the U.S. – approved Resolution 137, which places family law under the jurisdiction of Islamic law. This would allow polygamy and divorce at will available only to men, as well as guaranteed custody of children by men in the event of divorce.

Furthermore, feminist activists attempting to restore women’s rights in Iraq have received death threats. And last fall, Aquila Hashima of Iraq’s Governing Council was murdered, according to the Feminist Majority. She was one of only three women on the Council.

This sobering overview notes conditions for women in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere. mjh

From the article:
It’s a man’s world. And women are paying the ultimate price to live in it.

Despite efforts by the United Nations and international organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, systematic (and often government-sanctioned) violence against women remains a problem throughout the world. As a result, women are treated as prisoners, as slaves, as punching bags and as property. And it appears as though no woman is immune.