LiarsWatch

Pelosi Confesses Knowing the Truth About Bush's War Based on Lies: "I don't know what could have been done..." Tell her!

Chip — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:38:56 -0400

Begins at 4:51.

Q: If you were to go back and change anything from your political career, what would it be?

A: Well, of course, the biggest disappointment for me is that we are still in this war in Iraq, and, ah, I had always thought at the time that, that, ah, people knew the truth they would not vote for this war and, I don't know what else, er, not have been supportive of this, I don't know what else we could have done, ah, but this has been the most damaging to us: loss of life, over 4,000, tens of thousands injured, many thousands of them permanently, cost in dollars, which is small compared to the loss of life and limb but the cost in dollars to the tune of trillions of dollars, the cost of reputation in the world, the cost in our military readiness, our capabi...eroding our...undermining our military capability to protect our interests wherever they are threatened, undermining our ability to fight the real war on terror which is in Afghanistan, uh, I don't know what else could have been done, ah, but I keep revisiting that every step of the way to think what could we have done to stop this President from taking us into a war on the basis of a false premise, without the proper preparation of our troops, without a plan for success, a strategy to leave, ah, that is where we have been for more than 2 years, we're there 2 years longer than we were in World War II.

Nobody's Hero: My War Story

dlindorff — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:32:53 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I’m certainly no hero, but since some readers of my last post have
reacted by attacking my courage and integrity on the grounds that I
“never served,” I want to at least set the record straight on my
youthful response to war.

In 1967, when I was a senior in high school in Storrs, CT., I faced
a momentous decision. In April, I would turn 18, and would have to
register for the draft. The Vietnam War was by then in full swing. A
year or two earlier, I’d been an avid fan of military aviation
magazines, and bought into the whole anti-Communist Cold War thing. But
by ’67, I had seen enough of the violence being done in Vietnam against
a desperately poor peasant population—the napalm attacks on civilians,
the burned babies, etc.—that I had done a 180-degree turn. I wanted
nothing to do with war and killing. So I made a decision: I would fill
out my registration at the draft board, and I’d get my draft card, but
I would not let myself be inducted into the military.

When I told my parents, who still supported the war, of my plan,
they were of course upset but supportive. My dad was an engineer and a
former Marine and my mother a Navy WAVE in WWII. My paternal
grandfather had earned a silver star in WWI and my maternal grandfather
had had his lungs permanently scarred by mustard gas in the same
conflict. A history teacher, Bernie Marlin, referred me to a junior
high teacher in the school who had been a conscientious objector during
the Korean War. I talked with him, a Mr. Storrs, at length, and was
very impressed with his story, but I soon realized that I didn’t really
think I was CO material. I did feel war could be justified
sometimes—for example if America were attacked. At any rate, in early
April of ’67, I went ahead and filled out my draft registration form.

That fall, I began college at Wesleyan University. By then, I had
been working as a foot soldier in the anti-war movement a bit, and had
already been to one anti-war demonstration and march in New York City.
At college registration, there was a table for registering for a
student deferment. I decided on the spur of the moment to pass that up.
It seemed unfair to me that friends of mine in high school, who were
not college bound, were going to get drafted, but I wouldn’t because I
was lucky enough to be going to college. So unlike Vice President and
Warmonger-in-Chief Dick Cheney, I just skipped it. I figured when my
time came and I got an induction notice, I would just refuse, and
they’d jail me.

In October, there was a huge demonstration and march in Washington
against the war—the famous “Mobe” about which Norman Mailer wrote in
“Armies of the Night.” I went down to DC with a few other students. We
ended up near the front of the march, and then up on the Mall of the
Pentagon. Through the night, federal marshals were arresting people up
there on the Mall. I made it through until morning, when I was finally
grabbed by the legs, yanked through a line of bayonet-armed soldiers,
beaten with clubs and carried off to a paddy wagon, which took me to a
federal minimum-security prison in Occoquan, VA. I spent a couple days
there in the company of a hundred or so other demonstrators in a prison
dormitory. It was an education like no other. Veteran anti-war and
civil rights activists ran workshops about the war and about a strategy
of resistance, and about how we could build a better world. I soaked it
all up avidly.

When I was released, with a small fine and a 10-day suspended
sentence for “trespassing” on the Pentagon, I hitchhiked back to
school, all fired up to challenge the war. The night before my arrest,
I had joined hundreds of other protesters in burning my draft card. I
had kept the ashes in my shirt pocket, and when I got home, I put them
in an envelope and mailed them to my draft board, with a note saying I
would never carry that card again (a federal crime). My draft board
responded by sending me a new I-A card. I tucked it in my wallet,
saving it for the next card-burning opportunity.

Over the next two years, during which time I participated actively
in student radical activism, building sit-ins, and draft-resistance
actions, such as informational picketing of inductees at the induction
center in New Haven, CT, I had occasion to burn my card and tear up my
card several times—including once at a communion at the Yale chapel,
where we turned our cards in to Rev. William Sloane Coffin. Each time,
I’d send the ashes or the pieces of card to my draft board, and each
time, they’d send me a new one. Along the way, the infamous draft
lottery was established. I was number 81—a certainty to be called up.

At one point, back in the summer of 1968, I filed a CO application,
but I made it clear that I was not religious, and that I was not
opposed to all wars. When I had my CO hearing at the draft board, the
board members were sitting at a table, with all my destroyed draft
cards set in a pile in front of them. I explained to the men sitting in
judgement on me that while I opposed the war in Vietnam, if I were
Vietnamese, I would surely be fighting for my country against the US.
That didn’t go over very well. My application was unanimously rejected.

My day came in the spring of 1969. At the time, I was in a full leg
cast, having broken both bones in my lower leg just above the ankle in
a ski accident. I notified the induction center that I was on crutches
and in a cast and suggested they postpone my pre-induction physical
until I was out of the cast and all better—a delay of about four months
according to my doctor. They said no. They wanted to see me to make
sure I was genuinely injured.

So on a cold late-winter day, I found myself on a bus riding from
the draft board in Rockville, CT to New Haven with a bunch of
frightened young men. I handed out informational packets to everyone,
telling them their rights, how to apply for CO status, etc., and talked
about what was wrong with the war.

When we arrived, I joined everyone in taking the so-called
intelligence test. Then we went for our physicals. I was pulled from
the line and told I needed to go to see a consulting physician at
Yale-New Haven Hospital. Since the address was a mile or so away, and
the sidewalks were icy, I said I’d need cab fare. I was told by the
head of the medical unit that the government didn’t pay for
transportation. He informed me there was a bus that stopped outside
that would take me there.

I replied that I was on crutches, and that I hadn’t asked to be sent
to a consultation—in fact I had asked for a postponement until my leg
was healed—and said that if they wanted to send me anywhere they could
fucking well pay for the transportation. That didn’t make the guy very
happy. He had a screaming fit, and called the head of the center, who
came down. “What’s the problem?” he asked. I explained the situation,
and said that if they wanted me to go all the way to a hospital because
they didn’t trust that my leg was truly broken, they could pay my
fucking cab fare. The guy got angry, called me a “little prick,” but
then took out his wallet and threw some bills at me. I picked the money
up off the floor and went down to the street. Seeing no cab, I went
over to the bus stop. I looked up and saw the Induction Center
commander looking out of a window, so as the bus pulled up, I flipped
him a one-finger salute and got on.

At the hospital, I discovered that the office of the doctor in
question was closed for the day. Angry that I’d wasted all this time
for nothing, I got back on the bus and returned to the Induction
Center. This time, I went directly to the office of the head of the
center, and tossed an envelope of X-Rays from my doctor on his desk.
“It’s no wonder you’re losing the fucking war!” I said. “You guys can’t
even arrange a doctor’s appointment. The office was closed.” I told him
that he could check my X-Rays, and added, “But I’ve come down here once
already, and it’s the last time I’m coming. If you want me back, you
can send the FBI to bring me.” I hung around until the end of the day
and rode home on the bus to my draft board.

When I got there, I went into the office, where the office
secretary, an older woman with a neat grey perm, was still at her desk.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But I’m really pissed off.” She started at my
coarse language. I recounted my experience and she said, “Well, I think
they owe you an apology.” To my astonishment, she picked up the phone,
called the Induction Center, and asked to speak to the head of the
operation—the guy who’d thrown the money at me. “I have a young man
here who is very angry,” she said into the phone. “And I think you owe
him an apology.”

She handed me the phone.

“All right, you little prick,” he said, sounding like he was gritting his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“You fuckin’ oughta be,” I said, again shocking the secretary.

I put down the phone, thanked the secretary and left.

A month later, to my astonishment, instead of FBI agents at my door,
I got a letter from my draft board. It was a card declaring me to be
IV-F—“unfit for military service.”

Clearly, there was no medical justification for my rejection. My leg
bones healed up just fine a few months later, and I spent part of the
next year loading heavy boxes in a warehouse and driving semi-trailer
trucks. I suspect that, it being 1969, and the army in Nam being by
then in a state of near insurrection, the Army had concluded it didn’t
want people like me anymore. Perhaps a year earlier, before Tet, I
might instead have been sent into the infantry.

I tell this story because while it may not be heroic, and while
other war resisters paid heavily for their stands, I nonetheless think
it contrasts well with the likes of a Dick Cheney, who hid through the
war years behind student deferments and his wife’s skirt, or of a
George Bush, who joined the Air National Guard and made care to check a
box saying he would be “unavailable for overseas duty”—something the
poor guys in the Guard now doing multiple tours in the Iraqi desert on
Bush's orders didn’t have the option of doing.

I don’t apologize for my opposition to the Vietnam War. And while
being prepared to go to jail for a principle may not rank on the
courage meter anywhere near to standing one’s ground under fire during
an enemy assault, or jumping on top of a live grenade, I’m proud that I
did my best to oppose it, and that I never once tried to duck
responsibility for my own actions. Furthermore, I’ll stand my actions
up against any of those in the Bush administration or in Congress who
are so quick to support wars, but who hid behind student deferments or
used powerful connections to avoid military service or combat duty
themselves when it was their turn to “serve.”
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006
and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Videos from June 13 Iraq Forum, "Reframing the Iraq War Discussion," in Cherry Hill, NJ

dlindorff — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:16:21 -0400

Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War (Part 1)

Kokesh Reams Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) for Backing the War (Part 2)

Dave Lindorff on the Bush/Cheney Push for War with Iran (Part 1)

Dave Lindorff on the Bush/Cheney Push for War with Iran (Part 2)

Keeping America Safe from Child "Terrorists"

dlindorff — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:53:16 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the
warmongers and terror-pimps in the White House would have us believe
that Omar Khadr is a monster. Khadr is the 21-year-old Canadian who is
facing one of the first show-trials at Guantanamo.

But let’s just step back a minute and consider Mr. Khadr’s case.

The son of an alleged Islamic fundamentalist, Khadr was sent to one
of those fundamentalist madrassa schools in Pakistan back when he was
14. From there, he went to Afghanistan, to join with the Taliban in
fighting against the remnant warlord backers of the Soviet Union, which
had attempted to run Afghanistan as a vassal state.

Then came 9-11 and the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.
Young Khadr suddenly found himself fighting against the world’s most
powerful military.

In 2002, after the Taliban government had fallen, Khadr was still
out in the hills with the forces of resistance. The Taliban government
was gone, but the war was not over. In fact it’s still not over, with
the Taliban resurgent in much of Afghanistan.

In this situation, with some 20,000 US and European troops battling
across Afghanistan, Khadr, by then at the ripe age of 15, found himself
with a group of five older fighters in a compound up in the hills. Some
US Special Forces came on the location, and, peeking through cracks in
the door, saw the group, armed with AK rifles. They called on the men
to surrender, but the men allegedly refused.

At that point the brave Americans called in an air strike, and
clobbered the building. After that softening up, they went inside to
pick up the pieces.

Someone at that point, and US military prosecutors claim it was the
wounded Khadr, tossed a grenade while lying injured on the ground. The
grenade killed Special Forces Sergeant Christopher Speer. Speer’s
comrades opened fire, with three of them hitting Khadr.

When they went to check on him, the critically injured, yet
miraculously still living Khadr reportedly pleaded, “Shoot me!”
Reportedly, some of Sgt. Speer’s buddies were ready to do just that.
Apparently the “clicking” of injured captives by American forces (a war
crime) is not uncommon, and even has its own slang word. But a medic
with the group interceded and stopped the battlefield execution, and
took action to save Khadr’s life.

Khadr was eventually shipped off to Guantanamo, at the age of 15,
in violation of a 2002 protocol signed by the US which extended the
protection of the Geneva Conventions against imprisoning child soldiers
from the prior “under 15” standard to “under 18.” No matter, “bad guy”
Khadr would be one of at least 2500 children that the US has admitted
to incarcerating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere as
“enemy combatants.”

Today, Khadr is 21. He has spent the second half of his teenage
years confined in a prison camp on the naval base at Guantanamo.

This is what Bush and Cheney are really referring to when they
assure us that they are holding “the worst of the worst” on the island
of Cuba.

They are keeping us safe from 15-year-old boys.

And what, exactly, is Omar Khadr’s “crime”?

As far as I can tell, if he did toss that grenade (and there is
testimony from American witnesses that the thrower may have been
another man, who was killed in the resulting US barrage of fire), Khadr
was simply demonstrating extraordinary bravery of the kind that would
earn a silver star, at least, had it been a US soldier or marine doing
the same thing under the same circumstances. Consider: he and his
comrades-in-arms, battling in defense of their religion and, in some
cases, their nation, were bombarded from the air. They were then
approached by armed US troops—the very ones who had called in the air
strike. This was a battle, and it was not over yet. For all Khadr knew,
those US soldiers were going to kill them all. And in any event, Khadr
and his fellow fighters had a right to defend themselves to the death
to prevent capture. Sure it's unfortunate that Sgt. Speer was killed,
but that's what happens in wars.

Still, a fighter killing another fighter during warfare is not the
act of a “terrorist.” It may be brutal and it may be tragic, but it is
the act of a soldier. That soldier, if captured, is not a criminal, but
a POW. Moreover, if he is a child, the Geneva Conventions and the
subsequent protocol mentioned above, require that he be treated not as
a POW but as a victim of war.

Bush and Cheney don’t want to admit that the people fighting US
forces in Afghanistan are legitimate soldiers, entitled to protection
under the rules of war. They want us to believe that anyone who takes
up a gun in defense of their homeland or of the homeland of their
allies, and fights against the US military forces that are spread all
over the globe like Roman Legions of old, are “terrorists,” deserving
of whatever fate we hand them, by whatever rules we want to gin up.

But it’s worth remembering that this particular “terrorist,” at the
time of his “crime,” was simply a scared and badly-wounded 15-year-old
kid who had the balls to toss a grenade at well-armed soldiers on a
search-and-destroy mission.

In an interesting twist that further highlights the absurdity of calling a 15-year-old a hardened terrorist, Speer's widow, Tabitha, and another soldier who lost an eye in the grenade blast, sued not Khadr, but his father's estate, claiming that his "failure to control his son" had been the proximate cause of their losses. A federal district judge, in February 2006, awarded the two $102.6 million in damages. In other words, the court concluded Khadr wasn't responsible for his actions; his father was. And yet the US is prosecuting Omar Khadr for being a terrorist.

The Bush/Cheney administration’s incarceration and prosecution of
this boy was a war crime. His continued incarceration and the attempt
to prosecute him as a terrorist today makes a mockery of America’s
motto: Home of the Brave.

We should all be ashamed.

_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Time for Congress to Stand Up in Its Own Defense: Impeach Bush and Cheney N

dlindorff — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:24:50 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

The last couple of weeks have brought confirmation—as if it were needed—even in the corporate media, that President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the gang of thugs and sycophants around them in the White House, engaged in a massive conspiracy to lie the country into a war in Iraq.

The release of a confessional book by former White House press spokesman Scott McClellan and the subsequent release of a long blocked report by the Senate Intelligence Committee make it clear that Bush, Cheney & Company deliberately lied to Congress and the American public back in 2002 and early 2003 about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein (there was none). McClellan also states that Bush and Cheney conspired to “out” CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame Wilson, as part of a compaign to prevent her husband from exposing a major part of that campaign of lies: the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.

It would be hard to overstate the extent of or the damage caused by these crimes that are now exposed to the light of day.

Beginning in 2001, making the most cynical use of the tragic killing of nearly 3000 Americans in the 9-11 attacks, Bush and Cheney moved to aggrandize as much power as possible in the executive, and then, to consolidate that power grab, engineered a full-scale war against Iraq, enabling them to claim that any opponent of their dictatorial usurpation of power was a traitor to the nation.

It was all a lie.

Saddam Hussein had no links to Al Qaeda, and he had no nuclear program. He had no weapons of mass destruction. His country was broken, thanks to years of international sanctions and war.

As a result of these lies, we have a country that no longer even remotely resembles what the Founders had intended. The Congress has been shorn of its once exclusive authority to legislate, and even its Constitutional power to investigate the executive branch has been successfully defied. It is now an atrophied relic. The federal judiciary, right up to the Supreme Court, has been packed with administration sycophants and Federalist Society advocates of unfettered executive power.

We also have been saddled with an unwinnable war in the Middle East that has claimed the lives of 4500 Americans, destroyed the lives of another 30,000—or perhaps several hundred thousand, if we add in all those suffering psychological damage, or genetic damage from exposure to depleted uranium weapons. That war has also killed over 1 million innocent Iraqis, including countless chiildren, destroyed their country, bankrupted this nation, and made the US a pariah and a rogue state in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Most Americans long since came to the conclusion that the Bush administration was a gang of idiots. Just watching their handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster unfold was enough to make that clear. But the new reports from McClellan and from the Senate Intelligence Committee should make it clear that this was not just stupidity. The disasters that have befallen this nation, or that it has brought on the rest of the world, over the past eight years have been the result of deliberate lying and deceit and of the conspiratorial policies of a cabal of leaders whose goal from day one was undoing the Constitution and establishing the presidency as a kind of dictatorship.

Most of the corporate media have been unable to bring themselves to state this clearly. They edge around the issue by talking about the White House having been “misleading” or “untruthful.” And little is said about the lasting damage that has been done to the Republic and the Constitution, or about what is to be done about a still bloody war that never should have been fought in the first place.

The answer is clear. Impeachment proceedings should be initiated against both Bush and Cheney. These two arch criminals must not be permitted to leave office with their titles intact. They need to be tossed out in disgrace, and then indicted for war crimes and for crimes like perjury, conspiracy and perhaps treason.

We are already seeing the long-term damage that has been wrought. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, is saying that the president’s use of the National Security Agency to spy, without any court order, on tens or hundreds of thousants, or perhaps millions of Americans, is legal, and would continue under a McCain administration. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said that he would continue Bush’s use of “signing statements” to ignore Congressional legislation that he felt impaired his Constitutional powers as president.

The nation is at a dangerous crossroad. Either Congress reasserts its authority now, via impeachment, drawing a Constitutional line in the stand in defense of Article I of the Constitution—the article that defines the power of Congress as absolute in terms of passing legisation—or it forever surrenders that role, leaving us with what can only be called a dictatorship.

We clearly cannot count on the next president, whoever that may be, to surrender powers usurped by the current one. What leader in history has willingly and voluntarily surrendered authority, after all?

Such power must be wrested back by Congress, and the only way for that to happen is impeachment—a course laid out clearly by the authors of the Constitution for just such a crisis.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Rice's Lies About Torture

dlindorff — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:00:51 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Is anyone surprised that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that the Bush/Cheney administration’s authorization of torture of captives has been consistently legal and in compliance with all treaties the US has signed, including the Geneva Conventions?

After all, she was at the meetings in the White House in 2001 at which various acts of torture, ranging from waterboarding to exposure to extreme heat and cold, to enforced long periods in stress positions, and to treatments which have not been disclosed (no doubt because they are so outrageous and offensive to common decency) were dreamed up, proposed and approved for use—meetings that were manifestly criminal in nature and in violation of international and US law.

The US was “a different place” in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Rice told a group of people at a town hall meeting in Mountain View, Calif. on Thursday. But even though the administration’s “top priority” at the time was allegedly “preventing new attacks and not necessarily observing fine legal points,” the woman who at that time was Bush’s National Security Advisor, says “President Bush made clear that we were going to live up to our obligations at home and to our treaty obligations abroad."

Well of course she’d say that. But in fact, let’s look at those “fine legal points.”
The Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War defines prohibited torture as follows:

“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

It’s kind of hard to see how that rather thorough definition of torture—which as a treaty signatory is the definition by which the US is supposed to live—can accommodate the waterboarding, sexual humiliation, months in solitary confinement, faked executions, days in stress positions, etc. which were approved by Rice and her fellow inquisitors and the nation’s commander in chief.

But no matter. Rice says that even if things were kind of harsh back in 201 and 2002, today “the ground is different.” She says soothingly, "We now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003."

Well, actually no. Because when that new law was put in place by Congress, the president issued a signing statement saying that he would not be bound by it. Asserting a claim of “unitary executive,” created out of thin air by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John You and Assistant Attorney General (and now federal appeals court judge) Jay Bybee, Bush has claimed that for the duration of the so-called “War on Terror” he has all the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches rolled into his own hands, and as such is not bound by acts of Congress, or by orders of the court. (Yoo and Bybee are also the mob attorneys who advised Bush that any interrogation methods that fell short of causing death or “pain equivalent to death or organ failure” would not be torture.)

The truth is that the Bush/Cheney administration, with the clear knowledge and authority of the president and vice president and of Rice herself, went on to torture captives in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay, and in countless “black sites” around the globe, well into 2006 at least, and continues to torture captives now. Those tortured have even included children.

Condi Rice seems to be hoping to return to Stanford University after she leaves office at the end of this benighted and criminal administration this coming January. If she does, she will, I am sure, have to at some point confront my colleague Barbara Olshansky, who has just spent her first year there at the Stanford Law School as a professor of international human rights. Barbara, who co-authored “The Case for Impeachment” with me (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), was for several years the lead attorney for several hundred of the detainees at Guantanamo, and has also looked into the conditions under which US prisoners are being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan—another torture center that got its start down that road with the capture and torture of John Lindh back in October, 2001—the first documented case of such abuse.

One would hope that the students of Stanford would raise such a stink about having a war criminal like Rice running their school that they would either prevent her from getting the job, or drive her from the campus.

Until then, the least we can do is make her explain how waterboarding and other measures applied under her guidance and with her approval as National Security Advisor, can possibly comply with the Geneva Conventions which the US has signed.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). He is working on a new book on the reason’s for indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes after they leave office. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Bush's Legacy Leads to Iran: Will Clinton or Obama Make Any Difference? Will You?

Heather Wokusch — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:22:17 -0400

The lack of oversight characterizing both the Bush administration and crony capitalism have bankrupted the U.S. and created the need for perpetual war. With Cheney stirring up trouble over Iran, we can't wait until November 2008 to fight back.

Toxic economy

Take the Fed's recent $30 billion bailout of Bear Sterns. Why throw taxpayer dollars at a company with massive amounts of "toxic waste" on its books, created largely through reckless behavior chasing short-term profits?

Reigning in Wall Street would make more sense. Force investment banks to disclose off-balance-sheet risks and put aside substantial reserves, at minimum.

But no, the Fed instead hands Wall Street taxpayer dollars. Moral hazard be damned.

Bear Sterns won’t be the only bailout - the precedent has been set. We are looking at the start of a wealth transfer from normal Americans to large and unaccountable financial institutions.

And the cancer is spreading. In the same way that subprime mortgages have become toxic for major investment banks, the U.S. dollar has become toxic for overseas creditors.

The greenback has been falling against the euro and other currencies since 2002 and is widely expected to plummet further this year. Doesn’t help that the Fed stopped releasing M3 money supply data in March 2006, making it impossible to tell how many dollars are being dumped on the global market.

The Bush administration's irresponsible fiscal policies have led central banks abroad to see "coupling" with the US as a moral hazard. It’s no surprise that, for example, Japan's war chest of treasury securities fell $40 billion from January 2007 to January 2008.

Bottom line, the U.S. public's lack of trust in Bush's economic policy (if he even has one) is shared by global creditors.

And that leaves just one area of influence for this administration: war, war and more war.

All roads lead to Tehran

In the past two weeks, the White House approach to Iran has become increasingly schizophrenic. While Bush gave two radio interviews emphasizing the possibility for a US-Iran reconciliation, Cheney crisscrossed the Middle East pushing for war.

Maybe they're playing good cop/bad cop. Or else Cheney's taking matters into his own hands.

As The Global News Service of the Jewish People (JTA) observed, a U.S. strike on Iran is unlikely unless, "the Democratic presidential candidates appear to be far ahead of their Republican rival and Bush senses a 'now or never' strike option." Since even that scenario may be doubtful, " the Israelis are hoping that the hard-line Cheney will push the envelope - a role he reportedly played vis-a-vis the U.S. invasion of Iraq. One official said Cheney is seen as 'a significant player' who could influence 'serious issues that cannot wait.'"

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem-based site DEBKA reported that "at the last minute" before Cheney's recent visit, the White House asked Israel to prepare for "exhaustive and lengthy discussions on Iran." As a result, ministers were convened to decide which of Israel's military plans of action were to be presented to Cheney."

DEBKA also noted: "The vice president's choice of capitals for his tour is a pointer to the fact that the military option, off since December, may be on again. America will need the cooperation of all four – Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey - to mount a military attack on Iran."

Intriguingly, Cheney's visit to the Middle East coincided with a U.S. nuclear submarine crossing the Suez Canal to join the massive Navy fleet already stationed in the Persian Gulf.

As the Russian news service RIA Novosti reported this weekend, "the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003." RIA quoted a high-ranking official as saying, "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran."

Here we go again

True to form, Cheney made numerous unfounded allegations against Iran during his Middle East trip. Contrary to U.S. intelligence reports, for example, he declared that Tehran is "heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels."

Interesting coincidence that the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni just wrapped up a U.S. speaking tour beating the same war drum.

In a phone call to Barack Obama, for example, Livni stressed that "there is a direct connection between terror and Iran" which requires the "firm steadfastness of the international community against terror and against Iran." Obama reportedly reassured her that Iran will not have nuclear weapons.

Just last week General David Petraeus claimed that Iran was behind a rocket attack against the US-controlled Green Zone in Iraq. Petraeus insisted that the rockets "were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made" and that Iran's actions were "in complete violation of promises made by President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."

We've been down this road of trumped up allegations before.

So what happens after November 2008?

It's obvious that McCain would be a foreign policy disaster. His "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran" performance speaks for itself, as does his claim that it "is fine with me" if the US stays in Iraq for 100 more years.

He's also dangerously uninformed. Just weeks ago, McCain told reporters that Iranian operatives were "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." He said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Small problem: Shia Iran does not support Sunni al-Qaeda. You'd think that after five years of war in Iraq McCain would have figured that out. Only when Sen. Joseph Lieberman quietly corrected him did McCain say: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda." Whatever.

McCain will keep the US at war indefinitely.

So why, for the first time in 14 years, are defense contractors throwing their money behind the Democrats? Since 2000, for example, they've given roughly 63% of their election contributions to Republicans, but in the 2008 election cycle, a full 52% of defense industry funding has gone to the Dems.

Maybe it's because Clinton and Obama can also be expected to keep defense contractors happy. Both speak of peace but have repeatedly voted to fund war. Both have plans for limited troop withdrawal once in office but neither has strongly argued against keeping tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq for years to come. Neither has fought to stop construction of the gigantic US embassy in Baghdad or to scale back the heavily-fortified Green Zone.

Perhaps more importantly, both Clinton and Obama have said that all options (code language for nuclear weapons) must be on the table for dealing with Iran.

Shadow economy, shadow government

So who would profit from broader-based war? Weapons manufacturers for one. In fiscal 2006 alone the Pentagon was involved in arms sales agreements of $21 billion. And from 2001 to 2005, the US provided developing nations with 2,099 surface-to-air missiles plus ten "major surface combatants," including aircraft carriers and destroyers.

Of course, taxpayers fund the bulk of many of these weapons agreements, through direct corporate subsidies or foreign military aid linked to weapons purchases. Yet defense industry profits remain private. Another wealth transfer.

Having apparently done quite nicely in Iraq, Big Oil could also profit from further unrest. The Iraqi government is soon expected to sign "technical support" contracts with five major oil companies (BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and Chevron). Iraq will not only pay the five up to $2.5 billion to increase oil production but also fast-track them for bidding on future oil contracts. The oil majors might be hoping to pull off a similar coup when the smoke eventually clears in Iran, or at minimum, to scuttle the proposed Iran-Russia gas cartel.

The Republicans would clearly benefit from a wider war come November. McCain could flash his military credentials and emphasis would be taken off issues most likely to garner Democrats votes, such as the economy.

While the American people have no stomach for further conflict, it's debatable if their opinion even matters any more. In the same way that Wall Street's shadow economy is now sticking US taxpayers for billions in bailouts, the shadow government is setting us up for war.

No one really knows, for example, what Cheney is cooking up or what new justification for an attack on Iran will be thrown at us next. False flag perhaps?

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans against "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power" from the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower said: "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Now is the time for an alert and knowledgeable citizenry to take action.

Now is the time to dump the hero worship and ask very tough questions of our presidential candidates. Some basics include:
- Will you commit to never using the so-called bunker-buster or any other kind of nuclear weapon against Iran? Will you take that option "off the table" right now?
- Will you insist on a full briefing to the US public and congressional approval before any attack on Iran?
- When will you stop funding the war in Iraq? In Afghanistan?
- When will you bring all troops home? Will you commit to removing Blackwater and other private security companies too?

Now is also the time to ask a very tough question of ourselves. If there is some kind of attack on US interests and the administration insists Iran did it, yet supplies little in the way of viable proof, will we take action? If so, why wait?

Action Ideas

1. Have Fallon testify before Congress

Admiral William Fallon, head of the US Central Command, left his job recently over differences with the White House regarding an attack on Iran. As CODEPINK notes: "The Bush Administration will not let Admiral Fallon testify before Congress in April; it only wants Congress to hear the voice of General Petraeus, the 'feel good' military man who says the surge is working. This is a travesty. Congress needs the perspective that Fallon's deep and reasoned knowledge of the situation in the Middle East brings. During a time when military endeavors in both Afghanistan and Iraq have failed miserably, we can't afford to let our President start a third catastrophe in Iran."

Call Senator Biden (202-224-4651) or email the Foreign Relations Committee today to urge them to have Fallon testify.

2. Learn more about Iraq Town Halls and make your voice heard.

Democrats.com has an important initiative called Iraq Town Halls : "In April, Congress will vote to give George Bush another $102 billion blank check for Iraq - unless we finally persuade our Representatives to Just Say No. One of the best ways to persuade a Representative is to hold a Town Hall Meeting and fill the hall with people who care and are willing to speak passionately. That gets their attention!"

3. Impeach Cheney

Do you think Cheney should be impeached? The People's Email Network has made it easy for you to take action. The one-click form on their site "will send your personal message to all your members of Congress, with your vote on the question 'Should Vice President Cheney be impeached?' At the same time it will send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper, if that option is selected below."

While you're at The People's Email Network site, consider creating your own issue action petition. It costs nothing and enables you to start your own movement using their dedicated submission server.

4. Find out if there are WMD facilities in your area

Weapons manufacturers have had a bonanza under Bush, and often the public isn’t aware that a domestic WMD lab is nearby.

Curious about where the nation's nuclear weapons plants are located? Then check out the Federation of American Scientists at: "Where the Bombs Are"

Is a university or military facility in your area involved in biological weapons research? One resource to help you locate biodefense projects is Project Sunshine's "Map of High Containment and Other Facilities of the US Biodefense Program," under "Biodefense" on the Project Sunshine site.

If your group would like to conduct its own PR-generating "inspection" of a domestic WMD facility, check out the Citizen Weapons Inspection Teams site for materials, pointers and a 5-page Citizen Inspection Team Event Checklist, covering everything from budgeting resources to issuing a declaration.

5. Put the media to work

Progressive Democrats of America has put together a terrific resource to help you contact the media with your comments, complaints and suggestions.

Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives’ Handbook series and can be reached at heatherwokusch.com

Duck and Cover(Up): Hillary Under Fire

dlindorff — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:43:55 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

So Hillary Clinton, her campaign sagging as it becomes clearer and clearer that she’s not going to get the Democratic nomination unless she can destroy her opponent, insists she would have quit Barack Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago after hearing the allegedly “hateful” words of its pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

But wait a sec. Putting aside the matter of whether what Wright said was even “hateful,” this same Hillary Clinton chose the rabidly anti-semitic Rev. Billy Graham for spiritual mentor in her time of troubles during wayward hubby Bill’s impeachment scandal, and welcomed his offer of support for her senate and presidential bids. This, of course, is the same Billy Graham who was caught on tape telling President Nixon that he thought Jews had a “stranglehold” on the American media, and that if something weren’t “done about it,” the “country’s going down the drain.”

Now that certainly qualifies as hate speech, but it hasn’t bothered candidate Clinton a bit to cozy up to the Rev. Graham.

Well, maybe Clinton just “misspoke” when she said she chose the Rev. Graham as her spiritual mentor. (Isn’t that a lovely euphemism for lying, by the way?)

Misspeaking is her excuse for her latest whopper: the one about her combat experience in war-torn Bosnia.

Clinton, in an Iraq policy speech she gave last week aimed at trying to burnish her claim of 35 years of Washington experience, recalled a 1996 trip to the war-torn former province of Yugoslavia, where Serbs and Croats had been butchering each other and especially Muslims. As she told the tale last week:

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and ... there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the first lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Brave woman!

Then came an embarrassing CBS news clip of that visit, which showed that there was no sniper fire, and that Clinton, who had brought along her daughter Chelsea and the comic Sinbad (apparently it was too dangerous for Bill, but not too dangerous for her daughter or the commedian!), and that all three of them had made a leisurely stroll from the plane with their military escorts and local hosts, even stopping to greet an 8-year-old girl who was on hand to welcome them.

A red-faced Clinton now claims she was “tired” and that she had “misspoken.”

Except that this isn’t the first time she’s told this particular whopper, as she insisted initially. She’s been a serial liar about the Bosnia visit and the mythic snipers.

All of which should raise grave doubts in the minds of primary voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere about the veracity of her many other claims of foreign policy and White House executive experience—like her clearly and demonstrably inflated claim of having “helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” or her equally inflated claim of having "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo," and also about her claim to have opposed the passage of the job-killing NAFTA treaty. (Recently revealed Clinton White House appointment records, pried lose by a public interest group Freedom of Information request, show that she in fact actively pushed for NAFTA passage.)

Now we all know that all politicians bend the truth, exaggerate their records, and yes, lie. But Clinton is now in danger of supplanting Al Gore, who was pilloried for exaggerating his role in “inventing” the Internet during his ill-fated run for the White House, as the season’s ace prevaricator. If she were somehow to manage to gain the Democratic nomination, Republicans and GOP candidate John McCain would have a field day with her at this point.

But we should not be surprised at this turn of events. After all, Hillary’s claim to White House experience and her assertion that she’s ready to assume the role of commander in chief “on day one” rests on her having been Bill’s consort and presidential “twofer.” And it was Bill, never one to be hobbled by the limitations of the truth, who famously claimed that a statement’s veracity depended on “what the meaning of `is’ is.”

Perhaps Hillary will eventually be saying the veracity of her Bosnian tall tale hinges on what the meaning of “snipe” is.

Now I recall that when I was a kid in summer camp, a snipe was a creature that counselors would send us off into the woods to capture in the dark. Like Clinton’s adventure with live fire, we campers eventually learned that the animal didn’t exist.

________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Five Years of a Disastrous War and the Bills are Coming Due

dlindorff — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:29:00 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

It’s appropriate that on this week of the fifth anniversary of the criminal US invasion of Iraq, we are also seeing several other things: the death toll of American troops in that doomed adventure is rising past 4000, the economy is sliding into a recession which could be deep and long, and the financial markets are teetering on the edge of a possibly historic collapse.

The conjunction of all of these dire things is no coincidence.

The war on Iraq was a predictable disaster from day one, when the administration tried to do it on the cheap, using less than half the manpower that Bush’s own generals said would be needed to control the country after the inevitable collapse of its government and military. But of course the US had to conduct this war on the cheap because the country was never really behind the war in the first place. It was a war that was "marketed" to us like a risky financial investment or a badly designed new car. The idea was to close the sale and get away from the deal as quickly as possible, leaving no office forwarding address.

The problem was that Iraqis, the victims of our attack, didn’t cooperate. They didn’t lie down and play dead. They decided to resist our effort to take over their country and run it like a retail gas station. So now the US has wasted over $500 billion in a country trying--and failing--to gain control over a country no bigger than a mid-sized state, battling against resistance forces armed with homemade bombs, obsolete grenade launchers and Vietnam-era AK-47 rifles.

But because the Bush/Cheney administration could never admit to Americans what this war would be costing, and has cost, all that money has been borrowed. As for the deaths and the tens of thousands of injuries, the government has hidden these, flying in the casualties in the dead of night and burying them quickly and as quietly as possible, while sticking the wounded in closed off VA hospitals and rehab centers, from which the press, for the most part, are barred (if they even bother to try and do a story).

That need to hide the truth means that the real cost of the war is running into the trillions of dollars, because of the interest on the debt, and because of the the future costs of providing for all those who are injured.

The war in Iraq has helped to bankrupt this country, which, to be honest, is the state we’re in when the US, year in and year out, is buying more than it is selling, leaving creditor nations like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia owning trillions of dollars in debt that cannot be repaid. It has also distorted the economy. By pushing up the price of oil to record levels of above $100/barrel, a result of uncertainty about supplies, plus the virtual removal of Iraq, the world’s second or third-largest oil-producing region, from the market, not to mention the jeopardizing of the entire oil supply through the Persian Gulf, which accounts for over 20 percent of the world’s oil, the Iraq War has thrown the US economy into a slump, while at the same time pushing up inflation.

In order to keep things going in the face of all this, the administration and the Federal Reserve for years have kept mortgage rates low and encouraged homeowners to borrow on their home equity in order to keep spending, and thus the whole system, afloat. That gambit has now run its course, with the housing bubble finally bursting.

It would seem that there is little left to keep the economy going.
The housing crisis has left the nation’s banks and investment banks holding trillions of dollars in assets that are actually worth only a fraction of their face value. So rickety is the system that over the weekend, as the Federal Reserve worked frantically to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns, the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank, there was real fear of a total collapse of the finance system, ala 1929. Such a thing could still happen, when the next bank or investment bank comes a cropper.

Consumers, for their part, are spent out.

And the war continues apace, the bodies, and the bills, piling up.

President Bush is saying it was all worth it. Cheney, touring the Middle East while trying to drum up support for what would be a catastrophic and even more criminal attack on Iran, is saying that the “progress” in Iraq has been “phenomenal.” And John McCain, the addled, past-his-sell-date Republican candidate for president, is committed to continuing this madness for another century, even if he cannot remember who the US is fighting over there (he confused the so-called “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” group--all Sunni--with the Shia militias and had to be corrected by his travel buddy, Sen. Joe Lieberman).

It’s a somber anniversary. Five years of a war that never should have happened. A country destroyed. America on the ropes economically. A million Iraqi civilians dead. 4000 American soldiers killed and another 20,000 maimed.

At some point, the American people will finally say they’ve had enough of this madness, manipulation and malfeasance.

The question is what will be left of this place when they finally put a stop to it and bring the troops home to a jobless economy.

The hucksters and flim-flam men who produced this mess have had their fun and are preparing to run off with their winnings. We should really organize a pitchforks and torches march on the White House and Congress and run them out of town on rails, tarred and feathered, while we can. They’ll be hard to track down once people realize how we’ve all been had.

_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martins Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

America: Lying Politicians, Gullible Voters and the Long Slide Ahead

dlindorff — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:15:26 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Well, fellow Americans, we are finally going to get our just rewards.

That “Almighty Dollar” you used to hear about is heading straight towards the scrap heap of junk currencies (think Ruble, Rupee, Lira, Escudo).

Several decades of foolishly voting for charlatan politicians, who assured us we could rule the world as we saw fit with a military whose costs were greater than the rest of the world’s armies combined, and who assured us we didn’t need to pay for our wars and our military might because we could just borrow money to keep the government running, have finally run us up against a wall. Nobody wants to hold those dollar debts anymore.

Would you?

The same is true with the policy of globalization which those same charlatans have sold us, claiming that allowing our industrial base to pick up and move to Asia or Latin America would be a cost-free way of keeping inflation in check by providing us with all our manufactured crap on the cheap. Forget about lost jobs, they told us. You’ll all end up retraining and becoming lawyers and accountants and MBAs scooping up the good new jobs. Forget about a trade deficit, too, they told us. The US, with its brilliant educated workforce, will be providing the world with intellectual products, from our peerless movies and video games to our wonderful high-tech and medical inventions.

Now we see that those promises were a joke too. Indian and Chinese scientists and engineers are proving to be just as smart as our own. And as our bankrupted communities, their tax revenues withering with the collapse of the real estate bubble, and our financially strapped states, their tax revenues battered by rising unemployment and falling incomes, slash funding for public education and for colleges.

The jobs are gone, the schools are overcrowded holding pens, the public has run itself into massive debt trying to maintain a semblance of old living standards, the bridges are falling down, the roads are filling with potholes and cracks, fully one percent of the population (mostly people unable to find jobs) is in jail, and the troops are mired off in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they’re blowing through $12 billion a month just trying to stay alive and to stave off defeat.

Meanwhile, here at home, we’re watching the price of gas drift upwards towards $4/gallon, as producing countries from Iran to Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia in between, look at their crude stockpiles and think, “Do I want to get paid in greenbacks for this stuff?”

Increasingly, they’re thinking, “No. What do they take us for? Chumps? We want Euros.”

Over in China, the folks who make everything we use, from car and plane parts to the toys our kids play with and the food we eat, they’re thinking the same thing.

When they all eventually decide they’ve had it with the dollar, it will really start to plummet, and no amount of interest rate hiking by the Federal Reserve will be able to make it look attractive enough to hold onto.

But wait, the Fed can’t raise interest anyhow! It has to lower interest rates, because the US economy is sinking into a recession. That’s why the Fed has already lowered interest rates to 3 percent.

You may not have noticed, because the banks haven’t followed suit by lowering mortgage rates and consumer credit rates. They can’t do that, because they have so many loans going bust they need to keep sucking profits out of the remaining borrowers who so far can still meet their monthly payments.

The politicians who lured us into this disaster are now talking about how they will fix everything, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. John McCain may say the US will be stationing troops in Iraq for 100 years, but how’s he planning to pay for that? Hillary Clinton may say she wants to bring jobs back to Ohio, but who’s going to hire Ohio's workers? (Incentally, the phone Hillary picks up in her infamous "hot-line phone" ad was made in China, and the child in the ad, itself lifted from stock footage taken years ago, was of a girl, now 17, who is today an Obama activist.) Barack Obama may say he’s going to ensure that Americans can continue to maintain their lifestyles and afford the things they need, but how does he plan to keep incomes—and the currency itself—afloat?

The only way to salvage the US economy is for us American voters to admit that we’ve been buying a lie, and that these candidates vying to replace the Liar-in-Chief, and the candidates running for the Congress, are lying to us still.

We need to acknowledge that the US is not exceptional, and that it has to be part of the community of nations. We can no longer rule a “new world order” as “the sole surviving superpower.” That way lies the fate of the Roman Empire.

We need to bring the troops home—not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from all 800 of the places we have them stationed around the globe. We need to make reefs of our aircraft battle groups, and new forests of our many, many airfields and military bases.

We need to put the hundreds of thousands of men and women who unproductively march around in ugly desert uniforms to productive work as teachers, scientists, technicians, builders, healthcare workers and reforestation workers.

We need to take the trillion dollars a year we annually blow on the military and start putting it into our education system, our health system, our retirement system and, most critically, into R&D on ways to save the planet from climate disaster.

There is probably still time to pull the US out of a permanent dive into third-class nationhood, but not much. Especially if the idiots currently at the wheel are allowed to make things worse by attacking Iran.

We can start by demanding that the current candidates for President and Congress stop their lies. None of them can bring about any “change” in America, or rescue the country from its growing crisis, without slashing our absurd military budget, and without ending the con game called “globalization” that is hollowing out the economy.

If we don’t demand that kind of honesty of our political class, we have only ourselves to blame for the wreckage that will ensue.

If you want to see what it’s going to look like if we continue down our present path, take a trip to Rome and walk through the ruins of the Forum. Those structures went from gleaming marble to piles of bricks in a matter of decades, during which Rome went from the capital of a pan-European empire to a fetid swamp (much like a post-collapse Washington would be). But a word of warning. If you go to Rome, bring a sleeping bag and a lunch pail. Your dollar will not get you a hotel room or pay for lunch at even a run-of-the-mill eatery these days, so plan on camping and eating from the grocery store while there.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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