Rep. Pelosi Shopping For New Gavel.

In the final days leading up to the much pronounced Democrat re-taking of the House, there is a lot of Republican fear mongering to their base about what will befall America and no, it's not a pretty picture. So far in various races we've heard colloquial ethnic slurs, a veiled threat that electing an African-American will lead inevitably to interracial sex with white women, and the ritualistic slandering of Democrats as disrespecting our troops abroad, even if it is against someone who has actually served. If the Democrats do win, and I am not conceding anything here, including their ability to lose even their own primary, will this really change the atmosphere in Washington? Or will it just be politics as usual?

Let's say the Democrats win a majority in the House next week as everyone is screaming must happen, what the hell does that mean? Does that mean that George W, Rummy and the Prince of Darkness are all taken to Gitmo? Will the righteous be raised high and the wicked laid low? Will, at last, the God-damned lion and lamb set aside their differences and lay beside one another? And will someone finally find out what happened on 9/11? Probably not. If the Democrats do win the most effective strategy they could employ is to hold hearings into what's been happening these past six years. They can lift up some pretty big rocks and see what crawls out. There has been enough illegal activity and incompetence in this Administration to hold hearings from now until the next Red Sox World Series victory. However, without a Democrat retaking of the Senate which everyone is screaming can not happen, the House hearings may have little effect. The Senate, if it wishes, can create separate and parallel hearings and if the Republicans hold the Senate I can guarantee you that their findings will be wildly divergent from a Democrat House. This will, in turn, ensure abject confusion and ambivalence of the American public. So is a Democrat victory in the House all for naught?

No. But if you're looking for immediate gratification, as most of us Americans demand, you will be disappointed. However, you will see a big change in what the government is talking about and, as a result, what will be reported on the news. The White House will no longer be able to call Majority Leader Hastert and say "Why don't you guys talk about something other than Iraq or Mark Foley or Katrina or Valerie Plame or Nuclear Proliferation". That will now be the decision of the Democrats as well as the control of what committees will look into and regardless of the outcome of these hearings, there will be some laundry done in the public square. At these hearings you will hear things like "bribery", "war profiteering" and "impeachment". In the end, however, the President will still be the President, there will still be troops in Iraq and 40 million Americans will still have no medical insurance.

The long term problem for the Democrats will be if they take control of the House and do nothing. This will most likely ensure that they will re-lose the House, the Senate and the Oval in 2008 and make their issues irrelevant for the next election cycle. If they simply sit in committees pointing fingers at who did what to whom and why we are in the current situation, they are doomed. I am not advocating a turn the other cheek policy, far from it. I hope the Democrats put some high ranking officials behind bars, but if they don't fix the problem in front of them first, they may have to postpone their Oval Office strategies until 2016.

President Bush: "Stop me before I kill again!"

Torture, like prostitution, has been around for probably the same amount of time and when you think about it, there are some striking similarities. For one, it takes a qualified specialist to to both jobs well. It involves shady exchanges of money and clandestine rooms where very personal things happen. However, one has a happy ending while the other, not so. Unless of course you are one of the torturers or transporters of prisoners. According to the Guardian, "On one occasion, CIA pilots and crew lived it up in Majorca after rendering Benyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian brought up in Notting Hill, west London, to Afghanistan where he was tortured." It's nice to know that while our boys are destroying the faith and morality of an entire civilization, they can blow off some steam.

But is torture even debatable in a civilized, post-industrial nation? Is there an argument for its use? Can a country call itself advanced and still attempt to obtain information by means of physical and psychological coercion? According to President Bush in a statement on June 2003, "The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment." Did someone tell our President that we have illegal detention centers at Guantanimo Bay? Has he seen the photographs from Abu Ghraib? Is he aware that everyone now knows from first hand accounts that the C.I.A. has been kidnapping suspected terrorists, flying them in Air America planes to third party nations torturing and, in some cases murdering them? I suppose this is what happens when you elect a President who openly admits to not reading newspapers.

Perhaps I am being too glib? After all, President Bush is enacting (and no matter what he says he knows about the torture) policies of torture so that America can stop nascent terrorist strikes. In his press conference on September 15th, 2006, President Bush claimed that: "The information that the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has provided valuable information and has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including strikes within the United States." Yet there is absolutely no evidence of this, and if they think I'm falling for the whole "don't worry, trust us" routine after wmds, they are sadly mistaken. When it comes down to it, torturing people gives governments the illusion of safety. Anyone who works in intelligence will tell you that information obtained by torture is almost always inaccurate. When you physically abuse anyone for information, their prime objective is not to help you but to get you to stop hurting them and sometimes that means telling you anything you want to hear. Here are some other situations and qualified experts that illustrate how torture is not only morally wrong but strategically ineffective.

-Maher Arar, a Canadian wireless technology consultant, who was snatched by U.S. agents at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City and transported to Syria, where, for ten months, he was kept in a six-foot by three-foot cell, before being transferred to a collective cell. Under torture, he confessed to being an Islamist extremist who attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. In reality, not only was Arar not an Islamist terrorist, but he had never even been to Afghanistan. He was ultimately released without charge and the Canadian commission affirmed that he was completely innocent.
-Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Fred E. Haynes, a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam, a man who knows more about war, prisoners and extracting information than I'll bet does Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld said "... by treating an individual decently you are much more likely to get any information you might want - and it's more likely to be correct."
-Retired Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen and at one time chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals believes the average American soldier thinks that torture policies have undermined the military. They also are upset that these policies were mostly formulated by men, like Bush, who have not seen combat. "[Vice President Dick] Cheney made mention in the days after 9/11 that he wanted to operate sort of on the dark side," Cullen said. "Here was a guy who never served, and now something terrible had happened, and he wanted to show that he was a tough guy... So he's going to operate outside the rules of law. Bad message."
-Let us not forget that the plot to blow up nearly ten airliners traveling from Britain to the United States was exposed not using torture, but police work and surveillance.

In the end, balancing the safety of a nation against the methods employed to guarantee those safeties is always tricky. President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and history looks upon that act with more or less a kindly eye. The man, after all did preserve the union. But Mr. Bush you are no Abraham Lincoln and imprisoning reporters during the secession of half your nation is a little different than secretly torturing people without any evidence of their wrong doing for ends that ultimately serve no one. This shameful episode will come home to roost when tales of captured G.I.s (or worse, our citizens) and their torture start to circulate and we as a nation must sit and take it for we will have no leg with which to stand.

A Grim Reaping

In America we are enmeshed in our own political game of horse trading. The news, depending upon what station you watch, has either declared a Democrat sweep or a Republican reaffirmation. The Republican's latest strategy is not to discuss the war in the Middle East which is interesting considering they haven't discussed the war since the polls showed unfavorable numbers. George W. Bush, in what can be considered as a sort of maybe kind of concession acknowledged that the current upswing of violence in Iraq has a resemblance to the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Vietnam conflict prompting the question, "so when is the fall of Saigon supposed to happen?"

Not to sound like an alarmist, but in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the situation is getting worse. Much worse. "Coalition" troops are now engaged in killing sprees on innocent men, women and, most horribly, children. Red Cross reports are pouring in on how the U.S. policy of "enemy combatants" which essentially means civilian populations, is the cause of well over a half a million deaths. Families are bombed, shot and withheld medical aid, food or any sort of assistance. As though the terrorists we are fighting are indistinguishable from the population. This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. With one exceptional element: Religion.

In Vietnam there were no religious overtones which can take any low intensity conflict and turn it into a full blown centuries long war. The Administration, in ignoring this glaring fact, has embroiled the United States and its "allies" in a new struggle which they've admitted may last decades, if we're lucky. The BBC has reported that "those in Iraq who previously never considered themselves as part of a secterian group, are now forced to do so." Once Saddam and the Taliban fell (probably a good thing overall) the United States' complete lack of postwar planning has caused almost total political chaos, that the only thing most of these fractious leaders agree upon is that America is their enemy. Generations from now Iraqi and Afghani children will tell their children of when the westerners came to their nation and killed their friends and families and bombed their communities without descrimination or concern. From these hundreds of thousands of memories more enemies will emerge. What happened in Vietnam stayed in Vietnam, but rest assured the ghost of what we are doing in the Middle East now will return to haunt us.

It only took 19 men with box cutters and a religious cause (removing US troops from Saudi Arabia is one of Bin Laden's prime raison d'etres) to bring the United States economy and way of life to a grinding halt not to mention shred our notion of habeas corpus. So you tell me, how many more do you think we're making now? If America doesn't change its policies (and it may be too late) of murdering indescriminately innocent civilians, we will be faced with the results for years to come. If you want an example, look at Britian in the 70s and France in the 80s. That is what happens when you subjugate entire peoples to irrational violence. They tend to return the favor.

The Republican Cross To Bear

It has always amazed me when religious groups in America back a political party. It amazes me because in our country, politicians are about as concerned by religion as they are by the economically disenfranchised. That is to say not at all. Yet, for some reason the Christian Coalition has repeatedly thrown their collective hat in the ring with a political party that has instituted more to hurt the poor than any other (lest we forget, there are quite a few Christians who live below the poverty line), steal trillions of dollars in scandal after scandal starting with the S&Ls and moving right up to Iraq (stealing last time I checked was a sin) and let's not forget our latest Republican offering: pedophilia. Okay, attempted pedophilia. And yet the latest poll shows that Christian voters would still rather see a party that, on paper, appears to hate their moral values more than Satan himself stay in control.

This really isn't a question of Republican or Democrat, it's a question of religion and politics. And the steaming piles and piles of hypocrisy. Karl Rove, it has been written, was one of the chief architects in marrying the Christian Coalition to the Republican bandwagon and it paid off in spades. With Coalition's help they've been able to boost their base by at least ten percent and all they have had to do is "defend marriage" (a sad fact considering that Karl Rove's own father was gay) and give the the occasional anti-abortion speech. The problem the Republicans are facing now however, is that when something like stem-cell research comes up and you have to choose between saving actual lives versus saving bible lives, is that ten percent worth the other forty? That answer may be yet another reason why The Administration's ratings are in the toilet. The Republicans are alienating their core base by catering to the religious fringes much the same way America percieved the Democrats did in '68. (I say percieved because let's face it, Humphreys wasn't exactly a radical.)

Iraq is another situation in which the Republican's miscalculated on a grand scale with their Christian base. You see, not all Christians believe that America has the right to blow up Shi'ites and Sunni's at will. Some Christian's actually believe "thou shalt not kill" was written to include everyone. And now that the civilian death toll in Iraq is estimated at 600,000, even some of the religious right are beginning to cringe. It's difficult to preach from a pulpit when you're standing on skulls. In a latest poll taken of Christians over fifty percent believed that the war was wrong, not just politically, but morally.

Truth be told, The Administration is, like a high school quarterback, just using the rich girl in school for her nice house and pool. You can't ask for more proof of this than the Foley scandal. If The Administration had even the slightest interest in running a Christian political party, do you think they'd allow homosexuals into the fold? Let alone known sexual predators? House Speaker (for now) Hastert knew for years about Foley as did many in the higher ranking Republican circles. They knew and did nothing while this man accosted minors from his congressional office. You have to go as far back as the Roman Empire to find that sort of arrogance. It not only shows that Republicans no longer care about thier "values" but even more astounding, they no longer seem to even care about maintaining their facade of values. I suppose they don't have to, after all, they're not Democrats.

Recipe for Failure? Just add Rice!

Anyone can have a stretch of bad luck. Anyone can face terrible adversity that sets them back. Anyone can lose. More than once. I have sympathy for those people. People who keep getting out there and trying despite the odds and who get better at what they do until one day they're ready to face any challenge. And then there are those people who simply don't learn and whose mistakes, the same ones over and over, get innocent people killed. They don't resign, they don't apologize and, oddly, they don't even seem to care. I am, of course, speaking of Dr. Condeleeza Rice, the Administration's longest running failure.

Let us begin with the unpleasantness surrounding September 11th where she held the position of National Security Advisor. One of the many responsibilities of this position is to take all the collected data and prioritize them for the President. For instance, if the Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Security Group tells you in January that Al Qaeda "... is not some narrow, little terrorist issue ... Rather, several of our regional policies need to address centrally the ... challenge to the US..." make sure the President knows. Also, if in July of that same year the CIA Director briefs you on a looming terrorist attack from the same group, maybe you want to let someone know. Anyone. Tell a police officer if you're not sure. As the National Security Advisor you can probably get someone to listen. Instead, according Bob Woodward in his latest Washington tell all, State of Denial he claims that then CIA director, George Tenet, told Dr. Rice of such a plot and that he was "brushed off".

Let us also remember her pitiful appearance in front of the 9/11 Commission in which she continually informed the American public that there was "absolutely no way anyone could have known that such an attack was going to happen." So who told then Attorney General John Ashcroft almost a month before the attacks to stop using commercial flights? In July 2001, in response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term. "There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it. Are we to believe that Dr. Rice, as the National Security Advisor was out of the loop when it came to the hijacking threat? Hardly.

And then there was Iraq. For that, I will let Senator Robert Byrd (D - WV) do my talking. This is from Dr. Rice's confirmation hearings for her Secretary of State appointment. "Beginning in September 2002, Dr. Rice also took a position on the front lines of the administration's efforts to hype the danger of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people into believing that there was an imminent threat from Iraq. On September 8, 2002, Dr. Rice conjured visions of American cities being consumed by mushroom clouds. On an appearance on CNN, she warned, 'The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he (meaning Saddam) can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' That was Dr. Rice speaking. Dr. Rice also claimed that she had conclusive evidence about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program." Needless to say, there were no WMDs, no nuclear programs, no Al Qaeda connections. Just a lot of lies and failures in intelligence. More? Why yes, we do have more.

How about Hurrican Katrina? True, as Secretary of State, her primary responsibility is to represent our nation in foreign affairs, and we'll get to that later. However, when a natural disaster unprecedented in our nation's history threatens the entire Gulf of Mexico oil industry, the city that is the gateway to our largest internal water route and the half a million people who live there where do you think, as a member of the Cabinet, you should be? In Washington? Being kept up to date on the oil refineries? (Lest we forget, Dr. Rice was on the board of Chevron) Letting other nations know that the most powerful country is handling this disaster with the skill and adroitness that has given us our supreme position? No. She was taking a vacation in New York City where she purchased new shoes and took in a Broadway show. Spamalot, I believe. Those around her report that she enjoyed the performance. Over one thousand people died in that hurricane. Some of them drowned in their own homes. Others died because of infection, dehydration and starvation. I hear Dr. Rice is a big fan of shoe shopping.

And finally, after her appointment to Secretary of State, Dr. Rice handled the bungling of the Hezbollah/Isreal conflict which left Isreal weaker than it's ever been and Hezbollah scoring major points in Southern Lebanon. Do you know why Hezbollah is scoring points in Southern Lebanon? Because they are giving the war victims there money to rebuild their lives. (That money, by the way comes partially from you, my fellow Americans via Iran's oil revenues.) In just another failed Dr. Rice initiative, she waited to intervene in the conflict until she saw that Isreal wasn't doing as well as they should. By then, it was too late. After the conflict, Dr. Rice was brushed off (that's irony isn't it?) by every single Middle Eastern leader from Egypt to Syria to Saudi Arabia. Her blatant and insultingly obvious do-nothing policy during the conflict was so completely pro-Isreal that no Arab leader could dare be seen with her for fear of upsetting their constituents. It must be difficult to act as Secretary of State when no one returns your calls, but I suppose that's just par for the course when everything you've achieved has been an unmitigated failure.