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Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran
WASHINGTON - The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.
Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.
"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.
"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."
Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.
No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.
Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the possibility of a freeze in Iran's uranium enrichment programme. Tehran has so far refused to contemplate a freeze, but has provisionally agreed to another round of talks at the end of the month.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is seeking a full accounting of Iran's nuclear activities before Tehran disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency's deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced "good results" and would continue.
At the UN, the US, Britain and France are trying to secure agreement from other security council members for a new round of sanctions against Iran. The US is pushing for economic sanctions that would include a freeze on the international dealings of another Iranian bank and a mega-engineering firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Russia and China are resisting tougher measures.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
178 Comments so far
Show All'I'm staying here. I am staying in my home, my house."
Except on July 23, when we will all be in DC for the march from Arlington Cemetary to the Capitol.
We will sit down on Memorial Bridge and clog up and in other key intersections all the way there. Be there!
The headline itself is a crock; the rest is utter nonsense. Cheney's in charge, how much clearer does it have to be? The Loonitary Decider is pure, 100% front man puppet snake oil bullshit artist. We're supposed to believe he even understands what the hell's going on, no less that he's, like, deliberating and weighing, er, ideas and such?
Barf.
I'd guess that Cheney and Bush want to get the intensifying light and heat off themselves. Badly.
I would think they are beginning to move into panic mode as more and more is revealed about their devilishly duplicitous demonic doings.
Especially, Mr. Cheney. Attacking Iran would solve alot of problems, especially for this current Prince of Darkness.
And for the regressive-neo-nazi-cons in general. Increased international chaos would focus the country back on "fighting our enemies" and would as well, deflect the rapidly building consensus that impeachment is simply necessary.
Simple. Just cook up a "solid" reason, why attacking Iran must be done. Then sit back and say,
"I dare you to impeach the wooden boy-pupper Commander in Chief /// and his Ventriloquist, second in command --- in a time of war --- when 'international state-sponsored terrorism puts us all at terrible risk."
Voilà !
Pretty simple solution.
Regressives win again...unless ---
progressives get their act together - fast.
Looks like Ms. Rice knows her place.
Aren't womenfolk suppposed to always stay ten paces behind the men?
We all have to put ourselves in the position of these clowns at this moment in world history. They must feel that their "backs are up against the wall."
There's no way given Bush or Cheney's psychological makeup, and the demons and forces that drive them on both real and imaginary, and the historical impulses that prop them up and flow in their veins, that this group plans to leave its tenure as a total failure. Even if they all have determined for us that "history is ended."
Indeed they probably plan to end history, but on their own terms. That is what would twist the vainglorious of their ilk.
But given all that, the pressure they must feel to continue along the path of destruction and carnage has to be phenomenal.
For most of us, it seems kind of absurd before we ourselves are called to accountability for our own failings. How it is happening is riveting.
Paul Craig Roberts had a good take on it this am if you hadn't read it yet:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162007.html
There is no way out but impeachment for the human population left on this earth, and that movement seems to be standing dead in it's tracks, looking on mutely at a nightmare play out before it's eyes.
huckleberry wrote:
"We need to stop assuming that they are stupid, or insane.
Everything makes perfect sense from their viewpoint because they have a different goal than we do, (a hidden agenda).
They have nothing to lose and a New World Order to gain."
Well, i'm tired of people defending the presumed 'sanity' of these people.
If 'Everything makes perfect sense from their viewpoint' is a definition of 'sane', then there is no such thing as insane.
From my viewpoint, these people are COMPLETELY insane. No matter what their viewpoint may be, the actions they are taking will lead to the complete disruption of the living Earth, which will ruin their game no matter how they define it. The fact that they think their plan makes sense is completely irrelevant.
Even without the disruption of the biosphere, the 'New World Order' they think they are going to gain will never happen either, and their game will end in a pile of wreckage, as it always does for power-mad tyrants. World war for world domination is not SANE, no matter how you define sanity. Planning for nuclear war and building trillion-dollar space weapon systems for global domination is not SANE, no matter how you define sanity.
Most importantly, the question of their sanity or insanity is completely irrelevant for US. However you interpret or define their mental 'health', WE NEED TO STOP THEM.
And more importantly even than that, we need to recognize that this horrific crisis has been coming for a long time, and the task we have if we are going to have any hope of stabilizing the biosphere and stopping power-mad tyrants goes much deeper than stopping Bush and Cheney. We need to dismantle the entire project of corporate capitalism. It's not just due to Bush and Cheney that the corporate contracts in Iraq are structured the way they are, this vision of corporatist domination has been being refined for many decades. The challenges 'we the people' face are huge. We need to be honest with ourselves about what these challenges are. We cannot make tweaks and adjustments to our 'way of life'. We need a radical change in our culture, our relations among ourselves, and our relation to the living Earth.
My first post here, sorry it's a long one.
webwalk
I ain't going nowhere.
I'm staying here. I am staying in my home, my house.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333
** time of time.....
I think it is more than 50% likely that we will attack Iran.
They will retaliate against US interests abroad or in the US itself.
This or the mass protests against the aggression against Iran will be pretext for declaring a "state of emergency" in the country.
This will enable the current junta to postpone elections.
The resulting outcry will enable the current administration (junta) to begin rounding up dissenters and interning them in the facilities already constructed or under construction for just that purpose.
Having come so close already to complete fascist control of the country they are not gonna give it all up.
Especially since free and fair elections are obviously set to completely defeat the neo-con agenda.
People......we are on the doorstep of complete fascism in this country.
I for one am doing all that I can to flee this country while there is still a chance.
I suggest you do the same.
Those who oppose the neo-con fascist agenda are in exactly the same position as the German Jews were as the Nazis began their pogroms.
With few exceptions only those Jews who had the foresight to make the difficult decision to leave their homeland survived the coming holocaust.
We are the new Jews.
And they are the same totalitarian murderers.
If I am succesful in getting out I will post my whereabouts on this site and do all that is within my power to assist all those trying to leave.
May God help us all.
This is why congress is criminally negligent in not starting impeachment proceedings for Bush and Cheney before they launch an attack without congressional approval!!!!
Once again it looks like Israel, to its own utter detriment, is pulling the strings, same as they did with their so-called "intelligence" indicating for sure that Iraq had WMD.
Hopefully the US Congress will be given at least the same opportunity as Israel to influence any decision about attacking Iran but it looks doubtful since the Bush administration is working so hard these past few months to show that Iranians are attacking US troops in Iraq! All in all a very bad business, appalling when you take into account that the "mini-nukes" and bunker busters are in fact bombs between 10 and 100 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
huckleberry is correct and not.
They are totally sane. Their agenda from day one has had nothing to do with oil. It has everything to do with forcing the return of Christ.
Which is just totally insane because Christ isn't coming back.
It's so nice to read that these scumbags have learned nothing from the fiasco they created in Iraq.
Their response: Attack another country in the Middle East and try to force democracy onto yet another nation that didn't ask for it.
One thing is certain--a war in Iran will definitely take the spotlight off the Iraq mess.
what is it they were saying in North Korea, and in Vietnam? beneath every vietnamese there is an American trying to break free?
Bush and Cheney not only lived through those two embrassments of the empire's imperalistic wars, they've lived through their own imperial failure and still don't get it. They have no concept of history, we knew that, but clearly they don't even have any concept of the PRESENT. And these are our leaders? they're insane (literally, im serious), and they're out of touch with reality. They will drive this country into the ground as long as corperate profits can be made.
But you know what's going to happen. PNAC and the oligarchy will attack America again, blame it on someone else (muslims), and we will be invading (liberating as they call it) Iran before you know it. Meanwhile the country, which will inevitably lose it's mind after another terrorist attack, will stand by and watch as the tyrants take more of our liberties, including the seizure of a third term for Bush and Cheney
They have learned a great deal. You assume they don't want war.
ALL evidence shows that they are intentionally attempting to escalate war with the entire middle east. Iran simply has the weaker world position per barrels of oil.
Iraq has just been training grounds for their mercenary forces.
The last 4 years have just been the first phase of their plan.
Fortunately moderate Muslims are on to them and are not taking the bait.
Plan on seeing more fraudulent, staged and counterfeit reasons for ATTACKING Iran.
Impeach him now, before he launches WWIII and destroys life on Earth. This is f'ing serious. What's his obsession? It's like he's playing Monopoly and just hasto-hasto-hasto get three properties in a row (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan) so he can add houses and hotels.
We need to stop assuming that they are stupid, or insane.
Everything makes perfect sense from their viewpoint because they have a different goal than we do, (a hidden agenda).
They have nothing to lose and a New World Order to gain.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKNL1319819320070716
You won't be reading about this in the US press except for a tiny article buried in the back of the paper.
But what difference will allowing inspections? Never made a difference before.
Impeachment is the only thing that will halt them. Don't count on that happening without a serious public backlash building up to critical mass. Turn those screws.
This has nothing to do with democracy,
that is a red herring they are using to gain support for their goal, which is to dominate economically.
Cheney is insane.
Meanwhile:
Halliburton VP, Sherry Williams testifies at a Senate hearing about the company's dealings with Iran-- Halliburton is charged with selling nuclear technology to Iran. Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.
Source: "Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team," Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005
HELP!
SAVE THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION!
Impeach George W. Bush and Richard Cheney!
YouTube Video: HELP!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE_HW76kuAA
Call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi!
202-225-4965
Clark Kent - I think you are on to something. Remember a few months ago when Cheney was making "gaming metaphors" with respect to the Iraq situation. I think he believes it is a game, and he is heartlessly disconnected from the suffering that he is personally responsible for.
I've played a few wargames in my day (you know board games), and what often happens with aggressors is that they get overextended out of desperation. When defending against said aggressors, this is the time to strike.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333 - Impeach the VP (with or without Pelosi and her f****** table)
** Is it not obvious - time is of the essence
An assault on Iran would likely shut off oil from the Persian Gulf, and if Bush and Cheney do this at the end of their term, it would mean that their cronies in oil and finance would make incredible profits in the short term.
Thus, I must disagree with DrSpock above - these guys have indeed learned something from their debacle in Iraq. They've learned that military action that destabilizes the Middle East pushes oil prices through the roof (how else did ExxonMobil 'earn' world-record $40 billion profits?).
Obviously, the main goal in the Middle East is to control oil production, particularly from Iraq. In Iraq, it costs $1/barrel to lift oil, which can then be sold for $60/barrel or so. Iraq has 115 billion barrels in proven reserves, and likely at least twice that in its largely unexplored western regions. Control is the key word - which means that they might prefer to see Iraqi oil kept in the ground, rather than see an independent Iraq that is capable of undercutting oil prices by flooding the global market with cheap crude.
This isn't about a 'war on terror', this is all about a war for oil. If Bush & Cheney wanted to win Iraqi hearts an minds, all they'd have to do is:
a) quit trying to get the Iraqi government to pass an oil law that puts control of Iraqi oil in the hands of small secret committees and international oil corporations.
b) erase Iraq's odious debt, run up by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war but also including 'war reparations payments' to Kuwait and/or Saudi Arabia. This debt is being used to blackmail the Iraqi government into giving up control of the oilfields.
This would mean that the entire reason for the war would be moot, however. Notice that Bush and Cheney and Leiberman never, ever define what they mean by 'success in Iraq'?
All Iraqis know about this, and they also know all about the fraudulent 'reconstruction contracts' given to Bechtel and Halliburton. However, thanks to the corrupt corporate media in the United States, relatively few American citizens understand the actual situation.
The better the Dems do in the polls, the more likely an attack on Iran is. It will provide a temporary distraction from the failed Iraq invasion and occupation and will "unite" the country around a new cause, another losing imperial adventure.
Politically, it would work. In all likelihood, the Cheney/Bush cabal may even be able to formally suspend constitutional rule with a state of emergency order. Clearly, the majority of Dem politcos and the US population would roll over for that.
As many above and many others have pointed out, the real-life consequences of such an attack would be horrendous and beyond imagination. When leaders of both our ruling parties and the Israelis have publicly said they may use nukes against Iran ("all options are on the table"),the above comment about the end of the world does not seem all that hysterical.
"However, thanks to the corrupt corporate media in the United States, relatively few American citizens understand the actual situation."
And then they start screeching about how you are hateful and Hillary is the liberal heroine poised to liberate us from the vast right wing conspiracy.
They missed the if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them update.
American capitalism and financial system is at the end of the rope. Nation is in deep depth; Social Security Fund is nowhere to refunded with the absence of REAL manufacturing industry to speak of; middle class is gradually awakeing to the cold reality of being sold out, while baby boomers are waiting for the big surprise in mere 2 years from now.
So, in order to forestall all incoming discontent this junta will "do whatever it takes" to avoid repetition of 1929 when plutocracy barely withstood the popolist tsunami.
Let us stop bashing these people and consider them stubborn or idiotic. They are fighting for essence of American "Republic"; theirs is existential fight. Will be all of us happy if they loose? I bet we will. But it ain't be pretty battle.
Anyway, see Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert over at Amazon.com. It would seem that Iran's been on the "pre-planned" agenda for quite some time now.
There may well be a larger set of goals and objectives than we are currently noticing.
frank1569:
I agree with you that the whole theater with bush, rice, cheney is exactly that, low style vodeville. Militarists vs. financiers, who are afraid to rock the boat might be real actors. Their squabbles are of no interests to us. Former bomb, latter starve; that is the whole difference.
Webwalk,
You make some great points.
What I disagree with is this:
"The fact that they think their plan makes sense is completely irrelevant."
I believe it to be relevant for the simple reason that we need to truly understand them in order to counter them.
For the sake of discussion, let's pose Bushey-Chain as adversaries on our chessboard. We are all seemingly at the point where we can agree that they do not have our best interests at heart and are not only working to undermine many different classes of people, but apparently are actively working to destroy us. So for the sake of discussion let's think of them as political adversaries (if not mortal enemies).
Your statement, "The fact that they think their plan makes sense is completely irrelevant." seems unsound.
We must understand our adversary to create peace.
I might agree with statements like "They (neo-cons) are cunning, crafty, greedy, unreasonable, power-hungry, unconcerned with the well-being of the people and the planet, etc. This is not the same as insane.
But if we assume that they are foaming mad, we make the same tragic mistake they are making with their adversaries. We then stop dealing with them like fellow-humans and write them off as sub-human.
Bomb, Bomb, Bomb...Bomb, Bomb Iran. Who sang that song?
This should come as no surprise if you read Seymour Hersh's recent pieces in the New Yorker. Bush and Cheney are convinced that only they are willing to attack Iran, and no future administration can be trusted to do this. This is a key piece in their strategy for US hegemony in the Middle East (Israel is only a surrogate for US power). In their view, the current Iraq tragedy is only a stage in the ultimate scenario of US control of the Middle East, and its energy resources. I am reminded of the days when we condemned the Soviet Union for its "ends justify means" ideology.
These people are still incredibly dangerous and must be impeached. It was heartbreaking to watch Democracy Now this morning in which young Iranians are cycling through Europe and now the US to plea for peace.
What we have is ultra greed (cheney), coupled with the fantasy of "doing God's work" (village idiot) that is leading our planet by these two, toward the abyss.
I have heard that we have predominatly two groups reincarnated in the US right now, the Atlantian's (Bill Gates and his ilk, the technocrates), and the Roman's (cheney/bush and the Republican's - boomer gen., who see conquest, vast accumulation of wealth, invading and plundering other lands for the elite few as their "right".)
And we know from history what happened to those societies....
Don't we?
Hi,
So here's a question for everyone:
If we believe that Cheney and Bush are planning to bomb Iran, and we understand the consequences of such an attack to be utterly horrific for the Iranians, for the world, and for the United States in many important ways (no need to run through the list of horrific consequences here):
What action will you take to organize 'we the people' to STOP THEM (besides blogging at CommonDreams)?
Work with your 'representatives' to IMPEACH?
Civil Disobedience to put pressure on our 'representatives'?
Nonviolent Direct Action to disrupt the actual plans and logistics?
Refuse to pay Federal taxes?
A general strike to disrupt the functioning of the entire country?
Support for US Military resistance to the plans (there have been rumors of grave discontent at high levels of the US Military)?
Resort to the language of the Declaration of Independance about the Right of the People to overthrow their government if it is not working for them?
Leave the country? Well that won't stop them, but a lot of people left Germany in the 1930s as they saw what was approaching, including Albert Einstein, it's hard to argue against leaving.
What are the consequences for YOU if you take any of these actions?
What are the consequences for ALL OF US if you do NOT take any of these actions?
webwalk
End war. End global warming and, while we're at it, globilization. End poverty, malnutrition, maleducation and all of the evils that seem to plague humankind.
It really is a hoot...humankind thinking it has some right to inherit and inhabit the earth and can do something about its miserable conditions. Improve it? HAHA!
All the pretentious bullshit about ending war and poverty is just that. Bullshit!
All the protesters against this and that cause, just that they may be, don't acknowledge the fact that humankind has fucked the earth with its greed and will continue to do so until its dying end. Can you live without OIL!!!???
You live your lives in comfort, beleiving some soap-opera guru is going to give you the end to your suffering. You may as well be be sniffing fumes from the latrine that has become the wellspring of modern capitalism.
A system that believes it must thrive on continous growth (ie, exploitation of natural and human resources), cannot, in its brightest moments, think it is worthy to survive. Indeed, it will not. But that has yet to be shown. At a theater near you...and comming soon!
Impeach who you will. Throw the tyrannts out...they desrve it! But, until you acknwledge your own complicity in this failing system, you deserve the wall as much as GWB and DC.
Are you really ready to change your life? Can you truly afford to abandon you priviledged life? Are you ready to abandon the Amerikan dream of world domimation?
Peace to all, and, to all, a good night.
emaho is correct.
Here's what i wrote above:
"And more importantly even than that, we need to recognize that this horrific crisis has been coming for a long time, and the task we have if we are going to have any hope of stabilizing the biosphere and stopping power-mad tyrants goes much deeper than stopping Bush and Cheney. We need to dismantle the entire project of corporate capitalism. It's not just due to Bush and Cheney that the corporate contracts in Iraq are structured the way they are, this vision of corporatist domination has been being refined for many decades. The challenges 'we the people' face are huge. We need to be honest with ourselves about what these challenges are. We cannot make tweaks and adjustments to our 'way of life'. We need a radical change in our culture, our relations among ourselves, and our relation to the living Earth."
Love,
webwalk
Bush Makes Power Grab - And Response
posted May 24, 2007
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.
That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the President can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government."
Translated into layman's terms, when the President determines a national emergency has occurred, the President can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
Ironically, the directive sees no contradiction in the assumption of dictatorial powers by the President with the goal of maintaining constitutional continuity through an emergency.
The directive specifies that the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism will be designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. Further established is a Continuity Policy Coordination Committee, chaired by a senior director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, to be "the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination."
Currently, the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism is Frances Fragos Townsend. Townsend spent 13 years at the Justice Department before moving to the U.S. Coast Guard where she served as assistant commandant for intelligence. She is a White House staff member in the executive office of the president who also chairs the Homeland Security Council, which as a counterpart to the National Security Council reports directly to the president.
The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the president may declare a national emergency but requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."
A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the President "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."
The CRS study notes that the National Emergency Act sets up congress as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority," if Congress believes the president has acted inappropriately.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of National Continuity Coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 also makes no reference whatsoever to Congress. The language of the May 9 directive appears to negate any a requirement that the President submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists, suggesting instead that the powers of the executive order can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesperson Russ Knocke affirmed that the Homeland Security Department will be implementing the requirements of NSPD-51/HSPD-20 under Townsend's direction.
The White House had no comment.
Matthew Hine
Chattanooga
MattHine@excite.com
* * *
I just read your opinion regarding the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive recently signed by Bush. This does not surprise me one bit as I have thought from the beginning that he wanted to be a dictator.
My question to you is "Will this directive provide him the authority to "stay" elections thereby keeping himself in office? That could be a dreadful situation and the end of democracy (which has waned under his leadership anyway).
Thanks for the insight into this directive, which the mainstream news had failed to bring forth (too busy with Anna Nicole, Lindsay Lohan, etc.).
Bette Russ
Venice, Fla.
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_107907.asp
It seems that our republic is now a Fascist Dictatorship. Our so called government is only laughing at We-The-People and feeding our children and our fortune into the maw of the Great War Against Civilization.
I doubt that getting on our knees to whine to our House Member will do any good. Elections only change the names and faces on the corporate suits. Perhaps impeaching our Reps is a start. As for me, I'm moving my retirement assets offshore and out of dollars. I'll leave it to the younger citizens to invest in bayonets and bullets. Maybe, like Caesar's Gaul, America will be in three parts by the time these tyrants are finished.
whatfools: three parts might be OK, but what about 20 parts or so. I think that is what I have on my map (split by the river of course). But the parts ought to be a confederacy.
A confederacy for Peace. In fact, this could all be done peacefully.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333 - Impeach the VP
** time OH time
Petition, in case anyone hasn't signed yet:
http://impeachcheney.org/
HR 333 (Introduced by Kucinich)
ARTICLE I. Fabricated threat of Iraq WMD.
Cheney has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.
ARTICLE II: Fabricated ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Cheney purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.
ARTICLE III: Threatening Iran.
Cheney has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States.
They can try and capture Iran's oil too, but their wells were tapped long ago and will go into peak and decline before Iraq's will.
They just don't like any country that will not see things their way and do what they want.
Diplomacy for them is dictating terms and if they do not surrender and follow their orders, bomb them and invade them.
They can always make some story for their "preemptive/proactive" strike.
What proactive has come to mean is that if you do not agree with us and do what we tell you, we will destroy you. Some new world order....
"We need to dismantle the entire project of corporate capitalism."
Yes, we need.
"We need a radical change in our culture, our relations among ourselves, and our relation to the living Earth."
Yes, we need.
How to do it? By organizing and educating. Alas, even unions are a far cry from being instrumental in awakening people beyond their immediate materials needs.
IMHO progressives, socialists and communists were very successful during FDR rule in using crisis to advance their agenda, which until recently was taken for granted: Social Security, rhetoric against Economic Royalist, labor laws and on and on. In the last 3 decades their methods were used by religious fanatics to subjugate GOP with kind of success.
Now it is our turn to work through Democrats again. Only financial crisis may bring capitalism to its knee. Our goal is to be ready intellectually first of all.
Fortunately, commentariat and academia are grossly underequipped theoretically, they live in fantasy land and hence the root of self-destruction. We have to stop calling names and wait for the heroes. We have to stop surfing the ripples of events as unconnected dots. There were many serious essays on this tread let us keep this way.
Dick Cheney before Cheney dicks you.
Support HR333!
The Senate has foolishly voted 97-0 for a Lieberman amendment that tells Iran to (as I recall, can't find the article) "stop killing Americans" or equivalent wording.
If the intelligence being routed through Cheney's office "proves" to him that Iran is, indeed, "killing Americans," how could Iran refute him? Could a UN security council resolution authorizing military action be far behind?
If the Congress won't impeach these violent fascists, I vote for 50 million people to march to the White House, capture Bush/Cheney/Rove and take them to Guantanamo Bay.
Iran's oil for export will be gone within 10 years, by the by. They DO need nuclear power for electricity.
(See The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 01/02/2007,for an article by Roger Stern.)
I'm pretty new with political issues; would our president take the advice of the vice president, how could that be? Doesn't president Bush have the brains to make major decisions?___ Golly gee.
The idea of air strikes against Iran is preposterous – they will only serve to strengthen the current regime immensely. And what would all this gain? At best, air strikes would slow Iranian nuclear projects by a few years, unless the U.S. were willing to follow an air campaign with a land invasion and occupation. Short of that, the cost of buying time with air strikes would likely be a redoubling of Iran's determination to get a bomb – and an exponential increase in its bitterness towards the United States and its strongest ally in the region, Israel.
An attack would destabilize an already unstable Middle East. Terrorism against U.S interests around the world would increase dramatically. One could forget any hopes of stemming the global jihadi terror threat – Bin Laden and others would rouse the world's 1.2 billion Muslims with cries that the United States was seeking to destroy Islam. And any hopes of political reform in Iran would be doomed.
Our young men and women in Iraq would be sitting ducks for retaliation – the fanatical Iraqi Shiite cleric, Moqtada Al-Sadr, has already declared that his forces would attack American troops in Iraq in the event that Bush bombs Iran. Given that the Shiites in Iraq have so far functioned as expedient allies of the U.S occupation, and that we've lost nearly 3600 troops in four years largely at the hands of the Sunni minority in only a small part of Iraq, it is chilling to think of the consequences if the majority Shiites get involved.
An attack would greatly compromise the world's oil supply. The price of oil would soar to between $100-200 per barrel. Americans would find the price at the pump at least doubling. The global economy would be crippled. At best, a global recession would follow; at worst, a second Great Depression.
And yet the single thing that can be guaranteed about any air assault on Iran is that, however well laid out the plans beforehand, events will quickly spin out of control. The Bush government, blinded by arrogance, consumed by power, delusional in its divine mission, ridiculously sure of themselves, fearless of other people's lives, and still ignorant of its mistakes with regard to Iraq, will once again be stunned and unprepared to deal with them.
The result will be disaster for us all.
P.S. There are probably few who haven't seen this, but in the event not, check out http://www.glumbert.com/media/irack
for a humorous look at not only Bush's catastrophe in Iraq, but also his newest product roll-out: Iran.
We live in a time of social chaos as a result of two different phenomena. One is that the definition of the family and of appropriate social and sexual relations is changing, in large part because of the empowerment of women, and the other is that we are interacting with others across the globe to an unprecedented extent, transferring and absorbing a great variety of cultural trends as different cultures merge to form a world culture.
During times of great chaos in history, the most extreme predators have had the advantage. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, among others, all rose during periods of social chaos in their own countries. The predators in our own society, particularly the corporate predators, are doing as well as they have in quite some time. The question is whether we can weather this storm and still have something worth preserving on the other end of it.
I can answer that question.
For heaven's sake: YES
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333 - Impeach the VP
the axis of evil. the dickster, dubya and hadley (takes over for rummy)
Making countries in U.S. image by killing and plunder is not in the way of real christians. What a horrable example to our young. Right on maelstorm!!
LETS HEAR FROM SOME JEWISH PROGRESSIVES AND HOW THEY PLAN TO PUT PRESSURE ON AIPAC TO STOP LOBBYING FOR BOMBING IRAN...AND SYRIA...