Does Rumsfeld know English?

With daily American casualties in Iraq, many in the media are asking whether Iraq is becoming a quagmire. Donald Rumsfeld has denied that this is the case. Rather than there being a guerilla war happening in Iraq, Rumsfeld said after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, "remnants of the Baath regime and Fedayeen death squads faded into the population and have reverted to a terrorist network." Administration officials sure love the word terrorist. It has become the catch-all term for people whom Bush has so eloquently called "evil-doers." Terrorism, according to our government is "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets." The attacks in Iraq are not against noncombatants, they are against an occupying military force. A guerrilla is, "a member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids." Fedayeen is most definitely a paramilitary organization, and it is operating in occupied territory to harass and undermine the United States and Britain. Mr. Rumsfeld should learn some English. It is exceedingly ironic that Rumsfeld says there is no guerilla war in Iraq before comparing the situation in Iraq to early America. Afterall, American revolutionaries used guerilla warfare tactics against Great Britain. This is obvious blatant spin to coverup the administrations inept, cretinous handling of post-Saddam Iraq. Another group causing problems for the United States in Iraq are people whom Rumsfeld describes as "influenced by Iran." He is trying to imply that they didn't come to their anti-American attitude themselves, but were somehow brainwashed by Iranian Mullahs. This is, I suppose, possible. However, lets apply Occam's razor and select the simplest hypothesis. Consider an incident like the Immoral army doctors in my previous post. Or consider the fact that the American installed mayor in Najaf was later arrested for corruption and kidnapping. Or consider the 12-year-old Iraqi boy who was shot by an American soldier. Given these incidents and others like them, it seems easy to conclude that Iraqi Shiites may have come to their anti-American sentiments all by themselves and were contacted by Iranians because they held those views. Perhaps they decided they would not have American style liberation. If this sort of behavior continues, Iraq will be a quagmire if it can't already be described as one now.

Immoral Army Doctors

Sgt. Borell was approached by a desperate Iraqi man who pleaded with him to help 3 young girls who were severly burned by some explosive powder that was ignited. Sgt. Borell, a compassionate and moral man, immediately called for help. When two U.S. army doctors arrived they refused to treat the girls. "Maj. David Accetta, public affairs officer with the Third Corps Support Command, said Army doctors were not required to treat the children. Only patients with conditions threatening life, limb or eyesight and not resulting from a chronic illness are considered for treatment." What a dispicable thing to say. These are human beings, who gives a damn whether or not they were legally required to treat these people. There is a moral requirement to do so. Don't army Doctors take the Hippocratic oath? Borell said, "I cannot imagine the heartlessness required to look into the eyes of a child in horrid pain and suffering and, with medical resources only a brief trip up the road, ignore their plight as though they are insignificant." I couldn't agree more. What kind of liberation is this anyway? You can find the full article about this here

Logic Cop Investigated by Internal Affairs

We were excited to see a philosopher contributing to public discourse when we came across Keith Burgess-Jackson' Bush's Critics Meet the Logic Police despite its title. He starts his article by suggesting that philosophers can contribute much to the public discourse on a variety of political issues. We wholeheartedly agree with him on this. We were hoping that his article would point out fallacies progressives make so that we could avoid them in the future. We were severely disappointed by his article. The level of scholarship is just not there and his work gives philosophers a bad name.

If some philosophers are logic police, then others are officers from internal affairs. Burgess Jackson writes. "Either there is a justification for the war (objectively speaking) or there is not. If there is, then it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush. If there isn't, then it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush. Either way, it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush." Though Bush's motivations may not be relevant in establishing the logical possibility of providing a moral justification for war, they are relevant in judging whether Bush himself was moral in instigating that war. We don't know about Mr. Burgess-Jackson, but it matters to us whether or not our president acts morally. Burgess-Jackson argues, "A badly motivated person can do the right thing (by accident, as it were), just as a well-motivated person can do the wrong thing." One might argue quite the opposite. A person could act immorally and despite this the outcome may be good. Conversely, a person could act morally and the outcome could nevertheless be bad. If motives were irrelevant in evaluating the morality of somebody's actions, then we couldn't distinguish between a crime of passion and a cold calculated murder. Just as there are common expressions that capture Burgess-Jackson's viewpoint, there are common expressions that capture the view outlined above. "The ends don't justify the means" comes to mind.

The moral viewpoints presented above come from an age-old philosophical debate about ethics. Burgess-Jackson argues for a view known as consequentialism. According to consequentialist theory, an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill argued for such a view. The alternative I presented is based on deontological (duty) theories of morality. Deontological theories base morality on specific moral principles that are not to be violated regardless of the outcome. The Ten Commandments are a good example. John Locke's rights theory and Emmanuel Kant's categorical imperative provide further examples of deontological theories. The point we want to make is that it is terribly presumptuous to assume that consequentialism is true and subsequently charge progressive pundits with committing logical fallacies based on this. If deontological theory is true then the progressive's conclusions are not fallacious because motives are everything in such theories. We would expect a freshman undergraduate to make such a philosophical move, but it is unacceptable from philosopher with a PhD.

Burgess-Jackson follows this questionable premise by asking why the public debate focused so sharply on the President's alleged motives, to wit oil, revenge, and the economy. He suggests the answer is hatred of the president and confusion.

There was no confusion. The focus wasn't on motives. It was on the legal justification for the war. Only after Bush's legal justifications were deemed inadequate, did progressive pundits begin to question his motives. The progressives concern was not with the removal of Saddam, which was acknowledged by all as good, but rather the aftermath of war. Those who opposed the war questioned the primary justification George Bush offered, that there was an imminent threat to the United States, and that the threat came from weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorists. Bush said Iraq had or was close to getting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The administration argued further that Saddam would use those weapons or pass them on to others to use and that there was no time for alternatives to military action. He didn't make the case. He failed to convince the world community, he failed to convince the United Nations Security Council, and he failed to convince many Americans.

Another reason many opposed the war was that they had misgivings about the chances of long term success in imposing a government on Iraq. George Bush senior made the same argument against occupation after the first gulf war, and repeated it prior to this war. It is still unclear if he was right or not, but the problems so far seem to support his view. Burgess-Jackson is correct that many questioned the president’s motives. These questions were not meant as arguments against the war. They were offered as an explanation of Bush's advocacy of war despite the lack of legal justification and expected problems long term occupation would bring.

Finally, the question of Bush's motives are important in their own right quite apart from whether war was justified. The United States is a constitutional Republic. We are a nation of laws. Questions of motivation and honesty go to the core of what we value in America. They are the reason that Richard Nixon, facing impeachment, left office. The Watergate burglary itself was not earth shattering, but a president that would lie about it shook the foundations of our republic. It is important for a president to be honest, and it is important for the president’s motivations for taking action in our name to reflect our values. If those motives are hidden, if those motives are disguised, if those motives are based on lies and exaggeration they undermine our democracy. The threat this poses to our republic is far greater than danger from terrorist attacks. To claim the focus of criticism was Bush's motives fails to present the best argument that those who opposed the war made. Need we remind Burgess-Jackson. "One thing - maybe the most important thing - young philosophers learn is charity. Before criticizing an argument, make it the best it can be. This is the fundamental fairness of the philosophical method." Burgess-Jackson's article is not philosophy, it is partisan pop culture. The best way he can help make philosophy more relevant to the wider public is to stop writing.

UPDATE:
Stephen Downes, author of The Guide to Logical Fallacies, wrote a post on Burgess-Jackson's article that very much mirrors what we have said here. Read on to see what he had to say.

It is articles like this that give philosophers a bad name. Shrouded in a cloak of rhetoric lie fundamental misdirections that lead the reader to an incorrect conclusion.

The key point in the argument is that while critics attack Bush's motives for attacking Iraq, the real question is whether the war was justified, and that this justification is an objective measure independent of Bush's motives.

Of course, an analysis of the criticisms of the war finds that they are not based on a criticism of Bush's motives. Rather, they were based on the observation that the reasons being advanced in favour of the war were not sufficient to support the conclusion.

Critics, for example, expressed scepticism about Bush and Blair's claim that Iraq housed weapons of mass descruction, a suspiciion that today appears to have been warranted. They expressed doubt about the purported link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. And they questioned whether Iraq was any more deserving a target for invasion than the many other unsavory regimes in the world, regimes that include among their numbers America's allies.

It is true that there was speculation about Bush's motives. But such speculation, far from being expressed as an objection to the war, was raised rather in an attempt to understand why Bush would pursue such a course when the stated reasons for the war were so transparently flimsy.

The author writes that the justification for the war exists independently of Bush's motives for the war. Maybe so (though by no means all philosophers cling to such a consequentialist notion of justification, despite it being baldly presented as fact in this article). But the justification for the war consists (at least prior to the war) in the reasons advanced for going to war, and the critics were, on reflection, quite right in casting doubt on this justification.

On a strict consequentialist point of view, we can ask about the justification for war by looking at the consequences. It is true that Hussein has been removed, vanished into hiding somewhere, that his army has been disbanded, and that his government's repressive policies have been halted. The cost to the Iraqi people, though, was high - it is no surprise to read blogger Salam Pax write that war is never the best solution, no matter how repressive the government.

It is not clear whether, in the long run, the Iraqi people will benefit from Hussein's removal, or whether they will, as in eras past, simply experience a period of colonial government followed by another dictator. America's record is not good in this regard. Nor is it clear whether they will be able to benefit from the resources of their country, or whether they will be plundered, ostensibly to 'pay for' a liberation they never sought. The current situation - a destroyed infrastructure, a colonial government, disease, starvation, anarchy and crime - offers no justification whatsoever for the war.

It is relevant today, though, to raise questions regarding Bush's motives, not in order to determine whether the war was justified - for it appears not to have been by the objective evidence available either before or after the war - but rather to assess whether Bush is guilty of a war crime. As any philosopher should well know, guilt or innocence is determined not only by consequences, but also by intent, and if Bush's intent was petty revenge, or whether it was to loot Iraq of its oil, then he is in fact guilty of a war crime and ought to be punished.

Indeed, Stephen also recognizes a Rogue Cop when he sees one.

The Case for Public Patents

Dennis Kucinich wrote this excellent article for the nation. I Really like the comparison he makes between Public Patents for prescription drugs and "open source" computer progamming such as Linux. Also remember to register for the Moveon.org primary and vote for Kucinich. The primary starts Tuesday, June 24th. It could give a real boost to his campaign.

The Case for Public Patents
by Dennis J. Kucinich

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that it wants an exclusive patent on the SARS virus to guarantee the discovery remains in the public domain. That's the right thing to do. In fact, any eventual vaccine or cure for SARS should also remain in the public domain so access to affordable treatment is possible in the event of a public health emergency. If the patent were held in private hands, it could prevent cooperative efforts among scientists across the globe and complicate efforts to make treatments or vaccines available to the public at large.

Despite, or maybe because of these facts, several laboratories have already filed US patent applications for SARS virus genes, and CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding said that more than thirty biomedical companies have requested SARS viral samples for their efforts to develop a treatment, vaccine or test. The speed of the patent race is impressive, but this race for profits isn't good for public health.

What's the danger if private companies hold the patent? Research is stifled and products are overpriced. Our nation's experience with prescription drugs should teach us a lesson. We are the only country that grants monopoly rights in the form of patents without asking for anything in return, and as a result, American citizens pay twice as much for the exact same medications as their counterparts across the border. Now faced with global public-health threats like SARS, we must stop foolishly pandering to the pharmaceutical industry and demand balance.

I will soon be introducing legislation that would create a new network of government labs for the research, development and manufacture of pharmaceutical products and biologics. The labs would be responsible for developing new cures and bringing them to the American people in a timely and affordable manner, something that the pharmaceutical industry has glaringly failed to do. Under the leadership of the National Institutes of Health, these government labs would receive direction on public health priorities. Labs would both perform the R&D for new therapies and cures, and form cooperative agreements with educational, research and private institutions.

In return for cooperative agreements to perform R&D, all research data and findings would be made public on a central website, just like the Human Genome Project. When discoveries are made, the patents would be held by the government and nonexclusive licenses would be attached to them. This would allow companies to compete to manufacture pharmaceutical products, just like generic drug companies do now. This would radically bring down the cost of drugs. In 2000, if drugs had not been subject to patent protection, total savings for government and consumers would have been roughly $80 billion.

In addition to making new cures affordable for Americans, this proposal would increase the affordability of cures worldwide. Of the 42 million people with AIDS around the globe, approximately 300,000 are receiving proper treatment. Patents give drug companies monopolies on therapies and cures, thus allowing prices as high as the market will bear. When the price is unbearable, as in poor African nations, it can mean a public health disaster.

Finally, this proposal will improve the quality of R&D by using an "open source" system that makes data and findings publicly available, instead of held secret as proprietary data. This will allow us to tap the collective genius of the world community of scientists. Open source is how the Linux computer operating system has become a competitive force against Microsoft's Windows. Anyone can download Linux without restriction, and many people catch bugs and submit improvements for the common goal of having the best system for operating our computers.

If smart people across the world do this for computers, can we not do it for the sake of public health? Over time, we have watched the pharmaceutical industry fail on three counts: submitting fewer and fewer drugs to FDA for approval, creating "copycat" drugs instead of truly new cures and raising drug prices higher every year. Our current patent system is what encourages artificial improvements and keeps prices high. It seems clear that one of the keys to public health is establishing public patents. Let's do it today.

The "Rush" to War

I remember several liberal bloggers accusing the Bush administration of witholding intelligence from the UN Inspections teams. According to resolution 1441 the United States had agreed to provide any intelligence it had about weapons of mass destruction to Hans Blix's team. It turns out Liberal bloggers were right. The United States did not turn over all the intelligence. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had this to say in a recent statement. "As the handouts and the charts demonstrate, Director Tenet and others within the Administration, including Dr. Rice, have maintained that they briefed the UN inspectors on all high and medium value suspect sites. Director Tenet so testified publicly. However, the detailed suspect site information that he has provided to me in classified form indicated the contrary and I have said so publicly."
Liberal bloggers argued that if we knew where the weapons are why couldn't we simply tell the inspectors so that they could go and find them. We would then have a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions. As I recall, the Bush administration was very intent on going to war. Why wouldn't they want clear evidence of Iraqi violations of UN resolutions to justify military action? It seems their is only one explanation. They did not have the intelligence information they claimed. They were exaggerating the intelligence they had. It is clear the administration misused the CIA, and this president should be impeached. We can call this weaponsgate.

Punctuation

When I drive home from work, I often pass a Lutheran high school. The other day I saw a disturbing message written on their sign. "Never put a question mark where God puts a period." Doesn't this describe our president to a tee. Joan Didion writes the following in an article in the January 16 New York Review of Books.

"I've made up my mind," he said in April, "that Saddam needs to go." This was one of many curious, almost petulant statements offered in lieu of actually presenting a case. I've made up my mind, I've said in speech after speech, I've made myself clear. The repeated statements became their own reason.

I have made up my mind, period. I guess our president would say, "Never put a question mark were I put a period." George Lakoff would explain this by pointing out that it is in the conservative mindset. Questioning the "strict father" government's authority is forbidden. Anyone who has had the courage to dissent in this country has been treated like an insolent child and told to shut up.
I don't like periods. The period is probably my least favorite punctuation. My favorite is the question mark. Heraclitus, a pre-socratic Greek philosopher, said we can never step in the same river twice. This is because we live in a world of constant flux and change. In such a world there are no periods, only more question marks.

2003 National Open Chess Tournament

I have just returned from the 2003 National Open Chess Tournament. This was a six game event in which each player had 2 hours to make his first 40 moves and an additional hour to finish the game. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the the event taking place at the Riviera. There were nearly 900 players at the event.

The tournament was broken up into sections based on United States Chess Federation (USCF) ratings. The Championship Section had a first prize of $5000. Eight Grandmasters tied for first place with a score of 5 out of 6. They include: Alek Wojtkiewicz, Sergey Kudrin, Petr Kiriakov, Gregory Serper, Hikaru Nakamura (who beat Bobby Fischer's record as the youngest American to become a Grandmaster), Alexander Shabalov, Ildar Ibragimov, and Jaan Ehlvest. The other sections were rated Under 2000, Under 1800, Under 1600, Under 1400, Under 1200, an unrated section, and a scholastic section. You can find crosstables for all the sections here. Just click on the results button on the left.

I was very happy with my result in the Under 1600 section. I scored 4.5 out of 6. I had 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. My loss was to Khahn Duong, who ended up tying for first place in my section. I finished ninth overall out of 150 participants in the Under 1600 section.

Also of interest at the event was a demonstration of a replica of the automaton chessplayer, known as "The Turk."

Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, a member of Maria Theresa's court, invented the Turk in 1770. The Turk is known to have played and defeated Philidor (the great French champion), Napoleon, Edgar Allen Poe, and Benjamin Franklin. The original Turk was lost in a fire.

Book Review: Moral Politics

Democrats need to get the vision thing. Republicans are already very good at using language to frame issues in terms of their world view. Democrats have much to learn. George Lakoff is professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. His book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, gives us insight into how Democrats can develop a language to express their world view. Lakoff observes that the very way liberals and conservatives reason about politics differs based on their world views. Conservatives use a "Strict Father" metaphor and liberals use a "Nurturant Mother or Parent" metaphor. He argues that conservatives implicitly understand their world view better than liberals and this allows them to express their views more effectively. This is why they have been so successful at the polls in the last few years. By understanding how liberals and conservatives think, Democrats will be able to develop a more effective way of expressing their values in a coherent and unified way.

Lakoff posits that we unconsciously use metaphors in our everyday reasoning. Many moral categories are understood based on a metaphor that conceptualizes moral interactions as financial transactions. Take reciprocation. If you do something good for me, then I "owe" you or I am "in your debt." By returning a favor, I even the moral books between us. Retribution is also seen in this way. We talk about getting "pay back" for a wrong someone has done to us and criminals go to jail to "pay their debt to society." We reason about moral categories via an unconscious use of this moral bookkeeping metaphor.

For Lakoff, our moral world view is intimately tied up with our political views. He believes that for political reasoning we all conceptualize the nation as a family. For example, we speak of sending our "sons and daughters" to war. Liberals and Conservatives have very different family metaphors. Conservatives have what Lakoff calls the "Strict Father" model of the family while Liberals have the "Nurturant Parent" model. These central models are subject to variation. As people vary from these models, they vary from the prototypical conservative or liberal point of view. These two models form the basis of how liberals and conservatives' think about politics.

Lakoff describes the "Strict Father" model as one which "posit’s a traditional nuclear family, with the father having primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family as well as the authority to set overall policy, to set strict rules for behavior of children, and to enforce the rules." According to this model the mother's role is to care for the house, raise the children, and uphold the father's authority. " Children must respect and obey their parents; by doing so they build character, that is, self-discipline and self-reliance." Parental authority takes precedence over love and nurturance although they are also a vital part of family life. . Parental authority is seen as a form of love, tough love. According to this model learning self-discipline and respect for legitimate authority are crucial. Once children mature, they are on their own and must depend of their self-discipline for survival. Their self-reliance gives them the ability to forge their own destiny. Any intervention by parents at this stage is seen as unwarranted meddling.

In contrast to the "Strict Father model, Lakoff describes the "Nurturant Parent" model as being based in empathy and nurturance. According to this model, children become "responsible, self-disciplined and self-reliant through being cared for, respected, and caring for others, both in their family and in their community." The obedience of children comes out of their love and respect for their parents and community rather than from fear of punishment. If their authority is to be legitimate parents must do a good job in communicating why their decisions protect and nurture their children. Questioning by children is seen as a good thing in this model because children need to learn why their parents do what they do and because children often have good ideas that should be respected. Of course parents must ultimately make the final decision and it must be clear to the children that this is so. The goal of nurturance is to allow children to develop their potential and live a fulfilling life. A person living such a life is more likely to nurture others and create a better community. Under this model as Lakoff describes it, the most important thing for children to learn is "empathy for others, the capacity for nurturance, and the maintenance of social ties." This cannot be done without "the strength, respect, self-discipline, and self-reliance that comes through being cared for." When children are nurtured, treated with respect, and communicated with from an early age, they enter into a lifetime relationship of mutual respect, communication, and caring with their parents and community.

It is important to keep in mind that we are not literally talking about family, we are talking about a metaphor used to conceptualize political and moral world views. According to Lakoff, it is possible that a person's upbringing will cause them to view the world according one or the other of these models, but it is by no means guaranteed that it will. One can see that there is some overlap between these two models. Lakoff believes the way liberals and conservatives differ in prioritizing those values is crucial. Below is a prioritized list of moral categories from each model

Conservative Categories of Moral Action
1. Promoting Strict Father morality in general.
2. Promoting self-discipline, responsibility, and self-reliance.
3. Upholding the Morality of Reward and Punishment
	a. Preventing interference with the pursuit of self-interest by
	 self-disciplined, self-reliant people.
	b. Promoting punishment as a means of upholding authority.
4. Protecting moral people form external evils.
5. Upholding the Moral Order.

Liberal Categories of Moral Action

1. Empathetic behavior and promoting fairness.

2. Helping those who cannot help themselves.

3. Protecting those who cannot protect themselves.

4. Promoting fulfillment in life.

5. Nurturing and strengthening oneself in order to do the above.

To see how Lakoff's theory works, we can apply it to the issue of welfare. Why do conservatives always want to cut welfare programs while liberals like to maintain or even increase them? Conservatives see welfare programs as being immoral and as no favor to welfare recipients. If you give a child money she doesn't earn, she won't learn self-discipline and self-reliance (category 2 & 3). If she doesn't learn these things she will become morally weak (category 1). If she becomes morally weak she will commit evil acts and cause other people to be evil (category 4). It is therefore immoral to give people money they don't earn. Welfare on the conservative view isn't doing these people any favor, because it causes moral weakness. Since conservatives conceptualize welfare in this way they are very hesitant to support welfare programs.

Liberals see welfare in a much different light. Liberals believe that these people are suffering (category 1) and they need help from the government (category 2) to get back on their feet. Liberals argue that people who are in financial dire straights are more likely to commit crimes rather than contribute to their community (category 5). For liberals, welfare is a good program because it requires wealthy people to pay their fair share (category 1). When wealth distribution is fair, everybody can live a fulfilling life and in turn nurture others (categories 4 & 5).

This really only scratches the surface. Lakoff explains these models in great detail and shows how they cash out on a variety of political issues from abortion and the death penalty to the environment and social programs. Understanding the way people think about politics allows us to use language to frame issues in terms of our values. Republicans may not have read Lakoff's book, but they certainly understand how to use language to make their view sound like common sense. To date liberals have failed to do this well.

One thing liberals can do is turn the conservative metaphors against them. Sen. Edwards did this quite well at the three day Take Back America Conference in Washington D.C. "This president's values are not the values of the American people," he said, "He's about rewarding wealth, not work" This uses the punishment and reward metaphor from the "Strict Father" model and turns it against the very people conservatives think are model citizens. This strategy can be a powerful means of criticizing Republicans, but Democrats also need to bring forth a positive message based on the language of empathy and fairness. This is how Democrats can come across as having a vision rather than looking like poll-mongering, focus group junkies. I would like to challenge my readers to read Lakoff's book and help me develop language that frames progressive issues in terms of empathy rather than mean spirited conservative thinking.
For more on Lakoff, short of reading his book there is a two part interview on TomPaine.com. Part I is Left Out By Right Rhetoric and Part II is The Moral Imperative.

Smoking Guns

Now that it seems likely that no "smoking gun" will be found in Iraq, the question becomes will a smoking gun be found in the United States or Britain. Due to the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush administration and Blair goverment have to spin this as an intelligence failure. However, the intelligence community is not just going to sit down and take this quietly. Rumblings in both countries have already started. British spies are already threatening Blair with a smoking gun and evidence mounts that the Bush administration has been cherry picking the intelligence reports that are made public. A group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) has been formed to defend themselves from the Bush administration's spin. They wrote a letter challenging the Bush administration on its claims. If a full inquiry is started, it seems likely we may see a smoking gun right here in the United States.

Kucinich Leads Real Opposition

Kucinich: Show Us The Evidence, Mr. President
t r u t h o u t | Statement

Saturday 07 June 2003

Kucinich Leads 30 Members of Congress In Introducing A Resolution of Inquiry To Force Administration To Turn Over Intelligence On Iraq’s Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, led 30 Members of Congress in introducing a Resolution of Inquiry in the House of Representatives to force the Administration to turn over the intelligence to back its yet unproven claims that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

“It is long past time that the President and this Administration show its evidence,” stated Kucinich, the leader of the opposition to the war in Iraq in the House. “Today, we are introducing a Resolution of Inquiry to compel the White House to substantiate its claims. The President led the nation to war, and spent at least $63 billion on that war, on the basis of these unfounded assertions.”

The resolution, introduced today by 30 Members of Congress, led by Kucinich, seeks to force the Administration to turn over the intelligence to substantiate claims by the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and the White House Press Secretary that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons and therefore posed a threat to the United States.

The resolution is a privileged resolution and must be voted on in Committee within 14 legislative days. Kucinich used the same procedure in March to force the Administration to release the 12,000 page weapon report that Iraq has submitted to the United Nations.

“This Administration owes an explanation to this Congress and to the American people,” continued Kucinich. “Now is the time for truth telling.”

Joining Kucinich on the Resolution are Reps. S. Brown, J. Carson, Conyers, Cummings, Farr, Frank, Grijalva, Hinchey, Honda, Jackson-Lee, Jackson Jr., Tubbs Jones, Kaptur, Lee, J. Lewis, Maloney, McDermott, George Miller, Nadler, Owens, Rahall, Schakowsky, Serrano, Scott, Stark, Van Hollen, Waters, Watson, and Woosley.

Read his original statement here

Kucinich Stands up for Choice

The Following is an email I received from the Kucinich campaign for president. This should clarify the record on Kucinich's views about abortion. He had said he is pro-life before, but I think that means he would just prefer that people didn't get abortions, not that he wants to make them illegal.

On Wednesday, Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich took to the House floor to
strongly oppose a ban on so-called "partial-birth abortions":

"Let's all be clear -- the bill before us is unconstitutional because it does
not contain an exemption for the health of the woman who seeks to exercise
her reproductive rights. There is no doubt about that. This is because the
US Supreme Court has already ruled on very similar legislation in Stenberg
v. Carhart. Opponents of the right to reproductive choice should know that.

"This bill likely will not prevent a single abortion. But it does defeat the
rights of women.

"I believe that equal protection under the law and the right to privacy should
be freedoms enjoyed by women as well as men. But women will not be equal to
men if this constitutionally protected right is denied. This bill infringes
on those rights for women, and that is why I will oppose it.

"Throughout my career, I have tried to work to reduce the need for abortions
by preventing unwanted pregnancies through comprehensive sex education,
birth control, and increased access to health care. I think that all of my
colleagues would agree that we should work to prevent unwanted pregnancies
that lead to abortions. I will continue those efforts, but the bill that is
before us today is the wrong way to do that.

"Advocates of this bill who say they stand in defense of life would be more
believable if they worked to support families, with adequate child care
funding, child tax credit relief for vulnerable families, and peace. For
some, this debate is only about politics. The fact that other abortion
legislation, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, has been advanced on the
publicity of the Laci Peterson tragedy shows the unfortunate politicization
of this debate.

"I do know, however, that many are sincere in their desire to reduce the need
for abortions. In leading the nation toward this goal, we must preserve
Constitutional rights. We must respect the freedom and equality of women.
The best path for our country is not to escalate the divisiveness and
political nature of this debate. Rather, it is to remember the principles
of this nation and refrain from undermining the freedom of choice. We must
respect the basic human dignity of women to make personal decisions."

Make a contribution to the Kucinich campaign here.

Fuck You Bitch

"Pop Art is an involvement with what I think to be the most brazen and threatening characteristics of our culture, things we hate, but which are also powerful in their impingement on us."
— Roy Lichtenstein quoted in Art News, November 1963.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) is perhaps the most famous artist from the Pop Art movement next to Andy Warhol. Pop Art is a style of art which explores the everyday imagery which is part of contemporary consumer culture. Common sources include advertisements, consumer product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips. Lichtenstein was famous for painting comic book images like the one in the AT&T Worldnet advertisement I used to create this post. It is ironic that the style of that ad looks like it could be one of his paintings. The Pop Art style was meant to criticize consumer culture and AT&T is using it as a part of the consumer culture.

Here is an image of his painting "In the Car"

You kind find this image and more about Lichtenstein here.

The Single Most Important Issue Today

It's not Iraq. It's not the economy. It's not healthcare. It is democracy. Corporate personhood subverts democracy. Corporations are immortal and amoral. They should not be granted the rights of human kind. Read about it here and do something about it here.

Holy Shit!

Wolfowitz has just come out and said the war was about oil! Read about at The Guardian It's one thing to use lies to convince the American people to back an unjust war. It is quite another to brag about it. This administration has taken on a new strategy. Commit blatanly criminal acts and then don't even try to hide them. "What?" says Bush, "Imperialism is a good thing." It's time to break out my subversive stickers again. Go over to CrimethInc and order some for yourself.

We Used to Impeach Liars

We Used To Impeach Liars
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 03 June 2003

In September of 2002, fully six months before George W. Bush attacked Iraq, I published a small book entitled "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know." The essential premise of the book was that the threats surrounding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were wildly overblown by the Bush administration for purely political reasons. In the opening paragraphs, I framed the argument as follows:

According to Bush and the men who are pushing him towards this war-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle.The United States will institute a "regime change" in Iraq, and bring forth the birth of a new democracy in the region. Along the way, we will remove Saddam Hussein, a man who absolutely, positively has weapons of mass destruction, a man who will use these weapons against his neighbors because he has done so in the past, a man who will give these terrible weapons to Osama bin Laden for use against America.

A fairly cut-and-dried case, no? America is more than prepared to listen to these pleasing arguments about evil in black and white, particularly after the horrors of September 11th. Few can contemplate in comfort the existence of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the hands of a madman like Saddam Hussein. The merest whisper that he might give these weapons to Qaeda terrorists is enough to rob any rational American of sleep. Saddam has been so demonized in the American media-ever since the first President Bush compared him to Hitler-that they believe the case has been fully and completely made for his immediate removal.

Yet facts are stubborn things, as John Adams once claimed while successfully defending British redcoats on trial for the Boston Massacre. We may hate someone with passion, and we may fear them in our souls, but if the facts cannot establish a clear and concise basis for our fear and hatred, if the facts do not defend the actions we would take against them, then we must look elsewhere for the basis of that fear. Simultaneously, we must take stock of those stubborn facts, and understand the manner in which they define the reality-not the rhetoric-of our world.

The case for war against Iraq has not been made. This is a fact. It is doubtful in the extreme that Saddam Hussein has retained any functional aspect of the chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons programs so thoroughly dismantled by the United Nations weapons inspectors who worked tirelessly in Iraq for seven years. This is also a fact.

This was a straightforward argument, set against stern and unrelenting prophesies of doom from Bush administration officials, and from Bush himself. I can tell you, as the writer, that it was a tough sell. The facts contained in the book were absolutely accurate, as has been proven in the aftermath of war, but Americans are funny. They fall for Hitler's maxim on lies over and over again: "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." Over and over and over and over and over again, the American people were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction practically falling out of his ears. The American people were told that Hussein was giving away these weapons to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda the way you and I might give away birthday presents.

Feast for a moment, on this brief timeline:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, August 26 2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."
- Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
- Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
- Colin Powell, February 5 2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
- Ari Fleischer, March 21 2003

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
- Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22 2003

"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30 2003

"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."
- Ari Fleischer, April 10 2003

"There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."
- Donald Rumsfeld, April 25 2003

"I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction."
- Colin Powell, May 4 2003

These are the words of administration officials who were following orders and the party line. It has been axiomatic for quite a while now that the people behind the scenes, and not the Main Man Himself, are running the ways and means of this administration. Harken back to the campaign in 2000, when the glaring deficiencies in ability and experience displayed by George W. Bush were salved by the fact that a number of heavy hitters would be backstopping him. Yet a Democrat named Harry Truman once said, "The buck stops here." What did the man in receipt of said stopped buck have to say on the matter?

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
- George W. Bush, September 12 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
- George Bush, February 8 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
- George Bush, March 17 2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
- George Bush, April 24 2003

"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."
- George Bush, May 3 2003

"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program."
- George W. Bush, May 6 2003

It has become all too clear in the last several days that the horrid descriptions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were nothing more than the Big Lie which Hitler described. The American people, being the trusting TV-stoned folks they are, bought this WMD lie bag and baggage. Imagine the shock within the administration when Lieutenant General James Conway, top US Marine Commander in Iraq, said that American intelligence on Iraqi WMDs was "Simply wrong." Conway went on to state about the WMDs that, "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

Imagine the consternation within the administration when Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said on May 28 that, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." A short translation of that comment is as straightforward as one can get - There was no real threat of WMDs, but everyone who wanted the war for whatever reasons decided to settle on that concept because it was an easy sell to Americans still traumatized by September 11.

Imagine the teeth-gnashing within the administration when Patrick Lang, former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, accused Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld's personal intelligence team of having "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" to make it seem like the WMD threat in Iraq was real. Lang went on to say that the DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD." Vince Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA counterterrorist operations, described serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for proffering "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi."

Ahmad Chalabi, it should be noted, is the hand-picked-by-Don-Rumsfeld successor to power in Iraq. Chalabi was convicted in 1992 of 31 counts of bank fraud and embezzlement in Jordan and sentenced to 22 years hard labor in absentia. Even the most optimistic of intelligence observers take what he has to say with a massive grain of salt. Certainly, as the chosen leader of Iraq - a position he has enjoyed thanks to Rumsfeld and his cabal since 1997 - Chalabi had no reason whatsoever to exaggerate or lie about Iraq's weapons program. Of course.

The process of proving the presence of Iraqi WMDs has been tortured, to say the least. Bush at one point described recent Iraqi efforts to purchase "significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Greg Thielmann, recently resigned from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, was appalled by these claims. "When I saw that, I was really blown away," said Thielmann. His Bureau of Intelligence and Research had absolutely debunked this claim. The documents used to support the accusation were crude forgeries - the name on the letterhead of the main evidentiary document was that of a Nigerian minister who had been out of office for ten years. When he saw that Bush was using the fraudulent documentation to back up his claims, he thought to himself, "Not that stupid piece of garbage," according to Newsweek.

And then, of course, there was the famous presentation by Colin Powell to the UN on February 5th. Powell held aloft a British Intelligence dossier on the current status of Iraqi weapons, praised it lavishly, and used it as the central underpinnings of his argument that Iraq was a clear and present danger. It came to light some days later that vast swaths of the dossier he praised had been plagiarized from a magazine article penned five months earlier by a California graduate student from California whose focus had been Iraq circa 1991. You can read more on this aspect of the mess in my article from that time entitled Blair, Powell UN Report Written By Student. Last week, Powell described this profoundly flawed UN presentation as "the best analytic product that we could have put up."

The aggravation within the administration, after all these statements, caused George W. Bush to exclaim on May 30, "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." He was referring to an alleged Iraqi mobile chemical laboratory, one of the "Winnebagos of Death" described by Colin Powell. Said mobile facility contained exactly zero evidence of having been used to produce weapons of any kind, and was in fact most likely used as a mobile food testing platform in the service of Saddam Hussein, who was always paranoid about assassination.

Over 170 American soldiers died in the second war in Iraq. The Iraqi populace is deeply angered by the American presence in their country, and they are armed to the teeth. More soldiers will die in the impossible police action that has become victory's inheritance. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have died, along with untold scores of Iraqi soldiers. The Middle East has been inflamed by the war; bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca provide a bleak preview of what is to come. According to Mr. Bush, the entire thing was aimed at that one mobile lab. The thousands of tons of WMDs we were promised do not exist, so that empty mobile lab is what we must settle for if we are to justify this war in our hearts and minds.

Once upon a time, we impeached a sitting President for lying under oath about sexual trysts. No one died, no one had their legs or arms or face or genitals blown off because of the lies of a President who had been caught with his pants down. Today in America, we endure a sitting President who lied for months about the threat posed by a sovereign nation. That nation was invaded and attacked, and thousands died because of it. The aftereffects of this action will be felt for generations to come. The very democracy which gives us meaning as a country has been put in peril by these deeds. When the smoke cleared, every reason for that war was proven to be a lie.

Of course, there will be no impeachment with a Republican Congress. This must not dissuade us from demanding satisfaction. Let the House be brought to order. Gavel the members to attention, and let the evidence be brought forth. Let there be justice for the living and the dead. Let this man Bush be impeached and cleansed from office for the lies he has told. These are not innocent lies. The dead remember.

-------

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times best-selling author of two books - "War On Iraq" available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," now available from Pluto Press at www.SilenceIsSedition.com. Scott Lowery contributed research to this report. Bill Chirolas located the administration quotations.

The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

I have just begun reading "Big Sur and The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch" by Henry Miller. In his famous triptych "The Last Judgement" Bosch used oranges and other fruits to symbolize the delights of paradise. Miller uses this image and others to describe the beautiful landscape of the Big Sur in California. I have never been there, but I am sure I will want to go after finishing this book. Miller lived in the Big Sur area from 1946 until at least 1957, a time when many great artists, writers, mystics, sex cultists, and others lived there as a part of an alternative art community. His book tells the story of Miller's life while he lived there. It consists of autobiography, philosophical musings, and character scetches. You might say it is Henry Miller's low-tech blog on the Big Sur.