I rarely write to you about the Israelis and the Palestinians. The truth is simply too divisive and too painful. But this particular story is too important. So indulge me...Unfortunately, both the _resident and Sharon, for different reasons, are psychologically incapable of waging peace. Unlike Begin, Sharon cannot see the strength in peace-making. Unlike previous US Presidents Carter, Clinton and even his own father, the _resident does not accept the vital importance of the US playing the role of even a somewhat fair broker between Israel and Palestine. The _resident's performance -- his 2000-2002 policy of "malign neglect," followed up with the purely cosmetic "roadmap to peace" -- is a disgrace. Sharon, well...Sharon should be housed along side Milosevic in the Hague. And just as the _resident has strengthened and exalated al-Qaeda, so Sharon has strengthened and exalted Hamas...But here we are -- at this incredible moment in history -- many in both the US and Israeli intelligence communities are speaking out against the foolish leadership of these two ignorant men, who have between them (Iraq and Palestine) ignited a fire in the Middle East that could well lead us all into WWIII, one that would look a lot more like WWI than WWII...Here are four more names for the John O'Neill Wall of Heroes, and the piece of course is from America's best newspaper, The U.K. Guardian...Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in November 2004: Defeat Bush (again)!
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1096286,00.html
Israel's hard men fight for peace
As campaigners from both sides sign their own draft treaty, Conal Urquhart meets the security chiefs who insist that Sharon is wrong
Sunday November 30, 2003
The Observer
They are Ariel Sharon's trickiest opponents - four former heads of the Israeli security service who have united to accuse the Prime Minister of pushing the Jewish state to the 'edge of an abyss'. Israel, they say, must find peace or perish.
Between them, they served for 20 years at the head of Shin Bet, the nerve centre of the war on Palestinian militants, but now they have dramatically changed tack to spearhead a new movement for peace more powerful than Israel has ever seen before.
Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon and Major General Ami Ayalon have fought the Palestinians with as much vigour as Sharon, who commanded an armoured division in the 1967 Six Day War. Shalom reportedly ordered the murder of two Palestinians who hijacked a bus. Under Ayalon's command, Shin Bet perfected the use of booby-trapped mobile phones for assassinations.
The stocky, shaven-headed Ayalon has fought Arabs all his life, but this pugnacious character is the new face of the Israeli peace movement which, after three years of the intifada, is finally beginning to have an impact.
Almost all Israeli public figures have done military service, but Ayalon, 58, has devoted his life to it. At 18 he joined the naval commandos and rose to head the navy. After retiring, he led Shin Bet.
'I am not a leftist, I have been involved in hundreds of military operations and killed many people. I have blood on my hands,' he told The Observer. His military past has given a new respectability to the peace movement, which used to be accused of being insufficiently patriotic.
Ayalon launched a peace initiative with Sari Nusseibeih, head of Al Quds, the Arab university in Jerusalem, which calls on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to adopt a policy of 'two states for two peoples', based on the borders before 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza. There is nothing new in this, but Ayalon says the timing is right.
It is not the only peace initiative which Israelis are addressing. Tomorrow in Switzerland, Israeli and Palestinian peace campaigners will sign the Geneva accords, a prototype peace agreement. Ayalon says both initiatives undermine Sharon's line that there is no Palestinian partner for peace.
Last month Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, the army chief of staff, told reporters the government's policy of repressing Palestinians was reducing Israel's security, not enhancing it.
Commentators believe that because of such unprecedented attacks from areas linked to the Right, Sharon has been forced to change direction. Last week, he promised 'unilateral concessions' and hinted at evacuating some Jewish settlements on occupied land.
There has been no action yet and the living conditions of Palestinians are unchanged, but many commentators believe the government cannot ignore the demands of the public and the security establishment.
Ayalon said: 'Deep in our society there is a revolution, a groundswell of opinion. Many Israeli generals are talking; the four heads of Shin Bet have spoken; there are peace plans being proposed. When you combine all this with the economic situation, it will soon add up to a tidal wave.
'If the politicians do not listen to what the people and the security establishment are saying, there will be people in the streets demanding change.'
Avraham Burg, a senior member of the opposition Labour Party, has warned that the Zionist dream of a Jewish state is in danger: 'Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centres of Israeli escapism.'
Avraham Shalom said Israel was heading for an abyss: 'If we do not turn away from adhering to the entire land of Israel [including the West Bank and Gaza] and begin to understand the other side, we will not get anywhere.
'We must, once and for all, admit there is another side, that it is suffering and that we are behaving disgracefully... If we don't change this there will be nothing there.'
Underpinning the fierce criticism of Sharon's administration is fear that Jews will become a minority in land controlled by Israel unless a Palestinian state is created. Ayalon and many Israelis fear that unless there is such a state, the Palestinians will demand equal rights in a single nation, leading to a Muslim majority within 10 years.
Sharon's insistence on stamping out 'terror' before opening talks is like Nero fiddling as Rome burnt, say his critics. 'The status quo is leading us to a place we do not want to be, a one-state solution. We need a two-state solution,' said Ayalon.
A People's Voice petition backed by Ayalon has so far attracted 200,000 signatures among Palestinians and Israelis. He believes 70 per cent of Israelis will sign if they have the opportunity.
The declaration in some ways offers more than the Palestinians could dream of, a state based on 1967 borders and Jerusalem as an open city. However, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they had in Israel before 1948 is rejected.
Ayalon's initiative sees a two-state solution, whereas the Geneva accord includes negotiations on moot points such as which settlements become part of Israel and how the Palestinian state is to be compensated for this.
Ayalon said: 'This is a pragmatic exercise. We are not doing it because we love Palestinians. We are doing it because we want a Jewish democratic state.
'I have clear red lines, things people die for. One is that I do not want to see one Palestinian returning to the state of Israel.'
It is almost eight weeks since there has been a suicide attack in Israel itself, and this unprecedented period of calm has encouraged talk of peace. But just one serious attack in Israel will move the peace initiatives from the top of the agenda to the bottom.
Ayalon insists no attack must be allowed to slow momentum towards a two-state solution: 'Israelis know violence itself does not bring about security. This vision will secure our future.'
Seven spanish intelligence agents (80% of Spain opposes the US action in Iraq), two Japanese dipolomates (90% of Japan opposes the US/UK action in Iraq), two South Korean electricians, and two more US GIs died this Sunday in Iraq...For what? A foolish military adventure fueled on a Neo-Con wet dream...Prior to leading us into the quagmire of Iraq, the _resident relished delivering tough-talk speeches at U.S. military bases. But this penchance abated as the death toll soared for US GIs stuck in Iraq, and as the men and women on the front line began to speak out -- denouncing the war and its leaders. The _resident has also refused to meet with the families of the fallen, or even *allow* the "US mainstream news media" to take photos of the coffins coming home (why haven't they taken the White and the Pentagon to court on this?)...So when this ignorant, belligerent and cowardly man went to Fort Carson in Colorado, shortly before his Thanksgiving photo-op at the Baghdad airport, I wondered...Well, the Rocky Mountain News had the guts to tell the truth about the _resident's Fort Carson visit. I wonder if anyone will ask who was at the dinner for 600 at the Baghdad airport. Certainly, no combat troops from the streets of Tikrit or Falusia or even Baghdad itself. Officers and HQ staff is my guess...Support our Troops, Show up for Democracy in November 2004 Defeat Bush (again)!
Rocky Mountain News: Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules. No talking to the troops before the rally. No talking to the troops during the rally. No talking to the troops after the rally. In other words, if I've done the math right, that means no conversation at all - at least, while on base - with any soldiers. After all, who knows where that kind of thing could lead?
http://truthout.org/docs_03/112903C.shtml
Gag Order Leaves Troops, Reporters Speechless
Mike Littwin
Rocky Mountain News
Tuesday 25 November 2003
Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules. No talking to the troops before the rally. No talking to the troops during the rally. No talking to the troops after the rally. In other words, if I've done the math right, that means no conversation at all - at least, while on base - with any soldiers. After all, who knows where that kind of thing could lead?
Just as an example: It could lead to a discussion about why the president has time to get to so many fund-raisers and no time to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq.
There could have been debate, and we all know the risks in debate, as to whether it's really the families' privacy that is being guarded by the rule against photos of coffins as they arrive from Iraq. Or whether it's the president's standing - the latest Gallup Poll showed 54 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq - that is being guarded from what one general once called "the Dover test."
Or somebody might have wanted to reminisce about Cpl. Gary B. Coleman, 24, of Pikeville, Ky., giving flesh-and-blood detail to the chilling statistic that Coleman was the latest casualty from Fort Carson, a post that has now given up 31 lives to the war in Iraq. Coleman, who was on patrol when his car crashed into a canal, trapping him inside, left behind a wife he had married only weeks before shipping out.
I'd have been happy just to have asked whether any of the troops who cheered the president lustily - long "whoops" and "USA, USA" chants - thought that standing for 2 ½ hours in a hangar waiting for the president to arrive was the best use of their time. (OK, I have to admit I cheated and snuck in one brief interview in the parking lot. A soldier excitedly told me he shook hands with the president and that he thought - and I hope this isn't too controversial - it was "way cool.")
But even here, or maybe especially here, a soldier or two might have, in conversation, questioned the need for the war in Iraq. This is not exactly a welcome notion in the White House. The Bush campaign has put up an ad in Iowa saying that certain of his opponents are "attacking the president for attacking the terrorists," as if opposing the war in Iraq is the same as opposing the war on terror.
The cameras went instead to Bush, who gave his speech standing in front of a huge American flag (think George C. Scott in the opening scene of Patton) while dressed in an olive-green Army jacket bearing a Fort Carson 7th Infantry Division insignia.
There were no "mission accomplished" signs anywhere. There were, though, maybe 6,000 troops, mainly dressed in camouflage, some of them standing atop battle vehicles. It was the ideal setting for his speech.
The president praised the soldiers' sacrifice and thanked them for their help in bringing democracy to Iraq - if not necessarily to Fort Carson. He got the biggest cheer when he said democracy will come to Iraq "because the United States of America will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs."
But there is something that apparently makes the president nervous. Although the lack of access to the troops was explained as a logistics problem - too many media members needing escorts - it couldn't have been quite the problem, say, of embedding media in Iraq.
Immediately after the speech, the president went upstairs for what was an emotional meeting with around 100 family members of the fallen soldiers. The meeting was, of course, closed to the press, as it should have been. And, I guess, it could have been a logistics problem that prevented the media from meeting with the families after they talked to the president. It could have been a privacy concern.
Or it could have been an Elaine Johnson issue.
In his speech, Bush didn't mention Elaine Johnson, whose son Darius Jennings was one of four Fort Carson soldiers on the Chinook helicopter that was shot down Nov. 2.
When Johnson was at the Fort Carson chapel a week ago for her son's memorial service, she wondered aloud why the president had visited South Carolina in the week of her son's funeral but had not bothered to attend or to send any message to her or her family.
"Evidently my son wasn't important enough to him dead for him to visit the family or call the family," she said then. "As long as my son was alive he was important, because he sent him over there to fight a war."
There was no such headline this time. All anyone saw this time was Bush's speech in a visit that was as organized as any presidential campaign stop.
In fact, the last thing anyone heard as the president left the room was some in the audience chanting, "Four more years." And no one got to ask their names.
Two more U.S. GIs have died in Iraq since the _resident spent two-and-a-half hours on the ground at the aiport in Baghad on Thanksgiving Day, using 600 soldiers as a backdrop for a campaign 2004 P.R. stunt. How many of the soldiers dinning with the _resident were combat infantry from the streets of Falusia or Mosul? Probably none. How many of them were officers and HQ staff? Probably all of them. But those questions won't be asked by "embedded" "journalists." Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) went to Afghanistan, to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. turned its back on what is happening there (i.e. the resurgence of the Taliban). She ate Thanksgiving Dinner at two US bases, and then traveled on to Iraq. In Baghdad, she said that the force there needs to be internationalized and that the _resident has failed to do what it takes to bring in the UN and our allies...*Her* trip was very dangerous, and *she* spoke the truth...The _resident's foolish military adventure in Iraq has had a disasterous impact on the struggle to crush AL-Qaeda. Here, from Knight-Ridder, is an excellent summary of expert opinions...Show up for Democracy in November 2004: Defeat Bush (again)!
Knight-Ridder: "By one official's estimate, half of the special operations and intelligence resources focused on al-Qaida were redirected to support the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/7357809.htm
Posted on Wed, Nov. 26, 2003
Experts: Iraq war taking resources from terror war
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - A growing number of counter-terrorism experts are challenging President Bush's assertion that Iraq is a major battle in the war against terrorism and are questioning whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq has hurt rather than helped the global battle against al-Qaida and its affiliates.
Experts who have served in top positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al-Qaida.
They note that the presence of U.S. troops in an Arab homeland is serving as a major recruiting tool for signing up and motivating new jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors.
"Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on terrorism, until we made it (so)," said Richard Clarke, who was a senior White House counter-terrorism official under Bush and President Bill Clinton.
There are few objective measures by which to judge the progress of the war on terror, something that makes it difficult to gauge whether the United States is winning or losing the battle.
Bush administration officials note that much of al-Qaida's known top leadership has been caught or killed, but even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a much-publicized memo that was leaked last month, said ways of measuring progress are almost nonexistent.
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," Rumsfeld wrote.
Yet gauging the status of the war against al-Qaida has taken on fresh urgency with a series of deadly car bombings this month in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and new threat warnings at home.
The war on terror also appears destined to play a major role in next year's presidential campaign, with Bush and his Democratic opponents running dueling television ads on national security issues.
Some possible indicators of success or failure are murky, analysts say.
Islamic terrorist groups, perhaps with inspiration but not direction from al-Qaida, are striking out at civilian targets in the Muslim world. Their operations, while deadly, appear to some experts to be hurried and without central control, a sign that the war is taking a toll on al-Qaida.
It remains unknown, however, whether Osama bin Laden's group can mount another 9-11-style "terrorist spectacular" in the United States. Nor is it known whether bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and other al-Qaida leaders still exercise direct control over the network, or how close they are to being captured.
There are worrisome signs that the terrorist threat is regenerating.
A United Nations report due out in early December is expected to say that al-Qaida, while probably weakened by U.S.-led assaults, possesses surface-to-air missiles for use against aircraft and is working toward a biological or chemical weapons attack.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban militia ousted in late 2001 is resurgent, fueled by an upsurge in opium production.
And while terror training camps have been eliminated in Afghanistan, new ones are being established in the Caucasus and the Philippines, former White House officials Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon write in a new afterword to their book, "The Age of Sacred Terror."
"From the perspective of counterterrorism professionals, the war in Iraq was not a continuation, but a diversion," they write.
No evidence of links between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida has been made public since the U.S. invasion, despite pre-war claims by top Bush aides that such ties posed a growing threat to the United States.
According to current and former officials, the Bush administration diverted precious assets, including U.S. military special operations forces, intelligence operatives and spy satellites from tracking al-Qaida to the war in Iraq.
By one official's estimate, half of the special operations and intelligence resources focused on al-Qaida were redirected to support the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. That figure could not be confirmed.
Former White House counter-terrorism coordinator Rand Beers, who resigned in March just before the Iraq war began, said that U.S. troops, CIA paramilitary officers and intelligence collection devices were withdrawn from Afghanistan and refurbished for use in the war against Iraq.
Beers - who now works for the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. - added that war with Iraq added to U.S. difficulties in committing the security force or aid needed to stabilize Afghanistan.
"We missed some opportunities," Beers said.
Others note that the number of U.S. spy satellites and electronic listening posts is limited as is the number of analysts trained to decipher and translate intercepted messages. While they have no specific information to corroborate their statements, they believe U.S. intelligence is almost certainly listening in on fewer suspected terrorists outside of Iraq as they assign much of their intelligence capabilities to detecting and pre-empting attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.
Steve Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, insisted that the global war on terrorism has not been hurt by a diversion of resources to Iraq.
"The intelligence community writ larger, and the (Pentagon) specifically, continue to do the monitoring, the assessment and are taking the appropriate actions ... in the world writ large," said Cambone, a close associate of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"At the level of the global war on terrorism, there isn't a lack of focus," he said.
Cambone acknowledged that there is a shortage of experts in collecting and analyzing human intelligence within the military services. But he said the Pentagon has instructed each service to institute a crash training program to boost so-called HUMINT teams working in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Another top intelligence official said the CIA, with a finite number of Arabic speakers, paramilitary operators and other assets, has inevitably had to divert resources to the Iraq effort.
But "we've struggled mightily not to diminish our counter-terrorism efforts" through reorganization and longer work hours, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The CIA and other intelligence agencies have been flooded with new funds since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism specialist at the Congressional Research Service, questioned whether the diversion of U.S. troops from Afghanistan makes a difference in the hunt for bin Laden, who is thought to be along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"Ultimately, if bin Laden and Zawahiri are going to be tracked down, probably Pakistani forces are going to have the best chance at that," he said.
Bush administration officials point out that there have been major successes against al-Qaida since September 2001.
The network's operational leadership is dead, captured or on the run, they say. More than 3,400 terrorist suspects have been detained by over 100 countries, and more than $200 million in terrorist-related finances have been seized. Saudi Arabia has begun a major crackdown on the group and its affiliates.
In response, Katzman said, the terrorist network has fragmented into "local al-Qaidas or pro-al-Qaida centers" whose focus appears to be attacks in the Middle East.
Terrorists are seeking out new pastures, too.
Counter-terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland recently visited the Tri-Border Area, a lawless region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet that has been used by Islamic terrorist groups to hide and raise funds. Fifteen minutes after arriving in Paraguay, he said, he was offered explosives and arms - for cash.
(Knight Ridder Washington correspondent Jonathan S. Landay contributed to this report.)
You can see, with its response to the combo package of
a poison-pill "Medicaire" bill and a P.R. stunt at the
Baghdad airport, how desperately the "US mainstream
news media" wants to behave itself..."Embedded,"
indeed...and yes, you can see how very difficult the
road ahead is going to be......Here is the response of
the truly free press (i.e. the press in Europe and
much of the Middle East)...
Agence-France-Press: In Madrid, the center-right daily El Mundo said the visit was "a publicity stunt which will not solve the problem of Iraq."
Support our Troops, show up
for Democracy in November 2004: Defeat Bush (again)!
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1128-02.htm
Published on Friday, November 28, 2003 by the Agence
France-Presse (AFP)
Bush's Iraq Visit a Pre-Election PR Stunt
"Electoral raid on Baghdad" read the caustic headline
in the left-wing Paris daily Liberation which summed
up European newspaper editorial reaction to President
George W Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops in
Iraq.
The brief visit, arranged in top secrecy, occurred too
late for most papers to give it full coverage, and
almost all ran the same wire agency photo of Mr Bush,
clad in a gray army bomber jacket, carrying a large
tray of roast turkey, potatoes and grapes through a
crowd of smiling soldiers.
Those which did comment were mostly skeptical of Mr
Bush's motives, with the US presidential election now
less than 12 months away.
"The turkey has landed," ran the front-page headline
in the London daily Independent.
The daily Vanguardia, published in Spain's second city
Barcelona, noted darkly that "George W Bush does not
attend the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, but
has dinner in Baghdad with those who dream of coming
home alive."
"George Bush becomes the first US president to visit
Iraq in order to provide the television pictures
required by his re-election campaign," it said, noting
that Hillary Rodham Clinton, "his undeclared
Democratic opponent," was on her way to Baghdad from
Afghanistan.
Liberation noted that more than 430 US soldiers had
been killed in Iraq, 184 of them since Bush declared
an official end to the war on May 1, and quoted a
Gallup opinion poll this month showing that 54 percent
of Americans disapproved of the way the post-war
situation was being handled.
"Bush knows that Iraq could become the Achilles heel
of his campaign," it said.
The conservative London Times also did not run an
editorial but its front-page report called the visit
"one of the most audacious publicity coups in White
House history."
Europe's leading business daily, the London-based
Financial Times, used the visit to repeat its call for
general elections in Iraq, rather than the US
government's "top-down strategy built around favored
exiles and a timetable synchronized with President
Bush's re-election campaign".
The daily Berliner Zeitung said the visit had two
other aims.
"Bush wanted to raise the groggy morale of his troops
and at the same time to show Iraqis his
determination," it wrote.
In Madrid, the center-right daily El Mundo said the
visit was "a publicity stunt which will not solve the
problem of Iraq."
The daily Vanguardia, published in Spain's second city
Barcelona, said Bush was trying to put a positive
gloss on an increasingly difficult situation.
It noted darkly that "George W Bush does not attend
the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, but has
dinner in Baghdad with those who dream of coming home
alive."
The right-wing La Razon said "Caesar Bush" was
exploiting Hollywood machinery to the full to send a
message loud and clear to those who doubted the wisdom
of his military policies.
In Rome, the daily La Republica described the visit as
"a brilliant stage-managed event and a courageous
act".
But it said it was also "obviously an electoral blitz,
a Hollywood-style stunt of the kind we will see again
and again throughout the campaign."
As the Arabic media saw the secrecy of Bush's visit as
a sign of weakness amid spiraling violence in Iraq,
newspapers in Israel said the stunt was bound to help
the US president's ratings in opinion polls that had
been falling alarmingly.
"Bush's popularity will undoubtedly go up in opinion
polls this week, but on the condition that his army
does not face another painful strike," said the
Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.
"It is like playing the last $100 dollar bill at the
casino," said Maariv in an editorial, adding that
"only one thing can ensure victory for Bush at the
November 2004 polls: Saddam Hussein dead or chained
up."
Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said the secrecy
of the visit, during which the only Iraqis whom Bush
encountered were four members of the US-installed
Governing Council, showed that Washington was afraid
of the Iraqis.
"The US president's sudden visit to Iraq was a sign of
the US fear of the Iraqi people," said Mr Kharazi,
whose country opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"Bush 'infiltrated' Baghdad for two hours," scoffed
the front-page headline of the London-based Arabic
daily Al-Hayat.
In Beirut, Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, owned by Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, announced that "Bush's
secret visit to Baghdad opens presidential election
season."
A front-page editorial in Lebanon's leading An-Nahar
newspaper compared Bush to Roman emperor Julius
Caesar, but said the US president could not repeat the
phrase: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
The editorial was headlined: "I came, I saw nothing,
but I will conquer."
Many newspapers in the Middle East, especially in the
Gulf, carried no commentary on the visit which took
place as Muslims in the region were still celebrating
the Eid al-Fitr holidays which follow the holy month
of Ramadan.
© 2003 Agence France-Presse
###
Independent (UK)/Utne Reader: "The Bush Administration is pressing to sharply increase the use of methyl bromide -- the most dangerous ozone-depleting chemical and due to be phased out next year by the Montreal protocol -- to benefit strawberry and tomato growers in the electorally important state of Florida, The Independent's Geoffrey Lean reports."
Save the Environment! Show up for Democracy in November 2004: Defeat Bush (again)!
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2003_125/news/10994-1.html
Let Them Eat Tomatoes
Ozone Layer 'Sacrificed' to Lift Bush's Re-Election Prospects
—By Geoffrey Lean, The Independent
November 27, 2003 Issue
The Bush Administration is pressing to sharply increase the use of methyl bromide -- the most dangerous ozone-depleting chemical and due to be phased out next year by the Montreal protocol -- to benefit strawberry and tomato growers in the electorally important state of Florida, The Independent's Geoffrey Lean reports. While the chemical has already been reduced to 30 percent of the former level, since the Reagan administration signed the Montreal protocol in 1987, several countries have recently requested one-year exemptions. The United States, however, stands alone in demanding indefinite increase in use.
Lean reports that talks broke down without agreement at a conference in Nairobi this month when U.S. delegates refused any compromise. The European Union offered a settlement whereby farmers could continue using the chemical at current levels, even though this, in itself, would violate the treaty. U.S. negotiators insisted, however, on unchecked increase of methyl bromide, threatening to pull out of the treaty altogether.
The fact that Bush pulled out of the Kyoto protocol and is pushing the U.S. to re-enter the nuclear arms race are two signs that this administration is ridiculously short-sighted. This latest slap in the face -- the provisions of the treaty were forecast to prevent two million cancers in the West alone -- to the youth of America and the world is done with such baldly political motives as to make clear the selfish motives behind Bush's decisions. And unless Bush has a change of heart, the world will watch one more critically important treaty to the health of the world flushed down the toilet for political gain.
-- Joel Stonington
Restore the Timeline: Defeat Bush in 2004...If Gore
had been sworn into the office he was elected to, the
Middle East process would have resumed in earnest by
the end of 2001, 9/11 may or may not have happened, if
9/11 had happened, real money would have been spent on
real Homeland Security, but either way we would not be
bogged down in a guerrilla war in Iraq, the Western
Alliance would not be so badly factured, the US would
not be globally feared and scorned, the phony
"California energy crisis" would not have occured,
Conan the Deceiver would still be an entertainer
instead of a cruel political joke, the US budget
surplus would not have been gutted, if 9/11 had
happened, real money would have been spent on real
Homeland Security, and the US would not have abandoned
the Kyoto accords, and it would be leading the planet
in the struggle against global warming, and preparing
the populace for the changes ahead...instead....So,
tell me again, Ralph Nada, how there is no difference
between Bush and Gore...
Show up for Democracy in November, 2004!
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/11/28/glaciers.melting.reut/index.html
Melting glaciers may make billions thirsty
MILAN, Italy (Reuters) --The world's glaciers could
melt within a century if global warming accelerates,
leaving billions of people short of water and some
islanders without a home, environmentalists said.
"Unless governments take urgent action to prevent
global warming, billions of people worldwide may face
severe water shortages as a result of the alarming
melting rate of glaciers, the WWF group said in a
report Thursday. It said human impact on the climate
was melting glaciers from the Andes to the Himalayas,
bringing longer-term threats of higher sea levels that
could swamp island states.
Officials from 180 nations will meet in Milan on
December 1-12 to discuss international efforts to rein
in a rise in global temperatures, blamed by scientists
on emissions of gases from factories and cars that are
blanketing the planet.
"Simulations project that a 4.0 Celsius (8.0 F) rise
in temperature would eliminate nearly all of the
world's glaciers" by the end of the century, WWF said.
Himalayan glaciers feed seven great rivers of Asia
that run through China and India, the world's most
populous nations, ensuring a year-round water supply
to two billion people.
WWF said that nations most at risk also included
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where melt water from
Andean glaciers supplies millions during dry seasons.
Island states like Tuvalu in the Pacific, meanwhile,
could be submerged by rising sea levels triggered by
melting glaciers.
Sea levels could rise even further if two of the
world's largest ice caps, in Antarctica and Greenland,
melt substantially, though the report left them out of
its reckoning because of their unpredictability.
Glaciers are ancient rivers of packed snow that creep
through the landscape, shaping the planet's surface.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,
or redistributed.
Rove and the _resident have played politics with 9/11
since that awful day itself. They exploited it, on one
hand, and they have delayed all meaningful inquiry tp
avoid damaging the _resident, on the other hand. It is
a national disgrace, rivaled only by the US mainstream
news media's lack of enthusiasm for the very real,
very constituional, very bloody scandal unfolding,
slowly, painfully slowly...Yes, it is a national
disgrace...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/112803A.shtml
9 - 11 Victims' Relatives: Extend Probe
By The Associated Press
Wednesday 26 November 2003
Victims' relatives who pressed for an independent
commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks say the
panel risks being undercut by the government's failure
to cooperate with it.
The Family Steering Committee, a group of victim
advocates, marked the one-year anniversary of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States by urging an extension of its May 27
deadline for submitting findings and recommendations.
``Unfortunately, the production of a timely
report no longer seems to be possible, in large part
because of the delays caused by the (Bush)
administration and the agencies that report to it,''
the group said Wednesday in a statement.
Twelve people who lost spouses, children,
siblings and parents in the Sept. 11 attacks formed
the steering committee to monitor the work of the
federal commission.
The leaders of the 10-member commission,
Republican Thomas H. Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton,
said last week that they still intend to complete work
by May 27. But they warned that further resistance
from government agencies could threaten their ability
to meet the deadline.
The panel has issued three subpoenas in the last
six weeks -- to the Federal Aviation Administration,
the Pentagon, and New York City -- saying those
entities had not fully responded to document requests.
The city said it will contest its subpoena, which
seeks transcripts and recordings detailing the
emergency response to the attack on the World Trade
Center.
Also, the commission reached a deal with the
White House over access to highly classified
intelligence briefings that President Bush received in
the weeks and months before the attacks. The panel
agreed to several restrictions, including a limit on
how many commissioners may examine the documents.
Initially an opponent of an independent
commission, Bush signed legislation creating the panel
on Nov. 27, 2002. He said the commission -- five
Republicans, five Democrats -- ``should carefully
examine all the evidence and follow all the facts,
wherever they lead.''
Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is
making another effort to extend the deadline to apply
to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund past
Dec. 22.
The senator joined Brian Jordan, a grief
counselor for the victims' families, in New York on
Wednesday to announce a final appeal for Congress to
move the deadline back one year.
Current law prohibits further applications for
the fund from being accepted past the December
deadline. Schumer said Congress could still help the
families of the victims.
``The pain for victims' families is particularly
sharp around the holidays, and the idea that Congress
refuses to take this up as the deadline looms adds
insult to injury,'' said Schumer. ``But there is still
a small amount of time left. Congress can still do the
right thing if it wants to.''
"The arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King promised, "but it bends towards justice."
Collen Kelly, 9/11 victim sibling, speaks out: "The media has also compromised its role as an independent watchdog. Until recently, there has been minimal media coverage of the 9/11 commission. This apparent media indifference leads us to ask the media and our fellow Americans the following question: Which event has greater historical importance, a paranoid Nixon White House attempting to insure political victory, or the death of nearly 3000 people, unparalleled change in U.S. foreign policy, and a war on terror likely to change American life for generations? It leads us to wonder about why there is so much ho-hum follow-up."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17254
Media Silence on 9/11
By Danny Schechter and Colleen Kelly, AlterNet
November 25, 2003
A subpoena can work like truth serum. Drag waffling officials and dissembling politicians before a serious investigatory body and suddenly secrets start to spill and disclosures mount. Dots are connected. Confessions emerge, and sometimes, indictments follow.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were criminal acts, but with political causes and tragic consequences. Two years later, there is much that we don't know about all that happened on September 11th or its aftermath. That's why we now have a National Commission investigating the attacks.
Lest we forget, the commission was only set up because of pressure from 9/11 victim families, and over the stonewalling objections of the current administration. They didn't want an independent investigation at all, and when one was forced on them, this same administration ironically chose Henry Kissinger to head it.
The creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 commission) was announced just before Thanksgiving a year ago. President Bush appeared to welcome it saying that the "investigation should carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the facts, wherever they lead (sic)..... It's our most solemn duty."
A year later, what has happened with the implementation of that "solemn duty?"
Conspiracy theories about these events flourish because independently verified information has yet to see the light of day. More importantly no one has been held accountable for any lapses or misjudgments that left our country undefended.
We live in a county where crime scene investigation TV shows are all the rage. Yet, in one of the most serious crimes in this century, there has been no official rush to get all the facts.
If a person was shot in front of the World Trade Center, there would be more of an urgent inquiry into that killing than was accorded the murder of thousands of people in broad daylight. There would be a trial, witnesses giving sworn testimony, evidence presented in public for anyone interested to review and discern.
None of this has yet to happen with regard to 9/11. Is it any wonder that skepticism and suspicion flourish?
Many of us remember spending the summer of 1973 glued to the television, watching Sam Erwin's Watergate hearings. It was public, unrehearsed and very effective. It spotlighted a conspiracy orchestrated by the Oval Office. It helped the public see what was going on in the shadows. Will we ever see such a robust, no-holds-barred inquiry into 9/11?
We encourage the Kean Commission to set an even higher standard. But the latest compromise deal it struck with the White House to limit its own access to documents undercuts its stated mission of a "full and unfettered" investigation.
Commissioner Max Cleland, the former Senator from Georgia said, "If this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised." This recent compromise has also been denounced by many family members of 9/11 victims.
The media has also compromised its role as an independent watchdog. Until recently, there has been minimal media coverage of the 9/11 commission. This apparent media indifference leads us to ask the media and our fellow Americans the following question: Which event has greater historical importance, a paranoid Nixon White House attempting to insure political victory, or the death of nearly 3000 people, unparalleled change in U.S. foreign policy, and a war on terror likely to change American life for generations? It leads us to wonder about why there is so much ho-hum follow-up.
What happened to a media that went into wall-to-wall patriotically-correct flag-waving mode after 9/11? Virtually all mainstream outlets have downplayed the issue, across the spectrum from right to left. We are not sure why.
Neither is Eric Alterman of the Nation who did some analysis of the numbers of stories airing on the Fox News Channel, which has built its reputation by stridently covering 9/11 and terrorism.
He concludes: "Fox has treated viewers to a virtual news blackout on commission-related news. And if this has been an accident, it has to be one of the most amazing news-gathering coincidences in cable history." His research on program content led him to conclude that the coverage overall was "closer to zero"
Alterman did credit the AP, the Dallas Morning News and the Newark Star-Ledger for breaking through the silence that surrounds the commission's work. But few television networks are picking up their lead or sending investigative reporters out to critically examine the administration's own case for an al Qaeda conspiracy.
The networks seem too busy refuting the Kennedy Assassination critics to look into the likelihood of White House incompetence and even complicity in the events of 9/11. We owe the victims the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Isn't it time for our media to wake up and do its job if the government won't do the same?
Colleen Kelly lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr. at the World Trade Center. She is a founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Danny Schechter, editor of Mediachannel.org, is making a film about the unanswered questions of 9/11. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media failed to cover the war on Iraq." (Prometheus Books, 2003)
Afternposten: Norwegian soldiers serving in Iraq are baffled by
politicians calling their mission a "humanitarian
action". Norway's forces consider themselves at war
and report that they have been instructed to fire if
they feel threatened, newspaper VG reports...BFO's web site there is a presentation of e-mails received from Norwegian soldiers serving in Iraq, and the group concludes that their reality has very little in common with how the situation is being presented. "The mission in Iraq is not a humanitarian one, here war continues, no matter what some politicians have said about the war being over," one soldier wrote.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=678337
"This is war"
Norwegian soldiers serving in Iraq are baffled by politicians calling their mission a "humanitarian action". Norway's forces consider themselves at war
and report that they have been instructed to fire if
they feel threatened, newspaper VG reports.
"This is a lack of decency from Norwegian
politicians," Didrik Coucheron of the BFO (Officers
Organization).
On the BFO's web site there is a presentation of
e-mails received from Norwegian soldiers serving in
Iraq, and the group concludes that their reality has
very little in common with how the situation is being
presented. "The mission in Iraq is not a humanitarian
one, here war continues, no matter what some
politicians have said about the war being over," one
soldier wrote.
Other reports express bafflement about the expression
"humanitarian mission", describe battle conditions and
explain that their Rules of Engagement include combat
if threatened.
The BFO report questions media and political reports
that cover the Norwegian military effort in Iraq as an
important and humanitarian mission, voicing concerns
that information is being covered up to avoid the
embarrassing admission that the country is once again
involved in a war.
"Anyone can see that a uniformed soldier with a
helmet, shrapnel vest and an AG3 across his stomach is
a soldier and not a humanitarian construction worker,"
Coucheron told VG's web site.
Coucheron now wants Prime Minister Kjell Magne
Bondevik to publicly admit that Norwegian forces in
Iraq are at war, in line with the PM's admission
earlier this year that he should have called their
Kosovo effort a war.
Norway's soldiers in Iraq do not earn a basic risk
bonus of NOK 3,000 () a month - as their colleagues in
Afghanistan do - since their mission is defined as
humanitarian.
Aftenposten English Web Desk
Jonathan Tisdall
For what?
Here is some clarity, on the latest
Corporatist newspeak, posted at www.buzzflash.com, one
of the great bastions of the Information Rebelion...
The month of November 2003 has had more U.S. soldiers killed than any prior month of the Iraq Occupation/Invasion/war.
More U.S. soldier deaths than March 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than April 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than May 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than June 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than July 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than August 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than September 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than October 2003
http://www.buzzflash.com/
About the Bush Cartel's "Smiley Face" Spin on the Grim
November Record for GI Deaths in Iraq -- And the Month's Not Over Yet
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
If you are a FOX News GOP butt-sniffer, you might have
been heartened by the Pentagon reassuring Americans
that "U.S. Says Attacks on Troops in Iraq Decline"
[LINK]. In fact, since it was a Reuters report, you
could have just been a mainstream newspaper reader and
felt relieved.
But of course, it is just the usual Bush Cartel Soviet
style spin. You can imagine this is the kind of
propaganda that the Soviet forces kept feeding to the
Russians as their soldiers were being killed in
Afghanistan.
Here is what one of our readers discovered about U.S.
military deaths in Iraq in November (and this doesn't
include the deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan
during this period):
The month of November 2003 has had more U.S. soldiers
killed than any prior month of the Iraq
Occupation/Invasion/war.
November has had MORE U.S. soldier deaths - 75 to date
PLUS the 21 additional Coalition deaths of UK, Italy,
and Poland also killed in the month of November.
Total Coalition deaths for this month alone so far
total 96.
Total Coalition deaths since now total 511 -- and this
is only as of November 24.
More U.S. soldier deaths than March 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than April 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than May 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than June 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than July 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than August 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than September 2003
More U.S. soldier deaths than October 2003
[LINK]
So, the Pentagon can tout out its Soviet-style
propaganda reassurances, but the facts on the ground
speak for themselves. Helicopters being shot down,
Italian soldiers being blown up, American soldiers
having their throats slit and then having their bodies
battered by Iraqi teenagers.
The Pentagon is admitting that attacks are up --
despite their renewed military operation against the
insurgents -- but, catch this, the Pentagon is using
the highly questionable assertion that the increase in
attacks are against Iraqis and not GI's. In a month
that saw the most GI's die, it appears to be a
distinction without a difference.
Meanwhile, the Taliban are re-energized and starting
to fight back against American forces, as they did
against the Soviets.
According to the "Daily Mis-Lead"[LINK], despite
Bush's boast of having "won" Afghanistan, the Taliban
are rebuilding:
President Bush yesterday said that we "put the Taliban
out of business forever" - taking credit for
supposedly ridding the world of the terrorist regime.
He made these comments just a day after the Taliban
launched a rocket attack on Kabul's most prominent
hotel. It was also one day after Reuters reported
Mullah Omar, the Taliban's still at-large leader,
"urged Afghans to unite against U.S.-led foreign
forces on their soil" and the same day Afghanistan's
Foreign Minister desperately requested more
international help in fighting off Taliban guerrillas.
All told, the AP calls the Taliban "an increasingly
virulent insurgency" while the LA Times reports
"nearly two years after the U.S. drove the Taliban
from power, remnants of the Islamic extremist group
are regrouping and attacking U.S. troops."
That's the Bush Cartel. As our soldiers continue to
get killed and their bodes desecrated, the Bush Cartel
sees its first obligation is to cover up for its own
incompetence, not to protect our troops.
Another of our readers is a bit more observant than
the mainstream press about this issue:
****
Hey Buzz:
On Monday, we get this from Reuters in an article
talking about how the U.S. intends to "blitz" the
media to put a more positive spin on Iraq:
"The media blitz coincides with a sharp rise in
attacks by guerrillas against American interests and
comes amid signs that both U.S. troops and the
American-led civilian administration are losing the
battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis."
On Tuesday, the blitz blows in and the wire services
report the raw spewage without question, contradicting
their own stories from the previous day.
Here is Reuters:
"A top U.S. general said on Tuesday that intensified
U.S. military strikes had halved the number of attacks
on his forces in Iraq (news - web sites) in the past
two weeks, but assaults on Iraqis had surged."
Sweet lord, I can only hope the American people are
not so sheep-like as the administration believes. And
why isn't the press doing its job by questioning these
leaders about what the reporters have seen with their
own eyes on the ground in Iraq?
Why do I even ask?
A BuzzFlash Reader
****
Why, indeed.
After all, the Bush Cartel won't even let us mourn our
dead soldiers with public honors. The visual images of
death might remind people that the White House is
using our troops for cannon fodder.
When Bush dared to speak before a military audience on
November 24 (in between fundraisers) the press was
FORBIDDEN from talking with the troops, lest they
express dissent and dissatisfaction with King George
[LINK]:
Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in
advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with
the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules.
No talking to the troops before the rally.
No talking to the troops during the rally.
No talking to the troops after the rally.
In other words, if I've done the math right, that
means no conversation at all - at least, while on base
- with any soldiers. After all, who knows where that
kind of thing could lead?
The article from the Rocky Mountain News was entitled,
"Gag order leaves troops, reporters speechless."
The Denver Post put it more succinctly: "Ground Rule 9
for the media covering President Bush's presidential
visit Monday sounded more like an edict from Beijing
or a banana republic." [LINK]
In a scathing column, the Denver Post Columnist
lacerates the Bush Administration for muzzling our
soldiers who are putting their lives on the line, in
order to ensure a Karl Rove controlled photo-op
success. Whatever this propaganda technique is, it is
not America: It borrows part from the Soviet Union and
part from Goebbels.
"If there are problems with the war in Iraq, they
don't come from the folks doing the fighting," the
Post reporter observes. "Those men and women are doing
a heck of a job. If there are problems, they stem from
spin doctoring."
"Monday's Ground Rule 6 [for the media]- 'no roaming'
- amounted to a heavy-handed smack at the First
Amendment. But it was an insult to the intelligence of
military men and women and their families as much as
it was an indictment of the media."
Bush makes eloquent speeches about spreading the seeds
of democracy around the world, while he is doing
everything that he can to dismantle it at home.
These young men and women are being denied their
rights as Americans, just as they are being asked to
die for democracy.
Strip Bush of those army jackets he wears to try to
dispel his AWOL Chickenhawk personal history. Put him
in one with black and white stripes.
Too many good young men and women of America have died
for his lies and his deceptions.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Jimmy Carter spoke out in Columbia, South
Carolina...The place, electorally, is as significant
as the powerful statement itself...
The State: "Former President Jimmy Carter called the American invasion of Iraq one of the country’s worst foreign policy blunders, and predicted it may take a dozen years to bring stability and democracy to the region."
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7346083.htm
Posted on Tue, Nov. 25, 2003
Carter calls Iraq war ‘serious mistake’
1,100 visit with former president at Richland
library’s book signing
By CAROLYN CLICK
Staff Writer
TAKAAKI IWABU/THE STATE
Former President Jimmy Carter signs his new book, "The
Hornet’s Nest," at the Richland County library.
Former President Jimmy Carter called the American
invasion of Iraq one of the country’s worst foreign
policy blunders, and predicted it may take a dozen
years to bring stability and democracy to the region.
“I was strongly against going in unilaterally,” said
Carter, who was in Columbia on Monday to sign copies
of his new Revolutionary War novel, “The Hornet’s
Nest.”
“I thought it was a serious mistake, maybe the worst
mistake in foreign policy that our country’s made in
many years. But now we are there, we have to support
our troops there and pray that we can cut down on our
casualties.”
The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner drew
a crowd of about1,100 to the downtown Richland County
Public Library, many toting copies of the 17 other
books Carter has authored. He spoke to reporters as he
took a short break from signing more than 1,800
volumes. The event was sponsored by the nonprofit
Friends of the Richland County Public Library.
“The Hornet’s Nest” (Simon and Schuster, $27) is
Carter’s first attempt at fiction, overlaying a cast
of invented characters onto the actual Southern
conflicts of the Revolution. It is a war, Carter said,
that shaped the moral and ethical values of the
country.
Carter suggested that a broad lesson of the Revolution
— “even for folks now who claim they won’t eat french
fries” — is applicable today: You can’t go it alone.
The American Revolution against the British could not
have been won without the full support of France, he
said — the same nation that has been the focus of
American ire for refusing to back President Bush in
Iraq.
“I think it shows all the way down through history up
until recently that America has always cast its lot
with other, very firm, allies around the world.”
If the Iraqi invasion had been multinational, Carter
said, “I think the aftermath would have been much more
pleasant and much more successful and much quicker.”
Carter predicted American soldiers will be in Iraq for
many years.
“I’ve got one grandson (his youngest) who is 4½ years
old. I hope that before he’s out of high school, we’ll
be out of Iraq.
“Bottom line is, we should turn over as rapidly as we
can both the economic and political affairs to the
Iraqis — as much as they can handle — and bring in
other nations to help us.”
The former president appeared relaxed in an
open-collared dress shirt. He exchanged pleasantries
with the crowd even as he efficiently scrawled his
distinctive signature on book flyleaves and moved the
line along.
Some arrived as early at 7:30 a.m. — an hour and a
half before the library opened at 9 — to secure a
place in the line that snaked through the first-floor
stacks. Carter stepped into the room at 11:36 a.m.,
about a half-hour ahead of schedule.
Joan Dornbusch brought the book “Seabiscuit” to read
as she and her husband, Clyde, waited to greet Carter.
“I’m here because I admire President Carter,” she said
of the one-term Democrat. “He is such an amazing man.
I can’t see any Republican holding a grudge.”
Many who came spoke of their admiration of Carter’s
post-presidency years following his 1980 defeat by
Ronald Reagan. He has promoted democracy and peace
throughout the world through his nonprofit Carter
Center in Atlanta and has worked with Habitat for
Humanity to build houses for the needy.
“I know as a president he had certain difficulties,”
said Jeff Cameron, a teacherwho brought his wife,
Cristina, and daughter, Zarina. “But afterward, his
life has been phenomenal. I have a lot of respect for
the man.”
Martin Langston, a West Columbia pharmacist, said he
campaigned for a South Carolina House seat in 1980,
the same year Carter ran for re-election, and met the
same fate.
“I ran with him and I’m not sorry,” Langston said “I
never was ashamed of Carter.”
Carter said he has not determined who he will support
among the Democratic presidential contenders.
“I’m going to endorse whoever I think will have the
best chance in November. I’ve been observing it very
carefully.”
In Fraudida 2000, the sanctity of the vote was
dispensed with, now in 2003, your right of free
assembly is being seriously curtailed...If the Bush
cabal, which seized power illegitmately, and has used
it to wage illegal war aboard and class war at home,
is not turned out into the street in the 2004
Presidential election, it will be "lights out" in
America...You are now very close to being a
"terrorist" for demonstrating against them, soon you
will be very close to being a "terrorist" for voting
against them...Free speech? No problem with free
speech in a monopolistic media environment, in which
the press censors itself to placate its corporate
overlords. You are free to say anything you want,
because no one can hear it...except, of course, for
the Information Rebellion on the Internet, and those
puzzling titles like "Dude, Where's My Country" and
"Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them" on the Best
Seller Lists...We are heading for a political
explosion in America. It was narrowly avoided in
Fraudida 2000 when Gore told Jesse Jackson to go home,
and then hide behind his courtly manners. It will
hopefully be unavoidable this time...
Guardian (UK): For the Miami model to work, the police had to establish a connection between legitimate activists and dangerous terrorists. Enter the Miami police chief, John Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist "punks", who classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders coming in to terrorise and vandalise our city". With the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating the "war on terror". In fact, $8.5m spent on security during the FTAA meeting came out of the $87bn Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1093185,00.html
America's enemy within
Armed checkpoints, embedded reporters in flak jackets, brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrators. Baghdad? No, Miami
Naomi Klein
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
In December 1990, President George Bush Sr travelled
through South America to sell the continent on a bold
new dream: "A free trade system that links all of the
Americas." Addressing the Argentine Congress, he said
that the plan, later to be named the Free Trade Area
of the Americas, would be "our hemisphere's new
declaration of interdependence the brilliant new dawn
of a splendid new world."
Last week, Bush's two sons joined forces to try to
usher in that new world by holding the FTAA
negotiations in Florida. This is the state that
Governor Jeb Bush vowed to "deliver" to his brother
during the 2000 presidential elections, even if that
meant keeping many African-Americans from exercising
their right to vote. Now Jeb was vowing to hand his
brother the coveted trade deal, even if that meant
keeping thousands from exercising their right to
protest.
Despite the brothers' best efforts, the dream of a
hemisphere united into a single free-market economy
died last week - killed not by demonstrators in Miami
but by the populations of Argentina, Brazil and
Bolivia, who let their politicians know that if they
sign away more power to foreign multinationals, they
may as well not come home.
The Brazilians brokered a compromise that makes the
agreement a pick-and-choose affair, allowing
governments to sign on to the parts they like and
refuse the ones they don't. Washington will continue
to bully countries into sweeping trade contracts on
the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement,
but there will be no single, unified deal.
Inside the Inter-Continental hotel, it was being
called "FTAA lite". Outside, we experienced something
heavier: "War lite". The more control the US trade
representatives lost at the negotiating table, the
more raw power the police exerted on the streets.
Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with
extreme force; organisations were infiltrated by
undercover officers who used stun guns; buses of union
members were prevented from joining permitted marches;
people were beaten with batons; activists had guns
pointed at their heads at checkpoints.
Police violence outside trade summits is not new; what
was striking about Miami was how divorced the security
response was from anything resembling an actual
threat. From an activist perspective, the protests
were small and obedient, an understandable response to
weeks of police intimidation.
The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official
homecoming of the "war on terror". The latest
techniques honed in Iraq - from a Hollywoodised
military to a militarised media - have now been used
on a grand scale in a major US city. "This should be a
model for homeland defence," the Miami mayor, Manny
Diaz, said of the security operation that brought
together over 40 law-enforcement agencies, from the
FBI to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
For the Miami model to work, the police had to
establish a connection between legitimate activists
and dangerous terrorists. Enter the Miami police
chief, John Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist
"punks", who classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders
coming in to terrorise and vandalise our city". With
the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became
eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating
the "war on terror". In fact, $8.5m spent on security
during the FTAA meeting came out of the $87bn Bush
extracted from Congress for Iraq last month.
But more was borrowed from the Iraq war than just
money. Miami police also invited reporters to "embed"
with them in armoured vehicles and helicopters. As in
Iraq, most reporters embraced their role as pseudo
soldiers with zeal, suiting up in combat helmets and
flak jackets.
The resulting media coverage was the familiar wartime
combination of dramatic images and non-information. We
know, thanks to an "embed" from the Miami Herald, that
Timoney was working so hard hunting down troublemakers
that by 3:30pm on Thursday "he had eaten only a banana
and a cookie since 6am".
Local TV stations didn't cover the protests so much as
hover over them. Their helicopters showed images of
confrontations, but instead of hearing the voices on
the streets - voices pleading with police to stop
shooting and clearly following orders to disperse - we
heard only from police officials and perky news
anchors commiserating with the boys on the front line.
Meanwhile, independent journalists who dared to do
their jobs and film the police violence up close were
actively targeted. "She's not with us," one officer
told another as they grabbed Ana Nogueira, a
correspondent with Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! who
was covering a peaceful protest outside the Miami-Dade
county jail. When the police established that Nogueira
was "not with us" (ie neither an embedded reporter nor
undercover cop) she was hauled away and charged.
The Miami model of dealing with domestic dissent
reaches far beyond a single meeting. On Sunday, the
New York Times reported on a leaked FBI bulletin
revealing "a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect
intelligence" on the anti-war movement. The memorandum
singles out lawful protest activities. Anthony Romero,
executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union, said the document revealed that "the FBI is
targeting Americans who are engaged in lawful protest.
The line between terrorism and legitimate civil
disobedience is blurred."
We can expect more of these tactics on the homeland
front. Just as civil liberties violations escalated
when Washington lost control over the FTAA process, so
will repression increase as Bush faces the ultimate
threat: losing control over the White House.
Already, Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic
communications at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar
(the operation that gave the world the Jessica Lynch
rescue), has moved to New York to head up media
operations for the Republican National Convention.
"We're looking at embedding reporters," he told the
New York Observer of his plans to use some of the Iraq
tricks during the convention. "We're looking at new
and interesting camera angles."
The war is coming home.
BBC Director General Greg Dyke: "Telling people what they want to hear is not doing them any favors. It may not be comfortable to challenge governments or even popular opinion, but it's what we are here to do." Mr Dyke said TV channels had a "responsibility to broadcast a range of voices".
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1125-12.htm
Published on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 by the BBC
BBC's Dyke Attacks US War Reports
BBC Director General Greg Dyke has attacked US TV
coverage of the war in Iraq in a speech at the
International Emmys in New York.
Mr Dyke, who was given a broadcasting excellence
award, said news channels needed to challenge
governments.
"News organizations should be in the business of
balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one
side or the other," he said.
Greg Dyke said TV news should challenge government
views
He said coverage of the war showed the difference
between the US and the UK.
He said the need for balance was "something which
seemed to get lost in American reporting during the
war".
British TV wins at Monday's awards included the best
news award for Channel 4's coverage of the fall of
Saddam Hussein, and the BBC's comedy The Kumars at
Number 42 winning the best popular arts (scripted)
award.
In his speech, Mr Dyke quoted research that showed
that of 840 commentators aired on US TV, only four
were opposed to the war.
"I have to tell you if that was true in Britain the
BBC would have failed in its duty," he said.
"Telling people what they want to hear is not doing
them any favors. It may not be comfortable to
challenge governments or even popular opinion, but
it's what we are here to do." Mr Dyke said TV
channels had a "responsibility to broadcast a range of
voices".
The fact the BBC's own news services - BBC World and
News 24 - had "doubled" their audiences in the US in
the last year showed there was an audience for more
impartial news, he said.
"Our online services have experienced enormous growth
too and have regularly received e-mails back from
people here in the US saying 'Thank you for trying to
explain events, thank you for being impartial'."
The awards are handed out by the International Academy
of Television, Arts and Sciences, an arm of the
National Television Academy.
Their purpose is to recognize excellence in television
programming outside the US.
In 2002, the Kumars at Number 42 shared the Popular
Arts prize with Channel 4's Faking It. Both shows have
since been bought up by US networks.
(c) 2003, BBC
###
If we lived in a society, in which the "free press"
was *only* interested in the sensational, don't you
think that this Reuters story on the _resident's
brother's nasty divorce, with its lurid details about
his extramarital affair and involvement with
prostitutes would have survived somewhere in the "US
mainstream news media"? Shouldn't we be seeing Gary
Bauer, Raplh Reed and Jerry Falwell on the air, being
forced by aggressive TV anchors to spin this...No. The
"US mainstream news media" is lock, stock and barrel
controlled by its Corporatist overlords, who have no
intention of incurring the anger of the Bush
cabal...What hypocrisy...
Reuters: "Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/phoenix/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=573478
News from Reuters
Business Deals of Bush Brother Detailed in Divorce
(2003-11-25)
By Jeff Franks
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Neil Bush, younger brother of
President Bush, detailed lucrative business deals and
admitted to engaging in sex romps with women in Asia
in a deposition taken in March as part of his divorce
from now ex-wife Sharon Bush.
According to legal documents disclosed on Tuesday,
Sharon Bush's lawyers questioned Neil Bush closely
about the deals, especially a contract with Grace
Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a firm backed by
Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President
Jiang Zemin, that would pay him $2 million in stock
over five years.
Marshall Davis Brown, lawyer for Sharon Bush,
expressed bewilderment at why Grace would want Bush
and at such a high price since he knew little about
the semiconductor business.
"You have absolutely no educational background in
semiconductors do you?" asked Brown in the March 4
deposition, which was seen by Reuters.
"That's correct," Bush, 48, responded.
"And you have absolutely over the last 10, 15, 20
years not a lot of demonstrable business experience
that would bring about a company investing $2 million
in you?"
"I personally would object to the assumption that
they're investing $2 million in me," said Bush, who
went on to explain that he knew a lot about business
and had been working in Asia for years.
Bush, who inked the Grace deal in August 2002, said he
had not yet received any stock from the company, which
built a plant in Shanghai that began production in
September. He is supposed to consult for the company
and be on the board of directors, he said.
He said he joined the Grace board at the request of
Winston Wong, a co-founder of the company and the son
of Wang Yung-ching, the chairman of Taiwan's largest
business group, Formosa Plastics Corp. Bush never
mentioned Jiang Mianheng in the deposition.
Wong, he said, also is an investor in his latest
venture, Ignite!, an Austin, Texas, educational
software firm.
Brown questioned Bush about numerous other business
ventures that paid him well to be a consultant and
fundraiser, and, in at least one case, for little
work.
Bush said he was co-chairman of Crest Investment
Corporation, but worked only an average of three to
four hours a week. For that, he received $15,000 every
three months.
Bush said he provided Crest "miscellaneous consulting
services."
"Such as?" asked Brown.
"Such as answering phone calls when Jamail Daniel, the
other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush
said.
"Well, you're not an economist are you?"
"Part of my degree is in international economics, but
I wouldn't consider myself an economist, no," Bush
told him.
Bush did not return calls to his Ignite! office and
his divorce lawyer, Rick Flowers, was not available
for comment.
KNOCKS ON THE DOOR
The Bush divorce, completed in April, was prompted in
part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He
admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex
with several other women while on trips to Thailand
and Hong Kong at least five years ago.
The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his
hotel room, entered and engaged in sex with him. He
said he did not know if they were prostitutes because
they never asked for money and he did not pay them.
"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable
thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and
open it and have a woman standing there and have sex
with her," Brown said.
"It was very unusual," Bush said.
Even though the Bush divorce is final, legal problems
continue.
Sharon Bush has been sued by Robert Andrews, the
former husband of Neil Bush's girlfriend, Maria
Andrews, for allegedly charging that the Andrews'
2-year-old son, was fathered by Bush, not Andrews.
Bush this week gave a DNA sample at the request of his
ex-wife, but it is not clear when it will be tested,
her lawyer, David Berg, said on Tuesday.
© Copyright 2003, Reuters
Every institution, both political and cultural, every
political process, every political sensibility, every
tradition...It is all being subverted...
The Hill: “Therefore, it appears that the documents in question were taken without authorization and possibly illegally. This constitutes a serious breach of security and calls into question the [confidentiality] of Senate internal documents in both electronic and hard copy form.”
http://www.thehill.com/news/111803/leak.aspx
Capitol cops open a probe into leak
By Alexander Bolton and Geoff Earle
A complaint filed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) with
the Senate sergeant at arms caused the Capitol Police
to confiscate computer records of the Senate Judiciary
Committee after sealing off the room.
Durbin’s complaint to William Pickle, the sergeant at
arms, focused on memos written by Durbin’s staff in
late 2001 about the opposition of liberal groups to
President Bush’s conservative nominees to the federal
bench.
The memos were cited last Friday in an editorial that
ran in The Wall Street Journal and in The Washington
Times.
In a letter to Pickle, Durbin said that his office
“did not release these documents, nor did we authorize
their release to anyone. Other than the original paper
copies of these memos which are locked away in a file
cabinet in my staff’s Judiciary Committee offices, the
only other copies are stored electronically on the
Judiciary Committee’s computer server in an allegedly
secure file area.
“Therefore, it appears that the documents in question
were taken without authorization and possibly
illegally. This constitutes a serious breach of
security and calls into question the [confidentiality]
of Senate internal documents in both electronic and
hard copy form.”
Joe Shoemaker, Durbin’s spokesman, said the panel’s
majority and minority staff, accompanied by Capitol
Police, removed the backup files of the committee’s
server.
They also sealed the office where the server was
located and moved a staffer who normally worked in the
area.
Both staffs share a single server, Shoemaker noted.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee’s chairman,
said there was “no indication” that the memos in
question were either stolen or pilfered.
The leaked memos are the second set of private
documents to cause a furor in the Senate. Earlier this
month, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) saw a
confidential political memo laying out a critical
approach on President Bush’s handling on Iraqi
intelligence matters leaked to Fox News.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) is drafting a letter to the
Justice Department seeking a probe of that leak.
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post: "What Democrats failed to understand, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday morning, is that Republicans "are on an ideological march. They have no intention of playing fair..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12109-2003Nov24.html
The Democrats Take a Dive
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A29
The battle over a Medicare prescription drug benefit proves that Republicans are ruthless and determined and that Democrats are divided and hapless.
Republicans have changed the rules in Washington, but
some Democrats still pretend to be living in the good
old days.
And so there was much bitterness among Democrats as
the Republicans' Medicare drug bulldozer rolled
inexorably forward with critical help from two
Democratic senators. A majority of Democrats believe
the bill was a bad deal -- it gave President Bush a
political victory without demanding enough in return.
"It's a combination of political stupidity and
substantive gutlessness," said one influential
Democratic congressional aide.
What Democrats failed to understand, Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday
morning, is that Republicans "are on an ideological
march. They have no intention of playing fair. They
want what they want when they want it." And they get
it.
If anyone doubted the rules had changed, House
Republican leaders ended all illusions in the early
hours of Saturday morning by holding open a 15-minute
roll call vote for an unprecedented two hours and 51
minutes. At the end of the normal time for voting,
Republican leaders faced defeat on the drug bill by a
two-vote margin. Eventually, two Republicans were
hammered into switching their votes.
"I don't mean to be alarmist, but this is the end of
parliamentary democracy as we have known it," said
Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts. The new system
amounted to "plebiscitary democracy" in which leaders
of the House have imposed such a strong sense of party
discipline that they will ultimately pass whatever
legislation they bring to the floor. "The Republican
Party in the House is the most ideologically cohesive
and disciplined party in the democratic world," Frank
said. In response, House Democrats were more united in
opposition to the bill than Democratic senators, who
are operating as if the older system of give-and-take
were still in force.
Edward M. Kennedy was one senator who believed the old
system could still work. He had urged his colleagues
to pass an earlier version of the drug bill on the
assumption that Republicans would agree to a
compromise acceptable to Democrats.
Instead, House and Senate negotiators pushed the
Senate bill to the right by adding in Medicare
privatization experiments, big HMO subsidies and
medical savings accounts. These and other changes
pushed Kennedy to lead the last-ditch fight against
the final version of the bill.
While Clinton and Frank admire Kennedy, both think he
"made a mistake," as Frank put it, in thinking a real
compromise would emerge from the current system. "I
think we started down this slope in June," Clinton
said, referring to the vote on the earlier bill, which
she opposed and Kennedy favored. Clinton had predicted
that the already inadequate drug benefit in that bill
would be weakened by Republicans in subsequent
negotiations.
Kennedy said in an interview that he had no regrets
about trying to get the earlier bill passed. But he
acknowledged that Republicans had shown far more
discipline than Democrats have ever mustered. Kennedy
recalled a conversation he had with then-Sen. Phil
Gramm of Texas in the early 1990s about the wall of
Republican opposition to President Clinton's health
care bill. Gramm, he said, explained that Republicans
were determined not to let Clinton and a Democratic
Congress prove they were capable of "performing."
Bush is dealing with a more pliable opposition.
Whatever discontent liberals expressed toward Kennedy
was mild compared with their irritation toward Sens.
John Breaux of Louisiana and Max Baucus of Montana.
Breaux and Baucus were the only two Democrats allowed
to negotiate the Medicare bill with the Republicans,
House Democrats having been totally excluded. Would
Republicans have put up with such an arrangement?
Over the weekend, several Democrats complained that
Breaux and Baucus promised to report back to their
colleagues before reaching a deal. Instead, they
announced their support for the Republican bill,
setting in motion its rush to passage. And Baucus
poured salt into his party's wounds when he opened his
speech in defense of the bill on Sunday by taking
issue with how House Democratic leaders had described
his legislation. Bush must have been laughing as
Baucus drove a wedge through the Democratic Party.
If Democrats wanted to give Bush a political victory,
they could have insisted on a much better deal.
Instead, their negotiators sold out for a bill full of
subsidies to the HMOs that will make it harder to
control drug costs. The moral, yet again, is that
Republicans are much tougher than Democrats and fight
much harder to win.
postchat@aol.com
Next time you belittle or doubt Howard Dean
(D-Jeffords), remember what Feinstein ("D"-CA) and Tom
Duck-It ("D"-SD) did in voting for and helping pass
Rove's awful poison pill "Medicaire" bill, remember
that Duck-It is also on record as supporting Cheney's
"Energy" bill. Mark Crispin Miller's words to mne have
never wrung truer: "The Democrats are craven." Listen,
at least Dean is brave, intelligent and aggressive.
Dean is standing up to them, and to those in his own
part who have three quarters of their moral compass.
Does protecting Anwar, which they have done, and
blocking Rove's abomindable judicial nominees excuse
what Feinstein, Duck-It and a few other Democrats have
done re: Medicaire and by extension the 2004
Presidential election campaign? No. There is a very,
very bad and difficult year ahead of us all...at the
end of it...at the very least, the Democratic Party,
its principles, its voice, its roots. must be renewed
and reaffirmed or lost forever...Clinton, my friend,
did not win because of the Democratic Leadership
Council, he won in spite of them, he won because of
his intelligence, his deep empathy and his sex
appeal...Now, whether it is Dean or Clark (D-NATO), or
someone not yet in the picture, if they are to win in
the final battle or at the very least ensure the
survival of the Democratic Party, that person must be
a fighter first and foremost, that person must be a
gut fighter...Mondale was not a gut fighter, Dukakis
was not a gut fighter, McGovern was not a gut
fighter...Dean is a gut fighter, he is not my choice,
but I do not doubt that if he is the one still
standing, he will stand for something, and he will not
be bowed down or go politely away as Gore
did...Here is something from the Reno Gazette-Journal,
which has not yet been bought by the Corporatist
media...
"Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools."
http://www.rgj.com/news/printstory.php?id=57365
Pending the freezing of hell . . .
Cory Farley
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
11/21/2003 03:10 pm
Ah, man, I ought to resist this. It’s going to cause
more trouble than it’s worth . . . .
No, there’s a way. Let’s try this:
What follows is a blatant anti-Republican screed,
unless it’s a diatribe. Diatribe, I guess. The
dictionary says a screed has to be both long and
tiresome; a diatribe only has to be abusive.
I realize it’s one-sided and that many patriotic
Americans will be offended by it. Since I already
realize that, it isn’t necessary for any patriotic
Americans to tell me about it.
I’m going to use it anyway, because it’s pretty funny.
I got it under the heading, “Things you have to believe to be a Republican today.”
o Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime,
unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an
illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
o The United States should get out of the United
Nations, and our highest national priority is
enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
o Government should relax regulation of Big Business
and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use
marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
o “Standing Tall for America” means firing your
workers and moving their jobs to India.
o A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her
own body, but multi-national corporations can make
decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
o Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of
homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
o The best way to improve military morale is to praise
the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’
benefits and combat pay.
o Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless
you someday run for governor of California as a
Republican.
o If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents
won’t have sex.
o A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our
long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and
money.
o HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of
the public at heart.
o Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy.
Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
o Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk
science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
o Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad
guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when
Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush
needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.
o A president lying about an extramarital affair is an
impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist
support for a war in which thousands die is solid
defense policy.
o Government should limit itself to the powers named
in the Constitution, which include banning gay
marriages and censoring the Internet.
o The public has a right to know about Hillary’s
cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is
none of our business.
o You support states’ rights, which means Attorney
General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter
initiatives they have a right to adopt.
o What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital
national interest, but what Bush did in the ’80s is
irrelevant.
o Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is
communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital
to a spirit of international harmony.
I would, of course, print a comparable list of things
you have to believe to be a Democrat, if I had one,
and if it were funny, and if . . . .
No. You send one, and I’ll print it even if hell
doesn’t freeze over.
Cory Farley can be reached at (775) 788-6340 or
cfarley@rgj.com.
Copyright © 2002 The Reno Gazette-Journal
Every political and cultural institution, every
political process...You really should read Orwell
again, we have all lived with the symboly of "1984"
and the metaphor of "1984" foe so long that we think
we understand it fully...The mind-bending,
fact-twisting, world-morping, will-weakening,
soul-deadening that Orwell wrote about is happening
here and now, not metaphorically, but for real...
Madison Capital Times: "Concerns about tampering surfaced after the 2002 elections when several places that use the new electronic equipment experienced remarkable upsets over what the pre-election polls had been predicting. In Georgia, for example, the voting showed a swing of up to 16 points from the last polling results. "
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1124-05.htm
Published on Monday, November 24, 2003 by the
Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)
Touch-Screen Voting Isn't the Answer
by Dave Zweifel
Those modern "touch-screen" voting machines that were
to be a panacea for eliminating voting problems such
as the ones that occurred in Florida in 2000 are
beginning to look like a bigger problem themselves.
The machines are supposed to eliminate all the
disadvantages of paper and punch-card ballots,
disadvantages like hanging chads and confusing ballot
lineups that have, in effect, disenfranchised voters
throughout the country. But the system of allowing
voters to touch a computer screen in the box of their
favorite candidate eliminates any "paper trail" that
could be used to check the accuracy of the voting
tabulation.
The fact that several of the executives of the firms
who manufacture the newfangled machines are closely
linked with Republican politicians and President Bush,
in particular, has fed suspicion, especially since
several computer experts have shown that the software
for the machines isn't foolproof and can be tampered
with. It didn't help that the CEO of the major
touch-screen manufacturer, Diebold, is a prolific
campaign contributor to Bush and has publicly
committed to "delivering" the state of Ohio to him in
the 2004 election.
Add all that to a spotty record in places the machines
are in place and election officials are starting to
say "whoa."
Both Democrats and Republicans in Fairfax County, Va.,
claim that many votes weren't counted by the new
high-tech machines in an election this past Nov. 4.
The county had installed 1,000 of the expensive
machines, which were supposed to simplify tallying the
results. Some claim dozens of the machines didn't work
correctly.
It also hasn't helped that the manufacturers of the
machines insist on keeping secret the technology used
for their system, a stance that has been upheld by
several courts. But the secrecy means that if
tampering does occur, there is no way to discover it.
And when computer buffs demonstrated that they could
tamper with the software, Diebold filed "cease and
desist" orders against them.
Concerns about tampering surfaced after the 2002
elections when several places that use the new
electronic equipment experienced remarkable upsets
over what the pre-election polls had been predicting.
In Georgia, for example, the voting showed a swing of
up to 16 points from the last polling results.
Here in Wisconsin, Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison and
state Sen. Jeff Plale of South Milwaukee are
sponsoring a bill that would ban touch-screen voting
here until it is proven the machines are accurate and
fair.
Wisconsin's Green Party, like all third parties
concerned that the system could be rigged to eliminate
them, has weighed in on the measure.
"In order to be sure that the machines are
satisfactory ... the voting machine software program
should be 'open source,' open for all to examine,"
wrote the Greens' Ruth Weill.
Wisconsin's election rules currently limit electronic
voting systems to optical scanning equipment, which
does have a paper backup to check the counts. That's
as it should remain for now.
Paperless touch-screen technology isn't reliable
enough and is too full of conflicts of interest among
its manufacturers to be trusted with our democracy.
Copyright 2003 The Capital Times
###
Every institution, kulchural as well as political, is
being subverted...
Yale Daily News: Portraying academic institutions, particularly area studies programs, as hotbeds for anti-American sentiment, proponents of the bill proposed the creation of an advisory board that has the final word on curricula taught at Title VI institutions, course materials assigned in class, and even the faculty who are hired in institutions that accept Title VI funding.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=23954
ACADEMIC FREEDOMS | BENITA SINGH
Published Thursday, November 6, 2003
New bill threatens intellectual freedom in area studies
The 1996 Solomon Amendment, which denies federal
funding to institutions of higher learning that refuse
to allow military recruiters on campus, once seemed to
be the gravest attack by the government on academic
freedom. Yet it is actually only the beginning of what
seems to be a string of attempts by the federal
government to dictate what takes place at both public
and private universities across the country.
This past month, Congress passed HR 3077, the
"International Studies in Higher Education Act of
2003." The bill reauthorizes and extends Title VI
programs that ensure that public funds are not used to
support or further racial discrimination at
educational institutions. Since 1964, area studies
programs and the study of underrepresented languages
have been supported by Title VI funding.
Yet the bill's high and just proceedings end there. HR
3077 was first proposed in June, at a Congressional
hearing on "International Programs in Higher Education
and Questions about Bias." Portraying academic
institutions, particularly area studies programs, as
hotbeds for anti-American sentiment, proponents of the
bill proposed the creation of an advisory board that
has the final word on curricula taught at Title VI
institutions, course materials assigned in class, and
even the faculty who are hired in institutions that
accept Title VI funding.
Using the Solomon Amendment as precedent, the advisory
board will also ensure that programs receiving Title
VI funding encourage students to enter careers in
government, including those related to
national-security, by requiring that recruiters from
U.S. government agencies be given regular access to
students. And just like the unjust and detrimental
Solomon Amendment, HR 3077 suppresses the free-speech
rights of academic institutions as it threatens to
remove Title VI funding from any center that engages
in or abets a boycott of national security
scholarships.
The basis of our government's deep-seated paranoia
lies in the simple-minded testimony of conservative
academic Stanley Kurtz. Testifying in support of HR
3077 and the advisory board, Kurtz stated that "the
ruling intellectual paradigm in academic area studies
is called 'post-colonial theory.'" His erroneous
problem with that notion is that "the core premise of
post-colonial theory is that it is immoral for a
scholar to put his knowledge of foreign languages and
cultures at the service of American power." The root
of anti-Americanism, according to Kurtz, is not our
repeated missteps abroad, unilateral occupation, or
the continuing deaths of innocent civilians, but
rather, post-colonial scholarship. His incredible
belief that post-colonial theory is plaguing academic
departments with a bias against America and the west
leads to his ultimate conclusion that Title VI
programs are putting national security at risk as they
indoctrinate their students with a hatred of America.
Beyond the plain absurdity of his testimony, the irony
of Kurtz's statements is that he falls victim to the
very difficulty that Edward Said, one of the first
pioneers of post-colonial theory, repeatedly attempted
to explain. In advocating for an advisory board, Kurtz
surrenders to the American and Euro-centric ideology
that the study of foreign languages and cultures
serves no greater purpose than serving American
interests. The notion that societies foreign to
America can be studied on their own terms, rather than
as a tool for U.S. "progress" stands entirely outside
of Kurtz's narrowed viewpoint. Contrary to his claim,
the "core premise of post-colonial theory" is not that
"the use of languages and services for American power"
is an unworthy enterprise. The core premise of
post-colonial theory is that the West has imagined and
represented the East in a way that is simple-minded,
in a way that is orientalist. Orientalism does not
concern itself with politics as Kurtz ingenuously
understands it. Rather, orientalism engages with the
politics of representation. And as bills such as HR
3077 continue to reduce foreign languages and cultures
to no more than studies that are "useful," the U.S.
government only perpetuates the orientalism to which
Said brought our attention with his landmark text.
The implications of HR 3077's intense nationalism are
frightening. Currently at Yale, the African Studies,
European Studies, Latin American and Iberian Studies,
Middle East Studies and East Asian Studies Departments
all receive significant amounts of funding from Title
VI. In the 2003-2004 academic year alone, the value of
grants Yale has received from Title VI totals $4.8
million. With the ratification of HR 3077, all of
these area studies and language programs are now
subject to government oversight. According to the
language of the bill, professors whose ideological
principles may not support U.S. practices abroad can
have their appointments terminated, any part of a
course's curriculum containing criticisms of U.S.
foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed
entirely anti-American can be barred from ever being
taught.
HR 3077 represents yet another attack by the current
administration on our once-prized academic freedoms.
The Solomon Amendment, whose consequences Yale is
currently struggling with, set a fearsome and powerful
precedent for the continued infiltration of the
government into both public and private universities
such that supposed and illusory academic propaganda
can be replaced by another form of indoctrination that
is all too real. HR 3077 gives new meaning to the
horror of Kurtz's imagination.
Benita Singh is a senior in Branford College. Her
column appears on alternate Thursdays.
Copyright © 1995-2003 Yale Daily News Publishing
Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Now that's the way a real leader responds...Remember,
Clark (D-NATO) is the guy who said to run against Bush
you have to ask yourself "How much pain am I willing
to endure?" He is ready, and so is Dean (D-Jeffords).
CNN: "I'm not attacking the president because he is attacking terrorists," said retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a Democratic presidential candidate. "I'm attacking him because he's not attacking terrorists."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/23/elec04.prez.democrats.gop.ad/index.html
Democrats pound GOP campaign ad, They say it questions patriotism of war critics
Sunday, November 23, 2003 Posted: 8:27 PM EST (0127
GMT)
The Republican National Committee's advertisement was
to begin running in Iowa on Sunday.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats demanded a recall of the
Republican Party's first ad of the 2004 presidential
campaign Sunday, one calling it a "repulsive and
outrageous" attack on the patriotism of anyone who
opposes President Bush's wartime policies.
Republicans said the $100,000 ad merely reflects a
campaign based in part on the president's leadership
since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
But Democrats took particular issue with a line in the
ad that says "people are attacking the president for
attacking the terrorists."
"I'm not attacking the president because he is
attacking terrorists," said retired Army Gen. Wesley
Clark, a Democratic presidential candidate. "I'm
attacking him because he's not attacking terrorists."
Clark said the U.S. invasion of Iraq diverted
resources from the pursuit of the al Qaeda terrorist
network behind the September 11 attacks.
Clark and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle both
called on the Republican National Committee to
withdraw the ad.
"It's really a repulsive and outrageous attack, once
again, on those who question the direction that much
of the administration has taken with regard to Iraq,"
said Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat.
"I think that there is an implication here, as they've
done throughout this debate on Iraq, that if you
oppose the president, your patriotism ought to be
questioned," Daschle said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The 30-second ad was to begin running Sunday in Iowa,
ahead of the Democratic debate in Des Moines set for
Monday.
It also will be broadcast early next month in New
Hampshire, where all nine of the Democratic
presidential candidates are scheduled to debate
December 9.
Clark said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that the ad
violates the president's pledge not to use September
11 for political points.
"I think it really strikes at the heart of a democracy
when you accuse your opponents of somehow aiding the
enemy, and that's what these ads are implying," he
said.
Another Democratic presidential contender, Sen. Joe
Lieberman of Connecticut, called the commercials an
attempt to divert attention from economic issues.
"I don't know of anybody who was attacking the
president for attacking the terrorists," Lieberman
said.
"When it comes to terrorists, we ought to do
everything we can to capture and/or kill them. We also
ought to do a lot more than this president is doing to
protect our homeland security."
But Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he
sees nothing wrong with the ad.
"It's portraying the president's leadership that he's
displayed since September 11, which I support," McCain
said on ABC's "This Week."
Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut called
the ad "misleading."
"I think it's a very legitimate statement to be made
in the coming presidential election.
"The fact is, the president of the United States is
going to run for re-election to a large degree on his
record of trying to secure America from the threat of
terrorism," he said. "I think that's a very legitimate
reason for him to do so."
Lieberman said on CNN's "Late Edition" that the ad was
"misleading."
He said it was nothing more than "an attempt by the
Republican National Committee to get the public's mind
off the joblessness in America, the bad prescription
Medicare drug bill ... [and] the energy bill which
sells out to lobbyists, as John McCain said of it."
Clark said he saw no problem with the GOP defending
Bush's policies, but he said Bush's policies in the
war on terrorism were "indefensible."
"That ad's not intended to defend the policy," he
said. "It's intended to impugn the patriotism of the
people who are attempting to represent the will of the
electorate and hold the president accountable."
And Sen. Ted Kennedy, appearing with McCain on "This
Week," said the ad was "an attempt to stifle dissent."
"They are basically in this ad saying if you're
questioning this policy, you're against the war on
terror," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "That's
wrong."
If in this next year, we save this consitutional
Republic and by extension the planet itself from the
chaos and ruin toward which we are being shoved by the
stupdity of the Neo-Cons and the unbridled greed of
their sponsors, it will be in large part because of
this man...
George Soros: The war on terrorism as pursued by the Bush Administration cannot be won. On the contrary, it may bring about a permanent state of war. Terrorists will never disappear. They will continue to provide a pretext for the pursuit of American supremacy. That pursuit, in turn, will continue to generate resistance. Further, by turning the hunt for terrorists into a war, we are bound to create innocent victims. The more innocent victims there are, the greater the resentment and the better the chances that some victims will turn into perpetrators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23SUN2.html?ex=1070598407&ei=1&en=1a04dc4e403c861a
The Atlantic Monthly | December 2003
The Bubble of American Supremacy
A prominent financier argues that the heedless
assertion of American power in the world resembles a
financial bubble—and the moment of truth may be here
by George Soros
.....
It is generally agreed that September 11, 2001,
changed the course of history. But we must ask
ourselves why that should be so. How could a single
event, even one involving 3,000 civilian casualties,
have such a far-reaching effect? The answer lies not
so much in the event itself as in the way the United
States, under the leadership of President George W.
Bush, responded to it.
Admittedly, the terrorist attack was historic in its
own right. Hijacking fully fueled airliners and using
them as suicide bombs was an audacious idea, and its
execution could not have been more spectacular. The
destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade
Center made a symbolic statement that reverberated
around the world, and the fact that people could watch
the event on their television sets endowed it with an
emotional impact that no terrorist act had ever
achieved before. The aim of terrorism is to terrorize,
and the attack of September 11 fully accomplished this
objective.
Even so, September 11 could not have changed the
course of history to the extent that it has if
President Bush had not responded to it the way he did.
He declared war on terrorism, and under that guise
implemented a radical foreign-policy agenda whose
underlying principles predated the tragedy. Those
principles can be summed up as follows: International
relations are relations of power, not law; power
prevails and law legitimizes what prevails. The United
States is unquestionably the dominant power in the
post-Cold War world; it is therefore in a position to
impose its views, interests, and values. The world
would benefit from adopting those values, because the
American model has demonstrated its superiority. The
Clinton and first Bush Administrations failed to use
the full potential of American power. This must be
corrected; the United States must find a way to assert
its supremacy in the world.
This foreign policy is part of a comprehensive
ideology customarily referred to as neoconservatism,
though I prefer to describe it as a crude form of
social Darwinism. I call it crude because it ignores
the role of cooperation in the survival of the
fittest, and puts all the emphasis on competition. In
economic matters the competition is between firms; in
international relations it is between states. In
economic matters social Darwinism takes the form of
market fundamentalism; in international relations it
is now leading to the pursuit of American supremacy.
Not all the members of the Bush Administration
subscribe to this ideology, but neoconservatives form
an influential group within it. They publicly called
for the invasion of Iraq as early as 1998. Their ideas
originated in the Cold War and were further elaborated
in the post-Cold War era. Before September 11 the
ideologues were hindered in implementing their
strategy by two considerations: George W. Bush did not
have a clear mandate (he became President by virtue of
a single vote in the Supreme Court), and America did
not have a clearly defined enemy that would have
justified a dramatic increase in military spending.
September 11 removed both obstacles. President Bush
declared war on terrorism, and the nation lined up
behind its President. Then the Bush Administration
proceeded to exploit the terrorist attack for its own
purposes. It fostered the fear that has gripped the
country in order to keep the nation united behind the
President, and it used the war on terrorism to execute
an agenda of American supremacy. That is how September
11 changed the course of history.
Exploiting an event to further an agenda is not in
itself reprehensible. It is the task of the President
to provide leadership, and it is only natural for
politicians to exploit or manipulate events so as to
promote their policies. The cause for concern lies in
the policies that Bush is promoting, and in the way he
is going about imposing them on the United States and
the world. He is leading us in a very dangerous
direction.
he supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration
stands in opposition to the principles of an open
society, which recognize that people have different
views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate
truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just
because we are stronger than others, we know better
and have right on our side. The very first sentence of
the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the
President's annual laying out to Congress of the
country's security objectives) reads, "The great
struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and
totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the
forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for
national success: freedom, democracy, and free
enterprise."
The assumptions behind this statement are false on two
counts. First, there is no single sustainable model
for national success. Second, the American model,
which has indeed been successful, is not available to
others, because our success depends greatly on our
dominant position at the center of the global
capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.
The Bush doctrine, first enunciated in a presidential
speech at West Point in June of 2002, and incorporated
into the National Security Strategy three months
later, is built on two pillars: the United States will
do everything in its power to maintain its
unquestioned military supremacy; and the United States
arrogates the right to pre-emptive action. In effect,
the doctrine establishes two classes of sovereignty:
the sovereignty of the United States, which takes
precedence over international treaties and
obligations; and the sovereignty of all other states,
which is subject to the will of the United States.
This is reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm:
all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal
than others.
To be sure, the Bush doctrine is not stated so
starkly; it is shrouded in doublespeak. The
doublespeak is needed because of the contradiction
between the Bush Administration's concept of freedom
and democracy and the actual principles and
requirements of freedom and democracy. Talk of
spreading democracy looms large in the National
Security Strategy. But when President Bush says, as he
does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means
that America will prevail. In a free and open society,
people are supposed to decide for themselves what they
mean by freedom and democracy, and not simply follow
America's lead. The contradiction is especially
apparent in the case of Iraq, and the occupation of
Iraq has brought the issue home. We came as
liberators, bringing freedom and democracy, but that
is not how we are perceived by a large part of the
population.
It is ironic that the government of the most
successful open society in the world should have
fallen into the hands of people who ignore the first
principles of open society. At home Attorney General
John Ashcroft has used the war on terrorism to curtail
civil liberties. Abroad the United States is trying to
impose its views and interests through the use of
military force. The invasion of Iraq was the first
practical application of the Bush doctrine, and it has
turned out to be counterproductive. A chasm has opened
between America and the rest of the world.
The size of the chasm is impressive. On September 12,
2001, a special meeting of the North Atlantic Council
invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty for the first
time in the alliance's history, calling on all member
states to treat the terrorist attack on the United
States as an attack upon their own soil. The United
Nations promptly endorsed punitive U.S. action against
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. A little more than a year
later the United States could not secure a UN
resolution to endorse the invasion of Iraq. Gerhard
Schröder won re-election in Germany by refusing to
cooperate with the United States. In South Korea an
underdog candidate was elected to the presidency
because he was considered the least friendly to the
United States; many South Koreans regard the United
States as a greater danger to their security than
North Korea. A large majority throughout the world
opposed the war on Iraq.
eptember 11 introduced a discontinuity into American
foreign policy. Violations of American standards of
behavior that would have been considered objectionable
in ordinary times became accepted as appropriate to
the circumstances. The abnormal, the radical, and the
extreme have been redefined as normal. The advocates
of continuity have been pursuing a rearguard action
ever since.
To explain the significance of the transition, I
should like to draw on my experience in the financial
markets. Stock markets often give rise to a boom-bust
process, or bubble. Bubbles do not grow out of thin
air. They have a basis in reality—but reality as
distorted by a misconception. Under normal conditions
misconceptions are self-correcting, and the markets
tend toward some kind of equilibrium. Occasionally, a
misconception is reinforced by a trend prevailing in
reality, and that is when a boom-bust process gets
under way. Eventually the gap between reality and its
false interpretation becomes unsustainable, and the
bubble bursts.
Exactly when the boom-bust process enters
far-from-equilibrium territory can be established only
in retrospect. During the self-reinforcing phase
participants are under the spell of the prevailing
bias. Events seem to confirm their beliefs,
strengthening their misconceptions. This widens the
gap and sets the stage for a moment of truth and an
eventual reversal. When that reversal comes, it is
liable to have devastating consequences. This course
of events seems to have an inexorable quality, but a
boom-bust process can be aborted at any stage, and the
adverse effects can be reduced or avoided altogether.
Few bubbles reach the extremes of the
information-technology boom that ended in 2000. The
sooner the process is aborted, the better.
The quest for American supremacy qualifies as a
bubble. The dominant position the United States
occupies in the world is the element of reality that
is being distorted. The proposition that the United
States will be better off if it uses its position to
impose its values and interests everywhere is the
misconception. It is exactly by not abusing its power
that America attained its current position.
Where are we in this boom-bust process? The
deteriorating situation in Iraq is either the moment
of truth or a test that, if it is successfully
overcome, will only reinforce the trend.
Whatever the justification for removing Saddam
Hussein, there can be no doubt that we invaded Iraq on
false pretenses. Wittingly or unwittingly, President
Bush deceived the American public and Congress and
rode roughshod over the opinions of our allies. The
gap between the Administration's expectations and the
actual state of affairs could not be wider. It is
difficult to think of a recent military operation that
has gone so wrong. Our soldiers have been forced to do
police duty in combat gear, and they continue to be
killed. We have put at risk not only our soldiers'
lives but the combat effectiveness of our armed
forces. Their morale is impaired, and we are no longer
in a position to properly project our power. Yet there
are more places than ever before where we might have
legitimate need to project that power. North Korea is
openly building nuclear weapons, and Iran is
clandestinely doing so. The Taliban is regrouping in
Afghanistan. The costs of occupation and the prospect
of permanent war are weighing heavily on our economy,
and we are failing to address many festering
problems—domestic and global. If we ever needed proof
that the dream of American supremacy is misconceived,
the occupation of Iraq has provided it. If we fail to
heed the evidence, we will have to pay a heavier price
in the future.
eanwhile, largely as a result of our preoccupation
with supremacy, something has gone fundamentally wrong
with the war on terrorism. Indeed, war is a false
metaphor in this context. Terrorists do pose a threat
to our national and personal security, and we must
protect ourselves. Many of the measures we have taken
are necessary and proper. It can even be argued that
not enough has been done to prevent future attacks.
But the war being waged has little to do with ending
terrorism or enhancing homeland security; on the
contrary, it endangers our security by engendering a
vicious circle of escalating violence.
The terrorist attack on the United States could have
been treated as a crime against humanity rather than
an act of war. Treating it as a crime would have been
more appropriate. Crimes require police work, not
military action. Protection against terrorism requires
precautionary measures, awareness, and intelligence
gathering—all of which ultimately depend on the
support of the populations among which the terrorists
operate. Imagine for a moment that September 11 had
been treated as a crime. We would not have invaded
Iraq, and we would not have our military struggling to
perform police work and getting shot at.
Declaring war on terrorism better suited the purposes
of the Bush Administration, because it invoked
military might; but this is the wrong way to deal with
the problem. Military action requires an identifiable
target, preferably a state. As a result the war on
terrorism has been directed primarily against states
harboring terrorists. Yet terrorists are by definition
non-state actors, even if they are often sponsored by
states.
The war on terrorism as pursued by the Bush
Administration cannot be won. On the contrary, it may
bring about a permanent state of war. Terrorists will
never disappear. They will continue to provide a
pretext for the pursuit of American supremacy. That
pursuit, in turn, will continue to generate
resistance. Further, by turning the hunt for
terrorists into a war, we are bound to create innocent
victims. The more innocent victims there are, the
greater the resentment and the better the chances that
some victims will turn into perpetrators.
The terrorist threat must be seen in proper
perspective. Terrorism is not new. It was an important
factor in nineteenth-century Russia, and it had a
great influence on the character of the czarist
regime, enhancing the importance of secret police and
justifying authoritarianism. More recently several
European countries—Italy, Germany, Great Britain—had
to contend with terrorist gangs, and it took those
countries a decade or more to root them out. But those
countries did not live under the spell of terrorism
during all that time. Granted, using hijacked planes
for suicide attacks is something new, and so is the
prospect of terrorists with weapons of mass
destruction. To come to terms with these threats will
take some adjustment; but the threats cannot be
allowed to dominate our existence. Exaggerating them
will only make them worse. The most powerful country
on earth cannot afford to be consumed by fear. To make
the war on terrorism the centerpiece of our national
strategy is an abdication of our responsibility as the
leading nation in the world. Moreover, by allowing
terrorism to become our principal preoccupation, we
are playing into the terrorists' hands. They are
setting our priorities.
recent Council on Foreign Relations publication
sketches out three alternative national-security
strategies. The first calls for the pursuit of
American supremacy through the Bush doctrine of
pre-emptive military action. It is advocated by
neoconservatives. The second seeks the continuation of
our earlier policy of deterrence and containment. It
is advocated by Colin Powell and other moderates, who
may be associated with either political party. The
third would have the United States lead a cooperative
effort to improve the world by engaging in preventive
actions of a constructive character. It is not
advocated by any group of significance, although
President Bush pays lip service to it. That is the
policy I stand for.
The evidence shows the first option to be extremely
dangerous, and I believe that the second is no longer
practical. The Bush Administration has done too much
damage to our standing in the world to permit a return
to the status quo. Moreover, the policies pursued
before September 11 were clearly inadequate for
dealing with the problems of globalization. Those
problems require collective action. The United States
is uniquely positioned to lead the effort. We cannot
just do anything we want, as the Iraqi situation
demonstrates, but nothing much can be done in the way
of international cooperation without the leadership—or
at least the participation—of the United States.
Globalization has rendered the world increasingly
interdependent, but international politics is still
based on the sovereignty of states. What goes on
within individual states can be of vital interest to
the rest of the world, but the principle of
sovereignty militates against interfering in their
internal affairs. How to deal with failed states and
oppressive, corrupt, and inept regimes? How to get rid
of the likes of Saddam? There are too many such
regimes to wage war against every one. This is the
great unresolved problem confronting us today.
I propose replacing the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive
military action with preventive action of a
constructive and affirmative nature. Increased foreign
aid or better and fairer trade rules, for example,
would not violate the sovereignty of the recipients.
Military action should remain a last resort. The
United States is currently preoccupied with issues of
security, and rightly so. But the framework within
which to think about security is collective security.
Neither nuclear proliferation nor international
terrorism can be successfully addressed without
international cooperation. The world is looking to us
for leadership. We have provided it in the past; the
main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong
in the world today is that we are not providing it in
the present.
The URL for this page is
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/12/soros.htm.
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At least eight US GIs died in Iraq this weekend. Two
of them were dragged from their vehicle, had their
throats slit and their bodies mutiliated...For what?
Here is another beautiful statement from a brave
woman, whose voiced should be heard and honored at the
Democratic National Convention in August 2004...
Associated Press: "I think people were misled and I think people are fighting a war that they didn't know they were going to be fighting," Maines said Friday on NBC's "Today" show. "And I think they were misled by people who should have been asking questions and weren't."
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/24/dixiechicks.ap/index.html
Dixie Chicks singer sounds off on war, Natalie Maines: 'People were misled'
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) --Dixie Chicks singer
Natalie Maines, whose criticism of President Bush last
spring led to boycotts of the group's music, still has
a lot to say about the war in Iraq.
"I think people were misled and I think people are
fighting a war that they didn't know they were going
to be fighting," Maines said Friday on NBC's "Today"
show. "And I think they were misled by people who
should have been asking questions and weren't."
The country stars faced criticism and even death
threats after Maines said she and her bandmates were
ashamed that President Bush was from Texas. She made
the remark in London shortly before the war began.
Though Maines apologized for the phrasing of her
remark, some radio stations banned the group's music.
The group also received death threats in the wake of
Maines' comments.
Maines said Friday she did not feel vindicated by how
the war has unfolded: "I would have liked to have been
proven wrong."
The band's recent concert tour was one of the year's
most successful, but Maines said it is too early to
predict the long-term fallout.
As for the backlash, she said, "We like making music
and we'll continue to do that whether people buy it or
not."
The Dixie Chicks on Friday released, "Top Of The World
Tour Live," their double CD set and DVD.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Show up for Democracy in November 2004: Defeat Bush (again)!
Associated Press: 'THE SURVEY BY Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion found that 44 percent of the voters questioned said they planned to definitely vote against the Republican president while 38 percent said they would support his re-election.'
http://www.msnbc.com/news/989226.asp?cp1=1#BODY
44% say they’ll vote against Bush
New poll finds only 38% support president’s re-election
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y., Nov. 4 — More than four in 10 voters nationwide say they definitely plan to vote against President Bush next year — more than plan to vote for him, according to a poll released Tuesday.
THE SURVEY BY Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion found that 44 percent of the voters questioned said they planned to definitely vote against the Republican president while 38 percent said they would support his re-election.
An April survey from the Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based pollsters had found that 40 percent of voters nationwide planned to vote for Bush while 30 percent said they would vote against him.
The latest poll also found a drop in Bush’s approval rating, which has been reflected in other recent nationwide polls. The Marist poll had the president’s approval rating at 53 percent, down from 70 percent in its April poll.
In the new poll, voters were split on Bush’s handling of postwar Iraq and the economy.
16 PERCENT FOR DEAN
Among Democratic voters, there was no clear choice about who should be the party’s candidate. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean led the way with 16 percent of Democratic voters backing him followed by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut at 12 percent and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri at 10 percent. The other Democratic contenders were all in single digits. One in three Democratic voters said they were undecided on who should be the party’s nominee.
In theoretical matchups against the Democrats, Bush led them all. Closest to the president — 48 percent to 43 percent — was Gephardt.
Marist’s telephone poll of 788 registered voters was conducted Oct. 27-29 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Restore Honor to the White House: Defeat Bush in 2004
Bill Gallagher, Niagara Falls Reporter: "Understand the greed, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, squandering of taxpayers' money, waste, raids on the public treasury -- all wrapped in a litany of lies -- and you have a handle on how the Bush administration operates, and how money greases this despicable machine. "
http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher139.html
WHITE HOUSE CRONIES CASH IN ON IRAQ WAR
By Bill Gallagher
"To have what we have, we speak not what we mean." --
William Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure."
DETROIT -- Understand the greed, self-dealing,
conflicts of interest, squandering of taxpayers'
money, waste, raids on the public treasury -- all
wrapped in a litany of lies -- and you have a handle
on how the Bush administration operates, and how money
greases this despicable machine.
It is impossible to keep up with the political-insider
maneuvers, influence-peddling, favoritism and cronyism
underway in the slimiest administration in more than a
century.
And for Bush and company, everything is done
deliberately and with clear purpose, controlled or
manipulated in fine detail. Accidents, coincidences
and surprises simply don't happen. Only the truth
threatens this operation.
The chaos in Iraq, with its $87 billion price tag for
the American people, has become a feeding trough for
corporate pigs with intimate ties to the Bush
administration.
The rebuilding of Iraq is riddled with pork-barrel
politics, and Bush friends and cronies of our Iraqi
puppets are wallowing in the slop of American cash.
The "nation-building" is a disgraceful means for a
handful of corporations and individuals to make big,
quick bucks and hide the greed as "necessary" to make
Iraq safe and peaceful.
The money drain is staggering. By the end of 2003, the
war and occupation in Iraq and continuing expenses in
Afghanistan could top $120 billion, all in direct
payments. The U.S. taxpayers are stuck with that
entire tab, paid with borrowed money and debt our
children will have to endure. Other nations are
kicking in a modest $13 billion, mostly in the form of
loans.
When our government ignores and insults most of the
rest of the world, we shouldn't be too surprised when
they don't jump in to help our Iraq protectorate.
Halliburton gets good news from the Pentagon that the
company's no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's oil
production will continue into next year. The company
Vice President Dick Cheney once headed has already
raked in $1.59 billion and Halliburton's future and
good fortune in Iraq are assured.
Cheney and his old outfit insist everything is on the
up and up, and that thoughts of favoritism and
collusion are just so unfair. Halliburton is charging
the U.S. government $1.59 for each gallon of imported
fuel. The Iraqi national oil company says it can get
the same stuff for 98 cents a gallon.
Once you get over the incongruous notion that we have
to import fuel into an oil-rich nation, you then have
to buy Halliburton's convoluted, contorted explanation
that the price is fair and the company has this
special expertise in buying the imported oil.
Profiteering, anyone? Perish the thought.
Chevron, the oil giant that once named a tanker for
Condoleezza Rice, is now merged with Texaco and the
combined company is one of the first to dip into
Iraq's post-war oil wealth.
National Security Adviser Rice, a leading advocate of
the war and propagator of the "Iraq is a nuclear
threat" myth, was a Chevron director between the Bush
I and Bush II administrations. Like many in the Bush
crowd, she sees public service and serving the
interests of corporations, especially in the energy
industry, as a seamless garment. Work a little for
one, then the other and back again. It's all
essentially the same interests, and the money's great.
ChevronTexaco was selected by the Iraq State Oil
Marketing Organization as one of six international oil
companies to purchase Iraqi oil. Nearly 50 companies
competed for the prized purchasing rights for 10
million barrels. Lucky ChevronTexaco got to suck up 2
million barrels, the first "Texas Tea" from Iraq to be
sold free of sanctions since 1990.
But wait. The Iraqis made their own decision. No
favoritism here. It's just coincidence. Sure. Iraqi
exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon darling and
source of a stream of phony information, has his hands
on all kinds of deals now. From oil to
telecommunications networks, Chalabi is dishing out
the goodies for his cronies in Iraq and favored U.S.
corporations. Money and greed are the driving forces.
Rebuilding Iraq is an afterthought.
The Pentagon, through the Coalition Provisional
Authority, the colonial government, handed the
contract to build a wireless phone network for
government officials and aid workers in the Baghdad
area to MCI.
You recall that MCI used to be called WorldCom and the
company went belly-up in one of those accounting fraud
scandals that ruined so many lives. MCI had next to no
experience in building wireless networks, but got the
no-bid contract nonetheless. Chalabi's buddies and
Motorola, a Pentagon pet, got another big chunk of the
action for permanent communications.
The fat cats who are cashing in certainly paid
up-front for the privilege. Major donors to George W.
Bush's election campaigns and other Republican causes
are the big beneficiaries of the public dollars being
spent there.
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research
group, tracked more than 70 U.S. firms and contractors
involved in reconstruction projects in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Since 1990, those companies and their
employees have donated $49 million to national
campaigns, with most of that money going to the GOP.
President Bush topped the list, getting more than
$500,000 for his 2000 campaign from the companies that
are now sucking up the tax dollars.
The report is the result of a six-month investigation,
and notes that the Pentagon, State Department and
Agency for International Development were hardly eager
to provide complete and accurate information about the
contracts. Much of what the Center for Public
Integrity did learn was squeezed out using the Freedom
of Information Act.
The New York Times says this first comprehensive look
at companies involved in Iraq "provides evidence that
the process for handling big contracts has often been
secretive, chaotic and favorable to companies with
good political contracts."
The difficulty of sorting through the contracts, the
Times reports, "confirms that many, if not most, of
the contracts handed out for work in Iraq were awarded
through a process that was inscrutable to outsiders
and often without competitive bidding."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended
the way our money is being spent, saying with a
straight face, "The decisions are made by career
procurement officials. There is a separation, a wall
between them and political-level questions when
they're doing the contracts."
Rewarding their friends and political supporters is
what this White House does best. For example, the deal
now being cooked to give Boeing a contract to lease
aircraft for use as refueling tankers, a little
procurement shuffle that could bring the giant weapons
manufacturers a cool $100 billion dollars.
New York Times columnist and conservative pundit David
Brooks smells the pork: "This deal isn't just shady --
it's the Encyclopedia Britannica of shady. It's as if
somebody spent years trying to gather every sleazy
aspect of modern Washington and cram it all into one
legislative effort."
Leasing rather than buying is the key to the deal that
will give Boeing a sweetheart contract and provide
jobs in some key congressional districts, but will
stick the taxpayers with a bill $5.7 billion more
costly than actually buying the planes.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert from Illinois, home of
Boeing's headquarters, is a big supporter of the plan
to squander billions. Over in the Senate,
Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens included
the lease deal in a defense spending bill. That was
one month after he took in $22,000 in campaign
donations from 30 Boeing executives at a Seattle
fund-raiser.
The Office of Management and Budget and Pentagon
budget analysts initially were howling, saying the
planes were way too expensive and leasing a bad
precedent.
But then the White House got involved and the
opposition went poof. The Washington Post reports that
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, acting under
specific instructions from the president, intervened
in the dispute and told the nay-sayers to shut up and
sign onto the corporate welfare deal.
It will take years to sort through it all. But, in the
end, we'll find out just how the Bush administration
sacrificed public good for private gain in Iraq. When
and if the violence ever subsides over there, teams of
independent government auditors will have the enormous
task of trying to figure out who got the money and
where it was spent.
The downing of an American helicopter from ground
fire, resulting in at least 15 deaths, shows how bad
the situation is in Iraq. More have been killed after
the declaration of the end of "major hostilities" than
before.
In a repulsive act of political cowardice, the
president disavowed any connection with the "Mission
Accomplished" banner on the deck of an aircraft
carrier when he delivered his end-of-the-war message.
Instead, "Top Gun" turned into pop gun, and he blamed
others for his own triumphalism.
"The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put
up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln saying
their mission was accomplished," the president
smirked. What a pitiful lie, and with Honest Abe's
name in the same sentence!
Later, a spokeswoman admitted the White House, which
always controls every detail of the president's
appearances, had produced the banner and placed it on
the deck.
George W. Bush tries to spare himself from political
embarrassment by blaming brave men and women who risk
their own lives. What a man!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former
Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit
for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is
gallaghernewsman@aol.com.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com
Gen. Wesley Clark (D-NATO): "Our difficulties in Iraq are not just evidence of careless planning for the postwar--though they are that. More fundamentally, they call into question the whole theory that America is capable of--or that it is in our interest to create--an empire founded on force of arms. The American military has never been and probably cannot be made into an imperial force along neo-Roman lines. This is not to say that America lacks sufficient power to defend its interests in the world, including spreading values such as democracy and free-market economics. We've had that power for decades, and wielded it successfully. But while a powerful military has been vital, the chief means of our influence has been an interlocking web of international institutions and arrangements, from NATO to the World Bank to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This network of mutual interdependence, though marginalized by the Bush administration, was largely devised by America, which has also been its chief beneficiary. It is, for all practical purposes, a kind of empire--but to use a contemporary term, a virtual one. Properly used and expanded, it can be the secret to a secure and prosperous future. "
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.clark.html
America's Virtual Empire
U.S. soldiers are great warriors, but unwilling
imperial guards. If we want to secure our interests,
we must draw on other sources of power.
By Gen. Wesley Clark
Last March, somewhere in Kuwait, the troops of the
101st Airborne Division gathered the last of their
gear onto trucks that would carry them into war. They
were a magnificent sight. All in uniform, taut and
fit, talking quietly; their weapons slung over their
shoulders; their rucksacks hung neatly along the
trucks' rails. The scene reeked of training and
discipline, the quiet professionalism of soldiers who
have prepped for months and years, who know their
moment is at hand. No scene showed more clearly the
achievements of the all-volunteer force or the
distance our Army had come since the trying days of
Vietnam.
In the days that followed, performance lived up to
appearance and reputation. Driving through the dust
and grit, fighting to clear the built-up areas of
Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla, and later surging into the
far north of Iraq to work with the Kurds, the 101st
burnished the reputation of the American man-of-arms.
Fighting, as did those who fought alongside them, with
skill, courage, and compassion, controlling their
firepower to minimize civilian casualties and limit
the destruction of local roads and buildings, this
compelling image of force sprang on its nation's
citizens, and the world's, like the genie emerging
from Aladdin's lamp--unexpected, almost magically
powerful.
But they were not only the world's most overwhelming
military force. Their presence embodied a powerful
political message. As the 101st's troops carved their
way through the desert landscape and overcame
scattered resistance, they signaled a new American
assertiveness, a willingness to risk lives and
treasure for our beliefs. The U.S. military was so
superior as to be virtually unchallengeable on the
field of battle. Perhaps not since the Roman Empire
had a single state's power under arms so dominated
every possible opponent. In Iraq, the destruction and
dismemberment of the enemy's army had been
accomplished with vast U.S. capabilities left over.
This was a military that could rewrite the boundaries
of what force could achieve. This was an armed force
that made a new kind of empire appear inevitable. And
many foreign policy theorists in and around the White
House and the office of the secretary of defense were
putting forward the idea that America should embrace
its destiny as a new imperial power, using military
force as the chief tool to create a more democratic
and pro-American world order.
On the eve of conflict with Iraq, President Bush
appeared to agree. "A liberated Iraq can show the
power of freedom to transform that vital region," he
argued in a televised address to the nation last
February. "Success in Iraq could also begin a new
stage for Middle Eastern peace." The president's
vision brought pride to America, reflecting
self-confidence in our worth and the superiority of
our values. But it all came down to success on the
ground: success not just in the military sense, after
all, but in a broader sense, one articulated by the
president during the last two years. This was to be a
new America, reborn from adversity and threat,
reaching out constructively to the world, liberating
peoples, reforming a "vital region," enabling the
emergence of a new, universal morality, and taking
advantage of this unique window of American military
dominance to secure into the foreseeable future our
security and safety. A Pax Americana--and maybe even
more--was to fall into place around the globe: a
dizzying journey from the "more humble" foreign policy
to which Bush had aspired during the 2000 campaign.
But today, such a mission appears to be hanging in the
balance. Certainly the United States retains a
preponderance of resources--if it can bring them to
bear. There is no opposing superpower to stoke the
opposition in Iraq, as we did a generation earlier to
the Soviets in Afghanistan. But the occupation has
thus far failed to meet popular Iraqi expectations in
restoring security and minimal economic standards;
Saddam Hussein has evaded capture for months; Baathist
elements remain hostile; al Qaeda and other Islamic
fighters continue to infiltrate the country; and daily
sniping attacks, bombings, and ambushes are inflicting
more casualties each week upon our people. This
resistance is, of course, far from sufficient to
defeat the U.S. military on the ground. But it
nevertheless casts a deepening shadow.
Our difficulties in Iraq are not just evidence of
careless planning for the postwar--though they are
that. More fundamentally, they call into question the
whole theory that America is capable of--or that it is
in our interest to create--an empire founded on force
of arms. The American military has never been and
probably cannot be made into an imperial force along
neo-Roman lines. This is not to say that America lacks
sufficient power to defend its interests in the world,
including spreading values such as democracy and
free-market economics. We've had that power for
decades, and wielded it successfully. But while a
powerful military has been vital, the chief means of
our influence has been an interlocking web of
international institutions and arrangements, from NATO
to the World Bank to the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty. This network of mutual interdependence, though
marginalized by the Bush administration, was largely
devised by America, which has also been its chief
beneficiary. It is, for all practical purposes, a kind
of empire--but to use a contemporary term, a virtual
one. Properly used and expanded, it can be the secret
to a secure and prosperous future.
As events in Iraq have demonstrated, the main obstacle
to an American imperium is that our armed forces,
despite their vast strength, have not been built for
empire, but for war-fighting. Despite a heritage of
frontier service in the American West, they conceived
of themselves in Clausewitzian terms, of big battles
and maximum violence. During World War I, General John
J. Pershing created, with help from the French and
British, the modern, European-style U.S. Army, built
to occupy terrain and absorb casualties. During World
War II, Korea, Vietnam, and afterward, the U.S. armed
forces sought an enemy, focused on him, and trained to
beat him. These were the forces of 20th-century
warfare, of mass armies and the battles of state
against state. They targeted enemy forces--and,
victory achieved, they wanted to go home. They were
citizens first, soldiers second.
The Army has also historically lacked staying power
abroad. By the summer of 1919, a few months after the
Armistice had ended World War I, Pershing's army was
for the most part at home, being demobilized. After
World War II, the Army pulled quickly out of Germany
and Japan, leaving behind smaller, constabulary-type
forces, even in the face of a continuing military
challenge from the Soviet Union. Throughout much of
the Cold War, U.S. forces abroad were under constant
fiscal and political pressures to recall them.
Casualties have always added pressure to withdraw, as
they did during Vietnam. The better the
communications, and the deeper the media coverage, the
greater the sensitivity. U.S. operations in Somalia
were ultimately undone by the deaths of 18 U.S.
soldiers in a single incident. Successful peacekeeping
in Bosnia and Kosovo was believed to be contingent on
avoiding U.S. casualties altogether.
Moreover, the Army itself has changed since the glory
days of the "Greatest Generation." As a consequence of
Vietnam, it is now all-volunteer. New technology,
which has transferred some of the fighting and
destruction to airpower, made the Army smaller
overall. Its units lacked the infantry strength, the
"boots on the ground" that characterized the draftee
armies of the two world wars and even Vietnam. As of
2003, the active-duty Army stands at an authorization
of less than 500,000--a little more than half the Cold
War force and a paltry 5 percent of the World War II
mobilization. Many troops are married. Despite their
patriotism, these are men and women who must weigh the
call of country against responsibilities to family.
Simply recruiting and retaining sufficient soldiers
has been problematic. And supplementing the force with
more than 100,000 volunteer reservists called to
active duty has added to the pressure to finish up
overseas and return home as rapidly as possible.
In the summer of 2003, the troops committed to Iraq,
around 140,000 plus another 15,000 or so in allied
troops, were thin on the ground measured against the
recent standards of peacekeeping. In Bosnia in 1996,
more than 60,000 NATO and associated soldiers had
enforced the cease-fire and peace agreement between
the warring factions. The civilian population there
was less than 4 million. In Kosovo, there were almost
40,000 peacekeepers in a province of slightly less
than 2 million people, in an area roughly 65 miles
square. Yet in Iraq, with a population more than ten
times more numerous and an area some 80 times greater
than that of Kosovo, our troop strength is only about
155,000. Outgoing Army Chief of Staff General Eric
Shinseki's concerns, expressed in February 2003, about
the size of the force required-"several hundred
thousand"--now seem prophetic. Worse, the American
force cannot be rotated for refitting, retraining, and
recuperation in a "steady-state" fashion. The Army is
committed in Iraq--at its peak, more than half the
deployable strength of the Army was there. But in
Afghanistan, South Korea, Kosovo, and Bosnia are other
competing requirements. Any serious rotation would
require mobilizing National Guard formations. No
matter how great its courage and competence, this is a
force whose size, focus,and all-volunteer nature argue
against the likelihood that the president's grand
vision would succeed.
Nor is our army large enough to follow through on the
most expansive visions of the early days in the war on
terror, when there was a vision of "taking down
states," sweeping across the Middle East, greeted by
cheering throngs. Could our military now handle a
drive into Syria, and the subsequent duty there, or
onward into Lebanon? Certainly, the airpower is
adequate, and the ships could pivot offshore-for the
airmen and the sailors, any further actions would be
yet another extended deployment. But for the Army it
is different-they are doing the dirty work in Iraq,
day after day, amid dangers and uncertainties.
Casualties and lengthy, strenuous deployments have
struck at the heart of this force. Most of those
serving there had believed in the compatibility of
their conflicting duties to family and to country.
During the fighting, feeling the national sense of
engagement, the patriotism, and sense of community
involvement, such burdens had seemed bearable. But
occupation is another matter altogether. Even if the
extended tour of duty is completed successfully,
despite the heat and austerity, another call to arms
may be awaiting immediately thereafter. There are
already stories of helicopter pilots transferred
directly from Afghanistan to Iraq. For those that do
return home, there will be another rotation to a
combat training center, more family separation, births
and birthdays missed, wailing children and unhappy
spouses. And every casualty strikes a note of fear
among the families waiting at home.
The U.S. Army that defeated Iraq is a great force,
unique really--but our soldiers aren't the Roman
legions who marched into Brittany, across the Rhine,
and conquered England, or the hardy Brits who sought
fortune and fame along the Northwest Frontier in
19th-century India. No, these are Americans,
unchallengeable in combat, fighting for their
country's self-defense, committed to strike back at
those who might be responsible for the attacks of
9/11--even though no link between Iraq and the
terrorists has ever been established. But they are
utterly void of any interest in the gains and glory of
occupation duty far from home. Indeed, unless there is
a speedy reduction of such requirements there, or a
wholesale call-up of the reserves, we might lose the
essence of the Army that fought its way so valiantly
into Iraq, a casualty not of enemy fire but of
over-commitment and under-resourcing, as its soldiers
and officers opt out. We simply do not have an Army of
empire.
Are we there yet?
The public at home was also ill-prepared to shoulder
imperial challenges. 9/11, it's true, sparked the
effort to dispatch a mighty force for an unprecedented
American action. But soon after Saddam's statues came
down, the triumphalism in the media was replaced by
more routine dribs and drabs: unusual murder cases,
sexual assault charges against a sports icon, mounting
concern about the continuing spate of losses falling
upon us in the early postwar period. The American
people, it seemed, would rally for war. (As a British
lord reflected in an earlier century, "War not only
supplied the news, it created the demand for it.") But
when the uncertainty and excitement of the maneuvers
and offensive actions came to an end, public opinion
turned away. Americans wanted their troops home--and
soon.
And despite all the evidence pointing to the
unsuitability of the Army to a long overseas
deployment, no extra resources were provided to
prepare for a drawn-out campaign. Instead, U.S.
foreign policy has become dangerously dependent on its
military. The armed forces are now practically the
only effective play in the U.S. repertoire. Only they
have the personnel, funding, and transportation to
deliver relief supplies; organize training for armies
and police; install communications and power; advise
ministries of justice, health, and finance; build
bridges; support election efforts; and inoculate and
treat host populaces. Yet such problems are not among
their primary missions. The troops often resent being
asked to tackle these issues, to which they bring,
often very understandably, a narrow, almost mechanical
approach. For all their versatility, they lack the
knowledge, skills, staying power, and scale to manage
seriously a large nation on a continuing basis. They
are unable to foment deep-rooted political
development. They lack the skills and experience to
revise constitutions, rework property laws and
criminal statutes, and methodically bore into the
deepest aspects of the societies. Troops are not
police officers; the kind of investigations and
anticorruption efforts essential in nation-building
are largely beyond them.
The reliance on the U.S. military feeds another
unfortunate trait: the tendency toward unilateralism.
In the conduct of military operations, the United
States has no peer. No other nation can muster the
intelligence capabilities, logistics, firepower, and
deployable forces that we possess. But by neglecting
diplomatic levers and exhausting other international
alternatives, the Bush administration has left itself
without the numbers to effectively secure our gains.
When, after capturing Baghdad, the military tried to
impose security, it lacked sufficient forces to do the
job-it simply couldn't occupy the breadth of the
country, search for weapons of mass destruction, and
simultaneously guard the immense spread of civil
facilities and infrastructure needed for the
successful transition to an authentically Iraqi
government. And when they went "onto the offensive" by
conducting sweeps and searching homes, they often
lacked the interpreters to explain to families what
they were doing and why--a classic mistake in a
counter-guerrilla effort. They offended local leaders,
and swept up the innocent and uninvolved. Even
straightforward self-defense, like returning fire if
fired upon, cannot but over time inflict even more
casualties upon innocent civilians, as well as arouse
popular anger that will be very hard to assuage.
As of today, the best hope seems to lie in turning
over political authority to a selected Iraqi council
as rapidly as possible, and securing a new U.N.
mandate which would provide the legitimacy needed for
other nations to send in troops and provide financial
assistance. At the same time, we ought to create
sufficient Iraqi security forces to relieve U.S.
troops-an approach which, in early September 2003, the
president finally announced that he was prepared to
follow. But even if we are able to significantly draw
down the U.S. military commitment in Iraq over the
next year or so, our ground forces will have been
stretched tight and will likely need several years and
unanticipated additional resources to recover fully.
So soon after the defeat of Iraq, the vision of U.S.
armed forces as the heart of a new empire--as a
liberating force sweeping through the Middle East,
brushing aside terrorist-sponsoring regimes to create
a new American empire of Western-style
democracies--seems to be fading fast. The
transformation of the region seems a generation away.
Sharing the wealth
But forgoing an empire of arms need not mean forsaking
our leadership role in the world. Indeed, much of the
debate and some degree of the enthusiasm about
American empire seemed to misunderstand America's
enormous power and its unique place in the world.
The United States had come of age as a world power by
the end of the 19th century. Surging in population and
wealth, gorged on foreign, primarily British, capital
in the decades after the Civil War, the United States
by the turn of the century was the world's premier
manufacturing power. Simultaneously, we set out to
compete as an imperial power, seizing Spanish
possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific, dismembering
Colombia to create an independent Panama in order to
build a canal across the isthmus, fighting a difficult
counter-guerrilla campaign in the Philippines to
secure control of the archipelago, and mounting a
"punitive expedition" across the U.S. border into
Mexico in pursuit of the populist Mexican bandit
leader Pancho Villa.
But here the American pursuit of classical empire
ends, for deep within the American psyche has been the
principle of national self-determination, which has
asserted itself again and again as the country has
charted its international course. Cuban independence
was granted in 1902. Repeated U.S. military
interventions in Central America and the Caribbean
during the first third of the century never resulted
in formal U.S. annexation or permanent legal control.
Philippine independence was formally granted in 1946.
Americans tended, on the whole, to be "leavers," not
colonizers. Interests in foreign adventures soon
faded, military expeditions were scaled back and
withdrawn, and local forces, sometimes with U.S.
assistance and advice, took over. The United States
had power and influence, yes, and its businesses
sought to compete globally for gain, but it was not
interested in legal control or classic empire.
Indeed, after World War II, the United States strongly
resisted the re-imposition of colonialism in Asia and
encouraged decolonization elsewhere. We denied
substantial assistance to the French as they sought to
regain full control of Indochina and were pressured
the Dutch out of Indonesia. We weighed in against the
British and French when they invaded Gamal Abdul
Nasser's Egypt in 1956 and encouraged the end of
colonial regimes and white dominance in Africa,
eventually mounting a strong economic campaign that by
the mid-1990s had helped end South African apartheid.
Unlike most classical colonial powers, we were large
and rich in resources. We were much less dependent on
foreign trade for our economic development. Rather
than finding outlets abroad for surplus labor and
capital, we benefited from enormous inflows of foreign
direct investment during the railroad boom of the late
19th century. And by the turn of last century, our
geography and economic development contributed to form
a strong predisposition toward isolationism in U.S.
foreign policy.
But in the aftermath of World War II, we fought off a
return to the historic tradition of withdrawal, first
under the leadership of President Harry Truman and
Secretary of State George Marshall, then continuing
through General Dwight Eisenhower's presidency.
Meanwhile, the value of the extractive
industries-gold, diamonds, timber-that motivated
earlier colonial efforts by other nations was
declining in relative terms. While these industries,
and the multinational companies which dominated them,
continued to hang on in their market sectors, the
terms of trade were shifting. New areas of wealth had
emerged in travel, entertainment, medicine,
communications, and modern manufacturing. Value in
these areas for the most part was not achieved by
dominating sources of supply but by access to markets
and attracting foreign capital and talent.
The United States has continued to draw waves of
immigrants hungry for freedom and economic
opportunity--from the 19th-century Germans, Irish, and
Italians onto the early-20th-century East Europeans,
to a steady flow from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, and
then Central America, as well as from the Middle East
and South and Southeast Asia. During the 1990s, the
United States experienced the highest population
growth rates of any developed country, largely because
it received more than a million immigrants per year,
becoming, by 2001, home to more than 3 million Muslims
of Middle Eastern and Asian origin.At the beginning of
the 21st century the United States is the world's
leading economy, accounting for about 20 percent of
global output and, during the period 1995-2002, for
about 40 percent of the world's economic growth. Over
time the world economy has become disproportionately
dependent on the U.S. growth engine, which has led to
the strange result that the United States must consume
more than it produces--while much of the rest of the
world must produce more than it consumes. This is a
benefit to other countries, which must find markets
for their products, but it is most of all a benefit to
ordinary Americans. No previous preeminent power has
done so well, either in creating wealth for itself, or
in sharing the benefits with others.
Waging peace
This was sustained not by a classic empire but rather
by that interlocking web of international institutions
and arrangements that protected and promoted American
interests and shared the benefits, costs, and risks
with others.
First came the security arrangements which emerged
after World War II. Committed to deterring and
containing the Soviet threat, America stationed
hundreds of thousands of troops abroad--but much of
the expense was borne by the recipient countries
themselves, especially in Asia. The majority of these
troops were not scattered across the underdeveloped
world, but rather concentrated in the once-devastated,
but now highly developed, lands of America's former
enemies. Although Congress grumbled continually about
costs, the truth was that such deployments provided
important contributions to states that had become some
of America's principal economic and commercial
partners. Joined to them by formal alliances, the
United States relieved these nations of some defense
burdens, creating supranational interests in security,
but also providing a crucial U.S. voice in financial,
political, and, ultimately, cultural matters.
Second, the United States exercised leverage through
international institutions and arrangements, initially
through a frame of security treaties: the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization for European allies,
bilateral agreements with Japan and South Korea.
Acting with allies, the United States was able to
redistribute the financial, military, and political
burdens of its global security interests. In Europe,
NATO member states provided most of the ground
manpower in the event of war. Independent French
nuclear programs provided a backstop for Cold War NATO
nuclear decision-making. Britain assisted in the
Persian Gulf until the late 1960s. France and Belgium
were active in Africa. And Japan not only came to
develop surprisingly modern and effective self-defense
capabilities; it paid a significant portion of the
operating expenses of U.S. forces stationed there.
Finally, there were such arrangements facilitating
American economic leadership as the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and later the regular
meetings of leading economic powers which eventually
became known as the Group of Eight (G8). Central
bankers frequently met, at least to share
perspectives. The United States also used the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to open new markets for
U.S. goods, products, and services and was the leader
in organizing the World Trade Organization to further
regulate and expand international commerce. General
agreements were led or accompanied by regional
arrangements such as NAFTA--the North American Free
Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. The dollar
became the principal world reserve currency.
When the United States developed balance-of-payments
problems in the early 1970s, it was able to shift the
international financial system from fixed to floating
exchange rates, enabling continued growth of U.S.
consumer demand while other nations concentrated on
export-led growth to feed the U.S. market. The oil
shocks of 1973 and 1979 were absorbed, and then
digested, yielding, more than 20 years later, a lower
real price of oil, as well as a strong financial bond
between the oil-producing and oil-consuming countries
marked by reciprocal investments and exchanges of
debt. The allure of an integrated U.S. market was so
strong that during the 1980s and into the 1990s the
United States was able to run enormous federal budget
deficits financed by foreign investors and foreign
governments' purchases of U.S. bonds. Foreign
investments and financing allowed the United States to
expand its economy--and strengthen its
military--without paying for all of it through taxes.
It was partly a matter of economics: The United States
was a safe place to invest, and the returns were good.
Soft sell
For decades, the United States has been at the hub of
this network of mutual interdependence, sometimes
called "globalization." Heavily influenced--some might
say dominated--by us, globalization reflected the
American values of free-market economics and popular
democracy. Enabled by modern communications and
transportation, this network facilitated access to
markets and investment opportunities abroad, assisted
the flow of talent and intellectual property, and
fostered the spread of market forces and democratic
processes around the world. The major beneficiary of
all of this was the United States itself. In short,
this "globalization" was the new American empire.
But it ran not only on the "hard power" of military
security and economics but also on confidence and
shared values. This confidence reflected collective
judgments about broader U.S. policies at home and
abroad, expressed through the multinational
institutions the United States helped create after
World War II. And it was through and within these
institutions, as well as by concrete actions, that
values could be demonstrated and confidence sustained.
The United Nations served as a forum for
communications and for addressing international issues
less directly related to superpower competition. Its
founding and overall design was driven by the United
States, attempting to rectify the failures of the
post-World War I international system that had led to
World War II. Almost immediately, the emergence of the
Cold War undercut hopes that the United Nations could
serve as a means of collective security. But it did.
Support organizations such as the U.N. Development
Programme, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and
UNESCO assumed extraordinary significance for the
peoples of less developed countries. But even more
important, the United Nations became the source of
international law-for that was the status of U.N.
Security Council resolutions. True, it was law without
a real sovereign to enforce it-but the legitimacy it
carried moved domestic politics in many countries.
The United States ardently used this international
system. There were treaties to regulate nuclear and
chemical weapons, as well as agreements to regulate
exploitation of the oceans and govern all manner of
commercial activities. And many of these agreements
were underwritten by the creation of monitoring and
enforcement mechanisms and organizations, such as the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The United States had representatives everywhere,
ambassadors and delegates and officers detailed for
periods of service. And, issue by issue, they worked
to pursue and secure U.S. interests.
But the American way was not to rely on coercion and
hard pressure, but on persuasion and shared vision. To
an unprecedented extent, the United States had been
benign and magnanimous as a victor of World War II.
Sharing international power through the United Nations
system, deeply involved in assisting the
reconstruction of the German, Japanese, and Korean
economies, hosting foreign students and encouraging
exchange programs, speaking out against the old
colonial empires, receiving immigrants, the United
States became a model for nations around the world.
American principles expressed in the Bill of Rights
inspired others around the world. We were palpably
uninterested in classical empire-our motives were
consistent with those of dozens of struggling freedom
movements around the world. For our potential
competitors in the developed world, the combination of
U.S. economic strength and American ideals was
difficult to oppose. For two-thirds of a century the
United States was generally viewed as the most admired
nation in the world. To an important degree, American
power in the 20th century was what Joseph Nye, dean of
the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard,
calls "soft power," the power to persuade, based on
American values. It gave us an influence far beyond
the hard edge of traditional balance-of-power
politics, based less on physically occupying countries
and imposing laws and institutions, or even on
wielding our enormous economic and military strength,
as old colonialists might have done, and more on
leading by example, on transparency, and outreach.
To be sure, throughout the Cold War, the United States
sometimes found it challenging to maintain its high
principles abroad in the face of the Soviet threat. We
gradually lost some of our moral edge, creating
adversaries and doubters. Worried about potential
Soviet encroachments upon the Middle East, we deposed
an Iranian leader and replaced him with an unpopular
shah; in Central America, the United States fought for
almost a decade against Marxist-inspired governments
and guerrillas using C.I.A. and special forces
personnel, as well as local movements--a struggle that
succeeded, but at enormous human cost, with additional
human rights violations and illegal government
activities. We often distinguished between
totalitarian regimes, which we opposed, and regimes
that were merely authoritarian, which could serve U.S.
interests--but it was an uncomfortable distinction,
never fully accepted across the American political
spectrum.
The end of the Cold War removed the source of these
contradictions in U.S. policy, leaving the United
States free not only to expound principles but also to
encourage more directly those that aligned with our
values. Conversely, the United States was less
constrained in condemning states that habitually
violated human rights. This new strain of idealism in
U.S. foreign policy was reinforced during the 1990s by
U.S. actions to depose a Haitian junta blocking a
democratic government there, and by the U.S. military
peace operations in the Balkans, Latin America,
Africa, and Asia.
Risky business
But in 2001, recently come to power in a disputed
election, the Bush administration acted unambiguously
to impose a more unilateralist stamp on U.S. foreign
policy. The United States withdrew from international
efforts to address global warming, the Kyoto Treaty.
The administration made clear that it would proceed
with national missile defense regardless of the
U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; the South
Korea-North Korea dialogue was essentially rejected;
and a new proposal to focus the United Nations on
tightening sanctions against Iraq was dropped.
Even before 9/11, it was clear that U.S. foreign
policy had changed tack, but responding to those grim
events, the Bush administration definitively abandoned
its "more humble foreign policy." Overnight the U.S.
stance in the world became not only unilateralist but
moralistic, intensely patriotic, and assertive,
planning military action against Iraq and perhaps
other states in the Middle East, and intimating a new
American empire. With an American public reeling from
the shock of 9/11, the message played powerfully at
home, dampening concerns about rising unemployment and
the soaring budget deficit. And the risks were
discounted. No matter that aggressive unilateralism
would hamper counter-terror efforts, turn upside down
five decades of work to establish an international
system to help reduce conflict, undercut the alliance
that had maintained security for half a century in
Europe, and shake relations critical to maintaining
the web of interdependence central to American
prosperity. By September 2003, U.S. forces were in
Iraq--deeply committed, without as yet a clear
strategy either to salvage success or to exit,
continuing discussion about possibly expanding the
area of military action to include Syria and perhaps
other states in the region.
But this shift--rather than promoting the emergence of
the new American empire--put all that we gained with
"soft power" and the virtual American empire at risk,
producing an outburst of worldwide anti-American
sentiment. Opinion polls in many nations show
substantial numbers who think that "bin Laden was more
likely to do the right thing than Bush." These are
concerns not about American values or how we live but
about how America acts abroad. Because such concerns
reflect judgments about American actions, they will
not be countered easily by advertising and public
relations techniques. And they have already affected
the support the United States receives abroad.
Individually, some governments, especially democratic
ones which must listen to the opinions of voters, have
found it more difficult to comply with American
wishes. Turkey, for example, refused to support the
passage of U.S. troops in the war on Iraq and as of
early September had yet to take up U.S. requests to
assist with a peacekeeping force. India declined the
request to participate because the mission was not
under U.N. control, as did Germany and France. These
are only the latest signs of nations beginning to
define their own interests in refusing unilateralist
U.S. "leadership."
What is emerging is more subtle, a more or less
informal constellation of interests among several
states, including both allies and former adversaries,
to frustrate and complicate U.S. policies and
objectives that are increasingly seen at odds with
their own interests. Fundamentally, this risks
unraveling the political and economic structures of
interdependence which have proved so favorable to the
United States. In the narrowest sense, if foreigners
lose confidence in U.S. leadership and reject the
implicit understandings and economic alignments that
have led them-especially the central banks of China,
Taiwan, and Japan-to accumulate dollar holdings, they
could quickly diversify out of dollar assets,
triggering a sharp decline in the dollar's value and
significantly impairing our recovery.
Somewhere in the rising U.S. budget deficits, the
balance-of-payments current accounts deficits, and the
growing resentment of the United States abroad, there
may be a "tipping point," as yet undetermined, which
could be triggered by geopolitical failure on the
Korean Peninsula or in South Asia, a severe oil shock
derived from simultaneous domestic failures in several
producer countries, or a rapid enlargement of more
attractive investment opportunities in China and
India, and greater confidence in the Euro, sufficient
to choke down the continuing influx of foreign
financing. Or we could simply suffer a continuing
gradual erosion of our influence.
But if leadership is defined as "persuading the other
fellow to want to do what you want him to do," as
Eisenhower put it, then American leadership is
failing. We simply aren't persuading others to align
with our interests--we are coercing and pressuring. If
we do not alter our approach, we are headed toward a
less powerful and relevant America, regardless of the
numbers of stealth bombers we deploy or countries we
"access." If this path leads to American empire in the
sense of more countries occupied by U.S. troops, it
will mean a poorer, more isolated, and less secure
America.
Desperately seeking sovereignty
We need to see ourselves and the world around us in
sharp relief--and use that vision to inform better our
policies. Simply put, the United States needs a new
strategy for the 21st century--a broader, more
comprehensive, and less unilateralist approach abroad,
coupled with greater attention to a sound economy at
home, and sensible long-range policies. The Bush
administration's strategy of preemption, published in
the 2002 National Security Strategy, was focused
against Iraq. At home, the formula of the
supply-siders--tax cuts for the wealthy to feed
trickle-down economics--has about run its course. It
is time for America to return to the basic concepts
that ensured its unprecedented prosperity and security
and to adapt from these a new strategy that can better
serve our needs today.
The first of these basic principles should be
inclusiveness. The United States represents
evolutionary values of human dignity and the worth of
the individual-ideals that have steadily swept across
Europe and into much of the rest of the world. We have
been proselytizers, advocating our values, assisting
states abroad, encouraging emerging young leaders to
study and visit the United States. During the Cold War
we were careful to reach across the Iron Curtain. And
when the Cold War ended, we worked hard to encourage
the enlargement of democracy around the world. We
should be seeking allies and friends around the world.
Second, we should be working to strengthen and use
international institutions, beginning with the United
Nations and NATO. Such institutions can provide vital
support to American diplomacy, bringing in others to
share the burdens and risks that we would otherwise
have to carry alone. The United Nations especially can
contribute legitimacy to U.S. purposes and actions.
International law is of little significance to most
Americans, but it carries heavy weight abroad. Both
the United Nations and NATO need refinement,
particularly the United Nations--but these refinements
can be made only through American constructive
leadership, for we are the lone superpower, with the
resources and incentives to do so.
And finally, we must place in proper perspective the
role of the armed forces in our overall strategy. We
should ensure that they retain the edge over any
potential adversary and continue to modernize them to
deal with foreseeable contingencies, including the
possible need to preempt any threat to the United
States. We always have the right of self-defense,
including inherently the right to strike preemptively.
But force must be used only as a last resort--and then
multilaterally if possible.
Operating on these three principles, we should repair
our trans-Atlantic relationships. When the United
States and Europe stand together, they represent
roughly half the world's gross domestic product and
three of the five permanent seats on the U.N. Security
Council. These are the countries that are most
politically and culturally aligned with the United
States. We are the major investors in each other's
economies. We should turn upside down
nineteenth-century Britain's view that Britain had no
permanent friends, only permanent interests. In the
West, we must have permanent friends and allies and
then work to ensure that our interests converge.
Using this trans-Atlantic alliance as our base, we
should then work to resolve our security
challenges--the North Korean and Iranian nuclear
programs, the continuing threat from al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups. We should be working with
allies to help settle disputes between India and
Pakistan and within the Middle East that could explode
into deadly conflict. And we should be pressing
through the United Nations and offering assistance to
ease the ongoing conflicts in Africa.
Fight smart
Surprisingly, most of the discussions about American
empire--as about terrorist threats abroad and our
actions to address them--have little to say about
America itself. Yet in the wake of 9/11, Americans are
seeing themselves in a new way. For the first time in
more than a decade, we are aware of the importance of
the world beyond our borders, as well as the power of
political forces and ideas other than our own. And we
are looking at each other differently, too, seeking a
community with greater trust and security. And we
shouldn't believe that we can meet this challenge
without changing in the process. In the immediate
outpouring of international sympathy after 9/11,
Americans felt a warmth of support that has seldom
been so openly expressed abroad. But much of that
sympathy has evaporated. Many felt that we were
"fixating" on terrorist threats, claiming that their
societies had faced this for a generation. But they
failed to understand that we are of a different
tradition: independent, and determined to restore our
sense of security.
The shock, the fear, and the anger will rightly remain
embedded in our memories, but now is the time to
"fight smart." It is true that we are engaged in "a
campaign unlike any other," which may well extend for
a long time. This is modern war, and no state or
society is better able to wage it than us. We must,
however, develop the appropriate strategy and use both
the military forces and the full array of means at our
disposal. We don't need a new American empire. Indeed,
the very idea of classic empire is obsolete. An
interdependent world will no longer accept
discriminatory dominance by one nation over others.
Instead, a more collaborative, collegiate American
strategy will prevail, a strategy based on the great
American virtues of tolerance, freedom, and fairness
that made this country a beacon of hope in the world.
America's primacy in the world--our great power, our
vast range of opportunities, the virtual empire we
have helped create--has given us a responsibility for
leadership and to lead by example. Our actions matter.
But we certainly cannot lead by example unless we are
sustained by leadership.
Gen. Wesley Clark, U.S.A. (Ret.), was Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe, from 1997-2000. This article is
adapted from his forthcoming book, Winning Modern
Wars. Copyright 2003. Reprinted by arrangement with
Public Affairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved.
There is so much to say, so much that is disgusting
over the last two days...The _resident had the gall --
on the day after the bloodiest day of his foolish
military advenure in Iraq -- to wrap himself in the
flag at a fundraiser in Alabama... Then the _resident
tromping through the desolation of southern
California, like a conquering warlord, with Conan the
Deceiver and Gray Davis (who like Gore in 2000 does
not get it, does not understand that when an electoral
and political crime is committed you do not get to be
a good sport) And, of course, no questions asked about
turning down Davis' request fir fire help months
ago...Meanwhile, SeeBS caving in to the "vast
reich-wing conspiracy" by cancelling its Reagan
mini-series (an unprecendented capitulation)...But
HERE, HERE is where you and I and Wesley Clark must
keep the focus...
Ray McGovern: Recent sloganeering is eerily reminiscent of a comparable stage in our involvement in Vietnam. We would have to "stay the course." We could not "cut and run"-though that is precisely what we ended up doing in 1975 after 58,000 US troops and 3 million Vietnamese had been killed. Why did we leave? Because Congress, at last, came to realize that the war was unwinnable.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1103-13.htm
Published on Monday, November 3, 2003 by TomPaine.com
Helicopter Down
The Weekend Deaths in Iraq—and the Pentagon's Response—Remind One Former CIA Analyst of Vietnam
by Ray McGovern
The killing of 18 U.S. troops and the wounding of 21
others in Iraq on Nov. 2 brings to mind the successful
attack by Viet Cong guerrillas on U.S. forces in
Pleiku, Vietnam on February 7, 1965.
The Johnson administration immediately seized on that
attack, in which nine U.S. troops were killed and 128
wounded, to start bombing North Vietnam and to send
3,500 Marines to South Vietnam. Unlike the U.S.
advisory forces already in country, the Marines had
orders to engage in combat, marking the beginning of
the Americanization of the war. By 1968 U.S. forces
had grown to over 536,000.
From the outset, my colleagues in CIA were highly
skeptical that even with a half-million troops the
United States could prevail in Vietnam. They were
quick to remind anyone who would listen of the candid
observation made by General Philippe LeClerc,
dispatched to Vietnam shortly after World War II. The
French general reported that, mainly because of the
strong commitment of the Vietnamese
nationalists/communists and their proven proficiency
in guerrilla war, a renewed French campaign would
require 500,000 men and that, even then, France could
not win.
In 1965, similar warnings were blissfully ignored by
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the civilian
whiz kids with whom he had surrounded himself. Then as
now, the advice of our professional military was
dismissed.
Civilian Whiz Kids vs. Military Professionals
While today's civilian leaders at the Defense
Department hobbled through what passed for post-war
planning for Iraq early this year, Army Chief of Staff
Eric Shinseki warned the Senate Armed Services
Committee that post-war Iraq would require "something
on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." He
was immediately ridiculed by Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz for having
exaggerated the requirement. This evokes vivid
memories of how McNamara and his civilian whiz kids
dismissed our professional military—and at such a high
eventual price.
The poet George Santayana warned, "Those who do not
learn from history are doomed to repeat it." What is
increasingly clear is that neither the present-day
Pentagon whiz kids nor their patron, Vice President
Dick Cheney, have learned much from history. They
encourage President Bush to insist, "We are not
leaving;" and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to protest
that this war is "winnable." But most of those with a
modicum of experience in guerrilla warfare and the
Middle East are persuaded that the war is not winnable
and that the only thing in doubt is the timing of the
U.S. departure.
After many weeks of refusing to admit the word
"guerrilla" into evidence, Rumsfeld seems to have made
his peace with it. Yet, when asked this past weekend
on television who are the guerrillas are, he
foundered, admitting in so many words that he hasn't a
clue. I was actually embarrassed for him. A terrific
debater and otherwise reasonably smart man, Rumsfeld
was reduced to telling us once again that Iraq is the
size of California and bemoaning the deficiencies in
"situational awareness" and lack of "perfect
visibility" into who it is that are killing our
troops.
At least we were spared the usual claims that we are
"moving forward" and will prevail "at the end of the
day." Apparently even Rumsfeld could see how
incongruous such banalities would have sounded after
such a disastrous week.
Recent sloganeering is eerily reminiscent of a
comparable stage in our involvement in Vietnam. We
would have to "stay the course." We could not "cut and
run"-though that is precisely what we ended up doing
in 1975 after 58,000 US troops and 3 million
Vietnamese had been killed. Why did we leave? Because
Congress, at last, came to realize that the war was
unwinnable.
Is This Guerrilla War Winnable?
When Rumsfeld was asked when he thought it might be
possible to draw down U.S. troop strength in Iraq, he
employed one of his favorite adjectives, saying that
this was "unknowable"-that it all depends on the
security situation. It is a no-brainer that U.S. troop
reductions are unlikely anytime soon, but apparently
we shall have to wait for Rumsfeld to acquire better
"situational awareness" before he and his whiz kids
are willing to admit this.
Instead of drawdowns, pressure will inexorably grow
from those neo-conservatives already pushing for a
larger troop commitment. Having learned nothing from
history, from the U.S. intelligence community, or from
the professional military, Rumsfeld's whiz kids may
persuade President Bush that the best course is to
send more troops to "get the job done"—(and thereby
seal his fate!). One small problem, of course, is the
unwelcome fact that all too few troops are be
available for reinforcement. But this kind of military
"detail" would not likely affect the urgings of
advisers like William Kristol and Kenneth Adelman.
A Bush administration decision to escalate (to exhume
that familiar word from Vietnam) in that way would
only provoke more widespread guerrilla attacks in Iraq
and terrorist acts against U.S. personnel and
facilities elsewhere as well. The U.S. troop presence
in Iraq is the problem, not the solution.
And someone needs to dispel Rumsfeld's confusion
regarding who is the enemy. It is every Iraqi with
weapon or explosive who means to make the occupier
suffer. The tools are readily available, and the
guerrillas, whether homebred or from neighboring
states, will not be quelled—even if 500,000 troops are
sent.
Imperial Rome was able to work its will on lesser
states, but for the most part Rome had a corner on the
weapons. None of the subjugated peoples had rockets,
mortars, or missiles—and long lines were rare at
guerrilla recruiting stations.
"No One Knows"
The most embarrassing part of Rumsfeld's interview
with ABC's This Week came when he attempted to answer
a question about how to reduce the number of
terrorists. "How do you persuade people not to become
suicide bombers; how do you reduce the number of
people attracted to terrorism? No one knows how to
reduce that," he complained.
Over a year ago, CIA analysts provided an assessment
intended to educate senior policy makers to the fact
that "the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling
Al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed," and that
"the underlying causes that drive terrorists will
persist." The assessment cited a recent Gallup poll of
almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which
respondents described the United States as "ruthless,
aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and
biased." And that was before the war in Iraq.
How can we be so misunderstood, you might ask? A major
factor is the Bush administration's one-sided support
of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whether he is
bulldozing Palestinian homes, encouraging new Israeli
settlements in the occupied territories, building huge
walls to make impracticable any viable Palestinian
state, or bombing Syria. Someone needs to tell
Rumsfeld that Muslims watch it all on TV—and then line
up at the recruiting stations.
But no one will. There is no longer any sanity check.
Sad to say, over the past year the director of the CIA
and his malleable managers have shown a penchant for
sniffing the prevailing winds and trimming the sails
of their analysis to the breezes blowing from the
Pentagon and White House.
The president's father had an acute appreciation for
the essential role of unbiased intelligence, but there
is no sign that the son understands this. Whether he
realizes it or not, the analysis of the intelligence
community has been thoroughly politicized, leaving him
no place to turn for a check on Rumsfeld's/Cheney's
whiz kids.
It is a Greek tragedy; with the major character flaw
of hubris planting the seeds of the ruler's own
destruction. Rumsfeld eventually will write his
memoir—his own version of McNamara's "We were wrong;
terribly wrong"—but this will bring no consolation to
what may be the next one-term president back in Texas.
It is also tragic that the president does not read
very much, for he would have found the following in
his father's memoir:
"Trying to eliminate Saddam... would have incurred
incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending
him was probably impossible... we would have been
forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq...
there was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see,
violating another of our principles... Going in and
occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United
Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent
of international response to aggression that we hoped
to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the
United States could conceivably still be an occupying
power in a bitterly hostile land."
Real Power To The U.N.
As long as the occupation continues, so will the
killing of U.S. troops and others. The way to stop the
violence is to end the occupation; the only way to
protect our troops is to bring them home. Whether or
not U.S. policymakers can admit at this point that
they were "terribly wrong," they need to transfer real
authority to the United Nations without delay and
support the U.N. in overseeing a rapid return to Iraqi
sovereignty.
But, many protest, we can't just withdraw! Sure we
can, and better now than ten years from now, as in the
case of Vietnam. If it is true that we are not in Iraq
to control the oil or to establish military bases with
which to dominate that strategic area, we can
certainly withdraw. As in Vietnam, the war is
unwinnable... hear that? Unwinnable!
If the U.S. withdraws, would there be civil war in
Iraq? One cannot dismiss this possibility lightly
given the history of Iraq. But it is at least as
likely that a regional-federal model of government
that would include substantial autonomy for the Kurds
in the north, the Sunnis in the center, and the
Shiites in the south (something foreshadowed by the
composition of the existing Council) could begin to
function in relatively short order with help from the
U.N. While some degree of inter-ethnic violence could
be expected, chances are good that this model would
still allow a representative national government to
function.
We won't know if we don't try. Besides, there is no
viable alternative.
Ray McGovern (rmcgovern@slschool.org), a 27-year
veteran of the CIA, regularly briefed George H. W.
Bush as vice president and, earlier, worked with him
closely when he was director of CIA. Mr. McGovern is
on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity. He is now co-director of the
Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in the
inner city of Washington.
###
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Yes. Everything is connected. Just as Chief Seattle
said, over a century ago, "whatever you do to the Web
of life, you do to yourself." Here is another outrage,
compounded of course by another moral failure from the
"US mainstream news media." With all their "coverage"
of the fire story, nothing about this...
Richard Reeves: "...last April 16, the governor wrote a letter to President Bush requesting $430 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to clear the deadwood and attack the beetles. The answer -- No! -- came back from FEMA in Washington on Friday, Oct. 24, about when the fires began. The feds said they were already spending $40 million to attack bark beetles in the national forests of California. FEMA added, in its own words, the thought that its job is to help clean up after emergencies, not try to prevent them. "
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/uclicktext/20031102/cm_ucrr/thefiresofoctober
THE FIRES OF OCTOBER
Sat Nov 1, 7:59 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Richard Reeves to
My Yahoo!
By Richard Reeves
LOS ANGELES -- Well, they are finally saying some good
things about Gray Davis (news - web sites). He is
having a "Giuliani moment" commanding firefighters and
comforting the afflicted as the largest wildfires in
recorded history sweep through the mountains, hills
and canyons of Southern California. More than a
million acres were burned out and thousands of homes
were gone by this weekend. At least 20 people have
been killed.
Gov. Davis saw it coming. Hell, everybody in
California knew it was coming. The southern part of
the state is essentially a continuing fight against
nature. God has been trying to take all this back for
a very long time. This time higher forces had three
evil allies: four years of drought; a bark-beetle
infestation that had already turned more than 400,000
acres of pine forest into big kindling; and the greed
(and hope) that makes men think they can build homes
where angels fear to tread, on canyon rims, beaches
and flood plains.
The first European who passed through, Father Juan
Crespi, a Spanish explorer-priest, wrote in 1769 of
the beauty of the place he called "Los Angeles," but
said there was evidence everywhere of past drought and
fire, flood and earthquake (news - web sites).
Southern California then was home to tens of thousands
of Indians, the number nature could support in what
was (and would be again if the sprinklers were turned
off) almost a desert. Since then we have changed the
number to tens of millions, importing water, food and
conditioned air to make the place a very crowded
paradise.
Davis, the recalled governor who will turn his title
over to Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) in a
few days, is now the man energetically rallying the
troops trying to hold back nature for another little
while. He has reminded his few friends that New York's
Rudy Giuliani was a disliked lame-duck mayor when he
became the rallying point on Sept. 11, 2001. There has
to be a dark angel (news - Y! TV) in Davis that wakes
up in the middle of the night and says, "If only ...
if only this had happened a month ago."
It might have. Last March 7, Davis declared a state of
emergency in California because of the dry weather and
trees and brush piled up in the woods and hillsides
near homes and towns. Years ago, a Los Angeles fire
chief named Ernie Hanson calculated that 100 acres of
"brush" -- gnarled little trees and dry little bushes
-- piled 5 feet high had more latent explosive power
than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Then, last April 16, the governor wrote a letter to
President Bush requesting $430 million from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to clear
the deadwood and attack the beetles. The answer -- No!
-- came back from FEMA in Washington on Friday, Oct.
24, about when the fires began. The feds said they
were already spending $40 million to attack bark
beetles in the national forests of California. FEMA
added, in its own words, the thought that its job is
to help clean up after emergencies, not try to prevent
them.
(Bark beetles, by the way are dark, brown or black,
quarter-inch-long uglies that lay eggs in tunnels they
bore between the live wood and bark of pine trees.
Their issue then survives by eating the bark until
they reach daylight and fly away to look for their own
trees. Healthy trees can kill the buggers by
suffocating them in pitch. But many California trees
are not healthy because fires have been suppressed and
small trees and brush have not been cleared. It is
fire that clears and provides the room and fertilizer
for healthy trees. Along come men, who build houses
and towns and put out small fires -- then, eventually,
there is a big fire. Welcome to sunny California.)
Truth be told, if Davis had had his way and Washington
had sent the money, it could only have postponed the
fire storms raging in four counties here. The burned
area is larger than Rhode Island and is moving in on
Delaware. And no matter how much or how little burns,
the fires of October will be followed by floods and
landslides this winter and spring. Without trees and
root systems in place, the snow melt and winter rains
from the mountains will create a slippery slope to the
sea, passing over more towns and homes on the way.
Then life will go on until the next one. Californians
will rebuild with houses and towns just a little
bigger. That is how the home of thousands of Indians
became the homes of 30 million Americans. The White
House will pour hundreds of millions, billions
perhaps, into California. The president and the new
Republican governor will tour the devastated areas
amid signs of new growth, and Arnold will say that his
friend George Bush saved California. This has nothing
to do, of course, with the fact that it is virtually
impossible for a Democrat to win the presidency
without carrying California, a strongly Democratic
state in recent national elections.
Where, oh where, will the federal government get all
that new money? Oh, did I forget to mention that the
feds added $500 million last Thursday to the $87
billion appropriation for Iraq (news - web sites) and
Afghanistan (news - web sites)? Now, California can be
rebuilt, too. Until next time.
Buzzflash commentary on the _resident' s "press conference:" W.'s open-air ramblings were an
embarrassment of simplistic repetition and all-too
obvious mental straining, not to mention an unsightly
temper, transparent deception, laughable
contradictions, tawdry blame laying and frequent
unintelligibility.
Show up for Democracy: Defeat Bush in 2004!
http://www.buzzflash.com/carpenter/03/11/pmc03211.html
November 3, 2003
P.M. CARPENTER ARCHIVES
W's Sic Press Conference
by P.M. Carpenter
"Iraq's a dangerous place ...
"It is dangerous in Iraq ...
"It's dangerous in Iraq ...
"It is dangerous in Iraq ...
"I can't put it any more plainly. Iraq's a dangerous
place. That's leveling. It is a dangerous place ...
"Iraq's a danger place and I can't put it any more
bluntly than that. I know it's a dangerous place ...
"Iraq is dangerous."
Thus waxed elegant within the span of a couple minutes
the leader of the free world last Tuesday. The
occasion was his first press conference in months, a
pitiable 48-minute event skulked midday in the Rose
Garden.
The presidential performance again confirmed why no
presidential aide would even think of putting the
bossman in front of television cameras at any actually
watched time of day. W.'s open-air ramblings were an
embarrassment of simplistic repetition and all-too
obvious mental straining, not to mention an unsightly
temper, transparent deception, laughable
contradictions, tawdry blame laying and frequent
unintelligibility. He made one long for the flashy
showmanship of Calvin Coolidge, the easy eloquence of
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the simple honesty of Richard
Nixon.
What's more, the president's wretched little show
unfurled even under the best of sheltered
circumstances; which is to say, the White House frowns
on follow-up questions. That sort of thing simply
isn't done in the Boy King's presence. So a compliant,
obsequious press lobs soft balls his direction and W.
lobs them back with an unaccountability that would
curl the British hair of loyal oppositionists during
Question Time.
Will the president cooperate with the independent
commission investigating the administration's pre-9/11
screwups? Sure he will. Said W., "I want to be
helpful" -- a contention thrown a bit into question by
his steadfast intransigence on the matter. It is, he
continued, just that the requested documents (one of
which reportedly warned of al Qaeda's plans to hijack
airliners a full month before 9/11) would get
"politicized."
Any reporter worth minimum wage would leap to point
out to the president that, however inadvertently, he
just confirmed the existence of damning evidence
since, by his own admission, it is indeed
"politicize-able." The reporter might also point out
that in a free and open society these things do indeed
get politicized. But sorry, next question. We must
move along.
What great strides have we made in Iraq, ones worth
hundreds of American lives? Let's see, beamed 43, one
"very important achievement" has been the introduction
of "a currency without the picture of the dictator."
Understandably stunned, reporters of yesteryear might
thereupon ask if that was some kind of sick joke. But
sorry. Next question. Move along.
Who are the "suiciders" -- as W. called them --
causing so much death and destruction in Iraq? Ah,
here's one to knock out of the park. "I would assume
that they're either/or and probably both Ba'athists
and foreign terrorists." Despite this revealed insight
-- especially the part of "either/or" -- we might then
want to know why billions spent on crack intelligence
leaves the boss having to assume the cutthroats'
identity. But no time for that, either/or.
Why is asking about troop levels a year from now a
"trick question"? Why, just weeks after finally
denying any connection between Saddam Hussein and
September the 11th, do you, Mr. President, persist
here again in connecting Saddam Hussein and September
the 11th? How, Mr. President, can you say you're
"focused on the security of the American people" when
you spend as much time off the job as Al Capone in the
1930s?
In the absence of hard questions, one consolation is
that George W. Bush wouldn't, or couldn't, answer them
anyway. So perhaps it no longer matters that the press
corps and White House have settled on a kind of "don't
ask, don't tell" conspiracy. But one hopes no
democracy-aspiring Iraqis were watching last week's
presidential amateur hour -- for the entire, sorry
affair made the imitation of American-style governance
of exceptionally dubious value.
BACK TO TOP
P.M. Carpenter holds a Ph.D. in American History and
is a syndicated columnist.
© Copyright 2003, P. M. Carpenter
I have little but contempt for Chris Matthews, and he
has deserved little else for years. That's why what he
said in this speech at Brown University is remarkable.
He had some worthwhile shows in the ramp up to the
Iraq adventure, but the damage he has done and the
distortion he has perpetrated for years far
outweighted the merit of those few shows, but this
speech is extraordinary. Perhaps it is personal, maybe
Tip O'Neil finally surfaced in his psyche, or perhaps
his remarks indicate a sea change much deeper than
just Matthews himself (i.e. within NotBeSeen itself)
World Net Daily: In a speech to university students, MSNBC host Chris Matthews characterized President Bush as a shallow-thinking, unlearned man who when confronted by aides with the decision about going to war with Iraq was given something to think about for the first time in his life.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35378
Chris Matthews: Simpleton Bush not chief
Staff gave him 'something to think about for the 1st time in his life'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 1, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
In a speech to university students, MSNBC host Chris
Matthews characterized President Bush as a
shallow-thinking, unlearned man who when confronted by
aides with the decision about going to war with Iraq
was given something to think about for the first time
in his life.
Chris Matthews
The Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq war
was "nonsense" and totally dishonest, Matthews told a
gathering of 200 students at Brown University this
week, according to the Woonsocket Call newspaper in
Rhode Island.
Vice President Richard Cheney was "behind it all,"
contended Matthews, who served as an aide to the late
House Speaker Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts and wrote
speeches for former President Jimmy Carter.
"The whole neo-conservative power vortex, it all goes
through his office," Matthews said, referring to
Cheney, according to the paper. "He has become the
chief executive. He's not the chief operating officer,
he's running the place. It's scary."
The vice president, he asserted, is the man "who put
his thumb on the scale" to affect the balance between
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
"The ideologues started circling around the
president," Matthews said, according to The Call.
"They saw a man who never read any books, who didn't
think too deeply and they gave him something to think
about for the first time in his life. This thing
called pre-emption, the Bush Doctrine. They put it in
his head and said 'Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.'"
Sources tell WND that management at MSNBC are becoming
increasingly perturbed at Matthews for his outspoken
criticism of Bush.
The commentator acknowledged the president has some
"clear strengths" and is the favorite in next year's
election.
Bush had a "King Arthur moment," he said, in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when he stood
on the rubble of the World Trade Center and declared
into a bullhorn "'the people who knocked these
buildings down are going to hear from all of us.' He
pulled the sword out of the stone."
Matthews disclosed he favors former Vermont governor
Howard Dean for president in 2004, according to the
Rhode Island daily.
"He came out of Vermont, a small state, with no
foreign policy experience and with sheer guts he
believed in one big idea and that big idea was: 'It
was wrong to go around to the other side of the world
to fight a war.'" Matthews said.
Matthews said, however, Dean's problem is the American
people have to decide, "do you put a lefty in at a
time of crisis?"
So Diebold (aka Diablo) has already threatening ISPs
and Web masters (i.e. free speech) and now they are
threatening researchers and research institutes (i.e.
freedom of thought)...Well, what would you expect from
corporate executives who have openly expressed their
political support for the _resident, who afterall,
denies the existence of global warming and embraces
the creationists...Yet another outrage against common
sense and simple intelligence...If Diablo was
concerned about the sanctity of the vote and the
security of touch screen voting it would be working
hand in hand with information security researchers,
instead of trying to silence them with law
suits...what ever happen to Tort reform?
Boston Globe: Diebold Inc., of North Canton, Ohio, on Tuesday sent letters to MIT demanding that the school cut off Internet access to data files posted by C. Scott Ananian, a graduate student in computer science, and sophomore mathematics student David Meyer. The files, thousands of pages of Diebold internal documents, were stolen in March when someone broke into the Diebold computer network. They have been widely distributed on the Internet by political activists, who say the documents reveal serious flaws in Diebold's line of computerized voting machines.
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/10/30/mit_snared_in_dispute_over_voting_machines/
MIT snared in dispute over voting machines
Firm: Students posted stolen Diebold files
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 10/30/2003
Two students have embroiled the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in a nationwide controversy
about the reliability of a company's high-tech voting
machines.
ADVERTISEMENT
Diebold Inc., of North Canton, Ohio, on Tuesday sent
letters to MIT demanding that the school cut off
Internet access to data files posted by C. Scott
Ananian, a graduate student in computer science, and
sophomore mathematics student David Meyer. The files,
thousands of pages of Diebold internal documents, were
stolen in March when someone broke into the Diebold
computer network. They have been widely distributed on
the Internet by political activists, who say the
documents reveal serious flaws in Diebold's line of
computerized voting machines.
Diebold says the documents are copyrighted and can't
be shared. The company has been warning Internet
providers and colleges to remove the files from their
computers, or possibly face legal action.
A spokesman for MIT said school officials are looking
into the matter "and will issue soon an appropriate
and legal response."
Meyer said he had already heard from the school, which
warned him to take down the Diebold material. "They
said if I didn't remove it, they'd suspend my MIT
[Internet] account," he said.
Ananian said he has heard nothing from MIT, but
decided to take the files down until the school tells
him it's safe to post them again. "I would like to
hear from them that they are not going to sell me down
the river," he said.
Ananian distributed the files throughout the Internet
using a file-swapping program called BitTorrent. This
software breaks the document into many parts, then
distributes the parts over hundreds of computers.
Ananian said that using BitTorrent may provide him
some legal cover, because he's no longer hosting the
full set of Diebold files on his own website.
Meanwhile, students at other colleges have begun
offering copies of the files.
Publishing the documents online has become a crusade
for many Internet activists, who say Diebold is trying
to conceal the truth about its voting machines.
"There's a lot of stuff here that's important to be
known," Ananian said. The documents include internal
e-mail messages that suggest Diebold workers were
aware of serious problems with the voting machines,
even as they were being used in elections.
Meyer said that even if the documents were stolen,
they contain information the public needs. Diebold
"should not be allowed to hide behind copyright law,"
he said.
About 33,000 Diebold machines are in use in the United
States. Some experts have said the machines are
inherently untrustworthy. In July, computer scientists
at Johns Hopkins and Rice universities who analyzed
Diebold's voting software said they found major
security problems.
"Voters can trivially cast multiple ballots with no
built-in traceability, administrative functions can be
performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by
insiders such as poll workers, software developers,
and even janitors, is even greater," their report
said. "There appears to have been little quality
control in the process."
Spokesman Michael Jacobsen declined to talk about the
dispute over Diebold products. But he said nobody is
entitled to distribute Diebold files without
permission. "As a company, we don't tolerate hacking
of our website, or the circulation of stolen material
on the Internet."
Jacobsen also warned that the leaked materials may
have been altered, and that readers can't be certain a
particular document came from Diebold.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
© Copyright 2003 Globe
At least 15 more US GIs died today in Iraq, two more
US GIs died yesterday. For what? Woefullwits' neo-con
wet dream. The _resident's foolish military
adventurism must be stopped -- at the ballot box --
one year from this coming Tuesday. You must become
personally involved -- if you care...Here is another
extraordinary message from Walter Cronkite...
Walter Cronkite: "The recent redistricting of Texas, promoted and directed by Houston's congressman and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, reminds us that it is not just countries like Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan and Chechnya that rig their elections."
Clean up the rigged elections at home first
Sunday, November 02, 2003 - 12:00 AM
The Daily Herald |
The recent redistricting of Texas, promoted and
directed by Houston's congressman and House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay, reminds us that it is not just
countries like Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan and Chechnya that
rig their elections.
We've been doing it in this country ever since the
Founding Fathers sought to assure that each
congressional district would represent as nearlyas
possible an equal number of citizens. They provided a
census, to be taken every 10 years, as the basis on
which the districts could be realigned.
Unfortunately, they left to the states how those
district lines would be redrawn. The state legislators
undertook the task and highly politicized it.
In Massachusetts, prior to the election of 1812, the
party in power was facing defeat when the governor,
Elbridge Gerry, redrew districts to consolidate his
party's strength and weaken that of the opposition. A
local newspaper editor thought one tortuously drawn
district resembled a salamander and coined the word
used ever after to describe the product of partisan
redistricting -- a "gerrymander."
Gerrymandering has been and is a bipartisan sin. If we
single out Rep. DeLay and his Texas Republicans now,
we can also indict California Democrats who, at one
time, created a district for one of their incumbents
that had 385 sides.
The process perpetuates the rule of the party in power
by making its members' districts virtually
uncontestable, in effect disenfranchising many voters
by making their votes meaningless.
In a recent update of his 1993 book, "Real Choices/New
Voices," political scientist Douglas J. Amy says of
gerrymandering that "instead of voters choosing their
politicians, politicians actually choose their
voters."
In the 2000 election, Democrats in the state of Texas
won 57 percent of the seats in the U.S. House of
Representatives, though they received only 47 percent
of the statewide vote. Now, the Republicans are
retaliating -- with a vengeance.
Except in cases where representation of racial
minorities has been diluted, the courts traditionally
have shied away from stepping in. But the Supreme
Court has said that the practice of redistricting has
its constitutional limits. And though it hasn't
defined just where those limits are, Texas might be
about to provoke a definition.
William E. Forbath, a professor of constitutional law
and constitutional history at the University of Texas,
believes the gerrymandered district map just approved
by the Texas governor might trigger court action on
several grounds. A likely one could be that Texas was
redistricted after the 2000 election, but the DeLay
forces chose to shatter precedent and redistrict
again, just three years later.
Another ground, says Forbath, is the blunt, one might
say brazen, way they have advertised their purpose --
to safeguard more Republican seats in Congress.
Concern over this essentially corrupt practice has
been rising, and some states have been trying
alternatives to redistricting-by-legislature. Iowa has
adopted an independent commission, with salutary
results -- more competitive elections and more
sensible, contiguous congressional districts.
Rigged elections here seem especially scandalous
today, as we preach to the Iraqis and others in the
developing world the virtues of representative
democracy and hold ourselves up as the paragon of that
virtue. It is high time we cleaned up our own house.
♦ Walter Cronkite was anchor of "CBS Evening
News" for 19 years.
He can be reached at mail@cronkitecolumn.com.
Sidney Blumenthal: In advance of the war, Bush (to be precise, Dick Cheney, the de facto prime minister to the distant monarch) viewed the CIA, the state department and other intelligence agencies not simply as uncooperative, but even disloyal, as their analysts continued to sift through information to determine what exactly might be true. For them, this process is at the essence of their professionalism and mission. Yet the strict insistence on the empirical was a threat to the ideological, facts an imminent danger to the doctrine. So those facts had to be suppressed, and those creating contrary evidence had to be marginalised, intimidated or have their reputations tarnished.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1075530,00.html
Bush's other war
US intelligence is being scapegoated for getting it right on Iraq
Sidney Blumenthal
Saturday November 1, 2003
The Guardian
In Baghdad, the Bush administration acts as though it
is astonished by the postwar carnage. Its feigned
shock is a consequence of Washington's intelligence
wars. In fact, not only was it warned of the coming
struggle and its nature - ignoring a $5m state
department report on The Future of Iraq - but Bush
himself signed another document in which that
predictive information is contained.
According to the congressional resolution authorising
the use of military force in Iraq, the administration
is required to submit to the Congress reports of
postwar planning every 60 days. The report, bearing
Bush's signature and dated April 14 - previously
undisclosed but revealed here - declares: "We are
especially concerned that the remnants of the Saddam
Hussein regime will continue to use Iraqi civilian
populations as a shield for its regular and irregular
combat forces or may attack the Iraqi population in an
effort to undermine Coalition goals." Moreover, the
report goes on: "Coalition planners have prepared for
these contingencies, and have designed the military
campaign to minimise civilian casualties and damage to
civilian infrastructure."
Yet, on August 25, as the violence in postwar Iraq
flared, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld,
claimed that this possibility was not foreseen: "Now
was - did we - was it possible to anticipate that the
battles would take place south of Baghdad and that
then there would be a collapse up north, and there
would be very little killing and capturing of those
folks, because they blended into the countryside and
they're still fighting their war?"
"We read their reports," a senate source told me. "Too
bad they don't read their own reports."
In advance of the war, Bush (to be precise, Dick
Cheney, the de facto prime minister to the distant
monarch) viewed the CIA, the state department and
other intelligence agencies not simply as
uncooperative, but even disloyal, as their analysts
continued to sift through information to determine
what exactly might be true. For them, this process is
at the essence of their professionalism and mission.
Yet the strict insistence on the empirical was a
threat to the ideological, facts an imminent danger to
the doctrine. So those facts had to be suppressed, and
those creating contrary evidence had to be
marginalised, intimidated or have their reputations
tarnished.
Twice, in the run-up to the war, Vice-president Cheney
veered his motorcade to the George HW Bush Center for
Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, where he personally
tried to coerce CIA desk-level analysts to fit their
work to specification.
If the CIA would not serve, it would be trampled. At
the Pentagon, Rumsfeld formed the Office of Special
Plans, a parallel counter-CIA under the direction of
the neoconservative deputy secretary of defence, Paul
Wolfowitz, to "stovepipe" its own version of
intelligence directly to the White House. Its reports
were not to be mingled or shared with the CIA or state
department intelligence for fear of corruption by
scepticism. Instead, the Pentagon's handpicked future
leader of Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National
Congress, replaced the CIA as the reliable source of
information, little of which turned out to be true -
though his deceit was consistent with his record.
Chalabi was regarded at the CIA as a mountebank after
he had lured the agency to support his "invasion" of
Iraq in 1995, a tragicomic episode, but one which
hardly discouraged his neoconservative sponsors.
Early last year, before Hans Blix, chief of the UN
team to monitor Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,
embarked on his mission, Wolfowitz ordered a report
from the CIA to show that Blix had been soft on Iraq
in the past and thus to undermine him before he even
began his work. When the CIA reached an opposite
conclusion, Wolfowitz was described by a former state
department official in the Washington Post as having
"hit the ceiling". Then, according to former assistant
secretary of state James Rubin, when Blix met with
Cheney at the White House, the vice-president told him
what would happen if his efforts on WMDs did not
support Bush policy: "We will not hesitate to
discredit you." Blix's brush with Cheney was no
different from the administration's treatment of the
CIA.
Having already decided upon its course in Iraq, the
Bush administration demanded the fabrication of
evidence to fit into an imminent threat. Then,
fulfilling the driven logic of the Bush doctrine,
preemptive action could be taken. Policy a priori
dictated intelligence á la carte.
In Bush's Washington, politics is the extension of war
by other means. Rather than seeking to reform any
abuse of intelligence, the Bush administration,
through the Republican-dominated senate intelligence
committee, is producing a report that will accuse the
CIA of giving faulty information.
W hile the CIA is being cast as a scapegoat, FBI
agents are meanwhile interviewing senior officials
about a potential criminal conspiracy behind the
public identification of a covert CIA operative - who,
not coincidentally, happens to be the wife of the
former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, author of the
report on the false Niger yellowcake uranium claims
(originating in the Cheney's office). Wilson's
irrefutable documentation was carefully shelved at the
time in order to put16 false words about Saddam
Hussein's nuclear threat in the mouth of George Bush
in his state of the union address.
When it comes to responsibility for the degradation of
intelligence in developing rationales for the war,
Bush is energetically trying not to get the bottom of
anything. While he has asserted the White House is
cooperating with the investigation into the felony of
outing Mrs Wilson, his spokesman has assiduously drawn
a fine line between the legal and the political. After
all, though Karl Rove - the president's political
strategist and senior adviser, indispensable to his re
election campaign - unquestionably called a journalist
to prod him that Mrs. Wilson was "fair game", his
summoning of the furies upon her apparently occurred
after her name was already put into the public arena
by two other unnamed "senior administration
officials".
Rove is not considered to have committed a firing
offence so long as he has merely behaved unethically.
What Bush is not doing - not demanding that his staff
sign affidavits swearing their innocence, or asking
his vice-president point-blank what he knows - is
glaringly obvious. Damaging national security must be
secondary to political necessity.
"It's important to recognise," Wilson remarked to me,
"that the person who decided to make a political point
or that his political agenda was more important than a
national security asset is still there in place. I'm
appalled at the apparent nonchalance shown by the
president."
Now, postwar, the intelligence wars, if anything, have
got more intense. Blame shifting by the administration
is the order of the day. The Republican senate
intelligence committee report will point the finger at
the CIA, but circumspectly not review how Bush used
intelligence. The Democrats, in the senate minority,
forced to act like a fringe group, held unofficial
hearings this week with prominent former CIA agents:
rock-ribbed Republicans who all voted for and even
contributed money to Bush, but expressed their amazed
anger at the assault being waged on the permanent
national security apparatus by the Republican
president whose father's name adorns the building
where they worked. One of them compressed his
disillusionment into the single most resonant word an
intelligence agent can muster: "betrayal".
· Sidney Blumenthal is former assistant and senior
adviser to president Clinton and author of The Clinton
Wars. He has been a staff writer on the New Yorker,
Washington Post and New Republic. He will be writing a
regular column on US politics from Washington
sidney_blumenthal@yahoo
It is not simply the job of Mayor of Philadelphia that
is at stake here, of course. It is the 2004 electoral
votes of Pennsylvania, a state which went to Gore in
2000. Yes, it is happening in different ways all over
the country. It is indeed a "vast reich-wing
conspiracy."
New York Times: "The same forces that stopped the counting in Florida and disenfranchised voters," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said at a rally of municipal union workers on Tuesday. "Those same forces are entering into, in the same ugly way, this election in Pennsylvania."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/national/31STRE.html?ex=1068618756&ei=1&en=712e2cc0eaea8d84
Keith Meyers/The New York Times
Mayor John F. Street on Wednesday in Philadelphia. He
has used a federal inquiry to energize supporters.
Mayor Turns U.S. Inquiry to Campaign Advantage
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
Published: October 31, 2003
HILADELPHIA, Oct. 29 — Mayor John F. Street regularly
begins speeches by announcing, "I'm having a great
day!"
But for much of the last three weeks, since an F.B.I.
listening device was found in his office and federal
agents' saying he is a subject in a corruption
investigation, the catch phrase has seemed less a
rallying cry than a weary and dutiful exercise in
self-affirmation.
Now, however, in the extraordinary final days of his
tumultuous re-election campaign, Mr. Street has
morphed from embattled politician into a folk hero of
sorts, and his canned opening line is rolling off his
tongue with renewed zeal.
With an eye on black voters, he and his allies have
deftly used the investigation to energize supporters
and stir debate over issues like the racial divide in
the city and the Florida recount in the 2000
presidential election.
"The same forces that stopped the counting in Florida
and disenfranchised voters," the Rev. Jesse Jackson
said at a rally of municipal union workers on Tuesday.
"Those same forces are entering into, in the same ugly
way, this election in Pennsylvania."
Such arguments appear to be winning the day. A survey
of voters released on Wednesday by the Keystone Poll,
a statewide polling service based at Franklin and
Marshall College in Lancaster, showed Mr. Street with
a 13-point lead over his opponent, Sam Katz, an
executive who lost to Mr. Street in 1999 by fewer than
10,000 votes.
"I've never experienced anything like this," Mr.
Street said of the recent atmosphere. "Neither has the
city."
Randall M. Miller, a professor of history at St.
Joseph's University here, said of the surge: "It's not
even necessarily about John Street's career. It's
about America and people's fears of a prying
government playing dirty tricks."
The federal authorities, who are investigating
municipal contracts, have indicated that the listening
device showed no incriminating evidence against Mr.
Street.
Their description of him as a subject but not a target
in the inquiry suggests that they are trying to build
a case against his associates.
For months, the investigators have sought information
on donors who received government contracts. Since the
investigation became public, the authorities have
raided municipal offices as well as contractors
aligned with the mayor.
Undeterred, prominent Democrats like Terry McAuliffe,
chairman of the Democratic National Committee, have
rushed here, casting the contest as a critical
skirmish in the larger battle to win the presidency
next fall.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice
President Al Gore are scheduled to stump for the mayor
before Election Day. James Carville, the Democratic
strategist, even weaved the incident into the most
recent episode of "K Street," a series on HBO that
mixes real political issues into the story of a
fictional Washington lobbying firm.
If the mayor has been tempted to gloat publicly over
the unintended effects of the controversy, he has, so
far, resisted. Still, Mr. Street is unflinchingly
self-assured.
"I have no plans to lose," he said. "I have never
entertained the thought at all."
For people who have worked with him over the years,
the defiance is not surprising.
A former hot dog vendor, Mr. Street earned a law
degree from Temple University in 1975. A community
advocate, he became a chief scourge of the City
Council, fighting the lawmakers on behalf of the poor
and disposessed.
Tired of criticizing the system from the outside, the
lawyer with the black-power Afro was elected to the
17-member council in 1979. The change in status did
not immediately translate into a change in style.
Early in his term, he became embroiled in a storied
rolling-on-the-floor fistfight with a fellow Council
member after an argument over a bill Mr. Street had
proposed to increase school financing.
Despite his grandstanding start, Mr. Street,
associates said, learned quickly that he would need
more than loud words to gain respect and power.
Independent (UK): An ice shelf in Antarctica the size of Scotland is rapidly disintegrating because of warmer seas, scientists said yesterday. They believe that the Larsen ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula may disappear within 70 years.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1031-04.htm
Published on Friday, October 31, 2003 by the
lndependent/UK
Warm Seas Melting Ice Shelf the Size of Scotland
by Steve Connor
An ice shelf in Antarctica the size of Scotland is
rapidly disintegrating because of warmer seas,
scientists said yesterday. They believe that the
Larsen ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula may
disappear within 70 years.
This photo released by Greenpeace shows a crack in the
Larsen B ice shelf in the Wedden sea, in Antarctica.
(AFP/EPA/File)
Although the ice shelf will not raise sea levels - it
is already floating on the ocean - scientists say that
its loss may trigger a release of ice from the
peninsula's mainland, causing global sea levels to
rise by 1 meter (3ft 3in).
Researchers led by Andrew Shepherd, a glaciologist
from Cambridge University, found that the Larsen ice
shelf had thinned by as much as 18 meters in the past
10 years. That can only be explained by a warmer
ocean, he said.
The study is published in the journal Science a day
after a study revealed that the ice in the Arctic was
melting rapidly due to a rise in temperatures,
threatening the natural habitat of the polar bear.
Both studies used radar measurements taken by the
European Space Agency's ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites.
This enabled the scientists to monitor the loss of ice
over huge areas of sea at opposite ends of the Earth
for 10 years.
Dr Shepherd said: "We've discovered that the Larsen
ice shelf is thinning due to warmer oceans around it."
The radar measurements of the ice shelf's average
height above the sea, which are accurate to within
20cm, revealed a pattern of thinning since
measurements began in 1992, Dr Shepherd said.
The amount of melting freshwater running off the ice
shelf into the surrounding sea was equivalent to eight
times the flow of the river Thames. This could disturb
the local sea currents that were part of a much wider
global ocean circulation, he said. Dr Shepherd said
that it was not possible to say with certainty whether
global warming was directly responsible for the
melting. However, he said that it was indisputable
that the sea around the Antarctic peninsula was
getting warmer - although other parts of the Antarctic
continent were getting colder.
Dr Shepherd said the Larsen ice shelf was about 300
meters thick. When two previous sections of the shelf
thinned to about 200 meters they quickly
disintegrated.
Current estimates suggested that the Larsen ice shelf
would begin to disintegrate rapidly by about 2070,
although that was likely to happen sooner if current
warming trends continued, Dr Shepherd said.
The disappearance of the ice shelf might also affect
the local ice sheets, large bodies of ice trapped on
land by the ice shelf. "This is a really important
indicator of how grounded ice behind will respond to
this disintegration," Dr Shepherd said.
Much bigger ice shelves in Antarctica are also being
monitored. The Ronne and the Ross ice shelves are
about 10 times the size of the Larsen ice shelf and
their disintegration would be a far more serious
event. Scientists estimate that the Larsen ice shelf
has been in existence for 2,000 years and took many
centuries to form.
© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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