ANCHORS: ALAN MURRAY

BODY: ALAN MURRAY, host:

Americans will celebrate their independence this weekend with fireworks and festivities. There's also fear of terrorism and concern about scores of troops still in harm's way in Iraq. Joining me now with some perspective is presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, also a professor at the University of New Orleans.

And, Douglas, we saw after September 11th once again what a patriotic people Americans are. But when you have a war that some people disagree with, it gets more complicated, doesn't it?

Mr. DOUGLAS BRINKLEY (Presidential Historian): Well, certainly. As you say, after September 11th, it was the American flag everywhere, on lapels, in front yards, bumper stickers, and that's continued. If you watch, most politicians today still wear the American flag pin on their lapel. But clearly, this year, more and more people are getting angry about what's happening in Iraq. They don't think we should be there. The country's clearly divided on that issue. And we've got only a few months until a presidential election, and the poll numbers show Bush and Kerry even, so there's some contention out there this July Fourth.

MURRAY: But, you know, some of this goes back, clearly, to Vietnam, when patriotism began to be equated with sort of 'America, right or wrong' attitudes. There's no particular reason why you can't disagree with some aspect of our foreign policy and wave the flag, and love the Fourth of July, is there?

Mr. BRINKLEY: Well, of course. I mean, dissent was what our country was--we were born--we were the cradle of dissent. Our so-called Founding Fathers, be it, you know, Thomas Payne or Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin--you could read off all those names. They were here breaking away from Great Britain, believing that individuals had the rights of free speech, that we had the right for representation if we were going to be taxed and to speak out. And clearly, that is a great, great tradition, and I can't think of anything more on July Fourth than speaking one's mind as patriotic as blowing off fireworks....

Fred Anderson, a professor of history at the University of Colorado, and the co-author of the forthcoming Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000, in the NYT (July 3, 2004):

Because the Fourth of July commemorates the birth of our Republic, we might easily imagine that the holiday had a central importance in the lives of the men who made the Revolution. For many, it did. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, mortally ill, clung to life until July 4, 1826, in order to see the 50th anniversary of independence. Jefferson's last words bespoke his determination:"Is it the Fourth?"

An intense focus on"the Glorious Fourth" characterized the 1820's, when the passing of the revolutionary generation gave Independence Day the kind of emotional resonance we have lately seen in World War II commemorations. Yet for George Washington, at least, the Fourth of July seems never to have been as significant a date as the third.

Indeed, in a letter Washington wrote on July 20, 1776, as he awaited the British invasion of New York, he made no mention of the independence proclaimed two weeks earlier, but noted only his"grateful remembrance" of"escape" at the battle of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. That defeat, in which a French and Indian force wiped out a third of Washington's Virginia Regiment, helped precipitate the 18th century's greatest conflict, the Seven Years' War.

Because France and Britain and their allies fought in North America, the West Indies, Europe, Africa, India and the Philippines, some have called it the first world war. Today Americans barely remember it, and know it (if they speak of it at all) only as the French and Indian War.

In fact this great war was a watershed in North American history. It began when Washington, acting in the name of King George II (and also on behalf of the land-speculating gentry of Virginia), tried to exert military control over the forks of the Ohio River, where Pittsburgh now stands. Because the river represented the main avenue to the heart of the continent, the empire that controlled the forks would in all likelihood determine North America's future.

The French, whose fragmented settlements stretched from the St. Lawrence River to the Mississippi River, understood this only too well. They also understood wilderness warfare much better than Colonel Washington, and had little trouble trapping him and his men in Fort Necessity, a pathetic stockade near what is now Farmington, Pa. At the end of a murderous day, Washington had no choice but to accept the terms of surrender that the enemy commander dictated in the rain-drenched dusk of July 3, 1754.... [Eventually, the British prevailed after a hard-fought war.]

The French and Indian War had convinced the colonists that they had achieved full partnership in a British empire that stood for liberty and individual rights — especially property rights — under the rule of law. When Parliament tried to impose order on the colonists between 1763 and 1775, however, it treated them not as partners but as mere subjects.

The colonists' sense of betrayal was palpable not because they understood themselves as Americans at the time, but because they saw themselves as British patriots who had shed their blood to preserve the rights that Parliament now seemed determined to destroy. ...

The 250th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Necessity reminds us that imperial victories can endanger the victor as much as the vanquished. Success in the Seven Years' War convinced Britain's leaders that their nation possessed the world's greatest military power. From that accurate perception, they drew the fatal inference that they had nothing to lose by using force against colonists whose genuine affection for British institutions, rights and liberties had hitherto constituted the empire's strongest bond.

In this light, the Revolution can be seen as an unintended and perhaps paradoxical consequence of imperial victory: an empire shattered when leaders, backed by tremendous military might, failed to understand that their only enduring basis of control lay in the consent of the governed.

Political Scientist Stephen R. Shalom, in Tom Engelhardt's TomDispatch (July 1, 2004):

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

1. How has the current King George shown his"decent respect for the opinions of mankind"?

a. He went to war against Iraq despite overwhelming popular opposition around the world and despite the absence of any UN authorization. (The percentage of the population supporting unilateral war by the United States and its allies was 3% in Argentina, 10% in Britain, 5% in Bulgaria, 8% in India, 3% in Malaysia, 9% in South Africa, 4% in Spain, 5% in Switzerland, and so on.)

b. He has pursued policies that have led huge majorities in many countries to have a negative opinion of him (in March 2004, 85% unfavorable in Germany and France, 55% in Britain, 90% in Morocco, and 96% in Jordan).

c. He dismissed the largest protests in world history in which many millions of people opposed his Iraq war plans, declaring,"You know, the size of protests is like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group."

d. He ignored the United Nations' refusal to authorize war against Iraq by proclaiming that"America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

e. All of the above.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

2. How has the current King George shown his belief in the consent of the governed?

a. He took office after his cronies in Florida disenfranchised tens of thousands of African Americans who were legally entitled to vote in the 2000 election.

b. He handpicked an Iraqi leader -- who had worked for the CIA and had engaged in terrorism on its behalf in Iraq in the 1990s -- even though that leader was disapproved of by 61% of the Iraqi population.

c. After a failed coup attempt backed by Washington against Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, an administration official stated that, although Chavez had been"democratically elected," one had to bear in mind that"legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters."

d. Bush extended long-standing U.S.-Israeli opposition to self-determination for the Palestinian people by endorsing for the first time Israel's permanent retention of major illegal settlement blocs on the West Bank.

e. All of the above.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

3. How has the current King George furthered our safety and happiness?

a. In the two years since September 11, 2001, less potential nuclear weapons material that might fall into the hands of terrorists has been secured than was secured in the two years prior to the attacks.

b. Significant terrorist attacks were at a 20-year high in 2003 and there were more than twice as many terrorist attacks attributed to al Qaeda-linked or identified groups since 9/11 as in their entire pre-9/11 history.

c. Former CIA director George J. Tenet said in February 2004 that the world was at least as ''fraught with dangers for American interests'' as it was before the Iraq war began.

d. The Bush administration is planning to deploy a national missile defense system later this year, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that will fuel the global arms race, does not work (the system has been put through only 8 unrealistic tests, and failed 3 of them), ignores real threats (like port security), and, in the words of 31 former government officials, is a"sham" that"will provide no real defense."

e. All of the above.

... He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

4. In the United States there is supposed to be a"volunteer" military. How has the current King George dealt with this force?

a. He has ordered some soldiers' tours of duty to be involuntarily extended by as much as 18 months.

b. His White House budget office issued a memo calling for more than $900 million in cuts from veterans programs after the election.

c. His"No Child Left Behind" education law requires high schools to provide military recruiters with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of their students -- which the military hopes will"boost" recruitment.

d. Rather than withdrawing troops from Iraq and saving lives, both U.S. and Iraqi, he has ordered that the media may not show pictures of the flag-draped caskets of dead soldiers.

e. All of the above.

...For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

5. How has the current King George tried to protect soldiers who commit crimes?

a. He has refused to permit the United States to adhere to the International Criminal Court and has successfully pressured large numbers of allied countries to agree never to invoke its provisions against US troops.

b. After failing to get his third consecutive Security Council grant of immunity for U.S. troops, he had his top official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, unilaterally extend Order 17, which immunizes U.S. and other coalition forces from Iraqi legal process.

c. He has blamed"a few bad apples" for the torture and murders that have taken place in our offshore prison system, rather than acknowledging that, as Human Rights Watch has stated,"This pattern of abuse did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside."

d. He has refused to declassify many relevant documents on the subject of torture deliberations within the administration, but documents that have been leaked or made public show that government lawyers advised: (1) interrogators who torture al Qaeda or Taliban captives could be exempt from prosecution under the president's powers as commander in chief; (2) it's not torture if the interrogator knows that his or her actions will cause severe pain and suffering but doesn't specifically intend to cause severe pain and suffering; and (3) it's not torture unless the level of physical pain inflicted is equivalent to that of"organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

e. All of the above.

...For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

6. What are the features of the current King George's tax policies?

a. Taxes have been cut 12% for the very rich, 7% for the middle class, and 3% for the poor.

b. The middle class and poor will lose more from government spending cuts than they gain from the tax cuts.

c. According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, when a new tax cut for the rich was proposed, Bush asked his advisers,"Didn't we already give them a break at the top?" -- though the president soon endorsed the cut -- and when O'Neill warned that new tax cuts would be economically unsound, Vice President Dick Cheney told him:"We won the midterms [elections]. This is our due."

d. His administration gave a $10 billion homeland security contract to a subsidiary of Accenture, the former consulting arm of Arthur Anderson & Co. which moved to Bermuda to avoid paying U.S. taxes, and then the administration got the House of Representatives to reverse its ban on giving such contracts to offshore tax avoiders.

e. All of the above.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

7. Which of the following are characteristics of justice under the current King George?

a. He has transported people across the seas to the U.S.-occupied military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to a host of detention facilities around the world, known and unknown, where people have not been tried or even charged with offenses, whether real or pretended.

b. Of the more than 5,000 foreign nationals arrested in the United States since 9/11 in anti-terrorist"preventive detention," only three have been charged with any terrorist crime; of these, two were acquitted and the third was convicted only after the main prosecution witness lied on the stand.

c. According to information U.S. military intelligence officials gave to the Red Cross, 70-90% of the people imprisoned in Iraq were arrested in error.

d. He has turned prisoners over to the custody of foreign governments -- such as Canadian citizen Maher Arar who was arrested in the U.S., denied a lawyer, and sent to Syria for 10 months of torture. As one U.S. official explained,"We don't kick the
s[hit] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s[hit] out of them."

e. All of the above.

...He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

8. How has the current King George plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, and destroyed our cities and people?

a. He has leased an area for oil and natural gas drilling just 100 miles off the coast of Florida, endangering the state's beaches, and has favored an energy bill that would empower the Secretary of the Interior to allow offshore drilling in areas currently subject to drilling moratoria.

b. He has rejected the Kyoto Protocol which would address to some degree the problem of global warming, a major cause of coastal erosion.

c. His administration is calling for deep cuts in the funding of housing vouchers for the poor and changes in the program that are"more sweeping and threatening to the low-income families and elderly and disabled people whom the program serves [than]... any proposal advanced by any prior Administration" since the voucher program was created under President Nixon. This would devastate low-income families and the cities in which they live.

d. His plan to deal with pollution from coal-burning power plants will lead to 8,000 additional deaths per year compared to a competing plan, according to a study by the mainstream research firm, Abt Associates.

e. All of the above.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

9. How has the current King George, who once said"America must never outsource America's national security," used mercenaries, foreign and domestic?

a. There are some 15,000-20,000 private" contract employees" in security roles in Iraq -- mercenaries -- making them the second largest military force in the country, after the U.S. armed forces, and making Iraq the biggest market ever for private military services.

b. Among the tasks assigned by the U.S. to mercenaries has been the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners, which has led to the widespread use of torture, for which private contractors cannot easily be brought to justice. As one commentator noted,"This legal grey zone may well not be entirely accidental, of course. It means that private contractors can be used to do dirty work for the military or the CIA with plausible deniability and relative immunity."

c. Among the mercenaries recruited for service in Iraq have been former assassins for the apartheid regime in South Africa, veterans of the Chilean military under Pinochet and the Serbian military under Milosevic, the commander of a murderous military unit in Northern Ireland, arms smugglers, and coup plotters.

d. Scholar Deborah Avant of George Washington University noted that because of private security firms,"leaders in Washington and other Western capitals now have the freedom to intervene abroad and pay little domestic political price. ...'it's certainly a factor that allows countries, including the United States, to do things when there simply isn't widespread public support.'"

e. All of the above.

...A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

10. Which of the following acts show that the current King George is unfit to be the ruler of a free people?

a. He has systematically deceived the American people to lead us into war and for other nefarious purposes.

b. He has raised government secrecy to new heights, denying the people, the Congress, and the courts the ability to oversee the operations of the executive branch.

c. According to Amnesty International,"The global security agenda promoted by the U.S. Administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place."

d. He has attacked working people (for example, issuing regulations that would allow millions of workers to be deprived of overtime pay), women (appointing judges hostile to reproductive rights), gay men and lesbians (calling for an amendment banning same-sex marriage), and racial and ethnic minorities (opposing affirmative action).

e. All of the above and much, much more.

Answers and Sources

"E. All of the above." is the answer to each question.

1.

a. Gallup International Iraq Poll 2003, Jan. 2003 (zip file). In the U.S., 33% favored war without UN authorization. In no other country surveyed did more than 20% of the population favor unilateral war.

b. Pew Global Attitudes Project,"A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust Of America In Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists: A Nine-Country Survey," Washington, DC: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 3/16/04 (pdf).

c."President unbowed by protests," Seattle Times, 2/19/03, p. A1.

d. State of the Union Address, Jan. 20, 2004.

2.

a. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election," Washington, DC: June 2001.

b. "Public Opinion in Iraq: First Poll Following Abu Ghraib Revelations, Baghdad, Basrah, Mosul, Hillah, Diwaniyah, Baqubah, 14-23 May 2004," 6/15/04, p. 15; Joel Brinkley,"Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks," NYT, 6/9/04, p. A1. Washington likes to pretend that UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi chose Allawi, but, as Brahimi noted, U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer"is the dictator of Iraq." Bremer"has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country." The Washington Post adds:"U.S. officials in Baghdad have denied that the occupation authority exerted pressure or sought to promote certain candidates over others. But Iraqis involved in the process said that Bremer and White House envoy Robert D. Blackwill backed Iyad Allawi for prime minister over other candidates because Allawi was regarded as more sympathetic to the Bush administration's desire to maintain full U.S. control over troops in Iraq." Rajiv Chandrasekaran,"Envoy Bowed to Pressure in Choosing Leaders," Washington Post (WP), 6/3/04, p. A10.

c. Christopher Marquis,"Bush Officials Met With Venezuelans Who Ousted Leader," New York Times (NYT), 4/16/02, p. A1. A Defense Department official summarized the U.S. role in the coup:"We were not discouraging people," the official said."We were sending informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, 'No, don't you dare,' and we weren't advocates saying, 'Here's some arms; we'll help you overthrow this guy.' We were not doing that."

d. Elisabeth Bumiller,"In Major Shift, Bush Endorses Sharon Plan and Backs Keeping Some Israeli Settlements," NYT, 4/15/04, p. A6. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry rushed to add his voice of endorsement to the Bush-Sharon announcement: Dana Milbank and Mike Allen,"Move Could Help Bush Among Jewish Voters," WP, 4/15/04, p. A16.

3.

a. Matthew Bunn And Anthony Wier, Securing The Bomb: An Agenda For Action, Project On Managing The Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, May 2004 (pdf).

b. Farah Stockman,"State Dept. Doubles '03 Terrorism Death Toll," Boston Globe (BG), 6/23/04, p. A8; Audrey Kurth Cronin, Congressional Research Service, memorandum to the House Government Reform Committee,"Terrorist Attacks by Al Qaeda," 3/31/04 (pdf).

c. Douglas Jehl,"Tenet Says Dangers to U.S. Are at Least as Great as a Year Ago," NYT, 2/25/04, p. A15.

d. Steven Weinberg,"Can Missile Defense Work?," New York Review of Books, 2/14/02, pp. 41-47; Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation In cooperation with the Center for Defense Information (CDI) and the Union of Concerned Scientists, Briefing Book on Ballistic Missile Defense, May 2004 (pdf); CDI, "On Eve Of Key Defense Authorization Vote, 31 Former Government Officials Call Missile Defense Deployment 'Sham'," 5/7/04.

4.

a. David Lamb,"When the Army Won't Let Go; With stop-loss orders extending tours up to 18 months, GIs banking on going home grapple with heading back to combat in Iraq instead," Los Angeles Times (LAT), 6/17/04, p. A20.

b. Jonathan Weisman,"2006 Cuts in Domestic Spending on Table," WP, 5/27/04, p. A1.

c. Susan Milligan,"Military Recruiters Getting A Foot In Door Federal Education Bill Requires High Schools To Share Student Data," BG, 11/21/02, p. A3. Some school systems have been resisting: see, e.g., Tamar Lewin,"Uncle Sam Wants Student Lists, and Schools Fret," NYT, 1/29/04, p. B10; Fred Alvarez,"Veterans Group Fights Policy That Gives Student Data to Recruiters," LAT, 4/18/04, p. B5.

d. Dana Milbank,"Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins," WP, 10/21/03, p. A23; Sheryl Gay Stolberg,"Senate Backs Ban on Photos of G.I. Coffins," NYT, 6/22/04, p. A17.

5.

a. Human Rights Watch (HRW), "The United States and the International Criminal Court"; HRW, "United States Efforts to Undermine the International Criminal Court: Legal Analysis of Impunity Agreements," Sept. 2002; HRW,"Bilateral Immunity Agreements," 6/20/03 (pdf). Not all of the agreements are publicly announced; for the latest list of bilateral immunity agreements, see Coalition for the International Criminal Court,"Status Of US Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs)," as of 6/15/04 (pdf).

b. Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17 (Revised),"Status of the Coalition Provisional Authority, MNF - Iraq, Certain Missions and Personnel in Iraq, 6/27/04 (pdf).

c. HRW, "The Road to Abu Ghraib," June 2004.

d. Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzalez, Counsel to the President, 8/1/02 (pdf); Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism, "Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations," 3/6/03; HRW, "U.S.: Released Documents on Torture Not Sufficient," 6/23/04.

6.

a. Citizens for Tax Justice,"Overall Tax Rates Have Flattened Sharply Under Bush," 4/13/04 (pdf).

b. William G. Gale, Peter R. Orszag, and Isaac Shapiro, "The Ultimate Burden of the Tax Cuts: Once the Tax Cuts are Paid For, Low- and Middle-Income Households Likely to Be Net Losers, on Average," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and Tax Policy Center (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution), 6/2/04.

c. Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004, pp. 299, 291.

d."House Reverses Bar on Security Project for Accenture," Wall Street Journal, 6/17/04, p. A6.

7.

a. Human Rights First, Ending Secret Detentions, New York: June 2004 (pdf).

b. David Cole,"Outlaws on Torture," The Nation, 6/28/04, p. 8.

c. Frances Williams,"Most detainees in Iraq arrested by mistake, says Red Cross," Financial Times, 5/11/04, p. 10.

d. Christopher H. Pyle,"Torture by proxy: How immigration threw a traveler to the wolves," San Francisco Chronicle (SFC), 1/4/04, p. D1. See also DeNeen L. Brown and Dana Priest,"Deported Terror Suspect Details Torture in Syria," WP, 11/5/03, p. A1; the legal complaint filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Maher Arar v. Ashcroft et al., 1/22/04; and William F. Schulz, et al., Letter to Department of Defense General Counsel Haynes, 11/17/03.

8.

a. League of Conservation Voters (LCV), "Unambiguous Facts: The Bush Record on Florida Offshore Drilling," May 2004. LCV has been criticized by some (e.g., Factcheck.org), but see LCV, "Florida Drilling Ad: Script and Facts," and letter from Mark P. Longabaugh to Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 5/27/04 (pdf).

b. K. Zhang K., B.C. Douglas, and S.P. Leatherman,"Global Warming and Coastal Erosion," Climatic Change, vol. 64, no. 1-2, May 2004, pp. 41-58; Andrew C. Revkin,"Bush's Shift Could Doom Air Pact, Some Say," NYT, 3/17/01, p, A7.

c Barbara Sard and Will Fischer "Administration Seeks Deep Cuts in Housing Vouchers and Conversion of Program to a Block Grant," revised 3/24/04, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

d. Michael Janofsky,"Study Ranks Bush Plan to Cut Air Pollution as Weakest of 3," NYT, 6/10/04, p. A16.

9 (Bush quoted in Peter W. Singer, "Outsourcing the War,"Salon.com, 4/16/04.)

a. Peter W. Singer, "Warriors for Hire in Iraq,"Salon.com, 4/15/04; Peter W. Singer, "Beyond the Law,"Guardian, 5/3/04; P.W. Singer,"A Privatized Military Industry Is Taking Over the Work of War," BG, 10/19/03, p. L12.

b. Peter W. Singer, "Beyond the Law,"Guardian, 5/3/04; Julian Borger, "The Danger of Market Forces,"Guardian Unlimited, 5/6/04.

c. Julian Rademeyer, "Iraq victim was top-secret apartheid killer,"Sunday Times (South Africa), 4/18/04; Louis Nevaer, "Here Come the Death Squad Veterans,"Alternet, 6/16/04; Charles M. Sennott,"Security Firm's $293m Deal Under Scrutiny," BG, 6/22/04, p. A1; Jonathan Franklin,"US contractor recruits guards for Iraq in Chile," Guardian, 3/5/04, p. 14; Antony Barnett, Solomon Hughes and Jason Burke,"Mercenaries in 'coup plot' guarded UK officials in Iraq," Observer, 6/6/04, p. 12.

d. Robert Collier,"Global security firms fill in as private armies," SFC, 3/28/04, p. A1.

10.

a. See David Corn, The Lies of George Bush, Mastering the Politics of Deception, updated edition; U.S. House Of Representatives, Committee On Government Reform -- Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division, Iraq On The Record: The Bush Administrations Public Statements On Iraq. Prepared For Rep. Henry A. Waxman, 3/16/04 (pdf).

b. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Assessing The New Normal: Liberty and Security for the Post-September 11 United States, New York: Sept. 2003, chapter 1: Open Government (pdf).

c. Amnesty International, "Report 2004: War on global values -- attacks by armed groups and governments fuel mistrust, fear and division," press release, 5/26/2004.

d. See Ross Eisenbrey, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, 5/4/04; NARAL Pro-Choice America, "The Real Judicial Selection Crisis: The Bush Administrations Bid to Force an Anti-Choice Majority," 5/1/02; "NARAL Pro-Choice America Releases New Study Detailing the Growing Threat to Right to Choose by Bush Judicial Nominees," 5/9/03; the White House, "President calls for an amendment banning gay marriage," 2/24/04; Citizens' Commission On Civil Rights,"The Bush Administration v. Affirmative Action: Justice Department Drags Feet on Upholding Court Ruling," Washington, DC: 12/9/03 (pdf); Leadership Conference On Civil Rights Education Fund, The Bush Administration Takes Aim: Civil Rights Under Attack, Washington, DC: April 2003 (pdf).

Fran Shor, a teacher at Wayne State University, in an article sent to HNN (July 1, 2004):

Michael Moore’s powerful new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, certainly skewers Bush and his mendacious Administration. Starting with a critical retrospective of the hijacking of the 2000 Presidential election, the film reveals Bush’s ineptitude, cronyism, and callousness. It is hard to imagine how anyone, even an erstwhile Bush supporter, could defend the actions and inactions of this malingering and malicious occupant of the White House.

On the other hand, Moore’s documentary does not spare the Democrats from their moments of infamy. Reminding viewers that the Gore campaign and Democratic Party officials failed to successfully confront the Republican putsch in Florida, the film also highlights the valiant efforts of some of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to challenge the electoral results in the mandatory joint-session of Congress required to certify the electoral vote. Rep. Maxine Waters angrily acknowledges the lack of a single Senator, including the sainted Senator Paul Wellstone, who would sign-on to the electoral challenge and throw the final decision into the Senate.

If the Democratic Party herd refused to budge on electoral certification, they willingly joined the stampede to pass the repressive USA Patriot Act. While a few House Democrats and a single Democratic Senator (Russell Finegold of Wisconsin) did oppose this hastily proposed reactionary bill, the Democratic Party choose political expediency over political integrity.

It was, undoubtedly, expediency and opportunism that led many Democrats, including the presumptive presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, into supporting the Bush Administration’s lying arguments for its illegal preemptive war on Iraq. While Kerry now admits that the American people were misled and the Bush Administration has botched the war effort, he has not broken convincingly with this flawed interventionist policy in Iraq. Can he find the courage to confront the grieving parents of fallen U.S. soldiers, such as the film’s real protagonist, Lila Lipscomb, and denounce the flawed logic behind the war, as well as calling for removing U.S. troops from Iraq as quickly as possible?

Unfortunately, Kerry’s reliance on a so-called centrist foreign policy team may help him with the ruling elites in Washington, but it won’t respond to the cries and demands of parents, soldiers, and a majority of the American population who now say that it was a mistake to send troops into Iraq. Kerry’s reluctance to tap into the populist outrage over the war is further reflected in the resistance of senior members of the Democratic Party to impeach Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his Pentagon crew who are responsible for violating everything from the Geneva Convention to lying to Congress time and again. Perhaps, Senator Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, should listen to the soldier who bravely announces in Fahrenheit 9/11 that Rumsfeld should be fired, a position enunciated by many other members of the military.

Juan Cole, in In These Times (June 22, 2004):

The so-called transition to sovereignty for Iraq set for June 30 [actually held on June 28] has been trumpeted as a turning point by the Bush administration. It is hard to see, however, what exactly it changes. A symbolic act like a turnover of sovereignty cannot supply security, which is likely to deteriorate further as insurgents attempt to destabilize the new, weak government. The caretaker government, appointed by outsiders, does not represent the will of the Iraqi people. Some 138,000 U.S. troops remain in the country and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad will be the largest in the world, both of which bode ill for any exercise of genuine sovereignty by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

The caretaker government faces five key issues, any one of which could be destabilizing. It must jumpstart the creation of an Iraqi army that could hope to restore security. It must find a way to hold free and fair elections by next January, a difficult trick to pull off given the daily toll of bombings and assassinations. It must get hospitals, water treatment plants and other essential services back to acceptable levels. It must keep the country’s various factions from fighting one another or from pulling away in a separatist drive. And it must negotiate between religious and secularist political forces.

The issue of separatism already has arisen. The U.N. resolution that created the new government neglected to mention the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) or temporary constitution passed by the Interim Governing Council under American auspices in February. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of most of Iraq’s majority Shiite population, had warned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan against endorsing that document. The TAL calls for a secular legal code and gives the minority Kurds a veto over the permanent constitution, to be hammered out by an elected parliament in spring of 2005. Sistani objects to the Kurds’ veto. The major Kurdish leaders, for their part, worry that the United Nations and the Bush administration might go back on the promises made to the Kurds of semi-autonomy and special minority rights. Some angrily threatened to secede from Iraq if that should happen. The creation of the caretaker government, which was supposed to help resolve problems of instability, instead has provoked a major crisis with one major Iraqi ethnic group.

Early last January a member of the U.S.-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) in Iraq, Mahmoud Osman, gave a revealing interview to Al-Hayat of London. He said that officials of the Bush administration in Iraq had been “extremely offended” when the IGC called for U.N. involvement in the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. The administration, he explained, did not want any international actor to participate in this process; rather it wanted to reap the benefits in order to increase President Bush’s political stock in the months leading up to the November election. He added: “The fundamental issue for Iraqis is the return of sovereignty. The Americans are in a hurry for it, as well, though for their own interests. The important thing for the Americans is to ensure the reelection of George Bush. The achievement of a specific accomplishment in Iraq, such as the transfer of power, increases, in the eyes of the Republican Party, the chances that Bush will be reelected.”

In the end, Sistani and other Iraqi politicians forced Bush to involve the United Nations and to seek a Security Council resolution. He also was forced to give away far more actual sovereignty to the caretaker government than he would have liked in order to get the U.N. resolution he had not originally wanted. In particular, the U.S. military must now consult with the Iraqi government before undertaking major military actions.

But is the turnover really much of an accomplishment? All that has happened is that the Bush administration worked with special U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to appoint the four top officers of state and the cabinet ministers. This group of appointees will then be declared the sovereign government of Iraq.

Iraq already had the U.S.-appointed IGC, consisting of 25 Iraqi politicians, many of them longtime expatriates associated with significant Iraq parties or ethnic constituencies. They had in turn already appointed cabinet ministers. Why is a second appointed government better? Moreover, the overlap between the two is substantial. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the leader of the Iraqi National Accord, a group of ex-Baath officers and officials who had fallen out with Saddam, was an influential member of the IGC. Allawi’s group engaged in terrorist actions against the Saddam regime with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency. Consequently, his emergence as prime minister is something of an embarrassment to both countries. And it was Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord that also provided false intelligence to the Bush administration and the Blair government about the dangers of Saddam’s regime....

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (June 29, 2004):

Two patterns have shaped Israel's history since 1992 and go far to explain Israel's predicament today. First, every elected prime minister has broken his word on how he would deal with the Arabs. Second, each one of them has adopted a unexpectedly concessionary approach.

Here is one example of deception from each of the four prime ministers:

• Yitzhak Rabin promised the Israeli public immediately after winning office in June 1992 that"with the PLO as an organization, I will not negotiate." A year later, however, he did precisely that. Rabin defended dealing with Yasir Arafat by saying he had found no other Palestinians to do business with, so to"advance peace and find a solution," he had to turn to the PLO.
• Benjamin Netanyahu promised before his election in 1996 that under his leadership, Israel"will never descend from the Golan." In 1998, however, as I established in The New Republic and Bill Clinton just confirmed in his memoirs, Netanyahu changed his mind and planned to offer Damascus the entire Golan in return for a peace treaty.
• Ehud Barakflat-out promised during his May 1999 campaign a"Jerusalem, united and under our rule forever, period." In July 2000, however, at the Camp David II summit, he offered much of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.
• Ariel Sharon won a landslide victory in January 2003 over his Labor opponent, Amram Mitzna, who called for"evacuating the settlements from Gaza." Mr. Sharon ridiculed this approach, saying that it"would bring the terrorism centers closer to [Israel's] population centers." In December 2003, however, Mr. Sharon adopted Mitzna's unilateral withdrawal idea.

Prime ministers sometimes complain about other ones breaking their word. Mr. Netanyahu, for example, pointed out in August 1995 that Rabin had"promised in his election campaign not to talk with the PLO, not to give up territory during this term of office, and not to establish a Palestinian state. He is breaking all these promises one by one." Of course, when he got to office, Mr. Netanyahu also broke his promises"one by one."

What prompts each of Israel's recent prime ministers to renege on his resolute intentions and instead adopt a policy of unilateral concessions?

In some cases, it is a matter of expediency, notably for Mr. Netanyahu, who believed his reelection chances improved via a deal with the Syrian government. In other cases, there are elements of duplicity – specifically, hiding planned concessions knowing their unpopularity with the voters. Yossi Beilin, one of Mr. Barak's ministers, admitted during the Camp David II summit that he and others in the government had earlier concealed their willingness to divide Jerusalem."We didn't speak about this in the election campaign, because we knew that the public would not like it."

But expediency and duplicity are just part of the story. In addition, sincere aspirations inspire Israeli prime ministers to abandon strong policies for weak ones. Here we leave the political domain and enter the psychological one. Being prime minister of Israel, a country surrounded by enemies, is a weighty one. It is only too easy for the officeholder, having been elected leader of his people, immodestly to believe that he has a special talent to resolve his country's great, abiding, and potentially fatal problem, that of Arab hostility.

Not for this great man is it enough to plug away at the dull, slow, expensive, and passive policy of deterrence, hoping some distant day to win Arab acceptance. His impatience invariably leads in the same direction – to move things faster, to develop solutions, and to"take chances for peace."

If the prime minister's initiative succeeds, he wins international acclaim and enters the Jewish history books. If it fails – well, it was worth the try and his successors can clean up the mess.

Grandiosity and egoism, ultimately, explain the prime ministerial pattern of going soft. This brings to mind how, for centuries, French kings and presidents have bequeathed grand construction projects in Paris as their personal mark on history. In like spirit, Israeli prime ministers have since 1992 dreamed of bequeathing a grand diplomatic project.

The problem is, these are undemocratic impulses that betray the electorate, undermine faith in government, and erode Israel's position. These negative trends will continue until Israelis elect a modest prime minister.

The cause of most of what's destructive in both our culture wars and our foreign ones lies in a consumer marketing that is ever more relentless, intimately titillating, and degrading, as well as demoralizing of the young. It drives the public deconstruction we've all been witnessing -- the deconstruction of essential republican decencies, privacies, and, yes, taboos, a supposed"liberation" devoid of public purpose. It is especially powerful in its de-formative influence on a new generation's sense of mutual trust and self-respect....

Garry Wills, in the NYT (July 27, 2004):

Catholic bishops recently met and sought the best way to enforce" church teaching" with Catholic politicians who fail to oppose laws that allow abortion. Some critics of the bishops see this as a violation of the separation of church and state. Both sides are working from misconceptions. Abortion is not a church issue, so what the bishops have to say about it cannot be an intrusion of the church into state concerns. Abortion is, admittedly, a moral issue — but not one that can be settled by theology or by religious authority.

Modern"right to life" issues — abortion and contraception — are nowhere mentioned in either Jewish or Christian Scripture. Pope Pius XI said they were, in his encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), where Onan's"spilling his seed on the ground" (and the reason for his punishment by God) was interpreted as preventing conception and birth. Yet no scholar of Scripture accepts that reading of Genesis 38:9 anymore; it is read as referring to levirate marriage duties. The Vatican now agrees with this interpretation. Even in his own sphere, the revealed word of God, the pope could be wrong.

Some, deprived of the Onan text, say that abortion is forbidden by the scriptural commandment"Thou shalt not kill." But that commandment does not cover all human life. My hair and fingernails, while growing, are alive with my own human life. Semen and ova have human life even before their juncture. They continue to have it after mingling — for example, the fertilized ovum that does not lodge itself in the wall of the womb. Yet no attempt is made to retrieve such"dead" detritus and give it decent burial.

So"right to life" as a slogan is a question-begging term. The command not to kill is directed at the killing of persons, and the issue in abortion is this: When does the fetus become a person? The answer to that is not given by church teaching. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, who thought that a soul was infused into the body, could only guess when that infusion took place (and he did not guess"at fertilization"). St. Augustine confessed an agnosticism about the human status of the fetus.

ANN CURRY, anchor:

As you may have heard by now, former President Bill Clinton's memoirs,"My Life," went on sale at book stores at midnight last night. And as people lined up to get their hands on a copy, the details Clinton reveals about his life continue to dominate media coverage. Well, David Maraniss is the author of"First In His Class," a Clinton biography.

David, good morning.

Mr. DAVID MARANISS (Clinton Biographer): Good morning, Ann.

CURRY: Not only was your biography on Bill Clinton critically acclaimed, but, also, you won a Pulitzer covering the Clinton campaign. So you say that this book,"My Life," that Clinton has written, is vintage Clinton. Why?

Mr. MARANISS: Well, I think so. I was one of those people lining up last night, by the way, so I've been up reading it. And I'm absorbed by it. And when I was writing my own biography of him, I was fascinated by the level of self-awareness he had as a young person about his own contradictions. And I think that this book is absorbing and revealing how deeply he dealt with that at a very early age. There is something on page 58 that I think people should actually start the book with, and it's a letter that he--an essay he wrote as a junior in high school about himself. And it begins,"I'm a person motivated and influenced by many diverse forces. I sometimes question the sanity of my existence. I'm a living paradox, deeply religious, but not as convinced of my exact beliefs as I ought to be. Wanting responsibility, yet shirking it. Loving the truth, but oftentimes giving way to falsity. I detest selfishness, but see it in the mirror every day." I think that--that sets this up as a classic human story of someone dealing with their own frailties and trying to succeed and do good in the world. And that's part of the Clinton story. A big part of it.

CURRY: It talks--a big part of the Clinton story, because he does talk in the book, as we've been hearing in all the coverage leading up to the release of this book, about the--his acknowledgement of the parallel lives he lived. Basically, he traced roots back, I understand, to his father's alcoholism and how he would go--be at home at one point with his father and deal with that--that difficulty, and then go to school as if nothing were to happen. But--but, you know, you--you understand him. You covered this man for a long time. D--does he, as far as you can tell in his book, reveal more than we already know about him in terms of his acknowledgment of those parallel lives he lived?

Mr. MARANISS: Well, it's more than he's ever said about it. Whether it's more than we know is another question, because he's been more closely examined in terms of his personal life and his thoughts than probably any president in history. But, you know, that's all from the outside; 95 percent of any human's life is lived internally, inside their brain and, in that sense, we're seeing his own thoughts come out that way and his own revelations. And so I think it's totally worthwhile for that.

CURRY: You--you've also said one of the most honest things you've heard so far has--in all of the coverage leading up to this has been what Bill Clinton said on"60 Minutes" about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, which is--as to why he did it, he said, quote,"Because I could." What do you think this reveals about this man?

Mr. MARANISS: Well, first of all, I think there's far too much made about that one part of this book. I dealt with that myself in my own biography, where people focused just on a few pages of the sex. I think there's a lot more in this book. But I thought that was a very honest answer. It was not that he could get away with it in terms of his presidency, but just that he wasn't thinking. He wasn't thinking about the consequences to his wife or his daughter or his--or his country or his own career. It was just something that he did without thinking. And I think that is the very honest answer that he could have given many years ago.

CURRY: Now, you've read that some of the reviews are--are scathing. The New York Times review calls"My Life""sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull. The sound of one man prattling away not for the reader but himself and some distant recording angel of history." It does appear, I think, to a lot of people, David, that Bill Clinton is trying to define his legacy, that he's preoccupied still today with defining his legacy, and that he cannot feel comfortable letting other people, historians, define what his legacy is. What are your thoughts about these sorts of reviews and this idea?

Mr. MARANISS: Well, Bill Clinton--he has always been seething under the surface about his feelings that he's being misininterpreted or misrepresented. So, of course, he wanted to get this out early. And I think that that critique in The New York Times was true, but it wasn't the whole story. I mean, it is incredibly self-indulgent at times and boring at times. And that's Clinton. He goes on and on and on. But there are also woven through his many interesting stories. And it's all part of his--his attempt to--to define himself. I think every human being has that right, particularly in a memoir. That's what a memoir is, self-definition....