On Torture and Being "Good Americans"

On Torture and Being "Good Americans"

"Gestapo interrogation methods included: repeated near drownings of a prisoner in a bathtub."
The History Place

"The CIA officers say 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk, with debatable results."
—Brian Ross, ABC World News Tonight, November 18, 2005

"When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief…Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said."
—"Bush Could Bypass Torture Ban," Boston Globe

As a teenager, I could not understand how the German people could claim to be "good Germans," unaware of what the Nazis had done in their names. I could understand if these ordinary German people had said they had known and been horrified, but were afraid to speak up. But they would then be "weak or fearful or indifferent Germans," not "good Germans." The idea that only the Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust made no sense. Whatever the Germans as a whole know about the concentration camps, they certainly knew about the systematic mistreatment of Jews that had occurred before their very eyes, and from which so many had profited. And if they were not really "good Germans," what should or could they have done, given the reality of Nazi tyranny?

The issue became personal for me in the summer of 1961, when I hitchhiked through Europe with a lovely German woman named Inge. Still in love after an idyllic summer, we visited Hyde Park the day before I was to return home. A bearded, middle-aged concentration-camp survivor was angrily attacking the German people for standing by and letting the Jews be slaughtered. I was moved beyond words. Suddenly the woman I loved began yelling angrily at him, screaming that the Germans did not know, that her father had just been a soldier and was not responsible for the Holocaust.

Our relationship essentially ended then and there. I understood intellectually that she was just defending her father and was neither an anti-Semite nor an evil person. But there it was. She on one side. The survivor on the other. A gulf between them. Whatever my head said, my heart knew that the world is divided into evil-doers, their victims, and those like Inge who do not want to know. And that I had no choice but to stand with the victims.

I never dreamed at that moment that I, as an American, would a few years later face this same question as my government committed mass murder of civilians in Indochina in violation of the Nuremberg Principles. Or that more than four decades later I would still be struggling with what it means to be a "good American" after learning that a group of U.S. leaders has unilaterally seized the right to torture anyone it chooses without evidence and in violation of international law, I detest it human decency, and the sacrifice of the many Americans who have died fighting autocracy and totalitarianism.

Bush Embraces Torture

To ask what it means to be a "good American"is not to compare Bush to Hitler or Republicans to Nazis. The question does not arise only when leaders engage in mass murder on the scale of a Hitler or Stalin, which Bush has not. It requires only that they engage in actions that are clearly evil, which Bush has.

Every generation or so an evil arises which is so monstrous, so degrading to the human spirit, so morally bankrupt that even to debate it is a sign of moral corruption. Native American genocide, slavery, totalitarianism, and Jim Crow laws are evils so unspeakable that we cannot understand today how anyone with a shred of decency could have once supported them. Today, torture, a practice far more degrading to us than to our victims, represents such an evil.

The issue has become urgent because Bush has chosen to demand the legal right to torture anyone he wishes. When torture was revealed at Abu Ghraib, the administration—falsely and shamelessly—attempted to shift its own responsibility onto foot-soldiers like Lynndie England. Since then, however, leaks have revealed that the CIA has tortured terrorist suspects all around the world, using techniques like "waterboarding." In response, Senator John McCain proposed an amendment, attached to the 2006 Defense bill, that would ban torture.

Bush's first response to McCain's amendment was to threaten to veto the Defense Bill if it passed. When it became clear that McCain's amendment would pass by an overwhelming majority (it passed in by a 90-9 margin in the end), Bush reversed course and said he would support the amendment. Yet when he actually signed the bill, Bush added something called a "signing statement" in which he reserved the right to do whatever he chooses as Commander-in-Chief to "protect the American people from further terrorist attacks." In short, even as he signed McCain's amendment, Bush let it be known that he intends to ignore it as he sees fit.

Bush's demand is unprecedented. No leader in all human history, not even Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, has publicly demanded the right to torture. All others have behaved as Bush did before the amendment when he secretly tortured on a scale unseen in American history even while saying he wasn't. Forced into the open by the McCain amendment, however, Bush chose to openly demand the legal right to torture. Most experts assume he will continue to torture.

It is important to understand what this means. Bush justifies his right to torture on the grounds of saving American lives in a global "war on terrorism." Unlike previous wars, however, this war will never end. On the contrary, Bush's bungling of the war on terror—including the increased Muslim hatred of the United States that the practice of torture has caused—makes it more likely that there will be another domestic 9/11, leading in turn to more demands to torture. Bush's assertion of his right to torture, therefore, would make torture a permanent and growing instrument of U.S. state policy. B*SH*IT

Also, by opposing the McCain amendment, Bush took direct responsibility for the torture he and his administration have inflicted on countless suspects. As you read these words, people are screaming in agony from Gestapo techniques used in CIA and "allied" torture chambers around the world. Many or even most of the victims are innocent. The New Republic has noted that "Pentagon reports have acknowledged that up to 90 percent of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, many of whom were abused and tortured, were not guilty of anything.... And Abu Ghraib produced a tiny fraction of the number of abuse, torture, and murder cases that have been subsequently revealed."

Mr. Bush's statement that "we do not torture," even as he was threatening to veto the entire Defense bill because it limited his right to torture, is a dramatic example of how torture degrades the torturer even more than it does his victims. And it is a disgraceful commentary on our nation that no major church, business, or political leader, nor the fawning media personalities who interview him and his officials, has expressed outrage at this bald-faced lie. And one can barely mention an unspeakable Congress, which ignored his lying about torture after spending two years impeaching his predecessor for lying about sex.

The real question for us, however, is what this says not about President Bush and our other leaders, but about ourselves. What are we, as citizens, as human beings, willing to live with? Are we willing to live with a President, Vice-President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and Attorney-General who either engage in or rationalize torture in our names, even as they shamelessly deny they are doing so? NO

If we are willing to live with this evil, the torture will continue. If not, it can be brought to an end. Who are we?

Becoming "Good Americans"

We are in some ways more morally compromised than the "good Germans" of the 1930s. To begin with, we are far less able to claim we do not know. Our daily newspapers regularly report new revelations of Bush administration torture.

Second, by opposing torture, we face far less severe threats than did Germans who tried to help Jews. Even the strong possibility that we could become targets of illegal spying by this administration for protesting its torture is far less frightening than the death or imprisonment faced by Germans who helped Jews.

And, third, unlike the Germans, we cannot reasonably claim that it is futile to oppose our leaders. Creating or joining an organized effort to prevent torture can succeed because we possess one great advantage that human rights advocates in Germany did not have: the public is with us. Most Americans abhor torture and can understand the argument that it does not protect American lives. This is why the McCain amendment enjoyed 90 percent majorities in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, and why it is possible to bring to power leaders who are not committed to torture.

If we can build a movement to limit and ultimately remove from power those who torture, and thus endanger our lives, we will be achieving other important goals as well.

We will be building support for international law, which is one of humanity's few frail protections against far greater violence. If we can implement international law against torture, perhaps we can extend it to preventing the murder of civilians or aggressive war. We will be reaffirming America's once-strong commitment to building the kind of new international order that is required to reduce international terrorism, and fostering a world in which U.S. leaders would once again be respected as fighters for human decency rather than despised as threats to it.

We will bring the once-powerful but forgotten force of morality and nonviolent action—for civil rights, for peace, for women's rights—back into our politics. A false morality that claims to love Jesus while torturing and killing in his name will be replaced by an authentic morality that seeks to address the root-causes of terrorism and violence.

We will thus also join this renewed moral force with a practical strategy that can actually protect us from terrorism. Torture is only the most dramatic example of how Bush has endangered our lives by bungling the war on terrorism. He has also dangerously neglected homeland security, alienated world opinion, helped Al Qaeda grow in numbers and fervor, wasted vast resources in Iraq in ways that increase terrorist ranks, failed to build an effective democracy in Afghanistan, failed to bring peace to the Middle East, and failed to address the poverty that fuels anti-American terrorism. Ending torture is a necessary precondition to developing an effective strategy that will actually protect rather than endanger Americans.

And we will strengthen democracy at home. Nothing is more un-American and undemocratic than the idea that a small group of executive branch leaders should be free to torture, kill, and spy at will. This idea is in fact precisely what generations of Americans have died fighting against. Ending Bush's use of torture will be the beginning of restoring an accountable and democratic government to this nation.

Conservative Totalitarianism

Ending torture will have a major impact beyond torture itself for a simple reason: as slavery was the linchpin to the entire pre-bellum Southern social order, torture has become integral to today's conservative ideology. Conservative ideology was once a coherent set of ideas built around limiting state power over the individual. It has today degenerated into a rationale for expanding executive power over the individual, including not only the right to torture but the right to spy on citizens, wage aggressive war while lying about it, prevent gay people from marrying, deny a woman the right to an abortion, publish disguised government propaganda in the media, and even deny us the right to die in peace if conservatives decree that we must live as vegetables or in unendurable pain.

It is no coincidence that the executive's right to torture was defended not ony by Bush and Cheney, but also by conservative ideologues at The Weekly Standard, financed by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and edited by William Kristol, who published a cover story by Charles Krauthammer—widely admired in conservative circles—which declared that "we must all be prepared to torture" to save American lives. Or that the The National Review opined that "if McCain's amendment becomes law ... we will then be able to apply only methods formulated to deal with conventional soldiers in a different sort of conflict than the one that faces us now. This is folly."

Today's conservative movement has been reduced to a set of impulses, above all a totalitarian impulse to support the expansion of autocratic power it was founded to restrain. Since its ideological blinders prevent it from developing sensible measures to reduce terrorism, it has turned to justifying only those policies that expand executive power and seek to rule through coercion, threats, and violence.

Whatever a movement to abolish torture will achieve for society, it is clear what participating in it means for each of us as individuals. It means above all that our children and grandchildren will not remember us with shame, that they will not one day have to try to justify to our victims our failure to oppose the torture being conducted in our names, and that the term "good Americans" will mean just that, and not become an excuse for fear or indifference.

When we fight to end torture we are not only fighting for human decency, international law, democracy, and freedom. We are fighting for ourselves.

U.S. Rapped for Refusing Visas as Iraqi Women Embark on Unique Visit

U.S. Rapped for Refusing Visas as Iraqi Women Embark on Unique Visit

NEW YORK - The U.S. government is unduly restricting visits by victims of the Iraq war, peace groups say as they prepare to host a scaled-down delegation of Iraqi women on a first-of-its-kind speaking tour of America.

The seven-woman delegation, due to begin its visit on Sunday, was to have comprised nine Iraqi women who have lost family members and suffered in other ways as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of their country, said tour organizers at the CODEPINK women's peace collective and the rights advocacy group Global Exchange.

Two women whose husbands and children were killed, reportedly at the hands of the U.S. military, were denied visa requests on the grounds that they have no family to return to in Iraq, said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of both U.S.-based organizations. Thats the most ignorant thing I have ever heard, but this is America under Bush...

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department informed activists who had invited the Iraqi women that the two--Anwar Kadhim Jawad and Vivian Salim Mati--had ''failed to overcome the presumption of intending to emigrate,'' Benjamin said.

''It's really disgusting,'' she told OneWorld. ''These women have no desire to stay in the United States. We had a very hard time convincing them to come.''

Jodie Evans, a member of CODEPINK who met Anwar in Baghdad two years ago, said ''we all cried when we heard Anwar tell her story about losing her husband and three children.''

''If the American people heard these stories, their image of the Iraq war would be completely different,'' Evans added. ''I suppose that is why the State Department does not want her to come here.'' exactly

Anwar's husband and four children were driving down a road one day when they were suddenly caught in a hail of bullets from an unmarked U.S. checkpoint, according to sources who have visited Baghdad. Anwar was pregnant at the time. Only her 14-year-old daughter survived the attack.

The U.S. Army has compensated Anwar with $11,000 but she has described her loss as ''incalculable'' and her grief as ''immeasurable.''

''In my family, like many Iraqi families, the husband takes care of all the family business. My job is to take care of the well being of the family inside the house while my husband's job is to take care of everything else,'' Susan Galleymore, a US military mother who visited Baghdad in 2004, quoted Anwar as telling her.

''Now I have no husband. I have no income. I have no house any more. I live with my parents and these two children. Everything else is gone. I will never recover,'' Anwar was quoted as saying.

Vivian, the other woman whose visa application was rejected, and her family had decided to flee their home when the U.S. military began bombing their neighborhood three days after entering Baghdad, according to an account published by CODEPINK.

Vivian's husband drove the family car, with their three children sitting in the back, when they crossed paths with a U.S. tank. The U.S. soldier atop the tank began shouting at them and within moments her husband and three children were killed. She, too, was hurt but survived, the group said.

As of Thursday morning, at least 2,303 U.S. personnel had died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.

The U.S. government provides no record of local civilian casualties but research published last year by the British medical journal The Lancet concluded that the war had claimed at least 10,000 civilian lives in Iraq.

Peace activists said they hoped the Iraqi women's stories would highlight the plight of ordinary Iraqis.

''These women are not politicians but ordinary Iraqis who are desperate to see an end to the violence and are taking great personal risk to come to the U.S.,'' said Benjamin. ''It's a rare opportunity to hear from Iraqis themselves, and we hope that U.S. officials will listen.''

The seven-woman delegation's U.S. itinerary includes a stop in New York on March 6 to deliver to Washington's U.N. representatives the ''Women's Call for Peace,'' a document signed by more than 50,000 women from around the world and calling for a raft of measures designed to stop the bloodshed in Iraq.

Had Anwar and Vivian been allowed into the United States, said Benjamin, ''they would have spoken at public events and with policymakers and newspaper editors. They would have told them stories about the horrors of war.''

Despite the setback, the seven women who were granted visas--and who also have lost dear ones in the war--would attend public events in New York and Washington, organizers said. This, they added, would be the first time since the invasion that Iraqi victims of war would visit the United States. So far, only pro-U.S. Iraqi politicians and government officials have been allowed onshore.

The women on the delegation come from diverse ethnic, religious, and professional backgrounds ranging from journalism to civil engineering and medicine. They are scheduled to meet United Nations officials in New York and U.S. government officials in Washington next week.

Celebrities to have signed on to the women's peace campaign include film star Susan Sarandon, playwright Eve Ensler, comedienne Margaret Cho, and award-winning authors Alice Walker, Anne Lamott, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Barbara Ehrenreich.

Cindy Sheehan, the founder of Gold Star Families for Peace whose son Casey was killed while serving the U.S. Army in Iraq, and whose subsequent vigil near President George W. Bush's Texas ranch to demand a face-to-face meeting garnered massive media attention, was among the campaign's first signatories.

''The pain that this war has caused for people all over the world is unimaginable,'' Sheehan said in a statement. Women, she added, ''are ready to stand together to make our leaders end this mess.'

GOP Growing Increasingly Angry, Frightened by Bush's Missteps

GOP Growing Increasingly Angry, Frightened by Bush's Missteps

WASHINGTON - President Bush, once the seemingly invincible vanguard of a new Republican majority, could be endangering his party's hold on power as the GOP heads into this year's midterm congressional elections.

A series of political missteps has raised questions about the Bush administration's candor, competence and credibility and left the White House off-balance, off-message and unable to command either the nation's policy agenda or its politics the way the president did during his first term.

This week, newly released video of Bush listening passively to warnings about the dire threat posed by Hurricane Katrina and a report that intelligence analysts warned for more than two years that the insurgency in Iraq could swell into a civil war provided fresh fodder for charges that the president ignores unwelcome alarms.

His attacks on those who questioned his administration's approval of a seaports deal with the United Arab Emirates and his ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court have angered some conservatives and Republican members of Congress.

And even some Bush supporters remain anxious about the economy, the federal deficit, the war in Iraq and the extent of the administration's warrantless wiretapping.

"The White House has been taking it on the chin lately, and the reverberations are being felt throughout the GOP," Republican blogger Bobby Eberle wrote this week. "From the Harriet Miers nomination to the Dubai Ports and more, the folks in charge of message strategy appear to be asleep at the wheel."

Said Republican pollster Ed Goeas: "If this environment holds, you have to assume it's going to tip for the Democrats."

That's not to say that second-term blues are unique to Bush, the environment will hold or that Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives or the Senate in November. Polls show that Republicans still have the edge on the crucial question of which party is more trusted to defend the country against terrorists, for example.

But eight months before the election, Democrats are growing bolder, and many Republicans are getting nervous about the president's stewardship and his ability to regain the upper hand.

Bush's approval ratings remain stuck between 38 percent and 46 percent in four new polls released Thursday. The only one that found nearly as great a drop as a CBS poll earlier this week was a survey by Fox News. The Fox poll put Bush's approval rating at 39 percent, down from 44 percent in early February; the CBS poll put it at 34 percent, down from 42 percent in January.

Growing doubts about the administration's case for and conduct of the war in Iraq have kept the president from reversing his slide, and now his administration's missteps are making it even harder for him to regain his footing.

When conservatives challenged the ports deal, for example, Bush threatened to veto any legislation blocking it, then all but accused his critics of racism for opposing an Arab company.

"I've been helpful out here on the campaign trail, backing the president on eavesdropping, defending them on Iraq and Social Security, and then you have this thrown on your lap without any consideration," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. "Then the threat of a veto, that really took my breath away."

"I didn't think his choice of words there was really good," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. "And I thought his veto threat was untimely and inappropriate."

"It certainly is the perfect storm of aggravating or provoking congressional egos and the president getting his back up and saying the least diplomatic thing he could have said," said Michael Franc, a former Republican aide in Congress who's now a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center in Washington.

Moreover, Bush's remarks reminded conservatives of the fact that the White House accused them of sexism when they challenged the Miers nomination. They didn't like that, either.

The president still has Republican support. The Battleground Poll found that 86 percent of Republicans approve of the way he's doing his job. It found that he's still supported by voters in the South, Central Plains and Mountain West, by men, married voters with children, conservatives and white conservative Christians. (The poll was conducted by Goeas and Democrat Celinda Lake.)

Yet Republican enthusiasm has waned, a potentially troubling trend that could hamper GOP turnout this fall.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that the ranks of Republicans who say they strongly approve of Bush's job performance had dropped by 15 percentage points. Similarly, strong approval from conservatives dropped by 14 points, and approval from white married men dropped by 14 points.

"Our analysis," Greenberg said, "shows a sharp slippage among white rural voters and blue-collar men as well as the best educated and upscale married men, even before the last controversies around port security and the Iraq `civil war.'"

---

The CBS News poll this week that showed President Bush's approval rating dropping sharply to 34 percent was widely criticized and quickly contradicted by two other polls.

The Democracy Corps, a Democratic group, released a poll on Thursday showing Bush's approval rating at 42 percent. The Battleground Poll, a bipartisan survey sponsored by George Washington University, released a poll Thursday showing it at 46 percent.

However, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, also released on Thursday, put Bush's approval rating at 39 percent, and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released the same day put it at 38 percent.

Why did the results vary so widely?

Critics said that CBS' pollsters talked to too many Democrats, skewing the results against Bush. Their first sample had 40 percent Democrats and 27 percent Republicans. Then they applied a mathematical formula, called "weighting," to make it more representative. Then it was 37 percent Democrats, 28 percent Republicans. Critics said that was still off.

Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, said that even if it were weighted again to give equal weight to Democratic, Republican and independent voices, it would have shown a Bush approval rating of 37 percent - well within the margins of error of the Fox and CNN\USA Today\Gallup polls.

The bottom line: Polls sometimes are wrong. To feel more confident about public opinion, it's better to look at more than one of them.

For more on the Battleground Poll, go to www.gwnewscenter.org

For more on the Democracy Corps poll, go to www.democracycorps.org

For more on the Fox News poll, go to http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/poll(underscore)030206.pdf

For more on the CBS News poll, go to

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll(underscore)bush(underscore)022706.pdf

For more on the CNN\USA Today\Gallup poll, go to http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/03/02/rel7a.pdf

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(The Battleground poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted Feb. 12-15 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The Democracy Corps poll of 1,135 likely voters was conducted Feb. 23-27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of 900 registered voters was conducted Feb. 28-March 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,020 adults was conducted Feb. 28-March 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The CBS News poll of a nationwide random sample of 1,018 adults was conducted Feb. 22-26 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.)

Nuclear Pact between U.S., India Draws Fire

Nuclear Pact between U.S., India Draws Fire

NEW DELHI - A landmark nuclear pact reached Thursday by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh faced tough scrutiny by Congress and international regulators amid concerns that it would allow India to expand its nuclear arsenal by hundreds of weapons.

An ariel view shows protesters gathering during a demonstration against U.S. President George W. Bush in Mumbai March 2, 2006. India and the United States sealed a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation pact on Thursday, the centrepiece of Bush's first visit to the world's largest democracy. REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe

If approved by Congress, the accord would recognize India as a nuclear military power and herald a major expansion in ties between the world's largest democracy and the United States after decades of strained relations.

"What this agreement says is things change. Times change," Bush said, appearing with Singh at Hyderabad House, the Indian government's guest residence.

"We have made history today, and I thank you," Singh said.

Some U.S. lawmakers and many arms-control experts said the pact would undercut the global system designed to halt the spread of nuclear arms, making it harder to rein in suspected Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation that would block the deal, said it made a mockery of the cornerstone of the system, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which India never signed.

"With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by," Markey said. "It empowers the hawks in every rogue nation to put their nuclear weapons plans on steroids."

While welcoming the accord, several senior Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said they would give it a rigorous review.

The accord also will have to pass muster with the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. It was formed to regulate civilian nuclear trade after India detonated a device in 1974 using plutonium obtained from a Canadian-made civilian reactor that was supplied with heavy water by the United States.

The group decides matters by consensus. Several members expressed misgivings with the India-U.S. agreement.

The accord would end India's status as a nuclear renegade and clear the way for U.S. companies to sell civilian nuclear equipment to India. In return, India would declare 14 of 22 reactors part of its civilian program and place them under international monitoring.

Bush said Americans would benefit because increased use of nuclear power in India would reduce global demand for oil. With 1.1 billion people and one of the world's fastest growing economies, India is consuming a larger share of global energy supplies, a key force behind rising oil prices.

"Our Congress has got to understand that it's in our economic interest that India have a nuclear power industry," Bush said.

In addition to approving the pact, Congress would have to pass legislation exempting India from a 1978 law banning nuclear trade with nations that conduct nuclear test explosions or don't accept comprehensive safeguards laid out by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei called the deal "a step forward towards universalization of the international safeguards regime."

The accord, however, excluded important parts of India's nuclear program from safeguards.

Eight reactors wouldn't be covered by the safeguards and could remain sources of plutonium for weapons. The facilities include several civilian power plants and a fast-breeder reactor that will produce large amounts of plutonium.

While many details of the agreement weren't disclosed, experts said that safeguards also wouldn't cover existing spent reactor fuel, which contains enough plutonium for more than 1,000 weapons, and a facility for enriching uranium, which also can be used to make nuclear weapons.

"The bottom line is that this deal would allow India to significantly increase its nuclear weapons arsenal and provides precious little safeguarding," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "This is a nonproliferation nothing-burger, and Congress will see it as that if they look carefully."

India has an estimated 50 to 60 nuclear warheads, according to a September report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. arms-control group.

Kimball also said India has shown interest in buying nuclear technology from other countries, including France and Russia. "There is no guarantee of special treatment for U.S. nuclear suppliers," he said.

Stephen Cohen, an India expert at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan policy research group, downplayed the danger that India would greatly expand its arsenal. Such a move wouldn't be in India's interest because it could trigger a nuclear arms race with Pakistan and China and prompt a reversal in U.S. policy, he said.

"It's not a perfect deal in the sense that we haven't captured 100 percent of India's nuclear program," conceded Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the lead U.S. negotiator. "Part of its nuclear industry is to serve its nuclear weapons program. But the majority of the program will now come under international inspection."

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, was expected to seek a similar agreement when Bush visits Islamabad, the capital, on Friday.

But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said Pakistan couldn't expect the same treatment. "Pakistan is not in the same place as India," she said.

Washington rejects such an arrangement with Islamabad because a smuggling network led by the founder of the country's nuclear program secretly sold Pakistani weapons-related technology and know-how to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

China, which maintains close economic and military ties with Islamabad, is expected to demand that it be allowed to sell civilian nuclear technology to Pakistan in return for supporting the Indo-U.S. accord within the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Burns pointed out that there have been no proliferation problems with India. He also noted that while India developed its program indigenously, Pakistan built its arsenal with stolen Western technology.

Relations between India and the United States deteriorated during the Cold War, when India sided with the Soviet Union and Pakistan allied with the United States.

Tensions increased after India's 1974 test explosion and worsened in 1998, when India conducted underground test blasts and declared that it had nuclear weapons. Pakistan followed with its own test explosions.

New Leadership Crisis as Iraq Descends into Anarchy

New Leadership Crisis as Iraq Descends into Anarchy

A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shia section of Baghdad and a senior Sunni leader escaped assassination as at least 36 people were killed yesterday in a surge of violence that pushed Iraq closer still to sectarian civil war.

An Iraqi,left, mourns his policeman brother who was shot dead by unknown gunmen along with three other colleagues, in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 2, 2006. A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shiite section of Baghdad and a senior Sunni leader escaped assassination as another 36 people were killed Thursday in a surge of violence that has pushed Iraq closer than ever to sectarian civil war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ibrahim)

An aide to Ibrahim al- Jaafari, the Prime Minister, meanwhile, lashed out at Sunni, Kurdish and secular political leaders who have mounted a campaign to deny him another term, saying the Shia United Iraqi alliance will not change its candidate.

Haider al-Ibadi accused Mr Jaafari's critics of trying to delay the formation of a new government. "There are some elements who have personal differences with Mr Jaafari. The Alliance is still sticking to its candidate," he said.

Leaders of three parties, including Sunnis, Kurds and the secularists of the former prime minister Iyad Allawi, agreed on Wednesday to ask the main Shia bloc to withdraw Mr Jaafari's nomination for prime minister. Shia officials confirmed receiving a letter asking them to put forward a new candidate.

The move raises a new hurdle in US-backed talks on an inclusive government, which broke down last week when Sunni parties pulled out in protest against attacks on Sunni mosques triggered by the bombing on 22 February of the golden-domed Askari shrine, a Shia mosque in the central city of Samarra.

Hundreds were killed in the sectarian fury that followed. They included 45 Sunni preachers and mosque staff, according to Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, the head of the government's Sunni Endowment, which takes care of Sunni mosques and shrines. He told a news conference that 37 Sunni mosques were destroyed and 86 were damaged by grenades, rockets or gunfire. Six others remained in the hands of Shia militiamen, he said.

Yesterday's bomb attack in the Baghdad vegetable market killed at least eight people and wounded 14. Police evacuated the market after finding a second bomb. Another bomb exploded in a minibus travelling through Sadr City, a Shia ghetto in the Baghdad, killing five.

Gunmen also attacked the car of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the senior Sunni cleric who leads the Sunnis' largest parliamentary bloc. One bodyguard was killed. Mr Dulaimi had already sped away in another vehicle.

In the aftermath of the attacks, the government announced a one-day ban on private vehicles in Baghdad and its outskirts.Police and army were instructed to seal off the capital and seize any private vehicles that defy the ban.

MPs Recall Straw as Air Traffic Controllers Confirm 200 CIA Flights

MPs Recall Straw as Air Traffic Controllers Confirm 200 CIA Flights

MPs will today chastise ministers over their stance on the US practice of "extraordinary rendition" amid the first official admission that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace.

In a report highly critical of the government's attitude towards human rights abuses, the Commons foreign affairs committee accuses ministers of failing in their duty to find out whether Britain has been complicit in the US policy of secretly transferring detainees to places where they risked being tortured.

Members of the committee say they have not been told the full story despite months of trying. They are to summon the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to give evidence again on an issue which has serious political and legal implications. The move was agreed after Mr Straw suggested he would be questioned in private only by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, Paul Keetch, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons foreign affairs group, said yesterday.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) confirmed yesterday that two aircraft believed to have been chartered by the CIA made "around 200 journeys" through British airspace within the past five years.

The flights of the two planes, one a Gulfstream, the other a Boeing 737, were identified by the Guardian last September. Britain and the US have not denied reports that the planes were chartered by the CIA. Flight plans do not record the purpose of the flights, a Nats spokesman said yesterday. "They might have been CIA flights taking officials rather than people in orange boiler suits," he added.

The disclosure came as the Council of Europe in effect named and shamed five countries which failed to explain what steps they were taking to protect people from being detained and mistreated through rendition.

The council, which oversees the implementation of the European convention on human rights, said that Belgium, Bosnia, Georgia, Italy and San Marino had missed the deadline of midnight on Tuesday for submissions which were expected to explain how they were meeting their obligations under international law.

The Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Foreign Office have all said in answers to parliamentary questions - notably from the Lib Dems and the Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie - that they are unaware of any rendition flights since 1998, that they do not keep records, or that records they did have had been destroyed.

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, yesterday wrote to the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, saying he would complain to the parliamentary ombudsman unless the MoD gave details of flights which landed at RAF airfields. Mr Ingram has said they could be provided only at "disproportionate cost".

The Guardian has seen evidence that the MoD has details of the flights, including their origin and destination.

Mr Clegg also said that the disclosure by Britain's air traffic control service "flies in the face of the answer we received from the government that only two or three cases of rendition ever took place".

Mr Straw said yesterday: "We know of no occasion where there has been a rendition through UK territory, or indeed over UK territory, nor do we have any reason to believe that such flights have taken place without our knowledge."

Terry Davis, the Council of Europe's secretary general, said that all five countries he named had "failed to comply with their legal obligation" under the human rights convention. These, he added, "include positive obligations, meaning that governments are required to take action to prevent violations from taking place".

A Common Cause

A Common Cause
Cindy Sheehan and Sam Bostaph

Three years ago, President George Bush ordered United States military forces to invade and occupy Iraq. Since that invasion, which was unconstitutional, illegal by all international standards, and immoral by any just war theologies, the world has watched as the Bush administration has directed the killing of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, civilians and insurgents at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

It has watched as over 2300 U.S. troops have been killed to date and almost 18,000 more wounded or maimed for life. It has watched the Bush administration kidnap, imprison and torture hundreds of foreign nationals, as well as American citizens, without either trial or conviction. It has watched as Bush administration lackeys have transported prisoners to secret prisons and then delivered them to torturers in less-developed countries.

For three years, it has heard George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice move from one lie to another to justify each of these actions.

Just recently, Americans learned that these war criminals also have been secretly spying domestically in clear violation of federal law. On Monday February 6, 2006, the Attorney General of the United States of America appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to defend the "terrorist surveillance program" that President George W. Bush ordered into existence in 2001.

Both in a prepared statement and in his testimony before the committee, Alberto R. Gonzales defended the National Security Agency's warrantless, domestic wiretapping program as "lawful, reasonable and essential."

Gonzales claimed that domestic spying is an essential tool in the overall "War on Terror." He gave as the legal basis for this NSA program his opinion that Article II of the Constitution of the United States gives the President of the United States the authority and "inherent power" to do anything he thinks necessary to protect Americans.

He also said that many federal government lawyers agree with him on the question of presidential power. And, besides, he added, Congress even authorized the President to respond with military force to the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks with its "Authorization for Use of Military Force" of September 18, 2001—and he characterized this domestic "spying" as a "military action."

He denied that the President was in any way constrained by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that Congress had passed in 1978.

Attorney General Gonzales was not testifying under oath and he refused to answer any specific questions about the spying program or to give any examples of instances where the program provided protection for Americans.

We are all just supposed to take his word for the content and effectiveness of Bush's domestic spying program. We are all to take the word of a member of this criminal administration that what they are doing is completely legal and for our own good. NO

In an opinion editorial in the February 13, 2006, Wall Street Journal, University of Chicago Distinguished Service Professor of Law Richard A. Epstein presented the reason why George Bush has clearly exceeded his constitutional powers in ignoring the FISA.

It is that nothing in Congress's authorization of the use of military force in 2001 allows President Bush to ignore the FISA it had previously passed. Congress sets policy in matters of war and peace, the president executes it. It's just that simple.

Epstein adds that only Congress can declare war; only Congress can fund war; and, only Congress can "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." We would add one more important fact— Congress has not declared war! Bush declared it when he invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq in clear violation of the Constitution he swore to uphold.

We also would like to remind the Attorney General of the United States that the "War on Terror" is a catchphrase containing an amorphous and invented opponent. Just look at the phrase: "War on Terror." What can be worse than terror? We must have a war against it. We are allowing our leaders to wage war on a word.
A concept. But real people are being destroyed by their expedient tail-wagging-dog phrase.

This is a time when people from all colors of the political spectrum must unite against this lawless administration. The recent escalation in fighting among Shi'ite and Sunni factions, and their joint call for an end to the U.S. occupation, shows clearly that the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq serves no interest of the American people.

All Americans must demand that George Bush stop his war in Iraq and bring our troops home now. All of us must demand that he stop using the war he started to justify his continuing lawless campaign against whomever he decides to call an enemy. The discovery of this latest spying program makes it clear that he has been using his foreign wars to justify a domestic one—he has been attacking us!

It is clear that the Bush administration seeks nothing less than to use the wars they started in order destroy the rule of law in this country and replace it with the rule of an undistinguished former cheerleader. After all, in terms of being governed, there are only two alternatives: either we are to be ruled by law or we are to be ruled by someone else.

To be ruled by law means that every one of us has a solid foundation in law for planning his or her personal future and achieving personal goals. That was the original purpose of the U.S. Constitution—to give us that legal foundation. To be ruled by someone else is to be a slave.

And there are people in this country who are willing to accept the role of obedient servant to a state that is out of control and dangerously corrupt. During the week of February 12, a former employee of the Justice Department told attendees at the annual meetings of the Conservative Political Action Conference that the rule of law must be abandoned in order for George Bush to protect us from al Qaeda.

The response was not boos and cries of "For shame, for shame;" it was a standing ovation! The boos were reserved for former congressman Bob Barr when he responded that the first loyalty of all Americans is to our Constitution. In reporting on the CPAC goings on, Paul Craig Roberts aptly labeled this audience response as a signal that American Conservatism is transforming into "brownshirtism." We agree.

Even more do we agree with one another that the ideological differences that exist between Cindy and Sam must be set aside in the interest of a united front against this obscene war. If she had to do so, Cindy would describe herself as a progressive humanist who wants the militarism of America and the world to be replaced with kinder, more gentler foreign and domestic policies.

She passionatley believes that the vast amounts of our tax dollars that are being dumped into war and wasted by the "War" Department every year need to be returned to our communities to build a culture of plenty and peace.

If he had to do so, Sam would describe himself as a political and economic libertarian who wants a government that is limited solely to the protection of our human rights. This would eliminate almost all departments and agencies of the federal, state and local governments as they exist now.

Like Cindy, he wants an end to militarism, the return of all U.S. military forces to the continental U.S. and the closure of all foreign bases.

But, Cindy and Sam are "we" in this struggle against the fascist, warlike society that America has become—particularly under the Bush regime—and "we" want a lot of company.

Whatever your political identification, please join us at Easter for a protest at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, from the 10th of April to the 16th. There, "we" will be joined by Katrina evacuees who are still unbelievably and unconscionably ensconced in the Astrodome and who will be invited to stay on our leased land next to the Secret Service check point of the Bush faux-ranch on Prairie Chapel Road until their homes are rebuilt in the Gulf States and they can return.

The displaced Katrina victims care nothing about partisan politics or demented pork barrel peddling and cronyism; they just want to go home. "We" will be joined in Crawford by Progressive Democratic Congressional candidates from all over the country, who are running for office against pro-war Democrats and Republicans.

"We" will again be joined by old hippies, grandmas and grandpas and young activists; and we will be joined by Iraqi war veterans, as well as fresh faced students who look like they just walked off the pages of a Gap catalog onto the Texas prairie.

"We," the authors of this article, have formed an unlikely friendship and partnership for peace. Our last collaborative piece, "The Human Cost of War," appeared in diverse online journals from Marxist sites to Libertarian ones.

Those journals may be in deep philosophical opposition on other questions, but on this one they are as anti-war as we are. "We" the people of America need to reach deep inside ourselves and pull out the essential goodness that connects all of humanity together.

Then, we can honor our differences, while uniting in opposition to the exploitation and ruination of our American way of life by the Bush crime family and its cronies. However, our biggest enemy is the citizens of this country's general ennui and complacency in the face of BushCo's blatant and bloody affronts to humanity.

"We" the people of America need to form a true coalition of peace if we are to reclaim our humanity and our inalienable birthrights.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Why act so surprised?

Alito Thank-You Letter To Religious Right Leader Is Grossly Inappropriate, Says Americans United New High Court Justice Should Follow Command Of Constitution, Not Dobson, Asserts Church-State Watchdog Group

WASHINGTON - March 1 - Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito has sent a cloying thank-you note to Focus on the Family head James C. Dobson, a move Americans United for Separation of Church and State says is further evidence the new justice is firmly in the pocket of the Religious Right. “Justice Alito should follow the commands of the Constitution, not the orders of Dobson and the Religious Right,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “This note strongly suggests that Alito is carrying out a right-wing agenda instead of being a justice for all. “This is grossly inappropriate,” said Lynn. “Alito sounds like a political candidate doing a victory lap and thanking his backers rather than being a fair and independent judge.” The Associated Press reported today Dobson received a six-paragraph personal note from Alito. In the letter, Alito thanked Dobson for backing his nomination to the Supreme Court. Read the note, “This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.” Alito went on to write, “As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me” and expressed his desire for a personal meeting with Dobson. Dobson and other Religious Right leaders enthusiastically backed Alito’s confirmation because they think he will restrict civil rights and civil liberties and rule against church-state separation.

Additions slipped into Patriot Act

Additions slipped into Patriot Act

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

WASHINGTON - Anthony Spears has been on Arizona's death row for nearly 13 years, convicted of the murder of his girlfriend near Phoenix. He isn't an international terrorist, has no links to al-Qaida and was in prison on Sept. 11, 2001.

But tucked away in the pending renewal of the USA Patriot Act, the nation's controversial law to fight terrorism, is a provision inspired by Spears. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., inserted language that could make it harder for state death-row inmates to appeal cases in federal court.

The provision is one of a handful that neither the House nor the Senate has voted on but that Republican lawmakers crafted during closed-door negotiations last year after Democrats had been excluded from the talks.

Another obscure addition, never debated in Congress, would broaden existing laws that prohibit disturbances at any event - such as those involving the president - at which the Secret Service is providing protection. Civil libertarians said it could restrict free-speech rights in the name of security.

The changes illustrate how closed-door negotiations over legislation can inspire lawmakers to slip substantive policy measures into bills with little public notice.

The House has voted for the amended Patriot Act, but the Senate hasn't.

The Secret Service provision, added by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would make it a federal crime to trespass or create a disturbance at a "special event of national significance," such as the Super Bowl, even if the president isn't in attendance. Under current law, people who enter security zones set up by the Secret Service to protest the president or others while they're at the event can be arrested and face imprisonment for up to six months.

"It expands the jurisdiction that the Secret Service has over its ability to put in place these exclusion zones," said Timothy Edgar, the policy counsel for national security at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Specter and his aides say the language is designed simply to allow the Secret Service to set up a protective perimeter and secure it before the president or another person in its care arrives.

The death-penalty changes would make it easier for states to benefit from faster federal appellate procedures in capital-punishment cases. Under a law that passed in 1996, states that take steps to ensure that poor murder defendants are represented by competent counsel can ask for a fast-track system in which inmates have shorter deadlines to file appeals.

Under current law, federal courts of appeal decide whether states can speed processing capital cases. Kyl's change would give that power to the U.S. attorney general.

Arizona had tried to get Spears' federal appeal dismissed in 2000, claiming it was filed too late. State officials had argued the state was entitled to a faster appeals process because state law guaranteed effective representation for poor defendants who were facing the death penalty.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that Arizona had the safeguards to qualify for faster appeals. But it said the state hadn't supplied Spears with a lawyer in a timely fashion and allowed him to proceed with his case. Spears, now married to the forewoman of the jury that convicted him, is awaiting a decision on his claim of innocence.

The Patriot Act is set to expire Friday. Democrats and a handful of Republicans have blocked renewal of the act because they want to add civil-liberties protections. Because negotiations continue, the House and Senate are expected to extend the current law by a month to six weeks as early as today.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

Additions slipped into Patriot Act

Additions slipped into Patriot Act
From the Wilderness

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

WASHINGTON - Anthony Spears has been on Arizona's death row for nearly 13 years, convicted of the murder of his girlfriend near Phoenix. He isn't an international terrorist, has no links to al-Qaida and was in prison on Sept. 11, 2001.

But tucked away in the pending renewal of the USA Patriot Act, the nation's controversial law to fight terrorism, is a provision inspired by Spears. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., inserted language that could make it harder for state death-row inmates to appeal cases in federal court.

The provision is one of a handful that neither the House nor the Senate has voted on but that Republican lawmakers crafted during closed-door negotiations last year after Democrats had been excluded from the talks.

Another obscure addition, never debated in Congress, would broaden existing laws that prohibit disturbances at any event - such as those involving the president - at which the Secret Service is providing protection. Civil libertarians said it could restrict free-speech rights in the name of security.

The changes illustrate how closed-door negotiations over legislation can inspire lawmakers to slip substantive policy measures into bills with little public notice.

The House has voted for the amended Patriot Act, but the Senate hasn't.

The Secret Service provision, added by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would make it a federal crime to trespass or create a disturbance at a "special event of national significance," such as the Super Bowl, even if the president isn't in attendance. Under current law, people who enter security zones set up by the Secret Service to protest the president or others while they're at the event can be arrested and face imprisonment for up to six months.

"It expands the jurisdiction that the Secret Service has over its ability to put in place these exclusion zones," said Timothy Edgar, the policy counsel for national security at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Specter and his aides say the language is designed simply to allow the Secret Service to set up a protective perimeter and secure it before the president or another person in its care arrives.

The death-penalty changes would make it easier for states to benefit from faster federal appellate procedures in capital-punishment cases. Under a law that passed in 1996, states that take steps to ensure that poor murder defendants are re

San Francisco Supervisors Ask Lawmakers to Impeach Bush

San Francisco Supervisors Ask Lawmakers to Impeach Bush

Its NOT just San Francisco....

San Francisco's supervisors jumped into national politics Tuesday, passing a resolution asking the city's Democratic congressional delegation to seek the impeachment of President Bush for failing to perform his duties by leading the country into war in Iraq, eroding civil liberties and engaging in other activities the board sees as transgressions.

The supervisors, in voting 7-3 for the resolution, made it likely that San Francisco again will become grist for radio and TV talk shows. The city has appeared in the national media spotlight recently for voters' passage in November of a nonbinding measure banning military recruiters from public high schools and for Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval's recent comment on a Fox News show that the United States doesn't need a military.

Supervisor Chris Daly, one of the most progressive members of the board, sponsored the resolution, which also calls for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. Daly said the measure is justified in light of the administration's case for and handling of the war in Iraq, the federal government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and recent revelations about a domestic wiretapping program.

"I think the case is clear, and I think it's appropriate for us to weigh in," Daly said.

Speaking in opposition to the resolution, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier said, "I don't think that we need to be calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as much as we may not like them ... and as much as we don't like the policies that they put forward."

Joining Alioto-Pier in voting against the resolution were Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Sophie Maxwell. Supervisor Jake McGoldrick was absent.

Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't want to pick up the impeachment drumbeat, but he offered a sarcastic response when asked his position on the nonbinding resolution.

"It's probably going to shatter the status quo in this country when it passes,'' he said with a smile. "I imagine, immediately, Congress will probably convene into session and begin impeachment proceedings.''

Still, Newsom said he hasn't decided whether he will sign the legislation.

"On the list of 1 to 3,000, it's not even on that list of priorities for me to sign a resolution -- that will have no force and effect -- talking about impeachment,'' said Newsom, a partisan Democrat and frequent critic of the president's policies.

In sending the resolution to Bay Area members of Congress, the supervisors addressed a frustrated group that is tired of being in the minority.

"Real change in the direction of our country will come about when the Republicans no longer control the executive and legislative branches,'' said Rep. Tom Lantos of San Mateo, whose district includes the southwestern corner of San Francisco. "We need to take control of the House, elect more Democratic senators and take control of the White House in 2008.''

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who represents much of San Francisco, was asked about impeaching Bush during a January town meeting at Marina Middle School.

Pelosi, poised to become the first female House speaker if the Democrats win control in November's election, repeated Tuesday what she told her constituents: "Win the election. Then you can change the policy of our country.''

Asked if San Francisco was setting itself up again as the target of talk-show barbs, she said, "It's a democratic society. The Board of Supervisors does what it does.''

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor, wouldn't comment directly on the idea of impeaching Bush. But she noted that as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been frustrated trying to get information about the secret National Security Agency eavesdropping program.

"We're in the minority. We press and press, and all we get is stonewalled,'' said Feinstein, who is running for re-election in November.

The supervisors' vote might not generate the ridicule one would expect from conservative talk radio, said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine.

"I don't think the vote will be a joke because George Bush is in more trouble with his conservative backers than ever, particularly talk radio hosts,'' said Harrison, whose magazine covers the talk radio business.

Many conservatives are angry at the president over such issues as the planned takeover of operations at six major U.S. ports by a company controlled by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, the secret spying and the bungled handling of Cheney's shooting of a hunting companion.

And Newsom wasn't worried the board's action would hurt San Francisco's reputation.

"I don't think it damages the city in any significant ways," he said. "I think the things we're ridiculed about ... are some of the proudest moments in the city in terms of advancing our values -- and they tend to transcend our borders.''

Anti-Bush Protests Hit India Ahead of Visit

Anti-Bush Protests Hit India Ahead of Visit

by Y.P. Rajesh

Will they be arrested too? NEW DELHI - Tens of thousands of Muslims and communists took to the streets across India on Wednesday, protesting against the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, hours before his arrival. A member of the Students Federation of India (SFI) holds a badge during a protest against U.S. President George W. Bush in the southern Indian city of Bangalore February 28, 2006. About 5,000 personnel including snipers, commandos and U.S. marines using helicopters, bomb detectors and electronic jammers will protect Bush during his visit to India this week, officials said on Monday. (REUTERS/Jagadeesh Nv) Bush's three-day visit to the world's largest democracy, which is also Asia's third-largest economy, has raised expectations in India as it sheds its socialist baggage and turns to the West to help it become a regional power. But it has also drawn the ire of leftist and Muslim groups who staged large protests in several cities across the country against Bush's policies. Bush landed at Indira Gandhi international airport early evening after flying in from a surprise visit to Afghanistan. About 100,000 Muslim men, many of them wearing prayer caps, gathered in a public ground in the heart of the Indian capital shouting anti-Bush slogans. "Go back, Bush", "Bush is a killer", "Bully Bush, buzz off", "Bush, stop the ambush", they shouted as hundreds of policemen in riot gear kept watch. "The people of the country do not want this killer of innocent men, women and children to come here," one man said. In the eastern city of Kolkata, a leftist stronghold, about 25,000 communist supporters converged on the city center to take part in a public meeting organized by the "Committee Against Bush Visit". "Under President Bush, the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq and oppress its people. It threatens Syria and has targeted Iran on the issue of its nuclear program," the committee said in a statement. "The Indian government is shamefully succumbing to U.S. imperialist pressures," it said. Elsewhere, about 200 student communist activists burned a straw effigy of Bush in the southern IT hub of Bangalore. UNCERTAIN DEAL Washington and New Delhi hope Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will clinch a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal, seen as the centerpiece of the visit, at their talks on Thursday. The deal, agreed in principle last July when Singh visited Washington, has run into trouble over differences on nuclear-armed India's plan to separate its military and civilian atomic plants to prevent proliferation, a key requirement. However, both sides have tried to play down expectations even as they continue to discuss the number of reactors India will declare as civilian and open them up for international inspections. Clinching the deal during the visit would be "a great contribution of President Bush to ending India's isolation from the world nuclear order", Singh said in an interview to a U.S. TV channel ahead of the president's arrival. "I look upon it as an act of historic reconciliation," Singh said, referring to the past three decades during which India was prevented from accessing outside nuclear technology and supplies needed to meet its soaring energy needs. India has refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty calling it discriminatory, leading to its isolation. India's extensive atomic weapons program to counter Pakistan and China's nuclear arms is a further concern for some members of the U.S. Congress, who have cast doubt on the viability of any deal between Singh and Bush. Bush is also due to visit the technology city of Hyderabad in the south on Friday before flying to neighboring Pakistan. Bush's visit was unlikely to repeat the "emotionally charged" successes of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower's trip in 1959 and Bill Clinton's in 2000, said Dennis Kux, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "The challenge for Bush (and his Indian hosts) will be to prevent possible disappointments over nuclear matters from overshadowing the positives during the visit," Kux wrote in the latest edition of India's Outlook magazine. Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty in New Delhi and Bappa Majumdar in Kolkata.

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - 1

I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto,—"That government is best which governs least";(1) and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

Witness the present Mexican war,(2) the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

[2] This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.....

Thoreau Reader:
Home - Civil Disobedience Intro - Civil Disobedience - 2

"Civil Disobedience" originated as a Concord Lyceum lecture delivered by Henry David Thoreau on January 26, 1848. It was published as "Resistance to Civil Government," in May of 1849.

Links to other "Civil Disobedience" sites

Seven Arrested at White House Protest against Iraq War

CommonDreams.org
by Mike Ferner

WASHINGTON – In a civil disobedience protest against the war in Iraq, seven peace activists were arrested yesterday holding a banner that read, “God Forgive America" in front of the White House.

"Winter of Our Discontent" protesters that were arrested in civil disobedience action at the White House 2/27/06. From left: Elton Davis, Bernie Meyer, Ed Bloomer, Eileen Hansen, a supporter who did not get arrested (holding banner on left), David Goodner, Brian Terrell, Jeff Leys (Photo: Mike Ferner)

Brian Terrell, Ed Bloomer, and Elton Davis, all from Catholic Worker communities in the Des Moines, Iowa area, David Goodner, University of Iowa student, Eileen Hansen, a Catholic Worker from the Winona, Minnesota, Jeff Leys, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV), and Bernie Meyer, a retired social services worker from Olympia, Washington were arrested by U.S. Park Police.

The seven were charged with the federal misdemeanor of demonstrating without a permit, fined seventy-five dollars, and released yesterday evening. The action was part of VCNV’s “Winter of our Discontent” demonstrations in the month leading up to the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20.
(I didn't know you needed a permit, where do I apply??)

Terrell organized the group of 15 from Iowa that included students from Loras College, a hospital worker, and a farmer from Missouri who drove 140 miles to Des Moines to join them.

“If not now, when?” Terrell replied when asked why they drove 20 hours overnight to get arrested in the nation’s capital. “Some people consider civil disobedience an extreme measure for extreme times. If these aren’t extreme times I don’t know what are.”

The Maloy, Iowa farmer and Catholic Worker added, “We came here to use two complimentary methods to protest this war. Some of our group are visiting members of Congress, and some are putting our bodies on the line.”

Goodner, the 25 year-old Iowa Hawkeye, said his reason was “a deep concern for the plight of the world. I worry where the world is heading when I think of global warming and war. I believe the capitalist model of globalization is the root cause of the institutional problems facing us, and governments aren’t going to solve those problems, individuals are.”

Bloomer, 58, an Army draftee who served from 1966-68, is also a member of Veterans For Peace. He said he became a Catholic Worker in 1983 when he was active in the Nuclear Freeze movement to stop the spread of atomic weapons, because he agreed with the Worker’s approach. “They say if you see something that ain’t right, fix it. I see half the world starving without a crust of bread while our resources are going to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is the right thing to do and it’s good to show your colors.”

The entire group demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the White House fence, walking slowly with placards and banners for about 30 minutes. The seven who were arrested took their signs to the portion of the fence ruled off-limits to protests where they stood, attracting the attention of Park Police who warned them they risked arrest. When they refused to move, police called in a large team to make the arrests which included six officers on motorcycles, one on horseback, and over a dozen in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles including several command officers, with four Secret Service officers observing.

After police roped off a large, square area in front of the protesters, a lieutenant, speaking through a patrol car loudspeaker, warned the protesters to leave the enclosed portion of the White House sidewalk or risk being arrested. Three warnings later, officers approached the activists and began handcuffing and searching them one at a time. To cheers from supporters and under the eye of dozens of tourists, the protesters were led into a large police wagon and taken away. The whole operation took about 90 minutes.

Last night, Leys said they had been processed, fined, and released later in the day around 5:00 pm.

The former union representative from Milwaukee and three others are participating in a 34-day, liquids-only fast and vigil at the Capitol as part of the Winter of Our Discontent. He noted the fasters are observing the period between February 15, 2003 when millions of people around the world protested the likely U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the date of the invasion, March 20. He added that VCNV plans additional protests in Washington and elsewhere in the country before March 20.