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.