Monday, May 29, 2006

PENALTIES PAID BY THE DEAD

Before you gather up the hot dogs and head out to the barbeque this afternoon, look in a mirror and ask yourself honestly if Iraq is something you would be willing to die for.
--Bob Herbert, "Consider the Living," New York Times, May 29, 2006


Start sending the children of the well-to-do to Baghdad, and start raising taxes to pay off the many hundreds of billions that the war is costing, and watch how quickly this tragic fiasco is brought to an end.
--ibid

Because it is natural to regard those who died in war as heroes, it can seem necessary to affirm the wars themselves as heroic, too…in a kind of amnesia. The true condition of war--what continually leaves battle-scarred survivors opposed to war--is readily forgotten…on the ground in Iraq, the full meaning of the consequences is blood red--Iraqi blood, American blood. As always, the first penalty for the failures…is paid by the dead.
--James Carroll, "Honor the Fallen, Not the War," Boston Globe, May 29, 2006.



We've had an interesting discussion going over on the parents' message board for my son's Marine Corps unit, which is currently deployed to one of the worst and bloodiest areas in Iraq.

One of the parents, who happens to be a retired Naval JAG lawyer, had posted an article that had appeared in the Marine Times about the investigations currently underway concerning two incidents involving Marines and the deaths of civilians. One of the Marine moms promptly scolded the systems administrator for allowing the article to be posted at all, claiming that such things "lead to the spread of rumor and hurt the morale of the troops."

Although I read the message board every day, I don't post over there very often; however, I was so outraged by that remark that I did make a lengthy post in which I pointed out that what hurts the troops' morale is that this terrible thing had to happen at all, not that their parents were discussing it. Our resident JAG helped us understand that we weren't to discuss specifics of either case, and that was fine--the whole point of my post was that there was no need to discuss what did or did not take place in those events, BUT WHAT EFFECT IT WILL HAVE ON OUR SONS, and how we, as parents, can help them cope.

I mentioned that my son had been very discouraged of late, and that his dad, a combat veteran himself, had been able to reassure him that such frustration is normal, when, as Dustin put it, "you are fighting a guerilla war with conventional tactics." The result is that you don't know who the enemy is, and you can't go after them as aggressively as they go after you because you have to obey standard Rules of Engagement--whereas the enemy has no rules.

For all their blowhard pro-war bombast, the conservatives have remained fairly quiet on this issue, but liberal op-eds I've read have been eloquent and far more sympathetic to the Marines than you might expect.

Here's Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

It was inevitable. Marines are trained to take the hill and destroy the enemy. It is not their forte to be policemen while battling a ghostly foe, suicide bombers, ever more ingenious explosive devices, insurgents embedded among civilians, and rifle blasts fired from behind closed doors and minarets. They don't know who the enemy is. Is it a pregnant woman? A child? An Iraqi policeman? They don't know how to win, or what a win would entail.

Or perhaps you might be more inclined to listen to the words of a retired general:

"The blame for these incidents lies with the incredible strain bad decisions and bad judgment is putting on our incredible military."--Maj. Gen. John Batiste, to Chris Matthews.

I do hear conservatives blaming the media for what happened, as though simply reporting the facts of the incidents somehow makes them responsible for those incidents.

But the truth is that the blame--just as the blame for Abu Ghraib--must fall securely on the shoulders of not just those who pulled the trigger…but those civilian leaders and commanders-in-chief who insisted on shoving our military into a swarming ant's nest of chaos, confusion, and corpses with TOO FEW TROOPS and NO FRESH REPLACEMENTS.

I've said this before and I will say it again: If the American people and the chickenhawk leaders they so adore are so gung-ho to go to war then they damn well better grow some balls and INSTITUTE A NATIONAL DRAFT.

You've got the same severely undermanned military going back over there AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, on THIRD and FOURTH DEPLOYMENTS, being thrown into hotbeds of insurgent activity like the Anbar Province and being spread out so thin you can damn near see through them.

And you're leaving them out there in the desert to rot, then acting all shocked and awed when they snap.


Yeah, wave your flags and slap those yellow ribbons on your pickup trucks you cowards.

Or send your own sons and daughters to fight and die for your wars.

Then maybe you'll know what Memorial Day really means.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

The Left Hand of God

"The wind is changing. Folks--not just leaders--are fed up with what is being portrayed as Christian values," said the Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior minister of First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio…"As religious people we're offended by the idea that if you're not with the religious right, you're not moral, you're not religious," said Linda Gustitus, who attends Bethesda's River Road Unitarian Church…"
--"Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility," Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, May 20, 2006.

"Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them. The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many."
"My Problem With Christianism," Andrew Sullivan, Time Magazine, May 15, 2006.

"The GOP has built an intolerant, uncivil agenda from narrowly defined religious beliefs. Hardliners are deepening the social divide by imposing their minority views on a more moderate majority."
--former President Jimmy Carter, Baptist Sunday School teacher and author of OUR ENDANGERED VALUES.


Ever since I watched Ronald Reagan rather callously embrace religious fundamentalists to help him get elected--even though he and his wife Nancy never attended church and she was known to consult astrologists at the White House--and ever since I watched the Republican party clamp onto churches as their biggest voting block, complete with "voting cards" passed out to the pliant congregations on Sundays--I felt a queasiness grow into a full-blown sense of ongoing horror that the Christian faith I worshipped bore little resemblance to the self-righteous, moralistic preening I saw take shape in the political arena.

And if that's all there was to it--fawning politicians posing with churchy blowhards in order to get themselves elected--I could live with it. I could live with it even when one after another of those same politicians were found to be as immoral and hypocritical and sinful as they professed not to be as they stole money from well-meaning "people of faith" in the name of "family values" that valued little more than fattening the pocketbooks of their OWN families.

But as I watched the values I held dear get stripped away and replaced by a prostitution of what was, I knew, sincere beliefs, and saw a political agenda rammed through Congress time and again that had nothing or little to do with any actual faith and much to do with the same kind of high-handed moralism that marked the scribes and Pharisees who got Jesus crucified in the first place, I felt downright frightened with what I saw taking place in the name of religion.

The Jesus I have studied saved an adultress from being stoned to death and said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." He reclined at table with sinners and prostitutes and tax-gatherers, and incurred further wrath of church leaders by breaking all sorts of church laws, rules, and regulations so that he could feed the hungry and take in the poor.

I don't think He would concern himself all that much with a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. And I know for sure that He would not stand outside the funerals of fallen soldiers and Marines holding up signs that said things like GOD HATES AMERICA.

Granted, the tiny inbred church that has made a practice of stalking the funerals of fallen war heroes by claiming that they died because Americans have been too tolerant of gays is a very extreme example, and granted, not all Christian fundamentalists think they are right, any more than they thought those who bombed abortion clinics and murdered abortion doctors were right--but they have allowed that kind of atmosphere of hatred and intolerance to flourish, much like a night-time garden thrives in darkness.

It is the constant political emphasis on what the religious right regards as SIN--such as relationships between homosexuals--that has planted this weed-garden of hatred and intolerance that bears little resemblance to the example set by Jesus Christ.

In previous centuries, little-known scriptures gave tacit permission to citizens to own slaves--even though those scriptures had been written in a time 2,000 years ago when slave-ownership was common. Such bigotry was also condoned all through the Jim Crow years and up through the religious extremists who fueled the Ku Klux Klan. They, too, felt justified by the Bible.

And by the constant insistence that this kind of narrow moralism should be LEGISLATED, even amended into our Constitution--a vocal minority brand an entire religion with their own intolerance, leaving the vast majority of us feeling infuriated and frustrated and most assuredly, not represented.

Well, the rest of us out here who consider ourselves Christians have said--ENOUGH.

"Long overshadowed by the Christian right, religious liberals across a wide swath of denominations are engaged today in their most intensive bout of political organizing and alliance-building since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements of the 1960's, according to scholars, politicians, and clergy members.

"In large part, the revival of the religious left is a reaction against conservatives' success in the 2004 elections in equating moral values with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

"Religious liberals say their faith compels them to emphasize such issues as poverty, affordable health care and global warming. Disillusionment with the war in Iraq and opposition to the Bush administration policies on secret prisons and torture have also fueled the movement."
--"Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility; a Different List of Moral Issues," Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, May 20, 2006.

"Faith for many of us is inter-woven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else."
--"My Problem with Christianism," Andrew Sullivan, Time Magazine, May 15, 2006.


My question is…when did it come about that if you did not sign on to the conservative Christian agenda--the Republican plank--of intolerance and hatred that you were an "enemy of the people of faith," or, as Republican hate-meister Ann Coulter titled her most recent book, GODLESS--that we are godless?

When did the idea take hold in our national imagination that if you were a Democrat, you were godless?

I remember a poignant essay by Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlan about how, whenever she writes an essay that is pro-choice or otherwise goes against the political agenda of the religious right, she gets swamped with hate-mail about how she is "godless" and an "atheist" and "hates God." She went on to describe how she grew up in the Catholic church, and how each and every one of her children had been christened in the church and had celebrated first communions.

In the book he wrote with former Democratic advisor James Carville, TAKE IT BACK, Paul Begala, one-time advisor to President Clinton, described how, when he was invited to speak on his religious beliefs on a right-wing talk show, the host mocked him and dismissed his Christianity, assuming--wrongly--that because he was an active Democrat, he was an atheist. Begala politely, and furiously, informed the talk-show host that he was a devout and practicing Catholic and did not appreciate that assumption. The host apologized to him.

But the point is, the ASSUMPTION.

Listen, just because we don't make it our life's work to insist that gays can't be married has absolutely nothing to do with our own faith and our own idealism.

What ABOUT the fact that there are millions of children in this country who are not covered by health insurance, more who go to bed hungry at night? What ABOUT the fact that thousands of church-goers all over this country sat through countless PRO-WAR SERMONS in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, because the idea was that Bush was a man of God who took his marching orders directly from the Big Man, and that if God told him to invade Iraq, then so be it. Nobody in the religious right questioned that assumption, and the rest of us sat captive, held hostage by a belief we did not share.

What ABOUT the fact that this administration has overseen an unprecedented incursion into national parks and public lands for oil-drilling, coal-mining, and old-growth timber-cutting, a travesty on the environment that we are supposed to have good stewardship over?

And what ABOUT the ridiculous co-opting of scientific inquiry and thought by blind obedience to a doctrine that is so narrow and rigid that most thinking people of faith simply choose to accept some flexibility and symbolism that allows for proven fact?

"A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all," said Episcopalian Rev. Patricia Templeton…"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud, shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians had to choose between modern science and religion were presenting a false dichotomy," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters & Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the major organizer of the letter project…

More than 10,000 ministers had signed the letter, which states, in part, that the theory of evolution is a 'foundational scientific truth.' To reject it, the letter continues, 'is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.'

"We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator."
--"At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution," Neela Banerjee and Anne Berryman, The New York Times, February 13, 2006.

What's terrifying about religious fundamentalism replacing scientific analysis is when, as a political arm of government, it is instrumental in setting policy that has a direct bearing on the lives of each and every one of us. Since Bush was put in office by this very vocal minority, he has proceeded to put in place political hacks in government offices who attempt to engineer rigid obeyance to this religious train of thought.

To that end, we can't offer information to third-world countries on birth control. Simple birth control in areas where starving mothers can no longer feed the starving babies at their breasts or the other starving children at their feet because we are prevented from offering them aid IF we also discuss birth control with them.


This is a fake-religious Bush policy that has now been in place for almost six years.

It was Republican fundamentalist flunkies who intervened in the intensely personal family drama of the tragic Terry Schiavo case. The party of "less government" has no problem forcing government into our bedrooms and hospital rooms to tell us what they think we should do about things that are not the business of government, even though the Republican Senate Majority leader, Bill Frist--who, as a physician, should have known better--claimed that, according to the video snippets he'd been shown, Shiavo should be kept alive. Only the autopsy showed what her husband knew to be true, that her brain was completely gone.


Oh what mileage the religious fundamentalist politicians got out of the preaching and pontificating over that terrible situation, even though again, a clear majority of the American people--and American Christians--felt horrified and were opposed to their meddling.

Now, Republicans are attempting to put the D.E.A. in a place of decision-making authority over what drugs get approved by the F.D.A.

It's this kind of skewed thinking that "protects" us from meth-users by forcing us to obtain simple decongestants from pharmacies, which does nothing to stop the meth trade. They simply get it from Mexican drug-dealers.

It's also this kind of "protection" that causes people dying of cancer to go to jail if they are caught using medical marijuana to help with the terrible pain of the disease and nausea of the chemotherapy. Even in states that have approved such use, the Bush administration has threatened to arrest anyone using medical marijuana.

Does this make ANY KIND OF SENSE?

In a culture defined by the separation of church and state, President Bush and his allies have mastered the use of religious affirmation as a deflection not only of criticism, but of critical thought. God is thus a trump card, a free pass.
--"All God, All the Time," Boston Globe editorial, October 17, 2005.

When a narrow-minded group of rigid fundamentalist thinkers takes over a government, we are all affected. From what our children are being taught in schools to what kinds of medications we can have access to, to ever more ridiculous reaches into law, like the recent Defense spending bill.

Yeah, Republicans refused to pass a $513 billion defense spending bill until an amendment was added that forced military chaplains to end their prayers with "in Jesus name."

The problem with that is that most military chaplains DIDN'T WANT the provision, because they understand that, no matter what denomination the chaplain may be, their job is to REPRESENT AND SUPPORT THE RELIGIOUS NEEDS OF THE ENTIRE CREW--not just those of the religious right Republicans who rammed the measure through.

You see, even if a chaplain is, say, Catholic, he or she knows that they may be called upon to pray with not only a Protestant, but also Jewish service men and women and maybe even a Muslim member of the service who is in their care. They take this responsibility very seriously, but that didn't matter to fundamentalist lobbyists like Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition, which threatened to get their puppet, Bush, to sign an executive order demanding same if their Republican sycophants didn't tack it onto the spending bill.

When a Democratic representative, Steve Israel of NY offered an amendment to add that chaplains should show, "sensitivity, respect, and tolerance for all faiths," it was defeated along party lines in committee and the Rules Committee did not allow floor debate on the provision--something this Republican Congress often does, as we discussed in earlier blog entries.

And of course, that's not even DISCUSSING what chaplains must do who are, themselves, Jewish or Muslim.

Thanks to fundamentalist ram-rodding, thousands of frozen embryos DESTINED TO BE THROWN IN THE GARBAGE cannot be used for life-giving scientific study into stem-cell research to cure such horrors as Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's, or Multiple Sclerosis because the so-called "right to life" faction has dominated public policy in the Bush administration--even though a CLEAR MAJORITY of the American people believe that they should be used for that purpose.

Teachers can't teach life-saving methods of condom-use in sex-education classes because the religious right has forced them to teach only abstinence, which has been proven again and again, to be pitifully inadequate in preventing teen sex and teenage pregnancies.

I'm sick and tired of this kind of fundamentalist balogney. I'm sick and tired of issues of so-called "sin" suddenly becoming issues of national security. Whether or not gays marry has absolutely NO bearing on my life or the lives of anyone I know. Whether or not my uninsured 25-year old daughter has access to health care when and if she needs it DOES.

I consider myself to be a very spiritual person. As a Christian, I believe in tolerance toward our fellow men and women, no matter what the color of their skin, their race, or their religion. I believe in taking care of "the least of these" who may not be capable of taking care of themselves. I believe that the richest and strongest country in the world should use that strength to promote peace, not war, unless absolutely necessary. I believe in using our God-given minds to search for creative solutions to scientific dilemmas.


And I believe it is the job of the church and of the home to teach morality, not the schools, and most certainly NOT governmental agencies.

"…poverty, peace, and the environment (are) important spiritual issues that have been ignored by the religious right…"Liberal evangelicals are LEAPING out of the closet and are saying, Enough is enough," said Jack Pannell, spokesman for Sojourners, a Washington-based evangelical social justice ministry. "Evangelical Christians are not all white people living in the suburbs and only concerned with abortion and same-sex marriage."
--"Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility," Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, May 20, 2004.

If it hadn't been for churches, and vocal church leaders, the civil rights movement might never have gotten off the ground. Vocal church leaders also led the anti-war movement of the sixties. Great social change has been brought about because people of faith--not just religious fundamentalists--but people of ALL faiths, all denominations, and all spiritual persuasions, have spoken out against social injustice.

It's time we did so again.

Friday, May 12, 2006

KING GEORGE & THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

"This administration thinks they can just violate any law they want, and they've created a culture of fear to try and get away with that. It's up to us to stand up to them," says Representative Maurice Henchey (D-NY).
--"NSA Stymies Justice Dept. Spying Probe," Devlin Barrett, Associated Press, May 11, 2006.


The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Arlen Specter, said, "There may as well soon not be a Congress…And I think most members don't understand what's happening."
--"Bush vs. Congress," Boston Globe editorial, May 10, 2006.


"Like the old English kings who insisted that Parliament could not tell them what to do, Bush all but declared himself above the law…Forget the imperial presidency. This is more like a monarchial one. America began by rejecting the claims of one King George. It's disturbing to think we might be quietly installing a second one."
"We Don't Need Another King George," Andrew Sullivan, Time Magazine, January 23, 2006.



Senator Specter is correct. Most people don't realize what's happening.

They go about their daily lives, going to work, taking care of their families, fretting over their friends, watching television, having some fun now and then. They don't pay that much attention to the news and only care about politics if it's a presidential election year. Otherwise, they just don't really care.

So, while the majority of the American people are looking the other way, this president and his cronies have quietly gone about amassing the single-most egregious grab for power this country has ever seen.

Ahhh, for the good old days of Richard Nixon. He was tame compared to George W. Bush.

If you think that the only manifestation of power this president has shown is to collect our phone calls while hunting down al Queda to keep us all safe and snuggy-warm in our beds, you are sadly mistaken. In this series, I'm going to break down into seven major parts the outrageous, dictatorial ways in which this administration has moved to not only grab, but keep, power, through circumventing the law, controlling the media, stomping out freedom of speech, and basically politicizing presidential policy to an extent never before seen by historians or previous administration officials.

Both conservatives and liberals are equally appalled.

Once I started doing in-depth research, I found, yet again, that I simply had too much material to cram into a single post. To put together the mosaic of the entire picture, all the pieces have to be included.

Part I: "Unitary Executive," or Commander in Chief of Everything
Part II: "Stealth Veto": Re-Writing Laws When the Cameras are Turned Off
Part III: Deciding What's Law & What Isn't
Part IV: Controlling Information & Re-Writing History
Part V: No Checks, No Balances, & No Congressional Oversight
Part VI: What Freedom of Speech?
Part VII: Imperialism Abroad


You think I'm joking about King George? Read on.

Part I: "Unitary Executive" or Commander in Chief of Everything

Bush operates on the radical notion of the "unitary executive," that the president has inherent and limitless powers in his role as commander in chief, above the system of checks and balances.
--"Cheney's Coup," Sidney Blumenthal, salon.com, February 23, 2006.


The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
--"NSA Stymies Justice Dept. Spying Probe," Devlin Barrett, Associated Press, May 11, 2006.


I have said from the beginning that 9-11 was the best thing that could have ever happened to George W. Bush. Before 9-11, his was a lackluster presidency. He wasn't all that popular, and his only measure put forth to protect the country was the outdated, unworkable Star Wars missile defense program touted by his hero, Ronald Reagan.

That's all we heard about then. People forget.

After 9-11 and the famous bullhorn-in-the-rubble moment when he cheered on rescue workers at the terrible site of the World Trade Center (after running and hiding for hours during the attacks while Vice President Dick Cheney scrambled the fighter jets), suddenly, he was a hero and he could do no wrong.

It gave him the perfect opportunity to do what he and his cohorts, Cheney and Rumsfeld, had wanted to do from the beginning--finish the job Daddy started. Invade Iraq, throw out Saddam, establish permanent bases there, and dominate their oil exports.

Within hours of 9-11, we now know from numerous sources who were there at the time, the Bush administration began forcing a bogus connection between al Queda and Saddam, bullying the intelligence community into justifying it and the media into believing and going along with it, and hypnotizing a traumatized nation into jumping onto the patriotic bandwagon to send our young men and women off to war oh say can you see by the dawn's early light.

From that moment on, Bush was a "wartime president." And as such, he could grab for himself unlimited powers as the commander in chief in a time of war. He could secretly and blatantly circumvent Congress and break any laws he saw fit in the name of "national security." He could do it with a single signature--on an executive order.

And he has signed hundreds.

The brilliance of the national security argument is that, if Congress then were to try to investigate him, as they have done the warrantless wiretapping, they can be shut down--cold--on the grounds that the issue is under the auspices of national security, and therefore, the administration can legitimately refuse to either answer questions under oath or provide any information to Congress--or anyone else--because to do so would breach the national security of our country.

According to the Associated Press, it is happening right now.

He can even stand before the American people and lie about it, then get away with the lie because, after all, he was only protecting us from terrorists.

So, when the administration is collecting information on the phone calls--and don't forget, e-mails as well--made by just about everyone in this country…what if they should suddenly decide to wiretap--without warrants--people who, like Nixon, they may consider to be personal enemies, people like, say, war protesters, or journalists who cross them, or political opponents?

And what, then, might they do with that information? Turn it over to the IRS? Put the person on a "no-fly" list?

Of course not, says this president. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?

Part II: Stealth Veto: Re-Writing Laws When the Cameras Are Turned Off

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted when he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research…Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more government power into the White House.
--"Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws," Charlie Savage, Boston Globe, April 30, 2006.


Here is how he does it. For example, recently, there was quite a public uproar when it became known that prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison were being tortured by American army guards. Congress wanted to pass a law demanding that our wartime prisons abide by the Geneva conventions and not permit torture.

Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld disagreed. They still believe that torture is a good thing.

So Senator John McCain, greatly revered former prisoner of war, wrote a very public essay in Time magazine explaining that, not only does torture not work, because whoever is being tortured will say anything to get it to stop, and he should know, since he endured unbearable torture at the hands of enemy troops. He also pointed out that for Americans to embrace torture in OUR prisons, puts our OWN soldiers and Marines at very grave risk should they ever be taken prisoner by our enemies. And that, finally, shouldn't we, as a free, democratic, Christian nation, stand for something BETTER?

Congress agreed, and Bush threatened to veto the bill. But when even conservative talk radio and so-called "think tank" publications spoke out against this policy, Bush suddenly about-faced, and agreed to sign the bill.

He did so, to great public TV-camera fanfare. Big handshake with Senator McCain. Big speech about what a big day it was for the country.

Then, after everybody left, Bush quietly sat down and signed one of the 750 "signing statements" that he has used since taking office. This is an official document in which the president interprets the law his own way, a sort of amendment tacked on to the end of the bill that says, in effect, that Bush does not have to abide by the law that he just signed. That, in this case, as commander in chief, if he feels torture is a good thing, he can allow torture.

There weren't any TV cameras for that. But it is now the law of the land. He has since added signing statements to every single military rule and regulation that Congress has passed, stating that he can ignore them.

Part III: Deciding What's Law & What Isn't

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over "the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore…

A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him can make the Constitution simply "disappear."
--'Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws," Charles Savage, Boston Globe, April 30, 2006.

At the level of the United States military, Bush has declared that military lawyers could not contradict his administration's lawyers.

And if it were just military rules and regulations that the president wanted to control during time of war, that might be one thing. You could almost understand that, because previous presidents have often suspended certain laws in times of war.

But Bush goes waaaay beyond the military. Even when the Supreme Court has upheld affirmative action programs (as long as they don't require quotas), Bush has taken exception at least NINE TIMES to provisions that seek to ensure that minorities are represented among government jobs, contracts, and grants. Each time, he singled out provisions he did not agree with and attached a signing statement.

In other instances, he has cavalierly tossed out Congressional protections that have been provided to government employees who want to blow the whistle on crimes being committed within their own departments, or excesses and corruption. Thanks to his signing statements, that no longer applies.

Congress also requires that the Justice Department give oversight committees copies of new interpretations of domestic-spying laws, as well as reports on civil liberties, security clearances, border security, and counternarcotics efforts.

Bush signed the bill, then issued a signing statement that said he could withhold any information from Congress he saw fit.

By defying Supreme Court precedents, Bush threatens to overturn the basic structure of constitutional law. But perhaps even more disturbing is the SECRECY with which Bush gets away with this.

Because so much of what this administration does is shrouded in secrecy, it's hard to know which laws are being followed and which are being ignored. That makes it difficult for matters to ripen into a court challenge, notes Boston attorney Harvey Silvergate. "He is setting it up so that the people hurt by what this administration is doing are unable to get to court, because it is secret."
--"Our Monarch, Above the Law," Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, May 2, 2006.


In other words, Bush decides what is law and what isn't, and who is qualified to interpret it and who isn't--including the United States Supreme Court.

And it doesn't stop with the signing statements. In one very powerful instance, the administration's own Justice Department submitted a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, unanimously concluded that the Texas re-districting plan ramrodded through the Texas legislature by Congressman Tom Delay was illegal because it forced out the districts' votes by Blacks and Hispanics, thus ensuring Republican victories. Delay abused his federal position in shoving through the plan at the state level, and the Justice Department spoke out.

At least, they tried to.

The report was suppressed for nearly three years.

Political appointees overruled the lawyers and ordered them not to speak about the case.

Which brings me to the next power-abuse:

Part IV: Controlling Information & Re-Writing History

…2005 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office on potential problems with the Medicare prescription drug program…(administration officials) demanded that the report say that the administration had "established effective contingency plans"--which it hadn't--and that it drop the assertion that some people would encounter difficulties obtaining necessary drugs…"
--"George the Unready," Paul Klugman, New York Times, March 3, 2006.


…2003 Environmental Protection Agency report about global warming where the administration deleted the part that pinned warming on cars and industry; the 2003 Health and Human Services report on healthcare to people of color that deleted the words "disparities" and "inequality" from a first draft; and the Department of Justice report on perceptions of racism on its staff where half of the 186 pages were blacked out. Don't even think about notes from Cheney's Energy Task Force.
--"Scraping to Fill the Shelves of the Bush Library," Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe, May 10, 2006.

Career appointees at the Department of Agriculture were stunned last week to receive e-mailed instructions that include Bush administration "talking points"--saying such things as "President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq"--in every speech they give for the department.
--"The USDA on Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Rosy," Al Kamen, Washington Post, May 8, 2006.



If that's all there was to it, silly memos and blacked-out, redacted governmental reports and government scientists being bullied by political flunkies and hacks--that would be bad enough.

But it's far more insidious.

It should be common knowledge by now that this administration badgered, bullied, and bribed the CIA to come up with intelligence that would justify their predetermined decision to go to war. Too many books have been written on the subject from insiders who are now out, and from high-ranking generals from within the Pentagon, now retired, who are speaking out, at long last, about the unforgivable rush to an unnecessary, ill-conceived, and ill-planned war in Iraq, which drained valuable and irreplaceable resources from the REAL war we're supposed to be fighting, the so-called "war on terror."

(How can you declare war on "terror"? Consider the London bombing. In spite of all the London law enforcement and military concentration on al Queda contacts in Britain, nobody thought to watch a bunch of disgruntled bozos who decided to blow up a train and a bus. It was an act of terrorism, but it was not committed by an enemy state or by a known terrorist organization. This is the nature of terrorism and there is no such thing as a "war" on it.)

Anyway--we all know now, with sickening certainty, that any intelligence experts who dared speak against the war plans were either marginalized, forced out of their jobs, otherwise ignored, or even, in the case of Joe Wilson, targeted for personal destruction.

News media outlets who played the game were given close access to administration insiders, where they were fed doctored information that bolstered the case for war. Those who dared write against it were frozen out, shut out, and even barred from the White House press room.

This has all been made public now. What is more insidious are the secret moves made by this administration through, not just signing statements, but executive orders.

Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know…Perhaps the most egregious example occurred on November 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both the former president (or his heirs) and the current one…The administration's effort to grandfather the Reagan papers under the act also raised a red flag. President Bush's signature stopped the National Archives from a planned release of documents from the Reagan era, some of which might have shed light on the Iran-Contra scandal and illuminated the role played by the vice-president at the time, George H.W. Bush.

George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination. Their rationales for waging wars in the Middle East will go unchallenged. There will be no chance to weigh the arguments that led the administration to condone torture by our armed forces. The problems of federal agencies entrusted with public welfare during times of national disaster--9-11 and Hurricane Katrina--will be unaddressed. Details on no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected corporations like Halliburton will escape scrutiny, as will the president's role in Environmental Protection Agency's policies on water and air pollution.

This is about much more than the desires of historians and biographers--the best interests of the nation are at stake.
--"Bush's Veil Over History," Kitty Kelley, New York Times, October 10, 2005.


You know, at the time that George H.W. Bush was president, George W. worked for him behind the scenes at the White House. As I recall, it was W. who fired John Sununu, who was chief of staff at the time. W. wasn't governor then. He was working for Daddy.

Now all the work-product he might have put out during those heady days before he was himself selected president, by the same Supreme Court justices who were appointed by Daddy--will be hidden away, along with any other papers from his own administration he deems "private."

Oh, those signing statements! Those executive orders! Consider Executive Order 13292. This is a little-known document signed by Bush that grants the greatest expansion of power of the vice president in American history. According to an article in salon.com, by Sidney Blumenthal, "The order gives the vice-president the same ability to classify intelligence as the president. By controlling classification, the vice president can in effect control intelligence and, through that, foreign policy."

(Blumenthal, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, jokes that, if Cheney had had his way, he'd've classified the accident where he shot his hunting buddy in the face.)

So, Bush works hard to control information and re-write history--especially his part in it--while at the same time, bullying even his closest advisors into giving him only good news. This is how he comes to be cutting a birthday cake with Sen. John McCain when Hurricane Katrina is destroying the Gulf Coast.

In the meantime, Karl Rove, who has been questioned five times by a grand jury for his part in the despicable outing of a CIA intelligence operative whose expertise was weapons of mass destruction--Karl Rove, who is being investigated by a special prosecutor as we speak--Karl Rove has not only kept his job next door to Bush at the White House, but the administration has said flat-out that it would now be Rove's job to concentrate on holding onto the death-grip Republicans have on power, seeing to it that Republicans do not lose their seats in Congress so they can continue to control that branch. He will, basically, be running political campaigns for the Republican National Committee from the White House.

So…who, then, pays his salary?

Well, in part, I DO, FROM MY DEMOCRATIC TAX DOLLARS, which is, at the very least, a conflict of interest, since the White House is supposed to be representative of government of the people, by the people, and for the people--not just REPUBLICAN people.

Aren't there laws that specifically prevent using the White House for political campaign fund-raising and other purposes? Didn't Republicans raise high holy hell because Clinton let a few big donors sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom?

And now our tax dollars are going to pay a fat handsome salary to the fat ugly "boy genius" who sits at the Right Hand of Bush and manipulates political campaigns for the Republicans.

I'm just saying. I'd love to hear what Rush would have had to say if say, James Carville had held a similar West Wing position in the Clinton White House.

So…how is it that a president who is, after all, merely one branch of a three-branch Constitutional form of government, able to get away with all these power grabs?

It's easy. Like an alcoholic whose wife tells his boss that he's sick when he's really hung over, Bush has a chorus of enablers to back him up: a Republican Congress.

Part V: No Checks, No Balances, & No Congressional Oversight

Back in the mid-1990's, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic doners.

In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only TWELVE HOURS OF SWORN TESTIMONY ABOUT THE ABUSE OF PRISONERS IN IRAQ'S ABU GHRAIB PRISON.
(emphasis mine)


Controversies such as the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, abuses at U.S. detention facilities at the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons, and the revealing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's name have gone largely unscrutinized on Capitol Hill...

Some of the recent hearings defined as oversight by panel leadership in fact serve to advance a Bush administration agenda. In addition to hearings into faith-based service providers and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, House and Senate panels have sought to expose dangers of buying imported pharmaceuticals sold on the Internet, buttressing a Republican drug-industry position that Americans should not be permitted to buy cut-rate prescription drugs outside the United States…

But the agenda was different during the Clinton administration. The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,520 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997-2002, and ONLY ELEVEN RELATED ALLEGATIONS OF REPUBLICAN ABUSE.
(emphasis mine)
--"Congress Reduces its Oversight Role," Susan Mulligan, Boston Globe, November 20, 2005.

That was a long quotation from a dense article, and I wish that were the end of it. I could move on to the next section. Unfortunately, that is only part of the picture of a lapdog Congress willing to allow a power-mad president to do pretty much whatever he pleases.

But if, say, he insists on breaking the law, as he has done many times, and he is actually caught out on it in a court of law, and the courts rule against him--well, that's what the checks and balances are for, right? To check and to balance power so this country will never have to endure the insane rule of a power-mad monarch again.

Ah, what naïve innocents those framers of the Constitution were! If they only knew! Once the courts rule against the president, this rubber-stamp GOP Congress simply changes the law to accommodate him.

Imagine being stopped for speeding and having the local legislature raise the limit so you won't have to pay the fine…It's a familiar pattern. President Bush ignores the Constitution and the laws of the land, and the cowardly, rigidly partisan majority in Congress helps him out by rewriting the laws he's broken.

Putting on face paint and pretending that illusion is reality is fine for Kabuki theater. Congress should have higher standards.
"Kabuki Congress," New York Times editorial, March 6, 2006


Once in a great while though, the GOP-dominated Congress runs a little short of the majority they need to stamp out civil liberties or enable the president to break the law. In some cases, for instance, Bush wanted to appoint someone to a position of grave importance to the functioning of our government, and when he insisted on appointing a political flunky who would do nothing but harm in the position, the spineless Congress put its weak little foot down and said no.

Usually this happens right before they are scheduled to go home during a break, and they're going to have to face down their constituents, the farmers and housewives and teachers and truck drivers and office drones who glanced away from American Idol long enough to realize that their elected representatives weren't getting a damn thing done in Congress but voting themselves a raise.

So they say no, and then they go home to preen for the cameras.

And while they are gone, Bush makes an end run around another one of those pesky checks or balances and makes a presidential appointment while Congress is in recess, without their approval or vetting scrutiny.

Yes, other presidents have done this before, but not with such breathtaking arrogance or frequency as this president. Recently, he snuck in a couple of political hacks into powerful positions as public trustees over matters directly effecting Social Security and Medicare. The rules on these appointments are strict, and deliberately designed to prevent the appointments of partisan flunkies into such important positions.

But King George does not care.

Part VI: WHAT Freedom of Speech?

A White House staff member was responsible for asking three people to leave President Bush's town hall meeting in Denver a year ago, a U.S. Secret Service agent said during an internal investigation of the event….the three people were ousted from the Bush event last March because their car's bumper sticker criticized his foreign policy…staffers had identified them as "potential protesters."
--"Bush Staffers Ejected 3 at Speech," Howard Pankratz, Denver Post, March 20, 2006.


One of the things that makes me so mad about the systematic manner in which the Bush administration squelches dissent and stages events for the media with pre-screened, ticket-holding Republican canned audiences, is how they keep blabbing about how "our troops" are "fighting for our freedom."

WHAT FREEDOM?

If it was just a matter of the Secret Service throwing protesters out and encouraging local law enforcement to arrest them for public disturbances, which has happened dozens of times at Bush events, that would be bad enough.

But as with everything else this administration touches, it is far more sinister.

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources…Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation.

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from the Washington Post. "Some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad.

"We do not want to inadvertently threaten human life or legitimately harm national security in our reporting," he said, "But it's important…in our constitutional system that these final decisions be made by newspaper editors and not the government."
--"White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks," Dan Eggen, Washington Post, March 5, 2006.


Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who used to be Bush's private attorney, has threatened to prosecute newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post for reporting the governmental abuses of power that won them a total of seven Pulitzer Prizes between them last year alone.

It disturbs me greatly that when governmental rottenness is exposed by an American free press, as is their right according to the very first amendment to our Constitution laid forth by our founding fathers…that rather than attempt to correct the problems or stop the criminal behavior that has been revealed, this administration chooses instead to persecute and prosecute that free press for reporting it in the first place.

Have you ever noticed that when a dictator takes over a foreign government or, as in the case of Russia's Vladimir Putin, chooses to solidify their power--the VERY FIRST THING THEY DO IS SUPPRESS THE FREE PRESS. Any dissenting voices are shut down. This is what dictators do.

This is what dictators do.

And if we, as a people, sit back and allow this to happen, and by our very apathy, give our tacit permission, then we deserve to lose our freedoms.

Secret law-breaking has now been supplanted by brazen law-breaking. The difference is critical. If abuses of power are kept secret, there is still the possibility that, when exposed, they will be stopped. But if they are exposed and still permitted to continue, then every remedy has failed, and the abuse is permanently ratified. In that case, what will be ratified is a presidency that has risen above the law.
--"The Hidden State Steps Forward," Jonathan Schell, The Nation, January 9, 2006.

Part VII: Imperial Presidency

Bush's tendencies seem to reflect a broader trend. America has developed an imperial style of diplomacy…Apart from the resentment that the imperial style produces, the aloof attitude means that American officials don't benefit from the experience and expertise of foreigners.
"An Imperial Presidency," Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, December 19, 2005.


Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran...The Independent and the Guardian suggest that a phone call from the U.S. president to British Prime Minister Tony Blair led to the removal of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Friday.
--"Did Bush Force British Minister Out?" CBS News, May 7, 2006.


In other words, not only does Bush repress freedom of speech in our own country while professing to be advancing the cause of freedom elsewhere in the world, but he also represses freedom of speech in other free countries.

Do you remember how, in the days following the tragic events of 9-11, there were street demonstrations all over the world--even in countries like Iran--in support and sympathy for the United States?

Now look. Bush has taken that universal well-being and not only squandered it, but basically destroyed it. Tony Blair is now in very serious trouble within his own party and is looking to be forced out soon, in large part because of his loyalty to George W. Bush.

Recently, no less a conservative bastion than the Cato Institute published a scathing criticism of their own golden boy Bush's "ceaseless push for power, unchecked by either the courts or Congress…"

Republican Congressmen are coming out of the closet and speaking out as well, as Bob Barr, who called on Congress to exercise leadership by putting the Constitution above party politics and insisting on the facts.

Furthermore, the paper published by the Cato Institute says, "The Constitutional text will not support anything like the doctrine of the presidential absolutism the administration flirts with…"

But, ultimately, the responsibility does not lie with Congress or with the courts.

It lies with us. You and me, babe.

The American people have got to realize what is taking place, both in secret and in public, that is slowly dismantling the government so carefully structured more than 200 years ago so that we would never, ever again have to suffer the indignities foisted on us by another mad King George.

While we've still got a democracy…while we've still got freedom of speech…we'd better speak truth to power. We'd better speak out at the ballot box.

In no uncertain terms, it is up to us, the American people, to see to it that the concepts our troops really are fighting and dying for overseas are not just words in a civics textbook or political flag-waving speech, but really, really mean something.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Why "When They Stand Up, We'll Stand Down" Only Works in Bush-World, Not in the Real One

"…U.S. troops have developed a deep distrust of their Iraqi counterparts following a slew of incidents that suggest the troops they are training are cooperating with their enemies."
--"In Iraqi Town,Trainees Are Also Suspects," Washington Post, April 29, 2006


"The graduation of nearly 1,000 new Iraqi Army soldiers in restive Anbar province took a disorderly turn Sunday when dozens of the men declared they would refuse to serve outside their home areas…They took an oath of service while U.S. and Iraqi officials delivered speeches hailing the event as an important step toward the formation of a national army. Then some soldiers started tearing their clothes off to demonstrate their rage."
--"Iraqis Begin Duty With Refusal," Washington Post, May 2, 2006.


"Horton said he gives Iraqi officers just minutes' notice when bringing them on a mission, and never tells them exactly where they will be going to prevent them from tipping off insurgents."
--"In Iraqi Town, Trainees Are Also Suspects," Washington Post, April 29, 2006.



Over and over again, I see this administration reel off numbers of Iraqi Army troops that have been trained--usually inflated numbers, at that--as proof positive that this fledgling government needs only to get enough troops trained in its army, and then we can all go home.

Looking all decisive and commander-in-chief-y, Bush stated flat-out that, "When they stand up, we'll stand down."

It's such a great slogan. And this administration has succeeded in only one thing in their six years in office--coming up with all sorts of really great slogans.

Like this standing-up, standing-down business. Get enough troops trained, they will stand up for their fabulous new country, and salute our boys as they head for the house.

If only the real world were as simple as Bush-world. If only catchy, decisive-sounding slogans could really be TRUE. Wouldn't that be great? Our military is working very hard, as we speak, to train Iraqi army troops and police forces, and do you know what many of those well-trained troops are then doing?

"Earlier this month, a U.S. sniper team caught 14 policemen placing roadside bombs in the nearby town of Riyadh. More than 60 other police officers are named on a watch list of suspected insurgent collaborators, according to U.S. military policemen who train them. And last week a raging fire erupted from a sabotaged oil pipeline 50 feet from a police checkpoint…"
--In Iraqi Town, Trainees Are Also Suspects," Washington Post, April 29, 2006.


I have read more cases than I can dig up in my files of American troops planning missions and local police or Iraqi army troops refusing to go along. When the commander insists, they suddenly have "intelligence" of a roadside bomb along the proposed route. Or of Iraqi police IN THE PAY OF THE INTERIOR MINISTRY, blowing up oil pipelines, with the full knowledge of their superiors.

And that doesn't even begin to address the problem of militia death squads. Just yesterday, the bodies of 43 Iraqi men, mostly Sunni, were discovered littering Baghdad from one end to the other. They were bound, gagged, tortured, and shot in the head. 43. In one night. In one town.

Training Iraqi army troops is just as problematic because they only want to serve at home, in their own regions. They are afraid that if, say, they are Sunni troops and are posted in Shi'ite areas, they will be murdered by the death squads. They are equally afraid that if they do not remain to defend their homes, the death squads will murder their families.

The graduation ceremony of 1,000 troops in the Anbar province is a highly visible embarrassment to an administration that insists such additions to the Iraqi army automatically solve the problems.

That particular graduation was filmed, and I saw the footage on ABC evening news, in case you don't trust the Post. The ceremony was going along peachy-keen, with all sorts of preening by administration mouthpieces and military brass. Then, midway through, an announcement was made that the Sunni troops would be posted in Shi'ite areas because the thinking goes that mixing Sunni troops with Shi'ite will cut down on death squads.

A loud roar of protest immediately went up from the assembled soldiers, and dozens of them angrily ripped off their uniforms and flung them to the ground.

"U.S. military authorities, who issued a statement that on Sunday night that made no mention of the incident, gave a more subdued account of what happened."
--"Iraqis Begin Duty With Refusal," Washington Post, May 2, 2006.


In other words, if we say it didn't happen, it didn't happen.

Even those Iraqi army troops who do cooperate and follow orders, do so in secret. They go home by public bus, in civilian clothes, and they tell no one what they are doing. They fear murderous reprisals against their families for even appearing to cooperate with the Americans.

And if the Americans were to try and force-feed, say, Kurdish troops on a Sunni area, they would have a whole new war to fight.

How in the world are American Marines and army troops who are training the Iraqi army supposed to go about their jobs when they know full-well that the same techniques they are teaching these guys will then be used against them?

How in the world are they supposed to train people who they know hate them?

How are they supposed to arm and train men they can't trust?

Yes, there have been reported incidents of successful joint missions, and of American officers claiming that they would trust their Iraqi counterparts with their lives. But it all depends upon which part of the country the training is taking place. And the higher the rank of the military spokesman, the more likely they will be saying what they know they are supposed to say.

As my son says, "We stand them up for the media and tell them to smile . Then we go on about our business."

American troops have reported far more cases of Iraqi army troops running from firefights, standing back laughing when Americans hit a roadside bomb, and simply disappearing altogether from duty. I have also read too many cases where the Americans may like a given commander, only to lose him to murderous violence by enemies who would punish him for cooperating with the U.S. And the punishment is savage.

But for every genuine friend to America, there are just as many of those Iraqi army troops who will shake hands warmly with the Americans by day, and then sneak out by night to set the roadside bomb that will destroy them come dawn.

And what about the religious leaders who tell the Iraqi troops that if they cooperate with the Americans, they won't go to heaven? It is happening.

But, unlike the Iraqi army, our American Marines and army troops DO obey their commander-in-chief. And if he says, We must train the Iraqi army troops come hell or high water, then they do as they have been ordered.

Even if it kills them.

Absolutely AMAZING News About Our Injured Marine, Ben Hardgrove

Guys,

It's been a while since I posted an update on our own Jamie Woodard's son, Ben Hardgrove, who was struck by a car just hours after returning from his second deployment to Iraq with the Marines 3/7.

For a month he lay in a coma at the hospital in Palm Springs, CA that saved his life, and they told his mother that Ben was in a "persistent vegetative state" and that only a miracle would enable him to recover.

But the "soldier's angels"--volunteers who sat by Ben's bedside when his distraught mother had to return to Texas to care for her other children--told her every day that they were certain Ben was trying to wake up but that he was being kept heavily sedated and restrained.

She searched for, and found a superb facility in Austin, the Texas Neurological Rehabilitation Center, and convinced the Marine Corps to transfer Ben there. They did so last Thursday.

Here is Jamie's journal entry on the caringbridges website, which is set up for the parents of injured servicemembers to post updates on their progress for family and friends:

"The trach may be coming out tomorrow then it will be 24 hours before he can talk. The therapist told us he will be talking in no time. The optimism about him is so incredible and so good to hear, after all the negative in California.

"I missed it but when his sister came to talk to him, they said he slightly smiled at her.

"FRIDAY, MAY 05, 2006 11:56 PM, CDT

"Ben had rehab today, he did very well, he was able to tolerate standing for a short while. He is no longer in a coma. The track was downsized and he said OWWW! as he was moved from the bed to the table. He was also able to tell us his throat hurt by shaking his head yes. He can focus pretty well with his eyes. The meds are being weaned down some. He likes his face to be washed and to have lotion on his hands, Im not touching his stinky feet, he has foot rot from the time in Iraq, but we are working on it.

"The rehab lets me and his step dad watch while he is getting treatment and we can participate with it. I am learning a lot. He finally had real clothes on today, which is such a plus and shoes. It makes him not look like a patient in the hospital. Im finding I like taking care of him, and he likes to hear my voice, I think he is saying hi mom sometimes. The trach has made a huge difference. The trach may come out next week, which will be a huge plus for him, he does not like it.

"He has lost about 50 lbs, and his muscles have lost tone, but they will rest him over the weekend and put cast on next week to straighten his arms out. Things look good right now, and we pray for more progress each day. I have had to make myself go into his room every day, but it has gotten easier the more progress I see. I know he hears us, and I hate leaving him each evening. They have let us stay for 12 hours a day with him, which has been good for me. His stepdad lotions him, and talks to him about "boy" stuff. I tend to baby him. His rehab will rival boot camp, he will wish he was back in San Diego!!

"Hopefully more progress tomorrow.

"Bensmom"

Guys, I tell you, ever since that boy got hurt, and I knew what my friend and fellow Marine mom Jamie was going through, it's been as though a dark cloud hovered over me day and night. I was heartsick and scared and praying but not knowing even WHAT to pray for, you know?
But the e-mails I got from so many of you who prayed so passionately and shared Ben's story with prayer groups and checked on his progress and donated money...I can never express to you what it has meant, not just to me, but to Jamie. You guys from the Marine Corps family don't know her and your sons don't know Ben, but that didn't matter. He was a Marine just back from the war, and that's all any of you needed to know.

You have cradled us all in your arms and in your hearts, and we are so very grateful.

Obviously, Ben has a very, very long road ahead of him. He will most likely never be the same. But he is alive, and with the grace of God, able to stand up.

He is able to stand up!!!!!!!

Miracles DO happen, and don't you ever forget it. When I read the journal entry, I ran sobbing to my bewildered husband, who hugged me and said, "You should be happy!" And I said, "THIS IS HAPPY YOU BIG DUMMY!"

If you'd like to read Jamie's progress reports, visit:

www.caringbridges.org/visit/lcplbenhardgrove.

Let's all keep praying, and I will post updates from time to time.

Semper fidelis,
Deanie