An Iraq Timetable: It’s About Time (7 Letters) written to the NY Times that should be printed and distributed to every member of Congress:

To the Editor: Re “Democrats Back Date for Start of Iraq Pullout” (front page, April 24): President Bush argues: “An artificial timetable of withdrawal would say to an enemy, ‘Just wait them out.’ It would say to the Iraqis, ‘Don’t do hard things necessary to achieve our objectives,’ and it would be discouraging for our troops.” The reality is just the opposite. The American occupation itself means that the Iraqis — both the warring groups and the government — can procrastinate all they like. American troops become both the targets of all and the excuse for doing nothing. The only thing that will thoroughly concentrate Iraqi minds on confronting the challenges of a postwar Iraq is to put those challenges right in their face through a pullout timetable. Philip G. Cerny Newark, April 24, 2007. The writer is a professor of global affairs at Rutgers University-Newark.

•To the Editor: Thankfully, the Democrats will vote to bring the troops home from Iraq, but they will face a presidential veto. The only way a veto can be overridden is for some Republicans to join the Democrats. If Republicans cannot listen to their own hearts for guidance in this matter, then perhaps they should listen to American voters. Christopher Woods Chappell Hill, Tex., April 24, 2007

• To the Editor: Regarding the looming showdown over Iraq spending and timetables for withdrawal, Congress and the public should demand that the president offer up his own strategy for pressing the Iraqi government to achieve the political milestones that have been on the table for so many months. Everyone seems to agree that the Iraqi leadership must take political actions to promote reconciliation, but the deadlines in the Congressional spending bill offer the only concrete approach to pressing the Maliki government to take such actions. If the president rejects this approach and declines to propose an alternative, it will be clear that he is the one failing to support our troops. Barry Finkelstein Portsmouth, N.H., April 24, 2007

• To the Editor: Last September, President Bush announced a last-ditch plan to pacify Baghdad: build trenches around the city. “They’re building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices,” he said. But this insane plan to encircle a metropolis of five million people with a medieval moat was rejected by the Iraqis. The most recent plan to engineer the city into submission was to build a wall separating Sunnis from Shiites. But the Iraqis don’t want to live with apartheid-like divisions, and that plan has just been scrapped (“Iraqi Premier Orders Work Stopped on Wall,” news article, April 23). Rather than invent another civil engineering fantasy, it’s time for real solutions to the violence in Iraq: the American troops must withdraw, and Iraqis, with the help of the international community, must begin a process of reconciliation. Medea Benjamin, San Francisco, April 23, 2007 The writer is a co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink.

• To the Editor:While Senator Harry Reid’s comment that “this war is lost” has caused a spirited debate, I prefer to focus on his other comment that there is no military solution to Iraq’s problems. Our military and others secured a military victory in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was removed from power. The United States military is not trained for nation-building. While our troops are the best in the world when it comes to military intervention and domination, our troops are not diplomats. We must let the Iraqis build their own nation. It’s time to get our troops out of Iraq. Alan Rivers Carmel, Ind., April 24, 2007

•To the Editor: When Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and connections to 9/11 failed to materialize, his torture chambers became one of the Bush administration’s justifications for its urgent need to overthrow him. If some future American “success” in Iraq leaves in place an Iraqi security force that uses torture (“3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work,” front page, April 22), what will have been accomplished with the loss of more than 3,300 American lives and unknown thousands of Iraqi lives? Richard Khanlian Santa Fe, N.M., April 22, 2007

• To the Editor: Re “Iraq’s Desperate Exodus” (editorial, April 22): Having triggered the causes behind the tragic refugee crisis in Iraq, the United States is under a profound moral duty to provide sanctuary for those thousands of Iraqis at risk for aligning with the American forces. To facilitate evacuation on any meaningful scale, however, would imply recognition that our now-stated objectives of bringing stability and democratic governance to Iraq are no longer achievable — a reality glaringly evident to all but the Bush administration. Richard Boyce, San Francisco, April 23, 2007

Connect the dots:

Bush is advised that global warming will have disastrous negative impacts on the availability of potable water. Then, the Bush crime family quietly acquires extensive land holdings (almost 100,000 acres) in Chaco, Paraguay, practically next-door to a plantation owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

It's not a coincidence that the Bushies land is located on top of one of the world's largest fresh water aquifers. Bush says "global warming is nonsense, of course." And Bush orders that scientific findings to the contrary be stifled. I suspect this land grab will prove to be a very profitable enterprise for the Bush crime family.

Incidentally, there is creditable evidence to suggest that the Bushies will use their hide-a-way "residence" in Paraguay to escape future war crimes trials. Question: "Why might the president and his family need a 98,840-acre ranch in Paraguay protected by a semi-secret U.S. military base manned by American troops who have been exempted from war-crimes prosecution by the Paraguyan government?"*

Perhaps the impeachment trial will help answer that question and many others.

 * See: Bush Land Grab

Take Back the Airwaves - By Amy Goodman
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/take_back_the_airwaves/

As the TV pundits on the networks gab about the tens of millions of dollars raised by the top presidential candidates, what they don’t talk about is where that money is going: to their own networks.

Money is now considered the single most important factor in our electoral process. Ideas and issues take a back seat to the bottom line. This prostitution of our electoral process has one key culprit: television advertising.

Political advertising makes or breaks candidates, and it takes a huge amount of money to implement a national advertising strategy. Now more than 20 states are piling onto Feb. 5, 2008, as their primary day, including states like California and New York with large, expensive media markets. The early, deciding role of money and television advertising in determining who gets to run for president is secure.

The costs of running for federal office have been skyrocketing. More than $880 million was raised by the 2004 presidential campaigns. The 2008 election is expected to cost more than $1 billion. Sixty percent will be spent on advertising.

The citizens are the losers, and the broadcasters and elite political consultants are the winners. We ought to turn this around. The public owns the airwaves that are being used by the big corporate broadcasters. The broadcasters, like NBC, ABC and CBS, have an obligation to use those airwaves “in the public interest, convenience and necessity.” These profitable corporations take these public airwaves for free, then peddle them for exorbitant advertising rates.

We have to ask, as U.S. servicemen and -women are being killed overseas ostensibly in defense of democracy, why are our airwaves, the single most important method by which Americans get information about choosing the future president, being held hostage by corporate broadcasters?

The answer: the NAB, or the National Association of Broadcasters, which convenes its annual trade show in Las Vegas next week. The NAB is one of Washington’s largest and most influential lobbying groups, representing the owners of TV and radio stations. For the tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions they dole out annually, broadcasters get back billions in corporate welfare, in the form of legislation that protects their ability to sell ads over the public airwaves.

Some bold members of Congress have tried throughout the decades to end this stranglehold on the political process. Sen. Bill Bradley tried in the 1990s. He said then: “Today’s Senate campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters. You simply transfer money from contributors to television stations.”

In 2003, Sen. Russ Feingold, along with Sens. Richard Durbin, Jon Corzine and John McCain, submitted the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act, which proposed a system of advertising vouchers for candidates. Feingold said at the time: “The public owns the airwaves and licenses them to broadcasters. Broadcasters pay nothing for their use of this scarce and very valuable public resource. Their only ‘payment’ is a promise to serve the public interest, a promise that often goes unfulfilled.”

The senators wanted to close a loophole allowing broadcasters to extract top dollar for desirable ad slots. Existing law compels broadcasters to give candidates the lowest ad rate for a given market, but as a result the broadcasters threaten to relegate the ads to the middle of the night. So candidates pony up. A 2002 study by the Alliance for Better Campaigns even showed that stations were hiking ad rates in the lead-up to elections by as much as 53 percent.

Now Durbin is taking another crack at the NAB. He has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act, which would both grant vouchers for broadcast ads and mandate a 20 percent discount beyond the lowest unit cost of ads near primary and election times.

While the public airwaves are sold off to the highest campaign bidders (often to push negative ads, but that is another issue), the broadcasters fail miserably to report on the campaigns. After all, if the broadcasters fulfilled their public-interest obligations and actually reported fully and consistently on the various candidates and their issues, and not just on the campaign horse race, then there would be less need for campaigns to buy ads in the first place.

More than $2 billion will be poured into the broadcasters’ coffers in the 2008 election cycle, almost all for use of the airwaves that the public owns. Imagine what could be done with that money—to register and educate voters, to fully equip polling stations with functioning voting machines, to produce many vigorous debates and public forums.

The American public is being robbed by the National Association of Broadcasters. It’s time to take back the airwaves.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.

© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate

Political pundits now forecast a billion dollar 2008 presidential campaign. This seems troubling to me, especially because of the practice by corporation-funded lobbyists who gather small contributions into $100,000 “bundles” and make contributions to selected candidates – of course - hoping for future favors. Also, I suspect that the corporations that profit from war and other related military contracts find ways to support candidates who favor "the troop surge” in Iraq, and who also oppose a 2008 cut-off date for troop withdrawals. Just connect the dots: Billion dollar political campaigns mean more military spending and more money for war.

And, it seems that there is excessive corporate influence which extends almost everywhere. A Massachusetts based group of political activists claim: ”Giant corporations are in our schools, town halls, statehouses, and Congress. They block sane, logical programs in food, energy, transportation, health care, finance, forestry, and manufacturing. They fund think tanks and universities to frame public debate. They buy obedience and define society's values. They also instruct and control the government.“ But, it wasn’t always like this.

Accounting to one historical account: "Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.” However, the States had stringent laws controlling corporations. For example, " corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws. If corporations exceeded their authority or caused public harm their charters were revoked. Most importantly, corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making."

Because of the overwhelming, pervasive influence of corporations upon our elections, and the laws enacted by government in their behalf , we are, de facto, no longer a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Of course, we can, and we must change this, and can begin by prohibiting corporations to neither make political contributions or influence elections, nor spend money to influence law making. I hope voters will insist that every presidential wannabe pledge to make this a priority of their administration.

"Impeaching Bush and Co. ultimately won't change anything unless we deal with the corrupt powers, which control and direct them. George Bush is just a finger-puppet of the hidden hand, which animates him. Bush only has apparent power, as he himself is a minion of far more powerful predator-like forces whose nefarious interests he serves. Whether we call it the illuminati, the global elite, a shadow government, or a secret cabal, there is no doubt that there are darker, self-serving forces that have insinuated themselves into and taken over our government. The terrorists that we should be worried about are domestic terrorists who are actually implementing their agendas from deep within our very system of government itself." from http://www.awakeninthedream.com/indexx.html