Print Story: Schroeder: Bush's faith raised suspicion on Yahoo! News: "Schroeder: Bush's faith raised suspicion

By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 21, 7:06 PM ET

Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose second term was marked by vehement opposition to the war in Iraq, described in an advance copy of his memoirs how he was suspicious of President Bush's constant references to his Christian faith.

In an excerpt of his book, 'Decisions: My Life in Politics' published in the German weekly Der Spiegel Saturday, Schroeder discusses the key political choices that marked his seven-year term in office, including the decision to call early elections and his split with Bush over the Iraq war.

'I am anything but anti-American,' Schroeder told Spiegel in an interview to accompany the excerpt of the more than 500-page book that goes on sale Thursday.

In it Schroeder, who led the Social Democrats to power in 1998, recalls the tears in his eyes as he watched television footage of people jumping from the burning World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

He knew Germany would have to react.

'It was important to me that Germany fulfill its requirements as an ally' of the U.S., he wrote. 'It was also fully clear to me that this could also mean the German army's participa"

 
My Way News: "U.S. wasted chance to improve the world: Gorbachev


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Oct 13, 12:07 PM (ET)


BERLIN (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who played a key role in ending the Cold War, said the United States had squandered an opportunity to improve global politics after the Cold War, a paper said on Friday.
In comments that were among the harshest he has made about the United States, Gorbachev compared U.S. foreign policy to one of the deadliest diseases on the planet -- AIDS.
'Today our American friends are suffering from an illness worse than AIDS. And I would say this is the victor's complex,' Gorbachev was quoted as saying in an interview with the Netzzeitung.
Unable to extricate itself from its Cold War mentality, the United States was playing a dwindling role in world politics, while Russia, China, Brazil, Europe, India and Japan were becoming stronger, Gorbachev said.
North Korea, which said on Monday it had successfully completed a nuclear test, was an example. Only China and Russia were in a position to handle Pyongyang, he said.
Washington will in future have to act less on its own and get used to a position of diminished importance, he said.
'The Americans will have to understand that in future they will have to cooperate and make decisions jointly, instead of just always wanting to give orders,' Gorbachev said.
He said the United States and other Western countries had missed an opportunity to make the world a better place after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 ushered in the end of communism.
'At that point, the West focused more on its geopolitical interests,' Gorbachev said, adding that Western countries had been more interested in"

 
Kennedy book blasts Bush, 'preventive war' - The Boston Globe

Kennedy book blasts Bush, 'preventive war'
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff April 5, 2006
WASHINGTON -- In a forthcoming book, Senator Edward M. Kennedy invokes the leadership of his brothers during the Cuban missile crisis to launch a sharp new attack on President Bush, declaring that Bush should have followed the example of President John F. Kennedy and his attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, in forging a diplomatic resolution to the standoff with Saddam Hussein.
The Massachusetts Democrat writes that his brothers were right to resist advice urging them to launch a preemptive strike on Fidel Castro when missiles aimed at the United States were discovered in Cuba in 1962. They correctly argued that ''a first strike was inconsistent with American values," and would be a ''Pearl Harbor in reverse," he writes.
Kennedy writes that preemptive war may be justified to prevent ''an imminent attack on our country." But he puts the Iraq war in a different category that he calls ''preventive war," which he condemns.
''The premeditated nature of preventive attacks and preventive wars makes them anathema to well-established international principles against aggression," Kennedy writes in ''America Back on Track," which is scheduled to be released April 18.
Bush's decision to invade Iraq, Kennedy says, was an example of ''preventive war" -- attacking a nation to prevent it from developing the ability to threaten the United States. A similar manner of thinking led the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, he writes, since Japan was seeking to block the US military buildup in the Pacific.
''Preventive war is consistent with neither our values nor our national security," he writes. ''It gives other nations an excuse to violate fundamental principles of civilized international behavior, and the downward spiral we initiate could well engulf the whole planet."
In 2002, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration issued a ''National Security Strategy" that called for preemptive war in some cases, citing the need to root out terrorist threats before they fully materialize. Last month, the administration reaffirmed that policy ''under longstanding principles of self defense," despite the mistaken assumptions about Iraq's weapons capabilities that contributed to the decision to invade.
Kennedy, who voted against the Iraq war and remains one of its harshest critics, said Bush's National Security Strategy is ''too extreme" in its reaction to Sept. 11, 2001, he writes, since it ''legitimizes a first strike, and elevates it to a core security doctrine."
''War should always be our last resort. Instead, the Bush administration made preventive war an option of first resort," Kennedy writes.
''America Back on Track," Kennedy's first book since 1982, is being published in a year that Democrats have high hopes for regaining control of Congress. It offers a vision for the nation that draws heavily on lessons from Kennedy's 43 years in the Senate, in addition to his role in one of the most prominent political families in the nation's history.
The book incorporates a broad indictment of the Bush administration and its policies. He accuses the president of engaging in an ''unprecedented level of secrecy" about government operations, bemoans the Republican ''culture of corruption" in Washington, and criticizes policies that he says harm the environment, the economy, and the education system.
Kennedy's policy proposals will surprise few who follow liberal politics. He calls for a higher minimum wage, billions of dollars in new education spending, higher taxes on the wealthy, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and universal healthcare run through the federal government. Most of the policies, he writes, will ''pay for themselves" by boosting the nation's productivity.
In an antidote to the Republican Party's demands for smaller government, Kennedy offers a full-throated defense of a vigorous federal government that can fight for equal rights, lessen economic inequalities, and contribute to a robust and stable society.
''The blunderbuss demands of the right wing that we downsize all areas of government ignore two hundred years of history -- two hundred years of partnerships between business and government that made America the largest and most productive economy in the world," he writes.
Kennedy, 74, rarely references his famous family members in public statements, but the book is peppered with anecdotes and lessons learned from his siblings, parents, and grandparents.
He recalls his grandfather, John F. ''Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald -- a former congressman and mayor of Boston -- imparting stories of American history and tips about political campaigning. Kennedy fondly recounts the story of his ''brother Jack" taking him on a tour of Washington as a 14-year-old that he said inspired him to enter public service.
''It's good that you're interested in seeing those buildings, Teddy," Kennedy recounts the future president telling him after he was first elected to Congress in 1946. ''But I hope you also take an interest in what goes on inside them."

 
Suspended for telling the truth. Only in America......

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Rocky Mountain News: Education: "Controversial lecture thrusts Overland into national spotlight
Ahmad Terry ? News

Overland High School students protest today, some in support and others against, a teacher who was at the center of a controversy over statements he made comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.STORY TOOLS
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Slide show: The day in photos, March 2
By Kevin Vaughan and Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006
AURORA ? Controversy over a high school teacher's comparison of President Bush to Adolf Hitler erupted into a day of turmoil Thursday ? with a student protest, a threatened lawsuit and dueling talk shows.
At the center of the storm was Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish, whose lecture in a world geography class last month also included harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq.
At one point in a 21- minute, 40-second recording of the lecture, Bennish called America 'probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth.'
Bennish, who has been a teacher at Overland since 2000, has been suspended and is under investigation for violating a school district policy that requires teachers to present varying viewpoints. He has hired a lawyer and may fight back in court as early as today.
'I know about 10 federal judges who are more than willing to teach the Cherry Creek School District what the First Amendment is all about,' his attorney, David Lane, said Thursday.
Lane said he expects to file a federal lawsuit as early as this morning, and that seeking a court order to"

 
Top News Article Reuters.com: "year bought helicopters and 100,000 rifles from Russia, said he would seek to buy more arms to defend Vene"

Chavez says Bush worse than HitlerSat Feb 4, 2006 8:49 PM ET
By Patrick Markey
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a rally of thousands of supporters on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush was worse than Hitler and vowed to buy more arms to defend his nation as their diplomatic relations deteriorated.
"The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush," Chavez said from a stage decorated with a huge red image of himself as a young soldier.
Already frayed ties between the United States and the socialist leader worsened further this week after Chavez expelled a U.S. military attache accused of espionage and the White House responded by ordering out a Venezuelan diplomat.
Chavez, a retired army paratrooper who often accuses Washington of trying to overthrow him, warned he could shut Venezuelan oil refineries in the United States and sell oil for the U.S. market elsewhere if Washington cuts off ties.
U.S. officials have made no suggestion they plan to break relations. Washington has repeatedly dismissed Chavez's threats and charges as inflammatory rhetoric aimed at stirring up nationalist sentiment among his poor supporters.
Washington and Caracas recently locked horns over a U.S. block on sales of Spanish military equipment to Venezuela. The Spanish aircraft contained U.S.-made technology, which requires countries to get Washington's clearance for the sale.
Chavez, who last year bought helicopters and 100,000 rifles from Russia, said he would seek to buy more arms to defend Venezuela against any attempt to topple his government. U.S. officials say the purchases could destabilize the region as Chavez moves to create a huge military reservist movement.
"I ask for permission ... to buy another cargo of arms because the gringos want us unarmed. We have to defend our fatherland," he said. "Venezuela needs 1 million well-equipped men and women, and well-armed."
The Venezuelan leader has put himself at the center of regional opposition to Bush, who he calls "Mr. Danger," while Washington brands Chavez a worrying threat to regional stability and criticizes his alliance with Cuba.
Flush with cash from high crude prices, Chavez is promoting socialist reforms at home and aggressively challenging U.S. free-market proposals by allying himself with his South American neighbors, as well as Cuba and Iran.
U.S. officials reject charges the expelled naval attache contacted Venezuelan officers for state secrets. Chavez on Saturday read out e-mails he said were communications between the officers and the U.S. Embassy.
Since his 1998 election, Chavez has clashed repeatedly with the United States, which he accuses of planning an invasion and backing a brief 2002 coup attempt that he survived with the help of loyal troops.
(Additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth)

 
Such is life in the police state.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051209/ap_on_re_us/airplane_shooting&printer=1;_ylt=Ap_ed8iBP8c_RHIdOM9IZmRH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

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Passengers Didn't Hear Alpizar Say 'Bomb' By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 9, 6:28 PM ET



The airline passenger shot to death by federal marshals who said he made a bomb threat was agitated even before boarding and later appeared to be desperate to get off the plane, some fellow travelers said.

One passenger said he "absolutely never heard the word 'bomb' at all" during the uproar as the Orlando-bound flight prepared to leave Miami on Wednesday.

Federal officials say Rigoberto Alpizar made the threat in the jetway, after running up the plane's aisle from his seat at the back of the jetliner. They opened fire because the 44-year-old Home Depot employee ignored their orders to stop, reached into his backpack and said he had a bomb, according to authorities.

Alpizar's brother, speaking from Costa Rica, said he would never believe the shooting was necessary.

"I can't conceive that the marshals wouldn't be able to overpower an unarmed, single man, especially knowing he had already cleared every security check," Carlos Alpizar told The Orlando Sentinel.

Some passengers said they noticed Alpizar while waiting to get on the plane. They said he was singing "Go Down Moses" as his wife tried to calm him. Others said they saw him having lunch and described him as restless and anxious, but not dangerous.

"The wife was telling him, 'Calm down. Let other people get on the plane. It will be all right,'" said Alan Tirpak, a passenger.

Some passengers, including John McAlhany, said they believe Alpizar was no threat to anyone.

McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker who was returning home from a fishing trip in Key West, said he was sitting in Seat 21C when he noticed a commotion a few rows back.

"I heard him saying to his wife, 'I've got to get off the plane,'" McAlhany said. "He bumped me, bumped a couple of stewardesses. He just wanted to get off the plane."

Alpizar ran up the aisle into the first-class cabin, where marshals chased him onto the jetway, McAlhany said.

McAlhany said he "absolutely never heard the word 'bomb' at all."

"The first time I heard the word 'bomb' was when I was interviewed by the FBI," McAlhany said. "They kept asking if I heard him say the B-word. And I said, 'What is the B-word?' And they were like, 'Bomb.' I said no. They said, 'Are you sure?' And I am."

Added another passenger, Mary Gardner: "I did not hear him say that he had a bomb."

Officials say there was no bomb and they found no connection to terrorism.

Witnesses said Alpizar's wife, Anne Buechner, had frantically tried to explain he was bipolar, a mental illness also known as manic-depression, and was off his medication.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness called on the Air Marshal Service and other law enforcement agencies to train officers if they don't already in responding to people with severe mental illness.

Others said Alpizar's mental health didn't matter while marshals were trying to talk to him and determine if the threat was real.

Shooting to maim or injure — rather than kill — is not an option for federal agents, said John Amat, national operations vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which includes air marshals in its membership.

"The person was screaming, saying he would blow up the plane, reaching into his bag — they had to react," Amat said.

"The bottom line is, we're trained to shoot to stop the threat," said Amat, who is also a deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami. "Hollywood has this perception that we are such marksmen we can shoot an arm or leg with accuracy. We can't. These guys were in a very tense situation. In their minds they had to believe this person was an imminent threat to themselves or the people on the plane."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the two air marshals appeared to have acted properly when they shot to kill.

Both air marshals were hired in 2002 from other federal law enforcement agencies and were placed on administrative leave, said Brian Doyle, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Miami-Dade Police were investigating and the medical examiner's office was performing an autopsy on Alpizar, who was from Costa Rica but became a U.S. citizen years ago. He lived in Maitland, an Orlando suburb.

Neighbors said the couple had been returning to their home from a missionary trip to Ecuador. Buechner works for the Council on Quality and Leadership based in Towson, Md., a nonprofit organization focused on improving life for people with disabilities and mental illness, the organization said in a statement.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said he thinks the shooting may prove more "reassuring than disturbing" to the traveling public his organization represents. "This is a reminder they are there and are protecting the passengers and that it is a seriously deadly business," he said.

Armed police boarded the aircraft after the shooting, with some passengers in hysterics. McAlhany said he remembers having a shotgun pressed into his head by one officer, and hearing cries and screams from many passengers aboard the aircraft after the shooting in the jetway.

"This was wrong," McAlhany said. "This man should be with his family for Christmas. Now he's dead."

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Bridges, Mark Sherman and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington; Mike Schneider and Travis Reed in Orlando; and Jessica Gresko and Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this story.

 
Can you say "psychopath"? No wonder Americans are hated all over the world!

BREITBART.COM - Just The News

U.S. evangelist calls for assassination of Chavez
Aug 23 1:21 PM US/Eastern



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader wanted to turn his country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

The founder of the Christian Coalition said during the Monday night television broadcast of his religious program, "The 700 Club," that Chavez, one the most vocal critics of President George W. Bush, was a "terrific danger" to the United States.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned Robertson's comments as "inappropriate" and said they were from a private citizen and did not represent the U.S. government position.

In Caracas, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said: "This is a huge hypocrisy to maintain an anti-terrorist line and at the same time have such terrorist statements as these made by Christian preacher Pat Robertson coming from the same country."

"The ball is in the U.S. court now," Rangel told reporters.

The leftist Chavez has often accused the United States of plotting his overthrow or assassination. Alongside his ally Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana on Sunday, Chavez scoffed at the idea that he and Castro were destabilizing troublemakers in Latin America.

'CHEAPER THAN STARTING A WAR'

In his broadcast, Robertson said: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.

"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

A Robertson spokeswoman said he had no further comment at this point.

"Right now Dr. Robertson does not have a statement and he's not doing any media interviews," she said.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier to the United States.

This was the most recent example of Robertson's controversial remarks. Criticizing the State Department in he said "maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had called the remark "despicable."

Robertson once declared that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." He also suggested that activist judges were more of a threat to the United States than terrorists and disagreed with Bush's characterization of Islam as a religion of peace.

Robertson's "700 Club" reaches an average of 1 million American viewers daily, according to his Web site. He ran for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1988.

 
Sweet Neo Con


JAGGER ROCKS BUSH, RICE: 'HOW COME YOU'RE SO WRONG, MY SWEET NEO-CON'

"You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/ You call yourself a patriot. Well, I think your are full of sh*t!... How come you're so wrong, my sweet neo-con."

Ready to drop in the coming weeks, a new Bush-bashing tune from the ROLLING STONES: "Sweet Neo Con."

"It is direct," Mick Jagger says with a laugh to fresh editions of NEWSWEEK.

"Keith [Richards] said, 'It's not really metaphorical.' I think he's a bit worried because he lives in the U.S." Jagger explains. "But I don't."

The full lyric also mocks National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

News about the song surfaced a few weeks ago with many expecting that it would not make the finally cut on the new CD, A BIGGER BANG.

Jagger once vowed not to comment on the political process in the United States.

"I feel very much at home in America. I've spent half my adult life here. I have many personal feelings. But I'm from the school that considers it impolite to comment on other people's elections. Now if I had the vote - and I should have, as I pay so much in taxes - I would have a lot to say."

Now with the elections long over, the tongue is unleashed!

The band kicks off its world tour in Boston on Aug. 21.

 
The people can see it but the governments are just too stupid to admit it......

Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has insisted the bombings have no link to its foreign policy, particularly its decision to invade Iraq alongside the United States. But an opinion poll this week showed two-thirds of Britons see a connection between the Iraq war and the bombings.


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I love the way American media criticizes this guy for pointing out the obvious.

News

London mayor says West fuelled Islamic radicalism


LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Western foreign policy has fuelled the Islamist radicalism behind the bomb attacks which killed more than 50 people in London, the British capital's mayor Ken Livingstone said on Wednesday.

Livingstone, who earned the nickname "Red Ken" for his left-wing views, won widespread praise for a defiant response which helped unite London after the bombings. But he has revived his reputation for courting controversy in recent days.

Asked on Wednesday what he thought had motivated the four suspected suicide bombers, Livingstone cited Western policy in the Middle East and early American backing for Osama bin Laden.

"A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in (U.S. detention camp) Guantanamo Bay, and they just think that there isn't a just foreign policy," he said.

Police say they believe there is a clear link between bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the four British Muslims who blew up three underground trains and a double-decker bus on July 7.

"You've just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones that we didn't consider sympathetic," Livingstone said.

"I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan.

"They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that, he might turn on his creators," he told BBC radio.

ANGER OVER IRAQ

Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has insisted the bombings have no link to its foreign policy, particularly its decision to invade Iraq alongside the United States.

But an opinion poll this week showed two-thirds of Britons see a connection between the Iraq war and the bombings. A top think tank and a leaked intelligence memo have also suggested the war has made Britain more of a target for terrorists.

That did not stop the right-wing Daily Telegraph castigating Livingstone, a maverick member of Blair's Labour party who was celebrating London's selection as host of the 2012 Olympics just hours before the bombers struck.

Wednesday's edition of the paper featured a picture of the mayor between photographs of two radical Muslim clerics under the headline: "The men who blame Britain".

Livingstone has made clear he condemns all killing, including suicide bombing. But is also a long-standing critic of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

"If you have been under foreign occupation, and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work, for three generations, I suspect if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves," he said on Wednesday.

Israel's ambassador to London Zvi Heifetz accused the mayor of expressing sympathy for Palestinian militants.

"It is outrageous that the same mayor who rightfully condemned the suicide bombing in London as `perverted faith', defends those who, under the same extremist banner, kill Israelis," he said in a statement.



© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.

07/20/2005 08:51
RTR

 
Daily Kos: One Nation Uninsured, Krugman hits a homerun
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?hp

One Nation, Uninsured

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 13, 2005
Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance system. Public opinion was initially on his side: Jill Quadagno's book "One Nation, Uninsured" tells us that in 1945, 75 percent of Americans favored national health insurance. If Truman had succeeded, universal coverage for everyone, not just the elderly, would today be an accepted part of the social contract.

But Truman failed. Special interests, especially the American Medical Association and Southern politicians who feared that national insurance would lead to racially integrated hospitals, triumphed.

Sixty years later, the patchwork system that evolved in the absence of national health insurance is unraveling. The cost of health care is exploding, the number of uninsured is growing, and corporations that still provide employee coverage are groaning under the strain.

So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.

But special interests will, once again, stand in the way. And the big debate among would-be reformers is how to deal with those interests, especially the insurance companies. These companies played a secondary role in Truman's failure but have since become a seemingly invincible lobby.

Let's ignore those who believe that private medical accounts - basically tax shelters for the healthy and wealthy - can solve our health care problems through the magic of the marketplace. The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies.

A system in which the government provides universal health insurance is often referred to as "single payer," but I like Ted Kennedy's slogan "Medicare for all." It reminds voters that America already has a highly successful, popular single-payer program, albeit only for the elderly. It shows that we're talking about government insurance, not government-provided health care. And it makes it clear that like Medicare (but unlike Canada's system), a U.S. national health insurance system would allow individuals with the means and inclination to buy their own medical care.

The great advantage of universal, government-provided health insurance is lower costs. Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured.

Nonetheless, most reform proposals out there - even proposals from liberal groups like the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress - reject a simple single-payer approach. Instead, they call for some combination of mandates and subsidies to help everyone buy insurance from private insurers.

Some people, not all of them right-wingers, fear that a single-payer system would hurt innovation. But the main reason these proposals give private insurers a big role is the belief that the insurers must be appeased.

That belief is rooted in recent history. Bill Clinton's health care plan failed in large part because of a dishonest but devastating lobbying and advertising campaign financed by the health insurance industry - remember Harry and Louise? And the lesson many people took from that defeat is that any future health care proposal must buy off the insurance lobby.

But I think that's the wrong lesson. The Clinton plan actually preserved a big role for private insurers; the industry attacked it all the same. And the plan's complexity, which was largely a result of attempts to placate interest groups, made it hard to sell to the public. So I would argue that good economics is also good politics: reformers will do best with a straightforward single-payer plan, which offers maximum savings and, unlike the Clinton plan, can easily be explained.

We need to do this one right. If reform fails again, we'll be on the way to a radically unequal society, in which all but the most affluent Americans face the constant risk of financial ruin and even premature death because they can't pay their medical bills.

 
undefined

Legal matters

The insidious wiles of foreign influence
Jun 9th 2005
From The Economist print edition



How much are other countries' laws influencing America's?

FOR the first century of their country's history, American lawmakers and judges repeatedly looked beyond America's borders, particularly to England, for precedents that could help their own legal thinking. Over the next century, America ardently supported efforts to create a framework of international laws and institutions. But since the end of the cold war, and particularly since the election of George Bush, it has grown increasingly resistant to “foreign” influence. Or so many outsiders claim.

In fact, the debate about the relationship between American law and foreign laws is more complicated than it appears, and Americans themselves are far from united (or consistent) on the subject. Some, such as John Bolton, set to become Mr Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, believe that treaties that constrain American sovereignty in any way are “not legally binding”; but Mr Bush cited Iraq's transgressions of international law as part of the reason to go to war. Mr Bush has pulled America out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Kyoto agreement on the environment, ignored international laws of war and sent terrorist suspects into legal limbo in Guantánamo; yet America is among the strongest backers of global rules on trade, finance and international investment.

In general, there are three main areas of conflict. The first involves foreign treaties that America has subscribed to: what force do they have in America? The second, which tends to be focused on the Supreme Court, revolves around the relevance of foreign legal practices to America. The last has to do with how far overseas American courts can reach.

It is tempting to claim that America has always been worried by international treaties. (“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” George Washington wrote in 1796, “the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.”) In fact, as long as global rules and institutions helped its own interests, America was happy to go along with them. But, as Philippe Sands, a professor of law at University College, London, argues in “Lawless World”, his latest book, “The rules which were intended to constrain others became constraining for their creators.” And so the pendulum swung back.

It has done so farthest under this president. George Bush senior, for instance, was quite keen on the International Court of Justice in The Hague (the World Court), calling it “a central and indispensable element of an international legal order”. By contrast, at a crisis meeting in the White House after the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 (admittedly strong provocation), his son is reported as saying: “I don't care what the international lawyers say. We're going to kick some ass!” And so he did. There followed a string of violations of international humanitarian law, including the indefinite detention of “enemy combatants” at Guantánamo and the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The infamous “torture memos” were part of this tendency. In them, administration lawyers argued that the president, as commander-in-chief, had the “inherent constitutional authority” to approve any interrogation techniques needed to protect the nation's security—regardless of the 1949 UN Convention Against Torture, ratified by America in 1994. Human Rights Watch, a non-partisan monitoring group, claims that America's abuse of detainees was the “predictable result” of Mr Bush's decision to circumvent the law.

In virtually every other country in the world, an international treaty or convention, once ratified, overrides domestic law. Not so in the United States; it simply becomes part of the ordinary body of American law. As such, it can be ignored by the president or Senate if national security, or even ideology, seems more important.

After the World Court found against the United States in 1986 for mining Nicaragua's harbours, President Ronald Reagan is said to have told his advisers to tear up the relevant treaty giving the court jurisdiction. When informed that this required two years' notice, he reportedly told them to tear up that provision too.

American conservatives, infuriated by criticism of their country's war on terror and the invasion of Iraq, have accused Europeans and human-rights groups of waging “law-fare” against the United States, using the “soft” weapon of international law in a bid to tie it down. The ICC is one of their favourite bêtes noires. In Mr Bolton's view, the court “runs contrary to...basic constitutional principles of popular sovereignty, checks and balances, and national independence”. America has signed bilateral agreements with more than 100 countries granting its citizens immunity from ICC prosecution. Yet it strongly supports other international courts, such as those set up to deal with genocide and other atrocities in Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia.

Conservatives have been further inflamed by the increasing frequency of Supreme Court references to foreign laws and opinions. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, recently lambasted Justice Anthony Kennedy for his “incredibly outrageous” citation of international views in the court's ruling outlawing the death penalty for juvenile killers.

Republicans have now introduced a resolution in Congress banning inappropriate reliance on foreign laws or judgments in interpreting the constitution. Although almost certainly a violation of the separation of powers, it has already attracted a lot of support.

In fact, the court has never based its decisions on foreign sources; it has merely made passing reference to them, notably in recent landmark rulings on sodomy, affirmative action and the execution of mentally retarded and juvenile killers. Moderates such as Justices Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Ginsburg argue that, when confronted by a particularly intractable point of law, it simply makes sense to examine experiences and opinions outside America. “Laws are organic, and they benefit from cross-pollination,” Justice O'Connor has said.

For court conservatives, such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, this is anathema. The court should not impose “foreign moods, fads or fashions” on Americans, argues Justice Scalia, who may succeed William Rehnquist as chief justice. To him, the practices of the “world community” are irrelevant: “Either America's principles are its own, or they follow the world; one cannot have it both ways.”

Yet Americans are happy to impose their own “fads and fashions” on others. Last week, a London court ruled that Ian Norris, the former head of Morgan Crucible, a British engineering firm, could be extradited to the United States because of price-fixing by two of the firm's American subsidiaries. The alleged offences took place between 1989 and 2000, when cartel activity was not a criminal offence in Britain. Mr Norris's lawyers said the case, the first involving extradition for an alleged antitrust offence, meant that no English executive with American subsidiaries or operations could any longer feel safe.

Under a treaty that came into force last year, extradition rules have been eased between Britain and the United States. America no longer has to present supporting evidence against someone it wants to extradite from Britain. It simply has to claim that an “extraditable” offence—one carrying a prison sentence of at least a year—has been committed. But because the Senate has so far declined to ratify the treaty, the new rules do not apply the other way round. If Britain wants to extradite a suspect from America, it still has to make out a prima facie case against him.

America's crackdown on white-collar crime goes further. Under its wire-fraud laws, anyone using an American internet server to contact colleagues or clients could face extradition, even though the alleged offence did not take place in America or involve American victims.

Foreign companies are getting worried, too, about the use of America's Alien Tort Claims Act, passed in 1789, which grants jurisdiction to American federal courts over “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States”. This is increasingly being invoked by foreigners in America to sue international companies for alleged wrongs suffered outside the United States. One can imagine the rumpus if such a law were invoked, abroad, against an American company.

Often disputes sprawl over more than one of these areas. One example occurred last month, when the Supreme Court rejected, in a 5-4 ruling, a death-sentence appeal by a Mexican citizen in Texas who had claimed that he and 50 other Mexicans on death row in America had been denied legal help from their consulates.

In a ruling last year, the World Court upheld the Mexicans' claim. By denying them consular help, it said, America had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, ratified by the United States in 1969. Mr Bush, who as governor of Texas had signed many of the men's death warrants, angrily announced America's withdrawal from the protocol giving the court jurisdiction over such disputes. But, surprisingly, he also directed the state courts to “give effect” to the court's decision by granting “review and reconsideration” to the Mexicans' cases.

This a majority of the Supreme Court has now decided to do, and the case will go back to the Texas courts for review. But, in a dissenting opinion, Justice O'Connor said that the question of whether international law was binding on American courts was of such “national importance” that it should have been reviewed in the federal courts. It may yet end up there.


Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

 
This is such a classic line.....
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...because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know....

 
You gotta love the good old US of A! This is so sad!

New Worlds To Censor

New Worlds To Censor

By Adam Thierer

Tuesday, June 7, 2005; Page A23

A troubling shift is underway in how lawmakers censor media in this country. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairmen of the Senate and House commerce committees, as well as Kevin Martin, the new head of the Federal Communications Commission, are proposing to broaden federal broadcast "indecency" regulations to cover cable and satellite television. And a separate measure recently introduced in the Senate would regulate "excessively violent" programming, not just in broadcasting but on cable and satellite service as well.

These lawmakers argue that just regulating over-the-air broadcast TV and radio content won't cut it anymore. In our modern world of abundant, ubiquitous media -- where 85 percent of homes subscribe to cable or satellite TV and many citizens rely on the Internet or mobile devices for news and entertainment -- broadcast censorship regulations afford lawmakers less and less control over the media outlets people use most.


In searching out a legal justification to censor new media outlets, policymakers are falling back on the same arguments they have used to regulate broadcast television and radio: They are "pervasive," and they are "intruders" that are "uniquely accessible" to children at home. These are the catchphrases a slim 5 to 4 majority of the Supreme Court used in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) to rationalize treating broadcasters like second-class citizens in the eyes of the First Amendment. There are many reasons to doubt Pacifica in today's world, but even under that case there's no logic for new indecency rules for cable and satellite channels.

To begin with, almost all new media outlets are subscription-based. Consumers must take affirmative steps -- and spend a fair amount of money -- to bring those services into the home. Basic cable costs almost $40 per month. Satellite costs more. And Internet access doesn't just fall from heaven. When consumers spend good money to bring these services into their homes, the "media-as-invader" logic breaks down. These technologies are not "intruders" in the home; they are invited guests.

Moreover, parental responsibility has to count for something. Once parents bring these media devices into the home, it does not absolve them of their responsibility to monitor how their children use them. After all, parents don't bring power tools or chemicals home and then expect the government to assume responsibility for their children's safety.

Some lawmakers seem to believe that once any media technology becomes popular enough, it becomes "pervasive" and therefore some degree of censorship is justified. But the notion that "popularity equals pervasiveness" is frightening, because it contains no limiting principles. This wasn't the standard we applied to print outlets such as newspapers as they grew in popularity. Nor is it the standard we apply to the Internet. In fact, recent Supreme Court decisions have rejected attempts to apply indecency controls to cyberspace.

Of course, none of this is going to stop pro-censorship policymakers from pushing the envelope to incorporate new media -- at least basic cable and satellite programming -- into the indecency mix. If this "popularity equals pervasiveness" regulatory paradigm becomes law and passes muster in the courts, we will have entered a world in which the public has to pay to escape censorship. Anything Congress or the FCC deemed "indecent" would likely be forced onto a premium or pay-per-view tier, where consumers would spend considerable sums to receive some of their favorite programs. But here's the really interesting question: If large numbers of viewers still flock to premium or pay-per-view services to get their favorite programming -- such as HBO, or Howard Stern's new show on satellite radio -- wouldn't the "popularity equals pervasiveness" calculus apply to those channels as well? If so, we could look forward to still more laws to protect us from ourselves.

No doubt, some parents will welcome efforts to extend indecency censorship, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by all the new media outlets out there. As a parent of two children, I can certainly sympathize. But technology gives parents more ways to control media exposure every day. And just because the job of being a good parent is difficult, we should not call in government to act as a surrogate parent and make these decisions for all of us.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and director of its Center for Digital Media Freedom.

 
The bully can dish it out but not take it. How pathetic!

Print Story: Bush Calls Human Rights Report 'Absurd' on Yahoo! News

Bush Calls Human Rights Report 'Absurd' By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
1 hour, 36 minutes ago



President Bush on Tuesday dismissed a human rights report as "absurd" for its harsh criticism of U.S. treatment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the allegations were made by prisoners "who hate America."

"It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

In a Rose Garden news conference, Bush defiantly stood by his domestic policy agenda while defending his actions abroad. He repeatedly pledged to press ahead — "The president has got to push, he's got to keep leading" — despite mounting criticism.

With the death toll climbing daily in Iraq, he said that nation's fledging government is "plenty capable" of defeating insurgents whose attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers have intensified.

Bush spoke after separate air crashes killed four American and four Italian troops in Iraq. The governor of Anbar province, taken hostage three weeks ago, was killed during clashes between U.S. forces and the insurgents who abducted him.

Standing in the sun, sweat beading on his forehead, Bush said the job of the U.S. forces in Iraq is to help train the nation's own forces to defeat insurgents.

"I think the Iraqi people dealt the insurgents a serious blow when we had the elections," Bush said. "In other words, what the insurgents fear is democracy because democracy is the opposition of their vision."

On another foreign policy issue, Bush shot back at critics who suggest his diplomatic approach to North Korea is allowing the communist regime to expand its nuclear program. "If diplomacy is the wrong approach, I guess that means military. That's how I view it as either diplomacy or military. I am for the diplomacy approach," he said. "And for those who say we ought to be using our military to stop a problem, I would say that while all options are on the table, we've still got a ways to go to solve this diplomatically."

Bush said he expressed concerns with Russian President Vladimir Putin about legal proceedings against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky was convicted Tuesday of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison following a trail widely denounced as politically motivated.

"Here, you're innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial," Bush said. "We're watching the ongoing case."

The president said he has questioned whether the case shows a backsliding away from the rule of law and democracy in Russia and said it will "be interesting to see" how Khodorkovsky's expected appeal is handled by the government.

He said it was a "reasonable decision" to allow Iran to apply for WTO membership as a way to advance diplomatic discussions with Europe on Iran's nuclear program.

On the Amnesty International report, Bush said, "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of the allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America."

The president opened the news conference by urging Congress to pass his stalled energy legislation, restrain the growth of government spending, approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement and overhaul Social Security with a partial privatization plan.

Despite democratic opposition and Republican skittishness about his plans for Social Security, he said he would push forward. "It's like water cutting through a rock. I'm going to keep working and working and working," he said.

"...The people are watching Washington and nothing is happening. Except you've got a president who's talking about the issue and a president who's going to keep talking about the issue until we get people to the table."

He declared that the economy is strong, with 3.5 million jobs in two years and an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent. "Obviously, these are hopeful signs, but Congress can make sure the signs remain hopeful," he said in a five-minute opening statement in the Rose Garden.

After a bruising week on Capitol Hill, Bush urged both political parties to "set aside partisan differences" and work together.

Bush did not challenge the premise of a question about the Supreme Court — that he will soon have a vacancy to fill on the aging court. He did pledge to consult with Congress about his nominee or nominees at "an appropriate time," though he didn't say how early in the process those talks would come.

Turning to the controversial issue of embryonic stem cell research, Bush said that the extra embryos created during fertility treatments — estimated to now number around 400,000 — should be adopted.

"There's an alternative to the destruction of life," he said. "But the stem cell issue is really one of federal funding, that's the issue before us, and that is whether or not we use taxpayers' money to destroy life. ... I don't believe we should."

Though he did not mention tax cuts in his opening argument, Bush said he still wants Congress to make his first-term cuts permanent. He also pledged not to give up on Social Security reform, despite intense opposition on Capitol Hill. "The easy path is to say, `Oh, we don't have a problem. Let's ignore it -- yet again'."

On a lighter note, Bush said he was comfortable with the decision by his staff and Secret Service not to notify him when the White House and Congress were evacuated in May because of an errant airplane.

Noting that his wife, Laura, has said he should have been told of the potential threat, the president joked, "She often disagrees with me."

 
Hillary for President! According to these polls, it looks like she's got a huge lead already 3-1/2 years ahead of the election.

 
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Good!

 
Lazy Ass

 
Print Story: Senate Set to OK $81B War

Back to Story - Help
Senate Set to OK $81B War Spending Bill By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 21, 1:38 PM ET



The Senate moved toward approving $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Thursday in a measure that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion.

Both the Senate and House versions of the measure would give President Bush much of the money he requested, but the chambers differ over what portion should go to military operations versus other assistance.

Immigration changes, a U.S. embassy in Baghdad, military death benefits and an aircraft carrier are among the many other issues of conflict that will have to be sorted out by Senate and House negotiators.

Congressional negotiators are expected to act quickly to send the president a final bill. The Pentagon says it needs the money by the first week of May.

Overall, the Senate version would cost roughly $81 billion, less than the $81.4 billion the House approved and the $81.9 billion Bush requested.

The legislation is the fifth emergency spending package Congress has passed for wars since the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It would put the overall cost of combat and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — as well as Pentagon operations against terrorists worldwide — past $300 billion.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for Congress, says lawmakers previously approved $228 billion. The latest money is to last through the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30. Pentagon officials have said they will have to ask for more money for 2006.

In both chambers, lawmakers struggled to give troops whatever they needed while only paying for projects deemed urgent. They were leaving other items to be dealt with in the regular budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 and, in doing so, sending a message to the White House that it can't expect a rubber stamp from Congress on its emergency war-spending requests.

Still, as Bush requested, the bulk of the money would go to the Pentagon. The Army and the Marine Corps, the two service branches doing most of the fighting, would get the most.

The House bill would add money to the president's request for defense expenses but the Senate's bill would not. Instead, the Senate version would restore some money the House cut for foreign assistance and State Department programs.

The Senate bill also would fund a sprawling U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The House bill would not.

Unlike the House, the Senate tacked on a requirement that the Pentagon give Congress reports every three months on how many Iraqi security forces are trained and how many U.S. troops are needed.

The Senate also added a provision that would require the Pentagon to keep the Navy's fleet of 12 aircraft carriers intact. The Pentagon had proposed scrapping one carrier to save money.

The Senate version also would boost financial benefits for the families of soldiers killed, regardless of whether the deaths occurred in combat. The House version limits the extra money to survivors of those killed in combat-related deaths only.

Perhaps one of the most contentious issues negotiators will face is whether to include immigration overhaul measures in the final bill. The House included some, but after a lengthy debate, the Senate opted to take up immigration at another time.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defense.gov

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

Spending Bill on Yahoo! News

 
It's about fucking time....

Haaretz - Israel News - U.S. says Israel must give up nukes

U.S. says Israel must give up nukes

By Amir Oren



The State Department yesterday called on Israel to forswear nuclear weapons and accept international Atomic Energy Agency safeguards on all nuclear activities.




This is the second time in about two weeks that officials in the Bush administration are putting the nuclear weapons of Israel, India and Pakistan on a par.

The officials called on the three to act like Ukraine and South Africa, which in the last decade renounced their nuclear weapons.

 
William Pfaff: After the checkpoint shooting

William Pfaff: After the checkpoint shooting New Feature
William Pfaff International Herald Tribune
Thursday, March 10, 2005


ROME The Madrid bombings in March 2004 brought down the personal alliance between Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain and President George W. Bush, an alliance that defied Spanish popular opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
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Aznar went against public opinion to position Spain as a top American ally and himself as a major international figure. His mishandling of the terrorist bombings, by trying to blame them on Basque separatists, caused his defeat in national elections that immediately followed. The Socialist who replaced him, José Luis Zapatero, brought the Spanish troops home.
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The killing of an Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, by American soldiers at a Baghdad checkpoint last Friday could produce the same result for another personal alliance, that of Bush and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy.
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There is no impending national election in Italy, but Parliament must shortly vote on new funding for the 3,000-man contingent of soldiers and carabinieri now in Iraq.
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The Italian public, which also has been overwhelmingly against the war, is indignant at the attack that killed Calipari, the respected chief of Italian intelligence in Iraq, and wounded the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whom Calipari had just recovered from kidnappers who had held her hostage during the past month.
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The Italians say they were driving slowly and were given no warning. Another Italian secret service officer was on the telephone to his chief in Rome at the moment of the attack. He survived, and, like Sgrena, he denies that there had been any visible signals from the Americans until a searchlight was turned on their car and the shooting began.
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The Italian government has declared itself unsatisfied by American apologies, promises of investigation and the White House description of the affair as simply "a horrific accident." Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said on Tuesday that the American account was different from that of the Italian survivors, and this "makes it necessary to demand that events are clarified, to ask for explanations of the points that are still unclear, to identify those responsible, and if people are to blame then to request and obtain that the guilty parties are punished."
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The American position thus far is that the troops acted legitimately under standing orders. U.S. commanders say the Italians' car was coming at high speed and seemed about to run the checkpoint.
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Berlusconi has until now insisted that the Italian military and police presence in Iraq has made Italy "the closest U.S. ally on the European continent," and that this will pay off by allowing Italy to act as "the bridge" linking America, Europe and the Middle Eastern countries.
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Italian foreign policy since World War II has been simple, resting on two pillars, the developing course of European unification and the Atlantic alliance. Since the collapse of Communism, there has been overall accord on this, simplified by the fact that Italy has not sought a particularly active international role.
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Berlusconi's arrival as prime minister disturbed the situation because of the emphasis he put on the American connection, particularly after Sept. 11, and his decision to support Washington's Iraq "coalition of the willing" with occupation forces. He has also tried to develop Italy's own "special relationship" with Washington, but this has created some difficulties in his relations with other European Union members.
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Most of the Italian opposition has accepted the troop commitment to Iraq, but has wanted the force put under UN command. The government had hoped to withdraw the troops after the January election in Iraq. Iraq's provisional prime minister, Ayad Allawi, asked in November that they stay on, but public opinion has pressed for withdrawal.
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Should Washington fail to produce the convincing investigation of the Calipari shooting that the Italians demand, and maintain that it was an unfortunate accident for which no one is responsible, Berlusconi may not be able to resist popular and political pressures to end Italy's Iraq involvement.
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No doubt it was an unfortunate accident. In the past, American military commanders were held responsible for allowing circumstances in which unfortunate accidents happen. Italians have another recollection of American military carelessness, when U.S. Marine pilots, showing off their aerial skills, clipped the lines of a mountain cable car in northern Italy in 1998, sending its passengers plunging to their deaths.
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After an attempt to cover up the evidence, the pilots were court-martialed in the United States. They were dismissed without punishment. It had been an accident.
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See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
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Bush is still wrong

Bush is still wrong New Feature
Robert Kuttner The Boston Globe
Friday, March 11, 2005


BOSTON Freedom is breaking out all over, so it seems. To hear supporters of George W. Bush, it's all due to the president's courageous decision to risk his presidency on the Iraq war.
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Here's the storyline: Just as Bush's neoconservative advisers planned, ousting Saddam transformed not just Iraq but the balance of power in the Middle East. It gave ordinary Arabs and Muslims a sense of democratic possibility. Once Saddam went down, the other dominoes started falling.
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Just read the headlines: Syria, respecting America's new muscle, is thrown off balance. Lebanon, long Syria's puppet, is demanding liberty. Egypt's despotic president (and U.S. client), Hosni Mubarak, is suddenly promising fair elections. Saudi Arabia's local elections are more authentic than usual. On the Palestine-Israel front, there's suddenly progress. Iran is negotiating about shutting down its nukes. And in Iraq itself, the process may be a mess, but something real is happening.
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Wow! If this picture is true, let's nominate George W. Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize. The only trouble is, the picture is not true.
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For starters, each of these events has its own dynamic. The new Israel-Palestine reality reflects the death of Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon's decision to seize the moment, defy his party and do a "Nixon to China" by dismantling some Israeli settlements in Arab lands. This shift has nothing to do with Bush or Iraq. Indeed, the Bush administration has been less active in promoting a Palestine settlement than any in memory. (Watch out, when Fidel Castro finally dies and democracy comes to Cuba, Bush will take credit for that, too.)
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Saudi Arabia remains a dictatorship and an intimate ally of the Bush administration. The prospect of genuine democracy breaking out there soon is laughable. Egypt, a place where the CIA sends prisoners to be tortured, is a similar story. If Iran is negotiating about its nuclear ambitions, it is thanks to European diplomacy and over U.S. objections.
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Lebanon's instability dates to the 1920s, when the French split it off from Syria as a Christian enclave. The French formula gave the Lebanese Christian Maronites power over what soon became a larger Muslim majority. The consequences: on-and-off civil war and a Syrian protectorate of Muslims. Lebanon is reminiscent of other colonial legacies in places like Rwanda, Vietnam, India and Iraq, where Western powers played brutal ethnic games of divide and rule. The United States has tried to intervene in Lebanon before and each time got its fingers burned.
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What the whole Mideast region has in common is a sense of bottled-up popular grievances, many of them directed against the United States for propping up dictators that served American military and corporate interests (including, once, Saddam Hussein).
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If genuine democracy breaks out, Bush might not like it. Al-Jazeera, the Arab world's mirror image of Fox News, is the closest thing to free Arab-language media - and the Bush administration keeps trying to strangle it. Likewise, the eventual government that emerges in Baghdad is not likely to be both genuinely democratic and pro-American.
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Bush is right that people everywhere want to be free. But the fitful expansion of democracy has been more the fruit of local struggle and complex diplomacy than American military intervention. That's true of South Africa, where Bush's pals viewed Nelson Mandela as an untrustworthy Marxist; it's true of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, the Czech Republic and the rest of the former Soviet empire.
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Often, astute diplomacy and civil society initiatives work where invasions can't. The little-remembered Helsinki Process of the 1970s traded a U.S. guarantee of no Western-sponsored "regime change" in the Soviet bloc for Moscow's loosening of the screws. Civil society blossomed. American conservatives hated the deal. But before the Russians knew it, the Berlin Wall came down.
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Bush is also right that democracy is contagious. As Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker magazine after the Iraqis managed to hold an election, "One can marvel at the power of the democratic idea. ... Perhaps it can even survive the fervent embrace of George W. Bush."
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So, rather than rejecting his odd embrace of universal freedom, let's hold Bush to his words. Let's have no double standards for despotic allies of convenience. Let's not manipulate other people's democracies behind the scenes. And if democracy is good enough for Iraqis, let's defend what Bush has not yet wrecked of democracy at home.
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(Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in The Boston Globe.)
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Who is Bush to make these demands? What an asshole! This is particularly ironic....

"The Lebanese people have the right to determine their future free from domination by a foreign power. The Lebanese people have the right to choose their own parliament this spring free of intimidation."

Did he forget about Iraq already?


Yahoo! News - Bush Demands Syria Out of Lebanon by May

Bush Demands Syria Out of Lebanon by May

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday demanded Syria pull troops out of Lebanon before Lebanese parliamentary elections in May and give way to a democracy movement providing hope in the broader Middle East.

"The Lebanese people have the right to determine their future free from domination by a foreign power. The Lebanese people have the right to choose their own parliament this spring free of intimidation," Bush said.

The U.S. president used a wide-ranging speech at the National Defense University to lend support to what he called a trend toward democracy in the Middle East and away from authoritarian rule, which he called the "last gasp of a discredited past."

"Across the Middle East, a critical mass of events is taking that region in a hopeful new direction," he said.

Democratic progress had been frozen for decades, he added, "Yet at last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun."

Bush paid particular attention to Lebanon, where a pro-Syrian government has fallen due to protests over the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and where Syria is under strong pressure to withdraw 14,000 troops as well as intelligence personnel.

In a development that did not fit the U.S. script of events, however, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut on Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah, Lebanon's last armed militia that is backed by Syria and Iran (news - web sites) and dubbed a terrorist group by Washington.

It dwarfed previous protests demanding Syrian troops leave Lebanon. Bush did not mention the pro-Syrian rally but White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it did not change U.S. demands.

Bush said Syria must "end its nearly 30-year occupation of Lebanon or become even more isolated from the world." He dismissed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's pledge to shift Syrian troops to eastern Lebanon by March 31, calling it a delaying tactic and half measure.

"All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free and fair," Bush said.

Bush cited democratic elections in Iraq (news - web sites), Afghanistan (news - web sites) and the Palestinian territories as evidence of shifting winds in the Middle East, along with what he called "small, but welcome steps" toward competitive elections in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The United States continues to urge the Saudi royal family to speed social and legal reforms and allow broader public participation in government. In Egypt, though President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) recently said he would allow multi-candidate elections for the presidency, opposition politicians expect rules so strict no opponent will have a serious chance.

Bush also urged Iran to give up nuclear ambitions, which it denies having, and called on Iran to see Iraq's elections as an example of what could be in Tehran.

"The Iranian regime should listen to the concerns of the world and listen to the voice of the Iranian people who long for their liberty and want their country to be a respected member of the international community," he said.

Bush made the advance of freedom worldwide the central tenet of his Jan. 20 inauguration speech. In this speech, he said this movement will take time, and that U.S. policy was no longer geared toward propping up authoritarian leaders in the name of stability.

"The advance of hope in the Middle East requires new thinking in the region. By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp of a discredited past," he said.

Bush quoted one Lebanese observer he did not identify as saying that "democracy is knocking at the door of this country and if it's successful in Lebanon, it is going to ring the doors of every Arab regime." (Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Patricia Wilson)

 
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Buffett attacks American spending junkies

Buffett attacks American spending junkies

Simon Bowers
Monday March 7, 2005
The Guardian

Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, has launched his most withering attack to date on the US trade deficit, describing Americans as "rich spending junkies" who could turn into a nation of "sharecroppers".
In his annual letter to investors in Berkshire Hathaway, the fund he has run for more than 30 years, Mr Buffett painted a bleak picture of a future US in which ownership and wealth had continued to move overseas, leaving the economy in thrallto foreign interests and faced with financial turmoil and political unrest.

He said his performance last year had been "lacklustre". He explained his mounting bet against the dollar in terms of a spiralling US trade deficit - which, he warned, may be approaching crisis point.

Mr Buffett said Berkshire had built a $21.4bn (£11bn) position in foreign exchange contracts, spread among 12 currencies. He said little appeared to have been done to tackle the problem, despite constant calls for action from "hand-wringing luminaries".

"Without policy changes, currency markets could even become disorderly and generate spillover effects, both political and financial," Mr Buffett warned. "Such a scenario is a far from remote possibility that policymakers should be considering now," the billionaire said, though he conceded policymakers' "bent, however, is to lean towards not so benign neglect".

The 74-year-old told investors he "tap-danced to work" and promised them this year's meeting of investors would be another "Woodstock for capitalists". However, on the subject of the US trade deficit, his passions appear to be stirred. "This force-feeding of American wealth to the rest of the world is now proceeding at the rate of $1.8bn daily."

Mr Buffett said in the last 10 years foreign powers and their citizens had accrued about $3 trillion worth of US debt and assets such as equities and real estate. At current rates, he predicted that in another 10 years' time the net ownership of the US by outsiders would amount to $11 trillion.

"This annual royalty paid [to] the world would undoubtedly produce significant political unrest in the US. Americans ... would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an 'ownership society' will not find happiness in - and I'll use hyperbole here for emphasis - a 'sharecropper's society'."

Mr Buffett squarely took the blame for the group underperforming the market for the second consecutive year, with a 2004 book value gain of 10.5%. "My hope was to make multibillion-dollar acquisitions that would add new and significant streams of earnings ... but I struck out." In part, he said, he had been frustrated by a lack of "attractive securities to buy", leaving Berkshire with $43bn of cash equivalents.

· The International Monetary Fund is worried that global growth is becoming too reliant on the performance of the US and Chinese economies, according to a report yesterday.

While the Chinese are seek ing to slam the brakes on the country's infrastructure spending, the treasury secretary, John Snow, described the US economy as "resilient and dynamic".

According to today's edition of the German newspaper Handelsblatt, the IMF's forthcoming World Economic Outlook report will warn of increasing risks to global growth if the US and China slow down at the same time.

"Global growth is to an inappropriate degree linked to the United States and China," the IMF report will say when it is published next month.

"The eurozone and Japan, which together have about one-fourth of the world's gross domestic product, have once again disappointed. Thus the risks are increased that there could later be a sharp downturn especially if the United States and China are hit with economic slowing."

 
no surprises here.....

Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs


SPEAKING FREELY
The oil factor in Bush's 'war on tyranny'
By F William Engdahl

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

In recent public speeches, President George W Bush and others in the US administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have begun to make a significant shift in the rhetoric of war. A new "war on tyranny" is being groomed to replace the outmoded "war on terror". Far from being a semantic nuance, the shift is highly revealing of the next phase of Washington's global agenda.

In his January 20 inaugural speech, Bush declared, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" (author's emphasis). Bush repeated the last formulation, "ending tyranny in our world", in the State of the Union address. In 1917 it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy", and in 1941 it was a "war to end all wars".

The use of tyranny as justification for US military intervention marks a dramatic new step in Washington's quest for global domination. "Washington", of course, today is shorthand for the policy domination by a private group of military and energy conglomerates, from Halliburton to McDonnell Douglas, from Bechtel to ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, not unlike that foreseen in president Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of excessive control of government by a military-industrial complex.

Congress declared World War II after an aggressive Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While Washington stretched the limits of deception and fakery in Vietnam and elsewhere to justify its wars, up to now it has always at least justified the effort with the claim that another power had initiated aggression or hostile military acts against the United States of America. Tyranny has to do with the internal affairs of a nation: it has to do with how a leader and a people interact, not with its foreign policy. It has nothing to do with aggression against the United States or others.

Historically Washington has had no problem befriending some of the world's all-time tyrants, as long as they were "pro-Washington" tyrants, such as the military dictatorship of President General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, a paragon of oppression. We might name other befriended tyrants - Ilham Aliyev's Azerbaijan, or Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan, or the al-Sabahs' Kuwait, or Oman. Maybe Morocco, or Alvaro Uribe's Colombia. There is a long list of pro-Washington tyrants.

For obvious reasons, Washington is unlikely to turn against its "friends". The new anti-tyranny crusade would seem, then, to be directed against "anti-American" tyrants. The question is, which tyrants are on the radar screen for the Pentagon's awesome arsenal of smart bombs and covert-operations commandos? Rice dropped a hint in her Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony two days prior to the Bush inauguration. The White House, of course, cleared her speech first.

Target some tyrannies, nurture others
Rice hinted at Washington's target list of tyrants amid an otherwise bland statement in her Senate testimony. She declared, "in our world there remain outposts of tyranny ... in Cuba, and Burma and North Korea, and Iran and Belarus, and Zimbabwe". Aside from the fact that the designated secretary of state did not bother to refer to "Burma" under its present name, Myanmar, the list is an indication of the next phase in Washington's strategy of preemptive wars for its global domination strategy.

As reckless as this seems given the Iraq quagmire, the fact that little open debate on such a broadened war has yet taken place indicates how extensive the consensus is within the Washington establishment for the war policy. According to the January 24 New Yorker report from Seymour Hersh, Washington already approved a war plan for the coming four years of Bush II, which targets 10 countries from the Middle East to East Asia. The Rice statement gives a clue to six of the 10. She also suggested Venezuela is high on the non-public target list.

Pentagon Special Forces units are reported already active inside Iran, according to the Hersh report, preparing details of key military and nuclear sites for presumable future bomb hits. At the highest levels, France, Germany and the European Union are well aware of the US agenda for Iran, on the nuclear issue, which explains the frantic EU diplomatic forays with Iran.

The US president declared in his State of the Union speech that Iran was "the world's primary state sponsor of terror". Congress is falling in line as usual, beginning to sound war drums on Iran. Testimony to the Israeli Knesset by the Mossad chief recently, reported in the Jerusalem Post, estimated that by the end of 2005 Iran's nuclear-weapons program would be "unstoppable". This suggests strong pressure from Israel on Washington to "stop" Iran this year.

According also to former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official Vince Cannistraro, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new war agenda includes a list of 10 priority countries. In addition to Iran, it includes Syria, Sudan, Algeria, Yemen and Malaysia. According to a report in the January 23 Washington Post, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), also has a list of what the Pentagon calls "emerging targets" for preemptive war, which includes Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines and Georgia, a list he has sent to Rumsfeld.

While Georgia may now be considered under de facto North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or US control since the election of President Mikheil Saakashvili, the other states are highly suggestive of the overall US agenda for the new "war on tyranny". If we add Syria, Sudan, Algeria and Malaysia, as well as Rice's list of Cuba, Belarus, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, to the JCS list of Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines, we have some 12 potential targets for either Pentagon covert destabilization or direct military intervention, surgical or broader. And, of course, North Korea, which seems to serve as a useful permanent friction point to justify US military presence in the strategic region between China and Japan. Whether it is 10 or 12 targets, the direction is clear.

What is striking is just how directly this list of US "emerging target" countries, "outposts of tyranny", maps on to the strategic goal of total global energy control, which is clearly the central strategic focus of the Bush-Cheney administration.

General Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the 1991 attack on Iraq, told the US Congress in 1990: "Middle East oil is the West's lifeblood. It fuels us today, and being 77% of the free world's proven oil reserves, is going to fuel us when the rest of the world runs dry." He was talking about what some geologists call peak oil, the end of the era of cheap oil, without drawing undue attention to the fact.

That was in 1990. Today, with US troops preparing a semi-permanent stay in Iraq and moves to control global oil and energy chokepoints, the situation is far more advanced. China and India have rapidly emerged as major oil-import economies at a time when existing sources of the West's oil, from the North Sea to Alaska and beyond, are in significant decline. Here we have a pre-programmed scenario for future resource conflict on a global scale.

Oil geopolitics and the 'war on tyranny'
Cuba as a "tyranny target" is a surrogate for Hugo Chavez' Venezuela, which is strongly supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin, via Cuba, and now by China. Rice explicitly mentioned the close ties between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Chavez. After a failed CIA putsch attempt early in the Bush tenure, Washington is clearly trying to keep a lower profile in Caracas. The goal remains regime change of the recalcitrant Chavez, whose most recent affront to Washington was his latest visit to China, where he signed a major bilateral energy deal. Chavez also had the gall to announce plans to divert oil sales away from the United States to China and sell its US refineries. Part of the China deal would involve a new pipeline to a port on Colombia's coast, which avoids US control of the Panama Canal. Rice told the Senate that Cuba was an "outpost of tyranny" and in the same breath labeled Venezuela a "regional troublemaker".

Indonesia, with huge natural-gas resources serving mainly China and Japan, presents an interesting case, since the country has apparently been cooperative with Washington's "war on terror" since September 2001. Indonesia's government raised an outcry in the wake of the recent tsunami disaster when the Pentagon dispatched a US aircraft carrier and special troops within 72 hours to land in Aceh province to do "rescue work". The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, with 2,000 supposedly Iraq-bound Marines aboard, together with the USS Bonhomme Richard from Guam, landed some 13,000 US troops in Aceh, which alarmed many in the Indonesian military and government. The Indonesian government acceded, but demanded that the US leave by the end of March and not establish a base camp in Aceh. No less than deputy defense secretary and Iraq war strategist Paul Wolfowitz, former US ambassador to Indonesia, made an immediate "fact-finding" tour of the region. ExxonMobil runs a huge LNG [liquefied natural gas] production in Aceh that supplies energy to China and Japan.

If we add to the list of "emerging targets" Myanmar, a state that, however disrespectful of human rights, is also a major ally and recipient of military aid from Beijing, a strategic encirclement potential against China emerges quite visibly. Malaysia, Myanmar and Aceh in Indonesia represent strategic flanks on which the vital sea lanes from the Strait of Malacca, through which oil tankers from the Persian Gulf travel to China, can be controlled. Moreover, 80% of Japan's oil passes here.

The US government's Energy Information Administration identifies the Malacca Strait as one of the most strategic "world oil transit chokepoints". How convenient if in the course of cleaning out a nest of tyrant regimes Washington might militarily acquire control of this strait. Until now the states in the area have vehemently rejected repeated US attempts to militarize the strait.

Control or militarization of Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar would give US forces chokepoint control over the world's busiest sea channel for oil from the Persian Gulf to China and Japan. It would be a huge blow to China's efforts to secure energy independence from the US. Not only has China already lost huge oil concessions in Iraq with the US occupation, but China's oil supply from Sudan is also under increasing pressure from Washington.

Taking Iran from the mullahs would give Washington chokepoint control over the world's most strategically important oil waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, a three-kilometer-wide passage between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The major US military base in the entire Middle East region is just across the strait from Iran in Doha, Qatar. One of the world's largest gas fields also lies here.

Algeria is another obvious target for the "war on tyranny". Algeria is the second-most-important supplier of natural gas to continental Europe, and has significant reserves of the highest-quality low-sulfur crude oil, just the kind US refineries need. Some 90% of Algeria's oil goes to Europe, mainly Italy, France and Germany. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika read the September 11, 2001, tea leaves and promptly pledged his support for Washington's "war on terror". Bouteflika has made motions to privatize various state holdings, but not the vital state oil company, Sonatrach. That will clearly not be enough to satisfy the appetite of Washington planners.

Sudan, as noted, has become a major oil supplier to China, whose national oil company has invested more than US$3 billion since 1999 building oil pipelines from southern Sudan to the Red Sea port. The coincidence of this fact with the escalating concern in Washington about genocide and humanitarian disaster in oil-rich Darfur in southern Sudan is not lost on Beijing. China threatened a United Nations veto against any intervention against Sudan. The first act of a re-elected Dick Cheney late last year was to fill his vice-presidential jet with UN Security Council members to fly to Nairobi to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, an eerie reminder of defense secretary Cheney's "humanitarian" concern over Somalia in 1991.

Washington's choice of Somalia and Yemen is a matched pair, as a look at a Middle East/Horn of Africa map will confirm. Yemen sits at the oil-transit chokepoint of Bab el-Mandap, the narrow point controlling oil flow from the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Yemen also has oil, although no one yet knows just how much. It could be huge. A US firm, Hunt Oil Co, is pumping 200,000 barrels a day from there but that is likely only the tip of the find.

Yemen fits nicely as an "emerging target" with the other target nearby, Somalia.

"Yes, Virginia," the 1992 Somalia military action by George Herbert Walker Bush, which gave the US a bloody nose, was in fact about oil too. Little known was the fact that the humanitarian intervention by 20,000 US troops ordered by father Bush in Somalia had little to do with the purported famine relief for starving Somalis. It had a lot to do with the fact that four major US oil companies, led by Bush's friends at Conoco of Houston, Texas, and including Amoco (now BP), Condi Rice's Chevron, and Phillips, all held huge oil-exploration concessions in Somalia. The deals had been made with the former "pro-Washington" tyrannical and corrupt regime of Mohamed Siad Barre.

Siad Barre was inconveniently deposed just as Conoco reportedly hit black gold with nine exploratory wells, confirmed by World Bank geologists. US Somalia envoy Robert B Oakley, a veteran of the US mujahideen project in Afghanistan in the 1980s, almost blew the US game when, during the height of the civil war in Mogadishu in 1992, he moved his quarters on to the Conoco compound for safety. A new US cleansing of Somali "tyranny" would open the door for these US oil companies to map and develop the possibly huge oil potential in Somalia. Yemen and Somalia are two flanks of the same geological configuration, which holds large potential petroleum deposits, as well as being the flanks of the oil chokepoint from the Red Sea.

Belarus is also no champion of human rights, but from Washington's standpoint, the fact that its government is tightly bound to Moscow makes it the obvious candidate for a Ukraine-style "Orange Revolution" regime-change effort. That would complete the US encirclement of Russia on the west and of Russia's export pipelines to Europe, were it to succeed. Some 81% of all Russian oil exports today go to Western European markets. Such a Belarus regime change now would limit the potential for a nuclear-armed Russia to form a bond with France, Germany and the EU as potential counterweight against the power of the United States sole superpower, a highest priority for Washington Eurasia geopolitics.

The military infrastructure for dealing with such tyrant states seems to be shaping up as well. In the January 24 New Yorker magazine, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh cited Pentagon and CIA sources to claim that the position of Rumsfeld and the warhawks is even stronger today than before the Iraq war. Hersh reported that Bush signed an Executive Order last year, without fanfare, placing major CIA covert operations and strategic analysis into the hands of the Pentagon, sidestepping any congressional oversight. He added that plans for the widening of the "war on terror" under Rumsfeld were also agreed upon in the administration well before the election.

The Washington Post confirmed Hersh's allegation, reporting that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had created, by Presidential Order, and bypassing Congress, a new Strategic Support Branch, which co-opts traditional clandestine and other functions of the CIA. According to a report by US Army Colonel (retired) Dan Smith, in Foreign Policy in Focus last November, the new SSB unit includes the elite military special SEAL Team 6, Delta Force army squadrons, and potentially a paramilitary army of 50,000 available for "splendid little wars" outside congressional purview.

The list of emerging targets in a new "war on tyranny" is clearly fluid, provisional, and adaptable as developments change. It is clear that a breathtaking array of future military and economic offensives is in the works at the highest policy levels to transform the world. A world oil price of US$150 a barrel or more in the next few years would be joined by chokepoint control of the supply by one power if Washington has its way.

F William Engdahl is the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, published by Pluto Press Ltd.

(Copyright 2005 F William Engdahl.)

 
Oh please. This guy needs to get laid!
Winston-Salem Journal | Senator wants cable, satellite TV subject to indecency rules

Indecency guidelines that over-the-air broadcasters must follow should be extended to cover cable and satellite broadcasters, congressional Republicans who are influential on telecommunications issues said yesterday.

Most viewers do not differentiate between traditional TV and cable, so they do not know when they might be exposed to objectionable programming, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the head of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington.

"In this country, there has to be some standards of decency," said Stevens, who said he would push for such legislation. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group, said that people choose to pay for channels and, as part of their subscription, are able to block programming they do not want seen in their homes. Because of that, the group said, any legislation would face an uphill battle in court.

 
It's simple. Bush is ridiculous....

Perfect storm warning - The Washington Times: Commentary - March 01, 2005

Perfect storm warning


By Arnaud de Borchgrave


Imagine a world where Russia and the European Union of 25 nations, and Russia and China, and the EU and China, all find more in common with each other than with the United States. Unimaginable, you correctly say. But the seeds of such an anti-U.S. entente were planted in Europe last week.
In Brussels, President Bush told the EU3 — France, the United Kingdom and Germany — it was their responsibility to quash Iran's nuclear ambitions and the United States would not negotiate directly with the totalitarian theocracy in Tehran. The U.S. position was judged absurd by the EU3 before Mr. Bush arrived. And it was still deemed absurd after he left.







The Europeans argue, with some validity, they do not have the clout, even with economic sanctions, to change Iran's mind. But the U.S. still insisted it cannot legitimize the Iranian clerics by talking to them face to face, let alone offering them a non-aggression pact in return for respecting the non-proliferation treaty they signed and ratified.
Russia, meanwhile, says it is satisfied the mullahs are not playing with nuclear fire and it will go on helping Iran's peaceful nuclear power program. Score one for a rapprochement between the EU and Russia over Iran.
Next comes the EU plan to lift a 15-year-old arms embargo against China next June. Mr. Bush said this would be a mistake, but he is withholding judgment until he sees a promised new EU regime that would carefully regulate nonlethal military sales to China. Until now, EU members have done pretty much what they can get away with. Germany, for example, has sold diesel engines to China for its submarine fleet. This sale was approved on the laughable ground the engines were widely used for civilian purposes all over the world.
Like it or not, say the Europeans, China is headed for superpowerdom in the foreseeable future. Its human-rights record, while still poor, has improved immeasurably since the Tiananmen Square massacre June 4, 1989. The Chinese government doesn't bother anyone who wants to make a fortune in business so long as they keep their nose out of politics. And China has become a global economic behemoth. There is little doubt China will use some of its $200 billion in U.S. Treasury paper to buy the wherewithal to become strong enough to overwhelm Taiwan in a showdown.
The last major crisis between China and what it considers its wayward province came on President Clinton's watch in 1996. As volleys of Chinese missiles plunged into the sea near Taiwan, Mr. Clinton quickly dispatched two carriers to the region. Today, say Pentagon war planners, carriers wouldn't scare Beijing the way they did then. China now has the latest Russian submarine torpedoes that can arc around a carrier, attack from the stern and knock out its giant propellers.
What the Chinese want from European defense industries are the electronics for command and control, as well as communications and surveillance, to achieve command of a modern battle space, the way the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Bush may decide to look the other way to avoid a row with the EU. But Congress has already blown the whistle.
The House recently voted 411-3 to warn the EU if it lifts the arms embargo on China, the U.S. will halt technology transfers to Europe. The Senate will follow suit shortly. The Europeans are now drawing up a list of American "civilian" technology transfers they say have added muscle to China's military girth. Score one for rapprochement between the EU and China.
It is yet to dawn on U.S. gatekeepers that 6.7 percent of Chinese defense imports come from the United States and only 2.7 percent from Europe. Humvees are mass-produced in China for the People's Liberation Army. Rolls Royce engines are in some Chinese fighter-bombers. Russia gets most of China's $15 billion defense market.
On the third front — Russia's democracy deficit — cooler heads prevailed, presumably remembering when the Soviet empire imploded in 1991, U.S. advice to the new Russia was to go cold turkey into market economics and democratic politics. The ensuing chaos lasted 10 years. Russia was stripped of $200 billion, assets transferred to the foreign bank accounts of a new class of bandit capitalists. Under Boris Yeltsin, prime ministers came and went, much the way they did in France between the end of World War II and 1958, when Gen. Charles de Gaulle returned to power.
De Gaulle shed France's colonial empire in North Africa and sub-Sahara Africa, dodged assassination attempts, kicked NATO out of France, created a new constitution, and gave France a new lease on life. During the 11 years he governed France, he was half autocrat, half democrat. De Gaulle is Mr. Putin's role model. Putin is half czar, half democrat. Like de Gaulle, who was saddled with a war in Algeria, then part of metropolitan France, Mr. Putin has Chechnya.
Democracy, as understood in Washington, is not on Mr. Putin's agenda. Nor could it be after 1,000 years of authoritarian rule, including 70 years of totalitarian communism. Strong leaders invariably get the nod in Russian public opinion surveys. The score: a draw.
Mercifully, Mr. Putin and President Bush focused instead on the survival of civilization — combating nuclear terrorism. Russia still has thousands of nukes, some of them still loose, and scores of still insecure nuclear materials storage facilities. Ten billion dollars has been spent in 10 years under Nunn-Lugar legislation to foil would-be terrorists seeking to acquire Russian nuclear knowhow. Another $20 billion — half from EU and Japan — has been committed to finish the job by 2010.
CIA Director Porter J. Goss recently testified terrorists "have targeted nuclear weapons storage sites." Former Georgia Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn believes it would be a miracle if leakage has not already occurred. Score: Still playing.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

 
The US could use a little of this!

ThisisLondon

This is
LONDON
02/03/05 - News and city section

BBC told to quit ratings war
By Alexa Baracaia Media Correspondent, Evening Standard

The BBC must ditch its obsession with winning the TV ratings battle and focus on high-quality public service programming. Tough new rules will mean that instead of "copycat" entertainment and makeover series - designed to compete with commercial rivals - every one of the corporation's television channels and radio stations must fulfil its obligation to screen more peak-time documentaries, original drama and comedy, current affairs and arts-related shows.

The proposals come in a Green Paper on the BBC's future Royal Charter obligations. In effect, it will lay out a " mission statement" for the corporation that is far more explicit than any BBC Royal Charter to date.

Sources close to Whitehall say the BBC will also be warned that it can no longer sidestep its public-service remit by "burying" high-quality programmes on specialist digital channels such as BBC4, showing them out of peak viewing hours or even by putting them on BBC2 rather than BBC1.

The Green Paper drawn up by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport will be unveiled to MPs by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.

It will guarantee the BBC continues to be funded by the licence fee for the next decade - but will include a "lengthy list of quid pro quos" the corporation must meet in return.

"The BBC is unique in terms of quality and uniquely privileged in that there is, in effect, a state tax - the licence fee - to pay for it," one insider told the Standard. "The paper will lay out expectations in terms of quality of programming, and there will be a clear directive that the BBC should not assume that it should be competing for ratings.

"Until now there has been a very loose definition of what public service is. This Green Paper will be explicit about what is expected." BBC bosses will be issued with a warning that "striving for ratings for ratings' sake is not a public-service purpose".

Under the current system, the BBC as a whole is expected to meet certain programming standards. In future each one of its channels and radio stations worldwide will have to prove it is complying with that remit individually.

"It's not an attempt to strip the different channels of their individuality," insisted one insider. "BBC1 will still have a different profile to BBC2 or

BBC3. But the corporation will not be allowed to shove all arts coverage onto BBC4.

"Similarly, it will not be allowed to shovel all its documentaries into BBC2 slots. This also applies to peak and nonpeak schedules - the BBC will not be able to shove out high-quality stuff at 2am and claim this means it's met its public-service obligations."

The new proposals sit broadly in line with the vision outlined by BBC director-general Mark Thompson - but they are engineered to ensure he can turn them into reality.

Last December, announcing a major overhaul along with ?320million of budget cuts, Mr Thompson said he wanted end to peak-time repeats and makeover shows. The Green Paper will enshrine those aims in the Royal Charter.

The proposals do not spell the end for popular entertainment on the BBC. Original shows such as Strictly Come Dancing will stay.

But others such as Fame Academy will be blasted as derivative programmes aimed purely at "spoiling" rival commercial channels' viewing figures.

"Competitive scheduling for no purpose but the battle for ratings will not be tolerated," one industry insider added.

Government sources, however, insist that the BBC itself will be able to decide exactly how it meets its obligations. Other proposals to be contained in the Green Paper include a radical "third way" of running the BBC, details of which will be unveiled this afternoon.

Ms Jowell is expected to rule out both keeping the status quo and the option recommended in a report by Lord Burns - scrapping the Board of Governors and replacing it with a new Public Service Broadcasting Commission.

Instead, Whitehall insiders say, there will be "tough" new proposals to ensure the governance of the BBC is kept separate from its management and fully transparent to licence-fee payers.

It is believed the current governors will be replaced by a new independent board of trustees, responsible for ensuring the BBC sticks to its new remit. It will not be involved, however, in its day-today operations.

"There will be very firm proposals on governance," said one government insider. "We've got something quite substantial to say.

"If you want all the privileges of the BBC, for an organisation that size you have to have a very tough, very transparent form of governance-It has been speculated that the only alternatives are stick with what we've got, or what Lord Burns has suggested. But they are not the only alternatives.

"It's fair to say that people will be surprised because the presumption has been there are only two ways to skin a cat."

But after five years there will be a review of progress in implementing the new Royal Charter.

The BBC's licence fee will be guaranteed for the next decade, and the option of "top-slicing" that funding for commercial rivals will not be considered for the " foreseeable future".

"We want the BBC to play a big part in the analogue-to-digital switchover from around 2012 so stability is a vital prerequisite," said one senior source.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Find this story at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16974173?version=1
©2005 Associated New Media

 
Some in U.S. voting with their feet: printer friendly version

Some in U.S. voting with their feet
By Rick Lyman The New York Times
Monday, February 7, 2005


VANCOUVER, British Columbia Christopher Key knows exactly what he would be giving up if he left Bellingham, Washington.

"It's the sort of place Norman Rockwell would paint, where everyone watches out for everyone else and we have block parties every year," said Key, a 56-year-old Vietnam War veteran and former magazine editor who lists Francis Scott Key, who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner," among his ancestors.

But leave it he intends to do, and as soon as he can. His house is on the market, and he is busily seeking work across the border in Canada. For him, the re-election of George W. Bush was the last straw.

"I love the United States," he said as he stood on the Vancouver waterfront, staring toward the Coastal Range, which was lost in a gray shroud. "I fought for it in Vietnam. It's a wrenching decision to think about leaving. But America is turning into a country very different from the one I grew up believing in."

In the Niagara of liberal angst just after Bush's victory on Nov. 2, the Canadian government's immigration Web site reported a surge in inquiries from the United States, to about 115,000 a day from 20,000.

After three months, memories of the election have begun to recede. There has been an inauguration, even a State of the Union address.

Yet immigration lawyers say that Americans are not just making inquiries and that more are pursuing a move above the 49th parallel, fed up with a country they see drifting persistently to the right and abandoning the principles of tolerance, compassion and peaceful idealism they felt once defined the nation.

America is in no danger of emptying out. But even a small loss of population, many from a deep sense of political despair, is a significant event in the life of a nation that thinks of itself as a place to escape to. Firm numbers on potential immigrants are elusive.

"The number of U.S. citizens who are actually submitting Canadian immigration papers and making concrete plans is about three or four times higher than normal," said Linda Mark, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver.

Other immigration lawyers in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia, said they had noticed a similar uptick, though most put the rise at closer to threefold.

"We're still not talking about a huge movement of people," said David Cohen, an immigration lawyer in Montreal. "In 2003, the last year where full statistics are available, there were something like 6,000 U.S. citizens who received permanent resident status in Canada. So even if we do go up threefold this year, we're only talking about 18,000 people."

Still, that is more than double the population of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. "For every one who reacts to the Bush victory by moving to a new country, how many others are there still in America, feeling similarly disaffected but not quite willing to take such a drastic step?" Cohen asked.

Melanie Redman, 30, assistant director of the Epilepsy Foundation in Seattle, said she had put her Volvo up for sale and hopes to be living in Toronto by the summer. She and her Canadian boyfriend, a Web site designer for Canadian nonprofit companies, had been planning to move to New York, but after Nov.2, they decided on Canada instead.

"I'm doing it," she said. "I don't want to participate in what this administration is doing here and around the world. Under Bush, the U.S. seems to be leading the pack as the world spirals down."

Redman intends to apply for a conjugal visa, which can be easier to get than the skilled worker visa that most Americans require. To do so, she must prove she and her boyfriend have had a relationship for at least a year, so she has collected supporting paperwork, like love letters, to present to the Canadian government.

"I'm originally from a poor, lead-mining town in Missouri, and I know a lot of the people there don't understand why I'm doing this," she said. "Even my family is pretty disappointed. And the fact is, it makes me pretty sad, too. But I just can't bear to pay taxes in the United States right now."

Compared with the other potential immigrants interviewed, Redman was far along in planning.

Mike Aves, 40, a financial planner in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has been active in the Young Democrats, said he was finding it almost impossible from that distance to land a job in Canada. "I've told my wife, I'd be willing to take a step down, socioeconomically, to move from white-collar work to a blue-collar job, if it would get us to Canada," he said.

Many of those interviewed said the idea of moving to Canada had been simmering in the backs of their minds for years, partly as a reaction to what they saw as a rightward drift in the United States and partly as a desire to live in a place they see as more tolerant, pacific and, yes, liberal. But for all, the re-election of Bush was decisive.

"Not everybody is prepared to live their political values, but these are people who are," said Jason Mogus, an Internet entrepreneur in Vancouver whose communicopia.net offers marketing services for progressive companies and nonprofit groups, and whose canadianalternative.com is often the first stop for Americans eager to learn about moving north.

"Immigration to Canada is not like packing your family in a car and moving across the state line," Mogus said. "It's a long process. It can take 18 months or even longer sometimes. And if you hire a lawyer to help you, it can cost thousands of dollars."

So Mogus said the response to the Web site, from all over the United States, had amazed him. Some are drawn by Canada's more tolerant attitude toward same-sex unions, he said, and there are a surprising number of middle-aged professionals.

"My wife and I have talked for a long time about perhaps retiring to a condo in downtown Vancouver," said Frederick Newmeyer, 61, a professor of linguistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. "But the election was the tipping point."

 
What great leaders we have here......

Yahoo! News - Marine General Counseled Over Comments

WASHINGTON - A Marine Corps general with battle awards is being counseled to watch his words more carefully after publicly observing that "it's fun to shoot some people."

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, a career infantry officer now in charge of developing ways to better train and equip Marines, also made fun of the manhood of Afghans during comments Tuesday while speaking at a forum in San Diego.

On Thursday, Gen. Mike Hagee, the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, issued a statement of regret about Mattis' remarks, saying they reflected "the unfortunate and harsh realities of war."

According to an audio recording, Mattis had said, "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. ... It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

He added, "You go into Afghanistan (news - web sites), you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

His comments evoked laughter and applause from the audience. Mattis was speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, a spokeswoman for the general said.

Gen. Hagee's statement said, "Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor. I have counseled him concerning his remarks and he agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully."

"While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war," Hagee's statement added.

Among Marines, Mattis is regarded as a fighting general and an expert in the art of warfare. Among his decorations are the Bronze Star with a combat distinguishing device and a combat action ribbon, awarded for close-quarters fighting.

He is currently the commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and deputy commandant for combat development.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was up to Mattis to address his own comments, but he added, "All of us who are leaders have a responsibility in our words and our actions to provide the right example all the time for those who look to us for leadership."

Pace spoke to a Pentagon (news - web sites) press conference. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he had not read Mattis' words and deferred to Pace.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties group, called on the Pentagon to discipline Mattis for the remarks.

"We do not need generals who treat the grim business of war as a sporting event," said the council's executive director, Nihad Awad. "These disturbing remarks are indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life."

 
So much for freedom of speech. I guess the new rule is "you can say anything you want, as long as you don't say the truth if it makes us look bad."

I don't know about the little Eichmans but the part about American abuses abroad is totally true. Americans are so ignorant when they say it was unprovoked.

Yahoo! News - School May Fire Professor for 9/11 Comment

School May Fire Professor for 9/11 Comment

Thu Feb 3,10:11 PM ET

By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer

AURORA, Colo. - University of Colorado administrators Thursday took the first steps toward a possible dismissal of a professor who likened World Trade Center victims to a notorious Nazi.

Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano ordered a 30-day review of Ward Churchill's speeches and writings to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.

Also Thursday, the Board of Regents issued an apology for Churchill's remarks at a meeting and voted to support the university's review of Churchill.

The raucous meeting drew dozens of protesters who back Churchill; at least two were arrested for disrupting the meeting and another was led away in handcuffs.

The regents refused to take public comment at their meeting, prompting an outcry from some of the 35 students who carried signs reading, "Protect academic freedom" and "Witch hunt." About a dozen professors also attended.

"I wish the regents had agreed to take some public comments," said law professor Barbara Bintliff, chairwoman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly. "Discussion and debate is what a university is all about."

Gov. Bill Owens issued a written statement saying he deplored the behavior of some of the students at the meeting, and that their behavior underscored the "culture of violence" that can be spawned by essays such as Churchill's.

Owens has called for Churchill's firing.

The furor erupted last month after Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Campus officials discovered an essay and follow-up book by Churchill in which he said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a response to a history of American abuses abroad, particularly against indigenous peoples.

Among other things, he said those killed in the trade center were "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Jews. The college canceled Churchill's appearance, citing death threats and concerns about security.

University officials have previously condemned Churchill's comments but defended his right to express them. University President Elizabeth Hoffman declined to comment Thursday on Churchill's future.

Churchill, whose pickup truck was vandalized with swastikas in front of his Boulder home sometime late Tuesday, has promised to sue the school if he is removed.

Earlier Thursday, the state Senate passed a resolution denouncing Churchill's comments as "evil and inflammatory." The nonbinding resolution was identical to one passed Wednesday by the House.

Democratic state Sen. Peter Groff cast the lone "no" vote, saying he disagreed with Churchill but that the resolution provides him with undeserved attention and attacks free speech.

 
So much for freedom of speech. I guess the new rule is "you can say anything you want, as long as you don't say the truth if it makes us look bad."

I don't know about the little Eichmans but the part about American abuses abroad is totally true. Americans are so ignorant when they say it was unprovoked.

Yahoo! News - School May Fire Professor for 9/11 Comment

School May Fire Professor for 9/11 Comment

Thu Feb 3,10:11 PM ET

By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer

AURORA, Colo. - University of Colorado administrators Thursday took the first steps toward a possible dismissal of a professor who likened World Trade Center victims to a notorious Nazi.

Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano ordered a 30-day review of Ward Churchill's speeches and writings to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.

Also Thursday, the Board of Regents issued an apology for Churchill's remarks at a meeting and voted to support the university's review of Churchill.

The raucous meeting drew dozens of protesters who back Churchill; at least two were arrested for disrupting the meeting and another was led away in handcuffs.

The regents refused to take public comment at their meeting, prompting an outcry from some of the 35 students who carried signs reading, "Protect academic freedom" and "Witch hunt." About a dozen professors also attended.

"I wish the regents had agreed to take some public comments," said law professor Barbara Bintliff, chairwoman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly. "Discussion and debate is what a university is all about."

Gov. Bill Owens issued a written statement saying he deplored the behavior of some of the students at the meeting, and that their behavior underscored the "culture of violence" that can be spawned by essays such as Churchill's.

Owens has called for Churchill's firing.

The furor erupted last month after Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Campus officials discovered an essay and follow-up book by Churchill in which he said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a response to a history of American abuses abroad, particularly against indigenous peoples.

Among other things, he said those killed in the trade center were "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Jews. The college canceled Churchill's appearance, citing death threats and concerns about security.

University officials have previously condemned Churchill's comments but defended his right to express them. University President Elizabeth Hoffman declined to comment Thursday on Churchill's future.

Churchill, whose pickup truck was vandalized with swastikas in front of his Boulder home sometime late Tuesday, has promised to sue the school if he is removed.

Earlier Thursday, the state Senate passed a resolution denouncing Churchill's comments as "evil and inflammatory." The nonbinding resolution was identical to one passed Wednesday by the House.

Democratic state Sen. Peter Groff cast the lone "no" vote, saying he disagreed with Churchill but that the resolution provides him with undeserved attention and attacks free speech.

 
Wanna talk about hypocrites?

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Why Should We Shield the Killers?

February 2, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Why Should We Shield the Killers?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

wo weeks ago, President Bush gave an impassioned speech to the world about the need to stand for human freedom.

But this week, administration officials are skulking in the corridors of the United Nations, trying desperately to block a prosecution of Sudanese officials for crimes against humanity.

It's not that Mr. Bush sympathizes with the slaughter in Darfur. In fact, I take my hat off to Mr. Bush for doing more than most other world leaders to address ethnic cleansing there - even if it's not nearly enough. Mr. Bush has certainly done far more than Bill Clinton did during the Rwandan genocide.

But Mr. Bush's sympathy for Sudanese parents who are having their children tossed into bonfires shrivels next to his hostility to the organization that the U.N. wants to trust with the prosecution: the International Criminal Court. Administration officials so despise the court that they have become, in effect, the best hope of Sudanese officials seeking to avoid accountability for what Mr. Bush himself has called genocide.

Mr. Bush's worry is that if the International Criminal Court is legitimized, American officials could someday be dragged before it. The court's supporters counter that safeguards make that impossible. Reasonable people can differ about the court, but for Mr. Bush to put his ideological opposition to it over the welfare of the 10,000 people still dying every month in Darfur - that's just madness.

The issue arises partly because the Bush administration, to its credit, pushed the U.N. to investigate Darfur and to seek accountability for the killers. The result was a U.N. commission's 176-page report, released this week, that documents a series of crimes against humanity: people in Darfur crucified or thrown into fires, victims having their eyes gouged out or being dragged on the ground by camels, women and girls kept naked in rape camps, huts burned with children inside, and women forced to hand over their baby sons to be killed.

"It is undeniable that mass killings occurred in Darfur and that the killings were perpetrated by the government forces" and by a government-sponsored militia, the report said.

The U.N. commission then pulled its punches by concluding that Sudan had not pursued a deliberate policy of genocide - but it added: "The crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide." As a result, the commission "strongly recommends" that the Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for prosecution, saying that is "the only credible way of bringing alleged perpetrators to justice."

At a practical level, it's also a way to pressure Sudan's leaders to stop a campaign of terror in Darfur that has already claimed at least 218,000 lives, according to a new British study.

Prosecution by the International Criminal Court has strong European support, but the Bush administration is aghast and desperately suggests prosecution instead by a court associated with the war crimes tribunal for Rwanda. Alas, that tribunal could take another year and 120,000 more deaths to start a Darfur prosecution.

"The I.C.C. could start tomorrow saving lives," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. "With the Rwanda tribunal route, you're talking about another year of killing."

The Bush administration is also struggling to find other Security Council members who would join it in voting against the referral to the International Criminal Court. I hope other countries stand firm, because my conversations with diplomats suggest that if the U.S. stood alone in opposition, the Bush administration would be too ashamed to exercise its veto and might abstain instead.

Kofi Annan called this week for consideration of sanctions against Sudan, and his voice as a leading African carries particular weight with that country's leaders. So, Mr. Bush, what about you? Will you push harder for a coalition for sanctions - forcing China to veto them if it so chooses? Will you impose a no-fly zone to stop Sudan's air force from strafing civilians?

After reading a report on Bill Clinton's passivity during the Rwandan genocide, Mr. Bush scrawled in the margin: "not on my watch." Now the Save Darfur Coalition (www.savedarfur.org) has made green plastic bracelets reading, "Not on My Watch - Save Darfur." Mr. Bush might wear one to his State of the Union address tonight - and find the courage not just to denounce evil, but also to confront it.

 
My Way News

Kennedy Calls for Troop Withdrawal in Iraq

Jan 27, 11:56 AM (ET)

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) - The American military's continued presence in Iraq is fanning the flames of conflict, and signals the need for a new detailed timeline to bring the troops home, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Thursday.

Just three days before the Iraqi people go to the polls to elect a new government, the Massachusetts Democrat said America must give Iraq back to its people rather than continue an occupation that parallels the failed politics of the Vietnam war.

"The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution," Kennedy said in remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."

While not the first member of Congress to call for a withdrawal of the troops, Kennedy is the first senator to do so. And his remarks continued what has been a long and blistering assault on the administration's Iraq policies.

Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones criticized Kennedy's timing.

"Its remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election," said Jones. "Kennedy's partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush's vision of spreading freedom around the world."

He has called the war a "fraud made up in Texas," and said the administration misled the people about the threats leading up to the war.

Now, Kennedy said, the United States and the insurgents are both battling for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and the U.S. is losing.

"There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course," said Kennedy. "It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin."

Administration officials have so far declined to discuss a timeline for troop withdrawal, saying the goal is to ensure the Iraqis are capable of maintaining their own security before military forces are scaled back.

Kennedy, who has called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam," drew parallels between that failed conflict and the current deadly battle against guerrilla insurgents. He said the United States must learn from the mistakes of Vietnam - which he termed a misguided war that carried on too long and was not honestly portrayed by officials to the American people.

Kennedy said the first goal in the current situation should be for the United Nations - not the United States - to convene an international meeting to help the new government take shape and draft a constitution.

 
Their only buddy is dissing them!

Newsday.com: Blair: U.S. Needs to Integrate With World
Blair: U.S. Needs to Integrate With World




By ROBERT WIELAARD
Associated Press Writer

January 26, 2005, 1:42 PM EST

DAVOS, Switzerland -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the United States Wednesday to take the world's needs into account when it seeks global support for its actions, and cited climate change as an issue all nations must address together.

"If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda, too," Blair told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

Blair pledged to help developing countries reduce pollution and build more environmentally friendly economies.

Blair called for a common agenda worldwide, at the top of which would be cooperation in the fight against terrorism. He also urged that the world's countries protect human rights and freedom and "when we can, seek to increase the number of people able to live in democracy."

He dismissed claims that the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was trying to foist Western-style government on the country in this weekend's Iraqi elections.

"The notion of democracy being a 'Western idea' is a nonsense and mythology as most recently the people of Afghanistan have powerfully demonstrated," he said.
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press

 
DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005?
TED TURNER COMPARES FOXNEWS TO HITLER
Tue Jan 25 2005 15:53:55 ET

Ted Turner called FOX an arm of the Bush administration and compared FOXNEWS's popularity to Hitler's popular election to run Germany before WWII.

Turner made the controversial comments in Las Vegas before a standing-room-only crowd at the National Association for Television Programming Executives's opening session.

His no-nonsense, humorous approach during the one-hour Q&A generated frequent loud applause and laughter, BROADCASTING & CABLE reports.

While FOX may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN], it's not the best, Turner said.

He followed up by pointing out that Adolf Hitler got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to WWII. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration.

"There's nothing wrong with that. It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down," leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff," he said.

A FOXNEWS spokesperson responded: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind -- we wish him well."

In 1996, Turner apologized to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for comments he made comparing FOX head Rupert Murdoch to Hitler.

Developing...

 
What a religious zealot freak! Bush is no different from the Ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq. "We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom, and America will always be faithful to that cause.
"
President Thanks Military, Guests at 'Celebration of Freedom' Concert

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. (Applause.) Thank you all for coming. (Applause.) Thanks for being out here in the cold. You know, I was realizing there is -- you know, no night is too cold to celebrate freedom. (Applause.)

Mr. Vice President, thank you for your kind introduction. I thank you and Lynne for your fine service to the American people. Our nation has never had a finer Vice President. (Applause.) Sorry, Dad. (Laughter.) Our nation has never had a finer First Lady than Laura. (Applause.) Sorry, Mother. (Laughter.)

I'm really proud that much of my family is with me tonight and will be there tomorrow. I'm really so happy my Dad and Mom are with us. (Applause.)

Appreciate the members of the Cabinet who are here, members of Congress, members of the Armed Forces. (Applause.) How about the Apollo astronauts? I can't thank them enough for coming. (Applause.) And I love our entertainers who are here. I want to thank our host, Ryan Seacrest. Thanks for so much, Ryan. You're doing a fine job. I appreciate you being here.

I want to thank all the other entertainers who have come tonight. It means so much to Laura and me, and I hope it means a lot to you, that they have taken time out of their busy schedules to entertain you and to kick off this inauguration.

I really thank you all for coming. Many of you have traveled a long way. What you're doing is you're taking a part in a great tradition of hope and renewal in our Nation's Capitol. And we are really glad you are here. (Applause.)

An inauguration is a time of unity for our country. With the campaign behind us, Americans lift up our sights to the years ahead and to the great goals we will achieve for our country. I am eager and ready for the work ahead. (Applause.) And I know that this office carries a duty to the entire nation. After all, we are one America, and every day that I am your President, I will serve all Americans. (Applause.)

In these four years, we have moved forward as a people. We have faced challenges. We have faced them together. And we've taken up serious tasks at home, as well as abroad. We have grown in appreciation for our freedom, and we have grown in appreciation for the men and women who defend it. (Applause.)

At this very hour, more than a million of our fellow citizens are standing watch for America. We are grateful to them all. (Applause.) And we are grateful to their families. (Applause.) We pray for our troops; we pray for their families. And on this night, as we celebrate the blessing of liberty, America honors the spirit of service that keeps our nation strong and free.

Tomorrow, I will take an oath and deliver an inaugural address. You'll be pleased to hear I'm not going to deliver it twice. But I will speak about freedom. This is the cause that unites our country and gives hope to the world and will lead us to a future of peace. We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom, and America will always be faithful to that cause.

Thank you for coming. May God bless you -- (applause) -- and may God continue to bless our great nation. Thank you all. (Applause.)

END 6:02 P.M. EST

 
ie: we're above the law...what bullshit!

She also claimed the Geneva Conventions does not apply to individuals associated with Al Qaeda.

Democracy Now! | Rice Refuses to Describe Detainee Abuse at Abu Ghraib As Torture

Wednesday, January 19th, 2005
Rice Refuses to Describe Detainee Abuse at Abu Ghraib As Torture

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Condoleezza Rice refused to describe what occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison as torture at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State. She also claimed the Geneva Conventions does not apply to individuals associated with Al Qaeda. We hear excerpts of the hearing and speak with constitutional lawyer David Cole. [includes rush transcript]
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President Bush's nominee to replace General Colin Powell as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, faced more than 9 1/2 hours of questioning from the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The opening day of her confirmation hearing went well into the night. When it was over, it was just the committee's chair, Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, Condi Rice and Senator John Kerry who was making his first major foray back into his role as a Senator since the November election. It was also Illinois Senator Barack Obama's first major Senate appearance.
Most of the exchanges between Rice and Senators from both political parties were cordial and without many fireworks. There were some moments where Rice faced tough questions on her views on torture and international law, on the administration's claims about alleged weapons of mass destruction in pre-invasion Iraq and on statements she made about Venezuela and its president Hugo Chavez. The main attack dog for the Democrats was California Senator Barbara Boxer. This was interesting given that California's other Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced Rice before the questioning began. Boxer also was the Democratic Senator who signed onto the challenge of the electoral college's certification of President Bush's victory in the election. In a moment, we are going to hear the first exchange between Boxer and Rice talking about the administration's justification for the invasion of Iraq, but first this is Boxer questioning Rice about torture.

 
The New York Times > International > Europe > Rancor in the U.S. Ranks: U.S. Military Personnel Growing Critical of the War in Iraq

January 17, 2005
RANCOR IN THE U.S. RANKS
U.S. Military Personnel Growing Critical of the War in Iraq
By GEORG MASCOLO and SIEGESMUND VON ILSEMANN,
Der Spiegel

US military officials are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the war in Iraq, telling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that more troops are needed to prevail over the insurgents. Moreover, recruitment is down and more reservists and members of the National Guard are being sent to Baghdad.

The war is over, at least as far as Darrell Anderson is concerned. Anderson, a 22-year-old GI from Lexington, Kentucky, deserted a week ago, heading across the US' loosely controlled border with Canada. When his fellow soldiers in the First US Tank Division, stationed in Hessen, Germany, ship out to Iraq for their second tour of duty, he'll be in Canada.

Anderson spent seven months in Iraq last year as a part of a unit assigned the dangerous mission of guarding police stations in Baghdad. He was wounded by grenade shrapnel during an insurgent attack, was awarded the Purple Heart and allowed to spend Christmas at home in the United States. But instead of returning to duty, Anderson fled to Toronto.

Now he's a deserter and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. If apprehended, he faces several years in a US military prison. In justifying his desertion, Anderson says: "I can't go back to this war. I don't want to kill innocent people." He talks about the constant pressure soldiers face to make decisions in the daily grind of war. Once, when a car came too close to their Baghdad checkpoint, his commanding officer ordered him to shoot, even though Anderson could only make out a man and children in the vehicle. The soldier refused. "Next time you shoot," his commanding officer barked.

On another occasion, the safety on his automatic weapon was all that prevented Anderson from losing control. "I was holding a heavily injured comrade in my arms, there was blood all over the place, and Iraqis were cheering all around us," he recalls. "I was so furious that all I wanted to do was kill someone, anyone."

Anderson has now applied for political asylum in Canada. His attorney, Jeffry House, was once one of the 50,000 draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Deserters who are now fleeing to Canada to avoid the Iraq war have reawakened memories of an exodus that took place more than thirty years ago. House says: "Every day I get calls from at least two soldiers looking for a way out."

Revolt no longer Rare

Deserting US recruits -- once a rarity -- are not alone in their search. Three months after being reelected and immediately prior to what is expected to be a triumphant inaugural party to mark the start of his second term, US President George W. Bush will be hard-pressed not to reevaluate the strategy for the deployment of US troops in Iraq. He faces massive doubts among the members of his own military, who are becoming increasingly vocal in their opinion that the US war with Iraqi insurgents is being conducted with insufficient manpower and equipment. Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, warns that his troops in Iraq have "deteriorated into a broken force."

A revolt seems to be taking place within the ranks. Even though daily bomb attacks in Iraq and the latest death toll of 1,361 US soldiers have yet to trigger any significant reversal in US public opinion, and even though President Bush reiterated last week that the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein, Bush's soldiers and officers seem increasingly convinced that the opposite is true. Almost without warning, America's armed forces, superior to any of the world's other militaries but faced with severe personnel shortages, are suddenly encountering almost insurmountable obstacles -- politically, strategically and financially.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld particularly faces growing criticism. In light of the disastrous situation on the ground in Iraq, even fellow Republicans are quietly demanding his removal and calling for a change in strategy. Rumsfeld bears the brunt of the blame for the precarious situation in which the US military now finds itself. The Iraq war has cost US taxpayers more than $150 billion to date, with the Pentagon spending $4.5 billion a month on its campaign in Iraq.

And there appears to be no end in sight, at least for the time being. Rumsfeld, in an attempt to boost morale among his frustrated troops, has said that he expects the Americans to withdraw from Iraq within his second four-year term as Secretary of Defense. However, only the most optimistic of the president's closest advisors believe that the situation in Iraq will improve in the wake of the January 30 elections.

Retired general D. Brent Scowcraft, national security advisor under the first President Bush, sees the election as providing nothing but "substantial potential for expanding the conflict." Last week, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, openly admitted that regular elections are no longer a likely scenario in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. Because a quarter of the Iraqi population lives in these provinces, the question arises as to how meaningful this election, now called into jeopardy by increasingly violent attacks, can be.

Even though the 125,000-strong Iraq security forces are not even remotely capable of keeping the peace in their own country, politicians in Washington have already begun debating the possibility of a withdrawal of US forces. During Congress' Christmas recess, many lawmakers were forced to respond to questions from their constituents who wanted at least some indication of whether there is an end in sight to the US' bloody adventure in Iraq. Last week, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell confessed that he hopes the withdrawal will get underway this year.

Retired four-star general Gary Luck has been sent to Iraq to determine how and how quickly the United States can withdraw from the Iraqi conflict without losing face. Within a few weeks, he is expected to provide Rumsfeld with an unfiltered assessment of the current situation and of the overall US Iraq strategy. According to retired general Sir Michael Rose, the well-respected former commander of Britain's contingent of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, "the Americans' current strategy clearly isn't working."

Recruitment Getting Tougher

The Pentagon's original plans called for the withdrawal of US forces by September 2003. After that, a small protective force was to remain behind to guaranty security in postwar Iraq. Until now, however, only US allies have withdrawn their troops, including Ukraine, which announced its plans to withdraw just last week.

The increasingly heated debate in the United States over withdrawal from Iraq is being fueled by the fact that US forces stationed in and around Baghdad have long since ceased to consist entirely of professional military personnel. 40 percent of the 150,000 US troops in Iraq are army reservists or members of the National Guard. These troops, whose service normally consists of occasional weekend drills and yearly exercises, are people who have long since turned to other more or less successful careers. Now, they have been forced to temporarily abandon those careers to serve in Iraq, an obligation hardly any of these part-time soldiers had expected.

As a result, both the Army Reserves and National Guard are having trouble recruiting new members. "It's the mothers who are warning their kids about going to war," complains Sergeant Kevin Hudgins, a Tennessee recruiter. "In the past, the kids saw it as an easy way to pay for college," says Curtis Mills, a veteran who was severely wounded in Iraq. The National Guard is currently 30 percent shy of its recruitment goals. To make up for the difference, it is introducing an incentive system under which new recruits will receive up to $10,000 to join the National Guard.

Indignation is growing, especially among reservists once derided as weekend warriors. Although national guardsmen and reservists are generally assigned to support positions, their jobs as mechanics, drivers and cooks are also dangerous, as demonstrated by last month's suicide attack on a military mess hall near the Iraqi city of Mosul.

National Guard commander Steven Blum has asked the Pentagon for $20 billion, with the bulk of the requested funds earmarked for re-outfitting his troops, who were previously treated as second-class soldiers when it came to equipment. "I would have felt safer in a Volvo than in our Humvee," complains Richard Murphy, who was compelled to serve for 15 months in Iraq. In Alabama, veterans and schoolchildren even forged home-made armor to protect jeeps when their local National Guard troop was given its marching orders.

The regular armed forces will also find their patriotism severely tested in coming months as the Pentagon uses every trick it knows to extend tours of duty by up to one year. A new rule, for example, prohibits soldiers from leaving the service if their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq within three months' time.

How Can Security Be Improved?

Proposals being considered to improve the security situation in Iraq also show signs of desperation. For the first time, regular soldiers are being offered training to fight insurgents. Until now, such special training was reserved for members of the elite forces and for marine infantry troops. Part of the training includes a marines' training manual written in 1940. Some is helpful, but parts are completely antiquated. For instance, there is a section labeled "working with animals," (mules, mostly) and another on "mixed-race" companies. According to the manual, such companies are unusually "unmanageable due to a lack of strong character."

Models that have long since been discarded as failures are hectically being revived. For example, US military advisors are to be embedded as supervisors and support personnel within units of the new Iraqi army, who have the dubious but well-deserved reputation of fleeing the minute they come under fire.

Precisely the same recipe was incapable of stopping the Vietnam debacle 40 years ago. Military officials are also talking about forming death squads, whose job would be to track down and eliminate the insurgents within the territory they control or to which they normally withdraw. This would include foreign territory beyond the borders of Iraq. It's a strategy that was largely discredited during civil wars in Latin American in the 1970s.

These experiences have led military personnel in particular to call for a rethinking of Washington's strategy. The Pentagon's civilian leadership has not been faced with so much criticism from within its own ranks since the Vietnam War. Retired general D. Barry McCaffrey is even concerned that "the army will lose its base in the next 24 months." General Peter Schoomaker, the current Chief of Staff of the US Army, has already warned Congress against drastic consequences, saying that "it may be necessary to augment the regular armed forces," something that Rumsfeld wants to avoid at all costs, mainly for budgetary reasons.

To maintain a security force of 150,000 troops in Iraq in the longer term, the United States will in fact need three times as many soldiers. According to military planners, a third of these troops would be preparing for deployment, a third would actually be deployed, and a third would be involved in post-deployment work or on vacation.

This approach would thus require 450,000 troops to be available for Iraq at all times. However, the entire US armed forces, which would provide the lion's share of this military force, currently comprises only 500,000 troops. It's mainly because of these anticipated personnel needs that US military commanders are opposed to Rumsfeld's pet project -- converting the US armed forces into a relatively small but highly mobile high-tech commando force designed for lightning missions throughout the world. Military commanders argue that although this concept may have ensured the US a rapid initial victory over Iraq, it cannot guarantee peace in Iraq.

But it is precisely the military's desire for more troops that could unleash a public debate over the reintroduction of compulsory military service -- a discussion that no Washington politician of any stripe truly wants to tackle. The threat of a general draft could trigger a massive exodus to Canada which, until now, has only been an option occasionally resorted to by American opponents of the war. But even the few deserters that have already fled have put the Canadian government into an embarrassing bind.

Until now, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has responded evasively to asylum requests filed by US soldiers. "We are a nation of immigrants and I have no intention of discriminating against anyone," he explained. But even though the Iraq war is as unpopular in Canada as US President George W. Bush himself, Martin knows full well that Washington would view Canada's granting asylum to GIs from south of the border as an open insult.


Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

 
The New Yorker

Iran, the next war?



January 20, 2005 | home





THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17
George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush’s reëlection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America’s support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing.

“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”

Bush and Cheney may have set the policy, but it is Rumsfeld who has directed its implementation and has absorbed much of the public criticism when things went wrong—whether it was prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib or lack of sufficient armor plating for G.I.s’ vehicles in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for Rumsfeld’s dismissal, and he is not widely admired inside the military. Nonetheless, his reappointment as Defense Secretary was never in doubt.

Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term. In interviews with past and present intelligence and military officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld’s responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon’s control. The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) “The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “They don’t even call it ‘covert ops’—it’s too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it’s ‘black reconnaissance.’ They’re not even going to tell the cincs”—the regional American military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. “Everyone is saying, ‘You can’t be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,’” the former intelligence official told me. “But they say, ‘We’ve got some lessons learned—not militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of there.”



For more than a year, France, Germany, Britain, and other countries in the European Union have seen preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as a race against time—and against the Bush Administration. They have been negotiating with the Iranian leadership to give up its nuclear-weapons ambitions in exchange for economic aid and trade benefits. Iran has agreed to temporarily halt its enrichment programs, which generate fuel for nuclear power plants but also could produce weapons-grade fissile material. (Iran claims that such facilities are legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or N.P.T., to which it is a signator, and that it has no intention of building a bomb.) But the goal of the current round of talks, which began in December in Brussels, is to persuade Tehran to go further, and dismantle its machinery. Iran insists, in return, that it needs to see some concrete benefits from the Europeans—oil-production technology, heavy-industrial equipment, and perhaps even permission to purchase a fleet of Airbuses. (Iran has been denied access to technology and many goods owing to sanctions.)

The Europeans have been urging the Bush Administration to join in these negotiations. The Administration has refused to do so. The civilian leadership in the Pentagon has argued that no diplomatic progress on the Iranian nuclear threat will take place unless there is a credible threat of military action. “The neocons say negotiations are a bad deal,” a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) told me. “And the only thing the Iranians understand is pressure. And that they also need to be whacked.”

The core problem is that Iran has successfully hidden the extent of its nuclear program, and its progress. Many Western intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, believe that Iran is at least three to five years away from a capability to independently produce nuclear warheads—although its work on a missile-delivery system is far more advanced. Iran is also widely believed by Western intelligence agencies and the I.A.E.A. to have serious technical problems with its weapons system, most notably in the production of the hexafluoride gas needed to fabricate nuclear warheads.

A retired senior C.I.A. official, one of many who left the agency recently, told me that he was familiar with the assessments, and confirmed that Iran is known to be having major difficulties in its weapons work. He also acknowledged that the agency’s timetable for a nuclear Iran matches the European estimates—assuming that Iran gets no outside help. “The big wild card for us is that you don’t know who is capable of filling in the missing parts for them,” the recently retired official said. “North Korea? Pakistan? We don’t know what parts are missing.”

One Western diplomat told me that the Europeans believed they were in what he called a “lose-lose position” as long as the United States refuses to get involved. “France, Germany, and the U.K. cannot succeed alone, and everybody knows it,” the diplomat said. “If the U.S. stays outside, we don’t have enough leverage, and our effort will collapse.” The alternative would be to go to the Security Council, but any resolution imposing sanctions would likely be vetoed by China or Russia, and then “the United Nations will be blamed and the Americans will say, ‘The only solution is to bomb.’”

A European Ambassador noted that President Bush is scheduled to visit Europe in February, and that there has been public talk from the White House about improving the President’s relationship with America’s E.U. allies. In that context, the Ambassador told me, “I’m puzzled by the fact that the United States is not helping us in our program. How can Washington maintain its stance without seriously taking into account the weapons issue?”

The Israeli government is, not surprisingly, skeptical of the European approach. Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister, said in an interview last week in Jerusalem,with another New Yorker journalist, “I don’t like what’s happening. We were encouraged at first when the Europeans got involved. For a long time, they thought it was just Israel’s problem. But then they saw that the [Iranian] missiles themselves were longer range and could reach all of Europe, and they became very concerned. Their attitude has been to use the carrot and the stick—but all we see so far is the carrot.” He added, “If they can’t comply, Israel cannot live with Iran having a nuclear bomb.”

In a recent essay, Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (and a supporter of the Administration), articulated the view that force, or the threat of it, was a vital bargaining tool with Iran. Clawson wrote that if Europe wanted coöperation with the Bush Administration it “would do well to remind Iran that the military option remains on the table.” He added that the argument that the European negotiations hinged on Washington looked like “a preëmptive excuse for the likely breakdown of the E.U.-Iranian talks.” In a subsequent conversation with me, Clawson suggested that, if some kind of military action was inevitable, “it would be much more in Israel’s interest—and Washington’s—to take covert action. The style of this Administration is to use overwhelming force—‘shock and awe.’ But we get only one bite of the apple.”

There are many military and diplomatic experts who dispute the notion that military action, on whatever scale, is the right approach. Shahram Chubin, an Iranian scholar who is the director of research at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told me, “It’s a fantasy to think that there’s a good American or Israeli military option in Iran.” He went on, “The Israeli view is that this is an international problem. ‘You do it,’ they say to the West. ‘Otherwise, our Air Force will take care of it.’” In 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, setting its nuclear program back several years. But the situation now is both more complex and more dangerous, Chubin said. The Osirak bombing “drove the Iranian nuclear-weapons program underground, to hardened, dispersed sites,” he said. “You can’t be sure after an attack that you’ll get away with it. The U.S. and Israel would not be certain whether all the sites had been hit, or how quickly they’d be rebuilt. Meanwhile, they’d be waiting for an Iranian counter-attack that could be military or terrorist or diplomatic. Iran has long-range missiles and ties to Hezbollah, which has drones—you can’t begin to think of what they’d do in response.”

Chubin added that Iran could also renounce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It’s better to have them cheating within the system,” he said. “Otherwise, as victims, Iran will walk away from the treaty and inspections while the rest of the world watches the N.P.T. unravel before their eyes.”



The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer. Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected. The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids. “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible,” the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me.

Some of the missions involve extraordinary coöperation. For example, the former high-level intelligence official told me that an American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts. (In 2003, the I.A.E.A. disclosed that Iran had been secretly receiving nuclear technology from Pakistan for more than a decade, and had withheld that information from inspectors.) The American task force, aided by the information from Pakistan, has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations. The task-force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices—known as sniffers—capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs.

Getting such evidence is a pressing concern for the Bush Administration. The former high-level intelligence official told me, “They don’t want to make any W.M.D. intelligence mistakes, as in Iraq. The Republicans can’t have two of those. There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.” The official added that the government of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, has won a high price for its coöperation—American assurance that Pakistan will not have to hand over A. Q. Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, to the I.A.E.A. or to any other international authorities for questioning. For two decades, Khan has been linked to a vast consortium of nuclear-black-market activities. Last year, Musharraf professed to be shocked when Khan, in the face of overwhelming evidence, “confessed” to his activities. A few days later, Musharraf pardoned him, and so far he has refused to allow the I.A.E.A. or American intelligence to interview him. Khan is now said to be living under house arrest in a villa in Islamabad. “It’s a deal—a trade-off,” the former high-level intelligence official explained. “‘Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A. Q. Khan guys go.’ It’s the neoconservatives’ version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the anti-terrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation.”

The agreement comes at a time when Musharraf, according to a former high-level Pakistani diplomat, has authorized the expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons arsenal. “Pakistan still needs parts and supplies, and needs to buy them in the clandestine market,” the former diplomat said. “The U.S. has done nothing to stop it.”

There has also been close, and largely unacknowledged, coöperation with Israel. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon said that the Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. (After Osirak, Iran situated many of its nuclear sites in remote areas of the east, in an attempt to keep them out of striking range of other countries, especially Israel. Distance no longer lends such protection, however: Israel has acquired three submarines capable of launching cruise missiles and has equipped some of its aircraft with additional fuel tanks, putting Israeli F-16I fighters within the range of most Iranian targets.)

“They believe that about three-quarters of the potential targets can be destroyed from the air, and a quarter are too close to population centers, or buried too deep, to be targeted,” the consultant said. Inevitably, he added, some suspicious sites need to be checked out by American or Israeli commando teams—in on-the-ground surveillance—before being targeted.

The Pentagon’s contingency plans for a broader invasion of Iran are also being updated. Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. Updating the plan makes sense, whether or not the Administration intends to act, because the geopolitics of the region have changed dramatically in the last three years. Previously, an American invasion force would have had to enter Iran by sea, by way of the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman; now troops could move in on the ground, from Afghanistan or Iraq. Commando units and other assets could be introduced through new bases in the Central Asian republics.

It is possible that some of the American officials who talk about the need to eliminate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure are doing so as part of a propaganda campaign aimed at pressuring Iran to give up its weapons planning. If so, the signals are not always clear. President Bush, who after 9/11 famously depicted Iran as a member of the “axis of evil,” is now publicly emphasizing the need for diplomacy to run its course. “We don’t have much leverage with the Iranians right now,” the President said at a news conference late last year. “Diplomacy must be the first choice, and always the first choice of an administration trying to solve an issue of . . . nuclear armament. And we’ll continue to press on diplomacy.”

In my interviews over the past two months, I was given a much harsher view. The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act. “We’re not dealing with a set of National Security Council option papers here,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “They’ve already passed that wicket. It’s not if we’re going to do anything against Iran. They’re doing it.”

The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. “Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement,” the consultant told me. “The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse”—like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.

“The idea that an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would produce a popular uprising is extremely illinformed,” said Flynt Leverett, a Middle East scholar who worked on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. “You have to understand that the nuclear ambition in Iran is supported across the political spectrum, and Iranians will perceive attacks on these sites as attacks on their ambitions to be a major regional player and a modern nation that’s technologically sophisticated.” Leverett, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, warned that an American attack, if it takes place, “will produce an Iranian backlash against the United States and a rallying around the regime.”



Rumsfeld planned and lobbied for more than two years before getting Presidential authority, in a series of findings and executive orders, to use military commandos for covert operations. One of his first steps was bureaucratic: to shift control of an undercover unit, known then as the Gray Fox (it has recently been given a new code name), from the Army to the Special Operations Command (socom), in Tampa. Gray Fox was formally assigned to socom in July, 2002, at the instigation of Rumsfeld’s office, which meant that the undercover unit would have a single commander for administration and operational deployment. Then, last fall, Rumsfeld’s ability to deploy the commandos expanded. According to a Pentagon consultant, an Execute Order on the Global War on Terrorism (referred to throughout the government as gwot) was issued at Rumsfeld’s direction. The order specifically authorized the military “to find and finish” terrorist targets, the consultant said. It included a target list that cited Al Qaeda network members, Al Qaeda senior leadership, and other high-value targets. The consultant said that the order had been cleared throughout the national-security bureaucracy in Washington.

In late November, 2004, the Times reported that Bush had set up an interagency group to study whether it “would best serve the nation” to give the Pentagon complete control over the C.I.A.’s own élite paramilitary unit, which has operated covertly in trouble spots around the world for decades. The panel’s conclusions, due in February, are foregone, in the view of many former C.I.A. officers. “It seems like it’s going to happen,” Howard Hart, who was chief of the C.I.A.’s Paramilitary Operations Division before retiring in 1991, told me.

There was other evidence of Pentagon encroachment. Two former C.I.A. clandestine officers, Vince Cannistraro and Philip Giraldi, who publish Intelligence Brief, a newsletter for their business clients, reported last month on the existence of a broad counter-terrorism Presidential finding that permitted the Pentagon “to operate unilaterally in a number of countries where there is a perception of a clear and evident terrorist threat. . . . A number of the countries are friendly to the U.S. and are major trading partners. Most have been cooperating in the war on terrorism.” The two former officers listed some of the countries—Algeria, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Malaysia. (I was subsequently told by the former high-level intelligence official that Tunisia is also on the list.)

Giraldi, who served three years in military intelligence before joining the C.I.A., said that he was troubled by the military’s expanded covert assignment. “I don’t think they can handle the cover,” he told me. “They’ve got to have a different mind-set. They’ve got to handle new roles and get into foreign cultures and learn how other people think. If you’re going into a village and shooting people, it doesn’t matter,” Giraldi added. “But if you’re running operations that involve finesse and sensitivity, the military can’t do it. Which is why these kind of operations were always run out of the agency.” I was told that many Special Operations officers also have serious misgivings.

Rumsfeld and two of his key deputies, Stephen Cambone, the Under-secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, will be part of the chain of command for the new commando operations. Relevant members of the House and Senate intelligence committees have been briefed on the Defense Department’s expanded role in covert affairs, a Pentagon adviser assured me, but he did not know how extensive the briefings had been.

“I’m conflicted about the idea of operating without congressional oversight,” the Pentagon adviser said. “But I’ve been told that there will be oversight down to the specific operation.” A second Pentagon adviser agreed, with a significant caveat. “There are reporting requirements,” he said. “But to execute the finding we don’t have to go back and say, ‘We’re going here and there.’ No nitty-gritty detail and no micromanagement.”

The legal questions about the Pentagon’s right to conduct covert operations without informing Congress have not been resolved. “It’s a very, very gray area,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a West Point graduate who served as the C.I.A.’s general counsel in the mid-nineteen-nineties. “Congress believes it voted to include all such covert activities carried out by the armed forces. The military says, ‘No, the things we’re doing are not intelligence actions under the statute but necessary military steps authorized by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to “prepare the battlefield.”’” Referring to his days at the C.I.A., Smith added, “We were always careful not to use the armed forces in a covert action without a Presidential finding. The Bush Administration has taken a much more aggressive stance.”

In his conversation with me, Smith emphasized that he was unaware of the military’s current plans for expanding covert action. But he said, “Congress has always worried that the Pentagon is going to get us involved in some military misadventure that nobody knows about.”

Under Rumsfeld’s new approach, I was told, U.S. military operatives would be permitted to pose abroad as corrupt foreign businessmen seeking to buy contraband items that could be used in nuclear-weapons systems. In some cases, according to the Pentagon advisers, local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists. This could potentially involve organizing and carrying out combat operations, or even terrorist activities. Some operations will likely take place in nations in which there is an American diplomatic mission, with an Ambassador and a C.I.A. station chief, the Pentagon consultant said. The Ambassador and the station chief would not necessarily have a need to know, under the Pentagon’s current interpretation of its reporting requirement.

The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls “action teams” in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. “Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?” the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. “We founded them and we financed them,” he said. “The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.” A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, “We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.”

One of the rationales for such tactics was spelled out in a series of articles by John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, and a consultant on terrorism for the rand corporation. “It takes a network to fight a network,” Arquilla wrote in a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

When conventional military operations and bombing failed to defeat the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya in the 1950s, the British formed teams of friendly Kikuyu tribesmen who went about pretending to be terrorists. These “pseudo gangs,” as they were called, swiftly threw the Mau Mau on the defensive, either by befriending and then ambushing bands of fighters or by guiding bombers to the terrorists’ camps. What worked in Kenya a half-century ago has a wonderful chance of undermining trust and recruitment among today’s terror networks. Forming new pseudo gangs should not be difficult.


“If a confused young man from Marin County can join up with Al Qaeda,” Arquilla wrote, referring to John Walker Lindh, the twenty-year-old Californian who was seized in Afghanistan, “think what professional operatives might do.”

A few pilot covert operations were conducted last year, one Pentagon adviser told me, and a terrorist cell in Algeria was “rolled up” with American help. The adviser was referring, apparently, to the capture of Ammari Saifi, known as Abderrezak le Para, the head of a North African terrorist network affiliated with Al Qaeda. But at the end of the year there was no agreement within the Defense Department about the rules of engagement. “The issue is approval for the final authority,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “Who gets to say ‘Get this’ or ‘Do this’?”

A retired four-star general said, “The basic concept has always been solid, but how do you insure that the people doing it operate within the concept of the law? This is pushing the edge of the envelope.” The general added, “It’s the oversight. And you’re not going to get Warner”—John Warner, of Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee—“and those guys to exercise oversight. This whole thing goes to the Fourth Deck.” He was referring to the floor in the Pentagon where Rumsfeld and Cambone have their offices.

“It’s a finesse to give power to Rumsfeld—giving him the right to act swiftly, decisively, and lethally,” the first Pentagon adviser told me. “It’s a global free-fire zone.”



The Pentagon has tried to work around the limits on covert activities before. In the early nineteen-eighties, a covert Army unit was set up and authorized to operate overseas with minimal oversight. The results were disastrous. The Special Operations program was initially known as Intelligence Support Activity, or I.S.A., and was administered from a base near Washington (as was, later, Gray Fox). It was established soon after the failed rescue, in April, 1980, of the American hostages in Iran, who were being held by revolutionary students after the Islamic overthrow of the Shah’s regime. At first, the unit was kept secret from many of the senior generals and civilian leaders in the Pentagon, as well as from many members of Congress. It was eventually deployed in the Reagan Administration’s war against the Sandinista government, in Nicaragua. It was heavily committed to supporting the Contras. By the mid-eighties, however, the I.S.A.’s operations had been curtailed, and several of its senior officers were courtmartialled following a series of financial scandals, some involving arms deals. The affair was known as “the Yellow Fruit scandal,” after the code name given to one of the I.S.A.’s cover organizations—and in many ways the group’s procedures laid the groundwork for the Iran-Contra scandal.

Despite the controversy surrounding Yellow Fruit, the I.S.A. was kept intact as an undercover unit by the Army. “But we put so many restrictions on it,” the second Pentagon adviser said. “In I.S.A., if you wanted to travel fifty miles you had to get a special order. And there were certain areas, such as Lebanon, where they could not go.” The adviser acknowledged that the current operations are similar to those two decades earlier, with similar risks—and, as he saw it, similar reasons for taking the risks. “What drove them then, in terms of Yellow Fruit, was that they had no intelligence on Iran,” the adviser told me. “They had no knowledge of Tehran and no people on the ground who could prepare the battle space.”

Rumsfeld’s decision to revive this approach stemmed, once again, from a failure of intelligence in the Middle East, the adviser said. The Administration believed that the C.I.A. was unable, or unwilling, to provide the military with the information it needed to effectively challenge stateless terrorism. “One of the big challenges was that we didn’t have Humint”—human intelligence—“collection capabilities in areas where terrorists existed,” the adviser told me. “Because the C.I.A. claimed to have such a hold on Humint, the way to get around them, rather than take them on, was to claim that the agency didn’t do Humint to support Special Forces operations overseas. The C.I.A. fought it.” Referring to Rumsfeld’s new authority for covert operations, the first Pentagon adviser told me, “It’s not empowering military intelligence. It’s emasculating the C.I.A.”

A former senior C.I.A. officer depicted the agency’s eclipse as predictable. “For years, the agency bent over backward to integrate and coördinate with the Pentagon,” the former officer said. “We just caved and caved and got what we deserved. It is a fact of life today that the Pentagon is a five-hundred-pound gorilla and the C.I.A. director is a chimpanzee.”

There was pressure from the White House, too. A former C.I.A. clandestine-services officer told me that, in the months after the resignation of the agency’s director George Tenet, in June, 2004, the White House began “coming down critically” on analysts in the C.I.A.’s Directorate of Intelligence (D.I.) and demanded “to see more support for the Administration’s political position.” Porter Goss, Tenet’s successor, engaged in what the recently retired C.I.A. official described as a “political purge” in the D.I. Among the targets were a few senior analysts who were known to write dissenting papers that had been forwarded to the White House. The recently retired C.I.A. official said, “The White House carefully reviewed the political analyses of the D.I. so they could sort out the apostates from the true believers.” Some senior analysts in the D.I. have turned in their resignations—quietly, and without revealing the extent of the disarray.



The White House solidified its control over intelligence last month, when it forced last-minute changes in the intelligence-reform bill. The legislation, based substantially on recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, originally gave broad powers, including authority over intelligence spending, to a new national-intelligence director. (The Pentagon controls roughly eighty per cent of the intelligence budget.) A reform bill passed in the Senate by a vote of 96-2. Before the House voted, however, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld balked. The White House publicly supported the legislation, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert refused to bring a House version of the bill to the floor for a vote—ostensibly in defiance of the President, though it was widely understood in Congress that Hastert had been delegated to stall the bill. After intense White House and Pentagon lobbying, the legislation was rewritten. The bill that Congress approved sharply reduced the new director’s power, in the name of permitting the Secretary of Defense to maintain his “statutory responsibilities.” Fred Kaplan, in the online magazine Slate, described the real issues behind Hastert’s action, quoting a congressional aide who expressed amazement as White House lobbyists bashed the Senate bill and came up “with all sorts of ludicrous reasons why it was unacceptable.”

“Rummy’s plan was to get a compromise in the bill in which the Pentagon keeps its marbles and the C.I.A. loses theirs,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Then all the pieces of the puzzle fall in place. He gets authority for covert action that is not attributable, the ability to directly task national-intelligence assets”—including the many intelligence satellites that constantly orbit the world.

“Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official went on. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the C.I.A., the D.O.D., the F.B.I., and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’ Now he can keep all of the mattress mice out of it.”

 
Daily Kos :: Black Ops in Venezuela? Very Deeply Troubling

 
Yahoo! News - Global Poll Shows Negative Reaction to Bush Win

Global Poll Shows Negative Reaction to Bush Win

Wed Jan 19, 8:26 AM ET

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of people surveyed in a global poll think the re-election of George Bush (news - web sites) has made the world more dangerous and many view Americans negatively as well, the BBC said Wednesday.

The survey by the British broadcaster showed that only three countries -- India, the Philippines and Poland -- out of 21 polled thought the world was safer following Bush's election win in November.

Bush will be inaugurated for his second term Thursday.

On average across all countries, 58 percent of the 22,000 surveyed said they believed Bush's re-election made the world more dangerous.

"This is quite a grim picture for the U.S.," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at America's University of Maryland.

The survey found that 56 percent of Americans thought Bush's win was good for the world with 39 percent disagreeing.

Traditional U.S. allies in western Europe, such as Britain (64 percent), France (75 percent), and Germany (77 percent), were among the most negative about Bush's re-election.

A majority in Italy (54 percent) and Australia (61 percent), which both have troops in Iraq (news - web sites), also thought his win had made the world more dangerous.

Anti-Bush sentiment was strongest in Turkey, with 82 percent thinking his win was bad for peace compared to just 6 percent in support. A large majority in Latin American countries, including 58 percent in close neighbor Mexico, were also negative.

Analysts said the poll had far-reaching implications, suggesting a serious rise in anti-U.S. feeling in general, with 42 percent saying it had made them feel worse about Americans compared to 25 percent who made it think more of them.

IRAQ OPPOSITION

There was also overwhelming opposition to sending troops to Iraq, even among close allies such as Britain.

"Fully one in four British citizens say the Bush re-election has made them more opposed to sending troops to Iraq, resulting in a total of 63 per cent now opposed," said Doug Miller, president of GlobeScan which carried out the poll.

"Our research makes very clear that the re-election of President Bush (news - web sites) has further isolated America from the world."

The survey found that 47 percent of those questioned now see U.S. influence in the world as largely negative.

"Those saying the U.S. itself is having a clearly negative influence in the world still do not constitute a definitive world-wide majority, suggesting there may be some underlying openness to repairing relations with the U.S.," he said.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 15, 2004 and Jan. 5, 2005.

 
World News Article | Reuters.co.uk

Iraq rebels in video taunt
Wed Jan 12, 2005 03:05 PM ET

By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Departing from fiery Islamic slogans, Iraqi guerrillas have launched a propaganda campaign with an English-language video urging U.S. troops to lay down their weapons and seek refuge in mosques and homes.

The video, narrated in fluent English by what sounded like an Iraqi educated in the United States or Britain, also mocked the U.S. president's challenge to rebels in the early days of the insurgency to 'bring it on'.

"George W. Bush; you have asked us to 'bring it on'. And so help me, (we will) like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?," asked the narrator before the video showed explosions around a U.S. military Humvee vehicle.

Threats intended to demoralise and frighten in the tense build up to elections at the end of the month were tempered with invitations to desert and escape retribution.

A masked guerrilla from an unknown group called the Islamic Jihad Army, eschewing past impassioned Arabic-language threats of holy war, told U.S. soldiers: "This is not your war, nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq."

"To the American soldiers we say you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you," he said.

There was no way of verifying the authenticity of the video obtained by Reuters.

Previous insurgent videos have been dominated by grisly beheadings of foreign hostages who kneel beside radical Islamic banners before their deaths.

The Islamic Jihad Army video featured familiar scenes of guerrillas blowing up U.S. convoys but also highlighted some of the key issues of the Iraq war, from weapons of mass destruction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of these lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans," said the narrator, apparently referring to the Bush administration's assertion of a link between Saddam Hussein and those attacks.

A masked speaker with a machine gun beside him delivered his message to triumphant music with the ring of U.S. military propaganda films during World War Two.

He said the enemy was on the run as the video showed guerrillas firing on U.S. convoys, standing beside the corpse of an American soldier, or loading a large shell for an attack.

The U.S. military has said it would stay in Iraq until the country is by its definition secure.

The rebels focused on political issues that divided the United States and its European allies over the war in Iraq while reminding troops of casualties with images of burning trucks.

"We also thank France, Germany and other states for their positions, which we need to say are considered wise and valid until now," said the narrator, who also urged economic warfare against Washington.

"Stop using the U.S. dollar. Use the Euro or a basket of currencies," he said on the video dated December 10, 2004.

At least 1,067 U.S. troops have died in combat since the start of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

 
Yahoo! News - Bush Regrets Language That Hurt U.S. Diplomacy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) said he regretted sending the wrong impression of the United States when he used phrases like "Bring 'em on" and "dead or alive" in his first term and pledged to be more diplomatic.


Reuters Photo



In an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters to be broadcast on Friday, Bush said some of his past remarks were too blunt.


"'Bring it on,' was a little blunt," the president said in a transcript of the interview released on Thursday.


"I remember when I talked about Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), I said we're going to get him dead or alive. I guess it's not the most diplomatic of language," Bush said.


The president in July 2003 used the phrase "Bring 'em on" when speaking of insurgent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq (news - web sites). The comment was widely interpreted as a challenge to the insurgents but Bush said his intent was to rally U.S. troops.


Days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted to catch Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," a phrase that reinforced the U.S. president's international image as a cowboy.


Bush said his wife, Laura, disapproved and "chewed me out right after that."


"So I do have to be cautious about, you know, conveying thoughts in a way maybe that doesn't send wrong impressions about our country," he said.


Asked about bin Laden, who remains at large, Bush reiterated his vow to "bring him to justice."


Bush's expressions of regret over his use of language contrasted with his comments at a news conference in April 2004, when he struggled for an answer to a reporter who asked him to name his biggest mistake since the Sept. 11 attacks.


In another mea culpa, the president said he felt his administration had done a poor job bolstering its image in the Muslim world.


"Our public diplomacy efforts aren't ... very robust, and aren't very good, compared to the public diplomacy efforts of those who would like to spread hatred and ... and vilify the United States," Bush said.


But he said he thought U.S. efforts to aid victims of the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami would help improve Washington's image abroad.


Turning to domestic politics, Bush played down expectations that his brother Jeb, who is governor of Florida, would someday run for president.


"I don't think he's interested in running," the president said.


In a separate interview in USA Today, Bush said he was concerned about the Education Department's decision to pay conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote his "No Child Left Behind" law, which sets accountability standards for U.S. public schools.


He said he wanted to prevent another such incident.





"There needs to be a clear distinction between journalism and advocacy," Bush said. "All of us, the Cabinet, needs to take a good look and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

 
Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground (washingtonpost.com)

Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground
War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

 
t r u t h o u t - From America's Heartland: Europe Drops Out of the Picture

From America's Heartland: Europe Drops Out of the Picture By Wayne Merry International Herald Tribune
Tuesday 28 December 2004
Washington - Trans-Atlantic relations look different from the American heartland than from Washington. Along the Potomac, the word Europe evokes images of rivalry if not outright hostility. For Washington, Europe is increasingly a problem - or set of problems - to be managed rather than a partner in solving problems.
A recent study by the German Marshall Fund of the United States documents broad and increasing European animosity toward the United States but also shows that large majorities of Americans "want to maintain a close partnership with Europe and support a stronger European partner to help manage global challenges." Does this study accurately reflect American views?
Over the past four months I have explored that question in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee and Massachusetts under the auspices of the American Committees on Foreign Relations. My audiences were a self-selected and elite sample, but perhaps the more interesting as local opinion leaders. Their views are by no means uniform, so this synthesis leaves out much nuance.
Europe plays an important role in the economic life of the American heartland but otherwise has largely disappeared from its priorities. Every community visited has significant commercial ties with Europe, while European direct investment provides some (often considerable) local employment. European goods are part of local life, although much less so than Asian imports and tending to the luxury end of the scale. People are well aware of the importance of economic ties between America and Europe and would prefer a further opening of markets to protectionist measures.
The trans-Atlantic communication problem affecting governments is less evident for non-official Americans, in large measure because their medium of communication is money. The highly publicized boycotts of European products - really, only French ones - in the early days of the Iraq war have faded and were anyway a flyspeck in the flood of normal trans-Atlantic business. Much of this interaction is not even perceived as international, as companies are so actively engaged on both sides of the Atlantic that national origins of finance or production are secondary issues.
Beyond economics, however, Europe pretty much drops off the radar screen. The European popular obsession with American power and influence has no counterpart in America, even among people with strong interest in international issues. Europe simply stopped being an issue when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union imploded. Europe as the locus of American attention and anxiety during the cold war is entirely a thing of the past. Among students, interest in the cold war ranks with Vietnam and well below the American Civil War.
I suspect most Europeans - with their daily diet of news, views and theories about America - would be surprised how utterly asymmetric is the interest. Americans care very much about the external world, but about the trouble spots (the Middle East, North Korea, Africa), transnational issues (terrorism, nuclear proliferation, AIDS, environment), and countries seen to be of the future (China and India). Europe is not a problem, not global, and of the past. A nice place to visit, but pricey.
Politically, beyond the lonely figure of Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, no European looms large in American eyes. Even President Jacques Chirac of France is seen as a nuisance rather than a force to be reckoned with. There is a realistic understanding - albeit accompanied by annoyance - that Europe will do the minimum in Iraq. There is also a strong sense that it is time for Europe to look after its own defense and to pay its own security bills.
While Americans would prefer a more active European partner in dealing with the challenges of tomorrow, they don't expect it. In part, this reflects a different view of what those challenges may be. Americans share European concerns about global ecology, health and poverty, but worry more about terrorism, the spread of nuclear weapons and "rogue states." They would like multilateral solutions, but doubt there will be any real substitute for traditional power.
Americans perceive a Europe that values comfort and safety, but that is also in long-term demographic decline and disengagement from unpleasant realities. War may no longer be part of European life (for which Americans think they merit some of the credit), but in American eyes it is a fantasy to project this reality on the wider world.
Above all, Europe is increasingly eclipsed by Asia. As people oriented toward the future, Americans see Europe as isolationist and Asia as resurgent. Americans would like partnership with Europe but think that finding ways to work with China is more important. Finally, the American demographic itself is visibly shifting away from its European origins, with America's future as a "global nation" apparent on the streets of almost any city across the heartland.
Wayne Merry, a former State Department and Pentagon official, is a senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.

 
Yahoo! News - Polls: Europe Negative on Bush Re-Election

Polls: Europe Negative on Bush Re-Election

Mon Dec 13, 2:00 AM ET

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election was viewed negatively by a majority of people in several European countries — including those in Britain, America's strongest ally in the war in Iraq (news - web sites), Associated Press polling found.


AP Photo



The president was not the only one viewed unfavorably. Americans generally were seen in an unfavorable light by many in France, Germany and Spain, countries not supportive of U.S. Iraq policies.


Bush pledged soon after his re-election victory Nov. 2 that he would work to "deepen our trans-Atlantic ties with the nations of Europe." He plans a trip to Europe in February.


The president, and Americans generally, have plenty of work to do to win over Europeans, according to international AP-Ipsos polls.


Polling in the United States as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain was done for the AP by Ipsos, an international polling company.


As reflected by his re-election, a majority in the United States viewed Bush favorably. Just over half in this country said they were hopeful and were not disappointed after Bush's re-election.


At least seven in 10 in France, Germany and Spain said they have an unfavorable view of President Bush. Just over half of the French and Germans said they have an unfavorable view of Americans in general, and about half of Spaniards felt that way.


Especially inclined to have an unfavorable opinion of Bush in those countries were people between ages 18 and 24. A majority of all respondents in France, Germany and Spain said they were disappointed that Bush won a second four-year term, defeating Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites).


The rift with longtime allies France and Germany is the most serious in years, and relations with Spain are particularly frosty after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq last April.


"Contrary to what usually happens just after a victory, George W. Bush's re-election hasn't improved his image in European public opinion," said Gilles Corman, director of public affairs for Ipsos-Inra in Belgium.


The polls suggest an increasing lack of understanding about Americans in Europe, rather than a surge of anti-Americanism, said Corman, who studies public opinion trends in Europe.


"The predominant feelings about Bush's re-election in the European countries are disappointment and surprise more than anger," he said, noting that anger about Bush's re-election was higher in Spain.


"Above all, they appear to be worried about the consequences of this election," Corman said.


Polling found that Bush is viewed favorably by a majority of people in the United States. But that is not the case in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.


A majority of people in Britain, America's strongest ally in the Iraq war, have an unfavorable view of Bush. Six in 10 Britons said they were disappointed he was re-elected.


In Canada, about the same number of Canadians said they were disappointed with the re-election. The president was asked last month during a trip to Canada about various polls that show Canadians and Americans drifting apart.


"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to — stay in place for four more years," he replied.


Just over half of the people in France, Germany and Spain had an unfavorable view of Americans, but a solid majority in Australia (69 percent), Britain (60 percent), Canada (80 percent) and Italy (56 percent) expressed a favorable opinion.

Australia, Britain and Italy are U.S. allies in the Iraq war. Canada did not send troops to support the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq but did send them to Afghanistan (news - web sites).

"The negative view that Canadians have of George Bush (news - web sites) does not extend to Americans in general," said Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs-North America.

In Australia, seven in 10 surveyed had a favorable view of Americans; four in 10 had a positive impression of Bush. He got favorable reviews from more Australians than from those in any other country polled aside from the United States.

Randall Pearce, general manager of Ipsos Mackay Public Affairs, said Prime Minister John Howard's public backing of Bush appeared to help the president. A majority of Howard's supporters had a favorable view of Bush.

The AP-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each country were taken between Nov. 19-27 and have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

 
"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."



Bill Moyers Retiring From TV Journalism

Friday December 10, 10:44 AM
Bill Moyers Retiring From TV Journalism

"I was just in the editing room, working on the last piece," Bill Moyers says. "I thought: `I've done this so many times, and each one is as difficult as the last one.' Maybe finally I've broken the habit."

It hasn't been so much a habit for Moyers as a truth-telling mission during his three decades as a TV journalist. But come next week, he will sign off from "Now," the weekly PBS newsmagazine he began in 2002, as, at age 70, he retires from television.

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."

For that, his absence after the Dec. 17 "Now" will be all the more keenly felt: Moyers' interest has always been the American people.

A humanist who's at home with subjects ranging from the power of myth to media consolidation, from drug addiction to modern dance, from religion to environmental abuse, Moyers has produced hundreds of hours of diverse programming on issues that others shortchange, sidestep or simply fail to notice. And through it all, he has looked upon his audience not as targeted consumers, or as voters split along a Red State-Blue State divide, but as his fellow citizens.

He's a citizen-journalist with a robust background, this Texas native who, early on, earned a divinity degree (he's an ordained Baptist minister) then served as special assistant to President Johnson, and for several years was publisher of the Long Island newspaper Newsday.

In 1971, he came to public television as host of "This Week" and "Bill Moyers' Journal," and, next, joined CBS News to do similarly civic-minded programming.

Then in 1986 he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, became their own bosses by forming Public Affairs Television, an independent shop that has not only produced documentaries such as "A Walk Through the 20th Century," "Healing and the Mind" and "A Gathering of Men with Robert Bly," but also paid for them through its own fund-raising efforts.

"Judith and I will take several months to catch our breath," says Moyers during a recent conversation at the soon-to-be-vacated office he rents at Thirteen/WNET's Manhattan headquarters. "Then I will think about the Last Act _ capital L, capital A _ of my life."

He does have one immediate project: a book he will write about his years with Johnson. But he has no TV ventures in mind.

With his days at "Now" ticking down, Moyers voices pride in that series, which, upon its premiere three years ago, he envisioned as "a flexible format for ideas and conversation, reportage and debate." Now reaching 2.4 million viewers weekly with its breaking-news currency and contemplative pace, "Now" will continue with his worthy co-host, David Brancaccio, taking over. (It airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. EST; check local listings.)

"It has gained traction," says Moyers _ if only by default, in an era where most TV journalism gravitates toward the sensational or trivial. "As the networks have raced to the bottom, it is very easy to stand out if you just do good journalism. We've been trying to do good journalism, and it filled a real void."

One example of typically good journalism on "Now" not long ago: an in-depth look at the record of President Bush's nominee for secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, who in her current post as national security adviser "dreadfully misjudged the terrorist threat leading up to 9/11, and then misled America and the world about the case for invading Iraq," as Moyers concluded.

It was the sort of report unlikely to be found on most newscasts, and even less likely to endear a reporter to the powers-that-be, on whose good graces the media has grown all too reliant. But Moyers believes that challenging those in power is a journalist's duty _ and, consequently, his.

"What they're really objecting to is not my ideology," he says in his thoughtful, almost pastoral manner. "I'd be doing this if the Democrats were in power. It's not that I'm a liberal, it really isn't. It's the fact that I'm doing journalism that isn't determined by the establishment.

"You don't get rewarded in commercial broadcasting for trying to tell the truth about the institutions of power in this country," he goes on. "I think my peers in commercial television are talented and devoted journalists, but they've chosen to work in a corporate mainstream that trims their talent to fit the corporate nature of American life. And you do not get rewarded for telling the hard truths about America in a profit-seeking environment."

Through his own devices, Moyers has been the journalist he wanted to be, while honored for it with more than 30 Emmys and 10 Peabody awards.

"I've just been doing the kind of journalism that ought to be done, IF you had the opportunity to do it," he insists. "The fight has been to create that opportunity and that independence."

It's been a fight he fought well. But where will tomorrow's Bill Moyers come from?

"We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns in reply, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia."

___

On the Net:

http://www.pbs.org/now

 
He lost an arm in Iraq; the Army wants money

December 10, 2004

He lost an arm in Iraq; the Army wants money
Spc. Robert Loria is stuck at Fort Hood, Texas

By Dianna Cahn
Times Herald-Record
dcahn@th-record.com

Join reporter Dianna Cahn later today for a live chat on this story.

Middletown – He lost his arm serving his country in Iraq.
Now this wounded soldier is being discharged from his company in Fort Hood, Texas, without enough gas money to get home. In fact, the Army says 27-year-old Spc. Robert Loria owes it close to $2,000, and confiscated his last paycheck.
"There's people in my unit right now – one of my team leaders [who was] over in Iraq with me, is doing everything he can to help me .... but it's looking bleak," Loria said by telephone from Fort Hood yesterday. "It's coming up on Christmas and I have no way of getting home."
Loria's expected discharge yesterday came a day after the public got a rare view of disgruntled soldiers in Kuwait peppering Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with questions about their lack of adequate armor in Iraq.
Like many soldiers wounded in Iraq, Loria's injuries were caused by a roadside bombing. It happened in February when his team from the 588th Battalion's Bravo Company was going to help evacuate an area in Baqubah, a town 40 miles north of Baghdad. A bomb had just ripped off another soldier's arm. Loria's Humvee drove into an ambush.
When the second bomb exploded, it tore Loria's left hand and forearm off, split his femur in two and shot shrapnel through the left side of his body. Months later, he was still recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and just beginning to adjust to life without a hand, when he was released back to Fort Hood.

AFTER SEVERAL MORE MONTHS, the Army is releasing Loria. But "clearing Fort Hood," as the troops say, takes paperwork. Lots of it.
Loria thought he'd done it all, and was getting ready to collect $4,486 in final Army pay.
Then he was hit with another bomb. The Army had another tally – of money it says Loria owed to his government.
A Separation Pay Worksheet given to Loria showed the numbers: $2,408.33 for 10 months of family separation pay that the Army erroneously paid Loria after he'd returned stateside, as a patient at Walter Reed; $2,204.25 that Loria received for travel expenses from Fort Hood back to Walter Reed for a follow-up visit, after the travel paperwork submitted by Loria never reached the correct desk. And $310 for missing items on his returned equipment inventory list.
"There was stuff lost in transportation, others damaged in the accident," Loria said of the day he lost his hand. "When it went up the chain of command, the military denied coverage."
Including taxes, the amount Loria owed totaled $6,255.50. The last line on the worksheet subtracted that total from his final Army payout and found $1,768.81 "due us."
"It's nerve-racking," Loria said. "After everything I have done, it's almost like I am being abandoned, like, you did your job for us and now you are no use. That's how it feels."

AT HOME in Middletown, yesterday, Loria's wife, Christine, was beside herself.
"They want us to sacrifice more," she said, her voice quavering. "My husband has already sacrificed more than he should have to."
For weeks now, Christine has been telling her 3-year-old son, Jonathan, that Robbie, who is not his birth father, will be coming home any day now.
But the Army has delayed Loria's release at least five times already, she said, leaving a little boy confused and angry.
"Rob was supposed to be here on Saturday," she said. "Now [Jonathan] is mad at me. How do you explain something you yourself don't understand?"
Christine said the Department of Veterans Affairs has been helpful in giving Loria guidance about how to get his life back on track, offering vocation rehabilitation to "teach them to go back out in the world with the limitations they have."
But the Army brass has been unreceptive, she said.
The Lorias also contacted the offices of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties. Hinchey's office responded.
"There's enough to go on here to call the Army on it and see if it can get worked out," said Hinchey aide Dan Ahouse. "We are expressing to the Pentagon that based on what we see here, we don't see that Mr. Loria is being treated the way we think our veterans returning from Iraq should be treated."
Army officials at Fort Hood could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"I don't want this to happen to another family," Christine Loria said. "Him being blown up was supposed to be the worst thing, but it wasn't. That the military doesn't care was the worst."

The end of her rope

Christine Loria was at the end of her rope earlier this week when she called her wounded husband's commanders at Fort Hood, Texas, and gave them a piece of her mind.
The Army was discharging her husband, Robert, after he lost his arm and suffered other severe injuries in Iraq, without even gas money to drive his car home.
"I am up here and he's there. That's 1,800 miles away," she said. "I had to call his chain of command and scream at them."
Their reaction she said, was "very mature."
"If he feels that way, why is his wife talking for him? Why doesn't he come talk to us himself?" she remembers them asking her.
"Because on some level, he still respects you," she answered. "I don't have that problem."

Dianna Cahn

Who to call to help

Outraged about Army Spc. Robert Loria's plight? Speak your mind. Below are contact numbers for federal legislators and defense officials.
U.S. Senate: Hillary Clinton: 202-224-4451; Charles Schumer: 212-486-4430
U.S. House of Representatives: Maurice Hinchey: 845-344-3211; Sue Kelly: 845-897-5200
Secretary of Defense: Donald Rumsfeld: 703-692-7100
Fort Hood: Major General James D. Thurman: 254-288-2255 or Fort Hood operator at 254-287-1110; Public Information Officer Jim Whitmeyer: 254-287-0103

 
US admits the war for ?hearts and minds? in Iraq is now lost - [Sunday Herald]

US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost




Pentagon report reveals catalogue of failure
By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor



THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.
The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.

On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.

“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”

Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedoms”, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.

“Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronising … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.”

The way America has handled itself since September 11 has played straight into the hands of al-Qaeda, the report adds. “American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims.” The result is that al-Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world.

“Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic,” the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is “no more than an extension of American domestic politics”. The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that “whatever Americans do and say only serves … the enemy”.

The report says that the US is now engaged in a “global and generational struggle of ideas” which it is rapidly losing. In order to reverse the trend, the US must make “strategic communication” – which includes the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations – an integral part of national security. The document says that “Presidential leadership” is needed in this “ideas war” and warns against “arrogance, opportunism and double standards”.

“We face a war on terrorism,” the report says, “intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America’s tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America’s power to persuade is in a state of crisis.” More than 90% of the populations of some Muslims countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are opposed to US policies.

“The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe,” the report adds, “weakened support for the war on terrorism and undermined US credibility worldwide.” This, in turn, poses an increased threat to US national security.

America’s “image problem”, the report authors suggest, is “linked to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent”. The White House “has paid little attention” to the problems.

The report calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies “will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible”.

American rhetoric which equates the war on terror as a cold-war-style battle against “totalitarian evil” is also slapped down by the report. Muslims see what is happening as a “history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration … a renewal of the Muslim world …(which) has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents – of which radical fighters are only a small part”.

Rather than supporting tyranny, most Muslim want to overthrow tyrannical regimes like Saudi Arabia. “The US finds itself in the strategically awkward – and potentially dangerous – situation of being the long-standing prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the US, these regimes could not survive,” the report says.

“Thus the US has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle … US policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself … Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims.

“There is no yearning-to- be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies … The perception of intimate US support of tyr-annies in the Muslim world is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.”

The report says that, in terms of the “information war”, “at this moment it is the enemy that has the advantage”. The US propaganda drive has to focus on “separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical- militant Islamist-Jihadist”.

According to the report, “the official take on the target audience [the Muslim world] has been gloriously simple” and divided the Middle East into “good” and “bad Muslims”.

“Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent ‘superpower’ that elevates values emphasising freedom … deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam – by overwhelming majorities at this time – sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening.

“In two years the jihadi message – that strongly attacks American values – is being accepted by more moderate and non-violent Muslims. This in turn implies that negative opinion of the US has not yet bottomed out

Equally important, the report says, is “to renew European attitudes towards America” which have also been severely damaged since September 11, 2001. As “al-Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information”, American has to adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim world – including writers, artists and singers – and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US “brand”.

The Pentagon report also calls for the establishment of a national security adviser for strategic communications, and a massive boost in funding for the “information war” to boost US government TV and radio stations broadcasting in the Middle East.

The importance of the need to quickly establish a propaganda advantage is underscored by a document attached to the Pentagon report from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, dated May.

It says: “Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism.”

05 December 2004

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Don't Let the Dollar Take the Fall
December 7, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Don't Let the Dollar Take the Fall
By JEFFREY E. GARTEN

New Haven — AS the dollar continues to sink against the euro, the yen and other currencies, the conventional wisdom is that there is little choice but to allow it to continue to fall.

America's trade imbalance can be corrected, the current reasoning goes, with a much cheaper dollar - perhaps 30 percent cheaper than it is today. The idea - supported by Treasury Secretary John Snow and Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman - is that this would raise the price of imports for Americans, who would thus buy less from abroad. A cheaper dollar would also supposedly allow us to sell more to the world by making our exports less expensive.

Here is what's wrong with this analysis.

A falling dollar is unlikely to curtail imports as much as hoped. It is more likely instead to act as a consumption tax. About one-quarter of the United States import bill arises from oil purchases, which are priced in dollars. A rapidly depreciating dollar thus means lower earnings for OPEC producers. In response, the cartel might well raise prices. Goods from Asia, especially China, account for at least another 25 percent of our import bill. Because these computers, machine tools, TV's and toys are essential to our work and lifestyle, chances are that we will still buy them, even at higher prices.

Nor will a cheaper dollar encourage domestic production that can replace imports, as some argue. Auto parts, for instance, are increasingly produced in Mexico and other developing nations. These plants, part of a highly specialized global supply line, are not likely to be replaced by suppliers in the United States just because of temporary currency movements.

American exports, meanwhile, will not be spurred as much as most forecasters hope. Because currencies' values are relative to one another, the lower the dollar gets, the higher the euro and yen rise. As the currencies of Europe and Japan strengthen, the exports of these nations will become more expensive. That could easily translate into slower growth in those already slow-growing regions - and less money to buy our exports.

What's more, with the exception of agriculture, fewer American products are sold from our shores. Increasingly, they are sold by American subsidiaries overseas. While big American companies still export billions of dollars' worth of goods across the Atlantic, they sell three to five times as much from their European-based operations - to countries in Europe. A lower dollar won't have much effect on those sales.

The problem with the administration's devaluation policy is that it doesn't treat the root causes of America's economic imbalances. Our need to borrow so much from abroad is caused by our enormous consumption and our anemic savings. Today, Americans save just 0.2 percent of their disposable income, practically the lowest level in 45 years. Since we have so little savings to finance capital investment, we borrow from savings pools abroad. Our government, too, needs foreign creditors to invest in Treasury securities, to finance its escalating budget deficits.

Another trade issue not addressed by dollar devaluation: the need to sharpen our global competitiveness. In an advanced economy like ours, price should be less of a selling point than the quality and sophistication of a product. This isn't going to happen unless we improve the fundamentals underlying competitiveness - our education system and labor-force skills. A devalued dollar also does not lower health-care costs - costs so high that they encourage American employers to move operations to countries where governments often pick up the insurance tab.

Traders churning $2 trillion daily in currency markets know that if the United States relies on a cheap dollar alone to correct its trade imbalance it will push the currency down fast and for a long time - because the benefits will never quite match the predicted expectations.

This is a one-way bet for speculators. Already, rumors are rampant that several central banks with significant dollar holdings may diversify into other currencies. Hedge funds and other speculators may be moving in. If momentum to sell dollars gathers steam, it could lead to a dollar plunge, a global financial crisis and deep worldwide recession.

The dollar may well be overvalued now. But rather than just talking the currency down, Washington should try to pursue a formal agreement with Europe, Japan and China that addresses not only currency realignments but also the domestic policy changes needed to back them up.

A model for this is the so-called Plaza Accord negotiated by the Reagan administration with Germany and Japan in 1985. Then, as now, the United States was running large trade deficits and wanted to devalue the dollar. But rather than talking down the currency or letting it fall on its own, President Reagan's team got key trading partners to share the burden of adjusting policies to correct the imbalance. It worked. America's trade gap slowly narrowed, and foreign lenders did not demand significantly higher interest rates on Treasuries. If Washington negotiated a similar accord today, countries like China and Japan could slow the dollar's slide by revaluing their currencies. The pact could also involve policy commitments to support the currency realignments.

For example, rather than just assert that economic growth will reduce our budget deficits, the Bush administration might postpone or trim permanent tax cuts. It could also agree to partly privatize Social Security only after creating a plan to finance the $1 trillion to $2 trillion in transition costs without deepening the deficit. It could announce measures to improve our export performance - starting, perhaps, with more support for certain research and development programs and a plan to lower health-care premiums for employers by offering reinsurance for catastrophic-illness costs.

For their part, European nations could pledge to accelerate deregulation to further open their economies and become bigger importers. And key countries could agree to intervene in currency markets to keep the dollar's decline gradual and orderly.

A great power does not debase its currency - a currency around which most global commerce revolves. It does not take its hand off the tiller, as if the market bears all responsibility for global financial stability. To fix the problems that underlie huge trade imbalances, it uses statesmanship - at home and abroad.

Jeffrey E. Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management, held economic and foreign policy posts in the Nixon, Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations.

 
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.







by kos

Mon Dec 6th, 2004 at 19:31:49 PST



Damn. This shit is
real (PDF). From the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, clearly a
reality-based office. Starting on page 22:

There's more (page 43):

A Pentagon office calling Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf
states "authoritarian regimes"? Such honesty, so refreshing! And:

This is remarkable stuff. The report labels the Bush adminstration is
patronizing, bereft of leadership at both the national and presidential level,
it mocks the use of the insipid "they hate our freedoms", and notes
that we have failed (page 47):

Amazing stuff considering the source. We may assume that the author will be
exiled to the Alaskan tundra in retaliation for the harsh and honest criticisms,
but this thing had to be approved at multiple levels before it was published.
It's clearly not the work of a rogue analyst.  

The report has garnered a
smattering of press in international circles, but nothing yet in the US.

 

 
Yahoo! News - Russia's Putin Calls U.S. Policy 'Dictatorial'

Russia's Putin Calls U.S. Policy 'Dictatorial'

By Douglas Busvine

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) accused the United States on Friday of pursuing a dictatorial foreign policy and said mounting violence could derail progress toward bringing peace and democracy to Iraq (news - web sites).

Putin also criticized the West for setting double-standards on terrorism, pursuing Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq while giving refuge to "terrorists" demanding Chechnya (news - web sites)'s independence from Russia.

The Kremlin leader's tough remarks came on a visit to former Cold War ally India, where he and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a joint call for greater cooperation in stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq.

Unilateralism increased risks that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of terrorists, and would stoke regional conflicts, Putin said in a hard-hitting speech to an invited audience.

"Even if dictatorship is packaged in beautiful pseudo-democratic phraseology, it will not be able to solve systemic problems," Putin said. "It may even make them worse."

Putin did not name the United States, but clearly had the administration of President Bush (news - web sites) in mind when he said policies "based on the barrack-room principles of a unipolar world appear to be extremely dangerous."

Russia was a vocal opponent of the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), but has since joined efforts to rebuild Iraq's war-hit infrastructure. Moscow's assent was key to a recent Paris Club deal to write off most of Iraq's foreign debts.

MOUNTING VIOLENCE

Putin said he was worried by mounting violence and loss of life linked to operations by U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, and said these may disrupt plans to hold elections now scheduled for Jan. 30, 2005.

Again the Russian leader was not specific, but he appeared to be referring to the U.S. operation to crush die-hard insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

"This may put a question mark over holding of fair and democratic elections in Iraq early next year," he said.

Putin's speech echoed comments he made earlier to an Indian newspaper in which he said the war had turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists.

"As had been the case with Afghanistan, Iraq turned into a major hotbed of a terrorist threat, a firing ground and incubator for militants," he told the Hindu newspaper.

He rounded on Britain for giving asylum to Akhmed Zakayev and the United States for giving refuge to Ilyas Akhmadov, spokesmen for Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov.

"Providing safe haven and support to terrorists, their accomplices and sponsors actually serves as a justification and, indeed, an encouragement of their crimes," Putin said.

Both men deny being terrorists. Maskhadov, regarded in the West as a moderate, led Chechnya to brief de facto independence during the 1990s before Putin ordered Russian troops to retake the turbulent North Caucasus province.

Putin, who backed India's bid for a United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council seat, said he had found in India a strong ally against terrorism.

"Terrorists benefit from the conflict of civilizations and religions," he told the hand-picked New Delhi audience. "Let it be known that our multi-confessional and multi-ethnic states will not be broken up."

 
Yahoo! News - Conservative Republican group urges UN's expulsion from US: "Conservative Republican group urges UN's expulsion from US"

I love this!

 
Salon.com Books | Welcome to the new cold war

Welcome to the new cold war
It's Chirac vs. Cheney, SUVs vs. minicars, and pommes frites vs. freedom fries in the new transatlantic culture war. But here's what you don't know: In the global conflict for moral and economic supremacy, Europe is winning.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Andrew O'Hehir



Nov. 15, 2004 | A specter is haunting America, and it ain't the specter of communism (however much George W. Bush and company might like to describe it that way). Barely a decade after the definitive collapse of the Soviet bloc, the United States finds itself in a new cold war, one being fought simultaneously on economic, political and cultural fronts, and one it is by no means certain to win. The unipolar world of uncontested American hegemony that we were told to expect into the indefinite future has come to an end; it lasted just about long enough for us to scratch our heads and wonder what was happening next.

Yes, "Old Europe," to borrow Donald Rumsfeld's famous quip, is back, and it's looking pretty spry for its age. As Americans are finally beginning to notice, Europeans (or most of them, anyway) have reconstituted themselves into an enormous transnational superstate of 25 nations, 455 million people and an $11 trillion economy. This is, of course, the European Union, and its aims have become much broader and deeper than the stuff you've probably heard about, like allowing citizens to drive from Seville to Sicily without a passport, or to use the same anonymous-looking currency to buy a pint of Guinness in Cork and a glass of ouzo in Crete.

American heavyweights like Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger, by the way, publicly predicted that the euro, now the common currency of 12 European countries (with many more to follow), would never work. This week the euro is trading at an all-time high of about $1.30 against an ever weaker Bush-economy dollar. Other confident-sounding things that you hear Americans say about the EU -- that it's plagued by a sclerotic bureaucracy, that it squelches entrepreneurship and initiative with overregulation, that its cradle-to-grave welfare states are dragging down its economy -- should be viewed with similar skepticism.

It might sound alarmist to use a freighted term like "cold war" to describe our relationship with an entity whose raison d'être is to avoid all war and resolve all conflict. The political leaders of the European Union are certainly willing to be partners with the United States, and potentially to be friends as well. (Realpolitik dictates that both sides will continue to insist that the relationship is warm even when, as now, it is anything but.) But elites on both sides of the pond now know what the stakes are, and they are also willing to be competitors, even fierce rivals. If the original idea behind a united Europe was to redeem the old continent from poverty, devastation and centuries of self-destructive warfare, more recently the goal has been to build a "good superpower," one that stands as an economic and ideological counterweight to the American colossus.

Once you grasp that this transatlantic cold war is not only happening but rapidly intensifying -- as Jeremy Rifkin and T.R. Reid, the authors of two almost simultaneous books on the European conundrum, agree -- you see the major news events of the last year or two in a different light. Both the Iraq war and this year's presidential election, for instance, start to look like key symbolic episodes in the U.S.-Europe conflict.

What was the contest between Bush and John Kerry, after all, if not a proxy war between pommes frites and freedom fries, a referendum on Europe conducted among the American electorate? Kerry, we were told, spoke French and "looked French." These gibes might have played as humor on Fox News, but they were in deadly earnest.

The French, of course, sank Bush's hopes for a truly international coalition against Iraq and became the American right's chosen exemplar of global treachery and cowardice. (Frenchness, you might say, is the new communism.) The French are also the principal architects of the European Union -- suddenly, clearly, our greatest rival for economic and moral supremacy in the world -- and if Karl Rove and Karen Hughes weren't thinking about that consciously, the thought wasn't far below the surface.

Kerry was an internationalist and a secularist (at least by American standards) running against a man who wrapped himself in the flag and was guided by divine inspiration. Bush didn't just run as an American; he pretty much ran as America, which Rifkin calls a nation "living in two seemingly contradictory realms at the same time," those being the evangelical Protestant faith in salvation and the rationalist drive to accumulate wealth and build industry. That cast Kerry in the role of Europe -- intellectual and irreligious, faintly stained by the ghosts of socialism and Catholicism, with a belief in universal human rights and negotiated solutions, but not much in the way of a transformative spiritual vision.

That might be all anyone needs to know about how close the election was, or how it turned out. There is a large class of people in this country who are sympathetic to the "European dream" of a managed market economy in which cooperation is emphasized over competition, leisure is privileged over work, and the social costs of capitalism are closely regulated -- and you know who you are, gentle readers. But to most Americans "freedom" still means untrammeled private-property rights, open markets, workaholism and the belief that somehow we'll all die rich.

Going back 18 months, one of the strategic considerations driving the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq was surely the opportunity it presented to drive a wedge between pro- and anti-American politicians in Europe. By peeling away Britain's Tony Blair, Spain's José Maria Aznar and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi from the antiwar EU consensus, the Bushies may have hoped to disrupt the idea of a Europe that spoke with one voice on foreign policy and military action (an expressed EU goal) for a generation to come.

As Reid, a longtime Washington Post correspondent, discusses in his book "The United States of Europe," the strategy seemed to work, at least at first. Those three prime ministers agreed to go along with the American war, and various other European leaders hemmed and hawed, trying somehow to split the difference between the Bush-Blair position and the vehement antiwar stance of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

But then surprising things started to happen. When it came time to twist arms on the U.N. Security Council over the vote to authorize military action, the Americans were outfoxed. Most of the poorer nations on the council received substantial foreign aid from Europe -- the EU gives almost three times as much aid to developing countries as the U.S. does -- and proved more amenable to lobbying from the French and Germans than from the British and Americans. Bush and Blair needed nine votes and could never get more than four; at least in that limited arena, Reid writes, "Europe's political clout proved stronger than American military might."

Furthermore, the Iraq war became a galvanizing and radicalizing event for an entire generation of younger Europeans and, in Reid's judgment, led them to see themselves as Europeans, above and beyond their national identities. While the European political elites dithered in the spring of 2003, the European people streamed into the streets by the millions, in a nearly unanimous rejection of the Iraq war in particular and the interventionist Bush foreign policy agenda in general. (And, for good measure, what most Europeans perceive as America's promiscuously wasteful culture of burgers, SUVs and obesity.) Opinion polls revealed an explosion of anti-American sentiment, even in nations like Britain, Italy and Poland that remained officially within the "coalition of the willing." In several European countries, the United States is viewed as more dangerous to world peace than Iran and North Korea, and George W. Bush may be even less popular in Scandinavia, for example, than he is in the Arab world.

These young Europeans, Reid believes, now have a sense of their own political and economic power, and they have built a pan-continental "Euroculture" that borrows what it likes from American pop culture but now stands independent of it. "For many Europeans today," he writes, "the familiar concept of 'the West,' the transatlantic alliance with shared values and common enemies, is a relic of the last century." In this century, their goal is to challenge the American claim to global supremacy, at least in moral and political terms.

Indeed, what struck me on a recent visit to Germany is how un-American Europe still feels, despite all the stories we hear to the contrary. Sure, you can eat at Pizza Hut or shop at Wal-Mart in Hamburg, and teenagers affect last year's hip-hop fashions and wear Yankee caps. (Sorry, Boston -- your triumph has not penetrated the Old World.) But those things, removed from their original context, have become, like Madonna or David Beckham, floating signifiers of a global culture that transcends nationality. The organic rhythms of the place feel nothing like the fevered consumption overdrive of American cities and suburbs: Bars and cafes remain busy long past midnight seven nights a week, but if there's any place in Hamburg where you can buy groceries or children's toys or paperback books after lunchtime on Saturday, I didn't find it.

"Europe's time is almost here," Reid quotes current EU President Romano Prodi as saying. "In fact, there are many areas of world affairs where the objective conclusion would have to be that Europe is already the superpower, and the United States must follow our lead." It's stuff like that that has Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the rest of the neoconservative cohort gnawing on the executive branch's fine European furniture late at night. They're smart enough to know that Prodi has a point -- even if they'd scoff at him in public -- and there isn't much they can do about it.

After adding 10 new Eastern and Central European nations last May, the European Union now has a much larger population than the United States, and a slightly bigger economy. As Jeremy Rifkin argues in his dense and contentious new research-driven tome "The European Dream," the United States remains ahead in per-capita GDP, but the difference is not as significant as it looks.

Much of American "productivity," Rifkin suggests, is accounted for by economic activity that might be better described as wasteful: military spending; the endlessly expanding police and prison bureaucracies; the spiraling cost of healthcare; suburban sprawl; the fast-food industry and its inevitable corollary, the weight-loss craze. Meaningful comparisons of living standards, he says, consistently favor the Europeans. In France, for instance, the work week is 35 hours and most employees take 10 to 12 weeks off every year, factors that clearly depress GDP. Yet it takes a John Locke heart of stone to say that France is worse off as a nation for all that time people spend in the countryside downing du vin rouge et du Camembert with friends and family.

"The European Dream" is the richer of the two books, as Rifkin -- the author of such previous big-idea volumes as "The End of Work" and "The Biotech Century" -- mines deep lodes of history and sociology in search of the origins of the cross-pond cold war. But if you just want a reader-friendly survey of how the European Union was born (out of a modest Franco-German coal and steel accord after World War II), how it grew into the titan we see today, and what it's really like, Reid's personable "United States of Europe" is the better choice.

To the question of what the European Union actually is, neither author offers more than a conditional answer, largely because Europeans aren't quite sure themselves. I called the EU a "superstate" earlier, but it isn't a nation-state in conventional terms. It doesn't physically control any territory, it has no authority to tax its citizens, and it has only very limited police powers. It does, however, have an elected legislature and an executive branch, a court system and a central bank, all of which can override the laws of its 25 member nations. (It also now has its own military, the 60,000-strong European Rapid Reaction Force, or "EuroArmy," a development that led to much gnashing of teeth in Washington.)

At least some of this ambiguity is intentional; the EU looks different depending on who's looking. To the Euro-enthusiasts of France, Germany and the Low Countries, the EU is a grand federal state capable of transcending age-old problems of nationalism and sovereignty. To more standoffish nations like Britain and Sweden (neither of which has adopted the euro), it's a loose confederation of countries that remain largely autonomous. Rifkin calls it "the first really post-modern governing institution," amplifying that at another point to "the first post-territorial governing region in a network-linked global economy." (Much as I enjoyed his excursions through the historical and philosophical framework of the U.S.-EU clash, his tendency to wax lyrical with business-school buzzwords made me want to check whether I still had my wallet.)

If the EU has no intention of confronting America's military supremacy, that, Rifkin and Reid would agree, is actually Europe's ace in the hole. Let the Americans pour endless billions in taxpayer dollars down the Pentagon's money sink, the Europeans reason. As they see it, the key to future peace and prosperity lies elsewhere, in constructing complex webs of social interaction and economic cooperation that will undermine nationalism and fundamentalism of all stripes. While the United States foots the bill for the intractable conflict in Iraq and piles up huge budget and trade deficits, Europe has spent money on other priorities.

Whatever your intellectual and emotional responses may be to this burgeoning transatlantic conflict, it's difficult for any American to read Rifkin's book and not feel ashamed. The U.S. has fallen significantly behind the EU's Western European nations in infant mortality and life expectancy, despite spending more on healthcare per capita than any of them. (While 40 million Americans are uninsured, no one in Europe -- I repeat, not a single person -- lacks some form of healthcare coverage.)

European children are consistently better educated; the United States would rank ninth in the EU in reading, ninth in scientific literacy, and 13th in math. Twenty-two percent of American children grow up in poverty, which means that our country ranks 22nd out of the 23 industrialized nations, ahead of only Mexico and behind all 15 of the pre-2004 EU countries. What's more horrifying: the statistic itself or the fact that no American politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich would ever address it?

Perhaps more surprisingly, European business has not been strangled by the EU welfare state; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Europe has surpassed the United States in several high-tech and financial sectors, including wireless technology, grid computing and the insurance industry. The EU has a higher proportion of small businesses than the U.S., and their success rate is higher. American capitalists have begun to pay attention to all this. In Reid's book, Ford Motor Co. chairman Bill Ford explains that the company's Volvo subsidiary is more profitable than its U.S. manufacturing operation, even though wages and benefits are significantly higher in Sweden. Government-subsidized healthcare, child care, pensions and other social supports, Ford says, more than make up for the difference.

The new EU constitution, currently being considered by the member states, is an unwieldy, jargon-laden document that runs to 265 pages in English (and even more in Spanish and French). It should also serve as an inspiration to progressives around the world. It bars capital punishment in all 25 nations and defines such things as universal healthcare, child care, paid annual leave, parental leave, housing for the poor, and equal treatment for gays and lesbians as fundamental human rights. Most of these are still hotly contested questions in the United States; as Rifkin says, this document all by itself makes the European Union the world leader in the human rights debate. It is the first governing document that aspires to universality, "with rights and responsibilities that encompass the totality of human existence on Earth."

While Rifkin and Reid are unabashed Euro-boosters, both would urge Kerry voters rendered starry-eyed by the EU dream to ponder long and hard before pleading for asylum at the nearest consulate or scouring your family tree for relevant European ancestry. (Speaking as a dual-passport holder myself, I'm sticking it out -- at least for now.) For all the grandeur of its new vision, Europe still has relatively high unemployment and relatively sluggish economic growth. The continent faces major structural problems, most notably a declining birth rate and a long-standing hostility to immigration, which has led to a population that is aging much faster than America's. While the European welfare state is certain to remain generous by American standards, significant renegotiation of rights and benefits will be necessary unless this demographic time bomb can somehow be defused.

Despite its deepening inequality, the United States remains to a large extent a more dynamic and less class-bound society, and it still offers individuals that opportunity for constant reinvention that lies at the heart of our national dream. Rifkin in particular believes that the new cold war with Europe will be good for America in the long run and may help rejuvenate the American left (even if the next four years are likely to get pretty ugly). Americans may need to be taught, by example, that unfettered corporate capitalism, regressive taxation and a bare-minimum social safety net are not the only way to guarantee prosperity -- and perhaps that our definition of what constitutes prosperity could stand some scrutiny.

While America has been gnawing on its own innards for the last decade or so, feuding internally over White House blow jobs, flawed elections, the threat of terrorism, the ill-fated war in Iraq and an angrily polarized public discourse, Europe has quietly been cohering into an impressive whole, the world's newest superpower. For all its layers of bureaucracy and all the challenges it faces, the EU has forged a harmonious society on a continent that spent most of history at war with itself.

The rise of the European Union may in fact, as Rifkin says, represent a new phase of history, and we barely saw it coming. While the outcome of this new cold war between Europe and America is far from clear, we should feel humbled by the way it's gone so far. The EU has succeeded so dramatically in its ambitious goals that the utopian dreamers of the last century who dared to imagine a peaceful, prosperous, united Europe seem eerily prescient now. If nothing else, it's an object lesson in the power of vision.

"I am a democrat," James Joyce wrote in 1916, while an entire generation of Europe's young men were slaughtering each other in the fields of Flanders. "I'll work and act for the social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future." People read that and laughed bitterly. Europe seemed poisoned by mustard gas and history; America was the land of liberty, democracy and the future. Nobody's laughing now.


- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Andrew O'Hehir is Salon's books editor.

 
Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers

Linda Ronstadt, hummin' an outraged tune

By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY

Linda Ronstadt (news) has been many things to many people: a rock 'n' roll pinup girl, a rootsy balladeer, a traditional pop crooner and, recently, a vocal Michael Moore supporter.

Today, as she sits in a cluttered Midtown hotel room, the 58-year-old has assumed the less glamorous role of working mom. But as her adopted son, Carlos, 10, digs into lunch, Ronstadt, who just released Hummin' to Myself - her first collection of pop standards since a successful trio of albums with arranger Nelson Riddle in the '80s - is persuaded to discuss music and politics, though not necessarily in that order.

Don't get her started on the recent presidential election. "People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves," she says. Of Iraq (news - web sites) in particular, she adds, "I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don't know anything about the Iraqis, but they're angry and frustrated in their own lives. It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers."

More temperate remarks got Ronstadt into hot water in June, when while performing at the Aladdin Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, she dedicated an encore of Desperado to Michael Moore, controversial director of the anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Ronstadt had cited Moore at many previous concerts without any problems, she says, and she learned of unrest at the Aladdin after hearing TV reports that concertgoers had thrown drinks and ripped down posters.

"No one threw drinks or anything in the concert hall," Ronstadt says. "I don't know what people did in the lobby, but if they behaved like naughty schoolboys, that's not my fault. I doubt it was the first time they had drunk people in Vegas, you know?"

Though she has no regrets about the incident - "It made me look rather good, I think" - Ronstadt predictably speaks with more enthusiasm of Hummin'. The album picks up from her last collaboration with the late Riddle. She isn't surprised that stars such as Rod Stewart (news) and Norah Jones (news) have since turned to re-interpreting classics: "These songs are the finest aspect of American pop culture of the 20th century."

Carlos and his 13-year-old sister, Mary, whom Ronstadt also adopted, have turned their mom on to newer sounds as well. "My little boy likes Eminem (news - web sites), and there's a compelling musicianship and pathos there. My daughter got me into Pink, who is such a talented songwriter and can really play blues."

In fact, where her political views are concerned, the singer feels more accurately perceived as a concerned mother than an artist on a soapbox.

"I have very little power," she insists. "I've been blessed with an unusually long career, but the peak was in the '70s and '80s. I think you just have to carry on - and do what you can to get information out to people. Do what you can."

 
Yahoo! News - Chirac Says Iraq War Made World More Dangerous

Chirac Says Iraq War Made World More Dangerous

Wed Nov 17, 4:28 AM ET

By Jeremy Lovell and Mike Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and ousting of President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has, if anything, made the world more dangerous, French President Jacques Chirac said on the eve of a state visit to key U.S. ally Britain.

The French leader's interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, excerpts of which were aired Wednesday, indicate little chance of success for British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s efforts to mend Franco-American ties damaged by the Iraq war.

"I'm not at all sure that one can say the world is safer," Chirac said. "There is no doubt there has been an increase in terrorism."

"To a certain extent Saddam Hussein's departure was a positive thing but it also provoked reaction such as the mobilization in a number of countries of men and women of Islam which has made the world more dangerous."

The full interview with the BBC is to be aired Wednesday evening as Chirac prepares to fly to Britain Thursday to meet Blair, Queen Elizabeth and business leaders to celebrate 100 years of Entente Cordiale -- an agreement that brought about French-British cooperation after a long history of rivalry.

Chirac, whose strong opposition to the war prompted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to dismiss France as part of "Old Europe," has questioned what Blair has gained from his unstinting support of the invasion.

In a newspaper interview Tuesday, Chirac said he had urged Britain before the invasion to press President Bush (news - web sites) to revive the Middle East peace process in return for London's support for the war.

"Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see much in return," Chirac was quoted as saying in the Times. "I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically."

Blair's support for the war prompted bitter faction fighting inside his ruling Labor Party and torpedoed his public approval ratings ahead of elections expected by mid-2005.

A poll in the Independent newspaper Wednesday showed that 64 percent of the British public believed that having good relations with continental Europe was more important than maintaining close ties with Washington.

In the Times interview, Chirac recalled a Franco-British summit last year when he asked Blair to try to influence U.S. policy on the Middle East.

"I said then to Tony Blair: 'We have different positions on Iraq. Your position should at least have some use'. That is to try to obtain in exchange a relaunch of the peace process in the Middle East."

The French leader questioned whether Britain could act as a bridge between the United States and Europe to help heal the transatlantic rift.

"I am not sure, with America as it is these days, that it would be easy for someone, even the British, to be an honest broker," he said.

Blair called Monday for Europe and the United States to bury their differences over Iraq and focus on global challenges.

"It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American arguments and parody their political leadership," Blair said in a major foreign policy speech.

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Slapping the Other Cheek

November 14, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Slapping the Other Cheek
By MAUREEN DOWD

You'd think the one good thing about merging church and state would be that politics would be suffused with glistening Christian sentiments like "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," "good will toward men," "blessed be the peacemakers" and "judge not lest you be judged."

Yet somehow I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.

I'm getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels.

One fiery Southern senator actually accused a nice Catholic columnist of having horns coming up out of her head!

Bob Jones III, president of the fundamentalist college of the same name, has written a letter to the president telling him that "Christ has allowed you to be his servant" so he could "leave an imprint for righteousness," by appointing conservative judges and approving legislation "defined by biblical norm."

"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America - though she doesn't deserve it - a reprieve from the agenda of paganism," Mr. Jones wrote. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ." Way harsh.

The Christian avengers and inquisitors, hearts hard as marble, are chasing poor 74-year-old Arlen Specter through the Capitol's marble halls, determined to flagellate him and deny him his cherished goal of taking over the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Not only are they irate at his fairly innocuous comment after the election that anti-Roe v. Wade judges would have a hard time getting through the Senate. They are also full of bloodthirsty feelings of revenge against the senator for championing stem cell research and for voting against Robert Bork - who denounces Mr. Specter as "a bit shifty" - 17 years ago.

"He is a problem, and he must be derailed," Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, told George Stephanopoulos.

Sounding more like the head of a mob family than a ministry, Dr. Dobson told Mr. Stephanopoulos about a warning he issued a White House staffer after the election that the president and Republicans had better deliver on issues like abortion, gay marriage and conservative judges or "I believe they'll pay a price in the next election."

Certainly Mr. Specter has done his part for the conservative cause. He accused Anita Hill of "flat-out perjury" for a minor inconsistency in her testimony against Clarence Thomas, that good Christian jurist who once had a taste for porn films.

Some in the White House thought of giving Mr. Specter the post and then keeping him on a short leash. But the power puritans have no mercy. They say he's a mealy-mouthed impediment to the crusade of evangelicals and conservative Catholic bishops - who delivered their vote with ruthless efficacy - to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Mr. Stephanopoulos asked Dr. Dobson about his comment to The Daily Oklahoman that "Patrick Leahy is a 'God's people-hater.' I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people," noting that it was not a particularly Christian thing to say about the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. (Especially after that vulgar un-Christian thing Dick Cheney spat at Mr. Leahy last summer.)

"George," Dr. Dobson haughtily snapped back, "do you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about?" Why not? The TV host is the son of a Greek Orthodox priest.

Acting as though Mr. Bush's decisions should be taken on faith, John Ashcroft lashed into judges for not giving Mr. Bush unbridled power in his war against terror.

Speaking Friday before an adulatory Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers, Mr. Ashcroft echoed remarks he made to the Senate soon after 9/11 arguing that objecting to the president's antiterror proposals could give "ammunition to America's enemies."

He asserted that judges who interfere in or second guess the president's constitutional authority to make decisions during war can jeopardize the "very security of our nation in a time of war."

And since the president has no end in sight to his war on terror, that makes him infallible ad infini- tum?

 
The New York Times > Opinion > The Cabinet Shuffle: Good Soldier Powell

November 16, 2004
THE CABINET SHUFFLE
Good Soldier Powell

As Secretary of State Colin Powell resigned yesterday, reportedly to be succeeded by the national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, it was hard to avoid the feeling that this imposing figure - who once personified the dignity, integrity and promise of government service and was the first African-American considered to have a shot at the White House - will be remembered for one picture and three sentences.

On Feb. 5, 2003, in an appearance before the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Powell, the retired four-star general and former national security adviser, held up a vial of white powder as a symbol of what he claimed - falsely, as it turned out - were Iraq's huge stockpiles of anthrax. He offered a scathing indictment of Saddam Hussein. "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,'' he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

As an increasingly angry world soon learned, Mr. Powell in fact offered half-truths, poorly analyzed intelligence and outright fantasies, from a nuclear weapons program in Baghdad that didn't exist to wildly exaggerated estimates of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and its ties to Al Qaeda.

But at the time, Mr. Powell's performance convinced many Americans skeptical about the war that the Iraqi government was a clear and present danger to the rest of the world. His enormous stature and his image as a moderating force within the administration - valued especially by America's European allies - were squandered in defending a unilateral decision he did not agree with to launch a war in which he did not really seem to believe.

From the start of his tenure as secretary of state, there was a question about which Colin Powell had moved into Foggy Bottom. Was it the decisive, charismatic general who coined a military doctrine that called for waging war only after the establishment of a political consensus behind achievable goals and then the commitment of overwhelming force to reach those ends? Or was it the faithful soldier who prized loyalty above all else?

Mr. Powell began with promise, forcing the long-neglected issues of Africa to the forefront of the administration's agenda. Even after 9/11, when those issues naturally took the back seat, the über-Powell was forever being rumored to be on the cusp of emerging and asserting himself over Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and even Vice President Dick Cheney.

But it's now clear that Mr. Powell long ago chose loyalty over leadership and was not a major figure in the biggest foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration. Most accounts of the rush to war in Iraq show that Mr. Powell was deeply troubled about the planning for the war, its timing and the intense opposition of most of Washington's European allies. But he was unwilling or unable to exert much influence over the president in that critical time, and it's not clear whether Mr. Bush even consulted him before making his decision to go to war.

There were moments in his tenure when Mr. Powell could have resigned over principle. But he soldiered on, leaving when it was safe and convenient for his boss. Yesterday, he told the world that he'd long ago given up any ambition of sticking around for a second term. In the end, his legacy may simply be that the administration that bungled the handling of a war because the president failed to heed the Powell Doctrine was the one in which Mr. Powell himself served.

 
The New York Times > Opinion > The Cabinet Shuffle: Good Soldier Powell

November 16, 2004
THE CABINET SHUFFLE
Good Soldier Powell

As Secretary of State Colin Powell resigned yesterday, reportedly to be succeeded by the national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, it was hard to avoid the feeling that this imposing figure - who once personified the dignity, integrity and promise of government service and was the first African-American considered to have a shot at the White House - will be remembered for one picture and three sentences.

On Feb. 5, 2003, in an appearance before the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Powell, the retired four-star general and former national security adviser, held up a vial of white powder as a symbol of what he claimed - falsely, as it turned out - were Iraq's huge stockpiles of anthrax. He offered a scathing indictment of Saddam Hussein. "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,'' he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

As an increasingly angry world soon learned, Mr. Powell in fact offered half-truths, poorly analyzed intelligence and outright fantasies, from a nuclear weapons program in Baghdad that didn't exist to wildly exaggerated estimates of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and its ties to Al Qaeda.

But at the time, Mr. Powell's performance convinced many Americans skeptical about the war that the Iraqi government was a clear and present danger to the rest of the world. His enormous stature and his image as a moderating force within the administration - valued especially by America's European allies - were squandered in defending a unilateral decision he did not agree with to launch a war in which he did not really seem to believe.

From the start of his tenure as secretary of state, there was a question about which Colin Powell had moved into Foggy Bottom. Was it the decisive, charismatic general who coined a military doctrine that called for waging war only after the establishment of a political consensus behind achievable goals and then the commitment of overwhelming force to reach those ends? Or was it the faithful soldier who prized loyalty above all else?

Mr. Powell began with promise, forcing the long-neglected issues of Africa to the forefront of the administration's agenda. Even after 9/11, when those issues naturally took the back seat, the über-Powell was forever being rumored to be on the cusp of emerging and asserting himself over Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and even Vice President Dick Cheney.

But it's now clear that Mr. Powell long ago chose loyalty over leadership and was not a major figure in the biggest foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration. Most accounts of the rush to war in Iraq show that Mr. Powell was deeply troubled about the planning for the war, its timing and the intense opposition of most of Washington's European allies. But he was unwilling or unable to exert much influence over the president in that critical time, and it's not clear whether Mr. Bush even consulted him before making his decision to go to war.

There were moments in his tenure when Mr. Powell could have resigned over principle. But he soldiered on, leaving when it was safe and convenient for his boss. Yesterday, he told the world that he'd long ago given up any ambition of sticking around for a second term. In the end, his legacy may simply be that the administration that bungled the handling of a war because the president failed to heed the Powell Doctrine was the one in which Mr. Powell himself served.

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Death Comes Knocking



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 12, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Death Comes Knocking
By BOB HERBERT

The e-mail to John Witmer from his daughter Michelle came on Father's Day in 2003.

"Dear Daddy," it said, "Happy Father's Day. I love you so much and you can't imagine how often I think of you. I hope you have lots of fun today and that the weather is lovely.

"We had a briefing telling us to prepare ourselves as best as possible for what lies ahead. Things like children running out in front of vehicles to try and get them to stop. We have to prepare ourselves to hit people because stopping is not an option. I guess every convoy that's gone up north so far has taken fire or been ambushed. The question of whether we will or not is not even really a question, more like a guess as to when.

"These things, as you can imagine, are a lot to take in. I'm doing my best. I've been a little depressed lately but I'm trying to keep my chin up. I really miss home. Tomorrow will be exactly three months since I got deployed. Wow, time does not fly. Jeez, this letter wasn't supposed to be down. Sorry. Back to the point. Happy Father's Day. I love and miss you so much.

"Love, Shelly."

Specialist Michelle Witmer of New Berlin, Wis., survived for nearly 10 more slowly moving months in Iraq, until she was cut down by enemy fire in Baghdad last April 9. She was 20 when she died.

The e-mail was read on camera by her dad in an extremely moving documentary, "Last Letters Home," which was jointly produced by The New York Times and HBO. It premiered on HBO last night.

In the hourlong program, grieving relatives read aloud from letters, cards and e-mail sent by troops who died in Iraq, and comment on the ways they've been affected by the loss of their loved ones. The program is not about pro-war or anti-war sentiments, or grand geopolitical visions. It just gives us a glimpse of the searing personal toll that is inevitable in war. I imagine it would be difficult for anyone to see it and not take the war more seriously. Anything that imposes such unmitigated agony should give us pause.

Second Lt. Leonard Cowherd III of Culpeper, Va., commented in his last letter to his wife, Sarah, about how young so many of the soldiers were, which was interesting because he was only 22 himself. He wrote:

"Some of these guys out here, Sarah, they're just kids. I'm not that old myself but I couldn't imagine going through the experiences these guys are going through at the age of 18, 19 and 20. If you saw them walking down the street you would think that they belonged in an arcade or at a movie theater doing stuff kids do. Not putting their lives on the line every second of every day."

The Cowherds were married last year and spent only a few months together before Lieutenant Cowherd was shipped to Iraq. He was shot to death in Karbala in May.

A theme that runs through the documentary is the overwhelming sense of dread that grips relatives when their doors are knocked upon by soldiers or marines in dress uniforms.

"It was the lightest tap on my door that I've ever heard in my life," said Paula Zasadny, the mother of Specialist Holly McGeogh, a 19-year-old who was killed by a bomb in Kirkuk.

"I opened the door and I seen the man in the dress greens and I knew. I immediately knew. But I thought that if, as long as I didn't let him in, he couldn't tell me. And then it - none of that would've happened. So he kept saying, 'Ma'am, I need to come in.' And I kept telling him, 'I'm sorry, but you can't come in.' "

As much as possible, the reality of war is kept at a distance from the American people, which is a shame. My own belief is that the pain of war should be much more widely shared. That would help guard us against wars that are unnecessary, and ensure a more collective effort in those that are inevitable.

This documentary takes us a small step toward understanding the awful depth of that pain.

Melissa Givens was told by a chaplain that her husband, Pfc. Jesse Givens, who was 34, had drowned when his tank fell into the Euphrates River. Distraught, she insisted that the chaplain was lying. But she said that was O.K., because she would never tell anyone that he had lied. She said he could walk away and she would just forget about the whole thing.

Private Givens died on May 1, 2003, the day that President Bush, on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."


Paul Krugman will be on book leave until January.

 
ABC News: Some Say U.S. No Longer Feels Like Home


Some Say U.S. No Longer Feels Like Home
With Bush's Re-Election, Foreign Countries Look Better to Them
By DEAN SCHABNER
Nov. 9, 2004 - Leora Dowling and her husband thought returning from deep in "red" America to her native New England would make them feel more comfortable, more like the people around them shared their values. Since the election, she's been contemplating another move. To Italy.

"After the election, my husband and I asked ourselves, 'How could our country be heading backward? How could so many people miss or choose to ignore the obvious failures of the Bush administration?'" the former Florida resident said.

President Bush pledged that one priority for his second term would be to heal the wounds that a bitter election -- in which groups not formally connected to each candidate ran attack ads focused on character, not issues -- seems to have opened for many Americans.

Dowling, a college professor who lives with her husband in Vermont, is not alone in feeling that the wounds cannot be healed, or at least that Bush is not the man to do it.

For Dowling, as for others who ABCNews.com spoke with, though the immediate anger may be focused on the president -- whether because of the war in Iraq, his stance on same-sex weddings, what they say is his blurring of the line between church and state, or his championing of the Patriot Act -- there is a broader concern. They say they feel the United States is changing in ways they do not like, and they feel powerless to stop it.

"We were leaving anyhow, mostly because we want to start a family and we don't feel our children can get a decent education in the United States," said Brian Sinicki, of Laramie, Wyo.

He said America's schools fail children by not teaching subjects like philosophy and civics, subjects that he said would give Americans not only a deeper understanding of the world, but an appreciation for why they should be more actively involved in the political process, not only voting but staying informed.

He also criticized the media, and television in particular, for the way news is covered.

"Television I think has single-handedly destroyed the level of political discourse," he said. "When I talk to people about politics, they're either radically misinformed or they wouldn't know how to define the terms that they use."

Sinicki, who has been job hunting in his wife's native France, doesn't blame Bush for what he believes is happening in America, but he doesn't believe Bush will change things for the better, either.

"All these things were going on before Bush got elected," he said. "But I also think they got worse since Bush got elected. He's a symptom of the problem and he's making it worse."

Like Sinicki, Dowling didn't start thinking about moving abroad last week, but she said her concern was more about the role Bush's religious beliefs seem to play in his governing, and the role of religion in American society -- what she called "aggressive Christianity."

"There is this aggressive morality that seems to me to have nothing to do with Christianity," she said. "Our fathers were mostly Unitarians, not at all holy rollers."

She also said it feels like there has been a closing of the American mind.

"I can't understand when in our nation's history being an intellectual, having a questioning, curious mind, wanting to travel, became bad," she said. "I don't understand when it became stigmatized."

She said Italy appeals to her because it is a country that holds secular values, with a "mind your own business" attitude to religion and an acceptance of the fallibility of its government.

"I do love my country and it hurts me very deeply to see what's happening here, to see us so far off course," she said. "But I've met a lot of evangelicals and they believe it deeply. They'd rather vote for fetuses and against gay people, rather than voting against war, with thousands dead, against guns, which we know kill people. When you're talking about deeply held religious beliefs, you're out of luck."

While for some people who said they are investigating the possibility of leaving the country, the difficulty of finding work overseas could keep them in the United States, for those who operate Web-based businesses, that is not a problem.

One such person, Kelly Ann Thomas of Houston, said she has put her house on the market and a real estate agent has been showing her properties in a Central American country. She said she did not want to say exactly where, because her agent told her he received 45 calls in one day from Americans looking to move to the same location.

She has been concerned since Bush took office in 2001, she said. She started buying gold and investing in euros, because she and her husband, an oil trader, were worried about a "significant stock market collapse."

Much of her anger at the president is related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which she believes were being planned by the administration months before Sept. 11, 2001. But her opinion of former Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry isn't much better.

"I can no longer in good conscience support a nation that believes it is OK to lie to start wars," she said. "I will not live in a country where dumb and dumber are my two choices for president. I'm taking my assets out of the country and moving to Central America, where ironically, I will have more freedom to live my life without interference from a corrupt government. My husband and I will leave within four months."

For Cindy Sproul, though, leaving the country -- if she does go -- will be a business decision, though one that is based on politics. Or it could become a matter of life or death.

She operates an Internet business, RainbowWeddingNetwork.com, a gay and lesbian wedding registry and directory of gay-friendly professionals.

The business has been successful -- she said the site has 4,700 vendors advertising there, and most of the businesses are not owned by straight people -- but a combination of factors has made her feel unwelcome in her own country.

"With the ban on gay marriage passing in so many states and the conservative agenda President Bush is taking, it doesn't feel safe in the U.S. any more," she said. "We are expecting that next year Bush will try to push the Federal Marriage Amendment Act through Congress again."

Actually, she said she has been worried about safety since receiving her first death threat, two weeks after starting the company. The threats have not stopped coming, she said, though she relocated to another city, and then had to relocate again within the new city.

She said her Web site already does a lot of business with Canadians and Canadian companies, and she feels Canada is more tolerant than the United States right now. But she said her decision will be made on business terms.

"We're small business owners, so everything relies on the business aspects," she said.

Copyright © 2004 ABC News Internet Ventures

 
great article!

Los Angeles Times: Unsafe for Democracy

COMMENTARY
Unsafe for Democracy
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Andrew J. Bacevich teaches international relations at Boston University and is the author of "The New American Militarism," forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
November 8, 2004

In justifying the exercise of U.S. power, all modern presidents read off the same script. The United States stands for liberty. It champions democracy. It aids the oppressed and succors the afflicted. Alone among history's great powers, the U.S. acts on behalf of the "inalienable rights" that form the birthright of all humankind.

That script was the handiwork of Woodrow Wilson. When it comes to describing this nation's purpose, each of the dominant political figures of our own day — Ronald Reagan no less than John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush no less than Bill Clinton — has embraced Wilson's legacy. Doing so has served these presidents well, enabling them to exercise extraordinary latitude in the conduct of policy while insulating them from accountability for failure.

In practice, however, ideals inform U.S. policy precisely to the extent that they happen to coincide with more tangible considerations. As a consequence, adherence to Wilsonian principles becomes highly selective: In the 1990s, Clinton called armed intervention to halt ethnic cleansing in the Balkans a moral imperative, yet averted his eyes from the Rwandan genocide; today, Bush adamantly insists that preventive war to liberate oppressed Iraqis was "the right thing to do," even as his administration dithers in the face of the genocide unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan. Unfortunately for the doomed Tutsis in Rwanda, U.S. interests in the Great Lakes region of sub-Saharan Africa fell somewhat short of those in Europe. And too bad also for the Sudanese: Their country does not sit astride an ocean of oil.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans have a monopoly on this hypocrisy. Nor, for that matter, is it peculiarly American. In Paris and Berlin just as in Washington, politicians gild their speeches with claims of altruism and good intentions. But at least the French and the Germans appear to recognize such expressions of high-mindedness for what they are: a benign ritual lending dignity to an otherwise brutal business in which the strong inevitably do as they will and the weak as they must.

From time to time in U.S. history, however, expediency camouflaged by expressions of idealism morphs into something considerably more problematic. This occurred in 1917 when Wilson intervened in Europe to end war itself and make the world safe for democracy. It occurred again after 9/11.

Having deeply internalized the ambitions and the prerogatives that Wilson articulated nearly a century ago, leading members of the Bush administration profess certainty that history has charged the United States with ensuring the universal triumph of freedom and democracy. Bush himself, perhaps the truest of Wilson's disciples, has gone even further, declaring the United States' purpose is to eliminate evil itself.

This great mission empowers Bush and his lieutenants to undertake their vast project aimed at remaking the Middle East. At the same time, it exempts them from the moral ambiguity inherent in the exercise of power. It exempts them from rules to which others must adhere. In the pursuit of exalted ends, the use of questionable means becomes permissible.

Indeed, to see the world as a contest pitting good against evil is to move at least halfway down the slippery slope of Abu Ghraib. It allows U.S. officials to shrug off the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilian lives lost since last year's invasion. Yet even as the rest of the world sees the U.S. incursion into Iraq as a reckless imperial adventure gone badly awry, the political classes here at home persist in describing it as an expression of American benevolence. Even John F. Kerry, in mounting his critique of the war, complained only of "mismanagement," thereby tacitly endorsing the administration's basic worldview.

Safely reelected, President Bush vows to press on. He has already restated his commitment to securing "the freedom of all mankind." He has seized the opportunity to refresh the camouflage cloaking the actual enterprise to which he has committed the U.S. He thereby prevents the American people from gauging the costs entailed by that enterprise and the risks that it involves.

Through incessant repetition, words like "freedom" and "democracy" have become like an old coin, worn so thin as to defy even the most conscientious effort to distinguish between the real and the counterfeit.

But the course on which we have embarked since 9/11 — and that has landed us in Iraq — is not a true one. It is unwise, unsustainable and doomed to fail. How regrettable that in the presidential contest just concluded we have squandered the opportunity to discover that.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

 
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded

Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded

Our security doesn't depend on the US; we should free up our thinking

Jonathan Steele
Monday November 8, 2004
The Guardian

They walk the walk. They talk the talk. But they don't think the think. In the wake of the huge support given to George Bush last week, it's time we realised how different America's majority culture is, and changed our policies accordingly.
What Americans share with Europeans are not values, but institutions. The distinction is crucial. Like us, they have a separation of powers between executive and legislature, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. But the American majority's social and moral values differ enormously from those which guide most Europeans.

Its dangerous ignorance of the world, a mixture of intellectual isolationism and imperial intervention abroad, is equally alien. In the United States more people have guns than have passports. Is there one European nation of which the same is true?

Of course, millions of US citizens do share "European" values. But to believe that this minority amounts to 48% and that America is deeply polarised is incorrect. It encourages the illusion that things may improve when Bush is gone. In fact, most Kerry voters are as conservative as the Bush majority on the issues which worry Europeans. Kerry never came out for US even-handedness on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Many commentators now argue for Europe to distance itself. But vague pleas for greater European coherence or for Tony Blair to end his close links with the White House are not enough. The call should not be for "more" independence. We need full independence.

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We must go all the way, up to the termination of Nato. An alliance which should have wound up when the Soviet Union collapsed now serves almost entirely as a device for giving the US an unfair and unreciprocated droit de regard over European foreign policy.

As long as we are officially embedded as America's allies, the default option is that we have to support America and respect its "leadership". This makes it harder for European governments to break ranks, for fear of being attacked as disloyal. The default option should be that we, like they, have our interests. Sometimes they will coincide. Sometimes they will differ. But that is normal.

In other parts of the world, a handful of countries have bilateral defence treaties with the US. Some in Europe might want the same if Nato didn't exist. In contrast, a few members of the European Union who chose to take the considerable risk of staying neutral during the cold war - such as Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden - see no need to join Nato in the much safer world we live in today.

So it makes no sense that the largest and most powerful European states, those who are most able to defend themselves, should cling to outdated anxiety and the notion that their ultimate security depends on the US. Do we really need American nuclear weapons to protect us against terrorists or so-called rogue states? The last time Europe was in dire straits, as Nazi tanks swept across the continent in 1939 and 1940, the US stayed on the sidelines until Pearl Harbor.

There is a school of thought which says that Nato is virtually defunct, so there is no need to worry about it. That view is sometimes heard even in Russia, where the so-called "realists" argue that Russia cannot oppose its old enemy, in spite of Washington's undisguised efforts to encircle it with bases in the Caucasus and central Asia. The more Moscow tries, they say, the more it seems to justify US claims that Russia is expansionist - however odd that sounds, coming from a far more expansionist Washington.

It is true that Nato is unlikely ever again to function with the unanimity it showed during the cold war. The lesson from Iraq is that the alliance has become no more than a "coalition of the reluctant", with key members like France and Germany opting out of joint action.

But it is wrong to be complacent about Nato's alleged impotence or irrelevance. Nato gives the US a significant instrument for moral and political pressure. Europe is automatically expected to tag along in going to war, or in the post-conflict phase, as in Afghanistan or Iraq. Who knows whether Iran and Syria will come next? Bush has four more years in power and there is little likelihood that his successors in the White House will be any less interventionist.

Nato, in short, has become a threat to Europe. Its existence also acts as a continual drag on Europe's efforts to build its own security institutions. Certain member countries, particularly Britain, constantly look over their shoulders for fear of upsetting big brother. This has an inhibiting effect on every initiative.

France's more robust stance is pilloried by the Atlanticists as nostalgia for unilateral grandeur instead of being seen as part of France's pro-European search for a security project that will help us all.

Paradoxically, one argument for voting no in the referendum on the European constitution is based on this. Paul Quiles, a French socialist former defence minister, points out that Britain forced a change in the constitution's text so that Europe's common security policy, even as it tries to gather strength, is required to give primacy to Nato. Without control over its own defence, he argues, greater European integration makes little sense.

The immediate priority on the road to European independence is to abandon support for Bush's disastrous Iraq policy and get behind the majority of Iraqis who want the US to stop attacking their cities and leave the country. They feel US forces only provoke more insecurity and death.

Since Bush's victory two Nato members, Hungary and the Netherlands (which has a rightwing government), have said they will pull their troops out in March next year. Their moves show the falsity of the "old Europe, new Europe" split. In the post-communist countries, as much as in western Europe, majorities consistently opposed Bush's Iraq adventure, whatever their more timid governments said. Wanting to withdraw support for US foreign policy is not a left or right issue.

Ending Nato would not mean that Europe rejects good relations with the US. Nor does it rule out police and intelligence collaboration on issues of concern, such as the way to protect our countries against terrorism. Europe could still join the US in war, if there was an international consensus and the electorates of individual countries supported it.

But Europeans must reach their decisions from a position of genuine independence. The US has always based its approach to Europe on a calculation of interest rather than from sentimental motives. Europe should do no less. We can and, for the most part, should be America's friends. Allies, no longer.

 

IQ and Politics

Wow, what can I say, in the first 24 hours over 540,000+ people viewed this page! I originally posted this to a few friends on a forum, using information from a list just like this created after the 2000 election. The list was carried by the St. Petersburg Times and the Economist, amongst others. The IQ data was originally attributed to the book "IQ and the Wealth of Nations", though I checked and couldn't find them in the current edition, I had posted saying such at the bottom of the table. The tests and data were said to have been administered via the Raven's APT, and The Test Agency, one of the UK's leading publishers and distributors of psychometric tests.



I have recently been emailed by someone claiming to have seen a retraction many issues later on the behalf of the Economist Magazine. The Economist could not independently verify the IQ data and the retraction can be found here. I have yet to find any retractions from the St. Petersburg Times or other publications. Here you can find a report correlating IQ and income, and their relation to how people voted in the 2004 election. This IQ data is based on SAT/ACT test scores.
Here you can see the correlation between percentage of college graduates in a state and whom they voted for in the 2000 election.



I think matching census data to the results of the election reveals some very interesting things. For instance, there is a direct correlation that has been pointed out by the Boston Globe between the divorce rate per state, and who they voted for, as it turns out, the higher the percentage of people voting for Bush, the higher the divorce rate. That is very interesting considering many people voted based on 'values' and 'morality'. I am still scratching my head about that one, I was a 'values voter' as well, though I value honesty, compassion, and human life.



I am glad that so many people are so interested in IQ, statistical correlations, and their relation to politics. I believe such correlations are increasingly interesting as some candidates this year funneled more money into biased advertising and partisan propaganda than has ever been attempted in the history of the world.

	State	Avg. IQ	2004
1	Connecticut	113	Kerry
2	Massachusetts	111	Kerry
3	New Jersey	111	Kerry
4	New York	109	Kerry
5	Rhode Island	107	Kerry
6	Hawaii	106	Kerry
7	Maryland	105	Kerry
8	New Hampshire	105	Kerry
9	Illinois	104	Kerry
10	Delaware	103	Kerry
11	Minnesota	102	Kerry
12	Vermont	102	Kerry
13	Washington	102	Kerry
14	California	101	Kerry
15	Pennsylvania	101	Kerry
16	Maine	100	Kerry
17	Virginia	100	Bush
18	Wisconsin	100	Kerry
19	Colorado	99	Bush
20	Iowa	99	Bush
21	Michigan	99	Kerry
22	Nevada	99	Bush
23	Ohio	99	Bush
24	Oregon	99	Kerry
25	Alaska	98	Bush
26	Florida	98	Bush
27	Missouri	98	Bush
28	Kansas	96	Bush
29	Nebraska	95	Bush
30	Arizona	94	Bush
31	Indiana	94	Bush
32	Tennessee	94	Bush
33	North Carolina	93	Bush
34	West Virginia	93	Bush
35	Arkansas	92	Bush
36	Georgia	92	Bush
37	Kentucky	92	Bush
38	New Mexico	92	Bush
39	North Dakota	92	Bush
40	Texas	92	Bush
41	Alabama	90	Bush
42	Louisiana	90	Bush
43	Montana	90	Bush
44	Oklahoma	90	Bush
45	South Dakota	90	Bush
46	South Carolina	89	Bush
47	Wyoming	89	Bush
48	Idaho	87	Bush
49	Utah	87	Bush
50	Mississippi	85	Bush

 

Your mail:


"As a regular reader of the "Economist" I can confirm that this table (for the 2000 election) was indeed published in the 'Economist". However, a few issues later on, the 'Economist' published a retraction, saying the data was unable to be verified and possibly a hoax."



"i was bored last night, so curiosity got the best of me and i decided to see if there was a correlation between %bush voters and %college grads by state (nerd!). so i found out each state's %Bachelor's degrees from the census and ran it--indeed there was a negative linear relationship between %bush voters and %college grads (R = -0.71)-- which means, the less % of college grads, the more % bush voters. DC had the highest % of college grads (42.5%) and the lowest % of bush voters (9%); West Virginia had the lowest % grads (16.1%) and a relatively high % (56%) bush voters...... Interestingly the last 14 ranking states in grads (<22%) were all bush winners (many 55-60+% voted for bush), and 11 of the top 14 ranking states in grads (>30%) were kerry winners."



Here is a conservative site that appears to debunk the original 2000 election IQ chart thing, and has a lot of relevent information.



Feel free to email me. It was not posted as an elitest diatribe, just an interesting correlation.

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Two Nations Under God

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: November 4, 2004


Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...

I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?

Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.

The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.

This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.

My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.

"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."

I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Red Zone

The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: November 4, 2004


WASHINGTON

With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.

"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."

Democrat: Heal thyself.

W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.

The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.

W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."

The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?

While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.

"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.

Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.

Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."

He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.

Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.

Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.

But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.

Invading France?

 
Scary....

24 percent said they were afraid and 18 percent expressed pessimism

CNN.com - Poll finds optimism after divisive election - Nov 4, 2004

Poll finds optimism after divisive election


(CNN) -- A majority of Americans polled said they were hopeful that President Bush would do more to unite the country than divide it, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.

Fifty-seven percent of 621 American adults surveyed Wednesday night said they expect Bush to unite the nation during his second term. But 39 percent said they believe the president will be divisive.

Bush won re-election over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry without the need for recounts or court battles that followed the presidential election of 2000. He also picked up 51 percent of the popular vote on his way to victory. (Bush looks forward)

Even after the highly polarizing campaign, the poll indicated some optimism for the next four years.

One-third of respondents said they were optimistic about Bush's second term, and 23 percent were enthusiastic. Another 24 percent said they were afraid and 18 percent expressed pessimism.

Just over half -- 51 percent -- of respondents said they were pleased with the outcome of the presidential election; 38 percent said they were upset.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to be a "uniter, not a divider." But in this week's election the nation seemed nearly as divided as it had been in Bush's first election. (President Bush declares victory 'historic')

Few states switched from the party that prevailed four years ago. New Hampshire, which Bush narrowly won in 2000, went for Kerry. Bush has so far carried no state won by Democrat Al Gore, although he leads in two, Iowa and New Mexico.

But this time around the nation does not appear to be divided over who won. Today, 74 percent of those surveyed said Bush won "fair and square." In 2000, the figure was only 48 percent.

Four years ago, Bush beat Gore by just 537 votes in Florida after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to stop ballot recounts in several counties. That gave Bush an Electoral College vote of 271 -- one more than necessary to win.

It seems the country may have been hoping to avoid a legal stand-off this year, because 80 percent of respondents agreed with Kerry's decision to concede the election Wednesday afternoon. (Kerry calls for unity)

The outcome remained in doubt overnight even though Bush was ahead in the popular vote by more than 3.7 million votes. He was short of winning the 270 votes needed in the Electoral College because the race in the battleground state of Ohio remained so close.

Kerry had considered forgoing a concession speech until after all provisional ballots were counted, 11 days after the election.

Sixty percent of respondents said Kerry was merely being a realist in making his decision to concede while 35 percent thought of him as a statesman.

The group surveyed also had a distinct opinion on how Bush should lead now that he's won another four-year term.

Sixty-three percent said Bush should emphasize a bipartisan program. Just under a third, 30 percent, said Bush needs to advance the Republican agenda.

The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

 
Amazing...who voted for Bush....

The poll found that of those voters who had lost a job in the past four years, or had a family member who had lost one, a strong majority favored Kerry. But most people who had no experience with losing work during the past four years tended to back Bush.


News Analysis: Kerry failed to connect on economy:

News Analysis: Kerry failed to connect on economy
By Floyd Norris International Herald Tribune Thursday, November 4, 2004

PARIS It wasn't the economy, stupid.
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The issue that did the most to defeat George H.W. Bush when he sought re-election 12 years ago also hurt his son, George W. Bush, in this year's election.
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But few voters were focused on the issue, and that helped the younger Bush to win a second term.
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Senator John Kerry sought at times in his campaign to make the economy the major issue, emphasizing that the Bush administration would be the first one since Herbert Hoover's during the Depression to show a net job loss over a four-year term. Bush emphasized the job gains over the past year, and blamed the Clinton administration for the recession that began in 2001.
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But mostly, he sought to focus the election on terrorism, an issue on which most voters said they trusted him more than Kerry.
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One measure of just how poor a job Kerry did in getting his message across was that a clear majority of voters surveyed by the national exit poll said they believed the job situation was at least as good as it was four years ago - something no economist would argue. Kerry won a majority among the approximately four in nine Americans who said they thought the job situation was worse, but Bush prevailed among the third of voters who thought it as good, as well as among the fifth who thought it was better now.
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The poll found that of those voters who had lost a job in the past four years, or had a family member who had lost one, a strong majority favored Kerry. But most people who had no experience with losing work during the past four years tended to back Bush.
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Only about a fifth of Americans said the economy was the most important issue. And while they strongly supported Kerry by margins of about four to one, approximately equal numbers said that they thought terrorism was the No.1 issue, and even more said moral values were. Bush won majorities of around four to one among both groups.
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And Kerry failed to persuade most voters that he was better able to deal with the economy.
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A clear majority said they did not trust Bush with the economy, but an almost equal majority did not trust Kerry, either.
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In 1992, the exit poll was phrased differently, asking voters to choose one or two important issues. About two-fifths said the economy was one of the most important issues, and Bill Clinton easily prevailed among those voters.
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"It's the economy, stupid," had been the mantra inside the Clinton campaign, and it proved to be correct. Voters concerned about the economy helped propel Clinton to victory.
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Four years ago, when Bush won the presidency despite losing the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore, the economy was viewed by voters as strong, with about two-thirds saying that it was in good condition and a fifth saying it was in excellent shape. But Gore got little credit for that. Bush won majorities among those who thought the economy was good, as well as among the small number who thought it was doing poorly. Only among those who ranked the economy excellent did Gore prevail.
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In this election, a majority of Americans thought the economy was doing "not so good" or worse, and Kerry easily won a majority of those voters. But about four of every nine voters said that they thought the economy was in good shape or better, and Bush was the overwhelming choice of those voters. He also prevailed among those making more than $50,000 a year, while Kerry was the choice of most voters making less than that.
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Four years ago, the United States was nearing the end of the longest economic expansion in its history, with forecasts of large budget surpluses, and Bush was able to promise large tax cuts while still forecasting surpluses. The tax cuts came, but the surpluses have turned into large deficits.
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Neither candidate laid out in much detail his economic strategy for the next four years, although Kerry talked of cutting taxes further for middle-income Americans while raising them for those earning over $200,000 a year.
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Bush talked of using his second term for major tax reform, something that Ronald Reagan did two decades ago. He was vague as to what that would entail, although there has been talk of simplifying the tax code and of perhaps moving toward a national consumption tax, something that every major industrial economy except the United States now has. Bush is likely to resume the push to make permanent his previous tax cuts, including the estate tax. Under current law, the estate tax is to be repealed in 2010 and return in 2011.
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The tax cuts got something of a lukewarm endorsement in the exit poll, with only about two-fifths of voters saying that they had helped the economy, while a third said they had hurt and the rest thought they made little difference. Kerry prevailed among those who said that they thought the tax cuts irrelevant or worse, but Bush won a large majority of those who thought the cuts had helped the economy.
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Bush was the choice of those making over $100,000 a year in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, but his majority in that group increased this time, perhaps reflecting appreciation of the tax cuts.
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The flip side of the tax cuts is budget deficits, of course. But one clear sign of how this election differed from that of 1992 is that in that year, the issue that got the second-most attention from voters was deficits, named by one in five as among the two most important issues.
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This time, the people who put together the exit poll - sponsored by the five U.S. television networks and The Associated Press and conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International - did not even include it as a major issue, a decision that reflected how little the deficits so far have affected public attitudes.
.

 
divisions, divisions....


Nicholas D. Kristof: Why Democrats lose in middle America

Nicholas D. Kristof: Why Democrats lose in middle America
Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times Thursday, November 4, 2004
NEW YORK In the aftermath of the civil war that the United States has just fought, one result is clear: The Democratic Party's first priority should be to reconnect with the American heartland.
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John Kerry's supporters should be feeling wretched about the millions of farmers, factory workers and waitresses who ended up voting - utterly against their own interests - for Republican candidates.
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One of the Republican Party's major successes over the last few decades has been to persuade many of the working poor to vote for tax breaks for billionaires. The Democrats are still effective on bread-and-butter issues like health care, but they come across in much of America as arrogant and out of touch the moment the discussion shifts to values.
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"On values, they are really noncompetitive in the heartland," noted Mike Johanns, a Republican who is governor of Nebraska. "This kind of elitist, Eastern approach to the party is just devastating in the Midwest and Western states. It's very difficult for senatorial, congressional and even local candidates to survive."
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In the summer, I was home - too briefly - in Yamhill, Oregon, a rural, working-class area where most people would benefit from Democratic policies on taxes and health care. But many of those people disdain Democrats as elitists who empathize with spotted owls rather than loggers.
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One problem is the yuppification of the Democratic Party. Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," says that Democratic leaders have been so eager to win over suburban professionals that they have lost touch with blue-collar America.
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"There is a very upper-middle-class flavor to liberalism, and that's just bound to rub average people the wrong way," Frank said. He notes that Republicans have used "culturally powerful but content-free issues" to connect to ordinary voters.
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To put it another way, Democrats peddle issues, and Republicans sell values. Consider the four G's: God, guns, gays and grizzlies.
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One-third of Americans are evangelical Christians, and many of them perceive Democrats as often contemptuous of their faith. And, frankly, they're often right. Some evangelicals take revenge by smiting Democratic candidates.
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Then we have guns, which are such an emotive issue that Idaho's Democratic candidate for the Senate two years ago, Alan Blinken, felt obliged to declare that he owned 24 guns "and I use them all." He still lost.
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As for gays, that's a rare wedge issue that Democrats have managed to neutralize in part, along with abortion. Most Americans disapprove of gay marriage but do support some kind of civil unions (just as they oppose "partial birth" abortions but don't want teenage girls to die from coat-hanger abortions).
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Finally, grizzlies - a metaphor for the way environmentalism is often perceived in the West as high-handed. When I visited Idaho, people were still enraged over a Clinton administration proposal to introduce 25 grizzly bears into the wild. It wasn't worth antagonizing most of Idaho over 25 bears.
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"The Republicans are smarter," said Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. "They've created ... these social issues to get the public to stop looking at what's happening to them economically. What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."
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President Bill Clinton intuitively understood the challenge, and John Edwards seems to as well, perhaps because of their own working-class origins. But the party as a whole is mostly in denial.
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To appeal to middle America, Democratic leaders don't need to carry guns to church services and shoot grizzlies on the way. But a starting point would be to shed their inhibitions about talking about faith, and to work more with religious groups.
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Otherwise, the Democratic Party's efforts to improve the lives of working-class Americans in the long run will be blocked by the very people the Democrats aim to help.

 
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | This is no passing phase. This is now an era

This is no passing phase. This is now an era

Those outside America, in the chanceries of Europe and beyond, who hoped that this would be a passing phase, like a Florida hurricane that wreaks havoc only to blow over, will instead have to adjust to a different reality.

For four years many hoped that the course charted by President Bush - a muscular go-it-alone view of a world divided between the forces of darkness and those of light - would prove to be a blip. Come November 2, 2004, they wanted to believe, normal service would be resumed. The United States would return to the old way of doing business, in concert with allies and with respect for the international system the US itself had done so much to create. The norms of foreign policy pursued by every president from Roosevelt to Clinton, including the first George Bush, would be revived. Senator Kerry promised as much.

Now that fantasy will be shelved. The White House is not about to ditch the approach of the last four years. Why would it? Despite the mayhem and murder in Iraq, despite the death of more than 1,000 US soldiers and countless (and uncounted) Iraqis, despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction, despite Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration won the approval of the American people. If Bush had lost the neo-conservative project would have been buried forever. But he won, and the neo-cons will welcome that as sweet vindication.

So it will be full steam ahead. "There are real threats that have to be dealt with," Danielle Pletka of the impeccably neo-con American Enterprise Institute told the Guardian yesterday. Iran would not go away - indeed, Ms Pletka warned, "force might be the only option" - nor would North Korea. "We can't all pretend that the world would be a prettier place if only George W Bush was not the president."

There were plenty of people around the globe who used to think precisely that way, hoping that the past four years were a bad dream which would end yesterday. Now they have to navigate around a geopolitical landscape in which President Bush is the dominant, fixed feature.

 
The American Conservative Shocker

The American Conservative Shocker
By Scott McConnell , Daily Reckoning 29/10/04
Oct 29, 2004, 09:03

Email this article
Printer friendly page

There is little in John Kerry's persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge - the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry - seems overdone, as Kerry's contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002. But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.
It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Bush has turned into an important president, and in many ways, the most radical America has had since the 19th century. Because he is the leader of America's conservative party, he has become the Left's perfect foil - its dream candidate. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II: Both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their countries' budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks.

Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the United States, the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation's children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: It is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal - Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can't be found to do it - and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.

During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. Of course there has always been "anti-Americanism." After the Second World War many European intellectuals argued for a "Third Way" between American-style capitalism and Soviet communism, and a generation later Europe's radicals embraced every ragged "anti-imperialist" cause that came along. In South America, defiance of "the Yanqui" always draws a crowd. But Bush has somehow managed to take all these sentiments and turbo-charge them.

In Europe, and indeed all over the world, he has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98% have an unfavorable view of the United States. It's the same throughout the Middle East.

Bush has accomplished this by giving the United States a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that "good" countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security.

These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists - indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America's survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to provide full, 100% cooperation. Making yourself into the world's most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help.

I've heard people who have known George W. Bush for decades and served prominently in his father's administration say that he could not possibly have conceived of the doctrine of pre-emptive war by himself, that he was essentially taken for a ride by people with a pre-existing agenda to overturn Saddam Hussein. Bush's public performances plainly show him to be a man who has never read or thought much about foreign policy. So the inevitable questions are: Who makes the key foreign-policy decisions in the Bush administration, who controls the information flow to the president, how are various options presented?

The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA, State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency - and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy, and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.

But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency - and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell's departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the "neoconian candidate." The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: A quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past - and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.

George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies - a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies - temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election - are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans "won't do." This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.



Source:Ocnus.net 2004

 
The American Conservative Shocker

The American Conservative Shocker
By Scott McConnell , Daily Reckoning 29/10/04
Oct 29, 2004, 09:03

Email this article
Printer friendly page

There is little in John Kerry's persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge - the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry - seems overdone, as Kerry's contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002. But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.
It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Bush has turned into an important president, and in many ways, the most radical America has had since the 19th century. Because he is the leader of America's conservative party, he has become the Left's perfect foil - its dream candidate. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II: Both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their countries' budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks.

Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the United States, the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation's children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: It is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal - Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can't be found to do it - and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.

During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. Of course there has always been "anti-Americanism." After the Second World War many European intellectuals argued for a "Third Way" between American-style capitalism and Soviet communism, and a generation later Europe's radicals embraced every ragged "anti-imperialist" cause that came along. In South America, defiance of "the Yanqui" always draws a crowd. But Bush has somehow managed to take all these sentiments and turbo-charge them.

In Europe, and indeed all over the world, he has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98% have an unfavorable view of the United States. It's the same throughout the Middle East.

Bush has accomplished this by giving the United States a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that "good" countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security.

These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists - indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America's survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to provide full, 100% cooperation. Making yourself into the world's most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help.

I've heard people who have known George W. Bush for decades and served prominently in his father's administration say that he could not possibly have conceived of the doctrine of pre-emptive war by himself, that he was essentially taken for a ride by people with a pre-existing agenda to overturn Saddam Hussein. Bush's public performances plainly show him to be a man who has never read or thought much about foreign policy. So the inevitable questions are: Who makes the key foreign-policy decisions in the Bush administration, who controls the information flow to the president, how are various options presented?

The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA, State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency - and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy, and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.

But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency - and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell's departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the "neoconian candidate." The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: A quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past - and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.

George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies - a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies - temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election - are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans "won't do." This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.



Source:Ocnus.net 2004

 
Yahoo! News - Bush Wins Re-Election As Kerry Concedes

 
US News Article | Reuters.com

Unhappy Democrats Need to Wait to Get Into Canada
Wed Nov 3, 2004 01:16 PM ET

By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Disgruntled Democrats seeking a safe Canadian haven after President Bush won Tuesday's election should not pack their bags just yet.

Canadian officials made clear on Wednesday that any U.S. citizens so fed up with Bush that they want to make a fresh start up north would have to stand in line like any other would-be immigrants -- a wait that can take up to a year.

"You just can't come into Canada and say 'I'm going to stay here'. In other words, there has to be an application. There has to be a reason why the person is coming to Canada," said immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi.

There are anywhere from 600,000 to a million Americans living in Canada, a country that leans more to the left than the United States and has traditionally favored the Democrats over the Republicans.

But recent statistics show a gradual decline in U.S. citizens coming to work in Canada, which has a creaking publicly funded healthcare system and relatively high levels of personal taxation.

Government officials, real estate brokers and Democrat activists said that while some Americans might talk about a move to Canada rather than living with a new Bush administration, they did not expect a mass influx.

"It's one thing to say 'I'm leaving for Canada' and quite another to actually find a job here and wonder about where you're going to live and where the children are going to go to school," said one government official.

Roger King of the Toronto-based Democrats Abroad group said he had heard nothing to back up talk of a possible exodus of party members.

"I imagine most committed Democrats will want to stay in the United States and continue being politically active there," he told Reuters.

Americans seeking to immigrate can apply to become permanent citizens of Canada, a process that often takes a year. Becoming a full citizen takes a further three years.

The other main way to move north on a long-term basis is to find a job, which in all cases requires a work permit. This takes from four to six months to come through.

Official statistics show the number of U.S. workers entering Canada dropped to 15,789 in 2002 from 21,627 in 2000. Early indicators on Wednesday showed little sign of this changing.

A spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs ministry said there had been no increase in the number of hits on the Washington embassy's immigration Web site, while housing brokers said they doubted they would see a surge in U.S. business.

"Canada's always open and welcoming to Americans who want to relocate here, but we don't think it would be a trend or movement," said Gino Romanese of Royal Lepage Residential Real Estate Services in Toronto.

Those wishing to move to Canada could always take a risk and claim refugee status -- the path chosen earlier this year by two U.S. deserters who opposed the war in Iraq.

"Anybody who enters Canada who claims refugee status will be provided with a work permit ... it doesn't matter what country they're from," Iadinardi said.

Refugee cases are handled by special boards, which can take months to decide whether to admit applicants. The rulings can be appealed and opposition politicians complain some people ordered deported have been in Canada for 10 years or more.



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The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Apparent Heir

October 31, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Apparent Heir
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Columnists for this newspaper are not allowed to endorse presidential candidates. But I think this election is so important, I am going to break the rules. I hope I don't get fired. But here goes: I am endorsing George Bush for president. No, no - not George W. Bush. I am endorsing his father - George Herbert Walker Bush.

The more I look back on the elder Bush - Bush 41 - the more I find things to admire and the more I see attributes we need in our next president.

Let's start with domestic policy. The elder George Bush was the real uniter, not divider, the real believer in a kinder, gentler political dialogue. Yes, he had a Democratic Congress to deal with, so he had to be more conciliatory, but it came naturally to him. In 1990, the elder Bush sided with Congressional Democrats to raise taxes, because he knew it was the right thing for the economy, despite his famous "Read my lips" pledge not to raise new taxes. While that 1990 tax increase contributed to his re-election defeat, it laid the foundation for the Clinton tax increases, which, together with Mr. Bush's, helped to hold down interest rates and spur our tremendous growth in the 1990's and the buildup of a huge surplus.

On foreign policy, the elder Bush maintained a healthy balance between realism and idealism, unilateralism and multilateralism, American strength and American diplomacy. He believed that international institutions like the U.N. could be force multipliers of U.S. power. Rather than rubbing Mikhail Gorbachev's nose in the dirt, the elder Bush treated him with respect, and in doing so helped to orchestrate the collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany without the firing of a single shot. The nonviolent unraveling of the Soviet Empire ushered in a decade of prosperity and an era of unprecedented American power and popularity.

The alliance that Mr. Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James A. Baker III built to drive Saddam out of Kuwait had so many allies it virtually turned a profit for America. Mr. Bush chose not to invade Baghdad in 1991. Right or wrong, he felt that had he tried, he would have lost the coalition he had built up to evict Saddam from Kuwait. He obviously believed that the U.S. should never invade an Arab capital without a coalition that contained countries whose support mattered in that part of the world, such as France, Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia.

The elder Bush rightly understood that it was not in Israel's interest, or that of the U.S., for Israel to be expanding settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The Madrid peace conference convened by the elder Bush paved the way for both the Oslo peace process and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, which ended Israel's diplomatic isolation with countries like India and China. It was also the elder Bush who laid the groundwork for the Nafta free-trade accord, completed by President Bill Clinton.

In short, the elder Bush understood the importance of acting in the world - but acting wisely, with competence and preparation. His great weakness was his public diplomacy. He wrongly antagonized American Jews by challenging their right to lobby on behalf of Israel. He could have given more voice to the amazing liberation of humanity that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented and to the American anger over the Tiananmen Square massacre. Although, in his muted response to Tiananmen, the elder Bush kept China-U.S. relations from going totally off the rails, which kept China on a track to economic reform. Although he raised taxes, he never really explained himself. So his instincts were good, his mechanics were often flawless, but his words and music left you frustrated. Still, the legacy is a substantial one. Over time, historians will treat the elder Bush with respect.

So as we approach this critical election of 2004, my advice, dear readers, is this: Vote for the candidate who embodies the ethos of George H. W. Bush - the old guy. Vote for the man who you think would have the same gut feel for nurturing allies and restoring bipartisanship to foreign policy as him. Vote for the man you think understands the importance of facing up to our fiscal responsibilities for the sake of our children. And vote for the man who has the best instincts for balancing realism and idealism and the man who understands the necessity of using energetic U.S. diplomacy to make Israel more secure - by helping to bring it peace with its Arab neighbors, not just more tours from American Christian fundamentalists.

Yes, next Tuesday, vote for the real political heir to George H. W. Bush. I'm sure you know who that is.

 
Why some Arabs look to Kerry with hope

Why some Arabs look to Kerry with hope
Marwan Bishara International Herald Tribune Tuesday, November 2, 2004

WASHINGTON Arabs are divided on the American elections between a skeptical majority that sees no difference between George W. Bush and John Kerry and a hopeful minority that believes Kerry could narrow the gap between the Muslim world and the West.
.
The skeptics see both Bush and Kerry as ardent supporters of Israel and its doctrine of pre-emptive war who are committed to American triumph in Iraq regardless of the cost. The optimists, however, see important differences in the candidates' discourse and approach.
.
While I agree with the skeptics, I think a Kerry presidency would have a better chance of containing the dangerous escalation between America and the Muslim world.
.
Bush's evangelical messianism and his politics of fear have diminished tolerance and increased misunderstanding of the Middle East. His zero-sum approach of "You're either with us or against us" has alienated the majority of the Arabs and Muslims who stand against Osama bin Laden but cannot withstand an open-ended American military crusade.
.
Kerry's approach, on the other hand, reflects a nuanced understanding of regional power politics and global geopolitical reality. He advocates broad international coalitions to combat terrorism and regional participation in solving Middle Eastern problems. This could translate into a win-win situation where less U.S. military involvement would bring about more regional stability and greater American security.
.
The importance of Kerry's call for a more "sensitive" war on terrorism, though ridiculed by Vice President Dick Cheney, cannot be overestimated. The United States needs to improve relations with regional players who have been offended each time Bush spoke out on the war on terrorism.
.
The Bush administration chose to attack Iraq even though it posed no credible threat to the United States and even though Bush was warned by the State Department of the terrible consequences of such a war. The invasion of a sovereign state thousands of miles away has increased America's nonstate enemies who, unlike Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, cannot be boycotted, contained or held legally accountable for their actions.
.
Those foes, including religious and ideologically driven terrorist groups and resistance movements, have been strengthened, not weakened, by Bush's war. In fact, the Bush administration has become a new galvanizing symbol for the extremists in the region.
.
Even in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda are re-emerging thanks to Washington's short attention span and the Bush administration's redirection of American financial and military resources to Iraq. Bin Laden's weekend video release is a rude reminder of this reality.
.
The Bush administration has started more fires than it has put out. While its earlier campaign against Al Qaeda has been effective to a large degree, its overall performance in the war on terrorism, especially in Iraq, has only fanned the flames of hatred and resistance.
.
As a result, anti-American groups are now able to tap into larger reservoirs of fresh recruits, extending from the belts of poverty around metropolitan cities to neighborhood mosques in the Middle East and elsewhere. The gray areas in which they can operate have grown, such as the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the weak grip of central government coupled with the presence of foreign soldiers produces chaos - terrorists' favorite playing field.
.
Despite its fanciful talk about elections and democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration has in reality cultivated the direct opposite of what it ostensibly set out to accomplish. Its pre-emptive wars have weakened the democratic and liberal movement in the region while its crusade has mobilized diverse and disconnected groups in a jihad against America.
.
A Kerry presidency could erase the negative perception of America in the Middle East. It should begin with resolving fairly the Palestinian problem, which, according to recent polls, would increase the proportion of Arabs who view America favorably from below 15 percent to almost 60 percent.
.
Kerry's multilateral approach to Iraq, coupled with an international effort to resolve outstanding regional problems, including the proliferation of unconventional weapons, could earn America many more friends and empower the region's subdued majority, which has been sidelined by Bush and bin Laden.
.

 
News


China Lays Into 'Bush Doctrine' Ahead of U.S. Poll



BEIJING (Reuters) - On the eve of the U.S. election, China laid into what it called the "Bush doctrine," said the Iraq war has destroyed the global anti-terror coalition and blamed arrogance for the problems dogging the United States worldwide.

The searing article was as close to a position on the U.S. presidential election as China has come, but it made no mention of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Party's challenger to President Bush in Tuesday's presidential contest.

The United States was dreaming if it thought the 21st century was the American century, wrote Qian Qichen, one of the main architects of China's foreign policy, in a commentary in the English-language China Daily newspaper.

"The current U.S. predicament in Iraq serves as another example that when a country's superiority psychology inflates beyond its real capability, a lot of trouble can be caused," Qian wrote.


"But the troubles and disasters the United States has met do not stem from the threats by others, but from its own cocksureness and arrogance."


Qian is a former foreign minister credited with breaking China out of diplomatic isolation after the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.


The invasion of Iraq "has made the United States even more unpopular in the international community than its war in Vietnam," he said.


"The Iraq war has also destroyed the hard-won global anti-terror coalition," Qian added, saying it had caused a rise in terrorist activity around the globe and widened a rift between the United States and Europe.


"END OF EMPIRE"


The U.S. strategy of pre-emptive strikes would bring insecurity and ultimately the demise of the "American empire," Qian said.


Analysts have said China has a slight preference for the incumbent in the U.S. election, realising that U.S. policy toward China has changed little from administration to administration.


But China, growing in economic and political influence on the world stage, has expressed its aversion to Bush's unilateralist tendencies and sided with France and Germany in opposition to the Iraq war.


"It is now time to give up the illusion that Europeans and Americans are living in the same world, as some Europeans would like to believe," Qian said.


The United States had not changed its Cold War mentality, Qian said.


"The 21st century is not the 'American century'. That does not mean that the United States does not want the dream. Rather it is incapable of realizing the goal," he said.


After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the "Bush doctrine" created "axes of evil" and pre-emptive strategies.


"It linked counter-terrorism and the prevention of proliferation of so-called rogue states and failed states ... It all testifies that Washington's anti-terror campaign has already gone beyond the scope of self-defense."





© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.


10/31/2004 22:07
RTR

 
These are extrmely good points that are made towards eliminating the threat of war and terrorism. Have them have a stake in the western economies via interactivity in jobs and money.

Nourishing the Muslim world

Nourishing the Muslim world
The New York Times Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Three weeks ago, Pakistan's commerce minister met with his U.S. counterparts. His request was familiar: that the Bush administration lower the odious duties on underwear and shirts from Pakistan, and consider a free-trade pact with the predominantly Muslim country. The response was also familiar: no.
.
In the din of campaign screeds about national security, the exchange did not draw a mention from either candidate. But it highlights a fundamental flaw in America's economic relationship with querulous allies in the so-called war on terrorism. If President George W. Bush wants to reach out to the Muslim world, there are few better things he can do than allow greater access to the U.S. market. Exporting textiles is a critical step for poorer nations to becoming full participants in the world economy.
.
Unhappily, in rejecting Pakistan's reasonable request in favor of protecting a dying but politically powerful textile industry in the U.S. South, the Bush administration missed a chance to put some truth behind its oratory about winning the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. Certainly, Bush can continue to buy off Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, with F-16s and money for battling insurgents on the Afghan border. But that shortsighted policy fails to take into account the convergence of economics and national security.
.
Pakistan's biggest industry is textiles, accounting for 45 percent of its manufacturing jobs. But Musharraf has enraged fundamentalist Muslims by trying to please Washington on Afghanistan and Iraq. So television images of anti-U.S. fervor in Pakistan often leave companies skittish about doing business there. But the more dependent Pakistanis become on U.S. companies for their livelihood, the less likely they are to join anti-U.S. insurgencies. Washington can help by encouraging U.S. companies, through import duty relief, to remain in Pakistan.
.
This will become even more urgent after Dec. 31, when the import quotas that long protected textile companies will disappear. China, with its quick turnaround times and highly efficient factories, could quickly quash all competitors.
.
It's a safe bet that the minute clothing imports from China spike, U.S. textile companies will invoke the protection clause they strong-armed into the agreement permitting China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2000. It's just as certain that Congress and whoever is president will pander to the U.S. manufacturers. The politics of protection won't change on New Year's Eve.
.
He who lobbies the hardest will still get the most goodies. But import duties will replace quotas as the buy-off of choice. So why not offer some economic nourishment to America's few Muslim allies? Bush administration officials say they want a free-trade accord with Middle East countries, and that's all to the good. But they are resisting calls to expand the pact to other Muslim countries. If they are squeamish about a trade pact based on religion, they can initiate pacts with specific countries, like Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan.
.
Economics cannot be separated from national security. Young Pakistanis who can't get jobs in factories that export to the United States sometimes go to training camps to learn how to kill Americans.
.
Three weeks ago, Pakistan's commerce minister met with his U.S. counterparts. His request was familiar: that the Bush administration lower the odious duties on underwear and shirts from Pakistan, and consider a free-trade pact with the predominantly Muslim country. The response was also familiar: no.
.
In the din of campaign screeds about national security, the exchange did not draw a mention from either candidate. But it highlights a fundamental flaw in America's economic relationship with querulous allies in the so-called war on terrorism. If President George W. Bush wants to reach out to the Muslim world, there are few better things he can do than allow greater access to the U.S. market. Exporting textiles is a critical step for poorer nations to becoming full participants in the world economy.
.
Unhappily, in rejecting Pakistan's reasonable request in favor of protecting a dying but politically powerful textile industry in the U.S. South, the Bush administration missed a chance to put some truth behind its oratory about winning the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. Certainly, Bush can continue to buy off Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, with F-16s and money for battling insurgents on the Afghan border. But that shortsighted policy fails to take into account the convergence of economics and national security.
.
Pakistan's biggest industry is textiles, accounting for 45 percent of its manufacturing jobs. But Musharraf has enraged fundamentalist Muslims by trying to please Washington on Afghanistan and Iraq. So television images of anti-U.S. fervor in Pakistan often leave companies skittish about doing business there. But the more dependent Pakistanis become on U.S. companies for their livelihood, the less likely they are to join anti-U.S. insurgencies. Washington can help by encouraging U.S. companies, through import duty relief, to remain in Pakistan.
.
This will become even more urgent after Dec. 31, when the import quotas that long protected textile companies will disappear. China, with its quick turnaround times and highly efficient factories, could quickly quash all competitors.
.
It's a safe bet that the minute clothing imports from China spike, U.S. textile companies will invoke the protection clause they strong-armed into the agreement permitting China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2000. It's just as certain that Congress and whoever is president will pander to the U.S. manufacturers. The politics of protection won't change on New Year's Eve.
.
He who lobbies the hardest will still get the most goodies. But import duties will replace quotas as the buy-off of choice. So why not offer some economic nourishment to America's few Muslim allies? Bush administration officials say they want a free-trade accord with Middle East countries, and that's all to the good. But they are resisting calls to expand the pact to other Muslim countries. If they are squeamish about a trade pact based on religion, they can initiate pacts with specific countries, like Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan.
.
Economics cannot be separated from national security. Young Pakistanis who can't get jobs in factories that export to the United States sometimes go to training camps to learn how to kill Americans.
.

 
This paints a pretty bleak picture of the world.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: How to Make New Enemies

October 25, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
How to Make New Enemies
By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

It is striking that in spite of all the electoral fireworks over policy in Iraq, both presidential candidates offer basically similar solutions. Their programs stress intensified Iraqi self-help and more outside help in the quest for domestic stability. Unfortunately, these prescriptions by themselves are not likely to work.

Both candidates have become prisoners of a worldview that fundamentally misdiagnoses the central challenge of our time. President Bush's "global war on terror" is a politically expedient slogan without real substance, serving to distort rather than define. It obscures the central fact that a civil war within Islam is pitting zealous fanatics against increasingly intimidated moderates. The undiscriminating American rhetoric and actions increase the likelihood that the moderates will eventually unite with the jihadists in outraged anger and unite the world of Islam in a head-on collision with America.

After all, look what's happening in Iraq. For a growing number of Iraqis, their "liberation" from Saddam Hussein is turning into a despised foreign occupation. Nationalism is blending with religious fanaticism into a potent brew of hatred. The rates of desertion from the American-trained new Iraqi security forces are dangerously high, while the likely escalation of United States military operations against insurgent towns will generate a new rash of civilian casualties and new recruits for the rebels.

The situation is not going to get any easier. If President Bush is re-elected, our allies will not be providing more money or troops for the American occupation. Mr. Bush has lost credibility among other nations, which distrust his overall approach. Moreover, the British have been drawing down their troop strength in Iraq, the Poles will do the same, and the Pakistanis recently made it quite plain that they will not support a policy in the Middle East that they view as self-defeating.

In fact, in the Islamic world at large as well as in Europe, Mr. Bush's policy is becoming conflated in the public mind with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy in Gaza and the West Bank. Fueled by anti-American resentments, that policy is widely caricatured as a crude reliance on power, semicolonial in its attitude, and driven by prejudice toward the Islamic world. The likely effect is that staying on course under Mr. Bush will remain a largely solitary American adventure.

This global solitude might make a re-elected Bush administration more vulnerable to the temptation to embrace a new anti-Islamic alliance, one reminiscent of the Holy Alliance that emerged after 1815 to prevent revolutionary upheavals in Europe. The notion of a new Holy Alliance is already being promoted by those with a special interest in entangling the United States in a prolonged conflict with Islam. Vladimir Putin's endorsement of Mr. Bush immediately comes to mind; it also attracts some anti-Islamic Indian leaders hoping to prevent Pakistan from dominating Afghanistan; the Likud in Israel is also understandably tempted; even China might play along.

For the United States, however, a new Holy Alliance would mean growing isolation in an increasingly polarized world. That prospect may not faze the extremists in the Bush administration who are committed to an existential struggle against Islam and who would like America to attack Iran, but who otherwise lack any wider strategic conception of what America's role in the world ought to be. It is, however, of concern to moderate Republicans.

Unfortunately, the predicament faced by America in Iraq is also more complex than the solutions offered so far by the Democratic side in the presidential contest. Senator John Kerry would have the advantage of enjoying greater confidence among America's traditional allies, since he might be willing to re-examine a war that he himself had not initiated. But that alone will not produce German or French funds and soldiers. The self-serving culture of comfortable abstention from painful security responsibilities has made the major European leaders generous in offering criticism but reluctant to assume burdens.

To get the Europeans to act, any new administration will have to confront them with strategic options. The Europeans need to be convinced that the United States recognizes that the best way to influence the eventual outcome of the civil war within Islam is to shape an expanding Grand Alliance (as opposed to a polarizing Holy Alliance) that embraces the Middle East by taking on the region's three most inflammatory and explosive issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the mess in Iraq, and the challenge of a restless and potentially dangerous Iran.

While each issue is distinct and immensely complex, each affects the others. The three must be tackled simultaneously, and they can be tackled effectively only if America and Europe cooperate and engage the more moderate Muslim states.

A grand American-European strategy would have three major prongs. The first would be a joint statement by the United States and the European Union outlining the basic principles of a formula for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, with the details left to negotiations between the parties. Its key elements should include no right of return; no automatic acceptance of the 1967 lines but equivalent territorial compensation for any changes; suburban settlements on the edges of the 1967 lines incorporated into Israel, but those more than a few miles inside the West Bank vacated to make room for the resettlement of some of the Palestinian refugees; a united Jerusalem serving as the capitals of the two states; and a demilitarized Palestinian state with some international peacekeeping presence.

Such a joint statement, by providing the Israeli and Palestinian publics a more concrete vision of the future, would help to generate support for peace, even if the respective leaders and some of the citizens initially objected.

Secondly, the European Union would agree to make a substantial financial contribution to the recovery of Iraq, and to deploy a significant military force (including French and German contingents, as has been the case in Afghanistan) to reduce the American military presence. A serious parallel effort on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process might induce some Muslim states to come in, as was explicitly suggested recently by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. The effect would be to transform the occupation of Iraq into a transitional international presence while greatly increasing the legitimacy of the current puppet Iraqi regime. But without progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, any postoccupation regime in Iraq will be both anti-United States and anti-Israel.

In addition, the United States and the European Union would approach Iran for exploratory discussions on regional security issues like Iraq, Afghanistan and nuclear proliferation. The longer-term objective would be a mutually acceptable formula that forecloses the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran but furthers its moderation through an economically beneficial normalization of relations with the West.

A comprehensive initiative along these lines would force the European leaders to take a stand: not to join would run the risk of reinforcing and legitimating American unilateralism while pushing the Middle East into a deeper crisis. America might unilaterally attack Iran or unilaterally withdraw from Iraq. In either case, a sharing of burdens as well as of decisions should provide a better solution for all concerned.


Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, is the author of "The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership.''

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Jews, Israel and America

October 24, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Jews, Israel and America
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I was speaking the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News's "60 Minutes" about the mood in Iraq. He had just returned from filming a piece there and he told me something disturbing. Scott had gone around and asked Iraqis on the streets what they called American troops - wondering if they had nicknames for us in the way we used to call the Nazis "Krauts" or the Vietcong "Charlie." And what did he find? "Many Iraqis have so much distrust for U.S. forces we found they've come up with a nickname for our troops," Scott said. "They call American soldiers 'The Jews,' as in, 'Don't go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock.' "

I have no idea how widespread this perception is, but it does not surprise me that some Iraqis would talk that way. Our communications in Iraq have been so inept since we arrived, many Iraqis still don't know who America is or why it came. But such talk is also indicative of a trend in the Arab media, after a century of Arab-Jewish strife, where if you want to brand someone as illegitimate, just call him a "Jew." Indeed, this trend has widened since 9/11. Now you find a steadily rising perception across the Arab-Muslim world that the great enemy of Islam is JIA - "Jews, Israel and America," all lumped together in a single threat.

This wider trend has been fanned by Arab satellite TV stations, which deliberately show split-screen images of Israelis bashing Palestinians and U.S. forces bashing the Iraqi insurgents. The trend has also been encouraged by some mosque preachers looking to explain away all the Arab world's ills by wrapping all the Satans together into JIA. This trend has been helped by the Bush team's failed approach to the Arab-Israel problem, which is to tell the truth only to Yasir Arafat, while embracing Ariel Sharon so tightly that it's impossible to know anymore where U.S. policy stops and Mr. Sharon's begins.

This trend of JIA is now metastasizing from the core of the Arab-Israel conflict, across the Muslim world and into Europe. There is no quick fix. One thing that Israel can do is push harder to defuse the conflict with the Palestinians in order to deprive the Arab media of the raw images that help to feed this phenomenon, not because the continuing conflict is all Israel's fault - it is not - but because Israel has such an overriding interest in forging a partnership with a legitimate Palestinian Authority, and getting this poisonous show off the air. A generation of Muslims raised on these images on the Internet is enormously dangerous for Jews, Israel and America.

This brings us to this week's vote in the Israeli Parliament about whether to proceed with Mr. Sharon's plan for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Mr. Sharon, a man of the right, has finally realized the demographic threat posed by Gaza to Israel and wants to get out. He is being opposed by the Israeli far right - the Jewish Hezbollah. This includes settler rabbis who have urged soldiers to disobey orders and, with winks and nods, have let it be known that if someone were to eliminate Ariel Sharon he would be acting out God's will. In this struggle between Jewish fanatics and Ariel Sharon, we must stand with Mr. Sharon. These settler rabbis are a blot on the Jewish people.

But in the struggle between Mr. Sharon and common sense, America should be with common sense. The late Yitzhak Rabin wanted to get out of Gaza to make peace with the Palestinians, because he understood the danger of "Jews, Israel and America" all getting melded together in the nuclear age. Mr. Rabin knew that no peace deal would resonate in the Arab-Muslim world if it did not have a legitimate Palestinian partner. Mr. Sharon seems to want to get out of Gaza to make peace with the Jews. His aides have made clear that he is getting out of Gaza in order to entrench Israel even more deeply in the West Bank and the Jewish settlements there.

In the face of this plan, the Bush team is silent. This is partly because the Palestinians continue to stick with Arafat as their leader, even though this bum has led them to ruin - so the U.S. has nothing to offer Israel. And it's partly because the Bush team, which is so inept at diplomacy, has never had the energy or creativity to shape a better Palestinian alternative to Arafat. As a result, the Sharon vision of getting out of Gaza in order to take over the West Bank will probably win by default. If that happens, "Jews, Israel and America" will be bound together more tightly than ever as the enemies of Arabs and Muslims.

 
Yahoo! News - New Yorker magazine breaks with tradition, endorses Kerry

 
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: 'Oops. I Told the Truth.'

October 17, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
'Oops. I Told the Truth.'
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Sometimes it's useful to stand back and ask yourself: If I could vote for anyone for president other than George W. Bush or John Kerry, whom would I choose? I'd choose Bill Cosby - on the condition that he would talk as bluntly to white parents and kids about what they need to do if they want to succeed as he did to black kids and parents a few months ago.

The one thing that has gone totally missing, not only from this election, but from American politics, is national leaders who are actually ready to level with the public and even criticize their own constituencies. The columnist Michael Kinsley once observed that in American politics "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth." We could use a few really big gaffes right now. Because we have not one, but three baby booms bearing down at us, and without a massive injection of truth-telling they could all explode on the next president's watch.

The leading edge of the American baby boom generation is now just two presidential terms away from claiming its Social Security and Medicare benefits. "With unfunded entitlement liabilities at $74 trillion in today's dollars - an amount far exceeding the net worth of our entire national economy - and with payroll taxes needing to double to cover the projected costs of Social Security and Medicare, how can any serious person not call entitlement reform the transcendent domestic policy issue of our era?" asks former Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, whose book on this subject, "Running on Empty," provides a blueprint for a bipartisan solution to this problem for any president daring to lead.

The second group of boomers barreling down the highway are the young people in India, China and Eastern Europe, who in this increasingly flat world will be able to compete with your kids and mine more directly than ever for high-value-added jobs. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: The Chinese and the Indians are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top. Young Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs are not content just to build our designs. They aspire to design the next wave of innovations and dominate those markets. Good jobs are being outsourced to them not simply because they'll work for less, but because they are better educated in the math and science skills required for 21st-century work.

When was the last time you met a 12-year-old who told you he or she wanted to grow up to be an engineer? When Bill Gates goes to China, students hang from the rafters and scalp tickets to hear him speak. In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears. We need a Bill Cosby-like president to tell all parents the truth: throw out your kid's idiotic video game, shut off the TV and get Johnny and Suzy to work, because there is a storm coming their way.

The third group of boomers our next president will have to deal with is from the Arab world. The Arab region has had the highest rate of population growth in the world in the last half century. It has among the highest unemployment rates in the world today. And one-third of the Arab population is under the age of 15 and will soon be entering both a barren job market and its child-bearing years. There are eight Saudis under age 15 for every one between ages 45 and 60.

This is why I believed so strongly in trying to partner with the people of Iraq to establish some sort of decent government there that might serve as a beachhead for more progressive governance in the Arab world. I have not given up hope for this, but it may turn out that we made too many mistakes and that Iraqis are too divided for such a project to succeed. If so, the next president is going to need plan B - some combination of oil conservation that reduces our exposure to this region, a new military strategy and a renewed focus on promoting better government there through diplomatic and economic means. The Arab world is not even close to educating its baby boomers with the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century. Left untended, this trend is a prescription for humiliation and suicide terrorism.

I realize that elections are no time to expect honesty from politicians. But we're in this hole because the political season used to stop on Election Day. Now it's a permanent campaign. That is simply not a luxury our next president will have. The boomers are coming - from three directions - and we will not be able to deal with them without a president with a real penchant for gaffes of honesty.

 
Go Eminem.......

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2004?

EMINEM: 'BUSH LIKE A DOG CHASING ITS TAIL'
Fri Oct 22 2004 13:45:08 ET

Rapper Eminem bodyslams President Bush in the upcoming edition of ROLLING STONE, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

President Bush is "like dog chasing its tail," the Hollywood-bound Eminem tells the magazine, set to street during the first week of November.

RS: You get deep into your feelings about President Bush and Iraq on “Mosh.” Do you think the Iraq War was a mistake?

E: He’s been painted to be this hero and he’s got our troops over there dying for no reason. I haven’t heard an explanation yet that I can understand. Explain to us why we have troops over there dying.

RS: There is no good answer.

E: I think he started a mess. America is the best country there is, the best country to live in. But he’s f**kin’ that up and could run our country into the ground. He jumped the gun, and he f**ked up so bad he doesn’t know what to do right now. He’s in a tailspin, running around like a dog chasing its tail. And we got young people over there dyin’, kids in their teens, early twenties that should have futures ahead of them. And for what? It seems like a Vietnam 2. Bin Laden attacked us and we attacked Saddam. We ain’t heard from Saddam for ten years, but we go attack Saddam. Explain why that is. Give us some answers.

RS: Are you voting?

E: This is the first year I’ve registered to vote. And I’m gonna vote. Bush is definitely not my homie, but I’m still undecided. Kerry has been known to say some things that’s caught my attention, made a few statements I’ve liked, but I don’t know. Whatever my decision is, I would like to see Bush out of office. I don’t wanna see my little brother get drafted. He just turned eighteen. I don’t want to see him lose his life. People think their votes don’t count, but people need to get out and vote. Every motherf**kin’ vote counts.


Developing...

 
Go Eminem.......

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2004?

EMINEM: 'BUSH LIKE A DOG CHASING ITS TAIL'
Fri Oct 22 2004 13:45:08 ET

Rapper Eminem bodyslams President Bush in the upcoming edition of ROLLING STONE, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

President Bush is "like dog chasing its tail," the Hollywood-bound Eminem tells the magazine, set to street during the first week of November.

RS: You get deep into your feelings about President Bush and Iraq on “Mosh.” Do you think the Iraq War was a mistake?

E: He’s been painted to be this hero and he’s got our troops over there dying for no reason. I haven’t heard an explanation yet that I can understand. Explain to us why we have troops over there dying.

RS: There is no good answer.

E: I think he started a mess. America is the best country there is, the best country to live in. But he’s f**kin’ that up and could run our country into the ground. He jumped the gun, and he f**ked up so bad he doesn’t know what to do right now. He’s in a tailspin, running around like a dog chasing its tail. And we got young people over there dyin’, kids in their teens, early twenties that should have futures ahead of them. And for what? It seems like a Vietnam 2. Bin Laden attacked us and we attacked Saddam. We ain’t heard from Saddam for ten years, but we go attack Saddam. Explain why that is. Give us some answers.

RS: Are you voting?

E: This is the first year I’ve registered to vote. And I’m gonna vote. Bush is definitely not my homie, but I’m still undecided. Kerry has been known to say some things that’s caught my attention, made a few statements I’ve liked, but I don’t know. Whatever my decision is, I would like to see Bush out of office. I don’t wanna see my little brother get drafted. He just turned eighteen. I don’t want to see him lose his life. People think their votes don’t count, but people need to get out and vote. Every motherf**kin’ vote counts.


Developing...

 
This would be a mistake if the US backs these idiots.

Yahoo! News - Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights: "Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights

Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights


By Laura King Times Staff Writer

JERUSALEM — Increasingly concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Israel is weighing its options and has not ruled out a military strike to prevent the Islamic Republic from gaining the capability to build atomic weapons, according to policymakers, military officials, analysts and diplomats.


Israel would much prefer a diplomatic agreement to shut down Iran's uranium enrichment program, but if it concluded that Tehran was approaching a "point of no return," it would not be deterred by the difficulty of a military operation, the prospect of retaliation or the international reaction, officials and analysts said.


Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and his top aides have been asserting for months that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a clear threat to Israel's existence. They have repeatedly threatened, in elliptical but unmistakable terms, to use force if diplomacy and the threat of sanctions fail.


Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper last month that "all options" were being weighed to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. The army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, declared: "We will not rely on others."


Iran presents "a combination of factors that rise to the highest level of Israeli threat perception," said analyst Gerald Steinberg of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.


"Nuclear weapons in a country with a fundamentalist regime, a government with which we have no diplomatic contact, a known sponsor of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and which wants to wipe Israel off the map — that makes stable deterrence extremely difficult, if not impossible," Steinberg said.


Israel's concerns are magnified by the fact that Iran already possesses the medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which is capable of reaching Israel with either a conventional or non-conventional warhead. Iran said this week that it had test-fired an upgraded, more accurate version of the missile.


Preemptive strikes have always been an essential element of Israel's military doctrine. Perhaps the most pertinent example is the air raid that destroyed Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.


Experts are divided, however, on whether that precedent should be viewed as a window into Israel's thinking on Iran.


"The comparison to 1981 is of the utmost relevance because the decision-making is based on the same factors," said army reserve Col. Danny Shoham, a former military intelligence officer who is now a researcher at Bar-Ilan University. "Those are: What is the reliability of the intelligence picture? What would be the response of the opponent? What is the point of no return in terms of nuclear development, and what would be the international response?"


But he and others also noted key differences that could weigh against a military strike. Iran's nuclear development sites are widely scattered, in many cases hidden underground and heavily fortified, so Israel would have far less opportunity to deal the Iranian program a single devastating blow.


"It would be a complicated operation. In order to undermine or disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, you would have to strike at least three or four sites," said Ephraim Kam, the deputy head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.


"Otherwise the damage would be too limited, and it would not postpone the program by more than a year or two, and this could in the end be worse than doing nothing."


Few believe, however, that logistical challenges alone would hold back the Jewish state if it determined that a strike was necessary.


To reach Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes were over hostile territory for most of their 90-minute, 680-mile flight. All the while, they held to a tightly clustered formation that resembled the radar signature of a commercial jet. When the Israelis reached their target, they destroyed the Iraqi reactor in less than a minute and a half.


The raid, which was preceded by months of rehearsals using mock-ups of the targeted reactor, is still regarded in military and aviation circles as a model of planning, operational discipline and innovation — qualities that analysts familiar with Israel's military capabilities say could be drawn upon again.


"I wouldn't want to speculate about exactly how the present-day objective might be achieved, but I will say this: The Israeli air force is extremely, extremely creative in its problem-solving approach," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the National Security Studies Center at Haifa University and the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center.





In its arsenal, Israel has the first of more than 100 sophisticated, American-built F-16I warplanes, which come with extra fuel tanks to increase their range. It also has signed a deal with Washington to acquire 500 "bunker buster" bombs that can blast through more than six feet of concrete — the kind of fortification that might be associated with Iranian nuclear sites.

In 1981, Sharon was a Cabinet minister and among the circle of confidants around then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin who took part in deliberations over the Osirak attack. Sharon later called it "perhaps the most difficult decision" ever faced by an Israeli government.

Some of the language being used by Israeli officials now is reminiscent of statements leading up to the strike on the Iraqi reactor. Military historians recount that Rafael Eitan, then army chief of staff, dispatched the corps of elite fighter pilots on its mission with the grim words, "The alternative is our destruction."

At the time, Begin feared for the stability of his government and thought that if he did not act swiftly, he might lose the opportunity to act at all. Sharon, under heavy pressure from opponents of his initiative to relinquish settlements in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), also faces the almost daily risk that his minority coalition will collapse.

Still, any action against Iran seems unlikely to take place before the end of the year.

Israeli analysts differ somewhat in their assessment of when Iran would be seen as irrevocably on the road to developing nuclear weapons.

Steinberg said the probable "red line" would be the ability to produce kilogram-level quantities of highly enriched, bomb-grade uranium. He and others said that could be anywhere from six months to three years away.

Israeli officials and diplomats say their preferred solution is diplomacy through the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency or sanctions imposed by the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council.

"We don't want to give the impression that this entire burden rests on Israel's shoulders," said lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, the head of Israel's parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee.

But Israeli officials are also telegraphing that they do not consider the diplomatic process open-ended.

"There may be a few months when the international community can still act and place upon Iran the kind of pressure that would compel it to stop its program," said Avi Pazner, a veteran diplomat who serves as an advisor to Sharon. "But there's not much time — there's not much time."

Opinion polls suggest that although there is little appetite in Israel for a confrontation with Iran, a substantial minority of citizens thinks one could be on the horizon. In a recent poll commissioned by the Maariv newspaper, 54% said diplomatic efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program should continue, with 38% saying their country should consider a preemptive attack.

The idea of responding militarily to any perceived external threat tends to unite Israelis across the political spectrum. For example, Labor Party leader Shimon Peres has long been an advocate of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians — but is also among those who strongly believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable peril to Israel.

A complicating factor in the debate over Iran is Israel's own status as an undeclared nuclear power. Israeli officials insist that their country's presumed nuclear status enhances regional stability by serving as a deterrent but say Iran's possession of atomic weapons would almost certainly trigger an arms race with rival Muslim states.

"It would break the dam, so to speak, and spill over into the whole Middle East," said Uzi Arad, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy at Herzliya's Interdisciplinary Center. "There would be tremendous danger arising from this."

Arad and others said that if Iran became a nuclear power, it would spur even relatively moderate countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to achieve similar status and embolden more radical regimes — for example, pushing Moammar Kadafi's Libya to abandon its recent conciliatory stance toward international regulators.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was well aware that even if it acted alone against Iran, the United States, as its closest ally, would inevitably be seen as complicit. That would virtually guarantee an outburst of antagonism across the Muslim world that America could ill afford at a time of bitter feelings over the war in Iraq (news - web sites).

Still, George Perkovich, who studies nuclear proliferation issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said it would be "hard to imagine a strong negative American reaction" to an Israeli strike if diplomatic efforts failed.

Another U.S. analyst said that Iran's program was further along and more dispersed than Iraq's was in 1981. "The comparisons between Osirak and the situation in Iran today are simply wrong," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

He said Israel's attack slowed, but did not terminate, Iraq's effort to develop nuclear weapons and probably encouraged Hussein to try to develop biological and chemical arms.

Israel's military establishment regards the United States, with its large concentration of troops in the region and its long-range air power, as far better equipped than Israel to mount a strike against Iran or to provide assistance and support for one.

"If it comes to a military move, it should be in concert," said analyst Kam of the Jaffee Center. "Israel isn't the only country that's affected. And it's not for a local power like Israel to act — it's a question for a superpower."

*



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Sonni Efron and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.

 
Clinton to soon be king of the world.....

Interest!ALERT: Quality Content

Analysis: Clinton eyes U.N. post

By ROLAND FLAMINI, UPI Chief International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.

"He definitely wants to do it," the Clinton insider said this week.

A Clinton candidacy is likely to receive overwhelming support from U.N. member states, particularly the Third World. Diplomats in Washington say Clinton would galvanize the United Nations and give an enormous boost to its prestige. But the former president's hopes hang on a crucial question that will not be addressed until after the presidential elections: can he get the support of the U.S. government -- a prerequisite for nomination?

The political wisdom is that a second George W. Bush presidency would cut him off at the pass. The notion of Clinton looming large in the international arena from "the glass tower" in New York would be intolerable to the Bush White House. If Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wins on Nov. 2 the prospect of Clinton as secretary-general won't exactly be welcome either, but Kerry would find it much harder -- if not impossible -- to go against it.

After a Middle East U.N. Secretary General (Boutros Boutros Ghali) and an African (Kofi Annan) it is generally considered Asia's turn to fill the post, U.N. experts say. No announcement has been made, but behind the scenes China is already pushing the candidacy of Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who also seems to have U.S. support. If Clinton does emerge as a candidate, however, China would most likely shift its support, the experts say.

No American has ever been U.N. secretary-general, but the United States is both host country to the United Nations and the major contributor to its budget. A hostile U.S. Congress held up its dues for years -- until the Clinton administration negotiated a payment plan for Washington's arrears. Clinton also revived U.S. membership of UNESCO though the Americans did not actually move back into their offices at the Paris-based scientific and cultural U.N. agency until after the start of the Bush presidency.

President Reagan had taken the United States out of UNESCO in protest against alleged corruption by former top agency officials.

Clinton is currently recovering from the heart bypass surgery he had to undergo last month, and this has kept him away from the Kerry campaign after a few initial support appearances. The former president has told friends and Kerry staffers he plans to resume campaigning for Kerry, but on a limited scale because his recovery has been gradual. He has talked of his interest in taking over at the United Nations since the publication of his commercially successful autobiography, which he recently said had sold 1.9 million copies. Writing the book kept him busy after leaving office in 2000, but he is now ready to channel his considerable political skills and energy into another role in public life.

There had been rumors that he would run the Third Way organization, the world Social Democratic movement he had talked of launching together with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But the political alliance had come unstuck and the idea ran out of steam partly because Blair and Schroeder found themselves on opposite sides in the Bush-led Iraq war.

Putting Clinton in charge of the United Nations would be a real test of international intentions, observers say.

"Critics of the U.N. complain that it's an organization without the muscle and will to put its decisions into effect," the U.N. source observed. "There's a good chance that Clinton could significantly change that situation, and then we'll see if the critics mean what they say."




Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.

 
Bush's Worst Nightmare. CIA Director Tenet calls Iraq War Wrong. Nice!

The Herald-Palladium

Tenet: CIA made errors

By ANNA CLARK / H-P Correspondent

BENTON TOWNSHIP -- Although he emphasized that the Central Intelligence Agency boasts "tremendously talented men and women," former CIA Director George Tenet said it "did not live up to our expectations as professionals" regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"We had inconsistent information, and we did not inform others in the community of gaps in our intelligence," Tenet said. "The extraordinary men and women who do magnificent work in the CIA are held accountable every day for what they do, and as part of keeping our faith with the American people, we will tell you when we're right or wrong."
Tenet called the war on Iraq "wrong" in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000 members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center. He did not elaborate.

Despite proclaiming to be "as forthcoming as I can," Tenet made light of a question about whether or not the United States made an error in committing intelligence to the search for nonexistent WMDs in Iraq rather than exploring terrorism elsewhere.

Tenet apologized for being rude but did not answer the question.

He did add that he doesn't think the Iraq war was wholly bad.


"When I look at the regime (Saddam Hussein) ran, and the elaborate depth he took to deny us the ability to build our intelligence, I can't say it was a waste," Tenet said. "I believed he had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't. At the end of the day I have to stand up accountable for that. In the meantime our nation needs to honor the commitment we made in Iraq."

Tenet was faulted in April's 9/11 Commission report for not having a strategy to battle terrorism before the terrorist attacks. He also took responsibility for a later discredited line in President George Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, which alleged that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. Tenet said the CIA had seen and approved the speech in advance, and he assumed responsibility for the error.

Tenet said that while the Iraq war was "rightly being challenged," the CIA was making important strides toward success in the greater war on terrorism.

He said the United States is "winning the war on terror" due to the CIA's efforts to "capture or kill" three-quarters of al-Qaida's leaders, pinpointed before 9/11. He expects to see Osama bin Ladin captured.

Tenet highlighted places throughout the world, including Iran and North Korea, that are potential terrorism threats, while commending the cooperation of Pakistan and Libya with U.S. efforts.

He said the Pakistani president "came to our side" after 9/11 and allowed for important al-Qaida captures in a nation the terrorist organization once considered safe. Libya initiated contact with the CIA and explicitly committed to dismantling its weapons program - the first time any such program was self-dismantled without a shot being fired, Tenet said.

"Demographics and distribution trends are something we also need to keep an eye on," Tenet said. "The developed world is not reproducing at levels to maintain its position, while developing nations who cannot afford it, mostly Muslim ones, are exploding."

Tenet said a developing nation's low per capita income, high unemployment among young men and high infant mortality rate strongly increase its likelihood of becoming a "terrorist safe haven."

"In 2010, 100 million people outside of Africa will be infected with HIV," Tenet said. "The secondary implications of this are staggering."

He said the work of public health officers, missionaries and literacy teachers in third world nations are crucial to the war on terrorism, because terrorists build supporters by spinning poverty as a form of humiliation caused by wealthy nations like the United States.

 
Yahoo! News - Annan: Iraq War Hasn't Made World Safer

Annan: Iraq War Hasn't Made World Safer

2 hours, 37 minutes ago


LONDON - The U.S.-led war in Iraq (news - web sites) hasn't made the world any safer, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said in a British TV interview aired Sunday.


"I cannot say the world is safer when you consider the violence around us, when you look around you and see the terrorist attacks around the world and you see what is going on in Iraq," Annan told the ITV network.


"We have a lot of work to do as an international community to try and make the world safer," he said.


Annan has previously described the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as "illegal."


He told ITV that Iraq was on track to hold elections at the end of January and said he would speak out if he was not satisfied with the way they are conducted.


"If that sort of judgment or any decision which is made which we think detracts from the credibility and viability of the elections, we will be duty bound to say so," he said.


Annan also dismissed any suggestion that France, Russia and China had been prepared to ease sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in return for oil contracts.


Iraq tried to manipulate foreign governments by awarding contracts — and bribes — to foreign companies and political figures in countries that showed support for ending sanctions, in particular Russia, France and China, the final report by the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group said earlier this month.


But Annan said it was "inconceivable" Saddam's activities could have influenced policy in the countries concerned.


"I don't think the Russian or the French or the Chinese government would allow itself to be bought..." Annan said.


"I think it's inconceivable. These are very serious and important governments. You are not dealing with banana republics."

 
Yahoo! News - Kerry Says Bush Plan Could Lead to Draft

 
Interesting view, although I don't buy it.

Why Muslims always blame the West

Why Muslims always blame the West
Husain Haqqani International Herald Tribune Saturday, October 16, 2004

WASHINGTON When Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, warned against the descent of an "iron curtain" between the West and the Islamic world, he appeared to put the onus of avoiding confrontation only on the West.
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The Palestinian issue and the pre-emptive war in Iraq have undoubtedly accentuated anti-Western sentiment among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. But the conduct and rhetoric of Muslim leaders and their failure to address the stagnation of their societies has also fueled the tensions between Islam and the West.
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Relations between Muslims and the West will continue to deteriorate unless the internal crisis of the Muslim world is also addressed.
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After 9/11, General Musharraf switched support from Afghanistan's Taliban to the U.S.-led war against terrorism. He has since received a hefty package of U.S. military and economic assistance and spoken of the need for "enlightened moderation."
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According to an opinion poll conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center as part of its Global Attitudes Survey, 86 percent of Pakistanis have a favorable view of General Musharraf while 65 percent also support Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is viewed favorably by large percentages in other Muslim countries with "moderate" rulers.
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Quite clearly, some Muslims find it possible to like Musharraf, who is regarded by the U.S. as the key figure in the hunt for bin Laden, while admiring his quarry at the same time. The contradiction speaks volumes about the general state of confusion in parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan.
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Instead of hard analysis, which thrives only in a free society, Muslims are generally brought up on propaganda, which is often state-sponsored. This propaganda usually focuses on Muslim humiliation at the hands of others instead of acknowledging the flaws of Muslim leaders and societies.
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The focus on external enemies causes Muslims to admire power rather than ideas. Warriors, and not scholars or inventors, are generally the heroes of common people. In this simplistic "us vs. them" worldview, both Musharraf and bin Laden are warriors against external enemies.
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Ringing alarm bells about an iron curtain between the West and the Islamic world without acknowledging the internal flaws of Muslim rulers and societies helps maintain the polarization as well as the flow of Western aid for the flawed rulers.
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Ironically, a cult of the warrior has defined the Muslim worldview throughout the period of Muslim decline. Muslims have had few victories in the last two centuries, but their admiration for the proverbial sword and spear has only increased.
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Textbooks in Muslim countries speak of the victories of Muslim fighters from an earlier era. Orators still call for latter-day mujahedeen to rise and regain Islam's lost glory. More streets in the Arab world are named after Muslim generals than men of learning. Even civilian dictators in the Muslim world like being photographed in military uniforms, Saddam Hussein being a case in point.
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In the post-colonial period, military leaders in the Muslim world have consistently taken advantage of the popular fascination with military power. The Muslim cult of the warrior explains also the relatively muted response in the Muslim world to atrocities committed by fellow Muslims.
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While the Muslim world's obsession with military power encourages violent attempts to "restore" Muslim honor, the real reasons for Muslim humiliation and backwardness continue to multiply. In the year 2000, according to the World Bank, the average income in the advanced countries (at purchasing price parity) was $27,450, with the U.S. income averaging $34,260 and Israel's income averaging $19, 320.
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The average income in the Muslim world, however, stood at $3,700. Pakistan's per capita income in 2003 was a meager $2,060. Excluding the oil-exporting countries, none of the Muslim countries of the world had per capita incomes above the world average of $7,350.
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National pride in the Muslim world is derived not from economic productivity, technological innovation or intellectual output but from the rhetoric of "destroying the enemy" and "making the nation invulnerable." Such rhetoric sets the stage for the clash of civilizations as much as specific Western policies.
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Ironically, Western governments have consistently tried to deal with one manifestation of the cult of the warrior - terrorism - by building up Muslim strongmen who are just another manifestation of the same phenomenon.
.

 
Yahoo! News - Polls Show Worsening of U.S. Reputation

Polls Show Worsening of U.S. Reputation

54 minutes ago Top Stories - AP


By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - America's reputation around the world is hurting, according to a series of coordinated polls published Friday from 10 countries, including many of the United States' closest allies.


In eight of the countries where the surveys commissioned by major newspapers were conducted, more people said their view of America had worsened in the past two to three years than improved. That question was asked in nine countries.


By big margins, those questioned said the war in Iraq (news - web sites) did not aid the global fight against terrorism.


And in eight out of 10 nations, those polled said — often in landslide proportions — that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) beat President Bush (news - web sites) in next month's election. Bush won backing from a majority of respondents only in Russia and Israel.


The polls were conducted in Canada, France, Britain, Spain, Japan, South Korea (news - web sites), Australia, Mexico, Israel and Russia, with results to be published in the participating newspapers on Friday. Not all questions were asked in every country.


On average, 57 percent of those questioned said their opinions of America had worsened over the past two to three years, compared with 20 percent who said their view had improved. That question was asked in nine of the countries, but not in Russia.


Seventy-four percent of Japanese, 70 percent of French, 67 percent of South Koreans, 64 percent of Canadians and 60 percent of Spaniards said they had a worse opinion of America now than two to three years ago.


Only in Israel did more people say their view of the United States had improved than worsened in the past two to three years.


In that period, which began just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States has led wars in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq. While much of the international community backed the invasion to oust the Taliban, Bush's decision to invade Iraq has fueled anger around the world.


However, many of those polled separated their feelings about the U.S. government from their views of the American people. Sixty-eight percent said they had a favorable opinion of Americans.


Asked whether American democracy remained a model for other nations, 52 percent of those asked said yes and 42 percent said no.


In Britain, Mexico and South Korea, more people thought the United States was no longer a model, while in Canada, Russia, Japan and Israel, majorities said it was.


Fifty-nine percent of people questioned in seven nations — including Britain, America's closest ally in Iraq — said the war there was not helping the world fight against terrorism, while 35 percent said it was, as Bush contends.


People in all 10 countries were asked who they hoped to see win the White House on Nov. 2, and the result will make Kerry wish they had a vote.


The Democrat was favored by healthy to enormous majorities in eight of the nations — 72 percent supported him, compared with 16 percent for Bush in France.


In South Korea, it was 68 percent for Kerry and 18 percent for Bush; in Canada, 60 percent to 20 percent; in Spain, 58 percent to 13 percent; in Australia 54 percent to 28 percent; and in Britain 50 percent to 22 percent.


Bush came out on top in Israel by a margin of 50 percent to 24 percent and in Russia, 52 percent to 48 percent.





The newspapers involved were La Presse in Canada, Le Monde in France, the Guardian in Britain, El Pais in Spain, Asahi Shimbun in Japan, JoongAng Ilbo in South Korea, the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age in Australia, Reforma in Mexico, Haaretz in Israel and the Moscow News in Russia.

The sample sizes in the 10 polls varied from 522 people in Israel to 1,417 in Australia. Margins of error were mostly around 3 percentage points, but varied between 2.6 and 4.38.

The polls were conducted on different dates from September through early October.

(UPDATES grafs 2, 7, 8 to correct that people in eight countries, sted seven, say views of America have worsened, per corrected information from newspaper; minor edits throughout.)

 
Now this would be a good tax plan!

Tax-News.com Advertiser Link Page

Ireland Should Levy A 15% Flat Tax On Wealthy Citizens, Says Economist, by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London 12 October 2004

A leading economist has called upon the Irish government to levy a 15% flat tax on individuals with substantial incomes.

Addressing an audience at a conference of Ireland’s largest union, the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), Paul Tansey of financial consultants Tansey Webster Stewart argued that the tax code was unfairly weighted towards the wealthy and contributed towards a growing inequality of wealth.

Noting that the tax code allows wealthy individuals to reduce their tax bills by taking advantage of various deductions, write-offs and investment schemes, Tansey urged the government to levy a 15% flat tax on those earning more than EUR250,000 per year.

“High-earning taxpayers could continue to choose from the wide selection of tax reducing allowances and write-offs on offer, subject to the proviso that they could not reduce their income tax liabilities below 15% of their gross incomes,” Mr Tansey told the conference.

 
FrontPage magazine.com :: An American in London by Carol Gould

An American in London
By Carol Gould
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 12, 2004

Something remarkable has been happening to me in the past nineteen days. Wherever I go, no-one launches abuse at me. When I open my mouth to speak, I am received with civility and the occasional ’ Have a good one.’ I am not attacked or intimidated to the point of abject fear and loathing. Where have I been visiting for the past two and a half weeks? And where do I live?

The answer lies in a conversation I had with my sister in a charming ice cream parlor in Philadelphia’s historic Suburban Station this afternoon. I looked up from my dessert and said, ‘My God, I’ve gone for nineteen days without anybody -- not taxi drivers, shop clerks or waiters -- launching an abusive tirade at me.

Here is the background scenario: Exactly one month ago today, I was traveling on a London bus when a well-dressed woman boarded with her equally-respectable son in his school uniform. Ahead of her was an elderly American woman, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to bang into you.’ This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman -- let’s call her Lady E -- that resembled a verbal assault by a brownshirt against a hapless Jewish pedestrian in 1933. The American -- call her Mrs. A -- sat down and cowered as the tirade continued: ‘I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the world.’ Mrs A fought back: ‘I personally am NOT destroying the world.’ This only provoked Lady E more, and as the bus driver and passengers laughed, she screamed into the American’s face ‘I wish every one of you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again,’ and Mrs A began to wince, crying. ‘Thank you for ruining my day and my trip.’ At this point Lady E lunged at the American and began to shake her. I jumped up and shouted at the top of my voice for the driver to stop and for her to leave the woman alone, prompting Lady E to come over to me and grab me. ‘Another bloody American accent! You come here and think you can strut about, well, you are scum.’ Thankfully, the woman next to me pushed her away. I left the bus as the American woman sat sobbing.



Did I imagine this? No. Was the Englishwoman a crazy? No.



A few weeks before, I had attended a party at which I was lambasted, intimidated and mocked by a group of people I had known for some twenty-odd years. It reminded me of a comment made to me by an American expatriate shortly after 9/11: ‘Now I know what the Jews felt like in pre-war Germany.’



Frankly, I don’t like what is happening in Britain and am shocked and dismayed at the level to which anti-Americanism has peaked in recent months. Does anyone say ‘George W Bush’ or ‘Donald Rumsfeld’ or Dick Cheney’ when