"I think that is what we have going on in this presidency."

Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, startled the US establishment three weeks ago by laying the censure motion against Bush after it was revealed that the president had allowed the interception of domestic phone calls and email messages without a special warrant.

The Bush administration has insisted the measures were needed after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But Dean said Congress had to protect its "institutional pride" against what he called a growing tendency "to let the president do what he wants and to have virtually no oversight".

Freedom to manouevre is important, he added. "They take note of that when they are not called to the mat. They push the envelope as far as they can."

Dean said that Nixon had also defended himself by saying he was acting for the security of the United States.

Dean took part in White House attempts to cover up the Watergate scandal before giving evidence against Nixon and serving 127 days in prison.

While many Republicans have cast doubt on Dean's credibility, his testimony was supported by Bruce Fein, a counsel under former president Ronald Reagan who said the Bush administration was assuming "wartime powers that have no ending".

Feingold's censure motion has excited the Democrats grassroots base but stands no chance. Three other legal experts told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the president had broken no law.

Robert Turner, a specialist on national security law at the University of Virginia, said that "every wartime president, even every wartime leader going back to George Washington, when he authorized the opening of British mail coming into the United States during the American Revolution, has done this kind of behavior."

A storm of controversy erupted after the New York Times reported in December that Bush had authorised the secret wiretaps without going to a special court that gives warrants for such actions.

While not supporting a censure, many Republicans have backed moves to pass legislation on the eavesdropping.

The administration has insisted that the spying was legal, only on communications between the United States and abroad and only concerned Al-Qaeda suspects.

It has said Congress gave authorisation for such tactics when it passed a resolution allowing the use of force after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"Integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty," the former Marine Corps general said.

Zinni has called for a high-level shake-up at the
Pentagon since late 2003, the same year the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein.

"There's a series of disastrous mistakes. We just heard the secretary of state say these were tactical mistakes. They were not tactical mistakes. These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policies made back here," he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said over the weekend that "thousands" of tactical mistakes had been made with regard to Iraq, a statement she later backed away from.

Some 2,333 US troops have been killed in Iraq, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

"This talk of pre-emptive strikes, of ignoring the UN Security Council and international legal obligations -- all this is leading toward a dark night," Gorbachev told Time magazine.

"I think some people may be pushing president Bush in the wrong direction," he said of the US leader.

"America is intoxicated by its position as the world's only superpower. It wants to impose its will.

"But America needs to get over that. It has responsibilities as well as power. I say this as a good friend of America," said Gorbachev Sunday, who considered his US contemporary, president Ronald Reagan, a friend as well, and attended his funeral.

The former Soviet president, 75, was in the United States last week to promote his book on the history of his government's reforms.

As expected, this incongruous voting pattern was repeated Wednesday when the three loyal U.S. allies -- Israel and the two tiny Pacific Island nations of Palau and the Marshall Islands -- were the only member states to stand in unison with the United States when it rejected a resolution calling for the creation of a new Human Rights Council.

The vote in the General Assembly was 170 in favour and four against (United States, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau), with three abstentions (Venezuela, Iran and Belarus).

Seven member states -- Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Papua New Guinea and Seychelles --were deprived of their votes because they had not paid their dues to the world body.

Since the United States has no veto in the General Assembly, the resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority. The U.S. opposition couldn't block the establishment of the new Human Rights Council.

"With the exception of the usual additions of two tiny dependent island-states, the United States and Israel stand alone in defying virtually the entire world's support for the new Human Rights Council," says Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

As the work of selecting the first group of members for the new Council begins, each candidate state must agree to being vetted before membership as well as being examined fully at some point during its three-year term, she said.

"The United States, despite its opposition to the Council, has claimed it will 'work with' the Council, and we can anticipate it will expect to win a seat in the first term," Bennis told IPS.

But such an effort should be rejected, she said, as countries evaluating human rights records keep in mind the continuing patterns of U.S. human rights violations both within the United States itself and internationally, where U.S. military or political officials are in power.

"No country with such a record of torture, secret detentions, 'extraordinary renditions,' rejection of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), denial of due process and generations of capital punishment, even for minors and the mentally disabled -- all as a matter of official policy -- should be allowed to serve on the new Human Rights Council," said Bennis, author of "Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the U.N. Defy U.S."

If the General Assembly does indeed allow the United States a seat, she argued, special care should be taken to insure that the mandatory human rights evaluation carried out of all members be taken very seriously when it comes to the U.S., so that the claim that the so-called "indispensable nation" should be somehow exempt from human rights scrutiny will be rejected.

The proposed new Council will have 47 members compared with 53 in the outgoing Human Rights Commission, which has been criticised for accommodating "habitual human rights abusers" as some of its members.

The membership in the new Council shall be based on equitable geographic distribution and seats shall be distributed among regional groups: 13 for the African Group; 13 for the Asian Group; eight for the Latin American and Caribbean group; six for the Eastern European Group; and seven for the Western European and Other States Group.

All members, who will have term limits, will serve for three years but will not be eligible for immediate re-election after two consecutive terms.

The General Assembly, by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting, may suspend the rights of membership in the Council of a member of the Human Rights Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.

Since a two-thirds majority for membership was opposed by an overwhelming majority of states, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson, who crafted the draft resolution, opted for a compromise: an "absolute majority" -- meaning 96 votes in a 191-member General Assembly.

After the voting in the Assembly, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said that too many countries sought membership in the outgoing Commission primarily "to protect themselves against criticism, or to criticise others".

He agreed with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had initially proposed that the new Council be elected by a two-thirds majority.

"That would have made it harder for countries not committed to human rights, to win seats on the new body. The United States had also proposed exclusive criteria to keep gross human rights abusers off the Council, to exclude the worst violators," he added..

Sadly, Bolton said, those suggestions had not been included in the text. The resolution merely required member states "to take into account" a country's human rights record when voting.

"And suspension of a member required a two-thirds vote, a standard higher than that required when electing new members," he added.

Bolton also said the real test would be the quality of membership that emerged on the Council -- "and whether that would include countries like the Sudan, Cuba, Iran, Belarus and Burma, to name a few".

In a statement released Wednesday, Annan said: "This is only the first step in a process of change." In the coming weeks, he said, states wishing to be elected to the new Council will put forward their pledges and commitments to protect and promote human rights.

"It will be up to their fellow member states to evaluate these promises, and to hold the successful candidates to them. The General Assembly will vote on all candidates, and thereafter will have the responsibility to suspend any of the Council's members that commit gross and systematic violations of human rights," Annan said.

He also said that the universal review mechanism will allow the Council to hold all member states to their human rights obligations fairly and equally, without selectivity or double standards.

The Council will meet regularly throughout the year, and can hold special sessions when needed. This should enable it to deal with human rights crises immediately, whenever they arise, Annan added.

The creation of the new Council was also hailed by virtually all human rights organisations.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the new council should be a great improvement over the old Commission on Human Rights.

"Today's resolution marks an historic step towards enhanced human rights protection within the U.N. system," he added.

"The challenge now is to make the Human Rights Council function effectively, so human rights victims around the world will gain the forum they urgently need to seek relief from abuses," Roth said, in a statement released Wednesday.

Yvonne Terlingen, U.N. representative for Amnesty International, said her organisation welcomes "the overwhelming vote" by the General Assembly in favour of establishing a new Human Rights Council.

She said the U.S. government's decision to vote against the resolution was "regrettable". However the result, 170 in favour, four opposed and three abstaining, demonstrates unambiguous international support for the Council.

Although the hard work is only just beginning, she said, it is encouraging to hear that, despite voting against the resolution, the U.S. government will cooperate with the Council and support it.

But my friend Bernie says we're way beyond asking questions about 9-11 and, since nobody listens to me anyway, I might as well get it off my chest. "Besides," Bernie said, "George Bush never shuts up about 9-11. He's obsessed with it. No matter what anybody asks him, he spouts September the 11th. Bush never says September 11; he never says 9-11," Bernie groaned, "he just keeps chanting over and over -- September the 11th, September the 11th, September the 11th, Sep--"

"I get the picture!" I interrupted, shuddering at the loathsome image of Bush cavorting around September "the" 11th, pointing to it in every public appearance with masturbatory delight, reveling in the knowledge that "history will show" they got away with it. "You know, Bernie," I sighed, "it's like he's bragging about a grand accomplishment. You'd almost think it was an inside job."

"Of course it was an inside job," Bernie snorted. "Anyone who can connect even two dots without ramming one up his nose and the other into his forehead knows that. And anyone who's ever flown a Cessna 172 is roaring with laughter at the thought of those Muslim guys Bush fingered emerging from a dusty Florida airport, climbing into the cockpit of a Boeing 757, looking at the flashing lights, bells and whistles on its control panel, and know which button to push to even talk to the passengers, let alone get that 100-ton beast in the air. HAW HAW...

"We know they did it," Bernie said, suddenly sober. "Every single one of us. We know it now -- and we knew it then." He rose and started toward the door -- "All you gotta remember is...if something is something, it can't be anything else but that something. No matter how they dress it up, no matter how much lipstick they smear on it, it's still that something. It ain't never something else. Everything that's happened in the last five years, and everything that'll happen in the next five," Bernie said, "is a result of that one day Bush keeps throwing in our faces -- September the 11th."

I sat there, trying to wrap my mind around Bernie's string of "somethings," when it suddenly occurred to me. Of course! Bernie instinctively hit upon the universal law called dharma, a simple principle that brings order to chaos -- things are what they are, and a thing cannot be other than what it is. Universal laws cannot be broken, even by the genocidal warmongers running rampant within this administration, no matter how hard they try. Knowing Bernie, however, I suspect he was channeling Sherlock Holmes who skillfully used the critical dharma tool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave him to solve crime -- "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

For four and a half years, questions about 9-11 have swirled through the Internet with tornadic force, yet caused scarcely a breeze within the mainstream media. The sheer number of heroic questioners helped to keep the door of truth open just a crack in spite of a relentless effort of the Bush men, the media and the Congress to force it shut. It hasn't been easy. Americans' psyches were shattered on 9-11 when, with no warning, they suddenly came face-to-face with raw, fiendish evil. They were incapable of handling the truth.

Americans are waking up. They have been told one -- or one hundred -- too many lies. They instinctively know there are only three areas of questions about 9-11 whose answers, however improbable, reveal the truth.

One -- Who, or what, flew the four hijacked planes on 9-11? Certainly not the inexperienced, box-cutter-armed bunch of rag-tag Saudis -- most of whom are still alive -- whose photographs the FBI plastered on our TV screens and in our minds immediately after the attack. There were no Arabs in the air on the morning of 9-11, performing astonishing feats of acrobatic maneuvering -- spinning and snap-rolling and pulling 180's (scroll down to see flight paths) into the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- nor were any listed on the manifests of the four flights. The only proof of their presence is the passport of one Salem Suqami that fluttered through the chaos of explosions, a raging inferno and collapse of buildings and landed, undamaged, on the sidewalk below.

Actually, we need go no further into the 9-11 morass than the planes. What we witnessed on that ghastly morning was a carefully planned, perfectly orchestrated PSYOPS attack on a citizenry by its own government. The first victim of this brutal assault was possibly the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which was juggling a minimum of five training exercises that morning and, at any one time its radar screens showed up to 22 hijacked aircraft. Much has been written about NORAD "standing down" on 9-11. I don't buy that for one minute.

But NORAD is guilty. It is guilty of assuming the mass confusion was a result of multiple war games it was playing that morning of crashing planes into buildings. It is guilty of trying to cover its ass when it realized the destruction was real-world. According to an in-depth report by retired theologian Dr. David Ray Griffin, who also wrote "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions," both General Richard Myers, then acting chair of the Joint Chiefs, and Mike Snyder, NORAD spokesman, reported that "no military jets were sent up until after the strike on the Pentagon."

Griffin says when this admission started raising eyebrows, a second story appeared on Sept. 14 that "contrary to early reports, jets were scrambled while the attacks were underway, but they arrived too late to prevent them." Four days later, NORAD released a timeline so jumbled it failed to pass muster in any venue. Finally, unable to get out of the hole, both the FAA and NORAD stopped digging. The FAA destroyed the tapes of activity that morning, to include conversations between the hijacked planes and air traffic control personnel, said, "oopsie, sorry about that," then just shut up and took its licks.

Two -- Nothing reveals the truth of 9-11 as clearly as the in-your-face controlled demolition of the World Trade Center's twin towers and building 7. They all fell down. According to a NYC fireman on the scene, they fell -- "just like that -- boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom" -- In 10 seconds flat. Well, that's not exactly true, because it took the 47-story No. 7 only 6.6 seconds to pancake into its own footprints. But if ever there was a classic case of "don't believe your lying eyes," it is the deliberate destruction of these three WTC buildings.

Nothing reveals the truth as clearly as the breathless, on-the-scene initial reaction by network and cable TV -- "There are explosions going off everywhere!" ... "We just heard another huge explosion!" ... "A huge explosion, raining debris on all of us...we need to get out of here!" ... "This almost looks like a -- a controlled demolition..." CNN's Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McEntyre, blurted this "Breaking News" item -- "There's no evidence that a plane crashed into the Pentagon or anywhere near it and in fact, the only pieces left were small enough that you could pick them up in your hands --and no large sections -- tail sections, fuselage sections..."

By the next morning, the media monkeys had come to their senses and were dutifully droning administration talking points while ominously reminding Americans that questioning what happened was nothing short of criticism of the president, or how unpatriotic can we be at a time when we all need to hang together. However, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently agreed with McEntyre and conspiracy theorists when he told Parade Magazine on Oct. 13, "Here we're talking about plastic knives, and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building, and similar (inaudible) that damaged the WTC."

Nothing reveals the truth more clearly than the implosion of No. 7, which was not hit by a plane. WTC owner Larry Silverstein publicly acknowledged that they "pulled" No. 7 and, although he made out like a bandit on the whole 9-11 holocaust, he did not explain nor did the media ask him when the explosives needed to "pull" the 47 stories were put in place. Interestingly, the 9-11 Commission did not think it important enough to question either Silverstein or the fire department about the No. 7 collapse, nor did it even mention the building in its bogus report.

Three -- The truth is what it is. As Bernie says, it ain't never something else. A search for the truth about 9-11 is much easier if all that cannot be true is tossed out. Why waste time considering the impossible?

For example, if you're reading Michael Chertoff's massive May 2002 FEMA investigation into 9-11, "World Trade Center Building Performance Study," you need go no further into its 262 pages than this conclusion -- "...as each aircraft impacted a building, jet fuel on board ignited. Part of this fuel immediately burned off in the large fireballs that erupted at the impact floors. Remaining fuel flowed across the floors and down elevator and utility shafts, igniting intense fires throughout upper portions of the buildings. As these fires spread, they further weakened the steel-framed structures, eventually leading to total collapse."

Toss it, as well as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report, which uses its 292 pages to "describe how the aircraft impacts and subsequent fires led to the collapses (sic) of the towers after terrorists flew jet fuel laden commercial airliners into the buildings..."

While you're at it, you can trash the March 2005 Popular Mechanics hit piece -- a regurgitation of FEMA's fantastical explanation, to wit --"Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction."

And the Pentagon? PM had that all figured out too. It quotes Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University as shrugging aside the nagging conspiracy that a Boeing 757 did not hit the Pentagon, ". . .one wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns," Sozen said. "What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass."

I could be wrong, but I doubt even the zany, fun-loving Rumsfeld would try to run THAT one by us. The PM piece is little more than an attack on those who question the events of that dreadful morning, and is replete with unattributed "facts." It is the work of Michael Chertoff's cousin, 25-year-old Benjamin Chertoff, who was given free reign after a shock-and-awe coup at the magazine wherein PM editor-in-chief Joe Oldham was given 90 minutes to clean out his desk. Other staff members, including the creative director, were also fired.

The 9-11 Commission Report should be discarded as well. And set afire. It differs from the above attempts to cover up a government's attack on its own people only in length and breadth. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton entered into a "contract" with the American people; they swore to get to the bottom of the tragedy; inventory its causes and put the blame where it rightfully belonged. They betrayed us. And they charged us only ten bucks a copy.

In his hard-hitting article in Harper's Magazine, Benjamin DeMott writes that the Report is "a shrewdly conceived and sustained equity-of-blame argument that becomes the fulcrum of the entire document and has a single principle at its center -- any blame that might be apportioned to the behavior of the sitting administration is easily counterbalanced by the behavior of preceding authorities -- and by historical 'fact' as interpreted in accordance with current presidential and commissarial need."

Bush made clear that his "presidential need" was to not have a Commission blaming him for what happened. When an investigation was forced on him, Bush undercut it, underfunded it and agreed to meet with Commission members only in the Oval Office, only if Dick Cheney was there, only if he was not under oath, only if his remarks were not recorded and only if no notes were taken. DeMott tells us that the more than 600-page document was nothing more than "a weapon in a major domestic conflict: the war on incisive, sometimes rudely disruptive thought -- thought that distinguishes the democratic citizen from the idolatrous fool, the sucker, the clueless consumer, the ad person's delight."

Rather than tell the people the truth as promised about 9-11, Kean and Hamilton used their Report as a PSYOPS weapon against them. Bill Clinton is to blame. With the FAA riding shotgun. Shut up and move on.

Homework assignment

After eliminating the impossible, we are left with ghastly images of death and suffering. With brutal malice aforethought, on 9-11 this administration murdered 2,823 human beings. Only 1,102 victims have been identified, although 19,500 body parts were "collected." More than 100 Americans were pulverized in the explosions, their remains mingling with tons and tons of cement into fine dust, and just disappeared into the air, perhaps into the lungs of those working feverishly at Ground Zero to save them. Each of us with any connection to reality knows that the only explanation for 9-11 is that the entire holocaust was a deliberately planned, orchestrated, controlled demolition of our way of life.

If you want to know what happened on 9-11, watch Korey Rove, Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas' critical film, "Loose Change, 2nd Edition." Surely the Truth is worth 1 hour, 21 minutes and 50 seconds of our lives..

If you want to know why 9-11 happened, read the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)2000 report, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century," which calls for a "new Pearl Harbor" to establish US military preeminence throughout the world as well as unending war to seize and control the world's resources. It's only 90 pages, and should take even less than 1 hour, 21 minutes and 50 seconds to peruse.

If you want to know the truth about the attack on this country, watch and read the above as if your life depended upon it. Because it does.

We have the crime. We have the criminals. The time has come to indict them. Try them. Convict them. Punish them. Then, and only then, can we move on.

That's what I think.

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net.

Whether participating in demonstrations, organizing a vigil, conducting town-hall meetings, or writing letters to their elected officials and the media, the participants in the anti-war movement have exhibited an energy and integrity that would make anyone proud. For myself, I have been vociferous in my defense of the actions of the majority of the anti-war movement, noting that the expression of their views is not only consistent with their rights afforded by the Constitution of the United States, but also that their engagement in the process of citizenship is a stellar example of the ideals and values set forth in that document, and as such representative of the highest form of patriotism in keeping with service to a document that begins, "We the People."

Lately I have noticed a growing despondency among many of those who call themselves the anti-war movement. With the United States now entering its fourth year of illegal war in and illegitimate occupation of Iraq, and the pro-war movement moving inexorably towards yet another disastrous conflict with Iran, there is an increasing awareness that the cause of the anti-war movement, no matter how noble and worthy, is in fact a losing cause as currently executed. Despite all of the well-meaning and patriotic work of the millions of activists and citizens who comprise the anti-war movement, America still remains very much a nation not only engaged in waging and planning wars of aggression, but has also become a nation which increasingly identifies itself through its military and the wars it fights. This is a sad manifestation of the fact that the American people seem to be addicted to war and violence, rather than the ideals of human rights, individual liberty, and freedom and justice for all that should define our nation.

In short, the anti-war movement has come face to face with the reality that in the ongoing war of ideologies that is being waged in America today, their cause is not just losing, but is in fact on the verge of complete collapse. Many in the anti-war movement would take exception to such a characterization of the situation, given the fact that there seems to be a growing change in the mood among Americans against the ongoing war in Iraq. But one only has to scratch at the surface of this public discontent to realize how shallow and superficial it is. Americans aren't against the war in Iraq because it is wrong; they are against it because we are losing.

Take the example of Congressman Jack Murtha. A vocal supporter of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, last fall Mr. Murtha went public with his dramatic change of position, suddenly rejecting the war as un-winnable, and demanding the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. While laudable, I have serious problems with Jack Murtha's thought process here. At what point did the American invasion of Iraq become a bad war? When we suffered 2,000 dead? After two years of fruitless struggle? Once we spent $100 billion?

While vocalizing his current opposition against the Iraq War, Congressman Murtha and others who voted for the war but now question its merits have never retracted their original pro-war stance. Nor have they criticized their role in abrogating the Constitutional processes for bringing our country into conflict when they voted for a war before the President had publicly committed to going to war (we now know the President had committed to the invasion of Iraq by the summer of 2002, and that all his representations to the American people and Congress about 'war as a matter of last resort' and 'seeking a diplomatic solution' were bold face lies). The Iraq War was wrong the moment we started bombing Iraq. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is no excuse, and does not pardon America's collective sin of brooking and tolerating an illegal war of aggression.

The reality is, had our military prevailed in this struggle, the American people for the most part would not even blink at the moral and legal arguments against this war. This underlying reality is reflected in the fact that despite our ongoing disaster in Iraq, America is propelled down a course of action that leads us toward conflict with Iran. President Bush recently re-affirmed his embrace of the principles of pre-emptive war when he signed off on the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy of the United States, which highlights Iran as a threat worthy of confrontation. This event has gone virtually unmentioned by the American mainstream media, un-remarked by a Congress that remains complicit in the war-mongering policies of the Bush administration, and un-noticed by the majority of Americans. America is pre-programmed for war, and unless the anti-war movement dramatically changes the manner in which it conducts its struggle, America will become a nation of war, for war, and defined by war, and as such a nation that will ultimately be consumed by war.

It is high time for the anti-war movement to take a collective look in the mirror, and be honest about what they see. A poorly organized, chaotic, and indeed often anarchic conglomeration of egos, pet projects and idealism that barely constitutes a "movement," let alone a winning cause. I have yet to observe an anti-war demonstration that has a focus on anti-war. It often seemed that every left-wing cause took advantage of the event to promote its own particular agenda, so that "No War in Iraq" shared the stage with the environment, ecology, animal rights, pro-choice, and numerous other causes which not only diluted the anti-war message which was supposed to be sent, but also guaranteed that the demonstration itself would be seen as something hijacked by the left, inclusive of only progressive ideologues, and exclusive of the vast majority of moderate (and even conservative) Americans who might have wanted to share the stage with their fellow Americans from the left when it comes to opposing war with Iraq (or even Iran), but do not want to be associated with any other theme.

The anti-war movement, first and foremost, needs to develop a laser-like focus on being nothing more or less than anti-war.

The anti-war movement lacks any notion of strategic thinking, operational planning, or sense of sound tactics. So much energy is wasted because of this failure to centrally plan and organize. As a result, when the anti-war movement does get it right (and on occasion it does), the success is frittered away by a failure to have planned effective follow-up efforts, failure to have implemented any supporting operations, an inability to recognize opportunities as they emerge and a lack of resources to exploit such opportunities if in fact they were recognized to begin with. In short, the anti-war movement is little more than a walk-on squad of high school football players drawing plays in the sand, taking on the National Football League Super Bowl Champions.

In order to even have a chance of prevailing with the American people, the anti-war movement is going to need much more than just good ideals and values. It needs to start thinking like a warrior would, in full recognition that we as a nation are engaged in a life-or-death struggle of competing ideologies with those who promote war as an American value and virtue.

The anti-war movement needs to study the philosophies of those who have mastered the art of conflict, from Caesar to Napoleon, from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz. It needs to study the "enemy" learning to understand the pro-war movement as well as it understands itself. It needs to comprehend the art of campaigning, of waging battles only when necessary, and having the ability to wage a struggle on several fronts simultaneously, synchronizing each struggle so that a synergy is created which maximizes whatever energy is being expended. The anti-war movement needs to understand the pro-war movement's center of gravity, and design measures to defeat this. It needs to grasp the pro-war movement's decision-making cycle, then undertake a comprehensive course of action that learns to pre-empt this cycle, getting 'inside' the pro-war system of making decisions, and thereby forcing the pro-war movement to react to the anti-war agenda, instead of vice versa.

There is an old adage in the military that "intelligence drives operations." The anti-war movement needs to develop a centralized intelligence operation, not a spy organization, but rather a think-tank that produces sound analysis based upon fact that can be used to empower those who are waging the struggle against war. Far too often the anti-war movement dilutes its effectiveness by either being unable to produce facts during a debate, or when it does, producing facts that are inaccurate, incomplete, or both. The mainstream media treats the anti-war movement as a joke because many times that is exactly what the anti-war movement, through its lack of preparation and grasp of the facts, allows itself to become.

The anti-war movement lacks organization. There is no central leadership, or mechanism to effectively muster and control resources. The anti-war movement takes pride in its "democratic" composition, but in fact it operates as little more than controlled chaos, creating ample opportunity for the pro-war movement to effectively execute a "divide and conquer" strategy to minimize and nullify whatever good the anti-war movement achieves through its efforts. The anti-war movement would do well to take a page from the fire service and implement a version of the Incident Command System (ICS) that firefighters use when fighting complex fires involving the integration of several departments, organizations and jurisdictions. The anti-war movement needs to develop its own "ICS for the anti-war" that is universally applied throughout the movement, so that an anti-war effort in Seattle, Washington operates the same as an anti-war effort in New York City, and as such can be coordinated and controlled by an overall command staff operating from Denver, Colorado.

Complex problems, such as faced by the anti-war movement, require complex solutions, which in turn dictate a flexible control mechanism that can coordinate and synchronize every effort to achieve the desired result at a time and place of the anti-war movement's choosing, and then be prepared to follow up on successes as they occur and sustain the movement over an extended period of time. It is not enough to win a battle against the pro-war movement; the anti-war movement needs to win the war of ideologies. As such it must not only prepare to win a particular fight, but to exploit that victory, massing its forces against any developed weakness, and drive the pro-movement into the ground and off the American political map once and for all.

I have indicated my willingness to apply my training and experience as a warrior in a manner which helps teach the principles of the art of war to those who call themselves part of the anti-war movement. There seems to be not only a need for this sort of training, but also a desire among the myriad of individuals and groups who comprise the anti-war movement for an overall coordinated strategic direction, operational planning, and tactical execution of agreed upon mission objectives. One can be certain that the pro-war movement is conducting itself in full accordance with these very same organizational principles and methodologies. And let there be no doubt: the pro-war movement in America is prevailing. In order to gain the upper hand politically, and actually position itself to stop not only those wars already being fought (Iraq), but also prevent those being planned (Iran), the anti-war movement will need to re-examine in totality the way it does business. I for one am ready to assist. However, in writing this essay, I am constantly reminded of the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." One can only hope that the anti-war movement is thirsty.

The administration is scrambling to find a new disaster chief to head up the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) before the June-September storm season hits, after its last chief was ousted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown was forced from office over the administration's lackluster response to Katrina which devastated New Orleans and large swathes of the US Gulf coast, killing over 1,000 people.

But seven months after Katrina, the government has still to find a new FEMA chief, the Times reported.

It said those canvassed for the job so far were "unconvinced that the administration is serious about fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency or that there is enough time actually to get it done before president Bush's second term ends" in early 2009.

"You don't take the fire chief job after someone has burned down the city unless you are going to be able to do it in the right fashion," Ellis M. Stanley, a general manager of emergency planning in Los Angeles and one of those called by the administration, told the Times.

The report said Bush is now likely to nominate R. David Paulison, a former fire official who has been filling in for the past seven months, to take the job permanently.

"To a lot of people that would be an insult," said Craig Fugate, the top emergency management official in Florida, who said he also had been interviewed but then withdrew his name.

"They have been publicly out looking at how many different names and everyone turned it down and they come back and ask you?" Fugate told the Times.

With much of New Orleans and the Gulf coast still to be rebuild and widespread criticism of the government's slow response to Katrina last year, the White House is looking for a seasoned disaster official.

Brown, who resigned in September, was criticised for his lack of experience. He was previously a commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

And Bush's first FEMA director, Joe Allbaugh, was a Bush campaign manager during the 2000 election.

Several emergency managers, including those who were considered for the job, said they were confident, however, that Paulison was up to the task, even if he had not yet had an opportunity to offer a vision for the agency.

The New York Times reports Ken Burns, who directed The Civil War, Jazz and Baseball documentary series, called the deal "terrifying." Burns said the agreement means he would have been prohibited from making some of his documentaries that rely on archival material from the institution.

The agreement, cemented in early March, restricts film and television shows which are using Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or other non-Showtime broadcast outlets, unless they first offer it to Smithsonian on Demand, the institute's new broadcast outlet, or Showtime.

Burns told the newspaper the Smithsonian has "essentially optioned America's attic to one company."

Filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt said she had been told that her film Tupperware! - a historical recreation of the rise of the food-storage containers - would have fallen under the deal. The documentary was shown on PBS.

Kahn-Leavitt said a public archive should not be used on "an exclusive basis to anyone," reported the New York Times.

Jeanny Kim, vice president of media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures, said the agreement would affect a small number of works - ones that draw heavily on archival material.

Kim said documentaries using a few minutes of pictures or elements of the Smithsonian collection would be outside of the agreement.

Details of the contract have been left hidden. Smithsonian officials said they would not release it publicly and said outlines of the agreement have been left deliberately vague to allow the institution to consider projects on a case-by-case basis.

Margaret Drain from WGBH, the Boston public TV station, said programs such as Nova and American Experience would suffer under such restrictions. Drain said she was "outraged" by the deal.