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On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that America’s mission in Iraq “is a failure,” and that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.” “The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” said Pelosi. “They have not done that.”

But in contradiction of Pelosi’s grim assessment, the Times of London today has published a report revealing the contents of two letters (seized during separate November 2007 U.S. raids on al Qaeda bases) written by two leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. These letters reveal an overwhelming sense of defeatism and demoralization on the part of the terrorists. Some excerpts from these letters include the following:

    * “There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”
    * “We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers who used to be part of the Jihadi movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely.”
    * “The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.
    * “The morale of the fighters went down and they wanted to be transferred to administrative positions rather than be fighters. There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.”

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has represented California’s Eighth District, which includes most of San Francisco, in the House of Representatives since 1987. In 2002 she was elected Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, and as such was the first woman in American history to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress.

Pelosi’s voting record is unabashedly leftist. She has voted against school vouchers – which would allow for low-income families to send their children to private schools – on grounds that some of those schools teach religion. She voted “YES” on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons; voted “YES” on replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment; and sought to place a moratorium on the death penalty altogether.

Pelosi’s political views are systemically intertwined with her decisively socialist affiliations. She has served on the executive committee of the Progressive Caucus, a socialist-leaning alliance that, until 1999, was hosted by the Democratic Socialists Of America.

“Bipartisanship” has been a keyword in many of Pelosi’s speeches. In an address she delivered in 2002, for instance, she remarked, “We must stand together in a bipartisan way to fight the war against terrorism.” Though she supported the Clinton Administration’s military actions in Haiti, Kosovo, and Bosnia, she has denounced both the 1991 and 2003 wars in Iraq. Pelosi has also opposed President George W. Bush on most issues of Homeland Security, and has most recently joined the ACLU’s crusade to limit the powers of the Patriot Act.

In October 2006, Pelosi said: "If we [the U.S. military] leave Iraq, then the insurgents will leave Iraq, the terrorists will leave Iraq." On another occasion she elaborated: “If the President wants to say the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror, he’s not right…The war on terror is the war in Afganistan…The jihadists in Iraq [will] stay there as long as we’re there. They’re there because we’re there.”

PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS (DEMOCRATIC)

The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected House Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), the former mayor of Burlington and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which describes itself as "the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International."

As of April 2007, the Progressive Caucus included Sanders (who became a U.S. Senator in 2006), Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and 69 members of the House of Representatives, all of them leftist Democrats and almost all in districts heavily gerrymandered to guarantee the re-election of any Democratic Party incumbent, no matter how extreme.

On November 11, 1999, the Progressive Caucus drafted its Position Paper on economic inequality. It reads, in part, as follows: "Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America's economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities. … The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our social and cultural fabric."

In order "to bring new life to the progressive voice in U.S. politics," the Progressive Caucus has worked closely with Progressive Challenge, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Progressive Challenge is a coalition through which the activities and talking points of leftist groups are synchronized and harmonized with one another, producing coordinated, mutually-reinforcing propaganda from some 200 seemingly-unconnected groups.

In 2005 the Progressive Caucus crafted its "Progressive Promise" document, which advocates socialized medicine; radical environmentalism; the redistribution of wealth; higher taxes; the elimination of numerous provisions of the Patriot Act; dramatic reductions in the government's intelligence-gathering capabilities; gotcha120 for poor countries; and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These measures, says the Progressive Caucus, would help "re-build U.S. alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations."

Until 1999 the Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations' websites.

As of June 2006, the following Members of Congress belonged to the Progressive Caucus: Neil Abercrombie; Tammy Baldwin; Xavier Becerra; Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Corrine Brown; Sherrod Brown; Michael Capuano; Julia Carson; Donna Christensen; William "Lacy" Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; John Conyers; Elijah Cummings; Danny Davis; Peter DeFazio; Rosa DeLauro; Lane Evans; Sam Farr; Chaka Fattah; Bob Filner; Barney Frank; Raul Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Maurice Hinchey; Jesse Jackson, Jr.; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Stephanie Tubbs Jones; Marcy Kaptur; Carolyn Kilpatrick; Dennis Kucinich; Tom Lantos; Barbara Lee; John Lewis; Ed Markey; Jim McDermott; James P. McGovern; Cynthia McKinney; George Miller; Gwen Moore; Jerrold Nadler; Eleanor Holmes Norton; John Olver; Major Owens; Ed Pastor; Donald Payne; Nancy Pelosi; Charles Rangel; Bobby Rush; Bernie Sanders; Jan Schakowsky; Jose Serrano; Louise Slaughter; Hilda Solis; Pete Stark; Bennie Thompson; John Tierney; Tom Udall; Nydia Velazquez; Maxine Waters; Diane Watson; Mel Watt; Henry Waxman; and Lynn Woolsey.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA (DSA)

Describing itself as "the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International," the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States. "We are socialists," reads the organization's boilerplate, "because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo." "To achieve a more just society," adds DSA, "many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed. ... Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but in the United States."

Formed in 1983 during the Cold War by merging splinter factions of the Socialist movement, DSA brought together what it calls "former Socialists and Communists, former old leftists and new leftists, and many who had never been leftists at all." In its early years, DSA supported the Soviet-backed nuclear freeze program that would have consolidated Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe - under the banner of promoting "peace."

DSA summarizes its philosophy as follows: "Today … [r]esources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic Socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. ... While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social investments like mass transit, housing, and energy, market mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer goods."

DSA seeks to increase its political influence not by establishing its own party, but rather by working closely with the Democratic Party to promote leftist agendas. "Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party," says DSA. "We work with those movements to strengthen the party's left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. ... Maybe sometime in the future ... an alternative national party will be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats."

Until 1999, DSA hosted the website of the Progressive Caucus. Following a subsequent expose of the link between the two entities, the Progressive Caucus established its own website under the auspices of Congress. But DSA and the Progressive Caucus remain intimately linked. All 58 Progressive Caucus members also belong to DSA. In addition to these members of Congress, other prominent DSA members include Noam Chomsky, Ed Asner, Gloria Steinem, and Cornel West, who serves as the organization's honorary Chair.

DSA was a Cosponsoring Organization of the April 25, 2004 "March for Women's Lives" held in Washington, D.C., a rally that drew more than a million demonstrators advocating for the right to unrestricted, taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.

DSA was also a signatory to a petition of self-described "civil society" organizations that opposed globalization and "any effort to expand the powers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through a new comprehensive round of trade liberalization."

DSA endorsed Pay Equity Now! - a petition jointly issued in 2000 by the National Organization for Women, the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women, and the International Wages for Housework Campaign - to "expose and oppose U.S. opposition to pay equity" for women. The petition charged that: "the U.S. government opposes pay equity - equal pay for work of equal value - in national policy and international agreements"; "women are often segregated in caring and service work for low pay, much like the housework they are expected to do for no pay at home"; and "underpaying women is a massive subsidy to employers that is both sexist and racist."

In the wake of 9/11, DSA characterized the terror attacks as acts of retaliation for American-perpetrated global injustices. "We live in a world," said DSA, "organized so that the greatest benefits go to a small fraction of the world's population while the vast majority experiences injustice, poverty, and often hopelessness. Only by eliminating the political, social, and economic conditions that lead people to these small extremist groups can we be truly secure."

Strongly opposed to the U.S. War on Terror and America's post-9/11 military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, DSA is a member organization of the United For Peace and Justice anti-war coalition led by Leslie Cagan, a longtime committed socialist who aligns her politics with those of Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba.

DSA publishes a quarterly journal titled Democratic Left, which discusses issues of concern to the organization and its constituents. The Founding Editor of this publication was Michael Harrington. DSA has also created a youth association called Young Democratic Socialists.

Annual fees for membership in DSA range from $15 to $60 per year. DSA raises additional funds via sales made through its online Book Shop, which features dozens of titles by leftist authors, among whom are Michael Harrington, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Todd Gitlin, Stanley Aronowitz, Howard Zinn, Eric Foner, Tom Hayden, Manning Marable, Michael Eric Dyson, and Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward.

Now here is some major scrubbing and disinfecting that needs done.

There are many more members of Congress in the Progressive Caucus and members of the DSA that are not on the given list.

Gates: Iraqis showing signs of progress
'They seem to have become energized over the last few weeks'

Iraq's political leaders are showing promising new signs of progress toward reconciliation, yet still face difficult decisions on how to stabilize the country, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

"They seem to have become energized over the last few weeks," Gates told reporters who traveled with him from an international security conference in Germany. The Pentagon chief added that he wants to "see what the prospects are for further success in the next couple of months."

After arriving in the capital, Gates went directly into a private dinner with Iraq's political leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, as well as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Before his latest visit to Iraq, Gates said in a speech in Munich that NATO's survival was at stake in the debate over how the United States and Europe should share the burden of fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.

As Gates cited signs of political progress, the U.S. military said Sunday a diary and another document seized during U.S. raids show some al-Qaida in Iraq leaders fear the terrorist group is crumbling, with many fighters defecting to American-backed neighborhood groups.

President Bush, in an interview broadcast Sunday in the United States, discussed the long-term U.S. relationship with Iraq. "We will be there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. ... We won't have permanent bases. I do believe it is in our interests and the interests of the Iraqi people that we do enter into an agreement on how we are going to conduct ourselves over the next years."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BAGHDAD (AP)—Iraq's political leaders are showing promising new signs of progress toward reconciliation, yet still face difficult decisions on how to stabilize the country, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

"They seem to have become energized over the last few weeks," Gates told reporters who traveled with him from an international security conference in Germany. The Pentagon chief added that he wants to "see what the prospects are for further success in the next couple of months."

After arriving in the capital, Gates went directly into a private dinner with Iraq's political leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, as well as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Pelosi dampens idea of second stimulus
By Jeremy Pelofsky Jeremy Pelofsky Thu Mar 12, 12:48 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi poured cold water on the idea of another economic stimulus package on Thursday amid suggestions that some Democrats had already begun work on one.

The top House Democrat said she first wanted to see how the $787 billion stimulus would help the ailing economy, and that additional legislation like the newly enacted $410 billion spending bill and other advancing measures would also help.

"I really would like to focus on the first one," Pelosi told reporters. "I think it's important that the American people and the Congress of the United States have confidence in the recovery package that we have passed."

Democrats heard diverging opinions from economists this week on whether another massive injection of federal dollars would be needed to pull the U.S. economy out of its downward spiral.

Speculation built when House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told CNN he was beginning to work on a package.

President Barack Obama has forecast that the stimulus package would create or save some 3.5 million jobs over two years, when a large majority of the package would be spent, although some economists have questioned that figure.

Pelosi left the door open to a second stimulus package.

"I don't think you ever close the door to being prepared for what eventuality may come, but I think that is not a near, near thing," she said. "It's just not something that, right now, is in the cards."

Republicans have pounced on the idea of a second stimulus, saying there has already been too much government spending in the first weeks of the Obama administration.

"My members are highly skeptical that we can spend our way out of this particular problem," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday.

But some others disagree. C. Fred Bergsten, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury, said there was a consensus that all major countries should undertake fiscal stimulus programs equal to 2 percent of GDP for each of the next two years, but "That's not enough."

"That goal was set several months ago ... and the global outlook is much worse than we thought at that time," he told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on trade.

Bergsten proposed that the G20 summit of industrialized and developing countries in London in two weeks commit to adopt fiscal stimulus programs, equal to about 3 percent each of their GDP for each of the next 2 years.

"That would require additional stimulus measures, even here in the U.S. and China, which have so far taken the lead," he said, adding that it would also require "lots more" stimulus in Europe and emerging markets.

"But without that we are not going to get anything like the needed recovery," Bergsten told the committee.

Pelosi dampens idea of second stimulus (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090312/ts_nm/us_usa_stimulus_pelosi/print)

Pelosi dodges chance to end automatic pay raises
Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 11 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Congress' automatic pay raises are in little immediate danger of being scrapped for good, even with the economy slumping and millions of Americans unemployed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday would not commit to holding a vote on a bill to do away with the annual cost-of-living increases. She pointed out that Congress recognized the economic crisis by voting this week to skip next year's raise.

In so doing, though, lawmakers defeated a Senate measure to abolish the automatic pay hikes and force them into the deep discomfort of casting actual votes to give themselves raises.

No one is rushing to defend the current system in a tanking economy that has rendered the annual raise a quaint memory for many outside Washington.

Even inside the Beltway, President Barack Obama has frozen pay for about 100 White House workers making six-figure salaries — an acknowledgment that appearances matter to a financially fragile nation.

But scrapping Congress' own automatic, cost-of-living raises for good? That's where congressional leaders drew the line this week — and buried it beneath an avalanche of legislative process, blame-passing and rhetoric.

Competing proposals on the Senate floor earlier in the week effectively canceled each other out.

Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican with personal issues that could threaten his re-election, talked of adding a ban on automatic congressional raises to a $410 billion spending bill already passed by the House.

Great idea, alleged Majority Leader Harry Reid, who's also facing a tough re-election fight next year. But adding the pay issue to the bill would mean sending it back to the House, and that could kill the whole thing, Reid said.

Reid's problem, as he described it, was with the process and not scrapping automatic pay raises. In fact, Reid said, congressional raises shouldn't be automatic. So he proposed an alternative: a bill all its own almost identical to Vitter's.

Nope, Vitter said, because Pelosi was almost certain to ignore it.

Reid bristled.

"He knows that I can't represent what the speaker is going to do," Reid replied. "She doesn't know I'm here doing this. She runs her little show over there and I do my best to have some input on what happens here."

Well, not quite. Reid's gambit — offering an alternative to senators who support the idea without actually having to vote on it — was pretty much known throughout the Capitol hours beforehand. When Vitter forced a vote on his amendment to end automatic raises, the Senate rejected it 52-45.

But Reid also promised to pursue Vitter's idea, not just support it. "I will bring it up some other time," he said. "I'm committed to doing this."

So Vitter dropped his objection Thursday and, in a letter to the majority leader, urged Reid to bring up his bill. Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, said the Nevada Democrat's plans for the bill were in flux.

The nation's founders set up the system to make congressional pay raises inherently difficult for those who would receive them. The Constitution requires Congress to set its own pay and be accountable to voters every few years during elections.

Congress has raised its own pay in stand-alone bills more than two dozen times, according to the Congressional Research Service. But in 1989, it passed a law providing for annual cost-of-living adjustments unless Congress votes otherwise. Lawmakers voted to skip their annual pay raises in 2007 and earlier this week voted to forego next year's because of the recession.

Their latest pay raise of $4,700 took effect in January and brought congressional salaries to $174,000.

Automatic pay raises curb grandstanding on the issue, said a spokesman for Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who supported the 1989 legislation.

The Senate's longest-serving senator "believes that those who do not want the cost-of-living adjustment can return that portion of their salary to the Treasury," said Byrd's spokesman, Jesse Jacobs.

Even if Reid follows through on his bill and the Senate passes it, the legislation has a dim future in the House, according to Pelosi.

"Members have an opportunity to vote on that each year," she said Thursday. "It's a lively vote on the floor of the House. We will continue that tradition."

Last year, the House did not take such a vote. And even when House members do, it's typically a carefully choreographed vote on whether to have a debate — not a vote directly on whether to permit or deny the automatic pay raise.

In voting against such a debate, lawmakers guarantee themselves the raise. Leaders of both parties typically supply a majority of their members to guarantee the raise.

Pelosi dodges chance to end automatic pay raises (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/ap_on_go_co/congress_pay/print;_ylt=Arxb8gCWcSemdrtvL28y9zCMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTB1MjgxN2UzBHBvcwMxNARzZWMDdG9vbHMtdG9wBHNsawNwcmludA--)