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Desolation Row * Peace Candidate * Fixed Elections


April 15, 2003

"It's the so-called liberals or centrists who are closet imperialists who are the true danger.
Kucinich is in the unique position to be the one person who from the very beginning
tried to tell the American people what was happening in their name."

– Malachi Roth



1) Devastating critique of US/UK aggression
- - When ‘Precision Bombing Really Isn't
- - Lawless, grief-stricken Baghdad buries its dead
- - US rejects Iraq DU clean-up
- - Eagleburger: Bush Should be Impeached
2) The Peace Candidate / Kucinich / The Progressive
- - On Dennis Kucinich for US President by Malachi Roth
3) Howard Dean Folds Back into the National Security Establishment
4) Are American elections fixed?


Editor's Notes:


This issue begins with a look at the devastation brought to Iraq by the US and UK. Meanwhile on tax day in the US, President Bush is hailing his drive to lower taxes in a make believe world where war is peace, ignorance is strength, and freedom is slavery. The hopeful part in this item is from an article where Lawrence Eagleburger, who was US Secretary of State under George Bush Sr., told the BBC that if George Bush Jr. decided to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran, ‘would last in office for about 15 minutes.' The problem is that he's been in office too long already. Item 2 is an article in The Progressive, about Kucinich as a Peace Candidate. In the second part of this item, Malachi Roth, who is making a documentary film on the Kucinich campaign, suggests that we will Kucinich into power with an unwavering belief that people are ready for a dramatic change. This awakening is still in dormancy, but something is stirring, and eventually people will realize that Dennis K. is our best chance to reclaim democracy in the US. We suggest, especially until Malachi Roth and team finish the new documentary on Dennis Kucinich, ordering and sharing Frank Dorrel's "What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy: The War Against the Third World." This film compilation gives the overview of CIA covert operations and US country interventions since WWII. Anyone who sees this film will be scared silly or awaken to act on convictions in response to the US Constitution in crisis. Item 3 is a critical article on Howard Dean, who has also been hailed as a peace candidate, but questions remain. Item 4 is an article asking: "Are American elections fixed?"

"Until we convince ourselves of the utter inevitability of our self determination
others will determine our future for us."

– Malachi Roth




1) Devastating critique of US/UK aggression


Devastating critique of US/UK aggression
by John Pilger

"They have blown off the limbs of women and the scalps of children. Their victims overwhelm the morgues and flood into hospitals that lack even aspirin.

John Pilger on a piratical war that brought terrorism and death to Iraq." (John Pilger, 10 Apr 2003)

A BBC television producer, moments before he was wounded by an American fighter aircraft that killed 18 people with "friendly fire", spoke to his mother on a satellite phone. Holding the phone over his head so that she could hear the sound of the American planes overhead, he said: "Listen, that's the sound of freedom."

Did I read this scene in Catch-22? Surely, the BBC man was being ferociously ironic. I doubt it, just as I doubt that whoever designed the Observer's page three last Sunday had Joseph Heller in mind when he wrote the weasel headline: "The moment young Omar discovered the price of war". These cowardly words accompanied a photograph of an American marine reaching out to comfort 15-year-old Omar, having just participated in the mass murder of his father, mother, two sisters and brother during the unprovoked invasion of their homeland, in breach of the most basic law of civilised peoples..

For the complete article, see:
http://pilger.carlton.com/print/132898

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For an article called:

WHEN 'PRECISION' BOMBING REALLY ISN'T:
The Evil, the Grotesque and the Official Lies


Including appalling photographs, see:
http://www.cursor.org/stories/iraq.html

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For another related article:
"Lawless, grief-stricken Baghdad buries its dead"
The Times of India - April 14, 2003, See:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=43105875

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"US rejects Iraq DU clean-up"
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

The US says it has no plans to remove the debris left over from depleted uranium (DU) weapons it is using in Iraq.

For the complete article, see:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2946715.stm

For more on Depleted Uranium, see:

http://traprockpeace.org/depleteduranium.html
and
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid991363232,2156,

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Eagleburger: Bush Should be Impeached

Lawrence Eagleburger, who was US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, told the BBC: "If George Bush [Jnr] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes. In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy."

The above was reported in The Independent (UK) article:
"US warns Syria not to provide haven for wanted Iraqis"
Monday, 14 April 2003,




2) The Peace Candidate / Kucinich / The Progressive

The Peace Candidate
By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive
April 14, 2003

Dennis Kucinich is clearly holding down the left end of the bench of Democratic Presidential contenders for 2004. The co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in Congress, an advocate of nonviolence who has proposed that the U.S. government create a Department of Peace, a vegan because he believes in "the sacredness of all species," and a pro-labor environmentalist who marched in the streets of Seattle and Washington, D.C., Kucinich is, without a doubt, the progressive candidate. The argument for his candidacy, unlikely though it may be, is that it represents a point of view the Democrats should be forced to deal with.

The former "boy mayor" of Cleveland, now fifty-six, is the most vocal opponent of war with Iraq in the House of Representatives. A year ago, he began making impassioned speeches on the subject, and lately he's showing up on the talk show circuit as a lonely voice for peace. Meet the Press, Crossfire, Hardball, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, among others, have had him on to debate the Bush Administration's Iraq policy ­ though the Washington establishment is not taking his Presidential bid seriously. (The New York Times ranks him somewhere below Al Sharpton as a "viable candidate," and his February announcement in Iowa that he was running was greeted with a resounding shrug by most of the mainstream media.)

Kucinich thinks the pundits are in for a surprise. "They try to make it appear that the positions I'm taking are way out, but they're not," he told me on the phone recently. "As the war effort continues, I think you'll see that more and more people will join in and want to be involved with the campaign."

Steve Cobble agrees. A longtime progressive political strategist who worked for Jesse Jackson, Cobble compares Kucinich to Jackson in 1988. He thinks he could do much better than expected, thanks to the support of people the politicos in Washington don't notice.

"The people who are dismissing Kucinich out of hand are the same people who are shocked by this big anti-war movement that has had such growth in so short a time," says Cobble, who is an adviser to the candidate. Like the late Senator Paul Wellstone, Kucinich is long on big ideas and short on glitz. He is neither tall nor telegenic, neither wealthy nor well connected. And, of course, there's his minimal national name recognition.

But no one voted Ralph Nader "Mr. Charisma" five years ago, Cobble points out, and Nader became a pop star on college campuses during the 2000 campaign. "Young people responded to Nader in 2000," says Cobble. "It was the ideas and the sense of integrity, not blowing in the wind. Dennis is going to give the same vibes."

That's where the comparison to Nader ends, however. "I have no interest in a third party candidacy. None," says Kucinich. "I want to do it the other way ­ bring third party candidates into the [Democratic] Party and get support in the primaries." Taking much of Nader's message into the Democratic Party may be a worthy goal. But how far will it get Kucinich?

If a lot of progressives have a hangover from the last Presidential election and are feeling down, Kucinich and his campaign staff are energized by the massive anti-war and anti-globalization demonstrations around the world and by the feeling that a newly active grass-roots movement is rising up and making itself heard.

Kucinich, who opposes NAFTA, is the only candidate proudly giving voice to the fair trade movement. And his opposition to weapons in space and civil liberties violations under the Patriot Act are welcome among a Democratic base eager for a strong opposition to Bush.

"Whereas everyone else says, 'Gee, I'd have used a different airplane, or maybe we should use this missile instead of that one,' he'll be a clarion call for peace," says progressive Wisconsin Democrat and labor lawyer Ed Garvey. Now a supporter of Kucinich, Garvey was moved by the experience of hearing him speak out early against the Iraq war. "The passion and intellectual depth of his speech was really impressive."

Certainly, Kucinich, who quotes long passages of poetry and has a deeply thoughtful, almost starry-eyed quality, is not your usual politician. So is Kucinich the peace movement candidate, as Eugene McCarthy was in 1968?

"This movement precedes a war. The 1968 movement happened years after war began," Kucinich says. His campaign takes on not only war but also a complex array of domestic and international concerns.

Kucinich denounces the Bush Administration's whole political philosophy of "projecting aggression into the world." The issues of his campaign are empire versus democracy, globalization versus equality, war versus peace, a private health insurance system that leaves seventy-five million people intermittently uncovered versus national health care, the Patriot Act versus the Bill of Rights. Get him going, and he'll blow your ears back with a litany of calamitous news.

"People are fearful," Kucinich says. "My candidacy steps forward and says, 'Hey, stop! Hold it!' We're losing what's dear to our country. We have a foreign policy that's setting the stage for new wars. We're talking about first use of nuclear weapons. We still have chemical and biological weapons, which disqualifies us from the chemical and biological weapons treaty. The polar ice caps are still melting. Islands in the Pacific are seeing the water rising. Meteorological changes suggest that global climate change is here to stay. The Kyoto climate change treaty is urgent. The U.S. has to recognize the interconnectedness, interdependence, of the world. We're not doing it. I'm looking at the entire structure of our society and saying, how can government be relevant?"

For the complete article, see:
http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15628

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On Dennis Kucinich for US President by Malachi Roth

The following is excerpts from emails written by Malachi Roth, who is working with the Kucinich for President campaign in NYC and making a new film on the peace candidate, Dennis Kucinich. Malachi is endeavoring to encourage everyone that might read this to begin to will Kucinich into power with an unwavering belief that people are ready for a dramatic change. Though this isn't evident if you watch the mainstream media, in the hearts of the majority of people, it is true. We just need to awaken ourselves and one another.

"..All Dennis has to do is stand firm and the changes which are starting to take place in the national psyche will eventually launch him onto the national scene. Nobody could have pictured Mandela going from jail to the presidency and yet it happened. Kucinich is our Mandela. Nobody could have imagined "Roger & Me" getting national distribution, but it did and then "Bowling for Columbine" won an Academy and now Michael Moore is working with Mel Gibson of all people to blow the lid off of the Bush family secrets. I can't say I could have predicted any of this a year and a half ago when I first read about Kucinich."

[Malachi was introduced to Dennis Kucinich from Flyby News, which he discovered from his interest in Bart Jordan, which is posted from the web site.]

"..I always saw Dennis as a great guy whose oratory skills needed work until I saw the Prayer For America Speech. Then I felt a little embarrassed for judging a man who clearly has some of the best oration skills in the country. Of course like most great artists he does not perform as well when psychological support is not present in the audience. This is bound to change as he gains notoriety. When crowds cheer his words and delivery he seems to harness that energy like a large bird resting on a strong updraft even if he may loose his train of thought the next moment and read some lines as if he were doing it for the first time.

The fact that he needs improvement doesn't bother me because so few have that kind of potential to begin with. Beyond his potential to become one of histories greatest orators he has unlimited potential as a leader. This is true no matter what the outcome of the 2004 election. Seldom do such historical figures arrive on the seen and most people don't recognize them as such until their momentum is overwhelming. Who knows how long that will take but I wouldn't be interested in him if I didn't think it where inevitable. Being part of his campaign is so much more than trying to get the white house away from the republicans. It's more like being a part of the most important historical event of recent history. The excitement among his supporters is palpable.

Part of it seems to come from Dennis and the way his personality and speeches resonate with audiences and part of it seems to derive from the general feeling that for the first time in more years than anyone would like to admit a true opposition movement is beginning to unify and set it's sights on the entrenched establishment. People who care deeply about issues which the main stream media ignores seem to be as important to the campaign as Kucinich himself. The war in Iraq is really just a battle in a global propaganda war taking place between the entrenched establishment and the people of the world. In this war the establishment is not faring nearly as well as we are of course conditioned to believe. I see a desperation evident in the drastic measures being undertaken by a corporate elite who can see that the tide is turning against them.

As the money and leadership falls into place in the campaign there is going to be a sudden realization of how potent the force behind Dennis and the peace movement really is. It seems to be quite unprecedented and yet not being discussed in the terms historians will eventually employ. There are so many talented and dedicated people coming out of the woodwork to support Dennis and peace there simply isn't enough structure to house them all. He converts people to his cause in what seems like minutes.

All one has to do is watch one of his speeches and the realization that they've never seen a politician like him sets in with a vengeance. The more fearful and shaped by compromise someone is the more skeptical they are of their own inner respect for the man. Ergo the author of that review admitting that he liked Kucinich better than Dean but was simply giving up hope that Dennis stands a chance (a short sighted apologetic approach). The new motto of the Democratic Party should be "No to Compromise" We've tried it and it doesn't work. By putting a humane face on a single party of total compromise the democrats have essentially done the Republican's dirty work for them.

As far as the campaign focusing on Bush, that will be a redundant mistake. The distinct impression given by much of the stories on Flyby News is that the establishment will be pushing a Kerry or McCain into the white house in 2004 based on Anti-Bush sentiment. Our biggest danger is letting the establishment cooped the blow back that this administration is bound to experience. It's the so-called liberals or centrists who are closet imperialists who are the true danger. Kucinich is in the unique position to be the one person who from the very beginning tried to tell the American people what was happening in their name.

..As our empire begins to falter our need to elect charlatans will begin to fade. That is when Kucinich's lack of slick political skills will become his greatest asset. I think the whole idea of self fulfilling prophesies should dictate how we view Dennis and the campaign. i.e. He IS going to become president, whether in 2004, 8, 12, or 16. Between now and the time he is leading the country he will do incredible things to help steer us back on to a more humane course. That can not readily be said of any of the other candidates who would more likely slip back into obscurity because they are there more for themselves than for the people. The peace movement will grow into a justice movement and opposition to the current earth threatening crisis will intervene to save millions of lives that are at grave risk. Until we convince ourselves of the utter inevitability of our self determination others will determine our future for us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Kucinich Official Web Site is http://www.kucinich.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flyby News Resource page on Dennis Kucinich
Including Kucinich Film Documentary in the Works!,
see:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1045685440,9146,



3) Howard Dean Folds Back into the National Security Establishment

As Baghdad Falls Howard Dean Folds Back into the National Security Establishment
by Charles Knight

On April 9, 2003, the day that most American newspapers headlined the "liberation of Baghdad", Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate notable for his opposition to Bush's war against Iraq, gave a speech in Washington which went a long way toward endorsing the Bush doctrine of preventive war.

Dean has been a favorite candidate among anti-war Democrats because he believes an imminent threat from Iraq was never proven and therefore the situation did not justify the invasion. In his remarks to the Alliance for American Leadership, an invitation-only organization of foreign policy specialists most of whom were associated with the Clinton administration, Dean addressed the problems of possible nuclear proliferation to North Korea and Iran. As reported in the Boston Globe he made a point of saying that he would not rule out using military force to disarm either North Korea or Iran.

In effect this supposedly 'anti-war' Democrat has announced his support for a policy in which Washington will decide which countries are allowed to have nuclear weapons and will reserve for itself the right to forcefully disarm those who do not voluntarily disarm by U.S. dictate. In this crucial regard Dean's position is in close accordance with the Bush doctrine of coercive disarmament and preventive war.

Dean did seek to draw a distinction between his policy and that of the Bush administration by advocating a return to the Clinton policy of "constructive engagement." However, in the context of a world with preventive counter-proliferation warfare this is a distinction not of principle, but only of pragmatic considerations.

The basic argument between Democrats such as Dean and Republicans becomes whether their respective approaches to forced disarmament are more or less costly or risky, in what time period. For instance, Dean argues for reopening negotiations with the North Koreans over their nuclear program, while privately making it clear that the U.S. will go to war to stop their nuclear program if they don't settle in the end. In a preferred outcome of this diplomacy the U.S. might end up paying the North Koreans ten or twenty billion to abandon their nuclear and long range missile program. Dean would argue that despite the distaste of having to pay for disarmament, the financial costs would be about one-fifth to one-tenth the cost of a war, and successful diplomacy would also avoid the human costs of the likely hundreds of thousands of Koreans, Americans, and possibly Japanese who would die in new Korean war. In the longer run it is likely that the communist regime in North Korea will collapse in its own decrepitude and a more cooperative government will take its place and seek to reunite peacefully with South Korea.

The neo-conservative Republicans argue that once we get into a 'pay for disarmament' relationship the North Koreans have an incentive to maintain the threat of their nuclear program in order to pressure us to meet their ever-growing financial demands. In the mean time making payments to them just ends up supporting their regime and increases the likelihood that they will become a bigger threat to American interests later on. Much better to do what the U.S. did with Iraq: keep North Korea poor, let their obsolescent Soviet-era Army deteriorate, and when the time is right overthrow their regime and take direct control of their security policy. The war of regime change will be costly, but manageable, and if we wait until later the costs will be much higher.

With Dean's statement of April 9th we see a narrowing of the range of strategic options represented by the 'major' or 'leading' candidates for President in the Republican and Democratic parties. Republicans will use the preventive war option early and often. Democrats will hold the preventive war option in reserve (and as threats expressed in private) while investing more in 'dollar persuasion' and other forms of 'soft power'. But, since 911 both parties have been learning to love the power of preventive war, something they both would have felt compelled by history and culture to renounce only a few years ago.

Left unacknowledged and unexplored in Dean's remarks is the issue of where preventive war policies leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Depending the how credulous you are, the answer would have to be either a) a minor supporting role to U.S. unilateral coercive counter-proliferation or b) so much waste paper. Also un-addressed is the contradiction of 'militarized counter-proliferation policy' that makes the acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons seem like the most effective way for hard-nosed realists in North Korea and Iran to deter the aggressive preventive warriors in Washington. Indeed on April 10th , the day North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT came into effect, their news agency stated ". the security of the country and the nation can be assured only when one has physical deterrent force." (AP) We should expect Iranian security thinkers to reach a similar conclusion.

It is perhaps instructive to note that Dean's remarks were informed by talking points provided by Danny Sebright. Sebright is Associate Vice President of former Secretary of Defense William Cohen's consulting group and until January of 2002 oversaw the war in Afghanistan from his position Director of the Policy Executive Secretariat in the DoD. He began his career in the Defense Intelligence Agency and his bio at the Cohen Group boasts that "Mr. Sebright cultivated extensive contacts with U.S. and foreign defense industry officials to coordinate and implement DoD weapons sales to Israel and many countries in the Middle East." What the Sebright connection suggests is how closely held even an 'anti-war' candidate like Howard Dean is by the conservative-leaning national security establishment of both parties. And that national security establishment has been marching steadily to the right ever since the Republicans took control of the Congress in 1994.

Charles Knight is co-director of the Project on Defense
Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, MA.



4) Are American elections fixed?

Are American elections fixed?

By Ernest Partridge
Co-editor of The Crisis Papers and Online Journal Contributing Writer

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."—Thomas Paine

"It doesn't matter who casts the ballots. What matters is who counts the ballots."—attributed to Joseph Stalin

(Trust, but verify)—Ronald Reagan's favorite Russian proverb

April 3, 2003—Might it be possible that, due to GOP control of computer voting machines, the electoral ""fix"" is in, and that as a result nothing short of a revolution will ever budge the Republican Party from control of the Congress and the White House? In other words, is it not conceivable that our ""democracy"" is more than ""threatened""­­it is in fact finished, done for, kaput? And we are not even aware of it?

Imagine the following election procedure

Paper ballots are marked, in secret and deposited by the voters in sealed ballot boxes. (So far, so good).

The ballot boxes are then delivered to the offices of a private firm, which is publicly known to be a supporter of and contributor to one of the political parties.

Upon receipt of the ballot boxes, the doors are locked and no one other than employees of that firm is allowed to inspect and validate the counting.

The ballots are then destroyed, after which the results are announced.

The firm's favorite candidate is declared the winner. The final results vary radically from pre-election polls. Sounds like a Soviet "election," doesn't it? Like something that a dictator might dream up to assure himself a lifetime office. But surely, such a "fix" is too transparently and shamelessly obvious for anyone to think he could get away with it.

And yet this scenario is an exact analogy, in all relevant respects, to the "computer touch screen" voting system that has been rushed into use, following the fiasco of the 2000 presidential election.

Consider

There are, in all, 13 manufacturers of electronic voting machines, of which two, ES&S and Diebold, are predominant. Both are owned and operated by individuals with right-wing political views, who are heavy contributors to the Republican Party.

ES&S and Diebold machines use "proprietary" source codes (i.e., not available for public inspection and analysis), and leave no "paper record" of their tallies.

"Exit polling," a reliable validation method which has proven to be much more accurate than pre-election polling, was "withdrawn" soon after the polls closed in the November 2002 election. Voter News Service (VNS), a consortium owned by the major cable and broadcast TV networks, reported that the system "collapsed," due to "technical problems." . . .


For the complete article, see:
http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/040303Partridge/040303partridge.html

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For more on illicit voting and what to do about it, visit
www.BlackBoxVoting.com



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