But heaven forbid if you are a Democrat who gets a blowjob…

This pretty much spells out the difference between then and now in terms of what our media thinks is important.

All told, on January 22, 1998, the Times and the Post ran 19 articles (five on the front page) dealing with the Clinton investigation, totaling more than 20,000 words and reflecting the words of at least 28 reporters — plus the editorial boards of both newspapers.

In contrast, on December 17, the Times and the Post combined to run five articles about the NSA spying operation, involving 12 reporters and consisting of 6,303 words.

On February 25, 1998, 35 days after the story first broke, the Post ran four articles and an editorial about the Clinton investigation, totaling 5,046 words, involving 11 reporters, and the paper’s editorial board. The Times ran four articles, two opinion columns, and an editorial — seven pieces in all, totaling 5,852 words and involving at least six reporters and columnists, in addition to its editorial board. The papers combined for 12 articles, columns, and editorials, involving 17 reporters and columnists, as well as both editorial boards.

On January 20, 35 days after the NSA story first broke, the Times ran one 1,324-word article about the NSA operation written by two reporters. The Post ran one 945-word article written by one reporter. Combined: two articles, three reporters, 2,269 words.

We could go on and on with comparisons like these, and bring in other news organizations, but it should be clear by now that the nation’s leading news organizations haven’t given the NSA spying story anywhere near the coverage they gave the Clinton-Lewinsky matter. And, based on available evidence, they haven’t dedicated nearly the resources to pursuing the NSA story that they dedicated to the Lewinsky story.

Add to that the crisis of leadership in Israel following Ariel Sharon’s stroke and the issues become even more complicated.

Dori Smith, of Talk Nation Radio, recorded the following interview January 11, 2006.

Talk Nation Radio Political Analysis: U.S. or Israeli Military Strikes against Iran: Diplomacy Versus Insanity

Analysis by: Conn Hallinan, John Isaacs, President of Council for a Livable World, Christopher Hellman, Leonor Tomero.

–Could U.S. be gearing up for a strike against Iran? What about Israel? What difference if any will Sharon’s absence make?

Foreign Policy Analyst Conn Hallinan discusses the impact of Sharon’s illness on Israelis and Palestinians and considers the possibility of U.S. military strikes against Iran. We then hear further analysis of the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran from John Isaacs and Leonor Tomero of the Council for a Livable World and Christopher Hellman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Welcome to Talk Nation Radio, a half hour discussion on politics, human rights and the environment. I’m Dori Smith. Our topics today are Israel without Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the implications of Iran opening the seals on some nuclear power research plants. A January 11, 2006 story by Parisa Hafezi, (see: “World warns Iran of sanctions in nuclear crisis.) reporting initially for Reuters covers some of the initial reactions world wide and in Iran. Hafezi reports that England’s Jack Straw has already used the word, “sanctions”. You can find the Hafezi story on Iran in The Herald a Scottish paper.

We will hear from Conn Hallinan of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and then Christopher Hellman, Leonora Tomero, and John Isaacs will join us to comment about developments in Iran.

I asked Conn Hallinan to talk about political developments in Israel and other parts of the Middle East in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s illness and news that he will be leaving office.

Conn Hallinan: It’s very unclear at this point. Most of the things we’ve read in the newspaper is that this is a sort of blow to the peace process and this is going to set things back. I don’t think that Sharon was ever interested in the peace process. I think that the withdrawal from Gaza was a tactical maneuver that was aimed at essentially getting rid of Gaza which was impossible for the Israeli Government to continue to occupy and to then unilaterally redefine what happened on the West Bank and that meant keep the major settlements, keep all of Jerusalem, put the wall up, and keep the Jordan Valley. I mean that’s what he was doing. So I fail to see that Sharon was interested in peace in any case, and that’s certainly never been his track record, and he’s always been extremely consistent on what it is that he wanted.

What this means on the Palestinian side, what this means on the international side, is just very unclear at this point. The talk is that Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud, that this will accrue to his benefit. –I tend to doubt that because I think that Netanyahu’s lack of support is not based particularly on security questions but the fact that he implemented a series of neo-liberal economic policies that materially impoverished large numbers of Israelis. The gap between rich and poor in Israel has grown enormously and the most poverty stricken group of 65 year olds in the world, are Israelis, that is in Western developed countries are Israelis.

So I think that there is a turn away by the poorest sections of the Israeli public, which was always the base of the Likud Party. You always had this odd situation where the Labor Party was supported by the employers and the Likud Party was supported by a big bulk of the working class. And it’s just this kind of distorted mirror, and I think that has begun to change. If someone were to ask me what would happen in the March elections I really would not like to predict it except that I think that Labor is going to do better than they would have if Sharon was running and if Sharon was going to be leading the Kadima Party. –I think Labor will do better.

What’s going to happen? It’s just very hard to say. I think things are going to be in turmoil at this point but I think in the long run the Labor Party is going to do better. If the Labor Party does better and Peretz, Amir Peretz who is the leader of the Labor Party; he is someone who has said that he is willing to talk to Palestinians, which Sharon was not. Sharon was simply going to implement what he was going to do; but he is willing to talk to the Palestinians and that’s an enormous step forward. If we could get negotiations going again there may be a possibility.

There is one danger, I would add here. One of the areas in the world that people need to pay very close attention to, and I don’t see people doing it particularly, is Iran. And for a long time, since last summer the Bush Administration has been talking about Iran as the major source of terror and a lot of rhetorical fire directed at Iran. And most of the world has kind of dismissed that as just rhetorical, just talk, because the U.S. is over extended at this point in Iraq, certainly couldn’t afford a war with Iran.

I’m beginning to think a little differently about that. I don’t think the United States would go to war with Iran but I think it’s perfectly possible that the United States could carry out a series of air attacks against key nuclear facilities in Iran. The reason I say that is because it’s not just the rhetoric which is going on now, but for the first time very high level people, head of the CIA, head of the FBI, State Department, Rumsfeld, etc., have been visiting countries in Europe, telling them that there is a possibility that an attack might happen. They’ve had long meetings with the Turks. There seems to be, that is in the European newspapers, Der Spiegel particularly, have picked up a kind of rumor of a quid pro quo with the Turks that the Turks won’t say anything if the U.S. whacks the Iranians and the U.S. will give a green light for the Turks to liquidate sections of the Kurdish Communist Party, what they call the PKK that are in the mountains of Iraq close up to the Turkish border. –Now, I don’t know whether or not these rumors are true but they are all over the European and the international press even though they are not being reflected here.

One of the elements of this is that Benjamin Netanyahu says, he is actually open about this, the quote was quite explicit, he said if he gets elected he intends to strike the Iranians –He intends to bomb Iran. And he intends to eliminate their capacity to build, potential to build nuclear weapons. How the Israelis are going to do that is not clear to me. It’s kind of a bridge too far and the only possibility, and whenever I say this I feel like I’m being a paranoid nut but the only way they could really do it is if they used nuclear weapons. It’ just unimaginable that people would do that but I don’t know. I don’t know how much is unimaginable these days. And so that’s a very great concern for me. So I see the Israeli elections as not only affecting the Palestinian situation, and the situation in the Middle East, but specifically what may or may not happen in Iran; And that, I think that Americans need to be well informed about and need to be deeply concerned about.

Dori Smith: Right now the way the stories are portrayed, it does seem, and I’ve heard this reflected on an NPR report recently, that the attitude is that Israeli’s view the giving back of Gaza to the Palestinians as a mistake on the part of Sharon because of the behavior of the Palestinians. Let’s just touch on that, but also talk about the other events happening in the background where what we are really seeing in the Jordan Valley are new plans to, as you put it, split the West Bank down the middle and then double the number of settlers right?

Conn Hallinan: Right, well I mean I think there is one thing you need to keep in mind and that is that freedom is not the product of behavior. Freedom is an inherent right that people ought to have, regardless of how they behave, and so the idea of giving Gaza back to the Palestinians. It was always the Palestinians’ and the idea that the Israelis are doing the Palestinians a favor is just absolutely ensconced in the culture. Whereupon in 1967 the Israelis invaded Jordan. They took over the West Bank. They took over Gaza. That is they violated international law by not withdrawing and at the time large numbers of Israelis, including some of the founders of Israel said that Israel needed to get out of the West Bank, needed to get out of Gaza, that essentially Israel would be endangered, the soul of Israel would be endangered by continuing to occupy those lands. They kept the lands in violation of international law and so the idea somehow that the Palestinians are supposed to behave well. I mean imagine being occupied for as long as the Palestinians have been occupied. It’s the longest occupation in modern history. We have passed the Japanese occupation of Korea. Occupation generates its own craziness.

Look, I’m Irish. I wrote my PHD dissertation on Irish revolutionary organizations in the countryside in the 18th and 19th century. And I can tell you that for 800 years the Irish were crazy. They never bought the occupation. And it made them a little crazy. I mean there are things that the Irish did that you know I kind of say oh, we did something like that, that was pretty crazy, and I think that’s true in the occupied territories. I mean you have systematically dismantled public life in Gaza and in the West Bank and then when you withdraw from Gaza gee there’s chaos. Well I’m not sure what they thought was going to happen. Of course there is chaos. That’s what happens when you occupy people for a long time. If you recall the Irish went through an ugly civil war after the English withdrew from the South. It was forty years before the Irish got their act together after the English withdrew. I think this is the legacy of colonialism. The idea is once you get out of there you create a level playing field. No you’ve killed the playing field. It takes a lot of ground to level it again.

Dori Smith: Let’s talk a little bit about, again, what’s in your writing, I did notice that you mention, is it Anthony Cordesman? –You were talking about Sharon in terms of Hamas. Talk about that story.

Conn Hallinan: What happened with Hamas was that the Israelis decided that they needed to split the Palestinians. Divide and conquer. Remember the Israelis were trained by the British. The Israelis were occupied themselves by the British and that’s where they got their training and in fact the first governor general of the Trans Jordan once described the Jewish population in the Trans Jordan as his little Protestants. And what he was referring to was the role of the Protestants in Ireland. The Protestants would serve as a way of dividing the society on the basis of religion. So that the British had in mind to use religion, to use language, to use all sorts of ways to divide and conquer. That was standard operating procedure for colonialism.

So the Israelis started off and what they wanted to do was to split the Palestinian movement and so what they did was that they started funneling not only funds in but they wouldn’t arrest Hamas people. (See Common Dreams, July 13, 2002, Conn Hallinan: “Ariel Sharon is obsessed with illusions. He has always fantasized that by combining violence with appointing leaders he can manipulate he will get his way. He was a supporter of the secret Israeli operation that, according to Tony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic Studies, funneled funds to Hamas in the late 1970s as a way to undermine the secular Palestine Liberation Organization. We know how that one turned out.”)

They would arrest Fatah people but they wouldn’t arrest Hamas people and they poured money into establishing Hamas as a way to divide the Palestinian population. It worked very well. –Now look at what they’ve got. Of course, the other way to look at it is that it’s worked perfectly because the Israelis can now say; well we won’t talk to Hamas because they call for the destruction of Israel. And the U.S. won’t talk with Hamas. And the U.S. is pressuring the EU not to talk with Hamas. So essentially what you’ve done is that you’ve created this division which makes it impossible for the world to unite around the questions of the Palestinians, and to keep the Palestinians shooting at one another, divided amongst one another, and then for the Israelis to throw up their hands and say, you see, we have no partner. And this tactic of having no partner, which means essentially then the Israeli’s can do what they want; well we’ll just take whatever unilateral action that we can take. That was the origin of that and the Israelis played an important role in that. Hamas itself came out of the Muslim Brotherhood which started in Egypt in 1925 and was always, for a long time a violent organization, now; you know it claims to be a violent organization. But imagine putting Pat Robertson in power. There are some down sides to that. They’ve got one of those right now in Iran. You know it’s really not a very good thing and not a very good thing for the world but not a good thing for the Iranians.

Dori Smith: Conn Hallinan is a foreign policy analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus. You can read his work online at FPIF.org. He also teaches journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Arms control experts at Washington think tanks see a developing crisis between America and Iran.

“Clearly there is growing sentiment within the UN that some form of sanctions or some form of statement by the Security Council is both necessary and appropriate.” Christopher Hellman

I asked Christopher Hellman, Defense, Budget and Policy Analyst, at the Center for Arms Control and Proliferation, to talk about this latest juncture with Iran.

Christopher Hellman: I think the situation is indeed becoming very critical. The most recent actions by the Iranians are counter to the agreements reached with European representatives from England, France, and Germany, with regard to international oversight of Iran and basically checking up on Iran’s nuclear program. There were reasons for hope on the part of the Europeans; I think the Americans were less sanguine about this, but that progress could be made with Iran in controlling their efforts to develop nuclear technology. And Iran’s announcement today that they want to restart their uranium enrichment program flies in the face of an agreement that the Europeans felt they had with them.

Dori Smith: This news was actually released by the IAEA, the atomic energy authority, and they have in the past argued that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. Would you say this represents a change in the way they view things?

Christopher Hellman: I haven’t heard anything out of the IAEA specifically but there has been a lot of discussion both within the United Nations, which is the I.A.E.A.’s governing body, and member states, about the path that Iran is taking and I think everybody, both in an outside of the United Nations, are concerned about this. Whether the IAEA is going to change their mind, I don’t know, but there are a sufficient number of people who are willing I think to address this within the U.N. that it’s very possible that it’s going to end up before the Security Council.

Dori Smith: And it’s a changing Security Council. Do you think that will have an impact?

Christopher Hellman: The key players on the Security Council with regard to the Iranian issue are the Russians, who have attempted to be independent brokers between the West and Iran. I think it is going to be important to see how they feel about the latest turn of events, but clearly, there is growing sentiment within the U.N. that some form of sanctions or some form of statement by the Security Council is both necessary and appropriate.

Dori Smith: I’m looking at a paragraph here from this piece by Parisa Hafezi and it says quote: “Even Russia, a long time ally of Iran, appears to have lost patience with Tehran. Europe and the U.S. have been reluctant to push the issue to the Security Council and concerns that any attempt to impose sanctions could be vetoed by China or Russia.”

Christopher Hellman: Exactly, and I mean the Russian position on this has always been an important one because the West has felt that they were able to speak to Iran when the West wasn’t. Whether their frustration has reached a level where they would be willing to support some form of sanctions or some form of statement by the Security Council I haven’t heard yet. But they attempted just as recently as a couple of weeks ago to provide the Iranians with the capability of doing enrichment work in Russia. So that the work would be monitored internationally and that was a compromise position that they had put out and the Iranians rejected that. So it’s understandable that the Russians are growing increasingly frustrated.

Dori Smith: And that enrichment work would be towards nuclear power they say?

Christopher Hellman: The Iranian claim consistently has been that all of their nuclear work is for civilian use only. Whether that’s true or not is a matter of very important debate but their position has been, it’s only for civilian use. And what the Russians were attempting to say to them was, well, come and do it at our house so we can watch you do it and that way we can guarantee that it’s actually going to be used for civilian use only.

Dori Smith: We’ve had some political analysis from Conn Hallinan for this report and he has argued that he is seeing it as increasingly possible that the U.S. might try some form of an attack on Iran. Would you agree with that as a possibility and what kinds of signs would you see that we should look for that might indicate this?

Christopher Hellman: Well I mean the Administration has said that they are not ruling out anything as a possibility. I happen to think that, you know when you talk about the use of military force people automatically assume that some sort of invasion is what the U.S. is contemplating. I don’t think that’s on the table at all. But there are types of military aggression against Iran that require a lot less commitment on our part that the Administration is seriously considering; selective strikes against Iran’s facilities would be one of them. But I think that these are options that are being considered but I don’t think they are being considered as serious options about something that’s going to happen today or tomorrow. But I think that as part of the negotiating process with the Iranians this Administration wants to make it clear that they are not eliminating the possible use of force.

Now as far as the warning signs? I would think you would see the rhetoric of the Administration change fairly dramatically, about, rather than sort of considering all options to a much more specific and direct statement about our willingness to use force and we haven’t seen that.

Dori Smith: Christopher Hellman is with the Center for Arms Control and Proliferation in Washington, D.C. We were also able to reach John Isaacs, President of the Council for a Livable World. His organization has worked on disarmament and prevention issues for more than 40 years. I asked him to comment on the seriousness of Iran’s opening of the nuclear facilities to research.

John Isaacs: This is quite a serious step that Iran is taking. We have been worried for the last couple of years that Iran has been developing, first clandestinely, a nuclear weapons program. They have denied it and at various times Iran, the United States, and other countries have joined in negotiations to try to stop the Iranian program. The diplomacy has been led by three European countries. Great Britain, France and Germany. But Iran is in a very dangerous part of the world. If it develops nuclear weapons other countries in the region including Israel, and including Iraq, and including Saudi Arabia, will be within range of Iran’s nuclear weapons and the possibility of increased violence or massive destruction of human life is increased immensely.

This is particularly true today when Iran is still controlled by a theocracy, a number of religious leaders, and the new president elect of the last couple of months clearly has shown himself to be a, shall we say a wild figure on the international scene. He’s talked about eliminating Israel from the scene. So Iran getting nuclear weapons is kind of like throwing a match into a pool of gasoline. It’s extremely dangerous.

Dori Smith: Talk a little bit about changes in Israel that might actually have affected Iran’s leaders in making this decision.

John Isaacs: I don’t know that changes in Israel have made a difference in Iran’s intentions. Iran has always been in opposition to the Israeli Governments, a variety of leaders over the years, and in fact, there has been some small progress between Israel and Palestine, at least with Israel leaving most of the Gaza strip. But I think regardless of what the situation in Israel is I think the Iranian leaders have an intention and it seems to be a serious drive to develop and then produce nuclear weapons. Fortunately we are several years away from actual production of nuclear weapons in Iran but there is clearly a possibility that the United States might launch some military action against Iran and certainly even more of a possibility that Israel might do so. Again, this is a real possibility that the development of nuclear weapons makes the situation less stable, more volatile, and more likely for massive killings.

Dori Smith: Now in the sense that the U.S. has been, certainly in terms of rhetoric, expressing hostility towards Iran under the Bush Administration, just talk about what real plans if any you know about that could cause this to heighten in terms of an emergency.

John Isaacs: Unfortunately, for the first four years, the Bush Administration, the Bush team, has relied on rhetoric and denunciations of Iran rather than worked with serious diplomacy. You know unfortunately, as bad a situation as it is today in Iran, that situation has only worsened when the United States engages in the diplomacy of insults and telling the Iranians how bad they are. It’s the same kind of policy we’ve used primarily towards North Korea. Ultimately, we have to look for a diplomatic solution. A military solution is not going to be possible. –Way back, more than two decades ago, Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq and set back its nuclear program. Iran has drawn a lesson from that and I think a number of their nuclear facilities are underground and inaccessible. So the idea that the United States or Israel might launch a conventional strike to try to bomb the nuclear facilities will not destroy what Iran is trying to do. So ultimately, diplomacy is the answer. And the United States may feel better by telling the world what terrible people the Iranian leaders are but that doesn’t accomplish anything. Again, diplomacy is the only answer and it is a difficult answer but it’s the one that has to be pursued with much greater vigor.

Dori Smith: Under the present Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, we do have a little bit of a history there going back to 1998 when Rumsfeld was quite urgently looking into Iran’s development of missiles. Now, if we put together a sort of hypothesis about who could do the diplomacy, are we looking at the Defense Department, the State Department under Condoleeza Rice? What direction would we look in?

John Isaacs: Donald Rumsfeld is the person you least want to have involved in diplomacy. First of all, the Pentagon and Rumsfeld are designed for military action. The diplomatic channel has to be handled by the Secretary of State. Ultimately, the National Security Advisor and the President of the United States. The Pentagon’s way of diplomacy is send in the tanks, and that’s certainly not appropriate here.

The first, actually first course of action, is to put a lot of chips with the European leaders that have been negotiating with Iran. Again, Great Britain, France, and Germany. Their diplomacy can be backed up by Condoleeza Rice and the United States. Rumsfeld, besides being head of the military arm of the United States Government has shown himself too impatient for diplomacy, too interested in insulting other countries, and the least likely person to engage in diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Putting Rumsfeld in charge of negotiations with Iran is like putting Saddam Hussein in charge of human rights. It’s simply a non-starter.

Dori Smith: And what about the chances of Condoleeza Rice to make any headway here?

John Isaacs: Admittedly it could be very difficult. Iran is not an easy negotiating partner. Unfortunately, it’s not like negotiating with an ally like Great Britain. So even pursuing a diplomatic track here to deal with Iran’s nuclear aspirations; the odds are well below 50 percent of success, but again, as Winston Churchill said about Democracy. Diplomacy may be unsuccessful but it’s really the only option out there. A military solution is simply not there except to ratchet up the violence and make the situation worse.

Dori Smith: John Isaacs thanks so much for joining us.

John Isaacs: Sure, delighted to help.

Dori Smith: John Isaacs is the President of the Council for a Livable World

I asked Leonor Tomero in their office what her organization intends to do about the Iran crisis.

Leonor Tomero: We intend to follow these revelations very closely. We intend to educate the media, Congress, and mostly keep Congress apprised of these developments and make sure that it is clear that this is a test for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and for the international community on how they respond to nuclear proliferation. We’ve had the example of North Korea backing out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reprocessing Plutonium making enough fissile material for about six to nine nuclear weapons.

And so the case of Iran is particularly relevant following this example of how we deal, are we going to let Iran proceed with enriching material and possibly making material for nuclear weapons and what the international community will do now that we have the example of North Korea. I think it is very dangerous to let Iran pursue this course of action.

Dori Smith: Leonor Tomero is in the non-proliferation department, at the Council for a Livable World. You can learn more about what the Council for a Livable World have planned over Iran and other matters by logging on to their web site at CLW.org.

For Talk Nation Radio, I’m Dori Smith.

Visit WHUS.org to listen live Wed. at 5 PM.

Air Quality Audio of this program may be obtained here.

For further developments see this article by: IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent January 10 2006. “Israel is updating plans for a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities which could be launched as soon as the end of March, according to military and intelligence sources.

The news comes as Germany yesterday warned Tehran’s regime that it would face “consequences” if it removes UN seals from portions of its atomic programme and resumes enrichment of fuel which could be diverted for military use in breach of international agreements.”

Democrats can either surrender this government to a party which seeks to destroy it, or we can take Lincoln’s advice and play our available cards. To those who say filibusters–judicial, patriot act, etc–are too politically costly, I say that failure to filibuster is conceding that this nation isn’t worth fighting for. Instead of worrying that we will be labeled “obstructionist,” I say we filibuster Alito, filibuster the Patriot Act, filibuster time and time again until this crazy government comes to a screeching halt. Enough is enough. The list of scandals is overshadowed only by the list of names of the 2,190 whose deaths have yet to be honored by this administration.

At what point will our party realize that it’s not just the midterm elections at stake here? Politics is secondary to the fact that our country has changed, drastically, over the last several years. What is that change? It is the unraveling of the American flag thread by thread. It is erasing the Bill of Rights letter by letter. It is, ultimately, about waking up one day and not recognizing this great society as the “America” we know and love.

This new year requires a new attitude by the Democratic Party. The party must acknowledge the gravity of the political climate today. It is not a time to crack jokes on Sunday talk shows; it is not a time to mince words or to parrot political consultants. It is a time to speak with the courage and conviction that is required when one is fighting for the heart of their country.

Democrats will not win by pledging to “do better.” We will not gain a majority or even the Presidency in 2008 by approaching the American people as politicians. If we are to win, we must rediscover what it means to serve at the will of the people. We must show voters that we are willing to fight, not just talk, for their interests.

=======

WE get it. We’re the heart of the party: the ones working ourselves to the bone day after day. We’re the ones without healthcare, the ones with our family members serving overseas. We’re the ones kicked out of public events and placed on watchlists because of our political beliefs. We’re the ones with kids who are taught “intelligent design” as part of the war against science. We’re the ones who can’t get married, the ones whose homes are subject to sneak and peek searches, the ones who have to wait 12 hours to vote and who pray that our votes will actually be counted. It is us, goddammit, who truly realize what this country has become and where it is headed. It is our rights being stripped away from us, our America slipping away before our eyes. All we ask is that our party recognize this. That a holistic approach towards government is needed. That while the Democrats focus on individual battles, it is our entire government which needs to be saved.

read the whole thing

See it at Crooks and Liars video.

Here’s the transcript, compliments of Atrios:

BLITZER: Let’s talk a little bit about Iraq. The president sought to reach out to some of his critics earlier in the week, bringing in some former secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright, among others — William Cohen, the former defense secretary during the Clinton administration.

Are you satisfied right now that the president’s getting enough information from a variety of sources to better move forward as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned?

DEAN: Well, most of the reports that came out of that meeting, Wolf, were that the president engaged in a filibuster of his own in there. He talked at them for some time and then went in for a photo op and really didn’t bother to ask most of them for their advice at all.

So, I think these photo op ideas that he’s going to get advice and they’re really nothing more than photo ops — I think we’re in a big pickle in Iraq.

The president, frankly — I was disgusted when I read in the New York Times yesterday that 80 percent of the torso injuries and fatalities in the Marine Corps could have been prevented if the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and the president had supplied them with armor that they already had.

They requested that from the field; the Pentagon refused. You know, I, two years ago, thought Secretary Rumsfeld ought to resign. He ought to resign.

These people are not qualified. They haven’t served themselves; they don’t know what it takes. They ought to protect our troops. Our troops are doing a hell of a job and they deserve better leadership in Washington than what they’re getting.

I was incensed when I saw that story, 80 percent of the torso- based wounds that led to fatalities in the Marine Corps — surely our Marines are worth something more than that.

BLITZER: About a month ago, Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee spoke out, urging his fellow Democrats, including yourself, to restrain themselves in criticizing the president’s position on Iraq. Listen to what Lieberman said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that, in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What do you think? Is that advice good advice from Senator Lieberman?

DEAN: No. This president has lacked credibility almost from the day he took office because of the way he took office.

He’s not reached out to other people. He’s shown he’s willing to abuse his power. He’s not consulted others. And he’s not interested in consulting any others.

And I think, frankly, that Joe is absolutely wrong, that it is incumbent on every American who is patriotic and cares about their country to stand up for what’s right and not go along with the president, who is leading us in a wrong direction.

We’re going in the wrong direction, economically, at home; we’re going in the wrong direction abroad.

…

BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?

DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we’ve looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that’s true.

BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.

DEAN: That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either. There is no evidence…

BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?

DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They’re not agents of Jack Abramoff. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They’re scared. They should be scared. They haven’t told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they’re stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, always speaking out bluntly, candidly.

The transcriptionist didn’t bother to put in Blitzer’s DEEP SIIIIIIGGHH before his last comment. [Atrios's comment]

“At this stage the point is to push for that proper investigation and to push for censure and to demand a focus on these crimes as an educational end in itself and if it gets to impeachment so much the better.” David Swanson

We caught up with David Swanson as he was preparing to attend a forum hosted by Congressman Jim Moran featuring Jack Murtha. The event drew huge crowds in Arlington, VA Thursday January 5th and 500 people had to be turned away. You can read about the event and listen to the audio of the program here

The web site of Afterdowningstreet.org has announced that there will be 136 cities hosting “Out of Iraq” Events Saturday, January 7, 2006.

Transcript of January 5, 2006 Talk Nation Interview with David Swanson

Dori Smith: The co-founder of After Downing Street is our guest this time. Writer and activist David Swanson joins us to talk about impeaching George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. David Swanson is also Washington Director of Democrats.com and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America

A former newspaper reporter he worked as communications director for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign.

We will also be hearing a few words from Arcata California City Council member Dave Meserve of the Green Party at the end of the show. On January 4th the Arcata City Council passed what they are calling a “2006 New Year’s Resolution” demanding the impeachment or resignation of Bush and Cheney. Meserve explained that there is a good deal of interest in a national campaign for cities to pass impeachment resolutions. I asked David Swanson if the plea deal arranged with Jack Abramoff may provide more arguments to be used in making a case for impeachment.

David Swanson: I don’t know I think we’re kind of overwhelmed with an abundance of arguments and evidence. There is not really conceivably a stronger case for impeachment than having taken a nation to war on the basis of lies. If you read the remarks and the writings of our founding fathers that put impeachment into the Constitution this is precisely the key example of when impeachment would be appropriate. And we have not only a war that is blatantly illegal; not fought in self defense; not fought under UN authorization; but we have an abundance of war crimes. -The targeting of civilians. The use of torture, the ghosting of prisoners, the depleted uranium, the white phosphorus, and on and on and on.

And now we have the spying scandal and you know, what the Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and many others, scandal adds is simply an additional impression of the corruption and the arrogance that is currently rampant in the Republican Party in the White House. So if it helps to call people’s attention to that and to the need for some accountability and some oversight and some checks and balances than it’s helpful.

Dori Smith: Now in the State of Connecticut many people will remember 2004 when momentum was just gathering to impeach John G. Rowland our former Republican Governor. And John Rowland will be getting out of prison in a few months time, just in time to see the next election perhaps, but I thought that we might see some similar patterns emerging in the media. Would you say that there is a greater willingness on the part of the US press right now to start diving into these corruption stories and even considering impeachment as a consequence of some of the behavior of the GOP?

David Swanson: Well there is certainly greater (willingness) than there was some weeks back. In large part due to the NSA spying story and in part due to the work that we and others have been doing at Afterdowningstreet.org and Impeachpac.org but that’s not saying much you know. Greater than before which is nothing. The attitude that you find in the media elites in this country is that impeachment is something to be scorned and ridiculed and laughed at and dismissed. And of course that’s not a consistent position in that there were endless newspapers editorializing that Bill Clinton should resign over his sex life and that impeachment was absolutely called for when public opinion was quite low in support for impeachment proceedings against Clinton. -And understandably in that it was a private matter of a sexual relationship.

In this case the media has been very resistant to writing or speaking about impeachment and even to doing the polls to learn where the public stands. We have had to commission polls by independent polling companies to find out and the most recent by Zogby International found 53% of Americans would like Congress to consider impeachment if the President lied about the war. That’s dramatically, that’s over twice as high as you had for Bill Clinton, and so there is public interest out there and now what you are seeing with the spying story is experts with sufficient clout and media presence managing to slip the word in that the President has committed impeachable offenses.

Nonetheless, the prevailing attitude is that with the Republicans in the majority in both houses it’s silly and almost embarrassing to talk about impeachment because the Republicans will never do it. Well what about our responsibility as citizens to demand justice regardless of the predictions of the commentators?

Democracy is not a spectator sport and it’s our responsibility to get involved and there are members of Congress on the Democratic side who have taken that to heart and now have begun to act. And Congressman Conyers has introduced legislation and cosponsors are signing on. So the argument from the media that “we can’t cover it because it’s not in Congress” is no longer valid.

Dori Smith: And you mentioned the NSA spy scandal. There have been shocking revelations from the Risen book and one item that I saw on your web site has to do with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell where Mitchell interviewed James Risen on the domestic spy scandal he broke and apparently Mitchell pressed Risen for information about the possibility that the White House might be spying on CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. See: NBC Confirms investigation of possible Bush spying on Christiane Amanpour

David Swanson: NBC removed that bit from the transcript on its web site and did not air it and has put out a statement that leaves it pretty obvious that they believe that Ms. Amanpour was spied on and that wire tapping was done. And so you have this curious situation now of media organizations self censoring their reporting about the White House spying on reporters; I thought I had seen everything. This strikes me as a new low in terms of media corruption but it does seem very likely that reporters were spied on and political opponents were spied on because the President has offered no sustentative justification for why he needed to spy without court approval, which can be obtained after the fact, which does not delay anything, and so forth. And so it is very likely that members of the media have been spied on as well as political opponents of the Bush Administration and it is going to be very interesting to see how the media reacts to that, whether reporters step up and defend themselves because there have been cases including this most recent one where they seem reluctant even to do that.

Dori Smith: I want to talk about a few of the arguments being used by critics of the whole impeach movement and they have talked about the Democrats receiving some of Jack Abramoff’s money as a way to imply that the Democrats are just as corrupt as the Republicans, and, therefore, we might as well just retain the status quo. I noticed another piece on your web site by Bob Geiger who talked about “following the Abramoff money” and noted that it didn’t go to Democrats but went largely to people like Tom DeLay.

David Swanson: Well as far as I’ve seen not a dime went to Democrats but you know I’m not in a position of wanting to defend the Democratic Party and every member of it as some sort of saint. What I would like to see is the Democratic Party developed into a clear opposition party with a point of view distinct from that of the Republicans. And one step that could help greatly in moving in that direction is a willingness to want to hold the White House accountable through censure through impeachment through supporting the resolutions that Congressman John Conyers has introduced. And the Democrats on the Hill will whisper about all the things they will do once they have the majority. My position is unless they speak out forthrightly about what they will do there is no reason for anyone to vote them the majority and that’s certainly how the Republicans got themselves the majority. But there are all sorts of hesitations and worries from Democrats and from citizens around the country about impeachment and some of them focus on the idea that if you impeach Bush then you get Cheney and he is worse. This is just such muddled thinking on so many levels.

To begin with if Cheney were President he would still be running things as he is now but up front on the stage which would be disastrous for the Republican Party. This is not someone who could get reelected against any other living human being. And impeachment is not removal from office. A president has never been removed from office except by violence and impeachment is something that was done to Bill Clinton and destroyed what was left of the Democratic Party. It would do the same to the Republicans. On top of which you could never investigate either Bush or Cheney in a proper investigation with subpoena power without incriminating the other. There is no way that it could be done and at this stage the point is to push for that proper investigation and to push for censure and to demand a focus on these crimes as an educational end in itself. And if it gets to impeachment so much the better but we need to stop jumping five steps ahead of ourselves in order to fantasize about defeat precisely when we should be going on the attack.

Dori Smith: There have been arguments made that the people interested in impeaching the President are ignoring the threats we face and the so-called “war on terror”. How do you respond to those kinds of complaints?

David Swanson: Well the President was briefed about the threat from Al Queda weeks before it occurred and ignored that. He did not have insufficient information because he wasn’t able to spy on and torture people with a free enough hand. He had insufficient information because he is guilty of gross negligence and ignored the information that was placed on his desk. And since 9/11 he has not addressed the criminals guilty of those horrendous crimes. In fact, he has done everything in his power to describe those acts as something other than crimes, as acts of war, and so there has been no capture of Osama Bin Laden or the other top suspects. There has been no trial, no prosecution, no penalty, and in fact the President has done everything conceivable to put us in greater danger.

Terrorist attacks on US citizens and around the world are up drastically to the extent that the federal government has stopped reporting those statistics. And what is required now is taking action to make us more safe rather than continuing on the path that the President has taken which has made us so much less safe and has sacrificed the lives of over 2000 US soldiers, seriously wounded tens of thousands of US soldiers, and killed over a hundred thousand Iraqis. We need to restore some order and some legality to the world stage and if we are going to have international law, if there is going to be a way to say to one country, “no you cannot attack another country,” we have to get out of Iraq and have some accountability for that crime. That’s the first step. And then through financial assistance and diplomacy rebuild that country, undo the damage that we’ve done, and begin a new course of diplomacy with the world working with the United Nations, working with the world community to make this a safer place. Not a less safe place which is the current path.

Dori Smith: We are talking with David Swanson. He is Washington Director of Democrats.com and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America and also co-founder of Afterdowningstreet.org.

Let’s turn to headlines right now as we speak they are just coming over the wire as a hotel near the most holy Muslim shrine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, has collapsed and there is no word in this report that I’m reading right now that it was terrorism. However, if we turn to Iraq we see major attacks there as well with about 100 people known dead after twin suicide bombings. Just talk about the extreme risks we face and how the possible worsening of these kinds of headlines might affect the American people as they look at their own government and how to bring about reform?

David Swanson: Well we are seeing a steady worsening of the situation in Iraq and yet we are seeing these predictions that if the US troops were to leave all hell would break lose, Iraqis would all attack each other, it would be a disaster, it would be a civil war, there would be great violence. You know I’ve spoken with many Iraqis who say that that’s a myth, that that is as big a lie as was the lie about weapons of mass destruction, or the lie about the ties to Al Queda and 9/11. And so we have now in Iraq a situation that can be described as civil war, that clearly includes massive violence, that includes greater and greater death tolls on Iraqis, while death tolls of US soldiers have remained steady or started to decline.

The US is likely to pull some troops out some day but to increase bombings and, in fact bombings were significantly increased in the past year, and so we are going to have more Iraqis killed but perhaps fewer Americans. We won’t know that because our media only tells us about American deaths. But that’s the reality. And so we have a situation in which the White House and the Pentagon are imagining that American resistance to the war will decline if US deaths decline. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I’m not sure US soldier deaths are going to decline but the bigger factor that has swayed so many Americans against this war, so much faster than against previous wars is that no one any longer believes the rationale for the war.

The claims about weapons of mass destruction, the claims about ties to 9/11, and some of the subsequent claims made after the fact to justify this war, people in this country overwhelmingly no longer believe them. So you have parents understanding that their sons and daughters have gone and died courageously doing their duty honestly but for no good reason (see related story where Paul E. Schroeder say’s to stop the war before more heroes like his son are killed.) –And that is really tragic and that is what is moving people against this war.

Dori Smith: Now a number of organizations across the country are planning events in 70 cities? This will all start to take place today right and running through January 7th. Just talk about what kinds of events are planned and what you expect to see.

David Swanson: We did put out a press release some days ago saying 70 events. We are now over 130 events planned and they are almost all of them town hall meetings, forums, many of them with members of Congress who are supportive of ending the war and holding the Bush Administration accountable.

A few of them are protests at the offices of congress members who continue to support the war and one of them is this evening, an event scheduled by Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia who is hosting a town hall forum together with Congressman John Murtha and that will be very interesting. I’m going to be leaving shortly to go to that. But this Saturday January 7th the vast majority of these 130 some events will take place and chances are very good there is one near you. If you go to Afterdowningstreet you can click on the button about events and sign up to attend the one that is closest to your house and this is a way to build the movement and to bring more people into the movement to hold Congress and the President accountable and end the war.

If you have a couple of hours this Saturday these events are free and informative and in many cases likely to be quite exciting. I would recommend checking it out and going. We are also acting, and several large peace groups are asking everyone to phone their congress member in their district office on Monday the 9th and ask them to co-sponsor Congressman Conyers’ bill on an investigation into impeachment and on censuring Bush and Cheney. And that information also is at a href=”afterdowningstreet.org”>Afterdowningstreet

Dori Smith: Just talk about what those resolutions call for in a little detail here.

David Swanson: Sure. These were three bills introduced by Congressman John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee A couple of weeks ago now. And one of them, House Resolution 635 is intended to create a select committee that would hold serious investigations with subpoena power and make recommendations on impeaching the President and the Vice President. And this is the way that the impeachment process began that ended with President Nixon resigning. This is the first step toward impeachment and it is something that many activists and citizens around the country are thrilled with and have been waiting for for many months. And it’s something that is starting to gain ground in Congress. We are in recess now so the congress members are all gone but I know that at least several have already contacted Congressman Conyers’ office to cosponsor the bill.

The other two bills; House Resolutions 636 and 637 are aimed at censuring Bush and Cheney. Not for their crimes but for their refusal to turn over information and to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, and, in fact, it’s this lack of information that necessitates the investigation with subpoena powers to learn what more needs to be learned.

What Congressman Conyers believes is, and I certainly agree, that there is already sufficient evidence to say that President Bush is guilty of impeachable offenses. The Congressman has released a report that is nearly 300 pages documenting many of these crimes related to the war and that would include the illegal launching of an aggressive war itself, the use of White Phosphorus and Depleted Uranium, the targeting of civilians, the ghosting of prisoners with no records, no accountability, the use of torture, the retribution against whistleblowers, and now, most recently, the spying scandal where Americans have been spied on without court authorization. And that report again also is at Afterdowningstreet

Dori Smith: David Swanson thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, I know you are busy today. Good luck on all of the events you have planned.

David Swanson: Thank you very much.

David Swanson is Co-Founder of Afterdowningstreet.org and a leading progressive democrat.

As momentum for an investigation into impeachable offenses grows in Congress, U.S. city and state leaders are also considering what kind of role they can play. And on January 4th members of the Arcata City Council in California adopted a 2006 New Year’s Resolution demanding the impeachment or resignation of George Bush and Dick Cheney. It lists as impeachable offenses the crime of misleading the American people and Congress into waging an unnecessary war in Iraq, the Bush Administration’s failure to adequately respond to the hurricane Katrina disaster, the secret surveillance of American citizens by the NSA, without any court warrant, and the torturing of human beings in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Joining us to talk about the Arcata City Council is Green Party Councilman Dave Meserve. I asked him to talk about the Arcata efforts that began in October of 2004 when the Arcata City Council passed a preliminary resolution calling for the resignation (impeachment) of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Dave Meserve: With the developments in the press around the NSA spying allegations it seemed appropriate to reaffirm this Resolution and try to encourage other cities to pass similar resolutions. (See: RESOLUTION NO. 056-34 -A 2006 NEW YEARS RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF ARCATA DEMANDING THE IMPEACHMENT OR RESIGNATION OF GEORGE W. BUSH AND RICHARD B. CHENEY)

Dori Smith: Are you in touch with other cities at this point? Is there any interest?

Dave Meserve: There definitely is interest and working through Cities for Progress and Afterdowningstreet.org and kind of the network that’s building up to put an end both to the war and to the Bush Administration, I think that there really is some http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush”>momentum that we can build on and I think that one of the most powerful ways that we can build this momentum is through city resolutions We certainly have seen that and continue to see it in the battle against the Patriot Act and it’s a long standing tradition for cities to make statements on issues of great national importance.

Dori Smith: Now you have sent copies of this resolution to members of Congress. Just tell us about what’s happening in terms of outreach to the Senate and the House.

Dave Meserve: We just passed the Resolution last night and within the Resolution our city will be sending copies of it to our Congressman Mike Thompson, to Feinstein and Boxer, our Senators, and to all members of the House Judiciary Committee. And that is of course where impeachment proceedings would begin. So most specifically we are hoping to encourage our Congressman Mike Thompson to join with Conyers and others in working towards impeachment.

Dori Smith: I note that your resolution says that the City of Arcada demands the impeachment or resignation of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. Did you take a long time to work on the language and if so were there people who really hoped that they might see a resignation by any of these top leaders? Is there any thinking that that could ever happen?

Dave Meserve: I think it’s certainly idealistic and also this Resolution does represent a collaboration between me and Harmony Groves, another Council Member, and both of our inputs were very important in order both to write the Resolution together and to have a resolution that we could actually pass with this council.

Dori Smith: It seems to me that the four points you go over would include a lot of different kinds of Americans because you point out failures to respond to hurricane Katrina, the secret surveillance of American citizens by the NSA without a court warrant, and you talk about misleading the American people and Congress into an unnecessary war in Iraq. So going over all of these four points you have honed in on did you find a great deal of broad public interest in this and support for this?

Dave Meserve: Yeah I think that’s really the key to any meaningful move towards impeachment is including people who are not necessarily on the left, who are not necessarily Democrats. People who are Constitutionalists and they can come from any political persuasion and you know I come at this from a very strong Constitutionalist point of view which is that each one of us on every city council, every elected official in this country, takes an oath of office in which we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. And right now it’s very clear to me and becoming clear to many others that we are under attack from a very powerful and very dangerous domestic enemy, namely, our Administration.

Dori Smith: Arcata, California, City Council Member Dave Meserve.

To learn more about this program try Afterdowningstreet

To obtain phone numbers for participating in the national Progressive Democrats of America January 9th call in day supporting Representative Conyers in his call for accountability, try this link

For Talk Nation Radio I’m Dori Smith. Visit WHUS to listen live Wed. at 5 PM. EST.

Political and national security policy analyst Gareth Porter joins us this time to talk about two recent stories. A December 15th piece on US politics in Iraq. He says the U.S. No Longer seeks the Defeat of Sunni Insurgents, and a December 26th piece warning that the U.S. Shiite Struggle Could Spin out of Control. You can read his analysis in Inter Press News Service

Dori Smith: Gareth Porter welcome to Talk Nation Radio. You’ve been writing some interesting stories lately. Here’s one, U.S.no longer seeks defeat of Sunni insurgents. Explain?

Gareth Porter: Yes what’s been happening here is very interesting. Since roughly mid to late November the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Command in Iraq have both sent signals publicly indicating that their attitude towards the Sunni Insurgents has changed dramatically and that they now are ready to talk with them as not just, the implication is, not just people to be basically discouraged and defeated but rather as forces who could be useful allies in effect against the real enemy by implication that is the Al Queda forces in Iraq.

And one of the signals, perhaps the most interesting signal was on December 8th when the spokesman for the U.S. Command, Major General Rick Lynch, essentially said that we are trying to defeat the Al Queda forces militarily and trying to disrupt the Sunni Insurgent forces and that the major way that we disrupt their forces is through “political engagement”. (That is in quotes because it is Lynch’s term.)

And if you put that along side a statement from Ambassador Khalizad that he was prepared to talk with insurgents the previous week then you begin to see if you put those side by side or one on top of the other rather you see that what is happening here is the Administration is in fact positioning itself in Iraq to actually have serious talks with the insurgents.

Now the other signal that Khalizad gave which again indicates that these talks are not just talks with an enemy but talks with a group that has potential actually to be on our side, is that Khalizad refers to the Sunni insurgents as “nationalists” whereas previously the Administration has always referred to the Sunni insurgents as “anti-Iraq forces” or “anti-Iraqi forces”. So this is like a 180 degree change in the rhetoric, in the terminology being used for the Sunni insurgents. And you know that simply can’t be without extremely important political significance.

Dori Smith: Now Iraq has always been a difficult place to cover with the US presence there anyway. How does this make that even more complicated?

Gareth Porter: Well I think it makes it more complicated in the following sense. The administration clearly is playing a double game, a two sided or two level game. On one hand it is continuing to talk about victory as its primary theme in relation to Iraq although you know the definition of victory is increasingly vague and left to the imagination I think of the audience.

But on the other hand the Administration is now pursuing a second line of strategies which you know admittedly it’s unclear exactly how far and how fast this is going to go. And one person I spoke with in the Pentagon suggested that nothing was going to happen on this diplomatic front or this political negotiations front with the Sunni Insurgents until after a new government was formed. And that may well be, it may not be something that’s going to develop very rapidly. So I think it could be more complicated because this second line of strategy I think is going to take a while to develop it’s going to be in the background and it’s going to be difficult to cover it because very little if anything will be evident on the record to mark the progress or the development of that line of strategy. So from the point of view of media coverage you’re not going to get much if any coverage at all on this but it is going to be there in the background.

Dori Smith: Now I would imagine that the Sunni leaders that are in some way negotiating with the White House might want to make it public right?

Gareth Porter: Well that’s correct. That is if there is a break of any kind. If there is an agreement to actually sit down between the Ambassador, Khalizad, and Sunni Insurgent Leaders that they will certainly want to make sure that that becomes public. It is in their interest to do so. On the other hand the administration is going to be much more worried about that and that is going to be one of the factors that probably is going to slow this down and make it more difficult to begin the actual process of formal talks between them but yes, it will be impossible to keep these secret I would suggest. Simply because it shows from the point of view of the insurgents that they are being recognized by the Administration as interlocutors and that boosts their prestige within Iraq and gives them more bargaining power more generally.

Dori Smith: Now didn’t the Kurds ultimately capture Saddam Hussein? I thought I read a story that that faction really was responsible for finding him. If that’s the case, now we are going to see the Sunnis possibly turning over Abu Musab Al Zarqawi?

Gareth Porter: Well that would certainly be a logical end point of any agreement that might be reached between the Bush Administration and the Sunni Insurgents because this is obviously what the big pay off is for the United States. I mean there are two pay offs. One is obviously an end to the insurgency. The insurgency laying their arms down, and the other one is that it would, it could result in not just the turning over of Zarqawi as a person, an individual, but in fact the cooperation of the leaders of the insurgency in finding hide outs and actually rounding up whole networks. So going much further beyond simply Zarqawi himself, and for the Administration I mean that is really the more important pay off because they can in a sense, I think they believe that they can live with an insurgency going on for quite a while except for one thing and that is that it doesn’t help to solve the Zarqawi Al Queda network problem in Iraq, the terrorist haven problem.

It’s arguable that they need the assistance of the Sunni Insurgents to accomplish that goal and in fact, in terms of most Americans, that is the real legitimate interest the United States has in Iraq. If they have any at all it is to try to end that terrorist haven in Iraq.

Dori Smith: So that leaves America again in a different position with the Iraqi people overall where it comes to the U.S. presence remaining to protect oil fields, remaining to do reconstruction, and to maybe continue on with the privatization of Iraq.

Gareth Porter: Well I think that if the United States did in fact reach an agreement here it would almost certainly have to be the involvement of the Shiites in some way in that agreement because here’s the problem. The Sunnis are not going to be willing to lay down their arms if the Shiites are continuing to send in death squads and Shiite commandos and Kurdish commandos into their cities and into the surrounding countryside to round up insurgents, or suspected insurgents, and put them in prison and torture them in many cases to death. I mean that simply isn’t going to happen. That much is clear. So if there is to be an agreement under which the insurgents do in fact lay down their arms it is going to have to also involve some serious discussions by the Shiite Government.

And that’s why we now come to the second story which is that the Administration now has been increasingly becoming desperate to do something about the Shiites being willing to share some power with the Sunnis and with secular Shiites. That is if the Shiite militants are willing to share power with Sunnis and with secular Shiites as well. And particularly to get the Shiite militants to give up their control over internal security; that is those militia men who are carrying out death squad activities and torture houses and commandos who are using questionable tactics albeit in many cases the same tactics that the U.S. troops have used themselves in Iraq.

So in the desperation to actually get some traction in getting agreement between the Shiites and Sunnis the United States is now beginning to put pressure on the Shiites that they have not previously. And interestingly enough this turning point in U.S. policy to put much greater, heavier pressure on the Shiites, coincides roughly with the turning point in the declaratory policy, the rhetorical policy toward the Sunnis. It happened roughly in mid November, just about a week or so, about ten days or so before the first kind of a shift in US policy toward the Sunnis. So I find that to be a very interesting coincidence, I don’t think it is a coincidence I think in fact that this reflects a much broader shift in Administration policy which is the result of a lot of jawboning of the White House by both Zalmay Khalizad and by the U.S. Military Command who understand that the strategy was not working as it was being pursued prior to that; that something new had to be tried.

Dori Smith: We’re talking with Gareth Porter and he’s an independent historian and a foreign policy analyst. Now Gareth when you wrote you piece, the Third Option in Iraq, a responsible exit strategy, for the Fall Issue of Middle East Policy, did you foresee this next story of yours which is U.S. no longer seeks defeat of Sunni insurgents? (Listeners that is in the December 15th Inter Press News Service.)

Gareth Porter: No I did not actually anticipate anything this soon. My assumption was that the route out of Iraq would have to involve Congressional activism on the issue, that there would have to be a shift in Congressional viewpoints which would result in an alternative policy being put on the table and that that would be then a way of putting pressure on the White House to shift its policy. Instead the initiative appears to have come from the Embassy, from Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad primarily, and perhaps the U.S. Command secondarily.

So I think that’s a very interesting development which I certainly did not anticipate and I think it shows, it reflects the fact that there is much greater what I would call desperation, a sense of desperation in Baghdad on the part of the U.S. presence there about the way things have been going. And that they are in turn putting some pressure on the White House to be more responsive to reality and in fact to get the White House to join the reality based community.

Dori Smith: In that respect let’s turn to a few of the headlines about Iraq. We did hear recently that the Finance Minister of Iraq Ali Allawi, (The former Finance Minister as of June 2004 was Adel Abdul Mahdi ) –a different Allawi; was on the air in America talking about changes that might mean paying back some of the debt that was incurred during the early 1990s with the Iran/Iraq war and there was discussion by him of an increase in oil prices. Which brings us to the real deep part of our discussion which is who will control the oil negotiations with America if America is now talking with so many different factions?

Gareth Porter: Yes, I’m sorry, and I didn’t address that in my previous rather long winded answer. But what I was going to say, what I eventually would have gotten to, is that should there be an agreement under which the United States would withdraw it’s forces, and my feeling is still very strongly that any agreement between the Sunni Insurgents–and the United States would indeed require a commitment by the United States for a time table for withdrawal–But should an agreement be reached the United States is not going to be calling the shots on oil or much of anything else.

And indeed I would argue that we already have gotten to the point now where the United States is no longer calling the shots with regard to any significant issues in Iraq. I mean they are in a position to obstruct on specific issues. They still have the ability to exert some pressure but there are limits to how much pressure they can exert. And they can no longer simply tell the Shiite dominated Iraqi government what to do and I think we are going to see that on this issue of control over the Ministry of Interior which is the crux of the struggle now going on between the United States and the militant Shiite leadership those Shiite leaders are going to resist this pressure because they regard control over the Interior Ministry, which means control over the police and control over the militia units which are carrying out these counter insurgency activities, the death squads and the torture houses and so forth, as necessary to insure that the Shiite regime remains in power. They are very defensive about that.

They believe that control over the means of violence, state organs of violence, is in fact the way that you stay in power. They learned that lesson from Saddam Hussein himself. So it’s going to be very difficult, and I would say really impossible for the United States to force the Shiite leaders to agree to give up power over the means of violence in their own government. And that means really that if the United States wants to push that issue to its limits they are going to have to put the U.S. troop presence on the table and I think if they do that there is a very good chance that the Shiites will then say fine take your troops out and they will say we will ask the Iranians for assistance, and they will be happy to give us assistance, and I think that is in fact the case.

So I think the United States has in fact lost the leverage that it may have thought it had and many of us thought it had, myself included, in the past year or so. But the situation has changed now to the point where the United States’ influence, United States’ ability to pressure, has declined quite precipitously. So that means that on issues of oil pricing, the future is not very bright for those who had hoped for the ability to control that kind of issue.

Dori Smith: Now Gareth Porter about your piece December 26th in Inter Press News Service we’ve been touching on the first portion of that story but let me just turn to the portion of it that does have to do with the torture houses you say are being run by Shiite officials in the Ministry of Interior at various locations in Baghdad. To what extent could the international community now apply pressure under the circumstances of the change in the U.S. status in Iraq, to stop torture in Iraq and to bring about some implementation of human rights standards?

Gareth Porter: Absolutely. I think now the situation has shifted so that that issue is very much front and center in the politics of Iraq as well as the politics of U.S. policy toward Iraq and this makes international pressure all that much more effective in comparison with the situation before the United States came forward. And as I point out in my article the United States knew about these torture houses for months and I would say beginning in early 2005 they began to get reports, not just from the media or from human rights groups, inside and outside Iraq, but from their own military personnel who were actually visiting these torture houses. This has been documented by a U.S. Army doctor who was in Baghdad and surrounding areas until June of this year and who said that he and military police visited the torture houses and actually reported this evidence of torture and other mistreatment in those detention facilities up the US chain of command. So there is no doubt that the information was available and it was only when as I say there was a high level decision made to shift the policy that this issue was raised publicly. But now that its happened I think this makes it incumbent on human rights activists as well as anti war activists to really make a great deal out of this issue of torture and the death squads as well, because they are controlled by the Ministry of Interior, and because that is now a central issue in the politics of Iraq.

Dori Smith: Now I do want to mention U.S. politics, but before we talk about that, you describe the situation between Ayad Allawi, the former PM of an interim government in Iraq, as being in a state of conflict with other Shiite Party leaders. They were not necessarily for radical de-Bathification you say or secret Iranian financing of SCIRI and Dawa candidates.

Gareth Porter: Yes, Ayad Allawi was very much in line with U.S. policy when he was interim Prime Minister from June of 2004 until May of 2005 and he was in fact–his Defense Minister was publicly accusing the militant Shiite parties of being essentially, those people who were running for election in the January 2005 election, as being what he called “the Iranian list”. So the conflict over their Iranian ties was particularly acute during that period of the interim government. And of course the Shiite militants on their side regarded Ayad Allawi as essentially their enemy. More aligned with the Sunnis because Allawi himself was an ex-Baathist although he is a secular Shiite, he was part of Saddam’s Baathist structure and then when he left he became aligned with the CIA and was trying to overthrow Saddam but he does have a Baathist background and he is very much considered as part of the Baathist enemy by the militant Shiites. So it’s not just the Sunni insurgents and the Sunni politicians who are aligned with the insurgents but the Shiite secularists as well like Allawi, particularly Allawi, who are regarded as enemies by the current ruling parties in Iraq.

Dori Smith: I’d like to know what could develop politically between some of the major political figures in Iraq, those who lean towards supporting the Kurds, those who lean towards including the Sunni parties in a more consensus government. I’d like to ask you about the Kurds because at this point we are starting to see commercials for “the other Iraq” and these are requests for investment into the “other Iraq” which is Iraqi Kurdistan.

Gareth Porter: Well this is very interesting. I mean you are right the Kurds are going to play a very important swing role in the politics in the next few months as the parties maneuver around formation of a new government in Baghdad. The Shiite list, the UIA, you know has a majority but it does not have enough to form a government presumably without, certainly, the Kurds on their side, without aligning the Kurdish members of Parliament with the UIA, the militant Shiite Party. So they do need the Kurds in order to form a government.

Now the Kurds are very close to the United States. The United States is essential to the Kurdish strategy for maintaining at least its autonomy if not defacto independence and the autonomy that they want and that they have achieved is in fact defacto independence. So the United States will undoubtedly try to use the Kurds to put pressure on the Shiites to get them to give up their control over internal security. And that is going to be where the rubber hits the road in the coming weeks and months, that struggle where the Kurds will be under pressure from the United States to go along with this demand, to make that demand as a condition for forming a government.

The Sunnis will be trying to resist that and essentially warning the Kurds that if they insist on this that there will be a political crisis and there is no guarantee about how it will be resolved and so you can see as I said you know the title for my article is that the, “U.S. Shiite Struggle Could Spin Out of Control,” and there is a degree of uncertainty here about how that is going to play out. But the Kurds are definitely going to be inclined to go along with the U.S. in trying to pressure the Shiites but I see a real possibility for a show down here without a predictable outcome.

Dori Smith: Well President Bush’s approval rating tanked and then the President came out with several speeches and a big propaganda war really in America and the Media cooperated nicely. Now he has a slight increase in support. But what will happen if he now has to explain that perhaps the head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, was right and the Iraq war is not winnable. Now you mentioned that in your article. What are your thoughts?

Gareth Porter: Yes, I mean this is of course the White House’s problem. They can never admit that the war is not winnable. George Bush has gone out so far on this limb that there is no way that he can crawl back. Therefore any talks with the Sunni Insurgents will be presented as part of a strategy of defeating. And no matter how odd that may seem to the reality based community that is indeed the way the White House will play it. I can guarantee you that. They are totally committed as we now know, to a political strategy that is based on continuing to repeat as often as the President has an opportunity to repeat, the big lie that we are winning and that we will win.

And so whatever he does including those moves that are the very opposite of that in fact, in substance, will be presented within the context of that propaganda theme that we are winning and that we will win. And when he finally reaches an agreement with the Sunni Insurgents which I think ultimately he will have to do, he will present it as a victory. And I would suggest that there is in fact a historical precedent for this and that is Richard Nixon negotiating a peace agreement with Hanoi with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1973. A peace agreement which Nixon presented to the American people as a “victory” and in fact it was not a “victory” at all it was a compromise which ultimately could not result in the U.S. supported regime in Saigon prevailing but was most likely to result in something other than that, either a mixed result, a sort of coalition government or a Communist victory.

So I mean this is the way these wars are ended. They are ended with a compromise which is presented to the American people as victory.

Dori Smith: A lot to think about. Gareth Porter, thanks so much for joining us on Talk Nation Radio.

Gareth Porter: Thank you, I enjoyed it very much.

Gareth Porter is author of “Perils of Dominance, Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam,” published by California University Press in June. You can read more of Gareth Porter’s work online at IPS News or Foreign Policy in Focus

For Talk Nation Radio I’m Dori Smith. Talk Nation Radio is produced in the studios of listener supported WHUS Radio

Visit Salon, watch the ad (or do something else while it is playing) and then read this article, it’s worth it.

An excerpt:

You know those optical illusion drawings, where you’re looking at a smiling man, then suddenly he’s become a werewolf? Faster than you could say “Fox News,” my dad was screaming at me, Bill O’Reilly-style.

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! He killed four …” — he stabbed at the air with four fingers on his left hand — “four people in cold blood and deserves! to! die!”

I briefly made eye contact with my stepson, Nolan, who sat just behind my father on my parents’ couch. His face flushed and he quickly looked away. My sister had stopped her channel surfing on a shopping network, and he looked awfully interested in putting a sapphire ring on easy-pay. While my dad continued to scream about biblical vengeance, I went into shock. Just minutes earlier, we’d stood together outside on the deck and laughed with each other as he congratulated me for a great finish I’d had the previous day at a poker tournament in Las Vegas. In fact, I’d cut my trip short, specifically so I wouldn’t miss the family Christmas.

What a difference five minutes makes. While he screamed at me, I wanted to ask, “Who are you, and what have you done with the man who raised me to be tolerant, patient, peaceful and charitable?” Instead, I said, as calmly as I could, “Dad, I just don’t believe in the death penalty. It is unevenly applied to poor people, and clearly doesn’t work as a deterrent.”

“It doesn’t work as a deterrent because they allow these scum to stay alive for 25 years before they give them what they deserve!” I hadn’t seen my dad this angry since I was a sophomore in high school and my friends and I woke up my mom after midnight one night because we got a little worked up in a Nintendo game of “Blades of Steel.”

Yep, thanks to the fine folks at Fox News we now have vitriolic tirades replacing civil discourse even within families. No longer can we have a calm conversation with that crotchety old conservative Uncle and laugh about it afterwards even as we still disagree. No longer can we interchangeably wish someone a Happy Holidays or a Merry Christmas as the mood strikes us, and as I’ve certainly done all of my life, without it becoming a political and/or theological statement.

Gibson-O’Reilly (two personalities easily conflated) have spent virtually all of their on-air time since Thanksgiving promoting Gibson’s book…er…I mean defending Christmas, by essentially waging war on America, Americans and any and all other holidays and celebrations that also occur this time of the year.

See, it really isn’t about defending Christmas at all (for one thing, no one has been attacking it), but it is about removing any references to the fact that what we are actually celebrating starting the last week of November through January 2nd is an entire season of holidays. So apparently Gibson-O’Reilly hate America, since you can’t use the term “happy holidays” to include Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, and they hate any celebration of the New Year and they certainly don’t want anyone to acknowledge the existence of Hanukka (which I absolutely guarantee you was celebrated and honored by that guy born in Bethlehem 2000+ years ago) they take Kwanzaa as a direct insult, apparently to White America but they have enough sense of self-preservation to not say that on TV.

So, the reality of what this fundamentalist/evangelical/neo-conservative takeover of society is all about is now starting to become much clearer. America is entirely too inclusive for them, entirely too free to celebrate just any old holiday, entirely too tolerant of the free expression of religion (other than theirs) and entirely too celebratory of its own beginnings and history and so all of those things must be attacked, viciously and continuously, throughout a holiday season that used to be about sharing, caring, giving and honoring.

Way to go guys, you’re a credit to your ideology.

Here’s the entirety of the editorial with some choice bits below:

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush’s running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency – from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens.

It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the presidency had become too powerful, secretive and dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough, and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for accountability.

—

Before 9/11, Mr. Cheney was trying to undermine the institutional and legal structure of multilateral foreign policy: he championed the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to build an antimissile shield that doesn’t work but makes military contractors rich. Early in his tenure, Mr. Cheney, who quit as chief executive of Halliburton to run with Mr. Bush in 2000, gathered his energy industry cronies at secret meetings in Washington to rewrite energy policy to their specifications. Mr. Cheney offered the usual excuses about the need to get candid advice on important matters, and the courts, sadly, bought it. But the task force was not an exercise in diverse views. Mr. Cheney gathered people who agreed with him, and allowed them to write national policy for an industry in which he had recently amassed a fortune.

There’s controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

Next time one of the “we must support the troops” warmongers gets in your face show them that one. Our soldiers, our sons, daughters, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters are nothing but commodities to these people to be used up and disposed of.