“We don’t do [ Iraqi ] body counts.” — General Tommy Franks, US Central Command
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IRAQ WAR CO$T
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u.s. dead the coffins iraqi casualties |
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"The goal has never been to get Bin Laden." — General Richard Myers, chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff
"The anti-American leftists in Latin America are using elections— not revolutions or military coups— to take and then
solidify power. It's a tactic that seems to have escaped the striped-pants set in our State Department.
Hopefully, the most recent polls will wake up Washington before it's too late."
"In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one
must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time."
"The Sunnis say: 'We hate you because you are an occupier, but we hate
al-Qaida more, and we hate the Persians (Iranians) even worse.' ... you
can't ignore that whole population."
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| Reuters WASHINGTON 12/10/05 Osama, Saddam? What's in a name? With a slip of the tongue, President George W. Bush turned Osama bin Laden into Saddam Hussein Bush momentarily switched the names of his two greatest nemeses in a news conference at the White House where he was defending his decision to authorize eavesdropping on Americans suspected of links with al Qaeda and other organizations in the U.S. war on terrorism. "In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said. "And guess what happened. Saddam ...Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated. We're at war. And we must protect America's secrets." The Bush administration sought to convince Americans before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government had links to bin Laden's al Qaeda. No such links have been proven.
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WASHINGTON — A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that
President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini
and Hitler.
"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…
somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution
that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush
versus Gore. It put somebody in power," said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd
Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.
"The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini
was put in by the king of Italy," Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew
audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of
the American Constitution Society.
"The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election,
and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am
not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a
situation which is extremely unusual," the judge said.
Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full
prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the
public.
"When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power.
In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised
power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who,
after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to
assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing," he said.
The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to
their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic
system.
"That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it. It’s got to do with the structural
reassertion of democracy," Judge Calabresi said.
His remarks were met with rousing applause from the hundreds of lawyers and law
students in attendance.
Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939
and settled in America. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the law professor to the
federal appeals court that hears cases from the states of New York, Connecticut, and
Vermont.
An opinion written by Judge Calabresi in 2000 rebuked Mayor Giuliani’s
administration for failing to respect First Amendment rights.
"We would be ostriches if we failed to take judicial notice of the heavy stream of
First Amendment litigation generated by New York in recent years," the judge wrote.
Allies of the mayor denounced the opinion as a thinly veiled political attack on Mr.
Giuliani, who was then a candidate for the Senate.
Judge Calabresi made his comments from the floor during a question and answer period
that was part of a panel discussion on the impact of the upcoming election on law
and policy.
"I’m a judge and so I’m not allowed to talk politics. So I’m not going to talk about
some of the issues that were mentioned or what some have said is the extraordinary record
of incompetence of this administration," he said.
Two Republicans on the panel politely rejected Judge Calabresi’s contention that Mr.
Bush has overstepped his bounds.
A White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush said Judge Calabresi suggested
the war in Iraq was a bold and inappropriate use of power without noting that the
president’s policy initially enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
"It was approved with a pretty solid vote from Congress," C. Boyden Gray said. Mr.
Gray said conservatives believe Mr. Bush has been too cautious on issues like Medicare
reform.
"If anything, he’s been too shy of doing things," the attorney said.
A top Supreme Court litigator, Jay Sekulow,said it would be unwise to place
limits on Mr. Bush’s authority simply because he did not win the popular vote.
"To say that a person who comes in under an Electoral College vote but not a majority
of the popular vote and they’re somehow relegated to president-minus, I think is a very
dangerous precedent," said Mr.SekuLow, who is chief counsel for a conservative legal
group, the American Center for Law and Justice.
One of the Democrats on stage endorsed Judge Calabresi’s comments.
"I absolutely obviously agree with what Judge Calabresi was trying to get at,"
said a former chief of staff to Vice President Gore, Ronald Klain.
On Friday evening, Justice Breyer addressed the group. His presentation was more
restrained. He detailed his thinking on the affirmative action cases the court
recently decided. However, most of his remarks consisted of a celebration of
the respect that most Americans show for the high court’s rulings.
"Ignoring the court isn’t done in this family," the justice said. |