No to Trident

The situation involving a group of people, holding a gun to each other’s head, is not a sane situation. Nor is it going to prevent one of them from eventually pulling the trigger, which in turn, will set a domino affect rolling, in which all the people involved pull their triggers, and kill each other. The only way to stop that situation developing, is the outright ban on each of those people ever being allowed to own a gun.

Our current crop of Nuclear weaponry, consists of four Trident submarines with the capacity to hold up to 48 Nuclear Warheads, each eight times the power of the warhead that struck Hiroshima in the 1940s, killing 140,000 people. I’m not sure why we are tying in our foreign policy, with a weapon that can kill millions upon millions of people, whilst other nations (Norway for example) who do not wish to own Nuclear weaponry, seem to be coping just fine.

Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to cut the number of Trident Nuclear Submarines, from four to three when the time comes to update them. I’d assume this is some lame attempt to stick to the principles that we’ve seemingly deserted since signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 1968, stating that we intended “to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament“. And whilst this is a step in the right direction for total Nuclear disarmament, it isn’t a big enough step. It is barely a step at all. The Submarines may be on the verge of being cut from four to three, but there is no talk of scaling back the 160 warheads Britain currently keeps locked away. We are still armed, which of course, leads to proliferation elsewhere. A seemingly endless Cold war mentality driven by fear and suspicion, is long out of date. Tident itself, does not need replacing.

We no longer have to worry about the Soviets. The fight we face today, is against an enemy that has no State. There is no Nation. If the largely falsely perceived threat of a unified “Al Qaeda” were to strike us with a Nuclear weapon…. who do we strike in return, especially against an enemy that is prepared to die for their cause? A farm in some obscure corner of Afghanistan? Perhaps we use the Republican American concept of just pointing to a Middle Eastern Country on a map and start to destroy it piece by piece? Or more likely, we aim the Nuclear missile toward their home in Birmingham……… not a bad idea actually.

What of Iran? That Country that poses less threat of a Nuclear attack, than Iraq did in 2002? In the 1970s, when the Shah was running the Country, and was far more evil and dangerous than the current regime in Tehran, the USA supported Iran’s nuclear program publicly. Purely because the West recognised the need, economically, for Iran to rely on Nuclear power. It freed up it’s oil supplies. Suddenly, the war men of the Republican Right have decided Iran poses a threat. In fact, Dafna Linza, writing for the Washington Post in 2005 states: “Ford’s team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.“
Quite coincidentally, the same people who were running National Security back in the President Ford era, supporting the evil Shah, were the same guys behind the immense suspicion and fear aimed toward the current Iranian administration; Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They were perfectly fine with Iran acquiring Nuclear technology, when it enriched their oil prospects…… but then, suddenly, in December 2007 Iran completely ceased trading oil inU.S dollars and in early 2008, Iran started trading oil primarily in Euros, and so threatened the US economy, which relies on selling mass reserves of the Dollar to other Nations who then buy Oil traditionally with. Not any more. The threat posed by Iran is miniscule when it comes to Nuclear technology. The treat, which goes unreported, comes completely from it’s new Oil-in-Euros venture.

By 2004 the World Bank had made loans worth up to £2.1bn to Iran. The World Bank, funded by the IMF, which in turn gets it’s funds from member States debts and donations; including $37.2bn a year from the USA. And so, some of the money that funds the perceived Iranian Nuclear program, is coming directly from American taxpayers, who are then told by their Politicians who don’t seem to have a problem, let alone mention this to their people, that Iran is a huge threat. YOU FUNDED THE THREAT! Those politicians of course will start wars, but be well hidden away whilst the bombs are dropped.

Now, for the sake of the boring, fatuous Right Winged argument that Iran actually does pose a threat to Global Security (let’s not forget that the biggest threat to Global Security over the past decade….in fact, since World War II… has been the USA…and that the nuclear “deterrent” hasn’t deterred Iraqi’s from killing our troops….and also coincidentally, the only nation to use a Nuclear weapon has been the USA), what do we do if we were to be attacked by an Iranian Nuclear strike? If New York, or London were hit by an Iranian Nuke, what then? If hundreds of thousands of American or British civilians are killed by an Iranian attack, how do we respond? Do we Nuke them? Another waste of hundreds of thousands of lives, living thousands more horribly burned and disfigured? Whilst our leaders who started the whole thing, are locked safely away in an underground bunker? It’s like saying “well, he ran down and killed my family member, so it’s only right that I run down and kill his family member”. If London were nuked (why am I even saying that? I sound like a Cold War fear mongering idiot), Trident submarines would come in no use whatsoever) It’s ridiculous. As seen with Hiroshima, the affects of a Nuclear strike, are horrific. It should never be repeated, or even threatened. And given the US and UK’s policy of using Iran for it’s own benefit over the past sixty years; overthrowing regimes, installing evil dictators like the Shah, referring to it as “evil” when it suits the West – it is largely unsurprising that Iran may attempt to acquire Nuclear weapons, they are obviously suspicious. If the US has the right to possess Nuclear weapons, so does Iran. Despite this, it’s overtly obvious that Iran, like Iraq, has no WMDs, because if it did, Israel would be straight in there, without a second thought. We now need to work toward better relations between States, between the West and the Islamic World, and install into the minds of the next Generation the need for a World completely free from Nuclear proliferation.

And lastly, when we apparently can’t afford decent equipment to protect and aid our troops in Afghanistan, why are we planning to spend close to £100bn, on updating an out-of-date Nuclear deterrent? Trident is an expensive waste of money, built around the Cold War mentality of fear, distrust, out right lies, and profiteering. We do not need it in a modern, civilised World. They are a disgrace to humanity. Japan has managed without them, Norway has managed without them, we can manage without them.

Senatus Populusque Americanus

It would be naive to think that on the surface, the United States model is entirely original and without precedent. From the architecture of the Government buildings, to the idolising of it’s founders, the influence of the Roman Republic can be seen throughout American politics. From it’s conception in the late 18th Century, America has retained much of it’s Roman influence. John Adams modelled his own style of writing on the great Roman Orator Cicero, often quoting him. Adams viewed Cicero’s political decline, as a mirror image of his own. Madison, Jay, and Hamilton – Romulus and Remus’ American counterparts – wrote a collection of 85 essays promoting the new U.S Constitution, they signed it using the allonym, “Publius” after Publius Valerius Publicola, the joint first Consul of the newly found Roman Republic, in 509bc. The Plebian Council of Rome acted as an dubiously elected House of Representatives, the Tribune could propose legislation and call the Senate, a Speaker of the House, if you will. The Roman Senate, acted almost as a supremely powerful Senate, filled with members of rich families (The US Senate, in 2003, was found to have 40 millionaires). The business class of the day, the Equites, grew ever more rich and politically influential as the territories and provinces increased (similar to the advancement of Oil opportunities with the “liberation” of Iraq). Whilst the Tribunes did indeed work in favour of the public (Tiberius Gracchus for example), the shadowy Equites influenced policy from behind the curtains.

Split powers, term limits, the veto, and the Senate itself are all aspects borrowed from America’s imperial predecessor. Of course there are substantial differences between the two (party politics isn’t particularly Roman, the two consuls of the Senate was not adopted in America), which is more down to the problems facing the founders in 1776, their need to create something different, something that broke away from previous English rule, but did not emulate to the core, the failings of previous Republican systems, such as the Republic of Rome. The Roman system was, after all, original and so had many, many flaws. Ultimately, the Roman Republican, the principle of the SPQR on which it stood, crumbled into Empire, because the Republican system of checks and balances just could not cope with such a widespread Empire.

The importance and the Patriotism of belonging to a particular National identity, the largely insular attitudes, their belief in the Republic, their military might, and their insistence that their way is superior and so should be spread across the World, their international cultural influence; all are derived from Rome, and passed on to it’s successor, a contemporary Renaissance, if you will, the United States of America.

There is one less obvious claim America has to be the new Rome.
Stoic Philosopher Panaetius left Athens and headed for Rome, with his new powerful friend; Roman Consul Scipio around 138BC. Earlier Stoics and Romans had decided long ago, that true Virtue came from knowledge, and so only the wisest of men could be considered virtuous in the eyes of the Gods. Panaetius introduced a new idea into the Roman every day life. He would offer help and teachings to those people who requested a life of virtue, he would provide the knowledge needed, he would be the way. And so suddenly, the idea that anyone could potentially become a supremely virtuous human being, in the eyes of the Gods, gave Politicians who sought advice from the teachings of Panaetius, a divine purpose for their serving in Rome. They would insist that the God’s had empowered them, which ultimately gave them much control over the public. This, directly influenced the notion a century later, that Caesar had a divine calling to “save” the Republic. Cicero drew heavily on the teachings of Panaetius. Suddenly individual “virtue” in the eyes of the population, became more important than the protection of the Republic.

In 2005, George Bush claimed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disastrous wars in which thousands upon thousands of innocents have died, was a “calling from God“. He is quoted as saying “I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.” A grotesque manipulation of the emotions of Christendom in it’s entirety. Those soldiers, those innocent Iraqi’s appear to have died for a reason none of us are aware of. Perhaps a lavish extension of Western Oil investment opportunities, perhaps the need to revert Iraq back to trading Oil in U.S Dollars. Certainly not a “war on terror“, certainly not a vengeful attack for the horror of 9/11. They died, because Bush thinks he’s ordained by God? The idea that the most powerful man on the Planet, turned the Republican White House into a Theocratic mess, by claiming he felt he had a calling from the mythical God of the Christian faith to destroy a Nation, is no different to Julius Caesar embarking on a mission from the Gods of Antiquity, to “save the Republic“.

Ex-White House Press Secretary, under Lyndon Johnson, Bill Moyer said:
“What is unique today is that the radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America’s great political parties. The country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is, and they are driving American politics, using God as a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on.“

Suddenly, politicians of a particular persuasion, simply because they consider themselves Christians, have decided that morality comes directly from their apparent virtuous Godly knowledge, and that the rest of us just aren’t privy to their misguided “wisdom“. They try to discredit the faith of opponent politicians, purely for their own political ends. They embarrass themselves and then say “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God“, which translates to “I forgave myself, and that’s all that matters“. Republican Congressman Trent Franks, whilst trying to justify torture, starts with a quite depressingly inaccurate claim that “America’s distinguishing hallmark, its bedrock foundation, is that we hold to the self-evident truth that all men are created by God”.
Republican appointed Supreme Court Justice Scalia, is quoted as saying “..Government…derives its moral authority from God.“.
The Anti-Abortion lobby use phrases like “We will not stop until this nation once again honors God—or we die trying“, Theocracy by any means necessary? Why do you need to include an unprovable God in your argument?

The concept that as a politician, you are doing the work of God, or that your playing a part ordained by God, is an incredibly powerful concept. The race for the Minnesota Senate seat between Republican candidate Norm Coleman and Democrat candidate Al Franken, took a turn to the Religious Right, when Coleman stated “God wants me to serve“, as if to suggest a vote for Franken, would be a vote against God.
Gary Mcleod, running for House of Representative seat against Jim Clyburn, in South Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District, writes on his home page “Socialism is immoral because it requires the violation of God-given property rights“. A horribly manipulation of Biblical principles to support Political gain.
Rumsfeld would send memo’s around, regarding the ongoing war in Iraq, filled with Biblical Quotes.
It is an incredibly manipulative environment, to bring Religion into the political landscape. It shouldn’t happen. One disgruntled blogger writing on the Huffington Post site, suggests that the Republicans just cut out their religious dogmatic nonsense, and run God for President.

The use of Religious propaganda and manipulation was utter nonsense during the height of the Roman Empire, it similarly possesses the same utter nonsensical “qualities” during the height of the American empire. The influence of the fallen Rome, is far more widespread than may seem on the surface.

The Lie Machine

When I started researching this story, I had a short blog planned. But the more I researched, the deeper the story goes, it’s a story of huge proportions, with back stories, and secrecy, lies and propaganda that drives the veins, right to the heart of the war in Iraq, acting more like the plot of a Ludlum novel, than the core of realty. It’s a ridiculously deep story. Usually I do not give conspiracy theories much of a second thought, but when it is brought to my attention by a Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist with a Columbia University Masters, my curiosity is demanding to be fed.

In December 2003, six months after the Invasion of Iraq, and with the World coming to terms with the notion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and had no ties to Al Qaeda; a document was released, dated July 2001, apparently showing a connection between the head of Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence, General Tahir Jalil Habbush and one of the terrorists behind 9/11 (Mohammed Atta). The document was supposedly found by the coalition Government in Iraq, and verified as authentic by interim Iraqi President (and long time CIA asset) Ayad Allawi shortly after the invasion. It suggests that Atta was trained as a terrorist by Abu Nidal, known at that time as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, and who was based in Iraq. Despite the fact that Nidal was a long time critic of Saddam and was supposedly killed by the Hussain regime, after the Iraqi’s became convinced Nidal was spying for Egyptian and Kuwaiti intelligence, with the knowledge of the Americans. Nidal then, was not able to defend himself from these claims suggested in the uncovered documents.

The document, Addressed to: “To the President of the Ba’ath Revolution Party and President of the Republic, may God protect you.”
reads:
“Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian national, came with Abu Ammer [the real name behind this Arabic alias remains a mystery] and we hosted him in Abu Nidal’s house at al-Dora under our direct supervision.
We arranged a work program for him for three days with a team dedicated to working with him…He displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy.”

Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist and Author Ron Suskind, has suggested that the Bush White House along with the CIA had forged the document to suggest a pre-war link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to back up their authority for war. He suggests that the biggest threat facing the America, and the World is a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists, and so with America losing it’s moral leadership in the World, the rise of Anti-Americanism becomes an ever increasing threat, which America fights with it’s own brand of semi truths, secrecy, and terrorism.

Suskind suggests that Habbush was an informer for the Bush Administration on Iraq. He started sending reports to both the White House and Downing Street in 2003, and confirmed that there were no WMDs in Iraq. The reports were kept secret, and during the invasion, Habbush was paid $5,000,000 in hush money and relocated to Jordan, by American intelligence. Later that year, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a document back dated to 2001, from Habbush, to Saddam, stating that Mohammed Atta had trained in Iraq, and so weaving a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq, simply because the WMD claim had failed miserably. The document was thus released to the media whom took it at face value, unquestioning, severely lacking in the journalistic qualities that earned Suskind the Pulitzer. Ayad Allawi, the interim President of Iraqi in 2003, and long time CIA associate, was of course quick to verify that the document was indeed genuine, refusing to answer the question of why Nidal would be colluding with Hussain, given weapons, a training camp, and a band of terrorists given that Nidal and Saddam were not exactly the best of friends, and that Nidal was more of a hired gun, than a trusted friend of Iraq.

Suskind goes on to suggest that CIA officers Robert Richer and John Maguire supervised to creation of the document, the order coming through from the Office of Dick Cheney. Richer and Maguire have categorically denied the claims, and so it is of course possible that the CIA did not produce the document. The CIA are under 1991 guidelines that prevent them from feeding false information in the U.S. Not that they can’t get round that. They do however know that their testament, could lead to the President being impeached. It’s quite the pressure. But, if Suskind is wrong about the source of the document, then who’s the likely culprit? Who would Cheney turn to? He was afterall, manic about finding a link, regardless of how the link was found and how credible the information was, between Al Qaeda and Iraq, despite intelligence suggesting absolutely no link between the two.

My guess, and of course this is just speculation, is the Pentagon’s top policy official at the time, Douglas Feith. Feith was the head of the Officeof Strategic Influence, which until it became public was a secretive arm of the defence in the United States. It existed for a very short period and was uncovered in 2002. The Office was set up to produce false documents and propaganda to mislead the enemy. The media started to ask questions about the Office, and it’s secretive operations. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld shut it down in February 2002. However, all he did in essence, was change it’s name. Rumsfeld stated in 2002, in regard to the closing of the Office ” You can have the name, but I’m going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done.” Whether or not Rumsfeld would have closed it down, had it not been uncovered, is something one must think about when assessing this case. In any event, the newly created Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) took up much of the work where the Office of Strategic Influence left off. The IOTF has dealings with John Rendon of the Rendon Group. A PR group dedicated to supporting U.S military interventions all over the Globe, through propaganda aimed at the population of the victim nation. The field of work is known as “perception management,“, they have been accused of feeding foreign media fabricated articles in order to bring the citizens round to their clients way of thinking. Rendon’s work includes anti-Saddam covert PR campaigns in 1991, aimed at attempting to over throw the Hussain regime. Rendon has been involved in covert pro-American propaganda in Iraq, Kuwait, Kosovo, and Zimbabwe amongst others. Rendon is even supposedly the father of the Iraqi National Congress, a group of anti-Saddam Militants and Oil tycoons put together to oppose the Saddam regime and gain support for his eventual removal. Lead by Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi, and funded by the Americans, the INC was responsible for passing on false information regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction to the Bush Administration. The evidence they provided was flimsy at best, but lead to the invasion of Iraq. Chalabi had his eyes set on power after the toppling of Saddam. Any official claim that his information was flimsy, would not have been taken lightly, and was a threat to Chalabi, Blair, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rendon itself. The apparent suicide of David Kelly, comes to mind.

Rendon had been awarded a $6,400,000 contract to create pro-war, and pro-American propaganda and target Iraqi civilians with it.
This information, and much like it (search Google for Rendon Group, it’s all there) leads me to conclude that if Cheney was indeed adamant that he needed a link, regardless of it’s credibility, between Al Qaeda and Iraq, then the most likely source of the forged Habbush document, was not the CIA, it would have been the Office dedicated to creating this type of propaganda, and given the nature of the document, and it’s obvious importance to the Administration, it must have been the responsibility of the most senior members of the IOTF and the Rendon Group. I’d put all of this at the door of Cheney, and the Rendon Group.

Like I said, this story goes so very deep. It proves much more efficiently than any other story that I’ve come across connected to the Iraq war, that the indelibly secretive Bush Administration worked tirelessly to prove a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, in order to justify a War that seems more and more likely to have been based on profit from defence and oil contracts, and that didn’t stand up to scrutiny the moment the Weapons of Mass Destruction Argument failed. All the time, hammering the American public into a sense of false Patriotism, you’re either pro-war, or you’re against us. It’s why they forged the Habbush document. It’s why they tortured. It had very little to do with Cheney’s dire need to protect America, and much much more to do with Cheney’s need to cover up the fact that his war, the death toll, the families lives destroyed, was based on such an ugly lie.
Why did we invade Iraq?

I wonder what Doctor David Kelly knew.

We do not torture (except when we torture)

The despicably teleological former U.S President George Bush once told the American people, “We do not torture“. Now, we know that America under Bush, did torture. Whether you mask the word “torture” behind “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” or not, torture is torture. It is a step too far. For example, according to an official memo a man named “Abu Kenami“, died whilst in an American detention facility in Iraq.
The memo states:

“on the day he died, Kenami had been punished with ups and downs several times . . . and had his hands flex cuffed behind his back (1285). He was also hooded, with a sandbag placed over [his] head. (1284).Ups and downs are apparently a correctional technique of having a detainee stand up and then sit-down rapidly, always keeping them in constant motion(1284). He was found dead in the morning after having been placed in his bed cuffed and hooded.”

If that had been the description of how an American soldier had died in the hands of a nation such as Iran, wouldn’t the American public be outraged, rather than a useless GOP keeping quiet and playing politics by choosing to shift the spot light onto Pelosi?

Torture does not combat terrorism, in fact, it pretty much does the opposite. It encourages negative feeling toward America to sweep the Planet. In the same way that destroying a Middle Eastern Country, displacing millions of people, creating thousands of orphans and killing thousands more, whilst shouting “Mission Complete” does not endear an entire destroyed culture to your cause. Combating Terrorism, by using Terrorism, will never work. Bypassing international laws and human rights laws, will never keep a country safe.
It does not matter how many times Dick Cheney insists that torture has helped to keep America safe, because as it turns out, the worst terror attack in American history took place on his watch, along with the deaths of thousands of troops. His tactics didn’t save American lives, it ended American lives. Dick Cheney is not Jack Bauer.

It’s quite obvious that these techniques amount to torture. For those who suggest that it isn’t torture, then hopefully I can count on your support when I try to suggest it be used in schools to deal with uncontrollable children? What if these techniques were used against American soldiers? I’m guessing the American Right would be insisting how terrible it is. But these people are Arabs, and so whether or not they’re terrorist, is usually beyond the point, they’re Arab, and so they’re not Christian! Or American! (See: BritishRepublican)

Philip Zelikow, advisor to Condoleeza Rice, sent a memo to his boss setting out his objections to the legal backing for torture “Enhanced interrogation techniques” way back in 2002. The use of these techniques is quite clearly cruel and unusual, which exists as a bullet in the brain of the Eigth Amendment of the U.S Constitution (Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted). Zelikow tried to point this out to the Secretary of State, having himself studied Constitutional Law. The memos he claims, were rounded up and destroyed by the Bush administration who were at the time trying to inflate the importance of strict interrogation techniques against high valued prisoners such as Abu Zubaydah, who happens to have been waterboarded 83 times without any further information being extracted from him. They did not want Zelikow’s memo gaining too much support or influencing the minds of too many people.

Retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson, who was in charge of reviewing the information and evidence for War, in preparation of Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N in 2003, was not told the evidence was obtained via interrogation. Wilkerson has since stated that the use of torture for intelligence “was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda“. Suddenly, what Pelosi knew and when she knew it, seems irrelevant.

U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, investigators in 2006, that interrogators at Guantanamo were under pressure to produce a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Burney is quoted as saying “While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq,” Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. “The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.” And yet the GOP want to focus on what Pelosi might have been told?

Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi could very well be lying (as could the CIA) to some extent, as to how informed she was over the Bush Administration’s use of torture. Last month she claimed that in a 2002 briefing with intelligence experts, whilst she was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, that she had not been informed of waterboarding, stating “In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used”. However this month, a report from the Director of National Intelligence’s office, appears to suggest otherwise. The same 2002 meeting was described as a “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.” Clearly contradicting Pelosi.
The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, DemocratBob Graham was among many other leading Democrats to be briefed on Waterboarding and various other techniques, according to ABC. President Obama was right to release the memos, and he was right to refer to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques as torture. Regardless of the political problems it may cause the Democrats, they only have themselves to blame. Obama was right.

And so whilst it seems obvious that the Democrats in Congress who appear to be taking he moral high ground, are actually nothing more than pawns in the Bush Administrations ruthless oil game, it should detract from the fact that the three who actually plotted and authorised such criminal and anti-Constitutional acts of barbarism and terrorism, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, are just being left to live a happy quiet life, whilst their crimes and the cover ups taking place behind close door, go largely unpunished. The suggestion appears to be that the Bush Administration effectively legalised torture, to gain “confessions” and “evidence” linking Iraq to Al Qaeda and 9/11, in preparation for war. And so if it becomes clear that war was waged, lives were lost, countries destroyed, and billions of dollars wasted, on the basis of dodgy evidence obtained via torture, then Republicans should really back off Pelosi (The Democrats answer to Sarah Palin?), because she’s going to be the least of their worries if all out investigation is to take place. It’s a little odd that the GOP appears to be attacking the morality of Pelosi for what she knew….. about what they were doing. They appear to be more concerned about whether a Democrat was briefed on torture, rather than who actually ordered torture, effectively pissing on the Geneva Convention.

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner (whose tan is just wonderful!), stated that Pelosi should either provide evidence that the CIA had lied to her over use of waterboarding, or apologise to the CIA for accusing them of lying. Firstly, as if we’re all under an illusion that the CIA has never lied to the World. Of course they have. Secondly, If that’s what Boehner wants, then I want Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove to publicly apologise for a war based on lies, four thousands U.S deaths, thousands of Iraqi deaths, and a destroyed economy.
Boehner also claimed stated this weekend that “Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime“. Clearly lying to the American people, leading to thousands of deaths, isn’t. Otherwise the claims made by George Bush, that “We do not torture” and the claim that “The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.” or the claim to the UN in 2002 that “Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.” would have been punished, long ago.

Nothing short of a full, de-ontological investigation into the actions of the Bush Administration over the past eight years, the decisions and intelligence gained leading up to the war, who ordered the use of torture, who knew and did not object to the use of torture, and whether or not the Geneva Convention and/or Constitutional Law was broken, will do.

The leak

In 2003, weapons expert, and United Nations Weapons Inspector in Iraq, Dr David Kelly was found dead in woodlands near his home, on the route he took for his daily walks. That very morning he had sent an email to New York Times journalist Judith Miller in regard to her recent book about bioterrorism. The email included the line “.. many dark actors playing games” when discussing biological warfare across nations.
Kelly was asked to proofread a dossier of evidence against Iraq in the run up to the war. He was asked, because he was a weapons expert. He raised concerns about the claim that Iraq could launch bio and chemical weapons in 45 minutes. Later, he supposedly “leaked” this to the Observer, with the quote…
“They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.“
Dr Kelly then met with BBC Journalist Andrew Gilligan in a hotel in Charing Cross. Kelly agreed to give evidence and quotes against the 45 minute claim, as long as the BBC kept his name private. He stated that the inclusion of the 45 minute claim was the responsibility of Alaistair Campbell, even though he knew it was dubious at best, and an outright lie at worst.
Two months later, he was found dead.
The Hutton Enquiry (An enquiry set up by Blair – and so was never going to be in the slightest bit honest and objective) concluded that Dr Kelly had killed himself because the stress of the job was just too much to handle. Lord Hutton wrote….
“Whatever pressures and strains Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realised or should have realised that those pressures and strains might drive him to take his own life or contribute to his decision to do so.”
So basically, that covers the fact that Kelly wasn’t at all suicidal. The pessimists among us, are undoubtedly suspicious. Kelly clearly knew more than he possibly should, and he appeared to be a threat to the whole legality of the War scenario. Police officially stated that Kelly died from blood loss. However, Doctors including the two medics at the scene of the crime, have since came out and said that the way Kelly died is incontestably suspicious and raises some serious questions that the government and the Hutton inquiry both failed to answer significantly.

In January 2003 Civil servant Katharine Gun working as a translator for GCHQ, leaked a memo to the Guardian, from US Officials at the NSA, which stated the U.S wanted help to bug UN offices in Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, and Pakistan. These nations were considered “swing states”; votes needed for a UN Security Council resolution authorising the Iraq invasion. If i’m not mistaken, President Nixon was impeached for something eerily similar.
Katharine Gun was charged under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989. Her case was thrown out of court.
A few days ago I watched her at the Public Administrations Committee hearing on leaks and whistleblowers and I admire her greatly. She was charged for telling the truth. She was charged, for trying to put an end to the manipulation and the lies thrown at us by the Bush Administration and the Blair government. Her leaking of this explosive yet insightful document into the underhanded tactics used by the Americans to throw the World into war and waste the lives of so many innocent victims is commendable. She was obliged to do what she did. Her conscience is clean in comparison to Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Blair, Campbell and Brown. What the U.S did, was illegal, and has cost a million-plus lives. It amazes me, and befuddles my naive mind, that those at the top; up to and including George W Bush are not rotting in prison somewhere.
The MPs asked Katharine Gun, at the hearing, why she had gone straight to the media, and why she hadn’t gone to MPs or raised her concerns with government officials……. My reaction to that was twofold, firstly – it’s been six years now and we all know that Bush and Blair lied outrageously and yet nothing has been done, it’s largely been ignored. Those MPs who now want to know why whistleblowers hadn’t came to them first should start looking inward at how useless and untrustworthy we all think they are. Who do you trust? And secondly, if you trust the wrong person, and if the fate of Dr David Kelly is anything to go by, Katharine Gun could easily have been another name Lord Hutton dismissed as dead of “pressures and strains”.

The Paradox of America

The issue facing the Founding Fathers during the period 1787-1788, was the framing of the Constitution and how they would justify the problem of slavery. How could they reconcile the 1776 Declaration of Independence, with the need for a new Constitution based on their ideals of freedom from imposed rule, when they themselves were imposing rule over others?
Clearly, even back then, Slavery proved to go against everything the Revolution stood for. The Revolution itself can be referred to quite rightly as the Freedom Revolution. The Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Adams, Burr, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison and Washington are perhaps the most important and greatest political figures since Cicero, Caesar, Octavian and later Trajan. But that very issue of slavery which had no affect on the hearts of the citizens of the Roman Republic, would have a considerable affect on the brand new American Republic, purely because if ignored, it would suggest America was born on a gigantic contradiction, of epic proportions. Maybe so. But without that contradiction, and because slavery was so instrumental in the lives of the ordinary man pre-Revolution in America, the question of whether or not America could survive without it, was immeasurable.
America was of course built on contradiction. Built on paradox. The 55 delegates, often known as the framers of the Constitution constantly argued about how best to word it. Jefferson and Hamilton were the equivilant today of Liberal and Conservative. But they managed to frame arguably the greatest document of modern history, despite their differences. And America was born.

(Please excuse my simplistic overview of the American Revolution and framing of the Constitution, i’m young, and i’m from England, and haven’t been exposed to American history all that much, other than what i’ve taught myself from books. So excuse the simplicity.)

“In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis” – President Obama.

It strikes me as ridiculous that the very notion of big bankers and business owners who have been on the receiving end of bail out funds – tax payers money, should be allowed to do whatever they want with it. It strikes me as utterly inconceivable that they appear to try to justify six figure salaries despite destroying the economy. They should be in prison if anything.
It should absolute disgust us all, that the CEOs of Chrysler, GM, and Ford have the nerve to ask for $25bn yet will fly home in their own private jets. Those of us who keep the topic of social injustice at the front of our minds, who know people die every day because they cannot get the food they so desperately need, stand united in our absolute outrage at these disgusting, greedy human beings.

Obama, quite rightfully put a stop to it, by capping the wages of CEOs at $500,000.
Obama, The President, yesterday is quoted as saying…
“This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. “
Thankfully, some Republicans have actually supported the cap on CEO wages. Richard Shelby, on the Senate Banking Committee, and Senator for Alabama, said quite rightfully: “In ordinary situations where the taxpayers money is not involved, we shouldn’t set executive pay, But where you’ve got federal money involved, taxpayers’ money involved, TARP money involved, and the way they have spent it, with no accountability, is getting close to being criminal.” He’s correct, in many ways. It’s a pity those blinded by the aspect of competition in the marketplace do not have the same outlook. Those such as “Clarence” commenting on a piece on Swamppolitics.com merely, and quite ridiculously state “Obamas Socialism starts“. But then, to these people, if Sean Hannity mentions ‘Socialism’ then it’s pretty much unanimous within the limited intellect of the Fox News Audience that Socialism rather than responsible Capitalism, is on the rise.

Let’s address the issue of the so called “rise of socialism” being thrown into the argument by those such as John McCain, who as early as October 2008, was referring to Obama as Socialist. And up to and including, the mass of Right Winged bloggers, who insist on calling anyone who isn’t a ‘pro-life‘ (the most misleading concept since ‘Freedom‘), anti-homosexual, Religious, right winger a ‘Socialist‘. Obama is not Socialist. He is as far from a Socialist as a Left winger could be. He’s Centre-left, at best.

So is the stimulus Socialist? No…

Job-creating investments in health: $153bn

Job-creating investments tax cuts for small businesses: $21bn

Job-creating investments in education and training: $138bn

Job-creating investments in infrastructure and science: $165bn

Tax cuts for working families: $247bn
….. Allow me to draw your attention to the second point…. “Job-creating investments tax cuts for small businesses: $21bn” – In what way, other than the mess of a Republican mind, can that be considered Socialist? Even if a video of Obama, dressed up in Soviet attire, speaking Russian, quoting Lenin was to come to light, it wouldn’t change the fact that $21bn in tax cuts for small businesses, is not Socialist.

It is not a Socialist ideal, to bring Wall Street back to levels of human decency and responsibility. Much like it’s not Fascism to allow those companies to exploit the World, make six figure sum salaries, and then run the company into the ground, whilst the government refuse to acknowledge that they’d done anything wrong; like the Bush Administration did and like the ultra-Conservative Republicans still seem to be advocating.

A socialist, says things like “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.” If you were to claim to be Socialist to Vladmir Lenin, or Per Albin Hansson, or Fidel Castro, and one of your main points to your Socialist agenda, was …. “We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded“, you’d probably be punched in your ‘dirty capitalist face‘. If he were then to repeat what the White House website states about the apparent decay of the Capitalist system: “We must also work with the same sense of urgency to stabilize and repair the financial system we all depend on.” He’d be taken outside and shot, as a traitor to the cause of Socialism.
I shouldn’t have to explain the huge difference between Obama’s plans for America and Socialism. Those who support Obama, know that the Conservatives are trying everything they can to discredit Obama. Perhaps because he can put a full sentence together, which is something the Republican White House has lacked for quite some time. Or perhaps it’s to take the blame away from those who actually caused the financial mess in the first place; themselves. Either way, the fear tactics employed by the Conservatives wont work.

Capping the wages of the bail out CEOs is not an act of a Socialist agenda, it is the act of a President trying to make an irresponsible Wallstreet, accountable to the people who are now bailing them out. If the President were to simply allow Merril Lynch to hand out a mass of Corporate Bonuses, whilst CEOs who systematically destroyed the economy, think it’s perfectly acceptable to then take home six figure sums; not only would the bail outs mean absolutely nothing, not only would Corporate morality remain in the gutter, but we’d also be setting ourselves up for another major economic disaster further down the line.

John Thain, who used taxpayers money to redecorate his office and give out handsome $4bn bonuses after losing $15bn in less than a year, is quoted here as saying “If you don’t pay your best people you will destroy your franchise“. The problem I see with John Thain here, is that ….. you don’t have best people!! Similarly, the argument being used by the Conservatives is that if Obama restricts the pay of bail out CEOs to $500,000, those people will just move to companies offering more money. Firstly, why would any company offer a six figure sum of money, to a CEO who has ran his company into the ground? Secondly, if those CEOs do move on, great, give someone else a chance, they can’t do any worse than has already been done.

From a GOP which has pledged $150 million cut to the Violence Against Women Act, and would instead spend that money on tax breaks for the rich, I do not know how anyone can take their flawed, and rather despicable side in this debate. If a $150 million cut to the Violence Against Women Act, is the prevailing of a Capitalist society over a Socialist society, I think i’d rather live in what they consider to be a Socialist society.

Obama is being used by the Republicans and Conservatives through their tried and tested Fear machine. Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney specialised in it. Republican bloggers and members themselves have embraced it. The fear machine that relies on the idea that the past eight years just didn’t happen. It relies on being unable to acknowledge that it was actually the Republicans who caused this mess in the first place. It’s ignored. It’s ignored, because they know that the moment the word ‘Socialism’ is mentioned, the attention suddenly shifts from how a Republican Party in Government could allow CEOs and top bankers to systematically manipulate and destroy the system, and moves onto how the Democrats propose to fix it. When the truth of the matter is, the bail out Obama has proposed is unprecedented. No one knows how it will turn out. No one knows if it will succeed. It is a pity those same Republicans who attack the stimilus by suggesting they know for sure it will fail and kill America once and for all, didn’t have the same vision before they voted for Bush.

Is Obama really such a huge threat to the future stability of America? No. He is slowly already improving America, collecting it from the gutter in which it was left after the Bush regime. Will America survive Obama, despite Senators like Republican Senator Mel Martinez refered to Obama as a ‘threat’?. The answer, of course, is yes, America will survive Obama, and i’d suggest, America will come out of the Obama Presidency a lot better placed within the World than the isolation of America under Bush.

The paradox of the founding fathers in 1787; the fight for freedom despite the continued use of slave labour, is echoed down the centuries in the unforgivable paradox that the Republicans have created a mess of a system, in which CEOs and Bankers are taking public money that they have not earnt for themselves in absolutely huge amounts whilst the rest of America struggles to feed their families, who could have used that money for themselves. America was born on paradox. It will overcome it again, through the measures put forward by the Democrats, to bring morality back to Wall Street.