red onion

Friday, June 27, 2003

Josh Marshall is ON IT!

Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo, is on it, folks. All the president's men knew the Nigerian document was a fake:

Following up on the previous post, let's assume for a moment that neither the president nor any of his top advisors knew that the Niger-uranium documents were bogus when the president delivered his State of the Union speech. (Let's call it an extreme hypothetical.) Let's say it was just a snafu.

If it's really true that folks at the State Department knew the story was bogus, and folks in the intelligence community knew it was bogus, and folks at the NSC were told it was bogus, and folks at the OVP were told it was bogus ... If all those people knew, and somehow the information never got to the president or any of his top advisors, isn't that the kind of Category-5 screw-up that, almost by definition, costs a National Security Advisor her job?

If the president were given information to tell the public, even while many people in his own government knew the information was bogus -- and I think we now know that's true -- don't you figure he'd want some answers or explanations? From someone?

I think this is the sort of mystery Ockham's Razor slices right through.

Josh Marshall is on it folks, in the hillnews.com, but I will disagree with him on one point: I believe the president knew the documents were a forgery, and decided to go with it anyway:

But let’s zoom in on one case of possible deception which is starting to look more and more clear-cut.

Last January, in his State of the Union Address, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had recently tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Later, of course, we discovered that the documents in question were forgeries — a low-budget hoax that the head of International Atomic Energy Agency’s Iraq inspections unit, Jacques Baute, was able to debunk with a few quick Google searches.

So when did the White House discover they were fakes?

On June 8th, Condi Rice conceded that the documents were fraudulent but told Tim Russert that the White House hadn’t known before the speech. “Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency [i.e., the CIA], but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.”

But Rice wouldn’t have had to look too far down into the “bowels of the Agency” since just about everyone in the intelligence community — and at least some people on her own National Security Council staff — had known the documents were phonies for almost a year.

Vice President Cheney had first asked the CIA to look into the matter. And in February 2002 the CIA sent an as-yet-unnamed former US Ambassador to Niger back to the country to investigate.

His report back was unambiguous: the story was bogus.

The White House first claimed that the CIA just hadn’t told them about its findings.

But in the last several weeks lots of people from the national security and intelligence apparatus have been coming forward to say that’s just not true.

# posted by scorpiorising : 10:04 AM |

Is the planting of evidence of wmds a possibility?

In this Truthout interview, a retired CIA analyist notes the possibility of the U.S. planting evidence of wmds in Iraq, given that we have refused to allow the U.N. back into Iraq to continue looking for wmds. He is also focusing on the connection between Vice- President Cheney and the forged Nigerian document used to promote the presence of wmds in Iraq:

McG: My primary attention is on the forgery of the Niger documents that supposedly proved Iraq was developing a nuclear program. It seems to me that you can have endless arguments about the correct interpretation of this or that piece of intelligence, or intelligence analysis, but a forgery is a forgery. It’s demonstrable that senior officials of this government, including the Vice President, knew that it was a forgery in March of last year. It was used anyway to deceive our Congressmen and Senators into voting for an unprovoked war. That seems to me to be something that needs to be borne in mind, that needs to be held up for everyone to see. If an informed public, and by extension an informed Congress, is the necessary bedrock for democracy, then we’ve got a split bedrock that is in bad need of repair.

I have done a good bit of research here, and one of the conclusions I have come to is that Vice President Cheney was not only interested in “helping out” with the analysis, let us say, that CIA was producing on Iraq. He was interested also in fashioning evidence that he could use as proof that, as he said, “The Iraqis had reconstituted their nuclear program,” which demonstrably they had not.

What I’m saying is that this needs to be investigated. We know that it was Dick Cheney who sent the former US ambassador to Niger to investigate. We know he was told in early March of last year that the documents were forgeries. And yet these same documents were used in that application. That is something that needs to be uncovered. We need to pursue why the Vice President allowed that to happen. To have global reporters like Walter Pincus quoting senior administration officials that Vice President Cheney was not told by CIA about the findings of this former US ambassador strains credulity well beyond the breaking point. Cheney commissioned this trip, and when the fellow came back, he said, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know what happened.” That’s just ridiculous.

Cheney knew, and Cheney was way out in front of everybody, starting on the 26th of August, talking about Iraq seeking nuclear weapons. As recently as the 16th of March, three days before the war, he was again at it. This time he said Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. It hadn’t. It demonstrably hadn’t. There has been nothing like that uncovered in Iraq. As the first President Bush said about the invasion of Kuwait, this cannot stand.

One other thing I’d like to note is the anomaly that President Bush has succeeded Saddam Hussein in the role of preventing UN inspectors from coming into Iraq. He has not even been asked why.

There is no conceivable reason why the United States of America should not be imploring Hans Blix and the rest of his folks to come right in. They have the expertise, they’ve been there, they’ve done that. They have millions of dollars available through the UN. They have people who know the weaponry, how they are procured and produced. They know personally the scientists, they’ve interviewed them before. What possible reason could the United States of America have to say no thanks, we’ll use our own GI’s to do this. Don’t come in here. That needs to be brought out. For the UN to be waiting with those inspectors at the ready, there has got to be some reason why the United States won’t let them back in.

The more sinister interpretation is that the US wants to be able to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, most people will say, “Come on, McGovern. How are you going to get a SCUD in there without everyone seeing it?” It doesn’t have to be a SCUD. It can be the kind of little vile vial that Colin Powell held up on the 5th of February. You put a couple of those in a GI’s pocket, and you swear him to secrecy, and you have him go bury them out in the desert. You discover it ten days later, and President Bush, with more credibility than he could with those trailers will say, “Ha! We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction.”

I think that’s a possibility, a real possibility. I think that, since it is a real possibility, the Democrats’ sheepishness on this, their reluctance to get out on a limb and say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, may be more explainable. But they should come around anyway.

# posted by scorpiorising : 7:16 AM |

Thursday, June 26, 2003

We are torturing some of our captives.

It is interesting how this information on the torture of captives in Afghanistan and other sites by the CIA, came to light. It seems that national-security officials felt a need to justify the torture, so came forward and reported it to the Washington Post. This goes beyond Freudian slip into the area of the German decision to invade Russia kind of self-defeatism. The Independent.co.uk examines the revelations:

Privately, the Americans admit that torture, or something very like it, is going on at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they are holding an unknown number of suspected terrorists.

Al-Qa'ida and Taliban prisoners inside this secret CIA interrogation centre - in a cluster of metal shipping-containers protected by a triple layer of concertinaed wire - are subjected to a variety of practices. They are kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles. They are bound in awkward, painful positions. They are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. They are sometimes beaten on capture, and painkillers are withheld.

The interrogators call these "stress and duress" techniques, which one former US intelligence officer has dubbed "torture-lite". Sometimes there is nothing "lite" about the end results. The US military has announced that a criminal investigation has begun into the case of two prisoners who died after beatings at Bagram. More covertly, other terrorist suspects have been "rendered" into the hands of various foreign intelligence services known to have less fastidious records on the use of torture.

What is perhaps most disturbing about all this is that the US officials who have leaked the information have not done so out of a need to expose something that they see as shameful. On the contrary, they have made it clear that they wanted the world to know what is going on because they feel it is justified.

No fewer than 10 serving US national- security officials - including several people who have been witnesses to the handling of prisoners - came forward to speak to The Washington Post, which has published the most graphic account of what is going on in Bagram, and in several other unnamed US interrogation centres across the world. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, one told the paper, "you probably aren't doing your job". He and the others involved are, in effect, saying: we are doing these things because we have to, and we want the world to know.

# posted by scorpiorising : 8:55 AM |

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Congolese blood on our hands.

When we we learn? When will we keep out of the affairs of other countries? There is much blood on our hands, and on the hand of many industrialized nations, for third world misery, and our corporations are profiting. From the New York Times:

April 20, 2003
Chaos in Congo Suits Many Parties Just Fine
By ADAM HOCHSCHILD

As in the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark in the night, sometimes silence says more than words. About one of the great tragedies of today's world, the silence is telling indeed. In Congo, according to an International Rescue Committee report released earlier this month, at least 3.3 million people have lost their lives in four and a half years of civil war. They have perished in combat, in massacres of civilians (the most recent occurred on April 3) and, most of all, in the disease and famine that strike when millions of desperately poor people are forced to flee their homes.

This number does not include the estimated 2.8 million Congolese who have H.I.V. or AIDS, some of it spread through mass rapes by marauding bands of soldiers. Nor does it encompass the misery of having to live for years in refugee camps that turn into fields of mud during the rainy season.

The war has been marked by a series of ineffective peace agreements among three major factions, one of them the national government in Kinshasa, and several smaller groups. And a token force of United Nations observers is now on the scene.

But Congo's separation into rival segments continues, and last week one faction boycotted talks that are supposed to form a power-sharing government. Few Americans, however, seem to care about stopping a conflict with a death toll larger than any since World War II. Why?

American interest in Africa is erratic, but there is a larger reason that few countries have put much effort into ending this war. Simply, Congo's current situation — Balkanized, occupied by rival armies, with no functioning central government — suits many people just fine. Some are heads of Congo's warring factions, some are political and military leaders of neighboring countries, and some are corporations dependent on the country's resources. The combination is deadly.

To begin with, the warlords of most of Congo's factions are happy to divide up its vast treasure of mineral wealth while spending little on public services. The few schools open are mainly run by the Roman Catholic Church.

The continuing turmoil also suits the various countries nearby, above all Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, whose troops have long propped up one or another side in the conflict. In return, they have received a stream of timber, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and columbium-tantalum, or coltan, a valuable mineral used in cellphones, computers and many other electronic devices. At its peak price a few years ago, coltan was selling for $350 a pound.

Such riches have made the war self-supporting, with profits to spare. Despairing Congolese say they would be better off if they were not so rich.

Finally, the Balkanization and war suit the amazing variety of corporations — large and small, American, African and European — that profit from the river of mineral wealth without having to worry about high taxes, and that prefer a cash-in-suitcases economy to a highly regulated one.

An exhaustive report to the United Nations Security Council last year detailed the dozens of companies now making money from Congo's conflict, based everywhere from Ohio to Johannesburg to Antwerp to Kazakhstan. As a result, neither the United States nor any other nation now seems to have much interest in seeing a strong Congolese central government keep profits from the country's patrimony — the word the White House uses about Iraq's oil — mostly at home.

When Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first and last democratically chosen leader, threatened to do just that after taking office in 1960, the Eisenhower administration secretly sought his overthrow and assassination. Emboldened, Congolese and Belgians then carried out the job.

Congo's current disorder grows directly out of a long, unhappy history. Ethnic groups speaking more than 200 different languages live in the territory. For centuries, it served as raiding grounds for the Atlantic slave trade and the equally deadly slave trade from the east coast of Africa to the Islamic world.

When the colonial era began, the land became the privately owned colony of King Leopold II of Belgium. His army turned much of the male population into forced laborers, working many to death. First the laborers gathered ivory — Joseph Conrad gave an unforgettable image of this in "Heart of Darkness" — and then a still more lucrative crop, wild rubber.

During Leopold's rule and its immediate aftermath, the territory's population was slashed roughly in half. Belgian state colonialism followed; it was less brutal and more orderly, but still the profits flowed overseas.

In 1965, five years after independence, Joseph Mobutu seized power in a military coup, encouraged by Washington. He renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko and his country Zaire, and ruled as a dictator for 32 years, receiving more than $1 billion in American aid and repeatedly being welcomed at the White House. Meanwhile he looted the national treasury of an estimated $4 billion. Small wonder that his ravaged country has been having a hard time ever since. It has not helped that in the 1990's the United States supplied more than $100 million in arms and military training to six of the seven African countries that have been involved in the fighting of the Congo war.

Even in a magical world where great powers always had good intentions, no outside intervention — whether by American, European, African or United Nations forces — would be likely to solve Congo's problems. "Nation building" by outsiders is inherently arrogant and risky, and there are few success stories. More than 28,000 NATO-led troops are currently keeping the peace in Kosovo; Congo's population is more than 25 times as large as Kosovo's, and its land area more than 200 times bigger.

THERE are other problems as well. In Africa, loyalty to the extended clan or ethnic group is often far stronger than to the nation-state. These divisions have allowed Congo's plunderers to profit so much for so long. In the immediate future, factional leaders, generals and politicians from surrounding countries, and various Western companies are likely to continue making money.

What hope is there for an end to Congo's misery? The United States made one surprising step forward earlier this month when Congress approved American participation in an international agreement not to trade in "conflict diamonds" — the gems coming from anarchic, war-torn areas like Congo. More than 50 other countries have already signed on. The pact will be hard to enforce — but so was the ban on the Atlantic slave trade in its early years. And if conflict diamonds can be made taboo, why not conflict gold or conflict coltan?Adam Hochschild is the author of "King Leopold's Ghost."

# posted by scorpiorising : 3:16 PM |

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Dean vs Kucinich

Sorry folks, but Kucinich would win in the first round when it comes to progressive views. Bob Harris, a Kucinich supporter who did some research on the views and beliefs of both men, contrasted their views and records on this site:

Issue:
Health care plan: Kucinich: Canadian-style single-payer system, extending the successes of Medicare, financed by a tax on employers lower than the current cost of private insurance. Dean: Complex 4-prong plan, extending multiple state and federal programs piecemeal, combined with tax credits and incentives, all of which Dean claims is more likely to become law, but still won't cover everyone

Death penalty: Kucinich: Opposes Dean: Favors for "extreme" crimes like terrorism or the killing of a police officer, although critical of Bush administration's "careless" approach to executions

Roe v. Wade: Kucinich: The only candidate pledged to make Roe v. Wade a "litmus test" for appointing federal judges. Dean: Pro-choice, but refuses to promise not to appoint pro-life federal judges

Kyoto treaty: Kucinich: Supports Dean: Says we must "take another look," but has "concerns" about some provisions

Patriot Act: Kucinich: Only presidential candidate who personally voted against it Dean: Would repeal "parts," but also wants to expand intelligence agencies; praises Russ Feingold as only Senator who opposed the act, ignoring Kucinich's vocal House opposition, falsely implying no other candidate opposed the Patriot Act

NAFTA/WTO: Kucinich: Full withdrawal, to replace with fair trade; opposes "fast track" treatment of any future trade legislation; personally marched in Seattle protests Dean: Notes problems with "free" trade, suggesting the need for inclusion of human rights, environmental, and labor standards in trade agreements -- but still pro-NAFTA

Campaign finance reform: Kucinich: Supports voluntary public financing of public elections and a constitutional amendment to allow full public financing Dean: Proposed defunding state public financing laws, funneling campaign money into the general fund (helping balance the budget)

"Star Wars" ballistic missile system: Kucinich:Would abolish; has sponsored legislation banning weapons from space Dean: Would cut only 1/8 of the funding, transferring it to international threat-reduction programs

Pentagon waste :Kucinich: Would cut Pentagon programs which don't even work, like the V-22, F-22, and "Star Wars," and demand accountability for over a $1 trillion in "lost" funds. Dean: Disagrees with any proposed Pentagon cutbacks, and advocates aggressive expansion of intelligence, police, and special forces

Balanced budget: Kucinich: A long-term goal, but deficits may be necessary in the short run for economic and social investment Dean: A main priority -- even equating it with social progress: "we cannot have social justice without a sound fiscal foundation" -- describing himself as "to the right of Bush" on the issue

Gun control: Kucinich: Sponsored a bill calling for child safety devices on all new handguns Dean: Opposes any new federal regulation, considers it a states' rights issue; an "A" rating from NRA most of his career

Medical marijuana: Kucinich: Supports compassionate use Dean: Adamantly opposed to all use.

War on drugs Kucinich:Proposes European-style treatment of addiction as a medical, not criminal problem, with attendant reductions in crime and violence Dean: Accepts National Governors Association position: more federal funding for all aspects of the drug war

Gay rights: Kucinich: Believes gay and straight couples should be 100% equal before the law, including Social Security and domestic-partner benefits; Dean: supports federal civil union legislation Signed a civil union (not gay marriage) bill behind closed doors; trumpets this as an act of singular political courage; opposes similar national laws as a states' rights issue

Energy Kucinich: Supports investment in solar, wind, ocean, and other clean energy; risked career to prevent a power monopoly in Cleveland, saving taxpayers over $200 million Dean: Supports investment in alternative energy and energy efficiency; however, has sided with Vermont state utilities on most issues

Restoration of estate tax Kucinich: Supports Dean: Considers it a states' rights issue

Political experience Kucinich:Has held local, state, and federal office for a total of 17 years. Four-term member of Congress, since 1997. Currently chair of the Progressive Caucus, largest Democratic caucus in Congress.
Dean: Vermont state legislator, 1982-86; Lieutenant Governor, 1986-91; Governor, 1991-2002

Iraq war Kucinich: Opposed staunchly from the beginning, has never wavered Dean: Opposed; softened his rhetoric once the war began and appeared successful; now again firmly opposed

Personal Kucinich: Lifelong member of the working class. Grew up so poor that his family lived in a car more than once. Currently a vegan. Dean: Patrician upbringing. Speaks harshly about negative environmental impact of SUVs. Drives an SUV (a Chevy Suburban).

Wellstone connections Kucinich: Wellstone was a proud member of the Progressive Caucus, which Kucinich leads Dean: Stole the "democratic wing of the democratic party" line from Wellstone after his death

Ambition Kucinich: Began campaign late, in part because he was busy organizing anti-war voices in Congress Dean: Vermont newspapers had to sue to get Dean's 2002 schedule as Governor; Dean spent almost all of the year out the state, and didn't want his constituents to know

Home state to carry Kucinich: Ohio, 21 electoral votes Dean: Vermont, 3 electoral votes

# posted by scorpiorising : 3:07 PM |

Sgt. David Borell: Soldier, fighter, patriot

Here is a photo of Sgt. David Borell mourning children injured from unexploded munitions. That was the original caption that I remember seeing of this photo. Now the truth has come out though, that at least two Iraqi children were refused aid from American military doctors when they suffered burns from playing with unexploded munitions, and Sgt. David Borell was a witness. From the toledoblade.com, hometown of Borell:

The children’s parents brought them to the base for treatment, but doctors - according to Sergeant Borell - looked at the children momentarily and turned them away after deciding their injuries were not life-threatening.

Apparently the honest grief expressed by Sgt. Borell is igniting a spark in Americans who become aware of this story:

"This photograph serves to reinforce what I truly believe," wrote Les Elkins, a South Padre Island, Texas, motel owner, in an e-mail to The Blade: "that, in general, Americans, even the biggest, burliest, and toughest of us, are truly caring and compassionate when it comes to the pain and suffering of others."...

Other comments to The Blade came from Iraq, where Sgt. Jeffrey Gottke confirmed Sergeant Borell’s description of the incident.

He called Sergeant Borell "conservative" and "honest" and said he "loves the Army very much."

"To see him take the stand and speak out as he did says to me that this is something very, very important," Sergeant Gottke wrote.

It is an interesting sidepoint that Sgt. Gottke felt it necessary to qualify his description of Sgt. Borell as "conservative".

In this updated article on the story, published on the 19th, the toledoblade.com reports that a congresswoman from Toledo wants more medical aid for the Iraqis, and she gets the "official" response:

Sergeant Borell, of the Toledo-based 323rd Military Police Company, complained that he tried to get medical help on June 13 for the three children - who he said had severe burns on their arms, legs, and faces. After having to send the family on its way without medical help, the 30-year-old sergeant broke down and was comforted by his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Pacholski.

The scene was captured by an Associated Press photographer and the picture was printed the following day in The Blade and newspapers across the country. After seeing the photograph, Miss Kaptur pledged to speak with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld sent Dr. Chu and Mr. Wyatt in his place, Miss Kaptur said.

Miss Kaptur advocated yesterday a system of U.S.-operated field hospitals to provide health care for Iraqi citizens. She also offered to help mobilize communities in northwest Ohio, and specifically Toledo, to assist in providing both medical expertise and medical supplies.

"After 10 years of bombing and the embargo [U.N. sanctions], their hospitals are barren anyway," Miss Kaptur said. "So how can you depend on a civilian system that doesn’t even exist? ... It is a very, very dangerous place, and that’s why field hospitals make sense."

Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that the top priority right now is security, and that providing health services is difficult because the situation in Iraq is still dangerous. "He agreed with Congresswoman Kaptur about the need to emphasize health care, and especially public health," said Steve Fought, an aide to Miss Kaptur who was present at the meeting.

Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that security in the country was probably too unstable for such an operation. He said the World Health Organization has emphasized rebuilding the health-care infrastructure in Iraq.

There it is. It is too dangerous to have health care for the injuries caused to the Iraqi people by our war.

# posted by scorpiorising : 6:10 AM |

Deadly games and deadly indifference.

Eric Alterman in his Altercations yesterday posted this link to an article concerning the deaths and injuries of Iraqi children from exploding munitions. According to the article, in just one week, 52 children were killed and 63 were injured. View the article at your own risk; there are graphic pictures of injured and dying children. In my worse moments of righteous anger, I would love to smear these pictures in the faces of conservatives when they champion this war; and anyone who continues to champion this war, I must question their basic humanity.

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:43 AM |

Monday, June 23, 2003

The intelligence down under

One has to wonder at the sort of apathy found in Australia. To my knowledge, there is no strong christian movement to bond with the values of Australians, and blur the line between religion and government, as has happened in this country, lending to a much too important prominence of government, in the wrong areas, in the lives of Americans right now. Whew, I got that out.

This article suggests Australians are apathetic because their government has lied, and has lied often. From the guardian:

No surprise there, a cynic might say. The Australian public have grown used to their government lying, most scandalously during the xenophobic campaign for the 2001 federal election.

In a masterpiece of innuendo and misinformation, ministers told the public that refugees on a stricken ship off the northwest coast of Australia were throwing their own children into the sea in an attempt to force the coastguard to pick them up and take them ashore. A photograph was given to the media purporting to show those children floating in the water.

Ministers hinted that Islamist terrorists might be choosing this hazardous route to get into Australia, particularly absurd claim given that western-qualified English-speakers such as Mohammed Atta are precisely the sort of Muslim immigrants that Australia's immigration department is still happy to welcome.

In fact, the photograph showed an Australian coastguard rescuing adult refugees after their ship sank. The "children overboard" claim was inspired by a single, unconfirmed report in which a refugee on deck was seen through binoculars lifting her child into the air.

Or is it the Australian panache for good times; a kind of happy-go-lucky decadence, that leaves little room for the sometimes dark and messy game of politics.

If national stereotypes are anything to go by, Australians might be expected to concentrate on their desire for good times, rather than worry about what's going on in Canberra. And true to form, public reaction from third member of the coalition of the willing has largely been one of ennui.

However, it appears Australians are getting their wake-up call, and indeed, the Australian wake-up call is going to England.

This week he is in London, where the foreign affairs select committee will question him further about the subterfuge used to sell the war. His testimony is likely to be explosive. Governments in Washington, London and Canberra, he will say, were simply lying to the public about Iraq.

Who is this man?

The revelation came with the resignation of Andrew Wilkie, a senior analyst at Australia's top intelligence body, the office of national assessment (ONA). A former soldier with an open, affable manner, Wilkie used to sit in his Canberra office reading raw intelligence reports from Australian and international spy agencies, weighing them up and then boiling them down into briefings for the prime minister and cabinet.

And what "revelation" might this be?

Evidence about that missing stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was similarly unreliable. "It was clear before the war that some of the evidence on WMD coming out of Britain and America was garbage," he says. "It was being skewed by political information from Iraqis who were trying to encourage a US invasion."

And why was this invasion wanted?

I know for a fact that in Australia, the government was being well advised that WMD was not the sole reason for Washington going to war," he says. "In fact, it wasn't even the most important reason ... The British and Australian governments were well aware of the real reasons for the war."

Unbelievably, the guardian article pretty much ends there. I don't know if Wilkie is going to reveal what he believes to be the reason. I am looking foward to his testimony before the English foreign affairs select committee. In the meantime, fill in the blanks.

# posted by scorpiorising : 12:56 PM |

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Political Forum Today

I just watched a political forum sponsored by the Rainbow Coalition on C-Spann. The candidates Dean, Gephardt, Kerry, Kucinich, Sharpton, Braun and Leiberman participated.

I'm tired folks, worked today, so this is going to be a simple review of the forum.
I am immensly encouraged by what I saw today, seven candidates speaking with a seemingly united voice. There may be some difference in the beliefs and platforms of these candidates, but I didn't sense much difference in their values.

The candidates were awesome. The forum dealt with intelligent questions, intelligent answers, and there was much room for passion. At times the forum felt more like a revival.

I'm going to say this: our current crop of candidates is the best that I have seen since I started voting, 26 years ago. Now you know my age.

These are exactly the people we need running at this particular point in time, and I am going to speak on each of them. I am greatly appreciative of what they all bring to the debate.

Let me start with Kerry. He lends gravity to the debate. He speaks with an almost presidential aplomb, a seemingly solid knowledge of the issues. Leiberman is getting on the bandwagon of challenging recent economic policies that favor the rich. He is beginning to find his voice in this ongoing debate.

Dean was more than solid, and very impressive. My friends at the Daily Kos ought to be proud.

Gephardt had a great line today. "Let's kick the money changers out of the temple of government". He brought the house down. All of the candidates played off of each other points and issues raised.

At one point Kerry couldn't contain himself and reached over and patted Sharpton's arm after Sharpton gave a rousing speech.

Which leads me to Sharpton. He was positively brilliant today. His answers were sharp and right on. The man is an orator. He has a brilliant command of language and metaphor and uses humor with an ease that none of the other candidates can match. We need him in the debate.

Braun was good today. Clear, softly passionate. I imagine she gives much courage to women and particularly, African-American women, to let their voices be heard. She is not perfect. She doesn't have a perfect history. But I could see from today she has something to add to the debate. Comparing her record to the robber barons we have in office today, and we know that her sins were small change compared to these looters. I hope she has learned her lesson, and will be around for many years to come adding the female, black voice to the political debate that needs to be heard.

This leads me to my favorite candidate, Kucinich. I noticed people laughing at times when he spoke. My mother and I giggled at times when he was his most forceful, and I realized why we are all laughing. We were delighted at the firm confidence with which he challenges the powers that be, with a clear vision and firm determination that he will accomplish.

We are no longer used to politicians that aren't wishy-washy. That's why we all giggle when he speaks. Shear delight. He alone, with candidate Sharpton, have taught the other candidates to be better speakers, more passionate speakers, and to take on the issues directly.

He said he will use the Justice Department, if elected, to file suit against media, energy and agriculture monopolies. The man means business, and he means to practically and pragmatically apply the values of this country to his actions to try to actualize our most cherished beliefs. Is he unelectable? I have no idea, but he brings a level of discourse to the debate that we desperately need at this time.

We can't afford to beat around the Bush any longer. I believe this election is life or death for this republic. Will you lend your voice?

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:56 PM |