This is an important article in that it tries to explore some of the more insidious aspects of the generalized fear that this criminal criminal administration dispenses and manipulates so easily and well. I disagree, however, that the American people are fearful of someday receiving the same kind of treatment that is being meted out to "the enemy", the "worst of the worst." I think the dehumanization campaign launched against "Muslim extremists and "Islamofascists" and the silencing of any discussion that legitmizes or even acknowledges the reasons why people turn to terrorism has effectively planted fear of these demonic "others" above any fear that could come from identifying with their desperate predicament and loss of legal rights.

My congressman is a rat's ass. I send him letters, he sends me stock replies. He repeats the Bush line. He is schooled in the same science as the cat and toast example above. He, as part of the establishment, assures us that if two tall buildings are hit by airplanes, the resulting conflagration will cause all the steel joints to simultaneously explode, breaking into small pieces for convenient haul away. A third building, not hit by a plane, but damaged slightly by fire, will also see its joints disintegrate so that it falls at free fall speed. Allah is apparently good to crazy "Muslim" terrorists--suspending the laws of physics for them and their wild and crazy antics. Habeas corpus--doesn't that mean "produce the body"? Well, this bunch has produced some bodies alright.

Compassion usually surfaces when people look at the personal "what if" scenarios. It gives them a very personal example from which to draw empathy. "What if" I or someone I know were arrested and no one could learn any information about their situation nor render assistance to that person?

These are the kinds of things you hear about in dictatorships. These are the kinds of things Amnesty International tracks and reports on. Most people never thought any of these things would happen in THIS country.

Oh, and EXPEL-LIAR-MUST!

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration Paul Craig Roberts has gone further than ever before, warning that the Bush administration could be about to stage false flag events and terror attacks in order to reinstate the draft, announce a dictatorship and attack Iran.

Bad boys, bad boys, Whatcha gonna do?

Hmmmm, MY Congressman is also a rat's ass. He also sends me stock letters that do not address my queries. Do you happen to live in Oregon?
I have long felt that we are in a long excercise of futility.

Caroline: I applaud your incisive wit and intellignce and personally thank you for pulling metaphors like DARK ARTS out to explain the type of power lords we now must rent our land, Constitution, and liberties from!

John & Holy Moly - Wow! You are fortunate in your congressmen. My Massachusetts representative doesn't even bother to send a form letter. I guess he figures his constituency ain't worth it. Anyway, I doubt he knows how to spell Habeas Corpus, much less have any thoughts about what it means.

I'm in Alabama so you'd think I'd have an excuse. It is depressing to think Oregon is no different than "the heart of Dixie." Go figure.

Speaking of fear... pot growers are the Homeland's most dangerous "terrorists," have you heard? No, wait, they meant "eco-terrorists," still at the Number 1 Spot on the FBI most dangerous list. Wait, hold on, this just in from the Department of Defense - there's a group of militant librarians making protest plans with militant peace-loving nuns - CLASSIFICATION: THREAT. What's this? According to the anti-Patriot Act, anyone who protests may, in fact, be an enemy something or another and, thanks to the Military Commissions Act, they can all be rounded up, have their citizenship revoked, and deported to... er, well, the Halliburton "special program" detention centers for now...

12 Democratic Senators who voted for Bush's torture bill
& against habeas corpus
habeas corpus: habeas corpus is the name of a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

* Thomas Carper (D-DE)
* Tim Johnson (D-SD)
* Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
* Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
* Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
* Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
* Bill Nelson (D-FL)
* Ben Nelson (D-NE)
* Mark Pryor (D-AR)
* Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
* Ken Salazar (D-CO)
* Debbie Stabenow (-MI)

Frank1569: Your acerbic wit tears through me like acid... however, I generally agree with the truths you bring to the forum. A warrior culture is going to find PEACE its enemy, and POT is the true peace pipe. The Nuns, same thing... they are NOT prone to violence (I know, some of you had your knuckles hit by nuns in Catholic School, but that's not missile fire, is it?)

stinger, "...Paul Craig Roberts has gone further than ever before, warning that the Bush administration could be about to stage false flag events and terror attacks in order to reinstate the draft, announce a dictatorship and attack Iran."

bush*/cheney* have already staged false flag and terror attacks. The first salvo was 9/11 and anthrax attacks.

Wake Up America!

On the question of impeachment, this is the form letter I've received about ten times from my alleged representative, including getting the same form letter after I sent the answer below.
------------------------------------
Thank you for contacting me to share your support for impeachment proceedings against President Bush and others in the current Administration. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

I believe that the standard for impeaching a President must be very high. Impeachment must not be based on anger or revenge. Rather, impeachment must be based on the law. At this time, I have not concluded that the President has violated the law,[My emphasis. LF] as much as I disagree with the President on many issues.

The American people did not give Democrats the majority in order to impeach the President. Democrats secured the majority because of Republican excesses,[My emphasis. LF] the lack of progress in Iraq, and what positive steps Democrats will take increasing the minimum wage, removing the ban on negotiating better drug prices for seniors, a new direction in energy policy, and aggressive oversight of the Administration.

While we may disagree on this issue, be assured that as your elected Representative, I will continue to fight for the values of the 2nd Congressional District. If I may be of further assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Again, thank you for contacting me to share your thoughts. I hope all is well in Camano Island, and I look forward to future correspondence.

Sincerely,
Rick Larsen

U.S. Representative
Washington State - 2nd District
www.house.gov/larsen

Dear Mr. Larsen,
I gather from your remarks above that you feel that it is legal for the President and his minions to:
1. Wiretap, secret search, and spy on Americans without warrant. (4th Amendment Violation)
2. Give public agencies and programs over to "faith based" organizations, providing funding, etc. (1st Amendment violation)
3. Remove people from an area of protest and refuse petitions for redress of grievances. (1st Amendment violation)
4. Remove the protection of habeas corpus, legal representation, a speedy and public trial, right to confront witnesses and review evidence against them. (5th and 6th Amendment violations)
5. Torture prisoners and use their forced testimony against them, or in lieu of a trial, hold them incommunicado for life. (5th and 8th Amendment violations)
6. Use signing statements to ignore any and all laws passed by the Congress if they inconvenience him. (Article I US Constitution violation)
7. Declare preemptive wars at will with sovereign nations that refuse to submit to his will. (Article 1, Sect. 8 US Constitution violation)
The above is just a start, with direct violations of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Then, we get into the question of cooking of intelligence and lying to the American People and Congress to get us into a war. There is a great deal of information available that any Grand Jury would bring in an indictment for.
Perhaps you are telling us that you agree with the president that he is above the law and the Constitution (which he described as "just a god damned piece of paper") does not apply to him or his decisions.
Please read the two attached articles I've written on the subject which address your remarks on impeachment.
http://www.populistamerica.com/clarification_of_the_uses_of_impeachment
http://www.populistamerica.com/impeachment_is_not_about_getting_revenge
If, having reviewed the above material, in your opinion Mr. Bush has not broken the law, then he is not the only person that needs removal from office.
Regarding your second statement, we elected Democrats to get us out of Iraq and to clean out the cesspool that the Executive and Congress has become in the past six years. Don't you or your staff ever read polls? We certainly didn't elect you for "business as usual."
We are appalled and disgusted by your response.
---------------------------------------------
As I mentioned above, we got the same form letter back in response.

Heres some more information to put in letters to Congress. The truth will out.

Chief of the CIA in Europe Interview with Der Speigel

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,462782,00.html

The former chief of the CIA's Europe division, Tyler Drumheller, discusses the United States foreign intelligence service's cooperation with Germany, the covert kidnapping of suspected terrorists and a Bush adminstration that ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq.

some quotes from the article

Drumheller: It was Vice President Dick Cheney who talked about the "dark side" we have to turn on. When he spoke those words, he was articulating a policy that amounted to "go out and get them." His remarks were evidence of the underlying approach of the administration, which was basically to turn the military and the agency loose and let them pay for the consequences of any unfortunate -- or illegal -- occurences.

SPIEGEL: So there was no clear guidance of what is allowed in the so called "war on terrorism"?

Drumheller: Every responsible chief in the CIA knows that the more covert the action, the greater the need for a clear policy and a defined target. I once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation, and her chief concern was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it. I would have expected a big meeting, a debate about whether to proceed with the plan, a couple of hours of consideration of the pros and cons. We should have been talking about the value of the target, whether the threat he presented warranted such a potentially controversial intervention. This is no way to run a covert policy. If the White House wants to take extraordinary measures to win, it can't just let things go through without any discussion about their value and morality.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps the White House wanted to gloss over its own responsibility.

Drumheller: Let me give you a general thought: From the perspective of the White House, it was smart to blur the lines about what was acceptable and what was not in the war on terrorism. It meant that whenever someone was overzealous in some dark interrogation cell, President (George W.) Bush and his entourage could blame someone else. The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn't do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush Administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions.
///////////////////////////////

Drumheller: The agency is not blameless and no president on my watch has had a spotless record when it comes to the CIA. But

never before have I seen the manipulation of intelligence that has played out since Bush took office. As chief of Europe I had a front-row seat from which to observe the unprecedented drive for intelligence justifying the Iraq war.

//////////////////////////////////

SPIEGEL: So the White House just ignored the fact that the whole story might have been untrue?

Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,462782,00.html

Chief of the CIA in Europe Interview with Der Speigel

quotes from the above link

Drumheller: It was Vice President Dick Cheney who talked about the "dark side" we have to turn on. When he spoke those words, he was articulating a policy that amounted to "go out and get them." His remarks were evidence of the underlying approach of the administration, which was basically to turn the military and the agency loose and let them pay for the consequences of any unfortunate -- or illegal -- occurences.

SPIEGEL: So there was no clear guidance of what is allowed in the so called "war on terrorism"?

Drumheller: Every responsible chief in the CIA knows that the more covert the action, the greater the need for a clear policy and a defined target. I once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation, and her chief concern was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it. I would have expected a big meeting, a debate about whether to proceed with the plan, a couple of hours of consideration of the pros and cons. We should have been talking about the value of the target, whether the threat he presented warranted such a potentially controversial intervention. This is no way to run a covert policy. If the White House wants to take extraordinary measures to win, it can't just let things go through without any discussion about their value and morality.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps the White House wanted to gloss over its own responsibility.

Drumheller: Let me give you a general thought: From the perspective of the White House, it was smart to blur the lines about what was acceptable and what was not in the war on terrorism. It meant that whenever someone was overzealous in some dark interrogation cell, President (George W.) Bush and his entourage could blame someone else. The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn't do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush Administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions.

Drumheller: The agency is not blameless and no president on my watch has had a spotless record when it comes to the CIA. But
never before have I seen the manipulation of intelligence that has played out since Bush took office. As chief of Europe I had a front-row seat from which to observe the unprecedented drive for intelligence justifying the Iraq war.

SPIEGEL: So the White House just ignored the fact that the whole story might have been untrue?

Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this."

COLLEEN: thank you for sharing the above interview. Most on CD know the policy was set in advance, but it's important to have facts to back up that realization.
LIBERTAS FUGIT: Excellent letter! Thank you for representing many voices in this forum in articulating the many egregious IMPEACHABLE offenses of this team of barbarians posing as leaders of the "free" world.

Colleen, please consider that placing our faith and future in the hands of a lawyer/judge in a black robe dispensing "dark arts" is filled with the elitism of a seldom criticized sacred cow.

Your splendid phrase "the arts of darkness" communicates precisely what you appear to be missing. The lawyerly arts of manipulation are practiced every day in your local courthouse, state house, and federal whorehouse.

Do you really think that "artists of darkness" and their using the law as an instrument can save us from other "artists of darkness." Almost everybody in this country has been milked at least once by lawyers and lawyer/judges.

Siouxrose

The BIG question is why wasn't this interview with the head of the CIA in Europe in the US news?

The BIG answer (imo) The US is not a free society and the news is filtered.

Bush and Cheney should go through an impeachment process. There are too many questions to just let this go. Let's at least make believe that we have a functioning government that responds to the people. :/

jp, would it be reasonable to claim that your well-stated position above is an excellent description of what lawyers do everyday. Let's have a lawsuit - let's you and him fight. Let's play courtroom - you have valuable legal rights. Let us help you.

Demonizing the necessary other keeps the fight and the fees coming. Lawyers have been milking the public for centuries.

gerald spezio, I understand that the legal system is imperfect, lawyers and judges may be corrupt, biased, and that many laws are created by elites to maintain and fortify their power. That said, there is another level of consciousness at stake here, and that is that institutions must exist to protect individuals, whoever they are, from the overreaching power of the state, everyone is entitled to their "day in court." Everyone has the right to know what they are being charged with, to see the evidence against them, and to challenge both.
Your critique itself is grounded in the belief that we need these kinds of protections but the present system has failed to provide them for many people. I would argue that we must fix the system rather than scrap it.

Don't blame the lawyers, blame the laws.

As for the comment: "everyone is entitled to their 'day in court.'"...

I'd say: "no person has the right to impose their will with violence or the threat of violence upon another"

This includes Judges, Juries, Police and Military.

And if one uses violence or the threat of violence upon another, then they are consenting the same to be used against themselves. And when it occurs, there is no imposition because consent has been given.

Also, that all police and military impose, at a minimum, the threat of violence upon the innocent and unconsenting.

But I implore all to turn from even justified violence, because all nations have imposed the threat of violence upon the innocent and unconsenting. (Except perhaps Aristide, who disbanded the Haitian military.) If all who harbored WMD (e.g. America, Russia, the U.K., Russia, etc.) were invaded, the world would quickly die. In saving ourselves we are lost. The only future is in faith that we are safe. Evidence has been given.

Keep chanting the disarm spell. ;-) Make those Reapers go away:

EXPEL-LIAR-MUST
EXPEL-LIAR-MUST
EXPEL-LIAR-MUST