Interesting Times
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 07 July 2005
Many an ancient lord's last words have been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh." -- Terry Pratchett
The British are getting ready to evacuate their military forces from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Anyone who thinks the Afghan war has been won and is over needs to think again. 54 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the last six months alone, compared to 52 in all of last year. While this number does not compare to the 1,748 US troops killed in Iraq, the two-fold increase in casualties over half a year is noteworthy. Taliban and al Qaeda fighters occupy caves, villages and mountain passes along the Pakistan border, and regional experts believe their presence will require an indefinite American military presence in that country.
Meanwhile, the war in Iraq burns on while Bush's biggest ally is preparing to haul stakes. US military forces are so stretched that Reservists who last saw action in Vietnam are being called back into service. Poverty within the Iraqi populace has become so severe that citizens are selling their kidneys on the black market for long dollars. It is a booming trade; some 5,000 Iraqis suffer from a variety of renal diseases caused by decades of sanction-created dirty water and lack of medicine, so kidneys are worth their weight in gold on the Iraqi street.
Alberto Gonzales looks to be the next Supreme Court Justice, a choice that will cause progressives to grind their teeth because he argued in favor of torture, and will cause the Evangelical Right to lose its collective mind because he is not "solid" on the issue of abortion. If Gonzales does in fact become the nominee, the stage will be set for a two-pronged assault on the White House from the Left and, more importantly, from the far Right.
Matthew Cooper is going to testify, and Judy Miller is going to jail. Cooper, the reporter from Time Magazine who received the leak regarding CIA agent Valerie Plame, was staring down the barrel of confinement until he folded and agreed to cooperate with Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. This comes on the heels of the revelation that White House consigliore Karl Rove was one of Cooper's sources on this matter. Rove's attorney has claimed Karl did not "knowingly" expose Plame, but Cooper's testimony may rip that shroud down the middle.
Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, is being fitted for a prison jumper and will sit in a cell until she changes her mind about cooperating with Fitzgerald. Miller, it should be noted, is being touted as some kind of martyr for the First Amendment and the need for journalists to protect their sources. She is, to be blunt, a crappy poster-child for this all-important requirement, and this situation augers toward the creation of odd legal precedent. Miller is not merely protecting a source, but is protecting a criminal who violated national security in order to exact political revenge ordered by the White House. The lawyers involved are certainly going to earn their fees trying to thread this particular needle.
One thing is sure: Whoever leaked Plame's name is having a bad day. Be it Rove or Cheney confidant Lewis Libby or some other unknown actor, the fact that Cooper is singing to a Grand Jury raises the specter of charges coming down for perjury and obstruction of justice at a minimum, with treason lurking at the far side of things.
The fellow on the arm of Ms. Plame, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, smells the brimstone on the wind. Reached for comment regarding the imprisonment of Miller, Wilson stated, "The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush's refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point."
"Clearly," continued Wilson, "the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms. Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa. The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly."
Indeed.
Maybe ten thousand times in the last few years, someone has stated with profound assurance that the Bush administration is in trouble, that the hammer is coming down, that some form of accountability is in the offing. Maybe ten thousand times, these predictions have turned out to be wrong. Nowadays, it takes a special kind of fool to think this White House can be easily cashiered for its gross violations, lies and flat-out crimes.
But it is getting awfully crowded around here. Bush's numbers are still cratering, the nation has stopped buying into the idea that he is some kind of Great Protector, the Brits are bugging out of the chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan is heating up, the Jesus Brigades on Bush's right flank are preparing to wig out unless they get some kind of Falwell clone onto the court, and one of the journalists used to destroy the career of a CIA operative who worked to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction is cooperating with a prosecutor.
And then there's this from Dan Froomkin, published by the Washington Post: "More than four in 10 Americans, according to a recent Zogby poll, say that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment ... The impeachment question was part of a Zogby International poll conducted early last week, and released on Thursday. It found that Bush's job approval ratings had slipped a point from the previous week, to 43 percent. But the jaw-dropper was that 42 percent said they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found that the president misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."
Don't blink this week. You might miss something.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 07 July 2005
Many an ancient lord's last words have been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh." -- Terry Pratchett
The British are getting ready to evacuate their military forces from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Anyone who thinks the Afghan war has been won and is over needs to think again. 54 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the last six months alone, compared to 52 in all of last year. While this number does not compare to the 1,748 US troops killed in Iraq, the two-fold increase in casualties over half a year is noteworthy. Taliban and al Qaeda fighters occupy caves, villages and mountain passes along the Pakistan border, and regional experts believe their presence will require an indefinite American military presence in that country.
Meanwhile, the war in Iraq burns on while Bush's biggest ally is preparing to haul stakes. US military forces are so stretched that Reservists who last saw action in Vietnam are being called back into service. Poverty within the Iraqi populace has become so severe that citizens are selling their kidneys on the black market for long dollars. It is a booming trade; some 5,000 Iraqis suffer from a variety of renal diseases caused by decades of sanction-created dirty water and lack of medicine, so kidneys are worth their weight in gold on the Iraqi street.
Alberto Gonzales looks to be the next Supreme Court Justice, a choice that will cause progressives to grind their teeth because he argued in favor of torture, and will cause the Evangelical Right to lose its collective mind because he is not "solid" on the issue of abortion. If Gonzales does in fact become the nominee, the stage will be set for a two-pronged assault on the White House from the Left and, more importantly, from the far Right.
Matthew Cooper is going to testify, and Judy Miller is going to jail. Cooper, the reporter from Time Magazine who received the leak regarding CIA agent Valerie Plame, was staring down the barrel of confinement until he folded and agreed to cooperate with Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. This comes on the heels of the revelation that White House consigliore Karl Rove was one of Cooper's sources on this matter. Rove's attorney has claimed Karl did not "knowingly" expose Plame, but Cooper's testimony may rip that shroud down the middle.
Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, is being fitted for a prison jumper and will sit in a cell until she changes her mind about cooperating with Fitzgerald. Miller, it should be noted, is being touted as some kind of martyr for the First Amendment and the need for journalists to protect their sources. She is, to be blunt, a crappy poster-child for this all-important requirement, and this situation augers toward the creation of odd legal precedent. Miller is not merely protecting a source, but is protecting a criminal who violated national security in order to exact political revenge ordered by the White House. The lawyers involved are certainly going to earn their fees trying to thread this particular needle.
One thing is sure: Whoever leaked Plame's name is having a bad day. Be it Rove or Cheney confidant Lewis Libby or some other unknown actor, the fact that Cooper is singing to a Grand Jury raises the specter of charges coming down for perjury and obstruction of justice at a minimum, with treason lurking at the far side of things.
The fellow on the arm of Ms. Plame, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, smells the brimstone on the wind. Reached for comment regarding the imprisonment of Miller, Wilson stated, "The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush's refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point."
"Clearly," continued Wilson, "the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms. Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa. The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly."
Indeed.
Maybe ten thousand times in the last few years, someone has stated with profound assurance that the Bush administration is in trouble, that the hammer is coming down, that some form of accountability is in the offing. Maybe ten thousand times, these predictions have turned out to be wrong. Nowadays, it takes a special kind of fool to think this White House can be easily cashiered for its gross violations, lies and flat-out crimes.
But it is getting awfully crowded around here. Bush's numbers are still cratering, the nation has stopped buying into the idea that he is some kind of Great Protector, the Brits are bugging out of the chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan is heating up, the Jesus Brigades on Bush's right flank are preparing to wig out unless they get some kind of Falwell clone onto the court, and one of the journalists used to destroy the career of a CIA operative who worked to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction is cooperating with a prosecutor.
And then there's this from Dan Froomkin, published by the Washington Post: "More than four in 10 Americans, according to a recent Zogby poll, say that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment ... The impeachment question was part of a Zogby International poll conducted early last week, and released on Thursday. It found that Bush's job approval ratings had slipped a point from the previous week, to 43 percent. But the jaw-dropper was that 42 percent said they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found that the president misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."
Don't blink this week. You might miss something.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 5:57 AM
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