It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
Mother Davis thinks of Enron as she reads the testimony of Franklin C. Spinney, Staff Analyst at the Department of Defense, before the Congressional Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations on June 4, 2002:

The DoD’s [Department of Defense's] financial management problems can be summed up quite succinctly: Both links are broken. The historical books cannot pass the routine audits required by law and planning data systematically misrepresent the future consequences of current decisions. The double breakdown in these information links makes it is impossible for decision makers to assemble the information needed to synthesize a coherent defense plan that is both accountable to the American people and responsive to the changing threats, opportunities, and constraints of an uncertain world.

Wondering how we can start a new war with a military that cooks the books better than Ken Lay,
Mother Davis


Posted by Katherine Davis at 9:01 PM. # (permalink)  


 
The following was read as part of a speech by Senator Robert Byrd October 3, 2002, the only Senator to oppose a vote authorizing George W. Bush to unleash war against the people of Iraq.

Letter President Abraham Lincoln on PreEmptive War
To William Herndon
February 15, 1848

---

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him,--"I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."

The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."

Posted by Theodiclus Lock at 12:27 PM. # (permalink)  


 

Congresswoman Tubbs Jones Opposition Statement on Going to War with Iraq

Thursday October 3, 1:30 pm ET

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones today announced concerns surrounding President's Bush's reason for the United States to go to war with Iraq. "The debate over whether or not President Bush should go to war with Iraq speaks to the questions that have yet to be answered, not only to Members of Congress, but also to the American people," said Rep. Tubbs Jones.

EXCERPT:
"Question #1: Have we completed the war on terrorism? The answer is 'No.'

"Question #2: Does the United States have a military plan? The answer is 'No.'

"Question #3: If the United States is to go to war with Iraq, do we know how long it will last? The answer is 'No.'

"Question #4: Has there been any assessment for the American people on how much a war on Iraq will cost our economy? The answer is 'No.'

"Question #5: Does the Bush Administration have any idea of the human loss expected in a war with Iraq? The answer is 'No.'

"The bottom line is that the Bush Administration has No plan, and it is for this reason that I oppose the United States going to war with Iraq."

Posted by Theodiclus Lock at 2:31 PM. # (permalink)  


 
Congressional Budget Office: Congress: War Could Cost $9B a Month

The Associated Press Reports:

"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in a report Monday said uncertainty about the length and intensity of a war with Iraq made predicting the cost difficult.

But it estimated that deploying U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf would cost from $9 billion to $13 billion, and that the monthly cost of combat by either heavy ground or air forces would be $6 billion to $9 billion.

Another $5 billion to $7 billion would be required to bring the troops home after a war. The monthly cost of a postwar peacekeeping force excluding humanitarian aid, reconstruction and the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction would be $1 billion to $4 billion.

"This debate should not be driven by how much it will cost U.S. taxpayers," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. But he said it was important to keep in mind that three months of combat with a heavy ground force and a five-year occupation by a large U.S. force could cost more than $272 billion."

$272 billion, not including humanitarian aid, reconstruction, and the dismantling of weapons. What else could we do with $272 billion?

Posted by Theodiclus Lock at 11:00 AM. # (permalink)  

Monday, September 30, 2002

 

Breaking News: U.S. Provided Iraq With Anthrax,Other Germs in 1980s

Iraq Admitted To Building Weapons With American Germs

Talk about turning the tables! Reuters reports that Senator Robert Byrd has entered documents into the Congressional Record that prove that the American Centers for Disease Control and the American Type Culture Collection sent samples of the germs that cause anthrax, botulism and gangrene. Iraq admitted to using these samples to construct biological weapons (that's weapons of mass destruction) during the 1980s.

These documents are available online at FAS.org.

The United States also provided samples of the West Nile Virus to Iraq during this period, when George Bush Senior was Vice President.

Some of these samples were sent directly to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission "and other agencies involved in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs," according to the Reuters article. Others were sent straight to the complex at al-Muthanna, which the United States government knew was involved in producing weapons of mass destruction.

In the words of Senator Byrd, "Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?"

Find out more about the effort to resist a new war against Iraq at Magniloquence Against War

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 7:29 PM. # (permalink)  




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