We've Seen It All Before...

The people who disappear into the night, hauled away in unmarked vehicles, last seen entering a police station,- never to be seen again. We've seen it before,- Soviet Union, 1930's, Nazi Germany, 1930's, Argentina, 1970's, Chile, 1970's, Syria,- up until now, Iraq under Saddam. Add to this Iraq now,- we've got up to 100 'ghost detainees'. Like I said, we've seen all of that before...

"We Stand Passively Mute..."

That was one of the things Senator Robert C Byrd said on February 12, 2003 addressing the issue of the upcoming war in Iraq. Regardless of what your views are on the war, I think this address is a must-read.

"A Nation Remembers III"

A nice little 'toon by Mark Fiore.

The Story of Summer Starr's Detention

Summer Starr, a 21-year old graduate student from Olinda, Hawaii was detained during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.

I think the story's most interesting allegation is that Pier 57, the temporary detention site reserved for protesters, was leased by the Republican Party. Here is how Erin Starr, Summer's mother, claims to have discovered that.

The notorious Pier 57 (owned by the HudsonRiver Trust--a city/state consortium) was dubbed "Little Guantanamo" by reporters who also got caught up in police sweeps and who said it looked like the Guantanamo Bay prison built by the USA to hold the Al Qaeda terrorist political prisoners in Cuba. Pier 57 was leased by the RNC before their convention. They arranged for the NYPD to put up the chain link holding pens with razor wire on top in the old Pier 57 warehouse that had oil, gas and asbestos dust on the floor from a previous fire. My heart was in my throat when I got a call from one of my daughter's friends on Oahu who told me she had been arrested and taken to Little Guantanamo. I looked it up on the internet and fear crept into me.

I called my daughter's cell phone over and over ("it's mom, where ARE you, call me"). She didn't answer. Only hours before, she had been calling us with joy, telling us of the peaceful protests and beautiful march. But now, nothing. I had nightmarish visions of a fire sweeping over the combustible floor with hundreds -- nearly a thousand -- trapped in the chainlink pens, razor wire on the top of the pens making escape impossible. My husband called the NYPD to ask who had issued a Certificate of Occupancy or Fire Safety Inspection Certificate and who was managing Pier 57. He was given the number for the Republican National Committee. Yes. My husband and I looked at each other in silent, cold horror. In America? The Republicans have set up a private detention camp for their political prisoners that can hold 1000 under inhumane and unsafe conditions!? My husband slowly dialed that number, got the RNC, and the Republican rep who answered the phone said, in answer to my husbands' inquiries about safety: "those protesters don't deserve a Holiday Inn, and they're all criminals anyway!"

I used to think that in the US you are innocent until proven guilty. That Republican rep seems to think differently. And this Republican Administration's overall disposition does little to prove his opinion an exception rather than an expression of the Administration's party line.

The Man at The Helm

Vice President Richard Cheney possesses an enormous power in the US today. There are indications that he is hardly the second in command, that in this administration it is rather a "power sharing" arrangement of sorts we are talking about, with Cheney actually calling the shots on many issues.

So, who is that quiet man who to a large extent calls the shots these days? In his Rolling Stone article T. D. Allman provides a fairly detailed, even if somewhat biased, account of Dick Cheney's life and career.

One would think that a man who has successfully ascended to the upper levels of power in a superpower state would have a string of untarnished victories under his belt, or at least that successes would punctuate his entire career, growing in significance as he progressed. However, according to Allman's presentation, that is not even close to being the case with Dick Cheney.

Cheney's record of mistakes begins in 1959, when Tom Stroock, a Republican politician-businessman in Casper, Wyoming, got Cheney, then a senior at Natrona County High School, a scholarship to Yale. "Dick was the all-American boy, in the top ten percent of his class," Stroock says. "He seemed a natural." But instead of triumphing, Cheney failed. "He spent his time partying with guys who loved football but weren't varsity quality," recalls Stephen Billings, an Episcopalian minister who roomed with him during Cheney's freshman (and only full) year at Yale. "His idea was, you didn't need to master the material," says his other roommate, Jacob Plotkin. "He passed one psych course without attending class or studying, and he was proud of that. But there are some things you can't bluff, and Dick reached a point where you couldn't recover."

Cheney might have been flunking in the classroom, but he excelled at making connections. "Dick always had this very calm way of talking," recalls Plotkin, now a retired math professor at Michigan State University. "His thoughtful manner impressed people." Forty years before the son of a U.S. president picked Cheney to be his running mate, the son of a Massachusetts governor picked him to be his sophomore-year roommate. Mark Furcolo, whose father, Foster, had been elected governor as a Democrat, invited Cheney to Cape Cod for a visit. "Dick came back enraptured," Plotkin says. "He was fascinated by the official state cars and planes. The trappings of it got him."

His manner is certainly impressive as is the grim determination he displays when it comes to life-and-death issues such as war and terrorism. However, this hawk of today appeared not to be so eager to participate in a war that was going on while he was in his prime years,- namely, the War in South-East Asia.

After leaving Yale, Cheney had one of his few experiences working in the private sector, on a telephone-company repair crew. He showed no interest, one way or another, in the Vietnam War -- until a Texas president, nearly forty years before George W. Bush, turned a remote foreign struggle into a catastrophic, unwinnable war. Thanks to Lyndon Johnson's escalation of Vietnam, lounging around was suddenly no longer an option. Cheney snapped into action. First he enrolled in Casper Community College; then he went to the University of Wyoming. That kept him out of the draft until August 7th, 1964, when Congress initiated massive conscription in the armed forces. Three weeks later, Cheney married Lynne Vincent, his high school girlfriend, earning him another deferment. Then, on October 26th, 1965, the Selective Service announced that childless married men no longer would be exempted from having to fight for their country. Nine months and two days later, the first of Cheney's two daughters, Elizabeth, was born. All told, between 1963 and 1966, Cheney received five deferments.

As a side point, note that the telephone repairman's job was about the only one Cheney ever had outside of the government and not due to his political connections.

And I really hope that Allman's silent hint that Elizabeth Cheney was born as a way for her father to avoid draft has no backing in the reality of the events. But be that as it may, at the time the war which Cheney claims to have supported was in progress he received five deferments and never went to this war, whereas many of those who were against the war ended up going there,- and some came back in flag-draped coffins. As Allman aptly observes,

He has never candidly discussed his feelings about the war, the traumatic, formative event for American males of his age. Only once, in fact, has he even answered a question as to why he avoided serving.

"I had other priorities," was all he has ever said.

Allman makes a number of astute observations.

Should George W. Bush win this election, it will give him the distinction of being the first occupant of the White House to have survived naming Dick Cheney to a post in his administration. The Cheney jinx first manifested itself at the presidential level back in 1969, when Richard Nixon appointed him to his first job in the executive branch. It surfaced again in 1975, when Gerald Ford made Cheney his chief of staff and then -- with Cheney's help -- lost the 1976 election. George H.W. Bush, having named Cheney secretary of defense, was defeated for re-election in 1992. The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office.

This pattern of misplaced confidence in Cheney, followed by disastrous results, runs throughout his life -- from his days as a dropout at Yale to the geopolitical chaos he has helped create in Baghdad. Once you get to know his history, the cycle becomes clear: First, Cheney impresses someone rich or powerful, who causes unearned wealth and power to be conferred on him. Then, when things go wrong, he blames others and moves on to a new situation even more advantageous to himself.

I hope that his November we as a nation stick to the time-honored tradition of not allowing Mr Cheney to serve in any administration more than one four-year term in a row.

Reagan National Airport under Surveillance Two Days Prior to 9/11?

This is just an anonymous email describing an alleged surveillance operation conducted by men looking like federal agents in a park near the Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. on September 9, 2001. Whether it is worth anybody's attention or interest,- you be the judge.

Dissent and Terrorism

...Homeland Security recommended that local police view critics of the Bush's war on terrorism as "potential terrorists." Mike van Winkle, the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center spokesperson underscored how public dissenters from Bush's policies could morph into real terrorists. "If you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism (all of Bush's wars, of course)," asserted the atavistic Mr. van Winkle, "you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."

Writes Fran Shor in his Counter Punch article on dissent in the "age of terror". Based on Mr Shor's and others' description of what went on in New York City during the 2004 Republican National Convention, Mr van Winkle's view had to a large extent been adopted by the security forces when it came to dealing with demonstrators in the city's streets.

I could argue the legal and social issues surrounding the issue of dissent but I think that for now I should leave that to those who are more qualified to argue them than yours truly. And there is no shortage of very intelligent opinions being voiced,- at least in the alternative media. What I intend to concentrate on is purely practical issues surrounding dissent and terror threats,- the "technical" issues, so to speak.

I have to agree with some of what Mr van Winkle is saying. He is certainly correct in noting that "you might have terrorism at that protest". It would also be correct to say that you might have terrorism at your local supermarket or train station.

However, I have yet to hear of a data pattern indicating that protests can reasonably be expected to produce major acts of terror. While we periodically hear of minor property destruction resulting from protests, all major terrorist attacks I can think of were not committed under a cover of a public protest. An exception that comes to mind is the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv in 1995 but it is worth noting that the crowd at the venue were not protesters but mostly supporters of Rabin amongst whom the assassin had been waiting for his opportunity. Another similar occurrence was the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

For one thing, most protesters, if not all, travel on foot and thus lack the means of delivering equipment necessary for a major terror attack. One would think that what a group attempting a major league bombing would need is a vehicle, or several vehicles, able to travel to the target unimpeded. Vehicles disguised as those belonging to the police force, or medical emergency services, or utility services would seem to be prime candidates.

I think that if Mr van Winkle and the like-minded public safety officials want to be taken seriously by those who refuse to just accept their statements at face value, they have to come up with some data backing up their assertions. Such data ought to show that in fact there have been terror attacks of note perpetrated by political protesters, and that it is reasonable to expect a repeat occurrence of the same nature. Failing that, officials attempting to equate protests fueled by political dissent to terrorism ought to be viewed as political, rather than public safety, operatives. I believe that is most likely the case with Mr van Winkle and his ilk. Based on what I know thus far I can only consider the bulk of their activities as an attempt to suppress and criminalize dissent.

A Call to Mutiny

According to a September 9, 2004 USA Today report, a group of Israeli hardliners has called on Israel's security forces to sabotage the orders to evacuate Jewish settlements of Gaza lest such an order be issued.

The petition published Thursday in the Besheva weekly contained some of the harshest language yet against Sharon's plan.

It called the pullout a "crime against humanity" and urged security forces to disobey orders to evacuate settlements.

"We call public officials who are being asked to lay the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland, and on all of the officers, troops and policemen, to listen to the voice of their conscience and not take part in acts that will sully them," it said.

The petition was signed by 185 people, including former lawmakers, academics military officers and retired officials. The newspaper is oriented toward a religious nationalist audience, including Israel's 240,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, a Besheva spokesman said.

While the signatories have a right to express their opinions, this petition must be recognized for what it is,- an attempt to disrupt the functioning of the IDF and other security forces. If any of the signatories are still part of the military, I believe they ought to be stripped of their rank and their military or security service careers need to be brought to a halt.

Three Years On

Well, almost. But tomorrow will be exactly three years since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Here is a short summary of what we have learned about the attacks and the US government's handling,- and use,- of them.

Those are things I have covered in a lesser of greater detail in this space, and will continue to do so. However, I think this is a powerful and concise summary. Here's what how author, Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor of The Crisis Papers, sees the utility of this article:

The Republican Party -- in a shameless , all-too-obvious attempt to manipulate the tragedy of 9/11 for partisan ends -- chose New York City for its nominating convention. Must have seemed like a great idea at the time. Their coming to Manhattan not only infuriates New Yorkers, who were badly played by Bush&Co. after the attacks, but enables the rest of us in the country to use Ground Zero as the backdrop for examining the gross failures and crimes of the Bush Administration since that tragic day in September 2001.

So, here is an update* of things we've learned during the three years since 9/11 -- documented mostly from government papers and respected journalistic accounts -- about the Administration that rules in our names. If you find this compendium useful, you might want to make this list available to your friends and colleagues, especially to those still uncertain which presidential candidate they will vote for ten weeks from now.

Well, Mr Weiner, I think you are right on the money,- I certainly do find this compendium useful, even though nothing in it is news to me. It is well-written and easy to read. Thank you for putting it together, and I am trying to get the word out through this post. I hope people read it and think it over very hard.

George W Bush's Military Records

This is a link to scanned copies of Bush's military records.