Stars & Stripes: New 'Pentagon Papers'? ("Constitution in Crisis")

[lebkuchen]

New ‘Pentagon Papers’?

If the release of “The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War” by Congressman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., does not seem dangerously similar to the release of the “Pentagon Papers” by whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, which contributed to the ending of the Vietnam War and the eventual downfall of President Nixon, I don’t know what else can be so close to the truth finally coming out.

We are witnessing the beginning of the end of the Bush administration. The latest news of the president authorizing the spying on Americans not only being limited to people with known links to al-Qaida, and in recent weeks more and more members of his own party standing up against him on key Republican issues and demanding hearings into the potentially illegal surveillance program make it hard to believe that this president will finish his term in office. If we can impeach a president (Bill Clinton) over a personal relationship that he lied about, compare that to what President Bush has admitted to doing to the American people.

The world is watching! Let’s not forget the ongoing investigation into the CIA leak of a covert agent. The investigations of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay don’t help the Republicans’ hold of power, either, with the 2006 midterm elections right around the corner. “The Constitution In Crisis” packs a huge punch toward the Bush administration and their ideological reasons for war in Iraq.

Read it and draw your own conclusions.

Gabriel Rodriguez
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=33972

[Tigress DEM]

1. We can only hope!

TOO TIRED FOR PROLONGED CONVERSATION. Good luck with this!

[Peace Patriot]

2. I think we're looking at things kind of backwards.

Here's what should be first in our minds. Recently, in Ohio, there were four election reform initiatives on the ballot, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, which got flipped over into 60/40 LOSSES on election day--the biggest flipover we've seen yet. And nobody seems able to do anything about it. The new electronic voting machines are run on 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. This is the case now throughout the country--a completely non-transparent election system, in which the secret code is owned and controlled by Bushite corporations (mainly Diebold and ES&S).

Now consider Bush's admission that he has committed 30 felonies--violations of the FISA court laws--and intends to continue committing these crimes.

I think he is doing this--rubbing our noses in his crimes--in the confidence that there will be no consequences. His buds control the voting machines. They will ensure the "selection" of a Congress that will not impeach him.

Torture? Gross violations of the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and other laws--ordered or permitted by Bush? In May 04, 63% of Americans disapproved of torture "under any circumstances." Unjust war, based on a pack of lies? In Feb. 03, 58% of Americans opposed the war in Iraq (before the invasion). And what did it matter on election day? Bush's buds control the voting machines.

My husband said something prescient around about May 2004. He said that Bush and Cheney were acting like they don't care--they just give the finger to public opinion.

And that's what I think is happening. They not only have a guaranteed lapdog press--run by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--they have guaranteed endorsement of whatever they do by a whole bunch of electrons, moving at the speed of light, called "votes," that are changeable in completely untraceable ways, away from the sight of any human being, and which no one has a right to observe, not even our secretaries of state, because the programming of what these electrons do is a "trade secret."

The Devil himself could not have devised a more non-transparent, fraud-prone election SYSTEM. And he who breaks the law and considers himself above the law, and he who tortures, and he who bombs and invades a country for no good reason, and he who spies on his countrymen illegally, would not hesitate to use this fraud-prone election system for what seems to me is its intended purpose: election fraud.

And that's what the facts of the 2004 election show as well. In so far as we can infer--from analysis of the exit polls and other data--Bush did not win. The non-transparency of the election system means that we cannot "prove" it. But all available evidence points in that direction.

This situation does not dismay me. It energizes me. I think we are best off knowing the truth. Then, when this non-transparent, unverifiable election system endorses this twerp with a 38% approval rating, and his Darth Vader partner with an 18% approval rating, once again, we will not be disillusioned, depressed or disempowered. We will monitor the polls. We will gather evidence. We will challenge suspicious results where we can. And we WILL change this election system, county by county, state by state, or die trying. It MUST be done. Our democracy depends on it.

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*Here is Bob Koehler's article on the Ohio initiatives:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

More info:

For an easy to read pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting ("MythBreakers"). (One of the myths is that HAVA mandated electronic voting; it did NOT; citizens and election officials still have a choice!)
www.votersunite.org

For a project for statistical monitoring and challenges of elections in '06 and '08:
www.UScountvotes.org

Russ Holt's bill HR 550 will stop the corporate privatization of our elections in its tracks, and reverse it. It has 169 co-sponsors (mostly Dems). Sign the petition. http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

Updates on the election reform movement:
http://www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml

For analysis of the 2004 election results (and exit polls):
www.TruthIsAll.net

[Hissyspit]

3. Kudos to the brave letter writer. Cheney calling publically for more

executive power supports your hypothesis. He acts as if there will never be another Democratic president. Why is he so confident?

[Hissyspit]

4. kick - those four recommendations look so sad, will no one find them

a fifth?

[lebkuchen]

7. Please think about

sending your excellent response to Stars and Stripes letters.

[e-mail]

They will need your name, address, email and phone, the usual. Thanks for considering.

[unblock]

5. i sincerely hope that america is sick up and fed

i for one have had ENOUGH of an administration that thinks that nixon's only mistake was getting caught and aside from that holocaust thing, hitler was a great role model.

[texpatriot2004]

6. Here's a K & R to the "beginning of the end" nm