The New Orwellian Dictionary

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has nothing better to do with his time than think of new words for the New World Order lexicon. Change the language and the way people view the world changes. There is a fundamental flaw in the Rumsfeldian logic, though: semantics does not change reality. Whether our enemies in Iraq are insurgents, are terrorists, or are freedom fighters, it all depends on perspective. What does not depend on perspective is that the Iraq war is a war based on false premises, is bankrupting our nation, and is killing young Americans to prove a point: that the Bush Administration is infallible. Rumsfeld, therefore, can call our enemies whatever he will, but reality stands. The Iraq war is unwinnable as the Bush Administration prosecutes it and, as such, is an endeavor in foolishness.

The Detached President and His Cabinet's War

Ex-Powell Aide Criticizes Bush on Iraq
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
11/29/05

"In an Associated Press interview Monday, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson...said that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from a coterie of White House and Pentagon aides who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful," and that the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant. Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard." Wilkerson suggested his former boss may agree with him that Bush was too hands-off about Iraq. "What he seems to be saying to me now is the president failed to discipline the process the way he should have and that the president is ultimately responsible for this whole mess," Wilkerson said."

A Connection That Does Not Necessarily Follow

Possible link to Iraq seen in Taliban attacks
November 28, 2005

KABUL -- "An onslaught of sophisticated attacks since parliamentary elections in September has left Afghan and US officials concerned that Taliban guerrillas are obtaining support from abroad to carry out strikes. The recent attacks, including at least nine suicide bombings, have shown coordination and technical knowledge characteristic of the Iraq insurgent attacks led by Al Qaeda, officials said." (Washington Post)

It does not necessarily follow that there is a causal link between Iraq and Afghanistan despite both using similar war-fighting techniques. There is the possibility that Afghani fighters listen to the radio, watch television, or even access the internet. Goodness, it is understandable how members of the Bush Administration use fallacious logic to achieve self-interested goals. It is purely shameful, however, for the media to perpetuate those fallacies by failing to challenge the Administration's faulty logic.

We Thought Of It First

The Bush Administration, which has openly disagreed with every Iraq withdrawal idea, now says Senator Biden's was theirs all along. With mid-term elections approaching, the Administration tries to appease a disenchanted public, and finds itself caught in more hypocrisy.

So Much For The Right To Privacy

Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
Fears of Post-9/11 Terrorism Spur Proposals for New Powers
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page A06

"The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with thePentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counter terrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public. "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America.This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. RonWyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview."

A Security Consultant By Any Other Name Is Still A Mercenary

These "security consultants" have U.S. government contracts and are serving in Iraq.

"Blackwater Security Consulting [http://www.blackwaterusa.com/securityconsulting/] is a strategic division of Blackwater USA. Blackwater USA has historically provided a spectrum of support to military, government agencies, law enforcement and civilian entities in training, targets and range operations as a solution provider. Blackwater Security Consulting has its roots in the Special Operations community and continues to sustain the skills acquired over the years. These skills are effective tools that support both national and commercial objectives. Our staff has a wealth of exceptional experience worldwide and is renowned for dealing with high-risk situations and complex operations. Our mission is to provide the client with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements. We employ only the most highly motivated and professional operators, all drawn from various U.S. and international Special Operations Forces, Intelligence and Law Enforcement organizations. We focus on physical and personal security, personal security/risk and assessments, and training.

"With a growing base of satisfied customers, we will continue to enhance our reputation of responsiveness, professionalism, and excellence. We stand ready to offer this exceptional and talented group of men and women to assist you in meeting organizational requirements."


International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/int/mercenaries.htm

Article 1

For the purposes of the present Convention,

1. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised,by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;

(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and

(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

Article 5

1. States Parties shall note recruit, use, finance or train mercenaries and shall prohibit such activities in accordance with the provisions of the present Convention.

2. States Parties shall not recruit, use, finance or train mercenaries for the purpose of opposing the legitimate exercise of the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination, as recognized by international law, and shall take, in conformity with international law, the appropriate measures to prevent the recruitment, use, financing or training of mercenaries for that purpose.

3. They shall make the offences set forth in thepresent Convention punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the grave nature of those offences.

Thanksgiving 2005

Thank you, President Lincoln, for instituting this holiday. We need a temporary respite. God bless the United States of America.

Proof Under Unreasonable Circumstances

Cheney shifts attack on war critics
By Adam Entous Mon Nov 21

"Cheney, who issued dire warnings before the 2003 invasion about the threat posed by Iraqi weapons programs and links to al Qaeda, said the administration presented the best available intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs. He said it had not been Washington's responsibility to prove Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before invading-- but Saddam's to show that he did not have them."

Again, the Administration attempts to justify war with bad arguments. If it were the case that the burden of proof about weapons of mass destruction was Iraq's burden, and that we invaded even after inspectors revealed that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, then theAdministration suggests that they chose to invade in spite of mitigating information. Therefore, no argument was reasonable enough to prevent a U.S. invasion of Iraq under the Bush Administration making preemption, according to Cheney's statement, an inevitability. Taking the argument a step further: Justice relies on considering mitigating information; and there is no true justice if there is no mitigation. However, the Administration invaded in spite of mitigation.Consequently, the invasion of Iraq was not just.

It Is Not Un-Patriotic...It Is Just Not Pro-American

""I heard somebody say, `Well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.' I totally reject that thought," Bush said. "This is not an issue of who's patriotic and who's not patriotic," he said. "It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq.""
Terrence Hunt. Associated Press, 11/20/05.

Bad policy is not in the public interest. A supporter of bad policy, therefore, supports something that is not in the public interest. Thus, support that runs contrarily to the public interest is support that opposes the American people. Someone cannot rationally determine, then, that supporting bad policy is pro-American. To steer our nation back from Constitutional erosion, we cannot support anyone that supports bad policy. Hence, we cannot support anyone that is not pro-American.

Terrorist Training Ground

Iraq training ground for al-Qaeda: Labor
November 20, 2005
Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Iraq has become a training ground for al-Qaeda and Australia's involvement in the country has done nothing to reduce the overall terrorism threat, Labor says. Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd has just returned from a visit to the Middle East, where he says he learnt first hand of just how powerful al-Qaeda had become in Iraq. "What we are seeing now is Iraq becoming a platform, a training platform, for the spread of al-Qaeda across the wider Middle East, "Mr Rudd told ABC television."The large-scale foreign troop presence, including our own, acts, in fact, as a magnet for terrorist organisations to not just go there but to become better trained there for deployment to worldwide jihad, including our part of the world. "Remember, the stated policy objective in the first place is that we needed to invade Iraq in order to reduce the global terrorist threat?" It's had exactly the reverse effect and we now have Iraq becoming this training ground for terrorists, not just deployment to the wider Middle East but also conceivably to South-East Asia as well.""

Bad Premises for War

Some say Iraq intelligence debate oversimplified
Policy analysts want to talk about whether the U.S. should have gone to war in 2003
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Nov. 19, 2005
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

"Two extensive, bipartisan investigations have examined the matter: one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and another by a commission headed by former Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb and federal appellate Judge Laurence Silberman.
Both panels found that prewar intelligence was badly flawed. The panels also agreed that the White House did not induce the errors. But with the war's popularity plummeting, the debate has taken on a sharper edge, with lack of nuance and human error taking a back seat to charges of lying and cooking up evidence. "The Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president," Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid said last week. Republicans have responded by calling Democrats hypocrites because many of them supported the war: The Iraq resolution passed the Senate,77-23, with 29 of 50 Democrats voting with the majority, and 296-133 in the House, with 81 Democrats voting in favor. Rep. Gene Green of Houston, a Texas Democrat who voted for the Iraq war resolution, said he met with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and then-CIA Director George Tenet during congressional meetings with the White House. The lawmakers were shown pictures of installations in Iraq that were described as weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities. "I think they made the case showing it was WMD. Misled is a pretty harsh word, but I feel like the administration set out to have a war. I gave them the benefit of the doubt," he said. "In hindsight, I wouldn't have. With the information I had then, I don't regret it," Green added. "But with the information I have now, I wouldn't vote for it.""

The Mounting Evidence

"Did They Lie?: the Debate over Iraq War Intelligence"
Niko Kyriakou, OneWorld US (Sat Nov 19)

"[According to Jeffrey M. Bale, a senior researcher at the non-partisan, Center for Nonproliferation Studies,] "Intelligence was tweaked in the sense that the people in the Bush team were convinced of certain things and basically, every bit of information that supported what they already believed they accepted, and ignored all the evidence that suggested their views were wrong." The question of culpability--whether officials unintentionally deluded themselves about Iraq's terror links and nuclear programs, or whether they actually knew that their claims were false--is probably unanswerable."I think they honestly believed it," Bale said. Imad Khadduri, an Iraqi scientist who worked on the Iraq nuclear weapons program beginning in 1981 and who left Iraq in the late 1990s, is less forgiving. "The intelligence was definitely concocted. I was in the nuclear Iraq program for 30 years and I left in '98. It was never resurrected since'91." Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Feith, and the Office of Special Plans under them--they cherry-picked only the bad information," Khadduri told OneWorld. Prior to the war, Khadduri said he tried frantically to alert officials that Iraq's WMD programs were inactive and spoke extensively to the media, but he said no government agents ever contacted him. "In January 2003 I predicted that 'rivers of blood will flow.' I know my people," Khadduri said. The president and his aides have distanced themselves from the blame for faulty intelligence saying that Congress and the administration had access to the same intelligence."

The Rumsfeld Equation

Pentagon probing intel allegations
ROBERT BURNS
Associated Press
Sat, Nov. 19, 2005

"WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's inspector general said Friday it has begun an investigation into allegations that an office run by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's former policy chief, Douglas J. Feith, engaged in illegal or inappropriate intelligence activities before the Iraq war."

The Administration's Talking Points

The Administration is using Iraq prewar intelligence as a talking point to undercut public scrutiny. If it can say that Democrats are falsely accusing the Administration, then it can deflect criticism if and only if the bulk of that criticism is based on accusing the Administration of pushing bad prewar intelligence to mislead the American people. Americans might then be more inclined to dismiss any allegations charged against the Administration. The Administration, however, misleads the American public by suggesting that Iraq was initially associated with terrorism and that victory in Iraq is somehow a victory against terrorism. Such an incredible suggestion poses a false cause fallacy that it expects the American people to wholeheartedly accept. Terrorism followed the occupation and not vice versa. Pushing bad policy is undermining the Administration--not political parties and not the American people. We Americans can insure that our nation changes course by preventing our leaders from making and unconscionably adhering to bad policy.