We at Donkephant give the average citizen a chance to make an informed decision based on a simple breakdown of political rhetoric, without having to sift through political spin. And we are funny too.
At some point in my academic life, I heard a saying that goes something like this: “how you deal with war reflects on how you deal with life; you either stand strong and live the inevitable tragedy or you sleep in shame and let the tragedies taunt your dreams.…”
From looking at these blogs and comments, and difference of opinions, I can’t help but feel that some of the veterans against this war and demanding for an immediate withdraw seem to be dealing with some heavy personal issues that manifested from the war. On the other hand, some of the aggressive pro-war folks are of the same mentality—damaged by their experience in battle.
Now I’m going to give you something only a silly philosopher will say:
Regardless of our view on this war, or who we think are right or wrong, we all came together to do in war what was asked in peace. Was it without reservations? Only the fools without feelings go to war without reservations. We all had our doubts, but to live strong means we live to test our doubts, and with that to learn how we feel. Then we form opinions and educate others by free will.
Between you and me, I still have my reservations about this war, and I am not as certain as some of the others in supporting our combat efforts. However, I do think we need to finish a job because that’s who we are, soldiers committed to a cause. You and I did not start this war, nor did we fire the first shot. With violence that runs so deep, the only thing we can ask ourselves to do at this point as soldiers is to help as many people as we can and leave with pride because we made a difference in the end…
“This is the land of confusion… this is the world we live in…” I have heard this song over and over again, and just not sure how to feel about all of this. As a veteran during this election season, I often reflect on the ideas that this is my very first chance to vote. I just became a citizen not too long ago. Although I have witnessed and assisted the Iraqi people with their election, this will be my first time participating in an election process.
However, I have not been able to settle on a good choice to cast my vote. Although I know my one vote probably won’t make much of a difference, and perhaps I’m spinning my own wheels to just make my newfound citizenship seemingly important. I just can’t help but feel that I can perhaps make a difference, and because of my service to this nation, I owe this nation a responsible and educated choice.
That is why I want to encourage all veterans, to get out and vote. Vote your conscious because you have earned the rights to voice your opinions. Not only that, you have earned the rights to be elected as leaders of this nation. If you are veteran, you should be running for public office. It is about time that the people who lead this nation actually have fought to defend what this nation is all about.
Yes there are too many people, and too many problems… but it’s time that we come together and keep our oath to serve this nation and keep our promises.
I would like to take a moment of your time and introduce you to a Presidential candidate that deserves your vote and his name is Ron Paul. Many of you no doubt have heard this name before. I would like to share with you my thoughts on Dr. Paul and my awakening from an apathetic sleep called The American Dream.
For many years I have written about my discontent and malfeasance with the current administration and the Neo-Con movement. Now I am going to offer a very simple solution that requires only a few moments of your time. As always “let’s walk the dog” a little bit to try and understand why this particular candidate (in my mind) is the only one that makes sense. If you are going to vote for a candidate it’s important to know about their platform and what they advocate. I will let you read Dr. Paul’s own words and I will interject a little history to validate the view point. My comments will be in red.
American Independence and Sovereignty
So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.
The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.
The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars. Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs.
NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.
And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever.
Let’s not forget the UN. It wants to impose a direct tax on us. I successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to tax us, we will need leadership from the White House.
We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America.
Border Security and Immigration Reform
The talk must stop. We must secure our borders now. A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked. This is my six point plan:
Physically secure our borders and coastlines. We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country before we undertake complicated immigration reform proposals.
Enforce visa rules. Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays their visa or otherwise violates U.S. law. This is especially important when we recall that a number of 9/11 terrorists had expired visas.
No amnesty. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 million people are in our country illegally. That’s a lot of people to reward for breaking our laws.
No welfare for illegal aliens. Americans have welcomed immigrants who seek opportunity, work hard, and play by the rules. But taxpayers should not pay for illegal immigrants who use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services.
End birthright citizenship. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the incentive to enter the U.S. illegally will remain strong.
Pass true immigration reform. The current system is incoherent and unfair. But current reform proposals would allow up to 60 million more immigrants into our country, according to the Heritage Foundation. This is insanity. Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods.
Now I know we are called the “melting pot” and this used to be a badge of honor. I am going to boil this one down to a very simple point. We have heard the argument, “if we stop illegal immigration who will do the jobs that we don’t want to do?” This is what we call a straw man argument. The only reason we allow this type of immigration to occur today is because corporations know more consumers is better regardless of their citizenship status. Dr. Paul’s statements make good common sense to anyone capable of critical thinking.
Debt and Taxes
Working Americans like lower taxes. So do I. Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our own lives.
Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by $40 a month or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains taxes and hire more employees, that tax cut is a good thing. Lower taxes allow more spending, saving, and investing which helps the economy — that means all of us.
Real conservatives have always supported low taxes and low spending.
But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future — and yours.
In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply — making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people.”
Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.
We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States. I have two videos posted about the Fed and the Bank of England following this posting.
Education
The federal government does not own our children. Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn. We have turned their futures over to lobbyists and bureaucrats.
I support giving educational control back to parents, who know their children better than any politician in D.C. ever will.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools. I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states. By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources.
To help parents with the costs of schooling, I have introduced H.R. 1056, the Family Education Freedom Act, in Congress. This bill would allow parents a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjustable after 2007 for inflation) per student per year for the cost of attendance at an elementary and/or secondary school. This includes private, parochial, religious, and home schools.
Another bill I have sponsored, H.R. 1059, allows full-time elementary and secondary teachers a $3,000 yearly tax credit, thus easing their financial burden and encouraging good teachers to stay in an underpaid profession.
Many parents have already shown their desire to be free of federal control by either enrolling their children in private schools or homeschooling them. And students enrolled in these alternatives have consistently performed better and tested higher than those in state-run schools.
Years of centralized education have produced nothing but failure and frustrated parents. We can resurrect our public school system if we follow the Constitution and end the federal education monopoly.
The 5th of November is fast approaching and I would like for all of you to read the following article written by myself about the lead up to (and quite possibly the cause of) the war on terror. We have all seen the video clips on Youtube when Sen. Ron Paul made the astoundingly accurate statement, "it's our disastrous foreign policy towards the middle east over the last 3 decade that caused this hatred of America." Guess what…he was right!!!
That being said I do not agree with all of the Senators proposals and doubt the establishment (Congress & Big Business) would let him get away with even half of what he proposing. One thing that I hope he can do is reset our foreign policy back on the right track and get our troops home and leave Islamofascisim to the Arabs and Persians. (Even though there really is no such thing, it's a made up word people)
It is now my pleasure to introduce to you our home team players of this international disaster. I have left out some players, as their contribution to this issue I feel to be more along the lines of picking up the pieces of others. I’m of course talking about President Clinton. He is not responsible for this disaster, but he did let Bin Laden off the hook when given the chance to prosecute him and for that I will let you judge of him.
Since the Moussaoui trial is to date the only arrest tried in a court of law, I thought I would go a little deeper than just the information I had posted earlier. I will instead start from the beginning and bring you forward until we get to the actual trial itself. There is going to be several posts on this topic due to the massive amount of factual information we have to discuss. Most of you will be familiar, in whole or in part, with the information I will be presenting. I encourage all of you to leave comments and questions on any of the information posted. I personally have been studying the 9/11 events for 2 years now. I will not be engaging or discussing anything that could be construed as “ crazy conspiracy theories.” These are factual points of interest that are undisputed. It’s your point of view that I am interested in and what you have to say. I merely want to have an honest discussion with my peers about a serious topic. To be sure there are other serious things going on in the world, but I leave that in your capable hands to present on your blogs. So to kick this off I thought it would be nice to get a roster of the important players in this particular game. Let’s start with the home team. I will be highlighting the relevant points of their early careers and events in the Middle East.
UPDATE: One of my friends asked me why I was doing this. Making the case that this information and topic is old. Well according the Washington Post some people need to be reminded.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.
While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday's edition of the newspaper.
But when asked what year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer. Of that group, six percent gave an earlier year, eight percent gave a later year, and 16 percent admitted they had no idea whatsoever.
This memory black hole is essentially the problem of the older crowd: 48 percent of those who did not know were between the ages of 55 and 64, and 47 percent were older than 65, according to the poll.
The Post telephone survey was carried out July 21-24 among 1,002 randomly selected adults. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
Ok let's take it from the top...
President Jimmy Carter – The Iranian hostage crisis was seen by critics as a devastating blow to national prestige; Carter struggled for 444 days to effect the release of the hostages. A failed rescue attempt led to the resignation, in protest, of his Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The hostages were finally released the day Carter left office, twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration. Many at the time saw this as yet another example of the ineffectiveness Carter had displayed during his presidency.
In December 1979, USSR invaded Afghanistan, after the pro-Moscow Afghanistan government placed by a 1978 coup was overthrown. There are many theories as to why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Some believed the Soviets were attempting to expand their borders southward in order to gain a foothold in the region. The Soviet Union had long lacked a warm water port, and their movement south seemed to position them for further expansion toward Pakistan and India in the East, and Iran to the West. The Carter Administration, and many Republicans and Democrats alike, feared that the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle Eastern oil.
Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski started a $40 billion covert program of training Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan (What would become the Taliban). In retrospect, this contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Critics of this policy blame Carter and Reagan for the resulting instability of post-Soviet Afghani governments, which led to the rise of Islamic theocracy (The Taliban) in the region, and also created much of the current problems with Islamic fundamentalism.
On August 5, 1980, the Saudi rulers welcomed Saddam Hussein to Riyadh for his first state visit to Saudi Arabia, the first for any Iraqi president. Saudi Prince Fahd claimed that President Carter, apparently hoping to strengthen the U.S. hand in the Middle East and desperate to pressure Iran over the stalled hostage talks, gave clearance to Saddam's invasion of Iran. On September 22, 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and began a bloody trench war that lasted almost a decade and killed one million people.
Zbigniew Brzezinski – In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski says that assistance to the Afghan resistance was a tactic designed to bog down the Soviet army, while the United States built up a deterrent military force in the Persian Gulf to prevent Soviet political or military penetration further south (see: the Carter Doctrine).
In a footnote in his 2000 book, The Geostrategic Triad, Brzezinski notes: The full story of the productive U.S.-China cooperation directed against the Soviet Union (especially in regard to Afghanistan), initiated by the Carter Administration and continued under Reagan, still remains to be told.
Quotes "We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." —On precipitating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" - 1998 interview
"It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." —from The Grand Chessboard
"In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term: preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." —from The Grand Chessboard
"The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." —from The Grand Chessboard
"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." —from The Grand Chessboard
President Gerald Ford – On September 8, 1974, Ford gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed while President.[21][22] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country and that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."
President George Herbert Walker Bush – Ford appointed Bush to be Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. (Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador" even though he unofficially acted as one.)
In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. Bush served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977.[5] The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including revelations based on investigations by the Senate's Church Committee, about the CIA's illegal and unauthorized activities, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale.[6]
After a Democratic administration took power in 1977, Bush became Chairman of the First International Bank in Houston.
When the Iran-Contra Affair broke in 1986, Bush stated that he had been "out of the loop" and unaware of the Iran initiatives related to arms trading.[11] This claim met with some skepticism, but Bush was never charged with any wrongdoing.
In a foreign policy move that would later be questioned, President Bush achieved his stated objectives of liberating Kuwait and forcing Iraqi withdrawal, then ordered a cessation of combat operations —allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in power. His Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney noted that invading the country would get the United States "bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq." Which can be viewed here
Bush later explained that he did not give the order to overthrow the Iraqi government because it would have "incurred incalculable human and political costs... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq".
Bush's last controversial act in office was his pardon of six former government employees implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal on December 24, 1992, most prominently former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Weinberger had been scheduled to stand trial on January 5, 1993, for allegedly lying to Congress regarding his knowledge of arms sales to Iran and concealing 1700 pages of his personal diary detailing discussions with other officials about the arms sales.
Donald Rumsfeld – During his period as Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East (November1983 - May1984), Rumsfeld was the main conduit for crucial American military intelligence, hardware and strategic advice to Saddam Hussein, then fighting Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. This policy was adopted when the war began to go strongly in Iran's favor, and it looked as if Iran would overrun Iraq completely. Although the United States was hesitant to support a Soviet client state, the prospect of a greatly expanded Iran outweighed these concerns.
When he visited on 19 - 20 December1983, he and Saddam Hussein had a 90-minute discussion that covered Syria's occupation of Lebanon, preventing Syrian and Iranian expansion, preventing arms sales to Iran by foreign countries, increasing Iraqi oil production via a possible new oil pipeline across Jordan. According to declassified U.S. State Department documents Rumsfeld also informed Tariq Aziz (Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister) that: "Our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us ... citing the use of chemical weapons."[7]
During his brief bid for the 1988Republican nomination, Rumsfeld stated that restoring full relations with Iraq was one of his best achievements. This was not a particularly controversial position at the time, when most American politicians considered ties with Iraq an effective bulwark against Iran.
Rumsfeld was a founder and active member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership including the "need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad."[8] He co-signed a 29 January1998 PNAC letter sent to President Bill Clinton:
...turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater.
We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
One of the most significant controversies involves Rumsfeld's role in the preemptive action of invading Iraq. A Freedom of Information Act release revealed that on September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld instructed the military to, in the notes of one of Rumsfeld's aides, "Judge whether good enough hit S.H." (Saddam Hussein)
After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, Rumsfeld attempted to explain the looting that followed as an exercise of freedom: "It's untidy. Freedom’s untidy and free people are free to commit crimes and make mistakes and do bad things."[3] This explanation drew many criticisms.
As Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has come under fire from critics who argue that his decision to detain alleged-enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay is a violation of the Geneva Convention and runs counter to American legal traditions.
Some critics have also argued that Rumsfeld should be held responsible for alleged war crimes committed by the U.S. military in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Several publications, including The Economist called for his resignation following the Abu Ghraib scandal. Rumsfeld claims to have offered his resignation to the president twice during the scandal.[4].
The Economist's April 20, 2006 Lexington Editorial, titled "Time for him to go: George Bush is a fool for keeping Donald Rumsfeld in his job," includes a scathing analysis of his mismanagement of the war in Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney – Dick Cheney's political career began in 1969, during the Nixon administration. He held a number of positions in the years that followed: special assistant to the Director of the OEO, White House staff assistant, assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, and Deputy Assistant to the President.
Under President Gerald Ford, Cheney became Assistant to the President and then the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history. Many have pointed to this time as the point where both he and Donald Rumsfeld began consolidating political power.
An article in Rolling Stone said, "Having turned Ford into their instrument, Rumsfeld and Cheney staged a palace coup. They pushed Ford to fire Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, tell Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to look for another job and remove Henry Kissinger from his post as national security adviser. Rumsfeld was named secretary of defense, and Cheney became chief of staff to the president. "
Cheney has financial interests in Halliburton through 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million. They are part of a Gift Trust Agreement pursuant to which an Administrative Agent has the right to exercise those options and distribute the proceeds from the sale of the resulting stock to certain charitable organizations.
Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000, and put all of his corporate shares into a blind trust. As part of his deferred compensation agreements with Halliburton contractually arranged prior to Cheney becoming Vice President, Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed he received $162,392 in 2002 and $205,298 in 2001.
Upon his nomination as a Vice Presidential candidate, Cheney purchased an annuity that would guarantee his deferred payments regardless of the company's performance. He argued that this step removed any conflict of interest. Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, is largely derived from his post at Halliburton.
Halliburton was granted a $7 billion no-bid contract, the execution of which received much scrutiny from U.S. Government auditors along with the media and various political opponents who also scrutinized the awarding of the contract, claiming that it represented a conflict of interest for Mr. Cheney. In June 2004, the General Accounting Office reviewed the contracting procedures[29] and found Halliburton's no-bid contracts were legal and likely justified by the Pentagon's wartime needs.
A few days after accusing the Vice President of cronyism regarding Halliburton, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy crossed the Senate floor to the Republican side to speak with Vice President Cheney during a Senate photo shoot. According to Cheney, Leahy was trying to "make small talk" and act like everything's peaches and cream." Cheney ended the conversation by saying "go fuck yourself" to Leahy."
As governor, Bush worked on education reform, school finance and tort reform and sponsored the largest tax cut program in Texas history. He was re-elected as governor of Texas in 1998. Bush won the 2000 presidential election as the Republican candidate in a close and controversial contest. Although he did not secure a majority of the popular vote, he did win the required number of electoral votes after a very close battle in the state of Florida.
His response to 9/11 led to an immediate surge in his popularity. Following an unsuccessful attempt at convincing Saddam Hussein diplomatically to yield to further weapons inspections, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq although the inspections that were in progress at the time had not yet concluded and the weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition of the Willing invaded to capture have never been found.
Following the overthrow of Saddam's regime, Bush committed the U.S. to establishing democracy in the Middle East, and specifically in both Afghanistan and Iraq in the short term. A self-described "war President",[1] Bush won re-election in 2004 after an intense and heated election campaign, becoming the first candidate to win a majority vote in 16 years.
I will go into more depth on 43 in following posts.
Douglas Feith – Feith first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council (NSC) under Ronald Reagan in 1981. He transferred from the NSC Staff to Pentagon in 1982 to work as Special Counsel for Richard Perle, who was then serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger promoted Feith in 1984 to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and, when Feith left the Pentagon in 1986, Weinberger gave him the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service medal. Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith established the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. His law firm colleague, Marc Zell, was resident in Israel. Three years later, Feith was retained as a lobbyist by the Turkish government. Among other clients, his firm represented defense corporations Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
In 1997 Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. That act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.
During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan Administration, Feith was instrumental in getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense Weinberger and Secretary of State Shultz all to recommend (successfully) to the President not to ratify changes to the Geneva Conventions. The changes, known as Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, would have allowed non-state militants to be treated as combatants and prisoners of war even if they had engaged in practices that endangered non-combatants or otherwise violated the laws of war.
CIA Director Michael Hayden: "No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable."
Soon after publication of the book, Powell said: " I don't recall saying that, but it is a terrible term to use and it is out of place, completely out of place. I have known Doug Feith for many years. We have agreed on many issues and disagreed on some. And I just regret that that has gotten into the literature and become a fact." After receiving a briefing concerning Feith's idea to arm a militia of Iraqi expatriates for fighting in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, United States ArmyGeneralTommy Franks turned to Feith in a Pentagon corridor and said of the plan, "I don't have time for this fucking bullshit."[31]
United States ArmyGeneralTommy Franks, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 Plan of Attack, described Feith as the "fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" (p.281). [32][33]. In his autobiography, American Soldier, Tommy Franks clarified the context of this phrase by stating that he was talking to his subordinates who were upset with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith and Franks said that his actual words were 'word is going around that Feith is the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth'; thus, he says he was reporting what he heard about Feith rather than expressing his own personal opinion.
In an interview with PBS on 14 February 2006, General DeLong was asked about the information coming from Feith's office in the lead-up to the Iraq war. He replied: "Feith wasn't somebody we enjoyed working with, and to go much further than that would probably not be a good thing. To be honest, we blew him off lots of times. Told the secretary that he's full of baloney, his people working for him are full of baloney. It was a real distraction for us, because he was the number three guy in the Department of Defense."
Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June of 2003. [43] This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. [44]
According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, "This rightwing intelligence network [was] set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force."[45] According to Feith's former deputy, Lieutenant ColonelKaren Kwiatkowski, the Office of Special Plans was "a propaganda shop" and she personally "witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."[46][47]
SenatorCarl Levin, in an official report on Feith's Office of Special Plans singles Feith out as providing to the White House a large amount of Iraq-Al Qaeda allegations which, post-invasion, turned out to be false.
A senior Administration official said the US Government had learned about the unauthorised talks "accidentally," and that it was unsettling "the government hadn't learnt the lessons of last time around," referring to the secret contacts and rogue operations that led to Iran-Contra. [57] Feith's authorization of contact with Manucher Ghorbanifar was also controversial because the CIA determined in 1984 that Ghorbanifar"should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator," and put him under a Burn Notice, warning other intelligence agencies not to use him.
The same day the New Yorker article was published, Perle, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, responded that "Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."[3]. Perle later threatened to bring a libel suit against Hersh for the allegations raised in his article but failed to do so. On March 27, 2003, Richard Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, though he still remained a member of the board.
Perle is said to be the person behind the US policy on Iraq (see also: U.S. plan to invade Iraq). He believed that Saddam Hussein's control of the government was weak, and that an invasion of Iraq would remove Saddam from power within weeks. It turns out this prediction was accurate, as it took only twenty-one days (three weeks) to oust Hussein from power.
In an interview for "Saddam's Ultimate Solution", the July 11, 2002 episode of the PBS series Wide Angle, he said:
"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991. But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder. Now, it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either."
Although this assessment was correct, there was a protracted postwar insurrection waged by former Ba'athists, Sunni insurgents, and foreign jihadists affiliated with the Wahhabi al Qaida movement.
In the leadup to the war, Perle also complained that C.I.A. officials were so hostile to defectors brought out of Iraq by the Iraqi National Congress that they refused to interview them and even tried to discredit them. "But ultimately, the flow of information was so vital and so overwhelming that they could no longer ignore it", he is quoted as saying. One such defector was Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, who claimed that chemical and biological weapons laboratories were hidden beneath hospitals and inside presidential palaces. (New York Times, January 24, 2003. Judith Miller) If such weapons or evidence ever existed they were never found. Judith Miller has since retired from the New York Times in disgrace.
Perle advocated invading Iraq with only 40,000 troops, and complained about the calls by then Gen. Eric Shinseki to use 250,000 troops. He preferred a rerun of the Afghan war, where the U.S. would insert SOF (Special Operations Forces), along with some two divisions, to assist native Kurdish and Shi'ite rebels, much as the United States had done with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.
"And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation."[5]
This prophecy turned out to be completely wrong. As of mid 2006 no such square existed.
Perle advocates first-strike bombing of North Korean nuclear facilities. [8] He has also at times advocated preemptive attacks on Syria, Iran, Libya, and a number of other countries.
He is known to have a negative opinion of the United Nations and of multilateralism, and supports maintaining the military superpower status of the United States. Perle has long been a target of criticism from the left, who view him as being a key force pushing US foreign policy in a militaristic direction. He has also been a target of criticism from paleoconservatives, who believe him to be pro-Israel and pro-Likud to the detriment of the United States.
Perle chaired a study group that included Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others, that produced a strategy paper for the incoming Likud Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"[9], declared that "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" was an "important Israeli strategic objective in its own right as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
Paul Wolfowitz - In 1972 U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon under pressure from U.S. SenatorHenry M. Jackson, who was unhappy with the SALT I strategic arms limitations talks and the policy of détente, dismissed the head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and replaced him with Fred Ikle. Ikle brought in a completely new team including Wolfowitz, who had been recommended by his old tutor Albert Wohlstetter. Wolfowitz once again set to work writing and distributing research papers and drafting testimony, as he had previously done at the Committee to Maintain A Prudent Defence Policy. He also traveled with Ikle to strategic arms limitations talks in Paris and other European cities. His greatest success was in dissuading South Korea from reprocessing plutonium that could be diverted into a clandestine weapons program, a situation that would re-occur north of the border during the George W. Bush administration.
From 1989-93 under U.S. PresidentGeorge H.W. Bush Wolfowitz served as U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy reporting to the then U.S. Defense SecretaryDick Cheney. Wolfowitz was charged with realigning U.S. military strategy in the post-cold war environment. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War Wolfowitz’s team were charged with the co-ordination and review of military strategy as well as the raising of $50 billion in allied financial support for the operation. Wolfowitz was present, alongside Cheney, Colin Powell and others, on 27 February1991 at the meeting with the President at which all agreed that the mission had been accomplished and the troops should be demobilised. At that time he did not believe it appropriate for US soldiers to push forward into Iraq to bring about regime change but did support the policy of encouraging Kurdish and Shiiterevolutionaries to rise up against their dictator.
According to Cobra II, during the initial months of the Bush Administration and prior to the Septemper 11th attacks, "Wolfowitz sought to enlist the Joint Staff's support to develop a strategy for aiding an anti-Saddam resistance. Saddam had drained the southern marshes in Iraq to deprive Shiite rebels of a sanctuary, so Wolfowitz wondered if the dams could be bombed to re-create them. The Pentagon lawyers challenged whether such a strike would be consistent with the rules of war. Wolfowitz view was that it would be more humane than leaving the Shiites to Saddam's mercy. Wolfowitz also wanted to know what it would take to arm and train Iraqi insurgents."
In January 2005 Wolfowitz was nominated to be President of the World Bank. The nomination brought praise and criticism from leaders worldwide[16]. Nobel Prize winner and former chief economist for the world bank Joseph Stiglitz said "The World Bank will once again become a hate figure. This could bring street protests and violence across the developing world."[17]
In a speech at the U.N. Economic and Social Council Economist Jeffrey Sachs was quite vocal in his opposition to Wolfowitz. "It's time for other candidates to come forward that have experience in development. This is a position on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their lives," he said. "Let's have a proper leadership of professionalism."[18]
The Wall Street Journal commented: "Mr. Wolfowitz is willing to speak the truth to power. He saw earlier than most, and spoke publicly about, the need for dictators to plan democratic transitions. It is the world's dictators who are the chief causes of world poverty. If anyone can stand up to the Robert Mugabes of the world, it must be the man who stood up to Saddam Hussein."[19]
Project for The New American Century – The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American political think tank, based in Washington, DC. The controversial group was established in early 1997 as a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting American global leadership.
The PNAC has been the subject of considerable criticism and controversy, both among members of the left and right. Critics dispute the premise that American "world leadership" is desirable for the world or even for the United States itself. The PNAC's harshest critics claim it represents a disturbing step towards total world subjugation by America, motivated by an imperial and globalist agenda of global US military expansionism and dominance.
Critics of the United States' international relations take umbrage at the PNAC's unabashed position of maintaining the nation's privileged position as sole world superpower. Some critics even assert that the fall of the Soviet Union indicates an end to the era of 'superpowers' and therefore any concept of military hegemony or ascendancy are overrated. Military might is not power in itself, say the critics; it requires huge financial commitments, strong domestic and international support, plus skillful management to be considered worthwhile. PNAC position papers and other documents contain few references on building or maintaining any of these requirements.
A line frequently quoted by critics from Rebuilding America's Defenses (Written by the PNAC group) famously refers to the possibility of a "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor" (page 51). This quote appears in Chapter V, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", which discusses the perceived need for the Department of Defense to "move more aggressively to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts” (page 50). The full quote is as follows: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor." Some have used this quote as evidence for their belief the US government was complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. See the article 9/11 conspiracy theories for further information on this topic. Many critics also claim the PNAC believed this "new Pearl Harbor" would justify war on Iraq.
Statement of Princeples
American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.
We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?
We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:
• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; • we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; • we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; • we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
These are the major players for the home team. There are others to be sure and make no mistake I will get to them later. Please donate to a candidate willing to end this horror and haold accountible thoes responsible for this historical disaster.
I always liked fall, watching the changes of the seasons. Colors turn from that summer deep green to a fresh breeze yellow and bright chilled red. Winds pick up and everything feels so intimate. I put on my jacket and walk out the door, hugging the liner of my coat pocket and smiled at the strangers eating ice cream in the cold.
Changes are interesting to think about. No matter how much we enjoy something it always comes to an end. Changes represent that tragic end and force us to accept the power of nature in accordance of a will outside of our control. If the will determines the world we see, how is it possible that changes enforces our will?
I guess in the end, we recognize the clues from what’s real and remind ourselves that no matter the philosophical implications of believing, we are only a small part of a cycle of existence. What a humbling experience to realize that we may deny and doubt all things, yet we truly cannot escape the power of this manifested world.
