bush Starts a Phony Commision To Find Himself Blameless

au, I know! All part of Bushies' strategy. I hope the history books reflects the truth rather than the rhetoric used on the American People by this administration.

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History books are part fact,part wishfull thinking and part imagination. The further, in time, from the incident the less factual and truthfull they become.

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au, I'm well aware of how history books in the US works or doesn't work. This country's leadership was responsible for putting us into concentration camps during WWII without being charged of any crime. That history did not appear in school textbooks, and most Americans are still not informed about this travesty of justice.

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CI I dont want to seem arguementative but anyone who dosent know about the concentration camps we had during the 2nd world war just dosent know how to read or has a serious hearing problem. This was one of the darkest times for our so called democracy. Most of the orentals that were put into these camps were also deprived of thier possitions and wealth and never properly compensated.

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rabel, It's really not a matter of reading skills or hearing problems. In my many travels with Americans, I find that the majority of them are still unawares of the concentration camps in the US during WWII. Many of the people I travel with are mostly professionals with college education, so I have a tendency to blame our educational system for not including this in our history books.

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I agree with C.I. I don't think the majority of Americans do know about that. And if they do, I'll bet the first time they heard about it was right after 9-11, when there was all that arab-american backlash.

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I never heard about it in school. Anybody else?

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I don't remember it in school but my dad told me about it when I was young.

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As a matter of fact, I did not hear about it in school. I did learn of it long before 9/11.

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I heard about it in college (mid '70s). But certainly not in highschool before that. In those days in Oklahoma, racism was all about white vs. black. It took them a while longer to acknowledge the issue of racism towards Asians, Hispanics and others.

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I never read about it in school however am old enough to remember it happening.I am sometimes amazed how the history of as little of 50 years ago has gotten revised and distorted.

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A similar program arose in Canada too, with families of Japanese origin uprooted and placed in isolated camps. Many lost property and business interests. I can't recall if this was mentioned in school texts, but it was common knowledge within the community where I was raised.

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blagtham, I heard about the Japanese in Canada being uprooted into isolated camps. Did you know that Americans picked up Japanese in Peru (not American citizens), and put them in US concentration camps to use as hostage and prisoner trades with Japan?

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Eva wrote:

I heard about it in college (mid '70s). But certainly not in highschool before that. In those days in Oklahoma, racism was all about white vs. black. It took them a while longer to acknowledge the issue of racism towards Asians, Hispanics and others.

they have colleges in Oklahoma? Four year ones?

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Impartial Experts?
Co-Chair of Bush Panel Part of Far Right Network

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's choice to co-chair his commission to investigate intelligence failures prior to the Iraq War is a long-time, right wing political activist closely tied to the neo-conservative network that led the pro-war propaganda campaign. Federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman, who will share the chairmanship with former Virginia Democratic Senator Charles Robb, also has some history in covert operations.

Retired federal judge Laurence Silberman, listens to president Bush announces the formation of a commission Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 to investigate possible problems with U.S. intelligence. (Manuel Balce Ceneta)

In 1980, when he served as part of former Republican president Ronald Reagan's senior campaign staff, he played a key role in setting up secret contacts between the Reagan-Bush campaign and the Islamic government in Tehran, in what became known as the ''October Surprise'' controversy. (Former president George HW Bush, the current president's father, was Reagan's vice-president for two terms, 1981-89). Rewarded with his appeals court judgeship several years later, Silberman helped advise right-wing activists during the 1990s on strategies for pursuing allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Democratic president Bill Clinton, according to various accounts.

Besides Silberman and Robb, a conservative Democrat who also has strong ties to neo-conservatives through the Democratic Leadership Council, Bush chose five other commission members and indicated that two more have yet to be named.

The five include Arizona Republican Senator John McCain; former White House counsel for Clinton and former president Jimmy Carter, Lloyd Cutler; Yale University President Richard Levin; former deputy Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Admiral William Studeman and retired appeals court judge Pat Wald. In announcing the panel, Bush rejected appeals by the opposition Democrats in Congress that they be given a role in deciding its membership in order to enhance its credibility. He also appeared to limit the commission's mandate to study only the mistakes made by the intelligence community in assessing Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

More......

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0206-10.htm

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Why is he wasting this money on a commission that isn't going to have any freedom and the motivation to find what went wrong in the first place?

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I read about it, probably in the sixties. Have known about it along time.
Don't know from where exactly. I've always read a lot. Later on, my new boss, now long time mentor-pal, said he was born in the Wyoming camp. He and I still say we will end up on LA street benches in overcoats together. In the early eighties, I coordinated a land-use exhibit re the LA bicentennial and learned more in the research about how decimated families were, how much loss happened right in our city.. Land held then and lost is now near priceless. I think this was covered in the exhibit itself, not that that means much.

Hmm, somehow I think the old New West magazine might have had an article or two about it...
I have no idea what is in our present high school history books. I would probably turn beet red from anger.

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/10/silberman/story.jpg

Judge Laurence Silberman, George Bush's nominee to co-chair the commission investigating U.S. intelligence on Iraq

Earlier here, I said that this panel looked to be a good one. I no longer

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hold that opinion, because of Bush's choice of this man.

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Silberman's sojourn in the world of political scandal began during the run-up to the 1980 presidential election when, as a member of Ronald Reagan's campaign staff, he, along with Robert C. McFarlane, a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Richard V. Allen, Reagan's chief foreign policy representative, met with a man claiming to be an Iranian government emissary. The Iranian offered to delay the release of the 52 American hostages being held in Tehran until after the election -- thus contributing to Carter's defeat -- in exchange for arms.

A controversy continues to rage over whether the Reagan team made a bargain with the Iranians, as alleged by Gary Sick, a former National Security Council aide in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations who now teaches at Columbia University.

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After working for Reagan's election, Silberman was rewarded with an appointment to the D.C. Court of Appeals, the second most powerful court in the country. After the Iran-contra scandal, he was part of a three-judge panel that voted 2-to-1 to reverse Oliver North's felony conviction. Voting with him was David Sentelle, a protégé of Jesse Helms who according to Brock named his daughter "Reagan" after the president who put him on the bench.

In his book "Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up," Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican who served as deputy attorney general during the Dwight Eisenhower administration, described Silberman as "aggressively hostile" during oral arguments. Walsh wrote that he regretted not moving to disqualify him.

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The year after he ruled North innocent, Silberman joined in the right-wing campaign to defame Anita Hill, who had accused Clarence Thomas, George H.W. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment.

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And it was the Silbermans who encouraged him [Brock] as he became one of the chief propagandists of the right's anti-Clinton jihad. In 1993, Brock wrote "Troopergate" for the American Spectator. A lascivious would-be exposé about Clinton's sex life, its mention of a woman named "Paula" spurred Paula Jones to introduce herself to the world at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she held a press conference to claim that Clinton had sexually harassed her. It was that story that ultimately led to the impeachment of Clinton.

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As Jonathan Broder reported in Salon at the time, "U.S. Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote a scathing opinion that accused [Attorney General Janet] Reno of acting not on behalf of the U.S. government, but in the personal interests of President Clinton. Then, using language seldom seen in the federal judiciary, Silberman questioned whether Clinton himself, by allowing his aides to attack Starr, was 'declaring war on the United States.'"

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/10/silberman/index.html

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Silberman was also up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra, and vacated the conviction of Ollie North. This whole exercise reeks.

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Setanta wrote:

Silberman was also up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra, and vacated the conviction of Ollie North. This whole exercise reeks.

There'll be plenty who will swallow it.

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bush Starts a Phony Commision To Find Himself Blameless

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