Give me something to cheer about...

[jonnygemini]

NSA whistleblower asks to testify

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 5, 2006

A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA.
"I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times.
The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government.
President Bush said Sunday that the NSA spying is "a necessary program" aimed at finding international terrorists by tracking phone numbers linked to al Qaeda.
Mr. Bush said during a visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio that al Qaeda is "making phone calls, [and] it makes sense to find out why."
Critics of the eavesdropping program, which gathered and sifted through large amounts of telephone and e-mail to search for clues to terrorists' communications, say the activities might have been illegal because they were carried out without obtaining a FISA court order.
The Justice Department has said the program is legal under presidential powers authorized by Congress in 2001.
Mr. Tice said yesterday that he was not part of the intercept program.
In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished.
The activities involved the NSA director, the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations and the secretary of defense, he stated.
"These ... acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs," Mr. Tice said.
The letters were sent to Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican. Mr. Roberts is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Mr. Hoekstra is chairman of the House counterpart.
Spokesmen for the NSA and the Senate intelligence committee declined to comment. Spokesmen for the House intelligence committee and the DIA said they were aware of Mr. Tice's letters, but had not seen formal copies of them.

[jonnygemini]

NOT CHEERING THIS...but it belonged with the Chavez stuff

Chavez accused of anti-Semitic remarks
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 6, 2006

A Jewish rights organization accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of making anti-Semitic comments during a Christmas Eve speech.

The Los Angeles, California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded an apology from Chavez in a statement issued Wednesday, saying such remarks have long been used to persecute Jews.

"Some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ ... took all the world's wealth for themselves," Chavez said in the Dec. 24 speech.

"In your words, the two central arguments of anti-Semitism emerge ... the accusation that Jews killed Jesus (and) associating them with wealth," the Center said in a letter sent to Chavez. "Our center strongly condemns your anti-Semitic declarations."

Chavez did not did not mention the Jewish people explicitly in the speech, which was broadcast on national television. A spokeswoman for the president's office said it had no immediate response to the complaint.

During the speech, Chavez also praised Jesus Christ as a revolutionary hero, saying he was the world's first true socialist.

The letter was signed by Shimon Samuels, the Center's international relations director, and Sergio Widder, a Latin American representative based in Argentina.

They said the Center would urge the governments of

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay to "freeze the process" of incorporating Venezuela into the Mercosur trade bloc unless Chavez makes a public apology.

Widder said Thursday that the group had yet to receive a response. He said even if Chavez had not intended to refer to Jews, the possibility for that interpretation was cause for concern.

"The words of a head of state should be cautious," Widder said.

The Jewish rights organization has expressed concerns about other comments by Chavez in the past. Chavez, a fiery speaker who says he is leading Venezuela toward socialism, has said he wants to have good relations will all religious groups.

Venezuela's president is known for speaking candidly. On one occasion he used an epithet in referring to US President George W. Bush, and he once suggested US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was illiterate, offering to send her materials to learn how to read and write.

Chavez's barbs are usually aimed at opposition leaders or US officials, but he has also criticized Latin American leaders such as Mexican President Vicente Fox and former Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez.

[jonnygemini]

# On March 16 in the year 1968, the men of Charlie Company under the command of Lt. William Calley carve a bloody path of horror through the tiny Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. After two hours of slaughter, over 400 civilians -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- lay dead in heaps among the smoldering ruins of their village. Amid the carnage on that shameful day, three men proved that the righteous pay allegiance to no flag: helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jnr, door gunner Lawrence Colburn and crewman Glenn Andreotta did their country proud by landing their chopper between a group of terrified children and some rampaging soldiers, threatening to gun them down if they continued their pursuit. It would take thirty years before these three men's courage received official recognition. Last week, Thompson died of cancer at the age of 62. Now more than ever, America can't afford to forget his honorable example.

[jonnygemini]

He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Hugh Thompson and My Lai

By CLANCY SIGAL

There is an Ugly American, a Quiet American and then there's Hugh Thompson, the Army helicopter pilot who, with his two younger crew mates, was on a mission to draw enemy fire over the Vietnamese village of My Lai in March, 1968. Hovering over a paddy field, they watched a platoon of American soldiers led by Lt. William Calley, deliberately shoot unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mainly women and children, cowering in muddy ditches. Thompson landed his craft and appealed to the soldiers, and to Calley, to stop the killings. Calley told Thompson to mind his own business.

Thompson took off but then one of his crew shouted that the shooting had begun again. According to his later testimony, Thompson was uncertain what to do. Americans murdering innocent bystanders was hard for him to process. But when he saw Vietnamese survivors chased by soldiers, he landed his chopper between the villagers and troopers, and ordered his crew to fire at any American soldiers shooting at civilians. Then he got on the radio and begged U.S. gunships above him to rescue those villagers he could not cram into his own craft.

On returning to base, Thompson, almost incoherent with rage, immediately reported the massacre to superiors, who did nothing, until months later when the My Lai story leaked to the public. The eyewitness testimony of Thompson and his surviving crew member helped convict Calley at a court-martial. But when he returned to his Stateside home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Thompson received death threats and insults, while Calley was pardoned by President Nixon. Indeed, for a time, Thompson himself feared court-martial. Reluctantly, the massacre was investigated by then-major Colin Powell, of the Americal Division, who reported relations between U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese civilians as "excellent"; Powell's whitewash was the foundation of his meteoric rise through the ranks.

Hugh Thompson died last week, age sixty two. Thirty years after My Lai, he, and his gunner Lawrence Colburn, had received the Soldiers Medal, as did the third crew member, Glenn Andreotta, who was killed in combat. "Don't do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come," Thompson wryly observed at the ceremony.

Something stuck in my head when I learned of Thompson's death. "There was no thinking about it," he said before his death. "There was something that had to be done, and it had to be done fast."

Words similar to these are often used by combat heroes to describe incredible feats of courage under fire. With one possible difference. According to the record, Thompson did have time to think about it as he took off from My Lai, hovered and tried to wrap his mind around the horror below. Then he made a conscious decision to save lives. Some of the Vietnamese he rescued, children then, are alive today.

Ex-chief warrant officer Thompson is a member of a small, elite corps of Americans who have broken ranks and refused to run with the herd. They include Army specialist Joseph Darby, of the 372d Military Police Company, who reported on his fellow soldiers who were torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. His family has received threats to their personal safety in their Maryland hometown. And Captain Ian Fishback, the 82d Airborne West Pointer, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tried vainly for seventeen months to persuade superiors that detainee torture was a systematic, and not a 'few bad apples', problem inside the U.S. military. In frustration, he wrote to Senator McCain, which led directly to McCain's anti-torture amendment. I wouldn't want to bet on the longevity of Captain Fishback's military career.

Thompson's death also reminded me of Captain Lawrence Rockwood, of the 10th Mountain Division. Ten years ago, Rockwood was deployed to Haiti where, against orders, he personally investigated detainee abuse at the National Penitentiary in the heart of Port au Prince. He was court-martialed for criticizing the U.S. military's refusal to intervene, and kicked out of the Army. While still on duty, he kept a photograph on his desk of a man he greatly admired. It was of Captain Hugh Thompson.

Some of my friends get so angry at the Bush White House, and so despairing, that they slip into a mindset where Americans - the great 'Them' out there - are lumped into a solid bloc of malign ignoramuses. They forget that this country is also made up of people like Hugh Thompson, Joe Darby, Ian Fishback and Lawrence Rockwood - outside and inside the military.

[jonnygemini]

Bolivia's president-elect visits Argentina

By BILL CORMIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- When he was a child, Evo Morales sold homemade sweets on street corners in Argentina to help support his migrant Indian family. On Tuesday, Morales returned to this country as the first Indian president-elect of Argentina's northern neighbor, Bolivia.

"It seems as though some journalists in Europe and Asia want to see me in feathers and half-naked," Morales said at a news conference after a meeting with his left-leaning Argentine ally, President Nestor Kirchner.

"It's not that way," he continued. "We are human beings. We are happy that we are finally being recognized - thanks to the vote of the people, they will know what Bolivia is."

Argentina is the most European of Latin American nations, its 36 million residents mostly descended from ship-borne immigrants from Italy and Spain a century ago. Many Argentines still look down on their darker-skinned neighbors from Bolivia and Paraguay, especially when they migrate to take on some of Argentina's worst, lowest-paying jobs.

Morales urged Argentines to accept the rich variety of South American peoples after reporters pressed him to talk about his own childhood in Jujuy, which borders Bolivia and is one of Argentina's poorest provinces.

"We seek to live in the unity of diversity because we Bolivians are diverse. Some of us are black, others white, others brown. I have realized, for example, that President Kirchner and I have something in common: We both have a big nose," he said, provoking much laughter. "Who knows if we are brothers? You'd have to investigate where we came from."

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Like most Bolivian migrants at the time, Morales, then 4 or 5, was part of a despised underclass. He got his first taste of school on the plantation where his father harvested sugar cane, but said he soon dropped out because as an Aymara Indian he didn't understand Spanish.

Now Morales has some real power over Argentina, since Bolivia may stop selling it natural gas at a discount and instead leave prices to the free market. Morales said the negotiations are likely to be complex and would have to wait until after he has settled into power.

Bolivia has exported more than 7 million cubic feet of gas daily since 2004 to energy-hungry Argentina, South America's second-largest economy. And while he would welcome increased exports, Morales said supplies for Bolivians should be increased first.

"There are programs and projects for Bolivia that we have to give a priority," he said. "It's just not possible that Bolivians are (sitting) on top of the gas and going without gas. This has to end."

Morales - who joined with Kirchner last year in opposition to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, said he and Kirchner also discussed plans to tackle poverty, illiteracy and rampant corruption in Bolivia.

"We are planning on undertaking profound change in Bolivia, but we will do so democratically," Morales said.

And Morales reiterated that he welcomes dialogue with the United States, though he referred to it as "the empire."

"If the empire wants to support us, the support will be welcome," he said. "With the United States, we want agreements, but not subordination."

Morales also renewed his assurances that his government would protect property and the rights of businesses.

"Not only are we going to respect private property, we are going to protect private property. This is important both for public and private investment," he said.

Still, Morales' open admiration for Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez have rattled some conservatives. The Venezuelan leader is expected to attend Sunday's inauguration, and Morales said Tuesday he had asked Castro to come when the two talked in Cuba recently.

"When I met him, I joked with Fidel: 'If you don't come to the inauguration, I'm not going to take the oath'" of office, he said.

[jonnygemini]

Belafonte Continues Tirade Against Bush

By VERENA DOBNIK
The Associated Press
Saturday, January 21, 2006; 6:47 PM

NEW YORK -- Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar.

"We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

"You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel," said Belafonte.

Belafonte's remarks on Saturday _ part of a 45-minute speech on the role of the arts in a politically changing world _ were greeted with a roaring standing ovation from an audience which included singer Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, and members of the arts community from several dozen countries.

Messages seeking comments from Homeland Security and White House officials were not immediately returned.

He had called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" during a trip to Venezuela two weeks ago. Belafonte, 78, made that comment after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

The Harlem-born Belafonte, who was raised in Jamaica, said his activism was inspired by an impoverished mother "who imbued in me that we should never capitulate to oppression."

He acknowledged that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks demanded a reaction by the United States, but said the policies of the Bush administration were not the right response.

"Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression," said Belafonte, who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Bush, he said, rose to power "somewhat dubiously and ... then lies to the people of this nation, misleads them, misinstructs, and then sends off hundreds of thousands of our own boys and girls to a foreign land that has not aggressed against us."

[jonnygemini]

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006
When George Met Jack
White House aides deny the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's more to the story
By ADAM ZAGORIN AND MIKE ALLEN

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal—like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as "Jefe," or "chief" in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages.

Most of the pictures have the formal look of photos taken at presidential receptions. The images of Bush, Abramoff and one of his sons appear to be the rapid-fire shots—known in White House parlance as clicks—that the President snaps with top supporters before taking the podium at fund-raising receptions. Over five years, Bush has posed for tens of thousands of such shots—many with people he does not know. Last month 9,500 people attended holiday receptions at the White House, and most went two by two through a line for a photo with the President and the First Lady. The White House is generous about providing copies—in some cases, signed by the President—that become centerpieces for "walls of fame" throughout status-conscious Washington.

Abramoff knew the game. In a 2001 e-mail to a lawyer for tribal leader Lovelin Poncho, he crows about an upcoming meeting at the White House that he had arranged for Poncho and says it should be a priceless asset in his client's upcoming re-election campaign as chief of Louisiana's Coushatta Indians. "By all means mention (in the tribal newsletter) that the Chief is being asked to confer with the President and is coming to Washington for this purpose in May," Abramoff writes. "We'll definitely have a photo from the opportunity, which he can use." The lawyer had asked about attire, and Abramoff advises, "As to dress, probably suit and tie would work best."

The e-mail, now part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into lobbying practices and lobbyists' relationships with members of Congress, offers a window into Abramoff's willingness to trade on ties to the White House and to invoke Bush's name to impress clients who were spending tens of millions of dollars on Abramoff's advice.

Abramoff was once in better graces at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, having raised at least $100,000 for the President's re-election campaign. During 2001 and 2002, his support for Republicans and connections to the White House won him invitations to Hanukkah receptions, each attended by 400 to 500 people. McClellan has said Abramoff may have been present at "other widely attended" events. He was also admitted to the White House complex for meetings with several staff members, including one with presidential senior adviser Karl Rove, one of the most coveted invitations in Washington.

Michael Scanlon, who is Abramoff's former partner and has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a Congressman, in 2001 told the New Times of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that Abramoff had "a relationship" with the President. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one," Scanlon said. Nonsense, say others. A former White House official familiar with some Abramoff requests to the White House said Abramoff had some meetings with Administration officials in 2001 and 2002, but he was later frozen out because aides became suspicious of his funding sources and annoyed that the issues he raised did not mesh with their agenda. A top Republican official said it was clear to him that Abramoff couldn't pick up the phone and reach Bush aides because Abramoff had asked the official to serve as an intermediary.

The White House describes the number of Abramoff's meetings with staff members only as "a few," even though senior Bush aides have precise data about them. McClellan will not give details, saying he doesn't "get into discussing staff-level meetings." During a televised briefing, he added, "We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition." Pressed for particulars about Abramoff's White House contacts, McClellan said with brio, "People are insinuating things based on no evidence whatsoever." But he said he cannot "say with absolute certainty that (Abramoff) did not have any other visits" apart from those disclosed. Another White House official said, "The decision was made—don't put out any additional information." That reticence has been eagerly seized upon by some Democrats. Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada wrote to Bush last week to demand details, saying Abramoff "may have had undue and improper influence within your Administration."

Garza, the bolo-wearing former chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, has fond memories of his session with Bush, which he said was held in 2001 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. According to e-mails in the hands of investigators, the meeting was arranged with the help of Abramoff and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. In an April 18, 2001, e-mail to Abramoff, Norquist wrote that he would be "honored" if Abramoff "could come to the White House meeting." Garza—known in his native Kickapoo language as Makateonenodua, or black buffalo—is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe. Through his spokesman, Garza said that during the session, Bush talked about policy matters and thanked those present for supporting his agenda, then took questions from the audience of about two dozen people. Garza told TIME, "We were very happy that Jack Abramoff helped us to be with the President. Bush was in a very good mood—very upbeat and positive." No evidence has emerged that the Bush Administration has done anything for the Kickapoo at Abramoff's behest.

Three attendees who spoke to TIME recall that Abramoff was present, and three of them say that's where the picture of Bush, Abramoff and the former Kickapoo chairman was taken. The White House has a different description of the event Garza attended. "The President stopped by a meeting with 21 state legislators and two tribal leaders," spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Available records show that Mr. Abramoff was not in attendance."

—With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/ Washington

[jonnygemini]

Conservative Moonie run mag says White House is preparing for inevitable impeachment, then criminal proceedings

Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst
insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/impeachment.htm

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress.

"A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.

Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court.

Sources said the probe to determine whether the president violated the law will include Republicans, but that they may not be aware they could be helping to lay the groundwork for a Democratic impeachment campaign against Mr. Bush.

"Our arithmetic shows that a majority of the committee could vote against the president," the source said. "If we work hard, there could be a tie."

The law limits the government surveillance to no more than 72 hours without a court warrant. The president, citing his constitutional war powers, has pledged to continue wiretaps without a warrant.

The hearings would be accompanied by several lawsuits against the administration connected to the surveillance program. At the same time, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that demands information about the NSA spying.

Sen. Arlen Specter, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and Pennsylvania Republican, has acknowledged that the hearings could conclude with a vote of whether Mr. Bush violated the law. Mr. Specter, a critic of the administration’s surveillance program, stressed that, although he would not seek it, impeachment is a possible outcome.

"Impeachment is a remedy," Mr. Specter said on Jan. 15. "After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution. But the principal remedy under our society is to pay a political price."

Mr. Specter and other senior members of the committee have been told by legal constitutional experts that Mr. Bush did not have the authority to authorize unlimited secret electronic surveillance. Another leading Republican who has rejected the administration's argument is Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

On Jan. 16, former Vice President Al Gore set the tone for impeachment hearings against Mr. Bush by accusing the president of lying to the American people. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 election to Mr. Bush, accused the president of "indifference" to the Constitution and urged a serious congressional investigation. He said the administration decided to break the law after Congress refused to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," Mr. Gore said.

"I call upon members of Congress in both parties to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution,” he said. “Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government that you are supposed to be under the constitution of our country."

Impeachment proponents in Congress have been bolstered by a memorandum by the Congressional Research Service on Jan. 6. CRS, which is the research arm of Congress, asserted in a report by national security specialist Alfred Cumming that the amended 1947 law requires the president to keep all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed" of a domestic surveillance effort. It was the second CRS report in less than a month that questioned the administration's domestic surveillance program.

The latest CRS report said Mr. Bush should have briefed the intelligence committees in the House and Senate. The report said covert programs must be reported to House and Senate leaders as well as the chairs of the intelligence panels, termed the "Gang of Eight."

Administration sources said Mr. Bush would wage a vigorous defense of electronic surveillance and other controversial measures enacted after 9/11. They said the president would begin with pressure on Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Bush would then point to security measures taken by the former administration of President Bill Clinton.

"The argument is that the American people will never forgive any public official who knowingly hurts national security," an administration source said. "We will tell the American people that while we have done everything we can to protect them, our policies are being endangered by a hypocritical Congress."

[jonnygemini]

L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles Times columnist who infuriated conservatives by writing that he does not support American troops fighting in Iraq -- and calling those who do "wusses" -- stood by the article on Tuesday.

Joel Stein said he has been "bombarded" by hate mail over the incendiary article -- which was headlined "Warriors and Wusses" and held that U.S. soldiers in Iraq were "ignoring their morality" -- but does not regret writing it and stands by the premise.

"I don't support what they are doing, and I don't the see point of putting a big yellow magnet on your car if you don't," Stein told Reuters in an interview. "I don't think (soldiers) are necessarily bad people. I do plenty of things that are wrong too. But I don't agree with what they are doing so I don't see the logic of supporting it."

The article, which ran on the Times opinion page on Tuesday, was quickly linked on conservative sites across the Internet, where readers poured scorn on Stein, on the newspaper and on liberals in general.

"If I ever run into the a**hole, I'm going to knock his frickin' block off," one man wrote on the Little Green Footballs (www.littlegreenfootballs.com) Web site, one of nearly 500 people who had commented on the article by mid-afternoon.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin quickly nominated Stein as "one of the most loathsome people in America." The Irish Pennants (www.irishpennants.com) site slammed him as "slime" but gave credit for honesty, adding:

"At least he is straightforward slime."

A Times spokesman said he could not immediately determine how many complaints the newspaper had received or if any readers had canceled subscriptions.

Stein said that, despite the fact that his e-mail address was not made public by the paper, he had received some 100 "hate e-mails" by noon.

"They're telling me to leave the country, which sounded good at first because I thought they meant a vacation. But they didn't mean a vacation," he said. The columnist said he suspected the reaction was largely fueled by the Web sites, adding: "My guess is that it will die down pretty quickly."

Stein said he had long considered the issue and that whenever a politician opposes the war but supports the troops "I just always think they are covering their ass."

Asked if he had regrets, he said: "No, because I'm against the war. (I have no regrets) if this helps us get out of that war and bring our troops home safely."