THE SCHIAVO CASE, II: WILLIAM BENNETT AND THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS (“The Coming 2nd Civil War,” No. 8)

Column No. 56 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - April 14, 2005

This column is the eighth in this series.  The cataclysm will come to our nation, if it does, because of the ideology, policies, and ever-growing political power of the Republican Religious Right (RRR) and their policy arm, the Georgites.  The RRR agenda is clearly stated in writing by its ideologues from Norquist to Wolfowitz to Falwell.  For obvious political reasons it is hardly ever articulated by its front men from Bush to Frist to DeLay, for if they spelled it out, it would be a sure loser.  The major components are: imposing their religious beliefs on all Americans through the use of the criminal law; reducing the functions of the Federal government to the barest minimum outside of the military-and-prison-industrial, opposition-repression/suppression, and private-thought/behavior-control complexes; and replacing Constitutional government as we have known it with overwhelming Executive Branch dominance operating on its own authority – that is via a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.

I do not write the term “Second Civil War” lightly.  As you know, I believe that Georgitism is leading us directly to the destruction of traditional American Constitutional Democracy and instituting in its place a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.  I originally planned up to three columns on the Schiavo case.  The Schiavo “mini-series” (sorry about this) will now stretch to at least four, perhaps five essays.  I believe that history will come to see it as the Dred Scott case of this era, whether or not there is in fact a Second Civil War.  Major elements of the Georgite campaign to tear apart the Constitution piece by piece, already well underway, are clearly illustrated by it and how the Georgites have dealt with it.  Today’s column highlights a proposal by one of the leading ideologues of the Republican Religious Right, William Bennett, to destroy the independence of the Judiciary and thus remove one of the legs of the three-legged stool that presently symbolizes the bedrock of true Americanism, the separation of powers at both the Federal and State levels in our country.

One of the central elements of fascism is replacing of the Rule of Law by the Rule of Man.  The Rule of Law governs most modern countries.  A central element of the doctrine of the Rule of Man is that there is no such thing as an independent judiciary that has legal power over the legislative and, in particular, the executive, branches of government.  Established practice in the United States since its founding has been that the executive and legislative branches are, without any form of coercion, to follow direct orders arising from decisions of the judicial branch.  The trade-off has been that the judicial branch is to follow legislated Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure, legal precedent, and customary legal practices in arriving at its decisions.

This is all part of the unwritten part of the Constitution of the United States.  This particular unwritten part began as an add-on to the written part with the creation of the concept and practice of “judicial review.”  This was established by the third Chief Justice, John Marshall, and his fellows on the Court, in a series of decisions handed down during the first two decades of the 19th century.  The concept and processes of judicial review, and its implied supremacy over certain actions of the other two branches as described above, are nowhere specifically mentioned in the Constitution.  Nevertheless, both the concept and the practice were fully accepted at the time as part of US constitutional government by the leaders of the other two branches, many of whom had been major actors in the creation of the Constitution.  Their number included President Jefferson, who did not consider judicial review with the power of the final say a particularly good idea, but went along with it nevertheless.

William Bennett was the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush I.  In that role, Bennett proclaimed, among other things, that the use of certain recreational mood-altering addictive drugs was illegal because, well, they were addictive (bad) and the law said so, and whatever the law said was right and it had to be followed.  (Bennett at the time happened to be addicted to a drug four times as addictive as cocaine --- nicotine in cigarette tobacco --- but it wasn't illegal, so that didn't matter.  He was also overweight and out-of-shape and it came out later that he was a compulsive gambler, but that apparently did not matter then, either.)  He also proclaimed, upon finding out that in 17th century Persia heroin dealers were beheaded, that beheading might not be a bad idea for heroin dealers in the US either.  Treatment for addiction?  Forget it.  The law is the law he said, and it has to be obeyed.

Then along comes the Terry Schiavo case, so convenient for the Georgites and the rest of the Republican Religious Right in, among other things, their continuing and strengthening assault on the courts and the rest of the foundations of the US legal system.  In an article on the National Review Online March 24, 2005, Bennett strongly recommended that Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida directly disobey the order of the Florida courts regarding Terry Schiavo.  He also recommended that this Bush (III, mark my word) should ignore the fact that the Federal court system refused to enter into the matter, therefore directly reinforcing the decisions and outcomes of the Florida judicial process.

So here is Mr. Law-and-Order incarnate advocating law-busting by an elected official, just because they both disagree with the outcome of the judicial process (over a seven-year period) in a particular case.  This is the Rule of Man, not the Rule of Law.  This is fascism, folks, plain and simple.  According to a report in the Miami Herald Jeb Bush was prepared to follow this advice and send State law enforcement officers to remove Mrs. Schiavo from the hospice where she was under care, and reinsert the famous feeding tube.  He was deterred from doing so only because the local police informed the governor’s office that they would resist any attempt to interfere with a lawful court order.  But just think.  That hospice might have been Jeb Bush’s Fort Sumter.

Am I over-emphasizing these aspects of the Schiavo case?  I do not think so.  Not enough people, particularly in the media and the so-called opposition party, are paying enough attention to them.

Such issues were also ignored in pre-Nazi Germany.

THE SCHIAVO CASE, II: WILLIAM BENNETT AND THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS (“The Coming 2nd Civil War,” No. 8)

Column No. 56 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - April 14, 2005

This column is the eighth in this series.  The cataclysm will come to our nation, if it does, because of the ideology, policies, and ever-growing political power of the Republican Religious Right (RRR) and their policy arm, the Georgites.  The RRR agenda is clearly stated in writing by its ideologues from Norquist to Wolfowitz to Falwell.  For obvious political reasons it is hardly ever articulated by its front men from Bush to Frist to DeLay, for if they spelled it out, it would be a sure loser.  The major components are: imposing their religious beliefs on all Americans through the use of the criminal law; reducing the functions of the Federal government to the barest minimum outside of the military-and-prison-industrial, opposition-repression/suppression, and private-thought/behavior-control complexes; and replacing Constitutional government as we have known it with overwhelming Executive Branch dominance operating on its own authority – that is via a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.

I do not write the term “Second Civil War” lightly.  As you know, I believe that Georgitism is leading us directly to the destruction of traditional American Constitutional Democracy and instituting in its place a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.  I originally planned up to three columns on the Schiavo case.  The Schiavo “mini-series” (sorry about this) will now stretch to at least four, perhaps five essays.  I believe that history will come to see it as the Dred Scott case of this era, whether or not there is in fact a Second Civil War.  Major elements of the Georgite campaign to tear apart the Constitution piece by piece, already well underway, are clearly illustrated by it and how the Georgites have dealt with it.  Today’s column highlights a proposal by one of the leading ideologues of the Republican Religious Right, William Bennett, to destroy the independence of the Judiciary and thus remove one of the legs of the three-legged stool that presently symbolizes the bedrock of true Americanism, the separation of powers at both the Federal and State levels in our country.

One of the central elements of fascism is replacing of the Rule of Law by the Rule of Man.  The Rule of Law governs most modern countries.  A central element of the doctrine of the Rule of Man is that there is no such thing as an independent judiciary that has legal power over the legislative and, in particular, the executive, branches of government.  Established practice in the United States since its founding has been that the executive and legislative branches are, without any form of coercion, to follow direct orders arising from decisions of the judicial branch.  The trade-off has been that the judicial branch is to follow legislated Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure, legal precedent, and customary legal practices in arriving at its decisions.

This is all part of the unwritten part of the Constitution of the United States.  This particular unwritten part began as an add-on to the written part with the creation of the concept and practice of “judicial review.”  This was established by the third Chief Justice, John Marshall, and his fellows on the Court, in a series of decisions handed down during the first two decades of the 19th century.  The concept and processes of judicial review, and its implied supremacy over certain actions of the other two branches as described above, are nowhere specifically mentioned in the Constitution.  Nevertheless, both the concept and the practice were fully accepted at the time as part of US constitutional government by the leaders of the other two branches, many of whom had been major actors in the creation of the Constitution.  Their number included President Jefferson, who did not consider judicial review with the power of the final say a particularly good idea, but went along with it nevertheless.

William Bennett was the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush I.  In that role, Bennett proclaimed, among other things, that the use of certain recreational mood-altering addictive drugs was illegal because, well, they were addictive (bad) and the law said so, and whatever the law said was right and it had to be followed.  (Bennett at the time happened to be addicted to a drug four times as addictive as cocaine --- nicotine in cigarette tobacco --- but it wasn't illegal, so that didn't matter.  He was also overweight and out-of-shape and it came out later that he was a compulsive gambler, but that apparently did not matter then, either.)  He also proclaimed, upon finding out that in 17th century Persia heroin dealers were beheaded, that beheading might not be a bad idea for heroin dealers in the US either.  Treatment for addiction?  Forget it.  The law is the law he said, and it has to be obeyed.

Then along comes the Terry Schiavo case, so convenient for the Georgites and the rest of the Republican Religious Right in, among other things, their continuing and strengthening assault on the courts and the rest of the foundations of the US legal system.  In an article on the National Review Online March 24, 2005, Bennett strongly recommended that Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida directly disobey the order of the Florida courts regarding Terry Schiavo.  He also recommended that this Bush (III, mark my word) should ignore the fact that the Federal court system refused to enter into the matter, therefore directly reinforcing the decisions and outcomes of the Florida judicial process.

So here is Mr. Law-and-Order incarnate advocating law-busting by an elected official, just because they both disagree with the outcome of the judicial process (over a seven-year period) in a particular case.  This is the Rule of Man, not the Rule of Law.  This is fascism, folks, plain and simple.  According to a report in the Miami Herald Jeb Bush was prepared to follow this advice and send State law enforcement officers to remove Mrs. Schiavo from the hospice where she was under care, and reinsert the famous feeding tube.  He was deterred from doing so only because the local police informed the governor’s office that they would resist any attempt to interfere with a lawful court order.  But just think.  That hospice might have been Jeb Bush’s Fort Sumter.

Am I over-emphasizing these aspects of the Schiavo case?  I do not think so.  Not enough people, particularly in the media and the so-called opposition party, are paying enough attention to them.

Such issues were also ignored in pre-Nazi Germany.

THE SCHIAVO CASE AND THE LOCUS OF THE ‘POLICE POWER’ (“The Coming 2nd Civil War,” No. 7)

Column No. 55 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - April 7, 2005

This column is the seventh in this series.  The cataclysm foreseen will come to our nation, if it does, because of the ideology, policies, and ever-growing political power of the Republican Religious Right (RRR) and their policy arm the Georgites.  The RRR agenda is clearly stated in writing by its ideologues from Norquist to Wolfowitz to Falwell.  For obvious political reasons it is hardly ever articulated by its front men from Bush to Frist to DeLay, for if they spelled it out it would be a sure loser.  The major components are: imposing their religious beliefs on all Americans through the use of the criminal law; reducing the functions of the Federal government to the barest minimum outside of the military-and-prison-industrial complexes and the opposition-repression/suppression and private-thought/behavior-control sectors; and replacing Constitutional government as we have known it with overwhelming Executive Branch dominance operating on its own authority – that is via a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.

A minority of Americans, in the 20% range, adheres to this ideology.  However, the Georgite regime, abetted by its lap-dog mainstream media otherwise known as the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda, act as if it has a majority behind it.  There is as yet no effective national political opposition to the Georgites and their true agenda of dismantling US Constitutional Democracy – an opposition that is, after all, supported by the majority of Americans.  Every day passing without such an entity that could possibly win the struggle politically, brings us one day closer to civil war.  Civil War – not written lightly.  The reason for such a stark prospect is that there are too many Constitution-loving Americans who will not give up freedom and liberty without a fight.  Each essay in this occasional series is, thus, about an issue that, if not resolved politically in favor of traditional US Constitutionalism, will eventually need to be resolved for it by force.

Some will characterize this position as alarmist and premature.  That is the intent.  We must start focusing on what the Georgites are really about and quickly develop a strong, national political opposition that focuses on what their agenda really is, not what they say it is.  To use Jefferson’s characterization of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 as indicating an eventual bloody conflict over slavery, “the firebell is ringing in the night.”  Now to the specifics of today’s column as to how the Constitution is being torn apart piece by piece by the Georgites.

The Georgite Executive Branch has clearly demonstrated its penchant for amending the Constitution without bothering to go through the constitutionally mandated amendment process.  As detailed previously in this space, under the “USAPatriot” Act, the regime has abrogated major portions of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, it has arrogated to itself the power to declare war when it pleases to do so, and it has revoked without negotiation major portions of international treaties that, under the Constitution, are part of the “highest law of the land.”

Not to be outdone, the Georgite Congress has now gotten into the act, with yet another attack on the Constitution.

The Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  This is known as “the reserve clause” of the Constitution.  Among these powers “not delegated to the United States” (that is, they are reserved to the States) is something called the “police power” of sovereign governments.  It was well-known, well-understood, and well-defined in English Common Law and statute at the time of the adoption of the US Constitution.  This is the power (FP Grad, Public Health Law Manual, 1975, p. 5): “to enact and enforce laws to protect and promote the health, safety, morals, order, peace, comfort, and general welfare of the people.”  That the Police Power belongs to the States has been accepted law in our land since the Founding.  Among the many matters covered by it is, for example, the determination by the Courts of who, in the absence of a Living Will, has the say over the matter of the maintenance of cardio-respiratory functioning in a person when there is no evidence of brain function --- spouse, or parents.  In this instance, the settled State law around this country says the spouse had the power of decision.

With the horribly mis-named “Terri’s Law” and abetted by some Democrats who apparently had not, or did not care to, read the Constitution either, the Georgite Congress brought a matter governed by the police power up from the Florida state court to the Federal courts.  In so doing, and mimicking the Bush Administration in other actions, Congress repealed a major element of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment. It did so just as the Georgites have done: without bothering to go through the amendment process.

It is immaterial that the Federal court system, all the way to the Supreme Court, refused to hear the case.  The hard fact is that, if the Georgites are able to stock the courts with judges who think the way they do, such judicial self-restraint will be a thing of the past.  The train carrying those who would destroy Constitutional Democracy as we have known it in the United States for 200+ years has left the station.  Since that train is totally out of control, a massive train-wreck is coming.  I wonder when some elements of the mainstream media will wake up to that fact and when a political party opposed to that outcome will come powerfully onto the scene?

NB:  This column is derived from my “Short Shot No. 54” that appeared on The Moving Planet.

JOHN BOLTON AND THE NUCLEAR OPTION

Column no. 54 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - March 31, 2005

The Georgites relish talking about “nuclear options” (or is it “nookyulahr opshuns”?)  They use the term to refer both to the possible real use of nuclear weapons and as a metaphor.  For example, they use it to describe how they are going to prevent the Democrats in the Senate from blocking confirmation of completely unqualified Bush nominees for the Federal bench.  Sam Johnson, a Republican Congressman from Texas (no doubt a Ken DeLay special) has talked about “nuking” Syria (see TPJ, March 10).  In my column of February 24, I briefly discussed the June War Plan for Iran, already signed off on by Bush, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, as reported by Scott Ritter.  Since US ground forces are in an increasingly parlous state (see The Washington Post, March 19, 2005, Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military), it appears that the only possible course of US military action would be to use the real “nuclear option.”  Now we have another example of Georgite thinking along these lines: the nomination of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations.

There has been much analysis of the inappropriateness of this nomination, given Bolton’s long-standing disdain for the institution and his advocacy over time of a variety of anti-UN measures,  including the possibility of quitting the body altogether.  Beyond his views on the UN, the man does not exactly have a reputation as an accomplished diplomat.  To the contrary, two bulls in a china shop seem to be an accurate description of his diplomatic skills.  In conventional terms, then, the nomination seems to be un-understandable, inexplicable.  However, if one starts thinking about the true Georgite objectives likely are, naming Bolton to the UN makes total sense.  They indeed are symbolized by this nomination.

The “Bush Doctrine” calls for unrestricted US intervention around the world, using force when, as, and if necessary, unconstrained by any treaty obligations. Based on Presidential whim or other motivations, such interventions do not require -- indeed reject to the political extent possible – multi-lateralism and allied involvement.  The “Doctrine” is a formula for continued and continuous maxi-imperialist aggression by the Georgite-run United States, using the excuse of the day whether true or not.  In such a context, the UN could only be an impediment to carrying out this policy.  At best, then, the US would like to find some way to destroy the UN as we have known it since 1945.  Next best to destruction, which I suppose only people like Bolton and Wolfowitz could seriously imagine happening, would be to make a conclusionary case domestically for US departure from that body.

The Georgite anti-UN campaign, let us recall, began in the run-up to the pre-planned Iraq War.  A US Secretary of State formerly held in high regard in many world capitols, knowingly (or perhaps, if he is not as smart as advertised, unknowingly) lied through his teeth on the Iraq reality to the Security Council in February, 2003 (see my TPJ column for March 16, 2004).  Powell showed total disdain for the UN in that performance.  What followed was a supposed campaign to get the Security Council to pass a resolution supporting the invasion.  However, the US put such conditions on the proposed resolution that UN intransigence was virtually guaranteed.  Precisely.  For in fact the US did not want any UN involvement, at all.  For that would have meant UN involvement in determining war plans and goals and objectives, US military forces under UN command, and UN control of post-war developments.  These were two big sets of no-no’s for the Georgites, who have kept the UN at arms-length in Iraq since then.

Since then, too, the Georgites have kept up the drumbeat of anti-UN propaganda domestically, focusing on five (count them) Congressional investigations of the Iraq oil-for-food program.  (This in a Congress that investigates little else other than as distractions, e.g., the problem of steroid use in major league baseball.)  The UN investigations, of course, have turned out to be all for naught, since the US either knew about or was in the middle of whatever ethical and rules violations and corruption took place.  But once again, we must remember that it is simply unfair to confuse the Georgite constituency with facts.  The anti-UN seeds have been planted and are being cultivated.  Secretary General Kofi Annan already recognizes what is going on as he launches his campaign to make a primary focus of the international body the protection and promotion of human rights, specifically condemning such actions as those embodied by the “USA Patriot” Act.

Bolton will be an instigator, not a negotiator.  Perhaps there will be demands for his departure on the part of some of the smaller countries which he manages to insult with his chestnuts of anti-UN aggression.  The US regime’s domestic clamor to make massive reductions in contributions to the world body will become ever-louder and be echoed with increasing vigor, in the Congress by O’RHannibaugh, and by the rest of the Georgite Privatized Ministry of Propaganda.  There will be possible intermediate outcomes.  But ultimately, I believe that the Georgites will have built their case at home with their constituency, the only place where it counts for them, to quit the UN and of course to expel its headquarters from this country.  To achieve such Georgite objectives is the only scenario that could rationally explain the nomination of John Bolton.

And so, in this context, you might wonder what the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz for the Presidency of the World Bank means.  I can see no other message behind it than a Georgite goal to destroy, or least hobble, that institution as well.  After all, since the Georgites believe that poverty is the fault of the poor, and thus in the US the rich simply do not have any responsibility for the poor, the United States most certainly can have no responsibility for the poor of other countries.  So who needs a World Bank?

Or possibly, as Andy Borowitz put it in his “Report” of  March 16, 2005 (http://www.borowitzreport.com/) “Elsewhere, moments after President Bush nominated him to head up the World Bank, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz accused the International Monetary Fund of possessing weapons of mass destruction and said he would lead a coalition of other banks to invade it.”

OF “MOOLAHS,” PUTIN AND BUSH

Column no. 53 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - March 24, 2004

So George Bush was in Europe, talking about Iran and nuclear weapons.  While there, Bush said that he strongly endorses the European diplomatic option in pursuit of a settlement with the "Moolahs" on the matter of "nookyulahr" weapons (yes, he used those pronunciations on a sound bite heard on All Things Considered, 2/23/ 05).  "Most important,” he said. “Will continue,” he said. “Absolutely the first option," he said. (He did not say, of course, that his government would engage in direct diplomacy with Iran on matters of mutual concern, any more than his government did with Hussein’s Iraq, or is doing with North Korea, which has repeated requested bilateral negotiations.)

However, in several previous items in this space, primarily by our Editor-Publisher Michael Carmichael, we have heard, courtesy of Scott Ritter, ex-Marine, ex-US Government weapons inspector in Iraq that Bush has already signed off on a military attack on Iran for June. His statements on “diplomacy” obviously constitute major lying to the world, right up there with the lying to the world on the reasons for the US invasion of Iraq.  At stake with this newest ultra-Imperialist adventure of the Georgites are the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, to say nothing of the future of Constitutional democracy in the US and the US economy, to say nothing of the world’s economy.  Of course the Georgites totally deny the Ritter report, and our inveterate mainstream media seems to have dropped it.

But if they use nuclear (yes, George, that is the correct spelling) weapons, as I suggested they might in a previous Short Shot, well . . .

On February 22, 2005, The New York Times lead was: "Bush Says Russia Must Make Good on Democracy, by Elisabeth Bumiller. In a speech in Brussels, President Bush warned Russia it 'must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law. ' Bush said: 'We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law - and the United States and all European countries should place democratic reform at the heart of their dialogue with Russia.'" By February 25, 2005, the lead was "Bush and Putin Mute Differences, Latching on to the Affirmative, by C. J. Chivers. At least in public, the presidents muted Western concerns about the decline in the development of democracy in Russia."

We know what Putin said publicly. He was rather defensive. One wonders what he said privately, might have said privately, could have said publicly. Well, he might have begun with talking about the pot calling the kettle black. He might have said: "how dare you?" He might have said: "Hey guy, 'free press?' You call your privatized Ministry of Propaganda and intimidated-every-other-major-media-source a 'free press?' You say you want a ''vital opposition,' when your strongest supporters from Ann 'Kill All the Liberal Traitors' Coulter and John Ashcroft on up say that any opposition to your policies is treason? You talk about the 'rule of law' when you declare war on your own authority in violation of your own Constitution and declare that you can deprive any person of their Constitutional rights under your 'Patriot Act' simply by labeling them a 'terrorist?' And George, talk about guarantees of free and honest elections, the heart of Democracy. Well, I'm not going to go there, but you know what I'm talking about."

Surely, we will likely never know what Putin said privately. But regardless of what he said to Bush, this is the message that we and the Democratic Party must deliver over and over again to the American people. And if the still-DLC-dominated Democratic Party won't do it, then we will need to form a Real Democratic Party.

Or it will all be over, sooner than we think.

GEORGITE “FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY”

Column no. 52 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - March 17, 2005

My column for this week is about the Georgite concept of "Freedom and Democracy," as applied to the United States. It would seem to be logical that this model is the template for the nations of the Middle East where the Georgites say they are trying to establish it (by force of arms, of course). Their concept of "F&D" as they are developing it in the US makes for interesting reading. (If you would like to see just what it is in summary, please go to my TPJ column of Feb. 10, 2005.) But what about the Georgite concept of "F&D" as they are applying it to the Middle East? Well, here are two enlightening bits.

Steven Weisman in The New York Times of Jan. 30, 2005 reported that the Bush Administration, represented by Vice-President Cheney on down (or up, depending upon your point of view) has repeatedly complained to the government of Qatar, where the Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera (supported in part by the Qatar government) is based, about the channel's content. Since the channel often shows what is really going on in Iraq from the Arab perspective, the Georgites view it as anti-American. The top Georgite leadership has demanded that the channel be shut down. Qatar has responded by putting the channel on the market for sale to private ownership.

The Progress Report of Feb. 7, 2005 reported that in 2003 Sec. Rumsfeld announced that whatever else happened, the US would not tolerate an Iran-style theocracy in Iraq. (As an aside, one wonders why Rumsfeld is against theocracy. The Georgites are steadily moving forward to establish one in the US; see Editor/Publisher Judge Stephen Gheen's lead in The Political Junkies.net for Feb. 13, 2005.) Just about a year later, on Feb. 6, 2005, Rumsfeld stated that should the majority Shiites establish an Islamist state, as their leading clerics are advocating, the US would keep hands off. "Iraq belongs to the Iraqis," he said. Now that sounds like "F&D," you might say. Except that theocracies are by their very nature neither free nor democratic.

Uh oh. One must wonder exactly what the Georgites mean by the phrase "F&D," mustn't one.

And, speaking of Donald Rumsfeld.  In The New York Times of February 11, 2005, a story by James Brooke and David E. Sanger quoted US Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as saying: “One has to worry about weapons of that power in the hands of leadership of that nature. . . . I don't think that anyone would characterize the leadership in that country as being restrained.” Gee, wonder which leadership in which country he was talking about.

His country invaded Iraq on false premises and, by the way, never bothered to negotiate with its government on the issues with which the US was supposedly concerned before that invasion, leaving that to the UN. When the Georgites didn't like how things were going (too well?) with the UN, in they went. Restraint?

His country has issues with Iran over nuclear weapons development, but his government is not part of any negotiation with the government of Iran, leaving that to the European Union. In the meantime, his government has been making aggressive noises towards Iran since it invaded Iraq, is conducting not-so-covert operations on the ground in that country, and is also running a spy-plane operation there. (I suppose that if the Iranians shot one down, Rumsfeld would claim “aggression” on their part.) Restraint?

Well, actually Rumsfeld was talking about North Korea. Not a terrific place, and not terrific leadership, but for years, North Korea has been saying that it would not proceed with nuclear weapons development, and would submit to an ongoing comprehensive inspection process if only the US, which has been making aggressive noises towards that country since the Clinton talks were broken off, would sign a bilateral non-aggression pact with them. The US still refuses to negotiate bilaterally and today it is revealed that it has already developed a comprehensive “choke-em-to-death” plan for dealing with North Korea. Restraint?

This may sound too shrink-like, but I just wonder if Rumsfeld, above, is projecting.