Iraq War WAS For The Oil !

MISSION (REALLY) ACCOMPLISHED !

Article By ANDREW E. KRAMER
New York Times

Published: June 19, 2008

BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.
For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.
While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.

The Iraqi government’s stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.

For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.
It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.
A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. “We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization,” said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. “The contents of the proposal are confidential.”
While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.

“The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields,” Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.

Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq’s oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies.

Yet at today’s oil prices, there is no shortage of companies coveting a contract in Iraq. It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.
David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believed that Iraq’s output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated.

Mr. Fyfe’s organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq’s output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about six million barrels per day, Mr. Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices.

The contracts, the two oil company officials said, are a continuation of work the companies had been conducting here to assist the Oil Ministry under two-year-old memorandums of understanding. The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.

A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts.
The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions.
The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.

They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.
“These are not actually service contracts,” Ms. Benali said. “They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate” and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law.

A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding, according to the Iraq country manager for a major oil company who did not consent to be cited publicly discussing the terms.
Assem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman, said the ministry chose companies it was comfortable working with under the charitable memorandum of understanding agreements, and for their technical prowess. “Because of that, they got the priority,” he said.
In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies’ officials said.

The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra. There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Hussein-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment.
Charles Ries, the chief economic official in the American Embassy in Baghdad, described the no-bid contracts as a bridging mechanism to bring modern technology into the fields before the oil law was passed, and as an extension of the earlier work without charge.

To be sure, these are not the first foreign oil contracts in Iraq, and all have proved contentious.
The Kurdistan regional government, which in many respects functions as an independent entity in northern Iraq, has concluded a number of deals. Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, for example, signed a production-sharing agreement with the regional government last fall, though its legality is questioned by the central Iraqi government. The technical support agreements, however, are the first commercial work by the major oil companies in Iraq.

The impact, experts say, could be remarkable increases in Iraqi oil output.
While the current contracts are unrelated to the companies’ previous work in Iraq, in a twist of corporate history for some of the world’s largest companies, all four oil majors that had lost their concessions in Iraq are now back.
But a spokesman for Exxon said the company’s approach to Iraq was no different from its work elsewhere.

“Consistent with our longstanding, global business strategy, ExxonMobil would pursue business opportunities as they arise in Iraq, just as we would in other countries in which we are permitted to operate,” the spokesman, Len D’Eramo, said in an e-mailed statement.
But the company is clearly aware of the history. In an interview with Newsweek last fall, the former chief executive of Exxon, Lee Raymond, praised Iraq’s potential as an oil-producing country and added that Exxon was in a position to know. “There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq,” Mr. Raymond said. “We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country.”

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Crazy Obama Accuser

Larry Sinclair Arrested

At National Press Club

Seth Colter Walls
The Huffington Post

UPDATE: Reason's David Weigel reports, and Politico's Ben Smith confirms, that Sinclair was arrested by Washington, D.C. police after the press conference.
***

It is not often that a political reporter can claim to have witnessed the single most stupefying event on any single day, what with the diversity of inanity on display from coast to coast in an election year. But today, I feel confident laying claim to that dubious distinction, for I attended Larry Sinclair's Wednesday press conference at the National Press Club.

The event began less than auspiciously for Mr. Sinclair -- who has gained Internet notoriety by spreading wild accusations regarding gay sex, drugs and possible murder committed by Barack Obama -- as National Press Club staff took pains to remove the association's logo from behind the podium where Sinclair was set to speak. (Politico's Ben Smith today detailed Sinclair's "27-year criminal record, with a specialty in crimes involving deceit.")

Of course, the club had made clear for some time that it should not be viewed as endorsing Mr. Sinclair's claims simply for having agreed to host his mind-numbingly preposterous litany -- heavens, no! All that could be said for the institution was that it was happy to rent out its space to anyone who might be willing to pay in order to switch on the microphone.
And pay Sinclair did -- for the venue and its microphone, as well as for a kilted lawyer (with a suspended license) named Montgomery Blair Sibley, who informed those assembled that his preferences in dress were arrived at as a way to secure comfort for his unusually large sexual organs. "I don't know why men wear pants," he said with a poker face. "It's a function of male genitalia. If you're size normal or smaller, you're probably comfortable with [pants]. ... Those at the other end of the spectrum find them quite confining."
"I asked him to wear a suit and tie," Mr. Sinclair said ruefully. Then, he admitted to suffering from a brain tumor.

Only slightly less mystifying were the several dozen assembled journalists who seemed to grant Mr. Sinclair some modicum of respect with their questions. They cross-examined his statement regarding his supposed meetings with the Illinois Democrat with a vigor and small-bore attention to detail that prosecutors reserve strictly for witnesses who are sane. Imagine if you were to encounter someone who had lit himself on fire, and then proceeded to ask which brand of gasoline he favored.

And so the inquiries came, most of which Mr. Sinclair easily batted back with the exhortation to investigate his claims more vigorously. As for the evidence he provided, it amounted to a few phone numbers -- registered under different names and in different states -- that Mr. Sinclair claimed he used to call, variously, a limousine driver, the deceased choir director of Trinity United Church of Christ, and others. Clearly, it is now the duty of the mobile phone companies to open up these records to court scrutiny. (Forgive me for not reprinting any of the "evidence" in full here. Should you care to see it, Sinclair promised a version would be made public on his website, one free of the several errors which vexed him during his public statement today.)
"I expect you to ask me questions," Sinclair told the reporters. "I expect you to do your job, and actually find facts as opposed to looking at DailyKos or FireDogLake or Huffington Post or all of these pro-Obama sites."

When a questioner asked Mr. Sinclair whether he would permit review of his mental health records "for more than 30 minutes" -- in a lame attempt to riff on the restrictions imposed by John McCain's campaign -- Sinclair mumbled for a few moments, unaware of the reference.
When he was clued in, Mr. Sinclair shrugged and said: "You can see where my head is today."
To borrow a phrase: yes, we can.

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Obama: Bin Laden Still

FREE Because Of GOP !

WASHINGTON — A defiant Barack Obama said Tuesday he would take no lectures from Republicans on which candidate would keep the U.S. safer, a sharp rebuke to John McCain's aides who said the Democrat had a naive, Sept. 10 mind-set toward terrorism.
"These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," the presumed nominee told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "This is the same kind of fear-mongering that got us into Iraq ... and it's exactly that failed foreign policy I want to reverse."
The rival camps engaged in a war of words Tuesday that echoed the 2004 presidential campaign in which President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans argued that Democratic nominee John Kerry was soft on terror, a claim that resonated with voters and helped propel Bush to re-election. Democrats complained that the GOP was using the politics of fear.
The Republican argument proved less effective in 2006 when then Bush adviser Karl Rove said the Democrats had a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world and Republicans had a post-Sept. 11 terror attacks perspective. In November of that year, Democrats captured enough congressional seats to seize control of the House and Senate.
On his campaign plane, Obama told reporters that Osama bin Laden is still at large in part because President Bush's strategy toward fighting terror has not succeeded.
At issue were comments Obama made in an interview with ABC News Monday in which he spoke approvingly of the successful prosecution and imprisonment of those responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Obama was asked how he could be sure the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies are not crucial to protecting U.S. citizens.
Obama said the government can crack down on terrorists "within the constraints of our Constitution." He mentioned the indefinite detention of Guantanamo Bay detainees, contrasting their treatment with the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
"And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo," Obama said. "What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks _ for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center _ we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.
"And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims. ...
"We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws," Obama said.
Obama agreed with the Supreme Court ruling last week that detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their indefinite imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts. McCain derided the ruling as "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."
McCain aides criticized Obama for talking about using the criminal justice system to prosecute terrorists.
"Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation a September 10th mind-set ... He does not understand the nature of the enemies we face," McCain national security director Randy Scheunemann told reporters on a conference call.
Former CIA director James Woolsey, who is advising the McCain campaign, concurred, saying Obama has "an extremely dangerous and extremely naive approach toward terrorism ... and toward dealing with prisoners captured overseas who have been engaged in terrorist attacks against the United States."
The Obama campaign countered with its own conference call in which Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism official in Republican and Democratic administrations, argued the McCain campaign was emulating Rove.
"I'm a little disgusted by the attempts of some of my friends on the McCain campaign to use the same old, tired tactics ... to drive a wedge between Americans for partisan advantage and to frankly frighten Americans," Clarke said.
Kerry accused McCain of "defending a policy that is indefensible" by siding with Bush's policies, particularly with respect to the Iraq war.
Obama said Republicans could be counted on to do "what they've done every election cycle, which is to use terrorism as club to make the American people afraid to win elections." He said he didn't think it would work this time.
___
Beth Fouhy reported from New York.

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Why McCain Won't Release

His Military Files

Because He Was A Privileged

'Screw-Up'

Article by Jeffrey Klein

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.
Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.
McCain's file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain's subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.
Timberg:
"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958.... [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. ...One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom....McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals.... His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.... [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. 'I've got a flameout,' he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."
Adds Karaagac:
"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be....The [fighter jocks'] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it.... Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made....McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."
The genius of McCain's mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs. The Vietnamese military secretly and frequently filmed the American POWs to learn their propensities. Col. Pham Van Hoa of the Vietnamese People's Army Film Department was in charge of the filming. Asked recently for his dominant impression of McCain, the now-retired Van Hoa said that McCain "seemed superior to other prisoners." How so? "Superior in attitude towards them."
But when Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide and co-author, was asked by the Arizona New Times about the first McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, that he was then working on, Salter said "the book will showcase a humble McCain. When I worked on this book with him, he just kept saying, 'Other guys had it a lot worse. I think they took it easier on me because of who my dad was. . . . When they tied me in ropes, they'd roll my sleeve up to give it a little padding between the rope and my bicep, you know, little things I noticed. The only really hard time I had was when I didn't go home, and then it only lasted a week, and sometimes I felt braver, I felt I could get away with more.'"
Is McCain now getting away with more by hiding his official history and by having his national security adviser inflate McCain's resume with a bogus promotion to admiral humbly declined? If so, McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote McCain upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.
One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated; McCain was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. He piloted an ultra-light, single propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.
Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.

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Al Gore Endorses Obama

FLINT, Mich. — Al Gore says he is backing Barack Obama and will do whatever he can to help him get to the White House.
In a letter to be e-mailed to Obama supporters, Gore says Obama has united a movement over the past year and a half.
The former vice president also asks for donations to help fund Obama's effort _ the first time he's asked members of his Web site AlGore.com to contribute to a political campaign.
Gore is one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, but he kept a low profile in the primary campaign. He's planning to appear with Obama at a rally in Detroit Monday night.

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Obama Addresses

Absent Black Fathers

(transcript)

Apostolic Church of God
Sunday, June 15th, 2009

Chicago, IL
Good morning. It’s good to be home on this Father’s Day with my girls, and it’s an honor to spend some time with all of you today in the house of our Lord.
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus closes by saying, “Whoever hears these words of mine, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock: the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.” [Matthew 7: 24-25]
Here at Apostolic, you are blessed to worship in a house that has been founded on the rock of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. But it is also built on another rock, another foundation – and that rock is Bishop Arthur Brazier. In forty-eight years, he has built this congregation from just a few hundred to more than 20,000 strong – a congregation that, because of his leadership, has braved the fierce winds and heavy rains of violence and poverty; joblessness and hopelessness. Because of his work and his ministry, there are more graduates and fewer gang members in the neighborhoods surrounding this church. There are more homes and fewer homeless. There is more community and less chaos because Bishop Brazier continued the march for justice that he began by Dr. King’s side all those years ago. He is the reason this house has stood tall for half a century. And on this Father’s Day, it must make him proud to know that the man now charged with keeping its foundation strong is his son and your new pastor, Reverend Byron Brazier.
Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation. They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and the men who constantly push us toward it.
But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.
You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled – doubled – since we were children. We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?
Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more afterschool programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities.
But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.
We need to help all the mothers out there who are raising these kids by themselves; the mothers who drop them off at school, go to work, pick up them up in the afternoon, work another shift, get dinner, make lunches, pay the bills, fix the house, and all the other things it takes both parents to do. So many of these women are doing a heroic job, but they need support. They need another parent. Their children need another parent. That’s what keeps their foundation strong. It’s what keeps the foundation of our country strong.
I know what it means to have an absent father, although my circumstances weren’t as tough as they are for many young people today. Even though my father left us when I was two years old, and I only knew him from the letters he wrote and the stories that my family told, I was luckier than most. I grew up in Hawaii, and had two wonderful grandparents from Kansas who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me – who worked with her to teach us about love and respect and the obligations we have to one another. I screwed up more often than I should’ve, but I got plenty of second chances. And even though we didn’t have a lot of money, scholarships gave me the opportunity to go to some of the best schools in the country. A lot of kids don’t get these chances today. There is no margin for error in their lives. So my own story is different in that way.
Still, I know the toll that being a single parent took on my mother – how she struggled at times to the pay bills; to give us the things that other kids had; to play all the roles that both parents are supposed to play. And I know the toll it took on me. So I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle – that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls; that if I could give them anything, I would give them that rock – that foundation – on which to build their lives. And that would be the greatest gift I could offer.
I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father – knowing that I have made mistakes and will continue to make more; wishing that I could be home for my girls and my wife more than I am right now. I say this knowing all of these things because even as we are imperfect, even as we face difficult circumstances, there are still certain lessons we must strive to live and learn as fathers – whether we are black or white; rich or poor; from the South Side or the wealthiest suburb.
The first is setting an example of excellence for our children – because if we want to set high expectations for them, we’ve got to set high expectations for ourselves. It’s great if you have a job; it’s even better if you have a college degree. It’s a wonderful thing if you are married and living in a home with your children, but don’t just sit in the house and watch “SportsCenter” all weekend long. That’s why so many children are growing up in front of the television. As fathers and parents, we’ve got to spend more time with them, and help them with their homework, and replace the video game or the remote control with a book once in awhile. That’s how we build that foundation.
We know that education is everything to our children’s future. We know that they will no longer just compete for good jobs with children from Indiana, but children from India and China and all over the world. We know the work and the studying and the level of education that requires.
You know, sometimes I’ll go to an eighth-grade graduation and there’s all that pomp and circumstance and gowns and flowers. And I think to myself, it’s just eighth grade. To really compete, they need to graduate high school, and then they need to graduate college, and they probably need a graduate degree too. An eighth-grade education doesn’t cut it today. Let’s give them a handshake and tell them to get their butts back in the library!
It’s up to us – as fathers and parents – to instill this ethic of excellence in our children. It’s up to us to say to our daughters, don’t ever let images on TV tell you what you are worth, because I expect you to dream without limit and reach for those goals. It’s up to us to tell our sons, those songs on the radio may glorify violence, but in my house we live glory to achievement, self respect, and hard work. It’s up to us to set these high expectations. And that means meeting those expectations ourselves. That means setting examples of excellence in our own lives.
The second thing we need to do as fathers is pass along the value of empathy to our children. Not sympathy, but empathy – the ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes; to look at the world through their eyes. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in “us,” that we forget about our obligations to one another. There’s a culture in our society that says remembering these obligations is somehow soft – that we can’t show weakness, and so therefore we can’t show kindness.
But our young boys and girls see that. They see when you are ignoring or mistreating your wife. They see when you are inconsiderate at home; or when you are distant; or when you are thinking only of yourself. And so it’s no surprise when we see that behavior in our schools or on our streets. That’s why we pass on the values of empathy and kindness to our children by living them. We need to show our kids that you’re not strong by putting other people down – you’re strong by lifting them up. That’s our responsibility as fathers.
And by the way – it’s a responsibility that also extends to Washington. Because if fathers are doing their part; if they’re taking our responsibilities seriously to be there for their children, and set high expectations for them, and instill in them a sense of excellence and empathy, then our government should meet them halfway.
We should be making it easier for fathers who make responsible choices and harder for those who avoid them. We should get rid of the financial penalties we impose on married couples right now, and start making sure that every dime of child support goes directly to helping children instead of some bureaucrat. We should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit that can help them pay the bills. We should expand programs where registered nurses visit expectant and new mothers and help them learn how to care for themselves before the baby is born and what to do after – programs that have helped increase father involvement, women’s employment, and children’s readiness for school. We should help these new families care for their children by expanding maternity and paternity leave, and we should guarantee every worker more paid sick leave so they can stay home to take care of their child without losing their income.
We should take all of these steps to build a strong foundation for our children. But we should also know that even if we do; even if we meet our obligations as fathers and parents; even if Washington does its part too, we will still face difficult challenges in our lives. There will still be days of struggle and heartache. The rains will still come and the winds will still blow.
And that is why the final lesson we must learn as fathers is also the greatest gift we can pass on to our children – and that is the gift of hope.
I’m not talking about an idle hope that’s little more than blind optimism or willful ignorance of the problems we face. I’m talking about hope as that spirit inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting for us if we’re willing to work for it and fight for it. If we are willing to believe.
I was answering questions at a town hall meeting in Wisconsin the other day and a young man raised his hand, and I figured he’d ask about college tuition or energy or maybe the war in Iraq. But instead he looked at me very seriously and he asked, “What does life mean to you?”
Now, I have to admit that I wasn’t quite prepared for that one. I think I stammered for a little bit, but then I stopped and gave it some thought, and I said this:
When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me – how do I make my way in the world, and how do I become successful and how do I get the things that I want.
But now, my life revolves around my two little girls. And what I think about is what kind of world I’m leaving them. Are they living in a county where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day? Are they living in a county that is still divided by race? A country where, because they’re girls, they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do? Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate effectively with other nations? Are they living a world that is in grave danger because of what we’ve done to its climate?
And what I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children – all of our children – a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime.
That is our ultimate responsibility as fathers and parents. We try. We hope. We do what we can to build our house upon the sturdiest rock. And when the winds come, and the rains fall, and they beat upon that house, we keep faith that our Father will be there to guide us, and watch over us, and protect us, and lead His children through the darkest of storms into light of a better day. That is my prayer for all of us on this Father’s Day, and that is my hope for this country in the years ahead. May God Bless you and your children. Thank you.

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To Watch Complete Speech

A Multi-Racial, Net/Grassroots Org...Dedicated To TRUTH !

Why We Started...

Blacks4Barack !

Greg Jones B4B

In January of 2007, Barack Obama declared his candidacy for President of the United Staes. I had been following Obama ever since his powerful speech of Hope that he gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Since that speech, I followed Obama as intently as possible feeling that something was truly special about this man. I was extremely impressed with his stance against the Iraq War, a view he exposed at a time when being against the war made one so-called un-patriotic and a move that could have been political suicide. But he stuck to his beliefs and judgement (which later proved to be correct). I would say to myself....I hope Obama runs for President....that's who America needs !

In January, 2007 Obama did it. He announced his candidacy for President. I was extatic ! Here we had a person of great qualities, capabilities, character, judgement and leadership to put America on the right track....and he happened to be a Black Man !

I remember saying to myself that for the first time in my lifetime, there was the true possibilty of America's first Black President. I just knew that all blacks would automatically embrace their brother....and I felt that people of ALL races could eventually come to learn the greatness in this man.

But after Hillary announced her candidacy a bit later, I was sadly amazed at the polls which showed Hillary getting up to 82% of the black support. How could this be. Don't blacks know that Obama is the best choice. But the fact was, at that time the average black knew absolutely nothing about Obama....couldn't even pronounce his name. We knew that we had to do whatever we could to help the Black voter learn more about this qualified man....who happened to be black. So I, along with associates of different races who understood the importance and power of the Black vote started a net/grassroots organization, and named it Blacks4Barack.

The reason for that choice in names was simply that our goal, in our own humble way, was to inspire blacks in any way that we could, to be supportive of Obama....not an easy task considering the fact that Bill Clinton was so loved that he had already been deemed 'the first Black President'.

So we listened to every broadcast possible...every black radio talk show....read every article...just hoping to see some kind of positive support for Obama, particularly in the Black community. But what we found was more discrediting than support combined with crazy statements like 'is he black enough' or of course 'America's not ready for a Black President' just to name a few. (Although good folks like radio talk show host Warren Ballentine and the blog Jack & Jill Politics were particularly inspirational to us as they lead the way toward speaking out for Obama).

Over time, as people became more familiar with Obama, his support level gradually grew...although the slowest group to grasp on was the Black Community. Even 3 days before the first primary/caucus in Iowa, while polls showed him impressively in a strong second place, the black community was filled with doubters.

But, then he WON IOWA ! That was absolutely the most incredible occurance in black political history. A black man won in an all white state....IOWA ! WOW ! As we continued listening and reading the responses to this historic occurance we started feeling that this thing could really happen. If the Black voters would rally in unison behind this qualified black man....combined with the support of all races....we could truly have our First Black President.

Then there was New Hampshire...then Nevada...and when it came time for S. Carolina...the first state with a substantial number of black voters....fate was sealed. Obama had such an incredible victory due to 84% of all black voters voting for him over Hillary. That did it ! The talk shows...the articles...the talk everwhere was that of a movement filled with excitement. And the movement never stopped.

I am so very proud of my brothers and sisters of ALL races and particularly my black family, for rallying behind this highly credible man. I'm most thankful that the words of Dr. King are coming true....to be judged for the content of character...not the color of skin.

We've learned a lot through this historic journey. For one, white people are not as prejudiced as we may have thought. That America IS ready for a Black President....and that when we come together as one, mighty things can take place.

We've won round one with one major round to go. Now is the time for us to stay in Unity....while bringing as many as we can aboard the train toward progress. Get folks registered to vote. That is now the key !

Together, we WILL truly make a difference and we've all ready witnessed....Together...Yes WE Can !.....Yes We WILL !

Thank You ALL !

Greg Jones

National Director

Blacks4Barack

A Multi-Racial, Net/Grassroots Org...

Dedicated To TRUTH !

Colin Powell (Republican)

May Vote For Obama !

IAN BAILEY
June 13, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Colin Powell, the former Republican secretary of state, says he is not ruling out a vote for Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee for president.
While Mr. Powell served in the administrations of two Republican presidents, he suggested yesterday his support for presumed Republican nominee John McCain is not a forgone conclusion.
He noted that although both he and Mr. Obama are black, he would not cast a vote for the Illinois senator on the basis of race. "I will vote for the individual I think that brings the best set of tools to the problems of 21st-century America and the 21st-century world regardless of party, regardless of anything else other than the most qualified candidate," Mr. Powell said at a news conference before delivering a speech to about 800 people attending a leadership forum at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
"Both of them certainly have the qualifications to be the president of the United States, but both of them cannot be," he said.

Mr. Powell has been supportive of Mr. Obama's successes, but was commenting after the senator recently clinched the Democratic nomination.
A 35-year veteran of the U.S. Army, Mr. Powell also noted he would not necessarily support Mr. McCain because of his extensive military service.
Asked whether he thought it was a difficult choice, he said: "I think so. Yes."

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NBC's Tim Russert Dies

From Heart Attack....age 58.

Our sympathies to his family.

The New York Times is reporting that MSNBC's Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the age of 58.
Russert suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed Friday afternoon in NBC's Washington bureau, according to the New York Post
Russert was in the tracking booth, recording a track, when he collapsed. He returned from Italy Thursday night.
TVNewser reminds us that "Around 1pmET this afternoon, Russert was conducting a political Q&A on MSNBC.com."

NOTE: Tim Russert was the last of the great journalists dedicated to truth. He will be greatly missed. He was a graduate of the college I attended (John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio) and I worry that truth in media will never be the same. (Greg Jones)

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Rezko: Feds pushed

for dirt on Obama

(Obama Has To Defeat Hillary, Bill,

The Media, GOP, McCain

and Bush Regime)

By KENNETH P. VOGEL
Imprisoned Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko has accused federal prosecutors of improperly pressuring him to implicate Barack Obama in a corruption case. In a letter to the U.S. District judge who presided over his trial, Rezko, who was convicted this month of 16 corruption-related counts, including fraud and money laundering, called prosecutors “overzealous.” And he singled out what he said were their efforts to get him to turn on Obama, an Illinois senator and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and Illinois Gov. Rod Bagojevich. “They are pressuring me to tell them the ‘wrong’ things that I supposedly know about Gov. Bagojevich and Sen. Obama,” Rezko wrote in an undated letter released by the court this week. “I have never been party to any wrongdoing that involved the governor or the senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people.” Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, wouldn't comment on Rezko's allegation. Rezko was a prominent fundraiser for Obama's campaigns for state Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, though not for Obama’s presidential campaign. Though Obama was not implicated in any wrongdoing in the Rezko case, his name was mentioned sporadically during Rezko’s trial.

Obama’s campaign released a statement after the letter was made public, stressing that Obama hasn’t been accused of “any improper action or conduct involving Tony Rezko” and reiterating that he hasn’t been contacted for an interview or for any information about Rezko. “Nothing in this letter indicates anything to the contrary.” Still, Republicans have seized on the relationship between the two, which includes a real estate deal that enlarged the Obama’s Chicago homestead, to question Obama’s judgment. Blagojevich — who, like Obama, staked out an image as a political reformer — repeatedly found himself the subject of plenty of unwanted scrutiny during the trial, which prosecutors used to detail a complicated pay-to-play scheme involving state government boards and commissions. Chicago media have reported that Rezko is being pressured to cooperate with ongoing investigations of Blagojevich’s campaign and administration. But Rezko’s lawyer, Joe Duffy, told the Chicago Tribune that he did not know of any investigation into Obama’s dealings with Rezko. “I'm not aware of any impropriety related to Rezko and Obama,” Duffy told the Tribune. "At no point has the government ever asked me a single question about Obama or any wrongdoing involving Rezko and Obama." It’s not uncommon for prosecutors to try to get defendants to implicate more powerful or wealthy officials, said Stan Brand, who has represented scores of public officials both in private practice and as legal counsel to the U.S. House. “Prosecutors are always interested in trading up,” Brand said. “They put subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle pressure on people.” But proving that “they’ve actually crossed an ethical line and asked this guy to embellish or shade the truth in a way that’s helpful to them in some other case,” Brand said, is “a very difficult case to make absent some express coercion, which is very rare.” The letter, apparently written during the two-month trial, was actually a plea to allow Rezko to see his family. But its allegations about pressure to implicate Obama will surely give ammunition to partisans on both sides. For Democrats, Rezko’s claim dovetails with allegations that the Department of Justice targeted high-profile Democrats. For Republicans, it will be used to suggest Obama’s relationship with Rezko drew warranted federal scrutiny

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McCain Says Timetable

Troops To Return

Home From Iraq

'NOT IMPORTANT' !

Sen. John McCain appeared on the Today Show this morning and continued to promote his idea of a long occupation in Iraq. But whatever merits there may be for his message, his delivery is once again promising to get him into trouble.
When asked if he knew when American troops could start to return home, McCain responded:
"No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq."

UPDATE: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has responded:
"McCain's statement today that withdrawing troops doesn't matter is a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn't get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course - Osama bin Laden is freely plotting attacks, our efforts in Afghanistan are undermanned, and our military readiness has been dangerously diminished. We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war."

UPDATE (11:00 AM): The responses are coming fast and furious from both parties, as the McCain hits back for his comments this morning:

McCain camp:
Sen. McCain has consistently opposed a timeline for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. And our friends on the opposite side of the aisle have a long history of attempting to twist Sen. McCain's words on Iraq. The fact that Sen. McCain opposes a timeline for withdrawal and is principally concerned about the safety of American troops and the security of Iraq is pretty much "dog bites man."
Meanwhile, the Dems are beginning to pile on. Here's Biden's response:
"Senator McCain's comment is evidence that he is totally out of touch with the needs of our troops and the national security needs of our nation. I think many of our brave soldiers and their families would disagree that it's 'not too important' when they come home.
UPDATE: Via HuffPost's Sam Stein, Sen. John Kerry ripped into McCain over the remarks:
Sensing political blood, Democrats pounded on John McCain, for saying that it was "not too important" when American forces were drawn down provided that casualty levels were acceptably low.

Perhaps the most pointed criticism, ironically, came from Sen. John Kerry -- no stranger to having Iraq comments be used against him in a political election context. Taking to a conference call with aides to Sen. Barack Obama, the 2004 Democratic nominee accused McCain of being "unbelievably out of touch," lacking a general understanding, and was having a "debate with himself" over the issue of Iraq. The alleged flip-flopper was now doing the alleging.
"The job of the Commander in Chief is to understand the fundamentals of the conflict in which you have the troops engaged. And it is becoming crystal clear that John McCain doesn't understand it," said Kerry. "This is an enormous flaw on his candidacy, which is supposedly hung on his ability to serve as commander in chief... There are series of contradictions in his statements that reflect a fundamental misunderstands of the conflict."

As evidence, Kerry ushered in McCain's misstatements on the historical conflict between Sunni and Shiites, his falsehood that Iran was arming al-Qaeda in Iraq (they're not), and the varying times in which the Arizona Republican has said he was against a South Korea style model of troop presence in the Middle East, something he now favors.
"This is not a small matter as far as I am concerned. And I think John McCain is offering a recipe to keep the military overextended," he said. "And our attention diverted from the real center of the war on terror which is Afghanistan and Pakistan."
As the conference call proceeded, the McCain campaign sought to stem the damage of the remark. In an email response to reporters, spokesman Tucker Bounds accused Obama of trying to hide his own "willingness to disregard facts on the ground," and insisted that "John McCain has always said, that [troop drawdown] is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field."

This, however, came only weeks after the McCain campaign had released an advertisement explicitly suggesting that violence in the country would be ebbed by 2013 - a clear indication that timetables were, in fact, important.
"He threw out 2013 as the date for American forces to be out of Iraq," said Susan Rice, Obama's foreign policy adviser. "And today he says he has no idea."
UPDATE (12:00): Another statement from the McCain camp, this one targeting Obama:
"The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate's willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs. John McCain was asked if he had a 'better estimate' for a timeline for withdrawal. As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign's attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth."

Support The Troops....

VOTE OBAMA !!!

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Kucinich Files For

35-Count BUSH

IMPEACHMENT !

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table."
Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.
Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.
Kucinich won 50 percent of the vote in a five-way House Democratic primary in March, beating back critics who said he ignored business at home to travel the country in his quest to be president.
___
Kucinich: http://kucinich.house.gov/

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TIME FOR GOOD JUDGEMENT...

TIME FOR OBAMA !!!

IT'S OFFICIAL ! BUSH LIED

US INTO IRAQ WAR !!!

Article By: Arianna Huffington

For those of you who were understandably busy following the last round of the Democratic Nomination Ultimate Fighting Championship this past week (I won't give away the ending for those who have it TiVo'd), I'd like to call your attention to a major story you may have missed: the Senate Intelligence Committee's 200-page "Phase II" report on how the Bush administration used -- and abused -- pre-war intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
The Committee's conclusion: the president and his top officials deliberately misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq. No surprise there.
But it's vitally important that we continue to reiterate and document the truth of what happened and who was responsible for perpetrating this fraud on the American public. And here's why: the war is still going on (and American soldiers continue to die as a result of the deception); the same people responsible for this debacle still have their hands on the wheel; desperate to cover their tracks, they continue to lie about how we got into this mess; and they are currently hitting all the same notes in agitating for war in Iran.
The report is a direct rebuke to the administration's continued claims that it was the intelligence that was faulty, and that Bush and co. were simply presenting what the C.I.A. had given them.
A statement released by committee chairman Jay Rockefeller makes it clear that the administration "on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq...in making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent."
The report doesn't use the word, but we all know what it's called when someone presents something as fact that's directly contradicted by the evidence. A lie. Not a mistake. A lie.
Some specifics from Rockefeller's statement (emphasis mine):
Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.
So much for the tired claim that "everybody in the world" agreed that Iraq had WMD, was a "grave and gathering threat," was in league with Al Qaeda, etc., etc., etc.
The report also details how a cabal very high up in the Pentagon and the Vice President's office got played by a group of shady Iranian exiles in order, as McCaltchy's John Walcott puts it, to "feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator."
This meeting was brokered by neo-con All-Star Michael Ledeen, who is now one of those desperately agitating for war with Iran. The story reads like a bad spy novel.
In December of 2001, Ledeen and two Pentagon Iran experts met an Iranian named Manucher Ghorbanifar in Rome. Ghorbanifar sketched out his plan to overthrow the Iranian regime on a cocktail napkin. The plan involved, as the Senate report puts it, "simultaneous disruption of traffic at key intersections leading to Tehran," which would "create anxiety, work stoppages and other disruptive measures." Ghorbanifar asked for $5 million in seed money to get started.
This was not the first time Leeden and Ghorbanifar had met. Both are alumni of the Iran-Contra arms scandal. In fact, in 1984, the CIA had said that Ghorbanifar "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance."
Operation Desert Gridlock never happened, but Ledeen continued to feed his dubious intelligence to an eager Pentagon, including giving Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith a 100-day plan which would provide evidence that Iraqi WMD had been secretly moved to Iran. On this, he was backed up by three Republican senators: Rick Santorum, Jon Kyl and Sam Brownback.
Eventually alarm bells went off in the CIA and State Department and an investigation of the Pentagon's contacts with Ghorbanifar was started. It was shut down after only one month, however, by Stephen Cambone, then Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
The reaction of Republicans to the Phase II report has been predictable. They're desperate for the public not to dwell on the truth about this war. And if they can't present contrary evidence to refute the report (and they can't, because it doesn't exist), they can at least sow doubt -- acting as if the report is the result of partisan bickering as opposed to the smoking gun of the Bush administration's tragic acts.
In fact, the committee vote on the report was 10-5, with Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snow voting with the Democrats."It rots the very fiber of democracy when our government is put to these uses," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in response to the report.
It's no coincidence that a war built on lies continues to be conducted using lies ("the surge is working"). Mark Green proposes a way to end the cycle of deception: create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "This worked in a very different historical situation of South Africa and can work here as well," wrote Green on HuffPost. "South Africans who engaged in murder and violence were given amnesty if they confessed under oath to their crimes and knowledge -- but would be prosecuted if they didn't.... The largely successful effort led to both truth and reconciliation."
Richard Clarke echoed Green's proposal last week, and also suggested something each of us can do: "I just don't think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded, and they'll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives."
If the leaders responsible for that suffering are not held accountable -- both at the ballot box and by being shamed and shunned as Clarke suggests -- we dishonor the sacrifices of the fallen, and make it likely that many more will endure a similar fate.

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VOTE OBAMA '08

VOTE...JUDGEMENT !

Majority of Iraqi Legislators Want

U.S. Out of Iraq....SOON !

In a letter to Congress, dovetailing with yesterday's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, thirty-one Iraqi legislators, representing a majority of the Iraq Parliament, have expressed "widespread disapproval of the proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement if it does not include a specific timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military troops."
We, the undersigned members of the council, wish to confirm your concerns that any international agreement that is not ratified by the Iraqi legislative power is considered unconstitutional and illegal, in accordance with the current rulings and laws of the Iraqi Republic. Furthermore, any treaty, agreement or "executive agreement" that is signed between Iraq and the United States will not be legal and will not enter the stage of implementation without first being ratified by the Council of Representatives, in accordance with Article 61 of Section Four of the Iraqi constitution, which gives the Iraqi government's legislative power, represented by the Council of Representatives, the exclusive right to ratify international treaties and agreements.
Likewise, we wish to inform you that the majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq, in accordance with a declared timetable and without leaving behind any military bases, soldiers or hired fighters.
The chorus of disapproval is of substantial consequence, as it will require a two-thirds majority of the Iraqi Council of Representatives to ratify the security agreement that is currently being hashed out by Iraq and the United States. Congressman Bill Delahunt, who impaneled yesterday's hearings, has co-sponsored a bill with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro that "bars funding for any agreement that has not been approved by Congress."

OBAMA '08

The Judgement We Need !

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'Anything Not To Go Back"

Soldiers Practicing "Self Harm"

To Avoid Multiple Iraq Tours

As an internist at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Stephanie Santos is used to finding odd things in people's stomachs. So last spring when a young man, identifying himself as an Iraq-bound soldier, said he had accidentally swallowed a pen at the bus station, she believed him. That is, until she found a second pen. It read 1-800-GREYHOUND. Last summer, according to published reports, a 20-year-old Bronx soldier paid a hit man $500 to shoot him in the knee on the day he was scheduled to return to Iraq. The year before that, a 24-year-old specialist from Washington state escaped a second tour of duty, according to his sister, by strapping on a backpack full of tools and leaping off the roof of his house, injuring his spine.
Such cases of self-harm are a "rising trend" that military doctors are watching closely, says Col. Kathy Platoni, an Army Reserve psychologist who has worked with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. "There are some soldiers who will do almost anything not to go back," she says. Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army's top psychologist, agrees that we could see an uptick in intentional injuries as more U.S. soldiers serve long, repeated combat tours, "but we just don't have good, hard data on it." Intentional- injury cases are hard to identify, and even harder to prosecute. Fewer than 21 soldiers have been punitively discharged for self-harm since 2003, according to the military. What's worrying, however, is that American troops committed suicide at the highest rate on record in 2007—and the factors behind self-injury are similar: combat stress and strained relationships. "It's often the families that don't want soldiers to return to war," says Ritchie.
Soldiers have long used self-harm as a rip cord to avoid war. During World War I, The American Journal of Psychiatry reported "epidemics of self-inflicted injuries," hospital wards filled with men shot in a single finger or toe, as well as cases of pulled-out teeth, punctured eardrums and slashed Achilles' heels. Few doubt that the Korean and Vietnam wars were any different. But the current war—fought with an overtaxed volunteer Army—may be the worst. "We're definitely concerned," says Ritchie. "We hope they'll talk to us rather than self-harm." (end)

We need Barack Obama for President to end this mindless occupation of Iraq !

SUPPORT THE TROOPS...

Bring Them Home !!...VOTE OBAMA !!!

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FINALLY.....THE END

HILLARY CONCEDES !


WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton ended her historic campaign for the presidency on Saturday and told supporters to unite behind rival Barack Obama, closing out a race that was as grueling as it was groundbreaking.
The former first lady, who as recently as Tuesday declared herself the strongest candidate, gave Obama an unqualified endorsement and pivoted from her role as determined foe to absolute ally.
"The way to continue our fight now to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our energy and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States," she said in a speech before cheering supporters packed into the ornate National Building Museum, not far from the White House she longed to reign in.
"Today as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary campaign he has won. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him and I ask of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me," the New York senator said.
With that, Clinton placed herself solidly behind her Senate colleague from Illinois, a political sensation and the first black to secure a presidential nomination.
For Clinton and her supporters, it was a poignant moment, the end of an extraordinary run that began with an air of inevitability and certain victory. About 18 million people voted for her; it was the closest a woman has come to capturing a nomination.
Joining her on stage were her husband, the former president, and their daughter, Chelsea, before she took their leave as she addressed the crowd.
Obama secured the 2,118 delegates needed to clinch the nomination Tuesday after primaries in South Dakota and Montana. He planned to spend the weekend at home in Chicago.
Clinton supporters began lining up at dawn to attend the farewell address. A smattering of Obama backers showed up as well, saying they did so as a gesture of party unity.

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McCain Now Supports Bushs'

Plan To Spy On Americans !

The New York Times reports today on how John McCain has flipped his position on warrantless wiretapping to look very similar to George Bush's. Below are a couple paragraphs from the article that reflect how John McCain has flip-flopped toward Bush:
A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.
In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance...
...But Mr. McCain had previously stopped short of endorsing the view that Mr. Bush's program of surveillance without warrants was lawful all along because a president's wartime powers can trump statutory limits.
Andrew C. McCarthy, a National Review columnist who has defended the administration's legal theories, wrote that Mr. Holtz-Eakin's statement "implicitly shows Senator McCain's thinking has changed as time has gone on and he has educated himself on this issue."
And Glenn Greenwald, a Salon columnist and critic of the Bush administration's legal claims, wrote that the statement was a "complete reversal" by Mr. McCain, accusing the candidate of seeking "to shore up the support of right-wing extremists."

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CLINTON TELLS SUPPORTERS:

GET BEHIND OBAMA !

On a Thursday afternoon conference call with top donors to her campaign, Sen. Hillary Clinton pledged "total support for Barack Obama," according to one participant on the call who spoke to the Huffington Post. Alan Patricof, a key fundraiser, also said there was "absolutely no mention" of a possible vice presidential slot during the conversation, which was moderated by campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe.
"She was terrific," Patricof said. "She told everyone she was 100 percent supportive of Barack Obama and the DNC. She said she wanted everyone on the phone to be supportive -- and said she herself intends to do events on behalf of the nominee and the party. ... She was real upbeat, there wasn't the slightest bit of remorse or recriminations. It was all totally positive, looking forward. I was very impressed, and admired her for that."
Patricof said that while there was no vice presidential speculation, the New York Democrat said she would make herself available for in-person events alongside Obama, and told her donors she hoped they would organize events on his behalf as well.
The potential wedding of Clinton's big donor fundraising operation to Obama's record breaking, grass-roots powered juggernaut has been the subject of much anticipation in Democratic circles, especially considering the Democratic National Committee's latest edict -- prompted by the Obama campaign -- that it will forswear all lobbyist and PAC donations from now through the election. With Sen. John McCain not having hamstrung his party's national committee in the same way, and given the large advantage the Republican National Committee already has in cash-on-hand, it's a testament to Democrats' fiduciary confidence that no one seems to be worried about missing the lobbyists' money.
Craig Holman from Public Citizen's Congress Watch project told the Huffington Post that Obama has little to lose by rejecting lobbyist and PAC direct contributions -- which thus far only accounted for $3.1 million of the DNC's total $77 million raised this year. But he said the impact of the new Obama-initiated DNC policy might have greater consequences down the road when lobbyists are also forbidden from organizing, bundling or otherwise steering donations toward the party. "The only real hard numbers we have right now are direct lobbyist contributions. [The new policy] will present a much greater challenge when lobbyists are not allowed to play an active role in hosting fundraisers, or bundling contributions," Holman said, noting that the new disclosure system -- required by ethics reform that Obama championed in the Senate -- has yet to go into effect because of a dormant FEC. That means disclosure of the extent to which lobbyists are responsible for filling campaign coffers beyond direct contributions remains murky. "I don't think we'll have a good picture of that until later in the summer, when the FEC gets up and going," he said.
Beth Dozoretz, a longtime fixture as a high-dollar Democratic Party fundraiser and a Clinton backer during primary season, said no matter the lobbyists' total impact as fundraisers, "Obama has changed the game" to the extent that they won't be missed, at least for now. "I think while we will lose some amount of money [by banning lobbyist contributions], we will have participation on the Internet that is unparalleled and will more than make up for it. This is not a 'maybe' prediction. He [Obama] has demonstrated his ability like no one else. ... The major donor money proportionate to that of smaller donors is much smaller than it's ever been. I think now that we're all coalescing around our nominee, both candidates' constituents [will continue to donate] from 25 dollars to thousands of dollars. The potential is extraordinary. Having been a fundraiser for all these years, to see the Democrats have this broader reach, I just think it's great for the system and for the party."
Pressed on the question of whether any Clinton backers may wind up harboring residual bad feelings sufficient in scope to keep their pocketbooks closed, Dozoretz said she was certain that wouldn't happen. Dozoretz also brushed off McCain's Tuesday night speech, in which he referenced the pundits and party elders who "decided" Obama would be the nominee, in an apparent attempt to capitalize on sore feelings among Clintonites. "Three words. The. Supreme. Court. You can quote me on that," she said.
"As much as people may feel disheartened at the moment, I am absolutely certain that because of Senator Clinton's leadership, people wil rally around Obama quickly and decisively -- with her at the helm of that effort." (from huff post)

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