« I Sit and Look Out | Open Thread Main | When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again »
A Few Thoughts from Jeff Lewis
Jeff is a longtime friend of ours and oversees Teresa Heinz’s foundation work. He sent this along a few days ago. I haven’t seen it spread around but he makes some good points. Let’s discuss!
Outspoken spouse a campaign asset
By Jeffrey R. Lewis | Monday, October 1, 2007 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Op-Ed
America is fortunate to have more women - and one man - who have spent time as strategists, creative policy advisers, parents and groundbreakers.
It’s that time again. The new crop of articulate, assertive and opinionated career women - not to mention an ex-president - now campaigning to become first spouse has the news media in a tizzy.
A generation of women who have spent their lives breaking barriers is being hounded by journalists who apparently believe that they should behave more like Bess Truman than the 21st century women they really are.
Is this reporting meant to deepen our understanding of the candidates, their issues and how their families might influence their roles as president? Of course not. The press is simply playing a high-stakes game of “gotcha,” waiting for the less-practiced and less-scripted half of these would-be first duos to utter something that can be ripped out of context and flung across the media-sphere.
We’ve seen this movie before; from Hillary Clinton’s cookie recipes to Laura Bush’s secret smokes, no nit is ever too small to be picked if it goes against type.
We saw this in 2004. After enjoying careers as a translator at the United Nations and as director of foundations with over $1 billion in assets, crusading as an active environmentalist, and spending decades as a mother and political wife, it came as a surprise that the national media expected Teresa Heinz Kerry to suddenly fit herself with a muzzle for the duration of her husband John Kerry’s presidential run, and do little more for the campaign than look adoringly at him every time they appeared on stage.
It wasn’t that Teresa was forbidden from having opinions different from than her husband’s. It was as though this long-time professional woman was simply not allowed to have opinions at all. So what if she’d spent over a decade studying issues related to women’s health or fighting for change in public and private sector pension systems that treat women as an afterthought. She was labeled an “opinionated” woman as though that were some sort of character fault.
Today, America is fortunate to have more women - and one man - who have spent time as strategists, creative policy advisers, parents and groundbreakers. Regardless of party and age, they have staked out a distinctive path, and have with real ideas, real vision and real sense.
Certainly there are political wives who have followed a more traditional path, and who are by nature more reserved and less outspoken. And more power to them - I hope the political press will allow them to be true to themselves. But I am not convinced that the media have matured enough to allow them to do that.
This cycle, Michelle Obama has shown herself to be an articulate spokesperson for her husband’s candidacy and a concerned mom. Her reward? A snarky column in The New York Times [NYT] fretting that Mrs. Obama’s irreverent take on her husband’s reputation is emasculating, and the revolting spectacle of TV talking heads - egged on by the right wing - taking one sentence from a stump speech and trying to spin it into “catfight” between her and Hillary. A catfight? Is this a Seinfeld episode or actual journalism?
In the Clinton camp, the situation is just as bad. Only here the worry is that a president six years out of office will overshadow the powerful two-term senator and front-runner for the Democratic nomination. It’s the same old story, though - the spouse doesn’t do anything until he does something wrong - and it still stars a woman who doesn’t know her place. Only in this case, she’s looking to head the ticket rather than be “running mate.”
In reality, most of the spouses of the leading candidates are personally, professionally and academically accomplished women. Not trophy wives, but women of incredible substance.
As America has a chance to get to know the wives (and a husband) of the candidates for 2008, and as more men realize that our success today is because many of us have great women alongside side us (sometimes dragging us ahead), then collectively we can help bring civility and respect back to the political arena and teach our children that the freedom of speech and expression by political spouses should be valued and cherished, not ridiculed!
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1035133
Related Articles:
44 Comments
Leave a comment
Not registered? Click on 'Sign-in' above and then select 'Sign up' in the lower right corner. Don't forget to click on the link in the confirmation email that will be sent to your email address.
freedom of speech and expression by political spouses should be valued and cherished, not ridiculed!
Not amongst the GOP presedential candidates, and their propaganda mouthpieces, the likes of, Limbaugh, O'Liely, Hannity, they feel emancipated, by women of substance, just look at the trophy wives hanging off the arms of the GOP presedential candidates, it speaks volumes.
Pilot Said "This Is Fun" Before Fatal Blackwater Crash
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100307T.shtml
CNN News reports: "A 2004 crash that killed everyone on board - three crew members and three US troops - was caused by pilots from a Blackwater plane taking a low-level run through a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, testimony revealed Tuesday."
Chevron's Pipeline Is the Burmese Regime's Lifeline
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100307S.shtml
On Truthdig, Amy Goodman says, "Chevron's role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. According to Marco Simons, US legal director at EarthRights International: 'Sanctions haven't worked because gas is the lifeline of the regime.'"
Sorry to be off topic. I only have a few minutes so I'll go on topic when I have more time.
But someone passed me a link to the Do Not Call list which expires soon. So you have to renew if you want to be on it. I do, so I reregistered. Here's the article and within the link is the government site to re-register for the new do not call list.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/FinancialPrivacy/DoNotCallListToStartExpiring.aspx
Almost Two-Thirds of Australians Oppose Involvement in Iraq War :
Some 64 percent opposed Australian soldiers serving in Iraq and 73 percent said it made the nation a terror target, according to a survey by the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=ag9sf2eBYimg
MINNEAPOLIS - Idaho Sen. Larry Craig lost a bid Thursday to withdraw his guilty plea in a men’s room sex sting but defiantly vowed to finish his Senate term, prolonging a headache for Republican leaders already facing a tough political climate.
Craig had announced plans to resign his seat by Sept. 30 but wavered when he went to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea. He issued a statement Thursday on staying in the Senate shortly after Republican Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter relayed word that he had selected a replacement for Craig in the event of a vacancy.
“I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively,” Craig said in a written statement that disappointed fellow Republicans who have urged him to step down. Craig, 62, said he will not seek a fourth term in November 2008.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134202/
http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/music/main3330463.shtml
Interview with Springsteen on his new album:
When reminded that his anti-war views, prominent on his new album, "Magic," will cause people to say he is unpatriotic -- as his critic have charged before -- Springsteen says "That's just the language of the day…the modus operandi for anybody who doesn't like somebody…criticizing where we've been or where we're going," he tells Pelley. "I believe every citizen has a stake in the course, direction of their country.
-snip-
In the interview, Springsteen points out the direction in which the U.S. is going, by his estimation. "I think we've seen things happen over the past six years that I don't think anybody ever thought they'd ever see in the United States," says Springsteen. "When people think of the Unites States' identity, they don't think of torture. They don't think of illegal wiretapping. They don't think of voter suppression," he tells Pelley. "They don't think of no habeas corpus,"
snip
"Those are things that are anti-American," Springsteen says.
Disgusting.
Army Denies Education Benefits To National Guard Troops Who Served 22 Months In Iraq
Approximately 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard recently returned home after serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq. They served 22 months — “longer than any other ground combat unit” — recieved nine fatalities, and were awarded dozens of Purple Hearts.
But the Army wrote the orders for 1,162 of these soldiers for 729 days, making them ineligible for full educational benefits under the GI Bill, which requires written orders saying they were deployed for 730 days or more. These soldiers were shorted more than $200 per month for college.
First Lt. Jon Anderson believes that the military deliberately cut short their orders to avoid paying the soldiers’ education benefits:
"It’s pretty much a slap in the face. I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership…once again failing the soldiers."
For video and full story:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/04/national-guard-education/
Qatar & Vietnam ditch the dollar
Announcements on Thursday from the Qatari and Vietnamese governments that they are rapidly divesting in dollar denominated securities will not come as good news to the US government. Overseas investors hold half of America’s $4,400bn of marketable government debt, up from a third in 2001 according to the US Treasury department.
Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani said on US TV that the government-backed $50bn Qatari Investment Authority (QIA) now had less than 40 per cent of its investments in dollars, down from a high two years ago of 99 per cent.
Given that the Emirate’s oil and gas revenue is in dollars, the latest troubles in the US economy have accelerated the need to diversify investments into non-dollar markets. Currencies such as the Euro, the British Pound and the Swiss Frank, are all looking far more stable as investments for the QIA, said Sheikh Hamad. Such was the Qatari PM’s concern about the sliding dollar, that he even said an oil price of $125 per barrel would not be unreasonable.
On Thursday, the State Bank of Vietnam quietly let slip it would be ending its dollar purchase schemes, which it has been using to hold down the Vietnamese currency. Although it only has middling dollar reserves of $40bn, Vietnam is widely regarded as a barometer for economic sentiment among other, bigger, regional dollar sinks like China, Taiwan, Korea or Singapore. Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas, told the Telegraph:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/10/04/7831/qatar-vietnam-ditch-the-dollar
Opening of US Embassy in Iraq Delayed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6973094,00.html
Karen, a great piece written by your friend. Our next PM, if we don't get thoroughly sick of him imitating the current Australian PM, has a wife who is a high-flyer in the business world and runs a huge company in the UK. I don't believe that she will quit her position and come home to be a beautiful appendage hanging from her husband's arm throughout his reign in the top job.
It's good to see this awareness spreading - that women have a right to be acknowledged in their own sphere and not beholden to their spouse's employment. Laura Bush should have staked her independence much earlier - like before she met and married the inarticulate cretin.
The ENTIRE family of Augusto Pinochet has been arrested. Including his widow and their 5 children and 11 others.
HAHAHAHA!!
http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/Chilean_judge_orders_arrest_of_Pino_10042007.html
HOLY HELL. I am still blinking to make sure my eyes are not playing tricks on me.
Matthews says Bush administration has "finally been caught in their criminality"
Chris Matthews had barely finished praising his colleagues at the 10th anniversary party for his “Hardball” show Thursday night in Washington, D.C. when his remarks turned political and pointed, even suggesting that the Bush administration had "finally been caught in their criminality."
In front of an audience that included such notables as Alan Greenspan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, Matthews began his remarks by declaring that he wanted to "make some news" and he certainly didn't disappoint. After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.
The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.
“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials -- especially those from Vice President Cheney's office -- called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. "They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.
"They've finally been caught in their criminality," Matthews continued, although he did not specify the exact criminal behavior to which he referred. He then drew an obvious Bush-Nixon parallel by saying, “Spiro Agnew was not an American hero."
Matthews left the throng of Washington A-listers with a parting shot at Cheney: “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”
http://www.examiner.com/blogs/Yeas_and_Nays/2007/10/4/Matthews-Bush-Admin-puts-pressure-on-my-bosses
HAHAHA! Oh, MAN!
No more mancrush Chrissy?
HAHAHA!
Christy... I'd like to see that Matthews article on a mainstream site, or even see Matthews actually make those statements on Hardboiled.
Tweety Retreaty
Bush says U.S. 'does not torture people'
President responds to report that 2005 memo relaxed interrogation rules
Updated: 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - (AP) President Bush defended his administration’s detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.
“When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them,” he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. “The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”
Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. “This government does not torture people,” the president said.
The two Justice Department legal opinions were disclosed in Thursday’s editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.
That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.
A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.
“We stick to U.S. law and international obligations,” the president said, without taking questions afterward.
'Highly trained professionals'
White House and Justice Department press officers have said the 2005 opinions did not reverse the 2004 policy.
Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that “highly trained professionals” conduct any questioning. “And by the way,” he said, “we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you.”
He also said that the techniques used by the United States “have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress” — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the memos’ disclosure.
“The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack,” Bush said. “And that’s exactly what this government is doing. And that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21148801/
Raise yer hand if you believe him....
WASHINGTON - Job creation picked up in September but not enough to stop the unemployment rate from rising to 4.7 percent, the highest in just over a year.
The new job market snapshot released by the Labor Department on Friday showed that employers boosted payrolls by 110,000, the most in one month since last May. In an encouraging note, the economy actually added 89,000 jobs in August. That marked an improvement from the net loss of 4,000 that the government first estimated.
The bump up in the unemployment rate from 4.6 percent in August came as hundreds of thousands of people streamed back into the labor market. That new rate of 4.7 percent was the highest since the summer of 2006.
Wages, meanwhile, rose solidly.
President Bush, whose job performance ratings on handling the economy have sagged in recent months, hailed the figures as “an indicator that this economy is a vibrant and strong economy for our country.”
He cited the government’s revisions showing job gains in August — initially reported as a net loss of 4,000 payroll jobs — and said that it means “we’ve had 49 consecutive months of job creation, and that’s the longest uninterrupted job growth on record for our country.”
“I am really pleased with the economic news but I don’t take good news for granted. I understand that people are worried about their mortgage payment, concerned about sending their child to college,” he said. Bush exhorted Congress to “keep taxes low.”
moron...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21147257/
Raise your hand if you believe him....
David Brooks has removed his email link now that Times Select is history. I guess he was getting too many angry emails.
Sparrow,
Your canvas is on its' way.
Woz,
Yours is on my easel now, almost done.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/246/popup/index.php?cl=4274384
totally worth it. enjoy! especially the MOMS.
That sounds like my mom Karen.
I don't talk to my kids like that though. I am like 'One lie and I will beat you.'
Or, 'If you do not stay with the herd, lions will eat you.'
No, it is not very mom like, but I did not have 5 kids because I like kids. It would have been easier to have them in a litter, worm them once and give them away to good homes six weeks later.
Oh how I envy the lesser evolved.
Woz,
My email totally glitched up again and in case you did not get the three emails I already tried to send, I just wanted you to know your canvas is done and I will mail iut first thing monday.
Christy,
Thanks for letting me know and thanks for doing it. I can't wait to see it.
So tonight, I will try to catch up on what I missed. I can't wait to read about Mathews because I saw him on John Stewart Wednesday evening.
Regarding the Pinochet warrants-- What the heck took so long? I didn't really understand what that was about until I started listening to airamerica and reading the blogs. It's certainly not something that the schools or media taught us about. What's really creepy is that Bush SR is connected to Pinochet.
No links but I have to read more.
Loved the video Karen! Thanks!
Hey. Anybody.
Want to start a global movement?
Oh, look, Christy is having bright ideas again!
No. Seriously. Hanging the US flag upside down. Bear with me.
To people from everywhere except here it is universally accepted that it is a great insult to Us, it would be to them. Every single one of us not only sees it completely different, We all know what it means.
So, lets start sending Our flags to friends abroad with specific instructions to invert it. In very public view. The largest distress signal in history.
Could you imagine looking out upon the world and seeing people of every nation trying to insult us, yet are sending a mass distress signal to our countrymen instead...?
Rossi is already flying my flag inverted. In Australia. I don't know if others could see it, but what if her entire street started flying them inverted at our request?
To insult us, to warn us...both is enough motive to hang it. It is utterly symbolic. Our friends would very much like to find a way to warn us of the danger we are in.
I do not dare invert my own here without attracting the attention of every dumb redneck within 50 miles. Yeah, it is like that.
You can not crack a nut from inside the nut.
All it would cost anyone is the price of our flag and enough pride to beg a favor of our friends abroad who are still standing with Us.
And if you think sitting at my easel for 16 hours a day has made me crazy, I won't dispute that.
But, if you have a better idea for saving the world, do share. I'll paint.
'What's really creepy is that Bush SR is connected to Pinochet."
Why not, his daddy, Prescott Bush, was bankrolling deathcamps for ADOLF HITLER.
PinchePuto is just a third rate thug compared to his daddys friends.
Oh, the bush boys. Always trying to be nothing like/An exact duplicate of their daddies.
georgies Saudi boyfriend is a joke, but he wanted his very own evil dictator too. And georgie gets what georgie wants! He has gotten away with ALL OF IT so far.
I feel a Saudi Tirade coming on so I will end this here before I start talking about how some people just DESERVE to get their asses kicked into their teeth. Like hitler, and Pincheputo, and king facade.
Oh, And I would like to add a new set of people who deserve it totally. The government of Burma or whatever. We will just call it, Theevilplacewheretheyslaughtertheirownholymen.
Sparrow,
I can't wait for you to see it either.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_re_us/oral_roberts_scandal
Scandal brewing at Oral Roberts U.
Reichwingnuttia fundie hypocrisy: The gift that keeps on giving....
"University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework. "
HAHAHA!
Lovely.
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20071001/cx_nq_uc/nq20071001
Non Sequitur
I highly recommend starting with Monday's cartoon (link above) and follow it all the way through (click on 'next') to today's cartoon regarding think tanks, media, etc....
It's an upside down world when cartoons have more validity than anything Lamestream Media puts in "news" stories.....
October 5, 2007 7:36 PM
Christy
Well, at least it explains the high rate of barely-functional literacy amongst some of the reichwingnuts....
October 5, 2007 5:45 AM
Christy said:
HOLY HELL. I am still blinking to make sure my eyes are not playing tricks on me.
Matthews says Bush administration has "finally been caught in their criminality"
>>>>>
This is so good, Christy. It only takes one of them to break away and all the nasties will start falling out of the cupboard. I'm sure that it will develop momentum. We just needed a starter. I hope s/he keeps it up.
NonnyO said:
It's an upside down world when cartoons have more validity than anything Lamestream Media puts in "news" stories.....
>>>>>
Isn't it just?
Remember when I put articles here daily about David Hicks? Well, it seems there is a lot of rumbling going on down in the machinery that drives the various aspects of Lies and Deceipt. Open Government it certainly is not. This is the prosecutor. Perhaps he wants more power to do harm. Perhaps he can no longer sleep at night. Frankly, I never thought that he was capable of empathy so it couldn't be that.
Hicks' prosecutor stands aside
Staff reporter
October 6, 2007 - 1:37PM
The chief war crimes prosecutor for United States military commissions at Guantanamo Bay — the man who led the terror case against Australia's David Hicks — has abruptly resigned in a dispute over his independence.
Air Force Colonel Morris Davis stepped down in a dispute over whether Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the administrator overseeing the Guantanamo trials, had the power to supervise aspects of the prosecution.
In April, a US military panel sentenced Hicks, 31, to seven years' jail, with all but nine months suspended.
Hicks returned to Australia in May after spending more than five years in custody in Guantanamo Bay.
He will remain in a South Australian prison until New Year's Eve after an extraordinary plea bargain during his trial that saw him receive a lighter sentence.
No successor has been named for Davis, who was known for his colourful descriptions of suspected war criminals who are being held at the US Navy base in Cuba.
At one point, he described detainees who challenged the trial system to the US Supreme Court as vampires afraid of the harsh sunlight of American justice.
"Remember if you dragged Dracula out into the sunlight, he melted? Well, that's kind of the way it is trying to drag a detainee into the courtroom," he told reporters at Guantanamo in March 2006.
"But their day is coming."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/hicks-prosecutor-stands-aside/2007/10/06/1191091408288.html
Melting detainees and Gods own little illiterate republican princess.
No wonder I can't sleep anymore.
Newspapers Across the Country Call for Override of President’s Veto of Bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Bill
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=825
Drunken Blackwater Guard Who Killed Iraqi Is Back In Iraq Thanks To State Dept.
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=826
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJjmu4Ige2k
Hey Rossi.
Um.. nuthin. I just wanted to say I love you.
And it makes me giggle to think what is on its way to you right now.
My own little ambassador.
A JUDGE has temporarily blocked Ehren Watada's scheduled court-martial.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-War-Objector.html
Oh and Nonny.
The funniest part, is they have to get EMPLOYEES to help their kids cheat because they are too stupid to cheat quietly on their behalf.
HAHA!
SOOOO CLASSY!
HEHE. Not.
Christy, the images you create with few words are excellent. Don't let an illiterate republican princess give you insomnia.
Yes, we've thought so.
Who's afraid of Naomi Wolf?
Mark Coultan
October 6, 2007
The American intellectual and feminist icon does not believe the Bush Administration is run by Nazis, but she is convinced it uses classic Nazi methodology and that the world should be alarmed.
THERE is a convention on the internet called Godwin's law. It states that, during an online discussion, the first person to draw an analogy with Nazi Germany automatically loses the argument. It is a rule that exists in academia, journalism and even politics.
Woz,
Like the true daughter of America that I am, I don't let any monarchy cause me insomnia.
By the way... Check your email and tell me if my reply to you actually went through this time...?
"but she is convinced it uses classic Nazi methodology and that the world should be alarmed."
Ofcourse they are.
georgie learned it as a boy at his own family dinner table from his grandfather, a nazi banker, deeply involved in the policies and the perception of those policies.
I am sure by the time georgie was a teenager, he was intimately familiar with HOW the nazis did it. It would have been family lore, required contextual history relevent to everything he touched.
October 6, 2007 5:57 AM
Kangaroo
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-War-Objector.html
This excerpt is the most interesting part of the article:
Watada contends the war is illegal and that he would be party to war crimes if he served in Iraq. The Army refused his request to be posted in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
The Army Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled that Watada can be court-martialed again, but Watada appealed that decision to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Armed Forces, which has not ruled, his attorneys wrote.
Watada lives in Olympia and continues to perform administrative duties at Fort Lewis, south of Seattle. His term of service ended in December, but the pending legal proceedings have prevented his discharge.
~~~~~~~~~~
Watada is correct; Georgie's and Dickie's invasion/occupation/ war in Iraq is illegal, and fighting to capture, control, preserve, protect, and defend the oil wells in Iraq for the sake of US oil corporations forces the US military to participate in their war crime(s). The US military is supposed to defend the people of this country, not engage in aggressive actions against another country, which are war crimes under the Geneva Conventions which are part and parcel of our US Constitution under the treaties clause, so Georgie's and Dickie's war is not only a war crime, it's unconstutional. Nor is it within the duties of the US military to force "regime change" in another country or fight someone else's civil war (which would not have started if Georgie and Dickie had not ordered the invasion).
Watada obviously realizes that the excuse "I was only following orders" is not a just defense for committing war crimes (defendants at Nuremberg tried to plead that; it didn't work), so it seems he and/or his attorney have researched the Nuremberg Judgment upon which the Geneva Conventions are based, and know that because of the Nuremberg Judgment, military personnel who are signed on to the Geneva Conventions can legally refuse to follow illegal or immoral orders; in fact it's their duty to refuse to follow illegal or immoral orders. (Didn't I read a while back that that section has now been omitted from the USMCJ since Georgie and Dickie started their illegal war...?)
The fact that our Congress Critters continue to fund the illegal war crimes in Iraq (not to mention fund the torture and incarceration of people at Gitmo) makes them accessories to Georgie's and Dickie's war crimes. Do our Congress Critters realize that...? They need to Google Nuremberg Judgment and Geneva Conventions and read them.... Then they need to defund the illegal war, stop it, close Gitmo, bring all troops home..., and make abject apologies to this nation and the world... and resign from office or refuse to run for office when their current terms are up.
We SO need new Representatives and Senators who have been educated about our Constitution and treaties and what does or does not constitute an illegal war - and people who have not been bought out by corporations and/or the military-industrial complex. Starting an illegal war because 19 criminals killed nearly 3000 people in one day is overkill on a massive scale, especially since the 19 criminals died with their victims. Congress should have sent law enforcement agents out to round up co-conspirators. Better yet, why is OBL still free, other than to conveniently release tapes at certain critical times so Georgie and Dickie can scare the bejeebers out of the people who still believe their original lies and keep Congress fearful enough to grant Georgie and Dickie all the extra (illegal and unconstitutional) powers they are claiming?
But I repeat myself. I've said all this before, we all know the truth. It seems only our Congress Critters need to figure it out....
Oh, and PS. I think this second case against Watada will be quietly dropped, too. The army can't afford to let the truth of Watada's defense be talked about. Someone in Lamestream Media may start to ask questions and actually broadcast those questions or tell the truth for a change, and that they must stop at all costs with an election coming next year (the candidates would have to change their scripts about the alleged and mysterious "mission" in Iraq = oil, control of oil, putting US oil corporations in control of Iraq's oil by coercing Iraqis to vote in favor of that clause in their dictated constitution). Why they are keeping Watada beyond his discharge date is beyond me, but I suspect they have to keep him "in the military" somehow to keep him from speaking out and telling the truth if he is no longer under a military gag order....
More sickening stuff they're doing. Hop over to Kos to read about FCC consolidation they're tyring to push through. If you live in Seattle (hint hint) grab a hundred of your closest friends and go to the public speakout portion.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/5/174653/896
And if you want to read about how Haliburton and Republicans support our troops by mixing human corpse remains with ice and water given to our soldiers, then read this diary (exerpted from the Vanity Fair article). And the DOJ has been covering up this suit brought forth by a whistleblower since 03. (That's why I include the Republicans in the sentence--afterall the DOJ isn't about protecting us anymore--it's run by Republican hacks and it's protecting Republican corruption.)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/5/163334/454
**New Thread**