Does US Congress Have Less Clout Than Iraqi Parliament?

Believe it or not, this seems to be the case. Incredibly, while the Iraqi parliament comes to blows over the agreement that would allow the US to stay in their country for another 3 years, the lil' ol' US Congress can't even read that Agreement, let alone discuss it.

The administration has asserted that the agreement between the U.S. and Iraq is merely a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and therefore does not require congressional approval. Yet the agreement goes far beyond the traditional limits of a SOFA, which typically set the terms for bringing materials and equipment into a nation and outline the legal procedures that will apply to members of the military who are accused of crimes.

Believe it or not, the current agreement contains terms that will actually give Iraq a measure of control over U.S. forces. No foreign nation or international entity has ever been given the authority to direct U.S. forces without prior congressional approval - either through a majority vote of both chambers or a two-thirds vote in the Senate in the case of treaties.

If this agreement goes into effect without congressional approval, it will establish a precedent under which future presidents can exercise broad unilateral control over the U.S. military - and even give foreign nations control over our troops.

If this sticks in your craw, you can send a message to that effect to Congress, and hope someone listens...
And they're getting ready to adjourn, the best you could hope for is Nancy Pelosi pops this question - highly unlikely - and the end (of the time to approve the agreement) is near...

Charley Reese: Israel is a Huge Liability, on Moral Low Road

This is verbatim from a column few have the courage to write. It is sometimes followed by death or death threats... against those who challenge the "Israel Right or Wrong" policy:

Dump Israel

by Charley Reese

It is long past time for American politicians to quit carrying water for the state of Israel and its powerful U.S. lobby. Congress' craven obedience to the lobby is a disgrace.

America's strategic interests in the Middle East lie with the Arab countries. Israel is a strategic and economic liability. The U.S. government's slavish support of Israel brands us as a hypocrite and is responsible for most of the hostility toward the U.S.

Americans have been brainwashed into believing that it's the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, who don't want peace. That is a big lie. The Palestinians made an enormous concession when they agreed to settle for a state on 18 percent of Palestine. Saudi Arabia proposed several years ago a peace plan in which all of the Arab countries would recognize Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. The Israelis rejected it out of hand, just as they reject Arab efforts to have the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

Israel's goal is and always has been to take all of Palestine and to get rid of the Palestinians. The Israelis employed ethnic cleansing in 1948 and again in 1967 to make hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees. For 40 years, the Israelis have refused to give back the Palestinian and Syrian lands they seized in war. They have blatantly violated international law by building settlements on occupied land, and by violating the airspace of other sovereign countries.

Palestinians are the victims, not the villains, in this case. The Israelis make their lives miserable in the hope they will give up and leave. At the same time, the Israelis, in cahoots with the American government, maintain a charade of proposed peace talks. They of course never come to fruition. The Israeli government is not about to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. If they give the Palestinians anything, it will be a patchwork of enclaves completely surrounded and controlled by Israel. Having created 700,000 Palestinian refugees, the Israelis have from the beginning refused to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses, all of which Israel confiscated on the specious grounds that they were "abandoned property."

Without U.S. aid, which now is conservatively estimated to total $108 billion (think of the infrastructure and schools that amount could build in the U.S.), and without the U.S. wielding its veto every time the United Nations tries to act, none of this would be possible.

It is not just the Muslim world that hates our pro-Israel foreign policy, for sound reasons that it is unjust and cruel. Europeans and others around the world are contemptuous of America's slavelike obedience to a small foreign power. It has gotten to the point that to be seen as an ally of the United States is viewed negatively.

The Arab and Muslim people, with the exception of al-Qaida, don't hate America or Americans. It is the pro-Israel foreign policy and, of course, our invasions of two Muslim countries that they hate. Virtually all of the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda generated in this country has its source in the Israeli lobby and in Israel itself.

Thanks to the unconstitutional largess of the cowardly Congress, Israel is a rich country and one of the world's leading military powers. It doesn't need American aid. It is time to quit dancing to the tune of a lobby with dual loyalties and to pursue America's interests.

Americans are being betrayed by their own politicians, and it's time to treat those scoundrels with the contempt they deserve.

Be A Voice Against Torture

On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives passed an Iraq withdrawal bill that provides interim funding for the hostilities in Iraq and calls for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It includes an anti-torture provision that would require all government agencies - including the CIA - to follow the Army Field Manual when conducting interrogations. In doing so, it would prohibit torture and other such "harsh" interrogation techniques. Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he will bring this bill before the Senate today (Friday, November 16, 2007).

Don't let the Senate debate a bill that relates to torture without expressing your support for the anti-torture provisions in the bill.

Please contact - by phone or by email - your Senators to express your support for the provision that would require the CIA and other government agencies to abide by the restrictions in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. You can contact your Senators by calling the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or you can look up their direct lines and their email addresses at this website.

Democracy 101: We the People are Asleep at the Wheel

Bridgethought of the Day: Vigilance has to be a collective action - there's just too much for one person to see. One more argument for real democracy. Something the U.S. could use more of...

A movement to "Downsize DC" has been launched that cuts across party and other "invisible" lines. One of the most valuable aspects of this movement is the impetus to actually force our "representative" Congress to represent us - while doing their job - by actually reading, and discussing, the bills they pass which ultimately affect our lives more than we may realize. Unfortunately for us, many in power understand how Americans are too busy conducting their own lives to pay much attention to what Congress is doing. And what they are doing is not necessarily what it looks like.

For example, On July 11, Congress passed the Food and Drug Administration Administration Act (you read that correctly), which ran to an astonishing 308 pages. Health freedom advocates warn that this bill will turn the FDA into a public-private partnership with the ability to develop and patent drugs on its own.

They further warn this bill will jeopardize our access to vitamins and other nutritional supplements that compete with Big Pharma. But only forty minutes were allowed for debate, and amendments could not be proposed or considered. Instead of questioning this process, Congress rubber-stamped the bill with only 16 votes against it.

How many of the 403 who voted "yea" blindly followed the advice of lobbyists and Congressional leaders? How many then patted themselves on the back for "protecting" the American people from supposedly "dangerous" foods?

How many, if they actually read the bill, would have been appalled by some of the provisions, and demanded full debate and amendments? How many would have worked to defeat the bill?

We'll never know, because right now members of Congress aren't even required to read and understand the bills they pass. But when they rubber-stamps bills, they're not representing us. They may look busy, but they're not actually doing the job they were elected to do.We can change this. We can force Congress to pass the Read the Bills Act and make them do their job. You can learn more about the Read the Bills Act here.

We are actually responsible about this, too. It's not enough to simply vote for Representatives. We have to have a look at what they are doing, and what we really need and want to be done. And if we are supposed to be their bosses, it doesn't help that we don't seem to know or care what the hell they are doing. What happens when the driver falls asleep at the wheel?

You get Cheney-Bush, and the Constitution is about to crash. Will somebody start swerving away from that cliff???