AlterNet Special

AlterNet:
Who Must Really Answer for 9/11?

By David Sirota, AlterNet
Posted on July 28, 2006

As any casual political observer knows by now, Karl Rove has made himself famous for using national security as a political weapon against Democrats. In particular, Rove has pioneered a strategy of hiding the weaknesses of his own side, and targeting the strengths of his opponents.

We saw this in the 2002 mid-terms, when Rove masterminded the GOP's congressional campaign that ignored the fact that President Bush originally opposed creating a Department of Homeland Security, and then used Bush's Johnny-come-lately support for the concept to bash Democrats. We saw it in 2004 as well, when Rove deflected attention from Bush's embarrassing military absenteeism during Vietnam and spearheaded a vicious assault on the combat credentials of John Kerry, a Vietnam War hero.

Now, in 2006, Republicans seem to be following Rove's playbook in Ohio - the site of the country's biggest and most closely-contested U.S. Senate race. But unlike the two elections before, Democrats this time are punching back. In the process, they are regrounding America's national security debate in facts, rather than dishonest rhetoric.

Over the last week, incumbent Republican Sen. Mike DeWine has launched ads showing images from Sept. 11, and attacked challenger Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown as supposedly weak on national security. DeWine bases his claim on a handful of votes Brown cast in the 1990s to cut intelligence funding and create more transparency in intelligence budgeting.

Sounds like a good strategy until you consider the message inherent in DeWine's attack: By criticizing Brown for having the guts in the 1990s to try to change a clearly misguided intelligence apparatus, DeWine is very publicly saying that he believes there was actually nothing wrong with our national security before Sept. 11, and that there was no need to reform America's intelligence budget from its Cold War days so as to make sure it was focused on America's real threats.

Put another way, he's going on record as an apologist for the massive intelligence failures that left our country vulnerable to attack in the first place. Of course, DeWine's skewed logic is a product of his justifiable desperation. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the 1990s, he was in a perfect position to demand much-needed changes in how our government was targeting our intelligence resources.

He was responsible for exercising oversight that might have helped redirect our intelligence resources in a way that could have prevented the attacks. Instead, he didn't lift a finger. Now embarrassed and running for his political life, he knows he needs to hide his record. So he is going with the Rove strategy of papering over his own irresponsible behavior and attacking his opponent's visionary foresight.

Unfortunately for DeWine and other Republican politicians following the Rove playbook this year, this strategy is more politically risky than the typical GOP ploys of the past because public opinion data shows voters realize the attacks are lies. A 2005 University of Maryland nationwide poll found that "a majority rejects the idea that net increases in the defense budget as a whole are necessary to fight terrorism." In fact, "When presented most of the major items in the discretionary federal budget and given the opportunity to modify it, Americans make some dramatic changes" with "the largest cut by far to defense spending."

The public, in other words, is not as stupid as Republicans like DeWine believe. Americans understand that a major part of what endangers this country's national security is a Congress that simply throws money at intelligence and defense programs without regard to whether that money is being spent in the best way possible to protect America against our most imminent threats.

And, as former Reagan Pentagon official Lawrence Korb has detailed in a recent study, there is a huge amount of money being wasted. "Over $40 billion in savings from wasteful Pentagon programs could be achieved quickly - by cutting only the most egregious examples of misplaced priorities," wrote Korb. He details program after program "that are irrelevant in today's geopolitical reality" that could be eliminated, with the saved resources funding our most pressing national security needs.

Unlike in the past when some Democrats simply tried to avoid a security debate altogether, the Ohio Democratic Party has responded to DeWine's attacks with an ad making these points - and making the point that if anyone in Ohio should have to answer for the failures that led to Sept. 11, it is Mike DeWine from his perch on the Intelligence Committee.

The Democrats, in short, are calling the Republicans' bluff - and they have the facts on their side. The courageous few in Congress like Brown who had the guts to stand up in the 1990s and try to reform our intelligence budget priorities were the ones with national security foresight.

They were the ones who showed real leadership in trying to get America's national security policy focused on serious threats. And their obstacles in trying to fix the system before the attack came were people like DeWine.

To be sure, the historical revisionists like DeWine will continue to pledge their devotion to America's security, shamelessly invoke images of Sept. 11, and follow the Rove playbook. But with Democrats finally fighting back, no amount of dishonesty will be able to hide the simple truth: people like DeWine are the ones who stood by and did nothing as the threat to our country got worse.

They are the ones whose political cowardice and shortsightedness wrought deadly consequences. They are the ones, in sum, who this country can no longer trust to protect our national security.

David Sirota is the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government-and How We Take It Back (Crown, 2006).

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/39566/

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Making a House Call on Congress

By Rose Aguilar, AlterNet
Posted on July 28, 2006

When Congress voted to "stay the course" in Iraq on June 15, many military families were furious.

"I watched the entire mock debate on C-Span for 13 hours," says Stacy Bannerman, a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO). "That day, I decided that if they wanted to 'stay the course,' they would have to explain their rationale to my face."

A week later, Bannerman left Seattle for Washington, D.C., where she launched Operation House Call, an MFSO campaign to highlight the ongoing human toll in Iraq. Since June 22, Bannerman, whose husband served in Balat, Iraq, from March 2004 to March 2005, has been joined by over 50 families of U.S. troops who are serving, have served, or were killed in Iraq.

So far, the families have met with several politicians, including Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. They're hoping to meet with Sen. Hillary Clinton in the coming days, but say they have yet to hear back from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chair of the Armed Services Committee.

"When a handful of members of Congress have loved ones in the military, they have no idea what staying the course looks like," says Bannerman, who has written a book about her experiences, titled "When the War Came Home." "This war is being waged on .4 percent of the American population. The rest of the people in this country - 99.6 percent - have no connection to the war. They are not being asked to sacrifice or allowed to see the human cause of this war."

For many of the families, Operation House Call is their first foray into political activism. "I never even voted until 2004," says 44-year-old Georgia Stillwell. "I never registered. I never cared. I was as apathetic as they come. And then it got personal."

Stillwell's 22-year-old son spent his 19th and 20th birthdays in Iraq, and is now dealing with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. In January, he drove his car over an embankment in excess of 120 mph. Miraculously, he survived the crash. "I know I should be grateful he's not dead, but he's dead inside," says Stillwell.

On July 12, Stillwell shared her son's story during an emotional 30-minute meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "The congressman compared Iraq to a football game about changing strategies," she says. "I touched his arm and said, 'Congressman, children don't die in football games.' He said nothing. I also showed him a picture of a friend's son who was killed in Iraq. He was unblinking and unfeeling."

After the meeting, Hastert's press secretary said the speaker thought Stillwell was a "very patriotic woman who was proud of her son's service in Iraq."

"That's amazing, right? He just called an anti-war protestor patriotic," said Stillwell laughing.

When the families aren't meeting with politicians asking them to bring the troops home, they're braving the heat on the steps of the Senate Russell Building. There they surround themselves with footwear - one pair of military boots for every soldier who has died since June 15, and a pair of shoes for each Iraqi civilian who has died.

"I came to D.C. decades ago as a child, and had anybody told me then that I would be spending the better part of my summer in the sauna that is D.C. standing out here, having meetings with politicians, many of whom don't want to know the truth, dealing with staffers who snicker when we come into their offices carrying empty combat boots, I wouldn't have believed them," says Bannerman.

The MFSO members also ask passersby to sign postcards supporting an end to the war. The families then hand-deliver the postcards to senators and congressmen. Stilwell says interacting with the locals and tourists has been an eye-opening experience.

"Bush supporters often say, 'I'm sick of you people.' They look at us with such hatred. I don't get it. We have military recruiter flyers for them," she says. "But what's even worse are the people who won't even look at us. They won't meet our gaze or look at the boots, and they're mostly corporate people."

The families say they've also received a number of surprisingly positive reactions. "A few congressional staffers have stopped by to say they're in full support of what we're doing even though their bosses aren't," says Nancy Lessin, MFSO co-founder.

Despite its efforts, Operation House Call has received little media coverage. MFSO released a second announcement on July 25 hoping to garner attention from the national media.

A number of families from around the country will continue meeting with politicians until they leave D.C. for summer recess on Aug. 4. The Waste family wants to talk about the impact the war has had on their three sons and two grandchildren. Together, they have spent 81 months in Iraq. One son is currently deployed with the First Armored Division; another son is scheduled to return to Iraq this fall with the First Cavalry Division.

Cathy Smith hopes to talk about her eldest son, who was paralyzed from the chest down by an AK-47 round while serving in Iraq, and her middle son who is currently serving with the Army.

Once the families leave Washington, D.C., Lessin says they'll follow their elected officials home. "Our 26 chapters will jump into action and meet with politicians in their home districts, at their offices, their homes and vacation homes. This war doesn't end for us. We can't take a vacation from it."

Rose Aguilar is a San Francisco-based journalist who is writing a book about her road trip through the "red states."

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/39537/

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How Legalizing Drugs Will End the Violence

By Norm Stamper, AlterNet
Posted on July 28, 2006

Back in the early 1960s, I often sneaked into Mexico at the San Diego-Tijuana border. Too young to cross legally, I'd coil up in the trunk of Charlie Romero's '54 Merc. My buddies and I would head straight for the notorious Blue Fox to guzzle Carta Blancas, shoot Cuervo Gold and take in the "adult entertainment" acts. It wasn't something I'd necessarily want my kid doing, but there was a certain innocence to it: tasting freedom, partaking of forbidden adult pleasures. The frontera of Mexico was a fun, safe place to visit.

All that has changed.

From Tijuana to Matamoros, drug gang violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has taken the lives of thousands - cops, soldiers, drug dealers, often their families, other innocent citizens from both sides of the border. Even a cardinal of the Catholic Church. Many others have gone missing and are presumed dead.

In the mid-'90s, the Arellano brothers' drug cartel ruled Tijuana, perched atop the hierarchy of Mexico's multibillion dollar illegal drug trafficking industry. Using cars, planes and trucks - and an intimate knowledge of NAFTA - the Arellanos transported hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into American cities.

They enlisted U.S. drug gangs. In 1993, in my last days as San Diego's assistant police chief, the local gang Calle Treinte was implicated in the Arellano-inspired killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo. The Arellanos bribed officials on both sides of the border, spending over $75 million annually on the Mexican side alone, to grease their illicit trafficking.

And they enforced their rule not just with murder but with torture. If Steven Soderbergh's gritty 2000 film "Traffic" caused you to squirm in your seat, the real-life story of Mexican drug dealing is even more disquieting. The brothers once kidnapped a rival's wife and children. With videotape running, they tossed two of the kids off a bridge, then sent their competitor a copy of the tape, along with the severed head of his wife. Another double-crosser had his skull crushed in a compression vice. And who can forget the carne asada BBQs, where the Arellanos would roast entire families over flaming tires?

Just this week, the bodies of four men, three of them cops, were found wrapped in blankets in Rosarito Beach. Their heads showed up in Tijuana. Corruption of public officials, useful to sustain and grow illicit drug trafficking everywhere, has always run deep in Mexico. But with the country now having supplanted Colombia as the biggest supplier of illegal drugs to the United States, and with annual profits topping $65 billion a year, the numbers of federal, state and local cops on the take has never been greater.

Drug criminals have an unlimited supply of high-powered weapons at their disposal. Kingpins pay mules, usually impoverished, always expendable, to travel to the states to pick up a firearm or two at a gun show. Using the Brady Bill "loophole" (and congressional and presidential failure to extend the ban on assault rifles), all it takes is a phony stateside driver's license and a handful of cash to walk out with semi-automatic Uzis, AR-15s and AK-47s.

Last June in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, Alejandro Dominguez was sworn in as the city's police chief. That same day, three dark Chevy Suburbans with tinted windows pulled up to his office. Moments later, Dominguez, a reluctant top cop who only took the job at the pleading of a terrified citizenry, was dead. Police recovered 35 to 40 casings from an AR-15 assault rifle.

Mexico's drug dealers, including the Zetas (elite military commandos assigned to fight drugs but who've gone over to the other side), are among the most organized, proficient and prolific killers in history.

The violence does not end with the capture or the killing of major players like the Arellano brothers. (Ramon was shot and killed by the federales in February of 2002; Benjamín was captured a month later. Francisco has been in prison for years.) As with the illicit drug scene in the United States, thousands of low-level drug-dealing wannabes are marking time - waiting for today's kingpin to fall so they can move up.

And the violence grows, and grows.

Virtually every analysis of the Mexican "drug problem" points to the themes raised here: the inducements of big money and wide fame; the crushing poverty of those exploited by drug dealers; the entrepreneurial frenzy of expanding and protecting one's markets; the large, unquenchable American demand for drugs; and the complicity of many in law enforcement.

But something's missing from the analysis: the role of prohibition.

Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds - cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine) - or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the U.S.'s prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. In other words, we are the source of Mexico's "drug problem."

The remedy is as obvious as it is urgent: legalization.

Regulated legalization of all drugs - with stiffened penalties for driving impaired or furnishing to kids - would bring an immediate halt to the violence. How? By (1) dramatically reducing the cost of these drugs, (2) shifting massive enforcement resources to prevention and treatment and (3) driving drug dealers out of business: no product, no profit, no incentive. In an ideal world, Mexico and the United States would move to repeal prohibition simultaneously (along with Canada). But even if we moved unilaterally, sweeping and lasting improvements to public safety (and public health) would be felt on both sides of the border. (Tragically and predictably, just as Mexico's parliament was about to reform its U.S.-modeled drug laws, the Bush administration stepped in, pressuring President Vicente Fox to abandon the enlightened position he'd championed for two years.)

With drugs stringently controlled and regulated by our own government, Mexico would once again become a safe, inviting place for American tourists - and for its own citizens, who pay the steepest price of all for our insistence on waging an immoral, unwinnable war on drugs.

Norm Stamper is former chief of the Seattle Police Department and an advisory board member of NORML and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). He is the author of "Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing" (Nation Books, 2005).

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/39565/