Neo Culpa

Vanity Fair Exclusive: Now They Tell Us
David Rose is a Vanity Fair contributing editor.
November 3, 2006

As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.
by David Rose VF.COM November 3, 2006

Richard Perle. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

I remember sitting with Richard Perle in his suite at London's Grosvenor House hotel and receiving a private lecture on the importance of securing victory in Iraq. "Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform," he said. "It won't be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world didn't achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance of succeeding." Perle seemed to exude the scent of liberation, as well as a whiff of gunpowder. It was February 2003, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the culmination of his long campaign on behalf of regime change in Iraq, was less than a month away.

Three years later, Perle and I meet again at his home outside Washington, D.C. It is October, the worst month for U.S. casualties in Iraq in almost two years, and Republicans are bracing for losses in the upcoming midterm elections. As he looks into my eyes, speaking slowly and with obvious deliberation, Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. "The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity," Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. "And then," says Perle, "you'll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating."

According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

George W. Bush. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."

Having spoken with Perle, I wonder: What do the rest of the pro-war neoconservatives think? If the much caricatured "Prince of Darkness" is now plagued with doubt, how do his comrades-in-arms feel? I am particularly interested in finding out because I interviewed many neocons before the invasion and, like many people, found much to admire in their vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

I expect to encounter disappointment. What I find instead is despair, and fury at the incompetence of the Bush administration the neoconservatives once saw as their brightest hope.

To David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who co-wrote Bush's 2002 State of the Union address that accused Iraq of being part of an "axis of evil," it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them." This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on "failure at the center"—starting with President Bush.

Kenneth Adelman, a lifelong neocon activist and Pentagon insider who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005, wrote a famous op-ed article in The Washington Post in February 2002, arguing: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Now he says, "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."

Dick Cheney. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself—what he defines as "the idea of a tough foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world"—is dead, at least for a generation. After Iraq, he says, "it's not going to sell." And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can't execute it, it's useless, just useless. I guess that's what I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do. And that's very different from let's go."

I spend the better part of two weeks in conversations with some of the most respected voices among the neoconservative elite. What I discover is that none of them is optimistic. All of them have regrets, not only about what has happened but also, in many cases, about the roles they played. Their dismay extends beyond the tactical issues of whether America did right or wrong, to the underlying question of whether exporting democracy is something America knows how to do.

I will present my findings in full in the January issue of Vanity Fair, which will reach newsstands in New York and L.A. on December 6 and nationally by December 12. In the meantime, here is a brief survey of some of what I heard from the war's remorseful proponents.

Richard Perle: "In the administration that I served [Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan], there was a one-sentence description of the decision-making process when consensus could not be reached among disputatious departments: 'The president makes the decision.' [Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him. The National Security Council was not serving [Bush] properly. He regarded [then National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice] as part of the family."

Donald Rumsfeld. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar: "Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Frank Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan and founder of the Center for Security Policy: "[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity."

Kenneth Adelman: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former C.I.A. director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Condoleezza Rice. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Michael Rubin, former Pentagon Office of Special Plans and Coalition Provisional Authority staffer: "Where I most blame George Bush is that through his rhetoric people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves." By failing to match his rhetoric with action, Rubin adds, Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up, and then had second thoughts and didn't do anything once they did."

Richard Perle: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Kenneth Adelman: "The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don't think that's true at all. We're losing in Iraq.… I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me."

Eliot Cohen, director of the strategic-studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and member of the Defense Policy Board: "I wouldn't be surprised if what we end up drifting toward is some sort of withdrawal on some sort of timetable and leaving the place in a pretty ghastly mess.… I do think it's going to end up encouraging various strands of Islamism, both Shia and Sunni, and probably will bring de-stabilization of some regimes of a more traditional kind, which already have their problems.… The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

by Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
Nov. 14, 2006


To: Conservatives and Republicans

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Drapes of Wrath


By MAUREEN DOWD, Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
November 11, 2006

Washington: The new Democratic sweep conjures up an ancient image: Furies swooping down to punish bullies.

Angry winged goddesses with dog heads, serpent hair and blood eyes, unmoved by tears, prayer, sacrifice or nasty campaign ads, avenging offenses by insolent transgressors.

This will be known as the year macho politics failed — mainly because it was macho politics by marshmallow men. Voters were sick of phony swaggering, blustering and bellicosity, absent competency and accountability. They were ready to trade in the deadbeat Daddy party for the sheltering Mommy party.

All the conservative sneering about a fem-lib from San Francisco who was measuring the drapes for the speaker’s office didn’t work. Americans wanted new drapes, and an Armani granny with a whip in charge.

A recent study found that the testosterone of American men has been dropping for 20 years, but in Republican Washington, it was running amok, and not in a good way. Men who had refused to go to an untenable war themselves were now refusing to find an end to another untenable war that they had recklessly started.

Republicans were oddly oblivious to the fact that they had turned into a Thomas Nast cartoon: an unappetizing tableau of bloated, corrupt, dissembling, feckless white hacks who were leaving kids unprotected. Tom DeLay and Bob Ney sneaking out of Congress with dollar bills flying out of their pockets. Denny Hastert playing Cardinal Bernard Law, shielding Mark Foley. Rummy, cocky and obtuse as he presided over an imploding Iraq, while failing to give young men and women in the military the armor, support and strategy they needed to come home safely. Dick Cheney, vowing bullheadedly to move “full speed ahead” on Iraq no matter what the voters decided. W. frantically yelling about how Democrats would let the terrorists win, when his lame-brained policies had spawned more terrorists.

After 9/11, Americans had responded to bellicosity, drawn to the image, as old as the Western frontier myth, of the strong father protecting the home from invaders. But this time, many voters, especially women, rejected the rough Rovian scare and divide tactics.

The macho poses and tough talk of the cowboy president were undercut when he seemed flaccid in the face of the vicious Katrina and the vicious Iraq insurgency.

Even former members of the administration conceded they were tired of the muscle-bound style, longing for a more maternal approach to the globe. “We were exporting our anger and our fear, hatred for what had happened,” Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, said in a speech in Australia, referring to the 9/11 attacks. He said America needed “to turn another face to the world and get back to more traditional things, such as the export of hope and opportunity and inspiration.”

Talking about hope and opportunity and inspiration has propelled Barack Obama into the presidential arena. His approach seems downright feminine when compared with the Bushies, or even Hillary Clinton. He languidly poses in fashion magazines, shares feelings with Oprah and dishes with the ladies on “The View.” After six years of chest-puffing, Senator Obama seems very soothing.

Because of the power of female consumers, some marketing experts predict we will end up a matriarchy. This year, women also flexed their muscle at the polls, transformed into electoral Furies by the administration’s stubborn course in Iraq.

On Tuesday, 51 percent of the voters were women, and 55 percent of women voted for the Democratic candidate. It was a revival of the style of Bill Clinton, dubbed our first female president, who knitted together a winning coalition of independents, moderates and suburbanites.

According to The Times’s exit polls, women were more likely than men to want some or all of the troops to be withdrawn from Iraq now, and 64 percent of women said that the war in Iraq has not improved U.S. security.

The Senate has a new high of 16 women and the House has a new high of at least 70, with a few races outstanding. Hillary’s big win will strengthen her presidential tentacles.

Nancy Pelosi, who will be the first female speaker, softened her voice and look as she cracked the whip on her undisciplined party, taking care not to sound shrill. When she needs to, though, she says she can use her “mother-of-five voice.”

At least for the moment, W. isn’t blustering and Cheney has lost his tubby swagger. The president is trying to ride the Mommy vibe. He even offered Madame Speaker help with those new drapes.

Another election is marred by dirty tricks

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
The Independent
Published: 08 November 2006

Early yesterday morning, Tim Daly of Clarendon, Virginia found a message on his voice mail threatening him with arrest if he showed up to vote.

"This is the Virginia Elections Commission," the message said. " We've determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote... If you do show up, you will be charged criminally."

Mr Daly, who has lived and voted in Virginia since 1998, quickly figured out this was not the Virginia Elections Commission at all, but a rogue operation intended to intimidate Democratic Party sympathisers like himself.

Within hours of the polls opening in Virginia - battleground of one of the tightest Senate races in the mid-term elections - both the state attorney's office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened inquiries. But reports of dirty campaigning, most if not quite all of it carried out on behalf of the Republican Party, cascaded across the country so fast that it was almost impossible for law enforcement, or anyone else, to keep up.

In several states, Democrats - especially African Americans - complained that they had been called and told the location of their precinct had changed, when it hadn't. In 20 of the closest House districts around the country, registered Democrats and independents found themselves bombarded with so-called "robo-calls" - computer-generated messages that sound at first like get-out-the-vote initiatives on behalf of Democratic candidates but grow ever more negative as they go on until it finally becomes clear they are endorsed by the Republican Party.

Voters complained not only that the messages were deceptive, but that they arrived with deadening regularity, sometimes very late at night, in what appeared to be a concerted effort by Republicans to anger their recipients and turn them off the idea of voting at all. Some of the underhand tactics were even perpetuated by the media. The conservative radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham spent some of her morning show openly mocking a voter protection hotline set up the Democrats and repeatedly aired the phone number - leading to a spike in crank calls that slowed down voters with bona fide complaints to air.

Dirty campaigning in the United States is as old as voting itself, and it tends to be more egregious when, as in this case, the election is regarded as pivotal and the races are close. Certain tactics, like trying to misdirect voters to the wrong precinct or telling them the election is on Wednesday, not Tuesday, are time-honoured.

In the South, and in some of the bigger East Coast cities, such efforts are frequently directed at African Americans, who tend to be more distrustful of authority than other Americans and thus more prone to intimidation if, say, they are threatened with arrest for outstanding parking tickets if they show up to vote.

Yesterday, though, Virginia appeared to be the worst offender, following a bruising campaign between George Allen, the incumbent Republican Senator, and Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger. Peter Baumann, from Cape Charles, reported getting a call from a purported Webb volunteer telling him his polling location had changed. When he told the caller he was a poll worker and knew perfectly well where he was voting, she hung up. Buckingham County, which is heavily African American, was flooded in fliers that read: " Skip This Election" in large bold-face letters.

In anticipation of the problems, around 10,000 lawyers working for the Republican and Democratic parties had been dispatched across the country to intervene if problems arose, while the US Justice Department also sent more than 850 observers to 22 states.

Early yesterday morning, Tim Daly of Clarendon, Virginia found a message on his voice mail threatening him with arrest if he showed up to vote.

"This is the Virginia Elections Commission," the message said. " We've determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote... If you do show up, you will be charged criminally."

Mr Daly, who has lived and voted in Virginia since 1998, quickly figured out this was not the Virginia Elections Commission at all, but a rogue operation intended to intimidate Democratic Party sympathisers like himself.

Within hours of the polls opening in Virginia - battleground of one of the tightest Senate races in the mid-term elections - both the state attorney's office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened inquiries. But reports of dirty campaigning, most if not quite all of it carried out on behalf of the Republican Party, cascaded across the country so fast that it was almost impossible for law enforcement, or anyone else, to keep up.

In several states, Democrats - especially African Americans - complained that they had been called and told the location of their precinct had changed, when it hadn't. In 20 of the closest House districts around the country, registered Democrats and independents found themselves bombarded with so-called "robo-calls" - computer-generated messages that sound at first like get-out-the-vote initiatives on behalf of Democratic candidates but grow ever more negative as they go on until it finally becomes clear they are endorsed by the Republican Party.

Voters complained not only that the messages were deceptive, but that they arrived with deadening regularity, sometimes very late at night, in what appeared to be a concerted effort by Republicans to anger their recipients and turn them off the idea of voting at all. Some of the underhand tactics were even perpetuated by the media. The conservative radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham spent some of her morning show openly mocking a voter protection hotline set up the Democrats and repeatedly aired the phone number - leading to a spike in crank calls that slowed down voters with bona fide complaints to air.
Dirty campaigning in the United States is as old as voting itself, and it tends to be more egregious when, as in this case, the election is regarded as pivotal and the races are close. Certain tactics, like trying to misdirect voters to the wrong precinct or telling them the election is on Wednesday, not Tuesday, are time-honoured.

In the South, and in some of the bigger East Coast cities, such efforts are frequently directed at African Americans, who tend to be more distrustful of authority than other Americans and thus more prone to intimidation if, say, they are threatened with arrest for outstanding parking tickets if they show up to vote.

Yesterday, though, Virginia appeared to be the worst offender, following a bruising campaign between George Allen, the incumbent Republican Senator, and Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger. Peter Baumann, from Cape Charles, reported getting a call from a purported Webb volunteer telling him his polling location had changed. When he told the caller he was a poll worker and knew perfectly well where he was voting, she hung up. Buckingham County, which is heavily African American, was flooded in fliers that read: " Skip This Election" in large bold-face letters.

In anticipation of the problems, around 10,000 lawyers working for the Republican and Democratic parties had been dispatched across the country to intervene if problems arose, while the US Justice Department also sent more than 850 observers to 22 states.

World sees vote as start of new foreign policy: 'The end of a six-year nightmare for the world,' EU parliamentarians say

Associated Press/MSNBC.com
November 8, 2006

MADRID, Spain - The seismic shift that midterm elections brought to Washington’s political landscape was welcomed by many Wednesday in a world sharply opposed to the war in Iraq and outraged over the harsh methods the Bush administration has employed in fighting terrorism.

From Paris to Pakistan, politicians, analysts and ordinary citizens said they hoped the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives would force President Bush to adopt a more conciliatory approach to global crises, and teach a president many see as a “cowboy” a lesson in humility.

But some also expressed fears that a split in power and a lame-duck president might stall global trade talks and weaken much-needed American influence.

On Iraq, some feared that Democrats will force a too-rapid retreat, leaving that country and the region in chaos. Others said they doubted the turnover in congressional power would have a dramatic impact on Iraq policy any time soon, largely because the Democrats have yet to define the specifics of the course they want to take.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said American policy would not dramatically change, despite the Democratic election success.

“The president is the architect of U.S. foreign policy,” the ambassador said in a videotape distributed by the U.S. Embassy. “He is the commander in chief of our armed forces. He understands what is at stake in Iraq.”

'Beginning of the end'
Regardless of the effect on world events, global giddiness that Bush was finally handed a political black-eye was almost palpable.

In an extraordinary joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world” and gloated that they left the Bush administration “seriously weakened.”

In London's Guardian newspaper, commentator Martin Kettle wrote: "The cheering can be heard not just in America itself but around the planet."

In Paris, expatriates and French citizens alike packed the city’s main American haunts to watch results, with some standing to cheer or boo as vote tabulations came in.

One Frenchman, teacher Jean-Pierre Charpemtrat, 53, said it was about time U.S. voters figured out what much of the rest of the world already knew.

“Americans are realizing that you can’t found the politics of a country on patriotic passion and reflexes,” he said. “You can’t fool everybody all the time — and I think that’s what Bush and his administration are learning today.”

Democrats swept to power in the House on Tuesday and were threatening to take control of the Senate amid exit polls that showed widespread American discontent over Iraq, nationwide disgust at corruption in politics, and low approval ratings for Bush.

Bush is deeply unpopular in many countries around the globe, with particularly intense opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. terror detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and allegations of Washington sanctioned interrogation methods that some equate with torture.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez said the Democrats won the election thanks to a "reprisal vote."

'Bush is no longer acceptable'
People across the Mideast also reacted swiftly, saying it appeared the U.S. president had paid the price for what many view as failed policy in Iraq.

Most governments across the region had no official comment, but some opponents of the United States reacted harshly. “President Bush is no longer acceptable worldwide,” said Suleiman Hadad, a lawmaker in Syria, whose autocratic government has been shunned by the U.S.

Iranian state television blamed U.S. strategy in the Middle East for the change. "Experts believe that Bush's wrong strategy in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as financial corruption in the United States, was the main reason for the failure of Republicans in the midterm election."

'Bush is no longer acceptable'
People across the Mideast also reacted swiftly, saying it appeared the U.S. president had paid the price for what many view as failed policy in Iraq.

Most governments across the region had no official comment, but some opponents of the United States reacted harshly. “President Bush is no longer acceptable worldwide,” said Suleiman Hadad, a lawmaker in Syria, whose autocratic government has been shunned by the U.S.

Iranian state television blamed U.S. strategy in the Middle East for the change. "Experts believe that Bush's wrong strategy in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as financial corruption in the United States, was the main reason for the failure of Republicans in the midterm election."

'Bush is no longer acceptable'
People across the Mideast also reacted swiftly, saying it appeared the U.S. president had paid the price for what many view as failed policy in Iraq.

Most governments across the region had no official comment, but some opponents of the United States reacted harshly. “President Bush is no longer acceptable worldwide,” said Suleiman Hadad, a lawmaker in Syria, whose autocratic government has been shunned by the U.S.

Iranian state television blamed U.S. strategy in the Middle East for the change. "Experts believe that Bush's wrong strategy in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as financial corruption in the United States, was the main reason for the failure of Republicans in the midterm election."

Even some Iraqis voiced hope for change.

“We hope American foreign policy will change and that living conditions in Iraq will improve,” said 48-year-old engineer Suheil Jabar, a Shiite Muslim in Baghdad.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, 35-year-old Jens Langfeldt said he did not know much about the midterm elections but was opposed to Bush’s values. He referred to the president as “that cowboy.”

In Sri Lanka, some said they hoped the rebuke would force Bush to abandon a unilateral approach to global issues.

The Democratic win means “there will be more control and restraint” over U.S. foreign policy. said Jehan Perera, a political analyst.

Passions were even higher in Pakistan, where Bush is deeply unpopular despite billions in aid and support for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

One opposition lawmaker, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, said he welcomed the election result but hoped for more. Bush “deserves to be removed, put on trial and given a Saddam-like death sentence,” he said.

But while the result clearly produced more jubilation than jitters, there were deep concerns.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told broadcaster TV2 he hoped that the president and the new Congress would find “common ground on questions about Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“The world needs a vigorous U.S.A.,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

Worries in China
Some also worried that Democrats, who have a reputation for being more protective of U.S. jobs going overseas, will make it harder to achieve a global free trade accord.

The accord, said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, “is very important for the future of trans-Atlantic relations.”

And in China, some feared the resurgence of the Democrats would increase tension over human rights and trade and labor issues. China’s surging economy has a massive trade surplus with the United States.

“The Democratic Party ... will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor and that could produce an impact on China-U.S. trade relations,” Zhang Guoqing of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Sina.com, a popular Chinese Internet portal.

The prospect of a sudden change in American foreign policy could be troubling to U.S. allies such as Britain, Japan and Australia, which have thrown their support behind the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Democrats campaigned on a platform that demanded a change of direction in Iraq, and the war has lost the support of the majority of American voters.

“The problem for Arabs now is, an American withdrawal (from Iraq) could be a security disaster for the entire region,” said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi analyst for the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Democrats pile pressure on Bush as glitches hit US poll

· Republican senators lose Ohio and Pennsylvania
· Questions raised over electronic voting system

Julian Borger in Washington and Ed Pilkington in Evansville, Indiana
Wednesday November 8, 2006
The Guardian

The Republican hold on Congress was under intense pressure last night amid a volley of early Democrat victories in US midterm elections that were marred by technical glitches and accusations of fraud.

The Democrats won Senate seats from the Republicans in Ohio and Pennsylvania while defending a vulnerable seat in New Jersey, according to projections from exit polls and early results. Early returns also showed Democrats making gains in the House of Representatives in normally conservative states like Indiana. But it was too early to tell whether the party had done well enough to regain control of the House and Senate for the first time in 12 years, and severely limit George Bush's power in his last two years as president.

Meanwhile, the party took over the governorships of Ohio and Massachusetts, where Deval Patrick became only the second black American to be elected governor. Another political milestone was passed in Vermont, where an independent candidate, Bernie Sanders, became the first self-proclaimed socialist to win a seat in the US Senate. "Sanders will be a new populist voice in the Senate," said Robert Borosage, the head of the Institute for America's Future, a progressive advocacy group.
Anecdotal reports from around the country suggested the turnout in some of the closely contested Senate races, in Virginia and Missouri for example, was at a level not seen in a midterm race for many years, in an atmosphere supercharged by a divisive war and political scandals.

Both parties claimed encouragement from the high turnout. Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic campaign coordinator for the House of Representatives, said his party's turnout had exceeded expectations, while the Republican chairman, Ken Mehlman, was reported to have told senior party officials that the Republican voter mobilisation effort had performed better than ever.

Exit polling suggested corruption was the main issue on people's minds, closely followed by terrorism, the economy and Iraq. More than 60% of the electorate said they were voting on national rather than local issues and 62% said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing.

Turnout was also fuelled by a range of statewide referendums on emotive issues. A ballot initiative banning gay marriage was passed in Virginia, while a proposal to back stem cell research was reported to have brought out both sides' voters in Missouri. In the most controversial ballot initiative, voters in South Dakota were asked whether they wanted to ban abortion.

The intensity of the battle was reflected in widespread claims of dirty tricks. The FBI's special election unit was called to Virginia to investigate last night after allegations that Democratic party supporters in eight counties had been targeted by telephone calls threatening them with legal scrutiny if they went to the polls and giving misleading information about the location of polling stations.

In Maryland, bogus election pamphlets surfaced purporting to be from a black civil rights leader, Kweisi Mfume, telling black voters to support Republicans.

More than a third of the electorate voted on new electronic machinery and anxiety about the experiment was evident from the beginning as reports came in of glitches across the country.

In Florida, there were complaints that touchscreen computers had wrongly recorded voters' choices, and state Democrats called for the machines to be impounded. In other states, computer problems meant polling stations did not open on time, with voters being turned away or given paper ballots.

It was unclear last night how many voters were affected by voting machine problems. Any suggestion of a malfunction or fraud in the many close races for the House of Representatives, Senate, or governorships was expected to trigger a legal challenge from the thousands of lawyers that both parties have fielded around the country.

Ballot Proposition Research

NO on Proposition 1A

AUTOPILOT SPENDING

This is an unnecessary measure to protect transportation funding, and would only further hamstring the Legislature in times of budget crisis. It could put funding for schools and health care in jeopardy.



YES on Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E

CRITICAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

California's schools, roads, emergency shelters and affordable housing are all suffering from decades of neglect by conservative ideologues. While we would prefer to see these needs funded during a time of more responsible fiscal stewardship than the Bush/Schwarzenegger "bash, break and borrow" approach, they are simply too important to allow to further decay.

Backed by:
The Governor and both houses of the legislature

Opposed by:
No organized opposition at this time.



NO on Proposition 83

POLITICS, NOT PUBLIC SAFETY

Couched in the guise of public safety, Prop 83 is a draconian measure that would fail California just as similar measures have failed other states.

The law's most punitive components include restricting where people can live and tracking them with GPS monitoring for life. These restrictions would apply much more broadly than to child molesters or "dangerous sex offenders," as proponents claim: they would also apply to anyone convicted of a misdemeanor offense, including indecent exposure and illegal possession of pornography. Prop 83 is an expensive and ineffective punitive-only approach to criminal justice that does nothing to protect against the most dangerous sex offenders and is not rooted in the science of effective rehabilitation. It is pure political pandering.

Backed by:
Authoritarians and conservatives desperately looking for an issue that will make them seem pro-family without actually having to do anything to help families.

Opposed by:
The Orange County Register, the Fresno Bee, the Sacramento Bee and in particular the LA Times' opposition.


YES on Propositions 84

INVEST IN NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER QUALITY

This initiative continues important work that prior water and natural resource bonds have begun. With that money just about exhausted, this $5.4B bond will provide bond funding for projects for safe drinking water, flood control, protection of rivers, lakes, streams, forest and wildlife conservation, coastal protection and state parks.

Backed by:
A huge coaltion of community, environmental and public health groups, and anyone who drinks water.

Opposed by:
No organized opposition at this time.


NO on Proposition 85

ENDANGERS YOUNG WOMEN AND CHOICE

Just one year after the voters of California rejected Proposition 73, obsessive anti-choice extremists have put this nearly identical initiative on the ballot yet again. This is the latest attempt in a long term strategy of nibbling away at women's options, with the eventual goal of outlawing reproductive choice altogether. Prop 85 endangers California's most vulnerable teens by requiring parental notification prior to abortion. While parents rightfully want to be involved in their teenagers' lives, laws cannot mandate good family communication. In the real world, some teens live with violent or sexually abusive parents. Rather than going to an abusive parent, some teens will resort to back-alley abortions or even consider suicide.

Backers of Prop 85 make the absurd claim that teens who can't go to their parents will go to a judge to bypass the law. Not only is it preposterous to think that a scared teen from an abusive home can successfully navigate our judicial bureaucracy, a judge is not what she needs. She needs a counselor and quality medical care without delays. Studies show that the vast majority of teens involve their parents in decisions about pregnancies. Health care providers and family planning clinics already report abuse and counsel teens to talk to their families. Prop 85 is unsafe, unrealistic and unnecessary.

Backed by:
Wealthy, anti-choice ultraconservatives.

Opposed by:
The same huge coalition that beat Prop 73, including the California Nurses Association, California doctors and the California Teachers Association.



NO on Proposition 86
Non-progressive unfair tax. Sets a precedent for future issues that appeal to a voter's personal discontent or hatred (regardless of health consequence, subject matter or economic impact). The issue of addiction does not necessarily compel change amongst the poorest stratum of society or the wealthiest based on price hikes.

YES on Proposition 86
STOP BIG TOBACCO AND IMPROVE PUBLIC HEALTH

By adding a $2.60 tax on a pack of cigarettes, this measure expects to raise about $2.1B in 2007. The money would go towards providing health insurance for uninsured children, improvements to emergency room facilities and care, tobacco prevention programs and chronic disease research. The big tobacco corporations will probably put in close to $100M to slam this effort. We can hold them responsible for their lies and misrepresentations regarding the health consequences of their products.

In states where similar measures have been enacted, they have seen reduced smoking, reductions in unpaid healthcare costs and an increase in important new funds for health-related programs.

Backed by:
Amercian Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association

Opposed by:
Big tobacco.



YES on Propositions 87

CLEAN ENERGY

This measure will fund a $4B effort to bring cleaner, cheaper and more reliable fuel sources to the California marketplace, and help break California's dependence on foreign oil. Prop 87 calls for a 25% reduction in gasoline and diesel consumption over the next 10 years, achieved through research and technologies funding incentives. This measure is expected to create thousands of new clean energy jobs.

Contrary to the millions being spent by big oil to fight this initiative, evey other oil producing state in the country has an oil-extraction tax. Having made record profits of over $78B last year,It's time to make big oil pay its fair share for oil drilling in our state. Contrary to big oil's claims, Prop 87 specifically prohibits the oil companies from passing on this assessment to consumers.

This initiative is a win-win for California. It would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce air pollution that causes asthma attacks, lung disease and cancer. By investing in cost-effective clean energy technology here in California, we can grow our economy while continuing to lead the nation in developing clean air and viable renewable energy solutions.

Backed by:
The emerging sustainable energy industry, environmentalists and pro-security progressives.

Opposed by:
Big oil corporations.



NO on Proposition 88

TROJAN HORSE FOR ELITIST EDUCATION FUNDING

While progressives are generally not opposed to raising taxes to pay for essential services like public education, Prop 88 is not the right way to resolve the problem of our under-funded schools and even the initial backers of it have walked away. The $470 million a year Prop 88 would allocate to schools includes more than $100 million that is earmarked only for "academically successful" schools, according to how they rank within the state's standardized testing system. Under-performing schools are already at a disadvantage in this state, and Prop 88 would widen the gap.


YES YES YES on Proposition 89

CLEAN MONEY- STOP SPECIAL INTERESTS FROM BUYING OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS

Big oil, drug companies, insurers, developers, HMOs and financial services companies give millions of dollars to legislators, costing taxpayers billions in special interest giveaways. Prop 89 would make politicians accountable to voters instead of big donors and make campaigns about talking to people rather than raising money.

For all the good policy that we can't get enacted -- from affordable healthcare, to making polluters pay to clean up their mess, to protecting consumers from dangerous and defective products, this measure will restore the principal that it is the people's interests and not special interests that determine the policies of our state. It would even help level the playing field for small businesses that can't afford to make huge campaign contributions.

We wish Prop 89 went even farther: money from democratically run organizations that represent working people like unions should be exempt from this law. But overall this is a fair tradeoff. In the two states (Arizon and Maine) where this has been tried voters have remained overwhelmingly in favor of it. In San Francisco it has changed the entire local political culture, and enabled many middle class and nonwhite candidates who never would have been able to raise the money necessary to run to do so. This proposition alone is a reason for progressives to go to the polls in November.

Backed by:
A huge coalition of progressive groups, led by the California Nurses Association, including California Common Cause, CalPIRG, the Progressive Caucus of the CA Democratic Party and Code Pink. But even a lot of conservatives who are tired of their party being so closely identified with corruption are strongly in favor.

Opposed by:
Big corporations.


NO NO NO on Proposition 90

DEVIOUS ANTI-ENVIRONMENT STEALTH MEASURE AND TAXPAYERS BAIT AND SWITCH

This measure has so much to dislike that it brings together in opposition one of the most unusual alliances imaginable. Joining virtually every environmental group in the state in opposition are taxpayers rights groups, the California Chamber of Commerce, consumer groups, scientists and public health agencies and even the California Farm Bureau.

Ostensibly, this proposition claims to guard against the abuses of eminent domain, but the state of California already has these protections. This measure was drafted and funded by a New York Libertarian and is supported only by other extremists, such as candidate for Lieutenant Governor Tom McClintock. It does little to protect against eminent domain abuse, but is loaded with unrelated and far-reaching provisions that will harm homeowners, cost taxpayers billions of dollars and have devastating impacts for our environment, local communities and people.

This bill would eviscerate many environmental, land use, zoning and planning laws if enacted. Any regulation said to have any impact on any property could trigger claims for compensation to be paid by taxpayers.

For example, if a company buys a piece of undeveloped land in your neighborhood and wants to put in a fertilizer plant, current zoning restrictions prohibit such use. If Proposition 90 passes, California taxpayers could be forced to compensate your new, smelly neighbor for restricting the use of the land and "damages" for lost profits.

Orgeon recently passed a similar measure. Although a much smaller state, over 2,000 claims have already been filed, totally over $3.2B in payments. Their choice now is to either pay the claims or waive the regulations. In one instance, the state allowed a gravel mine near a neighbor's home and in another, a property owner is insisting on the right to build geothermal mines inside a national monument.

Backed by:
One right wing extremist from New York, Howie Rich. And Tom McClintock.

Opposed by:
What may be the single largest coalition in history to oppose a California ballot proposition: from nearly every progressive group in the state, consumer groups, scientists, environmentalists and public health agencies to reliably conservative groups like the California Chamber of Commerce, and the California Farm Bureau.

Time for Rumsfeld to go

By ArmyTimes.com
November 04, 2006

Editorial

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld —

“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”

That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.

But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington.

One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.

Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.

Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.


But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.

For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.

Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.

And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.

Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.

This is a mistake. It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.

Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Op-Ed Columnist
New York Times
November 3, 2006

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.
They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.
They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?
What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than sending them off to war without the proper equipment, so that some soldiers in the field were left to buy their own body armor and to retrofit their own jeeps with scrap metal so that roadside bombs in Iraq would only maim them for life and not kill them? And what could be more injurious and insulting than Don Rumsfeld’s response to criticism that he sent our troops off in haste and unprepared: Hey, you go to war with the army you’ve got — get over it.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than to send them off to war in Iraq without any coherent postwar plan for political reconstruction there, so that the U.S. military has had to assume not only security responsibilities for all of Iraq but the political rebuilding as well? The Bush team has created a veritable library of military histories — from “Cobra II” to “Fiasco” to “State of Denial” — all of which contain the same damning conclusion offered by the very soldiers and officers who fought this war: This administration never had a plan for the morning after, and we’ve been making it up — and paying the price — ever since.

And what could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in Iraq than to send them off to war and then go out and finance the very people they’re fighting against with our gluttonous consumption of oil? Sure, George Bush told us we’re addicted to oil, but he has not done one single significant thing — demanded higher mileage standards from Detroit, imposed a gasoline tax or even used the bully pulpit of the White House to drive conservation — to end that addiction. So we continue to finance the U.S. military with our tax dollars, while we finance Iran, Syria, Wahhabi mosques and Al Qaeda madrassas with our energy purchases.

Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. That is the kind of genius Karl Rove is. He is not a man who has designed a strategy to reunite our country around an agenda of renewal for the 21st century — to bring out the best in us. His “genius” is taking some irrelevant aside by John Kerry and twisting it to bring out the worst in us, so you will ignore the mess that the Bush team has visited on this country.

And Karl Rove has succeeded at that in the past because he was sure that he could sell just enough Bush cigarettes, even though people knew they caused cancer. Please, please, for our country’s health, prove him wrong this time.
Let Karl know that you’re not stupid. Let him know that you know that the most patriotic thing to do in this election is to vote against an administration that has — through sheer incompetence — brought us to a point in Iraq that was not inevitable but is now unwinnable.

Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq — and then get away with it by holding on to the House and the Senate — it means our country has become a banana republic. It means our democracy is in tatters because it is so gerrymandered, so polluted by money, and so divided by professional political hacks that we can no longer hold the ruling party to account.

It means we’re as stupid as Karl thinks we are.
I, for one, don’t think we’re that stupid. Next Tuesday we’ll see.

Evangelical Leader Says He Bought Drugs

By JOHN HOLUSHA and NEELA BANERJEE
New York Times/Reuters
Published: November 3, 2006

The Rev. Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders, admitted today that he had purchased the illegal drug methamphetamine from a gay escort in Denver, but denied that he ever had sex with the man.

Ted Haggard, the former president of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals, resigned on Thursday after being accused of having a sexual relationship with a male escort.

Multimedia
AUDIO: Back Story With Neela Banerjee (mp3) Mr. Haggard resigned as president of the evangelical association and stepped aside as senior pastor of the New Life mega-church in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Thursday after Michael Forest Jones, a self-described former gay prostitute, accused him of having a sexual affair for three years and using the drug, commonly known as crystal meth, during those encounters.

Earlier, in an e-mail message sent to parishioners and obtained by local news media, Ross Parsley, the acting pastor of the New Life Church said, “It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true.”

Speaking to the Denver television station KUSA outside his house in Colorado Springs today, Mr. Haggard said a Denver hotel referred him to Mr. Jones for the purpose of getting a massage. He said he met with Mr. Jones and bought the drug. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I did not use it,” he said today. The station posted the video interview on its Web site.

He said he threw the drug out shortly after buying it. “I never kept it very long because it was wrong,” he said.

Asked if he engaged in sex with Mr. Jones, he said, “No I did not.” He also said he never used the drug with Mr. Jones as Mr. Jones has claimed.

Mr. Haggard, 50, who is married and has five children, has consistently denied the sex accusation, saying in a television interview: “I am steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.”

He also had said he had never met the man making the accusation.

In his message, Mr. Parsley said Mr. Haggard “has willingly and humbly submitted to the board of overseers and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation.”

On Thursday, Mr. Haggard said: “I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity. I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date.”

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the evangelical association, said the group’s 15-member executive board would meet today to decide whether to accept the resignation.

The evangelical association states on its Web site that homosexual sex is condemned by Scripture, and Mr. Haggard has advocated passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Mr. Jones, 49, told KUSA that Mr. Haggard had paid him for sex over the last three years, and that he had methamphetamine several times.

“People may look at me and think what I’ve done is immoral,” Mr. Jones, who said he is no longer a prostitute, told KUSA. “But I think I had to do the moral thing in my mind, and that is expose someone who is preaching one thing and doing the opposite behind everybody’s back.”

Mr. Jones took a polygraph examination in connection with other interviews and partially failed, local broadcasters said. They said the examiner said he would like to do a re-test because Mr. Jones was exhausted at the time of the first test.

Mr. Haggard said in a lengthy interview with KUSA that he had never used drugs of any kind and that he did not smoke or drink alcohol.

Mr. Haggard has been a supporter of an amendment to the state’s Constitution banning same-sex marriage, on which Coloradans will vote next week. He told KUSA that the accusations might have been politically motivated.

“It made me angry that here’s someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex,” Mr. Jones said.

Only 50 years left' for sea fish

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent
BBC News website

There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.

Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity.

But a greater use of protected areas could safeguard existing stocks.

"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.

"What we're highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest," he told the BBC News website.

Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."

Spanning the seas

This is a vast piece of research, incorporating scientists from many institutions in Europe and the Americas, and drawing on four distinctly different kinds of data.

Catch records from the open sea give a picture of declining fish stocks.

In 2003, 29% of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse, defined as a decline to less than 10% of their original yield.

Bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not bringing the world's fleets bigger returns - in fact, the global catch fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Historical records from coastal zones in North America, Europe and Australia also show declining yields, in step with declining species diversity; these are yields not just of fish, but of other kinds of seafood too.

Zones of biodiversity loss also tended to see more beach closures, more blooms of potentially harmful algae, and more coastal flooding.

Experiments performed in small, relatively contained ecosystems show that reductions in diversity tend to bring reductions in the size and robustness of local fish stocks. This implies that loss of biodiversity is driving the declines in fish stocks seen in the large-scale studies.

The final part of the jigsaw is data from areas where fishing has been banned or heavily restricted.

"The image I use to explain why biodiversity is so important is that marine life is a bit like a house of cards," said Dr Worm.

"All parts of it are integral to the structure; if you remove parts, particularly at the bottom, it's detrimental to everything on top and threatens the whole structure.

"And we're learning that in the oceans, species are very strongly linked to each other - probably more so than on land."

Protected interest

What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as over-fishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board.

Even so, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.

But the extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN, the World Conservation Union.

"The benefits of marine-protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there's no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability," he said.

"But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem."

But, he said, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense.

"This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield."

Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice - something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year.

Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.

"I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said.


"You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."

NOTES

These show that protection brings back biodiversity within the zone, and restores populations of fish just outside.

1. Experiments show that reducing the diversity of an ecosystem lowers the abundance of fish
2. Historical records show extensive loss of biodiversity along coasts since 1800, with the collapse of about 40% of species. About one-third of once viable coastal fisheries are now useless
3. Catch records from the open ocean show widespread decline of fisheries since 1950 with the rate of decline increasing. In 2003, 29% of fisheries were collapsed. Biodiverse regions' stocks fare better
4. Marine reserves and no-catch zones bring an average 23% improvement in biodiversity and an increase in fish stocks around the protected area

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law

By SF Indymedia
Repost Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 at 2:39 AM

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."

Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent issue of the slick, insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International" reported that "global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency." "With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term," the report notes, "the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," "for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton." (3) So, in addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a $70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an "emergency managed" and seemingly willfully gullible public as a "global war on terrorism."

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the best protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will.

Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors."

Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders."

A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty."

Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing word a couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and the White House want it."

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.

The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, "Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions," authorizes "the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders."

In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer" of the newest in so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry designed to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units. The new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology transfer" agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)

It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.

Source:
(1) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html and http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html See also, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006

(2) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122

(3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, "Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also, Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006.

(4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection", National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43.