They Did What !

It may be old fashioned, but I think a lie is always a lie.

There are little white lies like those told to spare the feelings of others. There are big black lies like those that cause serious damage. There are lies of commission and lies of omission; lies to cover up something, and lies to cover other lies. All the euphemisms in the world – spin, slant, rationalization - all the terms people use to call a lie something else, do not change a lie into truth. Just as a rose by any other name is still a rose; a lie by any other name is still a lie.

We see one example of dishonesty after another marching across our TV screens and shouting at us from newspaper headlines. Duplicity is rampant in government and business. Cheating is accepted by our young people in college as a justifiable tool for getting ahead. Woe is us if they carry this attitude with them as they move forward into careers in business and government.

The President, who claims the title Decider models dishonesty by lying and then compounding his lying by lying about why he lied in the first place. I guess that is what he decided to do. His chosen ones, Chaney and Rumsfeld as Vice-Decider and Defense Decider have been caught in lies repeatedly but strangely, there have rarely been any consequences. Even Rumsfeld’s overdue resignation was framed as an unjust demand by a war weary country. It seems as if we, as a nation, have developed an easy acceptance of lying.

Now we have the Attorney General playing artful dodger in a not so artful way. How can we swallow that? Isn’t the position of Attorney General one in which even the appearance of impropriety is not acceptable? What is our recourse to truth and justice if not the United States Department of Justice?

In what galaxy is it all right for Gonzales to continue to tap dance around the truth and for President Bush to continue to put what he seems to think of as “loyalty” before all other virtues? What about honor, integrity, and good old fashioned right and wrong?

How can we continue to excuse or minimize lies instead of insisting on accountability? This is not a matter of payback or politics. It is a necessity to restore faith in our government. How dare these people lie to us and undermine the very foundations of our democracy. We need to return to our roots where our values are evident in how we live our lives and we need to demand no less from our government.

Posted by Trish Purcell at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With subpoena power now in the hands of the Democrats, investigations are moving forward. Some people are taking a partisan stance on the results of these inquiries but it is really an aberration to judge right and wrong based on the political party of those being investigated. Congressional oversight was established to keep the Executive branch in check. Not exercising such oversight is a breach of trust on the part of Congress.

We have been told for the past few years that the President’s inherent power gave our government the right to invade our privacy without a warrant. The FBI operated with impunity under the Patriot Act to gather information using national security letters authority. Now that authority is under scrutiny as it should have been all along.

Internal watchdog, Glenn Fine, in a review authorized by Congress over Bush administration objections, revealed data-gathering abuses in a 130-page report last week. Fine's review concluded the number of national security letters requested by the FBI skyrocketed after the Patriot Act became law.

In 2000, the FBI issued an estimated 8,500 requests. Between 2003 and 2005 they reported issuing 143,074 requests with 56,000 of those being issued in the single year of 2004. Fine also discovered an additional 8,850 requests in a small sampling of cases in four field offices. These requests were never recorded in the FBI’s database and it is estimated there are many more nationwide.

It is the job of our elected officials to run the country but it is our responsibility to be vigilant in seeing that they do it well. When we find they are not, we need to work toward setting things right and partisanship has no place in this process. Even the FBI admits there have been abuses. In the face of that, how can anyone deny that the lack of oversight in the past 6 years has led to abuses that are damaging to our democratic way of life.

I have a fierce love for this America of ours. It is an honest, eyes wide open love that accepts the reality of what we have contributed to the world – both the good and the ugly. Our country does not need to be perfect for me to love it any more than my kids need to be perfect for me to love them. It is puzzling why some Americans seem compelled to deny the ugly parts of our past and our present. They equate this denial with patriotism but what is the value of such blind patriotism? To be truly patriotic, to love, support, defend, and be loyal to our country requires that we open our eyes to its faults and work to correct them. Honesty is a part of true love.

We can only right the wrongs, move toward the ideal, if we are willing to own the honest mistakes and the deliberate wrongs that some of us imperfect people perpetrate in our country's name. I love the idealism reflected in the words of America the Beautiful but I also understand that we Americans, individually and collectively, have done and continue to do, things that betray every ideal on which our country was founded. To be defensive, to deny any wrongdoing is as destructive in our world and national relationships as it is in our personal relationships.

Wrongdoing crosses all party lines, as well as racial and religious lines. Working together to uncover the wrongs wherever they are and regardless of whom committed them shows we love our country, warts and all. That is how we work toward making her a real America the beautiful.

Posted by Trish Purcell at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are a Republican, you are happy to hear reports that the “surge” in Iraq is showing signs of positive progress. If you are a Democrat, you are feeling vindicated by reports that the “surge” is not making any more progress this time than it did the last time it was tried. Regardless of your party, if you are a thinking person, you are frustrated by the lack of unbiased news about what is actually going on in Iraq.

Newscasters and elected officials seem to have lost track of what is important. This is not about political positioning; it is not about President Bush’s legacy; it is not about being right. It is about the welfare of the young men and women we, as a nation, sent into harm’s way; it is about the welfare of the other coalition troops; it is about the welfare of the Iraqi civilians.

Regardless of our support or lack thereof, for the war itself, isn’t the important issue in how we move forward the continued risk to life and limb of those fighting in our name and those caught in the cross fire? How many more must die or be maimed while our leaders run around in circles pointing fingers at each other and the news media continues to stir the pot with biased reporting and calculated presentations of political duels between the opposing factions.

Let those who are willing to sacrifice their own children in this war step forward and speak. The rest should just shut up.

Posted by Trish Purcell at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

First we were told about Iraq having WMDs and all the links that supposedly proved Saddam’s complicity with al Qaida in the 9/11 attacks. A majority of Senators and Representatives along with many of us common folk bought into the lies and half-truths we were spoon fed and the result is the unbelievable mess we have created in Iraq. Shame on them for fooling us!

Now we are being told about Iran’s nuclear program. Iran claims it is for peaceful uses, we insist they are trying to build a bomb. We know this because… well we don’t trust them so they must be lying. The latest news is that we “know for sure” that Iran is supplying the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) currently wreaking deadly havoc in Iraq. We know this because… EFPs are sophisticated devices that could not be made without involvement at high levels so it must be Iran that is supplying these devices to the insurgents. This time if we accept what we are told without demanding more proof, it will be shame on us!

The intelligence backing up the Administration’s claim about the EFPs is minimal and there is good reason to believe these devices can and are being made in Baghdad. There was an Andrew Cockburn article in the Los Angeles Times, reprinted in the San Jose Mercury in February, about a largely unreported raid of a Baghdad machine shop last November. The raid uncovered copper disks that were determined to be part of an ongoing order. These disks plus a high powered explosive and a pipe-like container make an EFP. Contrary to the claim that EFPs are a sophisticated device they are simple and inexpensive to make for anyone who knows how.

The real question about these deadly devices is why we were not prepared to protect our military from them? EFPs are not new. They were used as far back as World War II by the French Resistance, in Northern Ireland by the IRA, and against Israel in Lebanon in the 1990s. While Donald Rumsfeld concentrated on building an expensive technology based military system, he continued sending our men and women into a guerilla war where they were being killed by inexpensive home made bombs, the deadliest of which is the EFP. Rumsfeld’s response was more technology. Spending time and money developing technological military devices when we are fighting a guerilla war shows the true measure of a man like Donald Rumsfeld and it’s not a pretty sight.

We can only hope that Secretary Gates is more tuned in to the reality of the war we are fighting and that as long as our young men and women are in Iraq, that he understands supporting the troops means giving them what they need to survive.

Posted by Trish Purcell at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)