FBI: Uniformed

I just wrote a post about how the FBI employees are so uniformed that their biases are resulting in these raids on peace and social justice activist that tear at the fabric of our democracy... but poof! Blogger nixed it.

Bottom Line: We need to insist that one response to the Department of Justice General Inspector reports is that a major awareness training is conducted for FBI employees about the history of labor struggles, Palestinian struggles, US intervention in Central and South America, etc.

Nuf said for now.

For Your Convenience:

• Contact the Broadcast Media
• Contact the Newspapers
• Contact the US Senate
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

McCrystal's Rolling Stone Interview: A Modern Pentagon Paper

General McCrystal has done us all a big favor by his frank exchange in the Rolling Stone article, "The Runaway General."

Perhaps it was his subconscious at work, but McCrystal has laid bare some of the realities of the situation... Michael Hastings and the Rolling Stone magazine editors also deserve some of the credit.

Don't get me wrong; McCrystal is a murderer, and a danger to our democracy. He covered up the Pat Tillman cause-of-death, he surely condones the use of torture, and fails to understand that the United States should be run by civilians, not the military. But, he's like the Washington (Moonie) Times; he says things others won't say, and in that way, he has been valuable. McCrystal has released the effective equivalent of the Vietnam Pentagon Papers on Afghanistan.

For Your Convenience:

• Contact the Broadcast Media
• Contact the Newspapers
• Contact the US Senate
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Don't Worry, They're Just Trainers

Today we hear:

Thousands of U.S. troops will remain in Iraqi cities at local security stations after the summer deadline to have combat troops out of the urban areas, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Saturday.

The report continues,

Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters that the troops would serve as training and mentoring teams, and thus would not be included in the mandate to pull combat troops from the cities. That mandate is included in the recently approved U.S.-Iraq security agreement.

My first thought was "in your face Iraqi scum," as in the USA! USA! shouters saying, "the US doesn't really have to adhere to its agreements... because we're the superior USA!"

My second thought was, these little security stations will be sitting ducks. It's only a matter of time before one is over run and every American in it is liquidated. Then we'll have a big step backwards; we're all familiar with such events. (Hopefully I'm wrong).

My final thought drifted back to the prediction I made back, coincidentally as I check the date, two years ago today in a piece entitled Iraqization and Predicted Length of Iraq War.

Vietnamization was a term used to describe the training and mentoring of South Vietnamese soldiers by US trainers so that war could be "vietnamized."


Psssst... Do Something

• Contact the Broadcast Media
  
• Contact the Newspapers
  
• Contact the US Senate
  
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Associated Press, Commander: Troops to stay in cities past deadline, December 13, 2008.

Gonzales Has to Go

The Nation is crumbling under the weight of the outsourcing of jobs, which will never return, artificial bubble economics, which is devastating the personal finances of anyone not lucky enough to have "gotten in" before the bogus expansions, and corporate-enabled consolidation of wealth, which is widening the wealth gap and creating angst among the vast majority of Americans.

This is all to say nothing of the seething angst among the forgotten poor of our country. Many of them are turning to gangsterism, which is justified by gangsterism by corporate scams and the actions of Bush and his operatives, like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The erosion of social morays among the dispossessed is justified, in part, as a reaction to the recent stealing of elections, which is being exposed by the revelations about Timothy Griffin's roles the 2000 and 2004 election voter suppression efforts by he Republican National Committee (RNC).

Despite the happy talk about how great the US economy is doing, it is fundamentally flawed, and subject to a serious pending correction; the economic statistics of Wall Street mask the more honest economic statistics of main street. It's time for Congress, both Democrat and Republican, to take the bull by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. This should start with doing what ever is necessary to initiate a legal investigation Gonzales and get an honest replacement. We cannot afford to have Gonzales at the helm of the Justice Department if or when our Nations hits troubled waters ahead.

Contact the Solicitor General, Paul Clement, and request an investigation. In particular, ask that Gonzales be investigated for perjury: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

Update - August 27, 2007:

He's gone. Now it's time to follow up with criminal investigations.

Sources:

Associated Press, LARA JAKES JORDAN, July 25, 2007, Special prosecutor weighed for Gonzales

Gonzales: Nice Guy but Corrupt

It's a basic principle of our republic; the United States Justice Department and Attorney General represent the people, not the President. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has shown a pattern of crossing that line, both personally and via actions of the Department. Now, the pressure is building for Gonzales to resign.

There is a petition drive to impeach Alberto Gonzales. According to former Nixon Attorney John Dean:

The Constitution's Impeachment Clause applies to all "civil officers of the United States" - not to mention the president, vice president and federal judges... the group certainly includes a president's cabinet and sub-cabinet, as well as the senior department officials and the White House staff (those who are issued commissions by the president and serve the President and Vice President).

The list of abuses is long, and the dark depths are chilling:

• Creating a new legal category of humans: "Enemy Combatant."

• Applying the principle of "guilt by association" in defining someone as an enemy combatant

• Finding that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to this new category of humans.

• Legalizing Torture for this new category of humans.

• Legalizing kidnapping, international transport, detention and torture without legal representation.

• Opening private mail without a warrant.

• Massive program for sweeping up e-mails without warrants.

• Surveillance of domestic phone calls without warrants.

• FBI Abuse of the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain private records without warrants.

• Firing U.S. prosecutors who posed political threats because they were honest.

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