May 19, 2008

Dear Admiral Fallon:

I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I have drafted this letter in the hope it will come to your attention.

First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  As you are doubtless aware, that oath has no expiration date; it remains on active duty, so to speak.

You have let it be known that, even though you are now retired, you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about the looming war with Iran.

You are acutely aware of the dangers of attacking Iran, but seem to be allowing an inbred reluctance to challenge your erstwhile commander in chief to trump that oath, and to prevent you from letting the American people know of the catastrophe about to befall us if, as seems likely, our country attacks Iran.

Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.  I found it highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon entering the academy, several of the “Mids” thought it was to the commander in chief.  This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to Hitler.  Not our tradition, and yet…..

I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right—that the oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president.

Attack Iran: Trash the Constitution

No doubt you are very clear that an attack on Iran would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States, which stipulates that treaties ratified by the Senate become the supreme law of the land; that the United Nations Charter treaty—which the Senate ratified by a vote of 89 to 2 on July 28, 1945—expressly forbids attacks on other countries, unless they pose an imminent danger; that there is no provision allowing some other kind of “pre-emptive” or “preventive” attack against a nation that poses no imminent danger; and that Iran poses no imminent danger to the United States or its allies.

You may be forgiven for thinking: Isn’t 41 years of service enough; isn’t it enough that I resigned in order to remove myself from a chain of command with no conscience or respect for national or international law—that I shuddered at the thought of being charged in some earthly or heavenly court as a war criminal, if I “just followed orders” and helped start an unprovoked war on Iran?  Isn’t making my misgivings known to journalists last year, realizing fully that this could be a career-ender—isn’t all that enough?

With respect, sir, no, that’s not enough.  The stakes here are extremely high, and together with the integrity you have already shown goes still further responsibility.  Sadly, the vast majority of your general officer colleagues have, for whatever reason, ducked that responsibility.  You are pretty much it.

In their lust for attacking Iran, administration officials will do their best to marginalize you, but you do not strike me as one likely to be deterred by that.  And, prominent a person that you are, the corporate media surely will try to do the same, if you exposed the lies given as justification for attacking Iran.

Indeed, there are clear signs the media have been given their marching orders to support an attack on Iran—to include pre-censorship of factual stories exposing administration hyperbole and fecklessness, as the White House and the Pentagon paint a dubious portrait of the dangers posed by Iran.

Preparing a Captive Audience for War…

At the CIA I used to analyze the Soviet press, so you will understand when I refer to the Washington Post and the New York Times as the White House’s Pravda and Izvestiya.  Sadly, these days it is as easy as during the days of the controlled Soviet press to follow our own government’s evolving line with a daily reading of our own controlled press.

In a word, our newspapers are dutifully revving up for war on Iran, and are even trotting out some of the most widely discredited cheerleaders for war on Iraq—the New York Times’ Michael Gordon of aluminum tubes fame, for example, who is again parroting what he gets from administration officials and casting it as news.

In some respects the manipulation and suppression of information in the present lead-up to an attack on Iran is even more flagrant and all encompassing than in early 2003 before the invasion of Iraq.

It seems entirely possible that you are unaware of a recent misadventure that speaks volumes about this—unaware precisely because the media have put the wraps on it.  So let me adduce one striking example of what is afoot here.  The example has to do with the studied, if disingenuous, effort over recent months to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the “malignant” influence of Iran.

Sadly, some of your erstwhile colleagues are among the dramatis personae.

…But Covering Up Fiasco

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen told reporters on April 25 that Gen. David Petraeus would be giving a briefing “in the next couple of weeks” that would provide detailed evidence of “just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability.”  Petraeus’ staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.

Small problem.  When American munitions experts went to Karbala to inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons they found nothing that could be linked credibly to Iran.

News to you?  That’s because this potentially embarrassing episode went virtually unreported in the media—like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no corporate media to hear it crash.  So Mullen and Petraeus live, uninhibited and unembarrassed, to keep searching for Iranian weapons so the media can then tell a story more supportive of the orders they have been given to find ways to blame Iran for the troubles in Iraq.  Luckily for them, a fiasco is only a fiasco if folks know about it.

Media suppression of this misadventure is the most significant aspect of this story, in my view, and a telling indicator of how difficult it is to find honest reporting on these key issues.

Meanwhile, the Iraqis announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate U.S. claims about Iranian weapons, and to attempt to “find tangible information and not information based on speculation.”

Dissing the Intelligence Estimate

Top officials from the president on down have been dismissing the key judgment of the National Intelligence Estimate released on December 3, 2007, a judgment concurred in by the 16 intelligence units of our government, that Iran had stopped the weapons-related part of its nuclear program in mid-2003.

Always willing to do his part, the malleable CIA chief, Michael Hayden, on April 30 publicly offered his “personal opinion” that Iran is building a nuclear weapon—the National Intelligence Estimate notwithstanding.  For good measure, Hayden added:

“It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq….Just make sure there’s clarity on that.”

Voicing his various “opinions,” Hayden is beginning to sound like the overly clever lawyers who advised him, orally, that it would be just fine to order NSA to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and like the other attorneys who approved water boarding.

And, please; tell me why we should care about Hayden’s “personal opinion?”  My neighbor Suzie, who gets her news from FOX, keeps voicing her “personal opinion” that all Muslims want to kill Americans, that generals with blue uniforms are the most trustworthy, and that weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq.

But, seriously, I don’t need to tell you about the Haydens and the other smartly saluting, desk-riding headquarters generals here in Washington.

The Price of Silence

What I would suggest is that you have a serious conversation with a real general, Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of your predecessor CENTOM commanders (1997 to 2000).  As you know probably better than I, this Marine general is an officer of unusual integrity.  Nevertheless, when placed into circumstances very similar to those you now face, he could not find his voice.  And so he missed his chance to interrupt—or at least slow down—the juggernaut to war in Iraq.  You might ask him how he feels about that now, and what he would advise in current circumstances.

Zinni happened to be one of the honorees at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention on August 26,2002, at which Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the exceedingly alarmist speech, unsupported by our best intelligence, about the nuclear threat and other perils awaiting us at the hands of Saddam Hussein.  That speech not only launched the seven-month public campaign against Iraq leading up to the war, but set the terms of reference for the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate fabricated—yes, fabricated—to convince Congress to approve war on Iraq, which it did ten days later.

Gen. Zinni later shared publicly that, as he listened to Cheney, he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence that did not square with what he knew.  Although Zinni had retired two years earlier, his role as consultant had required him to stay up to date on intelligence relating to the Middle East.  One Sunday morning three and a half years after Cheney’s speech, Zinni told Meet the Press. “There was no solid proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction…I heard a case being made to go to war.”

Zinni had as good a chance as anyone to stop an unnecessary war—not a “pre-emptive war,” since there was nothing to pre-empt—and Zinni knew it.  What he and other knowledgeable officials could—and should—have tried to block was a war of aggression, defined at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as the “supreme international crime.”

Sure, Zinni would have had to stick his neck out.  He may have had to speak out alone, since most senior officials, like then-CIA Director George Tenet, lacked courage and integrity.  In his memoir published a year ago, Tenet writes that Cheney did not follow the usual practice of clearing his August 26, 2002 speech with the CIA; that much of what Cheney said took him completely by surprise; and that Tenet “had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.”

It is difficult to believe that Cheney’s shameless speech took “slam-dunk” Tenet completely by surprise.  We know from the Downing Street Minutes, vouched for by the UK as authentic, that Tenet told his British counterpart on July 20, 2002 that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”

Encore: Iran

Admiral Fallon, you know this to be the case also now with respect to the “intelligence” being fixed to “justify” war with Iran.  And no one knows better than you that your departure from the chain of command has turned it over completely to smartly saluting martinets.  No doubt you have long since taken the measure, for example, of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.  So have I.

I was his branch chief when he was a young, disruptively ambitious, CIA analyst.  When Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey sought someone to shape CIA analysis to accord with his own conviction that the Soviet Union would never change, Gates leaped at the chance, proved his mettle, and bubbled right up to be chief of analysis.  After Casey died, Gates admitted to the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus that he (Gates) watched Casey on “issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued.”  Gates’ entire career showed that he learned well at Casey’s knee.

So it should come as no surprise that, despite the unanimous judgment of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran stopped the weapons-related aspects of its nuclear program in mid-2003, Gates is now repeating the party line that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.  Some of his earlier statements were more ambiguous, but Gates recently took advantage of the opportunity to bend with the prevailing winds and freshen his own loyalty oath—to the president.

In an interview on events in the Middle East with a New York Times reporter on April 11, Gates was asked whether he was on the same page as the president, Gates replied, “Same line, same word.”  I imagine you are no more surprised at that than I.  Bottom line:  Gates will salute smartly and transmit the order, legal or illegal, if Cheney persuades the president to let the Air Force and Navy loose on Iran.

You know the probable consequences; you need to let the rest of the American people know.

A Gutsy Precedent

Can you, Admiral Fallon, be completely alone; can it be that you are the only general officer to resign on principle?  And, of equal importance, is there no other general officer, active or retired, who has taken the risk of speaking out in an attempt to inform Americans about President George W. Bush’s bellicose fixation with Iran.  Thankfully, there is.

Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, took the prestigious job of Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when asked by the younger Bush.  From that catbird seat, Scowcroft could watch the unfolding of U.S. policy in the Middle East.  Over decades dealing with the press, Scowcroft had honed a reputation of quintessential discretion.  Thus, it was all the more striking when he did what he decided he had to do to warn Americans about what may be the president’s most dangerous fixation.

In an interview with London’s Financial Times in mid-October 2004 Scowcroft was harshly critical of the president, charging that Bush had been “mesmerized” by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.  “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger,” Scowcroft said.  “He has been nothing but trouble.”

Needless to say, Scowcroft was given his walking papers and told never to darken the White House doorstep again.  His very troubling observations have been largely shunned in the media, and banned from polite conversation here in Washington, although the insight they provide is worth a thousand erudite op-eds.  Testifying before Congress on June 16, 2005, I alluded to Scowcroft’s comments, and was widely pilloried in the media the next day for being, you guessed it, “anti-Semitic.”

A Bush Commitment?

There is ample evidence that Sharon’s successors believe they have extracted a commitment from President Bush to “take care of Iran” before he leaves office, and that the president has done nothing to disabuse them of that notion—no matter the consequences.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Sharm el Sheikh on Sunday, Bush threw in a gratuitous reference to “Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.”

“To allow the world’s leading sponsor of terror to gain the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations.  For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Pre-briefing the press, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley identified Iran as one of the dominant themes of the trip, adding repeatedly what seemed to be the PR formula of the day; namely, that Iran “is very much behind” all the woes afflicting the Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza to Iraq, even to Afghanistan.

The Rhetoric is Ripening

In the coming weeks, at least until U.S. forces can find some real Iranian weapons in Iraq, the rhetoric is likely to focus on what I call the Big Lie—the claim that Iran’s president has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”  In his controversial speech in 2005, Ahmadinejad was actually quoting from something Ayatollah Khomeini had said in the early eighties.  Khomeini was expressing a hope that a regime that was treating the Palestinians so unjustly would be replaced by a more equitable one.

A distinction without a difference?  I think not.  Words matter.  As you may already know (but most Americans don’t), the literal translation from Farsi of what Ahmadinejad said is “The regime occupying Jerusalem much vanish from the pages of time.”  Contrary to what the administration and corporate media would have us all believe, the Iranian president was not threatening to nuke Israel, push it into the sea, or wipe it off the map—or, as is so often heard, “destroy” it.

President Bush is way out in front on this issue, and this comes through with particular clarity when he ad-libs answers to questions.  On October 17, 2007, long after he had been briefed on the key intelligence finding that Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons-related part of its nuclear development program, the president spoke as though, well,  “mesmerized.”  He said:

“But this—we got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to destroy Israel.  So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems you ought to be interested in preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.  I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.”

Some contend that Bush does not really believe his rhetoric.  I rather think he does, for the Israelis seem to have his good ear, with the tin one aimed at the U.S. intelligence he has repeatedly disparaged.  But, frankly, which would be worse: that Bush believes Iran to be an existential threat to Israel and thus requires U.S. military action?—or that he knows it’s just rhetoric to “justify” U.S. action to “take care of” Iran for Israel?

What You Can Do

Admiral Fallon, you can surely speak authoritatively about what is likely to happen—to U.S. forces in Iraq, for example—if Bush orders your successors to begin bombing and missile attacks on Iran.  I imagine you have spent more than one sleepless night sorting through the full array of Iranian options for serious retaliation.

And you could readily update Scowcroft’s remarks, by drawing on what you observed of the Keystone Cops efforts of White House ideologues like Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams, supported by amateurish covert action operatives and Israeli intelligence, to overturn by force the ascendancy of Hamas in 2006-07 and Hezbollah.  (Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, but was pardoned by the first President Bush on Dec. 24, 1992.)

Clearly, it is the arch-neoconservative Abrams, aided, instructed, and abetted by the vice president, who is running U.S. policy toward the Middle East.  And it is just as clear that the status of the secretary state has been reduced simply to “frequent flyer.”

It is easy to understand why no professional military officer would wish to be in the position of taking orders originating from the likes of Abrams—not to mention the vice president.

If you weigh in, as I believe your (non-expiring) oath to protect and defend the Constitution dictates, you might conceivably prompt other sober heads and courageous hearts to speak out.  I hope you will agree that an attack on Iran can still be prevented, but it seems that this will take more outspokenness and energy than those of us who see what is coming have been able to muster so far.  And the controlled press is a huge problem.

Were you to speak out strongly at this stage, the media could not ignore you.  I cannot bring myself to believe that you, like so many on the Hill, would be cowed at the prospect of being pilloried by FOX and branded anti-Semitic.  And, who knows; perhaps some of those former subordinate officers who admire you for what you have done, will be encouraged to go and do likewise.

And, in the end, if profound ignorance and ideology—supported by a captive corporate press and abetted by political parties supine before the Israel lobby—enable an attack on Iran, and the Iranians, for example, take thousands of our troops hostage in southern Iraq, you will be able to look in the mirror, and at the rest of us, and say at least you tried.

You will not have to live with the remorse of not knowing what you might have made possible, had you been able to shake your reluctance to speak out.

Leadership does not end with retirement; neither do oaths.

Respectfully,

/s/

Ray McGovern
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Ray McGovern, a veteran Army intelligence officer and then CIA analyst for 27 years, now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.

The original version of this article appeared on Consortiumnews.com.

I was at my desk in Washington, D.C. the morning of 9/11 — watched the Pentagon burn from the rooftop of our building — labored over whether hubby and I should pack up the car and get us and our infant daughter out of the city.  I also watched as our city turned into a ghost town at night for the next 7 or 8 months, got used to the sound of F-16s criss-crossing our skies at regular intervals, and listened as the news readers explained how to tape up a safe room and put together grab and go bags.

My friends who worked in the Pentagon were lucky that day — they worked in another corner of the building.  But I’ll never forget the pregnant wife of a guy named Eddie who sat vigil on a hillside near the smoldering corner that did get hit.  She refused to leave until he was found (hopefully alive) and the news talked with her one evening.  My heart ached for her and her 3 kids.  Thousands of families went through what she endured and the Jersey Girls made news when they fought for an honest investigation into what happened that day.

Kristen Breitweiser is one of those women.  She and her friends used their loss and grief — channeled into a force for the truth and spent more time here in DC than many members of Congress.  They earned the respect of a lot of us and when one of them has something to say — I listen.

Well Ms. Breitweiser posted something in the Huffington Post today that caught my attention.  She was surprised to hear that Obama and Rice have something in common.  Neither thinks anyone could have predicted what happened on 9/11.  Take a look…

Kristen Breitweiser

9/11: Where Barack Obama and Condi Rice Sound Alarmingly Alike

Barack Obama appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball last night and was asked about the way he would handle the 3 a.m. phone call.

The transcript:

MATTHEWS: Let me give you a scene that may face you in the next year or two, where the national security adviser calls you at 3:00 in the morning and tells that you a couple of jet — commercial jets have been hijacked. And they believe it is al Qaeda. And, as we know, al Qaeda always tries a second time. They tried for the World Trade Center after ‘93. They came back in ‘01.

They’re heading for the Capitol. What do you do?

OBAMA: Well, look, I am hesitant to engage in hypotheticals like that, because…

MATTHEWS: But it has been predictable.

OBAMA: Oh, well, the–I don’t think anybody predicted 9/11. And, so, we don’t know what kinds of circumstances are going to come up.

Yup. That’s right, Barack Obama glibly stated that he didn’t “think anybody predicted 9/11.”

Perhaps Obama might better strengthen his image of having a handle on national security issues by not sounding so much like the disgraceful, incompetent former Bush Administration National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Recall that Ms. Rice stated that “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”

I am not even going to bother listing the hundreds of cites/articles/studies/reports/military exercises, drills/testimonials/PDB’s/SEIB’s or even television shows that disprove Rice’s statement. I will just mention my personal favorite — the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.”

How could Obama have such a poor understanding of the 9/11 attacks and their subsequent impact on the US intelligence community? Has Obama even read the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report that (even in its whitewash form) calls Rice to task for her “misleading” statement about the predictability of 9/11-style attacks? Or sets forth recommendations for intelligence community reforms?

One of the reasons I support Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama is because of the enormous help Senator Clinton gave to the 9/11 families who were fighting to create a 9/11 Commission.

My experience in Washington showed me that there were very few people who understood what needed to be done and even fewer people who had the courage, stamina, and ability to get those things done.

Hillary Clinton was one of those people. And without fail, anytime we needed help — whether that was achieving bi-partisan consensus, strong-arming the White House and/or House Republicans, or cajoling reluctant and recalcitrant Democrats like Lieberman, Senator Clinton always took the call and helped solve the problem.

I might add that for someone whose husband, former President Bill Clinton, was a point of investigation for the 9/11 Commission, it certainly did not play in Senator Clinton’s favor to have something like the 9/11 Commission impaneled. Yet, Senator Clinton was one of our biggest, fiercest, and most vocal advocates for the creation of a 9/11 Commission.

But as a 9/11 widow who, along with other 9/11 families, fought very hard to learn lessons from 9/11 to not only make our nation safer but also to hold people like Condoleezza Rice accountable, it is wholly unacceptable for any presidential candidate to get such a simple, historical fact about national security — that the 9/11 attacks were predictable — so totally wrong.

(Emphasis added)

Now I’ve lived in the DC area for nearly 24 years and this is the only time we’ve been hit like this — hopefully the last.  On the one hand you realize this is probably one of the most protected cities in the country (well aside from the port up there in Baltimore but I won’t go into that now (Hillary did work with a group to address port safety btw)), but on the other you kind of have this nagging worry at the back of your head that you live in a city with one big-ass bulls-eye over it.

I glad the Jersey girls demanded some answers.  I’d like to think that some of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report — as watered down as that report may be — have been implemented.

Going forward, I want someone to take over from Bush’s miserable failure of a watch and be ready to deal with whatever comes her way.  Someone who understands that yes — the tragic events of 9/11 were predictable and could have been prevented if only Bush and company had been paying attention!

Now I know we can’t change history and undo what the terrorists did to Kristen’s husband and thousands of other innocent people that day — but we can sure as hell elect someone who knows what they’re doing and can think on her feet like no one else.

The contributions that women have made to the history of this nation are rarely acknowledged. Most of the children in the country grow up not knowing that women were at the forefront of the anti-slavery, civil right, social reform, suffrage, and gay rights movements. They stood up for others, but few have stood up for them.

The first women’s movement began around 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, when Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others formed organizations to fight for votes for women. The movement came to fruition in 1919 when the 19th Amendment became part of the Constitution.

The second women’s movement began in the late 1960’s and 70’s with women’s liberation. Its focus was to attain equal rights and equal pay for women, and should have come to fruition in the early 1980’s with the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, but unfortunately, it did not occur.

In my opinion, despite some setback in recent years, I believe that we are now in the third women’s movement. It began in 1985 with the establishment of Emily’s List. This organization gave women the financial resources needed to win seats in Congress. As a result, we have been able to make changes within government, rather than working from the outside as it was done during the first movement. This third movement took hold in the 1992 election, and I feel it has been gaining ground ever since. The culmination of the movement has not come yet, but its progression has led us to where we are now with a woman candidate for President of the United States. We have the power to achieve the ultimate victory for our sister before us who worked so hard to get us to this place, and for future generations of women, who I hope with the help of this women’s history time line will have a better understanding or how far we have come…..and how far we have left to go.

As you examine this time line, please consider the following:
1) women have always put others before themselves
2) women have been instrumental in solving the important social issues of this country
3) women are powerful and can do anything, and get the job done

I see these qualities in Hillary Clinton, and electing her at this moment in American History is the right thing to do.

Who am I, you may wonder? I am a 59 year old feminist and a 2002 graduate of UCLA with degrees in Women’s Studies and History, and I am the 2002 recipient of the Constance Coiner Undergraduate Prize. My sole purpose in compiling this time line is to ensure that people know the contributions that women have made to our nation’s history. I hope that you will share this information with those you feel will benefit the most from knowing more about the contributions of American women.

Thank you,

kirbruin@yahoo.com

TIMELINE

1692
Salem (Mass) Witch Trials – 20 women and girls were executed for being witches and using witchcraft.

1740
17 year old Eliza Pinckney manages her father’s plantation in the Carolinas when her father is called back to his post. She was one of many women who took over the responsibility of managing the family property when the males were away due to war, etc.

1776

Abigail Adams, wife of President John Adams, uses her influence to remind her husband that women’s rights should be incorporated into the work that he was doing at the Continental Congress. “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to forment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to any laws in which we have no voice or Representation.”

1783
New Jersey State statutes authorize voting to “all inhabitants of the state, of full age” if they had at lease 50 pounds. Women who met this qualification were eligible to vote in the state.

1792
Mary Wollstonecraft ( a Brit) published “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” Considered to be one of the most important documents written on behalf of women, the core of her argument was that education was important is the shaping of character and women had a right to an education.

1833
The Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia is founded. The group gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures to abolish slavery in the DC area. By 1837, there were 1006 branches with 150,000 members, over half of which were women. Women were instrumental in the mobilization of public opinion calling for the abolition of slavery. Abolition was the issue in the U. S. from 1840-50.

Abolition was the first major social and political issue in which women participated. As a result of the connections made while fighting for abolition, women learned the basic procedures used in political mobilization, and took this experience and later applied it to the efforts to fight for their own rights.

1840

Lucretia Mott is denied a seat at the World Anti-Slavery Conference. After 7 years work for the abolition of slavery, and helping to form the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, Mott is denied hear seat on the basis of her sex, and is only allowed to sit in the gallery. At the conference Mott met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and both were struck by the fact that it was supposed to be a world convention, but half the population of the world was being denied access to the convention. Mott and Stanton realized that they would now need to begin working for women’s rights along with the abolishment of slavery.

1848
Seneca Falls Convention – the first political gathering specifically held to address the rights of women. 240 women attended, and the women drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments,” a feminist model of the Declaration of Independence. Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it stated that “all men and women were created equal” and included 18 grievances among them were women’s inability to keep their own wages, women’s inability to obtain an education, and lack of the right to vote.

1850
Harriet Tubman – Tubman escorted Black to freedom 19 times in what became known as the Underground Railroad. Over 300 slaves escaped to the North as a result of her efforts.

1863
National Women’s Loyal League is formed. Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony, the league passed a resolution to launch a petition campaign urging Congress to vote for emancipation
of all slaves.

1869
Suffragists begin organizing. Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Women’s Suffragist Association, while Lucy Stone organized the American Women’s Suffragist Association. The intention was to bring the anti-slavery and women’s right movements together to fight for both simultaneously.

Black leaders felt that the two issues should be separate, so Stanton and Anthony broke away with the intention of seeking an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote. Feminists felt that as long as half the population was denied rights, all other issues were secondary.

1869
Territory of Wyoming becomes the first location in the U. S. where women are granted the right to vote.

1872

Victoria Woodhull runs for President of the United States. A free spirit who believed in free love, legalized prostitution, she made women think about their status, pushed societal boundaries, and forced men to acknowledge that women were not included or protected in the rights and privleges provided under the constitution.

1874
The Supreme Court rules on Minor v Happersett. This case challenged the 15th amendment that granted former male slaves the right to vote. Women challenged the amendment by acts of civil disobedience and demanding the ability to vote in the election of 1872. Hundreds of women broke the law by attempting to vote in that election. Virginia Minor was an officer of the National Women’s Suffrage Association and attempted to vote in St. Louis. The registrar, Reese Happersett refused to allow her to register, so she brought suit against him. While Minor lost the case at the Supreme Court, women were mobilized to launch an all out state by state effort to change the state constitutions and press for an amendment to the constitution.

1878
Women’s suffrage amendment first submitted to Congress. Penned by Susan B. Anthony, the amendment simply states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied……on account of sex….” Arlen A. Sargent of California introduced the legislation in congress, and it was reintroduced each session of Congress FOR 45 YEARS UNTIL IT FINALLY PASSED IN 1919.

1879
The first woman argues a case before the Supreme Court. Attorney Belva Lockwood petitioned the Supreme Court for permission to plead a case. When denied, she appealed to Congress which passed a bill enabling female attorneys to argue before the highest court in the land.

1889

Jane Addams found Hull House. Hull House provided the poor and immigrant residents of Chicago with assistance. Hull House provided medical service, child care, English classes, legal aid, citizenship
classes, vocational training and a host of other services to the poor and immigrant populations of Chicago. Hull House existed at a time when Chicago offered few services to its residents. It spawned a new profession – social work. Jane Addams and her activist supporters became advocates for their constitutes and worked for reforms in child labor, sanitation, housing and working conditions.
Addams was the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1890
National Women’s Suffrage Assoc. and American Women’s Suffrage join forces becoming the National American Women’s Suffrage Assoc. The focus of the group shifts from a constitutional amendment to advocating change in state constitutions. When the reality sets in that state by state change is more time consuming, they revert back to the plan for constitutional amendment.

1893
Mary Elizabeth Lease runs for U. S. Senate in Kansas.

1898
Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes “Women and Economics.” The book examines the effects of industrialization on women and advocates self sufficiency and equal rights.

1903
The National Women’s Trade Union League is formed to improve the wages and working conditions for women.

1911

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire occurs in New York City. 146 women perish in the fire because they are locked in the fire and unable to escape. Leaders of the National Women’s Trade Union League petitioned for new laws regulating safety conditions in factories. As a result of these petitions, the most comprehensive factory safety laws and standards were enacted in New York State, and paved the way for future national laws.

1915
The Women’s Peace Party forms. Feminist Leaders of the era such as Jane Addams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and others formed the party in an effort to avert the U. S. participation in World War I. They requested that President Woodrow Wilson mediate for peace rather than U. S. involvement. Their slogan was “Listen to the women for a change.” After the war, the group merged with its European counterparts forming the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom which still exists today, and is active in trying to resolve conflicts around the world as well as nuclear disarmament.

1916
Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman elected to the United States Congress. Additionally, Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against U. S. involvement in WW II.

1919

The 19th Amendment is passed by Congress, giving women the right to vote. All but one of the women who began the campaign in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, lived to see the passage of the Amendment. Elizabeth Cady Stanton passed away in 1902 and Susan B. Anthony in 1906.

1932
Francis Perkins becomes the first woman Cabinet office being appointed Secretary of Labor under FDR. She was instrumental in the passage of the Wagner Act, the Social Security Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, three of FDR’s most important achievements. She was also responsible for innovative ideas for working people such as unemployment insurance, minimum wage, and maximum hours.

1935
National Council of Negro Women is organized. As a constructive force for Negro women, the group concentrated on the status of African American women in America and pushed for their acceptance into labor unions, government jobs, and the military.

1936

Eleanor Roosevelt transforms the role of the First Lady. Because President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her husband, was confined to a wheelchair, Mrs. Roosevelt was his eyes and ears, traveling around the country, reporting her findings to him. She was influential in insuring that the New Deal included programs specifically for women, and assured African Americans that New Deal policies addressed their needs and concerns. As a result of her efforts, the African American voting block shifted its loyalty from the Republicans to the Democrats. She was unabashedly committed to equality and civil rights, and when the military doubted the abilities to African Americans to fly planes, she fought stereotyping by flying with Black pilots.

She gave women journalist exclusive access to her in an effort to promote their careers. Her connections with women who were in the forefront of the social reform movement at the time was especially important during the depression because she was aware of the efforts made by women to keep families intact during extreme economic difficulties. She is considered to be our most influential First Lady, and many of the programs included in the New Deal can be directly contributed to her efforts.

1941

World War II increases the need for Women Workers. As a result of the U. S. entrance into WWII, and the vast number of men who entered the military, more opportunities for employment were available to women in industries that had been previously prohibited to women. Between 1940 and 1945, women in the work force rose from 12 to 19 million. Barriers to employment like age and marital status were lifted and women were able to work in industries such as plane manufacturing to support the war effort.

Known as “Rosie the Riveter,” documentary films have shown their enthusiastic efforts as they became skilled laborers in factories doing jobs previously held by men. Additionally, women were able to fill jobs in government, teaching and other industries that previously excluded women. African American women were afforded the opportunity to leave low paying domestic service positions and obtain higher paying jobs in defense factories. One half of the domestic worker population quit to take the more lucrative and higher status jobs that were available.

Married women also returned to work to assist in the war effort, often becoming the breadwinners of the family. These women, many for the first time in their lives, were now responsible for the distribution of their paychecks, giving them a newfound independence.

1955

Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery Alabama. This act of defiance launched a year long boycott of the bus system in Montgomery. Spurred on by Parks’ defiance, JoAnn Robinson, a profess or at Alabama State College, distributed flyers to help establish the boycott. Primary support for the boycott came from women, many of whom walked to work. Finally, in 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in Browder v Gayle that Alabama’s bus segregation policy was unconstitutional.

1962
Dolores Huerta helps found the United Farm Workers Union. She was the chief negotiator on the first contract drawn with grape growers, and remained the negotiator for the next 5 years. Women were the primary proponents of the policy of non-violence during the strike.

1963
Congress passes the Equal Pay Act of 1963. As a result of the recommendation from the Presidents Commission on the Status of Women, Congress passed the equal pay act which was the first national legislation for women since the progressive era of the 1920’s. Its intent was to remove pay disparity, and provide equal pay for men and women in jobs of equal skills, responsibility and effort. Because of exceptions made for seniority, merit, quantity and quality of work, it was difficult to enforce the law.

Recently, a former female physician at UCLA Medical Center won a law suit after she discovered that she was making $50,000 less than her male counterparts. Disparity still exists today despite the law making it illegal.

1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits Sex Discrimination. Within this act is Title VII which states that employment discrimination based on race or sex is prohibited. This law established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which is responsible for enforcing the provisions of Title VII.

1966
The National Organization of Women (NOW) is founded. Its purpose is to advance the rights of woman.

1968

Shirley Chisholm is elected to Congress. She was the first African American congresswoman.

1971
The National Women’s Caucus is founded. Its purpose was to encourage more women to participate in politics.

1972
Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment. Included in the passage was a provision that limited the amount of time allowed for ratification by the states. With the first year, 28 states had ratified, leaving 10 states needed for the Constitutional amendment ratification. Opponents launched a major offensive, claiming that women would be subjected to the draft if there was ratification, driving a wedge between working women and homemakers. By 1977, 35 states had ratified, leaving only 3 more needed. Opponents dug in and managed to prevent ratification before time ran out in 1982.

1973
Roe V Wade – the landmark Supreme Court case that states that women have a constitutional right to make decisions regarding pregnancy, and the government has no right to interfere. The case was argued by two Texas attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee. Weddington was 26 years old at the time.

1976
Women admitted to the U. S. Service Academies. Congress passes legislation that mandated the acceptance of women into institutions such as West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy.

1978
The first woman is elected to the Senate in her own right. Nancy Kassebaum was the first woman elected who was not the widow of a congressman. She served in the Senate from 1978-1997.

1981
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. She remained the only woman until Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993.

1984

Geraldine Ferraro becomes the Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate

1985
Emily’s List is founded. Its function is to assist in funding women candidates to congress. The acronym stands for “Early Money is like Yeast” (it raises doughs), and it created a donor network that raises funds for pro-choice Democratic women running for governors, Senators, and the House of Representatives. It is the largest single financial resource for women candidates in the nation.

1989
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) becomes the first Hispanic woman elected to the U. S. House of Representatives

1992
Women are elected to Congress in record numbers. Dubbed the “Year of the Woman”, 24 women were elected to the House of Representatives, and 6 women to the Senate (5 of the 6 still remain).

California becomes the first state to elect two women to the Senate – Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

For the first time, women account for 10 percent of the membership in Congress. By 2005 the percentage grows to 15%.

Carol Mosley Braun (IL) becomes the first African American woman elected to the Senate.

1993

Janet Reno becomes the first woman to serve as Attorney General

1997

Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as the Secretary of State, making her the highest ranking woman in government.

2001
Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first First Lady to be elected to a national office.

2005
21 members of the California congressional delegation in Washington are women, and they comprise 38% of the state’s total representation on Congress.

Condoleeza Rice becomes the first African American woman to become Secretary of State

2007
Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives

2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first woman to win a presidential primary contest.

Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there—for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.

Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation’s history.

Despite recent acknowledgements from the likes of Alan Greenspan, Gen. John Abizaid, and others that oil and permanent (or, if you prefer, “enduring”) military bases were among the main objectives, Frontline avoided any real discussion of such delicate factors. Someone not already aware of how our media has become a tool of the Bush administration might have been shocked at how Frontline could have missed one of President George W. Bush’s most telling “signing statements.” Underneath the recent Defense Authorization Act, he wrote that he did not feel bound by the law’s explicit prohibition against using the funding:

“(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,” or

“(2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”

So the Frontline show was largely pap.

At one point, however, the garrulous former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did allude to one of the largest elephants in the living room—Israel’s far-right Likudniks—and their close alliance with the so-called neo-conservatives running our policy toward the Middle East. But Armitage did so only tangentially, referring to the welcome (if totally unrealistic) promise by Ahmed Chalabi that, upon being put in power in Baghdad, he would recognize Israel. Not surprisingly, the interviewer did not pick up on that comment; indeed, I’m surprised the remark avoided the cutting room floor.

Courage No Longer a Frontline Hallmark

Frontline has done no timely reportage that might be looked upon as disparaging the George W. Bush administration—I mean, for example, the real aims behind the war, not simply the gross incompetence characterizing its conduct. Like so many others, Frontline has been, let’s just say it, cowardly in real time—no doubt intimidated partly by attacks on its funding that were inspired by the White House.

And now? Well the retrospective criticism of incompetence comes as polling shows two-thirds of the country against the Iraq occupation (and the number is surely higher among PBS viewers). So, Frontline is repositioning itself as a mild ex-post-facto critic of the war, but still unwilling to go very far out on a limb. Explaining the aims behind war crimes can, of course, be risky. It is as though an invisible Joseph Goebbels holds sway.

Too Late

On Monday evening I found myself initially applauding Frontline’s matter- of-fact, who-shot-John chronology of how our country got lied into attacking and occupying Iraq. Then I got to thinking—have I not seen this picture before? Many times?

It took a Hollywood producer to recognize and act promptly on the con games that sober observers could not miss as the war progressed. Where were the celebrated “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)? Robert Greenwald simply could not abide the president’s switch to “weapons of mass destruction programs,” which presumably might be easier to find than the much-ballyhooed WMD so heavily advertised before the attack on Iraq. You remember—those remarkable WMD about which UN chief inspector Hans Blix quipped that the U.S. had one hundred percent certainty of their existence in Iraq, but zero percent certainty as to where they were.

Robert Greenwald called me in May 2003. He had read a few of the memoranda published by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) exposing the various charades being acted out by the administration and wanted to know what we thought of the president’s new circumlocution on WMD.

I complimented him on smelling a rat and gave him names of my VIPS colleagues and other experienced folks who could fill him in on the details. Wasting no time, he arrived here in Washington in June, armed simply with copious notes and a cameraman. Greenwald conducted the interviews, flew back to his eager young crew in Hollywood and, poof, the DVD “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” was released at the beginning of November 2003.”

So Frontline is four and a half years behind a Hollywood producer with appropriate interest and skepticism. (Full disclosure: I appear in “Uncovered,” as do many of the interviewees appearing in Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”)

Actually, the interviewing by Frontline occurred just a few months later. I know because I was among those interviewed for that as well, as was my good friend and former colleague at the CIA, Mel Goodman. I was struck that Mel looked four years younger on this week’s Frontline. It only then dawned on me that he was four years younger when interviewed.

Have a look at “Uncovered,” [http://www.truthuncovered.com/index.php ] and see how you think it compares to Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”

Safety in Retrospectives

It also struck me that producing a Frontline-style retrospective going back several years is a much less risky genre to work with. Chalk it up to my perspective as an intelligence analyst, but ducking the incredibly important issues at stake over the next several months is, in my opinion, unconscionable. The troop “surge” in Iraq, for example.

Only toward the very end of the program does Frontline allow a bit of relevant candor on a point that has been self-evident since Cheney and Bush, against strong opposition from Generals Abizaid and Casey (and apparently even Rumsfeld), decided to double down by sending 30,000 more troops into Iraq. A malleable new secretary of defense would deal with the recalcitrant generals and pick a Petreaus ex Machina of equal malleability and political astuteness to implement this stop-gap plan.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/author Steve Coll, with typical candor, put the “surge” into perspective:

“The decision at a minimum guaranteed that his [Bush’s] presidency would not end with a defeat in history’s eyes; that by committing to the surge, he was certain to at least achieve a stalemate.”

Given this week’s fresh surge of violence as the U.S. surge is scheduled to wind down, even a stalemate may be in some doubt. But, okay, small kudos to Frontline for including that bit of truth—however obvious—and for adding the grim background music to its final comment: “Soon Bush’s war will be handed to someone else.”

Rather Not, Thank You

Intimidation of the media is what has happened all around, including with Frontline, which not so many years ago was able to do some gutsy reporting. Let me give you another example about which few are aware.

Do you remember when Dan Rather made his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, admitting that the American media, including him, was failing to reveal the truth about things like Iraq? Speaking to the BBC on May 16, 2002, Rather compared the situation to the fear of “necklacing” in South Africa:

“It’s an obscene comparison,” Rather said, “but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck.”

Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. “It’s that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often.”

The comparison to “necklacing” may be “obscene” but, sadly, it is not far off the mark. So what happened to the newly outspoken Dan Rather with the newly found courage, when he ran afoul of Vice President Dick Cheney and the immense pressure he exerts on the corporate media?

We know about the lies and the cheerleading for attacking Iraq. But there is much more most of us do not know and remain unable to learn if Rather and other one-time journalists keep acting like Bert Lahr’s cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz before he gets “the nerve” and courage.

For Dan Rather, the fear would simply not go away…even after leaving CBS for HDNet and promising that, on his new “Dan Rather Reports” show, viewers would see hard-hitting and courageous reporting that he said he couldn’t do at CBS.

Will it surprise you that Dan Rather cannot shake the necklace? I refer specifically to a program for “Dan Rather Reports,” meticulously prepared by award-winning producer, Kristina Borjesson. The special included interviews with an impressive string of first-hand witnesses to neocon machinations prior to the US attack on Iraq, and provides real insights into motivations—the kind of insights Frontline did not even attempt.

Nipped in the Bud by the “Dark Side”

Last year Borjesson’s taping was finished and the editing had begun. Borjesson’s requests to interview people working for the vice president had been denied. But, following standard journalistic practice (not to mention common courtesy), she sent an email to John Hannah in Cheney’s office in order to give Hannah a chance to react to what others—including several of the same senior folks on Frontline last evening— had said about him for her forthcoming report.

At that point all hell broke loose. Borjesson was abruptly told by Rather’s executive producer that by sending the email, Borjesson could have “brought down the whole (‘Dan Rather Reports’) operation.”

The show was killed and Borjesson sacked. For good measure, she was also accused of “coaching” interview subjects and taking their words out of context. Since neither Rather nor his executive producer would provide proof to substantiate that allegation, Borjesson took the unprecedented step of sending her script and transcripts to all her interview subjects, asking them to confirm or deny that she had coached them or taken their words out of context. Not one of them found her script inaccurate or said they were coached. She has the emails to prove this.

This sorry episode and Frontline’s careful avoidance of basic issues like the strategic aims of the Bush administration in invading and occupying Iraq are proof, if further proof were needed, that the White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright—and massive public ignorance.

Some consolation is to be found in the good news that, in this particular case, Kristina Borjesson is made of stronger stuff; she has not given up, and was greatly encouraged by how many of the very senior officials and former officials she had already interviewed consented to be re-interviewed (since the tapes belonged to the “Rather Not” folks).

Now who looks forward to being re-interviewed?

Borjesson’s original interviewees took into account her problems with the cowards and the censors—and her atypical, gutsy refusal to self-censor—and went the extra mile. A tribute to them as well, and their interest in getting the truth out.

Borjesson is now completing the program on her own. Look for an announcement in the coming months, if you’re interested in real sustenance rather than the pabulum served up, no doubt under duress, by Frontline.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington, DC. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early sixties, then a CIA analyst for 27 years. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

This article originally appeared on Consortiumnews.com.

– Cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sent to me by Leslie

Next, from McClatchy’s top article today, “Constant filibuster threat is tying Senate in knots“:
 

Senate Republicans this year are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever, a pattern that’s rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats’ razor-thin win in last year’s election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans’ exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 “cloture” votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority’s right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they have fallen short 22 times this year. That’s largely why they haven’t been able to deliver on campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote last week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-47 Senate majority voted to end debate.

Republicans also have blocked votes this year on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly one in every six roll-call votes in the Senate this year has been a cloture vote. … READ ALL.

Other news items today:

• “Rice’s foreign-aid overhaul sparks backlash“:

  … Rice responded to the disarray by handpicking corporate veteran Randall Tobias to manage a sweeping overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance. Tobias abruptly resigned in April after he admitted receiving massages from women linked to an alleged prostitution ring — but not before he created a system that aims to reshuffle billions of dollars in aid to better reflect the administration’s priorities.

  Rice’s foreign-aid approach “sadly bears the hallmarks of our failed early assistance efforts in Iraq, where ideology and political connections trumped professionalism,” charged Pam Pearson, a foreign-service officer who had worked for Tobias, in a cable she sent to top State Department officials last fall.

  The fight over U.S. foreign aid largely has been hidden from the public, but it is likely to emerge Tuesday, when the Senate holds confirmation hearings for Henrietta Holsman Fore, the undersecretary of state for management and the nominee to replace Tobias as the deputy secretary of state for foreign assistance.

  The bulk of the $23 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid goes to a handful of key countries, leaving about 120 nations to battle over $3 billion of the pie. India is one of the big losers in Rice’s foreign-aid revolution. All U.S. aid to assist India in education, women’s rights, democracy and sanitation is terminated under the new system. Overall aid to India — where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day — would be cut 35 percent in 2008, to $81 million, on the theory that India has one of the best-performing economies in the world.

  One promising U.S.-funded program in India is QUEST, a partnership with tech firms such as Microsoft and Lucent aimed at teaching critical skills in Indian classrooms. With Washington, D.C., promising about $2 million a year, QUEST grew from 200 to 2,000 schools in one year.

  But without a continued U.S. contribution, the initiative probably will not survive. …

• “Mob Wars Hit New Heights in Israel“:

  When an explosion goes off on a busy Israeli street these days, it seems as likely to be a mob hit as a Palestinian attack.

  Rival underworld gangs are waging bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets, targeting each other with bullets, bombs and anti-tank missiles.

  Organized crime, long overshadowed by the Arab-Israeli conflict, has become such a part of everyday life that Israel has its own “Sopranos”-style TV series, “The Arbitrator,” in which even synagogues are no refuge from hit men. …

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