Laurie Essig

Howard Dean and Sarah Palin in bed together

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Yes, politics makes strange bedfellows.  But how did Sarah Palin and Howard Dean end up in bed together?  I mean, Howard Dean was governor of the most left-wing of states, Vermont, and Sarah Palin was governor of her own private Idaho, but it was in Alaska, and now they're taking the same side on the war in Afghanistan? In order to understand how this could possibly happen, we have to go back to the Project for a New American Century(PNAC), now known as the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).  No doubt they changed their name  because many Americans recognized how creepy it was that this odd collection of neo cons was shaping foreign policy in a very direct way.  In case you don't remember them, PNAC was part of that neocon fantasy that after the Cold War, the US was the only superpower standing, but that our superpower status was based on amassing the largest military the world had ever known.  In September 2000 PNAC released  Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century. outlining the brilliant idea that the US should maintain its superpower status through military might.  In an orgy of Phallic imagery, PNAC insisted that the US assert/insert its military throughout the world in order to fulfill its destiny as the leader with the biggest gun/Phallus.    And who were the PNAC signatories?  Neocons like William Kristol, but also a whole lot of Bushies,  like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.  According to the statement:

[What we require is] a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.,, America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of the past century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Under its new brand as FPI, PNAC restated these principles of military empire as

The United States remains the world's indispensable nation... indispensable to international peace, security, and stability, and indispensable to safe-guarding and advancing the ideals and principles we hold dear."

According to an article by Jeremy Scahill, earlier this week the FPI

sent a letter to President Obama about Afghanistan, eerily similar to the one PNAC sent Clinton calling for regime change in Iraq in 1998. It praises Obama's escalation in Afghanistan before calling on him to expand the war even further:

Among the usual neocon suspects who signed the letter praising Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan was none other than foreign policy expert Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, the Neocons & Howard Dean Love the War in Afghanistan | World | AlterNet. Now Howard Dean is appearing on Fox "News" agreeing with Palin that the war in Afghanistan must be pursued?   Oddly enough, he even argued (like Dubya) that the US is pursuing the war to "liberate" women.  Huh?  If we're so interested in "liberating" Afghani women, wouldn't money spent on schools, health centers, and safe drinking water be more useful than killing people (including women)?  Can you imagine a bunch of neocons and Howard Dean sitting around a table saying "US foreign policy should be motivated by the feminist goals of women's liberation from patriarchy"?  That's about as believable as Sarah Palin being an expert on foreign policy. When will these damn neocons be forced to admit that they were wrong- about the wars, about health care, about being mean to everyone who is not "one of them"- you know, the queers and the poor and the of color.   Only by admitting the political and economic policies of the past thirty years, the policies of meanness and military might, are wrong, can we move onto re-fashioning a new America.  Sadly, we can never move past the Neocon madness  if the likes of Howard Dean keep getting in bed with them.

It ' s time to prosecute Cheney for war crimes

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Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, posted a summary of Dick Cheney's many crimes on alternet this weekend.  McGovern does a remarkable job pointing out that Cheney is guilty of a lot more than lying to Congress about torture (as if torturing prisoners were not enough reason to send him to jail). Cheney is actually guilty of lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. It was never about a threat to the US, but the desire for "regime change", a base in the oil-rich Middle East, and gee, maybe billions of dollars for military contractors like Haliburton. Could Dick Cheney Go to Prison? | Take Action. Unlike the mainstream press, McGovern's group is focusing on Cheney's lies about Iraq.

Cheney's key role in purveying lies to get our representatives in Congress to approve a war that qualifies for what the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal called the "supreme international crime" -- a war of aggression.

We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity were on to Cheney very early. Six years ago today, we took the unusual step of sending a formal recommendation to President Bush that he "ask for Cheney's immediate resignation."

Today Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity are continuing to push for the prosecution of Cheney for lying not just about torture, but about the need for invading Iraq in the first place.  In other words, Cheney KNEW full well that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq because the CIA was telling him there were none.  Cheney suppressed that intelligence to concoct a story that no one who knew anything about Iraq believed and then sold it to Congress with a side of BS.

Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, whom Saddam had put in charge of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as missile development, told the United States when he defected in mid-1995 that all (that's right, all) such weapons had been destroyed at his order by the summer of 1991.

In mid-2002, the Iraqi foreign minister, whom CIA operatives had recruited and persuaded to remain in place, was telling us the same thing.

When they briefed the president and his senior advisers on this, CIA operations officers were astonished to learn firsthand that this intelligence was unwelcome.

These officers, who had used every trick in the book to "turn" the foreign minister and get him working for us, were told that further reporting from this source was not needed: "This isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change," they were told.

Obviously Congress should never have believed Cheney, but they did and the result has been well over a million deaths because of the war in Iraq (not to mention generations of disease due to Depleted Uranium weapons and the obvious psychological problems created by state violence).

The current political regime and the mainstream media cannot continue to ignore the fact that there was a lot more than a few lies to supposedly increase national security by getting information from prisoners.  In fact, there were lies to justify the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.  What we need is a new Nuremberg Trial with Cheney (and Bush and Rumsfeld) held accountable for crimes against humanity.

It ' s time to prosecute Cheney for war crimes

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, posted a summary of Dick Cheney's many crimes on alternet this weekend.  McGovern does a remarkable job pointing out that Cheney is guilty of a lot more than lying to Congress about torture (as if torturing prisoners were not enough reason to send him to jail). Cheney is actually guilty of lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. It was never about a threat to the US, but the desire for "regime change", a base in the oil-rich Middle East, and gee, maybe billions of dollars for military contractors like Haliburton. Could Dick Cheney Go to Prison? | Take Action. Unlike the mainstream press, McGovern's group is focusing on Cheney's lies about Iraq.

Cheney's key role in purveying lies to get our representatives in Congress to approve a war that qualifies for what the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal called the "supreme international crime" -- a war of aggression.

We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity were on to Cheney very early. Six years ago today, we took the unusual step of sending a formal recommendation to President Bush that he "ask for Cheney's immediate resignation."

Today Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity are continuing to push for the prosecution of Cheney for lying not just about torture, but about the need for invading Iraq in the first place.  In other words, Cheney KNEW full well that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq because the CIA was telling him there were none.  Cheney suppressed that intelligence to concoct a story that no one who knew anything about Iraq believed and then sold it to Congress with a side of BS.

Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, whom Saddam had put in charge of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as missile development, told the United States when he defected in mid-1995 that all (that's right, all) such weapons had been destroyed at his order by the summer of 1991.

In mid-2002, the Iraqi foreign minister, whom CIA operatives had recruited and persuaded to remain in place, was telling us the same thing.

When they briefed the president and his senior advisers on this, CIA operations officers were astonished to learn firsthand that this intelligence was unwelcome.

These officers, who had used every trick in the book to "turn" the foreign minister and get him working for us, were told that further reporting from this source was not needed: "This isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change," they were told.

Obviously Congress should never have believed Cheney, but they did and the result has been well over a million deaths because of the war in Iraq (not to mention generations of disease due to Depleted Uranium weapons and the obvious psychological problems created by state violence).

The current political regime and the mainstream media cannot continue to ignore the fact that there was a lot more than a few lies to supposedly increase national security by getting information from prisoners.  In fact, there were lies to justify the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.  What we need is a new Nuremberg Trial with Cheney (and Bush and Rumsfeld) held accountable for crimes against humanity.