DebateGate

Those poor people! They were hungry, they had to have Godiva chocolates! 



By Adriana Garcia 2 hours, 52 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. funds intended to promote democracy in Cuba have been used to buy crab meat, cashmere sweaters, computer games and chocolates, according to a U.S. congressional audit published on Wednesday.
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The survey by the
Government Accountability Office found little oversight and accountability in the program, which paid out $76 million between 1996 and 2005 to support Cuban dissidents, independent journalists, academics and others.

It also found that 95 percent of the grants were issued without competitive tenders.

To protect recipients from prosecution, none of the money from the U.S. Agency for International Development or State Department is paid in cash to people in Cuba. A Cuban law sends citizens to jail for receiving money from the U.S. government.

Instead, the funds are distributed to Cuban-American groups in Miami, the heartland of opposition to Cuban President
Fidel Castro, and in Washington, and used to buy medicines, books, shortwave radios and other goods that are smuggled into Cuba.

President George W. Bush has proposed increasing spending on Cuba-related programs, including propaganda transmissions by Radio and TV Marti, by $80 million over the next two years.

Critics have long charged the grants are aimed more at winning votes in Miami than triggering political change on the communist island, where the now-ailing Castro has ruled since his 1959 revolution.

Out of 10 recipients of public money reviewed by the auditors, three failed to keep adequate financial records, the Government Accountability Office said. A lot of the money was used to pay smugglers, or "mules, to avoid U.S. restrictions on taking goods to Cuba.

'THEY THINK IT'S NOT COLD THERE'

The auditors questioned checks written out to some staff members, questionable travel expenses and payments to a manager's family. One group acknowledged selling books it was supposed to distribute under the democracy-promoting program.

One grantee "could not justify some purchases made with USAID funds, including a gas chain saw, computer gaming equipment and software (including Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations), a mountain bike, leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates," the report said.

The auditors did not identify the recipients.

Juan Carlos Acosta, executive director of Miami-based anti-Castro group Cuban Democratic Action, told the Miami Herald he sent those items to Cuba, apart from the chain saw.

"These people are going hungry. They never get any chocolate there," Acosta said, according to the newspaper.

He said he bought the jackets and sweaters at a sale.

"They (the auditors) think it's not cold there (in Cuba)," Acosta said. "At $30 it's a bargain because cashmere is expensive. They were asking for sweaters, from Cuba."

Acosta did not immediately return a phone call from Reuters.

The audit was ordered by U.S lawmakers opposed to the 44-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, and they said the findings confirmed the need for a thorough review of U.S. policy.

"Let me just say that, to continue a current level of funding, given the results and given the disarray this program seems to be in, would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars," Rep. Jeff Flake (news, bio, voting record), a Republican from Arizona, told reporters in Washington.

(Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Miami)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/us_nm/usa_cuba_audit_dc_1

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/on_the_ground_i.html#more

On the Ground in Iraq

by
Larry C Johnson

I received the following from a friend in the U.S. military who is currently serving in Iraq.  I've changed some of the identifying details to protect the author:

    I wrote to you several months ago about the deterioration in the Junior Officer Corps. I can say that that story of several JO’s leaving is true, having confirmed it through several friends. That, however is not why I write to you today. I am currently serving in Iraq and have a few words about this place.

    First of all, and most importantly, we are doing no good here. There is nothing we can do at this point to end the fighting. It has become systematic throughout the country. The corruption is indeed as they say in the press. It is impossible, even if America wanted to, to reconstruct anything because the men that could and should assist have been fired by those who are corrupt and in power. Additionally, those that do want to make a change are hampered by a constitution that is, at best, a joke. The Iraqi constitution is an amalgamation of old and new, federal and central. The result is an inability to get anything done at the provincial level, with regards to reconstruction, because most decisions are made by the central government. Nothing can be enforced because of federalism. Thus the mess is structural, cultural, and created by the United States.

    I do not say these things lightly. I have witnessed this first hand, through meeting locals. I have also done much research on the structural issues. I am also so fed up with this mess. I honestly came to this country hoping, despite my politics, to at least do some good. Yet, now all I want is for us to get out as soon as possible. I do not speak in isolation. Nearly every military and civilian I work with feels the same aimless drift here. Especially since the election, we are all waiting and hoping that something will be decided soon. We all hope that we are not held hostage to political games in WashingtonWe all know that this is a fight not worth fighting and with no possible chance for “victory”. Thus, we hope for change as soon as possible so that we may get out before a sniper finds us, or an IED destroys us. We see that it is only going to get worse for us.

    In my judgment withdrawal is already creeping, but in a way that is dangerously slow. It was as though it was designed to stay below the radar. In other words, cut back a little here and there, as far as troops go. I honestly think the best thing for us to do is to pull back. We have no good options and that is the least bad for us. We can’t after all our rhetoric engineer a coupe to put in a strong man. We can’t add more troops, as that is part of the problem. Honestly at this point the American public would not support an increase large enough to fix this, and we do not have the troops to give. Partition is happening on the ground, you can see that in Kurdistan.

    We control the SLOCs (Strategic Lines of Communication) and most pipelines worth a damn go through Turkey.  Prices may spike for a little while but that, in my opinion is not a horrible option at this point. It would be about time some sacrifice is made. And I am sure you saw that just being here, without much of a goal and knowing that this is near the end is devastating to morale. Not only that, there is a certain point that the little cut backs I just mentioned could start becoming dangerous, force protection wise. Kurdistan by the way definitely has its shit together—clean streets, security, and a growing economy.  Strategically, we do not need Iraq.  I am more than willing to expound on any single point in my summary above. I really appreciate your blog and what you bring to the discussion. Please keep up the good work, as there are several of us who are avid readers. Take care brother

Newt in ‘94 vowed to investigate Clinton for 2 years as his platform
By: John Amato on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 4:55 PM - PST 

newt-94.jpg C&L brings you this CBS/NBC report from 1994. Gingrich went nuts over Clinton and his new-found subpoena power, yet if Democrats want to hold hearings on oversight and Iraq war profiteering that's supposed to hurt them.

Video-WMP Video-QT

Gingrich: I do not know of any administration in modern times with as many different potential scandals all around it.

Notice Newt's close ties to lobbyists…What other info sticks out for you?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/13/newt-in-94-vowed-to-investigate-clinton-for-2-years-as-his-platform/

Familiarity, not contempt


Leader
Monday November 13, 2006
The Guardian

In last week's elections American voters handed power on Capitol Hill to a group of politicians who are rooted in a more multilateralist approach to US foreign policy than the Bush administration has ever been. The incoming Democrat chairmen of the Senate foreign relations committee and the House international relations committee, Senator Joe Biden and Congressman Tom Lantos respectively, are advocates of multilateral engagement and friends of Europe. Senator Biden played an important role in encouraging the decisive US interventions in the Balkan wars in the 1990s and rightly stood out for a "patient, resolute and cautious" response to 9/11, while Mr Lantos, born in Budapest and the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the US Congress, probably knows more about central and eastern Europe than most Britons.

The two men take office not merely on a wave of criticism of the Iraq war itself but also at a time when Iraq has helped push American public opinion about foreign policy more generally in a multilateral direction. In a poll last week, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found 58% of US voters now agree that "America's security depends on building strong ties with other nations", against just 34% believing it depends on America's own military strength. After too many years in which the US foreign policy debate has been dominated by an all too apparent contempt for global agreements and institutions, this is a hopeful sign that the new Democrat-led Congress may feel confident enough to place a more constructive and engaged foreign policy at the heart of its strategy when it takes office in January - and that this approach will carry through and become a serious plank of the party's platform in the 2008 presidential election.

One signal that the new Congress should immediately send to the president and the outside world is the replacement of America's United Nations ambassador John Bolton. Mr Bolton is a unabashed relic of the failed neoconservative era in foreign policy which was so emphatically defeated last week. He has never concealed his contempt for the UN. His presence as the US's chief representative at the most important of international organisations sends a message which is not, and never was, in America's interests. Even timid Downing Street would like to see the back of Mr Bolton so that diplomacy can make a fresh start. Mr Bolton's nomination has never received the congressional confirmation that it ultimately requires; President Bush resubmitted it last week. Senator Biden and his colleagues should ensure that Mr Bolton is rejected, so that the administration is forced to nominate a candidate whose approach is more in tune with the changed times in Washington.

The urgent mood for sensible change that brought the Democrats to power - and which has seen Mr Bush's ratings slump further this weekend - is already influencing the administration on its most important challenge. The disaster of Iraq was underlined again yesterday by typically depressing news of carnage, affecting Britons, Americans and Iraqis. Even before his election defeat Mr Bush faced a growing political imperative to extricate the US with a minimum of casualties and a maximum of salvageable dignity within a defined time-frame. The election has heightened that pressure. It means the Iraq Study Group, headed by the former secretary of state James Baker, which meets in Washington this week, acquires greater significance by the day. Those wishing to see a more realistic and less doctrinaire policy need to exert maximum pressure on the ISG to adopt brave new solutions. That includes Tony Blair, whose proposals to Mr Baker tomorrow should be made public. Like the president, the prime minister has to face the hard fact that the central focus of his foreign policy has failed and that we are in a new era now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1946159,00.html

Reid, an ex-boxer, hasn't forgotten Bush's punches
November 12, 2006


In the coming months, it will probably be useful to remember that as a young man, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spent some time as an amateur middleweight boxer. Reid understands one reason his job title is changing from leader of the Democratic minority to Senate majority leader is that many voters recoiled against the unrelenting combat between the parties that has characterized George W. Bush's presidency.

But it's also apparent that Reid has not forgotten the punches thrown by the White House and GOP congressional leaders over the last six years, and that he considers more than a few of them low blows.

President Bush, at his morning-after-the-deluge news conference Wednesday, grandly declared inoperative his slashing campaign-trail claim that the Democratic agenda on national security and Iraq could be reduced to a single equation: "The terrorists win and America loses."

Reid talks about turning the other cheek, but he also seems to remember exactly where that blow landed and how much it stung. "Some of the things that have been said by [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [the president] are hard to comprehend," Reid told a small group of reporters late last week.

It was only a single jab from Reid, tight and targeted, but it was also a signal of how much Bush's life will change during the next two years. Notwithstanding occasional dissent, the GOP Congress saw itself as a supporting member of the White House team, almost as if both were part of a parliamentary system. In that role, Capitol Hill Republicans allowed Bush to set the national agenda and minimized congressional oversight that might have embarrassed the administration.

With Reid and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, Bush will face two pugnacious Democrats determined to challenge his agenda and to force him to react to their own goals. Bush could count on congressional Republicans to repeatedly schedule votes on his priorities, such as legislation to abolish the estate tax. Reid dismisses that idea with barely a shrug. "We wasted so much time on it," he says. Is Bush's goal of eliminating the estate tax dead? "It better be," he says.

Instead, Democrats want to force the national debate onto a very different agenda. Reid says he expects the Senate "pretty quickly" to pass legislation raising the minimum wage. He's also optimistic about quick action allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prescription prices — an idea the White House and the pharmaceutical industry blocked in 2003 when Congress passed the drug benefit for seniors.

Reid anticipates more aggressive congressional oversight, starting with Iraq. Outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a close White House ally, slow-walked a promised investigation into whether intelligence data supported the administration's prewar public claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Roberts also structured the inquiry in ways that constrained the danger to Bush; most important, the committee did not compel senior administration officials to answer questions under oath.

Now Reid expects John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), who will head the Senate Intelligence Committee, to briskly conclude a comprehensive study. "I think not only as part of good government, but as part of history, that investigation should be completed," he says.

The biggest question facing the incoming Democratic majorities in both chambers is how hard to push Bush on Iraq. Almost all Democrats are comfortable with examining the administration's performance through tough oversight and exhorting Bush to change course.

Reid, for one, has a crisp set of preferences on Iraq. He wants Bush to personally convene a regional conference with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria (the latter has been on the president's do-not-call list) to search for political solutions. Reid also wants to reexamine the reconstruction process — which, he says pointedly, has consisted of "throwing bundles of hundred-dollar bills to" Halliburton Co.

And he wants Bush to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and shift their focus from frontline fighting to training Iraqi forces. "We don't need our people patrolling the streets, walking down and being shot," Reid insists.

Reid, like almost all Democrats, hopes that the bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) that is studying Iraq policy will push Bush in this direction when it reports this winter.

But if the commission doesn't recommend big change, or if Bush rejects it, congressional Democrats will face a momentous decision: whether to attempt to pass legislation compelling the president to begin withdrawing from Iraq.

It's already clear that Democratic activists are expecting more than kibitzing about Iraq from the party's new congressional majority. The message from Democratic voters about Iraq "wasn't just that it's a mess, it was 'We are hiring you ... to lead the country out of it,' " says Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn.org political action committee. An election-eve poll for the group found that two-thirds of voters who supported Democrats expected them to reduce or withdraw troops from Iraq.

Reid hears the message, but he's cautious. An earlier generation of congressional critics who sought to cut off funding for the Vietnam War faced charges of undermining the troops. Reid says, "You have people being shot up, blown up [in Iraq], and we want to make sure that there is never a question that we aren't supportive totally of them."

Attempting to legislate an accelerated disengagement from Iraq clearly isn't Reid's first choice but, tellingly, he doesn't rule it out. "It may come to that," he says.

In other words, Reid isn't trading haymakers with Bush on the war, but he's taping his hands and edging closer to the ring.

ronald.brownstein@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-outlook12nov12,0,199076.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The Final Inspection

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To my church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I aint.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I've never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep ...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept manly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If You've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."

There was silence all around the throne,
Where the saints often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgement of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
You've born your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heavens streets,
You've done your time in Hell."

Author Unknown

http://sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=node/view/3327

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/09/AR2006110901981_pf.html

[.........]

Dennis Ross, who was a Middle East envoy for the elder Bush, said Gates represents important change. "Bob Gates comes from the realist school of how to operate internationally," Ross said. "As such . . . it is pretty clear the neoconservative agenda on regime change and democracy promotion will take a back seat to stability and less pressure on regimes to open up their political systems."


[.....]
Another former senior official on the other side of that divide cautioned against "hyperventilating" about the return of the Bush 41 team.

"Cheney is still there," he said, and while "the president's body language suggests he is contrite for the moment . . . nothing has really happened yet. Two more GIs and 61 Iraqis died [Wednesday]. The answer isn't with Gates, Baker or the White House. The strategy is being written as we speak by the Iraqis, for better or worse."

This former official and others, who agreed to speak candidly only if their names were not used, also recalled predictions of policy changes at the time of Rice's move to the State Department two years ago. Under Rice, the president's international approach has shifted away from the more bellicose style of the first term toward the multilateralism favored by his father, particularly on issues such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. But the continuation of a "stay the course" policy in Iraq, this former official said, suggests either that she is not offering alternative advice or that Bush's own views in fact are closer to those of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Administration officials said Baker did not recommend Rumsfeld's ouster or Gates's appointment. But in meetings with the president, he praised Gates, who serves with Baker on the congressionally created Iraq Study Group. During private discussions, according to one person familiar with them, Gates has expressed strong reservations about the course of events in Iraq and the failure of the administration to adjust.
[.......]

"It certainly looks that way," said Tom Donnelly, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Even so, he said, the question remains what the president is really thinking. "Bush's mind works differently from the normal political mind. He seems to be motivated by faith and ideals and willing to take risks politically. Maybe these Baker guys can talk him off the ledge, but nobody's done it yet."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110802463.html

Ronnie Polaneczky | Election Day trickery infuriates homeless man

    * Will Bunch: Attytood weblog
    * Flavia Colgan: Citizen Hunter weblog

YUSUF EL-BEDAWI is no fool. He knows politicians can play dirty.

He's just livid at being tricked into playing dirty with them on Election Day. All because he's homeless - and therefore, apparently, considered too unprincipled to give a damn about the integrity of the voting process.

"I might not have a home," El-Bedawi told me yesterday, "but that doesn't mean I don't care about right and wrong. No one has the right to use me that way."

But use him they did, along with at least six busloads of other poor or homeless Philadelphians who were hoodwinked into handing out deeply misleading voter guides in Maryland on Tuesday. The guides state that they were paid for by committees supporting Republican Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich, who was up for re-election, and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who was chasing a U.S. Senate seat.

Both men lost, so at least the sneaky trick didn't do The Trick.

But in the process, people like El-Bedawi were not only played for fools in Maryland, but they didn't get to vote right here at home.


 

El-Bedawi had been staying at a city homeless shelter on Ridge Avenue for about a week when, he said, some people who called themselves "election workers" visited to say they needed help on Election Day. They were offering $100 cash - plus breakfast, lunch and dinner - in exchange for distributing campaign literature at polling places.

Interested helpers were told to report to the parking lot of the Progress Plaza shopping center on North Broad Street at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, where they'd receive their assignments. When he arrived, El-Bedawi was surprised to see six idling buses and to learn that he'd be working the polls in Maryland, not here in Philly. He needed the money, so he got on the bus with about 200 others - recruited, he learned, from city homeless shelters and drug-treatment centers.

(To see a video of some of the Philly recruits, go to www.you

tube.com/watch?v=kIx9H7hd MuA.)

"I thought we'd be back by dinnertime," said El-Bedawi, 47, who planned to vote at his usual spot in Germantown. The bus dropped him and others at a school-based polling place in Baltimore, where voters were overwhelmingly black.

At first, the time passed pleasantly until some of the voters took a closer look at the flier that El-Bedawi was passing out, and went ballistic. It was labeled "Ehrlich-Steele Democrats" and "Official Voter Guide," and its sample ballot pushed Ehrlich and Steele, who are not identified as being Republican.

It also pictured three prominent black Democratic leaders above the words, "These are OUR Choices" - suggesting that Ehrlich, who is white, and Steele, who is black, had the trio's endorsement.

"People started screaming, at us, 'Do you think we're that stupid? What are you trying to pull?' " said El-Bedawi. "I said, 'I didn't know it was a lie! I'm from Philly!' And they said, 'Then go back to Philly!' "

When the voters left, he said, he was so shaken and angry, he tossed his remaining literature in the trash. On the bus back home that evening, he said, others were as upset as he was. They were told, "Don't worry about it. People don't care."

"That's some dirty, sneaky, underhanded stuff," said El-Bedawi, shaking his head. "Voting is the most important thing we do. To mess with it is wrong."

But to pay someone to unwittingly mess with it for you?

That's vile.


 

My repeated calls yesterday to both Ehrlich's and Steele's camps went unreturned. So I wasn't able to ask: How can you live with yourself, recruiting poor, vulnerable, minority campaign workers to unknowingly play sleazy for you at polls frequented by poor, vulnerable minority voters?

Especially given that, just last month, Ehrlich had thrown his support behind an NAACP campaign to ensure that "every Marylander has access to a fair and accurate election system."

And that Steele has served on the NAACP's blue-ribbon panel on election reform?

Yesterday's Washington Post reported that neither Ehrlich nor Steele was personally aware of the Philly hires - who knows which group loosely connected to the camps got the bus caravans rolling? Though Ehrlich told the Post, "If folks are here from out of town, that's fine with me. That's what the Democrats have always done."

"I am so angry and upset, I don't know what to do," said El-Bedawi, who's particularly shattered that he and at least 200 other Philadelphians didn't get home from Maryland in time to vote here.

"These people think we're too stupid to understand the magnitude of what we did."

What they did, said El-Bedawi, was cheat an entire community of unsuspecting voters.

And just because they didn't know they were doing it doesn't mean it doesn't feel awful.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/15966909.htm