Many Americans were captured during the Vietnam War and tortured for years, including retired Navy pilot Mike Cronin, who was shocked to learn when he returned to America that there was no US law providing US courts with jurisdiction to prosecute violators of the Geneva Conventions. After 6 years of torture, Cronin knew that Geneva Conventions prohibitions against torture and "humiliating and degrading" treatment were essential to protect US soldiers.

Thanks to Cronin's persistent lobbying, Congress passed the War Crimes Act of 1996 with "overwhelming bipartisan support." The War Crimes Act provides US courts with jurisdiction "to convict any foreigner who commits a war crime against an American, or any American who commits a war crime at all." The War Crimes Act did not provide a real difference for soldiers and officers, who were already subject to military law that prohibits the abuse of prisoners. Under the War Crimes Act, for the first time, US civilians -- including intelligence officers, contractors, and government officials -- could be criminally prosecuted for ordering war crimes. Understandably, this US war crimes law was passed with strong bipartisan support because "nobody could have predicted that a decade later a U.S. administration, with the explicit consent of the president and the attorney general, would be accused of systematic war crimes."

Now, the recent US Supreme Court decision of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld opens the door for President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales to be prosecuted under the US War Crimes Act. The Hamdan case ruled that the Bush administration could not deny at least some of the Geneva Convention protections to prisoners suspected of ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. One legal expert has opined that Hamdan's ruling that al-Qaeda members are covered by at least parts of the Geneva Conventions would also apply to American soldiers and CIA operatives.

Since at least 2002, internal memos show that the Bush team was worried about potential application of the War Crimes Act to their implementation of torture and inhumane treatment policies:

Publicly released memos show that as far back as Jan. 25, 2002, Gonzales, then the White House counsel, worried that the president's policies could trigger prosecution under the act. That led the White House to declare, over the objection of the State Department, that al-Qaida was not protected by the conventions. In the memo, Gonzales argued that the president could create "a solid defense against any future prosecution" by declaring that the Geneva Conventions did not apply.

However, the Hamdan ruling eliminates this "solid defense" by holding that Geneva Conventions do apply, and thus places the Bush team in "a legally vulnerable position"
as even an Air Force judge advocate recently testified before Congress that "some techniques that have been authorized" violated the Geneva Conventions.

A legal expert opined that the Hamdan case "probably could not be used retroactively to punish anyone for employing extralegal interrogation techniques," but certainly use of those techniques after the Hamdan case will be grounds for a war crimes prosecution. This is interesting. If Hamden does truly only have prospective application, and yet the Bush team is trying to quietly change the reach of the War Crimes Act, then is this not tantamount to an admission that the Bush team plan to continue to violate the Geneva Conventions? That is, continue to torture despite what the highest court in our country has ruled.

Expanding the Bush preemption doctrine to protect himself and administration officials, the Bush team is now "quietly circulating legislation to change the statutory interpretation of the War Crimes Act of 1996. In short, the legislation would make it difficult to prosecute U.S. personnel for the harsh interrogation methods authorized by President Bush and the Justice Department." These proposed changes have "not yet been spelled out publicly."

But, Human Rights Watch director says the "effort to change the interpretation of the War Crimes Act is focused on protecting those outside the military chain of command who may have committed war crimes or ordered war crimes to be committed." In other words, the changes would protect Bush team officials who drafted the torture memos and passed the policies down to the military to be implemented, but would leave military officials and soldiers hanging in the wind. Another way that Bush supports our troops.

The fear is not that Bush team officials would be criminally prosecuted now under the War Crimes Act because that also requires a federal prosecutor to file charges against them. So, the Bush team must be fairly confidant that they have all their ducks in a row with federal prosecutors. The fear is prosecution by the next administration or by the appointment of a special prosecutor.

The Bush team proposal wants to mandate that US enforcement of Geneva Conventions be subject to domestic interpretation, not international standards. This change is needed by Bush because the US Supreme Court believes that foreign interpretations of international treaties, like the Geneva Conventions, should at least be considered by US courts.

This minor change could have a "huge practical impact" because the Justice Dept. could "define certain interrogation techniques as legal in U.S. courts, even if the rest of the world considers them violations of the conventions." This "minor" change could provide retroactive immunity to Bush team because the War Crimes law today applies to the Bush team. Today, prosecution under this law would likely include international law interpretation as case law precedent because the War Crimes law is based on violating Geneva Conventions, an international treaty. Today, foreign countries and courts have stated in media reports that they do not agree with Bush's view of what constitutes torture or compliance with the Geneva Conventions, particularly disagreeing with the rules governing the Guantánamo prison and treatment accorded prisoners. That is the general state of the law when Bush and administration officials drafted their memos and issued their orders. That is why the Bush team memos issued before implementing their policies expressed concern of their own liability under the War Crimes Act. To change the substantive law after the actions were taken is tantamount to retroactive immunity. As one legal expert stated:

"They want retroactive immunity," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor of international law at Notre Dame, who has been critical of the Bush administration's detention policies. "Have you known of any other time in our history when we have tried to immunize public officials against crimes after they have committed the crimes?"

Actually, yes. Bush is now also trying to obtain retroactive immunity for his legal liability in implementing his illegal NSA spying programs.

While Bush publicly proclaims we must all support our troops, he again works behind closed doors to protect himself from legal liability while rendering US soldiers less safe from physical and mental torture. Of course, some Democrats, like Sen Leahy, have promised to fight these changes in the law, saying that Attorney General Gonzales, who is the "highest law enforcement officer in the country is leading an effort to undercut the rule of law." Given that the Decider has years ago dispensed with the need for Congress or the Courts, without any effective action by either institution to stop the Decider, can any Democrat really be shocked or surprised by Bush's plan to change another law to protect himself from legal liability?

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Note: All material and quotes are from this Salon article unless other attribution

The Presidential Empowerment Act, which the president hand-drafted on his own Oval Office stationery and promptly signed into law, provides Bush with full authority to permit himself to authorize increased jurisdiction over the three branches of the federal government, provided that the president considers it in his best interest to do so.

"In a time of war, the president must have the power he needs to make the tough decisions, including, if need be, the decision to grant himself even more power," Bush said. "To do otherwise would be playing into the hands of our enemies."

Added Bush: "And it's all under due process of the law as I see it."
Bush Gonzales R

"The president can grant himself the power to interpret new laws however he sees fit, then use that power to interpret a law in such a manner that in turn grants him increased power."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez

In addition, the president reserves the right to overturn any decision to allow himself to increase his power by using a line-item veto, which in turn may only be overruled by the president.

Senior administration officials lauded Bush's decision, saying that current presidential powers over presidential power were "far too limited."

"Previously, the president only had the power to petition Congress to allow him to grant himself the power to grant more power to himself," Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said shortly after the ceremony. "Now, the president can grant himself the power to interpret new laws however he sees fit, then use that power to interpret a law in such a manner that in turn grants him increased power."

In addition, a proviso in the 12th provision of the new law permits Bush the authority to waive the need for any presidential authorization of power in a case concerning national security, although legal experts suggest it would be little exercised.

Despite the president's new powers, the role of Congress and the Supreme Court has not been overlooked. Under the new law, both enjoy the newly broadened ability to grant the president the authority to increase his presidential powers.
Bush Reid R

"The only thing we can do now is withhold our ability to grant him more authority to grant himself more power-unless he authorizes himself to strip us of that power."

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

"This gives the president the tools he needs to ensure that the president has all the necessary tools to expedite what needs to be done, unfettered by presidential restrictions on himself," said Rep. John Cornyn (R-TX). "It's long overdue."

Though public response to the new law has been limited, there has been an unfavorable reaction among Democrats, who are calling for restrictions on Bush's power to allow himself to grant the president more powers that would restrict the powers of Congress.

"This is a clear case of President Bush having carte blanche to grant himself complete discretion to enact laws to increase his power," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. "The only thing we can do now is withhold our ability to grant him more authority to grant himself more power."

"Unless he authorizes himself to strip us of that power," Reid added.

Despite criticism, Bush took his first official action under the new law Tuesday, signing an executive order ordering that the chief executive be able to order more executive orders.

In addition, Republicans fearful that the president's new power undermines their ability to grant him power have proposed a new law that would allow senators to permit him to grant himself power, with or without presidential approval.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Ann Beeson says the documents show the government engaging in "a clear case of overcensoring" during the yearlong dispute on the FBI's request for subscriber and billing information from a library computer used in a 45-minute span on Feb. 15, 2005.

Four librarians resisted the FBI directive. They were put under a gag order that prohibited them from even acknowledging the existence of the demand for information, which came in the form of a national security letter rather than a subpoena signed by a judge. Such a letter allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena.

The FBI said the government had sound legal reasons for the secrecy and that under other circumstances the librarians' refusal to cooperate could have increased the danger of terrorists succeeding.

The newly released records showed that the government deleted references in a court decision to the fact that The New York Times had already ascertained and published the name of the library group challenging the FBI. The government had kept a copy of the Times article under seal in the case.

Another document was a Supreme Court opinion written in October 2005 in which Ginsburg pointed out that the library group already had been identified publicly. "That cat was inadvertently let out of the bag," she wrote. The government kept the quote secret.

Also among the fresh disclosures was a previously excised section of an opinion by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall in Connecticut rejecting the government's demand for secrecy about the name of the plaintiff, the Library Connection.

Describing how irrelevant it was to national security that the name of the group would get out publicly, Hall had written that "the universe of people who could be the subject of this investigation would likely be in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands."

The Library Connection, which fought the government's request for information, is a network of 26 Connecticut public and private libraries serving more than 288,000 library cardholders, along with others who do not hold cards.

Ginsburg's action opens the way for release of more material from the case by the federal court in Connecticut and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

Administration lawyers and senators also continued to clash over evidence obtained through coercion or hearsay and how to deal with classified evidence.

The Supreme Court ruled in late June that terrorism suspects must be extended the protections outlined in a provision of the Geneva Conventions that prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity, and in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

Gonzales argued Wednesday that the language of the provision, known as Common Article 3, was too vague.

And because the U.S. War Crimes Act, passed a decade ago, makes it a felony to violate that provision, he said that troops could be prosecuted for interrogation tactics considered too harsh.

Congress, he said, could "help by defining our obligations" under the provision.

Gonzales, publicly discussing the administration's new proposal for prisoner trials for the first time since the court's ruling, said it would offer legislation that included a proposal to change the War Crimes Act, to bring "clarity" in defining which violations of Common Article 3 rise to the level of war crimes.

"The surest way to achieve that clarity and certainty, in our view, is for Congress to set forth a definite and clear list of offenses serious enough to be considered war crimes," he said.

But senators said Congress should not endorse any treatment it would not want used on U.S. soldiers.

"We must remain a nation that is different from, and above, our enemies," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

The differences between the administration and the Senate were most pronounced when McCain asked Gonzales whether statements obtained through "illegal and inhumane treatment" should be admissible. Gonzales paused for almost a minute before responding.

"The concern that I would have about such a prohibition is, what does it mean?" he said.

"How do you define it? I think if we could all reach agreement about the definition of cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment, then perhaps I could give you an answer."

McCain, a former prisoner of war, said that using illegal and inhumane interrogation tactics and allowing the evidence to be introduced would be "a radical departure" from longstanding U.S. policy.

The court ruled in June that the military tribunals that President George W. Bush had established for suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, violated international law and were not authorized by U.S. statute.

Lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments initially tried to persuade Congress simply to approve the tribunals. By Wednesday, the administration had changed its position. "What we are considering now is a better product," Gonzales said.

He said the administration proposed enacting a new code of military justice modeled on court-martial procedures. The new proposal departs from the initial tribunals in several ways. The presiding officer would be a military judge, for example, and would rule on evidence, but not participate in the final verdict. The jury would have five members, instead of three, with 12 in death- penalty cases. Conviction would require two-thirds of the jury to agree, and unanimity in death-penalty cases.

But the proposal also departs from court-martial procedures, in that suspects would not be entitled to warnings regarding self-incrimination, or to Article 32 proceedings, which are similar to a grand jury.

It would allow the introduction of hearsay evidence that the judge ruled "reliable" and would share classified evidence with the defense counsel, but not necessarily the defendant.

In an e-mail, Theodore Brown, a spokesman for Fleet Forces Command, said, "It is sometimes a challenge to balance the desires of the media, the public's right to know, and the rights of an individual accused of a crime."

"In this case," he concluded, the command "is attempting to provide as much unclassified information as is reasonable, while maintaining an appropriate concern for the privacy of the individual involved. "

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment Thursday.

The Navy's position was challenged by military legal affairs experts and First Amendment advocates who say the nation's courts, whether civilian or military, historically have been open to the press and public.

A docket listing Weinmann's preliminary hearing, called an Article 32, was never produced. The Navy would not disclose when the hearing was held.

"That's hogwash," said Eugene R. Fidell, president of The National Institute of Military Justice and a Washington lawyer .

"I know of no authority to keep the proceeding closed," he said. "I've never seen an Article 32 classified."

The command's e-mail to The Pilot this week said that Weinmann was arrested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 26 after he had been listed as a deserter. Fleet Forces officials refused to release the so-called charge sheet, which would detail the accusations against the sailor.

Weinmann had been serving aboard the submarine Albuquerque until he deserted in July 2005, according to Brown. Weinmann enlisted in July 2003, he said.

The enlisted man could face a court-martial. An investigative officer who presided over the Article 32 is expected to release a report to Weinmann's command in the coming weeks. Besides espionage and desertion, Weinmann is charged with failure to obey an order and acts prejudicial to good order and discipline, according to Brown.

Espionage is defined, in part, by the Uniform Code of Military Justice as the communication to a foreign government of any information relating to U.S. national defense. It carries a maximum punishment of death.

Military defense lawyers say secret military hearings and the refusal to release basic charge information have become more common since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Court precedents and federal laws have established the right of public access to court-martial proceedings, including Article 32 hearings, the lawyers and First Amendment advocates say.

The Army Court of Criminal Appeals said in a 1997 case involving an attempt to close a criminal proceeding, "We believe that public confidence in matters of military justice would quickly erode if courts-martial were arbitrarily closed to the public."

The court said the public and the media have a right to attend military court proceedings, "absent extraordinary circumstances."

The Supreme Court has ruled that the closure of a court proceeding or the sealing of any criminal case must be decided by a judge on a case-by-case basis.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington, said that, even in military courts, an order must be issued closing or sealing a case.

Brown acknowledged Thursday that "there is no order," but said that the charge sheet in the Weinmann case would not be released.

Dalglish and others said protecting someone's privacy has never been a legally acceptable reason to exclude the public from a court proceeding or to withhold the identity of someone who's been in custody for four months.

"We don't lock up people in this country secretly," Dalglish said. "Personal embarrassment has never been found to be a justification for closing a proceeding."

Other than the Weinmann case, Norfolk Naval Station has refused to provide The Pilot with copies of the military court docket since at least November. The docket lists cases heard in military court each day. In March, The Pilot filed a Freedom of Information request for the past year's dockets but has received no written response.

Beth Baker, a spokeswoman for the Navy Mid-Atlantic Region, has said that computer problems have made it difficult for the Trial Services Office at Norfolk Naval Station to generate a docket.

In two e-mails sent to The Pilot in January and February, Baker said the dockets should be available "soon."

"The docket for the Trial Service Office has been transferred to a new system that is not user friendly to us at all," Baker told The Pilot in a March e-mail.

More recent requests for the docket went unanswered.

Some military courts, including Marine Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, Calif., post their court dockets on a Web site.

The National Institute of Military Justice has begun a project to collect military court dockets and post them on its own Web site. Fidell, of the institute, said law students hope to begin pos ting them by the end of the summer.

"Why this continues to be an issue in 2006 is beyond me," Fidell said.

Doesn't the secretary know the world is not clamouring for instantaneous change? Instead it is clamouring against a US policy that is illogical, illegal and ill-fated.

How so? Here is the illogical part. Washington's stated goals are the same as Israel's; to disarm if not destroy the Hizbollah , neutralise Iranian and Syria influence in the region and to strengthen the Lebanese government. Israel's security context has not improved. Instead in perception and in reality the 'threats' are ever-expanding. At the core of these threats is simultaneously Israel's aggressive search for security and the unresolved Palestinian issue. Both facilitate accentuated intra-state rivalries promoting political extremism and spawning off armed militias across South West Asia. Ironically a nuclear-armed Israel called a Middle Eastern 'superpower' still remains insecure.

How is the policy illegal? It works to selectively implement Security Council resolutions. While it awards a carte blanche awarded to Israelis to pursue their security as they consider fit, at a practical level it remains indifferent to the creation of a Palestinian homeland. US policy has enabled the Israeli state to violate legally laid down parameters of state behaviour. It remains a state that refuses to lay down its borders. Israel occupied Lebanese territory for two decades and continues to occupy Syrian territory. Its gross and systematic violation of Palestinian rights and occupation of their homeland continues. It terrorises the Palestinians at will; all in the name of self-defence.

The media tells thousands of stories of the atrocities committed by Israel. In cyberspace there are endless postings of the tormented and tortured Lebanese and Palestinians. Even Israeli citizens, opposed to the state policy are boldly critiquing it. These dispatches from the killing fields of Lebanon and Gaza are being read daily by millions and millions. Endless articles report Israeli violation of the ICRC, preventing water and electricity supplies to Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli state terrorism needs no formal branding of illegality. Read the endless UNSC and UN resolutions that Israel, supported by the US, has violated.

And finally for the future of US policy, it is ill-fated. The time between policy implementation and its abysmal failure is now shrinking. First Iraq and now Lebanon. Bush is following a strategy used by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. This is to line up elite Arab support against all the elements within the Arab world that threaten Israel's security. And the rest will follow.

Kissinger in the seventies opted for the 'salami tactic'. Then US policy went in with its weapons supplies, exploited existing cleavages within the Arab governments and also their growing discomfort with continuous support of the Palestinian cause. The governments concluded there was an internal and external cost for providing genuine political support for the Palestinians. The inter-play between this, the US pro-Israeli policy and the US advocacy of Israel within the Arab world, created a shared objective, that of containing the Palestinian problem but not actually working to resolve it. Alongside this containment the US worked for Israeli security; and the yield of this policy was an insecure and aggressive nuclear state in the heart of the region fighting to kill the spirit of the Palestinians. But the message of the Palestinian struggle is unambiguous: never give up.

On this latest round. Within less than three weeks the White House must be reassessing its policy. The policy was articulated as one that would work for "a sustainable peace." Its primary objective was to ensure Israeli security by destroying the Hizbollah . For long the suffering of the dispossessed people of Palestine has become a secondary objective. Washington's support for Israel's endless destruction of the Palestinian people and of Hamas was viewed by the US as a means for fighting "terrorism" and "Islamic extremism".

The outcome has instead been Hizbollah 's increasing popularity among the Arab public cutting across all religious and sectarian divides, an increase in anti-American sentiment, Arab governments' forced review of their policy on Lebanon and muting of their criticism of Hizbollah , as well as an increase in Lebanese support for Hizbollah , and an increase in Israel's siege mentality.

Now the US is doing the exact reverse of what it did in Bosnia. Then it ended the killings. Now it is facilitating the killings. Then it intervened to uphold principles, now to violate principles of law, humanity and even self-interest.

The Arab hostility towards Israel was inevitable given that its creation was at the cost of the Palestinian homeland. But instead of neutralising the Arab hostility by working for a Palestinian homeland Washington has sought to wean away the Arab regimes from the Palestinian cause. With a festering Palestinian wound, the undying resistance and an aggressive and insecure Israeli state, a stable Middle East will be an illusion.

But will this ever change? The juxtaposition of an illogical, illegal and ill-fated policy and the Washington mindset leaves little hope for imminent change. The Washington mindset is best described in this week's Newsweek. "Bush thinks the new war vindicates his early vision of the region's struggle: of good versus evil, civilisation versus terrorism, freedom versus Islamic fascism. Yet he still trusts his gut to tell him what's right and he still expects others to follow his lead. For Bush diplomacy is not the art of a negotiated compromise. It's a smoother way to get where he wants to go."

"We have a serious problem," said Robert Kreiser of the American Association of University Professors, who has written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the issue and says the problem is growing. "This places a serious chill on the exercise of academic freedom."

The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking up to 15 cases, including Ari's, in which it thinks people have been banned for their beliefs. While ideology is rarely given as the official reason, the ACLU said academics increasingly are being interrogated about their political beliefs when they apply for visas.

"The government is using ideological exclusion laws as a way of manipulating the political and economic debate," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy director of the ACLU's national security program. "They are using the laws to deny Americans the right to hear views."

The government denies that charge. Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for the Department for Homeland Security, said: "There are a host of reasons why an individual may be denied a visa, but their ideological or political beliefs are not reasons for denying entry."

Ari said he has heard only rumors to suggest that his application is being held up by national security concerns. His supporters, including those at the University of Nebraska, Georgetown and the American Historical Association, say there is no evidence to bar him and have begun a letter-writing campaign for him.

Ari's Washington attorney, Michael Maggio, speculated that Ari had been wrongly linked to the indigenous movement led by Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, a strident populist who has been critical of Washington's policies in the region.

But Ari said he has criticized Morales and would like to see Bolivia and the United States more closely linked: "I don't understand. I am considered to be very pro-America in Bolivia. I am in limbo. I have missed two semesters, and I may lose another."

Others around the world are in similar situations. In June, the ACLU said, Yoannis Milios, a professor from Greece, was detained and interrogated about his politics for several hours at JFK Airport before his visa was revoked. The group said that the academic, who was scheduled to present a paper at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was sent back to Athens.

Last year, Dora Maria Téllez, who was a Sandinista leader in the 1979 revolution that overthrew Nicaragua's U.S.-backed dictator, gave up a post at Harvard University after the government rejected her visa application. The ACLU has said that, although during the 1980s Téllez became a parliamentary leader and minister of health in Nicaragua, she was excluded because of her role in the revolution.

The highest-profile case is that of Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Swiss Islamic scholar whose visa was revoked. At the time, the government referred to a provision of the USA Patriot Act that applies to citizens who have "endorsed or espoused terrorism." Ramadan applied for a different visa. When this wasn't acted on, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the government, and a federal judge ordered in June that the State Department must act on his visa request.

The State Department said that it could not comment on an ongoing case but that the ideological-exclusion provision in the Patriot Act has rarely been used. Tony Edson, deputy assistant secretary for visa services, said: "Contrary to suggestion, we know of only one case in which an applicant was denied a visa on the basis of the individual's having endorsed or espoused terrorism. The individual involved had a following of weapons-carrying individuals and made public speeches calling for the assassination of a high-level U.S. government official."

The ACLU's Jaffer said he found that assertion surprising. He said his organization had received information from the State Department through a Freedom of Information Act request that suggested the Patriot Act provision had been used more than once.

Nevertheless, he said, there was no question that foreign scholars were being increasingly targeted since Sept. 11, 2001. Jaffer said the United States could exclude controversial applicants without invoking the Patriot Act.

If the United States is excluding visa applicants based on ideology, there will be ramifications, said Robert M. O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

"It is not just the people who are turned down," he said. "If there are a number of sensitive and conscientious people who decide it is not worth coming at all and decide to go to another country, then we in the U.S. are the losers."

Sometimes the press enjoys scaring itself or pretending it is about to be made into a bunch of martyrs. This is not one of those times. We are under full attack now, and it is time to fight. I am not infuriated by the performance of the press so far, but I am disgusted. Bob Novak is the most notable traitor, but others are leaping for political favors as they rush to insist The New York Times shouldn't print the news (and occasionally, quite old news at that). I fail to see how Fox News and other right-wing outlets have so little imagination they cannot picture themselves in the same corner come a Democratic administration. What goes around comes around and all that good stuff, but to set it up so that payback is hell for yourself is tragically, deeply dumb. I have watched the D.C. press corps play courtier to Bush since he openly insulted Helen Thomas, who is not only a first-rate journalist but a lady as well. Shame on you all. No principle, no guts, no grace.

On another topic, I was talking to a guy named Andy the other night when he observed that unlike President Bush, he had learned firsthand that diplomacy works with skunks. He was speaking of the striped, tail-up-bad-sign kind, but they seem a perfect metaphor for the rest of what he laughingly calls Bush's diplomatic strategery-at which point the proper response is to ask, "What diplomatic strategery?" Has anyone seen a foreign policy lately? Does anyone still know what containment means? These are, after all, the people who were against arms control because Bill Clinton was for it.

One feels like Casey Stengel looking at the early Mets: "Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?" In the most contemptible act of irresponsibility imaginable, the neocons who pulled together to start this war now reject any responsibility for it. Mr. Wolfowitz is busy running the World Bank; it's no longer his business.

The rest of this crew of moral pygmies is too frightened of Dick Cheney to point out that this entire war is a disaster, or a fiasco, as Thomas E. Ricks, author of the new book "Fiasco," puts it. I think the Bush foreign policy-when in doubt, send Condi Rice home-is a public relations ploy to keep the Israeli-Lebanese war going long enough so that Americans won't notice Iraq has completely collapsed in the meantime. And it has collapsed. I suggest our military figure out how to get out of there before it loses an entire effing army on the way.

In Washington, the sophomore wienies who now staff the administration are far too terrified of Cheney to speak up, even if they had enough sense to notice it's going rather badly. Oh, for heaven's sake-send Cheney back to south Texas so he can shoot at caged birds there. The Wizard of Oz had more credibility.

I think they're running around the Middle East looking for a red heifer. (For those of you who don't read your news straight from the Book of Revelations, a red heifer is needed to set off the Rapture. We're working on it.)

Well, if you can't get any global action from this outfit, how about some plain old legislation? Nope. The Republicans' latest effort was to pass a callous imitation of a minimum wage increase ($2.10 an hour over two years) after 10 years with no raise. They may fall over in gratitude. And, in the same bill, mind you, this crew of crazed philanthropists insisted on another multibillion-dollar cut in the estate tax. For really, really rich people. Rep. Zach Wamp gloatingly told the Democrats, "We have outfoxed you." Outfoxed? A tiny increase in the minimum wage and a huge tax cut for multimillionaires. Does this make any sense? Does this even make politics?

In a splendid display of incompetence, the Republicans went on to make hay of pension reform plans.

Meanwhile, I have yet another complaint to lodge against George W. Bush. "The man is a moron!" is not political debate. Not helpful. Not even prudent, as his old man would say. But that is precisely what he leaves us saying: "But, he is a complete moron." Someone needs to pick up this discussion and point out that at least he's our moron and say something encouraging like someday maybe he'll learn to pronounce nuclear. We can count on him not to change his mind about stem cell research no matter what people learn. And, the only foreign leader he's necked with is female.

To find out more about Molly Ivins and see works by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website, www.creators.com.

I was born in a moderate Pakistan and grew up to adulthood in General Zia's America inspired Jihadi times. I witnessed firsthand the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet juggernaut and the sudden mushrooming of American funded Jihadi outfits all over Pakistan to counter that. I saw the eventual decimation of the Soviet forces by those resistance fighters and the fateful demise of the Soviet Union, as the world knew it, as a result of that. I was younger then and was awed by the reported heroics of these Islamic fighters who stood in the way of a godless, alien force that wanted to subjugate not just Afghanistan but all the bordering countries into absolute submission. I could rattle out the names of all the 17 or so resistance organizations in Pakistan and Iran that were conducting operations inside Afghanistan. I remembered the names of all of their leaders. They were my heroes.

After a job well done, the Americans packed their bags and left, leaving behind Afghanistan to the same outfits that by then had started to show their true colors in a ruthless power struggle.

Amidst this chaos, I saw first hand the rise of Taliban, a movement the birth of which was midwifed by the ISI of Pakistan with a not-so-subtle help from America's CIA. I read about their heroic struggle to put an end to the internecine feuds of the power greedy warlords. In the end they did bring about a modicum of calm to that unfortunate country. The Taliban movement was started by ethnic Pathans and I, being one myself, had tremendous sympathy for their cause and their method.

Then the dream started to turn sour.

Reports started coming in of Taliban's' brutal massacre of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, an ethnic minority much despised by the Pathans for the unpardonable sins of being different in their looks and for being a part of Northern Alliance that resisted the Taliban's bid to rule over Afghanistan. Reports also started pouring in of macabre punishments meted out to ordinary criminals in Kabul's stadium. Men and women were stoned to death for the sin of adultery. Some women were stoned for the crime of their own rapes as they could not produce four pious witnesses who saw the act from close quarters as required by Taliban's interpretation of Shariah Laws. The killing of people was turned into a patent pleasure for a people deprived of all other entertainment in the name of Shariah. The Taliban banned all forms of television, imagery, music and sports. Even kite flying was declared a sin and a crime. Men were required to keep their beards at a specified length and women were forced to shroud themselves in thick bolts of cloth at all times. Women were also routinely beaten in Kabul's' streets for 'improper behavior' by the religious police..

One night I saw I saw a video of the execution of two Afghan women activists by the Taliban. To this day I wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night from recurring nightmares.

That was also the night I developed insomnia for ever.

A little before that, the ruling Mullahs in Iran too had declared themselves the sole translators of the Divine and started whipping people, amputating their limbs and stoning them to death in the name of God. They fought a punishing eight years war with Saddam's Iraq. The Mullahs threw in their young men and women into that war promising them martyrdom and heavens even though they were fighting another Muslim people and not the so called 'infidels'.

Concomitantly, in Pakistan too extremist forces started calling the shots and that manifested itself in non-stop sectarian killings. Moderate voices hushed down and went into an impotent silence. The country of my birth launched itself firmly upon a course strewn with the blood, bones, and bodies of innocent victims. The whole nation slowly caged itself into an obscenity of horror in the name of God.

All these developments threw me into a conflicting state of mind and forced me to take a closer look at all religions, not just my own. With immense information, material and references now freely available on the internet, I soon started to think the hitherto unthinkable. I realized that I was a Muslim just because I was born into a Muslim faith and would have as fervently preached, practiced and defended any other faith had I been born into that. Since the fundamentalists of other faiths were not ruling countries as the Taliban and the Iranian Mullahs were at the time, my distaste for these radicals grew with each passing day. I was not alone in this thinking. There were people galore who, much more knowledgeable now in the just dawning information age, were finding it easy to break the choking stranglehold of the Mullah on themselves and their religion.

With that came the beginning of the end of my romance with the Taliban type of religion that was more interested in whipping, amputations and stoning of people, zeroed in on women and shook to its very roots every time a woman unveiled herself.

Then came Neocons on the scene and, through their villainous agenda, changed every thing for people like me.

Initially, one even sighed with relief on the demise of the repulsive Taliban despite the fact that it came with the blood of thousands of innocent Afghanis. It was better to be dead rather than be the living dead under the brutal edicts of Taliban likes, I argued to myself.

This feeling, though, was short lived.

With the invasion of Iraq, a modern secular state albeit ruled by a thug, the neocons started to unfold their real agenda. With the uncovering of their massive lies and the surfacing of reports of their insane butchery of Iraqi people, their mask came off within days. Beneath the shining façade of freedom, democracy and liberty, one found the hideous contours of mindless greed and naked ambitions. They soon bared their yellow fangs at the entire Muslim world in general, and at Iran and Syria in particular. Not very much later, they started a proxy war through Israel with the Hizbollah of Lebanon that rages on even as these lines are being written.

But lo and behold. Something extraordinary started to happen.

The Mubaraks, the Abdullahs and the Musharrafs of this world wilted like wax in the face of neocons' onslaught. They shook and trembled like thin reed in the morning winds. All the nationalist and secular forces in the Muslim world that should have resisted this by-then-thoroughly-exposed-offensive, evaporated into thin air and, in the process, stood totally discredited. Their place was taken by Islamist forces which became the only element in the entire Muslim world able to stand squarely on their legs, eye ball to eye ball with the neocons' forces, in the US/Israeli blitz on the Muslim world.

Due to the senseless arrogance and idiocy of the neocons, the arc of crises started spreading like wildfire from the seashores of the Mediterranean to the borders of Pakistan. This entire region is now in tumult with the Neocons fanned flames of unrest and revolt spreading like jungle fire in a forty knots wind. If the "war on terror" was meant to wrestle and control radical Islam, the neocons have now given it a momentum it could never have hoped to achieve on its own.

Consider the following.

Even as these lines are being written, Islamists are battling Israel in Gaza, engaging their forces in Lebanon, fighting the US occupation in Iraq, clashing with the American-propped Karzai puppet government and the coalition forces in Afghanistan and bringing Pakistan army's American-urged campaign to a screeching halt in North and South Waziristan. In fact in Afghanistan, the Taliban are in an unparalleled resurgence since their demise.

Then again, the only country having the nerve to stand up to Americans is none other than the Mullah-run Iran that is not only defending its right to nuclear power but providing succor to Hamas and Hezbollah. Even Syria, otherwise a secular country, finds itself in alliance with Islamist forces of Iran and Lebanon.

Not very far back, the Sunni Taliban and the Shia Iran were sworn enemies. Today, thanks to the neocons' absolute foolhardiness, they find themselves as allies battling a common enemy. Hamas has already stunned the world with a resounding victory at the polls. Iran is defiant, Syria remains uncompromising and now Hezbollah is taking on the might of the conceited Israeli army in a way no Arab army has ever done.

This puts me in a personal quandary. The earlier quoted instances of the Taliban types' brutality gave birth to the secular in me. I do not any more follow the rituals like I used to and find the Mullah's hate sermons no more than the blabbering of a dangerous idiot.

But when I look around the Muslim world, the ground reality instantly gives high voltage shocks to the liberal secular in me. I find that that the only forces resisting the neocons' ghoulish empire building excursion are none other than the very radical forces I so despised thus far. If these resistance forces are drawing their inspiration for all this from Islam, or their version of it, so be it. After all, the suicide bombers of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, admittedly the deadliest liberation organization on earth that makes the Al Qaeda legions look like a bunch of kindergarten kids, too must be drawing their inspiration from some set of beliefs.

The time has come to decide- just like George Bush, the neocons' poster boy, once said-"You are either with us or against us." For me, and millions more like me in the Muslim world, the option has now boiled down to being with the assailant or the victim, the tormenter or the tormented. The choice, I think, is abundantly clear.

The following courageous words of Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, have been addressed to the bigheaded Israelis. These also serve as a chilling reminder to the gutless Muslim leadership to reach back and rediscover their lost spine.

"You are fighting a people who have faith such as no one else on the face of the earth possesses... who take pride in their history, their civilization and culture, who also possess material power, expertise, knowledge, calm, imagination, determination and courage. In the coming days it will be between us and you, God willing."

Copyrights : Anwaar Hussain