Flexible Reality
Saturday, September 11, 2004
$200 Billion, 1,000 Casualities, 6,000 Wounded, Over 30k Iraquis Killed, America Became the Most Feared & Hated Country In The World*, Osama's Network Has Enlarged, There is No End In Sight for the Federal Deficit, Americans Are Politically, Economically, Religiously, and Socially Divided Into Two Hostile Camps, and A Huge Part of It is Due to OIF...The Bush Administration's War of Choice !!
Will this Yahoo Ever Stop Trying to Pretend there was Linkage??
TERRORISM – CHENEY HAS NO SHAME:The myth that Iraq had a relationship with al Qaeda has been debunked time and time again. That makes no difference to Vice President Dick Cheney, however. Cheney ignored all the evidence once again yesterday and said "that Saddam Hussein had given 'safe harbor' to al Qaeda when he ruled Iraq." Asked to explain this outrageous statement, Cheney's spokeswoman said the vice president in his comments was linking Hussein to Abu Musab Zarqawi, "believed to be behind elements of the insurgency in Iraq."
No dice. The independent 9/11 Commission, which thoroughly examined all evidence, flatly stated last June that Hussein had no "collaborative relationship" with al Qaeda. Former White House counterterrorism expert Roger Cressey said on 5/12/04, "I think some of the administration's claims of direct links between Zarqawi and al Qaeda as we knew it, frankly, are not true." CIA Director George Tenet testified there was no coordination between Zarqawi and Iraqis, saying, "I did not suggest operational direction and control" of Zarqawi by Iraq. "He thinks of himself as independent." And if the White House truly believes Zarqawi was the link between Saddam and al Qaeda, why did they leave him off the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list?
Note: Cheney bases his argument for linkage on the premise that Zarqawi was in Iraq, and thus MUST have had some relationship with Hussein. Unfortunately for Cheney, there is no evidence whatsoever that happened.
More unfortune for Cheney is the perception around the world that the arrest of a man suspected of being Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on July 29th, 2004 at the Syrian border was intended to play to the US Media, rather than to anything real; in part due to the timing of the release. A sample of the arrested man's DNA was supposedly sent to Bagdad for analysis.
While the Bush Administration has said nothing about this man, there have been additional appearances by Zarqawi in tapes released on al Jazeera, which seem to show this mystery man is not Zarqawi, and that Zarqawi was alive and active in Faluja as of late August.
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Al-Zarqawi: America's new bogeyman
By Roshan Muhammed Salih
via al Jazeera
Thursday 01 July 2004, 17:26 Makka Time, 14:26 GMT
If US intelligence is to be believed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the ultimate bad guy. Dangerous, ruthless and elusive, he is one of the most wanted men in the world. Washington has linked al-Zarqawi to al-Qaida and says he is the prime suspect in some of the deadliest attacks of recent years.
More specifically, US authorities accuse the 38-year-old Jordanian of masterminding a string of spectacular bombings in Iraq. They even increased the bounty on his head on Thursday to $25 million - the same as al-Qaida chief Usama bin Ladin.
But despite the allegations, little is known about the man himself - and some experts even doubt he is alive.
Others, meanwhile, have accused the Americans of exaggerating the threat he poses to discredit resistance to their occupation of Iraq. Known to have been born in the suburbs of the Jordanian capital Amman, information about al-Zarqawi's early years is scarce apart from his reputed "piety".
But what is sure is that around 1990 he travelled to Afghanistan to join other Arabs to fight pro-Soviet forces in the country. Experts speculate it was here that al-Zarqawi imbibed the "Afghan-Arab" spirit of pan-Islamism and the conviction that all Arab regimes were corrupt and un-Islamic.
"Al-Zarqawi has become ... the perfect bogeyman... He is a foreigner, so it is the perfect way for the Americans to discredit the resistance and say these attacks are not coming from the Iraqi people"
Paul Rogers, of the UK-based Bradford University's peace studies department, says groups influenced by the Afghan-Arab ideology have four main aims.
"These groups want to remove American troops from the Gulf," he told Aljazeera.net.
"They want to overthrow the monarchy in Saudi Arabia which they see as being illegitimate and unworthy of being custodians of the Islamic holy places.
"They also want a just solution to the Palestine issue, and have a longer-term goal of wanting to see the Arab regimes replaced by some sort of Caliphate."
After the Russians were defeated in Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi went back to Jordan but was soon arrested after being accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic state. He spent at least four years in jail and, upon his release, fled the country. Shortly afterwards, Jordan sentenced him to death in absentia for plotting attacks on Israeli and American tourists.
At this point it is reckoned that al-Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan, where he had several meetings with Usama bin Ladin and fought on his side during the US-led invasion of the country in 2001. It is also alleged he set up a training camp in the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran. Students at his camp reportedly became experts in the manufacture and use of poison gases.
Al-Zarqawi is then believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after losing a leg in a US missile strike on his Afghan base. US officials argue it was at al-Qaida's behest that he moved to Iraq and established links with Ansar al-Islam - a group of Kurdish Islamists.
There is even speculation that al-Zarqawi was killed during a US attack on an Ansar al-Islam base last year. Arab commentator Abd al-Bari Atwan says it is quite possible that al-Zarqawi is now dead. He told Aljazeera.net: "There is no real proof that he is alive. If he is supposedly moving around freely in Iraq, why haven't Iraqis spoken about him? He can't be that difficult to recognise with his wooden leg."
The rumours of al-Zarqawi's demise did not stop the Jordanian authorities, though, from accusing him of masterminding and financing the killing of a US official in Amman in October 2002. "If the Americans capture al-Zarqawi, they can claim a great victory and say they have knocked off the head of the organisation and thus rendered the whole network ineffective" He was also named as the brain behind a series of lethal bombings in 2003 from Morocco to Turkey.
But it is in Iraq that al-Zarqawi is alleged to have been most active. In the run-up to the Iraq war in February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that al-Zarqawi was an associate of Usama bin Ladin who had sought refuge in Iraq.
According to Powell, this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaida which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq. Once again, Bradford University's Rogers casts doubt on the US allegation. "Al-Zarqawi is probably a pretty significant figure but he is being made into this Usama bin Ladin-type symbol, which seems to be a natural thing for the Americans to do. It seems they like to focus on personalities," Rogers said.
"Al-Zarqawi has become the new superpower, the perfect bogeyman. The Americans are just building him up to mask their failure in Iraq and their inability to maintain law and order. "He is a foreigner, so it is the perfect way for them to discredit the resistance and say these attacks are not coming from the Iraqi people."
Since last year's US-led invasion of Iraq, al-Zarqawi has been accused of a string of deadly attacks in the country. The assassination of the Shia cleric Ayat Allah Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf was one of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq last year - more than 80 Shia worshippers died. US authorities pinned the blame on al-Zarqawi.
And in May he is alleged to have been involved in the beheading of a US contractor, Nick Berg, which was shown on a video. A $5 million bounty on al-Zarqawi's head was doubled after US authorities intercepted a letter that they claimed confirmed he was working with al-Qaida to drive the US out of Iraq.
In it the author accused Iraqi Shias of collaborating with foreign invaders and called for a sectarian conflict in Iraq as a means of undermining the US presence there. The author also claimed to have already undertaken 25 successful attacks against the enemy.
Arab affairs commentator Abd al-Bari Atwan does not believe the letter was genuine. "There is no real proof that he [al-Zarqawi] is alive. If he is supposedly moving around freely in Iraq why haven't Iraqis spoken about him? He can't be that difficult to recognise with his wooden leg" "I personally think that letter was the product of the intelligence services. Don't forget it was [new Iraqi interim prime minister] Iyad Allawi who distributed the letter to the press.
"Al-Zarqawi would have had to have been really stupid to send a letter like that which promoted civil war in Iraq."
Bradford University's Rogers says Washington's fixation with al-Zarqawi is a symptom of its misunderstanding of the threats that it faces. "The Americans like to have a known enemy and they can't think in terms of a coalition and a network which is diffuse.
"If they capture al-Zarqawi, they can claim a great victory and say they have knocked off the head of the organisation and thus rendered the whole network ineffective." But he added: "These tactics are seriously flawed. Several studies have proved that support for al-Qaida and related groups has increased in the last three years because the amount of attacks have gone up. The US just can't fight their so-called war on terror like this."
Cheney Needs Help in Keeping it Real !!
ECONOMY – FORGET UNEMPLOYMENT, WHAT ABOUT EBAY?:Vice President Dick Cheney had a novel approach to viewing the economy. "Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay. 'That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago,' Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. 'Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.'"
In response, Sen. John Edwards pointed out, "If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking."
Note: And Mr. Cheney...how many of those selling on eBay do it to make a living? or how many obtain pensions, health care, chance for advancement, professional development or enhanced career paths via their eBay sales??
Friday, September 10, 2004
Just in Case There Was Any Doubt About Which Blogs are Must Reads for Progressives...
Note: There are at least two politically oriented blogs online that are must reads for Moderate Democrats, Progressives, and Liberal to Moderate Republicans, and you will see posts from them here on a frequent basis.Atrios: At: http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/
TalkingPointsMemo: At: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com
Note: There are many, many others that I read periodically including Alterman, Hauser, and Krugman. I'd read more; but I get so angry at the Junta that I have to stop reading before I start considering extreme measures. There are also several Republican commentators that are ok to read in small doses; but I have not found a worthy Center/Right Blogger that I can go to for a balancing perspective. If you know of one, please let me know.
A Web Site Devoted to Time Lapse Photography on Ground Zero
Post 9/11:
Ground Zero, the Long ViewBy SARAH BOXER
In the fall of 2001 when the dust and ash from the World Trade Center were still in the air, Jim Whitaker, a documentary filmmaker, decided to photograph everything happening at ground zero. By the spring of 2002 three cameras were pointed at the pit, each taking one shot every five minutes, round the clock. Months later, three more cameras were added.
That was the beginning of Project Rebirth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a historical record of the rebuilding.
Today www.projectrebirth.org, a Web site produced with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and AOL , opens for public viewing. The site includes links to the architects who are building at ground zero; profiles of 10 people whose lives were altered by Sept. 11; an interview with Kevin Rampe, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; the view from a live Web camera at the site; and a timeline that you can click on to watch short movies of milestone events there.
But the main attraction is the time-lapse photography, showing (on a very tiny screen, 3½ inches by 2½ inches) what the six cameras have been seeing all along. Each camera has a distinctive view and a different reason for being there.
One camera, on the roof of 30 Vesey Street, at the corner of Church Street, gives a wide view down from the northeast corner of ground zero. The weather comes right at the camera: rain, mist and snow. And the shadows from the buildings nearby often upstage the activity in the pit.
Another camera is 47 stories up, in the American Express Building at 3 World Financial Center at the northwest corner of the site. It "has an omniscience to it," Mr. Whitaker, the director of Project Rebirth, said.
So far this camera has provided the most complete view. You can watch the PATH station going up: the girders, the tracks, the first layer, the second layer. And when the Freedom Tower starts to rise, Mr. Whitaker promised, it will look as if the new building were heading right for the camera. As the tower ascends above the lens, the camera will tilt up to watch.
The camera on the roof of 115 Broadway, the current home of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is at the southeast corner of ground zero. Because you can see the building's old stone parapets, the pictures from this camera have a nostalgic feel. The snow accumulates and melts on the stonework while the construction unfolds beyond it.
But the grandest view comes from the southwest corner. Here a Vista Vision camera, the very camera that Cecil B. DeMille used to film "The Ten Commandments," is perched on the ninth floor of the Dow Jones Building, where there is a memorial for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter abducted and killed in Pakistan in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The picture is crisp and very wide. "You see New York life passing by, cruising by," Mr. Whitaker said. The shots hum with traffic and cloud drift.
That covers the four corners of the site. What was missing, said Thomas Lappin, the director of photography for Project Rebirth, was a camera at ground level to show "the human scale." So a camera was planted 18 inches off the ground in the graveyard behind St. Paul's Church. Its pictures are filled with tombstones, trees and sky.
"It's a little reprieve from the full site, the big wound," Mr. Lappin said.
Another close-up camera was installed on the roof of the firehouse that was closest to the World Trade Center: Engine 10, Ladder 10. Nicknamed "1010," the camera is there partly for symbolic purposes, Mr. Whitaker said, to represent the "heroism of the firehouse." It also shows details well: girders going up, cranes turning crazily round and round and a flag flapping in the foreground.
That same firehouse perch is now also being shared by a digital Webcam that has just been installed.
Originally, Mr. Whitaker said, he planned to photograph at ground zero for seven years, but now he thinks he will keep the cameras running for at least 10, at a cost of some $8 million (and this is with the film being donated by Kodak and the processing by Deluxe). He said he was hoping that Project Rebirth would be one of the institutions represented at the World Trade Center site. If it is, he wants to install six screens in one room so that viewers can see the whole building process from all six angles over the course of 20 minutes.
If not, though, no shot will be lost. Mr. Whitaker, the president of Imagine Entertainment, the movie production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, plans to make a documentary with the time-lapse footage. (You can watch a trailer of the movie at the Web site.) And eventually everything that the six cameras have seen, millions of feet of film, he said, will go to the Library of Congress.
At first Mr. Whitaker approached ground zero with dread and anxiety, he said. But when he saw the pile of rubble visibly diminish in a matter of days, he started feeling more optimistic. He wanted to capture that feeling, he said, and the speed with which the cleanup was taking place. Time-lapse photography was the ticket.
What is most striking now from the time-lapse view, though, is just how slow the rebuilding has been. The days, the weeks, the snow, the rain, the shadows, the day, the night, the traffic, the seasons all pass. Meanwhile the pit remains. It is the most stable thing in the pictures. And that is the view that has been edited for the Web site. The unedited dailies, Mr. Lappin said, are "incredibly repetitive."
Not Quite on a Par with Anthrax or Jet Plane Missiles
14 Governors Receive Mail That's Rigged With MatchesBy FOX BUTTERFIELD
Published: September 11, 2004
BOSTON, Sept. 10 - Envelopes containing matches that were rigged to ignite when opened have been received through the mail at the offices of at least 14 state governors in the last two days.
The mailings, under investigation by the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security, bear a return address that names two inmates at a maximum-security prison in Nevada. But a Nevada corrections official said it was unclear whether they were the actual senders.
Aides to several governors, including Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, said they had been told by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the case was being treated as one of domestic terrorism, and Jennifer Meith, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Fire Marshal's Office, said that was her understanding as well.
But spokesmen for the bureau declined to comment on a current investigation, although one of them, Joe Parris, said in Washington, "Cases of this nature are generally handled by the local domestic terrorism squads'' - that is, the joint terrorism task forces set up by the F.B.I. in cities across the country.
Because of the Nevada connection, the case is being handled by the bureau's office in Las Vegas, Mr. Parris said.
No one has been injured, although 23 staff members in the office of Gov. Judy Martz of Montana were evacuated on Thursday after one of them opened the envelope sent there. It ignited briefly and then petered out, said Chuck Butler, a spokesman for Governor Martz.
The envelopes are of a plain white business type. Each of those that have been opened contained a blank piece of paper. Matches were attached in such a way that opening the envelope could cause them to ignite, aides to the governors said. Each bore a return address from the Ely State Prison in eastern Nevada.
The governors who were sent the envelopes are Democrats and Republicans alike. In addition to Mr. Romney, of Massachusetts, and Ms. Martz, of Montana, they are George E. Pataki of New York, Rick Perry of Texas, Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Gary Locke of Washington, Olene S. Walker of Utah, Bill Owens of Colorado, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming, Kenny Guinn of Nevada, Linda Lingle of Hawaii and Janet Napolitano of Arizona.
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2 - 1 = 4 Again...
The Dishonesty ThingBy PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed
Published: September 10, 2004
It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't.
It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time involving personal matters that the public can easily understand, that some of us have long seen on policy issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On budget matters, which is where I came in, serious analysts now take administration dishonesty for granted.
It wasn't always that way. Three years ago, those of us who accused the administration of cooking the budget books were ourselves accused, by moderates as well as by Bush loyalists, of being "shrill." These days the coalition of the shrill has widened to include almost every independent budget expert.
For example, back in February the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities accused the Bush administration of, in effect, playing three-card monte with budget forecasts. It pointed out that the administration's deficit forecast was far above those of independent analysts, and suggested that this exaggeration was deliberate.
"Overstating the 2004 deficit," the center wrote, "could allow the president to announce significant 'progress' on the deficit in late October - shortly before Election Day - when the Treasury Department announces the final figures."
Was this a wild accusation from a liberal think tank? No, it's conventional wisdom among experts. Two months ago Stanley Collender, a respected nonpartisan analyst, warned: "At some point over the next few weeks, the Office of Management and Budget will release the administration's midsession budget review and try to convince everyone the federal deficit is falling. Don't believe them."
He went on to echo the center's analysis. The administration's standard procedure, he said, is to initially issue an unrealistically high deficit forecast, which is "politically motivated or just plain bad." Then, when the actual number comes in below the forecast, officials declare that the deficit is falling, even though it's higher than the previous year's deficit.
Goldman Sachs says the same. Last month one of its analysts wrote that "the Office of Management and Budget has perfected the art of underpromising and overperforming in terms of its near-term budget deficit forecasts. This creates the impression that the deficit is narrowing when, in fact, it will be up sharply."
In other words, many reputable analysts think that the Bush administration routinely fakes even its short-term budget forecasts for the purposes of political spin. And the fakery in its long-term forecasts is much worse.
The administration claims to have a plan to cut the deficit in half over the next five years. But even Bruce Bartlett, a longtime tax-cut advocate, points out that "projections showing deficits falling assume that Bush's tax cuts expire on schedule." But Mr. Bush wants those tax cuts made permanent. That is, the administration has a "plan" to reduce the deficit that depends on Congress's not passing its own legislation.
Sounding definitely shrill, Mr. Bartlett says that "anyone who thinks we can overcome our fiscal mess without higher taxes is in denial." Far from backing down on his tax cuts, however, Mr. Bush is proposing to push the budget much deeper into the red with privatization programs that purport to offer something for nothing.
As Newsweek's Allan Sloan writes, "The president didn't exactly burden us with details about paying for all this. It's great marketing: show your audience the goodies but not the price tag. It's like going to the supermarket, picking out your stuff and taking it home without stopping at the checkout line to pay. The bill? That will come later."
Longtime readers will remember that that's exactly what I said, shrilly, about Mr. Bush's proposals during the 2000 campaign. Once again, he's running on the claim that 2 - 1 = 4.
So what's the real plan? Some not usually shrill people think that Mr. Bush will simply refuse to face reality until it comes crashing in: Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, says there's a 75 percent chance of a financial crisis in the next five years.
Nobody knows what Mr. Bush would really do about taxes and spending in a second term. What we do know is that on this, as on many matters, he won't tell the truth.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
What Did the Bush Administration Have to Say About Those That Left?
And What have We Heard From Them Since They Left???
Note: There have been a few prominent voices of former Bush Administration officials who have spoken, and written about their time in office; but there seem to be two distinct trends detectable in the status of the departees. Either they left to join/rejoin a company that was involved in the exact field where they worked for the adminstration as a regulator; or they retired. Those going into corporate entities usually were hired by the companies as lobbyists, not for technical, R&D, or administration positions.Surveying the list of some who left, a few wrote books critical of the Administration, and were in the News daily for a short time; but are almost invisible after the first flurry of departure activity and the release of their books. See if you can envision the present situation of some of the departees:
Paul O'Neill: Treasury Secretary
Chrisie Todd Whitman: EPA Director
Richard A. Clark:: Senior Adviser/Counter Terrorism
Ari Fleischer: Press Secretary
Thomas White: Secretary of the Army
Rosario Marin: US Treasurer
John Yoo: Deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)
Lawrence Lindsey:
Glenn Hubbard:
Mitch Daniels: Budget Director
Bradford Berenson: Associate White House Counsel
Brett Kavanaugh: Associate White House Counsel
H. Chris Bartolumucci: Associate White House Counsel
Greg Thielmann: State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Roger Cressey: Counter Terrorism Assistant at the National Security Council
Flynt Leverett: Specialist in Middle East issues at the National Security Council
Ken Pollack: CIA analyst and Iraq expert
Thomas A. Scully: HHS Director of the Medicare Office
Max Boot: senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
John DiIulio: former director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
George Tenet: CIA Director
Rand Beers:Anti-Terror Administrator at NSC
James Capretta: Office of Management & Budget
Jack Howard: Legislative Affairs
Robert Marsh: Legislative Affairs
Elizabeth Blackburn: Council on BioEthics
William May: Council on BioEthics
WIlliam Hansen: Deputy Secretary of Education
Robert Jordan: Ambassador to Saudia Arabia
Wendy Sherman: Assist. Secretary for Legislative Affairs
Jay Bybee: Asst. Attorney General
Jack Goldsmith: Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)
After Almost a Year Of Rampage In Darfur by the Arab-Muslim Dominated Sudanese Government, Only An Idiot Would Fail To See Their Crimes As Genocide
09 Sep 2004, 15:44 UTCVoice of America: Colin Powell
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says genocide has taken place -- and may still be occurring -- in Sudan's western Darfur region
Mr. Powell told a Senate panel Thursday the Sudanese government and pro-government militia have carried out murders, rapes, and other assaults against black Africans in Darfur.
He said the violence amounts to genocide because the perpetrators intended to destroy a group of people in whole or in part -- the official definition of genocide under the 1948 Geneva Convention.
"The evidence leads the United States to the conclusion, that genocide has occurred and may still be occurring in Darfur. We believe the evidence corroborate the specific intent of the perpertrators to destroy a group in whole or in part," says Mr. Powell.
That convention allows signatories to call on the United Nations to take action to prevent genocide. Mr. Powell said the United States was calling for a full U.N. investigation, with, in his words, "a view to ensuring accountability."
Mr. Powell said the United States concluded genocide was occurring after interviewing more than 1,000 Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad.
Note: Of course saying it is different than seeing it. Both the UN and the US have been loathe to call it genocide since that requires action by the UN, rather than the feeble efforts which have thus far been attempted solely by African Peace Keeping Forces which have proved to be in-effective in dealing with the crisis.
The majority Arab-Muslim government in Khartoum is actively working to eradicate the Dar-fur Black-Muslim subsistence farmers in West Sudan, which has thus far caused at least a million refugees to have crossed the border into neighboring Chad to escape the rampage.
As Jerry Fowler pointed out in his article: "In Sudan, Staring Genocide in the Face" on June 6th. 2004:
When asked why their villages were attacked and burned, most of the refugees said it was because of their black skin. They believe that the Khartoum-based government of President Omar Hassan Bashir wants to give their land to his Janjaweed allies who, like him, are Arab. Members of the Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other black African tribes will simply have to go. Like the Janjaweed, the Darfurians are Muslims. But culturally and ethnically they retain an African identity, of which they are proud. They also tend to be more settled than the nomadic Janjaweed. Racism undoubtedly does play a part in Bashir's support of the Janjaweed, as the blacks are seen as inferior.
Ironically, the prospects for peace in southern Sudan also contribute to the conflict. Fearing that an end to the generation-long rebellion in southern Sudan will divide access to the country's resources between the ruling elite in Khartoum and the southerners and condemn Darfur to permanent second-class status, some Darfurians launched an armed rebellion in early 2003. Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed and its own military on the black African civilian population. The result was what a team of U.N. investigators last month called a "reign of terror."
All of which is ample evidence to prove again, that genocide and war are two sides of the same coin: an attempt by one group to appropriate the land and assets of another group by force. Those who start wars and genocide are not motivated by a desire to pacify a group, as much as it is to decimate, destroy, and control the assets of another group. This holds true for "The War on Drugs", "The War on Terrorism", "The War In Iraq", etc, etc. Whether this principle is universally true or not really doesn't matter, as the Muslim insurgency makes abundantly clear in the Middle East. Wars are the dark side of our species' hunter-gatherer heritage.
A Detailed Review of Lt. Bush's Guard Service Demonstates He Not Only Was AWOL; but That He Has Attempted to Cover It Up for Thirty Years, While Also Attempting to Imply He Served With Honor When It is Plain He Did Not !
Stung!
A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush's dereliction of
duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.
By Eric Boehlert @ Salon.com
Sept. 9, 2004
On Feb. 13, as controversy swirled around President Bush's
service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, the White House
released more than 400 pages of documents on the press corps, proving, it
claimed, that Bush had served honorably and fulfilled his commitment. The sudden
rush of records, often redundant, jumbled and out of chronological order,
generally left reporters baffled. From Bush's point of view, the document dump
was a political success, as the controversy cooled and the paper trail ran dry.
In retrospect, it's doubtful that even White House aides understood all the
information embedded in the records, specifically the payroll documents. It's
also unlikely they realized how damaging the information could be when read in
the proper context. Seven months later, the document dump is coming back to
haunt the White House, thanks to researcher Paul Lukasiak, who has spent that
time closely examining the paperwork, and more important, analyzing U.S.
statutory law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and
procedures of the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, Lukasiak arrived at the
overwhelming conclusion that not only did Bush walk away from his final two
years of military obligation, coming dangerously close to desertion, but he
attempted to cover up his absenteeism through swindle and fraud.
Lukasiak's findings, detailed on his Web site the AWOL Project, have since been
bolstered and augmented by independent research by the Boston Globe and the
Associated Press. On Wednesday, CBS News reported what may be among the most
damaging details yet: that Bush's squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry
Killian, complained he was being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a
favorable evaluation after he suspended him from flying for failure to take his
annual physical exam. Titled "CYA," Killian's memo concluded, "I'm having
trouble running interference and doing my job."
But for the last several months, Lukasiak has practically had the AWOL story
to himself, as the mainstream media mostly seemed silenced by the big February
document release, the daunting task of decoding military personnel records, and
the repeated refrain from the Bush White House that the president was honorably
discharged. Among the three most compelling conclusions reached by Lukasiak in
his new, meticulous research, are:
Bush's request to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit in 1972, in order to
work on the Senate campaign of a family friend, Lukasiak found, was not designed to be temporary, but
rather was Bush's attempt to sever ties completely with the Texas Air National
Guard and find a new, permanent unit in Alabama for which he was ineligible,
where he wouldn't have to do any training during his final two years. His
superiors in Texas essentially covered for Bush's getaway.
However, the Air
Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colo., which had final say, uncovered
the attempted scam, put an end to it, and admonished Bush's superiors for
endorsing Bush's bogus request. (The CBS News report shows that the locals were
chafing at interference from "higher-ups" presumably connected to the powerful
Bush family.) In the interim, Bush simply ignored his weekend duties for nearly
six straight months, not bothering to show up at military units in either
Alabama or Texas.
- The White House has conceded that Bush missed some required weekend training
drills, but insists Bush promptly made up those drills and earned enough annual
credits for an honorable discharge. In fact, based on the procedures in
place at the time requiring that makeup dates be completed within 15 days before
or 30 days after the date of the drill missed, between half and two-thirds of
the points credited to Bush for substitute training were fraudulent. Some of the
points credited to Bush were "earned" nine weeks beyond the date of the missed
drill. According to Air Force policy, Bush could not have received permission
for substitute training that far outside the accepted parameters. The evidence
is also overwhelming that Bush failed to get authorization for substitute
training in advance, suggesting the points were awarded by the Texas Air
National Guard retroactively and without any supporting paperwork. The
fraudulent points are key, because without them Bush would have fallen far short
of meeting his annual obligation, which meant he should have been transferred to
active duty for 24 months and made eligible for service in Vietnam. - On Oct. 1, 1973, Bush received an honorable discharge from the Texas Air
National Guard in order to move to Boston and attend Harvard Business School,
where he was still obligated to find a unit in Massachusetts to fulfill his
remaining nine months of duty, or face being placed on active duty. Once again,
Bush made no such effort. But the Air Force in Denver, acting retroactively, in
effect overturned Bush's honorable discharge and placed him on "Inactive Status"
effective Sept. 15, 1973. When Bush left Texas, his personnel file was sent to
Denver for review. The ARPC quickly realized Bush had failed to take a required
physical exam, his Texas superior could not account for his whereabouts covering
nearly a 12-month period, and because of absenteeism Bush had failed to
"satisfactorily participate" as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. Bush's
"Inactive Status" meant his relationship with the Air Force (and the Guard) was
severed and he was therefore eligible for the draft.Soon afterward, large gaps began appearing in Bush's paper trail. Lukasiak
concludes that only last-minute intervention, likely from Bush's local Houston
draft board, saved him from active duty, as well as finally securing his
honorable discharge, removing his "Inactive Status." Ironically, that means
strings were pulled to get Bush out of the Guard in 1973, just as they were
pulled to get him enrolled in 1968.The AWOL Project's conclusions are bound to give Dan Bartlett concern. The
White House director of communications has served as Bush's point person over
the last five years regarding inquiries about National Guard service. Dating
back to the 2000 campaign and right up to this day, Bartlett has routinely
changed his stories regarding Bush's service depending on what information was
available to the public. As more and more documents trickle out and it becomes
increasingly obvious Bush received wildly favorable treatment during his Guard
days while doing his best to skirt his duties, Bartlett is left trying to stake
out explanations that haven't already been discredited. And those options are
shrinking.Bartlett's latest flip-flop surrounds Bush's failure to locate a new Guard
unit and fulfill his duty while attending Harvard Business School. In 1999,
Bartlett said Bush had reported for duty at a Massachusetts Guard unit as
required. This week Bartlett conceded to the Boston Globe he must have
"misspoke," because it's clear Bush made no effort whatsoever to serve out his
term while living in Boston. That answer is reminiscent of Bartlett's response
during the 2000 campaign when asked about Bush's failure to take a required
military physical in 1972: "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to
take a flight physical exam." But that response is directly contradicted by the
Air Force Specialty Code, which required a physical regardless of flight status.On Wednesday, Bartlett told CBS News, in response to Jerry Killian's memos,
"It's impossible to read the mind of a dead man." He then reverted to his usual
refrain: "The official files tell the facts," Bartlett said. "And the facts are
President Bush served. He served honorably. And that's why he was honorably
discharged."The shifting explanations and obfuscations coming from the White House are
one reason why the Guard story remains dangerous for Bush. The controversy,
after all, is not merely about how he received a million dollars' worth of free
pilot training and then stiffed the government when it came time to pay it back
in service. It's also about how, for the last decade, Bush and his advisors have
done everything possible to distort, if not erase, the truth about Bush's
service record in order to advance his political career.The detailed research from Lukasiak, a Philadelphia caterer, deals strictly
with the contents of Bush's military service documents, particularly those after
April 1972, when Bush decided -- on his own -- to stop flying. But what's
fascinating is that when recent news reports from Salon, the Associated Press,
CBS and the Boston Globe are layered on top of the AWOL Project research, they
fit together almost seamlessly, revealing a vivid portrait of Bush as a young
man who evaded his military service. - Last week Salon reported that in late 1972 George H.W. Bush
phoned a longtime Bush family confidant in Alabama, Jimmy Allison, to ask if
there was room on the local campaign he was managing for Bush's troublesome son
George, or "Georgie" as he was called. "The impression I had was that Georgie
was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the
family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's
wing," Linda Allison, his widow, told Salon. "After about a month I asked Jimmy
what was Georgie's job, because I couldn't figure it out. I never saw him do
anything," said Allison. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison
said: "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his
life in any way." - This week a new advocacy group calling itself Texans for Truth announced
that it will air a television commercial featuring a former Alabama National
Guard pilot who insists he never saw Bush in 1972 at the small Guard unit at
Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, where the president claims he
served. The pilot, Bob Mintz, has told a consistent tale. In February, he told
the Memphis Flyer newspaper: "There's no way we wouldn't have noticed a strange
rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him." Mintz was
referring to the news on the base that somebody from Texas with political
influence was coming to train with the unit. "I was looking for him,"
Mintz said. - On Wednesday night, on CBS's "60 Minutes," in an interview with Dan Rather,
former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes went public for the first time about how he
pulled strings to get the young Bush a coveted slot, at the height of the
Vietnam War, in the Texas Air National Guard. "I've thought about it an awful
lot and you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did
a few months ago and, I tell you, ... reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it,
but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my
lack of understanding. But it happened and it's not ... something I'm
necessarily proud of."CBS also reported on four documents from the personal files of Col. Jerry
Killian, Bush's squadron commander. One memo ordered Bush to take "an annual
physical examination" -- an order he refused. CBS reports: "On August 1, 1972,
Col. Killian grounded Lt. Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas
Air National Guard standards and for failure to take his annual physical as
ordered. A year after Lt. Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to
write another assessment. Killian's memo, titled 'CYA,' reads he is being
pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation;
to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, 'I'm having trouble
running interference and doing my job.'" - This week, the A.P. reported that a thorough analysis of Bush's military
documents indicates obvious gaps in his service along with equally gratuitous
gaps in his paperwork. Specifically missing are: "A report from the Texas Air
National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good
standing." "Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight
status." "A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders
grounding him." "Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have
after missing more than three training sessions." "A signed statement from Bush
acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer
to another guard unit after leaving Texas." - In February of this year, Salon interviewed Bill Burkett, a
retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, who claims he observed
aides to Bush going through his military file in 1997 to remove any embarrassing
information, tossing documents in the trash, allegedly the types of documents
that might help answer many of the unanswered questions surrounding Bush's Guard
service. "Activities occurred in order to, in my opinion, inappropriately build
a false image of the governor's military service," Burkett told Salon. Burkett
first went public with his accusations in 1998 and has told the same story
consistently for six years. - Also last February, Salon reported that Bush's mysterious decision in the
spring of 1972 to stop flying and subsequently refuse to take a physical exam
came at the same time the Air Force announced its Medical Service Drug Abuse
Testing Program, which meant random drug testing for pilots, including
Guardsmen.Meanwhile, the White House has not been able to produce anything or anybody
with any credibility to contradict the growing body of evidence that suggests
Bush deliberately walked away from his duties and that Bush and his handlers
continue to lie about his military service. Retired Lt. Col. John Calhoun was
the one witness who was brought forward this year to back up Bush's story that
he actually showed up in Alabama. He recalled seeing Bush at training sessions
between "eight to ten times from May to October 1972." Yet not even Bush's own
payroll records suggest he did drills in Alabama at the time Calhoun allegedly
spotted him. (Amazingly, ABC News on Wednesday used Calhoun as a credible
witness to bolster Bush's account, despite the fact that the dates Calhoun cites
don't even match up with Bush's.)There's also no paper trail to support Bush's claim that he completed any
service after 1972. As Lukasiak notes, each substitute training Bush completed,
and there were many, should have generated authorized AF Form 40a's: "All told,
Bush performed 'substitute training' on at least 20 days. Thus there should be,
at the very least, 20 AF Form 40a's with the name of the officer who authorized
the training in advance, the name and signature of the officer who supervised
the training, and Bush's own signature." But not one such form exists.A similar absence of information surrounds Bush's dubious explanation of his
attempted transfer to Alabama. The move should have generated a small mountain
of paperwork. Under normal circumstances, 10 steps are required to transfer:1) The Guardsman announces that he will need to relocate.
2) His personnel officer explains the relocation policies and procedures to
him.3) The Guardsman signs an acknowledgment that he has received the relocation
counseling.4) The personnel officer gives the Guardsman a certification of satisfactory
participation, which he will need to get approval for a transfer.5) The Guardsman locates an appropriate Ready Reserve position with a new
unit, and submits a "Transfer Request Form" (Form 1288) and a new "Ready Reserve
Service Agreement (Form 1644), along with the certification of satisfactory
participation, to the "receiving unit."6) The receiving unit "indorses" the request on the back of the Form 1288,
and provides the Guardsman with certification that an appropriate position is
available in that unit.7) The Guardsman gives Form 1288, Form 1644, the certification of an
appropriate position, and a letter of resignation to his current unit commander.8) The unit commander indorses the request, and forwards it to the state
adjutant general.9) The adjutant general approves the request, and discharges the Guardsman
from the Air National Guard to the Air Force Reserves.10) The Air Force Reserves assigns the former Guardsman to his new unit.
In Bush's case, according to Lukasiak's research, "There is no statement of
counseling, no certification of satisfactory performance, no certification of a
suitable vacancy, no letter of resignation, no discharge papers, no discharge
orders, and no reassignment orders."There are also indications that Bush -- unwilling to fly, take a physical or
report for duty -- was trying to mislead Guard officials with his transfer
application. When asked for his permanent address, Bush listed the P.O. box for
the Alabama campaign headquarters he worked for temporarily. When asked to note
his Air Force Specialty Code, Bush wrote down 1125B, the designation for F-89 or
F-94 pilots. At the time of his transfer request, both of these planes had been
retired from service in all components of the Air Force, including the Guard and
Reserves. Bush's accurate code was 1125D, designing an F-102 pilot. At the time,
F-102 planes were still very much in use. It was an error Bush made more than
once on the application. Lukasiak writes: "The odds of Bush being able to scam
his way into a non-training unit [in Alabama] would be enhanced if his specific
skill set was one which was no longer useful to the Air Force."In May 1972, Bush was informed that the unit in Alabama he requested was
clearly unsuitable for a pilot of his stature, yet he pressed on, and his Texas
superiors endorsed the transfer request and submitted it. But the Denver
headquarters caught the scam and rejected it. The Texas chief of military
personnel sent a curt warning to Bush's unit about the clearly bogus request:
"Attention is invited to basic communication."Lukasiak's work has created a storm in the blogosphere. (He's also a Salon
Table Talk member, and an
active thread is devoted to his research.) He makes no secret of his
conviction that Bush used his family connections to evade the draft. The AWOL
Project concludes: "Bush simply blew off his last two years of required service,
and was able to get away with it because he came from a politically influential
family. There is no other explanation for Bush's records. None."Of course none of that stopped Bush from hyping his military service as he
launched his political career. In 1978, during an unsuccessful run for Congress
in west Texas, Bush produced campaign literature that claimed he had served "in
the US Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard." In 1999, when asked by an
A.P. reporter why Bush had claimed to have served specifically with the U.S. Air
Force when he'd only been in the National Guard, Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes
insisted the claim was accurate because when Bush attended flight school for the
Air National Guard he was considered to be on active duty for the Air Force.
That was plainly false, as the A.P. noted, citing Air Force policy, which stated
Guardsmen are never considered to be members of the Air Force active duty.Just four years after escaping his military obligations, Bush was already
trying to rewrite his military record for political gain. Bush said he strongly
supported the Vietnam War, obscuring how he spent several years, after securing
a safe spot in the National Guard, evading his military obligation. Now
President Bush orders Guardsmen and Reservists to shoulder an unprecedented load
-- physically, financially and emotionally -- in the war in Iraq. As new
information at last begins to emerge about what he really did, Bush and his
aides are still at work covering up the record. His ultimate war is with the
truth about his past.
And More Nastiness from another Republican Office Seeker
Obama says voters, God should judge himTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Democratic Senatorial Candidate Barack Obama, responding to Republican Alan Keyes' claim that Jesus would not vote for Obama in the U.S. Senate race, said Wednesday he will let God judge whether he is a good Christian and Illinois voters judge whether he would make a good senator.
"I don't concern myself too much with Mr. Keyes' judgment on either matter," Obama said.
Keyes has said Obama's support of abortion rights means Jesus could not vote for him. He singled out Obama's opposition to a state Senate bill that supporters said would have protected any fetuses that survived an attempted abortion; critics said the bill was a political stunt that could have restricted access to all abortions.
"Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved," said Keyes, who opposes abortion even when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
During a campaign stop, Obama said he does not question Keyes' religious beliefs and Keyes should give him the same consideration.
"I will leave Mr. Keyes to the theological speculations. My job is to focus on the issues that voters care about - jobs, health care, education," Obama said. He added, "I'm not running to be the minister of Illinois. I'm running to be its United States senator."
He said until a fetus can survive on its own, the issue of abortion is an ethical and religious choice that should be made by the mother.
<------------------------------------->
Note: It certainly appears that several Republican candidates cannot resist making personal attacks against anyone who does not acquiese to the practices, policies, opinions, or religious orientation of the current administration. As has been said by others, "...if you cannot run on your record, you run down your opponent".
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Nasty, Short, Brutish, Uncivil, and Flagrantly Deceptive:
Just Another Republican VP Attack Dog
A Disgraceful Campaign SpeechNY Times Editorial
Published: September 9, 2004
There are some things a presidential campaign should steer clear of, through innate good taste, prudence or just a sensible fear of a voter backlash. We'd have thought that both the Kerry and Bush camps would instinctively know that it would be appalling to suggest that terrorists were rooting for one side or another in this race.
But Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to breach that unspoken barrier this week in Des Moines. If John Kerry was elected president, Mr. Cheney warned the crowd, "the danger is that we'll get hit again." In a long, rather rambling statement, he said the United States might then fall back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set" that "these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts."
At the very best, Mr. Cheney was speaking loosely and carelessly about the area in this campaign that deserves the most careful and serious discussion. It sounds to us more likely that he stepped across a line that the Bush campaign team had flirted with throughout its convention, telling his audience that re-electing the president would be the only way to stay safe from another attack.
There is a danger that we'll be hit again no matter who is elected president this November, as President Bush himself has said on many occasions. The danger might be a bit less if the current administration had chosen to spend less on tax cuts for the wealthy and more on protecting our ports, securing nuclear materials in Russia and establishing an enforceable immigration policy that would keep better track of people who enter the country from abroad.
Immigration and homeland security strategies are policy fights, fair game for a political campaign. What's totally unacceptable is to tell the American people that the mere act of voting for your opponent opens the door to a terrorist attack. For Mr. Cheney to suggest that is flat wrong. There was a time in this country when elected officials knew how to separate the position from the person. The American people, we're sure, would like to return to it.
War...what is it good for?
A Mythic RealityBy PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed
Published: September 7, 2004
The best book I've read about America after 9/11 isn't about either America or 9/11. It's "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," an essay on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent. Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it explains why President Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is ahead in the polls.
War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours," he says, "is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn't our ally is our enemy.
This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power.
One striking part of the book describes Argentina's reaction to the 1982 Falklands war. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the country's military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the public from the failure of his economic policies. It worked: "The junta, which had been on the verge of collapse" just before the war, "instantly became the saviors of the country."
The point is that once war psychology takes hold, the public desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes heroic qualities to even the least deserving ruler. National adulation for the junta ended only after a humiliating military defeat.
George W. Bush isn't General Galtieri: America really was attacked on 9/11, and any president would have followed up with a counterstrike against the Taliban. Yet the Bush administration, like the Argentine junta, derived enormous political benefit from the impulse of a nation at war to rally around its leader.
Another president might have refrained from exploiting that surge of support for partisan gain; Mr. Bush didn't.
And his administration has sought to perpetuate the war psychology that makes such exploitation possible.
Step by step, the fight against Al Qaeda became a universal "war on terror," then a confrontation with the "axis of evil," then a war against all evil everywhere. Nobody knows where it all ends.
What is clear is that whenever political debate turns to Mr. Bush's actual record in office, his popularity sinks. Only by doing whatever it takes to change the subject to the war on terror - not to what he's actually doing about terrorist threats, but to his "leadership," whatever that means - can he get a bump in the polls.
Last week's convention made it clear that Mr. Bush intends to use what's left of his heroic image to win the election, and early polls suggest that the strategy may be working. What can John Kerry do?
Campaigning exclusively on domestic issues won't work. Mr. Bush must be held to account for his dismal record on jobs, health care and the environment. But as Mr. Hedges writes, when war psychology makes a public yearn to believe in its leaders, "there is little that logic or fact or truth can do to alter the experience."
To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn't an effective war leader - he only plays one on TV.
This charge has the virtue of being true. It's hard to find a nonpartisan national security analyst with a good word for the Bush administration's foreign policy. Iraq, in particular, is a slow-motion disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism and epic incompetence.
If I were running the Kerry campaign, I'd remind people frequently about Mr. Bush's flight-suit photo-op, when he declared the end of major combat. In fact, the war goes on unabated. News coverage of Iraq dropped off sharply after the supposed transfer of sovereignty on June 28, but as many American soldiers have died since the transfer as in the original invasion.
And I'd point out that while Mr. Bush spared no effort preparing for his carrier landing - he even received underwater survival training in the White House pool - he didn't prepare for things that actually mattered, like securing and rebuilding Iraq after Baghdad fell.
Will it work? I don't know. But to win, Mr. Kerry must try to puncture the myth that Mr. Bush's handlers have so assiduously created.
Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement, "Only George W. Bush could celebrate over a record budget deficit."
Deficit Analysis and Bush DifferBy EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 - Even if the United States saved billions of dollars by withdrawing all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush would still be unlikely to fulfill his promise to reduce the federal budget deficit by half within five years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
In the final independent assessment of Mr. Bush's fiscal policies before the November election, the Congressional agency predicted that, if no existing laws changed, the federal deficit would see a much smaller decline, to $312 billion in 2009 from a record of $422 billion in 2004.
Vice President Dick Cheney, campaigning in Des Moines, said the report's projected deficit for the current year was about $56 billion less than earlier predicted.
"That's a direct result of economic growth that came about as a result of the tax changes that the president put through, and the Congress supported," Mr. Cheney said.
Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement, "Only George W. Bush could celebrate over a record budget deficit."
Over the next 10 years, the budget office said, the federal debt could swell by $4.9 trillion and climb rapidly after that as the nation's baby boomers start to draw Social Security and Medicare.
If Mr. Bush persuades Congress to make his tax cuts permanent, the federal deficit will increase to about $500 billion in 2009. The new estimate is the first time the Congressional agency has projected that Mr. Bush will probably fail to achieve his goal of reducing the deficit by half in five years.
Deficits have soared under Mr. Bush, who took office when the budget had a surplus of more than $150 billion and is now presiding over the second record deficit in a row.
Measured as a percentage of the total economy, which most economists prefer, the deficit would reach 3.6 percent of the gross domestic product this year - high, but not as big a percentage as the deficits of the 1980's and early 1990's.
But this new report is sobering because Congressional analysts reached their conclusions even when they used extremely optimistic assumptions about war costs in Iraq and robust economic growth over the next few years.
"The message is that you cannot grow your way out of this," said Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office.
If anything, Congressional analysts were more optimistic than the White House or Wall Street about economic growth, predicting that the economy would grow by 4.5 percent this year and 4.1 percent in 2005.
The budget office also estimated the fiscal outlook with three different assumptions about the course of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the possibility that no new money would be needed after this year.
Stripping out all war costs for the two countries after this year, congressional analysts estimated, the federal government would save $536 billion over the next five years. But making Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent, one of the president's top priorities, would cost $549 billion through 2009 and $2.2 trillion through 2014.
The office also took note of the cost to the Treasury of fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, a set of rules that were originally designed to stop people from taking excessive advantage of loopholes. Because the tax is not adjusted for inflation, it is expected to lead to higher taxes for millions of families by the end of the decade. Republicans and Democrats agree they do not want that to happen, but the cost of preventing it would add more than $400 billion to the debt by the end of 2014.
Democrats said the report showed that Mr. Bush, with his tax cuts and spending policies, had been reckless in transforming a record surplus to a record deficit, just a few years before retiring baby-boomers start to drive up Social Security and Medicare entitlement costs by tens of billions of dollars a year.
"When the Bush administration took office in 2001, C.B.O. projected a $397 billion surplus for 2004," said Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "Under the fiscal policies of this administration, the bottom line of the budget has worsened by $819 billion in 2004 alone."
Republicans countered by saying that the federal deficit this year would be smaller, and tax revenues would be higher, than either the administration or the Congressional Budget Office predicted in January and February. "This report underscores that our policies are working to create a stronger economy, more jobs and a lower deficit," said Representative Jim Nussle, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the House Budget Committee.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the main difference between administration and Congressional estimates stemmed from differences in plans to restrain spending on discretionary programs - those that are not part of mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare or part of the government's debt obligations.
"We have very reasonable estimates for growth," Mr. Kolton said. "If spending control is maintained, we can cut the deficit in half over the next five years."
But the Congressional Budget Office's assumptions about discretionary spending were at least as conservative as those of the White House. Congressional analysts assumed that discretionary spending would rise at the rate of inflation, which is running slightly above 2 percent a year. The White House has said it will hold all discretionary spending, including defense spending, to a 4 percent increase each year.
In presenting the latest projections today, Mr. Holtz-Eakin expressed greater concern about the long-term fiscal problems that begin when baby boomers start to retire.
The first impact, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said, will be that the nation's labor force and the overall economy will grow more slowly. The more dramatic impact will be a sharp rise in outlays for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry have promised to cut the budget deficit in half over the next four or five years. But many budget analysts say that five-year goals simply distract attention from much bigger fiscal problems that are expected in the years that immediately follow.
Several of Mr. Bush's tax cuts do not take full effect until 2010. The new Medicare prescription drug program, which is now expected to cost $534 billion over 10 years, will not really get under way until 2006 and will become more expensive each year after that as the number of elderly beneficiaries rises.
More Bush National Guard Records Show Six Month Gap
George Bush's National Guard Records Solidify Six-Month Gap
Once again the Pentagon released another set of records from George W. Bush's military file. The White House had previously insisted that everything had been released yet this is the second occasion in which more documents suddenly appeared as a result of a lawsuit from the Associated Press.
The newly released documents show Bush's flight records during his time served in the Texas Air National Guard. The documents show a six month gap in service that coincides with his pay records. The White House argues that the president was serving in the Alabama National Guard at the time yet no one can recall ever seeing the young Bush at the time.
A new group funded by MoveOn.org, Texans for Truth, is currently running an ad featuring former LtCol. Robert Mintz who served in George Bush's supposed unit within the Alabama National Guard. Mintz states that neither he nor his friends had ever laid eyes upon Bush during that time.
Additionally, it has been revealed that Bush failed to show for a significant drill in which his skills as a pilot were required. Less importantly, the documents show that Bush was a mediocre performer, ranking 22 out of 53 during his flight training.
Several days ago, Ben Barnes, former Lt. Governor of Texas stated that one of his greatest regrets was helping the children of "rich" supporters avoid fighting in Vietnam. One of those young men that he boosted into the Texas Air National Guard was George W. Bush.
In addition to the above, a new book by Kitty Kelley alleges that while John Kerry took gunfire on the rivers of Vietnam, George Bush took bathroom breaks to snort lines of cocaine during his service in the Texas Air National Guard. The book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, is to be released later this month.
Although George Bush had seen a modest boost in the polls following the RNC convention, it is evident that the lead will be short lived as bad news is flowing from every issue this week.
Monday, September 06, 2004
The Washington Monthly has a section entitled: What If Bush Wins
Predictions on the likely consequences of a second term for President Bush.
Sixteen Authors Offer their Outlooks.
