Washington’s Bloody Make-Believe

By Carla Binion
April 26, 2007

It’s astonishing that members of Congress are either unaware George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied the nation to war with Iraq, or they are aware of the fact and don’t care. A Congress grounded in reality would have unequivocally acknowledged the administration’s lies long ago and taken appropriate action – almost certainly impeachment.

If we say the pre-war lies don’t matter and the country should sweep them under the rug and only focus on the best way out of Iraq, what we’re really saying is that the truth itself doesn’t matter.

Read on.

Dying for W

By Robert Parry
April 25, 2007

George W. Bush admits he has no evidence that a withdrawal timetable from Iraq would be harmful. Instead, the President told interviewer Charlie Rose that this core assumption behind his veto threat of a Democratic war appropriation bill is backed by “just logic.”

“I mean, you say we start moving troops out,” Bush said in the interview on April 24. “Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable for withdrawal?”

It is an argument that Bush has made again and again over the past few years, that with a withdrawal timetable, the “enemy” would just “wait us out.” But the answer to Bush’s rhetorical question could be, “well, so what if they do?”

Read on.

Exaggerating al-Qaeda’s Threat

By Ivan Eland
April 25, 2007

Michael Chertoff, President Bush’s secretary of Homeland Security, desperately tried to refute Zbigniew Brzezinski’s cogent charge that the administration has hyped the “war on terror” to promote a “culture of fear,” in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

In addition to shamefully smearing Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Advisor, by associating him with the fringe opinion that the administration plotted the 9/11 terrorist acts, Chertoff also declared, “Al-Qaeda and its ilk have a world vision that is comparable to that of historical totalitarian ideologues but adapted to the 21st–century global network.”

Read on.

Explaining Cheney’s Iraq War Smirk

By Ray McGovern
April 24, 2007

Never before have I felt such irk from a Cheney smirk — the one with which he confidently assured CBS’s Bob Schieffer on April 15’s “Face the Nation” that the Democrats will continue to vote to fund the war without including serious restrictions.

Cheney referred approvingly to the fact that “Carl Levin, who’s chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has indicated that they definitely do want to pass funding for the troops.”

Read on.

Hypocrisy: Thy Name Is Bush

By Robert Parry
April 21, 2007

George W. Bush likes to present the “war on terror” as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.

But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as “terrorism.”

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Gonzales & the ‘Mayberry Machiavellis’

By Robert Parry
April 20, 2007

Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush’s government.

“There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” said DiIulio, who had run Bush’s office of faith-based initiatives. “What you’ve got is everything – and I mean everything – being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

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Is It Time for PBS to Go?

By Robert Parry
April 19, 2007

PBS is broadcasting what amounts to a neoconservative propaganda series entitled “America at a Crossroads,” which has included a full hour info-mercial for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq written and narrated by Richard Perle, one of the war’s architects.

The Perle segment, entitled “The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom,” treated anti-war Americans as deranged individuals. Perle, though known as the “prince of darkness,” spoke in a quiet almost regretful tone, expressing disappointment that “conspiracy theories” and hatred of Bush had blinded so many people to the rightness of the Iraq War.

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Iraq Disaster May Cool War Fever

By Ivan Eland
April 19, 2007

America’s problems in Afghanistan and Iraq may have one positive effect: They will cause the U.S. public to withhold support for future military interventions that are not absolutely necessary for U.S. security.

That’s exactly what has happened in the past and there’s no reason to believe the current failed adventures will be different.

Read on.

Imus Agonistes

By Jay Diamond
April 18, 2007

It would be nice if we had arrived at a teachable moment in the business of talk radio, but don’t bet on it. Don Imus’ firing over a flippant racially charged remark is already being described as a watershed; a turning point in what the public will accept from radio hosts.

Already, congratulations are flowing into the offices of broadcast managers for “doing the right thing.” Unfortunately, like so much of what commands our attention in the media, what passes for “news” is in reality a distraction from the real issue.

Read on.

GOP Senators Misled on Prosecutor

By Richard L. Fricker
April 18, 2007

The Bush administration fed Republican senators misleading talking points that hailed the prosecutorial experience of interim Little Rock U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin, although the protégé of White House political adviser Karl Rove appears never to have actually tried a criminal case.

The Justice Department and White House sent talking points and other information to Congress stressing the 38-year-old Griffin’s “significant experience as a federal prosecutor at both the Department of Justice and as a military prosecutor.” Republican senators then echoed those assessments of Griffin as a seasoned professional.

But an examination of Griffin’s record as a prosecutor reveals a much less impressive body of experience, with no indication that Griffin ever took a criminal case to trial either as a civilian or a military prosecutor.

Read on.