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SPECIAL FEATURE: INTERVIEW SENATOR BYRD
This week, we kick off a feature of the new MoveOn Bulletin: the Grassroots Interview. In each issue, we'll provide an opportunity for MoveOn members to ask five questions of a prominent political figure. U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has graciously agreed to be the first subject. Senator Byrd has been in the news recently for his comments on President Bush's "victory" speech.

What are your questions for Senator Byrd? We'll ask MoveOn users' five favorite questions on Wednesday, and report the Senator's answers in the next issue. Post your questions and review others' at:
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=255

CONTENTS:
1. Introduction: American Leadership, American Empire
2. One Link
3. Forming the Bush Doctrine
4. Pax Americana
5. September 11, 2001
6. Who's Steering This Ship?
7. Who Pays the Bills?
8. Pax Israelica?
9. Post-War Iraq
10. Neo-conservatism
11. What Next -- Syria? Iran?
12. Challenging the Project
13. Conclusion
14. About the Bulletin

------------------------------

INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN LEADERSHIP, AMERICAN EMPIRE
Many of us first heard about the Bush administration's plan to invade Iraq last August. However, a small group of political elites planned the takeover of Iraq years ago. With that goal achieved, now is the time to look at who these people are, how they created a war on Iraq, and most importantly their plans for the future.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a Washington-based neo-conservative think-tank founded in 1997 to "rally support for American global leadership." PNAC's agenda runs far deeper than regime change in Iraq. Its statement of principles begins with the assertion that "American foreign and defense policy is adrift" and calls for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."

While their tone is high-minded, their proposal is unilateral military intervention to protect against threats to America's status as the lone global superpower. The statement is signed by such influential figures as Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

PNAC is not alone, nor did it arise from new wells of power. Most of the founding members of PNAC held posts in the Reagan or elder Bush administration and other neo-conservative think-tanks, publications, and advocacy groups.

The effect of PNAC's ideology is great on Bush -- the presidential candidate who promised a "humble," isolationist foreign policy. The events of September 11, 2001 provided a window of opportunity for furthering PNAC's agenda of American empire. Understanding that agenda can help us anticipate the Bush administration's next steps and organize accordingly.

------------------------------

ONE LINK
If you only read one article in this bulletin, it should be this one. This article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel superbly covers the influence of PNAC in Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. As the author writes, the goal is to transform the Middle East through a show of U.S. military might and "the obvious place to start is with Iraq, which was already in trouble with the United Nations, had little international standing and was reviled even by some Arab nations."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/gen/apr03/131523.asp

------------------------------

FORMING THE BUSH DOCTRINE
The motivating event for the neo-conservatives who founded PNAC was the end of the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. With Saddam's power weakened, the neo-conservatives believed he should be eliminated permanently. Instead, the elder President Bush encouraged the Iraqi opposition to rise up against the Ba'ath government. As their rebellion was put down by Iraqi troops, Bush ordered the U.S. military not to intervene, choosing instead a strategy of containment for Saddam.

In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, authored an internal policy brief on America's military posture in the post-Cold War era: to prevent the emergence of a new rival power through preemption rather than containment and acting unilaterally if necessary to protect U.S. interests. When a draft was leaked to the press, controversy erupted and the report had to be softened.

The web accompaniment to the PBS Frontline special "The War Behind Closed Doors" features an excellent chronology showing how Wolfowitz's draft would become the basis of the Bush Doctrine.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html

------------------------------

PAX AMERICANA
An important step in PNAC's chronology is its major publication, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" (RAD), released in September, 2000. The report takes Wolfowitz's draft as a starting point, hailing it as "a blueprint for maintaining U.S. preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests."

RAD rejects cuts in defense spending, insisting that "Preserving the desirable strategic situation in which the United States now finds itself requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future." Core missions for the U.S. military include the ability to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars" and to reposition permanent forces in Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia.

Other samples from RAD:

"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

"At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible."

"[N]ew methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal,' biological -- will be more widely available ... 'combat' likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, 'cyber-space,' and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

In this Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece, Jay Bookman compares "Rebuilding America's Defenses" with the current Bush defense policy.
http://www.rainbowbody.org/politics/PNACgoal.htm

You can read the entire document on PNAC's website.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

------------------------------

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
In discussing changes to America's military strategy, the RAD report regretfully admits, "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."

Shortly after September 11, PNAC sent a letter to President Bush welcoming his call for "a broad and sustained campaign" and encouraging the removal of Saddam even if Iraq could not be directly linked to the attacks.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm

------------------------------

WHO'S STEERING THIS SHIP?
"Most neo-conservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right." Michael Lind argues in the New Statesman and Salon magazines that many were anti-Stalinist Trotskyists who became anti-communist liberals, then shifted to a "militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history."
http://dupagepeace.home.att.net/bush7.html

PAUL WOLFOWITZ is Deputy Defense Secretary, second-in-command at the Pentagon. Wolfowitz was promoting regime change in Iraq and a strategy of preemptive attack in 1992, but the elder Bush rejected his views as too radical. This is an excellent brief from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
http://www.moveon.org/r?436

RICHARD PERLE was Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration and a foreign policy adviser in George W. Bush's presidential campaign. He accepted Rumsfeld's offer to chair the Defense Policy Board, transforming it from obscurity to influence. In March, Perle resigned as chairman after a controversial lobbying scandal, but remains on the Board as a member.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact

WILLIAM KRISTOL is editor of The Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine with a small but elite readership, funded by Rupert Murdoch. The son of neo-conservative founding father Irving Kristol, he is the president of PNAC.
http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/bill_kristol.htm

Other important participants are Vice-President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Iran-contra scandal convict Elliott Abrams, now Director of Middle East Affairs for the National Security Council; Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan; and special presidential envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad.

A fairly complete list of PNAC participants can be found here:
http://www.opednews.com/new%20american%20century.htm

------------------------------

WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
The Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the primary funder of PNAC through PNAC's parent New Citizenship Project, Inc. With the largest assets of any right-wing foundation, Bradley has focused its efforts on ending affirmative action, reforming welfare, and privatizing schools. This article describes Bradley's funding of neo-conservative think-tanks, magazines, and books like "The Bell Curve."
http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/bradley_foundation.htm

------------------------------

PAX ISRAELICA?
Nearly all PNAC participants, whether Jewish or Christian, are right-wing Zionists who support Ariel Sharon's Likud Party. In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and others drafted a paper for incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to make "a clean break" from the Oslo peace process preferring "peace through strength," including the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

This essay describes many of the familiar neo-conservatives as having "dual loyalties," making policy decisions in the interests of the State of Israel as much as the United States.
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison1213.html

------------------------------

POST-WAR IRAQ
PNAC participants are backing Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress in his bid to run the interim government in Iraq. From The American Prospect, who is Chalabi and why is he so popular with the neo-conservatives?
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html

------------------------------

NEO-CONSERVATISM
PNAC is in the same Washington, D.C. office building as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), another major neo-conservative think-tank. They share far more than an address: PNAC participants like Richard Perle, Thomas Donnelly, Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Schneider, Lynne Cheney (Dick Cheney's wife), and Irving Kristol (William Kristol's father) are all AEI scholars and fellows.

Similar overlap is found among all the neo-conservative think-tanks -- Hudson Institute, Center for Security Policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs -- giving the agenda of a few political elites the appearance of widespread agreement.

------------------------------

WHAT NEXT -- SYRIA?
This piece from Foreign Policy in Focus discusses a 2000 Middle East Forum study calling for military force against Syria. The report, "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role," was signed by numerous PNAC participants.
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304uscfl.html

IRAN?
From the Washington Monthly, a smart article that compares the neo-conservative plan for the Middle East to "giving a few good whacks to a hornets' nest because you want to get them out in the open and have it out with them once and for all."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html

------------------------------

CHALLENGING THE PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
The Peace Education Fund and California Peace Action have launched a national advertising campaign that features the infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. The ads ask the question: "Who Are We Arming Now?" The ad is part of Peace Action's Campaign for a New American Foreign Policy which is building political pressure for an alternative to the bleak vision of the Project for the New American Century.
http://www.moveon.org/r?437

------------------------------

CONCLUSION
Beyond all the specifics presented in this bulletin and the linked resources, it's essential to remember how interlocked the neo-conservative organizations are. They represent the views and interests of only a tiny elite, not the popular sentiment in the United States. Most Americans would be horrified to learn how PNAC and others are shaping the Bush Doctrine -- both because of the ideology they describe and because they use money and media to gain disproportionate political influence.

Money makes it easy to organize networks and gain political influence; control of the media limits our ability to consider the various options America has for handling crises in the international community. The work we are doing as MoveOn members is organizing without massive wealth and educating without owning the media. Our work is to vocalize the love of democratic decision-making shared by all people, clearly and with the most complete information. Please let us know what information you need to do this work, and we will do our best to make it available through the bulletin.

------------------------------

CREDITS
Research team:
Leah Appet, Joanne Comito, Lita Epstein, Anna Gavula, Terry Hackett, Zaid Khalil, Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, Cameron McLaughlin , Janelle Miau, Sarah Parady, Kim Plofker, and Ora Szekely.

Editing team:
David Taub Bancroft, Melinda Coyle, Nancy Evans, Eileen Gillan, and Rita Weinstein.

------------------------------

ABOUT THE MOVEON BULLETIN AND MOVEON.ORG
The MoveOn Bulletin is a free email bulletin providing information, resources, news, and action ideas on important political issues. The full text of the MoveOn Bulletin is online at http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/; you can subscribe to it at that address. The MoveOn Bulletin is a project of MoveOn.org.

MoveOn.org is an issue-oriented, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that gives people a voice in shaping the laws that affect their lives. MoveOn.org engages people in the civic process, using the Internet to democratically determine a non-partisan agenda, raising public awareness of pressing issues, and coordinating grassroots advocacy campaigns to encourage sound public policies. You can help decide the direction of MoveOn.org by participating in the discussion forum at:
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=223

Posted by Me at 08:31 link

Here are a few of the stories percolating over at Yahoo News - Most Popular, my favorite window into the American mind.

Among other stories careening around the collective national consciousness:

• Ted Rall explains how Democrats can win in 2004: by being mean.
  

• Looks like I'll have to rethink my plan to take the summer off by turning the blog over to a monkey with a typewriter. Although, I believe the quip did specify there were to be an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite amount of time. (For some reason, I'd also thought the monkeys were to have been in space). Back to work, researchers!
  

• Richard Reeves takes a look around the world and reports what everyone is saying about us.
  

• Maybe a clearer indication of world thought can be gleaned by the international performance of the dollar.
  

• Who needs ethics when you've got friends in high places? Besides, they're very, very sorry. Oh, excuse me; that's not Haliburton, that's this guy (RealPlayer clip).

Actually, the graphic is courtesy of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

Thanks to Gorilla-a-gogo.com and to Bob Harris at This Modern World.

To read the full text of Waxman's report click here (Adobe PDF). The report details how the richest 1% would save billions in taxes (guess who'll pay their share), while the rest of us would get a big fat lump of coal. The bottom 80% of taxpayers, by the way, means anyone who makes less than $77,000 a year. Sound like anyone you know?

Meanwhile...

Watch closely, folks, here's the part where they grab the loot. Remember, it's not about the oil — it's about the oil money.

In other news, reproductive health education works.

Intensive programs designed to prevent HIV infection in teens can delay the onset of sexual activity, decrease the number of sex partners and increase the use of condoms, according to a review of studies conducted between 1985 and 2001.

The US mental health care system, however, isn't working. Almost 30% of Americans develop mental illnesses, but only a third get help. Punching a few numbers on the calculator... let's see, 278 million Americans... times 29 percent... times 2... divided by 3 — that makes OVER 53 MILLION UNTREATED MENTALLY ILL IN THE UNITED STATES. About 1 out of every 5 Americans. At this moment. Well, at least the next time the rest of the world asks what's wrong with you people, we'll have an answer.

We need affordable health insurance for everbody. NOW.

Remember folks, REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME.

Posted by Me at 21:23 link

US health care reform is vital. You probably already know that over 40 million Americans have no health care insurance, that millions more with insurance cannot afford medical care, and that the poor are especially at risk. Here's another good reason for reform: we pay more for health care than any other industrialized nation — a whopping 13 percent of GDP — but still we don't get the best care.

Howard Dean's plan addresses these issues. His plan is universal, understandable and practical.

Thought for Today:

"To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman." — George Santayana, Spanish-American philosopher (1863-1952). [from the AP's Today in History]

Given that our current crop of so-called statesmen do appear to delight in war, I can't help but wonder: what will they think of next?

From Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR):

URGENT ACTION ALERT

Senate and House Armed Services Committees are taking up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 National Defense Authorization Bill this week and next. This bill calls for:

• the repeal of the Spratt-Furse provision from the FY1994 Defense Authorization Act prohibiting research and development work on nuclear weapons with an explosive yield of less than five kilotons;
• authorizing $15 million for a bunker-busting nuclear weapons — the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP);
• authorizing $6 million for the Advanced Concepts Initiative, which will allow research work on nuclear weapons to attack chemical and biological weapons sites;
• authorizing increased spending to enhance nuclear test readiness.

Click here to visit the PSR Legislative Action Center to ask your Senators and Representative to oppose research and development on any new nuclear weapons and preparations for a return to nuclear testing. ["Tell Congress No New Nukes"]

From Gael: Monty Python's Terry Jones sees the future. And it ain't pretty. His writing, however is great. I strongly recommend all of the articles under "More From Terry Jones" below the article.

In other news, I got to wish a belated happy birthday to the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, who turned 70 on Saturday. Thanks for continuing to make the world a funkier place.

Okay, I lied:

Q What do monsters eat?
A: You This year. You will not
but we all have to the
difference between a
To become a Alexander
the Grape. You will be changed
today. If you
will be part of
interest. Accent on your
nature demands love
and music.

Okay. I won't do it again. Really.

Welcome Back

Let me be the 350^th to inform you: Salam Pax is back. Six weeks worth of posts. [tacked on at 2:45 am Thurs]

Posted by Me at 10:30 link

US Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) recently sent a letter to Donald Rumsfeld (Adobe pdf) asking if the Defense Department was aware of Halliburton's numerous dealings with countries on the other side of the great with-us-or-against-us divide, countries such as Libya, Iran and even Iraq. Some want the General Accounting Office to investigate whether Halliburton has received preferential treatment. More here and here. Their current Iraq rebuilding contract, which they didn't have to bid for, could be worth up to $7 billion, which would net them a cool $490 million profit.

Meanwhile, Bechtel, who built a huge dual-use chemical plant for Saddam Hussein, has been awarded a $680 million dollar rebuilding contract, also non-competitive.

Posted by Me at 23:01 link

You may worry

You may worry about his
gingivectomist, he has cut meat and
all the word.
Consider the word. Consider the
man your mother dresses you will attack
you, three times is brave; it is brave;
it is true.
Lewis Carroll
You
have gone to chant
about his gingivectomist, he dreams
about your daily
affairs. ugly and you die is artistic.

Okay, that's the last one. I promise. Thanks again to Rob's Amazing Poem Generator and to Susannah Breslin for turning the world on to this.

Posted by Me at 22:24 link

from ENS:

Senate Panel Approves Fossil Fuel Heavy Energy Bill

WASHINGTON, DC, May 2, 2003 (ENS) - The Senate Energy Committee approved an energy bill Wednesday that its supporters say will help diversify the nation's energy supply, but critics contend it does nothing of the sort.

The "Energy Policy Act of 2003" passed the Senate Energy Committee by a partisan vote of 13 to 10 on Wednesday.

The bill contains $10 billion in tax breaks to oil, coal, gas and up to some $30 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear industries. Critics say it has little to offer renewable energy development.

The bill repeals the current federal law requiring utilities to buy wind, solar and other renewable energy resources when they are less expensive that fossil fuels, said Alan Nogee, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Energy program.

In addition, amendments offered by Democrats to create a national renewable energy standard, requiring most utilities to provide 10 percent of their electricity from new renewable sources by 2020, were rejected by the committee.

"At a time when the public is demanding cleaner energy resources and more energy independence, the Senate Energy Committee has voted to prolong our dependence on polluting and insecure sources of fossil fuels," said Nogee.

The committee's ranking Democrat, New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman's said the bill "does not do enough, or goes in the wrong direction, on too many key energy issues."

Bingaman said the bill does not protect electricity consumers from market manipulation, does nothing to address the nation's growing demand for imported oil in transportation, undercuts fish passages at hydroelectric dams and does little or nothing to address climate change.

The bill is part of larger Senate energy legislation, which could be voted on next week.

Misty and active, we have been feeling
like that! will expire in order
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to be, stubborn more
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turned out
about our futures.
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the Iraq
war, generally
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article on most annoying people are the
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to Hector .
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the Democrats have enough sense
with a
place for
the poor zoo animals
of fun today Not that richest 1%
that controls 40% of
American
culinary culture.

Courtesy of Rob's Amazing Poem Generator via Susannah Breslin

This one, made from Ian's blog, is even better:

xtcian In the most
cranky of the rest of getting
away the strong pheremonal stench of extras, grips
and , always pondered what it lacks in
was
cooler than
two
Guatemalan families
on it! would be churning up
the company you very distressed young
man Maddox. Originally, he was in 1990.
Like all tremendous people in four hours to our
graduation in
1995 where George Bush Rumsfeld/announced today that
we were all God nobody saw me –
to
the evil Maddox I had
to see the latest
software
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Ashcroft have been enthralled with Maddox.
I clicked the Coleco had money drained
out, I miss the truth is truly
remarkable when it was this
even been invented yet.

Posted by Me at 19:08 link

Please let the Democrats have enough sense to grab this basic yardstick and start beating the Republicans over the head with it. Almost no one is better off than they were in 1999. Maybe oil company stockholders. Maybe that richest 1% that controls 40% of America's wealth.

[Aside — isn't it kind of cool, though, that Prince's "1999" still evokes an image of über hedonism?

Two thousand zero zero
Party over, oops out of time
So tonight I'm going to party
Like it's nineteen-ninety-nine

So who's going to spearhead the charge to throw the bum(s) out? We got a sneak peek at the field (so far) at Saturday's debate in Columbia, South Carolina. Not exactly a Democratic stronghold, but hey, the Dixie Chicks didn't do so badly earlier in the week just up the road in Greenville.

Here are the contenders:

• Howard Dean — 54-year-old former Vermont governor and doctor, vocal critic of the Iraq war, strong environmental supporter, for universal health care.
• John Edwards — 50-year-old charismatic North Carolina Senator and former trial lawyer, true government outsider (never held office before being elected Senator), has strong pro-environmental voting record, supported the Iraq war.
• Dick Gephardt — 62-year-old Missouri Congressman, former leader of House Democrats, kind of bland, unnaturally blond.
• Bob Graham — 66-year-old Florida Senator, former governor, builder and cattleman, had major heart surgery in Jan 2003, voted against Iraq war but generally considered moderate, his father was also a successful and popular Florida politician.
• John Kerry — wealthy 59-year-old Massachusetts Senator, former lawyer, decorated Vietnam war veteran, for the Iraq war, unashamedly liberal on most other issues, current front runner in popularity, co-leader in fund-raising (tied with Edwards at $7 million).
• Dennis Kucinich — divorced 56-year-old Ohio Congressman, former Cleveland mayor (elected at age 31), video producer and public power consultant (whatever that is), against the Iraq war, almost entirely liberal, close ties to organized labor.
• Joseph Lieberman — whiny 61-year-old Connecticut Sentator, former Vice-Presidential candidate, for the Iraq war, more conservative than many Republicans, more Jewish than some rabbis.
• Carol Moseley-Braun — 55-year-old African-American Illinois Congresswoman, former state Congresswoman and US attorney, vocal opponent of Iraq war, generally liberal, hounded by accusations of financial wrongdoing.
• Al Sharpton — controversial 48-year-old Baptist preacher and civil rights activist, against the Iraq war, ran twice for US Senate, ran once for NYC mayor, has never held office — did I mention controversial?

Would Dean stand a chance against Bush? The answer to that has less to do with Dean than it does with the answer to "are you better off now than you were four years ago?". If the answer to that question is as negative in November 2004 as it is right now — and if the Democrats have enough sense to ask the question — then I think Al Franken would stand a good chance against Bush. Hey, Al Franken for President! I like it!

But my mind's already made up.

Howard Dean's the man. Now let's get to work.

Posted by Me at 20:17 link