WWJD?

By Ellen Ratner
Cindy Sheehan has been camped outside the president's vacation locale longer than her son was in Iraq before he was killed in action. Ms. Sheehan has one request. She wants the president to personally hear what it is like to lose a child and the impact the war has had on families. It seems like a simple request of the man who gave the order to invade Iraq – a war of choice. The president has chosen not to meet with her. His reasoning is that he has considered her position and believes it is wrong.



I find this position to be an abomination coming from a man who arguably professes his faith more than any president in the history of this nation. George Bush openly claims that he is a born-again Christian, which means he is born again through Christ and that his charter in life is to emulate Christ in daily life as best he can. I wonder what Jesus would have done, or to use a popular acronynm "WWJD?" – What Would Jesus Do? – if Ms. Sheehan would have wanted to meet with him?

For starters, I doubt Jesus would have whizzed by Ms. Sheehan yesterday in order to attend a political fund-raiser. This fund-raiser was not for the poor or hungry or for the least among us. Nope, this fund-raiser was for those who had collected over six figures for George Bush's political coffers. The president collected approximately $2 million in donations yesterday – a sum that would make even the money changers blush.

I am beginning to think that the president is listening to his advisers more than his Christ-like heart. The advisers would tell him not to give any protester the satisfaction of a meeting. They would argue that he met with Ms. Sheehan once before and that was more than he had to do. I doubt Christ would have rejected Ms. Sheehan because he had already met with her and she seemed fine then. Perhaps Christ would have intuitively known that when people experience a great loss, they may go through many stages of grief to include shock, denial and anger before they reach resolution. Ms. Sheehan met the president about two months after Casey was killed. She was in shock.

Ms. Sheehan believes that the president has wronged her and wronged her son and wronged a nation. Worst of all, she believes that her son died in vain. She is the embodiment of the anger that is starting to take hold of a nation that waking up to the fact that it was told we had to go to war to get the weapons of mass destruction and there were no weapons, and told this war would make us safer and we feel more vulnerable than ever, and told the war would be quick and we are embedded in a quagmire with no end in sight.

What would Christ say if his neighbor believed he had committed an offense against them? In addition to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Christ says to go to you your neighbor first and seek reconciliation when there is a disagreement between you.

Perhaps the most compelling reason of all that Mr. Bush should skip a bike ride or fund-raiser and sit with Ms. Sheehan is because to share with someone in pain is the very embodiment of the life of Christ. The name for Christ, "Emmanuel," means "God is with us." Christians believe that God may not shield them from all harm or pain or loss. But they believe that Christ was sent to the world so that they do not walk through life's burdens alone.

I am on record hundreds of times criticizing this president for saying one thing and doing another – for being a hypocrite. Like most issues, there are always two sides to a story. But in this case, there is only one issue: human decency. Ms. Sheehan has lost her son and separated from her husband in the wake of war. She has a unique perspective to share with the president.

I know from my work with the homeless in Washington, D.C., that compassion opens the mind to new ideas and greater understanding. And it has always been my experience in life that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Coming soon: 'Wag the Dog,' part 2

By Ellen Ratner
The president's approval ratings are starting to look like a share of "dot bomb" stock in 1999. Even the most favorable polls show that Mr. Bush has lost more than half his value in the eyes of the American people since declaring a "Global War on Terror" in the fall of 2001. His approval ratings are slipping because he appears helpless against a growing Iraqi insurgency. Mr. Bush's rosy situation reports on Iraq stand in contrast the reality of a rising death toll. Less than a third of Americans believe we are winning the Global War on Terror.



Sadly, the president's dismal approval ratings do not give me the sense of joy I thought they would. Instead, I worry that Mr. Bush will make a gratuitous bellicose gesture in order to improve the Iraq war statistics. Call this pending bombing campaign a variation on the Clinton era movie "Wag the Dog" or Clinton's bombing of an aspirin factory in Africa when things got tough.

Yes, I'm saying that the United States will bomb a country before the first snow this year. For maximum dramatic effect, it would best if Mr. Bush cut short his trip to Crawford, Texas, in order to give the order while Congress is out of session. An address to the nation from the White House in the last week of August would bring the president back to the front and center of his war on terror.

No, I haven't been out in the Washington, D.C., sun too long – my bombing theory is derived from sitting in hours and hours of hearings meetings concerning the war in Iraq and U.S. Middle East policy, in general. Every time the phrase "Iraqi insurgency" comes up, the name Syria comes up as a root cause.

Every one I have interviewed on the topic – from city council members in Iraq on my trip last April, to Saudi royalty, to injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center last Thursday morning – the conclusion is the same: Syria is responsible for the death toll caused by the insurgency in Iraq.

I argued last week with a colleague as to whether it would be Iran or Syria first.. Saturday's New York Times broke the news that Iran is supplying weapons to insurgents in the south. I suppose either one would serve the political purposes of reasserting president's power. Yet, bombing Iran would likely have a number of unintended consequences. Namely, Iran has become cozy with Iraq's emerging ruling class, the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the country and own the oil real estate in southern Iraq. Mr. Steven Vincent, freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times, reported widely on Iran's tremendous influence in southern Iraq. He was murdered last week.

Aside from Mr. Bush needing to remind us that he is a "war" president, he needs to remind us that we are indeed fighting a war, as in a Global War on Terror. The administration had a rare moment of linguistic disharmony on the topic of war last week. The military leadership, and even Donald Rumsfeld began to lose GWOT from their lexicon. Members of the administration began to refer instead to a "a global struggle against violent extremism."

The Aug. 8 edition of the New Yorker quoted a Marine lieutenant general saying, "This is no more a war on terrorism than the second world war was a war on submarines." He went onto say, "The decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved, but whose support – willing or coerced – is necessary to insurgent operations around the world."

Within a few days of his arrival in Texas, President Bush gave a speech to reiterate that his policy had not changed. He reassured America that: Yes! We are still fighting a global war. Mr. Bush knows that most Americans are "bimodal" in our post Sept. 11, 2001, world. It is good or bad, with us or against us, right or wrong, evil or good. If Campaign 2004 proved anything, it proved that America does not like nuance. Strong, clear leadership is equivalent to strong, clear speech, backed by decisive action.

Soon the president will be backing up his strong words with strong deeds. The evidence has been gathered, there is a new threat emerging – it's time to bomb someone again.

Lunch with a princess

By Ellen Ratner
Last Friday, I had the privilege – along with five other journalists – of lunching with Princess Loulwa Al-Faisal, a daughter of late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The lunch was held at the Saudi private residence on the property of the Saudi Embassy and was fit for a king, or queen.



Royalty or not, the women of the Middle East are normally seen and not heard by Westerners. This luncheon was a welcome exception. Here are some of my notes (which are not from tape) of the questions and answers during the luncheon.

Question: Can you comment on the Saudi-born insurgents in Iraq?

Answer: Some may be Saudi, but they are not going into Iraq from Saudi. They are going in through Syria.

Q: Why are many of the terrorists Wahhabi (the religion of Saudi Arabia)?

A: You call them Wahhabis, we call them criminals. You know, these people are not fighting, they are using people.

Q: The polling shows that some inside Saudi Arabia do not think bin Laden is a criminal.

A: Yes, there is some polling going on, but that is the hard-core groups, criminals, who still don't think he is a criminal. One branch of the bin Laden family changed their name.

Q: Where do you think bin Laden is?

A: We don't know where he is, but in mountains, it is not easy to find people. This has always been the case, dating back to the British. They had trouble entering mountainous regions.

Q: Can you tell us about the new TV shows that are airing in regions where former terrorists are "confessing" their acts on live television?

A: Yes. They come out and tell their stories on television for 15 to 25 minutes.

Q: What is the family background of terrorists?

A: The leaders are from middle to lower-class families. They did badly in school and turn to crime.

Q: Does your religion advocate their behavior?

A: Our religion says to fight the enemy, but don't blow yourself up. This is against the precepts of Islam. Though there were Palestinian suicide bombers, it mainly started after bin Laden and has become a fad. Their desire is to fire the occupiers. Look at the Old Man of the Mountain during the Crusades. [This is a reference to a group of assassins led by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man of the Mountain).

Q: What are your thoughts on the war in Iraq?

A: Everyone in the region opposed this war. They could have gone in with a small force. The army came in and left all the arms everywhere. There are so many factions everywhere.

Q: Do you think Iraq will be broken up?

A: The break up of Iraq will be bad for Iraq. We knew there was going to be an insurgency if there was no control. There are too many powers in the region that would like sections of Iraq. Iran and the Shiites, the Kurds want independence, Jordan wants some, Israel wants some for their borders.

Q: How has Saudi Arabia attempted to stop money being funneled to terrorist organizations?

A: Now any money going to other countries must go through two accounts first and money that goes to the Palestinians must go through the United Nations or World Bank.

Q: What are your thoughts on the high price of oil?

A: We are trying to bring the prices down, but I think they will go up further. There is so much crude, but not enough refineries. China has entered the market and the buyer sets the price, not the producer.

Q: Can you comment on the status of women in Saudi Arabia?

A: We are building training centers for women and men to to deal with unemployment. There are no more taboos. Government has cancelled taboos. For example, women no longer need "agents" to do their business for them. Women will be involved in elections of all Saudis. Forty percent of our population is under the age of 13. Where do they get work when they are 37, 31, 26? We must move into technology and services. It is now time to move to the sciences.

Q: What advice would you have for Karen Hughes? (The presidential appointee in charge of improving the U.S. image abroad)

A: Try to get things settled in Iraq. Iraq is destabilizing the whole region. We watch what is on the news – the dead and mutilated in Iraq.

Q: Can you comment on the "Freedom House Study" that uncovered Saudi government sponsored hate literature in U.S. mosques?

A: That literature was over 20 to 30 years ago. There are worse ones now, but not by the government. There are still tapes of bin Laden's voice floating around Saudi Arabia, but they are collecting them and giving them out on their own. (This was partially answered by the princess's staff.)

It was a pleasure to be able to talk candidly and to understand that there are real complexities in understanding the politics of the Middle East, and that there are real leaders trying to make real changes in an environment with so many factions and with a very complex history.

Thumb on the scale

By Ellen Ratner
The president chose D.C. federal Appeals Court Justice John G. Roberts to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. The verdict is still out on how Roberts would decide wedge-issue cases once he doesn't have to worry about his judicial record getting past a confirmation hearing. The Right is worried that Roberts may be a Justice Souter clone or "Souter-Light" and the Left is concerned that Roberts is the swing vote needed to overturn Roe v. Wade.



Heads are being scratched on both sides. The Democrats had to pull an all-nighter to see what they could find out about this relatively low-profile nominee. But they need not look further back than July 15, 2005, at Justice Roberts' last decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld to understand where this nominee fits into the Bush administration's ideological schematic. It's all about the power.

Roberts, along with two of his colleagues, overturned the decision of U.S. District Judge James Robertson, who ruled to halt the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay. Justice Robertson attempted to check the executive branches power grab. Amnesty International quotes Robertson's ruling:

Notwithstanding the president's view ... the Third Geneva Convention applies to all persons detained in Afghanistan during the hostilities there ... the president is not a tribunal ... the tribunals, set up by the administration following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June 2004 that the federal courts have jurisdiction over the Guantanamo detainees, did not constitute the "competent tribunals" required by the Third Geneva Convention.

Supreme Court nominee, Roberts voted to restore the administration's unchecked hammer of infinite justice. The legal reasoning of the three justices effectively throws everything but the kitchen sink at the lower court. Their decision reminded me of some of the term papers I used to write. I thought the more words I added, the higher the grade. After wading through the dozens of arguments cited in the Hamdan case, I can understand now why so many applaud the legal scholarship of Justice Roberts. He certainly knows how to cite legal precedent.

Unfortunately, his analysis of that legal precedent is selective and uncompelling. He gives carte blanche authority to an executive branch that has reinstated torture, outsourced torture, fabricated a causus bellum for the war in Iraq, handed out no-bid contracts to a company his No. 2 man used to run – that has recently been shown to have stolen a billion dollars from the taxpayers – and now have been caught with their pants around their ankles over using the fifth column to discredit and punish dissenters. It's no wonder Roberts got the nomination. The president's battery is a little low.

Strangely, when the other branch of government is voting to restrict this administration's authority, Roberts injects steroids into their worst practices. Case in point: The decision throws a bone to al-Qaida recruiters by ruling that the Geneva Conventions cannot be applied to Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan because "he does not purport to be a member of a group who displayed a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance and who conducted the operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

Oddly, Iraqi insurgents are "protected" under the Geneva Conventions. What is the difference, Judge Roberts? The whole problem with the Iraqi insurgency is that we don't know who the insurgents are and they attack without regard for the laws and customs of war. Where is the legal brilliance in that argument?

There are many historical references in Justice Roberts' decision, but ironically, no mention of the Vietnam War – a war that more closely resembles the war(s) we are fighting. The Geneva Conventions were not only adhered to during Vietnam, but also emphasized and violators were punished. As Maj. Gen. George Prugh wrote in a1975 Department of the Army Report titled," Law at War: Vietnam 1964-1973," "In the classic sense, the conventions presume a declared state of war between two or more sovereign states, each fielding a regular army fighting on a readily identifiable battlefront. Virtually none of these classic conditions existed in the Vietnam conflict."

Justice Roberts and his colleagues go on to say that the executive branch is justified in doing what ever it deems necessary in the "war on terror" because Congress passed a resolution in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, and gave the president a blank check to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the attacks ..." The problem is that the whole reason that the Hamdan case ever made it to a U.S. court is because this president is not doing what is, "necessary and appropriate," let alone consistent with thousands of years of the rule of law. There are approximately 520 men at Guantanamo. Few have been charged with anything.

Unfortunately, the man who will likely be appointed to the institution which is supposed to guarantee an equitable balance the power has, as our president likes to say, "Put his thumb on the scale."

Bush integrity on the skids

By Ellen Ratner
The president's "architect," Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, has designed a handy little box for his boss to squirm around in. Karl Rove, aka "Bush's Brain," has managed to end up on Page 1 while the president's second-term pet legislative issues are tabled for the rest of the summer. To add insult to injury, the man who pledged to restore honor to the White House – the straight shooting, straight talking man of God is likely going to have to delve into a "what the definition of is, is" discussion to save the job of his deputy chief of staff and perhaps other West Wingers.



The Beltway is buzzing over the question of whether or not the president will stand by his man. Does the president do as he said he would when he answered "yes" to the question of, "do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked the identity of this CIA agent?" Or now that Mr. Rove is at the front and center of the controversy, does the president say, "It depends"? As in it depends on exactly what the law says about leaking the identity of a CIA agent. Fortunate for Mr. Rove, the 1982 Intelligence Protection Act is extremely narrow. Rove would have had to "knowingly" and "intentionally" reveal the identity of an undercover agent using information he obtained in an official capacity in order to be prosecuted.

Even those who loathe Mr. Rove do not think he will be indicted for violating the Intelligence Protection Act. Instead, they are hoping for a conviction a la Martha Stewart, who as you may recall went to jail for lying, not insider trading. I am convinced that Mr. Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor in this case, has a few fish on his hook, but I doubt anyone outside the Beltway will recognize their names when and if they are indicted. Big fish like Mr. Rove didn't go from being a University of Utah dropout to deputy chief of staff because he's a sloppy hack. Remember, Rove is the "architect" not the bricklayer.

Yet as important as Rove is to this president and to the Republican Party as a whole, ultimately he is only a player, not the lead in Washington's "Theater of the Absurd." The president is the lead and is the one who ultimately bears the responsibility for the actions of his underlings. And while Mr. Bush's loyalists are flooding the Web with the defense of all the president's men, the president lost credibility in the eyes of Americans last week. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 45 percent gave Mr. Bush low points for his personal integrity, compared with 41 percent who had confidence in it. This shows that the American people are pretty good at smelling a rat.

Americans have realized that the Rove controversy is plain old-fashioned, mean-spirited abuse of power. "Someone" as in an "unnamed official" in the White House planted several seeds around the Washington press corps revealing that the wife (Valerie Plame) of the man (Joseph Wilson) who just trashed the administration's integrity in an op-ed over the administration's least favorite topic, (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), works for the CIA and was the one who suggested that Wilson go to Niger in the first place.

Enough seeds were planted to grow a forest. The administration official reportedly had contact with Judith Miller of the New York Times (now in jail for failure to reveal her source), Matthew Cooper of Time, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Andrea Mitchell of NBC, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce of Newsday and of course the man who "broke" the story, Robert Novak. Novak, as Mr. Rove likes to say, took the bait.

The Plame identity scandal isn't really about a violation of an obscure intelligence act. Rather, it's a violation of our integrity as a nation. The story reads like this: The Bush administration knowingly or unknowingly "took the bait" on false evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Wilson wrote an op-ed that made it look like the administration was duped. The White House decided to punish Wilson for splashing egg all over the "war time" administration, so they used the press for their dirty work. Those responsible for the leak also knew that the press would protect them due to the dual need to protect a source and the press's need for future access to the administration.

After the initial tip, some of the journalists made calls to corroborate the story. No journalist will generally go with a one-source story from an "un-named White House official." Enter Karl Rove; he effectively corroborated the story. Viola, the story breaks and the seed grows into a giant bush that camouflages the administration's weapons of mass destruction problem and punishes Mr. Wilson. Best of all, the person or persons who actually leaked this little rocket propelled grenade in the first place hides under the protection of journalists.

It's no wonder the president's "A" for integrity, is starting to slide to a weak "C."