Scot Woods: Crimes Against Democracy

Managing your money -- heh, heh

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:41:49 GMT

First of all, you have to love the headline of this Salon.com item.

Second, you start to ask yourself, "How in the Lord's holy name did this dirty sonofabitch get that job?"

Crooks and liars, all of 'em.

Money for nothing, chicks for free

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, George W. Bush talked about the importance of being a good "steward" of the taxpayers' money. Somehow, we doubt that this is what he had in mind: According to the New York Times, a former comptroller of Bush's Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq is expected to plead guilty Thursday to charges of bribery, conspiracy and money laundering related to a scheme to use "sexual favors, jewelry and millions of dollars in cash to steer reconstruction work to a corrupt contractor."

Robert J. Stein Jr. -- one of four Americans arrested in the case so far -- stands accused of stealing at least $2 million in American Iraqi cash, taking at least $600,000 worth of CPA property and accepting more than $1 million worth of bribes, the Times says. According to an earlier Times report, Stein got his job as the comptroller for the CPA after he was fired from a Florida company for falsifying payroll records and creating fake invoices for nonexistent purchases. Before that, Stein was convicted on a criminal charge of "access device fraud."

As part of the scheme in Iraq, Stein is alleged to have helped steer more than $8 million in contracts to a contractor who has also been arrested. According to court papers, the Times says, the contractor kept a "villa" in Baghdad where women provided "sexual favors" in exchange for "official actions in his favor or for refraining from exposing the scheme."

It's not clear whether the money lost in this corruption scheme is separate from or a part of the $9 billion the CPA lost to what an inspector general's report called "severe inefficiencies and poor management." That report came out right around the time of the president's last State of the Union address, the one in which he said that taxpayer money "must be spent wisely, or not at all."

A letter to my Congressman

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:02:56 GMT

I sent this letter to my Congressman today:

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Congressman Bob Schwarz, R-MI 7th District

December 19, 2005

Dear Congressman Schwarz,

I want to thank your staff and yourself for taking the time to read my letter. While I understand that it's difficult for a Congressman to write a personal reply, I do hope this note finds its way from your staff to your eyes, and that you have a moment to read and consider it.

I think you are an honorable Representative for our district, and while I do not agree with all of your political positions or beliefs, I respect your integrity and effort. I know that, as a Republican, you must feel a certain loyalty to President Bush, and I understand that.

It must be very difficult for you to consider, then, that the President's critics may be right when they accuse him of abusing his power and using fear to try to enact his favored policies. But recent events -- including the very fact that Congress had to compel him to renounce torture (at least in name) and including recent revelations that the Department of Defense has been spying on American citizens within America -- must lead you to the same conclusion.

I appreciate the difficulty of your position. But you must act first as an American and a Congressman, and give regard to your party only as a third consideration. Though the President may share your party, I hope you are as deeply concerned with his autocratic actions as I am, and are prepared to act.

Congress must investigate the Attorney General and his support for the methods of torture. Congress MUST determine if any American citizen has been subjected to torture by this Administration. If so, the Administration would become a criminal enterprise.

Congress must investigate the CIA's secret use of allied soil for the extraordinary rendition of prisoners. This is a national-security issue, and it clearly puts the United States in a position where its may be violating its treaty obligations. Congress has an obligation to pursue this issue and do so with openness and candor.

I respect the beliefs that the Republican Party is based on, but it disheartens me to see a Republican Congress allow a President such sweeping powers by its inaction -- there is nothing Conservative in that. Now, Congress finds itself in the position of having to check those powers before the President decides he has the authority to spy on them.

Because of abuses like those I've discussed, people are losing faith in this government, Mr. Schwarz. We need to know the truth, even if it is painful to us as a country; even if it is painful to your political party.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Please act.

Respectfully,
Scot Woods

Blurring the line between news and propaganda

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:53:02 GMT

Here's another example of this Administration's continuing Crimes Against Democracy.

The New York Times yesterday ran a good in-depth item on the Bush Administration's efforts to deliberately feed the administration's views to the public via television news. The government-produced reports are often rebroadcast unchanged by local tv stations, and in at least one instance, the station requested -- and received -- versions of reports from the Ag. department in which the "reporter" used a sign-off imploying he/she was one of the station's own staff.

Maybe the people producing propaganda for U.S. agencies think that they're actually helping promote good policies, and therefore their deceits are justified white lies. But that doesn't change the fact that the result is a systematic deception of news viewers by the supposedly "independent" news agencies they trust.

I'm not saying the government shouldn't issue video press releases -- I think they have their place. But if you're an honest person, you WANT those releases labeled as such. If you're an honest news editor, you WANT your station to label Department of Education b-roll as coming from the Department of Education. You would NEVER allow your reporter to simply voice-over the script provided by the government -- not if you were honest.

On the other hand, if you're just in the news business to make a few bucks, you figure you can cut costs by using these freebies. And since you figure nobody will be the wiser, then hey, who's really getting hurt here, right? Um, right?

THIS is what Orwell was talking about, folks.

The Shit is Hitting the Fan

Mon, 17 May 2004 16:46:00 GMT

This is the real deal. I believe the entire torture scandal is going to blow wide open, and there is going to be severe bloodletting at the top levels of the Pentagon. Seymour Hersh has unleashed the furies on Donald Rumsfeld. It is inconceivable that he will continue as Sec. of Def. much longer. But that CAN NOT be the end of this. Congress has to put his feet to the fire, regardless of whether he stays or goes.

Read the comments at Atrios which follow his blog entry about the Seymour Hersh article.

The Truth will Out.

New Yorker: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib

Mon, 17 May 2004 06:12:45 GMT

Most reporting is reactive. It fills in details and answers questions surrounding a well-known and well-traveled set of facts. It is incremental and tends to follow a pack mentality. In most cases, such reporting is simply the press relaying official information to the public after toning down the official rhetoric and slapping a patina of cynical objectivity on the facts.

Some reporting is ground-breaking. Rather than reporting the next incremental fact, it introduces an entirely new set of facts. It changes the way everyone else reports the story. The classic example of this, of course, is the work of Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate coverup.

Seymour Hersh's exemplary work on the Abu Ghraib story for the New Yorker magazine is of the ground-breaking variety. His lucid writing will become the basic outline of this story for the pack of journalists and the historians who will follow him. In the May 24 issue, Hersh describes the Pentagon's ultra-secret special-access program (or SAP) called Copper Green which effectively took control of the Iraqi prison and refocused it on extorting actionable intelligence from its inmates. If the facts are accurate, the story proves that the torture in Abu Ghraib was anything but "isolated".

I believe this is the most important piece of investigative journalism in the past two decades.

The SAP was originally used very effectively to target and eliminate top Al Qaeda terrorists around the globe, using a small number of highly experienced and disciplined agents (literally like something out of a Tom Clancy novel). Under the SAP, all sorts of inhumane interrogation techniques were permitted. In its zeal to get to the bottom of the Iraqi insurgency, the Pentagon expanded the purview of the SAP to Iraq, unleashing the same unconscionable methods used against Al Qaeda's leaders on the cab drivers and unemployed soldiers it was holding in Abu Ghraib. It hoped to learn more about the well-organized, well-funded insurgency it was fighting in Iraq. The program was no longer focused on Al Qaeda.

The story describes how the Pentagon developed sexual humiliation as a blackmail tactic against Arab men. Many of the independent contractors operating outside the regular chain of commant at Abu Ghraib were apparently part of this program, and they encouraged the National Guard MPs guarding the prisoners to use these tactics and create the photographic evidence required to make the blackmail work. But twenty-something grunts from simple backgrounds got carried away with the tactics, and the prison became essentially lawless.

Reading the piece, it is clear the Hersh has had extensive aid from insiders disgusted not only by the abuse which has taken place, but also with the outright lies being spoken by those in power in order to save the larger program. When MP Joseph Darby reported the wrongdoing to the Army's Criminal Investigations Division, the Pentagon had to let the footsoldiers face prosecution, and adopted the line that it was just the crime of a few bad apples. It had no choice, but needed to prevent the existence of the SAP from becoming public.

But the truth is that the photos from Abu Ghraib were the result of an official policy that torture is an acceptable method for fighting terrorism. The lower-level MPs in the photos are pawns -- willing Torquemadas -- whose anger and racism were played upon by the Pentagon brass. The abuses are not isolated. They are connected to a cold-blooded Pentagon intelligence program which, in its focus on Al Qaeda, has probably protected us in ways we will never know. But in its application against the men of Iraq, it has made us far, far less safe.

George Bush, who has cast the war on terror as an absolutist battle between good and evil, must confront this fact about our official policy:

It is lawless, it is criminal, and it is evil.

With all the over-the-top language used in American politics today, it's hard to find words which pack a sufficient punch for the unprecedented levels of undemocratic action taken by this Administration. But it should now be beyond any reasonable person's doubt that Rumsfeld and the morally blinded man he serves have got to go.

They are an absolute disaster for our nation, and for democracy everywhere. I am sickened to my core by this.

Salon: Above the law

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 20:04:34 GMT

Does the U.S. Goverment have the right to lock up American citizens without trial, evidence or access to a lawyer, even in the absence of a war declaration? Surprise, surprise, the humanitarians at the Bush Administration say YES! In two cases before the Supreme Court this month, the Administration is arguing that no court has the authority to second-guess its sole authority to throw away the rights of people it declares to be "enemy combatants." Does the Supreme Court which appointed George II have the guts to strike down this abomination to the Constitution?

This must be an interesting question for Antonin Scalia, the paleoconservative justice who feels that courts have gone way too far interpreting the Consitution when (he feels) you have to read it in black-and-white. On the one hand, his buddies in the Administration want unfettered police power in these times of tribulation. On the other, Scalia can presumably read. So I guess he knows that one of the primary motivations for the Bill of Rights was to prevent the government from having unfettered police power. Remember: Checks and balances and access to an attorney and all that? Or as the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says, "nor shall any person... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Look, the issue here isn't about the specifics of any case, about whether a certain suspect should be held or not. The issue is whether human beings have rights even when the President of the United States doesn't like them. If the court holds that the President has unchallengable authority to declare his opponents "enemy combatants," and hold them without evidence, charge or access to the outside world, nobody is safe. The Bush Administration is bad, but certainly isn't as bad as it gets. It's conceivable that some future administration may be led by an aspiring Hitler. And if the courts have given the Executive the green-light to lock up his opponents, we have the judicial basis for Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

If the Court holds that the President can declare individuals -- including, in one case, a U.S. citizen arrested inside the U.S., -- to be without rights EVEN IN PEACETIME, the barriers to a dictatorship disappear. A future president may lose sight of the distinction between himself and the state, and begin declaring political opponents to be "enemy combatants." You can imagine all sorts of rhetorical devices such a despot would use -- in fact, despots from Moscow, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Baghdad have used them over the centuries. Why, such standards are currently in vogue in Tehran to this day.

It's not hard to imagine someone like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or Paul Wellstone declared dangerous to the ruling regime, and incarcerated without access to any judicial review.

While it's tempting to think we're talking about terrorism, we're really talking about government power. If the guys being held are really a danger, then the government should be able to bring the evidence to court proving their case. Hell, even Saddam Hussein will get a trial, and we all know he's guilty of more crimes than we have time to prove.

Some will say the President should have expanded powers because we're at war. That's a debate we could have, but the Consitution does not presently give the President such expanded powers. They have yet to be added to our founding document. More importantly, we're not technically at war.

Most people think the U.S. is at war, but that simply isn't the case. Declaring war is the most serious act a nation can undertake, and the Framers gave this power to Congress specifically to prevent the President from waging war unilaterally. Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but that is no declaration of war. In fact, this Administration has toppled two governments without securing a Declaration of War against either one.Congress has passed war declarations before, and is perfectly capable of doing so again if it wants to. So the fact that they didn't means they didn't want to. But we have a war anyway. Congress has abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to the American people --they would hate to seem unpatriotic.

My point is, in the absence of a war declaration, any special powers the President receives now would be perpetual -- or at least, easily invoked by declaring an emergency. A decision in the Administration's favor would grant the President the powers of Congress and the courts; the roles of prosecutor, defense, judge, jury and court of appeals. In short, if the President perceives you to be a threat, no power on this earth can stay his hand.

That's not democracy as I know it.

Crimes Against Democracy: White House quietly shelves MTBE ban

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:34:37 GMT

The MBTE industry has donated more than $1 million to Republican politicians since 2000. What is MBTE? A hazardous chemical which, as a fuel additive, does improve the efficiency of gasoline, but which is also a dangerous pollutant in its own right. The chemical infiltrates the drinking-water supply, making the water smell like turpentine, and requiring very expensive, time-consuming cleanup. The EPA under Clinton was moving to ban the additive. Naturally, the Bush White House has decided to let Congress decide the matter, effectively ensuring the ban would never happen.

Welcome to the best democracy money can buy.

Crimes against Democracy: The incentive to go negative

Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:54:23 GMT

One of the inherent problems in our current campaign financing scheme is that it allows massive amounts of money to be spent on attack ads, as long as they are presented as "issue ads", but the law prohibits the same spending on ads advocating support for a candidate.

As an AP story from today describes, some $600,000 was raised for anti-Dean commercials which ran in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. The group, with the fink-like name "Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values", bragged that it did more with its money than Dean did with $41 million.

Big funding came from Slim-Fast Foods tycoon S. Daniel Abraham and Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network LLC (which broadcasts Yankees baseball games). They gave $100,000 each, although both Abraham and the CEO of YE&SN contributed to Dean's campaign!

It would be illegal to donate that kind of money to a political campaign, and it would be illegal for the fink-like advocacy group to advocate voting for him. But it's perfectly legal to tear him down (since the spots don't advocate voting for any particular candidate).

Former N.J. Senator Bob Torricelli, a disgraced politician, is now a fund-raiser for John Kerry. He donated $50,000 to the group from his leftover campaign warchest. According to AP:

Federal Election Commission spokesman Bob Biersack said it was "fuzzy" whether Torricelli's contribution was permissible under FEC rules. Donations to such groups are not included on an FEC list of permitted uses for campaign funds.

Much of the rest of the funding came from unions affiliated with Dick Gephardt, who ponied up big sums to fund the smear ads. Gephardt's political demise was one of the small bits of justice to come out of this.

As a progressive, this is why I often hold my nose while voting for the Democratic Party.

Crimes Against Democracy: George W. Bush, AWOL Aviator

Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:23:47 GMT

Here's a more thorough story than you've probably read before on the issues of Bush's missing 18 months.

Crimes against Democracy: Soros and "sovereignty"

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:51:21 GMT

Our first installment of "Crimes Against Democracy" discusses the ways the Bush Administration is failing the "true/false" test: What it says is true is actually false.

Joshua Micah Marshall has posted an excellent interview he conducted with billionaire George Soros this morning on his blog Talking Points Memo. Soros, who was born in Hungary in 1930 and moved to the U.S. in 1956, has dedicated himself to getting Bush tossed out of office. The interview is a bit academic in tone, but the basic question comes: When does the U.S. or the international community have the right to intervene in the affiars of another nation? (Bosnia, Iraq, etc.) His answer is a bit surprising: We need to rethink the whole issue of sovereignty. Good point, old bean.

He argues that a foreign policy founded on the philosophy that we're right because we're strong is doomed to fail. Soros says the adventures in Iraq are having dire consequences:

"This administration has no compunction in misleading the people. It has no respect for the truth. This, I think, is a real danger. It is the danger of an Orwellian world. It's not new, because obviously, Orwell wrote about this fifty years ago. But what he wrote in 1984, you know, the Ministry of Truth being the Propaganda Ministry, the use of words meaning the opposite of what they are meant to mean. The Fox News, "Fair and Balanced," the "Clear Skies" Act for permitting pollution, the "Leave No Child Behind" [that] provides no money for the legislation. All these things I think pose a real danger to our democracy if they succeed in misleading the electorate. And there is only one remedy: an intelligent and enlightened electorate that sees through it."

Crimes Against Democracy: An Introduction

Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:40:49 GMT

"Crimes Against Democracy is a new project for The Mighty Pen. Each item that is part of the project will be labeled like this one. This effort arises from a desire to find ways of transforming the energy of mad-as-hell citizens like myself into practical ways to reach the undecideds in the whole Good vs. Evil fight. (i.e. -- the November election). As always, I am soliciting contributions for this project from friends -- both those of you I know, and those of you I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting.

The purpose, simply, is to compile a sourced catalog of anti-democratic actions taken by the present administration in Washington. This particular section will eschew editorializing in favor of cold, hard facts. If you think you've uncovered a crime against Democracy, e-mail it my way and please include a link to a credible source.

My goal is to provide a solid resource for moderates and undecideds to research the record of the Bush II Administration. Many people mistakenly believe that Bush's decision to invade Iraq shows he is a strong, tough leader. Moreover, most people aren't aware of the fundamental, radical shifts in policy this White House has pushed through. My belief is that when confronted with the facts, even moderate conservatives will begin to question the substance behind the very carefully constructed Bush veneer. - Scot Woods