Gee, the White House isn't handling this spin too well.

"I worked with Richard Clarke in the mid-'90s and I was very impressed with his competence and his determination and his nonpartisanship. I think he's very credible and I think he's raised serious issues for the American people. I don't think it's fair to be attacking Dick Clarke's motives. . . . The facts are out there in the book. It's up to the administration to deal with the facts or not." Wesley Clark

EYES ON IRAQ FROM THE FIRST

By Margie Burns

In retrospect, it is now clear that the Bush administration had cash-register eyes on Iraq from the start.  From the first, Bush appointed to public office every member of the “Project for a New American Century” he could get.  The “Project for a New American Century” is a DC-based GOP lobbyist-contractor think tank, founded in 1997 with the foreign policy goal of invading Iraq.  In January 1998, the PNAC sent a letter to President Clinton, urging him to remove Saddam Hussein. 

It is chilling to read the exact arguments, dated January 1998, used later by the Bush White House and its paid media supporters:  “We urge you to . . . to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world.  That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power . . . In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.  In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.  That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.”  (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm)

Removing Saddam as “the” aim of American foreign policy is to be pursued at all costs, said the signers of the letter, which also mentions “the world’s supply of oil.” 

This pro-Iraq-war letter to Clinton has eighteen signers.  Nine of them were immediately appointed to federal positions after Bush came into the White House.  The first was Donald Rumsfeld, named as Bush’s Secretary of Defense on December 11, 2000, even before the inauguration.  Vice President Cheney was another PNAC founding member.

Throughout the months leading up to September 11, 2001, Bush consistently picked PNAC members, focused on Iraq, over nonpartisan security experts, for top security positions.  The timeline is impressive:

Bush announced signer Robert B. Zoellick as US Trade Representative (the president’s principal trade advisor) on January 11, 2001; Paul D. Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary for Defense on February 5; Richard L. Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State on February 12; Dov S. Zackheim as Comptroller for Defense on February 12; and John R. Bolton as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in State on February 21.  The Pentagon Comptroller, Zackheim, is responsible for overseeing contracts in the Iraq reconstruction.

Thus by the end of February, 2001, most top national security jobs were consolidated around a none-too-subtle agenda of entering Iraq, intervening in its internal affairs, and replacing its government.

By the end of May, PNAC members also held the sensitive positions of Under Secretary for Global Affairs, State; Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy, Defense; and Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Defense.

The National Security Council was similarly politicized.  PNAC signer Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad was appointed to the National Security Council on May 23.  Bush appointed signer Elliott Abrams, indicted for lying to Congress in the “Iran-Contra” affair but pardoned by former President Bush, on June 25.  Khalilzad worked in Defense under former President Bush and then worked for the Rand Corporation, a major military contractor, in the 1990s.  Born in Afghanistan, he was also a consultant to US oil company Unocal, which attempted for several years to launch a giant pipeline project in Afghanistan but could not complete the deal with the Taliban.  Khalilzad is now US Ambassador to Afghanistan.  Abrams is NSC representative for Middle Eastern Affairs.

Other signers of Project for a New American Century letters and statements have also been appointed to federal positions. 

The full story of an unofficial official campaign to go to war, behind the scenes in government, still waits to be told.  Major media outlets have not run even the blandest of stories on the PNAC, with its numerous members in government, as a “farm team” or a “stable” or a “bullpen.”  However, it can now be seen that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest hyped up the alleged “WMD” threat posed by Iraq and conversely gave lightened presentations on the risks, cost, and bloodshed involved in invading.  Surely it must also be clear that the White House posture of choosing war as a “last resort” was deception

Margie Burns, a native Texan, writes freelance in the DC area.  She can be reached at margie.burns@verizon.net

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Winner: please email lisa@allhatnocattle.net

 COMPUTERS

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection
for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent
computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer
industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with
technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00
cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a
press release stating: If GM had developed technology like! Microsoft, we
would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just
love this part):


1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a
day.


2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you
would have to buy a new car.


3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no
reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the
windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you
could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn
would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you
would have to reinstall the engine.


5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun,
was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would
run on only five percent of the roads.


6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights
would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal
Operation" warning light.


7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before
deploying.


8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would
lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.


9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have
to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.


10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the
engine off.


Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes
hate - their computer!
 

This is an artist's rendering of a proposed 305-foot monument of Abraham Lincoln to be built in Lincoln, Ill. Supporters such as Rev. S.M. Davis, a Lincoln pastor who first suggested the statue, say it would be visible for about 20 miles and have hopes it could become one of the biggest tourist attractions in America. (Photo/HO)

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Today in History  March 25

0421 - The city of Venice was founded.

1634 - Lord Baltimore founded the Catholic colony of Maryland.

1655 - Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.

1668 1st horse race in America takes place

1776 Continental Congress authorizes a medal for General George Washington

1821 Greece gains independence from Turkey (National Day)

1896 Modern Olympics begin in Athens Greece

1907 - Nicaraguan troops took Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

1916 Women are allowed to attend a boxing match

1937 It's revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads

1937 Washington Daily News is 1st US newspaper with perfumed advertising page

1944 RAF Sergeant Nickolas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute

1960 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)

1961 Elvis Presley performs live on the USS Arizona

1965 Martin Luther King Jr led 25,000 to state capitol in Montgomery AL

1966 US Supreme court rules "poll tax" unconstitutional

1969 John & Yoko stage their 1st bed-in for peace (Amsterdam)

1970 Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)

1975 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot and killed by his nephew.

1976 Argentine military junta bans leftist political parties

1986 Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes

1987 Supreme Court rules women/minorities may get jobs if less qualified

1992 British scientists find new largest perfect number (2 756839 -1 2 756839)

1993 - President de Klerk admitted that South Africa had built six nuclear bombs, but said that they had since been dismantled.

1994 - United States troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia.

2002 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dismissed complaints against Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network broadcast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show in November 2001.

Democratic Sen. Miller Leads Charge for Bush
Reuters, United States - 3-25-04
Zell Miller, a Democrat who has endorsed President Bush, took the reins on Wednesday of a "Democrats for Bush" group and slammed John Kerry as "out of step ...

EMAIL:

Subject: Kerry/McCain

Lisa,

Much has been written lately, re: Kerry/McCain.

One of the more recent:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/03192004/col_jese/6044.htm

I have written to both senators urging them to unite for the good of the country. My E-mail to Senator Kerry follows this message.

Mugwump

Letter to Kerry:

Dear Senator Kerry:

I have written the following E-mail to Senator McCain urging him to join with you in a bi-partisan resolution to restore our national security and to ensure the success of our economy.

If our objective is to replace President Bush by electing you, what greater chance might we have, than with Senator McCain as your running mate? What better opportunity can we give disgruntled Republicans to express their dissatisfaction with President Bush than by forming a coalition with Senator McCain, for whom many would have cast their votes in the last election, had he been a candidate?

I strongly urge you to select Senator John McCain as your Vice-Presidential running mate for this election for the reasons expressed herein, and in my message to Senator McCain.

Respectfully yours,
Mugwump


E-mail to Senator McCain:

Dear Senator McCain:

I write to you as a former Air Force B-52 pilot, who could only justify the Christmas 1972 bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong (I was up there nearly every night, while you were down below) with the hope that such would free you and the other POW’s.

Please consider my E-mail as my most sincere request that you join with Senator Kerry, as his Vice-Presidential candidate, for the purpose of presenting to our fellow Americans a united front, the partnership of which will ensure that our Union and Constitution survive.

A bi-partisan resolution to restore our national security and to ensure the success of our economy would be most welcome in this most troubling time.

Respectfully yours,
Mugwump

If you wish you can e-mail Kerry, and/or McCain at:

http://www.johnkerry.com/contact/contact.php?sendto=1

http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home
 

Since we are in the mess we are, are we better off with 2 men who actually fought in a war? (Speaking in Rumsfeldian)

Thanks for writing and sharing your view.

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Winner: please email lisa@allhatnocattle.net

The Black Commentator

Haiti’s Troika of Terror
Thugs - a Buffoon - the Pirates
http://www.blackcommentator.com/83/83_cover_haiti.html


Cartoon: The Hanging Judge
http://www.blackcommentator.com/83/83_cartoon_judge.html

Opportunity Finds Beachfront Property on Mars - Astrobiology Magazine

Peace.