George W. Bush's Legacy of Cynicism and Contempt
George W. Bush and his henchmen stole the presidency. They threw thousands of innocent people into prison without even charging them with a crime. They're gearing up to invade Iraq without bothering to come up with a substantial justification. Now some Democrats and progressive Americans are asking the unthinkable about an administration they increasingly believe to be ruled by thugs and renegades. Did government gangsters murder the United States' most liberal legislator?
Talk of foul play began hours after Senator Paul Wellstone's plane went down over northeastern Minnesota on Oct. 25, killing him, his wife and his daughter, along with three staffers and two pilots. "Please tell me I'm wrong to be thinking what I'm thinking," a self-described "liberal Democrat" from St. Paul e-mailed me that evening. "I want to be wrong, but I wouldn't put it past the Republicans--THESE Republicans--to sabotage Wellstone's plane." Internet discussion groups and e-mail in-boxes quickly echoed her sentiment.
People expressed similar fears after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan (news - web sites) died in plane crashes--the latter weeks before facing an election challenge from future Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites)--but the whispers of assassination following the Wellstone tragedy are more widespread and gaining mainstream currency far beyond the usual conspiracy nuts.
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called yesterday for "reconciliation" with Israel and renewed his condemnation of attacks on civilians in a special session of parliament.
"I extend my hand in reconciliation to the Israelis to resume the peace process launched in Madrid in 1991," said Arafat, who has frequently called for a resumption of talks.
He likewise called for Israel and the Palestinians to be "good neighbours".
"We want to live as neighbours. Let us find a common ground for the security we desire, which you desire, for our common security," the Palestinian leader said.
The veteran leader, looking serious as he read out his speech before MPs in the West Bank town of Ramallah, also condemned attacks on civilians "anywhere in the world".
"I condemn terrorist operations against civilians anywhere in the world," he said.
Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in a cycle of bloodshed since a Palestinian uprising for independence began in September 2000.
Mr Arafat made his remarks in a speech announcing a new cabinet.
His previous cabinet quit last month after sensing it would lose a confidence vote in the reform-minded Palestinian Legislative Council which has criticised Arafat's government amid the uprising.
The new cabinet, if approved by parliament next week, will serve until presidential and legislative elections on January 20, 2003.
Meanwhile the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, faced a deepening rift with his main co-alition partner over funding for Jewish settlements on Monday, raising the prospect he will be forced to call early elections.
The impasse with the Labour Party was Mr Sharon's most serious political challenge since he came to power 19 months ago in the early stages of a Palestinian up-rising that he has failed to quell de-spite campaign pledges to restore security.
The Labour leader and De-fence Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said this week his centre-left party was certain to vote against Israel's 2003 budget un-less Mr Sharon shifted some money earmarked for settle-ments to social programs.
The US military is continuing to move men and equipment towards Iraq as the Bush administration signals that the time for diplomacy at the United Nations is fast running out.
Air strikes against Iraqi missile batteries and radars said to be threatening US and British aircraft patrolling the air exclusion zones over northern and southern Iraq have become more frequent.
All the signs are that the military build-up could accelerate dramatically over the next few months if the US administration decides upon military action against Iraq.
Whatever may have been happening at the UN, the US military has been working to a pre-determined timeline - one that envisages a potential conflict with Iraq early in 2003.
Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security, David Cole and James X. Dempsey, (New Press 2002)
In 1999, Georgetown University Law professor David Cole and the Center for Democracy and Technology's James Dempsey published the first edition of their work Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. It detailed the enactment of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act--which, at the time, was famous not so much for its terrorism provision, but rather for its draconian pro-death penalty and anti-habeas corpus provisions.
This year brings the book's second edition--updated to account for recent developments in the "war on terrorism." The authors detail the Clinton administration's use of the Antiterrorism Act and examine the enactment and scope of the USA PATRIOT Act--a hastily enacted, post-9/11 law that gives the government wide-sweeping surveillance powers over American citizens.
Throughout Terrorism and the Constitution, Cole and Dempsey diverge from popular opinion by insisting that civil liberties, far from being a threat to national security, are the essence of America. What are we "fighting" for in this war on terrorism, they ask, if not to protect our way of life--which has personal liberty at its very core?
Greil Marcus is a discerning radical humanist. So it was a shock to pick up the progressive paper First of the Month and find him dissing leftist intellectuals for their skepticism about the war on terror. Marcus is not the only member of the counterculturati to find the hawk within. Dan Savage, the shoot-from-the-hip sex columnist, has lately become hip to the shoot. Then there's Christopher Hitchens, the ex-socialist who has found an occasion in 9-11 to revise his ideological profile. He is now a latter-day incarnation of the Cold War liberal. Hitchens's recent homage to George Orwell includes a remarkable defense of his work for the British government during the McCarthy era, when Orwell supplied lists of suspected com-symps, dutifully noting who was homosexual—or Jewish. Hey, says Hitchens, Orwell wasn't lying.