Sexual Predators Are Scary... So Do We Want Them Hiding In Plain Sight?

Sex Offenders in Exile

I have ben disturbed by the notion that someone convicted of a sexual crime--which is defined differently in different states--can be punished not only by a sentence for the crime, but the inclusion of such offenders on a continuous registry, prevention of such offenders from living in certain places, as well as the attachment of lifelong stigma.

Now, I have read the studies on sexual predators. Pedophiles in particular do not show a proper response to incarceration, and most do not respond to treatment. However, I question whether or not we have inquired as to whether or not the treatment approaches might be at fault. We seem to use a short-term treatment approach for almost every social or mental health disorder we experience. Mental illnesses are only covered for approximately 15 days of hospitalization per year and about 50 hours of outpatient treatment. Substance abuse treatment has been relegated to 3-10 days detoxification, and 15-60 days of rehab. The recividism rate for substance abuse is over 70% because we know that an effective treatment approach for substance abuse requires at least 1 to 2 years, complete with social, educational, vocational, clinical and spiritual support. Depression, which is the mental disease du jour and provides the big pharma corporations with megabuck profits, is still limited to a certain number of days. Anything not covered by an active insurance plan pushed those afflicted with mental disorders to poorly run warehouse-like state facilities or privately run group homes, most of which are not taken seriously.

So, when we recognize that sexual predators are afflicted with a disorder that is not treated properly in prison environments, then we subject these predators to a continuous and unfair sentence of registry and restricted living arrangements (whether intended or not), and we do not offer any real solutions except to trap these folks in a continuous cycle of offending and working through the system, what should we expect?

I am not saying that sexual predators should not be punished and held accountable. I am not saying that we should not take precautions to prevent future vitimization. I am saying that we need to be clear about how to handle such perpetrators.

A good case in point is the case of a man arrested in Lynn, Massachusetts for urinating against a wall along side of the railroad tracks. The man was arrested for trespassing on MBTA property. He was also arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior because he was intoxicated and resisted the efforts of the cops to detain him. But he was almost charged with a sexual offense because three young girls peeked over the wall and saw him peeing against the wall. If it were not for the advocacy of several of us working with homeless populations, this man would have been charged with indecent exposure, given a felony sentence and been labelled as a sexual offender for the rest of his life. What this man needed was treatment of his alcoholism, immediate shelter so that he would have a decent place to sleep and a clean bathroom in which he could pee without having children peer at him while doing so, and the social work and medical care necessary to assure he could get healthy and pursue a normative life. In fact, after this man got help for his alcholism, he became a very powerful advocate for the most needy in our society, a member of an award-winning choir, and beloved adjunct professor at a local college.

But we would rather write off people than deal with the social, medical, mental health and interpersonal problems that confront our society. We want to lock people up and throw away the key. We want to label people and make them wear the label everywhere.

But we are inconsistent. We want to do all of these things to sexual perpetrators, but we allow murderers to live freely in our society after they have served their time. The recividism rate for murderers is almost as high as that for rapists and pedophiles.

The author of the NYT editorial below asks a question that I do not think most of us have bothered to ponder: What happens when we drive those stigmatized by our lack of treatment and working with these perpetrators underground and can no longer track them? Think carefully about the issues that this question brings to the forefront.

Of all the places that sexual predators could end up after prison, the worst is out of sight, away from the scrutiny and treatment that could prevent them from committing new crimes. But communities around the country are taking that risk, with zoning laws that banish pedophiles to the literal edges of society.

There is a powerful and wholly understandable impulse behind laws that forbid sex offenders to live within certain distances of schools, day care centers and other places that children gather. Scores of states and municipalities have created such buffer zones, then continued adding layer upon layer to the enforcement blanket.

This has placed a heavy burden on law enforcement agencies, which already must struggle to meet exacting federal and state requirements for registering and monitoring the ever-growing population of released sex offenders, many of whom must be tracked for life. Lawmakers have shown no hesitation in piling on the administrative load, but frequently are less quick to pay for additional people to do the work.

As the areas off limits to sex offenders expand to encompass entire towns and cities, if not states, the places where they can live and work are shrinking fast. The unintended consequence is that offenders have been dispersed to rural nowhere zones, where they are much harder to track. In confined regions like Long Island, they have become concentrated in a handful of low-rent, few-questions-asked areas — an unintended and unfair imposition on their wary neighbors.

Many offenders respond by going underground. In Iowa, the number of registered sex offenders who went missing soared after the state passed a law forbidding offenders to live within 2,000 feet of a school or day care center. The county prosecutors’ association has urged that the law be repealed, for the simple reasons that it drives offenders out of sight, requires “the huge draining of scant law enforcement resources” and doesn’t provide the protection intended.

The prosecutors are right that any sense of security that such laws provide is vague at best and probably false. Just as it would feel foolish to forbid muggers to live near A.T.M.’s, it is hard to imagine how a 1,000-foot buffer zone around a bus stop, say, would keep a determined pedophile at bay. If children feel secure enough to drop their wariness of strangers, that would be a dangerous outcome. And of course, no buffer against a faceless predator will be any help to the overwhelming majority of child victims — those secretly abused by stepfathers, uncles and other people they know.

The problem with residency restrictions is that they fulfill an emotional need but not a rational one. It’s in everyone’s interest for registered sex offenders to lead stable lives, near the watchful eyes of family and law enforcement and regular psychiatric treatment. Exile by zoning threatens to create just the opposite phenomenon — a subpopulation of unhinged nomads off their meds with no fixed address and no one keeping tabs on them. This may satisfy many a town’s thirst for retributive justice, but as a sensible law enforcement policy designed to make children safer, it smacks of thoughtlessness and failure.

Surprise, Surprise! The Democrats Are Corrupt Too!

Dealing With Congressman Inc.

Imagine the surprise on the face of every American when we realized that Democrats in congress have been facilitating pork barrel projects, taking requests from former staffers turned lobbyists, sending earmarked money back to their home state, and doing what everyone else in congress has been doing.

While the Washington Post story about Congressman Murtha is news, the question becomes whether or not it is news worthy. If this story were written three weeks after the new congress goes into session and the behavior reported were to be current at that time (as in still happening), then smearing Murtha might be legitimate and newsworthy. But the Washington Post is a hack organization that is only interested in selling its paper and marketing its other services, such as the entire Kaplan family of proprietary career schools that are notorious for living on the edge of ethical and legal behaviors, especially in terms of financial aid, recycling students that have proven to be unable to support their effort to complete an expensive program, and walking a thin line when it comes to offering a genuine education.

But, it is true that Democrats in congress have participated in unethical--albeit legal--activities regarding lobbyists, earmarks and pork. What we are hoping for is some genuine attention to the problems of this type and some rule changes in both the Senate and the House that would restrict what can be attached to proposed bills.

In a post on February 1, 2006 I wrote about "A New Way Of Proposing Laws In Congress" that addressed these issues. The model I proposed significantly limits how amendments, earmarks and pork can be attached to laws on specific subjects, and would require congress critters to clearly state and identify the purpose of the proposed bill, in its entirety, as a part of the introduction to the proposal, as well as classify the bill according to no more than three subject areas. Any amendments or additions to the proposed bill would have to objectively be within those same topical areas. In other words, a bill on highway funding could not be amended to allow a railroad right of way provision, or the funding of a hydroelectric dam, or the study of the reproduction cycle of mites that infest the anal sphincters of wild game birds.

So, yes, John Murtha is not as honest and ethical as we might like him to be... He still had the intestinal fortitude, integrity and balls to stand up against the POTUS and the fascists in possession of the executive branch to clearly state that the war on terror has gone astray, the invasion of Iraq has also gone astray, the failure to provide our troops with necessary equipment is a criminal act, and the continued waste of lives, energy and money in Iraq is a moral failure on the part of the Bush administration.

Quite frankly, I am surprised that the New York Times allowed anyone to not only write about Murtha's indiscretions and violations of ethical principles when, in comparison to the illegal actions of so many others in the last session of congress, his actions were legal, allowed by the rules of the House, and in keeping with the manner in which the GOP leadership ran the house in the last session--make that the last five sessions--of congress.

As the Democrats regain power in Congress next week they would be wise to look to one of their own Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania for ironic inspiration in enacting the ethics reforms they promised voters. Even in the minority, Mr. Murtha made himself a legend at mastering the same quid pro quo culture that Democrats denounced in running against the Republicans’ manipulations of Washington’s money trough. His deliverance of masses of pork to favored campaign donors and lobbyists has been laid bare in a report by The Washington Post, detailing the sort of classic money churn that helped drive the Republicans from power.

It began with Mr. Murtha's securing $500,000 in federal start-up money for a nonprofit agency created by a staff member who eventually left to run the agency and, in turn, lobby his old boss. The nonprofit, with a goal of finding jobs for the disabled, soon became a magnet for Murtha-friendly lobbyists, contractors and other insiders. They became members of its board and raised money for the cause. In the process, they reaped millions in federal contracts with the congressman’s help. And, needless to say, they closed the loop with regular donations to Murtha campaign kitties.

This sort of mutual back-scratching was dubbed DeLay Inc. by critics denouncing Republicans for systematically flirting with corruption. Democrats in the new majority can expect much to be made of Murtha Inc. unless they enact firm, thorough ethics controls on their own behavior.

Congressman Murtha'’s symbiotic prowess with defense contractors and power lobbyists was an open secret that drew no great attention until the incoming speaker, Nancy Pelosi, sought him as her majority leader. She was rebuffed by wiser colleagues. They must follow up that close call by striking at the heart of the easy-money culture that besmirches both sides of the aisle.

The Hanging Of An American-Made Despot: A Rush To Injustice

Saddam Hussein will go down in history as a minor fascist in the mold of Hitler and Stalin (who was his political hero) who managed to dominate a psuedo-secular, pseudo-religious nation that was created by British, French and American schemes after the success these allied nations experienced in World War I. All of the Middle East was essentially created by the scheming of various British, French and, in a minor role, American generals and diplomats (who were actually politicians).

Certainly Hussein will be remembered for the atrocities he committed against Iranian soldiers during the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s. He will also be remembered for the persecution of Kurdish members of Iraqi society, including the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and their allies. Like Stalin and Hitler, Saddam Hussein was a bit of a paranoid lunatic that dealt with political opposition and dissidents through the devices of secret police and covert intelligence agents. In Hussein's case, he had two of his sons, a couple brothers, some nephews and other family members conducting these secrets operations, which included making people suddenly disappear, torturing people until they produced the "right" answers, and detaining people without trial, recourse, legal representation or a determination as to how long they would be held (sounds like George W. Bush and his gang without the family nepotism... but perhaps an incestuous political team composition). Then, too, Saddam will be remembered for the ego-maniacal manner in which he promoted himself in Iraq, the ruin of Iraq's economy by skimming money away from those in need, and the huge sums of money he spent on palaces, luxurious homes, military equipment and secret police operations, not to mention the money spent to assure the loyalty of those who held influence and controlled certain aspects of Iraq's political machinery.

Saddam Hussein was a despotic dictator that was perfect for the job given his environment, location and culture. But he did not arrive as the kingpin of corruption and despotic reign by himself. During the time he was engaged in war against Iran, the US and other western allies of the US provided Hussein with all kinds of support, including money, arms, information and affirmation of his role as the proper and appropriate leader of a sovereign nation... even though we knew how he came to power, maintained control over those that opposed him, treated those that protested against him and what he did to those that dared to take up arms against him. In the process we managed to sell out the entire Kurdish population in Iraq (and probably the entire Middle East) because we chose to support the dictator for immediate geopolitical advantages rather than think about the long-term effects of our own actions.

Now, in the hanging of Saddam Hussein, we stand to do the same thing all over again. While there was not a rush to judgment in regard to Hussein, there were serious doubts about the legality, legitimacy, authority and justice administered in the court that heard the case against Hussein. Additionally, since Hussein was in the custody of the United States government and occupational forces, there are questions as to whether there was due process provided by the entire trial arrangement. But most of all--and this is without question by anyone that has a sense of decency and/or justice--there was undue political influence regarding the sentence and the timing of the sentence given to Hussein.

Think about it. Hussein was no nastier or evil than some of the despots, would-be dictators and international war criminals that came out of the break-up of Yugoslavia. Serbians, Slavs, Croatians and others involved in the combat that resulted once Tito was no longer in the picture committed atrocities that included torture, detentions, murder, disappearances, use of outlawed weaponry and more. But none of these war criminals were rushed through a process that resulted in a death sentence that was executed in such a fast paced manner. In fact, there were several layers of appeals, several layers of due process, long-term incarceration, long-term manhunts, and almost a decade (or more) before any of the sentences became finalized. Yet, Saddam Hussein's sentence was rushed through to the end. The appeals to US authorities were denied without any real consideration of the legitimacy of the appeal or jurisdiction. Even though he was captured by US troops, held by US authority (even in de facto US custody to the end), US courts denied jurisdiction and standing. Even the precedents used in the ruling to deny appeals to US jurisprudence were clear manipulations designed to avoid taking responsibility for something for which we as a government should be responsible for... justice in a land that is under our control and authority.

Considering the number of stays, delays and appeals that we allow those condemned to death in our own nation, I cannot help but wonder what was the rush in the case of Saddam. Could it be that there were some ulterior motives, hidden agendas and undue influences in the process of prosecuting Hussein? Is there a political motivation behind the rush to hanging the evil bastard? If so, which evil bastard is behind the rush? (Anyone care to take a wild guess?)

So Saddam Hussein is dead. God--Allah, according to his religious tradition--is left to judge Saddam while those that actually loved, cared for, or appreciated Hussein are left to mourn his death. His opponents are dancing in the streets in Baghdad and his supporters--most of whom are already conducting the Iraqi insurgency--are vowing revenge and retribution. George W. Bush and his gang probably stopped to pour a drink and raise a galss in a congratulatory toast of accomplishment. But I maintain that the death of Saddam Hussein is a tragedy.

Saddam's death is not a tragedy because he was innocent of the crimes for which he was being tried. He was surely guilty of so many evils and crimes that no political leader should be allowed to perpetrate. But the tragedy is in the way this entire trial, sentencing and execution of that sentence was held. The tragedy is also in the details of history that demonstrate the complicity of US and other western nations in Hussein's rise to power and the recognition and endorsement of the same for politically expedient reasons. The tragedy lies largely in the sacrifice of ideals, principles, values and decency that was offered in the name of getting the job done quickly, quietly and with as little discourse on the matters of ethics, morality and humanity as possible.

Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence Is Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity

Saddam Hussein, the dictator who led Iraq through three decades of brutality, war and bombast before American forces chased him from his capital city and captured him in a filthy pit near his hometown, was hanged just before dawn Saturday during the morning call to prayer.

The final stages for Mr. Hussein, 69, came with terrible swiftness after he lost the appeal, five days ago, of his death sentence for the killings of 148 men and boys in the northern town of Dujail in 1982. He had received the sentence less than two months before from a special court set up to judge his reign as the almost unchallenged dictator of Iraq.

The Defiant Despot Oppressed Iraq for More Than 30 Years

The hanging of Saddam Hussein ended the life of one of the most brutal tyrants in recent history and negated the fiction that he himself maintained even as the gallows loomed — that he remained president of Iraq despite being toppled by the United States military and that his power and his palaces would be restored to him in time.

The despot, known as Saddam, had oppressed Iraq for more than 30 years, unleashing devastating regional wars and reducing his once promising, oil-rich nation to a claustrophobic police state.

US Federal Judge Rejects Saddam Bid For Stay Of Execution

A US federal judge has rejected an eleventh-hour bid by lawyers for Saddam Hussein seeking a direct stay of execution. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a 6-page ruling late Friday evening following a telephone conference with lawyers in the wake of court papers filed around 1 PM Friday afternoon.

Kollar-Kotelly wrote: As Judge Reggie Walton recently concluded in a strikingly similar matter, this “Court lacks habeas corpus jurisdiction over an Iraqi citizen, convicted by an Iraqi court for violations of Iraqi law, who is held pursuant to that conviction by members of the Multi-National Force-Iraq.” Al-Bandar v. Bush, et al., Civ. A. No. 06-2209 (RMC) (D.D.C. Dec. 27, 2006) (denying motion for temporary restraining order to prevent transfer of petitioner to Iraqi custody); see also, Al-Bandar v. Bush, et al., Civ. A. No. 06-5425 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 29, 2006) (denying motion for stay or injunction enjoining transfer of petitioner to Iraqi custody pending appeal). A United States court has no “power or authority to review, affirm, set aside or annul the judgment and sentence imposed” by the court of a sovereign nation pursuant to their laws. Hirota, et al. v. General of the Army Douglas McArthur, et al., 338 U.S. 197, 198, 69 S. Ct. 197, 93 L. Ed. 1902 (1948); Flick v. Johnson, 174 F. 2d 983, 984 (D.C. Cir. 1949). Accordingly, this Court has no jurisdiction to prevent the transfer of Petitioner Hussein to the custody of the Iraqi government, as that would effectively alter the judgment of an Iraqi court.

Saddam Lawyer Condemns Execution As 'Aggressor's Injustice'

Saddam defense lawyer Curtis Doebbler, one of the two Americans on Hussein's Dujail trial team, has condemned the ousted Iraqi president's execution in a statement sent to JURIST only minutes after his client was hanged in Baghdad at dawn Saturday local time:

The execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is an unfortunate display of arrogant aggressor's injustice by the United States of America under the leadership of American President George W. Bush. It sets back achievements in international criminal law many decades and sends a clear message to people all over the world that the United States' aggression cannot be stopped by the law. It is truly a sad day for international justice and sad beginning to a new year.

One cannot imagine a greater inspiration to violence against America and her allies than the action taken this morning. The way that the former Iraqi President, and now brave martyr, stood up to the most powerful, deadly and lawless army in the world almost single-handedly for more than a decade will undoubtedly contirbute, as an inspiration, to violence against American interests all over the world.

Justice, But No Reckoning

My personal battle with Saddam Hussein — which began in 1972 when I abandoned my medical career in Mosul, Iraq, and joined the Kurdish armed resistance — is at an end. To execute such a criminal, a man who reveled in his atrocities, is an act of justice.

The only issue for me is the timing — executing him now is both too late and too early. Too late, because had Saddam Hussein been removed from the scene many years ago, many lives would have been saved.

Killing Saddam now, however, for ordering the massacre at Dujail in 1982, means that he will not face justice for his greatest crimes: the so-called Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s, the genocidal assault on the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s, and the slaughtering of the Shiite Arabs and Kurds who rose up against him, with American encouragement, in 1991.

The sight of a tyrant held to account, if only briefly, has been an important precedent for the Middle East. The shabby diplomacy that has allowed dictators to thrive is now discredited.

Sadly, however, we have not had full justice. Saddam Hussein did not confront the full horror of his crimes. Building on previous initiatives by Arab nationalist governments to persecute the Kurds, he turned ethnic engineering and murder into an industry in the 1970s. Hundreds of thousands were evicted from their homes and murdered. Swaths of Kurdish countryside were emptied of their population, men, women and children taken to shallow graves and shot.

Initially, the United States backed those of us who took to the hills to save our lives and freedom, but in 1975 (and here is an irony) Gerald Ford agreed to stop financing us in order to settle a border dispute between Iraq and Iran. As so many times since, human rights were no match for a desire to keep the oil flowing.

For Bush, Joy of Capture Muted at the End

The capture of Saddam Hussein three years ago was a jubilant moment for the White House, hailed by President Bush in a televised address from the Cabinet Room. The execution of Mr. Hussein, though, seemed hardly to inspire the same sentiment.

Before the hanging was carried out in Baghdad, Mr. Bush went to sleep here at his ranch and was not roused when the news came. In a statement written in advance, the president said the execution would not end the violence in Iraq.

A Little Bit More On Immigration: How Things Get Perverted & Unjust

I received the following in my e-mail in the past few days:

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's be coming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

The first problem is that this quote in its entirety is a compilation of different thoughts Teddy Roosevelt offered on immigration, most of which occurred after he left office as POTUS. (See Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants)

The second problem is that many of the passages were taken out of context, even though the "quote" does maintain most of its integrity to the ideas offered by Roosevelt.

The third problem is that, while the sentiments bring out an easy empathy from most Americans, it largely ignores factual history. The largest fact of history that has been ignored is the long tradition of using our immigration policy as a tool for conducting institutionalized prejudice and discrimination. A good example of this is provided by looking at the history of Chinese immigration to America, especially from 1840 until just after Teddy Roosevelt left office. A large portion of the Chinese immigrants to America provided what amounted to "slave labor" for the large corporations that came to own the railroads and those industries that became dependent upon the freight cababilities and capacities of the railways. While we do not really look upon the railways as being that important today, the rails not only connected our nation through passenger travels, but also through carrying the mails and connecting merchants, manufacturers and commodities to the markets, materials and suppliers that allowed our economy and industrial revolution to bring the good old US of A to the forefront of global power. That was accomplished on the backs of several immigrant groups, one of the largest being the Chinese.

The Irish and Central Eastern Europeans were also involved in this process and building of the railways. The Irish worked like slaves in the building of the eastern rails as well as in the coal and steel industries necessary for the rails to become real. The Central Eastern Europeans were essential cheap sources of labor for the steel mills. Each of these immigrant groups were all but enslaved by the big corporations--all of whom were endorsed and blessed by congressional influence peddlers and outright bribes (including straight out offering of railroad stock for votes to help fund and authorize the several major railways). These immigrants were pressed to work 10-12 hour days, provided with little in the way of decent food and shelter while working, and the only way many of them could survive and provide for themselves and their families was to take a low-paying railroad job.

The Irish were paid a bit better than the Chinese because they were "white" and Chinese were considered so beneath being "white" that they were literally denied the right of land ownership... surprisingly this denial of property ownership occurred all the way into the late 1970s in some California communities. While the Irish and "hunkies" of Central Eastern European descent were not denied property ownership, they were denied ownership in certain neighborhoods and communities.

Then, too, the railroads were the birthplace of so many scandals in government and business. The initial scandals can be traced to the huge amounts of money and stock that were provided influential congress critters for voting in favor of the railroad corporations for any number of laws and funding processes, including allowing monopolies and exclusivce land deals, many of which violated the rights of Native Americans (and treaties) and long-term settlers in the western states and territories. The second layer of scandal came as the varous corporations that owned the railroads conspired to push certain businesses out of competition by charging those companies higher--often too high--fees for freight. Many smaller operations were forced out of business and the remnants were bought up by those in cahoots with the railroad owners at a fraction of the costs. Many of the businesses that benefited by the railways were also owned--at least in a significant proportion--by the railroad owners. Monoploy after monopoly was born and the vertical interdependency that resulted provided the breeding ground and fodder for the scandals that brought about the Sherman Anti-Trust statute.

This era of US history brought forth the so-called "robber barons" like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie who cornered one market after another on the backs of various working class citizens--most of whom were immigrants--through violation of laws, ethics and standards of decency. It was this era that launched so many calls for reforms, the labor movement, and progressive campaigns to prevent massive corporatism (which is now experiencing a massive resurgence).

So let us look at these things attributed to Roosevelt more carefully, with the actual history in mind.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin."

While Roosevelt said this, he did not practice it. Some of his income came from his association with the larger corporations and more affluent citizens of his day. The Roosevelt family had a long history of association with business and government leaders. And, as president, Roosevelt did little to assure that such principles as "exact equality" was actually fulfilled in the way we conducted immigration policies and practices. (The Chinese are a prime example of how the idea of "exact equality" was not fulfilled.)

"But this is predicated upon the person's be coming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American..."

But wouldn't this also be predicated upon each individual being allowed to become, in every facet, an American? If an immigrant is denied legal standing to hold property, to be treated equally under law and by social standard, and to obtain justice under the law, then why would anyone want to be "fully American"? But, despite this history of discrimination, those immigrants that were excluded from full participation demonstrated their loyalty to the idea of being American through their service in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II... and still were treated as less than American... less than human. Even after clear demonstration by several immigrant groups of their intent to be American in character and loyalty, most were discriminated against in our society and in our immigration laws, policies and practices. Quotas were put into effect on the basis of prejudices and institutional discrimination, supported no only by the evils of social custom, but by greed for power and money in congress and the corporate board rooms across the nation.

"There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all."

I look at the list of folks who have served our nation and I see a long list of immigrants that demonstrated their allegiance to America... many of whom were denied recognition of their service and loyalty. So while I understand the sentiment expressed here, it is one that reeks of bovine excrement because that is not how we have operated. We have divided ourselves. We did so on the basis of race, creed, place of origin and religion. While we have made some great strides to overcome many of these injustices, we still operate with them in tow... and we still have institutional forms of discrimination, including those that remain active in our immigration laws, policies and practices. In fact, we even have them institutionalized in our e-mails. We operate as hypocrites and deny we do so.

But show me anyone in America that is not proud of their ethnic or family history. I call upon anyone in America to demonstrate that we are "undivided" in our sentiments about our origins. My maternal grandfather was a first generation immigrant from the Scandanavian regions. His mother was Danish and his father was Norwegian. My maternal grandmother was a sixth generation American who could trace her heritage to literally a half-dozen ethnic origins, including early Dutch, French, English and Scottish immigrants to New England. Some of her family ties can be traced to the 1600s and the early settling of Lynn, Suagus and Malden Massachusetts. In fact, some parts of Boston proper were once owned by her paternal uncles and still bear the Thompson family name (i.e. Thompson Square). Her French roots are demonstrated by some of the street names still present in Lynn, Massachuetts (Cowdrey Avenue was owned by the "Coudrey" [Coo-dray] portion of her family). My paternal grandparents were third generation Irish (Downey/Hayes) and French-Canadian (Marquis).

If we list all the names associated with my family, we see a pattern of immigration that is the foundation of America as a great country:

Downey, Marquis, Thompson, Grant (distant cousins to U.S. Grant), McGregor, Lee (distant relatives to Robert E. Lee), Coudrey, Hansen, Arnesen, Coombs, Lewis, Shumway, Wayman, Hayes, Shah, Doucette, Doyle, Reed and Sinclair... to name but a few.

But all of my family has been proudly American... and proudly immigrant. At family gatherings we have all celebrated our ethnicity by preparing foods that reflect our heritage. Many family members remember going to church where their native language was spoken. Most of us grew up in places where ethnic villages and pockets were a reality. In Peabody (Massachusetts) there were sections and neighborhoods that were distinctly Greek, Portuguese and Irish at different times of history. In Lynn (Massachusetts) there were sections or neighborhoods that were Irish, French, Greek, Jewish, Italian and African-American (Black). Almost every major metropolitan city in the US has a Greek Town, China Town, Little Italy or other ethnically defined area.

So while we can share the sentiment of being "all American," the reality is that being all American is about being immigrants that love America and our own unique heritage. The old rub is that we are, as Americans, a strange mix of mutts. Our very character is not that of a "melting pot," but more like a "tossed salad" that is good because of the different genuine flavors brought to the table by the various ethnic ingredients. Absent of our ethnic immigrant history, America loses its strength, unity and principles. Those that buy into the bovine excrement that being American is uniquely identifiable by ignoring all else but that which is brought forth by exclusively American processes are out of touch with reality, history and fact.

"We have room for but one flag, the American flag..."

Then why does each state have its own flag? The reality of our government is that we are a nation of confederated individual governments, each having its own sovereignty and jurisdiction. While most of us have lost our state identity over the years and as a byproduct of our modern mobility, such was not the case prior to World War II. Our existence as cohesive members of one nation is a much more modern phenomenon than we might think. In Roosevelt's day, most Americans thought of themselves as hyphenated Americans... like Texan-American, Viginian-American, North Carolinian-American, and so forth. Even our military was divided by regiments identified by their state of origin. Those of us that have watched the "war movie" To Hell and Back (Audie Murphy) will recall comments in the movie that reference a "Texas outift," which is indicative of the separateness and cohesiveness that most Americans felt even as late as the middle 1940s.

Our American identity is a modern development, but our American character and principles are much deeper and older. We must reach for these values when we discuss immigration and justice for those that seek to become Americans.

"We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

My grandparents spoke various languages. My maternal grandmother spoke English and French. My maternal grandfather spoke Norwegian, Danish, German and English. My paternal grandmother speaks French and English. My paternal grandfather spoke English with a Bostonian accent, but members of his family spoke Gaelic and English with an Irish brogue. Claiming that there is only room for one language in the USA is yet another denial of our greatness. Granted, English is our common language and should be the language that is universal to our nation, but we need to remember our own history. Many of our immigrant grandparents did not speak English when they arrived in America. They spoke a multitude of different languages. Just to survive they moved to neighborhoods where there native language was spoken. In these neighborhoods a uniquely ethnic flavor and character arose and we identified those neighborhoods by the language--and the culture reflected by that language--spoken there.

What was different in past times was the pressure to learn English, as well as the resources to do so. In Boston, New York and Chicago, Jewish communities would provide immigrants of their culture, ethnicities and religion with classes in English. Jane Addams developed Hull House with specific focus on immigrants and a major service provided to immigrants was intensive--but very accessible--training in English. Greek immigrants in my home town sent their children to "regular school" to learn English, but then sent them to "Greek School" to learn Greek.

One of my friends is an immigrant from Iran, by way of political asylum from diplomatic assignment in South America when the Shah of Iran fell from power. His native language is Farsi, but he speaks and writes Spanish as a native. His English is spoken with an accent and he uses idioms that are difficult for a native English speaker to grasp at times. His written English needs a lot of editing. His wife is Dominican and is a brilliant thinker in her native language of Spanish. When I first met her she had great difficulty with speaking and writing English. She struggled with English for several years, but since she conquered it, she has worked as a social worker and a teacher, and raised a family of polyglots. At any given family gathering in their home one can hear the following languages spoken: Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, Italian, American-English and British-English. When I enter their home, I learn so much about what it means to come to America... and what it means to be American. I would not learn so much about being American if they only spoke English.

We really need to hold our prejudices and discriminatory inklings in check, reminding ourselves of our own immigrant histories and how our immigrant past has played a role in the formation of America and what it means to be an American. Then we need to force our politicians to create a genuinely fair, just and workable solution to our immigration problems and issues. Perhaps then we will have something worthy of our prideful demonstrations of being American. But until we work the prejudice and discrimination out of the process, we are nothing more than petty, simple-minded bastards that have forgotten the very principles and values of our way of life.

The Trouble With Honor, Duty & Service

Two major reports in the news regarding two soldiers refusing to go overseas to fight under unfair or illegal conditions.

US Soldier Who Disputed Iraq War Legality Released Early From Military Prison

Ricky Clousing, a service member that refused to go to Iraq on the grounds that the war, and the activities he witnessed on the ground in Iraq, were illegal because the war and the actions he witnessed were contrary to our Constitution and his conscience, has finished serving the three months of his prison sentence for refusing to participate in the war by not reporting for a tour of duty. It must be understood that Clousing does not view all war as illegal or immoral, only the war being conducted in Iraq. He achieved the rank of Sargeant and was a decorated veteran before arriving at the conclusion that his duty to the Constitution was to refuse to participate in an illegal war.

As a veteran of two branches of the military, I was taught--both in civilian and military training--that my duty was to the Constitution and that there are illegal orders. I believe Ricky Clousing has chosen an honorable route to demonstrate his commitment to his duty. He served in Iraq and saw what was occurring. As an experienced non-commissioned officer working directly in the field of interrogation of Iraqi prisoners and detainees, he witnessed illegal acts on the parts of US military and intelligence personnel, including military contractors and vendors. He tried to bring these issues to his superiors and was shot down. He made a decision to not participate in an illegal war that violated numerous treaties that are part and parcel of the US Constitution. He lived up to his oath of duty and service... even to the point of accepting a criminal sentence for doing so.

The next president to be elected should offer him not only a full pardon, but also a medal.

Then comes the story of Steven Henderson, a veteran with two tours in Afghanistan that was honorably discharged from active duty and is currently pursuing an accounting degree at Northern Illinois University. A decorated veteran of the 10th Mountain Division based out of Fort Drum, New York, has announced that he will refuse a recall order forcing him out of his civilian pursuits of academics and career so that he can be compelled to serve another tour of duty in another war zone. Rightfully he feels he has served his duty, fulfilled his commitment to his oath and completed his duty. There are other troops immediately available on active duty with the same qualifications that could be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. It is unfair for the US government and the US Army to force his recall into yet another tour of duty in harm's way.

But, as we have seen, there are no legal or moral limits to the manner in which the Bush gang conducts its military force regime change and international coercion to its will... as long as it isn't against a real villain in the international community, like Iran, North Korea, Darfur, Myanmar, or some other despotic regime receiving US financial aid or diplomatic support.

The Ford Legacy: The Passing Of Gerald R. Ford

The passing of Gerald Ford, our 38th President, is, as are all deaths, a sad event. Ford will be remembered for many things. He will be remembered for being the only US president in history to achieve the two highest political offices in the land by not being elected, but by being the beneficiary of scandalous behaviors of his predecessors. Ford came to the office of Vice President after the scandalous behaviors of Spiro Agnew became public and the news that Agnew was a ripoff artist in politician's garb became general knowledge rather than a "dirty little secret" among the "good old boys" accustomed to making "back room deals" at cigar smoke-filled poker games.

Even though I was a kid at the time, I wondered how anyone could vote for a Nixon/Agnew ticket in any event. Nixon had a "checkered" past of accepting "incentives" and questionable contributons, was a major figure in the McCarthy Era and discriminatory efforts of tat era, and really did not live up to any of the standard that went along with being a Quaker. Agnew was a wannabe business tycoon that had a reputation of feathering his own nest before considering how any event, policy or transaction would affect anyone else (true ethical egoism), which included considering his own political party. Quite frankly, anyone that really bothered to investigate either Nixon or Agnew would have found enough evidence of ethical shortcomings that voting for either would have been immoral in and of itself.

But hey, don't blame me... I am from Massachusetts, the only state that voted overwhelmingly against Nixon in his run for a second term as president, even after hge chucked off Agnew.

Ford came in to replace Agnew. Ford was a decent man with a decent record of representing his constitutent. Although a conservative, his conservativism was not ruled by allegiances to the party without reason, or to a religious-political ideology that has dominated the GOP since the late 1970s. He was a reknowned athlete in his days at college, but couldn't seem to keep an upright posture while deplaning Air Force One, walking up or down a ramp, or traversing a set of stairs. His inability to stand up and walk in an ordinary fashion led to the launch of Chevy Chase's career as a legend of Saturday Night Live and the Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

Ford inherited several legacy issues after Nixon resigned in shame and disgrace in the wake of the Watergate scandal. He tried to deal with the disunity of the nation caused by Watergate through a mosguided pre-emptive pardon of Nixon for any and all criminal acts that may have been committed while Nixon held office. This was an error not only for his political career and effort to get elected for a second term, it undermined the systemic provisions of the Constituion to hold those who serve in high office accountable. Ford's motivation is similar to that currently offered by Nancy Pelosi, an effort to bring immediate closure to an uncomfortable issue and effect some political healing across the nation. The damage to Ford's run for election in the next term was obvious, as it will be for the Democrats that follow Pelosi in the current effort to avoid impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Then Ford tried to deal with runaway inflation and recession by using useless motivational buttons in the now infamous "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) campaign. Somehow the idea that inflation and recession could be beat by making people feel good about getting fleeced and screwed ovder by employers, government and merchants didn't seem to take in the "real world." Those of us that had to work to pay our bills, provide food for our families and put a roof over our heads (and I was one of them because I worked for my family's construction company for no pay at the time) knew that a WIN button--and the inflation/recession policies implemented under the WIN campaign--was less useful than already used toilet tissue.

But Ford drew a lot of other types of attention as well. Ford was the only president that was targeted by two would-be crazed female assassins seeking to shoot him with a hand gun. Of course we all remember the tragedies of JFK, RFK and MLK at the hands of assassins. LBJ was the target of several attempts to assasinate his political standing because he was an overbearing son-of-a-bitch and played pulled no-holds-barred politics on the Hill, but was never the subject of a direct assasination attempt. Although Nixon had his share of detractors and critics, he was not directly targeted by assasins on the ground. Jimmy Carter had his political career assasinated by Reagan and ultraconservative zealots that were already pulling backdoor deals with our Iranian enemies that eventually led to the Iran-Contra Affair, but Carter was not directly in the sights of an assasin in any locality. We all remember that Reagan was shot and that Jim Brady suffered severe head trauma in that incident. But Ford had TWO wild lunatics actively seek him out and placed him in their sights for a bullet from handguns. Fortunatley, the actions of a Marine bystander and a very effective member of the Secret Service prevented "Squeaky" Fromm and the other lunatic from being effective.

As a result of these two attempts on Ford's life, the Secret Service became very aggressive in preventing folks from getting close to the then president. This aggressiveness resulted in several parade spectators at the bicentennial events held at Lexington-Concord (Massachusetts in 1976) being knocked to the ground merely for stepping out onto the street to snap a picture of the president in passing.

While "Jerry" Ford will be remembered as a decent human being, he will not be remembered for much positive, pro-active or effective in his role as president. His service as a member of congress will be remembered in a more memorable fashion than his term as president. He will be remembered for his success as an athlete in his younger years, as well as his service as an officer in the Navy during WWII, more than he will be remembered for his role as president.

But as president, he will be remembered as a decent human being trying to do a difficult job with good intentions and some sense of ethics, morality and service... which is in stark opposition and contrast to how George W. Bush will be remembered.

US Fiscal Irresponsibility: Do You Know Where/How Your Tax Dollars Are Being Spent

The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense has released an interim report covering the first half of fiscal year 2007. The DOD, as well as DHS, FEMA and at least a dozen other federal agencies are under investigation for waste, fraud and lack of accountability for our tax dollars. While President Bush is busy trying to convince us to "stay the course" overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere, our tax dollars are being distributed and disbursed in a manner inconsistent with any of the generally accepted accounting practices or the generally accepted methods of managing government.

The DOD OIG report tackles a lot of areas, but specific focus is given to Iraq, Afghanistan, the response to Katrina/Rita, the Army Corps of Engineers responsibility for waterways and infrastructure, and personnel matters (expenditures) in the DOD.

Defense IG To Ramp Up Iraq Spending Audits

In addition to this report, there are reports that DHS has decided to suspend its focus on obtaining a set of contracts for telecom servicces from a single bid vendor that went out without invitation to other vendors and without considering the use of existing telecom services already operating for government services, departments and agencies.

On top of all that, there are allegations, and subsequent investigations, on illegal actions on the part of the Department of Homeland Security that points to poor management and lack of understanding of the legal boundaries incumbent upon DHS agencies.

Related Stories:

Pentagon Cited Again For Weak Oversight Of Iraq contractors

Overhead Reached 55 Percent In Some Iraq Contracts

Iraq Reconstruction Failures Tied To Contracting Breakdowns

Millions In Iraq Contracts Obligated To 'Dummy Vendor'

Army Punts On Iraq Contractor Census

Report Recommends Better Management Of Contracting Technical Staff


Acquisition Managers: We're Overwhelmed With Oversight

Officials Fear Contracting Abuses In Wake Of Hurricane Katrina

The Status Of The American University

Boy-o-boy are we in trouble. We have some public universities and colleges performing as well, if not better, than the private Ivy League biggies, but the underlying processes in all of our colleges and universities are operating on greed and corruption of purpose.

Public Universities Chase Excellence, At A Price

If there is any goal that the University of Florida has pursued as fervently as a national football championship for the Gators, it is a place among the nation’s highest-ranked public universities.

“We need a top-10 university, so our kids can get the same education they would get at Harvard or Yale,” said J. Bernard Machen, the university president.

To upgrade the university, Dr. Machen is seeking a $1,000 tuition surcharge that would be used mostly to hire more professors and lower the student-faculty ratio, not coincidentally one of the factors in the much-watched college rankings published annually by U.S. News & World Report. This year, that list ranked Florida 13th among public universities in the United States.

Like Florida, more leading public universities are striving for national status and drawing increasingly impressive and increasingly affluent students, sometimes using financial aid to lure them. In the process, critics say, many are losing force as engines of social mobility, shortchanging low-income and minority students, who are seriously underrepresented on their campuses.

“Public universities were created to make excellence available to all qualified students,” said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, an advocacy group, “but that commitment appears to have diminished over time, as they choose to use their resources to try to push up their rankings. It’s all about reputation, selectivity and ranking, instead of about the mission of finding and educating future leaders from their state.”

While a handful of public universities have long stood among the nation’s top institutions — the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan among them — many have only recently joined their ranks.

At some of the best public universities, selectivity is up: at the University of Florida, the average student high school grade point average now exceeds 4.0, a feat achievable only with high grades in honors or Advanced Placement classes. And student interest in these institutions is soaring. At the University of Vermont, where three quarters of the freshmen come from other states, applications have more than doubled since 2001.

The demands on such universities are growing, too, particularly with many states questioning their spending on higher education. Increasingly, these colleges are expected to bolster their states’ economies by attracting research grants and jobs. To do that, they say, they must compete with elite private universities.

Top Grades, Without The Classes

The House Ways and Means Committee sent shock waves through college sports when it asked the National Collegiate Athletic Association to justify its federal tax exemption by explaining how cash-consuming, win-at-all-cost athletics departments serve educational purposes.

The short answer is that they don’t. Indeed, they often undermine the mission of higher education by recruiting athletes who aren’t prepared, then encouraging grade-padding and preferential treatment to keep them eligible for sports.

That process has been on vivid display at Auburn University, which is embroiled in a scandal involving athletes who are said to have padded their grades and remained eligible to play by taking courses that required no attendance and little if any work. This summer, James Gundlach, an Auburn sociology professor, laid out the problem in startling detail, telling reporters that corruption at the university was pervasive.

An internal audit by the university, made public this month, has uncovered a new round of problems. It found that a grade for a scholarship athlete had been changed — from an incomplete to an A — without the professor’s knowledge. This conveniently raised the athlete’s grade point average in the final semester just above the minimum required for graduation. In addition, the athlete received three other A’s from so-called “directed reading” courses that required no classroom attendance. The professor who issued the initial incomplete in 2003 — and only recently learned it had been changed — suggested that someone in the university had guided the athlete through the scheduling process.

Auburn’s administration promised swift and decisive action to address the problem. But it has also taken pains to point out that the suspect courses were open not just to athletes, but to all students.

That’s no reason to feel relieved. The deeper and more alarming lesson is that the unethical behavior often associated with big-time college sports doesn’t always end with athletes. It can easily seep outward, undermining academic standards and corrupting behavior in the university as a whole.

Iraq In Perspective: At Least Several Perspectives

The State of Iraq: An Update

AS 2006 winds down, two developments inside Iraq stand out: the failure of the previous year’s election to produce any sense of progress, and the commencement of Iraq’s civil war, dating back to the Feb. 22 bombing of the hallowed Shiite mosque in Samarra and escalating ever since.

It is still possible to find signs of hope in our running statistics on Iraq — the number of Iraqi security forces who are trained and technically proficient, the gradually improving economic output, the number of children being immunized. But those same children cannot feel safe on the way to school in much of today’s Iraq; economic growth is a top-down phenomenon having little effect on the unemployment rate or well-being of Iraqis in places like Anbar Province and the Sadr City slum in Baghdad; and those increasingly proficient security forces remain politically unreliable in many cases, just as inclined to stoke sectarian strife as to contain it.

Despite some unconvincing comments from President Bush in the prelude to the November midterm elections that “absolutely, we’re winning,” most Americans now agree on the diagnosis of the situation in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group warned of a further “slide toward chaos.” Colin Powell said on Sunday that he thought we are losing, even if all is not yet lost. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted in his confirmation hearings that we aren’t winning, even if he holds out hope that we also aren’t losing. His predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, in a memo leaked several weeks ago, recognized that Iraq is going badly and put out a laundry list of potential options that we may have to consider, including multiparty negotiations modeled on those that ended the war in Bosnia.

Significant changes are clearly needed. At a minimum, we will probably require some combination of the options now being offered the president by the Iraq Study Group, the Pentagon and others — a large program to create jobs, a surge of perhaps 25,000 more American troops to Iraq to improve security in Baghdad, an ultimatum to Iraqi political leaders that if they fail to achieve consensus on key issues like sharing oil, American support for the operation could very soon decline.

If such steps fail, last-ditch options may well be needed within a year, including the sort of “soft partition” of Iraq by religion and ethnicity that Mr. Rumsfeld and Senator Joseph Biden have been discussing, combined with a plan to help people move to where they feel safer within the country. Although it has been said before about previous new years, it seems very likely that 2007 will be make or break time in Iraq.

President Wants to Increase Size of Armed Forces

President Bush said Tuesday that the United States should expand the size of its armed forces, acknowledging that the military had been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would need to grow to cope with what he suggested would be a long battle against Islamic extremism.

“I’m inclined to believe it’s important and necessary to do,” Mr. Bush said. He said this was an “accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while, and that we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and help us achieve peace.”

Speaking in an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Bush did not specify how large an increase he was contemplating or put a dollar figure on the cost. He said that he had asked his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to bring him a proposal, and that the budget he unveils at the beginning of February would seek approval for the plan from Congress, where many members of both parties have been urging an increase in the military’s size.

In interviews on Tuesday, administration officials said the president was speaking generally about the broader campaign against terrorism and was not foreshadowing a decision on whether to send additional troops into Iraq in coming months in an effort to stabilize Baghdad. Any big change in the size of the American military would take years to accomplish.

Mr. Bush told The Post, which excerpted the interview Tuesday on its Web site, that he had not made a decision about sending more troops to Iraq.

Coming the day after Mr. Gates was sworn in as defense secretary, Mr. Bush’s comments indicated that the administration was breaking abruptly with the stance taken by Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former Pentagon chief, who championed the view that better intelligence and technological advancements could substitute for a bigger military.

Mr. Bush said his plan would focus on ground forces rather than on the Navy and the Air Force, telling The Post, “I’m inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops — the Army, the Marines.” There are about 507,000 active-duty Army soldiers and 180,000 active-duty marines.

New Iraq Strategy Emerges: First Security, Then Politics

Those of us with a lick of sense saw this strategy as a no-brainer some time ago.

The debate over whether to increase the American military presence in Baghdad is much more than a dispute over troop levels. It reflects a more fundamental dispute over the American mission.

In proposing to send tens of thousands of additional troops, proponents of reinforcing the American military effort argue that the violence in Iraq is increasing at such an alarming rate that Washington can no longer wait for the newly minted Iraqi security forces to take on the main burden of securing the Iraqi capital.

The United States, they assert, needs to expand its mission by making the protection of the Iraqi population its primary objective.

The calculation is that by sending additional troops and taking up positions in mixed Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods, the American military can finally break the escalating cycle of sectarian killings. Only after restoring some semblance of security, the proponents of a troop increase maintain, can the Bush administration reasonably expect Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to rein in the Shiite militias.

As President Bush mulls his Iraq strategy, the idea of deploying 20,000 additional American troops or more, at least temporarily, has emerged as a leading option. Mr. Bush intends to unveil his plan in early January, and the realization that the White House is approaching a fateful decision on the level of American involvement in Iraq has set off a spirited debate among retired officers, lawmakers and policy experts.

By most accounts, a decision to substantially increase the American military presence in Baghdad would signal an important strategic shift. For years, the generals have argued that their military strategy could not work unless the Iraqis simultaneously made progress toward political reconciliation, a development that American commanders calculated would reduce the support among Sunnis for the insurgency and ease sectarian tensions.

Top Iraqi Shiite Cleric Is Inching Toward a Coalition

Iraq’s most venerated Shiite cleric has tentatively approved an American-backed coalition of Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that aims to isolate extremists, particularly the powerful Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, Iraqi and Western officials say.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been the spiritual custodian of Shiite political dominance in Iraq, corralling the fractious Shiite parties into an alliance to rule the country.

But Ayatollah Sistani has grown increasingly distressed as the Shiite-led government has proved incapable of taming the violence and improving public services, Shiite officials say. He now appears to be backing away from his demand that the Shiite bloc play the dominant political role and that it hold together at all costs, Iraqi and Western officials say.

As the effective arbiter of a Shiite role in the planned coalition, the ayatollah is considered critical to the Iraqi and American effort.

American officials have been told by intermediaries that Ayatollah Sistani “has blessed the idea of forming a moderate front,” according to a senior American official. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without his support.”

President Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, wrote in a classified memo last month that the Americans should “engage Sistani to reassure and seek his support for a new, nonsectarian political movement.” In recent weeks, President Bush has received Shiite and Sunni politicians at the White House to encourage them to move forward with the coalition, officials said.

Since the American invasion of Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani has refused to meet with anyone from the American government but receives messages through intermediaries.

Only the Jailers Are Safe

Ever since the world learned of the lawless state of American military prisons in Iraq, the administration has hidden behind the claim that only a few bad apples were brutalizing prisoners. President Bush also has dodged the full force of public outrage because the victims were foreigners, mostly Muslims, captured in what he has painted as a war against Islamic terrorists bent on destroying America.

This week, The Times published two articles that reminded us again that the American military prisons are profoundly and systemically broken and that no one is safe from the summary judgment and harsh treatment institutionalized by the White House and the Pentagon after 9/11.

On Monday, Michael Moss wrote about a U.S. contractor who was swept up in a military raid and dumped into a system where everyone is presumed guilty and denied any chance to prove otherwise.

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention. And that was special treatment. As an American citizen, he was at least allowed to attend his hearing. An Iraqi, or an Afghani, or any other foreigner, would have been barred from the room.

This is not the handiwork of a few out-of-control sadists at Abu Ghraib. This is a system that was created and operated outside American law and American standards of decency. Except for the few low-ranking soldiers periodically punished for abusing prisoners, it is a system without any accountability.

Obscenity Is Demonstrated By The Greed Of America's Wealthiest

Goldman Chairman Gets a Bonus of $53.4 Million

I really do not know what is more obscene: the facts that a single individual received a "bonus" of $53.4 million, which in and of itself denies the value of those that actually did the day-to-day work that generated the $9.5 billion in profits for Goldman-Sachs, or the fact that Goldman-Sachs made that many billions and has done NOTHING significant in the way of supporting charitable efforts in the US or anywhere else in the world. If Goldman-Sachs took even five percent of its profits aside for education, health care, or any other badly needed charitable effort, $475 million dollars would have done some good to offset the greed that is this uncharitable company. Even if Goldman-Sachs spends some money in charitable ways, it is not doing enough to reflect its status as a guest in our society, which is the manner in which our founders and framers intended business--especially the most successful big businesses--in our nation. Even is it spent 10 percent of that bonus on some charitable cause--let us say for housing for homeless families in New York City--that would mean that $5.34 million would be spent on affordable housing in one of our most needed metropolitan areas.

The thing to remember that all of these obscene payouts are on top of already obscene salaries. Each of those receiving huge bonuses for Goldman-Sachs is already receiving a salary that is 5-10 times that made by the average American worker, and 15-30 times what most people living in poverty make. When you consider than Blankfein only took over as chief honcho at Goldman in June of this year, the payout seems all the more obscene.

While I am fully supportive of individuals making a success out of their careers, and I support businesses being successful for the benefit of the economics of our society, I also support the religious, spiritual and humanist ideals that what we do is directly tied into how we treat others, especially those that need our help the most.

Most Protestant (especially evangelical) Churches require a tithe of 10% of all income (not profit, but income) be given to God to support the church. Most synagogues require the affluent to do charitable works for those in need. In fact, Hebrew and Yiddish have special words for those that do good deeds and the deeds themselves. The Qu'ran offers alms to the poor as one of the "Pillars of Islam." All three of these Abrahamic traditions call for charity as an act of faith and a duty to God. Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Druze, Wicca, Druidism --in fact most every religious tradition in the world--calls for acts of charity and faith. Even among the non-religious--those that are atheist, agnostic, secular humanistic, or unaffiliated--charity is an act of human decency. Not taking aside a large portion of such wealth as what Goldman-Sachs has made and dedicating it to good works demonstrates an obscenity against all of humanity. In my view, it is just as perverse as those that take their wealth and dedicate it to doing harm to others, like those involved in Al-Qaeda, or other terror groups.

Goldman Sachs paid Lloyd C. Blankfein, its chairman and chief executive, a bonus of $53.4 million in 2006, the highest ever for a Wall Street chief executive.

Added to his $600,000 salary, the bonus means that Mr. Blankfein will make $54 million this year, up from $38 million last year. The bank’s compensation committee awarded him $27.3 million in cash, $15.7 million in restricted stock and options to buy Goldman stock valued at $10.5 million.

The payout comes a week after Goldman reported a record profit of $9.5 billion, or $19.69 per diluted share, in 2006. Its stock price is up almost 60 percent for the year, and the firm’s market capitalization is nearly $90 billion, more than triple its value when it went public in May 1999.

Mr. Blankfein took over as chairman and chief executive in June, when President Bush named the former chief, Henry M. Paulson Jr., to be Treasury secretary.

Goldman’s co-presidents, Gary D. Cohn, 46, and Jon Winkelried, 47, each received $25.7 million in restricted stock and options. John L. Weinberg, co-head of investment banking, was awarded $15.2 million in restricted stock and options.

The Bonus Army

Always one to look at the other side of an issue, the following is offered as a defense of these bonuses.

EVEN those accustomed to Wall Street’s otherworldly pay scales gasped last week when Goldman Sachs’s 2006 compensation numbers were released: $16.5 billion, up 40 percent in a year, some $623,000 per employee. The news triggered shock and envy: Oh, my God. That’s obscene! Boy, do I wish I worked for Goldman Sachs.

Pundits asked how such numbers could be justified, whether Goldman’s employees were that much more talented than the rest of Wall Street, whether Goldman’s shareholders were getting mugged. About the only people who had nothing to say were Goldman’s understandably discreet employees. What were they thinking?

Having once been on the receiving end of the Wall Street bonus system, I can guess: Some Goldman employees probably felt ecstatic; some fairly paid; and some shafted. (It is ever thus.) For example, word has it that some secretaries fumed about making a total of only $120,000 while their bosses made millions — until gently reminded that $120,000 is great secretary pay. Most Goldman employees probably have a sense of how lucky they are compared to those outside 85 Broad Street. Few probably suffer from the delusion that the bonuses are “fair” in any moral sense: Even with frequent all-nighters, Goldman workers probably earned the best hourly wages in the world (an average of about $200 per hour, assuming a 60-hour week; the firm’s top traders, meanwhile, reportedly made $17,000 to $33,000 an hour.) In a country where some people are starving and others are furiously debating a $1 increase in the minimum wage, such bonanzas provide a startling reminder of the inequities of our free-market economy.

Within a more limited context, however — pay for performance — the compensation is fair, and Goldman’s employees have every right to view it as such. Capitalism works because it encourages and rewards those who successfully take risks, adapt to change and develop profitable opportunities. Goldman Sachs employees, arguably, are consistently better at those things than any other group of employees in the world. Yes, they have the good fortune of working in a hot industry in a favorable market environment. But they have taken spectacular advantage of both.

This year, even after paying themselves and their other expenses, Goldman’s employees generated an average of about $550,000 of pre-tax profit apiece. This is twice as much as the employees of Lehman Brothers, another strong Wall Street firm ($228,000). It is more than the employees at G.E. and Microsoft. It is even more than the employees at Google, another fantastically profitable wealth-generation machine.

Signs Of Bush's Times: Do We Really Want To Stay The Course?

At first glance some of these reports and articles may seem unrelated, but a well-reasoned mind--at least one that has any real education and experience of the world--can perceive how each of these stories is connected. All-in-all, the combination of these reports and articles points to an ever-increasing failure in our foreign policies (especially in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East); that our efforts to make the lives of ordinary Iraqis is anything but effective; that our efforts at security in Iraq and here at home are less than well thought out or well implemented; and, most importantly, that we are neglecting the very purpose and functions of government as put forth in the Preamble of our Constitution.

We are not striving for a more perfect union: our nation is failing to achieve the unity of purpose, the effectiveness of a full-fledged democracy and the blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We have failed to fully establish justice: Justice is tempered with mercy and understanding, as well as accountability, equity and equal treatment under the law. Very seldom have we achieved all of those elements. Even more distressing is that very seldom do we genuinely try to achieve all those elements of justice.

We have failed to ensure domestic tranquility: The continuing failure of our response to Katrina and Rita; the failure of our congress to act to protect workers in favor of helping big corporations; the failure to implement an effective health care system; and the rising crime rates all point to a failure in this arena.

We have failed to provide for the common defense: Our ports, railways, roadways and borders remain unsecured; our streets are filled with crime at rates that do not occur in other developed nations; our Coast Guard fleet is drastically depleted because of corporate fraud and deployment of existing resources in the Persian Gulf; our National Guard resources are depleted due to being forced to serve in areas outside of our own nation; our military reserves are at an all-time low due to extended tours of duty in areas outside of the US and due to the highest rate of attrition our military has ever experienced; and the number of available troops is down from optimum force levels.

We have failed to promote the general welfare: Corporate welfare is draining resources that should be dedicated to assure that no one in this nation goes hungry; corporate fraud is occurring at alarming rates but we exert more energy and time pursuing "welfare fraud" than pursuing "corporate fraud" (both of which are immoral and illegal, but only one of which costs us billions of dollars per year); we are passing laws in favor of big business while ignoring consumer and labor protection; the scandals in congress, the executive branch and the judiciary are not only demoralizing, but also undermines the welfare of our nation; we are expending more resources outside of our nation than we are on our own people; and we are doing nothing to assure that we are employing fiscally sound policies and practices.

We have failed to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity: Our entire national security effort has undermined the principles, ideals and ordinary practices of reason as put forth in our Constitution; we have spying programs that track travel, communication, expenditures and other aspects of daily living that have proven to do nothing beyond ordinary (but good) police work to prevent or capture terrorists; we have loosened the standards in our law enforcement processes and it has resulted in thousands of people going to jail--some even being sentenced to death--when they were innocent; we have ignored the provisions of privacy in the Bill of Rights due the the fear-mongering that is being put forth in a fascist effort to control not only our destiny, but the destiny of the world (we would do better to pray for peace); we have allowed our rights to be eroded, abrogated or dismissed without regard for consequences; and we have allowed our fears to permit the casting aside of universal principles of decency and law to permit torture, coercion, mistreatment, murder and other crimes against humanity. We are also allowing the depletion of our natural resources, our fellow inhabitants of the earth to die off and become extinct, and allowing mass pollution of our air, water and land without regard for future generations.

U.S. Inquiry Falters on Civilians Accused of Abusing Detainees

A Justice Department team responsible for investigating accusations that civilian government employees had abused detainees has decided against prosecution in most of the nearly 20 cases referred in the last two years by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, said lawyers who have been officially briefed on the effort.

The prosecution team, which was established in June 2004 at the United States attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., has not brought a single indictment and has been plagued by problems.

The team has been unable to collect forensic evidence or find witnesses needed to bring indictments out of war-ravaged areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases, the unit has been stymied by the absence of facts in the referrals, the lawyers said. A few investigations remain open, although the lawyers declined to be specific about how many cases fell in that category.

Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says

A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.

The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said.

While most attacks were directed at American forces, most deaths and injuries were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.

The report is the most comprehensive public assessment of the American-led operation to secure Baghdad, which began in early August. About 17,000 American combat troops are currently involved in the beefed-up security operation.

According to the Pentagon assessment, the operation initially had some success in reducing killings as militants concentrated on eluding capture and hiding their weapons. But sectarian death squads soon adapted, resuming their killings in regions of the capital that were not initially targets of the overstretched American and Iraqi troops.

Shiite militias, the Pentagon report said, also received help from allies among the Iraqi police. “Shia death squads leveraged support from some elements of the Iraqi Police Service and the National Police who facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations,” the report said.

“This is a major reason for the increased levels of murders and executions.”

Iraq Insurgents Starve Capital of Electricity

Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.

The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the lines.

And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold.

What amounts to an electrical siege of Baghdad is reflected in constant power failures and disastrously poor service in the capital, with severe consequences for security, governance, health care and the mood of an already weary and angry populace.

“Now Baghdad is almost isolated,” Karim Wahid, the Iraqi electricity minister, said in an interview last week. “We almost don’t have any power coming from outside.”

That leaves Baghdad increasingly dependent on a few aging power plants within or near the city’s borders.

Iraqi Ex-Minister Escapes Jail in Green Zone

Iraq’s former electricity minister, the most senior official arrested on corruption charges here, made a brazen escape Sunday afternoon from an Iraqi jail in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

There were conflicting reports about how the former official, Aiham Alsammarae, who is a citizen of both the United States and Iraq, was able not only to break out of jail but also to elude capture in the four-square-mile area that includes the American Embassy, Iraq’s Parliament and the homes of politicians and members of the American military command.

In fact, the Americans were not even told about the jailbreak until the next day, said a senior Western official familiar with the investigation.

As of late Monday, neither the Iraqis nor the Americans had any idea of where Mr. Alsammarae had gone.

Iraqi officials initially blamed the Americans and later claimed that a private security detail used by Mr. Alsammarae when he was a minister was responsible, saying that a fleet of S.U.V.’s filled with “Westerners” pulled up to the jail and spirited him away, perhaps with the complicity of some of his jailers.

“The majority of police were on duty patrolling” away from the jail, said the chief of Iraq’s Public Integrity Commission, Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi . A private security detail, he said, “used this opportunity to storm the station and take him away.”

American officials familiar with the investigation disputed that account, but spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the facts were not completely known and they did not want to contradict the Iraqis publicly.

“I don’t want this to get pinned on the Americans because this is clearly an Iraqi problem,” said the senior Western official. The prison is run by Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which has been plagued with problems, ranging from infiltration by militias to corruption.

“Outside the Green Zone, they complain that security is the reason they cannot do their jobs,” the Western official said, referring to the Iraqi police. “In the Green Zone they just have to do their jobs.”

While the Green Zone is the most protected part of this country — a maze of massive concrete blast walls and military checkpoints with thousands of armed guards working for private security firms and American soldiers — Mr. Alsammarae was hardly kept under tight security.

Achieving Homeland Security through Innovation and Leadership

Here's some evidence that the fed is fried, that our rights are being eroded (and/or abused) at the local and state levels, and that our nation is nowhere near secure despite the claims to the contrary.

In the five years since the 9/11 attacks, our nation has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent attacks, reduce our vulnerability and minimize damage from further attacks. While the federal government has taken the lead in homeland security, the responsibility ultimately rests at the state and local level. Jason Newman, the DLC's state and local political director, highlights innovative ideas that states and localities have implemented to address security threats and provide leadership in the area of homeland security.

Council on Foundations Calls on Treasury to Withdraw Anti-Terrorism Financing Guidelines

Here's some evidence that everything we have done regarding national security is doing nothing effectively, except perhaps by screwing with our pocketbooks and preventing us from giving to those causes that we find close to heart.

The Washington, D.C.-based Council on Foundations and a group of more than forty U.S. charities, advocacy groups, and advisers have called on the U.S. Treasury Department to withdraw the latest version of its anti-terrorism financing guidelines.

Revised in September for a third time since 2002, the guidelines, "Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: Voluntary Best Practices for U.S.-Based Charities," are intended to help charities prevent the misuse of their funds by terrorist groups. The latest version includes revisions that respond to some of the previous concerns raised by the council-led Treasury Guidelines Working Group. Nevertheless, many U.S.-based charities are concerned that if they have to spend more of their resources on the costs of complying with the guidelines, they'll have less to spend on their program activities, many of which address issues of poverty and other factors that fuel the growth of terrorism.

In its letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., the working group said the guidelines significantly exaggerate the extent to which U.S. charities have served as a source of terrorist funding and further argued that the restrictions continue to impose onerous requirements on charities that do little to protect them from manipulation by terrorist groups. While the Treasury Department characterizes the guidelines as voluntary, Internal Revenue Service agents — both in the context of audits and applications for tax-exempt status — have questioned organizations about their compliance. In response, the working group has asked Treasury to use the group's Principles of International Charity instead of the guidelines.

States File Clean Air Act Lawsuit Against EPA Over Soot Levels

And our air isn't much safer, cleaner or even healthy...

Officials from 13 states, the District of Columbia, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District filed a lawsuit Monday against the US Environmental Protection Agency "for failing to mandate lower levels of disease-causing soot in the air." The lawsuit alleges that the EPA is failing to protect the environment and the public health by ignoring "overwhelming scientific evidence and the advice of its own experts" when setting standards for particulate matter and that the EPA is in violation of the Clean Air Act.

The states participating in the lawsuit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Violent Crime In US Continues To Rise: FBI Report

Imagine if we spent the billions of dollars we are spending overseas (almost 1.8 trillion to date) on treatment, education, health care/prevention, and crime prevention right here in the good old United States of America. Why we might even be able to protect our borders, improve our schools, prevent illegal immigration, find cures for nasty diseases, improve our roadways, secure our ports... or any number of "home improvement" projects. If we really got ambitious, we might end hunger, health neglect, child abuse, greed and worry in our own time. But instead, we are letting our troops die senselessly and ignoring our own needs.

Violent crime in the US increased during the first half of 2006 when compared with the same period in 2005, according to the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report released Monday. Violent crime, including murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, increased 3.7 percent since 2005 but property crimes such as burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft, decreased 2.6 percent. The number of arsons increased 6.8 percent.

If these numbers are maintained, the rate of violent crime will increase in 2006 for the second year in a row. The FBI's 2005 annual report on violent crime showed that violent crimes increased in 2005 for the first time since 2001; the 2.3 percent increase was the largest jump since 1991. The US Justice Department has already launched an investigation to examine why the violent crime rate has increased.

I Do Not Even Know Where To Begin

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

Combine this story with the Arar case, and hundreds of others, and the pattern of abuse and violation of constitutional and human rights principles is obvious. I am so disgusted with this I don't even know where to begin. I will probably write about this soon, but I want everyone to read this article.

Some time ago I wrote a fictitious account of a raid on my home by a task force that used my international contacts, past travels, activism, advocacy and blog writings as justification for accusing me of being a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. After reading this article, my fictitious story may not have been that far off the mark.

One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.

American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible.