Get the Facts Newsletter, December 2005
Volume 1, Issue 10
Seasons greetings, everyone! As the year 2005 draws to a close and I reflect back on it, I realize it has been a particularly tough one, not just on Capital Hill but all around the globe. Even though the tragedies are very fresh in my mind, so are the good things. Here are just a few:
- Two of our own, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the world's biggest-hearted rock star, Bono, were named TIME magazine's Persons of the Year.
- Cindy Sheehan single-handedly raised the volume of protest against the Iraq War and showed the world that not all Americans believe in it.
- Bullying by the Bush Administration to justify torture and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been thwarted multiple times, thanks to heroic bipartisan efforts.
- In a world teeming with intractable tribal and religious conflicts, Ireland's peace agreement remains intact.
- And the Seahawks have a winning record that might just take them all the way to the Super Bowl! Go Seahawks!
The list goes on, and I'm sure all of you have good-news stories of your own. So, as we celebrate this holiday season, keep those good thoughts in mind. I plan to support one of my favorite charities, Save the Children, and stop and say a special prayer for peace in 2006.
Sincerely,
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On December 15, Iraqis participated in their most important election to date: choosing a government to run their fledgling democracy for the next four years. As heartening as it is to see Iraqis exercising their right to vote, it remains just that: an exercise. Unfortunately, it does not represent the victory for democracy that the Bush Administration would have you believe.
Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya of the New York Times recently wrote an article explaining how the election is flawed in three ways: 1.) It creates a parliament that can override the executive branch; 2.) it creates an executive branch that is divided between a president and a council of ministers that will cause a constant tension between the two factions that will control the government, the Shi'a and the Kurds; 3.) it encourages local governments to break off and become sovereign.
Makiya writes, "The increasing daily casualty rate for Iraqis, from 26 in early 2004 to an average of 64 in this fall, is only the most glaring sign that something has gone terribly wrong [in the new Iraqi government], and not for lack of any American effort to turn the situation around. Unfortunately, we cannot expect the situation to change following Thursday's election. There is little chance that the winner will command the authority inside Parliament to reverse the decline, for a simple reason: the Constitution."
WHAT 'STAYING THE COURSE' REALLY MEANS
Columnist Robert Dreyfuss recently wrote a take-down in the Asia Times of President Bush's most favorite explanation for why we cannot withdraw our troops from Iraq: that we must "stay the course." From Dreyfuss's perspective, "staying the course" really means emboldening the radical Islamic right.
He argues that "Today, the unpleasant reality is that 150,000 U.S. troops, who are dying at a rate of about 100 a month, are the Praetorian Guard for [a] radical-right theocracy. It is a regime that sponsors Shi'ite-led death squads carrying out assassinations from Basra (where freelance reporter Steven Vincent, himself murdered by such a unit, wrote that "hundreds" of former Ba'athists, secular leaders, and Sunnis were being killed every month) to Baghdad. . . . Perhaps the ultimate irony of Bush's war on terrorism is this: While the president asserts that the war in Iraq is the central front in the struggle against what he describes as "Islamofascism," real "Islamofascists" are already in power in Baghdad—and they are, shamefully, America's allies."
Colombia recently passed a law to demobilize paramilitary forces. While this sounds like it should be a good thing, in reality, this law could result in greater impunity for those forces that have committed heinous human rights violations.
Associated Press writer Dan Molinski reports that "In exchange for disbanding, the fighters from the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, were granted amnesty and will begin receiving a monthly stipend of $180 from the government. . . . By demobilizing, paramilitary leaders are given sharply reduced prison sentences for crimes they may have committed, including massacres of civilians."
Reuters reporter Jason Webb adds, "The peace talks with the AUC have led to a steep drop in violence in a country struggling with a four-decade-old guerrilla war. . . . But the talks have been marred by disputes over how AUC chiefs should pay for their crimes, especially the large-scale cocaine trafficking which has made several of them the object of extradition requests from the United States."
Everyone knows by now that the federal budget under the Bush Administration has been hemorrhaging money. We Democrats have been using both our fingers and our toes to plug the leaking dike.
At this festive time of year, when our nation's focus turns strongly to Christianity, it is interesting to note that the way Christians help the neediest members of our society sometimes depends on where they fall on the political spectrum. Jonathan Weisman and Alan Cooperman of the Washington Post recently wrote a thought-provoking article that shines a harsh light on the budget priorities of Christian Conservatives. They quote Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based Christian organization, as saying, "It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important. But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy—that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."
And we Democrats respectfully—and legislatively—disagree with:
- Taking child care away from 300,000 children.
- Removing $700 million in Social Security benefits.
- Saving $21 billion by cutting child-support enforcement.
- Decreasing poor people's health-care coverage by $10 billion.
- Taking food stamps away from 300,000 people.
That's not the kind of budget a Democrat-controlled House and Senate would ever consider passing.
Here are just a couple of the Web sites I rely on to get the facts:
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
By George Packer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2005)
Written in first person by New Yorker staff writer George Packer, this book demonstrates how our interference with Iraq has gotten us trapped in a guerilla war. It is the best, most concise, and most complete account of how we got into this mess in the first place.
On Bullshit
By Professor Harry G. Frankfurt (Princeton University Press; 2005)
My colleagues know me as an incurable reader, so when one of them heard me say "humbug" recently, he suggested I needed to understand the relationship between "humbug" and "bullshit." Then, for Christmas, he presented me with On Bullshit, a funny but thoughtful essay by Harry G. Frankfurt, a renowned moral philosopher from Princeton. It seems this dog is not too old to learn some new tricks.
Note: Jim McDermott is not responsible for content on Web sites listed in this newsletter except for http://www.mcdermottforcongress.com.
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Revision date: January 5, 2006
