AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

ican711nm wrote:

A few days ago, I heard Obama on the radio say: "We will require people to volunteer to join Americorp."

!!!???!!!require people to volunteer!!!???!!!

Yes, only someone from Kenya could say such.

Note to those who don't know what a non sequitur is. Walter just gave you an excellent example of one here.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

No, I don't go to Newsmax. But I watched the actual broadcast of both the O'Reilly show and Maddow show in question, and neither left me with the impression that there was any concerted push to get Dobbs fired by any meaningful lefty groups. Certainly not a 'huge bruhaha,' as you put it. Mostly there is derision.

Quote:

I am less curious about where Obama was born than I am about what is on that birth certificate that he seems so desperate that nobody be allowed to see. I suspect it might reveal at least an embarrassing lie that he has perpetuated.

Um, they provided a copy of the birth certificate to several news organizations during the campaign. Don't you remember that?

Cycloptichorn

Nope. They posted copies of A birth certificate,yes. But so far not a single organization other than those with strong supportive ties to Obama has been provided a copy of that birth certificate to examine for authenticity.

Are you honestly going to tell me that if there was a question of George W. Bush's birth and he refused to make his birth certificate public, in fact ordered that Massachusetts lock it up and show it to nobody, and furnished a couple of presumed copies to the Heritage Foundation and CPAC to examine and post on their websites, that you would not have raised serious questions about that?

Okubu's refusal to comment on the status of Obama's long-form birth certificate seemed to contradict an Oct. 31, 2008, letter by Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of health for the state of Hawaii. Fukino claimed she personally saw and could verify that Hawaii had Obama's original long-form birth certificate on file.

But both Okubu and Fukino are now on the record contradicting CNN's claim that Hawaii had destroyed Obama's long-form birth certificate when the health department went electronic in 2001.

The White House has refused to acknowledge repeated requests from WND that Obama authorize the Hawaii DOH to release all his birth records, including his original long-form birth certificate.

WND also has reported Obama has not released his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105233

On Oct. 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, issued this statement: "There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Quote:

On Oct. 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, issued this statement: "There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Army caught up in reservist’s Obama conspiracy theory
(By Megan McCloskey, Stars and Stripes, July 29, 2009)

Army Maj. Stefan Cook sought out a notorious lawyer in February, formally volunteered for an Afghan deployment in May and was granted orders to deploy in June.

But the Army reservist’s intention appeared not so much to fight for America as to fight against President Barack Obama, in furtherance of a bizarre conspiracy theory.

In July, Cook filed a lawsuit against the Army, the defense secretary and the president, claiming that Obama could not lawfully order him to go to war because he is not the legitimate president of the United States.

Cook is one of the so-called “Birthers,” a small group of activists who subscribe to a fringe conspiracy theory alleging that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore cannot legally serve as president. The conspiracy theory, proven false by numerous media investigations as well as officials in the state of Hawaii where Obama was born, first surfaced early in the presidential campaign, but in recent months it has continued to fester on the Internet.

For a moment, at least, Cook’s lawsuit managed to revive the rumor " or at least gain his lawyer, Orly Taitz, a few more minutes of screen time on the cable news networks.

Taitz, a Russian-born dentist who got her law degree online, is the public face of the Birthers. She has been trying to get the conspiracy theory heard in court since before the election. So far, all of the lawsuits brought by the Birthers have been summarily dismissed.

And in Cook’s case, the Army refused to be baited.

Soon after Cook filed his lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of his deployment, the Army ruled that since he volunteered to go to Afghanistan, he was within his rights to change his mind. No lawsuit was needed.

In fact, said Lt. Col. Maria Quon, a spokeswoman for Army Human Resources Command, “he just had to call or e-mail.”

On July 14, the commanding general of Special Operations Command Central formally revoked Cook’s orders. Two days later, a Georgia court dismissed the case.

Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, a spokeswoman for SOCCENT, said the Army couldn’t let Cook’s critical engineer billet be hijacked by further legal wrangling. Cook was scheduled to deploy on July 15, and his position cannot sit empty.

The officer Cook was supposed to replace “is going to have to remain in Afghanistan a while longer,” Silkman said, noting the Army is seeking a replacement. “No one has been identified yet, but it is a priority fill, so we’re working on it and expect to fill it soon. Engineers are in high demand.”

Taitz, unfazed by the facts, claimed victory.

The military has shown its cards “and they have nothing to play with,” Taitz said. “By revoking the orders, it’s clear to anybody. Think reasonably: Why would the military undermine itself by revoking its orders?”

Her conclusion: The Army let Cook out of his orders because officials couldn’t prove in court that Obama was born in the United States and is therefore the legitimate commander in chief.

“That’s ridiculous,” CENTCOM spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Bill Speaks said, calling Cook’s claims “a bizarre conspiracy theory.”

“Suffice to say [that revoking the orders] is certainly not an acknowledgement or validation in any way of his claims,” Speaks said.

Taitz, who in a phone interview compared Obama to Hitler, often strayed from the merits of Cook’s case into broader political rants.

“I have one question: Why would any member of the U.S. military risk his life or take any orders . . . from someone who is refusing to prove he is the legitimate president?” Taitz said. “We can’t stand for the arrogant, obnoxious behavior of Obama. He wants to defraud the whole nation.”

Stripes requested an interview with Cook, but Taitz did not make him available before deadline.

Cook’s legal ploy drew condemnation from Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org, a political action committee seeking to elect veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to public office.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not the way Maj. Cook was trained and brought up in the Army,” Friedman said. “You don’t leave a unit like that, and you certainly don’t do it because you’re trying to make a political statement.”

Soon after Cook filed his lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of his deployment, the Army ruled that since he volunteered to go to Afghanistan, he was within his rights to change his mind. No lawsuit was needed.

How Washington manufactured a war crisis

The Baghdad Observer
8/5/1996, No. 8534
Baghdad, by Huda M. al-Yassiri

The Gulf war reporting gave evidence that American news consumers were gulled by false reports. The reporting on this matter has been almost completelly one-sided consisting of the admonitions of self-interested. Absent from the reports is hard information from disinterested sources.
Late in January, Channel 4 of the British TV broadcast a documentary showing how American news consumers were dazzled and deluded by manipulators of satellite photos of Kuwait taken five weeks after August 1990 to justify the deployment of US troops to Saudi Arabia, al-Jumhuriya daily newspaper reported.
In a news item published on its January 20 issue, the daily said the documentary reveals the role of the Amercan advertising company, Nolton, in fabricating and airing stories on Iraqi troops that were said to be massing on the Saudi border and that claimed to be constituting the possible threat to Saudi Arabia to justify the massive deployment of US troops to the Gulf.
The British daily newspaper, The Guardian, has also published a reportage on the documentary showing its production process and revealing departments and parties that involved in the ploy.
On February 27, 1991, an article appeared in "In These Times" telling how typical consumer of mainstream news dazzled and deluded by the manipulators of images.
The article, "Public doesn't get picture with Gulf satellite photos," said when president George Bush began his massive deployment of American troops to the Gulf in August 1990, he claimed that Iraq, which had just entered Kuwait, had set its sights on Saudi Arabia. On september 11, 1990, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress, saying, "We gather tonight witness to events in the Gulf as significant as they are tragic. 120.000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia".
On January 6, 1991, however, Jean Heller reported in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times that satellite photos taken the same day the president Bush addressed Congress failed to back up his claim of an imminent Iraqi threat. In fact, there was no sign of a massive Iraqi troops buildup in Kuwait.
Heller told "In These Times," The troops that were said to be massing on the Saudi border and that constituted the possible threat to Saudi Arabia that justified the US sending of troops do not show up in these photographs. And when the Department of Defense was asked to provide evidence that would contradict our satellite evidence, it refused to do it".
But the national media has chosen to ignore Heller's story. St. Petersburg Times editors approached the Associated Press twice about running her story on the wire, but to no avail. Likewise, the Scripps-Howard news service, of which-the St. Petersburg Times is a member, chose not to distribute the story.
"I think part of the reason the story was ignored was that it was published too close to the start of the war," says Heller. "Second, and more importantly, I do not think people wanted to hear that we might have been deceived.

Q: Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the war in Iraq?

1. The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.
2. The Iraq war violates international law.
3. Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq.
4. Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq.
5. Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war.
6. Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government's negligence.
7. The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart.
8. The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home.
9. The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination.
10. Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard.



Q: Why do Iraq Veterans Against the War call for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq?

1. The reasons and rationale given for the invasion were fraudulent.
2. The presence of the US military is not preventing sectarian violence.
3. The occupation is a primary motivation for the insurgency and global religious extremism.
4. We can no longer afford to fight this war of choice.
5. National security is compromised.
6. The world is becoming more dangerous.
7. Our national “moral authority” is being undermined.
8. The majority of American citizens, Iraqi citizens and US military would like to see an immediate end to the war in Iraq.
9. The military is broken.


A: Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the war in Iraq?

1. The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.
The Bush Administration planned for an attack against Iraq before September 11th, 2001. They used the false pretense of an imminent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat to deceive Congress into rationalizing this unnecessary conflict. They hide our casualties of war by banning the filming of our fallen's caskets when they arrive home, and when they refuse to allow the media into Walter Reed Hospital and other Veterans Administration facilities which are overflowing with maimed and traumatized veterans.
For further reading: www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/index.html

2. The Iraq war violates international law.
The United States assaulted and occupied Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council. In doing so they violated the same body of laws they accused Iraq of breaching.
For further reading:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm

www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf
Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution Oct. 16, 2002 (H.J. Res. 114) To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq

[1:TRUE] Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

[2: TRUE] Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

[3: FALSE] Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

[4: FALSE] Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

[5: FALSE] Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

[6: FALSE] Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

[7: TRUE] Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

[8: FALSE] Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

[9:TRUE] Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

[10:TRUE] Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

[11:TRUE] Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

[12: FALSE] Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

[13: FALSE] Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

[14: FALSE] Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

[15: FALSE] Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677;

[16:TRUE] Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

[17:TRUE] Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

[18:TRUE] Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable';

[19: FALSE] Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

[20:TRUE] Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

[21:TRUE] Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

[22:TRUE] Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and,

[23:TRUE] Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region:

Now therefore be it, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. 50 USC 1541 note.

Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: Bush’s “big lie” and the crisis of American imperialism
By the editorial board
21 June 2003

More than two months after the US occupation of Baghdad, and three months after the onset of the American invasion, the Bush administration has been unable to produce any evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It is increasingly obvious that the entire basis on which the White House and the American media “sold” the war was a lie.