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.)