ON REPUBLICAN IRAQ POLICY AND WHY NO GRAND THEFT ELECTION (THEY’RE RELATED)

Column No. 129 By  Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 16, 2006

What’s Happening on Iraq?

As I said in an article on Iraq published on BuzzFlash last month (“So Whassup on Iraq, Jim?” 10/24/06): “the Georgite Iraq policy is in a spin and the Georgites are spinning it as fast as their spinning wheels can carry them.”  Before the election, first there was Repub. Sen. John Warner’s warning that “things weren’t going so well.” Then there was the National Intelligence Estimate from Bush’s own intelligence agencies that, among other things, the US occupation was creating more terrorists than it was killing (which report the totally isolated Bush treated as if it came from another planet).  Then negative stuff “leaked” from certain US generals on the ground.  Then there were the “leaks” from the Baker Commission.

These straws in the wind all indicated that a major overhaul of Administration policy on Iraq was underway, no matter what the figurehead President said during the election campaign. Then after telling the world on the Sunday before the election that Rumsfeld would be in the job until Jan. 20, 2009, on the Wednesday after it Rumsfeld goes and is replaced by Robert Gates, who just happens to be a member of the Baker Commission.  (He’s got some bad Reagan/Bush I Iran hostages and Iran-Contra stuff in his baggage, but that is not why he was picked for this job.)   Whether Bush himself was fully aware of it or not (and he likely did find out for sure on Nov. 13, when the Baker group met with him), the planning to get US forces out of Iraq has been well underway for some time.  But why, and why now?

First and foremost it is because the principal original goals of the invasion, postulated by some, some time ago, have been achieved. Those goals were postulated, for example, by an anonymous friend of mine just after the Iraq invasion in the spring of 2003. I retailed them in a column of mine posted on The Political Junkies.net in the spring of 2004, "You Know Me Al: The Iraq War --- So What was it About, Anyway?" Those goals are the securing of full, independent access to the enormous oil reserves that are thought to lie under Iraqi Kurdistan (yes, the trifurcation of the country will take place, either overtly or covertly), and the completion of a string of permanent US military bases in the Western Iraqi desert.  Second, given what the Dems did with the war issue this time around, there are the political considerations for the Republicans going into the 2008 election.  They would like very much to have this political albatross off their collective necks by then.

Do you think that Jim Baker is talking the path he is taking because he is a nice guy, or a man of principle, or a recent convert to positive internationalism?  Why no.  Jim Baker is a major power broker and the public face of the sector of the US power elite that put George W. Bush in power in the first place --- the extractive and military/aerospace industries and their allies. He was the front man for the Bush Theft in Florida in 2000.  These folks called the shots then and they are calling the shots now. Because their principal goals have been achieved, they are going to figure out a way to get the U.S. out of Iraq as neatly, and as quickly, as possible, with the least possible damage, not to the Iraqis, but to the Republican Party.

They will try to blame the “loss” (when it is really a win for them) on the “stabbed-us-in-the-back” Democrats.  But they have got their oil and they have got their bases and they want to try to get the issue off the main page for the 2008 election.  And they coincidentally have a Democratic Congress (or at least a Democratic House depending upon what Lieberman does when push comes to shove around organizing the Senate) which will make it easier for them to achieve that end on the ground, at the same time their front men in the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda will be blaming the Democratic “cowards” and Republican “turn-coats.”

Gates is hand-picked by Baker to manage the job.  And if Cheney doesn’t get out of the way, he will be gotten out of the way, as I first noted in that BuzzFlash column of Oct. 24, 2006.  Maybe even Bush too, if he doesn’t.  Want a really far-out scenario, as I postulated back then? Bush goes into a sanitarium for undisclosed "problems," and does not re-emerge until he is safely ensconced on his new ranch in Paraguay. Cheney succeeds to the Presidency long enough to appoint Baker to the Vice-Presidency, then resigns for "reasons of health." Baker succeeds to the Presidency and appoints Colin Powell as Vice-President. Both pledge unconditionally to seek no Republican nomination for national office in 2008.

A true Center-Right government is established with the center-Right Democrats of Emanuel-Schumer-Clinton in control of Congress. A center-right government is then elected in 2008, with either McCain, Clinton, or Obama as president. And the country goes back to providing a very good living for the power elite, without the trouble of engaging in endless and very expensive foreign wars.  They may even kiss off Big Pharma and the “health” insurance industry and enact some kind of fairly retrograde national health insurance plan because so many other powers in the economy desperately need it done for cost-containment.  Stay tuned.

Why No Grand Theft Election

I and many others, like Greg Palast and Mike Whitney, firmly predicted that that Rovian Grand Theft Election would be operating at full throttle this time around, and they would do it again, just as they did in 2000 and 2004.  There were indeed scattered instances of voter suppression, both before and during the election, as well as scattered instances (in Florida in particular) of computer tampering.  However, it is quite clear that the computer-tampering operation was shut down nationally. I think that that decision was taken at the highest level.   That it could be shows just how sophisticated the Rovian Grand Theft Election Machine is.  They were able to turn off the switch or switches on very short notice.  And who did that?  Rove, Bush, Cheney?  None of the above, in my view.  The decision was made by the current most powerful single person in America: once again, Jim Baker, representing that powerful element of the power elite he does indeed represent.  And once again, why did they do this?

As noted above, their Iraq goals have been achieved and it is time to get out.  Moderate centrism worked electorally for the Democrats.  Despite opposition from the center-right of the Democratic Party represented by Rahm Emanuel, Howard Dean’s “50 State Solution”  is well on its way to becoming a reality.  With its 6-year electoral dependence on the Christian Right which, if it doesn’t get its way completely picks up its balls (if it has any) and goes home, fizzling out at the polls. All of a sudden the Republican Party that seemed to be on its way to becoming a permanent majority may well be on its way to becoming a permanent minority, and a regional (Southern) one at that.  Instead of Rove’s “Republican Permanent Majority” forever, it may well have lasted only these six years (not even as long as the 12 that their role-model Hitler’s “1000-year Reich” lasted).

Next, in a country with even the only the moderately free press ours has, the blogging nation, lots of lawyers, and a highly decentralized voting system, a massive nation-wide cheat machine can last only just so long before it is exposed.  Finally, Constitutional democracy works very well for the well-to-do in this country, thank you very much.  While some of them obviously like the idea, many, at this time at least, don’t want it replaced by fascism.  It’s not needed now and it wouldn't be good for the economy among other things.  They have gotten a close look at just how much the Christian Right would be interfering with our personal lives, using the force of the criminal law to do so, were it really to be in control through fascism, and they don’t like that at all. That is not to say that the threat is not still there and that liberals and progressives do not have to work very hard to put the fascist beast back into its cage.  But for now at least, a major portion of the power elite has decided to give American democracy as we have known it some breathing room.

DEMOCRATIC IDEAS: POST-ELECTION 2006

Column No. 128 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - NOVEMBER 12, 2006

I began my TPJ column of May 25, 2006, “Ideas for Democrats, I: The Vision,” by noting that in a front page article in The New York Times on May 9, 2006 (“Optimistic, Democrats Debate the Party's Vision”) Robin Toner said: “With Democrats increasingly optimistic about this year's midterm elections and the landscape for 2008, intellectuals in the center and on the left are debating how to sharpen the party's identity and present a clear alternative to the conservatism that has dominated political thought for a generation. . . . . But some of these analysts argue that the party needs something more than a pastiche of policy proposals. It needs a broader vision, a narrative, they say, to return to power and govern effectively.”  To which I said, and say, Amen.

I also noted that such statements were nothing new.  I went on to give several examples, going back to 1987 in a New York Times article of September 25, 1987, E.J. Dionne wrote:  “All Democrats have been searching for language to call America away from the individualism of the Reagan years to a new sense of community.”  We Democrats have not found that language yet.  This column us being written in the week before the 2006 election, for publication after it.  Despite the polls and the over-arching bad news about the Georgites, Bush, and the Republicans in general, I do not believe that as of the time you are reading this, the Democrats will have taken either House.  Not that they in reality will not have won, as they did in both 2000 and 2004.  However, it appears as if the Rovian Grand Theft Election machine is running full throttle and will do the Georgites’ nefarious work once again.  And that will be that.

Of course, I hope that I am wrong.  However, regardless of whether I am or not, the Democrats are going to have to get themselves together for sure this time around, going into 2008.  As I have shared with you before in this series (“Ideas for Democrats, II and III”), I do recognize that there is no “The Democrats” in the sense that there has been a “The Republicans,” or has been at least until the rats started to abandon the sinking ship as the Bush Administration has started falling apart at the seams and Bush himself has become an embarrassment.  However, the non-collaborationist, that is non-DLC, what I shall call “Mainstream Democrats,” and there are plenty of them in the Congress, can come together under a new vision and a new program.  If the election is fixed this time, as I believe it is, this time, unlike in previous times, there will be a huge public outcry, a huge raft of litigation, and possibly some “insider” or even “spy” (well one can hope, can’t one?) exposés.  That will give us at least a fighting chance in 2008.  And so to a review, with some modifications, of my grand plan.

First, for the vision.  As I have noted before, my 1992 book, The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency, found the proposed “Vision for the Democrats” in the very founding documents of our great nation. The New Americanism projects a grand, integrated, overarching, forward-looking domestic and foreign policy based upon the principles of, yes, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Together they provide the Statement of Purpose for our nation, the Statement of Purpose of our National Government, and the Primary Functions of that Government in achieving in the stated Purpose.

Our National Purpose is made clear by the Declaration: to demonstrate unequivocally that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness . . .” The primary Purpose of our National Government is also made clear in the Declaration: “[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men.” The Primary functions of our National Government in achieving this purpose are spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution:  “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  Why this is enough to make a strict constructionist out of anyone (other than the Georgites, of course)!

Then the Mainstream Democrats will have to move on to specifics, and a level, however, rather deeper than “do something (anything) about Iraq,” “raise taxes on the rich,” “health care, education, and the environment.”  We first and foremost have to get back to Constitutional government in this country, and so that is the first focus of my (further) revised “Ten Commitments” that I have shared with you on several previous occasions.  And so, henceforth, the Democratic Party will be committed to:

I.  First and foremost making the protection and promotion of Constitutional Democracy, in accordance with the plain language of the Constitution including the Preamble, the center of the Party’s approach to governing.  A return to the Constitutional System of checks and balances and the requirement that the President fully abide by the Constitution is essential.

II. A return to totally free and fair elections, and a full-scale assault on the Republican strategy of Grand Theft Elections, with guarantee of equal access, voting down with machines and programs held in the public sector, and true campaign finance reform..

III. A full, planned withdrawal from all military activity in Iraq, including the construction and maintenance of all military bases, by a date certain.  This withdrawal is to be accompanied by a reactivation of the Israel/Palestine peace process along the lines of the proposed Geneva Accords.  It is further to be accompanied by a return to the multi-lateral foreign policy that worked so well for our country from the time we entered the Second World War until the advent of Georgites, and a return to abiding by the UN Charter, which forbids “pre-emptive war” of the Georgite type.  (A specific plan for achieving the Iraq withdrawal can be found in my column of Dec. 15, 2005.)

IV. A vision of government that is defined by the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  It understands that big problems require big solutions, that when necessary for the common economic good, government needs to be big, that the Georgite/ Norquist Doctrine of Bathtub Government needs to be flushed down the toilet.  On the other hand, in accord with the prescriptions of the Constitution, when it comes to such matters as belief as to when life begins, freedom of political, moral and ethical expression, and adult personal behavior, government needs to be small.  This is the exact opposite of the Republican, anti-Constitutional view, which wants government to be overwhelmingly big when it comes to said matters of personal belief, rights, liberties, and freedom, and overwhelmingly small when dealing with the economy.

V. In support of this Commitment, a taxation policy designed to share the burden, in accordance with ability to pay, of supporting those actions of government necessary for the full implementation of its responsibilities as set forth in the Preamble.

VI. Also in support of Commitment IV, regulation of the market for goods and services designed to insure that it is both free and fair.

VII. A Pledge of honesty, integrity, openness, and a return to the traditional arms-length relationship between government and the private sector for all elected and politically-appointed government officials.  A specific ethical pledge to which all Democratic candidates for elected office and Democratic nominees for political appointments will be asked to subscribe will be developed.

VIII. The broad and forward projection of the most important Values that define a civil society: pluralism in matters of religion in accordance with the First Amendment; tolerance of difference; the promotion of compassion and sharing the burden, leaving behind the Doctrine of Every Man for Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost; the full promotion of human rights at home and abroad; the understanding that healthy sex is healthy and unhealthy sex is not and that for adults sex is a private matter; and the end to the promotion of the criminalization of personal belief in matters of morality and of adult sexual identity and behavior.

IX. The development of an Energy Policy that will deal with the potentially disastrous and very real problem of global warming, as well as ensuring that ample energy will be available to support modern human life after the petroleum runs out.  This means that the first focus must be on Alternative Energy, only the second on alternative fuels.

X. The establishment of nomination and hiring standards for political appointees designed to ensure competence in government.  A specific list of standards will be developed.

This is where I think the Democratic Party has to go.  If one tries to pick out “what issues can we win with?” first without examining and establishing principles, that is “why” we should win, one almost assures losing (as has been proven over and over again since the election of 1964).  Neither our country, nor indeed the world, nor indeed in my view the human species as we know it, could afford that.

THE US ENABLING ACT, 2006, PART II: WHY BUSH WANTED IT

Column No. 127 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - NOVEMBER 2, 2006

In my previous essay on this subject I examined the similarities between the US Enabling Act of 2006 (referred to in the United States Code by the bureaucratic-sounding name of “The Military Commissions Act”) and the Nazi German Enabling Act of 1933.  I also explored how the US version virtually emasculates major sections of the US Constitution.  This week I am going to briefly review the powers that the Act gives to George Bush and then briefly describe just what are the reasons that he wants them.  Guess what?  It ain’t about “fighting flanking maneuvers” (I mean “terrorism”).

What the Act does (Wikipedia, “Military Commissions Act of 2006”):

*     The Act establishes a new set of US Military Commissions, alongside of those that already exist and have existed in one form or another since the US Army and Navy were founded.  These new Commissions are for the purpose of trying “alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses.”  The purview of the law is retroactive, indefinitely.  That is, it is ex post facto legislation (which just happens to be specifically prohibited by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution).

*     An "unlawful enemy combatant" is “a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant” or before the passage of the Act “has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense” (there’s that ex post facto application, again).

*    "Alien" is defined as "a person who is not a citizen of the United States.”  However, the Act also states that “Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct.”

*     No persons subject to the purview of the Act “may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights.”  The President is authorized to interpret the meaning of the Geneva Conventions as he chooses.

*     Persons detained under the Act have no right to a habeas corpus hearing.  There is no guarantee of a speedy trial, no protection against being required to testify against oneself, no right to any pre-trial hearings, no guarantee against being held in custody indefinitely without any trial of any kind, whatsoever.  There is no right to civilian counsel unless that counsel has “Secret or higher” security clearance (which means that there is no right to choice of counsel).  Hearsay evidence, evidence obtained without a search warrant, evidence obtained when an unspecified “degree of coercion” (most people would call this “torture”) has been applied, are all permitted, but access to evidence termed “classified” is not. A “guilty” vote, even when a death sentence might be imposed, requires only a two-thirds majority of the members of the commission present at the time the vote is taken. Persons charged are protected against double jeopardy.

OK, so that’s the Act in a nutshell.  So why does Bush want it?  Before getting to the question, we do have to examine carefully to whom the law applies.  On the one hand it says clearly “aliens.”  Many Americans, even among those opposed to both Bush and the Act, like Human Rights Watch, have said “phew, well it only applies to aliens, so we really don’t have to worry too much about it.”  But does it really only apply to aliens?  There is that “breach of allegiance to the United States,” ”aids an enemy of the United States” clause.

The Act, specifically ignoring the Constitution itself by, for example, creating ex post facto legislation and wiping out habeas corpus absent rebellion or invasion, thus unconstitutionally gives Bush the power to ignore the Constitution on his own authority as well.  Further, with is numerous unconstitutional “Signing Statements,” unchallenged by Congress, he has said that he can interpret any piece of legislation anyway he wants and indeed can ignore completely any bits he doesn’t like. The Act gives Bush the power to interpret the Geneva Conventions any way he wants to without consulting either the Congress that ratified them or any other of its signatories, after all, and they, according to Article VI of the Constitution, are part of the supreme law of the land.

So what is to prevent him from interpreting the “allegiance” clause to apply to US citizens who aid an “enemy alien,” as defined by the law?  Nothing, as far as I can see, because any person arrested under this Act is denied access to the courts to contest the arrest, as Keith Olbermann pointed out immediately after its passage.  So folks, don’t sleep easy.  Under this “the Constitution is just a scrap of paper,” “the Unitary Executive is all,” President everybody within his reach is subject to permanent incarceration at the discretion of this President or his designee.  Where, you might ask?  Well in Nazi Germany they called those places in which persons were incarcerated under the same kinds of laws and by the same means “concentration camps.”  (It has been reported that Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of Bush's "unlawful enemy combatants." Why could not Americans be among them? 10-10 http://www.alternet.org/rights/42458/? It has been speculated in fact, that there are up to 800 of such facilities available for potential use, http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1062).

So then why did Bush want this law and why did he want it so badly? He doesn't need it to go after "terrorists." He has had plenty of tools to do that, and in fact has used them little.  It happens that Bush has never offered even one little reason why the present law doesn’t work for him in “fighting flanking maneuvers” (oops, I mean “terrorism”) and why he needs this one.  He has had large numbers of men under permanent confinement for a number of years now.  He has had a military court system that under pre-existing US law is plenty tough enough and military prisons are tough enough without using torture, even of the simple hooding, sensory deprivation (shown on the front cover of Newsday some time ago), water boarding type.  Why doesn't he want to use that system?  Why does he keep saying “now we can really get them” when he certainly could have “gotten them” before (that is, if he had the evidence --- details, details).  Why secret courts?  With evidence, one certainly could convict real terrorists in regular US military courts.

Well first, the Georgites are terrified of what would likely, or least might well, come out in open court under the time-honored procedures provided for by the US Constitution.  Apparently, many of the current prisoners are totally innocent of any sort of “crime against the United States” and were picked up on whims or at the behest of other intelligence services (and now we will never know).  Many of the captives are apparently (now we will never know) nothing more than political activists.  The Georgites are terrified of what the prisoners might say in open court on direct examination about how they have been treated and about the total lack of evidence for the US incarceration of them in the first place.

If those who indeed were terrorists or involved in some way in terrorist plots, the Georgites are terrified about what they might reveal about what really happened in the plots, successful or not, possible US or other Western complicity in them, what they might know about the US letting Osama go, where he is now, that he might indeed be a US asset, very useful for Georgite propaganda purposes, and so one and so forth.  These are indeed potentially dangerous men, potentially dangerous that is to the political interests and political power of the Georgite Regime.

So if he doesn’t want/need it to “fight terrorism,” why does he want it?  For two reasons.  First, it does establish the “Unitary Executive” that has been a gleam in Cheney’s eye since the Watergate days.  As I showed last week, it shreds most of the basic individual rights guaranteed until now by the Constitution.  It has established the precedent that Congress may amend the Constitution on its own authority without bothering to go through the amendment process that is detailed in Article V of the Constitution.  It also gives the President the power to amend the Constitution on his own authority through the “interpret the Geneva Conventions as he chooses” clause.  For this “to-hell-with-the-law-I’ll-do-what-I-want” President (again see the “Signing Statements” and what they say) there is one kind of legal precedent that is important: the kind established in this law.  Remember, he took the nation into war on the basis of a very vague Congressional resolution on “combating terrorism,” saying that it was enough.  With this law as precedent, this President could go to town further shredding the Constitution, for example, on his own authority because of the authority it gives him to “interpret” the Geneva Conventions.

Second, it now becomes obvious that the primary intended use is for future domestic repression.  The Georgites know what will begin to happen in this country if: Bush starts trying to use the powers given to him by the US Enabling Act to begin to selectively lock up opponents of the regime such as, for example, anti-Georgites who publish regularly on one or more websites; the War on Iraq continues and the opposition to it becomes overwhelming and reaches the street demonstration stage; the economy goes further south for the average American worker, what the numbers are put out by the Georgites and a militant organize labor movement is re-born; the regime attempts to fulfill its pledges to the Christian Right to criminalize personal beliefs and behaviors not in accord with their religious dogma; Bush further expands his dictatorial powers through actions of the Republican Congress coupled with is “Signing Statements;” a Georgite Supreme Court endorses all of the above and maybe even outs itself totally out of the business of protecting the personal rights and liberties guaranteed under the constitution; Bush cancels the 2008 elections by creating another 9/11 and declaring a “National Emergency.”

Back at the beginning of 2005 I wrote a series in this space entitled “The Coming Second Civil War.”  The US Enabling Act of 2006 has brought it several giant steps closer.