http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0924-01.htm
Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 by Agence France Presse
Leaked Intelligence Report Rocks Bush Election Stance
US spy agencies have dropped a political bombshell six weeks before
national elections, with the leak of a classified report concluding that the
war in Iraq has spawned a new wave of Islamic radicalism and increased the
global threat of terrorism.
The intelligence document on Sunday rocked a central pillar of the
Republican Party's campaign platform ahead of November elections: that the
2003 invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein made America safer,
not weaker.
With opinion polls showing President George W. Bush's party possibly
losing control of both houses of Congress in the the mid-term polls, in
large part due to unhappiness over the war in Iraq, the report stating
categorically the opposite will make for painful reading at the White House.
Bush has argued repeatedly in pre-election speeches that Iraq is the
central front in the war on terrorism and that demands for a US troop
withdrawal from the country by the opposition Democrats underscores why the
center-left party should not be trusted with the nation's security.
"The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on
terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq," Bush said in one speech on
August 31.
Such assertions were looking decidedly shaky Sunday after The New York
Times and The Washington Post released details of the classified National
Intelligence Estimate, the most comprehensive assessment yet of the war,
based on analyses of all 16 of America's intelligence agencies.
The report, Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United
States, says "the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," an
official familiar with the document told The Times.
The Washington Post said the report described the Iraq conflict as the
primary recruiting vehicle for violent Islamic extremists.
"While the US has seriously damaged Al-Qaeda and disrupted its ability
to carry out major operations since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New
York and Washington, it noted, radical Islamic networks have spread and
decentralized.
Democratic leaders were quick to jump on the report's conclusions as
clear evidence of the failure of Bush's policies.
"This intelligence document should put the final nail in the coffin
for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war," Senator Edward
Kennedy said in a statement Sunday.
"The fact that we need a new direction in Iraq to really win the war
on terror and make Americans safer could not be clearer or more urgent --
yet this administration stubbornly clings to a failed 'stay-the-course'
strategy," he said.
The White House, while reiterating its traditional stance of not
commenting on classified reports, said The New York Times story "isn't
representative of the complete document."
"We've always said that the terrorists are determined. Keeping the
pressure on and staying on the offense is the best way to win the war on
terror," a White House spokesman added.
But the leaked intelligence report is hardly good news for Bush and
the Republicans, coming on top of a messy revolt by top Republican senators
against a Bush plan for legitimizing how the US interrogates and prosecutes
terrorist suspects.
The Senate rebels, who included possible candidates to succeed Bush in
2008, reached a compromise agreement with the White House late this week.
But the unseemly row already diverted attention away from Republican
efforts to present a unified front on the issue of national security during
the final stretch of the election campaign.
Republican leaders tried to brush aside the intelligence document,
which they said they had not yet seen.
"If it wasn't Iraq it would be Afghanistan; if it wasn't Afghanistan
it would be other (issues) that they would use as a method of continuing
their recruitment," Senator John McCain, a leading potential presidential
contender, said on CBS's Face The Nation.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed confidence US voters would
not be swayed by the intelligence report.
"I think the American people, when they read an article like that ...
say, 'Listen, just keep me safe -- I just want to be safe in Nashville,
Tennessee, I want to be safe in Memphis, New York City, Washington, DC,'
that's what they want."
---
Specter Objects to Part of Detainee Bill
By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said
Sunday he has a problem with the Republican agreement on rules for the
interrogation and trial of suspects in the war on terror.
President Bush is pushing Congress to put the agreement into law before
adjourning for the midterm elections, but Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said
Sunday he "vigorously" disagrees with the habeas corpus provision of the
bill.
The provision would allow legal counsel and a day in court to only those
detainees selected by the Pentagon for prosecution. Other terror suspects
could be held indefinitely without a hearing.
"The courts have traditionally been open to make sure that individual rights
are protected, and that is fundamental," Specter said on CNN's "Late
Edition. "And the Constitution says when you can suspend the writ of habeas
corpus, in time of rebellion or invasion. And we don't have either. So that
has to be changed, in my opinion."
***
Commentaries are sent to Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet
To learn more, consult ZNet at http://www.zmag.org
Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-09/24cohen.cfm
==================================
ZNet Commentary
"Devil" is in the Details: Chavez, Limbaugh and Name-Calling September 24,
2006
By Jeff Cohen
Across the U.S. political and media spectrum, there was wide agreement
yesterday: Name-calling and personal attacks are bad for national and global
dialogue. Prompting the unity were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?
comments that President Bush was the devil incarnate, "El Diablo."
Among those exercised (and exorcized) about Chavez? name-calling were some
of the loudest name-callers in American media today -- including Rush
Limbaugh and other rightwing talk hosts. Limbaugh tried to equate Chavez?
remarks with the alleged Bush-bashing that comes from top U.S. Democrats.
In case you?ve forgotten, it was Limbaugh who ridiculed Chelsea Clinton,
then 13, as the "White House dog."
It was Limbaugh in 2001 who routinely referred to Democratic leader Tom
Daschle, literally, as "El Diablo." Along with "Devil in a Blue Dress"
theme music, Limbaugh would carry on at length about how Daschle may well be
Satan in soft-spoken disguise.
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/rush-daschle.html
Bellowed Limbaugh in July 2001: "Just yesterday, as Bush winged his way to
Europe on a crucial mission to lead our allies into the 21st century...up
pops ?El Diablo,? Tom Daschle, and his devilish deviltry, claiming that
George Bush is incompetent." (Months later, Limbaugh started describing
Daschle more as a traitor than a devil, who?d decided to "align himself with
Iran, North Korea and Hussein.")
Also incensed by Chavez was MSNBC host and former GOP Congressman, Joe
Scarborough -- who last night played a lengthy excerpt of Limbaugh
pontificating about the Chavez remarks. Somehow Scarborough couldn?t dig up
the tapes of Limbaugh declaring that Daschle was the devil.
In my new book Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097606216X/sr=8-1/qid=1155918473/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5555251-3591055?ie=UTF8
I
dissect the hypocrisy of a TV news business that has long catered to hateful
rightists like Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter. In TV land,
vicious epithet-hurlers get to define and denounce outnumbered or silenced
progressives as the name-callers.
When I worked at MSNBC on Phil Donahue?s primetime show in 2002-2003,
management often complained that Phil -- who never named-called and was one
of the most courteous hosts in TV history -- was "badgering" guests. His
patriotism was questioned. As the Iraq invasion neared, an internal NBC
management memo described Donahue as "a difficult public face for NBC in a
time of war." Why? Because he insisted on presenting guests who were
"skeptical of the administration?s motives."
With Donahue terminated on the eve of war, MSNBC brass turned to hosts like
Scarborough and talk radio bigot Michael Savage, known for his declarations
that developing countries like Venezuela were "turd world nations"; that
Latinos "breed like rabbits"; and that women "should have been denied the
vote." In a TV industry bent on placating the far right, Donahue was "a
difficult public face for NBC." But Savage was deemed an acceptable face.
Three weeks into the Iraq war, Scarborough was gleeful at boycotts and
cancellations aimed at antiwar "elitists" like Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins
and Susan Sarandon. As a guest on Scarborough?s show, Savage declared that
"Hollywood idiots" are "absolutely committing sedition and treason."
Responded Scarborough: "These leftist stooges for anti-American causes are
always given a free pass."
Let me be clear: Those of us who use facts instead of rant; reason and
argument instead of name-calling and personal attacks; evidence instead of
intimidation and accusations of disloyalty -- we have the moral authority to
tell Hugo Chavez that his comments were out of line.
But the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Scarboroughs and O?Reillys are in no position
to point any fingers. Nor are the executives at Disney, GE and News Corp
who have made them the loudest voices in American media.
Nor, for that matter, is Team Bush -- whose strategy has been to demonize
and intimidate critics and other members of the "reality-based
- -
Jeff Cohen http://www.jeffcohen.org/ is the founder of the media watch group
FAIR, and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate
Media.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097606216X/sr=8-1/qid=1155918473/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5555251-3591055?ie=UTF8
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