Condoleezza Rice

Condi Lies About Suskind Forgery Charge

Bob Fertik — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:28:54 -0400

Ron Suskind's explosive new book has the Busheviks so terrified that they deployed their designated liar, Condi Rice, to lie through her teeth to Karl Rove's personal stenographer, Politico's Mike Allen.

Here's the video link, at least until they scrub it because Condi's lies (in bold) are so obvious:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=9160921

Mike: Madame Secretary, as you know there's a new book by Ron Suskind which says the White House ordered the CIA to falsify intelligence about Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda. Is it possible the United States government forged a letter from Iraq's intelligence chief to Saddam Hussein?
Condi: the United States government didn't forge a letter. The White House in which I was working and I think...
Mike: they didn't direct...
Condi: the people as I understand it - the people that he quotes as being sources for that have denied it.
Mike: So you think it's impossible...
Condi: The United States, the White House was not going to ask someone to ask someone to forge a letter on something of this importance.
Mike: You believe it did not occur...
Condi: It did not occur. The intelligence might have been wrong, that's now clear, not because people weren't working very hard. But when you have an opaque regime like Saddam Hussein's regime that had used WMD before that had them before, one can understand how the judgment may have been wrong. But the decision to go to war was based on the strategic threat of Saddam Hussein, the fact that we'd been to war against him before, the fact that he still threatened his neighbors, and the fact that we were told that he was reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction.

To prove that Condi is lying, we'll pay $1,000 to anyone who runs this video through lie detector software and gets a reliable result.

It's long past time for Congress to ask Condi these questions under oath and threat of perjury.

Torture for the Torturers

dlindorff — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:04:19 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I don’t believe in torture, but right now, I’d like to see a few
people subjected to some of the torture techniques that they approved
for use against US captives in the so-called War on Terror.

I’d be satisfied if they just stuck to the ones used against
15-year-old Omar Khadr—techniques that a US federal judge established
constituted torture under the Geneva Conventions.

I have a 15-year old son, so I’m particularly aware of what an
atrocity it has been the way the US has treated Khadr, and some 2500
other young boys and teenagers that it admits to having captured and
labeled as “enemy combatants” in its so-called “war on terror.”

Khadr, recall, was sent at the age of 14 to Pakistan by his
allegedly terrorist-linked Canadian father to attend a madrassa—one of
those fundamentalist Muslim schools. Like a number of students of those
schools, he was indoctrinated in jihad and ended up fighting with the
Taliban in Afghanistan against the warlords that opposed them. When the
US attacked Afghanistan, in 2001, Khadr got caught up in a war against
America. According to the charge against him, he was arrested in 2002
after US Special Forces found him and some adult fighters hiding out in
a remote compound in the mountains. The Americans called in an air
strike, and then moved into the rubble to find out who was left—quite
probably, according to some testimony in the case—to finish them off.
Someone, still alive after the attack, tossed a grenade which killed
one of the Americans and blinded another. The others sprayed the
wounded fighters, gravely injuring Khadr and killing one of his older
companions.

Khadr was accused of being the grenade tosser, and was reportedly
tortured in Afghanistan, before being shipped off to Guantanamo, where
he remains six years later, facing a military tribunal. He was
interrogated there, not just by Americans, but by Canadians too.

A citizen of Canada, and clearly someone who was captured and held
in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which hold that children are
“protected persons,” not to be held as POWs if captured in wartime, but
rather to be treated as victims of war, Khadr has thus far been
abandoned to his fate by his own government. The Conservative prime
minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, anxious to have Canada serve as a
willing servant of US military power and foreign policy, has not lifted
a finger to help him.

Now a court in Canada has ordered the Canadian government to
release videotapes it was keeping secret of Khadr’s interrogations, and
they make for ugly viewing. Khadr is shown weeping, holding up his
wounded arms, pleading to be given treatment, pleading to be returned
to Canada. It’s a disgusting scene, especially when we learn that he
had already been “softened up” for his Canadian interrogators by
American torture specialists at Guantanamo who subjected this boy to
three weeks of sleep deprivation and god knows what other creative
techniques which we recently learned were copied from the methods
developed by the North Koreans and applied to American captives in the
Korean War.

It all makes you disgusted to be an American—especially with so
many Americans still justifying this kind of grotesque behavior.

But back to my desire to see some torture inflicted. My profound
wish is that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former Department
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Canadian Prime Minister Harper all be subjected to no less than a month
of torture, to include water boarding, at least 2-3 weeks of sleep
deprivation, a variety of 24-stints of being forced into stress
positions (Rumsfeld’s should be standing), some violent slapping
around, and a bit of creative sexual humiliation. Since we don’t know
at this point that anal sodomizing was officially sanctioned, or just
was something that the torturers on the ground came up with that was
then ignored by superiors, I’m willing to let that one be left up to
those performing the torture, but I sure won’t object if it happens.

At this point, I can’t think of anything less than such a
punishment that would be fitting for these monsters who are currently
still running our, and Canada’s, governments.

When I think of what kind of twisted minds these people must have
in order to actually have met in the White House and approved such
methods for use against human beings—human beings who under our
Constitution are to be afforded the presumption of innocence, and who
are promised to be protected against “cruel and unusual” punishments
(or in Harper’s case to have known about it and then not protested,
even to protect a child born in his own country)—it makes me sick to my
stomach.

If there is a hell, I am sure there is in it some special circle
reserved for such monsters, but I think, having seen what was done at
their direction and with their approval to young Khadr (who after all,
if he really ever did toss that grenade, was only doing what any US
soldier would hope to have the courage to do in wartime if his unit
were attacked), that hell is too good for these leaders. They all need
and deserve the special punishment of having done to them what they
ordered or allowed to be done to others.

Sadly, my wish to see them suffer such a fate is unlikely to be
granted. One can at least hope, though, that they will have their names
etched somewhere for posterity on some memorial to the victims of war
crimes and to the eternal condemnation of the perpetrators of such
bestiality.
______________
DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in Philadelphia.
His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006
and now in paperback). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

Keeping America Safe from Child "Terrorists"

dlindorff — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:53:16 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the
warmongers and terror-pimps in the White House would have us believe
that Omar Khadr is a monster. Khadr is the 21-year-old Canadian who is
facing one of the first show-trials at Guantanamo.

But let’s just step back a minute and consider Mr. Khadr’s case.

The son of an alleged Islamic fundamentalist, Khadr was sent to one
of those fundamentalist madrassa schools in Pakistan back when he was
14. From there, he went to Afghanistan, to join with the Taliban in
fighting against the remnant warlord backers of the Soviet Union, which
had attempted to run Afghanistan as a vassal state.

Then came 9-11 and the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.
Young Khadr suddenly found himself fighting against the world’s most
powerful military.

In 2002, after the Taliban government had fallen, Khadr was still
out in the hills with the forces of resistance. The Taliban government
was gone, but the war was not over. In fact it’s still not over, with
the Taliban resurgent in much of Afghanistan.

In this situation, with some 20,000 US and European troops battling
across Afghanistan, Khadr, by then at the ripe age of 15, found himself
with a group of five older fighters in a compound up in the hills. Some
US Special Forces came on the location, and, peeking through cracks in
the door, saw the group, armed with AK rifles. They called on the men
to surrender, but the men allegedly refused.

At that point the brave Americans called in an air strike, and
clobbered the building. After that softening up, they went inside to
pick up the pieces.

Someone at that point, and US military prosecutors claim it was the
wounded Khadr, tossed a grenade while lying injured on the ground. The
grenade killed Special Forces Sergeant Christopher Speer. Speer’s
comrades opened fire, with three of them hitting Khadr.

When they went to check on him, the critically injured, yet
miraculously still living Khadr reportedly pleaded, “Shoot me!”
Reportedly, some of Sgt. Speer’s buddies were ready to do just that.
Apparently the “clicking” of injured captives by American forces (a war
crime) is not uncommon, and even has its own slang word. But a medic
with the group interceded and stopped the battlefield execution, and
took action to save Khadr’s life.

Khadr was eventually shipped off to Guantanamo, at the age of 15,
in violation of a 2002 protocol signed by the US which extended the
protection of the Geneva Conventions against imprisoning child soldiers
from the prior “under 15” standard to “under 18.” No matter, “bad guy”
Khadr would be one of at least 2500 children that the US has admitted
to incarcerating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere as
“enemy combatants.”

Today, Khadr is 21. He has spent the second half of his teenage
years confined in a prison camp on the naval base at Guantanamo.

This is what Bush and Cheney are really referring to when they
assure us that they are holding “the worst of the worst” on the island
of Cuba.

They are keeping us safe from 15-year-old boys.

And what, exactly, is Omar Khadr’s “crime”?

As far as I can tell, if he did toss that grenade (and there is
testimony from American witnesses that the thrower may have been
another man, who was killed in the resulting US barrage of fire), Khadr
was simply demonstrating extraordinary bravery of the kind that would
earn a silver star, at least, had it been a US soldier or marine doing
the same thing under the same circumstances. Consider: he and his
comrades-in-arms, battling in defense of their religion and, in some
cases, their nation, were bombarded from the air. They were then
approached by armed US troops—the very ones who had called in the air
strike. This was a battle, and it was not over yet. For all Khadr knew,
those US soldiers were going to kill them all. And in any event, Khadr
and his fellow fighters had a right to defend themselves to the death
to prevent capture. Sure it's unfortunate that Sgt. Speer was killed,
but that's what happens in wars.

Still, a fighter killing another fighter during warfare is not the
act of a “terrorist.” It may be brutal and it may be tragic, but it is
the act of a soldier. That soldier, if captured, is not a criminal, but
a POW. Moreover, if he is a child, the Geneva Conventions and the
subsequent protocol mentioned above, require that he be treated not as
a POW but as a victim of war.

Bush and Cheney don’t want to admit that the people fighting US
forces in Afghanistan are legitimate soldiers, entitled to protection
under the rules of war. They want us to believe that anyone who takes
up a gun in defense of their homeland or of the homeland of their
allies, and fights against the US military forces that are spread all
over the globe like Roman Legions of old, are “terrorists,” deserving
of whatever fate we hand them, by whatever rules we want to gin up.

But it’s worth remembering that this particular “terrorist,” at the
time of his “crime,” was simply a scared and badly-wounded 15-year-old
kid who had the balls to toss a grenade at well-armed soldiers on a
search-and-destroy mission.

In an interesting twist that further highlights the absurdity of calling a 15-year-old a hardened terrorist, Speer's widow, Tabitha, and another soldier who lost an eye in the grenade blast, sued not Khadr, but his father's estate, claiming that his "failure to control his son" had been the proximate cause of their losses. A federal district judge, in February 2006, awarded the two $102.6 million in damages. In other words, the court concluded Khadr wasn't responsible for his actions; his father was. And yet the US is prosecuting Omar Khadr for being a terrorist.

The Bush/Cheney administration’s incarceration and prosecution of
this boy was a war crime. His continued incarceration and the attempt
to prosecute him as a terrorist today makes a mockery of America’s
motto: Home of the Brave.

We should all be ashamed.

_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Rice's Lies About Torture

dlindorff — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:00:51 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Is anyone surprised that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that the Bush/Cheney administration’s authorization of torture of captives has been consistently legal and in compliance with all treaties the US has signed, including the Geneva Conventions?

After all, she was at the meetings in the White House in 2001 at which various acts of torture, ranging from waterboarding to exposure to extreme heat and cold, to enforced long periods in stress positions, and to treatments which have not been disclosed (no doubt because they are so outrageous and offensive to common decency) were dreamed up, proposed and approved for use—meetings that were manifestly criminal in nature and in violation of international and US law.

The US was “a different place” in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Rice told a group of people at a town hall meeting in Mountain View, Calif. on Thursday. But even though the administration’s “top priority” at the time was allegedly “preventing new attacks and not necessarily observing fine legal points,” the woman who at that time was Bush’s National Security Advisor, says “President Bush made clear that we were going to live up to our obligations at home and to our treaty obligations abroad."

Well of course she’d say that. But in fact, let’s look at those “fine legal points.”
The Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War defines prohibited torture as follows:

“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

It’s kind of hard to see how that rather thorough definition of torture—which as a treaty signatory is the definition by which the US is supposed to live—can accommodate the waterboarding, sexual humiliation, months in solitary confinement, faked executions, days in stress positions, etc. which were approved by Rice and her fellow inquisitors and the nation’s commander in chief.

But no matter. Rice says that even if things were kind of harsh back in 201 and 2002, today “the ground is different.” She says soothingly, "We now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003."

Well, actually no. Because when that new law was put in place by Congress, the president issued a signing statement saying that he would not be bound by it. Asserting a claim of “unitary executive,” created out of thin air by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John You and Assistant Attorney General (and now federal appeals court judge) Jay Bybee, Bush has claimed that for the duration of the so-called “War on Terror” he has all the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches rolled into his own hands, and as such is not bound by acts of Congress, or by orders of the court. (Yoo and Bybee are also the mob attorneys who advised Bush that any interrogation methods that fell short of causing death or “pain equivalent to death or organ failure” would not be torture.)

The truth is that the Bush/Cheney administration, with the clear knowledge and authority of the president and vice president and of Rice herself, went on to torture captives in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay, and in countless “black sites” around the globe, well into 2006 at least, and continues to torture captives now. Those tortured have even included children.

Condi Rice seems to be hoping to return to Stanford University after she leaves office at the end of this benighted and criminal administration this coming January. If she does, she will, I am sure, have to at some point confront my colleague Barbara Olshansky, who has just spent her first year there at the Stanford Law School as a professor of international human rights. Barbara, who co-authored “The Case for Impeachment” with me (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), was for several years the lead attorney for several hundred of the detainees at Guantanamo, and has also looked into the conditions under which US prisoners are being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan—another torture center that got its start down that road with the capture and torture of John Lindh back in October, 2001—the first documented case of such abuse.

One would hope that the students of Stanford would raise such a stink about having a war criminal like Rice running their school that they would either prevent her from getting the job, or drive her from the campus.

Until then, the least we can do is make her explain how waterboarding and other measures applied under her guidance and with her approval as National Security Advisor, can possibly comply with the Geneva Conventions which the US has signed.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). He is working on a new book on the reason’s for indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes after they leave office. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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The Bush Family's Bad Latin Real Estate Investment

dlindorff — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:43:41 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay.

What struck people at the time was the choice of country. Paraguay, of course, has gained a certain Club Med status among the world's villains and criminal elements as the place to go when the law's on your tail. The country, ruled for six decades by the dictatorial and fascist Colorado Party of Gen. Alfredo Stroesser, an almost cartoon charicature of a Latin American dictator, has no extradition treaty with any nation.

That's why it has long harbored aging Nazis, bank robbers, and a string of ousted or retired Latin American dictators and their assistants over the years.

Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law.

After all, they guy is guilty of a huge laundry list of international crimes, from the Crime Against Peace and Conspiracy against Peace in the UN Charter, to Geneva Convention violations like approval of torture of prisoners, collective punishment of civilians, the killing of children and child soldiers, the failure to protect occupied citizens, the use of banned weapons, etc., etc., and also of domestic crimes, ranging from political use of government employees, conspiracy, treason, lying to federal officials, defrauding Congress, etc.

No wonder he wants to do what Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann did, and hole up in Paraguay.

Only trouble is, Paraguay may not be such a safe haven for long.

Last month, a former Roman Catholic Bishop with leftist, populist tendencies, Fernando Lugo, surprised almost everyone in Paraguay, and no doubt President Bush, by winning the national presidential election, ousting the Colorado Party for the first time in 61 years. There is talk that among other things, Lugo is thinking of returning Paraguay to the community of nations, by signing some of those extradition agreements.

If he does that Bush may be stuck having to hide behind his rump squad of Secret Service agents down at the Crawford Ranch, hoping they can keep the process servers from Brattleboro and Marlboro, VT, with their war crimes arrest warrants, at bay.
__________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Condi Lies to Wexler

Bob Fertik — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:13:04 -0500

Wow! Watch Rep. Robert Wexler calmly ask Condi about all of her pre-war lies, as documented by the Center for Public Integrity - and watch Condi freak out with barely-controlled rage at Wexler for daring to question her ~~integrity~~ utter corruption:

I don't have a transcript yet, but I heard Condi tell several entirely new lies about her old lies.

I'd even say Condi just opened herself up to perjury charges. (It doesn't matter if she was under oath; lying to Congress is always a crime.)

What do you think?

A Goverment of Liars Must Be Brought Down

dlindorff — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:28:05 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

When journalists are caught lying outright, they can be fired, and can even find their careers terminated. Take Janet Cooke, the Washington Post reporter who made up a story about a young drug user. A decade after her firing, she was earning $6/hour as a Liz Claiborne clerk in a department store. Or consider Stephen Glass, who famously made up stories at the New Republic. He landed on his feet as a fiction writer, but his journalism days are over.

So what to do about George Bush and his gang of fabulists, who now, thanks to a study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, stand shown to have lied to Congress and the American people 935 times in what the two organizations say was "part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

Clearly we’ve come a long way from that first President named George who, at least in popular mythology, "couldn’t tell a lie."

And while it is a given in American political life that "politicians lie," we’re talking here about some whoppers that weren’t just about self-promotion, like Hillary Clinton’s claims that she was involved in all of the major decisions in Bill Clinton’s White House, or Obama’s claim that he has always opposed the war in Iraq, or John McCain’s claim that he is a "straight talker." We’re talking about lies that led to the US violating international law by invading a country that posed no imminent threat, lies that have led to the needless and pointless deaths of some 4000 American military personnel and to the maiming of nearly 80,000 others, lies that have left a nation of 34 million in ruins, with 4 million refugees, 1 million dead, and political chaos that is perhaps irremediable. We’re talking about lies that have cost the US upwards of $2 trillion in actual military outlays and future debt payments. Lies that have cast the US in the role of pariah nation and terrorist state in the eyes of the rest of the world.

The idea that Americans would be willing to impeach a president for lying about a sexual act, or that they would reject a candidate for plagiarizing part of a speech, but that they would then simply shrug at hard evidence that a president, along with his vice president, secretary of state, defense secretary and national security adviser had all lied in a conscious, coordinated conspiracy to trick them into a disastrous war is hard to believe.

At this point, we should have hordes of people pressing on the iron fences of the White House, armed with pitchforks, baseball bats and cattle prods, ready to storm the place and wreak vengeance. Where are the angry relatives of dead and maimed soldiers? Where are the idealistic students? Where are the taxpayers who’ve been robbed blind? Where’s the outraged Congress? Where are the incensed editorialists in the media?

Hey! Wake up! This is a goddamned outrage?

We all knew it, of course, but until now, thanks to a news media that has long since stopped reporting on serious issues, particularly where it involves criticism of the powerful, we could hide behind the belief that it was all "business as usual" in Washington, a truth-challenged city to be sure.

But now we know. Now there is no hiding from the truth. Now we have it documented and quantified in a way that makes the enormity of the offense clear and undeniable.

Now we are required to take action.

No editorial writer worthy of the name can ignore this scandal. No member of Congress can ignore this affront to the Constitution. No citizen can ignore this abuse.

There is only one appropriate response to the crime that has been documented here by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, and that is impeachment. We have the crime laid out before us. We have the evidence in hand. It is now the obligation of the House to hold an impeachment hearing in which that evidence will be put before the members. After that, there must be a vote on an article of impeachment, against Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld, for lying to the American people.

No president, no vice president, no senior cabinet officer, can be permitted to commit a treasonous act as serious as lying the nation into a needless war, and be permitted to remain in office. To allow such treachery to go unchallenged is to tell all future administrations that truth and openness have no place in American government. To allow this crime to pass is to declare that democracy in America is moribund, for the people can only be sovereign as long as they are given the truth about what their government and their leaders are doing.

No member of Congress who sits idly by and refuses to call these lying leaders to account deserves reelection.

A government based upon lies is by definition a dictatorship.

It is time for action. If Congress will not act then it is up to we the people to clean house from top to bottom.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative reporter and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Condi Can't Face the Horror She Unleashed

Bob Fertik — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:40:43 -0400

This is an amazing photo.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, is confronted by CodePink member Desiree Anita Ali-Fairooz, her hands painted red, as she arrives to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007, before the House Foreign Relations Committee hearing regarding US policy in the Middle East ,where she spoke about Iraq, Iran, and the Israel Palestinian conflict. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Ali-Fairooz is looking directly into Condi's eyes, but Condi can't bear to look back because Ali-Fairooz's bloody hands hold a mirror to her soul.

Here is the video of the encounter, which shows Ali-Fairooz grabbed immediately by security. Then security grabbed the other Code Pink activists in the room, even though none of them appears to have done anything.

Pope Versus President

Heather Wokusch — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:26:07 -0400

The Vatican’s recent snub of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is only the latest salvo in the battle between Pope Benedict XVI and President George W. Bush. This tug of war has profound implications for both U.S. foreign policy and the critical Catholic vote in 2008's presidential race.

Overlapping Agendas

Things haven't always been tense between Bush and Benedict. They share similar views regarding abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button conservative issues. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (as Benedict was known before becoming Pope in April 2005) even helped Bush secure the White House for a second term.

Specifically, after Bush visited the Vatican in June 2004, complaining that "Not all the American bishops are with me," Ratzinger sent a letter to US bishops, ordering them to refuse Communion to "a Catholic politician … consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" - a thinly-veiled reference to John Kerry. Ratzinger added that any person even voting for this Catholic politician would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." Probably no surprise, then, that Bush increased his margin among Catholics by 6% from 2000 to 2004.

In an interesting twist, Ratzinger also partnered with George W. Bush's brother Neil in a foundation "to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts" in 1999. Oddly enough, business credit reports listed the foundation as a "management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research," leaving the true nature of the Neil Bush/Cardinal Ratzinger venture unclear.

In 2005, Ratzinger was named as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit suit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the sexual abuse of minors. At the center of the controversy was a May 2001 confidential letter he had sent Catholic bishops across the world ordering them to keep evidence of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy secret until 10 years after the child had reached adult status.

Soon after becoming Pope, however, Ratzinger was dismissed from the case. A US federal judge decided the lawsuit would be incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."

Disagreements Multiply

On many contentious issues since then, Pope Benedict XVI has disagreed with the Bush administration's policies, but only politely and indirectly. For example, Benedict has spoken in favor of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is often at loggerheads with Bush administration foreign policy.

Similarly, Benedict's Vatican has taken a firm stance against global warming, even acquiring a carbon offset forest to make the Vatican the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state." He has called for greater international co-operation to fight ozone depletion, yet not overtly criticized White House foot-dragging in that area.

The gloves came off, however, regarding the war in Iraq. In a May 2003 interview, Ratzinger said, "There was not sufficient reasons to unleash a war in Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war.'"

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was similarly contentious for former Pope John Paul II, who sent a special envoy to the White House in March 2003 in an effort to prevent an attack. The papal envoy's pleas fell on deaf ears.

Vatican criticisms of the Bush administration’s military intervention in Iraq have continued unabated. French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told an Italian magazine in August 2007, "The facts speak for themselves. Alienating the international community (with the U.S. push for war) was a mistake." Tauran, who has referred to the invasion and occupation as a "crime against peace," also said that Christians in Iraq "paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship" of Saddam Hussein.

Rice Rebuffed

As such, it is perhaps unsurprising that Benedict failed to honor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's urgent request for a private meeting last month. The Italian periodical Corriere della Sera reported that Rice was hoping to capitalize on the Pope's moral authority by having a papal audience focused on the Middle East. Instead, Rice was told that Benedict was on holiday and had to settle for a telephone conversation with a lower Vatican official.

The ongoing tensions between Bush and Benedict over Iraq put America's over 75 million Roman Catholics in a tricky position for 2008. By supporting candidates hawkish on the Bush administration's Iraq policies, are they defying the Pope and the Catholic Church?

For its part, the powerful United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has taken a firm stance against the US presence in Iraq. A July 2007 letter to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), USCCB noted, “The current situation in Iraq is unacceptable and unsustainable, as is the policy and political stalemate among decision makers in Washington … our nation must have the moral courage to change course in Iraq.”

Dissent is swelling up from the grassroots as well. In August 2007, an alliance of religious groups calling itself Catholics for an End to War collected 10,000 signatures for an online petition “urging leaders to commit to a responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops.” Sister Simone Campbell of the national Catholic social justice lobby NETWORK said, "Church leaders and individual Catholics have opposed U.S. policy in Iraq since before the war began," adding that the petition “lets thousands of Catholics unite to speak out even more strongly for an end to the violence and occupation.”

In other words, being dovish on Iraq might help the next Democratic presidential contender win Roman Catholic votes. Whether the current front-runners qualify for that distinction, however, is another matter.

This article first appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus. Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives’ Handbook series, and can be contacted at www.HeatherWokusch.com .

Condi Rice Attacks Two Great Generals!

Bob Fertik — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:40:51 -0400

Omigod. Speaking of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) leader, Condi Rice told FOX News:

He was diabolically brilliant. I think he was an outstanding organizer, I think he had a kind of strategic sense, and I don’t think the follow-on leadership has been quite as good. So when you hear people say, “You know, well, if you kill one of them, they’ll just replace him with another leader,” remember that that’s like saying, you know, if you take out Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant, well, they’ll just replace them with another leader.

Condi compared one of the most evil terrorists in the world to two of our most sacred Generals?

I demand an immediate resolution in the Senate and the House condemning Condi Rice for her vile and despicable attack on two Generals!