The World IS Round By: Mark W Adams

No longer should there be any "debate" about the following subjects.

Climate change/Global warming is real.

• Mankind significantly contributes to this phenomenon by pumping 70 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere daily.
• It is not too late to do something about climate change to fend off the worst repercussions.

Waterboarding is torture.

• The Bush Administration has engaged in this activity, and others which are considered torture throughout the civilized world.
• High ranking Bush Administrations, including Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney and Bush have known and/or ordered these procedures, well aware that they were indeed torture.
• These administration officials also were well aware that they could be found criminally liable for their involvement in these torture activities under both US and International Law.
• These same administration officials have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover-up their felonious activities related to torture.

Warrantless Domestic Surveillance of US residents is illegal and Unconstitutional.

• The NSA and other agencies of the US Government have electronically eavesdropped on US citizens and legal residents within our borders.
• The availability of retroactively obtaining warrants under FISA makes any suggestion that the warrant requirement is too cumbersome ridiculous.
• The telecoms knew they were acting illegally when they bowed to pressure and threats of retribution from the administration to allow the NSA and others access to their customers' private data.
• The administration pursued this illegal and unconstitutional activity well before 9/11/01 while ignoring terrorist threats from abroad.
  

Valerie Plame was "covert."

• Cheney, Rove, Addington and Libby, among others, deliberately exposed her status while being fully aware of said status for no other purpose than retribution against her husband.
• George Bush knew who leaked her name to the press, and why, and did nothing about it except pardon Libby so nothing further could be done to expose the conspiracy.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other high ranking administration officials knew that the chances of Saddam Hussein possessing WMD's was highly remote and provided little or no justification to engage in a war of aggression.

• The administration deliberately "fixed the intelligence around the policy."
• The administration deliberately conflated 9/11 with Iraq, knowing there was no connection whatsoever.
• Secure access to Iraq's oil, and a personal/familial vendetta against Hussein are the only "real" reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place.

The war in Iraq is a disaster.

• Despite the "Surge," and a decrease in the death rate over the last 6 weeks, this year was worse than the year before, and the year before that.
• A marked increase in airstrikes, and ethnic cleansing have contribute to the stark rise in casualties over last year, completion of targeting missions and cleansing of the mixed neighborhoods has contributed to the recent decrease in the rate of killing.
• We have destroyed our reputation throughout the world by our conduct of the war, possibly to an irretrievable degree, no matter what the eventual outcome of the conflict.
• We have severely damaged our ability to form alliances, degraded our military capability, and crippled our intelligence gathering institutions by our conduct of the war.
• There will be tremendous bloodshed if we leave precipitously, and tremendous bloodshed if we stay.
• The Iraqi people will never accept any government, or power structure put in place while under the current US occupation.
  

For these, and so many other reasons, our government is infected with a hoard of felons and war criminals whose daily existence now serves no other purpose than to escape responsibility for their crimes.

There is no "balance" to be fair about these issues. Any so called "journalists" who engage in the petty he said/she said presentation of events that are well settled are looking to fill time, gain ratings, and engaging in the laziest and most disingenuous form of behavior. They are co-conspirators with the mafia fiefdom our republic has now become.

When someone starts talking about the personal loyalty of the ideologically pure being the sine qua non of anyone ever considered for a job with the Bush administration; pay attention, because you may have found that rarest of breeds -- a truth-teller in the media.