American Citizens Together

The note sent with the anthrax attack one week after 9/11

It feels like our principles, our history, our credibility is slipping away and all we get is shoddy excuses, denials, incompetence and government 'evidence,' and explanations that are hard to believe.

The story about the forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and the reports of the White House also trying to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks are bad news, for sure.

It's not a question that such a letter exists, since we can see the story that talks all about it here. Plus we know that President Bush referred to this information in the forged letter in his 2002 State of the Union Address, just before starting the war in Iraq.

These facts are 'slam dunk,' smoking guns but the smoke just sort of drifts off in the wind and nothing happens about it.

Thomas Jefferson had a quote about democracy compared to oppression. He said that when a government fears it's citizens, that was democracy; and when citizens feared their government, that was oppression.

It seems clear to me that the government is not on our side anymore. The people are the enemy who have to be deceived and truth avoided. The government is not working for us, it's working against us.

Let's hope that we can elect better leaders and they can get us back on the right track and move us forward in good ways.

Right now we're traveling through a desert and we're not getting much water.

Water is true. Water is the source of life. Water quenches our thirst. Water refreshes us. Water cleans us. Water is necessary.

It's been a long time without water.

News reports about the military tribunal trial of Salim Hamdan, who has been described as bin Laden's driver, had one startling fact that was hard to believe: That no matter if Hamdan was found guilty or innocent, he was still going to stay in jail.

This was impossible to reconcile with ANY idea of what a trial was all about. What good is a trial if the accused is going to remain in jail even if found innocent?

Yet this is what the Pentagon has said about this case. Salim Hamdan, in another military mockery of justice had previously declared Salim to be an "unlawful enemy combatant," and it will hold such people till the end of the Global War on Terror. Military justice was better prior to the White House pushing for and Congress approving the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Two-thirds of the prisoners at Guantanamo are not even going to get a trial like Hamdan did, they will just rot in jail till someone says the war is over.

This is not justice but a cruel joke.

It's a joke too of what the White House now calls war crimes. It use to be big things like mass murder or rape but now it's driving a car for $100.00 a week.

We would have had to put all of Germany on trial for war crimes if this was the case. And, also, most of our Founding Fathers would have had to be identified as 'unlawful enemy combatants." It makes you wonder what's going on.

The FBI report about declaring Dr. Bruce Ivins the only, single, one-person acting alone, homicidal manic behind the anthrax attacks one week after 9/11 is also unsatisfying.

If this was the guy why didn't they arrest him? Isn't that what you do when you identify the killer of five people?

If this was the guy then why was almost seven years wasted looking at someone else? And if the FBI was wrong in the last person they picked out as the criminal then certainly they could be wrong again.

Being told of evidence that was clear and conclusive would be nice. Having a trial where evidence is introduced and debated would have been nice. Having a live suspect to put on trial would have been nice.

The newly exposed story of Aafia Siddiqui is also hard to believe and hard to bare.

Where has she been for five years? She suddenly shows up with literature in her pocket saying: "Death to America! Death to Israel!" (just like the letter sent with the 2001 anthrax attacks).

She's with her 12-year old son and she planning a suicide attack? She looks like she's been in a real hell. She looks like she's been in Abu Ghraib or someplace like that. (In fact...many think she's been in one of our secret prisons.)

Now, five years after her disappearance it's claimed she's grabbing assault rifles off of American soldiers and shooting at them with their own rifles?

It seems like a case of another scientist gone wild; if we are to believe any of it.

We sure can use some "New Energy For America."

NOTICE/WARNING ABOUT LAST AND FINAL PHOTO

PHOTO COMPOSITE OF PICTURES FROM ABU GHRAIB, BELOW....

(AND YOU MAY ASK...WHY? )

On his way to the 2008 Olympics in China President Bush said a lot of things about how bad the Chinese government is.

The -- hypocrisy -- was -- appalling.
That's why the Abu Gharib pictures, below, just for a 'reality check.'

HEADLINE: In Asia Speech, Bush Critiques China on Human Rights
BANGKOK, Aug. 6--Just before flying to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games, President Bush plans to give a speech in the Thai capital that will include blunt language on human rights in China, saying that "America stands in firm opposition" to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists.		"We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential,"
"We press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs.... "The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings,"
But...really, We should look at ourselves and take care of that before going around the world preaching to others. It's also rather rude, like if you were invited to a wedding, to show up and criticize and nag the bride and groom.	Lots of dirt. Lots of dust. *No water.* Long time with no water.	We need places and events where people of the world can get together and have a good time, celebrate, enjoy the great skills of others from all around the world and instead that's turned into months of complaining and complaining. All the world is bad, it seems, except us.

Of course the Chinese government is not perfect or ideal. But we should also know the same is true for us, very true.

One of the proverbs from this nation with thousands of years of history is that a picture is worth a thousand words.

It felt very ugly to put these pictures from Abu Ghraib together. But... Bush talking about human rights....well....'reality check,'

abu

A Long Time Without Water

It feels like our principles, our history, our credibility is slipping away and all we get is shoddy excuses, denials, incompetence and government 'evidence,' and explanations that are hard to believe.

News reports about the military tribunal trial of Salim Hamdan, who has been described as bin Laden's driver, had one startling fact that was hard to believe: That no matter if Hamdan was found guilty or innocent, he was still going to stay in jail.

The FBI report about declaring Dr. Bruce Ivins the only, single, one-person acting alone, homicidal manic behind the anthrax attacks one week after 9/11 is also unsatisfying.

The newly exposed story of Aafia Siddiqui is also hard to believe and hard to bare.