Op-Ed

This isn't the first time Joe Lieberman's placed loyalty to his career above all other allegiances. Afraid that Connecticut's Democratic voters will reject him in the primary, he's now hedging his bets by planning to run as an independent if he loses. "I have loyalties that are greater than those to my party," he says, and tries to make this sound noble.

Lieberman made a similar choice in the 2000 election. He hedged his bets then as well, by running for reelection as Connecticut Senator while also running for Vice President. It sent a great message of confidence for the ticket he was part of, but worse yet, had Gore won (as he would have without the Florida machinations), Lieberman would have had to resign his Senate seat, and be replaced by a Republican appointed by Republican Governor John Rowland. Given that the Senate ended up split 50/50 (until Senator Jeffords left the Republican party), this would have brought about a major political loss. But none of that mattered to Joe. His prime loyalty has always been to himself, from the first time he took money from William F. Buckley to run against moderate Republican Lowell Weickert.

Suzanne Swift's story begins in an all-too-familiar way. A dead-end job, a friendly military recruiter, a promise that signing-up as military police would mean no deployment to Iraq, a broken promise, and a trip to war. Then it takes a less commonly heard of turn, one involving a practice known as "command rape." Suzanne is back in the U.S. and is refusing to return to Iraq. Until a couple of days ago she was confined by the military and threatened with prosecution. The three superiors whom she has accused of various forms of harassment or assault have not yet been charged. Suzanne's mother, Sara Rich, spoke with me about her daughter's ordeal and recorded this 20-minute conversation.

Transcribed by Sandy Smedley:

This is David Swanson, speaking with Sara Rich, the mother of Suzanne Swift:

DAVID: Ms. Rich, how old is your daughter?

SARA: Suzanne is almost 22.

DAVID: Almost 22; and what is her background in the military? How did she get into the service and how long ago was that?

From September 8 to 21, Camp Casey will expand into Camp Democracy in Washington, D.C.

Cindy Sheehan and activists in the growing peace movement plan to establish Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, again this August 16 to September 2.  They then plan to move the camp to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., beginning September 8. 

The camp on the Mall will carry the name Camp Democracy at Fort Fed Up, and details are available at www.campdemocracy.org .  Organizers intend the camp to bring together peace activists and activists for social justice, united in demanding a shift of public resources from war to the needs of people.  Participants will lobby Congress to end all funding of the occupation of Iraq, and will demand that Congress hold the Bush Administration accountable for the falsehoods that launched the war and the abuses of power here at home that have accompanied it.

At the heart of what is often touted as the mightiest empire in world history, it's not a pretty sight at the start of July. After a few chipmunk squeaks from the White House a couple of weeks ago about there being somehow a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq, the news rolls in that it's as bad, if not worse, than ever.

Bomb explosions in Baghdad wipe out scores of ordinary people in a single minute, the motive advertised -- maybe truthfully -- as sectarian hatred, between Shia and Sunni. The entire country, with the exception of the Kurdish provinces in the north, is transfixed with terror, as people flee neighborhoods because they are in the wrong religious faction.

Come to a road block and you don't know whether it's a unit of Iraqi police, a unit of Iraqi killers disguised as police, a group of U.S. soldiers intent on revenge on anyone because one of their buddies just got blown up by a roadside bomb.

For some reason, the grunt's love song made the brass cringe:

"I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me . . . as the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally."

Cpl. Joshua Belile had a recording contract and everything, but, uh-uh. No singing Marine's gonna be regaling America with the sadistic pleasures to be had in occupied Iraq, no sir, not with all the atrocity investigations going on these days, and the dirty truth of our Middle East adventure oozing into the coverage of even the most administration-sympathetic media outlets.

For the past ten years the C.I.A.'s "Alec Station" unit's sole purpose was to hunt, track down and kill or capture Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. But in a story first broken by NPR this week, the Busheviks late last year closed the operation, reassigning agents to other divisions. While agency officials dismiss claims that the closure weakens the United States' effort to find Al Qaeda's leaders, others voice serious concern. Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official and the first head of the division, said the move reflected a view within the agency that the threat from bin Laden had subsided, and warned that that view was mistaken. "This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

While the rest of you were celebrating life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I was keeping an eye on Karl Rove -- because someone has to.

A "Bush Signals Shift in Stance on Immigrants" headline is the early warning sign that we're about to get an all-out immigrant-bashing campaign for the fall, complete with xenophobia, racism and blaming the weakest, least powerful people in the country for everything that's wrong with it.

House Republicans, who know a good socially divisive issue when they see one, are perfectly happy to blame illegal workers for everything. Trade policy, repealing taxes for the rich, corruption in Congress -- it's all done by illegal workers. Everywhere you look in this society, there's a bunch of people named Gomez and Ramirez, all of them making decisions from the top -- in charge of the Pentagon, heading the military-industrial complex, deciding the rich need tax relief, in charge of this stupid war, making decisions on Wall Street.

With its ruling that the Bush administration lacks the authority to put Guantanamo detainees on trial before military tribunals, the U.S. Supreme Court has dealt the Busheviks a huge blow in its unprecedented, ongoing quest to expand the president's powers. King George has finally been told he cannot do whatever he wants, to whomever he wants, whenever he wants. Like it or not, he's finally being reminded that America governs under the rule of law and holds sacred the separation of powers and our system of checks and balances. Finally, someone has said, "We will not allow you to defile the U.S. Constitution, circumvent Congress and violate international law."

The unending game of "pretend" that the U.S. media allow George Bush to play on the global stage, so often letting his lying utterances hang suspended, unchallenged, in the middle of the story, as though they were plausible - as though a class of third-graders couldn't demolish them with a few innocent questions - feels like the journalistic equivalent of waterboarding. Gasp! Some truth, please!

I suggest the prez has forfeited the right to command a headline, or half a story, or an uninterrupted quote: ". . . we'll defend ourselves, but at the same time we're actively working with our partners to spread peace and democracy," he said last week in Austria.

Surely "spreading democracy" should no longer be allowed to appear in print, between now and 2008, unless accompanied by a parenthetical clarification ("not true," stated as profanely as local standards allow). And that, of course, would only be the media's first step back into integrity with the public.

When Frank Gehry gets around to designing America's answer to the Sistine Chapel, I trust this postmodern Temple of Mammon on Las Vegas Blvd. will have a ceiling fresco depicting Warren Buffett's consignment of $31 billion to Bill and Melinda Gates. As the older billionaire sits on his pillow of cloud, his outthrust hand with its bag of securities is grasped by Gates -- the Adam of Software Commerce -- while seraphs and cherubs muse delightedly over the IRS regulations governing the sheltering of Buffett's swag in tax-exempt non-profit foundations.