fletcher's folly



November 26, 2006 Impeachment: America Must Decide By Peter Dyer We Americans need to decide: are we a nation of laws or not? Is our Constitution still the foundation on which the United States rests or not? On Jan. 3, 2007, the Democrats will be in control as the 110th Congress commences. New members will be sworn in, taking the oath to ãsupport and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic...ä Few things would seem more fundamental to the support and defense of the Constitution than sanctioning those who have abused it -- as a matter of simple justice as well as a deterrent against future abuse. Yet just before the Nov. 7 elections, Nancy Pelosi, who will now be the next Speaker of the House, said in an interview on CBSâs ã60 Minutesä that if the Democrats gained control of the House the impeachment of President Bush would be ãoff the tableä. But public support for impeachment has been growing. According to a poll published in Newsweek just before Ms. Pelosi took impeachment off the table, a majority of Americans may now favor it.Ê But in the spirit of bipartisanship she has decided that on the issue of impeachment, the House will ignore the public as well as the remedies which the authors of the Constitution provided for its abuse. This is a bad idea, politically and constitutionally. more... ***NEW ARTICLE* Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do ...a letter from Michael Moore Friends, Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II. That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad. And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet. more... November 25, 2006 U.S. Occupation Forces Bring Clean Water to The Children Of Iraq Humiliation as a weapon of war. November 24, 2006 Sweden tops world democracy ranking By Honor Mahony U.S. ranks 17th in the latest ratings from the Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy. Sweden has a near perfect democracy, followed by Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, according to a survey of 167 countries by the Economist Intelligence Unit. more... November 23, 2006 Rumsfeld and a Mountain of Misery by Amy Goodman Ê Frederick Douglass, the renowned abolitionist, began life as a slave on Maryland's Eastern Shore. When his owner had trouble with the young, unruly slave, Douglass was sent to Edward Covey, a notorious "slave breaker." Covey's plantation, where physical and psychological torture were standard, was called Mount Misery. Douglass eventually fought back, escaped to the North and went on to change the world. Today Mount Misery is owned by Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing secretary of defense. It is ironic that this notorious plantation run by a practiced torturer would now be owned by Rumsfeld, himself accused as the man principally responsible for the U.S. military's program of torture and detention. Rumsfeld was recently named along with 11 other high-ranking U.S. officials in a criminal complaint filed in Germany by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. The center is requesting that the German government conduct an investigation and ultimately a criminal prosecution of Rumsfeld and company. CCR President Michael Ratner says U.S. policy authorizing "harsh interrogation techniques" is in fact a torture program that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld authorized himself, passed down through the chain of command and was implemented by one of the other defendants, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. more... November 22, 2006 Rangel Is Right by Lawrence O'Donnell Charlie Rangel is angry about the Iraq war, the one that Henry Kissinger has told us we can't win. Thanks, Henry, but most Americans figured that out before you did. Rangel saw combat in Korea. Kissinger has only seen combat on TV. That might have something to do with why Kissinger thinks our troops should stay in Iraq even though we can't win. Kissinger says that if we leave now, all hell will break loose and Iraq will never achieve stability. Never mind that all hell has already broken loose. Never mind that Kissinger said the same thing would happen if we left Vietnam--all hell would break loose and Vietnam would never achieve stability. Vietnam has become so stable that Presidents Clinton and Bush, both combat cowards during the Vietnam war, have made well publicized, utterly safe visits to the country Kissinger used to think didn't have a chance without us. In my one conversation with Kissinger, which occurred on TV, I asked him if he knew anyone who got killed in Vietnam. He was completely thrown. He doesn't go on TV to be asked such small-minded questions, he goes on TV to pontificate and TV interviewers are happy to let him do it. Kissinger sputtered and ran away from the question, leaving the distinct impression that he did not know anyone who was killed in the war he managed. His memoir of the period does not mention a single casualty. If you have ever stood at the Vietnam Memorial and run your hand over the name of a relative on the wall, as my mother and I did last month, you can get as angry as Charlie Rangel does about people like Kissinger deciding how long our soldiers should be exposed to enemy fire in a war we know we can't win. more... November 21, 2006 Full Steam Ahead By Katrina vanden Heuvel ÊÊÊÊ Representatives Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey - co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus - aren't concerned about the close-to-conventional wisdom that conservative and Blue Dog Democrats will dominate the next Congress. ÊÊÊ ÊThe CPC - already the largest caucus in Congress with 64 members - is expected to add at least seven new Democrats after this election. (Eight of the twelve candidates who received campaign support from caucus members won their races, including: Jerry McNerney (Calif.); Phil Hare (Ill.); Keith Ellison (Minn.); Bruce Braley (Iowa); John Hall (NY); Mazie Hirono (Hawaii); Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.); and Julia Carson (Ind.).) The CPC will now be represented in the Senate, too, where Senator-elect Bernie Sanders has pledged to remain a member and help recruit his new colleagues, and Sherrod Brown is expected to do the same. Most significantly, the CPC's pressing issues are in sync with the American public's interests and desires. "We represent the real democratic values of our party," Woolsey says. more... November 20, 2006 Annals of National Security THE NEXT ACT Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?** by SEYMOUR M. HERSH A month before the November elections, Vice-President Dick Cheney was sitting in on a national-security discussion at the Executive Office Building. The talk took a political turn: what if the Democrats won both the Senate and the House? How would that affect policy toward Iran, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? At that point, according to someone familiar with the discussion, Cheney began reminiscing about his job as a lineman, in the early nineteen-sixties, for a power company in Wyoming. Copper wire was expensive, and the linemen were instructed to return all unused pieces three feet or longer. No one wanted to deal with the paperwork that resulted, Cheney said, so he and his colleagues found a solution: putting ãshortenersä on the wire÷that is, cutting it into short pieces and tossing the leftovers at the end of the workday. If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put ãshortenersä on any legislative restrictions, Cheney said, and thus stop Congress from getting in its way. The White Houseâs concern was not that the Democrats would cut off funds for the war in Iraq but that future legislation would prohibit it from financing operations targeted at overthrowing or destabilizing the Iranian government, to keep it from getting the bomb. ãTheyâre afraid that Congress is going to vote a binding resolution to stop a hit on Iran, ˆ la Nicaragua in the Contra war,ä a former senior intelligence official told me. more...	(Click on icons to see larger images.) November 26, 2006 November 25, 2006 November 24, 2006 November 23, 2006 November 22, 2006 November 21, 2006 November 20, 2006	Archives August 21, 2004 - August 19, 2005 August 20, 2005 - August 19, 2006 August 20, 2006 - August 26, 2006 August 27, 2006 - September 2, 2006 September 3, 2006 - September 9, 2006 September 10, 2006 - September 16, 2006 September 17, 2006 - September 23, 2006 September 24, 2006 - September 30, 2006 October 1, 2006 - October 7, 2006 October 8, 2006 - October 14, 2006 October 15, 2006 - October 21, 2006 October 22, 2006 - October 28, 2006 October 29, 2006 - October 31, 2006 November 13, 2006 - November 19, 2006 No War in Iraq march. San Francisco, Ca., January 18, 2003 San Francisco, Ca., February 16, 2003 Home Contact This site consists of original photographs and composites by Fletcher Oakes, unless otherwise credited.