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The Dogs of War
White phosphorus (WP) is a fearsome military weapon. WP burns fiercely until it is deprived of oxygen; a small piece of WP on the skin will continue burning all the way down to the bone as long as its air supply is not cut off.
WP has been in the news recently because of a report that the United States used WP in attacking Fallujah. In the media melee that followed, the questions of what actually happened, and whether U.S. actions fell within or outside the boundaries of international law during war, became increasingly difficult to discern.
John Pike, the director of globalsecurity.org and a long-time analyst of WP and chemical weaponry, argues that this story is a classic case of how confusing the public debate can be when the critics don't have their facts straight and the U.S. government is trying to cover up actions which, according to Pike, were entirely legal. This whole story is yet another demonstration that once you let loose the dogs of war, it is very difficult to recall them. If only our Congress had had the bravery to say no in 2002.
The truth about WP
By John Pike
Los Angeles Times
November 30, 2005
DESPITE EFFORTS to improve its image abroad, the United States has just suffered a damaging global propaganda defeat. And unfortunately, some of the wounds were self-inflicted.
Three weeks ago, the world's news media erupted into a feeding frenzy over new charges that the Americans were up to their evil old tricks. The story was all too familiar: Once again, it seemed, the United States had committed unspeakable atrocities, then lied about its illegal activities and been exposed. Every day there were fresh revelations and allegations. There is just one problem. It isn't true.
WP. Willy Pete. White phosphorus. For nearly a century, militaries around the world have used cascading showers of burning WP particles on the battlefield. It makes smoke to mark targets or hide friendly troops. It is also an incendiary weapon, used to burn enemy materiel and enemy combatants.
WP was used effectively by U.S. troops in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It was used by the Russians in Chechnya and all sides in the former Yugoslavia. It has remained a standard part of the U.S. arsenal. The U.S. military used it in the retaking of Fallouja a year ago. It is nasty stuff, but war is nasty.
In early November, Italian state television aired a documentary about the use of white phosphorus in Fallouja. It showed video of mangled bodies said to be civilians killed by white phosphorus. The charges were sensational but, even on cursory examination, unconvincing. Nonetheless, in the days that followed, the story spread like wildfire as world news organizations gave credence to this absurdity.
The U.S. government only compounded the problem by denying that WP had been used in Fallouja for anything other than illuminating the battlefield. The government flatly rejected the charge that it had been used to burn enemy combatants. This claim, however, was untrue and easily disproved. An Army Field Artillery magazine article written earlier this year by soldiers who had fired the artillery in Fallouja described "shake and bake" missions — cannons firing WP incendiary rounds along with high-explosive shells to flush out insurgents from trenches and hiding places.
As usual, it is the coverup that gets you into trouble. The guilty flee where none pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
What are the facts? What is the law?
The corpses shown in the Italian documentary had blackened skin, consistent with putrefaction after death. Their decayed condition provided no indication of the cause of death — except that it was unlikely to have been white phosphorus. The bodies did not have the localized burns expected from WP particles, and their clothes were not burned as they would have been if they had been hit by a shower of WP particles. White phosphorus was indeed used to burn enemy combatants in Fallouja, but the unfortunates depicted in the Italian documentary probably died from some other cause.
Furthermore, the use of white phosphorus against military targets is not prohibited by any treaty. Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilian targets, to prevent future Dresdens. It also restricts the use of incendiary weapons against military targets adjacent to concentrations of civilians, but it only applies to bombs dropped from airplanes, not shells fired by artillery as was done in Fallouja. In any case, the United States has not ratified and is not bound by this protocol.
Another argument being made is that white phosphorus is an illegal chemical weapon, a poison gas. Bloggers soon found a couple of U.S. government websites containing documents that seemed to assert that WP was a chemical weapon. Closer reading revealed nothing of the sort.
Widely ignored in all this is the ultimate source authority, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is the international agency supervising the global destruction of chemical weapons. It flatly states that "napalm and phosphorus are not considered to be [chemical weapons] agents."
So with no direct evidence of an atrocity, and the United States using lawful weapons, why does most of the world now believe just the contrary? And make no mistake: This slowly emerged as a story here, but it has been a big story around the world.
I was confronted with these disparate realities when I was interviewed both by CNN and CNN International a few days after the story broke. Domestic CNN, airing here in the United States, was skeptical of the scandal. CNN International, airing before an audience that had already accepted the Italian documentary as fact, took a far less skeptical approach. The two CNNs — one for the U.S. and one for everyone else — embodied the separate realities now occupied by the United States and the rest of the world. We see ourselves as well intentioned. Much of the rest of the world does not.
And where was the U.S. government while our reputation was dragged through more mud? Where was the State Department's uber-spinmeister, Karen Hughes, all this time? U.S. officials were exacerbating the problem, providing easily debunked denials that simply stoked the feeding frenzy.
The only scandal here is that our government allowed the nation to fall victim to clumsy, cheap anti-American propaganda. At least during the Cold War, we made the Soviets work to discredit us.
Press skeptical about Bush speech
President Bush's speech outlining his plans for a "complete victory" in Iraq prompts one Baghdad paper to call for action rather than words.
In the wider region, several papers attack Mr Bush's refusal to set a deadline for the complete withdrawal of US troops, arguing that their presence is fuelling the insurgency.
Some also urge Iraqis to speed up their reconciliation process and take their fate into their own hands.
Quotes from other news outlets in the region:
TARIQ AL-JUBURI IN IRAQ'S AL-MADA
"The Iraqi citizen has endured a lot. He has long been patient, waiting to see part of his dream for a secure future for himself and his own sons come true. Thus, he has the right to get answers to many pressing questions, and not just statements and rhetoric. He wants actions not words, translated into reality on the ground - into projects, job opportunities and prosperity."
QATAR'S AL-RAYAH
"Nobody from the US Administration, including President Bush, has ever explained the meaning of 'victory' that the US is seeking. It seems that the word victory, in the tradition of US policy, means the total refusal to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, since this would incite the terrorists."
ABD-AL-WAHHAB BADR KHAN IN AL-HAYAT
"Even if President Bush calls withdrawal a 'national strategy for victory in Iraq' it will not make any difference on the ground, just as it will not make any difference either calling the withdrawal a redeployment of the occupation forces. Neither Cheney, Rumsfeld nor those in the extremist and obsolete gang of the right wing will ever admit their strategic faults in the war against Iraq."
EGYPT'S AL-JUMHURIYAH
"The occupation forces should admit the need to withdraw or at least announce the timetable for their pullout, which is a prerequisite for any possible settlement. This is something that President Bush does not seem willing to accept after he said yesterday that there will be no Iraq pullout without victory."
JORDAN'S AL-RAY
"That there will be no Iraq pullout without victory is a story that not even children would believe and Washington itself realises that its 'victory' is impossible."
PAN-ARAB AL-QUDS AL-ARABI
"President Bush will face serious difficulties in fulfilling his promises to achieve victory in Iraq because his war was immoral, unjustified and based on lies. History has shown that all past occupations ended up as failures and the US occupation will not be an exception."
OMAN'S OMAN
"The US announcement to reduce the number of its troops in Iraq indicates that the Iraqis will have to take on more and more responsibility for their country's security. It is crucial for the Iraqis to be prepared and to be able to handle their lives and their country's affairs in the way they want and prevent groups from turning Iraq into a terrorist haven."
SAUDI AL-JAZIRAH
"The Iraqi parties should put their desire to seek reconciliation into practice and realise that the organisation of the Iraqi house is an Iraqi task from the very beginning to the very end."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4487798.stm
From The Washington Post...
Now back from Asia and a Thanksgiving sojourn in Texas, Bush intends a sustained defense of his Iraq policy in the weeks leading up to the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections there, starting with yesterday's speech and continuing with at least two and perhaps three more. He dropped the acrid rhetoric yesterday and professed that "we should not fear the debate in Washington. It's one of the great strengths of our democracy that we can discuss our differences openly and honestly even at times of war."
He summoned a leading Democrat to his own defense, citing an op-ed article opposing timetables for withdrawal that was written by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who ran for vice president on the ticket opposing Bush in 2000 and lost his bid for the party's presidential nomination to challenge Bush in 2004. In doing so, the White House hoped to turn the tables on the Democrats. "What it does is highlight a split within the Democratic Party," said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Privately, though, officials acknowledge that they have failed to communicate their message to the public.
"We haven't put it out there in a fashion that has sunk in," said a second official who was not authorized to speak on the record. Advisers were struck by polls showing that a sizable share of the public did not think Bush had a plan for victory in Iraq. "There's a sense that the public does not have a good understanding of what our strategy is and is confused about the level of progress we've made."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10271869/
Mr. Pike seems to have very little regard for anyone else's intelligence other than his own. He has not done an adequate job in refuting the points of the Italian TV program on use of white phosphorus in Fallujah. He does not appear to have done anything other than look at a few of the pictures excerpted from the show and declare that no crime was committed based on his understanding of the international conventions on use of white phosphorus. In any case, he has expressed an opinion which sounds more like 'These are my weapons and tools and I'll use them the way I want and no one can tell me otherwise. If they disagree with me, I'll ignore them because they're stupid.'
A better documented, less-derisive and insulting essay would no doubt have done much more to clarify the situation for those who have heard the foreign press reports. Too bad he wasted his opportunity in the LA Times by insulting his readers rather than enlightening them.
Administration officials believe much of the public is still eager for victory and open to persuasion if the president can make the case that he has made progress. They took heart in a survey last week by RT Strategies, a bipartisan polling firm, that found that 49 percent of Americans favor bringing troops home when only "specific goals and objectives" are met, 30 percent want a fixed timetable for pulling out and 16 percent support immediate withdrawal. The middle 30 percent, they figure, is the real political battleground.
Thomas Riehle, a Democrat who runs RT along with Republican V. Lance Tarrance Jr., said many Americans are suspicious of war critics as well as the war. "What is shifting is the sense that the military and White House do not have a good plan to proceed to victory or troop withdrawal," Riehle said in an e-mail. At the same time, he said, the Democrats "don't seem to be in a position to drive opinion . . . where Bush is vulnerable."
Amid such skepticism, Bush has retreated to mainly military settings to defend his policy. Yesterday's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy was his fourth before a military audience in three weeks.
But in subtle ways, he and the administration are adjusting the message to reflect Iraq realities.
No longer are they declaring that the insurgency is in its "last throes," as Cheney did last spring. Instead, they emphasize in their new strategy document that "it is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies" to be built in three years. And Bush acknowledged yesterday what U.S. military and intelligence experts have said for months, that terrorists make up the smallest group opposing coalition forces and that "ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs" represent "by far the largest group."
W. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Iraqi affairs, said that Bush's language "changes the frame of reference," because the president acknowledged "for the first time this is essentially an Iraqi insurrection." Lang said Bush's previous emphasis on the foreign makeup of the insurgency "made it impossible for U.S. forces to deal with the enemy because we needed to defeat them totally." Now, Lang suggested, U.S. military officers have room to try to work out deals with Iraqi opposition fighters.
From Think Progress:
Exclusive: Classified Pentagon Document Described White Phosphorus As "Chemical Weapon"
" A formerly classified 1995 Pentagon intelligence document titled 'Possible Use of Phosphorous Chemical' describes the use of white phosphorus by Saddam Hussein on Kurdish fighters:
IRAQ HAS POSSIBLY EMPLOYED PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THE KURDISH POPULATION IN AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN BORDERS. [¦]
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/21/phosphorus-chemical
The Pentagon's confirmation that it used white phosphorus as a weapon
during last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja has sparked
criticism.
The BBC News website looks at the facts behind the row.
What is white phosphorus?
White phosphorus is a solid, waxy man-made chemical which ignites
spontaneously at about 30C and produces an intense heat, bright light and
thick pillars of smoke.
The US military says it used white phosphorus to flush out insurgents
It continues to burn until deprived of oxygen and, if extinguished with
water, can later reignite if the particles dry out and are exposed again to
the air.
Also known by the military as WP or Willie Pete, white phosphorus is used in
munitions, to mark enemy targets and to produce smoke for concealing troop
movements.
It can also be used as an incendiary device to firebomb enemy positions.
What are its effects?
If particles of ignited white phosphorus land on a person's skin, they can
continue to burn right through flesh to the bone. Toxic phosphoric acid can
also be released into wounds, risking phosphorus poisoning.
Skin burns must be immersed in water or covered with wet cloths to prevent
re-combustion until the particles can be removed.
Exposure to white phosphorus smoke in the air can also cause liver, kidney,
heart, lung or bone damage and even death.
A former US soldier who served in Iraq says breathing in smoke close to a
shell caused the throat and lungs to blister until the victim suffocated,
with the phosphorus continuing to burn them from the inside.
~ WHITE PHOSPHORUS ~
Spontaneously flammable chemical used for battlefield illumination
Contact with particles causes burning of skin and flesh
Use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians (Protocol III
of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons)
Protocol III not signed by US
more ~
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4441902.stm
Just an interesting perspective to add to our understanding. One poster on another site called Rep. Murtha a progressive, another poster responded with the following:
"Who says Murtha's position is progressive?"
"Sy Hersh says that Murtha is very close to the military brass, and is saying what they are not allowed to say. While Murtha appears to agree with progressives on the war, it isn't for progressive reasons. Rather, the saner generals fear nothing less than the destruction of the army: the draft's a non-starter politically, and the stop-loss orders, repeated tours of duty, massive post-traumatic stress syndrome, and total loss of morale will kill the military if allowed to go on for even one more year."
I think the second poster's point about Murtha's position appearing the same as the progressive's position though for different underlying reasons is very important. There are many conservatives who probably have good reasons to want the Iraq war to end. How do the liberal anti-war activists account for, make alliance with the conservatives who want the same thing, an end to the Iraq conflict? Or do they not seek an alliance at all?
From the LA Times ~
November 27, 2005
A Journey That Ended in Anguish
Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who volunteered to go to Iraq, was
upset by what he saw. His apparent suicide raises questions.
By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer
"War is the hardest place to make moral judgments."
Col. Ted Westhusing, Journal of Military Ethics
WASHINGTON — One hot, dusty day in June, Col. Ted Westhusing was found dead
in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport, a single gunshot
wound to the head.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army's leading
scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered
to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate
in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of
honor.
So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible
corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died,
Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company
he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights
violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns
to superiors, who launched an investigation.
In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one
conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty,
honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the
U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the
military.
His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders wondered
whether they had missed signs of depression. He had been losing weight and
not sleeping well. But only a day before his death, Westhusing won praise
from a senior officer for his progress in training Iraqi police.
His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could have
killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. He
was an extraordinary intellect and had mastered ancient Greek and Italian.
He had less than a month before his return home. It seemed impossible that
anything could crush the spirit of a man with such a powerful sense of right
and wrong.
On the Internet and in conversations with one another, Westhusing's family
and friends have questioned the military investigation.
A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army
determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a
final question.
How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?
Even at Jenks High School in suburban Tulsa, one of the biggest in Oklahoma,
Westhusing stood out. He was starting point guard for the Trojans, a team
that made a strong run for the state basketball championship his senior
year. He was a National Merit Scholarship finalist. He was an officer in a
fellowship of Christian athletes.
Joe Holladay, who coached Westhusing before going on to become assistant
coach of the University of North Carolina Tarheels, recalled Westhusing
showing up at the gym at 7 a.m. to get in 100 extra practice shots.
"There was never a question of how hard he played or how much effort he put
into something," Holladay said. "Whatever he did, he did well. He was the
cream of the crop."
When Westhusing entered West Point in 1979, the tradition-bound institution
was just emerging from a cheating scandal that had shamed the Army.
Restoring honor to the nation's preeminent incubator for Army leadership was
the focus of the day.
Quote
'I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being
dishonored any more.'
-- From a note found near Ted Westhusing’s body
'He could not shift his mind-set from the military notion of completing a
mission irrespective of cost, nor could he change his belief that doing the
right thing because it was the right thing to do should be the sole
motivator for businesses.'
-- Lt. Col. Lisa Breitenbach, psychologist who reviewed Westhusing's e-mails
and interviewed his colleagues
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-colonel27nov27,0,1641096.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Murtha: 'Worn' troops will leave Iraq in a year
Congressman who criticized Bush predicts most U.S. forces to be withdrawn
LATROBE, Pa. (AP) Most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is “broken, worn out” and “living hand to mouth,” Rep. John Murtha told a civic group.
Two weeks ago, Murtha created a storm of comment when he called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq now. The Democratic congressman spoke to a group of community and business leaders in Latrobe on Wednesday, the same day President Bush said troops would be withdrawn when they’ve achieved victory, not under an artificial deadline set by politicians.
Murtha predicted most troops will be out of Iraq within a year.
“I predict he’ll make it look like we’re staying the course,” Murtha said, referring to Bush. “Staying the course is not a policy.”
Murtha, 73, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, expressed pessimism about Iraq’s stability and said the Iraqis know who the insurgents are, but don’t always share that information with U.S. troops. He said a civil war is likely because of ongoing factionalism among Sunni Arabs, and Kurds and Shiites.
He also said he was wrong to vote to support the war.
“I admit I made a mistake when I voted for war,” Murtha said. “I’m looking at the future of the United States military.”
Murtha, a decorated Vietnam war veteran, said the Pennsylvania National Guard is “stretched so thin” that it won’t be able to send fully equipped units to Iraq next year. Murtha predicted it will cost $50 billion to upgrade military equipment nationwide, but says the federal government is already reducing future purchases to save money.
Murtha, who represents a western Pennsylvania district that includes Latrobe, was first elected to Congress in 1974.
Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver, spokesman for the Pennsylvania National Guard at Fort Indiantown Gap, said “there are some deployment concerns.”
Cleaver said some guard units had to leave equipment in Iraq when they returned to the United States, which could cause training problems here.
But Cleaver also said most of the 2,100 Guard troops now deployed with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team can’t be sent back to Iraq for a second tour of duty anyway, because of regulations that limit redeployment.
I'd like to weigh in on the WP issue; as I have been thinking about this ever since we talked with John Pike a few weeks ago.
This is, in part, a naming problem, but it is also an opportunity to direct criticisms where they belong, and to avoid getting derided for being wrong on the details, even as we are right on the overarching issue.
Whether or not white phosphorus is a chemical weapon is a matter of semantics, and we can have dueling reports from now until the cows come home. The fact is that the US does not consider it such, and in our infinite and endless stupidity, that's our story and we're sticking to it; the rest of the world be damned.
And whether the people in Fallujah died because of WP or because of our bullets, or from fire that was far worse than it might have otherwise been because of incendiary powder is really fairly irrelevant. We went in there directly after the 2004 elections, and we were brutal about it.
THAT is the relevant information.
John rightly points out that the Bush administration LIED about WP. That is their mistake and we need to call them on it, over and over, and over again. Getting mired down in semantics and definitions of degrees of horror will only keep the arguments safely among us; and will impact the perpetrators of terror little.
So, please; let's agree to call white phosphorus a horrible but much used substance in the continuing terrorizing of the Iraqi people, and tell the Bush administration that we have had enough of their lies and crimes against humanity in our names.
Focus.
Senate Democrats call for inquiry into oil execs lying before Congress about involvement with Cheney... Developing...
Embedded TIME Reporter: Bush Lied In Speech Yesterday About Iraqi Security Forces
Yesterday, President Bush claimed that Iraqi security forces “primarily led” the assault on the city of Tal Afar. Bush highlighted it as an “especially clear” sign of the progress Iraq security forces were making in Iraq.
The progress of the Iraqi forces is especially clear when the recent anti-terrorist operations in Tal Afar are compared with last year’s assault in Fallujah. In Fallujah, the assault was led by nine coalition battalions made up primarily of United States Marines and Army — with six Iraqi battalions supporting them…This year in Tal Afar, it was a very different story. The assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces — 11 Iraqi battalions, backed by five coalition battalions providing support.
TIME Magazine reporter Michael Ware, who is embedded with the U.S. troops in Iraq who participated in the Tal Afar battle, appeared on Anderson Cooper yesterday. He said Bush’s description was completely untrue:
"I was in that battle from the very beginning to the very end. I was with Iraqi units right there on the front line as they were battling with al Qaeda. They were not leading. They were being led by the U.S. green beret special forces with them."
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) who was also on Anderson Cooper yesterday said “I respect those journalists that embed themselves and I accept as a credible description what you’ve just put forward.”
Full Transcript:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/01/embedded-time-reporter/
I believe Mr. Pike is to be trusted on his expertise, regardless of his means of conveying it. His authority is equal to David Kay's in assessing both military and weapons use in this war.
We denigrate our own movement if we don't adhere to reality--a complaint we have of the present Administration. I think shooting the messenger, Mr. Pike, is wrong-headed on our part.
I agree with riverrat--the point is the CONVENIENCE of anti-American sentiment--so easy to reach for all our progressive sentiments, and exacerbated by the Administration's over-simplified communication methods trying to regain political traction for this war.
Personally, I believe Karen Hughes IS working overtime on message message message--but that work is more to save the President's skin than it is to get a meaningful and truthful message as to the execution of this war and bringing the war to a conclusion--something the majority of the country now demands.
THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL RECALL ELECTION
Why Wait Three Years for Our Next President?
31 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20051201/cm_ucru/thecaseforanationalrecallelection
NEW YORK--By August 2003 California Governor Gray Davis' approval rating had plunged to 22 percent. Two months later, he lost a special recall election. Now it's George W. Bush's turn to take a drubbing. The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds that only 37 percent of Americans think he's doing a good job, a record low for him and a dangerous drop below the historical benchmark of 40 percent.
"When a president falls below 40 percent approval in public opinion polls—as President Bush has done twice in the past two months--it's usually a sign of serious political danger," writes Richard Benedetto in USA Today. "Since 1950, five of the eight other presidents who fell below 40 percent--Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush--lost their bids for reelection or opted not to run again. A sixth, Richard Nixon, was overwhelmed by the Watergate scandal and resigned. Only two, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, turned things around." But even Clinton never regained his former appeal. His hand-picked successor, vice president Al Gore, won the 2000 election by such a narrow margin that Republicans were able to steal it away.
The "political capital" Bush claimed after the 2004 election has vanished over the last year. Dead Americans piled up in Iraq and New Orleans, his closest political allies were indicted for corruption and treason, gas prices soared and his party's right-wing Christianists stabbed him in the back over the Harriet Miers' nomination. All of Bush's best-laid plans--to privatize Social Security, pass another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and possibly expand his wars to Syria and Iran--lie in ruins. And it's only going to get worse now that his moderate and centrist Republican allies in Congress are beginning to peel away: some to appeal to swing voters in next year's midterm elections, others to align themselves with John McCain's incipient 2008 presidential campaign and some simply because Bush's poll numbers make him radioactive.
George W. Bush, a tiger who so recently assigned himself the right to assassinate American citizens at will, has been defanged. He's as pathetic and powerless as Saddam Hussein. He is done.
"Lame duck" doesn't cut it. Unless Bush resigns, the world's sole superpower faces the dismal prospect of three long years under a dead duck president. Who will extract us from two losing wars? How will we pay off the $8 trillion national debt he ran up? America needs a strong president yesterday.
Bush could save himself and the nation three years of marking time by resigning. Or Congress could do the right thing and impeach him for his countless crimes. Maybe Bush and Cheney will get indicted for their roles in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. But our constitutional system only allows for impeaching individuals, not whole administrations. If Cheney is indicted and forced to quit, Bush will appoint a replacement--Washington scuttlebutt points to secretary of state Condi Rice. If Bush falls, Rice ascends. If something happens to Rice, the person she chose as vice president succeeds her. All the political hacks who lied and schemed and whose incompetence led to the current crisis of leadership--Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove--stay in place. The hydra lives. More young men and women die in Iraq.
One solution is to establish a California-style recall system on the national level. If a significant percentage of Americans loses confidence in the president and his administration to the extent that they're willing to sign a recall petition, a special election should be held within three months. The number of required signatures should be high enough--California's system calls for 12 percent of the number of people who cast votes in the preceding election--to ensure that recalls are only held as the result of widespread disgust among the citizenry.
To avoid disruption, the constitutional amendment creating the recall provision could prevent such elections from being held more often than, say, annually. And a recall won't automatically result in a new party taking over the White House--just a new administration. But it would replace our current system of political stagnation with a more dynamic democracy.
The threat of recall would make sitting leaders responsive to the people more often than the current four-year election cycle, and would allow disastrous and unpopular leaders like Bush to be replaced posthaste. Of course, national recall elections wouldn't guarantee that the people would always be happy with their leaders.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the man who replaced Gray Davis after the recall, currently "ranks among the most unpopular governors in modern California history," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. But Californians don't have to wait until the next election to get rid of him. ++
Posted by: Fe at December 1, 2005 01:09 PM
Fe knows.
IMNSHO--
There is complete justification for, and no valid arguments against, demanding that impeachment proceedings against the clearly corrupt, dishonest, and disingenuous Bush administration begin immediately and with great vigor.
just my $.02 -- your mileage may vary,
Otter
The Bush Administration didn't learn their lesson with Armstrong Williams.
December 1, 2005
U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.
"Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.
But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.
The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or anywhere else.
Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.
In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.
In many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to advertising agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran with an advertising label. But the American authorship and financing were not revealed.
Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had no information on the contract. In an interview from Baghdad on Nov. 18, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon's contract with the Lincoln Group was an attempt to "try to get stories out to publications that normally don't have access to those kind of stories." The military's top commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, did not know about the Lincoln Group contract until Wednesday, when it was first described by The Los Angeles Times, said a senior military official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Pentagon officials said General Pace and other top officials were disturbed by the reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded explanations from senior officers in Iraq, the official said.
When asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program "Nightline," General Pace said, "I would be concerned about anything that would be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy."
Others seemed to share the sentiment. "I think it's absolutely wrong for the government to do this," said Patrick Butler, vice president of the International Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics training for journalists from countries without a history of independent news media. "Ethically, it's indefensible."
Mr. Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab journalists, said the American government paid for many programs that taught foreign journalists not to accept payments from interested parties to write articles and not to print government propaganda disguised as news.
"You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to believe in, and you lose all credibility," he said.
The Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.
The Lincoln contract with the American-led coalition forces in Iraq has rankled some military and civilian officials and contractors. Some of them described the program to The New York Times in recent months and provided examples of the military's storyboards.
The Lincoln Group, whose principals include some businessmen and former military officials, was hired last year after military officials concluded that the United States was failing to win over Muslim public opinion. In Iraq, the effort is seen by some American military commanders as a crucial step toward defeating the Sunni-led insurgency.
Citing a "fundamental problem of credibility" and foreign opposition to American policies, a Pentagon advisory panel last year called for the government to reinvent and expand its information programs.
"Government alone cannot today communicate effectively and credibly," said the report by the task force on strategic communication of the Defense Science Board. The group recommended turning more often for help to the private sector, which it said had "a built-in agility, credibility and even deniability."
The Pentagon's first public relations contract with Lincoln was awarded in 2004 for about $5 million with the stated purpose of accurately informing the Iraqi people of American goals and gaining their support. But while meant to provide reliable information, the effort was also intended to use deceptive techniques, like payments to sympathetic "temporary spokespersons" who would not necessarily be identified as working for the coalition, according to a contract document and a military official.
In addition, the document called for the development of "alternate or diverting messages which divert media and public attention" to "deal instantly with the bad news of the day."
Laurie Adler, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln Group, said the terms of the contract did not permit her to discuss it and referred a reporter to the Pentagon. But others defended the practice.
"I'm not surprised this goes on," said Michael Rubin, who worked in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. "Informational operations are a part of any military campaign," he added. "Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs."
Two dozen recent storyboards prepared by the military for Lincoln and reviewed by The New York Times had a variety of good-news themes addressing the economy, security, the insurgency and Iraq's political future. Some were written to resemble news articles. Others took the form of opinion pieces or public service announcements.
One article about Iraq's oil industry opened with three paragraphs taken verbatim, and without attribution, from a recent report in Al Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper. But the military version took out a quotation from an oil ministry spokesman that was critical of American reconstruction efforts. It substituted a more positive message, also attributed to the spokesman, though not as a direct quotation.
The editor of Al Sabah, a major Iraqi newspaper that has been the target of many of the military's articles, said Wednesday in an interview that he had no idea that the American military was supplying such material and did not know if his newspaper had printed any of it, whether labeled as advertising or not.
The editor, Muhammad Abdul Jabbar, 57, said Al Sabah, which he said received financial support from the Iraqi government but was editorially independent, accepted advertisements from virtually any source if they were not inflammatory. He said any such material would be labeled as advertising but would not necessarily identify the sponsor. Sometimes, he said, the paper got the text from an advertising agency and did not know its origins.
Asked what he thought of the Pentagon program's effectiveness in influencing Iraqi public opinion, Mr. Jabbar said, "I would spend the money a better way."
The Lincoln Group, which was incorporated in 2004, has won another government information contract. Last June, the Special Operations Command in Tampa awarded Lincoln and two other companies a multimillion-dollar contract to support psychological operations. The planned products, contract documents show, include three- to five- minute news programs.
Asked whether the information and news products would identify the American sponsorship, a media relations officer with the special operations command replied, in an e-mail message last summer, that "the product may or may not carry 'made in the U.S.' signature" but they would be identified as American in origin, "if asked."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Kirk Semple and Edward Wong from Baghdad.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at December 1, 2005 03:02 PM
The source for Matt's article - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propaganda.html?hp&ex=1133499600&en=3af8aaf9fa1cb0bc&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Excuse me, fellow citizens -- I now realize that my previous post (made in this thread at 1:48 this afternoon) could possibly have come across as sounding uncertain, ambiguous, equivocal, and possibly even wishy-washy in its mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting sort of tone... this was not my intent, and I apologize if my meaning in saying what I said might somehow have seemed unclear and/or could somehow have been misconstrued. My bad.
*fnord*
hey, hey, ho, ho -- baby Bush has got to go!,
Otter
(Was Col. Ted Westhusing's death suicide?)
More on the Col. Ted Westhusing story, and an opinion that The "Pullout" Means That Dirty War Is Now Bush's Exit Strategy
by Lambert at Correntewire.com
~ snip ~
in May, Westhusing received an anonymous four-page letter that contained detailed allegations of wrongdoing by USIS.
~ snip ~
Westhusing reported the allegations to his superiors but told one of them, Gen. Joseph Fil, that he believed USIS was complying with the terms of its contract.
~ snip ~
Connecting a few dots and reading between the lines:
~ snip ~
3. All that the Pullout from Iraq means is that the Beltway consensus has changed: Rummy's conventional war has failed, and so Negroponte's dirty war needs to be tried. Joe Biden (D-MBNA's) "broad consensus" WaPo Op-Ed was the signal here; the tip-off that "pull out" is in no sense withdrawal is that nobody's talking about what's going to happen to our 14 permanent bases in Iraq.
4. The dirty war depends on mercenaries (contractors, staffing agencies). Mercenaries are cut outs: they provide Bush plausible deniability, so he can avoid accountability for the murder and torture that a dirty war demands. Mercenaries are also extremely profitable operations run by large Republican campaign contributors, so its a two-fer. And, naturally, the skills acquired through mercenary operations abroad may be of use domestically.
~ snip ~
more.... http://www.correntewire.com/the_pullout_means_that_dirty_war_is_now_bushs_iraq_strategy
Over Thanksgiving a very conservative brother in law got in my face about abortiion and screamed at me that he was sick and tired of the Supreme Court LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH but was sure that Roberts and Alito would stop that.
I read the following story and I could not believe Roberts doing exactly that with the New Hapshire parental notification statute currently being reviewed. I have never heard of a court so actively pursuing the rewrite of a constitutionally defective statute. If that is not legislating from the bench I don't know what is. Unbelievable, but I am sure we won't hear a a peep from conservatives.
"Roberts, Justices Find Abortion Case Accord
Lawyers on both sides agree with proposal for a resolution that doesn't drastically alter the law.
By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices seemed in surprising agreement Wednesday on how to fairly resolve a New Hampshire abortion case without making a major change in the law.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., hearing his first abortion case, led the way in proposing a means to protect pregnant minors in cases of medical emergencies while preserving the requirement that a parent be notified in routine cases.
He said doctors could seek a court order that would allow them to quickly perform an abortion in an emergency in which a girl's health was in danger.
Two years ago, New Hampshire lawmakers approved a measure requiring doctors to notify a parent at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on anyone younger than 18.
Most states have such laws, which the Supreme Court has upheld as constitutional. New Hampshire included an exception for girls whose lives were in immediate medical danger.
But New Hampshire included no exception for health emergencies that are not necessarily life-threatening. Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law as unconstitutional, and two lower courts struck it down entirely because of this flaw.
Roberts proposed to fix the flaw and thereby save the law. And in response, lawyers on both sides agreed with the idea of carving out an exception for "medical emergencies." By the end of the hourlong argument, most of the justices sounded as though they agreed as well.
"Why wouldn't [that solution] be entirely adequate to protect what you're concerned about?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked of ACLU lawyer Jennifer Dalven.
"That would solve the constitutional problem in this case," Dalven replied.
By narrowly focusing on the key issue, Roberts offered a way to defuse the major abortion case facing the court this term.
It has been five years since the high court decided its last abortion case. For that reason, the New Hampshire case gained extra attention.
It also threatened to reopen a divide among justices over how courts should deal with disputed abortion regulations.
The legal briefs focused on this rather abstract issue: Should judges strike down laws before they go into effect because they potentially are unconstitutional in certain situations? Or should judges uphold the law and wait until an actual plaintiff raises a specific objection?
Roberts' solution fell in between. It would carve out an exception in the law to anticipate future situations."
This looks to be Roberts style to fix defective conservative legislation and then put his rubber stamp of approval on it.
Hey Otter haven't heard from you in a very long time, hope you are well. received an email from a Bob Casey newly selected campaign co-ordinator in August about early organizing for the Senate race but nothing since.
Have you heard any more about the Bob Casey campaign?
When red state thinking collides with the truth:
What Would Jesus Do?
When the Red State base gets a non-spun view of neocon/corporate inner-workings, the cognitive disconnect that protected their ideology is assaulted, and in this case, hopelessly destroyed. How many fundies, performing an honest search for honor or god, find they have been instead escorted to the bloodied gates of greed and hatred by those who lead them?
A psychologist reviewed Westhusing's e-mails and interviewed colleagues. She concluded that the anonymous letter had been the most difficult and probably most painful stressor. She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war. This, she said, was a flaw.
What would Jesus do, indeed.
by MJS
http://www.correntewire.com/the_pullout_means_that_dirty_war_is_now_bushs_iraq_strategy
Pope contemplates removal of "Limbo" from Catholic lexicon of scary places...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051130/od_nm/pope_limbo_dc;_ylt=Aqf8C6XzCZ4EQ81P0tC7Z5Ss0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-
He's got to be stopped. He'll be after "Brigadoon" next...
They *all* have to be stopped.
And they all have to be stopped *now*.
Period.
Paragraph.
Page.
'nuff said,
Otter
I had thought that Limbo had disappeared long ago. But evidently it is still with us, at least for the foreseeable future.
I've always wondered how it was that the Vatican, in its infinite wisdom, knew so far in advance about Chubby Checker; and how the tiniest of humans would be the best at sliding beneath the limbo rod, either in this life or the next.
But perhaps the naming of this place was simply a revelation, impossible for the rational mind to grasp.
We'll hear more of the truth about the war very soon--Kerry is scheduled to be on Face the Nation this Sunday.
Watched/ listened live Saw, heard, read coverage Did not do either No opinion
2005 Nov 30 10 24 66 * Zogby Report
Only 10% of the country saw, heard or read Bush's speech about Iraq the other day. That is absolute proof that Bush has become irrelevant and unbelievable to this country. Could anyone imagine reading that only 10% of the country saw, heard or read coverage of a Bill Clinton speech, ever. Presumably Bush will get the same response to his upcoming State of the Union speech.
Posted by: monkey at December 1, 2005 12:35 PM
Gee Monkey,
Am I remembering history wrong...? But isn't it the Republican Leadership who refused to put them under oath?
Matthews is doing the bogus Iraqi news story now.
Where I came from it was Purgatory, not Limbo. And, everyone, even good people spent a stretch of time in Purgatory, till the people down here prayed them out. There were a very few people who got to bypass Purgatory, but not many. Limbo as a term was not used, I barely remember it.
Somehow, I seem to think that I got Purgatory and Limbo as two names for the same thing. Did I mess up my Catholicism again by mixing up two very separate and distinct places? Damn me for not sucking up all that religion properly. Where am I going when I die, if I can't even figure out the various destinations? Heaven, Hell, Limbo or Purgatory? When I get where I'm going, I hope there is a blog.
Hi Tutterfly!
You have been missed!!!
Posted by: Ron Chusid at December 1, 2005 04:45 PM
Thanks Ron!! Good for him. Go John Kerry, go!!
It's time.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at December 1, 2005 04:42 PM
It was a miracle, I tell ya. A miracle!!!
(How LOW can YOU go?)
Wonder where all the little limbo cherubs will go when the Pope closes down their dance hall in the sky.
Wherever it is, I hope they have a good band and some good dance instructors.
This reminds me of a story told by my old friend Larry, involving a question he asked the unfortunate nun leading his 8th grade class in Whitestone, Queens, during the early 60s.
At that time, in the aftermath of Vatican II, it was still a mortal sin for Catholics to eat meat on Fridays in the New York diocese, which compromised the boroughs of Bronx and Manhattan; but it was only a venial sin in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island - the three boroughs that constituted the Brooklyn diocese.
Now, at that time, it was taught that if you died with an un-confessed venial sin on your soul, you would go to purgatory. But if you died with a mortal sin on your soul, you went to hell. And the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx happen to be connected by a bridge, the Whitestone Bridge.
This state of profound ecclesiastical confusion led my friend Larry to pose this thorny question: Was the conduit between heaven and hell really the Whitestone Bridge?
Venial? Mortal?
(Just joshin' ya.)
What I remember of my catechism days are:
l.) I always wondered if the nuns were bald underneath their head scarves.
2.) Don't drink the holy water from the dipping wells at the front of the church, it tastes
awful.
3.) I always wondered if the priest could see me
through the confessional screen. I hoped not.
4.) Going to confession at 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and trying to make it without acquiring a "sin" until 10:00 a.m. mass on Sunday.
(No cussing, or fibbing, or having a bad attitude for seventeen hours - was, in those days, "HELL" for a child my age, but was especially for me.)
I always figured when my number was up, I hoped it would be up between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday night after confession. Any other time just simply wouldn't do.
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at December 1, 2005 06:32 PM
LOL! Boy, does that bring back memories...
My strategy was to go to Saturday afternoon confession and then immediately to 6pm mass...then go out for sin, I mean fun...
Sisters...just doin' it for themselves...
LOL
Now, why didn't I think of that!!!
Oh, how I suffered............do you know how L - O - N - G seventeen hours is?
I used to go sit in my bedroom most of Saturday night so I wouldn't get in to any trouble before morning! (That was before I hit my teens.) I didn't go to confession much during my teen dating years. LOL.
I didn't go to confession much during my teen dating years. LOL.
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at December 1, 2005 07:21 PM
Is there something more you'd like to share with us? ;)
I remember one of the times I did go to confession during my teen dating years. While I was in the confessional I asked the priest if a certain something was a sin. When he said yes, I just sat there real quiet for forever.
I sorta blabbed out a couple of other things and got outa there as soon as I could.
I couldn't even make it through confession without "sinning". LOL!
Will somebody PULEEZE take this keyboard away from me?
Oh, I don't know, Truth--it is so nice to see everyone here...
I love reading the threads when they get in memories.
Otter, Tutter, Ron, Ira--you're all missed when you're not around.
Monkey to Man
by Elvis Costello
A long time ago, our point of view
Was broadcast by Mr. Bartholomew
And now the world is full of sorrow and pain
And it's time for us to speak up again
You're slack and sorry
Such an arrogant brood
The only purpose you serve is to bring us our food
We sit here staring at your pomp and pout
Outside the bars we use for keeping you out
You've taken everything that you wanted
Broke it up and plundered it and hunted
Ever since we said it
You went and took the credit
It's been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man
Monkey to Man
Every time man struggles and fails
He makes up some kind of fairytales
After all of the misery that he has caused
He denies he's descended from the dinosaurs
Points up to heaven with cathedral spires
All the time indulging in his base desires
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It's been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man
Monkey to Man
Big and useless as he has become
With his crying statues and his flying bomb
Goes 'round acting like the chosen one
Excuse us if we treat him like our idiot cousin
He hangs up flowers and bells and rhymes
Hoping to hell someone's forgiven his crimes
Fills up the air with his pride and praise
He's a big disgrace to our beastly ways
In the fashionable nightclubs and finer precincts
Man uses words to dress up his vile instincts
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It's been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man
A psychologist reviewed Westhusing's e-mails and interviewed colleagues. She concluded that the anonymous letter had been the most difficult and probably most painful stressor. She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war. This, she said, was a flaw.
What would Jesus do, indeed.
by MJS
http://www.correntewire.com/the_pullout_means_that_dirty_war_is_now_bushs_iraq_strategy
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at December 1, 2005 03:53 PM
Since I posted that article about Westhusings suicide or homocide, I can understand more now about how difficult it is for red state rural people, and Evangelical or Fundamentalist people, to really be able to accept the truth about this administration and congress and the corruption that goes on daily.
The Westhusings case is a prime example of the horror that goes on inside a person who thought America was a good benevolent Godfather toward the poor and helper of our children being able to achieve their dreams, only to find out the massive scale of corruption that underlies everything political.
The DCP is so neat. You know, some of us were like triangles when we came to the DCP. (Or a square, lol). Some of us had our own life perspectives in order, in a way that worked for us. I was pretty sure the way I had my pieces laid out was final. I had researched, reached within spiritually, etc., and thought I had the answers, and every piece of the puzzle fit.
Then, because of the deceit of the spin in the MSM, I was forced to leave my sheltered, perfectly arranged little world, to get behind the spin and to the truth. Oh, the lessons I had to learn.
I had to learn that not everyone was as in awe of Evangelical Christians as I thought they were. Not only did many people not revere Evangelical Christians, but they hated the hypocrisy many so-called "Christians" were full of.
I had to learn that other people who did not believe as I believe are just as valuable as I am, and have equal rights and freedom under the law, and, without the law they have the same worth and value and rights. Some were and still are facing terrible persecution from ideologues who think only in black and white, and think nothing of forcing the world to participate in their belief system. You just don't know what an eye opening experience this has been for me.
Matthew contributed alot to my being able to confront and embrace change. Not without some blows, and not without me preaching to everyone on the blog more than once about my beliefs on just about everything including abortion. What a pain I must have been to those of you who had already jumped over that fence. But you were kind enough to have the patience to watch me rant, stew, wonder, and question. In my frustration I even lashed out a couple of times.
So, here we are. I think after this past year's progress we are all a little more tolerant of people who have different views than we do. I would say some of us started out as triangles (or squares, lol) but after rubbing our edges off, sometimes against each other, I see us now as ovals, or circles, within a larger circle. (If you can picture that.)
I no longer feel the need to preach to everyone, my puzzle pieces are put back in an order that is again acceptable to me. Now I can forge ahead with learning more about this country, and what we each must do to save it, and what my part and role is in the process. It's a journey, I would say, that is not for the weak.
There is a piece I posted on the blog today about a man in the military who had a crisis when his moral beliefs didn't mesh with the evil deeds done in Iraq. He had a really hard time making the end justify the means, and either committed suicide, or was killed because of his moral conflict.
Those are the kinds of emotions a person, an Evangelical who has been sheltered and taught how to think, a fundie, or a right wing-nut goes through when having to face the realities of our world as it is, not as we thought it was. Perhaps even people from red states who are not religious, but just conservative, might have the same reactions and trauma when accepting reality. It helps me to know that that may be why my relatives and other Christian acquaintences have such a problem with denial. To open Pandora's box means questioning EVERYTHING they are about, EVERYTHING they believe, and their present actions and future goals and plans. You might say it really rattles their cage. I understand more now, so maybe that will help me be more understanding as I get unpleasant reactions from them when I speak the truth.
I was depressed the first few months after finding out some truths about our government. Now I take it more in stride, as it is now my reality. But, it was a very hard process.
So, from one oval to another, thank you!!!
And I am so glad I have everyone at the DCP to take the journey with, and Matt will NEVER realize how much his writings and teachings did for me!!!