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Right Web Staff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right Web News | February 22, 2005
“Exposing the Architecture
of Power That’s Changing Our World”
http://rightweb.irc-online.org
Editor: Tom Barry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Week on the
Right
New Homeland Security Czar’s Legal Dragnet
[Excerpted from new Right Web
analysis, with complete version available at:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502chertoff.php]
Michael Chertoff,
who served as the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under Attorney General John Ashcroft, has replaced Tom Ridge as the
administration’s new chief of the homeland security department. Praised by the
president as a “brilliant thinker” and for his “stellar career” as a tough
prosecutor, Chertoff is now in charge of determining the color of the day’s
terror alert and overseeing what the administration has described as the “home
front” in its war against terrorism. Human rights advocates, civil
libertarians, and immigrant rights activists sharply criticized the appointment
of Chertoff for his abusive record as Ashcroft’s chief counterterrorism
prosecutor.
Like other
new appointments, Chertoff has proved himself a Bush loyalist. Chertoff, who
helped write the US Patriot Act, has little to show in the way of actual
achievements in directing criminal prosecutions against any of the many
hundreds of suspected terrorists detained by the Justice Department.
Nonetheless, following the pattern set by the promotions of Alberto Gonzales
and Condoleezza Rice
to attorney general and secretary of state, Chertoff has fallen upwards in the
second Bush administration.
Chertoff,
a rabbi’s son from northern New Jersey, is widely
respected for his razor-sharp mind and fearsome courtroom demeanor. While at Harvard Law School, he was a
classmate of Scott Turow, whose semi-fictional memoir about law school, One L, was based in
part on his memories of Chertoff’s brutal yet incisive manner of legal
argument.
A
political partisan, Chertoff became special counsel to the Whitewater
Commission established in 1994 by the Republican-majority Congress to
investigate the involvement of Bill and Hilary Clinton in real estate deals in Arkansas and other
business deals. Now widely regarded as a political witch hunt spearheaded by
Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) and Independent Counselor Kenneth Starr, the
Whitewater Commission spent $40 million on the investigation that ultimately
failed to find that the Clintons had done
anything illegal.
Chertoff
is a longtime member and activist in the Federalist Society. This national
association of right-wing lawyers and judicial reform activists is dedicated to
realigning the country’s legal system to reflect a more conservative interpretation
of the constitution. The Federalist Society, which since its founding in 1982
has been closely linked to the neoconservative political camp, aims to rid the
system of liberal judges and stamp out what it sees are its overly egalitarian
and secular impulses. Association members believe that the constitution and the
country’s laws should primarily serve to ensure order and social orthodoxy
rather than democracy and human rights.
As U.S.
Attorney General in New Jersey, appointed by President H.W. Bush in
1990, Chertoff gained the reputation as a political attack dog for the
Republican Party. Leveraging his strong political base in New Jersey, Chertoff served
as financial vice-chair of Bush’s 2000 campaign in the Garden State.
Elliot Abrams--Fallen Hawk Soars Again
(Excerpted from an article
published by Inter Press Service, with complete version at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/barry.php?articleid=4847
)
Elliott Abrams, a figure from
the Ronald Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal who describes himself as a
”neo-conservative and neo-Reaganite”, is moving to center-stage in U.S. foreign
policy as head of President George W.. Bush's Global Democracy Strategy.
In his new position, Abrams
will oversee the administration's promotion of democracy and human rights while
continuing to provide oversight to the National Security Council's directorate
of Near East and North African affairs -- including involvement
in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Although not known as a
regional specialist, Abrams has frequently voiced his strong support for Israel's
Likud party positions on the Oslo peace process and ”land for peace” negotiations.
In his private writing and
nongovernmental policy advocacy work, Abrams has described radical separatist
and segregationist leanings. He believes, for example, that Jews shouldn't date
or attend school with non-Jews.
”Outside the land of
Israel,” says Abrams, ”there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the
covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which
they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart -- except in Israel --
from the rest of the population.”
Judaism, according to
Abrams, demands ”apartness” -- not in the sense of confining oneself to a
physical ghetto but in that all necessary measures should be taken to prevent
”prolonged and intimate exposure to non-Jewish culture.”
Abrams takes care to note
that his positions imply no ”disloyalty” to the United States, but at the same
time he insists that Jews must be loyal to Israel because they ”are in a
permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people. Their
commitment will not weaken if the Israeli government pursues unpopular policies.”
Abrams describes himself as
a ”somewhat observant Conservative Jew” in his controversial book, ”Faith and
Fear: How Jews Can Survive in Christian America”.
Unlike Condoleezza Rice,
Abrams is not commonly regarded as being a Bush or Republican Party loyalist.
Rather over the past three decades he has established his credentials as an
influential right-wing ideologue -- one who has effectively put his own ideas
about religion, human rights, democracy, and U.S. power to work both as a
leading figure the world of neoconservative policy institutes and as a skilled
foreign policy operative.
Abrams is equally
comfortable in using military intervention, human rights advocacy,
democratization programs, and back-door illegal channels as instruments to advance
a neoconservative foreign policy agenda.
Featured
Profiles
**Civil Liberties Be Damned
In keeping with the pattern of other Bush appointments, Chertoff has proved his
loyalty to Bush—and to the Republican Party—as a storm trooper in the failed war
on terrorism at home and abroad.
Right Web Profile:
Michael Chertoff: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/chertoff/chertoff.php
**Neocons and Lebanese
Exiles Together Working closely with leading neoconservatives, the U.S.
Committee for a Free Lebanon is at once pro-Israeli Likud and anti-Syrian
Baathist.
Right Web Profile: U.S.
Committee for a Free Lebanon: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/uscfl.php
**Washington’s
Man in Latin America Roger Noriega’s steady climb through the ranks of U.S.
diplomacy has been based not on his skills as a statesman or diplomat, but rather
on a willingness to do what’s necessary to defend U.S. elite
interests abroad. In many instances, those actions have included shady dealings
of questionable legality and morality.
Right Web Profile: Roger
Noriega: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/noriega/noriega.php
Featured
Analysis
Bush Administration’s “Faith-Based” Initiatives—
Transforming America “One Soul at a Time”
By Don Monkerud
In his State of the Union
address, President Bush called for the passage of his two faith-based
initiatives to transform America “one soul at a time.” The initiatives the president
spoke of would allow religious organizations to compete for more government
contracts and grants that destroy the strict separation between religious
activities and social service programs.
In the past four years,
President Bush has gone around Congress and behind the public’s back to spread
his faith-based initiative throughout the government, raising serious issues
that the public appears to accept.
Don Monkerud is an Aptos,
California-based writer who follows religion and politics, and contributes to
the Right Web program of the International Relations Center, online at http://www.irc-online.org.
Right Web Analysis: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502religion.php
Letters
and Comments
(Editors Note: We
encourage feedback and comments, which can be sent for publication through our
feedback page, at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/form_feedback.html.
Thank you.)
Re: Neocons and Liberals,
Again, http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502ally.php
The spirit of Scoop Jackson
is alive and well. Cold war liberals have signed on to a new charter that will
help to finish off what remains of a progressive domestic agenda and ensure a
future of never-ending struggle and sacrifice like that which we elders
remember and regret. Kiss goodbye to any belief that we can use our
unprecedented wealth to build a more decent society and viable world order.
- Sumner M. Rosen, WWII
purple heart veteran
Re: Bush Administration’s “Faith-Based”
Initiatives—Transforming America “One Soul at a Time”
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502religion.php
Let us take a look at
'”faith-based'” charity, from its origin. When Christianity was created to
manage the slaves of the Roman Empire, a scam was devised that would cement the slaves to
the church. The church was designed to operate on 10% of the profits derived
from slavery. The aristocrats allowed the slaves less than the minimum
for survival and the church says to them "come hither and god will give
you the charity that will allow you to survive.” The starving slaves
came, and the church doled out to them the pittance that allowed them to
survive, and thus the slaves owed their very lives to the church. When
democracy emerged the American revolution, the democratic government took upon
itself to fill this function of guaranteeing survival of the downtrodden,
taking this scam away from the church and marginalizing its function in the
democratic economy. Thus, the theocrats have hated government 'benefits'
ever since, and the basis for their panic to destroy all government benefits
programs, like Social Security, welfare, minimum wage, and all of the things
that make our democracy a success and keep slavery from being recreated by the
theocrats.
- Charles W. Smith
<cwssystems@wfeca.net>
Re: Right Web Profile
Michael A. Ledeen: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/ledeen/ledeen.php
While I disagree
fundamentally with many of the opinions expressed in your article about Dr.
Ledeen, it is the astonishing lack of factual details which surprises me.
Harold Rhode earned his PhD in the 1980s, and is therefore entitled to the
title Dr., not Mr.
-- MD
<litedrum2001@yahoo.com>
Re: Thomas Donnelly, http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/donnelly/donnelly.php
A sentence in Thomas
Donnelly (AEI Scholar and PNAC associate) comments on President’s Bush' visit
to Europe puzzles me. When comparing the EU and the U.S. he
said. 'The U.S. is not a 'status-quo' nation but a ‘revolutionary
power’.”
What exactly is a
“revolutionary power”?
- Simon Kalf
<simon.kalf@planet.nl>
Re: Vast Right Wing
Conspiracy
As a life member of the Vast
Right Wing Conspiracy, someone who has GOP tattooed across his heart, a man who
would vote Ann Coulter into any political office (basically, a gun-totin',
First Amendment slingin', flag wavin', prayer-in-school murmurer, Milton
Friedman-lovin', right-to-lifer) my views are likely not to be too terribly in
line with yours. Mine are based on an enduring and absolute love for God,
country, and the freedoms I hold dear.
Would you kindly remove my
e-mail address from your mailing list? Feel free to give my subscription to a
Frenchman, someone whose opinions of this great country and its leaders are
more in line with your organization and this country's media.
- David Scott
<dscott@elca.org>
