Warning! This is one of those diaries with just a couple of links and shamefully little content! But the content is juicy, I promise...see below!

I'm not claiming to be an expert on Pakistan and its history, but there are some pretty important issues taking place there lately and I feel the international media is not giving it the attention (or at least the volume) it deserves. With the Taliban steadily increasing its footprint closer to Islamabad, President Musharreef seems to be incapable on controlling the country. Pakistan is, in fact, the most dangerous country in the world because of the virtually unregulated Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where al Qaeda has found a home, and because the country has working nuclear weapons. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

I have repeatedly tried over the past month to get an answer from my Senator from Virginia, Senator Jim Webb, or anyone on his staff as to why he voted to give Bush dictatorial powers to spy on Americans at will.

To reiterate, Webb and 19 other Democrats voted:

1. to retroactively legalize ALL unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping Bush has ever done in violation of the Fourth Amendment, by giving telecommunications companies the same amnesty the Federal Government has to disobey the law at will; and

2. to prospectively give Bush dictatorial powers to spy on ANYONE at ANY TIME without ANY CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTION WHATSOEVER by making clear that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for the first time since it became law in 1978, does not require the President to exclusively act within its dictates.  

This means that the President is under no restrictions except the Fourth Amendment. But since he is immune from suit under the Fourth Amendment, we are all, in effect, helpless.

The vote of Webb - and 19 other Democratic Senators (and all Republicans) - assures that if Bush electronically "breaks in" to the Watergate Complex to steal DNC secrets and covers it up, Bush gets off scot-free.

Nixon, at long last, is vindicated.

Can you imagine that as the headline in the NYT after our November elections?  In Pakistan, 18 deaths have been reported with over 150 people injured in what was described as a "fairly orderly" election.  I suppose one way to effectively "disenfranchise" a voter is to kill them?  Or send them to the hospital on election day?  This to me, demonstates how far countries like Pakistan have left to go before they can claim to have lifted themselves up to our level of absurdly corruptable and messy process.

Note: This writer beleves that the democratic process is inherently "messy."  And, doesn't beleve that we need to have chosen nominees prior to the conventions.  We must be careful of making the process too orderly, and destroying it in the process.  There seems to be a trend of the media being in a hurry to remove all uncertainty from the race.  Isn't the Presidency important enough to hear from all the voters in all the states before proclaiming a "winner" and truncating the debate about important issues?  Generic creator diety forbid that we take time away from reality television to work on improving the nation.

Today one of my biggest fears is gone.  For a decade, I've lived in dread that one day Rudy Giuliani would be President.  We always knew in NYC he was projecting himself nationally with his police tactics.  I believe one of the implicit goals of Bin Laden on 9/11 was to propel Giuliani to the Presidency.  That will never happen now.  Here's my visual tribute to Rudy Giuliani -- The Man Who Will Not Be President:

Rudy Giuliani:  The World Is Mine
More:

In a stunning speech Sen Whitehouse (in two parts here) reveals recently declassified opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel that boil down to this:

1. "I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them."

2. "I get to determine what my own powers are."

3. "The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is, I tell the Department of Justice what the law is."

There has been a coup.

It could never happen here.  Not in a million years.  That's what we tell ouselves, that's what we tell others around us.  But, deep inside, there lives a fear that won't go away until we call it by name, and banish it forever.  So lets talk about it.

The ingredients are there, one could say for the cake, and now someone is turning on the oven.  (please insert your own half-baked joke here)  What we don't know is will the cake of dictatorship rise or fall?

This is too dark of a subject to be taken without plenty of levity, so sprinkle liberally your humor and sarcasm.

They're at it again!

Why do those four terms strung together make me nervous?  Why, because we now have a State that we know for certain has nuclear weapons, which is on the brink of anarchy thanks to its US supported military dictator, who likely has OBL as one of its "citizens".

While linking OBL to the Bomb may be a stretch, the fact remains that no one really knows how this will turn out.  Least of all Mr. Bush and his F’ed up foreign policy team being administered by Condi, as pointed out in this
NY Times Piece.  Excerpts after the Jump/\

In today's Parade magazine, there's a section labeled 'Dictator Watch' which is a feature article about - Iran's elected president Ahmadinejad.  How ironic!  As has been pointed out here and in other places, Iran's president has less power in that country than their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.  Dictator?  Not even close.

Ever since George W. Bush stole the 2000 election the words ‘tyrant’ and ‘dictator’ have been used to describe him (I image that these terms have been used to describe all our Presidents, by someone or another). As his ‘reign’ has progressed these terms of endearment seem increasingly applicable, but just exactly how amazingly accurate these terms are in describing George Bush is best seen when we examine the roots of these words. Analyzing the roots is more than just a fruitless mental game, but rather they provide us with an insight into ourselves and the precarious state in which our democracy exists. In the words of Karl Marx, "History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce."

There's not much use, as I see it, in writing diaries here that someone else is going to write - probably with a great deal more erudition.
We were all discouraged that the military dictators of Burma weren't thrown out by the recent demonstrations.  The Generals had all the levers of power and they used them ruthlessly.  They stubbornly  refused to negotiate with the opposition.  But just for a moment look at it from their point of view.  What could they realistically expect if they handed over power?  Trouble, nothing but trouble.  It's not just the 18 year old mistresses ,the quavering "yes men", the Dom Perignon and the fine Cuban cigars.  As soon as power slipped from their hands they'd lose all their wealth, be subject to humiliation, killed, or put on trial and eventually imprisoned for life.  Some choice.

It is an obvious and proven fact that dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden and Bush are in the same rank and their dictatorship level is not much different with together...

I was a famous dictator.  Guess my name.

This morning after I read a couple of the wonderful diaries devoted to the recent peace gatherings in Washington D.C., I mentioned to a few friends (West African friends) that people were protesting in Washington D.C. against the war in Iraq.  (I am currently living in a West African country.)

I know that many of us, when President Bush spoke two weeks ago of Iraq and Vietnam, were heartbroken.  I certainly was, and I cannot imagine the heartbreak of those who actually lived through it.  I merely know it from newsreels and books, and I was horrified.  It felt like watching a Nightmare on Elm Street movie and two-thirds through having the characters suggest that the way to deal with Freddy was to hand out free Ambien.

As reported on WESH of Daytona, Florida...

"Local Troops deployed to Nation's Capital"

http://www.wesh.com/...

While the article seems benign, this is the first time since the Civil War that US troops have been deployed to guard in a domestic arena, which was formerly illegal under the antebellum Posse Comitatus act.

Reichstagsbrandverordnung is German for the Reichstag Fire Decree. This is the law that gave Hitler the special powers that transformed him from Germany's Chancellor into a Dictator with unlimited power. Hitler said about the Reichstag Fire "This is a God-given signal." and then he pressed to be given special powers. Does that remind you of anybody in this country?

Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State
(The Reichstag Fire Decree)
February 28, 1933

1. Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. The following are therefore permitted: limits on personal freedom, freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations of property as well as restrictions on property beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Reichstag Fire Decree