PERRspectives: Nat'l Security Archives

Nat'l Security Archives

	Romney Sleeps Through 3 AM and 3 PM Phone Calls When it comes to showing leadership on American national security, the past week has been a very bad one indeed for Mitt Romney. As the nation marked the one year anniversary of the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, voters were reminded that five years ago Romney not only opposed then candidate Obama's call for unilateral U.S. strikes against Bin Laden and other high value targets in Pakistan, but protested that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions... more Posted on May 3, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Growing Dissent in Israel Poses Challenge for Romney "We will not have an inch of difference," Mitt Romney declared in January, "between ourselves and our ally Israel." While that unprecedented pandering may have helped Romney slightly narrow the massive Democratic edge among Jewish voters, the cost of his blank check to his good friend Benjamin Netanyahu is starting to rise. In just the last several days, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, ex-Shin bet chief Yuval Diskin and deputy PM Dan Meridor cautioned against pre-emptively attacking Iranian nuclear... more Posted on May 1, 2012 \| Comments (1)

	Republicans Wouldn't, Couldn't, Shouldn't Get Bin Laden Here are two helpful reminders for apoplectic conservatives. Until Barack Obama shows up on a U.S. aircraft carrier in a flight suit and an over-sized cod piece, no GOP loyalist can criticize him for boasting about the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. And no Republican can claim that "other presidents and candidates like myself" would have ordered that high-risk mission in Pakistan. After all, in 2008 John McCain said he wouldn't. Mitt Romney said we shouldn't. And despite his... more Posted on April 30, 2012 \| Comments (2)

	Romney Needs Big Shovel to Bury Bin Laden, Iraq Flip-Flops Echoing Teddy Roosevelt's famous line, Vice President Joe Biden used a major address on foreign policy Thursday to "promise you the President has a big stick." That provides a sharp contrast to the big shovel Republican nominee Mitt Romney will need to bury the embarrassing flip-flops in his foreign policy past. After all, the same Mitt Romney who in 2007 declared his full-throated support for the invasion of Iraq as "the right decision" four years later said "of course not."... more Posted on April 27, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Romney-Netanyahu 2012 Over the weekend, the New York Times published a glowing story of the 36-year relationship between GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney and his old Boston Consulting Group colleague turned two-time Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But if theirs is a "mandatory friendship" which conveniently helps Romney both woo the GOP's evangelical base and bludgeon President Obama, it also could jeopardize the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. After all, when Mitt Romney announces "we will not have... more Posted on April 9, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Romney's Number One Enemies List is a Long One On Monday, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney blasted President Obama's open mic comment to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he'll have more "flexibility" to deal with issues like missile defense after the November election. Predictably, a "disturbed" Romney denounced Obama's remark as "alarming" and "troubling." But what is surprising is that Governor Romney went on to brand Russia "our number one geopolitical foe." After all, before promoting Russia to enemy number one, Mitt Romney had already put China, Iran and Islamic... more Posted on March 27, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Rove's Failed Rewrite: Bush, Romney Opposed Bin Laden Strike This week, Karl Rove took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal in the feeble attempt to undermine of one of President Obama's signature achievements, the killing of Osama Bin Laden. "Mr. Obama did," Rove sniffed, "what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation." Well, not quite every commander-in-chief. As it turns out, back in 2008 both President Bush and would-be President Romney ridiculed then candidate Obama's pledge that "that if Pakistan cannot or... more Posted on March 23, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Ronald Romney Forgets Iran-Contra For the second time in four months, Mitt Romney has penned a tough-talking op-ed on the Iranian nuclear program. But this time, the almost certain GOP presidential nominee has introduced a new riff to his constant refrain that "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." Now in his Washington Post piece and again in his speech Tuesday to AIPAC, Romney has portrayed himself... more Posted on March 6, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Netanyahu Comes to Romney's Rescue GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu go way back. Their friendship dates back to the 1980's when, as Governor Romney pointed out during a December GOP debate, "We worked together at Boston Consulting Group." And from his aborted campaign for state pension fund disinvestment from companies doing business with Iran and his call for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be indicted on war crimes charges to his five year push for striking Tehran's nuclear facilities, Romney... more Posted on March 1, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	The Big Promises and Bigger Lies of Mitt Romney In the election of 1928, the Republican Party of Herbert Hoover promised voters "a chicken in every pot and a car in every backyard." (We all know how that turned out.) Now, Mitt Romney is pledging that "If I'm President" every college graduate will be guaranteed a job, Iran will have no nuclear weapons and the United States will dominate the 21st century. And when Romney isn't making fantastic promises about what he'll do when he gets to the White... more Posted on December 26, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Romney Flip-Flops on Bin Laden, Pakistan and Iraq From almost the moment Barack Obama took the oath of office, Mitt Romney has attacked the President for showing a lack of leadership on foreign policy and "apologizing for America." Now more than ever, it's Mitt Romney who owes President Obama and the American people some apologies. Four years after declaring his full-throated support for the invasion of Iraq as "the right decision," Romney now says "of course not." As for President Obama's daring raid to kill to Osama Bin... more Posted on December 22, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Washington Worries Israel Won't Notify U.S. of Iran Strike For weeks, rumors have been swirling that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing his cabinet towards a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. In the U.S., such a move enjoys the backing not only of the usual neoconservative suspects, but virtually all of the Republican presidential candidates. But while would-be GOP President Mitt Romney declared, "I don't seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best," the Israelis may not reciprocate. Unfortunately, as the Chairman of... more Posted on December 1, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Meet Mitt Romney's Running Mate, Benjamin Netanyahu "If I'm president of the United States," Mitt Romney declared during a recent GOP presidential debate, "My first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country and that region." As it turns out, Romney's pledge isn't just his latest transparent ploy to win over Jewish voters. Mitt's Israeli itinerary would give him a chance to personally thank the man to whom he has largely outsourced his Middle East policy. After all, from his... more Posted on November 28, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Wrong-Way McCain Leads GOP Charge Against Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Memo to Republicans: (1) Until President Obama appears on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit and an oversized cod piece, no conservative can ever accuse of him of taking too much credit for any national security success. (2) When it comes to Iraq, no one who has been as consistently and catastrophically wrong as John McCain should be criticizing Barack Obama about anything. Nevertheless, it was John McCain who led to GOP attack against President... more Posted on October 22, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	"Muddle Through" McCain Rewrites History on Afghanistan Say what you will about the President's Afghan strategy, but if nothing else, Barack Obama has been consistent. Having criticized the Bush administration for diverting badly needed resources to fight the wrong war in Iraq, candidate Obama promised to dramatically increase U.S. troop strength and to strike unilaterally in Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden and other high value Al Qaeda targets. And it was John McCain, now his harshest critic on the planned troop drawdown, who opposed it all... more Posted on June 25, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	The Return of the "Nobody Could Have Predicted" President In the least surprising political development in recent years, the leading lights of the Bush administration fanned out across Americans' TV screens to give their old boss credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Ex-chief of staff Andy Card, who famously dressed up George W. Bush in a flight suit to announce "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq eight years ago, protested that President Obama "has pounded his chest a little too much." While Dick Cheney suggested that the Bush regime... more Posted on May 9, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Bin Laden Killing Showcases Republicans' Magic Calendar In a nationally televised address to the American people on March 4, 1987, President Ronald Reagan admitted he had traded arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra scandal and declared, "This happened on my watch." Sadly, that may have been the last time a Republican leader took ownership of a disaster by simply acknowledging the calendar. After all, according to the Republicans' ever-malleable timelines, the Clinton economic boom came thanks to Ronald Reagan, President Bush inherited a recession and 9/11 from... more Posted on May 3, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Declares Libyan Rebels His Latest "Heroes" On Friday, Senator John McCain became the highest ranking American political figure to meet with the Libyan rebels. But while his declaration that "they are my heroes" doubtless was well received in by the anti-Qaddafi fighters in Benghazi, McCain's track record should give Americans good reason for concern. After all, this is the same John McCain who called Ahmed Chalabi a "patriot," offered cash and support to the Nicaraguan Contras, defended Oliver North and casually declared, "we're all Georgians now."... more Posted on April 22, 2011 \| Comments (2)

	Meet the Republican Undisqualified As was proven once again this weekend, for Republicans nothing succeeds like failure. Across the Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages, a legion of GOP luminaries spoke authoritatively on subjects they had frequently - and often catastrophically - bungled in the past. Apparently, no transgression is too serious, no series of mistakes too disastrous and no act of hypocrisy too profound to disqualify the likes of Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, John McCain, Haley Barbour and Greg Mankiw from lecturing Americans... more Posted on March 28, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Three Trillion and One Reasons for a War Tax Three trillion dollars. Once all the costs of the actual fighting, veterans care, expanded baseline defense spending and extra interest on the national debt are factored in, that's the price tag for the still-unfunded American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But there's one more reason to institute a post-recession war tax to pay for the U.S. conflicts abroad. As the nation's military leadership suggested last week, the American people are becoming increasingly disconnected from the troops they claim to support.... more Posted on February 23, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	Introducing the Bipartisan War Tax Act of 2013 George W. Bush was the first modern president to cut taxes during wartime. Now, the unpaid $2 trillion bill for the wars he fought - and chose to fight - is long overdue. While President Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress jockey to position their budget cutting plans, it's time for both parties - and all Americans - to pay the price we claim liberty demands. Here, then, is the Bipartisan War Tax Act of 2013. 2013, that is,... more Posted on February 14, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	New Chinese Fighter, Missile Alter Balance of Power In 1996, President Clinton responded to provocative Chinese missile tests near Taiwan with what PBS described as "the largest show of naval force since the Vietnam War." But the American goal of preserving Taiwanese independence through a policy of "strategic ambiguity" may soon be untenable. With the announcements of a new Chinese stealth fighter and long-range anti-ship missiles, the days of enforcing the peace by sailing aircraft carrier battle groups through the Taiwan Straits are coming to an end. While... more Posted on January 7, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Obama and McCain on the Couch Watching Barack Obama and John McCain over the past week has left pundits and armchair psychologists alike scratching their heads. While the two foes from the 2008 presidential election couldn't be more different, their puzzling performances over tax cuts for the wealthy and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell have the Washington commentariat paging Dr. Freud. Matthew Yglesias and James Fallows reflect the stunned reaction to McCain's increasing mania over allowing gay Americans to openly serve in the United... more Posted on December 3, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Wikileaks Confirms McCain Dangerously Wrong on Georgia Assessing the impact of the Wikileaks revelations, Fareed Zakaria concluded the confidential cables actually show "the skills of U.S. diplomats." Overall, Zakaria was reassured that "the State Department works" and by "an American diplomatic establishment that is pretty good at analysis." But in one case - the conflict between Russia and Georgia in the summer of 2008 - the ideological blinders of U.S. foreign policy led the Bush administration and its allies to dangerously misread the reality on the ground.... more Posted on December 2, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	The Prosecution of Wikileaks Just because you can leak embarrassing, classified national security information doesn't mean you should. And just because the American government may be able to prosecute someone for it doesn't mean they should, either. But in the case of the Wikileaks, prosecution - to the extent that U.S. law allows it - is warranted. Because Julian Assange isn't revealing the systematic deception of the American people by its elected officials (for example, the Pentagon Papers), exposing a concerted campaign of lawbreaking... more Posted on November 30, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	The Wikileaks of President McCain To be sure, Wikileaks' release this weekend of a quarter million diplomatic cables is a devastating blow to the national security interests and foreign policy of the United States. And the secret assessments they contain regarding U.S. allies and potential partners like Germany's Angela Merkel ("avoids risk and is rarely creative"), Nicolas Sarkozy ("emperor with no clothes") and Russia's Dmitri Medvedev ("Robin" to Putin's "Batman") are not merely embarrassing; they jeopardize U.S. relations with Paris, Berlin and Moscow. Of course,... more Posted on November 29, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	George W. Bush, Unrepentant War Criminal The only thing worse than a war criminal is an unrepentant one. Sadly, that's the self-portrait George W. Bush will present this week with the release of his new memoir, Decision Points. As his new book apparently makes quite clear, Bush has no regrets about his regime of detainee torture that broke U.S. law, violated international treaty agreements, shamed the United States worldwide and provided a powerful propaganda victory for Al Qaeda. Even before his media blitz this week with... more Posted on November 7, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	It Was the Best of Times, It Was the End of Times In recent years, Pew Research, Time and others have found that almost half of Americans believe that the Second Coming of Christ and the End Times will occur during their lifetimes. Now, conservatives just need to make up their minds about whether this is a good thing. Because while Left Behind series author Tim Lahaye fretted this week that Barack Obama is hastening the Apocalypse, his allies on the religious right have been doing everything they can to make it... more Posted on July 30, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Bush Follows Cheney in Admitting War Crimes Perhaps the only thing worse than a war criminal is an unrepentant one. And so it with Barack Obama's predecessor. Just months after former Vice President Dick Cheney boasted, "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," George W. Bush joined him by announcing, "I'd do it again." President Bush's endorsement of the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorism suspects came during an appearance before a business audience in Grand... more Posted on June 3, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Judge Cornyn's War on the Rule of Law That Texas Senator John Cornyn joined John McCain in the Republican chorus denouncing the Obama administration for reading Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad his Miranda rights is unsurprising. Unsurprising and sadly ironic. After all, from detainee torture and illicit domestic surveillance to judicial intimidation and defendant's rights, Cornyn isn't just a ring leader of the GOP war on the Constitution and the rule of law. Before coming to the Senate, Judge Cornyn served as his state's attorney general and... more Posted on May 5, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Like Bush, Obama Subpoenas New York Times Reporter In early 2008, the Bush Justice Department subpoenaed New York Times reporter James Risen over his book, State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration. Now, just two weeks after taking action against an NSA whistle-blower who leaked information about contract corruption to the Baltimore Sun, the Obama DOJ is continuing its predecessor's push to compel Risen to divulge his confidential sources. Risen and his Times' colleague Eric Lichtblau have long been targets of conservative... more Posted on April 29, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Echoed Obama's Words, Not Actions, on Nuclear Terrorism "The biggest threat facing this country," President Bush declared on September 30 2004, is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network." But in the wake of the successful Nuclear Security Summit this week, Bush's conservative water carriers are blasting President Obama for the substantial progress made towards stopping the dangerous black market in nuclear material. Apparently, Obama's sins are double. He's not just a Democrat talking about nuclear terrorism; he's actually doing something about it. Which,... more Posted on April 17, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	The Chutzpah of Israel The United States and Israel share common interests, but not identical ones. That reminder was brought home last week by Israel's stunning announcement of expanded East Jerusalem settlements even as Vice President Joe Biden arrived to reaffirm the American commitment to both Israel and the Palestinian peace process. But while a stunned and angry Biden echoed General David Petraeus in warning that "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,"... more Posted on March 15, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	National Shame Yoo's "Gift to the Obama Presidency" As the Scooter Libby affair showed, no one circles the wagons like the Republican Party and its conservative allies. Now that Bush torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee barely escaped disbarment in the final version of the report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, the right-wing counterattack and near orgasmic celebration is well underway. Leading the clarion call is none other than John Yoo himself, who in his Wall Street Journal op-ed today proclaimed his legacy of... more Posted on February 24, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Crushed Testicles, Civilian Massacres, Nuclear Blasts and Yoo The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility final conclusion that Bush torture team lawyers should not face misconduct penalties has triggered triumphant celebrations in right-wing circles. The Wall Street Journal rejoiced in "Vindicating John Yoo" that the "Bush lawyers are found to have acted ethically, unlike their accusers." In the National Review, former Bush press secretary Dana Perino of all people claimed "partisan politics are alive and well at the Justice Department." For his part, Glenn Greenwald demolished their arguments... more Posted on February 23, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Capture of Taliban Leader Destroys Latest GOP Talking Point Last week, former Bush speechwriter and full-time torture apologist Marc Thiessen introduced perhaps the most comically hypocritical talking point in the perpetual Republican jihad against the Obama administration's war policies. In "Dead Terrorists Tell No Tales," Thiessen fretted that under President Obama, the United States is killing its enemies before getting a chance to torture them first. Six days later, the Washington Post amplified that line, warning "under Obama, more targeted killings than captures in counterterrorism efforts." But the revelation... more Posted on February 16, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Thiessen Laments Dead Terrorists Can't Be Tortured In the wake of the September 11 attacks, President Bush famously announced his plans for Osama Bin Laden, "There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" Bush, of course, failed to deliver Bin Laden in either state. But now that President Obama is killing large numbers of Al Qaeda members in the Pakistani safe haven his predecessor failed to dismantle, former chief Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen worries that "dead terrorists tell no tales."... more Posted on February 9, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	From Truman to Powell on Don't Ask, Don't Tell On February 2, 1948, President Harry Truman declared in a special civil rights message to Congress that he "had instructed the Secretary of Defense to take steps to have the remaining instances of discrimination in the armed services eliminated as rapidly as possible." On July 26, 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981 instituting the new policy that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national... more Posted on February 3, 2010 \| Comments (4)

	On Terror, GOP Goes from Oprah to Donald Trump Witnessing the Republican reaction to the Obama administration's handling of the failed Christmas bombing is like watching reruns of The Apprentice. Like Donald Trump, each conservative talking head proclaims "You're Fired!" to members of the Obama team. Of course, when President Bush presided over the 9/11 catastrophe, Osama Bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora, the baseless claims about Saddam's WMD, the disastrous invasion of Iraq and myriad other intelligence and national security debacles, Republicans instead played the role of Oprah.... more Posted on January 8, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	The Gitmo Memo and the GOP Love Affair with Leaks Once upon a time (a time coincident with George W. Bush's tenure in the White House), Republicans decried the leaking of classified national security information. After the New York Times revealed his program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, President Bush deemed it a "a shameful act" that is "helping the enemy." Alas, that was then and this is now. As the publication of the confidential McChrystal report on Afghanistan and now a draft DOJ memo about relocating Gitmo... more Posted on December 12, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	McChrystal vs. Bush on Bin Laden Ever since the leaking of his confidential Afghanistan report in August, conservatives have used General Stanley McChrystal as a bludgeon against President Obama. Conveniently ignoring President Bush's repeated refusals to "listen to the commanders on the ground," GOP leaders in Congress continue to blast Obama for "dithering" in response to McChrystal's request for more troops. But lost in the predictable Beltway narrative about Obama and the generals in the wake of last week's escalation was a stern rebuke of Bush's... more Posted on December 11, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	In Which Sarah Palin Learns About War Taxes Among the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But as her confusion about the First Amendment or Alaska's energy production showed, Palin's ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her speaking out with great conviction about it. So it is once again with talk of potential tax increases to fund the escalating war in Afghanistan. War time taxes are never necessary, Sarah Palin seemed to suggest this week, because during... more Posted on December 9, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	McCain's Wartime Reign of Error When it comes to matters of war and peace, over the past decade no American political figure outside of Dick Cheney has been as egregiously and frequently wrong as John McCain. Yet despite his almost uninterrupted record of error on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, McCain's supposed national security expertise is taken for granted by both his party and the press. So as he leads the Republican campaign against President Obama's "exit strategy" in Afghanistan, it's worth remembering that... more Posted on December 3, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Michael Moore's Afghanistan Letter Rewrites History of Obama Campaign Promoting his latest film earlier this year, Michael Moore ignored the achievements of the Progressive movement and the New Deal when he declared, "capitalism is evil and you can't regulate evil." Now on the eve of President Obama's address to the nation on his Afghanistan strategy, Moore is rewriting the history of the campaign that put Obama in the Oval Office. In an open letter to President Obama, Moore on Monday seems to have forgotten candidate Obama's aggressive stance towards... more Posted on November 30, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Republicans Give Thanks for Short Memories Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino's jaw-dropping statement Wednesday that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term" didn't merely serve to confirm President Obama's terrible judgment in appointing her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As it turns out, Perino's clumsy whitewashing of the 9/11 attacks is just the latest (if most pathetic) installment of the ongoing GOP project to selectively erase history. From their disaster in Iraq and neglect of Afghanistan to... more Posted on November 26, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Veterans Day Reflections This Veterans Day is an especially painful reminder of the immeasurable sacrifices American military men and women make every day to protect our nation. Even as tens of thousands of U.S. troops remain in Iraq and thousands more are poised to join their comrades in Afghanistan, Americans are still grieving over the tragedy at Fort Hood. On this day, we remember that the liberty we enjoy was earned by generations past and present of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Now... more Posted on November 11, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Keeping Extremisms Out of the U.S. Military Revelations that the FBI, the Pentagon and even his medical colleagues were aware of Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Malik Hasan's extremist ideology have raised serious questions about the U.S. military's ability to screen, monitor and remove dangerous personnel from its ranks. But far from justifying the discrimination against patriotic American Muslims predictably called for by the usual suspects, the Fort Hood bloodbath should remind Americans that extremisms of all stripes have no place in the armed forces of the... more Posted on November 10, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	McChrystal's Intel Leak Doubtless Warms GOP Hearts Seemingly with each passing day, General Stanley McChrystal grows in the esteem of President Obama's conservative foes. After having savaged General Eric Shinseki for his pre-Iraq war testimony that the occupation would require "several hundreds of thousands" of American troops, Republicans have seized on McChrystal's public demands for more forces in Afghanistan as their latest battering ram to bludgeon Obama on national security. And as it turns out, McChrystal's inadvertent leak earlier this month regarding a classified CIA analysis puts... more Posted on October 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Return of Iran/Contra As the United States begins multiparty talks with Iran over its nuclear program, many of the cast of characters from Tehran fiascos past are coming out of the woodwork to weigh in once again. Jimmy Carter advised President Obama that "the best thing we can do is engage them and stop making these idle threats." Meanwhile, Michael Ledeen surfaced on the pages of the Wall Street Journal to warn "change in Iran requires a change in government." Of course, Ledeen... more Posted on October 1, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	KrongardGate II Among the most comically disturbing moments in the ongoing national embarrassment surrounding the mercenary firm Blackwater was the November 2007 revelation that the brother of the State Department Inspector General overseeing the company was on its board. Now, Howard "Cookie" Krongard and his hermano Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard are involved in another conflict of interest, this time in Afghanistan. As CBS reported Tuesday, the dubious dealings of the brothers Krongard may be at the heart of a coverup regarding ArmorGroup, the... more Posted on September 30, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Obama, Iran and the Echoes of the Cuban Missile Crisis To be sure, the growing tensions - and stakes - over the Iranian nuclear program are different in kind and degree from the brinksmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis 47 years ago. But events of the past week have stirred the echoes of that confrontation with the Soviet Union. In each case, an international gathering in the U.S. became the forum for dramatic revelations of duplicity by American foes. And President Obama, like Kennedy in 1962, may have secured concessions... more Posted on September 26, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Will GOP Call for Prosecution of McChrystal Report Leaker? One day after the Washington Post's Bob Woodward published the confidential McChrystal report on Afghanistan, the Politico asked, "Who leaked and why?" But while the article speculates on the identity and motivation of the leaker, one issue - the punishment of Woodward's source for revealing national security documents -remains off the table. Which is a far cry from the 2005 revelations regarding President Bush's illicit program of NSA domestic surveillance, publication of which prompted leading conservatives to call for the... more Posted on September 22, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Ronald Reagan, Cream Puff As the chaos and unrest escalates in Iran, Republicans have predictably exhumed Ronald Reagan to club President Obama. Confusing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe with an Iranian election among candidates all blessed by the ruling theocrats in Tehran, John McCain blasted the President, recalling that Reagan "stood up for Polish workers in Gdansk." Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) wasn't content to declare to Gipper "always knew" to "be vocally supportive of all those people who are oppressed," he denounced Obama as a... more Posted on June 18, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	The Obama Effect in Lebanon, the Bush Defect in Gaza In the wake of the surprisingly strong showing by the pro-Western coalition in Sunday's elections in Lebanon, the debate is raging as whether President Obama can take any credit for it. McClatchy, Newsweek, Politico, the AP and a host of others pondered whether the President's dazzling speech in Cairo and recent diplomatic efforts in Beirut amounted to an "Obama Effect" which helped blunt Hezbollah and its allies, or instead played little role in the face of competing Christian factions, Saudi... more Posted on June 9, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Republicans Again Turn to Intel Leaks They Once Decried When the New York Times in December 2005 revealed President Bush's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, reaction from the White House and its Republican allies was swift - and furious. "These politically motivated leaks," Pete Hoekstra declared, "must stop." But now desperate to defend at any cost Bush's regime of detainee torture, Capitol Hill Republicans have learned to love leaking classified national security information. As The Hill reported Thursday, Hoekstra and his allies on the House Intelligence... more Posted on June 5, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Obama Repudiates Bush Doctrine in Annapolis Speech On Friday, President Obama addressed the graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy. In promising to "maintain America's military dominance," Obama also signaled a clear break with his predecessor's Manichean worldview and the Bush doctrine of preemptive war. As it turns out, George W. Bush debuted those discredited concepts seven years ago during a service academy commencement address of his own, his speech to the West Point class of 2002. Obama's repudiation of Bush's aggressive unilateralism was evident in a pledge... more Posted on May 22, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney's MAD Dick Cheney's MAD, just not in the way you think. As Time, the AP and virtually every pundit across the political spectrum debate the meaning of Cheney's ubiquity on your television screen, it may be an old Cold War theory which best explains his strategy. The former vice president isn't merely trying to rewrite history or work the jury with his repeated claims that torture "saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives" and that "nothing devious or deceitful or... more Posted on May 13, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Cohen, Ford and the 1-2-3 Torture Test At the end of the day, evaluating the Bush administration's program of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques is like a three-part exam. Was it legal? Was it moral? Was it uniquely effective? If the answer isn't "yes" to each and every one of those three questions, the Bush regime of detainee torture cannot be justified. Sadly for its defenders, this test isn't graded on a curve and there is no partial credit. And that, in a nutshell, explains why the policy... more Posted on May 12, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Mormons Engulfed by Marriage, Baptism, Torture Controversies While President Obama's looming commencement address at Notre Dame sadly remains controversial among a vocal minority of Catholics, it is one of America's fastest growing faiths which is at the center of three political storms this week. On Tuesday, ABC confirmed AmericaBlog's reporting that a Provo LDS member posthumously baptized Obama's late mother. Continuing his church's active role in opposing marriage equality, a Utah Congressman moved to block Washington DC's plans to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. And... more Posted on May 6, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Hunting People for Jesus: Growing Fundamentalism in the U.S. Military After revelations that some American soldiers were given Bibles and encouraged to "hunt people for Jesus," the Pentagon on Monday denied allegations that the U.S. military allows its personnel to seek the conversion of Afghans to Christianity. But while the copies of the New Testament translated into Pashtun and jaw-dropping video from Bagram may seem like exceptions that prove the rule of American prohibition on proselytizing by the military, they are just the latest episodes in the disturbing rise in... more Posted on May 4, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	The GOP's Seinfeld Defense of Torture During one of the more memorable episodes of Seinfeld, George Costanza helps Jerry prepare for a lie detector test by advising, "it's not a lie if you believe it." And so it is with Republican defenders of the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. As it turns out, Marc Thiessen, David Rivkin, Peggy Noonan, Michael Hayden, Michael Mukasey and Dick Cheney are just some of the cavalcade of conservatives whose tortured defenses of the indefensible sound like catch-phrases from the... more Posted on April 21, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	NSA Surveillance Illegally Targets Americans. Again. Back in February 2006, Texas Senator John Cornyn led Congressional Republicans with his famous defense of President Bush's regime of illicit NSA domestic surveillance, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." Now, as the New York Times revealed today, one of those illegal targeted was apparently one of Cornyn's Capitol Hill colleagues. And as it turns out, this is the second time in six months the National Security Agency's lawless fishing expeditions have come to light. As... more Posted on April 16, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	U.S. Captain Rescued, No Reagan-Style Hostage Deal News that American Captain Richard Phillips was rescued by U.S. forces from Somali pirates must have come as something as a shock to the right-wing noise machine. After all, over the past two days, frothing-at-the-mouth conservatives branded Barack Obama "eunuch-in-chief", "President Pantywaist," and worse, while Newt Gingrich twittered Friday, "The correct answer to piracy is to destroy, not negotiate with it." Apparently, these children of the Reagan revolution conveniently forgot the Gipper's arms-for-hostages deals during the Iran-Contra crisis. The Iran-Contra... more Posted on April 12, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Before 9/11, Rumsfeld Almost Gutted the U.S. Military Despite the Obama administration's 4% increase in the Pentagon budget, Republican leaders and their conservative echo chamber are predictably issuing dire warnings about draconian cuts in defense spending and "disarming America." Of course, critics of Secretary Gates' strategic shift of resources to boost the nation's ability to fight current wars and future counterinsurgencies neglect to mention the Department's proposed budget (excluding funds for Iraq and Afghanistan) jumps next year to $534 billion, a $21 billion increase. And as it turns... more Posted on April 8, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Growing Fundamentalism Grips Israeli, U.S. Militaries Ever since 9/11, analysts of all stripes have created a cottage industry in studying comparative fundamentalism across Islam, Christianity and Judaism. (In 2007, for example, CNN featured Christiane Amanpour's special report on "God's Warriors.") Now with the revelations from Israeli soldiers of atrocities committed during their assault on Gaza, new questions are being raised about the growing power of religious nationalists within the IDF. As it turns out, that expanding role parallels a disturbing rise in the influence of Christian... more Posted on March 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Cheney Rejects Gore's Model for Ex-VP Decorum One day after Dick Cheney claimed President Obama is making the nation less safe, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joked that CNN invited the former vice president only because "Rush Limbaugh was busy" and Cheney was "the next most popular member of the Republican cabal" available. But when CBS' Chip Reid protested the "sarcastic" tone towards the ex-VP, he apparently forgot that as vice president Dick Cheney told a sitting United States Senator to "go f**k yourself" on the... more Posted on March 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Does CIA Still Deserve a Medal for Destroying 100 Interrogation Tapes? Back in December 2007, Americans learned that then-head of the CIA's clandestine service Jose Rodriguez two years earlier ordered the destruction of at least two videotapes of detainee interrogations. Today, government lawyers revealed the number of tapes destroyed was much higher, totaling almost 100. That shocking revelation prompts two questions. First is the issue of whether the videos might have revealed enhanced interrogation techniques constituting torture, actions which might have both jeopardized detainee prosecutions and led to legal action against... more Posted on March 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Hoekstra Just Latest Republican to Leak Security Secrets As CQ Politics first reported yesterday, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) leaked word of his delegation's secret trip to Iraq. Hoekstra, who in 2006 decried "unauthorized disclosures of classified information [which] only help terrorists and our enemies - and put American lives at risk," used Twitter to inadvertently announce the presence of high-ranking American officials in Baghdad. As it turns out, Pete Hoekstra is just the latest Republican politician to reveal classified national security information in recent... more Posted on February 7, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Cornyn Blesses Detainee Torture, Threats to Judges Among the lowlights of the confirmation hearings for Eric Holder this week was a jaw-dropping endorsement of torture by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). Having watched one too many "ticking time bomb" scenarios on the Fox series 24, Cornyn asked the would-be Attorney General if he "would still refuse to condone aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding to get that information." But as the record shows, John Cornyn is an aggressive advocate of illicit violence not just against terrorism suspects, but towards... more Posted on January 17, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	George W. Bush, the "Nobody Could've Predicted" President In an interview Thursday with the AP, Vice President Cheney neatly summarized the failed Bush presidency. Comparing the financial meltdown and implosion of the American economy with the 9/11 attacks, Cheney insisted, "I don't think anybody saw it coming." As it turns out, from 9/11, sectarian conflict in Iraq and the election of Hamas to the Bush recession and the drowning of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the leading lights of the Bush administration claimed they never saw it coming.... more Posted on January 12, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Russian Missile Sales to Iran May Raise Prospect of Israeli Strike Coming in the wake of Russian warships passing through the Panama Canal and visiting Cuba, conflicting reports that Moscow intends to sell an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran are ratcheting up tensions with the United States. But more worrisome still is the heightened prospect of a preemptive Israeli air strike against Tehran's nuclear infrastructure before the S-300 system becomes operational. On Sunday, Iranian official Esmail Kosari seemingly confirmed earlier rumors of the purchase, telling Tehran's IRNA news agency, "After... more Posted on December 23, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	NSA Domestic Surveillance Whistleblower Comes Forward Three years after the New York Times first revealed the Bush administration's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making public the President's lawbreaking. In its expose Sunday, Newsweek details how the former Justice Department official came to discover the White House's violations of the FISA law and reluctantly decided to turn to the Times. Whether or not Tamm is ultimately arrested for his revelations, the same voices in President Bush's... more Posted on December 14, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	The Growing Canadian Sacrifice in Afghanistan Over the past several days, a wave of stories has highlighted the deepening crisis in Afghanistan. One day after the New York Times detailed American plans to deploy thousands of new troops just to secure the capital Kabul came word that a U.S. resupply convoy in Pakistan was destroyed by Taliban insurgents. But largely overlooked in the discussion of American casualties and a looming overhaul of U.S. strategy under President Obama is the growing sacrifice of our Canadian allies in... more Posted on December 7, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	New WMD Report Echoes 2001 Panel's Warnings on Terrorism Even as Barack Obama was introducing his national security team to the nation Monday, Americans learned of a chilling new report detailing the scope of the global threat of weapons of mass destruction. Dramatically titled "World at Risk," the study led by former Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jim Talent (R-MO) predicted a better than even chance that the world would experience a WMD attack within the next five years. As if President-Elect Obama didn't already have enough to worry... more Posted on December 2, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Lies About Palin's Expertise on Energy Reviewing the avalanche of lies, distortions and smears emanating from the presidential campaign of John McCain, NBC's Mark Murray asked Saturday, "Wheels come off Straight Talk Express?" But Wheeler's litany of McCain falsehoods omitted a whopper that goes directly to the heart of Sarah Palin's sham qualifications for the vice presidency. McCain, after all, claimed that "she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America." As it turns out, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has... more Posted on September 14, 2008 \| Comments (14)

	The Bush Doctrine for Dummies, Sarah Palin Edition No safe havens for terrorists. Preventive war. Democracy expansion. Those are the three central tenets of the Bush Doctrine, the guiding theory of unilateral American foreign and national security policy since 9/11. And today, on the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin revealed she never heard of it. Emerging Thursday from her undisclosed location for her first encounter with the press, John McCain's stealth running mate displayed a shocking... more Posted on September 11, 2008 \| Comments (5)

	Bush, McCain, Rice and Romney Fail 21st Century History Test No doubt, history will not be kind to George W Bush. And to be sure, Bush is already returning the favor. Apparently stunned by the Russian assault on Georgia, President Bush forgot his invasion of "sovereign" Iraq and declared, "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century". As it turns out, John McCain, Condoleezza Rice and Mitt Romney all failed the same test on 21st century history. While unwilling to acknowledge that he had misread Vladimir Putin's soul back... more Posted on August 24, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Pentagon Backs Obama Again with More Troops for Afghanistan The announcement today that the United States will deploy up to 15,000 more troops to Afghanistan is just the latest signal of the Pentagon's seeming support for Barack Obama's strategy to fight Al Qaeda in the region. Following by just weeks Obama's latest call to send at least two more brigades of American troops there, the request by U.S. commanders again confirmed Obama's assertion, one denied by John McCain, that Iraq represents a "zero sum game" for scarce American military... more Posted on August 20, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Rice Missing Again as "Putin Determined to Strike in Georgia" One of the most enduring moments of the 9/11 Commission hearings came when Condoleezza Rice casually recalled the now infamous August 6, 2001 presidential daily brief (PDB). "I believe," she said, "the title was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" Now almost exactly seven years later, Secretary of State Rice seems to have missed the warning signs once again. Having sent mixed messages to Tbilisi in July and on vacation as Russian armor poured into the country,... more Posted on August 13, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Brooks Blasts Obama But Praised Bush for "Remaking the World" That the Republican water carrier and New York Times columnist David Brooks would blast Barack Obama's Berlin speech was utterly predictable. (Kevin Drum even predicted the title of the piece, "Playing Innocent Abroad.") To be sure, by slandering Obama's call to "remake the world" with epithets including "saccharine," "treacle," and "Disney," Brooks did not disappoint. Of course, even less surprising is that back in 2005, David Brooks had only glowing praise for President Bush's democratization agenda and its audacious vision... more Posted on July 25, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Issa Adds to Hall of Shame with Torture Defense Just one month after he took to the floor of the House to appropriate the memory of the late Tim Russert to push for offshore drilling, California Rep. Darrell Issa is at again. Rushing to defend former Attorney General John Ashcroft over charges that the Bush administration's practice of waterboarding detainees was tantamount to torture, Issa told the House Judiciary Committee that "we treated our hospital patients at times worse than al Qaeda." Coming from the man who reduced the... more Posted on July 18, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain's "Bring 'Em On" Election Strategy While a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland would be a tragedy for the American people, it would apparently be viewed as a blessing by the campaign of John McCain. On the same day that USA Today reported that terrorism is the only issue on which Americans clearly prefer John McCain to Barack Obama, McCain senior strategist Charlie Black admitted of another terror strike here, "certainly it would be a big advantage to him." As it turns out, John McCain... more Posted on June 24, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Studies Refute McCain's 30 Gitmo Recidivists Talking Point In the wake of the Supreme Court's restoration of habeas corpus rights in its Boumediene decision Friday, John McCain and his allies on the right have predictably forecast an American bloodbath at the hands of terrorists unleashed from Guantanamo. While Justice Antonin Scalia claimed the ruling would "almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," Newt Gingrich contended the Supreme Court "could cost us a city." As for McCain, he simply regurgitated a soon-to-be familiar GOP talking point, "30 of... more Posted on June 16, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain's Sins of Military Commission On the stump in New Jersey today, John McCain launched a thundering two-pronged assault on yesterday's Supreme Court decision on habeas corpus rights for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Again raising the specter of "unaccountable judges," McCain picked up on his earlier, right-wing handbook assault against so-called judicial activism. Then turning to fear-mongering, McCain proclaimed "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" will lead to more attacks against the American people. But lost in McCain's red-faced... more Posted on June 13, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Retreats in his War on the UN The Los Angeles Times reports today that Republican nominee John McCain has begun a quiet retreat from the centerpiece of his foreign policy vision, a so-called "League of Democracies." First unveiled in May 2007 and a highlight of his March 26 national security address, McCain despite his past angry criticism of America's European allies envisioned a league of democracies which could "act with great influence and power, both economically and militarily." Unfortunately for McCain, what thrills his neoconservative backers is... more Posted on April 21, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Two New Reports Slam Bush on Iraq, Afghanistan Two new reports released Thursday offer a devastating assessment of President Bush's leadership as commander-in-chief. First, the GAO concluded that "al-Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan's border area." Then just hours later, a study from the National Defense University proclaimed the Iraq war "a major debacle" whose outcome was "in doubt." Together, they paint a damning portrait of Bush's failures in the global war on terror.... more Posted on April 18, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Goes Both Ways on Press Shield Law Addressing the annual meeting of the Associated Press, John McCain stayed true to form in his ongoing courtship of the media. Pandering to what is in essence his base, McCain proclaimed his support for a proposed federal press shield law. Then in typical fashion, McCain joined President Bush in decrying the use of confidential sources by the New York Times and others to expose White House criminality. During his remarks, McCain used the press shield issue to woo a press... more Posted on April 14, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Israeli Settlements and the Return of McCain's Hagee Problem Just when it seemed John McCain had weathered the storm over endorser John Hagee's rabid anti-Catholicism, the Texas pastor announced his latest effort to accelerate Armageddon. In the face of U.S. policy opposing the expansion of Isaeli settlements in the West Bank, Hagee's Christian United for Israel (CUFI) announced a $6 million donation to help do just that. So while John McCain may believe that in Washington John Hagee is "doing the Lord's work in Satan's city," he certainly is... more Posted on April 7, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain's Dishonest Defense of "100 Years" in Iraq On Sunday, John McCain renewed his defense of a 100 year American presence in Iraq. Just days after his campaign accused Barack Obama of "dishonesty" and "nonsense talk" over Obama's claim that McCain "willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq," the Republican nominee on Fox News again compared Iraq to Japan and South Korea. By doing so, John McCain once again showed that he fundamentally misunderstands - or worse still, willingly misrepresents - both... more Posted on April 6, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Fawning Media Ignore McCain's Past France-Bashing Over the past two days, the fawning American media has provided rave reviews of John McCain's visit to France. While the New York Times lauded "McCain's soothing tones," Time gushed about "McCain's Paris romance" and the transformation of Franco-American relations made possible by his warm embrace of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But lost in these accounts is John McCain's vitriolic France-bashing in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Back in 2003, John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with the... more Posted on March 23, 2008 \| Comments (5)

	Wrong Again: McCain Proclaims Al Qaeda-Iran Alliance As I documented just two day ago, John McCain has been wrong from the start about virtually every aspect of the Iraq war. From Ahmed Chalabi and Saddam's WMD to the prospects of Americans troops being greeting as liberators and the certainty of a "rapid" U.S. victory in "three weeks," John McCain had it wrong at every turn. Today in Jordan, the Republican presidential nominee made a much fundamental - and shocking - mistake. Would-be commander-in-chief John McCain literally doesn't... more Posted on March 18, 2008 \| Comments (6)

	John McCain: Unfit for Command Over the past week, Democrat Hillary Clinton has proclaimed her potential Republican rival John McCain to be the gold standard of wartime presidents. But lost in Clinton's fierce barrage against Barack Obama's national security experience is the inescapable conclusion about John McCain's own suitability as Commander-in-Chief. McCain's mistake-filled record, questionable judgment, calamitous misreading of history, nonchalance about American casualties and notorious short fuse all combine to make him a dangerous choice to lead an America at war. Simply put, John... more Posted on March 10, 2008 \| Comments (8)

	Did McCain Cost Boeing $40 Billion Tanker Deal? In a stunning announcement Friday, the Pentagon skipped over Boeing and awarded a massive $40 billion contract for a new fleet of refueling tankers to a Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautics Defense and Space (EADS). While Air Force officials claimed the choice of the KC-45 tankers jointly developed by Grumman and Airbus' parent company was based on its superior design, politicians in both parties are howling about the devastating economic impact on U.S.-based Boeing. And they might just have John... more Posted on March 1, 2008 \| Comments (12)

	McConnell, Mukasey Confirm Bush Domestic Surveillance Was Illegal Exactly two years ago, I dissected the Bush administration's dubious legal justification for its illicit program of NSA domestic surveillance. Then, I argued that the President's twin claims that his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowed Bush to operate outside the legal mandate of FISA were specious. As it turns out, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey apparently agree. In "The Republicans' Constitutional Crisis," I... more Posted on February 23, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Obama's Platoon and Bush's "Not Ready for Duty, Sir" Fraud Watching the CNN Democratic debate last night, I wondered if Barack Obama had reprised George W. Bush's infamous "not ready for duty, sir" accusation about the American military's preparedness. As it turns out, what sounded like Obama hyperbole about the state of overstretched U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is by and large accurate. And that makes it a far cry from then Governor Bush's slanderous charge at the 2000 Republican National Convention. As Matthew Yglesias reported, the conservative amen... more Posted on February 22, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	New York Times Reporter Subpoenaed Over Sources That cheering sound you may have heard this morning was conservatives' applauding the news that New York Times reporter James Risen has been subpoenaed in an effort to force him to reveal his confidential sources. But while Republican rage may be temporarily muted over the inquiry into Risen's 2006 book, many on the right won't be satisfied until Risen goes to jail for his cardinal offense, revealing President Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program. The subpoena James Risen received from a... more Posted on February 1, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Romney Adopts GOP "Give Me Death" Line on Civil Liberties In an unprecedented and blistering "undorsement" on Saturday, the Concord Monitor implored New Hampshire voters not to support GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney under any circumstances. Labeling Romney "a disquieting figure" who "most surely must be stopped," the Monitor profiled the serial flip-flopper whose pronouncements on national security and civil liberties issues "are often chilling." Just how chilling, it turns out, Salon's Glenn Greenwald detailed the very next day. While Americans by now have grown accustomed to Romney's tough... more Posted on December 24, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Right Claims Iran NIE a CIA Plot Against Bush President Bush's amen corner in the conservative commentariat is apoplectic over the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. After all, the report's conclusion that Tehran suspended its nuclear weapons program inn 2003 knocked the legs out from their "World War III" rhetoric. And as you'd expect, the same people who helped bring you the war in Iraq are now quick to claim CIA incompetence and conspiracies are behind the new assessment. At the head of the list of the... more Posted on December 4, 2007 \| Comments (9)

	On Eve of Summit, State Dept Rewrites Middle East History As Condoleezza Rice prepares to host the Middle East summit in Annapolis this week, her State Department has issued an updated historical timeline of American efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The timeline is a fascinating document both for what it reveals and what it leaves out. The rise of Hamas and its election victories are mentioned nowhere. That might just be because President Bush's hands-off policy of malign neglect is in part responsible for it. The State Department's "Middle... more Posted on November 26, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	NYT Yielded to White House, Sat on Pakistan Nuclear Security Story The New York Times' recent report that the United States has been secretly helping Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal contained another revelation. As with its 2005 expose of the Bush administration's illegal NSA domestic surveillance program, the Times sat on the Pakistan story at the request of the White House. Contrary to the repeated claims of President Bush and his amen corner, the New York Times has been more than deferential in letting the White House determine "all the news... more Posted on November 21, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	FISA, Yahoo and the GOP Double-Standard on Telecom Immunity As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to debate the renewal of FISA revisions made in August, President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress are endorsing a unique double-standard when it comes to immunity for telecommunications firms. Within the United States, they argue, service providers such as AT&T and Verizon must cooperate with U.S. government demands for access to Americans' electronic communications and should be immune from citizens' lawsuits. But in China and elsewhere, as Republican reaction to this week's... more Posted on November 14, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Yahoo, Communist China and Bush's America In Washington Tuesday, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee savaged Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan for the company's involvement in the 2005 jailing of a Chinese dissident. But if their bipartisan criticism of Yahoo's behavior - cooperating with a Chinese government "subpoena-like document" to supply information about journalist accused of the "illegal provision of state secrets" - sounds disingenuous, it should. After all, those are trademark tactics of the Bush administration and its Republican amen... more Posted on November 7, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Who's Counting? Bush and Giuliani on the Next World War President Bush's disturbingly flip comment Wednesday about Iran and World War III not only revealed his apparent comfort when discussing global conflagration. Bush's gaffe also showed the common vision between himself, the man most likely to succeed him as head of the Republican Party and those who advise them both. For George Bush, Rudy Giuliani and the likes of Norman Podhoretz, the only dispute about "world war" is whether we're already fighting it and what number we're on. For President... more Posted on October 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Payback Time: CIA Director Investigates His Inspector General Just one week after the New York Times revealed the existence of secret Bush administration memos condoning an uninterrupted policy of detainee torture by the CIA, it appears to be payback time. In a highly unusual move, CIA Director Michael Hayden has ordered an investigation into the agency's watchdog office itself, led by Inspector General John L. Helgerson. According to the New York Times, Hayden and Helgerson have clashed over a number of issues, including the IG's scathing assessment of... more Posted on October 12, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	The Price of Bush's Military Transformation Over just the past 24 hours, a flurry of stories have highlighted the growing and evolving burden facing the overstretched United States military. In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed the need to transform the American military to address the "fundamentally political nature" of its current and future conflicts. While the Marine Corps has proposed shifting its forces from Iraq to take over frontline duties in Afghanistan, the Army is offering bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain specialists from... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Right-Wing Blogs Downplay Bin Laden Tape Damage, Probe Just one day after revelations by the private security firm SITE Institute that a U.S. government leak of its clandestinely obtained Osama Bin Laden video compromised its penetration of Al Qaeda's global computing network, U.S. intelligence officials announced a probe of the damaging episode. But in the Animal Farm world of the right-wing blogosphere where some national security leaks are more equal than others, the Bush administration's latest fear-mongering or perhaps just potential incompetence is hardly cause for concern. No... more Posted on October 10, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Leaked Bin Laden Tape Shows GOP Double Standard Today's revelations in the Washington Post regarding the Bush administration's September 7th leaking of an Osama Bin Laden videotape served to once again highlight the hypocritical Republican double-standard when it comes to the publication of classified national security information. As the CIA black sites and illegal NSA domestic surveillance stories all show, the President and his amen corner are quick to call for the prosecution of those who reveal White House criminality. But when Bush and his GOP allies through... more Posted on October 9, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	The Meaning of Blackwater In Washington today, all eyes are on the Blackwater hearings. But the relentless focus on potential atrocities committed by unaccountable, grotesquely overpaid private security firms in Iraq and Afghanistan obscures the larger issue for the United States. That is, mercenary forces simply should have no place in the national security structure of an American democracy. No doubt, mounting allegations of inappropriate use of force by Blackwater in Iraq justify the inquiry by Chairman Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and... more Posted on October 2, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Romney Attacks Dem Foes' Foreign Policy Experience If nothing else, Mitt Romney is a perpetual irony machine. Yesterday, Romney added to his legend by proclaiming that his three leading Democratic opponents - all U.S. Senators - lack his foreign policy experience. More ironic still, the one-term governor and international affairs neophyte leveled the charge while speaking in Midland, Texas, home of one George W. Bush. Speaking to the Midland Republican Women's Club, Romney attacked Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards for supposed ivory tower inexperience:... more Posted on September 13, 2007 \| Comments (10)

	Alberto Gonzales' Greatest Hits Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have his announced his resignation, but his wrongdoing - and his words - live on. Alternately comically feeble and hilariously ham-handed, Gonzales' pathetic attempts to deceive, dissemble and literally forget his way out of the U.S. attorneys scandal, the NSA domestic surveillance imbroglio, the White House war on habeas corpus and even the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame approached Bush-level rhetorical incontinence. Here, then, are the greatest hits of Alberto Gonzales: "Mr. Comey's... more Posted on August 27, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	Rove, Cheney and the Death of the Bush Doctrine Among the more tragi-comic aspects of the departure of Karl Rove is the media's renewed interest in the Bush Doctrine and its three tenets of no safe havens for terrorists, preventive war and democracy promotion. Last Monday, Rove claimed that the Bush Doctrine would live on and be the President's legacy. And this morning, the Washington Post described a frustrated President Bush stymied by what it portrayed as bureaucratic stonewalling of his ailing global democracy project. Lost in this flurry... more Posted on August 20, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Blogs Left and Right Pursue NSA Leak Figure Within hours of Newsweek's revelation that the FBI had raided the home of former DOJ official Thomas M. Tamm in connection with the 2005 NSA domestic surveillance leak, both ends of the blogosphere have begun a feverish search to learn more about man at the center of the story. On the left, Tamm is portrayed as a not-too-mysterious whistle-blower who posted at sites likes Media Matters and perhaps more clandestinely at TPM Muckraker. And on the right, Tamm is being... more Posted on August 6, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Is the New York Times the Next NSA Leak Target? Just one day after learning the FBI raided the home of former DOJ attorney Thomas M. Tamm in connection with the December 2005 leak of President Bush's illicit NSA domestic surveillance program, conservatives are beginning to clamor for action against another target: The New York Times. Writing in Commentary, editor Gabriel Schoenfeld is renewing his call for the indictment of the New York Times for its December 16, 2005 publication of the NSA story. Perhaps sensing a momentum shift with... more Posted on August 6, 2007 \| Comments (6)

	Payback Time: FBI Raids Home of Suspected NSA Leaker This past week, the Bush administration added insult to injury over its illegal program of NSA domestic surveillance. During the very time Congress was debating codifying President Bush's lawbreaking by revising the FISA law many of his allies had been afraid to publicly challenge as unconstitutional, Alberto Gonzales' DOJ was raiding the home of a former Justice official to identify the person who first brought the illicit program to light. As Michael Isikoff details in Newsweek, a team of FBI... more Posted on August 5, 2007 \| Comments (31)

	Romney's Love-Hate Relationship with Hezbollah In the latest chapter in the Mitt Romney book of flip-flops, the former Massachusetts governor has revealed his love-hate relationship with Hezbollah. Just weeks after including the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite terrorist group in his laundry list of Islamic enemies real or imagined, Romney told an audience today that Hezbollah is the living model of modern health care diplomacy. Responding to a question about whether he would continue President Bush's funding to combat AIDS in Africa, Romney extolled the virtues of... more Posted on August 1, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush Admits Failure of "No Safe Havens" Policy Three weeks ago, news of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan confirmed the failure of a key tenet of the Bush Doctrine, "no safe havens for terrorists." Now, it would appear, President Bush himself agrees with that assessment. In his Saturday radio address, President Bush tried to spin the new National Intelligence Estimate and its warnings regarding a dangerously resurgent Al Qaeda in Pakistan. But buried among cherry-picked quotes about successes against Bin Laden's organization... more Posted on July 23, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Pakistan Raid: So Much for "No Safe Havens" Sunday's New York Times offers an explosive story of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid into Pakistan, a special forces operation designed to "snatch and grab" Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders. The story, following July 2006 revelations that the CIA had previously disbanded its Bin Laden unit, gives lie to one of the central tenets of the so-called Bush Doctrine: no safe havens for terrorists. The Times piece details Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld running roughshod over then... more Posted on July 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Death of the Bush Doctrine That wheezing sound you may have heard this week amid the chaos in Gaza, the carnage in Baghdad and the conflict in Lebanon was the final gasps of the Bush Doctrine in its death throes. Just two years after the President and his neo-conservative allies basked in the glow of their self-proclaimed moment of triumph, the Bush Doctrine of no safe havens for terrorists, American preventive war and democracy promotion is discredited, discarded - and dead. The ruins of the... more Posted on June 16, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Misreading History: Bush, Korea and Endless War in Iraq Once again, President Bush confirmed he is no reader of the history books. Just days after a scathing report from the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed how the Bush administration ignored the CIA's dire warnings of sectarian strife and civil war in post-Saddam Iraq, the White House pointed to South Korea as a model for the American military presence in Iraq. The prospect of a multi-generational commitment of U.S. forces to support the government in Baghdad not only raised the specter... more Posted on June 3, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Memorial Day: Help the Troops and Their Families One year ago today, I asked my readers to take a Memorial Day pause from the debate over the war in Iraq to reflect on the sacrifices of our servicemen and women, and to find ways to support them and their families. One year and almost 1000 U.S. dead later, I believe those Memorial Day sentiments are worth repeating: Memorial Day this year arrives at an especially painful time for Americans. Over 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed and another... more Posted on May 28, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq Benchmarks and Bush's Double-Standard on Accountability For an administration that claims to place so value on "accountability," the Bush White House once again exempted itself and its allies. On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced that President Bush would reject any Iraq funding bill that included benchmarks for the Al Maliki in government in Baghdad. As it turns out, that free pass for Al Maliki not only flies in the face the President's own words from January, but contradicts the "accountability" talking point comically present... more Posted on May 1, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Two Cheers for Tony Blair British Prime Minister Tony Blair may have fatally undermined his legacy and the prospects for his Labor Party with his slavish devotion to George W. Bush and his calamitous project in Iraq. But on one small matter of rhetoric at least, the UK government may have seen the light. As the BBC reports today, Blair's International Development Secretary Tony Benn declared that British government does not use the term "global war on terror" to describe either the current conflict against... more Posted on April 16, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Groundhog Day: Iraq, Iran and the NIE After months and months of delays, the long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was delivered to Congress today. It is altogether fitting that the NIE crawled out from Langley on Groundhog Day. After all, like Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day we've experienced this unsettling process of murky reports from the intelligence community before. And we're certainly in for at least six more weeks of conflict in Iraq. Wary of repeating George Tenet's 2002 NIE rosy portrait of American... more Posted on February 2, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	SOTU Preview: 10 Things to Watch Tuesday's State of the Union Address should offer Americans compelling viewing. After the GOP's electoral disaster in November and the resounding thud that greeted the "surge" in Iraq, the 2007 SOTU can be said to officially mark the last throes of the Bush presidency. In anticipation of tomorrow night's presidential flight of fantasy, here are 10 things to look for in the 2007 State of the Union: 1. An Unhealthy Vision As his Saturday radio address made clear, President Bush... more Posted on January 22, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	China Rising, America Adrift This week's startling revelations regarding Beijing's successful test of an anti-satellite weapon provided just the latest evidence of China's growing geo-strategic challenge to the United States. And as I first wrote almost three years ago, the Bush administration seems rudderless in the face of rapidly rising Chinese economic power, military might and diplomatic strength. For sure, the size, sophistication and aggressiveness of the Chinese military pose a direct threat to American hegemony, especially in the Pacific. The Chinese ASAT test... more Posted on January 21, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Gonzales: New FISA Role for Domestic Spying In what may be a major reversal of course, the Bush administration may yet submit to the rule of law regarding its illegal NSA domestic spying program. The AP is reporting that Attorney General Gonzales notified Senate Judiciary Committee leaders Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) that the Justice Department will once again submit wiretap requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Courts. "As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the... more Posted on January 17, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Richard Clarke's Security Challenges for 2007 In the Washington Post this New Year's Day, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke has a compelling op-ed piece ("While You Were At War...") on the dangerous and rising opportunity costs of the Bush administration's Iraq fixation. In a nutshell, Clarke argues that while President Bush and the U.S. national security apparatus have been focused like a laser beam on "grave and deteriorating" war in Iraq, other mounting security challenges have fallen off the radar. While the emphasis may differ, Clarke's... more Posted on January 1, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Surge and Purge: The Bush Strategy for Iraq While President Bush has declared that he "won't be rushed" into unveiling his new strategy for Iraq, the outlines are already clear. The twin pillars of the coming Bush approach appear to be a "surge" in U.S. force levels combined with the sacking of the generals opposed to it. Call it "Surge and Purge." Rumors of a "surge" in American forces to secure Baghdad, featuring perhaps as many as 50,000 troops, have been swirling for days. But now the AP... more Posted on December 20, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Support the Troops This Holiday Season With the nation engaged in a critical debate about the path forward in (or out of) Iraq during this holiday season, we should never lose sight of the men and women in the U.S. armed forces who serve in our name. We are immensely privileged to live in a nation where a selfless few fight and sacrifice so that we might live in freedom. And whether we back the fight in Iraq, opposed it from the beginning, want out now... more Posted on December 19, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq and the 7 Habits of Highly Defective Presidents Since he first stepped into the Oval Office, much has been made about George W. Bush as America's CEO, our first MBA President. In the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, the nation has been eagerly awaiting President Bush's now-delayed new strategy with the baited breath surrounding a major new product announcement. But as is becoming increasingly clear, when it comes to Iraq, George W. Bush the MBA President is managing the war like a failed business. As a... more Posted on December 17, 2006 \| Comments (20)

	Flashback: Rumsfeld Celebrated, Aspin Slandered As he exits the Pentagon stage, outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shows once again that for the Bush White House, nothing succeeds like failure. In an elaborate ceremony carried live on all the cable news networks, President Bush and Vice President Cheney feted the disgraced Defense Secretary with glowing words, military pomp and even a 19 gun salute. "This man knows how to lead and he did," Bush declared, "and the country is better off for it." But while... more Posted on December 15, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Reyes Joins Bush in Failing Foreign Affairs 101 On Monday, Democrats began to pay the price for the ongoing feud between Californians Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman. In one of the first tests of her leadership, Speaker Pelosi bypassed Harman in favor of Texan Silvestre Reyes to head the House Intelligence Committee. Sadly Reyes, like candidate George W. Bush before him, failed his first test on foreign affairs. In an interview in CQ on Friday, Reyes displayed staggering ignorance of the environment in the Middle East and across... more Posted on December 11, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Jeane Kirkpatrick and the Death of the Bush Doctrine If a period of days can be said to mark the end of the era, this past week almost surely heralded the demise of the Bush Doctrine. On Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group dealt a death blow to the Bush foreign policy's three pillars of no safe havens, preemptive war and democracy expansion. But it is the passing on Thursday of the neo-conservative Cold Warrior Jeane Kirkpatrick that perhaps best symbolized the closing of the book on Bush's ill-conceived experiment... more Posted on December 11, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Iraq Document Library Adds Iraq Study Group Report The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library has been updated to include the findings of the Iraq Study Group. The document repository includes the ISG's final report as well as its executive summary. The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library also provides one-stop access to all the essential documents surrounding the Iraq war, pre-war intelligence and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. This includes the WMD findings of the Iraq Survey Group, as well as the report of the Robb-Silbermann Commission. The Senate... more Posted on December 6, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Sacrificial Sham: Bush Changes the Subject with Rumsfeld Sacking With Wednesday's post-election sacking of Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush showed once again that he's more concerned about managing the news cycle than America's national security. Facing the prospect of explaining away his party's "thumping" at the hands of the Democrats, Bush instead hoped to change the topic. The "blue wave" that swept the Republicans from Congress can in no small measure be attributed to Bush's failed presidency in general and the disaster in Iraq in particular. Exit polls revealed that... more Posted on November 9, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Documents of Mass Destruction: GOP Puts Party Before National Security with Iraq Papers Once again, the Republicans have put partisan political advantage ahead of national security. And as the New York Times reports today, they may have just given Iran the recipe for a nuclear bomb as a result. As the Times article details, back in March conservatives desperate to salvage President Bush's debunked WMD rationale for the Iraq war demanded the publication of thousands of Saddam's captured documents. As it turns out, those "Operation Iraqi Freedom" papers published on a public web... more Posted on November 3, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Hutchison Backs Iraq Partition, Endorses Clinton Balkans Policy With the looming midterm elections and the imminent report from James Baker's Iraq Study Group facing them like a double-barreled shotgun, Congressional Republicans are beginning to cut and run on President Bush's failed Iraq strategy. In recent days, Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and John Warner (R-VA) have garnered most of the attention with their critiques of a "stay the course" policy that has left Iraq "drifting sideways." But it is Kay Bailey Hutchison from the President's home state of Texas... more Posted on October 20, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Thailand and the Bush Democracy Promotion Fraud This week's coup in Thailand highlighted once again the yawning chasm between rhetoric and reality when it comes to President Bush's clarion call for the global expansion of democracy. The tanks rolled in Bangkok at virtually the same moment the President lectured the United Nations about people "from Beirut to Baghdad" making "the choice for freedom." Yet the White House was silent regarding the overthrow of the democratically elected if corrupt Thaksin government. It's hardly the first time the global... more Posted on September 21, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	A Look Back: 9/11 and the Culture of Grief On this the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Department of Defense once again organized the "Freedom Walk" 9/11 commemorative march to the Pentagon. But as I wrote last year in "9/11 and the Culture of Grief," this and other ritualistic displays of grief and remembrance reflect the new mass cultural experience of participatory mourning in the United States. And for a nation engaged in a global war with Al Qaeda, the American culture of grief is not... more Posted on September 10, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	ABC Slams New Iraq Documentary, Ignores Own 9/11 Right-Wing Fantasy With this weekend's upcoming mockumentary "The Path to 9/11," Disney and ABC are breaking dangerous new ground in the conservative propaganda war. Even as the ABC network follows in the footsteps of Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ in "mobilizing the base," ABC News on Sunday declared Robert Greenwald's new documentary "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" a left-wing hatchet job "produced like a political campaign." A pre-election salvo designed to pin the blame for the September 11... more Posted on September 5, 2006 \| Comments (5)

	Homegrown Terrorism in the U.S. and Europe This week's revelations surrounding the UK terror plot targeting U.S. bound airliners once again focused attention on the phenomenon of "homegrown terrorism." As with last year's 7/7 "Underground Bombers," the Heathrow suspects are virtually all British residents, with most UK citizens and many second-generation Pakistani immigrants. And just as in the aftermath of last November's street riots in France, a flood of analysis seeks to explain the threat of radical Islamic extremism in Europe and its relative absence in the... more Posted on August 13, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	George W. Bush, American Idle As the crisis in the Middle East spirals out of control, President Bush jumped into action on Friday. Not by taking control of Secretary of State Rice's failed talks in Rome or by announcing a major American initiative during his press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. No, Bush mobilized the White House to stop the slaughter in Lebanon by welcoming the finalists of the Fox reality show American Idol in the Oval Office. Of course, this isn't the... more Posted on July 28, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Hoekstra's War on the CIA For most watchers of the CIA, the return of Steven Kappes to Langley as the agency's number 2 man is a welcome development. Fluent in Farsi and Russian, the 23-year veteran of the clandestine service can bring a renewed focus on the CIA's core intelligence-gathering mission. Unfortunately, Kappes' return almost certainly signals the resumption of Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra's partisan war on the CIA. Hoekstra (R-MI), the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, was a strong supporter of Porter Goss, his former... more Posted on July 26, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Specter's Op-Ed: Cowardice He Can Live With In a bizarre Washington Post op-ed ("Surveillance We Can Live With") pitching his ill-conceived NSA eavesdropping compromise, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) shows all of the hallmarks of a man in the throes of severe cognitive dissonance. While essentially pronouncing the illegality of George Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program, he cannot bring himself to harm his President or his party. As we've come to expect, the battle between Specter's inner demons yields only frustration and cowardice. Specter gets... more Posted on July 23, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Gonzales: Bush Blocked NSA Probe Back in May, Perrspectives described how inquiries by both the FCC and the DOJ into illegal domestic surveillance by the Bush NSA had been blocked. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, we have a much clearer picture as to why. In a nutshell, President Bush personally insisted that the probes be stonewalled. The following exchange between Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Gonzales shows President Bush's iron hand at work in blocking the needed... more Posted on July 18, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Bush and Putin Split This week's G8 Summit in St. Petersburg marked the end of the five-year romance between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. With festering disagreements over Iran, Russia's entry into the WTO, the North Korean crisis, and Moscow's descent into autocracy, tensions between Bush and Putin were on public display. Ironically, the exchange of barbs took the form of lectures on democracy, a subject about which the two leaders share limited knowledge. During a press conference on Saturday, President Putin lambasted... more Posted on July 16, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's U-Turn on North Korean Talks Just one day after President Bush forcefully defended his insistence on multilateral negotiations with North Korea, the White House has apparently okayed direct talks with envoys from Pyongyang. Speaking in Seoul on Saturday, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Bush's point man on discussions with the North Koreans, signaled his willingness to meet directly with Kim Jong Il's emissaries once the stalled six-party talks resume: "As many of you know, the Chinese have talked about putting together a six-party informal,... more Posted on July 8, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	CIA Shutters Bin Laden Unit The New York Times reported Tuesday that the CIA has shut down its Bin Laden unit late last year. The unit, called "Alec Station," had been in place for over a decade to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and his leading Al Qaeda lieutenants. As I wrote in January, President Bush's on-again, off-again emphasis on catching Bin Laden is tied to the shfting political winds at home. In the four years plus since the 9/11 attacks, the simplest way to... more Posted on July 4, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Hamdan Deals Blow to Bush Domestic Spying The Supreme Court's ruling today in the Hamdan case wasn't merely a defeat for the Bush administration's system of military tribunals for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. As ThinkProgress describes, the majority's explicit rejection of broad presidential powers claimed by the White House to be inherent in the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) also imperils Bush's dubious arguments for the illegal NSA domestic spying program. The challenge for President Bush and his allies is clear. As... more Posted on June 29, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Premature Emancipation Problem This weekend, the United States launched "Operation Mountain Thrust" in Afghanistan. Featuring 10,000 U.S. troops and American aircraft targeting the peaks along the border with Pakistan, the spring offensive seeks to decimate a resurgent and emboldened Taliban. Sadly, that would be the same Taliban President Bush declared non-existent two years ago. This weekend's fighting in eastern Afghanistan may have killed 90 guerillas, but it also served to highlight President Bush's penchant for prematurely declaring victory in his wars fought on... more Posted on June 19, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Purple Heartwarming Stories The flood of revelations about the alleged U.S. war crime and cover-up at Haditha has understandably clouded the image of America's fighting men and women. Two recent but underreported stories will help restore your faith in the goodness and humanity of our troops. Just before Memorial Day, Staff Sgt. Phillip Trackey gave his Purple Heart medal to 13 year-old Fatima Faisal. Faisal, a student in Camillus, New York, had won a school contest for writing thank you letters to U.S.... more Posted on June 6, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	666: Armageddon, Iran and Bush Foreign Policy June 6, 2006 (6/6/06) is the 62nd anniversary of D-Day, one of the most glorious - and bloody days - in American military history. But as the American Prospect reports, for evangelical leaders close to President Bush such as Texas Pastor John Hagee, the number 666 has another important meaning for the future of the United States. 666 is the number to be borne by the Anti-Christ in the coming battle of Armageddon, which if Hagee has his way, will... more Posted on June 6, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	The Price of Folly: Reinforcements to Iraq Just 24 hours after the United States commemorated Memorial Day, the American people are being reminded once again of President Bush's folly in going to war in Iraq with too few troops. The American commander in Iraq General George Casey is dispatching up to 3,500 reinforcements from Kuwait to turbulent Anbar province in Iraq. The troops from the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division are likely headed to Ramadi, where units from the Pennsylvania National Guard and the U.S.... more Posted on May 30, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Memorial Day Resources for the Troops and Their Families Memorial Day this year arrives at an especially painful time for Americans. Over 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed and another 17,000 wounded in Iraq. New allegations have come to light regarding the possible slaughter of Iraqi civilians in Haditha by United States Marines just as heart-breaking details emerge about the disgraceful cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Painful times indeed. But on this Memorial Day, we should set aside the shame of Haditha, the outrage over... more Posted on May 28, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	A BFD: The NSA, FCC, DOJ, EFF and AT&T New revelations in the NSA domestic spying scandal are now coming in a flood. Today, the FCC announced it could not pursue an investigation into the role of American telecommunications companies in illegal domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency because it was not granted the necessary security clearances. That announcement came just two days after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declared the Bush administration would track journalists' phone records and might prosecute reporters for publishing stories involving classified national security... more Posted on May 23, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Gonzales: Reporters Fair Game On Sunday, the cancer of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency continued to metastasize. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declared that journalists can and should be prosecuted for publishing stories involving classified national security information. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws." The Attorney General also made it clear that the... more Posted on May 21, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	Bush Flip-Flops on North Korea In the latest flip-flop from President Bush, the administration is planning to reverse course on North Korea. After five-years of a failed policy that produced a nuclear-armed North Korea, Bush will give the go-ahead for direct bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang. Apparently, the President has finally decided to listen to John Kerry's advice in 2004. The New York Times reports that President Bush will soon approve recommendations from top advisors which include "a broad new approach to dealing with North Korea... more Posted on May 18, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Pat Roberts on Civil Liberties: Drop Dead During his opening comments in the CIA confirmation hearings of General Michael Hayden, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) returned to a favorite Republican sound bite in defense of illegal domestic surveiilance by the NSA. Roberts proclaimed: "I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead." On February 3rd, Roberts, who has stonewalled the Phase II investigation into the misuses of pre-Iraq war... more Posted on May 18, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Hayden Learns the 4th Amendment The CIA confirmation hearings for General Michael are underway and the Bush administration is pulling out all the stops for their man. Yesterday, the White House flip-flopped and provided briefings on its illegal NSA domestic surveillance programs to the full Senate and House intelligence committees. And today, General Hayden showed he did his homework and finally learned the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As the AP reported, Hayden today sought to defend the legality of the NSA domestic... more Posted on May 18, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The Question for Hayden: Is FISA Unconstitutional? With the confirmation hearings for his CIA director nomination set to begin on Thursday, General Michael Hayden will no doubt be grilled on the broadening scope and dubious legality of the domestic surveillance programs during his tenure at the NSA. As we learned last week, Hayden's NSA not only conducted warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans, but clandestinely built a massive database of their phone records as well. And just today, Brian Ross of ABC News revealed that he had been... more Posted on May 15, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Cheney's Double Dealings on Plame, NSA Scandals Sunday's news contains a double-barrreled shotgun blast in the face courtesy of Vice President Dick Cheney. First, the New York Times detailed Cheney's post-9/11 insistence on far more invasive domestic spying by the National Security Agency. Apparently, it was only through the efforts of NSA lawyers that the Bush administration limited its illegal domestic eavesdropping program to calls involving a party outside the United States. Second, the latest filings by Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter LIbby case reveal that Cheney... more Posted on May 14, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Poll: Double Win for Bush on NSA Phone Records A new poll from the Washington Post suggests that the President Bush may be winning a double victory with his illegal NSA domestic surveillance programs. Americans seem willing to buy the White House's "tough on terrorism" hype at the expense of the law and their own civil liberties. And as an added ironic bonus, the President gets another opportunity to decry leaks that supposedly jeopardize national security. Surprisingly, the poll data show Americans even more content with revelations over government... more Posted on May 12, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	The Gospel According to Ahmadinejad The French paper Le Monde has just published the text of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush. Ahmadjinejad's missive skirts the central issue of the Iranian nuclear program and has been met with disdain by both the administration and the mullahs in Tehran. But in repeatedly calling upon the President to heed the teachings of Jesus, the letter reveals how completely Ahmadinejad misunderstands George W. Bush and his core supporters. As I've written before, the President's evangelical... more Posted on May 9, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Bush Picking a Fight Over Hayden As predicted, President Bush nominated Air Force General Michael V. Hayden to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA. And while the Hayden nomination brings with it a growing laundry list of problems, that's just fine with President Bush. After all, a fight is exactly what the Bush White House wants right now. The smallest stumbling block comes from the President's own allies. House Intel chief Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) expressed concerns over putting a military person in charge of... more Posted on May 8, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Hayden In; Jury Still Out on Goss Departure Yesterday, I suggested that the spontaneous combustion of Porter Goss was a fitting end for the partisan hack installed by President Bush to lead the war-time CIA. But the jury is still out on the impetus for his sudden departure, what Goss himself today deemed "just one of those mysteries." So far, the Washington Post and New York Times have focused on political intrigue. The Post cited administration officials who claimed "there has been an open conversation for a few... more Posted on May 6, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Goss Goes Down Over HookerGate? In a surprising and welcome announcement today, CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly tendered his resignation to President Bush. Effective immediately, Goss' quick exit was unusual, to say the least. But not necessarily totally unexpected. Since the story broke about Republican congressmen involved in the Hookergate scandal of Duke Cunningham moneymen Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes, rumors have swirled around not-so-clandestine rendezvous involving top CIA figures. Goss' #3 at the agency, Kyle Foggo, admitted to playing poker during the Watergate sessions,... more Posted on May 5, 2006 \| Comments (5)

	Iran, Bush and the Second Coming The tensions between the United States and Iran reached a new level over the past week. Following a series of announcements regarding its nuclear program and tests of new weapons systems, Tehran announced on Tuesday that it was purchasing the sophisticated Tor M1 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia. On Friday, the IAEA released its highly anticipated report on the Iranian nuclear program and its failure to meet UN Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment efforts. Secretary of State... more Posted on May 1, 2006 \| Comments (24)

	General Agreement: Rumsfeld Fails the Aspin Test As the firestorm between the growing ranks of retired generals and the White House over Donald Rumsfeld continues to heat up, the Republican leadership in Congress remains largely - and predictably - silent. As I wrote back in December 2004, the Republican Party and its amen corner have decided that its 1993 "Les Aspin Standard" does not apply to Defense Secretary Rumseld and the Bush administration. That is, decisions that needlessly cost American lives in battle cost defense secretaries their... more Posted on April 15, 2006 \| Comments (7)

	Abdul Rahman and the Death of the Bush Doctrine Neo-conservative founding father Irving Kristol once famously said, a neoconservative is "a liberal who's been mugged by reality." Now the once-preening adherents of the Bush Doctrine are being beaten and battered by events on the ground. First came the Sharia-influenced constitution and sectarian violence in Iraq and the Hamas government in Palestine. With the possible execution of Christian convert Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan, neo-conservatives' faith in democracy promotion in the Middle East is falling victim to their own much-hyped law... more Posted on March 25, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Senate Intel Committee Caves on NSA Inquiry As predicted yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee today confirmed its status as a rubber stamp for the White House. The Committee, led by staunch Bush ally Pat Roberts (R-KS), rejected vice-chairman Jay Rockefeller's call for an investigation of the President's illegal NSA domestic spying program. Bowing to pressure from the White House, Majority Leader Frist and its chairman, the Intelligence Committee agreed only to institute a seven-member subcommittee, which along with staff, would receive full briefings on the program. Rockefeller... more Posted on March 7, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Senate Showdown Tuesday on Domestic Spying Tomorrow is shaping as "Showdown Tuesday" for the Senate Intelligence Committee. On Tuesday, the Intelligence Committee led by Kansas Senator Pat Roberts will decide whether to investigate President Bush's illegal NSA domestic wiretapping. At this point, the vote could go either way. Whether Roberts' committee once again abdicates its oversight role likely comes to down the votes of three Republican members previously critical of the NSA program: Mike DeWine of Ohio, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. DeWine,... more Posted on March 6, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush, Dubai and the Ties That Bind I tend to agree with Kevin Drum over at the Washington Monthly that the Dubai port deal is not necessarily the grave and gathering security risk its opponents decry. (The shocking political tone-deafness is another matter altogether.) But it certainly smells bad, in no small part because of the cronyism and close ties the Bush White House - and family -have to Dubai Ports World and the government of the UAE. As has been reported previously, the Bush team is... more Posted on February 28, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	The Republicans' Constitutional Crisis When it comes to President Bush's illegal domestic spying program, his Republican allies over the last several days have shown that discretion is indeed the better part of valor. From the beginning, the administration's amen corner has aggressive claimed that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the wartime Commander-in-Chief powers give President Bush the statutory and constitutional basis for sidestepping the FISA process for domestic electronic surveillance. But most in the GOP are downright sheepish... more Posted on February 20, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	The Cost of Don't Ask, Don't Tell Rarely is a precise price tag put on bigotry. But that's just what happened this week, when a University of California commission totaled the costs associated with the Pentagon's indefensible and staggeringly counterproductive "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the American military. That cost, according to the commission, is $369 million over 10 years, almost double the estimate originally offered by the Department of Defense. That shocking figure includes $79.3 million for recruitment of service members, $252.4 million... more Posted on February 17, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The White House Flip-Flops on NSA Program Oversight President Bush has flip-flopped once again. Just 24 hours after Vice President Cheney firmly declared the administration would not more broadly share information with key Congressional committee members regarding Bush's NSA domestic spying program, the White House reversed course - sort of. The seeds of the turnabout were sown with yesterday's challenge from House Intelligence Committee member, Republican Heather Wilson of New Mexico. Wilson, who is also one of the few House GOP members to return contributions from Tom Delay's... more Posted on February 8, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The GOP's "Give Me Death" Defense on Domestic Spying During a break in the Senate testimony by Attorney General Gonzales this morning, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions resorted to the now standard Republican defense of President Bush's illegal domestic spying program. Call it the "Give Me Death" strategy. During brief comments to the press, Sessions referring to the rightness of Bush's domestic spying after 9/11 declared melodramatically: "Over 3,000 Americans have no civil rights because they are no longer with us." The Republican leadership is singing from the same Karl... more Posted on February 6, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	The Top 10 State of the Union Highlights Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The top 10 highlights: 1. Demonize the Democrats The President continued Karl Rove's 2006 electoral strategy to once again run on national security and brand the... more Posted on January 31, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Jeff Gannon Meets the 82nd Airborne This past week has been among the most instructive in the annals of the Pentagon's inexcusable "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Among the lessons learned: while the American military has no place for soldiers who pose on gay web sites, the Bush White House press corps is another matter altogether. On Wednesday, the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military released Pentagon figures estimating that 10,000 gay servicemen and women were discharged from the U.S. armed forces... more Posted on January 27, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The Chinese Economic Miracle Continues Signs of China's rapid growth into an economic superpower are everywhere. The latest indicator comes in a report from the China National Bureau of Statistics announcing a staggering 9.9% rise in Chinese GDP in 2005. With its $2.26 trillion economy, China has leap-frogged the UK, France and Italy to become the fourth largest in the world. As Perrspectives has written before, China's explosive economic growth, aggressive military upgrading and diplomatic muscle-flexing pose a myriad of challenges for the United States.... more Posted on January 25, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Branding the NSA Domestic Spying Scandal As part of its all-out campaign to defend its indefensible illegal domestic wiretapping program, the Bush administration is turning to one of its tried and true marketing techniques - branding. The product? The "Terrorist Surveillance Program." In speeches this week, President Bush, former NSA program manager Air Force General Michael Hayden and other White House surrogates will toe the party line and refer to the "terrorist surveillance program." To support the new GOP talking points, the White House web site... more Posted on January 24, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The NSA Scandal Resource Center The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded to include a new document library for the exploding Bush-NSA Spying Scandal. The NSA Scandal Document Library includes the latest Bush spying scandal news, essential Department of Justice memos and key laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) and more. Key Supreme Court decisions involving presidential war powers, such as the 1952 Youngstown v. Sawyer and 2004's Hamdi v.... more Posted on January 1, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Yoo Da Man Karl Rove is widely credited with being "Bush's brain." But when it comes to the administration's dangerous and unprecedented expansion of presidential war powers, John Yoo is the President's mouthpiece. Only 34, Yoo, formerly of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel and now a professor at the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, joins Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney as one of the preeminent if unlikely policy architects in the Bush pantheon. Wolfowitz, the former Defense Undersecretary, was... more Posted on December 23, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	Bush on Dictatorship In his December 19th press conference regarding his secret and likely illegal program of domestic surveillance, an angry President George W. Bush took umbrage at suggestions that he believes in unprecedented, expansive and unchecked presidential power. A fuming Bush responded: "To say 'unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the President, which I strongly reject." Unfortunately, Bush's past statements show that far from rejecting dictatorial power for the President, he's actually quite enamored of it. "A... more Posted on December 19, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Dishonoring Pearl Harbor President Bush used this 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to continue his faltering effort to drum up support for his Iraq policy. Only days after unveiling his supposed "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to an incredulous American public, Bush sought once again to draw parallels with a different, "good war" against fascism: The strike on Pearl Harbor was the start of a long war for America -- a massive struggle against those who attacked us,... more Posted on December 7, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Rewrites History When in a hole, one of the timeless maxims of politics states, stop digging. President Bush, facing plummeting poll numbers, the festering PlameGate scandal and a growing national consensus that he misled the country into war with Iraq, has apparently decided to keep digging. In shameless and angry speeches in front of military audiences on Veterans Day and again in Alaska on Monday, the President in essence accused his critics of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. But in... more Posted on November 15, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Roberts' Iraq Stonewall Crumbles Over the past week, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas chose to ignore the old dictum, "when in a hole, stop digging." As I wrote last week, Roberts has been a key leader of an elaborate GOP effort to stonewall investigation into the Bush administration's uses and misuses of pre-Iraq war intelligence. Stung by the closed Senate session in which Democrats savaged his obvious obstructionist tactics, Roberts came out swinging. Now, Roberts is insisting that there is no evidence of... more Posted on November 7, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	Why the Senate Went to a Closed Session In case you were wondering, this is why Harry Reid forced the Senate into a closed session. Republican Chairman Pat Roberts on the Phase 2 Report on possible Bush White House manipulation of Iraq WMD intelligence: "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further." (March 31, 2005) "To go though that exercise, it... more Posted on November 2, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Fitzgerald, Iraq and the Truth About Pre-War Intelligence One of the most telling moments of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference on Friday concerned the larger context - or lack thereof - for the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. "This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified." Fitzgerald, of course, is right. Establishing the truth about the path to war in Iraq is not his... more Posted on November 1, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Blowback: Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback Washington is on pins and needles as all await word from CIA leak special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Reuters reports that Fitzgerald may convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to seek indictments. What began as an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative has grown to encompass perjury and obstruction of justice, and perhaps even cast doubt on the candor of the administration's rationale for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Bush White House is... more Posted on October 23, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	What the President Knew and When He Knew It President Bush, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, has some 'splaining to do. Thanks to a piece in the New York Daily News, we now know the President's claims throughout the fall of 2003 that he had no knowledge of the identity of the Valerie Plame leaker are simply untrue. The article ("Bush Whacked Rove on CIA Leak") cites White House sources who describe a furious George W. Bush dressing down Rove in September 2003 for his role in the... more Posted on October 20, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Foreign Aid, Self-Help Marx once remarked that historical events occur twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. In the wake of the devastating earthquake that killed at least 35,000 in Pakistan and India, the United States is once again being penny wise and pound foolish. Repeating the administration's initial "stingy" response to the December Asian tsunami, Secretary of State Rice in Islamabad offered $50 million in American emergency aid. If ever the United States had an opportunity to... more Posted on October 13, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	An Army of One? The recruiting woes of the American military continue unabated. The AP reported today that the U.S. Army just completed its worst recruiting year since 1979. The shortfall for the all-volunteer force was among the most dramatic, both in absolute numbers (7,000) and as a percentage of the target (80,000), since the United States ended conscription in 1973. These disconcerting results reflect the ongoing chaos and unending carnage in Iraq. In this environment, the Army understandably will miss its goal of... more Posted on September 30, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Trojan Horse: The Bush Plan for Katrina Last Thursday�s speech by President Bush in New Orleans� Jackson Square kicked off the administrations� cynical campaign to snatch political victory from the jaws of defeat in the wake of its disastrous Katrina response. Karl Rove�s strategy for the coming 2006 mid-term elections will modeled on his 2002 GOP success with the Department of Homeland Security. With the Gulf States devastated, hundreds dead and thousands displaced, President Bush and the GOP will lace a popular recovery program featuring massive federal... more Posted on September 19, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	George Bush, Security Risk In a short statement on Tuesday, George W. Bush completely undermined the entire premise for his second term as President. With plummeting polls in the wake of his administration's bungling of the New Orleans disaster, Bush sought the appearance of accountability. He said tersely, "to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility." But in so doing, President Bush demolished his national security credentials. The same man who campaigned for reelection in 2004 as... more Posted on September 13, 2005 \| Comments (7)

	9/11 and the Culture of Grief This fourth anniversary of the devastating September 11 Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington were marked with the usual ritualistic displays of grief and remembrance. Some, like the World Trade Center ceremony in New York were heartfelt and moving. Others, like the Bush administration�s so-called "Freedom Walk" in Washington DC appropriated (or perhaps more accurately, misappropriated) the symbols of 9/11 for partisan political ends. And some, like the Nick Lachey/Jessica Simpson pop rendition of "America the Beautiful" simulcast... more Posted on September 11, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	America and China in Hot Oil It�s been a busy week for energy news in the United States. First, the average price of a gallon of unleaded gas in the United States topped $2.60. Then, a barrel of oil flirted with $68, yet another record. And Bush Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta announced minor revisions to the federal CAFE fuel efficiency standards for some light trucks and SUVs. But the most important development for the long-term health of the American energy market came from China. On Monday,... more Posted on August 25, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	What Is To Be Done: A 10-Point Plan for Iraq The debate over the American debacle in Iraq sounds more and more like the Fram oil filter ads from the 1970's. In those spots, a hard-nosed mechanic tells consumers, "you can pay me now or pay me later." The inevitable result of the current political dialogue over Iraq will be the "Fram choice" for Americans: the United States can lose now or lose later. On the right, President Bush and his fellow travelers refuse to accept accountability for selling a... more Posted on August 20, 2005 \| Comments (13)

	The Global War on Error In a rhetorical shift last week, the Bush administration unveiled a new name for its worldwide war against an abstraction. The old moniker "Global War on Terror" (or GWOT) has been exchanged for the new label, the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (or G-SAVE). The results for America and the world, sadly, will be the same. This is not a case, as Shakespeare might have said, of a rose by any other name smelling as sweet. The United States is... more Posted on August 1, 2005 \| Comments (6)

	Chaos Theory: Bush & The Bolton Diversion As expected, President Bush Monday morning made a recess appointment of John Bolton to the post of UN ambassador for the United States. This, despite Bolton's inability to get Senate approval, his lie regarding his testimony in the Plame affair, and the possibility of his own involvement in a White House orchestrated smear campaign against the Wilsons. Bush's move, though, may be less about his famed loyalty or legendary intransigence, and more a diversion aimed at creating chaos. At this... more Posted on August 1, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Plot Thickens It's amazing what a difference a day makes. On Friday morning, Republicans proclaimed Karl Rove's exhonoration in the PlameGate affair, after a source close to investigation claimed that it was columnist Robert Novak who informed Karl Rove of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, and not visa versa. But RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's gloating notwithstanding, the mountain of evidence continues to build against Rove and the Bush White House. By Friday afternoon, a New York Times article revealed the existence of... more Posted on July 17, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	Broken China in Washington A recurring topic here at Perrspectives has been the rise of China as a economic, military and diplomatic superpower and its impact on American security and prosperity. Since its inception, the response of the Bush administration to Beijing's emergence as American creditor, trading partner and strategic rival has alternately been silence or incoherence. This week, the pressure for policy clarity towards China ratcheted up another notch. At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has delayed the annual report due... more Posted on July 15, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Coming Draft Debate In "Getting Drafty", I argued that current and emerging American national security challenges require the reinstatement of the draft and a new "hybrid model" of national service. Developments over the just the past two weeks reflect just how rapidly the pressure is building to bolster American military force levels. London Terror Attacks and the Need for Expanded Homeland Defense. Timed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in Edinburgh and only one day after London won the competition... more Posted on July 7, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Markets, Public Goods and Military Recruiting During Thursday's hearings of the Armed Services Committee, several Republican Senators blamed the usual suspects for the shortfalls in Army and Marine recruiting. James Inhofe (R-OK) lambasted unnamed Senate colleagues, adding the potential recruits are being discouraged "because of all the negative media that's out there." Kansan Pat Roberts chimed in, "with the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up." But while these conservative Senators predictably pointed... more Posted on June 30, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Iraq Report Card President Bush delivered his much awaited speech on Iraq to an audience of soldiers assembled at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As theater, the President's was a confident rhetorical performance. But if the intent was to rebuild American support for the Iraq war by showing accountability for the missteps to date, providing a plan for success and asking for needed sacrifices, George W. Bush failed miserably: Bush's half-hour address showed the same story-telling and disingenuousness that has characterized his presidency and... more Posted on June 29, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	Bush Iraq Speech Sneak Peak Yesterday, I offered a lengthy preview of tonight's nationally televised address on Iraq by President Bush. In the Perrspectives Guide to the Bush Address, I highlighted the Five Things Bush Must Do to rebuild public support for the conflict in Iraq. In that Guide, I also pointed out the rhetorical warning signs that Bush's rhetoric is unchanged, his plans unaltered and the prospects for American victory dimmed. Sadly, a preview of the Bush speech seems to contain them the most... more Posted on June 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	A Guide to the Bush Address on Iraq On Tuesday night, President Bush will take to the stage at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in a nationally televised address aimed at rebuilding public support for the war in Iraq. And well he should. Recent polls (from Gallup and Rasmussen, respectively) show that only 39% of Americans approve of the war in Iraq and that more people in the United States blame Bush (49%) than Saddam (44%) for the conflict. The torrent of revelations in 2002 pre-war British documents confirm... more Posted on June 27, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Getting Drafty: The Hybrid Model of National Service Ronald Reagan once famously said that presidents should "never say never" But when it comes to the reinstatement of the military draft, recent public opinion polls seem to suggest that the American people think "never" would be a fine idea, indeed. A recent AP/Ipsos poll showed only 27% of Americans favored conscription, with a whopping 70% opposed. As the casualties mount and recruiting woes build from the Iraq crisis, both political parties continue to make this issue moot for the... more Posted on June 26, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Bush on Iraq: That Was Then, This Is Now The Downing Street Memo and a host of new British documents are increasingly focusing national attention on the duplicity and incompetence of President Bush�s Iraq war planning. With criticism building, poll numbers plummeting and facing defections from his own party, the President used today�s weekly radio address to begin a new PR offensive to bolster support for Iraq policies. If that performance is any indication, George Bush has moved from profound deception and deep denial to outright fantasy. In one... more Posted on June 19, 2005 \| Comments (16)

	Bush's British Invasion On the heels of Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to the U.S. and the growing furor over the Downing Street Memo, a new British document promises to further highlight the Bush administration's deception and incompetence in preparing for the Iraq war. The Washington Post reports that just two days before the Downing Street meeting, a July 21, 2002 intelligence briefing ("Iraq: Conditions for Military Action") showed British officials incredulous with the lack of planning for post-war Iraq by the Bush... more Posted on June 12, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Remember the Troops, Support Their Families Memorial Day in the United States arrives this year at a sobering time. As the violence and disorder conitnues in Iraq, American servicemen and women stand in harm's way there, in Afghanistan and around the world. Our troops and their families deserve our thanks and need our support. This is the first modern American conflict where the nation has not been called on to sacrifice. Our leaders have neither asked us to pay the cost of the conflict against Al... more Posted on May 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Nuclear Freeze and Bipolar Disorder AP has reported that the Senate 12 have brokered an 11th hour deal to avert a showdown over the nuclear option. The deal announced by Senator John McCain preserves the Democrats right to filibuster, but gives Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor a vote on the Senate floor. If the early blogosphere feedback is any indication, the Right and Left share a common sense of rage and betrayal at the outcome: "Cowards. A Bunch of M-Fing Cowards!!!! "Trust"?... more Posted on May 23, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Single Sorcerers The ongoing Newsweek saga has given the Bush White House and its right wing jihadists what they see as a golden opportunity. Their simple goal is to use the Newsweek case and the Rathergate episode before it to wage a full scale assault on the credibility and objectivity of "mainstream press." In its place, they seek to substitute their own manufactured, alternate reality. Central to this campaign is the assault on media reliance on anonymous, single-sources. As Scott McClellan put... more Posted on May 19, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Mythology as History: Yalta and the Bush Doctrine President Bush's powerful May 7 speech in Riga marking the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany has created a firestrom across the political spectrum. Conservatives, of course, loved the speech, appreciating any diminution of the Soviet role in the war, but especially the none-too-subtle assault on FDR. Liberals predictably (and I would argue, rightly) objected to Bush's butchering of history, especially his grotesque equation of Yalta with Munich and the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. What commentators on both... more Posted on May 15, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Martin Peretz: The New Republican In the April 11th issue of The New Republic, Martin Peretz (�The Politics of Churlishness�) takes liberals to task for what he sees as their inability to show even grudging respect for President Bush�s recent successes in the Middle East. Sadly, Peretz reads too much into the supposed triumph of the Bush Doctrine, while not reading enough into the liberal critique of it. For starters, most liberals, like most Americans, are genuinely pleased with the turn of events in Iraq,... more Posted on April 8, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq WMD Commission Whitewash As expected, the President's commission on pre-war intelligence regarding Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction offers a scathing critique of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. (The full report and other commission background can be found here; other Iraq/WMD documents are also available in the Perrspectives Document Library.) Also as expected, the report essentially absolved the Bush administration of any blame for its policies. The mandate of the panel, led by Oliver North's appellate liberator Judge Lawrence Silberman, did not... more Posted on March 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Myth of the Bush Doctrine These are pretty heady days for the White House and its fellow travelers. In Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia, movements for popular, democratic change seem to rule the day. The wisdom, rightness and prescience of the Bush Doctrine, they say, have been vindicated. In triumphant and self-congratulatory tones, the President and his allies are taking credit for the sweeping reform throughout the Middle East. President Bush proclaimed, "Freedom is on the march." The National Review's Rich... more Posted on March 9, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Better Lucky Than Good Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due. Like Chauncey Gardner in Being There, right now everything in the Middle East seems to be coming up roses for George W. Bush - and the United States. But like Chauncey, Bush the born-again democratic idealist has a series of happy accidents to thank for his success. The combination of the death of Arafat, Viktor Yushchenko's dioxin-tainted soup, bungling Syrian intelligence agents, and an all-powerful Shi'ite cleric may have... more Posted on March 4, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Fried Rice: Condi's Coming 9/11 Firestorm On the same day that the North Korean announcement of its nuclear weaponry put the Bush administration on the defensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got a double-dose of blowback from her 9/11 dissembling. First, the release of a previously classified report by the National Archives shows that the FAA had been warned repeatedly of the threat of terrorist hijackings between April and September, 2001. Even a slew of redactions, the Auugust 2004 report (which the administration held up) details... more Posted on February 11, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	On the Wrong Side of History Once in a rare while, tectonic historical change occurs with the span of only few days. The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall heralding the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, was one of those watershed moments. And for many Americans, the events of the last 10 days of January, with the Rice confirmation, the Bush second inaugural, and the Iraqi elections, represent a democratic tide sweeping the Middle East, a sea change the whole world is watching. Sometimes, though,... more Posted on February 1, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	Hijacking Freedom Among the many sub-plots to watch for in Wednesday's State of the Union address will be President Bush's appropriation of the words "freedom" and "liberty" for his agenda and the GOP. As we've written before, the Republicans have dominated American policy debates through their manipulation and control of language. Whether through message discipline or superior framing (to use Lakoff's term), the GOP has won a succession of victories spanning tax reform, Medicare, environmental policy, and more. Bush's 2005 State of... more Posted on January 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	2004 State of the Union Flashback With President Bush's 2005 State of the Union approaching, my 2004 SOTU-eve critique of Bush's so-called Ownership Society still stands. State of Disunion Even with his shaky State of the Union address and dipping approval ratings, President Bush unfortunately remains in a strong position for the 2004 election. Saddam is captured, GDP is surging, and his reelection war chest has a staggering $100 million in the bank. And while his Democratic foes battle each other in primary contests across the... more Posted on January 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	George Bush: Making the World Safe for Democracy? In the aftermath of President Bush' second inauguration, there is a widespread consensus that taken literally, his address would commit the United States to a global campaign of democratic proselytization. American friends and foes, puppets and pawns, the wistful and the wary, all are understandably concerned. Before starting a panic over the President's apparent Wilsonian idealism on steroids, it is worth remembering that Bush has not always been the outspoken proponent of democracy, individual liberty and human freedom: "So it... more Posted on January 22, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Doing Well by Doing Good: The American Opportunity in Global Tragedy In the wake of the devastating tsunami that killed thousands and threatens hundreds of thousands more across Asia, much of the coverage and debate in the United States has centered around whether or not the initial U.S. $35 million aid package is, in the words of U.N emergency coordinator Jan Egeland, "stingy." Lost in the petty bickering and wounded American pride is a unique opportunity for the United States to change its badly weakened global image by leading and funding... more Posted on December 30, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Rumsfeld and the Aspin Test Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comments to U.S. troops last week highlight once again the need for new leadership at the Pentagon. But while some Republicans are finally beginning to raise doubts about Rumsfeld, they have yet to hold him to the GOP's "Les Aspin Standard." That is, decisions that needlessly cost American lives in battle cost defense secretaries their jobs, but apparently only if Bill Clinton is president. John McCain, who sold his soul to George Bush in order to... more Posted on December 13, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Denial is not a River in Iraq Speaking of cognitive dissonance, the Bush administration continues to merrily amble forward as the situation in Iraq degrades and the stench of American abuse of prisoners grows. Earlier today, President Bush blandly stated that "free elections will proceed as planned." . At the same time he was issuing this pablum, the New York Times and The Guardian reported that a cable from the departing CIA station chief in Baghdad alerted Washington to the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground in... more Posted on December 7, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Mind Games: Intelligence Reform and the Next 9/11 After much grandstanding by members of its Republican majority, the House of Representatives passed the intelligence reform bill on Tuesday. The Senate's OK and President Bush's signature should be forthcoming in short order. With many of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations soon to be law, Americans will now rightly ask if reform will really help prevent another major terrorist attack here at home. The short answer is "yes, but only if." The long answer is that the revamped National Intelligence Directorate... more Posted on December 7, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Colin Powell's Lost Soul With his resignation today, Secretary of State Colin Powell is being warmly remembered as a voice of moderation within an increasingly immoderate Bush administration, a calm and subtle diplomat seeking to build consensus and coalition. Compared to the arrogance of Rumsfeld, the incompetence of Rice and the hubris of the President, these tributes seem fitting. On the merits, however, I believe history will be much less kind to Powell, a man who unquestionably dedicated his life to the service of... more Posted on November 16, 2004 \| Comments (21)

	Trifecta: Fiascos and Frauds in Iraq and Afghanistan Even in Iraq, when it rains, it pours. Examples of the Bush administration's staggering blunders and clumsy cover-ups are coming fast and furious as election day approaches. Each new revelation only serves to highlight the administration's incompetence, denial and deceit: 1. The Missed Zarqawi Opportunity As The American Prospect details, the Bush White House rejected Pentagon plans to destroy Zarqawi and his Ansar al-Islam camp in Northern Iraq in June 2002. The same people who lambasted President Clinton for merely... more Posted on October 26, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Bush's Foreign Endorsements Back in the spring, conservatives thundered against John Kerry when he mentioned in passing that many foreign leaders had confided to him that they wanted to see him replace George Bush as President. Now, those same conservatives have remained silent as Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed Bush's reelection this week. Putin, the one-time KGB chief and budding Russion autocrat, stated that a Bush defeat would be a victory for the terrorists: "Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist... more Posted on October 20, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Bush's Foreign Endorsements Back in the spring, conservatives thundered against John Kerry when he mentioned in passing that many foreign leaders had confided to him that they wanted to see him replace George Bush as President. Now, those same conservatives have remained silent as Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed Bush's reelection this week. Putin, the one-time KGB chief and budding Russion autocrat, stated that a Bush defeat would be a victory for the terrorists: "Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist... more Posted on October 20, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Bush Top 10 Flip Flop List Four years ago, George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for President, and famously set the moral tone - and expectations for his presidency: "So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God." It has not, of course, worked out that way. As we pointed out... more Posted on October 1, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	W's Failed Wartime Leadership During the first night of the Republican Convention in New York, John McCain and Rudy Guiliani were effusive in the their praise of President Bush's war-time leadership. They are dead wrong. As the current situation on the ground and history alike show, Bush's conduct of the war has been misguided, ineffective and yes, cowardly. As Perrspectives detailed back in February ("The War President?"), Bush has failed because he has ignored the four real requirements of American wartime leadership: 1. Call... more Posted on August 31, 2004 \| Comments (1)

	9/11: A Collective Failure of Imagination The 9/11 Commission issued its final report on Thursday, July 22. (Visit the Perrspectives Document Library to access the final report and related documents.) The report highlights 10 missed opportunities by which the U.S. national security community could have (though not should have) prevented the devastating attacks in New York and Washington. The 9/11 panel report also describes crippling organizational shortcomings of and bureaucratic miscommunications between the CIA and FBI. Among its key recommendations is the creation of a unified,... more Posted on July 30, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Five Global Challenges for a New American Internationalism That giant sucking sound you may have heard last week was the last vestiges of American unilateralism spinning down the drain. Perhaps barely noticed in the din and drumbeat of the Reagan commemoration, the short and unhappy life of President Bush�s policy of �America Alone� mercifully came to an abrupt halt. In securing passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing the new Iraqi Interim Government, the Bush administration unwittingly pronounced the death of an idea whose time had never... more Posted on June 18, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Cognitive Dissonance, Terrorism and 9/11 The Richard Clarke firestorm and the public sessions of the 9/11 commission have gripped the nation, redefined the presidential campaign, and left the American people continuing to search for the truth behind the September 11 disaster. The families of the 9/11 victims in particular are looking for answers: how did the United States fail to anticipate and prevent Al Qaeda�s September 11 attacks and who is responsible for those failures? The work of the 9/11 commission suggests that conclusive answers... more Posted on March 30, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Are We More Secure? As we mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush has made national security the foundation of his reelection effort. To no one�s surprise, the self-proclaimed �war president� is running on a theme of �steady leadership for changing times.� Given the traditional advantage the GOP has enjoyed with voters on defense and national security issues, the formula for electoral success seems straightforward: �President Bush made America safer.� Except that it�s not true. John Kerry and... more Posted on March 18, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The War President? Now there�s a surprise. President Bush is going to base his reelection on the claim of being �a war president.� (His �Ownership Society� vision, which he delivered stillborn during his State of the Union address, has apparently been put on the backburner.) As he told Tim Russert on �Meet the Press� and repeated to National Guard troops in Louisiana on February 17th: "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war... more Posted on February 20, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part VI: The Democrats' New American Bargain in Action In 2004, Democrats must answer the GOP assault on national unity with a program based on reciprocity, responsibility and opportunity that calls on the best in Americans and their government. On national security, Democrats must not only pass the threshold of credibility, they must demonstrate clear leadership compared to the GOP. There is no better way to do this, substantively and symbolically, than through national service. While the volunteer army currently seems sufficient to fight foes abroad such as Afghanistan... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part V: A New American Bargain Democrats need a new, revitalized public philosophy and politics not only to achieve victory in 2004, but also to have any hope of attaining majority status in the next decade. In contrast to a conservative Opt Out ideology increasingly at odds with the best American civic traditions, Democrats should seek to usher in the "Reciprocity Society." Characterized by shared national identity and values, commitment to common goals and public institutions, national service, mutual responsibility, and universal opportunity, the Reciprocity Society... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part IV: Identity Politics and the Threat from the Left Unfortunately, Democrats cannot credibly speak of a politics of national unity and common American interest unless they make a clear break with the identity politics, multi-culturalism, and group privileges of the party's left. Democrats during the Clinton reign in the 1990's made great progress overcoming two of the three barriers to the party gaining majority status: being trusted on national defense and to provide economic growth. On cultural issues, however, the Clinton program of "100,000 cops" and welfare reform (not... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part III: Branding the Opt Out Society Democrats in 2004 would do well to emulate two successful approaches of their opponents in branding the GOP and its Opt Out philosophy. In 1994 with Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and again with the 2000 Bush campaign, the Republicans succeeded in both labeling the Democrats as outside the mainstream while effectively positioning their own program in easily understood, hard hitting and, at least superficially, universally appealing sound bites. The result was and continues to be GOP domination of the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part II: On Your Own The impact of the Opt Out Society can be seen across the policies the Bush administration has pursued since coming to office. These are consistently defined by three characteristics. First is market idolatry; all public policy issues are framed in terms of market choice, competition, and privatization. From school vouchers to a market for pollution credits, any outcome that results is by definition the right one, since it was freely decided by the market. Second, the politics of the Opt... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part I: Introduction There's an old saying that says, "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." Another old saw goes "know your enemy." Truer words were never spoken as Democrats approach the 2004 elections. President Bush, fresh off his victory in Iraq, the staged performance on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and the capture of Saddam, has maintained strong approval ratings. But while the president wraps himself in the flag and the banner of unity in the American war against terror, the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)