The World Can't Wait

The World Can’t Wait Drive Out The Bush Regime The Call with Back-up

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies , is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

-650,000 Iraqis have died in the past few years, which is three times the number of deaths prior to the March 2003 invasion of the country, the majority of them resulting from violence (Les Roberts, democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145222) -According to UN Human Rights investigators, US forces have systematically used hunger and deprivation as a weapon of war against the civilian population, such as cutting off water and electricity in Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, Al-Qa’im, Haditha, Baquba, and parts of the capital, as well as cutting off food, water and medical relief in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra, despite the Geneva Conventions prohibiting such actions (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”) -Although Protocol 1, Section 1, Article 35 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons that would cause unnecessary suffering, we have used these weapons, such as white phosperous, which melts the skin and cannot be extinguished, on civilians in Fallujah (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”)

-On February 24, 2001, Collin Powell stated that Saddam Hussein had “no capability for WMDs and no power against his neighbors.” -The Downing Street Memo, dated prior to 9/11, stated that the US knew Iraq was not a threat, that the intelligence was being fixed around the policy, and that Bush had made the decision to go to war. -In Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address, several specific numbers were given on Iraq’s WMD capabilities, all of which were proven to be untrue by several ex-CIA agents and UN Weapons Inspectors (documentary “Uncovered: The War in Iraq”) -On July 29, 2001, Condaleeza Rice stated that Saddam didn’t control the North part of the country, that we’d been able to keep arms away from him, and that his military had not been rebuilt.

-LA Times reported that the Bush Administration gave credibility to the suspicion: “Bush administration officials acknowledged…that they had discussed the removal of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for months with military and civilian leaders from Venezuela…” (Paul Richter, “US Had Talks on Chavez Ouster”) -Bush funded and backed a bloody two-year coup where an estimated 15,000 women and girls were subjected to politically motivated mass rape (Hutson and Kolbe, “The Frequency and Intensity of Human Rights Violations in Port-au-Prince”). -The Bush Administration…has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups (newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact).

Your government is openly torturing people , and justifying it.

-Leaked FBI emails and memos report witnessing strangulation, routine beatings, lit cigarettes placed in ears, detainees chained hand to foot in the fetal position to the floor for 24 hours at a time, without food or water, until the point where they’d defecated upon themselves, and Israeli flags wrapped around detainees to “soften” them for interrogation ( http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0106-31.htm). -Detainees and doctors, in addition to corroborations by the FBI, have also reported sexual and religious humiliation, rape, threats to their family, whippings, point burns with hot metal, electrical burns on their genitalia, bludgeon marks, being defecated upon, chemical liquid burns, being forced to watch and participate in sexual acts (Michael Ratner, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know ). -During a 2005 Senate Confirmation Hearing, Rice and Gonzales refused to rule out certain practices, such as waterboarding, as torture, citing that the laws of war have changed due to terrorism ( Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney ).

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

-By October 2001, 35-40,000 people had been picked up, the majority of them by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, after the US dropped leaflets announcing high rewards, from $50 to $5000, for the deliverance of members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, so naturally, people were picked up for the money, especially in such a tribal region (ibid). -Of the 147 released prisoners as of 2004, 134 of them were guilty of absolutely nothing, though they’d been held without rights for years (ibid). -According the MCA 06, which just codified the president’s claimed absolute commander-in-chief powers, any person declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ has no right to Habeas Corpus, to see the evidence against them, or to invoke the Geneva Conventions in their defense. Hearsay evidence from sources the defendants can’t confront, is allowed, along with ‘evidence’ from coercion. It also gives the president, and his successors, the authority to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. Under the language of the act, the determination of an unlawfull enemy combatant American citizens from being deemed unlawful enemy combatants (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:4:./temp/~c109NWuIR9::).

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

-The White House OFBCI was established by President Executive Order on January 29, 2001.The first person named as the director, John Dilulio , served about six months before resigning after issuing a report entitled “An Unlevel Playing Field.” Another former director, Jim Towey, admitted in 2004 that "no direct federal grants from his program had gone to a non-Christian religious group." Although FBOs receiving grants from the OFBCI cannot use the money for religious services, the GAO noted in July 06 that several federal agencies refused to monitor compliance for these safeguards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith-based_initiatives ). -Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin was put in charge of the Pentagon’s “High Value Target Plan” to capture Islamic terrorists, giving him broad authority over “enemy combatants.” Before he was appointed, he had toured US churches for over a year, giving sermons, in full uniform, on America’s Christian war against Islam (Mark Crispin Miller, “Bush-Cheney’s War on Enlightenment”). -Bush nominated William Pryor, who spoke out in support of Judge Roy Moore's display a five-ton Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court and even compared gay sex to bestiality, pedophilia, incest, prostitution, and necrophilia. When senators filibustered Pryor, Bush appointed him while Congress was at recess (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04057.html ).

Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

-NASA senior climate change scientist James Hansen was warned of “dire consequences” if he didn’t stop talking about climate change and reducing emissions. He was also forbidden to talk to the press, give lectures, and add items to the website without review by NASA’s public affairs office (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -EPA research has been suppressed on endangered species, effects of mountaintop removal for mining, forest management, mercury emissions, and the interactive effect of multiple air pollutants (ibid). -Bush officials have also "disappeared" information from government science web sites, such as a fact sheet on how to use condoms, a web page that debunked the bogus link between abortions and breast cancer, and a directory of model sex education programs, all of which included teaching about birth control (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04057.html).

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

-In 2006, Bush named Eric Keroack to oversee the US family planning programs at the DHHS, despite the fact that, until recently, he served as the medical director of A Women’s Concern, a pregnancy council organization that take pride in the fact that it does not “distribute, or encourage the use of contraceptive drugs and devices,” and which also claims that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer by 50% (Haider Rizvi, “Foe of Birth Control to Head Family Planning”). -Bush nominee James Leon Holmes of the Eastern District of Arkansas complained of the feminist movement bringing artificial contraception, compared equal rights among the sexes to death, and said that the solution is that “…the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband” (Gloria Feldt, “Core Issue Missing in Birth-Control War Reports”). -In 2001 Bush reinstated the global gag rule which restricts family planning agencies that receive US funds from offering abortion counsels, refer women to abortion providers, or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own countries, even when they use separate, non-US funds to do so. In Ethiopia, where abortion is illegal, it is also the second leading cause of death for women after TB (Dian Harrison, “Women Worldwide Face Effects of Bush's Gag Rule”).

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

-In June of 2005, Bush cut the Army Corps of Engineers levee budget for New Orleans by $71.2 million, or 44%, which predictably resulted in the Corps having to stop the levee improvement projects, stop a study of how to best protect New Orleans, and institute a hiring freeze (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -On Aug 31 st , 2005, Marty Bahamonde, the only FEMA employee posted in New Orleans by Bush-appointee Brown, wrote an email to the director which said, “The situation is passed critical…thousands gathering in the streets without food or water….Estimates are many will die within hours….” to which Brown replied, “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?” (ibid). -Even though Kathleen Blanco, governor of LA, and governor Haley Barbour of MS both declared a state of emergency two and three days before Katrina hit, and that Blanco even asked the president to do the same the day before, Bush did not declare an emergency or send help (ibid).

People look at all this and think of Hitler - and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.

- Benjamin Ferencz, who helped convict 22 Nazi officers for orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, said both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq (http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/138319/1/). -Bush and Hitler began to curtail civil liberties in response to a well-publicized disaster, in Hitler’s case the Reichstag fire, in Bush’s case the 9-11 catastrophe ( http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Jayne_Hitler-Bush.htm ). -Like Hitler, Bush scraps international treaties, like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto Global Warming Accord, the Geneva Conventions, and the International Criminal Court, as well as going to war over the objections of the U.N. (or the League of Nations in Hitler’s case) (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush and his cohorts emphasize the ruthlessness of their enemies in order to justify their own. Just as Hitler cited the threat of communist violence to justify even greater violence on the part of Germany, Bush justified the invasion of Iraq by emphasizing Hussein’s crimes against humanity (ibid).

People who steal elections … will not go without a fight.

-Before the 2004 election, new voter registration hit record levels, with Democrats swamping Republicans by 5:1 in FL and 6:1 in Ohio, but Bush still won (truthout.org/docs_04/printer_092704K.shtml) -At 9pm on election evening, CNN showed Kerry leading by 3 points based on 13,000 exit poll respondents, yet at 1:36am CNN reported Bush leading by 2 points based on only 531 more respondents, a 5-point swing, which is mathematically impossible (globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.html). -Republican Clinton Curtis, a FL computer programmer, said that his employers at YEI and Tom Feeney asked in 2000 to create a computer program to undetectably alter vote totals (buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/images/CC_Affadavit_120604.pdf). -In every single instance where exit polls were wrong, the discrepency favored Bush, yet statistical probability says they should show up in both directions (truthout.org/unexplainedexitpoll.pdf)

There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party … who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics …

-Democrats have also repeatedly voted to give the president nearly as much money as he asks for to fight the “war on terror” even without any plan -Most distressing yet is that the Democrats allowed the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gives the president authority to declare any person an enemy combatant and revoke their right to due process and Habeas Corpus, assume authority over the Supreme Court, and interpret the Geneva Conventions in any way he chooses -Both John Kerry and Howard Dean, as well as other leaders of the party, criticized the president in that he has not been “tough enough” with Iran (ibid). -When Iran called for a nuclear-free region, the Democrats apparently rejected such an idea because our allies like Israel would also be disarmed. We would prefer to be the dictators of a nuclear apartheid where we decide which countries can and cannot have nuclear weapons instead of using international treaties to prohibit anyone from owning nuclear weapons (Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2002).

If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world,

-In 2003, US tanks shelled Al-Jazeera journalists at the Basra hotel where the journalists were the only guests, followed by a US warplane bombing the Baghdad office on April 8th, even though they had gone out of their way to give the Pentagon their coordinates so as not to be bombed (cpj.org/protests/03ltrs/Iraq08apr03pl.html). -Leaders of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization founded by Lynne Cheney, say in a report, ''College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack.'' The report names names and criticizes, or blacklists, professors for making statements ''short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation,” which the professors argue were taken out of context ( commondreams.org/headlines01/1113-03.htm ). -To investigate allegations made by Bush in a State of the Union Address about Saddam’s attempts to purchase enriched uranium from Niger, the CIA asked former State Department officer to Niger Joseph Wilson.When Wilson returned, professing his doubt the likelihood of Saddam being able to obtain uranium from this country, on July 14, 2003, Robert Novak wrote an article outing Wilson’s wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, confessing that he had received her name from the White House (thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823)

… history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious.

-The abolitionist movement in Britain and America was successful and was executed purely out of benevolence with the anti-slavery people not actually gaining anything -During the 1980s while the communist Czechoslovakian government was taking political prisoners, Vaclav Havel and others circulated a petition for the government to release political prisoners, which was criticized by fearfull people and denied by the government. Soon though, 100s more petitions were circulating and the world’s media began to report on the political prisoners. Though it seemed hopeless just a few years earlier, in 1989, the “Velvet Revolution” threw out the Czech dictatorship (Paul Loeb, The Impossible Will Take a Little While ). -When the Bulgarian government threatened to rebuild a dangerous nuclear power plant, an 18-year old girl realized that the only way to stop the rebuilding was to overthrow the government. Although she was not taken very seriously by her colleagues, she gathered 20 friends in December of 1996 to protest daily on the steps of Parliament. Three months later, there were 20,000 protesters, who eventually forced the government to resign. The new democratic reform government announced in its energy policy that the nuclear power plant would not be rebuilt (Paxus Calta-Star, “Not Deterred”). -In the 1990s, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic committed genocide in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and politically repressed his own people. In 2000, a nonviolent student-initiated movement stopped Milosevic from stealing an election and forced him from power without a single violent death (ibid).

And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined.

-Rosh Hashana said “my parents expected the political situation to improve. With two small children they were afraid to emigrate and, like so many other "Jeckes", they expected that this nightmare would not continue in their Germany of high culture and morals. They had plenty of Aryan friends who constantly reassured them nothing could happen to them in Germany” (http://prisonplanet.tv/audio/110107taylor.mp3). -Even after the first nationwide action where Nazi Brownshirts were posted at Jewish businesses, it was still the case that, in the words of one observer, "the majority of the people on the street were inclined to treat the matter as more or less of a joke” (http://rwor.org/a/029/drawing-lessons-hitler-rise.htm). - Niemoller, former Hitler supporter wrote a poem after he was held in a Nazi concentration camp: When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came). -In Nazi Germany the police were allowed to arrest people on suspicion that they were about to do wrong. When the people were arrested, they were told to sign Form D-11 which stated you agreed to go to prison. Those who did not sign it were beaten until they did or officers simply forged their signature (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi_police_state.htm).

Discussion Questions -Is all this new? What parts? How so? -Much of this is new, much is not. The difference is that this is another level, and is more elaborate and far reaching, including several simultaneous attacks on civilization. -For example, Nixon was impeached, in part, for spying illegally, which he did his best to hide. Bush is doing this openly, and on an incredibly enlarged scale (10s of millions of Americans). -To use another example, governments have of course violated the Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg Laws, but Bush has done so openly and justified it (the government admits to running interrogation camps and techniques that amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment). -Why doesn’t the media report on this? -The media does sporadically report on parts of these points, but not to the full extent that is proper, and not to the point to really educate people, but to appease them when they’re angry. -The media has also become more and more under corporate control of a few, and to their interests and the interests of their sponsors, it would be counterproductive to tell the whole truth because they have stakes in this game as well. - If it’s really so bad, why haven’t people tried to stop it yet? -There are many answers to this question -People have been trying to stop this, sometimes seeing the whole package as interconnected and fighting the entire whole at once, sometimes fighting only what they’re most passionate about and separately. You don’t see the amount of protest on TV that takes place, and people are constantly told to vote instead. -We also assume the abstract “someone” or “people” will do it for us, that history will take care of itself, that everything will be okay. We forget that we cannot continually wait for others to fix things, that WE must do what we believe is necessary, that the future will be decided by US, not “other people.”

Discussion Questions Cont’d - All politicians are corrupt! Bush is just another dumb puppet, right? -Sure! Of course all politicians are corrupt, for that is how you enter politics in the first place, doing favors and paying money. And most likely Bush is a puppet. But perhaps so were Hitler and Stalin. It’s not about how smart Bush is: He and his administration have proven themselves to be DANGEROUS, and if we don’t heed the infinite number of warnings they’ve given us through their actions, we’re inviting them to continue. Two years is a long time… - What will Driving Out the Bush Regime accomplish besides punishing Bush? -Not only will the act punish the Bush administration and put dangerous criminals behind bars so that they cannot as easily harm society, it will set a precedent greater and more powerful than those set by Bush himself: the president is NOT beyond the law; one can NOT get away with war crimes and crimes against humanity and democracy; and no, you may NOT recommit the crimes of this administration unless you want a more alerted citizenry to move quickly to punish you more vehemently. -In short, it shows the government that we still have the power, and it shows the world, which hates us for allowing this, that we are NOT our government, and that we’ll take responsibility for it when it commits atrocities. We can begin to rebuild and move forward once they’re gone. - Is it really bad enough now for me to focus on stopping the executive branch? -That’s for you to decide. After all, your friends are not sitting in Guantanamo Bay…they may not have looked through your emails and listened to your phone calls…your taxes have not increased dramatically…they still teach evolution in some schools…you weren’t left to drown…but there are millions who have had this happen to them, and the laws and precedents now exist for this to occur again, and on a larger scale. And there is no guarantee that the next presidential administration won’t do this again, but push further and harder and more quickly.

Murderous -650,000 Iraqis have died in the past few years, which is three times the number of deaths prior to the March 2003 invasion of the country, the majority of them resulting from violence (Les Roberts, democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145222) -According to UN Human Rights investigators, US forces have systematically used hunger and deprivation as a weapon of war against the civilian population, such as cutting off water and electricity in Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, Al-Qa’im, Haditha, Baquba, and parts of the capital, as well as cutting off food, water and medical relief in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra, despite the Geneva Conventions prohibiting such actions (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”) -Although Protocol 1, Section 1, Article 35 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons that would cause unnecessary suffering, we have used these weapons, such as white phosperous, which melts the skin and cannot be extinguished, on civilians in Fallujah (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”) -In 2004, US forces bombed the Central Health Center in Fallujah, killing an uncounted number of patients and 20 doctors and nurses, which is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions according to Article 147 (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”) -US forces denied emergency aid and refused to let doctors evacuate the wounded from the city (Dahr Jamail, “The ‘Free Fire Zone’ of Iraq”) -US forces are repeatedly ordered to shoot Iraqi civilians in many situations such as checkpoints (Paul Rockwell, commondreams.org/views06/0429-30.htm) -The risk of a violent death in Iraq is now 58 times higher than it was before the invasion (Sarah Boseley, guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html)

Illegitimate -There are 2 officially legitimate reasons for going to war: 1) that the war is authorized by the UN Security Council, or 2) the war is self-defensive and not preemptive. The war in Iraq constitutes neither of these reasons, and is therefore illegal -In Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address, several specific numbers were given on Iraq’s WMD capabilities, all of which were proven to be untrue by several ex-CIA agents and UN Weapons Inspectors (documentary “Uncovered: The War in Iraq”) -On February 24, 2001, Collin Powell stated that Saddam Hussein had “no capability for WMDs and no power against his neighbors.” -On July 29, 2001, Condaleeza Rice stated that Saddam didn’t control the North part of the country, that we’d been able to keep arms away from him, and that his military had not been rebuilt. -Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said that the entire world, including the CIA and the UN weapons inspectors, had no new factual data that Iraq had WMDs or was reconstituting them -Ritter continues that by 1998 had accounted for 95-98% of Saddam Hussein’s declared stockpiles and that the remaining 2-5% were not verified -The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated in 1998 that Iraq had given a “full, final, and complete” account of its nuclear weapons -On September 2, 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency said that there was no definitive or reliable information that Iraq had or was making chemical and biological weapons -The Downing Street Memo, dated prior to 9/11, stated that the US knew Iraq was not a threat, that the intelligence was being fixed around the policy, and that Bush had made the decision to go to war.

Other Countries - A coworker told former EHM, John Perkins, that he had been asked by a private contractor to foment strikes in Caracas, Venezuela, and to bribe military officers, many who had been trained at the School of the Americas, to turn against Hugo Chavez. Riots ensued and Chavez was ousted, though he got back into power within the next few days (John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man ). -LA Times reported that the Bush Administration gave credibility to the suspicion: “Bush administration officials acknowledged…that they had discussed the removal of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for months with military and civilian leaders from Venezuela…” (Paul Richter, “US Had Talks on Chavez Ouster”) -Even when, under pressure from Collin Powell, President Aristide and his party agreed to early elections and power-sharing arrangement with the opposition, even though they had received 90% of the votes, the Bush administration pushed Aristide to accept the terms of resigning and the opposition being placed in the transitional government (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against the Interim Government of Haiti, www.ijdh.org and Resolution 806, adopted by OAS Permanent Council, Jan 02). -In early 2002, 20,000 M16s and four helicopters were shipped to the Dominican Republic, allegedly as a gift from President Bush for the Dominican border patrol, yet the Dominican patrol has only 3,000 employees, 900 of whom are authorized to carry weapons. The guns ended up in the hands of demobilized Haitian soldiers who wanted to overthrow Aristide (Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2006 complaint). -Bush funded and backed a bloody two-year coup where an estimated 15,000 women and girls were subjected to politically motivated mass rape (Hutson and Kolbe, “The Frequency and Intensity of Human Rights Violations in Port-au-Prince”). -The Bush Administration…has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups (newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact).

Torture -Both the Convention Against Torture and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, as well as other laws and treaties, prohibit torture and cruel treatment of any kind -Leaked FBI emails and memos report witnessing strangulation, routine beatings, lit cigarettes placed in ears, detainees chained hand to foot in the fetal position to the floor for 24 hours at a time, without food or water, until the point where they’d defecated upon themselves, and Israeli flags wrapped around detainees to “soften” them for interrogation ( http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0106-31.htm). -detainees and doctors, in addition to corroborations by the FBI, have also reported sexual and religious humiliation, rape, threats to their family, whippings, point burns with hot metal, electrical burns on their genitalia, bludgeon marks, being defecated upon, chemical liquid burns, being forced to watch and participate in sexual acts (Michael Ratner, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know ). -In April 2005, Human Rights Watch issued a report stating that it is clear that abuse of detainees has been much more widespread than Abu Ghraib. Amnesty International, the International Commission of the Red Cross, and FBI agents have made similar findings on the widespread nature of these abuses ( Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney ). -FBI emails have also suggested that there is a secret Executive Order allowing the torture as well as impersonation of FBI agents by military interrogators being ordered by Wolfowitz, yet the Pentagon says that it was Rumsfeld who ordered this specific practice ( http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1221-04.htm). -During a 2005 Senate Confirmation Hearing, Rice and Gonzales refused to rule out certain practices, such as waterboarding, as torture, citing that the laws of war have changed due to terrorism ( Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney ). -A Justice Department Memo, signed by Jay S. Bybee, who has since become a federal judge, argued that physical torture was only when the pain was as much as that of organ failure, impariment of bodily function, or death and that for psychological torture, it must last for months of years (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050114.html).

Suspicion, Detention, and Rendition - By November 2001, the police and FBI had detained by up to three thousand Muslim or Arab noncitizens in the US, who were not even suspected of terrorism, but were merely non-US citizens who had allegedly violated some immigration procedure (Michael Ratner, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know). -By October 2001, 35-40,000 people had been picked up, the majority of them by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, after the US dropped leaflets announcing high rewards, from $50 to $5000, for the deliverance of members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, so naturally, people were picked up for the money, especially in such a tribal region (ibid). -Of the 147 released prisoners as of 2004, 134 of them were guilty of absolutely nothing, though they’d been held without rights for years (ibid). --AI estimates that 100s of people were transported to countries known to use torture, and there are documented cases of both the rendition and the torture (ibid). --The two main justifications used after 9/11 for detaining people without rights were minor immigration violations and the material witness statute (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/42648_detain13.shtml). -Military Order 1, gave the president the power to detain noncitizens indefinitely and without trial, as well as to change the rules of traditional Military Commissions (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html). -According the MCA 06, which just codified the president’s claimed absolute commander-in-chief powers, any person declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ has no right to Habeas Corpus, to see the evidence against them, or to invoke the Geneva Conventions in their defense. Hearsay evidence from sources the defendants can’t confront, is allowed, along with ‘evidence’ from coercion. It also gives the president, and his successors, the authority to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. The determination of an unlawfull enemy combatant isn’t even limited to foreigners, for there is no provision in the act excluding American citizens from being deemed unlawful enemy combatants, indeed instances applying only to American citizens (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:4:./temp/~c109NWuIR9::).

Theocracy -The White House OFBCI was established by President Executive Order on January 29, 2001.The first person named as the director, John Dilulio , served about six months before resigning after issuing a report which argued that faith-based entities were often excluded from consideration for contracts even where no constitutional impediments existed. Another former director, Jim Towey, admitted in 2004 that "no direct federal grants from his program had gone to a non-Christian religious group." Although FBOs receiving grants from the OFBCI cannot use the money for religious services, the GAO noted in July 06 that several federal agencies refused to monitor compliance for these safeguards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith-based_initiatives ). -When Bush first announced his Faith-Based Initiative, Falwell and Robertson were adamantly opposed to it. Robertson worried aloud that "aberrant" religions such as Hare Krishnas, Scientologists, and followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon might get federal funds, while Falwell said that Islam should be disqualified from even applying for grants. Because all the grants have gone to Christian groups - including $1.5 million to Robertson's Operation Blessing, Robertson and Falwell now back the program wholeheartedly (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04057.html ). -Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin was put in charge of the Pentagon’s “High Value Target Plan” to capture Islamic terrorists, giving him broad authority over “enemy combatants.” Before he was appointed, he had toured US churches for over a year, giving sermons, in full uniform, on America’s Christian war against Islam (Mark Crispin Miller, “Bush-Cheney’s War on Enlightenment”). -Bush nominated William Pryor, who spoke out in support of Judge Roy Moore's display a five-ton Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court and even compared gay sex to bestiality, pedophilia, incest, prostitution, and necrophilia. When senators filibustered Pryor, Bush appointed him while Congress was at recess (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04057.html ). -The advisors to the National Center for Environmental Health now include Harold Koenig, who has written about the power of prayer in healing, and Sharon Falkenheimer, a member of the Christian Medical Association -- whose members must believe in "the divine inspiration, integrity, and final authority of the Bible as the Word of God“ (ibid). -Bush also nominated Michael McConnell, a hero to the Christian right for successfully defending the Boy Scouts before the Supreme Court, when the organization sought to exclude gay kids (ibid).

Suppressing Science -The National Academy of Sciences has been calling for reduced carbon emissions since the ’70s, but in 2001, they released a report saying that, in response to the very limited controversy, although some of the global climate change can be attributed to natural fluctuations, human actions are responsible for the overwhelming majority of global climate change and global warming (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -Steven Aftergood, director on government secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, said that all of the information deleted from federal websites under the Bush administration was previously unclassified, such as a NASA database on Earth satellites’ orbits, which will hamper international debris mitigation efforts (Greg Palast, “The Downing Street Memos, Manipulation of Prewar Intelligence, and Knowingly Withholding Vital Information from a Grand Jury Investigation”). -NASA senior climate change scientist James Hansen was warned of “dire consequences” if he didn’t stop talking about climate change and reducing emissions. He was also forbidden to talk to the press, give lectures, and add items to the website without review by NASA’s public affairs office (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -NASA public affairs officer, Bush-appointed George Deutsch, said that the job of his office was “to make the president look good.” Deutsch had no degree or experience, but had worked on Bush’s election campaign (ibid). -The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was forced to censor its website on climate change, and editor in chief of Science , Donald Kennedy, reported that several empirical studies contradicted the NOAA website (ibid). -EPA research has been suppressed on endangered species, effects of mountaintop removal for mining, forest management, mercury emissions, and the interactive effect of multiple air pollutants (ibid). -Bush officials have also "disappeared" information from government science web sites, such as a fact sheet on how to use condoms, a web page that debunked the bogus link between abortions and breast cancer, and a directory of model sex education programs, all of which included teaching about birth control (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04057.html). -Defense Advanced Planning Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm, said in an October 2003 report that global climate change is the greatest threat to national security (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”).

Deny Birth Control and Abortion -In 2006, Bush named Eric Keroack to oversee the US family planning programs at the DHHS, despite the fact that, until recently, he served as the medical director of A Women’s Concern, a pregnancy council organization that take pride in the fact that it does not “distribute, or encourage the use of contraceptive drugs and devices,” and which also claims that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer by 50% (Haider Rizvi, “Foe of Birth Control to Head Family Planning”). -Of the 27 members of the FDA advisory committee voting on whether to make Plan B available over the counter (OTC), only 3 voted against this action: David Hager, who has denied birth control to unmarried women, and Susan Crockett and Joseph Stanford, who won’t prescribe it at all. All of these were Bush appointees (Katha Pollit, “Toothpaste, Cough Drops, Aspirin, Contraception”). -Bush nominee James Leon Holmes of the Eastern District of Arkansas complained of the feminist movement bringing artificial contraception, compared equal rights among the sexes to death, and said that the solution is that “…the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband” (Gloria Feldt, “Core Issue Missing in Birth-Control War Reports”). -In 2001 Bush reinstated the global gag rule which restricts family planning agencies that receive US funds from offering abortion counsels, refer women to abortion providers, or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own countries, even when they use separate, non-US funds to do so. In Ethiopia, where abortion is illegal, it is also the second leading cause of death for women after TB (Dian Harrison, “Women Worldwide Face Effects of Bush's Gag Rule”). -A week before the Division for the Advancement of Women conference in Beijing, Bush representatives said they would not sign on because they believed that women had no right to abortion. The US delegation then demanded an amendment stating that a commitment to reproductive health services does not guarantee abortion rights. The only other countries that supported this measure were Egypt and Qatar, who then withdrew their approval as well (ibid).

Greed, Bigotry, Intolerance, Ignorance -Before Katrina hit, Bush had demoted FEMA to a non-cabinet level position and even considered privatizing the entire agency (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -In June of 2005, Bush cut the Army Corps of Engineers levee budget for New Orleans by $71.2 million, or 44%, which predictably resulted in the Corps having to stop the levee improvement projects, stop a study of how to best protect New Orleans, and institute a hiring freeze (ibid). -The president also received multiple warnings of Katrina’s likely occurrence and the resulting damage to lives and property, such as the 2001 FEMA report listing a hurricane in New Orleans as one of the top three most likely disasters, as well as a HSD Briefing of the White House hours before the storm hit (which was made public through a Senate investigation on Katrina, though this fact contradicts Bush’s claim that no one had anticipated the storm (ibid). -Bush also appointed Micheal Brown as FEMA’s director, though he had no experience with emergency management. Bush told Brown after Katrina that he had done a wonderful job (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Brown). -After Katrina, Bush allowed large private firms to rebuild with no-bid contracts (like Iraq) and put pollution controls “temporarily” on hold (Kevin Wehr, “Denying Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Global Warming, and the Politics of Refusal”). -On Aug 31 st , 2005, Marty Bahamonde, the only FEMA employee posted in New Orleans by Brown, wrote an email to the director which said, “The situation is passed critical…thousands gathering in the streets without food or water….Estimates are many will die within hours….” to which Brown replied, “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?” (ibid). -Even though Kathleen Blanco, governor of LA, and governor Haley Barbour of MS both declared a state of emergency two and three days before Katrina hit, and that Blanco even asked the president to do the same the day before, Bush did not declare an emergency or send help (ibid).

Hitler, Fascism - Benjamin Ferencz, who helped convict 22 Nazi officers for orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, said both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq (http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/138319/1/). -Like Hitler, President Bush was not elected by a majority, but was forced to engage in political maneuvering in order to gain office ( http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Jayne_Hitler-Bush.htm ). -Like Hitler, Bush began to curtail civil liberties in response to a well-publicized disaster, in Hitler’s case the Reichstag fire, in Bush’s case the 9-11 catastrophe (ibid). - Like Hitler, Bush pursued a reckless foreign policy without the mandate of the electorate and despite the opposition of most foreign nations. Just as Hitler cited international communism to justify Germany’s military buildup, Bush has used international terrorism to justify our current military buildup (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush scraps international treaties, like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto Global Warming Accord, the Geneva Conventions, and the International Criminal Court, as well as going to war over the objections of the U.N. (or the League of Nations in Hitler’s case) (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush and his cohorts emphasize the ruthlessness of their enemies in order to justify their own. Just as Hitler cited the threat of communist violence to justify even greater violence on the part of Germany, Bush justified the invasion of Iraq by emphasizing Hussein’s crimes against humanity (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush launches unilateral invasions on a supposedly preemptive basis. Just as Hitler convinced the German public to think of Poland as a threat to Germany in 1939 (in his Sept. 19 speech), Bush wants Americans to think of Iraq as having been a “potential” threat to our national security (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush is perfectly willing to sacrifice life as part of his official duty. This would be indicated by the 650,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead US soldiers, and by the fact that under no other governor in the history of the United States were so many killed as was so when he was governor of Texas (ibid). -Like Hitler, Bush depends on a military strategy that features a “shock and awe” blitzkrieg beginning with devastating air strikes, then an invasion led by heavy armored columns. -"This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers... were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees” - Rudolf Hoess, SS commandant at Auschwitz, during testimony at the Nuremberg trials, for the Nazis used the “bad apples” excuse for their torture and abuse cases before the Bush team did (http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=05/01/31/13012740).

Stealing Elections -Before the 2004 election, new voter registration hit record levels, with Democrats swamping Republicans by 5:1 in FL and 6:1 in Ohio, but Bush still won (truthout.org/docs_04/printer_092704K.shtml) -At 9pm on election evening, CNN showed Kerry leading by 3 points based on 13,000 exit poll respondents, yet at 1:36am CNN reported Bush leading by 2 points based on only 531 more respondents, a 5-point swing, which is mathematically impossible (globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.html). -Bush got more votes than there are registered voters in Ohio (globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html) -Though Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered FL Republican votes he got in 2000, to more than 700% in one county, Bush’s share of crossover votes by registered FL Democrats did not actually increase from 2000, but Independents who voted for him dropped 15 points (consortiumnews.com/2004/111204.html). -Bush won reelection despite approval rates of 48%, which is the first time in history such a disproportion has happened (gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=13948&pg=1). -The “challenger rule” – meaning an incumbent’s final results won’t be better than his final polling were wrong for the first time in polling history (ibid). -Although the hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in Ohio had Kerry winning 54.46% of the vote, Bush still won Ohio by 51-48% (freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1057). -Republican Clinton Curtis, a FL computer programmer, said that his employers at YEI and Tom Feeney asked in 2000 to create a computer program to undetectably alter vote totals (buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/images/CC_Affadavit_120604.pdf). -In every single instance where exit polls were wrong, the discrepency favored Bush, yet statistical probability says they should show up in both directions (truthout.org/unexplainedexitpoll.pdf)

There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party… -Very few Democrats raised serious objections and pursued real concrete steps to addressing the issue of election fraud in either presidential election or even made efforts to ensure paper ballots instead of voting machines in America -Democrats have voted to pass and re-pass the PATRIOT Act with very little opposition aside of lip service and rhetoric -Most Democrats ignored the massive protests against the war in Iraq for the past few years -Democrats have also repeatedly voted to give the president nearly as much money as he asks for to fight the “war on terror” even without any plan -Most distressing yet is that the Democrats allowed the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gives the president authority to declare any person an enemy combatant and revoke their right to due process and Habeas Corpus, assume authority over the Supreme Court, and interpret the Geneva Conventions in any way he chooses -In an interview with “Progessive” Barack Obama, the Senator said that he would favor “surgical” missle strikes on Iran, and that Pakistan should not be ruled out (counterpunch.org/frank01202005.html). -Both John Kerry and Howard Dean, as well as other leaders of the party, criticized the president in that he has not been “tough enough” with Iran (ibid). -When Iran called for a nuclear-free region, the Democrats apparently rejected such an idea because our allies like Israel would also be disarmed. We would prefer to be the dictators of a nuclear apartheid where we decide which countries can and cannot have nuclear weapons instead of using international treaties to prohibit anyone from owning nuclear weapons (Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2002).

If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world… -In 2003, US tanks shelled Al-Jazeera journalists at the Basra hotel where the journalists were the only guests, followed by a US warplane bombing the Baghdad office on April 8th, even though they had gone out of their way to give the Pentagon their coordinates so as not to be bombed (cpj.org/protests/03ltrs/Iraq08apr03pl.html). -Leaders of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization founded by Lynne Cheney, say in a report, ''College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack.'' The report names names and criticizes, or blacklists, professors for making statements ''short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation,” which the professors argue were taken out of context ( commondreams.org/headlines01/1113-03.htm ). -A defiant Attorney General John D. Ashcroft chided his opponents yesterday, telling members of a Senate committee that critics of a Justice Department crackdown ''aid terrorists'' and undermine national unity ( http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1207-02.htm). -To investigate allegations made by Bush in a State of the Union Address about Saddam’s attempts to purchase enriched uranium from Niger, the CIA asked former State Department officer to Niger Joseph Wilson.When Wilson returned, professing his doubt the likelihood of Saddam being able to obtain uranium from this country, on July 14, 2003, Robert Novak wrote an article outing Wilson’s wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, confessing that he had received her name from the White House (thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823) -Attorney General John Ashcroft has prescribed guidelines for FBI agents to infiltrate political protests, public events and Muslim mosques, much the same way as Cointelpro was used to spy on anti-war and Civil Rights activists, yet now it is completely legal due to the PATRIOT Act and other justifications, under the guise of national security (commondreams.org/headlines03/1122-09.htm). -63% of the nation disapproves of George Bush (whatthenationthinks.com/UK/results.asp?PollID=2614). -Roughly three-quarters of the publics in Germany (77%), Canada (75%) and France (74%) say Bush's re-election has made them feel less favorable toward the U.S (http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=247). - In Indonesia, favorable opinion of the US went from 75% in 2000 to 15% in 2003 after the Iraq invasion (Noam Chompsky, Failed States ).

History is full of examples when people…were victorious… -The American Revolution succeeded because they fought with conviction against a greater colonial power that was oppressing them with taxation without representation -The abolitionist movement in Britain and America was successful and was executed purely out of benevolence with the anti-slavery people not actually gaining anything -During the 1980s while the communist Czechoslovakian government was taking political prisoners, Vaclav Havel and others circulated a petition for the government to release political prisoners, which was criticized by fearfull people and denied by the government. Soon though, 100s more petitions were circulating and the world’s media began to report on the political prisoners. Though it seemed hopeless just a few years earlier, in 1989, the “Velvet Revolution” threw out the Czech dictatorship (Paul Loeb, The Impossible Will Take a Little While ). -Under British rule in Rhodesia, racist laws were causing unarmed insurrections. When the British sent a new administrator to the colony, he was greeted by several very large, singing, and naked Zambian women. He immediately reboarded his plane and flew back to London. Within weeks, Zambia was an independent nation (Vern Huffman, “Stories from the Cha Cha Cha”). -When the Bulgarian government threatened to rebuild a dangerous nuclear power plant, an 18-year old girl realized that the only way to stop the rebuilding was to overthrow the government. Although she was not taken very seriously by her colleagues, she gathered 20 friends in December of 1996 to protest daily on the steps of Parliament. Three months later, there were 20,000 protesters, who eventually forced the government to resign. The new democratic reform government announced in its energy policy that the nuclear power plant would not be rebuilt (Paxus Calta-Star, “Not Deterred”). -In 1977, during a dictatorship in Argentina that includied death squads that would disappear people for their political opinions and overwhelmingly controlled the media, 14 mothers of the disappeared began to protest against the government’s kidnappings and denial of doing so. Within months, the number of the mothers grew to 150 who were in touch with hundreds more. Although the government beat the women and kidnapped them as well, they continued to protest, until they began to attract worldwide attention. By 1982, there was a constitutional, elected government in Argentina (Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, “Resisting Terror”). -In the 1990s, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic committed genocide in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and politically repressed his own people. In 2000, a nonviolent student-initiated movement stopped Milosevic from stealing an election and forced him from power without a single violent death (ibid).

… and also of people hoping to passively wait it out… -Rosh Hashana said “my parents expected the political situation to improve. With two small children they were afraid to emigrate and, like so many other "Jeckes", they expected that this nightmare would not continue in their Germany of high culture and morals. They had plenty of Aryan friends who constantly reassured them nothing could happen to them in Germany” (http://prisonplanet.tv/audio/110107taylor.mp3). -Even after the first nationwide action where Nazi Brownshirts were posted at Jewish businesses, it was still the case that, in the words of one observer, "the majority of the people on the street were inclined to treat the matter as more or less of a joke” (http://rwor.org/a/029/drawing-lessons-hitler-rise.htm). -60,000 Jews left Germany during 1933 and 1934, by mid-1935 10,000 of them returned…because the Nazis…did not actually start out with a plan for mass extermination of Jews (ibid). - Niemoller, former Hitler supporter wrote a poem after he was held in a Nazi concentration camp: When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came). -In Nazi Germany the police were allowed to arrest people on suspicion that they were about to do wrong. When the people were arrested, they were told to sign Form D-11 which stated you agreed to go to prison. Those who did not sign it were beaten until they did or officers simply forged their signature (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi_police_state.htm).

The World Can't Wait

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The World Can't Wait