Roger……You posted this on the View blog this morning: “I do understand the history of our country….. but we can live tomorrow in context of our past…. How can we heal our past by continuing to pick at the scab?” Aren’t you contradicting yourself? Just wondering??

Sally: Why should they be shown mercy themselves? Because we are bigger than them.

Phyllis, {…….In articles for Slate last year, she wondered “where is the outrage, the public outcry” over a government that has acted lawlessly and that “does not respect the legal and moral bounds of human decency.” She asked, “How do we save our country’s honor, and our own?”……} The answer to where is the outrage..public outcry….respect…the legal and moral bounds of human decency”….is on sites and in people who won’t be cowed by those who do not appreciate their responsibility as citizens of the world. Abu Graib, Gitmo, the illegal war all happened by design and were not ‘a response to the times’ and go back to before 2000, before GWB’s election, before 911, and when the illegal invasion was planned in writing and signed by the NeoCons: GWB adopted the 90 page PNAC document as a document for his ‘foreign policy’ the entire thing is outside our Constitution and can be obtained from: www.newamericancentury.org The NeoCon plan: 1. The lie of WMD and “unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf [and ] transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” In 2000, before 911, the NeoCons ennumerated how they would go into Iraq, establish permanent bases, and the real reasons were several. For geopolitical control of the Caspian Sea oil, to install puppet dictators in every country ringing the Caspian Sea {Bush Inc/Enron etc had a Trans-Afghanistan pipeline deal with the Tailban] and domination of the area for positioning to 3/4ths of the world’s resources and populations. Besides reading the PNAC Document the Know-Nothings could also read Chalmers Johnston’s “BlowBack Trilogy” and get a clue. It’s about the dangers [not to mention unConstitutionality] of US hegemony/global empire/militarism that creates more terrorism against the US, the loss of core democratic values at home, and the disaster for our economy that Eisenhower warned of in his farewell speech. Bush Inc is the embodiment and realization of precisely what GENERAL Eisenhower warned of. Johnson’s trilogy: “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire” “The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic” “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.” They could google the articles in the Washington Post, co-authored by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame on how September 11 was manipulated based on the NeoCon’s written plans that preceded GWB’s election. On September 12, 2001, without any evidence of who the hijackers were [and in fact they were mostly Saudis], Rumsfeld met with Richard “The Prince of Darkness” Perle and Wolfowitz, two of the Chief NeoCons, and started planning an immediate attack on Iraq. Colin Powell persuaded Bush that “public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible”. Afghanistan was chosen as the softer option. 20,000 people in Afghanistan paid the price of this debate with their lives. The PNAC documents proves that Bush and his senior cabinet members planned an attack on Iraq in 2000, even before he took power in January 2001. In their “Rebuilding American’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century,” members of GWB’s cabinet including Cheney/Rumsfeld had planned BEFORE the 2000 presidential election, to take military control of the Gulf region including installation of permanent Military Bases in Iraq “A peaceful settlement is not in our best interest in Iraq.” They stated they’d ignore international opinion, that UN was irrelevant, that the intention was permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, and eventual emergance as a full-fledged global empire. NeoCons signatures to the PNAC document: - Paul Wolfowitz, who because Deputy Defense Secretary. - John Bolton who became Undersecretary of State. - Stephen Cambone, who became head of the Pentagon’s Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation. - Eliot Cohen, a member of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. - Devon Cross is a member of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. - I. Lewis Libby is Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. - Dov Zakheim, Comptroller for the Defense Department. -Dick Cheney , Rumsfeld, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush -Zalmay Khalilzad -Richard Perle -Grover Norquist The PNAC stated that America had to dominate the world’s resources and as a pretext to start invading and occupying countries on their list they required “Some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor”. The attacks of September 11, 2001 provided the “new Pearl Harbor.” It was described by the NeoCons as “the opportunity of ages”. Many NeoCons in far-right groups and “think-tanks” like the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Coors Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and led by Grover Norquist hired and funded writers and handed them and Fox News Roger Ailes daily talking points and they acted like a megaphone across society to foment war, even knowing that Iraq had had nothing to do with the 911 attacks, and that Iraq had no WMD. The PNAC also called for: “transformation” of the U.S. military including with development of small nuclear warheads. The PNAC report stated that when Bush took power Iraq should be a target along with Iran and North Korea, and that US military presence and permanenet should be spread even further around the globe than in the 130 nations where U.S. troops are already deployed. With permanent military bases added in the Middle East [specially called for 14 in Iraq which are there now], in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia. The PNAC document was based on an earlier document drafted in 1992 by the Department of Defense under the direction of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz who were then Secretary of Defense and Defense Undersecretary for Policy. PNAC was founded in the spring of 1997 by the well-known Zionist neo-conservatives Robert Kagan and William Kristol, writer for the Weekly Standard. The PNAC is part of the New Citizenship Project, whose chairman is also William Kristol, and is described as “a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz signed a Statement of Principles of the PNAC on June 3, 1997, along with many of the other current members of Bush’s “war cabinet.” Paul Wolfowitz was one of the directors of PNAC until he joined the Bush Administration in 2001. A “core mission” was for the U.S. military to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” It should also be noted that the many of the NeoCons were students of Leo Strauss, a Nazi, who believed in WAR as the organizing principle of the state; he did NOT believe in religion but in its use to control populations; he believed in a master race of entitled white men and that lying and secrecy was their right. He in fact believed in everything that the US Constitution is against….and the PNAC is little more than treason. Those who argue for this being ignored are arguing for the destruction of the US from within. What they did was treason and it needs to be spelled out and exposed.

phyllis, we do need something like a truth and reconciliation commission. we need it to heal the country.