AN ALTERNATIVE NEWS VIEW OF THE MAY 3 S.C. DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
EXCERPT:
The Big Ideas?
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.: Edwards, himself a first-generation college graduate, wants to pay for the first year of state college for qualified high school graduates to level the playing field for groups historically underrepresented at the university -- meaning the poor and minorities.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean: Plans a radically different foreign policy approach by drastically increasing aid to developing countries to foster the creation of democratic institutions, thereby decreasing the likelihood that country will create terrorists.
U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri: Rolled out a universal health care program that would give major tax breaks to companies to help them afford coverage for their employees.
Former ambassador and Illinois U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun: Wants to reform the way public schools are funded by increasing the aid from the federal government -- it provides only 6 percent right now -- that would make the system less reliant on local property taxes
Now, the question is whether those ideas actually get communicated to the American public. Their fate rests largely with the press, and judging by the coverage this weekend's festivities received, the prospects don't look so good.
SEE LINK
Internet muse.
Daring, bold, never sold.
My daily weblog of politics, humor, philosophy...and a constant and nagging reminder of the existence of universal love....
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
"accessAtlanta"- "MINI-ME" JOURNALISM VS. ALTERNATIVE PRINT MEDIA--
DOES "FREE" = "NOT WORTHY"???
"A journalist visiting Atlanta a few weeks ago stopped by The Daily Newspaper of Dramatically Declining Circulation (hereinafter referred to as the AJC). When the scribe offhandedly made a laudatory remark about The Rapidly Growing Alternative Newspaper (aka Creative Loafing or, to save a little ink, CL), an AJC poobah sniffed that the alt-weekly was "free." That disparagement was meant to end discussion -- "free" equals "not worthy."
Later that day, the journalist, BBC's Greg Palast, would quip to an overflow crowd at Emory U that he found it a relief that CL was "free" because the AJC was obviously still "enslaved."
The crowd roared with delight. And all Atlantans -- at least those remaining few souls who for one reason or the other must clench their teeth and read the AJC -- are likely roaring in derision at the daily's pitiable excuse at competition aimed at CL.
SEE LINK
DOES "FREE" = "NOT WORTHY"???
"A journalist visiting Atlanta a few weeks ago stopped by The Daily Newspaper of Dramatically Declining Circulation (hereinafter referred to as the AJC). When the scribe offhandedly made a laudatory remark about The Rapidly Growing Alternative Newspaper (aka Creative Loafing or, to save a little ink, CL), an AJC poobah sniffed that the alt-weekly was "free." That disparagement was meant to end discussion -- "free" equals "not worthy."
Later that day, the journalist, BBC's Greg Palast, would quip to an overflow crowd at Emory U that he found it a relief that CL was "free" because the AJC was obviously still "enslaved."
The crowd roared with delight. And all Atlantans -- at least those remaining few souls who for one reason or the other must clench their teeth and read the AJC -- are likely roaring in derision at the daily's pitiable excuse at competition aimed at CL.
SEE LINK
HERE WE GO AGAIN....ANOTHER UNILATERAL STUNT
Bush may lift sanctions on his own, despite opposition
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
06 May 2003
"The Bush administration is studying whether to lift US sanctions on Iraq unilaterally – a move likely to put it on a new collision course with France, Russia and other members of the UN Security Council.
A legal team led by the National Security Council at the White House is examining such a step and its likely ramifications in international law, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday"
SEE LINK
Bush may lift sanctions on his own, despite opposition
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
06 May 2003
"The Bush administration is studying whether to lift US sanctions on Iraq unilaterally – a move likely to put it on a new collision course with France, Russia and other members of the UN Security Council.
A legal team led by the National Security Council at the White House is examining such a step and its likely ramifications in international law, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday"
SEE LINK
From Newsmax, 5/7/03:
LATEST GOSSIP--SEN BOB GRAHAM IS SITTING ON
BUSH-DAMAGING 9-11 EVIDENCE
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bob Graham is reportedly sitting
on damaging evidence that the Bush administration could have prevented
the Sept. 11 attacks - but he hasn't released the information yet
because it's classified.
"I think Bob Graham has a smoking pistol on the Bush administration,"
Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford told WABC Radio's John
Batchelor and Paul Alexander late Tuesday.
Crawford explained that Graham's mystery evidence has to do with
"their failures, particularly intelligence failures, before 9/11."
_______________________________________________________
LATEST GOSSIP--SEN BOB GRAHAM IS SITTING ON
BUSH-DAMAGING 9-11 EVIDENCE
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bob Graham is reportedly sitting
on damaging evidence that the Bush administration could have prevented
the Sept. 11 attacks - but he hasn't released the information yet
because it's classified.
"I think Bob Graham has a smoking pistol on the Bush administration,"
Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford told WABC Radio's John
Batchelor and Paul Alexander late Tuesday.
Crawford explained that Graham's mystery evidence has to do with
"their failures, particularly intelligence failures, before 9/11."
_______________________________________________________
A MOST DANGEROUS MAN
From The Los Angeles Times, 5/7/03:
Karl Rove: Counting Votes While the Bombs Drop
By James C. Moore
Karl Rove led the nation to war to improve the political prospects of
George W. Bush.
I know how surreal that sounds.
But I also know it is true.
As the president's chief political advisor, Rove is involved in every
decision coming out of the Oval Office.
In fact, he flat out makes some of them.
He is co-president of the United States, just as he was co-candidate
for that office and co-governor of Texas.
His relationship with the president is the most profound and complex
of all of the White House advisors.
And his role creates questions not addressed by our Constitution.
Rove is probably the most powerful unelected person in American
history.
The cause of the war in Iraq was not just about Saddam Hussein or
weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda links to Iraq.
Those may have been the stated causes, but every good lie should have
a germ of truth.
No, this was mostly a product of Rove's usual prescience.
He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were
complaining about the president's inability to find Osama bin Laden.
In another corner, the neoconservatives in the Cabinet were itching to
launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq.
Rove converged the dynamics of the times.
He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if
the CIA could not.
This misdirection worked.
A Pew survey taken during the war showed 61% of Americans believe that
Hussein and Bin Laden were confederates in the 9/11 attacks.
And now, Rove needs the conflict to continue so his client -- the
president -- can retain wartime stature during next year's election.
Listen to the semantics from Bush's recent trip to the aircraft
carrier Lincoln.
When he referred to the "battle of Iraq," Bush implied that we only
won a single fight in a bigger war that was not yet over.
I first encountered Rove more than 20 years ago in Texas.
I reported on him and the future president as a TV correspondent
there, traveling with them extensively during their race to the
governor's mansion in Austin.
Once there, Rove was involved in every important decision the governor
made and, according to Bush staffers, vetted each critical choice for
political implications.
Nothing is different today in the White House.
The same old reliable sources from his days in Texas are in Washington
with him.
And they say Rove is intimately involved in the Cabinet and that he
sat in on all the big meetings leading up to the Iraq war and signed
off on all major decisions.
Rove fancies himself an expert in both policy and politics because he
sees no distinction between the two.
This matters for a number of reasons.
There is always a time during any president's administration when what
is best for the future of the country diverges from what best serves
that president's political future.
If Rove is standing with George W. Bush at that moment, he will push
the president in the direction of reelection rather than the country's
best interests.
The United States is best served when political calculations are not a
part of the White House's most important decisions.
Rove's calculus is always a formula for winning the next election.
He was less concerned about the bombing of Iraqi civilians or the
bullets flying at our own troops, according to people who have worked
for him for years, than he was about what these acts would do to the
results of the electoral college, or how they influence voters in
swing states like Florida.
There needs to be something sacred about our presidents' decisions to
send our children into combat.
The Karl Roves of the world ought to not even be in the room, much
less asked for advice.
Rove has influenced dealings with Iraq and North Korea, according to
Bush administration sources.
For instance, when the U.S. was notified, through formal diplomatic
channels, that North Korea had nuclear technology, Congress was in the
midst of discussing the Iraqi war resolution.
Rove counseled the president to keep that information from Congress
for 12 days, until the debate was finished, so it would not affect the
vote.
He was also reported to be present at a war strategy meeting
concerning whether to attack Syria after Iraq.
Rove said the timing was not right.
Yet.
Having the political advisor involved in that decision is wrong.
War, after all, is not a campaign event.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From The Los Angeles Times, 5/7/03:
Karl Rove: Counting Votes While the Bombs Drop
By James C. Moore
Karl Rove led the nation to war to improve the political prospects of
George W. Bush.
I know how surreal that sounds.
But I also know it is true.
As the president's chief political advisor, Rove is involved in every
decision coming out of the Oval Office.
In fact, he flat out makes some of them.
He is co-president of the United States, just as he was co-candidate
for that office and co-governor of Texas.
His relationship with the president is the most profound and complex
of all of the White House advisors.
And his role creates questions not addressed by our Constitution.
Rove is probably the most powerful unelected person in American
history.
The cause of the war in Iraq was not just about Saddam Hussein or
weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda links to Iraq.
Those may have been the stated causes, but every good lie should have
a germ of truth.
No, this was mostly a product of Rove's usual prescience.
He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were
complaining about the president's inability to find Osama bin Laden.
In another corner, the neoconservatives in the Cabinet were itching to
launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq.
Rove converged the dynamics of the times.
He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if
the CIA could not.
This misdirection worked.
A Pew survey taken during the war showed 61% of Americans believe that
Hussein and Bin Laden were confederates in the 9/11 attacks.
And now, Rove needs the conflict to continue so his client -- the
president -- can retain wartime stature during next year's election.
Listen to the semantics from Bush's recent trip to the aircraft
carrier Lincoln.
When he referred to the "battle of Iraq," Bush implied that we only
won a single fight in a bigger war that was not yet over.
I first encountered Rove more than 20 years ago in Texas.
I reported on him and the future president as a TV correspondent
there, traveling with them extensively during their race to the
governor's mansion in Austin.
Once there, Rove was involved in every important decision the governor
made and, according to Bush staffers, vetted each critical choice for
political implications.
Nothing is different today in the White House.
The same old reliable sources from his days in Texas are in Washington
with him.
And they say Rove is intimately involved in the Cabinet and that he
sat in on all the big meetings leading up to the Iraq war and signed
off on all major decisions.
Rove fancies himself an expert in both policy and politics because he
sees no distinction between the two.
This matters for a number of reasons.
There is always a time during any president's administration when what
is best for the future of the country diverges from what best serves
that president's political future.
If Rove is standing with George W. Bush at that moment, he will push
the president in the direction of reelection rather than the country's
best interests.
The United States is best served when political calculations are not a
part of the White House's most important decisions.
Rove's calculus is always a formula for winning the next election.
He was less concerned about the bombing of Iraqi civilians or the
bullets flying at our own troops, according to people who have worked
for him for years, than he was about what these acts would do to the
results of the electoral college, or how they influence voters in
swing states like Florida.
There needs to be something sacred about our presidents' decisions to
send our children into combat.
The Karl Roves of the world ought to not even be in the room, much
less asked for advice.
Rove has influenced dealings with Iraq and North Korea, according to
Bush administration sources.
For instance, when the U.S. was notified, through formal diplomatic
channels, that North Korea had nuclear technology, Congress was in the
midst of discussing the Iraqi war resolution.
Rove counseled the president to keep that information from Congress
for 12 days, until the debate was finished, so it would not affect the
vote.
He was also reported to be present at a war strategy meeting
concerning whether to attack Syria after Iraq.
Rove said the timing was not right.
Yet.
Having the political advisor involved in that decision is wrong.
War, after all, is not a campaign event.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THEY DON'T COME MUCH SCUZZIER THAN THIS
From The Associated Press, 5/7/03:
Report: Pentagon Adviser in Iraq Flap
"LOS ANGELES, May 7 — Pentagon adviser Richard Perle briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on the crises in the two countries, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday"
SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
From The Associated Press, 5/7/03:
Report: Pentagon Adviser in Iraq Flap
"LOS ANGELES, May 7 — Pentagon adviser Richard Perle briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on the crises in the two countries, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday"
SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
Is George W. the Demagoguer in Chief?
By P. M. Carpenter
History News Network
Excerpt:
"Anyone with a lick of common sense and a penchant for prophecy could easily call the 2004 presidential election without further ado: a Democrat, almost any Democrat, will mop up the floor with George W.
Forget Iraq. Today's ill-reasoned hoopla over that wagged dog will be long forgotten tomorrow. And let us even grant that America's greatest foreign policy blunder - otherwise known as Operation Iraqi Freedom - doesn't blow up in our face till at least 2005. The economy, our commonsensical prophet would reason, is always the key to electoral success and in that arena W. couldn't be doing more to ensure victory for the opposition."
SE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
By P. M. Carpenter
History News Network
Excerpt:
"Anyone with a lick of common sense and a penchant for prophecy could easily call the 2004 presidential election without further ado: a Democrat, almost any Democrat, will mop up the floor with George W.
Forget Iraq. Today's ill-reasoned hoopla over that wagged dog will be long forgotten tomorrow. And let us even grant that America's greatest foreign policy blunder - otherwise known as Operation Iraqi Freedom - doesn't blow up in our face till at least 2005. The economy, our commonsensical prophet would reason, is always the key to electoral success and in that arena W. couldn't be doing more to ensure victory for the opposition."
SE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
Hush-hush at the Justice Department
Nat Hentoff
Excerpt:
"No administration, in my memory as a reporter on national affairs, for some forty years, has been as resistant to congressional oversight as George W. Bush's executive branch. And when Congress is shut out, so is the rest of the citizenry. The most secretive of all divisions of the government continues to be the Justice Department."
SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
Nat Hentoff
Excerpt:
"No administration, in my memory as a reporter on national affairs, for some forty years, has been as resistant to congressional oversight as George W. Bush's executive branch. And when Congress is shut out, so is the rest of the citizenry. The most secretive of all divisions of the government continues to be the Justice Department."
SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
FROM THE WILDERNESS:
APRIL 28, 2003
George W. Bush proclaims himself
a born-again Christian. However, Bush and fellow self-anointed
neo-Christians like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft,
and sports arena Book of Revelations carnival hawker Franklin Graham
appear to wallow in a "Christian" blood lust cult when it comes to
practicing the teachings of the founder of Christianity. This cultist
form of Christianity, with its emphasis on death rather than life, is
also worrying the leaders of mainstream Christian religions,
particularly the Pope.
One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see
his own preference for death over life....
Bush's blood lust has been extended across the globe. He has given the
CIA authority to assassinate those deemed a threat to U.S. national
interests. ....Bush's "Christian" blood cult sees no other option than death for those who
become his enemies. This doctrine is found no place in Christian
theology....
Bush has not once prayed for the innocent civilians who died as a
result of the U.S. attack on Iraq. He constantly "embeds" himself with
the military at Goebbels-like speech fests and makes constant
references to God when he refers to America's "victory" in Iraq, as if
God endorses his sordid killing spree. He makes no mention of the
children, women, and old men killed by America's "precision-guided"
missiles and bombs and trigger-happy U.S. troops.....
Bush and his advisers, previously warned that Iraq's ancient artifacts
and collection of historical documents and books were in danger of
being looted or destroyed, instead, sat back while the Baghdad and
Mosul museums and Baghdad Library were ransacked and destroyed....
The ransacking of Iraq's historical treasures is explainable when one
considers what the blood cult Christians really think about Islam.
Franklin Graham, the heir to the empire built up by his anti-Semitic
father, Billy Graham, has decided being anti-Muslim is far more
financially rewarding than being anti-Jewish....
Bush's self-proclaimed adherence to Christianity (during one of the
presidential debates he said Jesus Christ was his favorite
"philosopher") and his constant reference to a new international
structure bypassing the United Nations system and long-standing
international treaties are worrying the top leadership of the Roman
Catholic Church......
Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and
his constant references to "evil doers," in the eyes of many devout
Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in
the Book of Revelations - the anti-Christ....
The Pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN
Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq.....
SEE LINK
APRIL 28, 2003
George W. Bush proclaims himself
a born-again Christian. However, Bush and fellow self-anointed
neo-Christians like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft,
and sports arena Book of Revelations carnival hawker Franklin Graham
appear to wallow in a "Christian" blood lust cult when it comes to
practicing the teachings of the founder of Christianity. This cultist
form of Christianity, with its emphasis on death rather than life, is
also worrying the leaders of mainstream Christian religions,
particularly the Pope.
One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see
his own preference for death over life....
Bush's blood lust has been extended across the globe. He has given the
CIA authority to assassinate those deemed a threat to U.S. national
interests. ....Bush's "Christian" blood cult sees no other option than death for those who
become his enemies. This doctrine is found no place in Christian
theology....
Bush has not once prayed for the innocent civilians who died as a
result of the U.S. attack on Iraq. He constantly "embeds" himself with
the military at Goebbels-like speech fests and makes constant
references to God when he refers to America's "victory" in Iraq, as if
God endorses his sordid killing spree. He makes no mention of the
children, women, and old men killed by America's "precision-guided"
missiles and bombs and trigger-happy U.S. troops.....
Bush and his advisers, previously warned that Iraq's ancient artifacts
and collection of historical documents and books were in danger of
being looted or destroyed, instead, sat back while the Baghdad and
Mosul museums and Baghdad Library were ransacked and destroyed....
The ransacking of Iraq's historical treasures is explainable when one
considers what the blood cult Christians really think about Islam.
Franklin Graham, the heir to the empire built up by his anti-Semitic
father, Billy Graham, has decided being anti-Muslim is far more
financially rewarding than being anti-Jewish....
Bush's self-proclaimed adherence to Christianity (during one of the
presidential debates he said Jesus Christ was his favorite
"philosopher") and his constant reference to a new international
structure bypassing the United Nations system and long-standing
international treaties are worrying the top leadership of the Roman
Catholic Church......
Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and
his constant references to "evil doers," in the eyes of many devout
Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in
the Book of Revelations - the anti-Christ....
The Pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN
Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq.....
SEE LINK
POWER SNAGS ON THE DOMESTIC HORIZON!
US nuclear power snags may drain oil/natgas supply
May 7, 2003
NEW YORK - Extended summer shutdowns at U.S. nuclear power plants threaten to
push up oil and natural gas prices this summer by straining already tight
fossil fuel supplies, analysts said.
News of degraded reactor vessel heads at two more U.S. nuclear units fueled
concern that the problem could sideline several of the nation's 103 nuclear
power plants, which generate about 10 percent of the nation's electricity.
Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 8 percent this
week after news that large nuclear power units in Florida and South Carolina
were found with reactor vessel head problems... SEE LINK
US nuclear power snags may drain oil/natgas supply
May 7, 2003
NEW YORK - Extended summer shutdowns at U.S. nuclear power plants threaten to
push up oil and natural gas prices this summer by straining already tight
fossil fuel supplies, analysts said.
News of degraded reactor vessel heads at two more U.S. nuclear units fueled
concern that the problem could sideline several of the nation's 103 nuclear
power plants, which generate about 10 percent of the nation's electricity.
Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 8 percent this
week after news that large nuclear power units in Florida and South Carolina
were found with reactor vessel head problems... SEE LINK
Environment Takes a Hit! | 05.06.03
Summary
"The House-passed energy plan (H.R. 6), which is similar to last year's failed energy plan (H.R. 4), does little to protect the environment or make America less dependent on foreign oil. The bill does, however, follow the Administration's continuing strategy of doling out bonuses to big business. H.R. 6 provides more than two-thirds of its tax breaks to oil, coal and nuclear companies; grants subsidies to utility companies; tosses out safeguards to protect wilderness and coastal areas from energy exploration; and opens up the Artic National Wildlife Refugee to drilling. With the Senate set to consider its energy package this month, a real energy bill should include provisions to:
--Increase focus on conservation and alternative energy sources that are safe and clean.
--Encourage industries to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
--Require improvements in fuel economy standards
--Protect consumers and oppose the deregulation of the electricity industry."
Summary
"The House-passed energy plan (H.R. 6), which is similar to last year's failed energy plan (H.R. 4), does little to protect the environment or make America less dependent on foreign oil. The bill does, however, follow the Administration's continuing strategy of doling out bonuses to big business. H.R. 6 provides more than two-thirds of its tax breaks to oil, coal and nuclear companies; grants subsidies to utility companies; tosses out safeguards to protect wilderness and coastal areas from energy exploration; and opens up the Artic National Wildlife Refugee to drilling. With the Senate set to consider its energy package this month, a real energy bill should include provisions to:
--Increase focus on conservation and alternative energy sources that are safe and clean.
--Encourage industries to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
--Require improvements in fuel economy standards
--Protect consumers and oppose the deregulation of the electricity industry."
RECENT UPDATES ON HOWARD DEAN:
DEAN AND KERRY IN DEAD HEAT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY RACE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 5, 2003
COMMENTARY
Howard Dean and His American Dream Team By Joe Edelheit Ross
Excerpts: "Dean appears poised to benefit from three dynamics that assisted Carter in 1976 but that crucially eluded Hart in 1984 and Tsongas in 1992.
The first is organization. Long before his surprise New Hampshire win in 1976, Carter somewhat anonymously traveled throughout the country to meet party officials and lay a coast-to-coast groundwork for his campaign. As Tsongas put it, Carter created a national constituency "by sheer shoe leather."
...".. Dean appears to be building a nationwide constituency, though not by "sheer shoe leather." Dean has collected more than 18,000 supporters online at Meetup.com, a free Web-based tool designed to facilitate monthly group meetings around various topics. Though not a scientific measure of electoral appeal, Meetup provides a mechanism for Dean enthusiasts to self-organize.
It remains to be seen whether Dean will be able to effectively plug into these local groups to raise money or organize volunteers. But for now, Dean is using the Web to build a nationwide organization on the cheap. If he succeeds, the lesson for future campaigns may be that it is as valuable to be "Netgenic" as it is to be telegenic in presidential politics.
A second ingredient for success after New Hampshire is the ability to attract the support of the traditional - read: liberal - Democratic constituencies that vote in primaries. Both Tsongas in 1992 and Hart in 1984 did well among upper-income, better-educated whites, but neither candidate attracted significant support from blacks, union members or self-described liberals.
Despite standing to the right of most Democrats on the deficit and gun control, Dean doesn't appear to have a problem with the liberal party base.
Howard Dean may not soon grace Time's cover, but overall he is enjoying remarkably favorable coverage. Editor & Publisher magazine reports that the national press has anointed Dean "the freshest face of the Democratic Party."..............
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WASHINGTON POST 5-4-03
From: Dean Taps Into Elites In Early Fundraising
Reports Are Windows on Democratic Campaigns
"Among these not-too-surprising findings, one thing stands out: Dean, more than any of his competitors, has tapped into the new Democratic elite: affluent, well-educated professionals, the fastest-growing Democratic constituency. "Professionals," wrote sociologists Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks in their book, "Social Cleavages and Political Change," "have moved from being the most Republican class in the 1950s . . . to the most Democratic class" by the end of the 1990s.
Dean's top 10 contributor Zip codes, along with Beverly Hills' 90210, include Cambridge, Mass., (home to Harvard University) 02138; California's Pacific Palisades, 90272 -- between Santa Monica and Malibu; and Palo Alto, Calif., (Stanford University) 94301."
..."Dean's money people are different from his competitors' in several respects. According to the donors' occupations listed on the disclosure reports -- a category that some contributors leave blank -- Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has outmuscled his Democratic presidential rivals when it comes to professors. There were 63 on his donor list, compared with 32 for his closest rival, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). The same was true for "writers" -- 60 for Dean, 11 for Kerry, and 10 each for Edwards and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn); "artists" -- Dean 27, eight each for Kerry and Edwards; and psychiatrists, 13 for Dean, compared with 6 for all the others combined, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, an Internet-based service.
Dean was crushed, however, in other occupational categories. Only 36 Dean donors described themselves as "president," usually head of a corporation, whereas Kerry had 185, Gephardt 175, Lieberman 79 and Edwards 48. Similarly, 20 chief executive officers gave money to Dean, compared with 105 for Kerry, 64 for Gephardt, 41 for Lieberman and 32 for Edwards."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANDREW SULLIVAN: "I concur with Will on Dean. I will always revere Dean for his principled defense of gay equality, but he has a truly mean, contemptuous streak (I debated him once and saw this side of him all-too-closely) that will turn off voters. But then Kerry has that streak too. Glad to see Lieberman find his footing at last. He's ahead in South Carolina."
MATTHEW LANGER: "My apologies to all readers (again) for the harsh treatment I've given Howard Dean since the Columbia debate. I know I promised that I would lighten up and focus my guns on the President instead of on a good Democrat, but I lost my cool.
The debate was a disappointment. It was thoroughly disheartening to see nine candidates up on that stage and get the feeling that not a single one of them could beat George Bush, to think that the most charismatic, thoughtful, progressive, and forward-thinking candidate your party can present is Al Sharpton.
So I took my frustration out on Dr. Dean, and as Jerome Armstrong properly characterized, I went "over the top." But as any regular reader should know, I'm always one to recognize when I've done so and reconcile. Every once in a while, like when you've stayed up all night watching and then agonizing over a debate, the filter between the brain and the keyboard gets shut off.
I don't think Howard Dean is the anti-Christ. I think he is a man of principle, courage, good intentions and good policy. All I wish is that he would play the game a little cleaner. That is, honestly, the source of nearly all of my complaints about him. But I understand the political requirement of getting a dark horse into the spotlight and that his attack strategies may be the best plan he's got. All I hope is that sometime in the near future Howard Dean will have sufficiently secured his status as a front-runner so that he'll no longer need to resort to such tactics to get media play, and that we'll then have the opportunity to assess each of the candidates for what really matters: their policy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DEAN AND KERRY IN DEAD HEAT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY RACE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 5, 2003
COMMENTARY
Howard Dean and His American Dream Team By Joe Edelheit Ross
Excerpts: "Dean appears poised to benefit from three dynamics that assisted Carter in 1976 but that crucially eluded Hart in 1984 and Tsongas in 1992.
The first is organization. Long before his surprise New Hampshire win in 1976, Carter somewhat anonymously traveled throughout the country to meet party officials and lay a coast-to-coast groundwork for his campaign. As Tsongas put it, Carter created a national constituency "by sheer shoe leather."
...".. Dean appears to be building a nationwide constituency, though not by "sheer shoe leather." Dean has collected more than 18,000 supporters online at Meetup.com, a free Web-based tool designed to facilitate monthly group meetings around various topics. Though not a scientific measure of electoral appeal, Meetup provides a mechanism for Dean enthusiasts to self-organize.
It remains to be seen whether Dean will be able to effectively plug into these local groups to raise money or organize volunteers. But for now, Dean is using the Web to build a nationwide organization on the cheap. If he succeeds, the lesson for future campaigns may be that it is as valuable to be "Netgenic" as it is to be telegenic in presidential politics.
A second ingredient for success after New Hampshire is the ability to attract the support of the traditional - read: liberal - Democratic constituencies that vote in primaries. Both Tsongas in 1992 and Hart in 1984 did well among upper-income, better-educated whites, but neither candidate attracted significant support from blacks, union members or self-described liberals.
Despite standing to the right of most Democrats on the deficit and gun control, Dean doesn't appear to have a problem with the liberal party base.
Howard Dean may not soon grace Time's cover, but overall he is enjoying remarkably favorable coverage. Editor & Publisher magazine reports that the national press has anointed Dean "the freshest face of the Democratic Party."..............
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WASHINGTON POST 5-4-03
From: Dean Taps Into Elites In Early Fundraising
Reports Are Windows on Democratic Campaigns
"Among these not-too-surprising findings, one thing stands out: Dean, more than any of his competitors, has tapped into the new Democratic elite: affluent, well-educated professionals, the fastest-growing Democratic constituency. "Professionals," wrote sociologists Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks in their book, "Social Cleavages and Political Change," "have moved from being the most Republican class in the 1950s . . . to the most Democratic class" by the end of the 1990s.
Dean's top 10 contributor Zip codes, along with Beverly Hills' 90210, include Cambridge, Mass., (home to Harvard University) 02138; California's Pacific Palisades, 90272 -- between Santa Monica and Malibu; and Palo Alto, Calif., (Stanford University) 94301."
..."Dean's money people are different from his competitors' in several respects. According to the donors' occupations listed on the disclosure reports -- a category that some contributors leave blank -- Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has outmuscled his Democratic presidential rivals when it comes to professors. There were 63 on his donor list, compared with 32 for his closest rival, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). The same was true for "writers" -- 60 for Dean, 11 for Kerry, and 10 each for Edwards and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn); "artists" -- Dean 27, eight each for Kerry and Edwards; and psychiatrists, 13 for Dean, compared with 6 for all the others combined, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, an Internet-based service.
Dean was crushed, however, in other occupational categories. Only 36 Dean donors described themselves as "president," usually head of a corporation, whereas Kerry had 185, Gephardt 175, Lieberman 79 and Edwards 48. Similarly, 20 chief executive officers gave money to Dean, compared with 105 for Kerry, 64 for Gephardt, 41 for Lieberman and 32 for Edwards."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANDREW SULLIVAN: "I concur with Will on Dean. I will always revere Dean for his principled defense of gay equality, but he has a truly mean, contemptuous streak (I debated him once and saw this side of him all-too-closely) that will turn off voters. But then Kerry has that streak too. Glad to see Lieberman find his footing at last. He's ahead in South Carolina."
MATTHEW LANGER: "My apologies to all readers (again) for the harsh treatment I've given Howard Dean since the Columbia debate. I know I promised
The debate was a disappointment. It was thoroughly disheartening to see nine candidates up on that stage and get the feeling that not a single one of them could beat George Bush, to think that the most charismatic, thoughtful, progressive, and forward-thinking candidate your party can present is Al Sharpton.
So I took my frustration out on Dr. Dean, and as Jerome Armstrong
I don't think Howard Dean is the anti-Christ. I think he is a man of principle, courage, good intentions and good policy. All I wish is that he would play the game a little cleaner. That is, honestly, the source of nearly all of my complaints about him. But I understand the political requirement of getting a dark horse into the spotlight and that his attack strategies may be the best plan he's got. All I hope is that sometime in the near future Howard Dean will have sufficiently secured his status as a front-runner so that he'll no longer need to resort to such tactics to get media play, and that we'll then have the opportunity to assess each of the candidates for what really matters: their policy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
I HAVE A NEW HEROINE---AND HER NAME IS ASHLEIGH.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD'S REMARKS (full-text)
MSNBC's Banfield Slams War Coverage
April 29, 2003
EXCERPTS:
"That said, what didn't you see? You didn't see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was this coverage-? There is a grand difference between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story, it just means you're getting one more arm or leg of the story. And that's what we got, and it was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But it wasn't journalism, because I'm not so sure that we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successful terrific endeavor, and we got rid oaf horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a monster, but we didn't see what it took to do that.
I can't tell you how bad the civilian casualties were. I saw a couple of pictures. I saw French television pictures, I saw a few things here and there, but to truly understand what war is all about you've got to be on both sides. You've got to be a unilateral, someone who's able to cover from outside of both front lines, which, by the way, is the most dangerous way to cover a war, which is the way most of us covered Afghanistan. There were no front lines, they were all over the place. They were caves, they were mountains, they were cobbled, they were everything. But we really don't know from this latest adventure from the American military what this thing looked like and why perhaps we should never do it again. The other thing is that so many voices were silent in this war. We all know what happened to Susan Sarandon for speaking out, and her husband, and we all know that this is not the way Americans truly want to be. Free speech is a wonderful thing, it's what we fight for, but the minute it's unpalatable we fight against it for some reason."
~~
"Well, the message before we went in was actually weapons of mass destruction and eliminating the weapons of mass destruction from this regime and eliminating this regime. Conveniently in the week or two that we were in there it became very strongly a message of freeing the Iraqi people. That should have been the message early on, in fact, in the six to eight months preceding this campaign, if we were trying to win over the hearts of the Arab world.
That is a very difficult endeavor and from my travels to the Arab world, we're not doing a very good job of it. What you read in the newspapers and what you see on cable news and what you see on the broadcast news networks is nothing like they see over there, especially in a place like Iraq.."
~~
"Who thinks that Hezbollah is a bad word? Show of hands. Usually connotes fear, terror, some kind of suicide bombing. If you live in the Arab world, Hezbollah means Shriner. Hezbollah means charity, Hezbollah means hospitals, Hezbollah means welfare and jobs.
These are not the same organizations we're dealing with. How can you negotiate when you' re talking about two entirely different meanings? And until we understand - we don't have to like Hizbullah, we don't have to like their militancy, we don't have to like what they do on the side, but we have to understand that they like it, that they like the good things about Hizbullah, and that you can't just paint it with a blanket statement that it's a terrorist organization, because even when it comes to the militancy these people believe that militancy is simply freedom fighting and resistance. You can't argue with that. You can try to negotiate, but you can't say it's wrong flat out...."
~~
"We hired somebody on MSNBC recently named Michael Savage.
How can you discuss, how can you solve anything when attacks from a mere radio flak is what America hears on a regular basis, let alone at the government level? I mean, if this kind of attitude is prevailing, forget discussion, forget diplomacy, diplomacy is becoming a bad word..."
~~
"What's the next big story? Is it Laci Peterson? Because Laci Peterson got a whole lot more minutes' worth of coverage on the cable news channels in the last week than we'd have ever expected just a few days after a regime fell, like Saddam Hussein. "
~~
"And I am very concerned that the same thing is about to happen with Iraq, because we're going to have another Gary Condit, and we're going to have another Chandra Levy and we're going to have another Jon Benet, and we're going to have another Elizabeth Smart, and here we are in Laci Peterson, and these stories will dominate. They're easy to cover, they're cheap, they're fast, you don't have to send somebody overseas, you don't have to put them up in a hotel that's expensive overseas, and you don't have to set up satellite time overseas. Very cheap to cover domestic news. Domestic news is music news to directors' ears."
~~
"I think there were a lot of dissenting voices before this war about the horrors of war, but I'm very concerned about this three-week TV show and how it may have changed people's opinions. It was very sanitized."
~~
I'm hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage.
Well, all of this has to do with what you've seen on Fox and its successes. So I do urge you to be very discerning as you continue to watch the development of cable news, and it is changing like lightning. Be very discerning because it behooves you like it never did before to watch with a grain of salt and to choose responsibly, and to demand what you should know.
~~
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD'S REMARKS (full-text)
MSNBC's Banfield Slams War Coverage
April 29, 2003
EXCERPTS:
"That said, what didn't you see? You didn't see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was this coverage-? There is a grand difference between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story, it just means you're getting one more arm or leg of the story. And that's what we got, and it was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But it wasn't journalism, because I'm not so sure that we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successful terrific endeavor, and we got rid oaf horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a monster, but we didn't see what it took to do that.
I can't tell you how bad the civilian casualties were. I saw a couple of pictures. I saw French television pictures, I saw a few things here and there, but to truly understand what war is all about you've got to be on both sides. You've got to be a unilateral, someone who's able to cover from outside of both front lines, which, by the way, is the most dangerous way to cover a war, which is the way most of us covered Afghanistan. There were no front lines, they were all over the place. They were caves, they were mountains, they were cobbled, they were everything. But we really don't know from this latest adventure from the American military what this thing looked like and why perhaps we should never do it again. The other thing is that so many voices were silent in this war. We all know what happened to Susan Sarandon for speaking out, and her husband, and we all know that this is not the way Americans truly want to be. Free speech is a wonderful thing, it's what we fight for, but the minute it's unpalatable we fight against it for some reason."
~~
"Well, the message before we went in was actually weapons of mass destruction and eliminating the weapons of mass destruction from this regime and eliminating this regime. Conveniently in the week or two that we were in there it became very strongly a message of freeing the Iraqi people. That should have been the message early on, in fact, in the six to eight months preceding this campaign, if we were trying to win over the hearts of the Arab world.
That is a very difficult endeavor and from my travels to the Arab world, we're not doing a very good job of it. What you read in the newspapers and what you see on cable news and what you see on the broadcast news networks is nothing like they see over there, especially in a place like Iraq.."
~~
"Who thinks that Hezbollah is a bad word? Show of hands. Usually connotes fear, terror, some kind of suicide bombing. If you live in the Arab world, Hezbollah means Shriner. Hezbollah means charity, Hezbollah means hospitals, Hezbollah means welfare and jobs.
These are not the same organizations we're dealing with. How can you negotiate when you' re talking about two entirely different meanings? And until we understand - we don't have to like Hizbullah, we don't have to like their militancy, we don't have to like what they do on the side, but we have to understand that they like it, that they like the good things about Hizbullah, and that you can't just paint it with a blanket statement that it's a terrorist organization, because even when it comes to the militancy these people believe that militancy is simply freedom fighting and resistance. You can't argue with that. You can try to negotiate, but you can't say it's wrong flat out...."
~~
"We hired somebody on MSNBC recently named Michael Savage.
How can you discuss, how can you solve anything when attacks from a mere radio flak is what America hears on a regular basis, let alone at the government level? I mean, if this kind of attitude is prevailing, forget discussion, forget diplomacy, diplomacy is becoming a bad word..."
~~
"What's the next big story? Is it Laci Peterson? Because Laci Peterson got a whole lot more minutes' worth of coverage on the cable news channels in the last week than we'd have ever expected just a few days after a regime fell, like Saddam Hussein. "
~~
"And I am very concerned that the same thing is about to happen with Iraq, because we're going to have another Gary Condit, and we're going to have another Chandra Levy and we're going to have another Jon Benet, and we're going to have another Elizabeth Smart, and here we are in Laci Peterson, and these stories will dominate. They're easy to cover, they're cheap, they're fast, you don't have to send somebody overseas, you don't have to put them up in a hotel that's expensive overseas, and you don't have to set up satellite time overseas. Very cheap to cover domestic news. Domestic news is music news to directors' ears."
~~
"I think there were a lot of dissenting voices before this war about the horrors of war, but I'm very concerned about this three-week TV show and how it may have changed people's opinions. It was very sanitized."
~~
I'm hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage.
Well, all of this has to do with what you've seen on Fox and its successes. So I do urge you to be very discerning as you continue to watch the development of cable news, and it is changing like lightning. Be very discerning because it behooves you like it never did before to watch with a grain of salt and to choose responsibly, and to demand what you should know.
~~
A MUST-READ BY PAUL KRUGMAN!
From The New York Times, 5/6/03:
MAN ON HORSEBACK
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Gen. Georges Boulanger cut a fine figure; he looked splendid in
uniform, and magnificent on horseback.
So his handlers made sure that he appeared in uniform, astride a
horse, as often as possible.
It worked: Boulanger became immensely popular.
If he hadn't lost his nerve on the night of the attempted putsch,
French democracy might have ended in 1889.
We do things differently here -- or we used to.
Has "man on horseback" politics come to America?"
................................
"Let me be frank. Why is the failure to find any evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (a few drums don't qualify — though we haven't found even that) a big deal? Mainly because it feeds suspicions that the war wasn't waged to eliminate real threats. This suspicion is further fed by the administration's lackadaisical attitude toward those supposed threats once Baghdad fell. For example, Iraq's main nuclear waste dump wasn't secured until a few days ago, by which time it had been thoroughly looted. So was it all about the photo ops?"
...............................
Next year — in early September — the Republican Party will hold its nominating convention in New York. The party will exploit the time and location to the fullest. How many people will dare question the propriety of the proceedings?
And who will ask why, if the administration is so proud of its response to Sept. 11, it has gone to such lengths to prevent a thorough, independent inquiry into what actually happened? (An independent study commission wasn't created until after the 2002 election, and it has been given little time and a ludicrously tiny budget.)
There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country."
See link to read the OpEd in full.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From The New York Times, 5/6/03:
MAN ON HORSEBACK
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Gen. Georges Boulanger cut a fine figure; he looked splendid in
uniform, and magnificent on horseback.
So his handlers made sure that he appeared in uniform, astride a
horse, as often as possible.
It worked: Boulanger became immensely popular.
If he hadn't lost his nerve on the night of the attempted putsch,
French democracy might have ended in 1889.
We do things differently here -- or we used to.
Has "man on horseback" politics come to America?"
................................
"Let me be frank. Why is the failure to find any evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (a few drums don't qualify — though we haven't found even that) a big deal? Mainly because it feeds suspicions that the war wasn't waged to eliminate real threats. This suspicion is further fed by the administration's lackadaisical attitude toward those supposed threats once Baghdad fell. For example, Iraq's main nuclear waste dump wasn't secured until a few days ago, by which time it had been thoroughly looted. So was it all about the photo ops?"
...............................
Next year — in early September — the Republican Party will hold its nominating convention in New York. The party will exploit the time and location to the fullest. How many people will dare question the propriety of the proceedings?
And who will ask why, if the administration is so proud of its response to Sept. 11, it has gone to such lengths to prevent a thorough, independent inquiry into what actually happened? (An independent study commission wasn't created until after the 2002 election, and it has been given little time and a ludicrously tiny budget.)
There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country."
See link to read the OpEd in full.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From CNN, 5/5/03:
Bechtel tied to bin Ladens
Osama bin Laden family members invested $10M in an equity fund run by
former Bechtel unit.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
EXCERPT:
"The Bush administration launched a war on terror because of the
alleged acts of Osama bin Laden.
Ironically, one of the companies the administration has picked to
rebuild Iraq after the latest phase of that war has ties to bin
Laden's family, according to a published report.
Bechtel Corp., a private construction firm based in San Francisco,
recently was awarded a State Department contract, potentially worth
more than $600 million, to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after
the recent U.S.-led war there.
The Bush administration pushed for that war, in part, because it said
the regime of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq, had ties to the
al Qaeda terror network, headed by bin Laden, the group allegedly
responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United
States.
According to an article in the May 5 issue of New Yorker magazine,
several bin Laden family members -- part of a large, Saudi Arabian
family that made a fortune in the construction business -- invested
about $10 million in a private equity fund operated by former
subsidiary of Bechtel before Sept. 11...."
Bechtel tied to bin Ladens
Osama bin Laden family members invested $10M in an equity fund run by
former Bechtel unit.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
EXCERPT:
"The Bush administration launched a war on terror because of the
alleged acts of Osama bin Laden.
Ironically, one of the companies the administration has picked to
rebuild Iraq after the latest phase of that war has ties to bin
Laden's family, according to a published report.
Bechtel Corp., a private construction firm based in San Francisco,
recently was awarded a State Department contract, potentially worth
more than $600 million, to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after
the recent U.S.-led war there.
The Bush administration pushed for that war, in part, because it said
the regime of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq, had ties to the
al Qaeda terror network, headed by bin Laden, the group allegedly
responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United
States.
According to an article in the May 5 issue of New Yorker magazine,
several bin Laden family members -- part of a large, Saudi Arabian
family that made a fortune in the construction business -- invested
about $10 million in a private equity fund operated by former
subsidiary of Bechtel before Sept. 11...."
LADIES AND GENTS- MEET YOUR WAR CABINET
9-11 was not caused by Saddam Hussein....
Hussein (granted, not a great guy) was nowhere CLOSE to having
WOMD that would threaten our national security...
but 9-11 was the perfect catalyst..the
"springboard to a dream" for the PNAC.
9-11 was not caused by Saddam Hussein....
Hussein (granted, not a great guy) was nowhere CLOSE to having
WOMD that would threaten our national security...
but 9-11 was the perfect catalyst..the
"springboard to a dream" for the PNAC.
Operation Support Garner
The Pentagon's one-size-fits-all 'liberation' is a disaster in Iraq
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Tuesday May 6, 2003
The Guardian
EXCERPT:
"American efforts to foist new rulers on the people of Iraq are becoming
increasingly grotesque. In some cities US troops have sparked demonstrations
by imposing officials from the old Saddam Hussein regime. In others they
have evicted new anti-Saddam administrators who have local backing.
They have mishandled religious leaders as well as politicians. In the Shia
suburbs of Baghdad, they arrested a powerful cleric, Mohammed Fartousi
al-Sadr, who had criticised the US presence. In Falluja, an overwhelmingly
Sunni town, they detained two popular imams. All three men were released
within days, but local people saw the detentions as a warning that Iraqis
should submit to the US will.
The Pentagon's General Jay Garner has taken an equally biased line in his
plans for Iraq's government..........."
"So maybe the cautionary lesson is that cities and states can drop nearly dead, and if and when that happens, the rest of us feel the pain"
Michael Powell
"Rescue's Just Not Part of the Plan"
Washington Post May 4, 2003
EXCERPT:
"...rather than the sort of rescue package much wished for by the states,
the administration is suggesting additional responsibilities. It proposes to
replace the $13 billion Section 8 housing voucher program -- the country's
main form of housing assistance for the poor -- with one that the states
would run. The federal government would provide a lump sum payment to the
states each year, but it has offered no assurances that enough federal
funding will follow to keep the program whole. Federal officials already
whisper their hope that hard-pressed state officials might prune back this
"entitlement" program in the future.
So the traditional conversation heard during national recessions -- in which
the federal government, Republican or Democratic, talks of rescuing state
and local governments -- is turned on its head. While cities and states
slash budgets for public hospitals, firehouses and schools even as they
raise taxes to make ends meet, the Bush administration talks of cutting more
taxes. Federal tax cuts enacted under Bush have led to a $10 billion drop in
total revenue for the states, many of which link their taxes to those of the
federal government."
WAR'S A DIFFICULT BUSINESS WHEN YOU'RE FACING THE ENEMY--AND HE'S TEN YEARS OLD.
Killing a child: 'I did what I had to do'
08.04.2003
REUTERS
When a young Iraqi boy stooped to pick up a rocket propelled grenade
off the body of a dead paramilitary, US Army Private Nick Boggs made
his decision.
He unloaded machinegun fire and the boy, whom he puts at about 10
years old, fell dead on a garbage-strewn stretch of waste land at
Karbala.
Boggs, a softly spoken 21-year-old former hunting guide from Alaska,
says he knew when he joined the army 18 months ago he might someday
have to make a decision like that.
He hoped it would never come and, although he has no regrets about
opening fire, it is clear he'd rather it wasn't a child he killed.
"I did what I had to do. I don't have a big problem with it but anyone
who shoots a little kid has to feel something," he said after fierce
weekend fighting in this Shi'ite Muslim holy city that left dozens of
Iraqis and one American soldier dead.
As US troops take the Iraq war out of the desert and into the main
cities, they are increasingly seeing children in their line of fire.
Many are innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time and
military officers concede that some may have been killed in artillery
or mortar fire, or shot down by soldiers whose judgment is impaired in
the "fog of war".
But others are apparently being used as fighters or more often as
scouts and weapons collectors. US officers and soldiers say that turns
them into legitimate targets.
"I think they're cowards," Boggs said of the parents or Fedayeen
paramilitaries who send out children to the battlefield.
"I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we
don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and
keep ourselves safe."
The boy he killed was with another child of around the same age when
they reached for the RPG and came under fire. Boggs thinks the second
boy was also hit but other soldiers think he escaped and that he
dragged his friend's dead body away.
Boggs' platoon leader, Lieutenant Jason Davis, said the young soldier
struggles with what happened even if he had no choice but to shoot.
"Does it haunt him? Absolutely. It haunts me and I didn't even pull
the trigger," he said. "It blows my mind that they can put their
children into that kind of situation."
Although Boggs plays down suggestions he was upset by the incident, he
also says his view of combat has changed since Saturday, when his
platoon came under intense RPG and rifle fire from the moment they
entered Karbala until way after nightfall.
Before - like many young soldiers - he says he was anxious to get his
first "kill" in a war. Now, he seems more mature.
"It's not about killing people. It's about accomplishing a mission ...
When we talk, we don't say how scared we were. But we found out how
you feel when an RPG hits the wall just up from you and you think
'Damn, I could have been right there'," he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/08/1049567660897.html
Killing a child: 'I did what I had to do'
08.04.2003
REUTERS
When a young Iraqi boy stooped to pick up a rocket propelled grenade
off the body of a dead paramilitary, US Army Private Nick Boggs made
his decision.
He unloaded machinegun fire and the boy, whom he puts at about 10
years old, fell dead on a garbage-strewn stretch of waste land at
Karbala.
Boggs, a softly spoken 21-year-old former hunting guide from Alaska,
says he knew when he joined the army 18 months ago he might someday
have to make a decision like that.
He hoped it would never come and, although he has no regrets about
opening fire, it is clear he'd rather it wasn't a child he killed.
"I did what I had to do. I don't have a big problem with it but anyone
who shoots a little kid has to feel something," he said after fierce
weekend fighting in this Shi'ite Muslim holy city that left dozens of
Iraqis and one American soldier dead.
As US troops take the Iraq war out of the desert and into the main
cities, they are increasingly seeing children in their line of fire.
Many are innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time and
military officers concede that some may have been killed in artillery
or mortar fire, or shot down by soldiers whose judgment is impaired in
the "fog of war".
But others are apparently being used as fighters or more often as
scouts and weapons collectors. US officers and soldiers say that turns
them into legitimate targets.
"I think they're cowards," Boggs said of the parents or Fedayeen
paramilitaries who send out children to the battlefield.
"I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we
don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and
keep ourselves safe."
The boy he killed was with another child of around the same age when
they reached for the RPG and came under fire. Boggs thinks the second
boy was also hit but other soldiers think he escaped and that he
dragged his friend's dead body away.
Boggs' platoon leader, Lieutenant Jason Davis, said the young soldier
struggles with what happened even if he had no choice but to shoot.
"Does it haunt him? Absolutely. It haunts me and I didn't even pull
the trigger," he said. "It blows my mind that they can put their
children into that kind of situation."
Although Boggs plays down suggestions he was upset by the incident, he
also says his view of combat has changed since Saturday, when his
platoon came under intense RPG and rifle fire from the moment they
entered Karbala until way after nightfall.
Before - like many young soldiers - he says he was anxious to get his
first "kill" in a war. Now, he seems more mature.
"It's not about killing people. It's about accomplishing a mission ...
When we talk, we don't say how scared we were. But we found out how
you feel when an RPG hits the wall just up from you and you think
'Damn, I could have been right there'," he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/08/1049567660897.html
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=6796
EXCERPT:
"This is a reading of an extraordinary document by the Project for the New American Century, no less than a blueprint for US military world rule. In order to convince the American public to support these policies, the authors say, a new Pearl Harbor would be needed to speed up the transformation of the US military into a Global Strike Force. By coincidence or design a year after the document was written the events of 9/11 became that "catalyzing event."
The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti says in his introduction:
There is a document everybody should read. Developed by the Project for the New American Century it is called: Rebuilding America's Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New American Century. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
"This is a reading of an extraordinary document by the Project for the New American Century, no less than a blueprint for US military world rule. In order to convince the American public to support these policies, the authors say, a new Pearl Harbor would be needed to speed up the transformation of the US military into a Global Strike Force. By coincidence or design a year after the document was written the events of 9/11 became that "catalyzing event."
The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti says in his introduction:
There is a document everybody should read. Developed by the Project for the New American Century it is called: Rebuilding America's Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New American Century. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, May 05, 2003
Are Saddam's forces now in Vermont?????
Get THIS one!!! YIKES!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2642368,00.html
Get THIS one!!! YIKES!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2642368,00.html
Pentagon dominates US foreign policy with dubious intelligence
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030504185707.eazyi7tf.html
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030504185707.eazyi7tf.html
FIRM INVOLVED IN BUSH'S FLORIDA THEFT GETS MILLIONS FROM BUSH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,949696,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,949696,00.html
Layoffs Grew 71 Percent in April
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20030505/bs_nm/economy_usa_jobs_challenger_dc
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20030505/bs_nm/economy_usa_jobs_challenger_dc
A VIRTUAL PANDORA'S BOX
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/inside/la-war-rebuild5may05,1,1251302.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
U.S. Struggles in Quicksand of Iraq
Continuing disorder is fueling skepticism and allowing competing
political forces to fill the void.
By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD --
Nearly a month after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, the reconstruction
effort is struggling to gain visibility and credibility, crime is a
continuing problem, Iraqis desperate for jobs and security are
becoming angry and the transition to democracy promised by President
Bush seems rife with risk.
The continuing disorder in a country accustomed to the repressive but
absolute stability provided by Saddam Hussein is fueling at least a
deep skepticism about U.S. intentions and at worst a dangerous
anti-Americanism.
As competing religious, tribal and territorial political forces move
to fill the void, they threaten to divide the country rather than
unite it.
Interviews with political analysts, exile figures and ordinary Iraqis
throughout the country, coupled with developments on the ground,
indicate that the United States' power to control Iraq and shape its
future is increasingly threatened by the pervasive uncertainty.
On many fronts, U.S. officials appear to have been unprepared for what
awaited them in Iraq, from mundane concerns such as how to cope with
the lack of telephones to philosophical questions such as how to
respond to the desire of many Iraqis for an Islamic state.
"The Americans and the British became obsessed with getting rid of
Saddam; they thought he was responsible for all the catastrophes in
Iraq," said Wamid Nadmi, a political science professor at Baghdad
University.
"But they have opened a Pandora's box."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/inside/la-war-rebuild5may05,1,1251302.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
U.S. Struggles in Quicksand of Iraq
Continuing disorder is fueling skepticism and allowing competing
political forces to fill the void.
By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD --
Nearly a month after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, the reconstruction
effort is struggling to gain visibility and credibility, crime is a
continuing problem, Iraqis desperate for jobs and security are
becoming angry and the transition to democracy promised by President
Bush seems rife with risk.
The continuing disorder in a country accustomed to the repressive but
absolute stability provided by Saddam Hussein is fueling at least a
deep skepticism about U.S. intentions and at worst a dangerous
anti-Americanism.
As competing religious, tribal and territorial political forces move
to fill the void, they threaten to divide the country rather than
unite it.
Interviews with political analysts, exile figures and ordinary Iraqis
throughout the country, coupled with developments on the ground,
indicate that the United States' power to control Iraq and shape its
future is increasingly threatened by the pervasive uncertainty.
On many fronts, U.S. officials appear to have been unprepared for what
awaited them in Iraq, from mundane concerns such as how to cope with
the lack of telephones to philosophical questions such as how to
respond to the desire of many Iraqis for an Islamic state.
"The Americans and the British became obsessed with getting rid of
Saddam; they thought he was responsible for all the catastrophes in
Iraq," said Wamid Nadmi, a political science professor at Baghdad
University.
"But they have opened a Pandora's box."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-newsbrief,0,4876546.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines
"WHAR'S THE BOOM????"
"War's Quick End Produces No Economic Boom "
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The hope had been that a fast and successful war in Iraq would set off
an economic boom that would quickly translate into falling
unemployment for American households and fatter order books for U.S.
businesses.
But so far, the boom has been a bust. U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad
in the second week of April, but the military victory did not stem a
wave of new job layoffs in the United States.
"WHAR'S THE BOOM????"
"War's Quick End Produces No Economic Boom "
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The hope had been that a fast and successful war in Iraq would set off
an economic boom that would quickly translate into falling
unemployment for American households and fatter order books for U.S.
businesses.
But so far, the boom has been a bust. U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad
in the second week of April, but the military victory did not stem a
wave of new job layoffs in the United States.
Friday, May 02, 2003
A "DIFFERENT LIGHT", EH?
Excerpt:
"President George Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is now acknowledging that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut, and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House portrayed before the war.
She has no doubt that the US-led coalition, assisted by experts from Britain and Australia, will find Iraq's WMD programs. But for the first time, Dr Rice is saying publicly that it is less likely many actual weapons will be found. Rather, she described the programs as being hidden in so-called "dual use" infrastructure. In other words, chemicals and biological agents could be in plants, factories and laboratories capable of being used for legal and prohibited purposes.
Almost three weeks since the fall of Baghdad, with senior Iraqi scientists and officials in US custody, no chemical or biological weapons stockpiles have been found. Neither has any evidence been uncovered that Iraq had restarted a nuclear program.
In explaining the gap between the prewar and postwar claims on Iraq's WMD, Dr Rice said the US was now seeing the programs in a different light.
Monday, April 28, 2003
In retrospect, Dr. Nayyer Ali was not far off the mark:
**(And if the people of the US are not reaping the benefit, who IS? )**
"By Dr. Nayyer Ali
December 13, 2002
Iraq and Oil
Ignore everything that is going on with the weapons inspectors. Bush will strike Saddam in the first three months of 2003 and the US will find itself occupying Iraq. The inspections game is being played out of a desire to appease the rest of the world by creating at least an impression of showing deference to the UN Security Council, but the US will not be constrained by anything the weapons inspectors find or don¹t find.
Iraq is a vast country, and a few weapons inspectors cannot possibly thoroughly inspect the place, even if they had years. The vast majority of the finds that the inspectors had in the early and middle 1990s were based on tips and information gathered from high-ranking Iraqi defectors. Very little was found by driving around the country and looking in random buildings of interest. Which is why Saddam is willing to comply with the current inspection regime and also why the US has no faith in it.
Given the coming war, there is much confusion as to why the US has decided to pursue it. The reasons are complex, but one that is put forth by many critics of US policy is of course oil. Iraq has oil reserves of 113 billion barrels, which is the second largest reserve in the world, and almost half of the leader, Saudi Arabia. Despite this vast pool of oil, Iraq has never produced at a level proportionate to the reserve base. Since the Gulf War, Iraq¹s production has been limited by sanctions and allowed sales under the oil for food program (by which Iraq has sold 60 billion dollars worth of oil over the last 5 years) and what else can be smuggled out. This amounts to less than 1 billion barrels per year. If Iraq were reintegrated into the world economy, it could allow massive investment in its oil sector and boost output to 2.5 billion barrels per year, or about 7 million barrels a day.
Total world oil production is about 75 million barrels, and OPEC combined produces about 25 million barrels.
What would be the consequences of this? There are two obvious things.
First would be the collapse of OPEC, whose strategy of limiting production to maximize price will have finally reached its limit. An Iraq that can produce that much oil will want to do so, and will not allow OPEC to limit it to 2 million barrels per day. If Iraq busts its quota, then who in OPEC will give up 5 million barrels of production? No one could afford to, and OPEC would die. This would lead to the second major consequence, which is a collapse in the price of oil to the 10-dollar range per barrel. The world currently uses 25 billion barrels per year, so a 15-dollar drop will save oil-consuming nations 375 billion dollars in crude oil costs every year.
The benefit to the American economy will be 75 billion dollars, which is not huge, but is certainly significant. Lower global oil prices will lead to faster growth in most developed and developing nations, which will benefit American exporters selling to these economies.
Some have argued that the US wants to take over the oil fields. Actually, that is of little value to the American economy. Even if the US simply confiscated all of Iraq’s oil and sold it, it would only add about 20 billion dollars to the US treasury each year. In addition, the US would have to pay for maintenance and investment in the fields, and provide security.
20 billion dollars is a lot of money, but given that the US government spending is over 150 times greater than that, and the entire US economy is 500 times larger, the 20 billion is just pocket change. In the last twelve months, in which the economy has been growing slowly, the US still added over 300 billion dollars to its economy. So the idea that the US is going to war to literally grab barrels of crude does not withstand analysis.
On the flip side, the war itself is projected to cost 50-100 billion dollars. In addition the occupation after the war will take at least 50,000 peacekeepers, each of which cost 100,000 dollars to maintain per year, which adds up to 5 billion dollars per year. And that is if everything goes without a hitch. The Iraq war is not a moneymaker. But it could be an OPEC breaker. That however is a long-term outcome that will require Iraq to be successfully reconstituted into a functioning state in which massive oil sector investment can take place."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**(And if the people of the US are not reaping the benefit, who IS? )**
"By Dr. Nayyer Ali
December 13, 2002
Iraq and Oil
Ignore everything that is going on with the weapons inspectors. Bush will strike Saddam in the first three months of 2003 and the US will find itself occupying Iraq. The inspections game is being played out of a desire to appease the rest of the world by creating at least an impression of showing deference to the UN Security Council, but the US will not be constrained by anything the weapons inspectors find or don¹t find.
Iraq is a vast country, and a few weapons inspectors cannot possibly thoroughly inspect the place, even if they had years. The vast majority of the finds that the inspectors had in the early and middle 1990s were based on tips and information gathered from high-ranking Iraqi defectors. Very little was found by driving around the country and looking in random buildings of interest. Which is why Saddam is willing to comply with the current inspection regime and also why the US has no faith in it.
Given the coming war, there is much confusion as to why the US has decided to pursue it. The reasons are complex, but one that is put forth by many critics of US policy is of course oil. Iraq has oil reserves of 113 billion barrels, which is the second largest reserve in the world, and almost half of the leader, Saudi Arabia. Despite this vast pool of oil, Iraq has never produced at a level proportionate to the reserve base. Since the Gulf War, Iraq¹s production has been limited by sanctions and allowed sales under the oil for food program (by which Iraq has sold 60 billion dollars worth of oil over the last 5 years) and what else can be smuggled out. This amounts to less than 1 billion barrels per year. If Iraq were reintegrated into the world economy, it could allow massive investment in its oil sector and boost output to 2.5 billion barrels per year, or about 7 million barrels a day.
Total world oil production is about 75 million barrels, and OPEC combined produces about 25 million barrels.
What would be the consequences of this? There are two obvious things.
First would be the collapse of OPEC, whose strategy of limiting production to maximize price will have finally reached its limit. An Iraq that can produce that much oil will want to do so, and will not allow OPEC to limit it to 2 million barrels per day. If Iraq busts its quota, then who in OPEC will give up 5 million barrels of production? No one could afford to, and OPEC would die. This would lead to the second major consequence, which is a collapse in the price of oil to the 10-dollar range per barrel. The world currently uses 25 billion barrels per year, so a 15-dollar drop will save oil-consuming nations 375 billion dollars in crude oil costs every year.
The benefit to the American economy will be 75 billion dollars, which is not huge, but is certainly significant. Lower global oil prices will lead to faster growth in most developed and developing nations, which will benefit American exporters selling to these economies.
Some have argued that the US wants to take over the oil fields. Actually, that is of little value to the American economy. Even if the US simply confiscated all of Iraq’s oil and sold it, it would only add about 20 billion dollars to the US treasury each year. In addition, the US would have to pay for maintenance and investment in the fields, and provide security.
20 billion dollars is a lot of money, but given that the US government spending is over 150 times greater than that, and the entire US economy is 500 times larger, the 20 billion is just pocket change. In the last twelve months, in which the economy has been growing slowly, the US still added over 300 billion dollars to its economy. So the idea that the US is going to war to literally grab barrels of crude does not withstand analysis.
On the flip side, the war itself is projected to cost 50-100 billion dollars. In addition the occupation after the war will take at least 50,000 peacekeepers, each of which cost 100,000 dollars to maintain per year, which adds up to 5 billion dollars per year. And that is if everything goes without a hitch. The Iraq war is not a moneymaker. But it could be an OPEC breaker. That however is a long-term outcome that will require Iraq to be successfully reconstituted into a functioning state in which massive oil sector investment can take place."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THEY ALL WANT A PIECE OF THE "CAKE"
Indian companies eye Iraqi oil contracts
Excerpt:
"NEW DELHI, Apr 27: Indian industry is vying for a pie in the billions of dollars worth of Iraqi oil industry reconstruction cake by taking sub-contracts for refinery revamp and pipeline construction.
E&P Company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Oil Refiner Indian Oil, Engineering Consultancy Firm Engineers India Ltd, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and construction major Larsen and Toubro together with help from Ministry of External Affairs are vying for sub-contracts from the main contracts which are likely to be for US and British firms."
"Saddam’s Government has, since the late 1990s, signed production sharing or development agreements with oil companies from Russia, France, China, Romania, Vietnam, Syria and Turkey for the rehabilitation and development of vast swathes of its upstream oil wealth. Given the UN embargo, the companies have not acted on the contracts.
But in recent weeks, the US has signalled that its military-led interim authority will be the dispenser of oil field contracts. It already has awarded a repair and restoration deal, without competitive bids, with the Kellogg, Brown & Root unit of oil field services major Halliburton. That is tentatively estimated at up to 7 billion dollars in revenues for Halliburton or its sub-contractors, but might not necessarily interfere with the other international PSCS.
Iraqi opposition figures also have made little secret of their desire to void the contracts from the Saddam era and sign new upstream deals.
Ramachandran said the US military is expected to solicit competitive bids in the next two months to modernise and update Iraqi’s oil infrastructure.
Indian companies eye Iraqi oil contracts
Excerpt:
"NEW DELHI, Apr 27: Indian industry is vying for a pie in the billions of dollars worth of Iraqi oil industry reconstruction cake by taking sub-contracts for refinery revamp and pipeline construction.
E&P Company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Oil Refiner Indian Oil, Engineering Consultancy Firm Engineers India Ltd, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and construction major Larsen and Toubro together with help from Ministry of External Affairs are vying for sub-contracts from the main contracts which are likely to be for US and British firms."
"Saddam’s Government has, since the late 1990s, signed production sharing or development agreements with oil companies from Russia, France, China, Romania, Vietnam, Syria and Turkey for the rehabilitation and development of vast swathes of its upstream oil wealth. Given the UN embargo, the companies have not acted on the contracts.
But in recent weeks, the US has signalled that its military-led interim authority will be the dispenser of oil field contracts. It already has awarded a repair and restoration deal, without competitive bids, with the Kellogg, Brown & Root unit of oil field services major Halliburton. That is tentatively estimated at up to 7 billion dollars in revenues for Halliburton or its sub-contractors, but might not necessarily interfere with the other international PSCS.
Iraqi opposition figures also have made little secret of their desire to void the contracts from the Saddam era and sign new upstream deals.
Ramachandran said the US military is expected to solicit competitive bids in the next two months to modernise and update Iraqi’s oil infrastructure.
IF TURKEY DOES IT, IT'S OK. BUT IF SYRIA TRIES IT........
Iraqi-Syrian oil pipeline boost oil revenue
WASHINGTON, Feb 19: The newly opened Iraqi-Syrian oil pipeline enabled Baghdad to get a sum of three million dollars per day for the last three months, dramatically boosting the oil revenue it gets outside the UN sanction, American media reports has said.
The United States proposed to take up this issue when its Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Damascus next week as part of his week long trip to the Middle East.
Oil industry analysts quoted by the Washington Post said the 552 mile pipeline which connects Iraq with Syria’s mediterranean port of Banias has been receiving 120,000 to 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day since it reopened in November last year. The latest turn over in the pipeline is estimated at 200,000 barrels a day.
Iraq is offering Syria at a sharply discounted price of 15 dollars a barrel nearly fifty per cent of the market cost. This oil sale yields around three million dollars a day for Iraq.
US officials have taken up this issue with their Syrian counterparts about the pipeline which was closed nearly nineteen years ago during the Iran-Iraq war.
The Bush administration is encouraging Syria to bring the oil sale through the pipeline into conformity with the sanctions. The revenue accrued through the sale should be deposited in the UN account for purchase of food and medicines for the Iraqi people.
The newspaper said Syria is not the only ‘offender’ as about 150,000 barrels a day of oil and diesel fuel are being smuggled from northern Iraq into Turkey aboard hundreds of trucks that ply in the border. Since Turkey provides a crucial airbase used by the American aircraft patrolling over Iraq, US officials are reluctant to take up the issue with Ankara to crack down on the lucratived trade.
The US analysts said Baghad has been asking petroleum companies to pay 25 to 30 cents per barrel directly to Iraqi Government coffers, bypassing the United Nations oil for food account and giving Saddam Hussein revenue he could spend without international supervision. The UN account provides for part of the money to be transferred to Kuwait for reparations for damage done during the Iraqi invasion of the country in 1990. (UNI)
Iraqi-Syrian oil pipeline boost oil revenue
WASHINGTON, Feb 19: The newly opened Iraqi-Syrian oil pipeline enabled Baghdad to get a sum of three million dollars per day for the last three months, dramatically boosting the oil revenue it gets outside the UN sanction, American media reports has said.
The United States proposed to take up this issue when its Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Damascus next week as part of his week long trip to the Middle East.
Oil industry analysts quoted by the Washington Post said the 552 mile pipeline which connects Iraq with Syria’s mediterranean port of Banias has been receiving 120,000 to 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day since it reopened in November last year. The latest turn over in the pipeline is estimated at 200,000 barrels a day.
Iraq is offering Syria at a sharply discounted price of 15 dollars a barrel nearly fifty per cent of the market cost. This oil sale yields around three million dollars a day for Iraq.
US officials have taken up this issue with their Syrian counterparts about the pipeline which was closed nearly nineteen years ago during the Iran-Iraq war.
The Bush administration is encouraging Syria to bring the oil sale through the pipeline into conformity with the sanctions. The revenue accrued through the sale should be deposited in the UN account for purchase of food and medicines for the Iraqi people.
The newspaper said Syria is not the only ‘offender’ as about 150,000 barrels a day of oil and diesel fuel are being smuggled from northern Iraq into Turkey aboard hundreds of trucks that ply in the border. Since Turkey provides a crucial airbase used by the American aircraft patrolling over Iraq, US officials are reluctant to take up the issue with Ankara to crack down on the lucratived trade.
The US analysts said Baghad has been asking petroleum companies to pay 25 to 30 cents per barrel directly to Iraqi Government coffers, bypassing the United Nations oil for food account and giving Saddam Hussein revenue he could spend without international supervision. The UN account provides for part of the money to be transferred to Kuwait for reparations for damage done during the Iraqi invasion of the country in 1990. (UNI)
Today's YukYuk from the land of Maybe/Maybe NOT
I've learned (as rumor only, mind you) that this was overheard at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, Apr. 26, 2003:
Al Franken: "Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?"
Paul Wolfowitz: " **** you."
Which makes me think:
*Tsk Tsk* ...no swearin' now, Paul...get your people on the phone and order up some more cruise missiles and
some of that Crusader artillery for our next magical militaristery tour. Carlyle needs you, boy. Leave no defense contracter behind!
This was REALLY said by Mr Wolfowitz:
"I think the right goal is to move as quickly as we can to a government that is, if I can paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, of the Iraqis, by the Iraqis, for the Iraqis." -- Paul Wolfowitz, April 6
...which is a tad puzzling when you hear his administration-mate saying:
"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, April 24
I mean...what if the Iraqi people decide the clerics are "for them...by them....of them"?
Who made Rumsfeld final judge of Iraqi hearts and minds?
And for Pete's sake, who made Wolfowitz an Abe Lincoln already?? *(gag)*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've learned (as rumor only, mind you) that this was overheard at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, Apr. 26, 2003:
Al Franken: "Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?"
Paul Wolfowitz: " **** you."
Which makes me think:
*Tsk Tsk* ...no swearin' now, Paul...get your people on the phone and order up some more cruise missiles and
some of that Crusader artillery for our next magical militaristery tour. Carlyle needs you, boy. Leave no defense contracter behind!
This was REALLY said by Mr Wolfowitz:
"I think the right goal is to move as quickly as we can to a government that is, if I can paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, of the Iraqis, by the Iraqis, for the Iraqis." -- Paul Wolfowitz, April 6
...which is a tad puzzling when you hear his administration-mate saying:
"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, April 24
I mean...what if the Iraqi people decide the clerics are "for them...by them....of them"?
Who made Rumsfeld final judge of Iraqi hearts and minds?
And for Pete's sake, who made Wolfowitz an Abe Lincoln already?? *(gag)*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bush has called for the removal of UN embargo on Iraq, and let's face it, it is not only to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people but also to permit U.S. oil companies to move into a country with the world's third largest oil reserves! Of course, there can be no trade with Iraq for oil until UN sanctions are lifted. (Oh--Bush hates that nasty UN!)
See how easy it is?
All it took was a great "liberation" for Bush and his family and his corporate benefactor/benefactees to be in the money as soon as those sanctions disappear.
Remember, Poppy's Carlyle Group has already done right well for themselves as a result of this "great liberation", too.
What have YOU gained, American people?
Not a friggen thing except a new allocation in your tax-debt for rebuilding the mess Bush made in that nation for his own self-interest and that of his corporate friends.
Is all this "liberation" altruism?
Or could it be self-interest?
I say it's self-interest..without reservation.
Do you believe that Russian, French and Germans are squabbling about lifting sanctions simply because they
"hate" the US? If so, go bury yourself back under those turnips in the back of the turnip truck. It's ALL about self-interest, babe.
And you can bet..somewhere along the line, there will be concessions made to Russia, France and Germany in order for those sanctions to be lifted..even in the face of the fact that those three countries believed this war was illegal.
Money cures just about anything.
And when we "liberated" Iraq....that's when the American oil companies laid their hands on Iraq. That's when the real looting began.
See how easy it is?
All it took was a great "liberation" for Bush and his family and his corporate benefactor/benefactees to be in the money as soon as those sanctions disappear.
Remember, Poppy's Carlyle Group has already done right well for themselves as a result of this "great liberation", too.
What have YOU gained, American people?
Not a friggen thing except a new allocation in your tax-debt for rebuilding the mess Bush made in that nation for his own self-interest and that of his corporate friends.
Is all this "liberation" altruism?
Or could it be self-interest?
I say it's self-interest..without reservation.
Do you believe that Russian, French and Germans are squabbling about lifting sanctions simply because they
"hate" the US? If so, go bury yourself back under those turnips in the back of the turnip truck. It's ALL about self-interest, babe.
And you can bet..somewhere along the line, there will be concessions made to Russia, France and Germany in order for those sanctions to be lifted..even in the face of the fact that those three countries believed this war was illegal.
Money cures just about anything.
And when we "liberated" Iraq....that's when the American oil companies laid their hands on Iraq. That's when the real looting began.
THE WAR HAPPENED WHILE I WAS ON VACATION EARLIER THIS MONTH
WHILE I WAS AWAY.......
While I was away.... by Iddybud
So much to talk about.
Such as how a quickie end to sanctions on Iraq are worth billions to Bush..
and how it would give U.S. oil companies control over Iraq oil.
Or how the UN (that Bushie so hates) condemns "incredible" numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq..
most killed by U.S. bombs and rockets.
Or how the U.S. controls only a square mile of Baghdad at present while
looters are now turning to private homes instead of museums.
Or how Bush is under pressure to prove the existence of significant traces of Iraqi WMD...(substantially
threat-posing substances to Americans since this was about our security)..
while suspicion is also growing because the UN weapons inspectors that Bushie hates so much are being kept out.
Or how the U.S. is rushing to install a puppet Iraqi government to rival
the Punch and Judy show.
A U.S.-favored "Iraqi National Congress" has little to do with Iraq, doncha know.
Or how Hans Blix claims the U.S. wanted UN inspection teams to spy on Iraq..while U.S. intelligence services also faked WMD "evidence" ..even back then. (No one wanted to listen to Ritter--and Bushie tried to destroy Ritter..par for the course...the low-sinking Bushie's even trying to destroy fellow-Republicans like Sen Voinivich).
Or how Bushie's planning to appoint an arms merchant as viceroy of Baghdad..
This retired Army general was a key player in Israeli weapon deployment, doncha know.
Or about the new Iraq leadership picked by U.S...definitely a motley crew ..and some want to bring back the old monarchy!!
How about that Arab world all abuzz with rumors of a Bush - Saddam deal on this war... some conspiracy theorists believe a deal was struck to save Saddam...hmmm.....thry say the Saudis may have brokered a deal for quick Iraqi surrender...and the speedy fall of Baghdad has Arab media buzzing with rumors!!
Then there was that brutal murder of that cleric--which shows Iraqi ethnic tensions are rather high..yes?
More religious violence is predicted in the wake of Saddam's overthrow.
And dagnabbit, there's no grateful cheering over liberation at Baghdad hospitals...where doctors are performing operations without full anaesthesia! What you imagine to be cheers are actually howls of friggen pain.
Then there's life in Iraq "after Saddam": carpetbaggers everywhere!
Religious rivals, ex-pats, zany locals all jockeying for political power! Woot!
Did we expect the fall of Saddam to deepens the Russia-U.S. rift?
Who was forced to deny rumors that their Baghdad embassy was hiding Saddam?
Coudl it be that the anarchy is keeping aid-workers from entering Iraq? While aid for food, water, medical system collapses??
And just how hard is it to hide a
6-foot, 4-inch diabetic Arab with a $25 million bounty on his head? Pretty easy, it turns out -- if you know the right people!!!
What??? The U.S. moves to block an emergency UN war session?
Who woulda thunk it???
Threatening diplomats not to vote for General Assembly session on Iraq? The UN-hating Bushie? Nah! Couldn't be!
How about those media groups condemning the U.S.- killing of reporters in Iraq?
Do we dare ask questions about non-"embedded" journalists killed by U.S. military fire?
What happens when an investigation of possible U.S. war crimes in Iraq begins? Gathering data to present to International Criminal Court, are they? The bastards!
Those fragile money markets watch Iraq with unease...the entire global economy is in flux..and it isn't SARS!
Bush wants to make it clear to the much-hated UN: IRAQ BELONGS TO US!!!
Hands off..we stomped on 'em..back off! The Pentagon will be calling the shots in Iraq, even in defiance of other bureaucracies that, in contrast to the Defense Department, have real experts on Iraqi politics, history, and culture who could prove helpful in carrying out an occupation. "You can call this another aspect of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's pre-emption strategy," said one administration official. "You can call this a coup d'etat." But right-wing hawks in the Bush administration, led by Cheney and Rumsfeld, want the United Nations to provide the clean-up crew to tidy up the war-devastated country, feed the hungry, and care for the wounded and the dying.
Have I mentioned Bush is all set to snub the UN (whom he hates) for a meaningful role in postwar Iraq??
Did you hear Bush say to Blair: "Nopers, no lead role for the UN in Iraq, Tony baby, 'cuzzin' I hates 'em"?
Have you noticed the Iraq "liberation" looks more like "Coup d'Etat"?
So...will the UN become another League Of Nations because Bush and the chickenhawks hate the UN??
There are some unsettling comparisons between Iraq and events of 1936.
Here's some more stuff to talk about.... (why aren't we talking about it???)
U.S. hopes a Europe split is forever, some experts say.. a dispute over Iraq war is just one example of EU-American differences and the Bush admin couldn't be happier with this thought.
Watch them exacerbate it in days to come.
The disgrace and failure of George W. Bush is that he lied, he bribed, he forged and, finally, he tried spying
in order to get his war on.
Bush hawks are now moving the crosshairs to Syria..the exact-same neo-con chickenhawk crowd that fomented attack on Iraq is hoping for the same with Syria...bet your britches on it.
No matter how Fox tries to apple-pie the whole deal, Arabs are seeing "occupation," not "liberation" of Iraq... comparisons are being made to Soviet efforts to colonize Afghanistan.
Arab Youth are still heading towards Iraq to be "Freedom Martyrs"....and the
Iraq invasion has spurred feelings of Arab nationalism. DOH...Who woulda thunkit?
Bush's short-span war, in reality, may span generations, kids....
Religious issues on both sides have made this anything BUT a conventional war.
We need to expect a long-haul stay in Iraq. Even right-wing thinktanks behind the Iraq invasion want no early fixation on exit strategies. Take off the seatbelts, ye anti-nation-builders. Dig deep into your tax-paying pockets. Iraqis need your
hard-earned dough-re-mi while Bechtel and other corporations make a lot of those policy-makers rich, rich and more rich!
What did Bush delete from an Iraq inspector's Report?
There are a missing 8000-pages..which is said to probably link U.S. companies to Iraq weapons. Who woulda thunkit?
Postwar Iraq profiteering has begun.
Over $1.5 billion in Iraq contracts have been offered to private U.S. companies. Thanks, liberators!
And the U.S. will reap an oil windfall now that Saddam's been oustered (for all intents and purposes).
Oil had practically everything to do with it..contrary to Fox-ular beliefs.
I'm confident that history will show that Iraq and the Arab world has been RADICALIZED by the attack on Iraq.
I fully believe the government of Iran is expecting to war with the US soon.
North Korea, BECAUSE of the war on Iraq, has learned a lesson. To desire a speedy race to nuclear power so we cannot do the same to them. It may be an unreasonable assumption on their part, but this is only part of what Bush's poor foreign policy has caused.
So much more to say...so little time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHILE I WAS AWAY.......
While I was away.... by Iddybud
So much to talk about.
Such as how a quickie end to sanctions on Iraq are worth billions to Bush..
and how it would give U.S. oil companies control over Iraq oil.
Or how the UN (that Bushie so hates) condemns "incredible" numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq..
most killed by U.S. bombs and rockets.
Or how the U.S. controls only a square mile of Baghdad at present while
looters are now turning to private homes instead of museums.
Or how Bush is under pressure to prove the existence of significant traces of Iraqi WMD...(substantially
threat-posing substances to Americans since this was about our security)..
while suspicion is also growing because the UN weapons inspectors that Bushie hates so much are being kept out.
Or how the U.S. is rushing to install a puppet Iraqi government to rival
the Punch and Judy show.
A U.S.-favored "Iraqi National Congress" has little to do with Iraq, doncha know.
Or how Hans Blix claims the U.S. wanted UN inspection teams to spy on Iraq..while U.S. intelligence services also faked WMD "evidence" ..even back then. (No one wanted to listen to Ritter--and Bushie tried to destroy Ritter..par for the course...the low-sinking Bushie's even trying to destroy fellow-Republicans like Sen Voinivich).
Or how Bushie's planning to appoint an arms merchant as viceroy of Baghdad..
This retired Army general was a key player in Israeli weapon deployment, doncha know.
Or about the new Iraq leadership picked by U.S...definitely a motley crew ..and some want to bring back the old monarchy!!
How about that Arab world all abuzz with rumors of a Bush - Saddam deal on this war... some conspiracy theorists believe a deal was struck to save Saddam...hmmm.....thry say the Saudis may have brokered a deal for quick Iraqi surrender...and the speedy fall of Baghdad has Arab media buzzing with rumors!!
Then there was that brutal murder of that cleric--which shows Iraqi ethnic tensions are rather high..yes?
More religious violence is predicted in the wake of Saddam's overthrow.
And dagnabbit, there's no grateful cheering over liberation at Baghdad hospitals...where doctors are performing operations without full anaesthesia! What you imagine to be cheers are actually howls of friggen pain.
Then there's life in Iraq "after Saddam": carpetbaggers everywhere!
Religious rivals, ex-pats, zany locals all jockeying for political power! Woot!
Did we expect the fall of Saddam to deepens the Russia-U.S. rift?
Who was forced to deny rumors that their Baghdad embassy was hiding Saddam?
Coudl it be that the anarchy is keeping aid-workers from entering Iraq? While aid for food, water, medical system collapses??
And just how hard is it to hide a
6-foot, 4-inch diabetic Arab with a $25 million bounty on his head? Pretty easy, it turns out -- if you know the right people!!!
What??? The U.S. moves to block an emergency UN war session?
Who woulda thunk it???
Threatening diplomats not to vote for General Assembly session on Iraq? The UN-hating Bushie? Nah! Couldn't be!
How about those media groups condemning the U.S.- killing of reporters in Iraq?
Do we dare ask questions about non-"embedded" journalists killed by U.S. military fire?
What happens when an investigation of possible U.S. war crimes in Iraq begins? Gathering data to present to International Criminal Court, are they? The bastards!
Those fragile money markets watch Iraq with unease...the entire global economy is in flux..and it isn't SARS!
Bush wants to make it clear to the much-hated UN: IRAQ BELONGS TO US!!!
Hands off..we stomped on 'em..back off! The Pentagon will be calling the shots in Iraq, even in defiance of other bureaucracies that, in contrast to the Defense Department, have real experts on Iraqi politics, history, and culture who could prove helpful in carrying out an occupation. "You can call this another aspect of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's pre-emption strategy," said one administration official. "You can call this a coup d'etat." But right-wing hawks in the Bush administration, led by Cheney and Rumsfeld, want the United Nations to provide the clean-up crew to tidy up the war-devastated country, feed the hungry, and care for the wounded and the dying.
Have I mentioned Bush is all set to snub the UN (whom he hates) for a meaningful role in postwar Iraq??
Did you hear Bush say to Blair: "Nopers, no lead role for the UN in Iraq, Tony baby, 'cuzzin' I hates 'em"?
Have you noticed the Iraq "liberation" looks more like "Coup d'Etat"?
So...will the UN become another League Of Nations because Bush and the chickenhawks hate the UN??
There are some unsettling comparisons between Iraq and events of 1936.
Here's some more stuff to talk about.... (why aren't we talking about it???)
U.S. hopes a Europe split is forever, some experts say.. a dispute over Iraq war is just one example of EU-American differences and the Bush admin couldn't be happier with this thought.
Watch them exacerbate it in days to come.
The disgrace and failure of George W. Bush is that he lied, he bribed, he forged and, finally, he tried spying
in order to get his war on.
Bush hawks are now moving the crosshairs to Syria..the exact-same neo-con chickenhawk crowd that fomented attack on Iraq is hoping for the same with Syria...bet your britches on it.
No matter how Fox tries to apple-pie the whole deal, Arabs are seeing "occupation," not "liberation" of Iraq... comparisons are being made to Soviet efforts to colonize Afghanistan.
Arab Youth are still heading towards Iraq to be "Freedom Martyrs"....and the
Iraq invasion has spurred feelings of Arab nationalism. DOH...Who woulda thunkit?
Bush's short-span war, in reality, may span generations, kids....
Religious issues on both sides have made this anything BUT a conventional war.
We need to expect a long-haul stay in Iraq. Even right-wing thinktanks behind the Iraq invasion want no early fixation on exit strategies. Take off the seatbelts, ye anti-nation-builders. Dig deep into your tax-paying pockets. Iraqis need your
hard-earned dough-re-mi while Bechtel and other corporations make a lot of those policy-makers rich, rich and more rich!
What did Bush delete from an Iraq inspector's Report?
There are a missing 8000-pages..which is said to probably link U.S. companies to Iraq weapons. Who woulda thunkit?
Postwar Iraq profiteering has begun.
Over $1.5 billion in Iraq contracts have been offered to private U.S. companies. Thanks, liberators!
And the U.S. will reap an oil windfall now that Saddam's been oustered (for all intents and purposes).
Oil had practically everything to do with it..contrary to Fox-ular beliefs.
I'm confident that history will show that Iraq and the Arab world has been RADICALIZED by the attack on Iraq.
I fully believe the government of Iran is expecting to war with the US soon.
North Korea, BECAUSE of the war on Iraq, has learned a lesson. To desire a speedy race to nuclear power so we cannot do the same to them. It may be an unreasonable assumption on their part, but this is only part of what Bush's poor foreign policy has caused.
So much more to say...so little time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, April 26, 2003
A MUST-READ!
The Dark Night Of The American Soul
by Joseph R. Stromberg
http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg53.html
The Dark Night Of The American Soul
by Joseph R. Stromberg
http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg53.html
FOR THE MANY PRO-IRAQ-WAR CONS WHO ARE NOW TELLING ME TO "SHUT UP" and "CRY UNCLE" BECAUSE I "LOST"
This war isn't over
by Jim Wallis
EXCERPT:
"Now that the war was such a "success," we are left with a number of problems. It appears the Bush administration is choosing an American military occupation of Iraq instead of an internationally supported U.N. lead in humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Already we see street demonstrations against that occupation. So far, the U.S. military hasn't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and The Washington Post reported this week that administration officials are becoming less confident about doing so. Whoops. The imminent threat of those weapons was a central justification for the war.
They also haven't yet found Saddam Hussein. There are speculations now that he and his Baath Party and Republican Guard didn't put up a fight for Baghdad because they decided to disappear in order to live to fight another day, perhaps in an eventual guerrilla war against the American occupiers. That would certainly be a horrible prospect for everybody. And the triumphant optimism of the administration's leading warriors about installing a pro-American democracy in Iraq that would transform the Middle East seems to fade with each passing day. We're also finally adding up the few thousand civilian casualties and seeing their human faces, along with the many more dead Iraqi soldiers - a lot of whom were just young kids conscripted by a dictator. More than 100 American families also are mourning the loss of a loved one. And the disastrous consequences of the war in Iraq for domestic needs in America - where the poor are also becoming war casualties - is a subject worth another whole column."
This war isn't over
by Jim Wallis
EXCERPT:
"Now that the war was such a "success," we are left with a number of problems. It appears the Bush administration is choosing an American military occupation of Iraq instead of an internationally supported U.N. lead in humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Already we see street demonstrations against that occupation. So far, the U.S. military hasn't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and The Washington Post reported this week that administration officials are becoming less confident about doing so. Whoops. The imminent threat of those weapons was a central justification for the war.
They also haven't yet found Saddam Hussein. There are speculations now that he and his Baath Party and Republican Guard didn't put up a fight for Baghdad because they decided to disappear in order to live to fight another day, perhaps in an eventual guerrilla war against the American occupiers. That would certainly be a horrible prospect for everybody. And the triumphant optimism of the administration's leading warriors about installing a pro-American democracy in Iraq that would transform the Middle East seems to fade with each passing day. We're also finally adding up the few thousand civilian casualties and seeing their human faces, along with the many more dead Iraqi soldiers - a lot of whom were just young kids conscripted by a dictator. More than 100 American families also are mourning the loss of a loved one. And the disastrous consequences of the war in Iraq for domestic needs in America - where the poor are also becoming war casualties - is a subject worth another whole column."
War and peace and God Rev. Stanley will have devil of a time convincing Lord battle is holy
BY JOHN SUGG
When I was 8-years-old, living in Orlando, my mom took me every night for a week to a Billy Graham crusade. Forty-some years later, I remember it vividly -- the flowers, the hymns, the dusty concrete smell of a large municipal auditorium, even the detestable yellow shirt Mom made me wear because it was my "finest."
Religion, I would conclude many years later, is largely a matter of geography. Had I been born in Bombay, I'd likely be Hindu. Egypt or Indonesia, and I'd be praying to Allah. If I called many parts of Asia home, Gotama would be my Main Man. It gets a little cramped in the Middle East, where your chances of being born Jew, Christian or Muslim are defined by feet and inches as opposed to continents. Nonetheless, "where" is quite likely the major "what" with faith.
Unlike many people -- for example, the Rev. Charles Stanley, a gentleman we'll come back to -- I don't claim to speak for the Deity. So I don't know why we have all of these religions, each anchored to a different part of the globe. My personal conclusion is that God truly is great and infinitely imaginative -- and He (and/or She) demonstrates this by showing there are many, many ways to come to Him (and/or Her).
Whatever, it was my lot to be from the South, in the United States, continent of North America. That meant, religionwise, it was almost inevitable I would be raised a Southern Baptist, which makes it not at all surprising that I was sitting at the Billy Graham revival.
On the fourth night of the crusade, as the choir sang "Just As I Am" and with my mother rapturously beaming approval, I marched forward, accepted Jesus as my savior and grabbed Graham's hand (I can still see the blue suit he was wearing). I didn't want to let go. I later had my soul cleansed in the blood of the Lamb, via baptism, and despite my age, I made a perfect score on a Graham correspondence course.
By the time I was 14, I was on my way to becoming apostate. Still, I believed much of what I learned in Sunday school -- including the bit about whether your faith's foundations were rock or sand. I became a committed Civil Rights activist in my teens, and when I found out that Southern Baptists had, in 1845, split from the denomination because they believed God approved of slavery, and that many in the church had been founders and leaders of the Klan, I decided to look elsewhere for a spiritual home. I felt the church's foundations were rooted in sludge -- but I don't deny the goodness and faith of most of the 16 million Southern Baptists (including Mom).
I never forgot the Rev. Graham, and his resonant voice, which seemed able to move the world and simultaneously touch the heart of a little boy. Even when he became pals with Richard Nixon, even (much later) when it was revealed that the preacher and the president indulged in anti-Semitic banter, I was and am awed by Graham's majesty.
But not his son Franklin's. Or his son's pals -- Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and our own Charles Stanley.
George Bush had no legitimate reason to invade Iraq that he could rally the nation around. So, he scammed America. If there were weapons of mass destruction -- and so far none have turned up -- the U.N. was well on the way to cleansing Iraq. Saddam Hussein was murderously horrible, but he was long a client of the United States, especially beloved by the CIA, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- and our history is much more about propping up bloodthirsty dictators than taking them down.
Bush's and his neocon mentors' real reasons were and are the hardly marketable goals of conquest, hegemony, empire and oil.
And, praise the Lord, since this is in every material respect a Christian crusade against Muslims, the missionaries are massed to be the second wave into Iraq. They will use the old proselytizing ruse of bringing humanitarian aid, but what they want the Iraqis to swallow is the cross.
Clearly (at least to the Christian soldiers), Muslims are much in need of the Holy Brigade. Falwell has declared Mohammed a "terrorist." Jerry Vines, a prominent Jacksonville, Fla., Baptist preacher, said Islam's prophet was "a demon-possessed pedophile." Robertson declared the Muslim faith a "monumental scam." And Franklin Graham, who just last week presided over a come-to-Jesus session for crusaders at the Pentagon, has said Muslims pray to "a different God" and that Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion."
Overlooked by these men of God is that no faith rivals Christianity for the blood it has spilled. The eradication of the indigenous American civilizations and people -- in the name of God -- has no parallel. The crusades, the genocides, the Inquisition -- the litany goes on. I don't believe that current events signal "The End Is Near," but I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus wanted to hurry his Second Coming in order to clear his name, besmirched most recently by the arrogance, intolerance and hatred of the not-so-very-Christian right wing.
Leading the Church Militant will be generals such as Franklin Graham with his Samaritan's Purse -- a "here's food and water, but first you gotta hear a sermon" outfit. Atlanta's Stanley will field his divisions, dubbed In Touch Ministries, whose messages are broadcast in 14 languages worldwide. According to an article this month in Salon.com, "In Touch is just one of a phalanx in an army of Christian soldiers who see Muslim Iraq as an extraordinary new marketplace for their theology."
Stanley runs the 15,000-member First Baptist Church of Atlanta. Apparently overlooking Jesus' admonition to sell all, live in poverty and follow him, Stanley commands a $40 million empire. As a leader (past president) of the Southern Baptist Convention, Stanley helped spearhead a Taliban-style assault on women, banning them from the ministry and declaring them subservient to men.
Moreover, he is a theological contortionist, able on the one hand to condemn divorce, forbidding it to his followers, yet survive his own marriage's disintegration. He averred in 1995 to resign if he did get divorced, but, shucks, God just needs him so darn much that he had to break his vow.
And he just loves war. Oh, sure, he gives a half-hearted disclaimer in an online sermon, "A Nation at War," that "God is not excited about war." Stanley is divinely enlightened about what turns God on. The rest of the sermon is a hymn of adulation about slaughter. "God battles with people who oppose him," the reverend says. "So, even though he hates war, God is not against it."
Stanley's evidence is citations from the Old Testament. The preacher must have missed the theology classes where Jesus told his followers: "Whosoever smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also ... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you ..."
Stanley tells his faithful that God only forbids individual killing, but that the mass slaughter of warfare isn't really murder. "When a man in combat shoots his enemy under the command of the government, without personal hatred, he is not committing murder." That is a novel variation on "I was only following orders." If Stanley's spin on God's will is correct, every military butcher in history is exonerated -- as long as their massacres didn't involve "personal hatred."
The preacher's rationalizations should certainly shake the heavenly palaces where St. Augustine (4th century) and the 16th-century monk Erasmus are spending eternity. Augustine decried combat: "It is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word than to slay men with the sword, and to maintain peace by peace, not by war."
Erasmus opined that "there is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more deeply tenacious, more loathsome (than war). Once war has been declared, then all the affairs of the State are at the mercy of the few."
Preachers such as Stanley are enthralled by the Bush regime. Stanley thunders: "God clearly establishes the government's responsibilities and authority over us. ... The government is ordained by God with the right to promote good and restrain evil. This includes wickedness that exists within the nation, as well as any wicked persons or countries ... ."
The basis for that is a passage from Romans. Unfortunately, what Paul was doing was trying to deflect the anger of that earlier, pre-Bush Empire.
Jesus, I hate to remind the reverend, was a revolutionary who challenged the authority of both Rome and the ruling Jewish classes. He told Peter to put away his sword, forgave his killers, and died the Prince of Peace.
Senior Editor John Sugg -- who previously has confessed to practicing theology without a license -- can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com. His daily Web log is at www.cln.com/fishwrapper/suggreport.html
Copyright © 1996-2003 Creative Loafing Inc.
All rights reserved.
Friday, April 18, 2003
A GREAT ARTICLE ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF INTERNET NEWS OVER TELEVISION
Internet Kills the Television Blahs
By Farai Chideya, AlterNet
April 14, 2003
A few days after the start of the war, I was sitting in a hotel restaurant having breakfast. At night, the eatery was a sports bar. But that morning, fifteen television sets, some as large as five feet square, broadcast war coverage.
Over my eggs, toast, and coffee, I watched the last night’s bombing raids, big red blooms of fireballs. Interspersed were animated graphics of military maneuvers and equipment, like a sophisticated, nihilistic video game.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t look away. Television is mesmeric, engaging, and according to scientific research, addictive. Last February in Scientific American, award-winning researchers Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi presented their findings on television addiction. It’s a term they reluctantly came to accept because the viewing patterns of Americans (who average 3+ hours per day) fit the classic definition. No shocker here: We feel relaxed while we’re channel surfing. But Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi were surprised that "the sense of relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continue." In other words, we end up feeling slodgy and powerless right after a big TV binge.
But online news consumers have found a very different – and highly active – way of getting their information. Some of the most sophisticated news consumers, including progressives worldwide, have become the "blog"-era equivalent of news editors. By both receiving and distributing information via email, they vote with the click of a mouse on what information matters.
"It's nice to have these `intelligent agents’ – my friends and list neighbors – passing along the worthiest columns and news stories," says musician and radio producer David Gans. He receives information via listservs, discussions boards, and the online community The Well, whose Media conference he hosts. Individuals like Gans, informed and discerning about what they send out, become hubs in this distributed information network.
Net use has grown exponentially since the first Gulf War – the "television war" – a decade ago. Says Australian writer Richard Evans, "I prefer [online news] to watching television as I have more control of the kinds of images and stories I read. I also use the Google news service as a way of getting a quick overview of a variety of sources." Studies also show that Americans find the web outlets of major media (like CNN.com) more trustworthy than their parents.
Print and online publications that make it easy for readers to forward material have seen a jump in traffic. The New York Times sends out 3.7 million headline alerts each day. But their "Most Emailed Articles" feature – which allows online readers to see what other readers have forwarded – has come into its own. New York Times Digital spokesperson Christine Mohan says that in March, the highest-traffic month so far, the average number of articles emailed was about seventy-five thousand per day. But in the days preceding the war, readers emailed up to 120,000 stories daily. "When you send something to your colleague, the person is much more likely to open it. It’s that inherent trust," says Mohan.
Novelist Danzy Senna ("Caucasia") uses the New York Times’ system to email articles to friends and family. She also passes on alerts about upcoming peace marches and acts of civil disobedience. Judging by online outreach for recent peace rallies, the ability to customize and control the flow of information produces action as well as education. And alternative news sources may have benefited from the online news surge even more than major-media ones. In my admittedly unscientific survey of individuals who received and forwarded war-related news, most (including Senna) sent and received more independent than major-media coverage.
The downside? Not all information is credible. Web producer Emily Gertz finds some people on progressive listservs passing bad information on. "As part of harnessing the power of networked information," she says, "there needs to be a steady level of education about net resources and etiquette from those of us who've been online for a long time (in my case, over ten years)."
People who forward too much volume or too little of interest find people begging off their lists. And unique or "sticky" information, like Tamim Ansary’s letter about Afghanistan after 9/11, travels the world lightening quick, which opens the door for clever hoaxes.
The system is largely self-correcting, however – and growing. The only thing that could block news "intelligent agents" from their mission is the question of revenue. For now, most outlets don’t charge for accessing or forwarding information, happy simply that they’re getting more eyeballs. In this world, readers and publishers share the burden of distribution. Online information fans have turned Fox News’s slogan on its ear, telling outlets "You Report, The World Decides."
Farai Chideya is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Internet Kills the Television Blahs
By Farai Chideya, AlterNet
April 14, 2003
A few days after the start of the war, I was sitting in a hotel restaurant having breakfast. At night, the eatery was a sports bar. But that morning, fifteen television sets, some as large as five feet square, broadcast war coverage.
Over my eggs, toast, and coffee, I watched the last night’s bombing raids, big red blooms of fireballs. Interspersed were animated graphics of military maneuvers and equipment, like a sophisticated, nihilistic video game.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t look away. Television is mesmeric, engaging, and according to scientific research, addictive. Last February in Scientific American, award-winning researchers Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi presented their findings on television addiction. It’s a term they reluctantly came to accept because the viewing patterns of Americans (who average 3+ hours per day) fit the classic definition. No shocker here: We feel relaxed while we’re channel surfing. But Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi were surprised that "the sense of relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continue." In other words, we end up feeling slodgy and powerless right after a big TV binge.
But online news consumers have found a very different – and highly active – way of getting their information. Some of the most sophisticated news consumers, including progressives worldwide, have become the "blog"-era equivalent of news editors. By both receiving and distributing information via email, they vote with the click of a mouse on what information matters.
"It's nice to have these `intelligent agents’ – my friends and list neighbors – passing along the worthiest columns and news stories," says musician and radio producer David Gans. He receives information via listservs, discussions boards, and the online community The Well, whose Media conference he hosts. Individuals like Gans, informed and discerning about what they send out, become hubs in this distributed information network.
Net use has grown exponentially since the first Gulf War – the "television war" – a decade ago. Says Australian writer Richard Evans, "I prefer [online news] to watching television as I have more control of the kinds of images and stories I read. I also use the Google news service as a way of getting a quick overview of a variety of sources." Studies also show that Americans find the web outlets of major media (like CNN.com) more trustworthy than their parents.
Print and online publications that make it easy for readers to forward material have seen a jump in traffic. The New York Times sends out 3.7 million headline alerts each day. But their "Most Emailed Articles" feature – which allows online readers to see what other readers have forwarded – has come into its own. New York Times Digital spokesperson Christine Mohan says that in March, the highest-traffic month so far, the average number of articles emailed was about seventy-five thousand per day. But in the days preceding the war, readers emailed up to 120,000 stories daily. "When you send something to your colleague, the person is much more likely to open it. It’s that inherent trust," says Mohan.
Novelist Danzy Senna ("Caucasia") uses the New York Times’ system to email articles to friends and family. She also passes on alerts about upcoming peace marches and acts of civil disobedience. Judging by online outreach for recent peace rallies, the ability to customize and control the flow of information produces action as well as education. And alternative news sources may have benefited from the online news surge even more than major-media ones. In my admittedly unscientific survey of individuals who received and forwarded war-related news, most (including Senna) sent and received more independent than major-media coverage.
The downside? Not all information is credible. Web producer Emily Gertz finds some people on progressive listservs passing bad information on. "As part of harnessing the power of networked information," she says, "there needs to be a steady level of education about net resources and etiquette from those of us who've been online for a long time (in my case, over ten years)."
People who forward too much volume or too little of interest find people begging off their lists. And unique or "sticky" information, like Tamim Ansary’s letter about Afghanistan after 9/11, travels the world lightening quick, which opens the door for clever hoaxes.
The system is largely self-correcting, however – and growing. The only thing that could block news "intelligent agents" from their mission is the question of revenue. For now, most outlets don’t charge for accessing or forwarding information, happy simply that they’re getting more eyeballs. In this world, readers and publishers share the burden of distribution. Online information fans have turned Fox News’s slogan on its ear, telling outlets "You Report, The World Decides."
Farai Chideya is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS?
The News We Kept To Ourselves
Eason Jordan-CNN
Various Opinions
From NY Times 4-15-03
"A recent acknowledgment by Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, that he withheld some accounts of Saddam Hussein's brutality for years to protect the lives of Iraqi sources came in for some withering criticism yesterday.
Several journalism professors and commentators said Mr. Jordan had compromised CNN's journalistic mission so the cable network could continue to report from Iraq. In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Jordan revealed his knowledge of the Iraqi regime's use of torture and murder, information that he said he could not divulge until the fall of Saddam Hussein. Today, Mr. Jordan said the issue was not about access, but about life and death.
"It's very simple," he said. "Do you report things that get people killed? The answer is no."
According to the article, Mr. Hussein's secret police subjected an Iraqi CNN cameraman to weeks of electroshock torture in the mid-1990's as they tried to elicit confirmation that Mr. Jordan was an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. (Mr. Jordan called the allegation against him ludicrous.)
Mr. Jordan also wrote that Uday Hussein, Mr. Hussein's eldest son, told him in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two brothers-in-law who had defected to Jordan, as well as King Hussein of Jordan. Mr. Jordan said he told this to the king, who shrugged it off. The two brothers-in-law were later assassinated.
The revelations were harshly criticized by commentators, both conservative and liberal, including Rush Limbaugh and Juan Williams. Bill McLaughlin, an associate professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, said CNN could have found a creative way to report the anecdotes Mr. Jordan had collected without jeopardizing people in Iraq.
Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, said CNN had traded its ability to report the truth for a continued presence in the Baghdad. "In essence, he was caught over a long period of time dealing with the devil," he said.
Mr. Jordan said that CNN had made no such deal, nor would it, and that CNN's reporting about the regime was fair and tough-minded.
Mr. Jordan's admission pointed up a problem that many news organizations wrestled with in the months leading up to war, and during it.
Until the first statue of Mr. Hussein fell, Western journalists in the Iraqi capital often could not report detailed accounts of government brutality for fear of jeopardizing interview subjects.
In the end, Mr. Jordan said he came to a conclusion that others had as well: for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not.
Some of Mr. Jordan's colleagues at other networks indicated sympathy for his predicament. "If we thought that we were endangering somebody we had hired to help us to report, that would be something that we would weigh very heavily," said Michele Grant, BBC's director of development in the United States.
Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said Mr. Jordan was being unfairly singled out. "I think every news organization has to make those kinds of calls from time to time," he said."
The News We Kept To Ourselves
Eason Jordan-CNN
Various Opinions
From NY Times 4-15-03
"A recent acknowledgment by Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, that he withheld some accounts of Saddam Hussein's brutality for years to protect the lives of Iraqi sources came in for some withering criticism yesterday.
Several journalism professors and commentators said Mr. Jordan had compromised CNN's journalistic mission so the cable network could continue to report from Iraq. In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Jordan revealed his knowledge of the Iraqi regime's use of torture and murder, information that he said he could not divulge until the fall of Saddam Hussein. Today, Mr. Jordan said the issue was not about access, but about life and death.
"It's very simple," he said. "Do you report things that get people killed? The answer is no."
According to the article, Mr. Hussein's secret police subjected an Iraqi CNN cameraman to weeks of electroshock torture in the mid-1990's as they tried to elicit confirmation that Mr. Jordan was an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. (Mr. Jordan called the allegation against him ludicrous.)
Mr. Jordan also wrote that Uday Hussein, Mr. Hussein's eldest son, told him in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two brothers-in-law who had defected to Jordan, as well as King Hussein of Jordan. Mr. Jordan said he told this to the king, who shrugged it off. The two brothers-in-law were later assassinated.
The revelations were harshly criticized by commentators, both conservative and liberal, including Rush Limbaugh and Juan Williams. Bill McLaughlin, an associate professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, said CNN could have found a creative way to report the anecdotes Mr. Jordan had collected without jeopardizing people in Iraq.
Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, said CNN had traded its ability to report the truth for a continued presence in the Baghdad. "In essence, he was caught over a long period of time dealing with the devil," he said.
Mr. Jordan said that CNN had made no such deal, nor would it, and that CNN's reporting about the regime was fair and tough-minded.
Mr. Jordan's admission pointed up a problem that many news organizations wrestled with in the months leading up to war, and during it.
Until the first statue of Mr. Hussein fell, Western journalists in the Iraqi capital often could not report detailed accounts of government brutality for fear of jeopardizing interview subjects.
In the end, Mr. Jordan said he came to a conclusion that others had as well: for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not.
Some of Mr. Jordan's colleagues at other networks indicated sympathy for his predicament. "If we thought that we were endangering somebody we had hired to help us to report, that would be something that we would weigh very heavily," said Michele Grant, BBC's director of development in the United States.
Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said Mr. Jordan was being unfairly singled out. "I think every news organization has to make those kinds of calls from time to time," he said."
It is time to get fierce
"...in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone? Long time passing, long time ago. (Applause.) With apologies to Robert Byrd, I have to say it is pretty embarrassing to live in a country where a five-foot- one comedian has more guts than most politicians. (Applause.) We need leaders, not pragmatists that cower before the spin zones of former entertainment journalists. We need leaders who can understand the Constitution, congressman who don't in a moment of fear abdicate their most important power, the right to declare war to the executive branch. And, please, can we please stop the congressional sing-a- longs?
In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce."
Tim Robbins
From a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003
"...in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone? Long time passing, long time ago. (Applause.) With apologies to Robert Byrd, I have to say it is pretty embarrassing to live in a country where a five-foot- one comedian has more guts than most politicians. (Applause.) We need leaders, not pragmatists that cower before the spin zones of former entertainment journalists. We need leaders who can understand the Constitution, congressman who don't in a moment of fear abdicate their most important power, the right to declare war to the executive branch. And, please, can we please stop the congressional sing-a- longs?
In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce."
Tim Robbins
From a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003
In whose interest is it for Iraq to be deconstructed, divided, burnt, de-historied, destroyed?
--It's easy for a reporter to predict doom, especially after a brutal war that lacked all international legitimacy. But catastrophe usually waits for optimists in the Middle East, especially for false optimists who invade oil-rich nations with ideological excuses and high-flown moral claims and accusations, such as weapons of mass destruction, which are still unproved. So I'll make an awful prediction. That America's war of "liberation" is over. Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is about to begin. In other words, the real and frightening story starts now.--
--Why, Iraqis are asking, did the United States allow the entire Iraqi cabinet to escape?--
--Were they monsters, these men? Yes. Are they sought by the Americans? No. Are they now working for the Americans? Yes, quite possibly -indeed some of them may well be in the long line of ex-security thugs who queue every morning outside the Palestine Hotel in the hope of being re-hired by the US Marines' Civil Affairs Unit.--
--At the end of the Second World War, German-speaking British and US intelligence officers hoovered up every document in the thousands of Gestapo and Abwehr bureaux across western Germany. The Russians did the same in their zone. In Iraq, however, the British and Americans have simply ignored the evidence.--
--Even the unshredded files contain a wealth of information. But again, the Americans have not bothered -or do not want -to search through these papers. If they did, they would find the names of dozens of senior intelligence men, many of them identified in congratulatory letters they insisted on sending each other every time they were promoted. Where now, for example, is Colonel Abdulaziz Saadi, Captain Abdulsalam Salawi, Captain Saad Ahmed al-Ayash, Colonel Saad Mohammed, Captain Majid Ahmed and scores of others? We may never know. Or perhaps we are not supposed to know.--
--Iraqis are right to ask why the Americans don't search for this information, just as they are right to demand to know why the entire Saddam cabinet -every man jack of them -got away. The capture by the Americans of Saddam's half-brother and the ageing Palestinian gunman Abu Abbas, whose last violent act was 18 years ago, is pathetic compensation for this.--
--Now here's another question the Iraqis are asking, and to which I cannot provide an answer. On 8 April, three weeks into the invasion, the Americans dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They claimed they thought Saddam was hiding there. They knew they would kill civilians because it was not, as one Centcom mandarin said, a "risk free venture" (sic). So they dropped their bombs and killed 14 civilians in Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family.--
--The Americans said they couldn't be sure they had killed Saddam until they could carry out forensic tests at the site. But this turns out to have been a lie. I went there two days ago. Not a single US or British official had bothered to visit the bomb craters. Indeed, when I arrived, there was a putrefying smell and families pulled the remains of a baby from the rubble.--
--No American officers have apologised for this appalling killing. And I can promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic was very definitely not Saddam Hussein. Had they bothered to look at this place-as they claimed they would- they would at least have found the baby. Now the craters are a place of pilgrimage for the people of Baghdad.--
--Because there is also something dangerous and deeply disturbing about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town.
The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge ..an explanation that is growing very thin ..and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.
The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the whole project.
So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop this?--
--Why, for example, did Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, claim last week that there was no widespread looting or destruction in Baghdad? His statement was a lie. But why did he make it?--
--In whose interest is it for Iraq to be deconstructed, divided, burnt, de-historied, destroyed?--
Robert Fisk
The Independent UK
--It's easy for a reporter to predict doom, especially after a brutal war that lacked all international legitimacy. But catastrophe usually waits for optimists in the Middle East, especially for false optimists who invade oil-rich nations with ideological excuses and high-flown moral claims and accusations, such as weapons of mass destruction, which are still unproved. So I'll make an awful prediction. That America's war of "liberation" is over. Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is about to begin. In other words, the real and frightening story starts now.--
--Why, Iraqis are asking, did the United States allow the entire Iraqi cabinet to escape?--
--Were they monsters, these men? Yes. Are they sought by the Americans? No. Are they now working for the Americans? Yes, quite possibly -indeed some of them may well be in the long line of ex-security thugs who queue every morning outside the Palestine Hotel in the hope of being re-hired by the US Marines' Civil Affairs Unit.--
--At the end of the Second World War, German-speaking British and US intelligence officers hoovered up every document in the thousands of Gestapo and Abwehr bureaux across western Germany. The Russians did the same in their zone. In Iraq, however, the British and Americans have simply ignored the evidence.--
--Even the unshredded files contain a wealth of information. But again, the Americans have not bothered -or do not want -to search through these papers. If they did, they would find the names of dozens of senior intelligence men, many of them identified in congratulatory letters they insisted on sending each other every time they were promoted. Where now, for example, is Colonel Abdulaziz Saadi, Captain Abdulsalam Salawi, Captain Saad Ahmed al-Ayash, Colonel Saad Mohammed, Captain Majid Ahmed and scores of others? We may never know. Or perhaps we are not supposed to know.--
--Iraqis are right to ask why the Americans don't search for this information, just as they are right to demand to know why the entire Saddam cabinet -every man jack of them -got away. The capture by the Americans of Saddam's half-brother and the ageing Palestinian gunman Abu Abbas, whose last violent act was 18 years ago, is pathetic compensation for this.--
--Now here's another question the Iraqis are asking, and to which I cannot provide an answer. On 8 April, three weeks into the invasion, the Americans dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They claimed they thought Saddam was hiding there. They knew they would kill civilians because it was not, as one Centcom mandarin said, a "risk free venture" (sic). So they dropped their bombs and killed 14 civilians in Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family.--
--The Americans said they couldn't be sure they had killed Saddam until they could carry out forensic tests at the site. But this turns out to have been a lie. I went there two days ago. Not a single US or British official had bothered to visit the bomb craters. Indeed, when I arrived, there was a putrefying smell and families pulled the remains of a baby from the rubble.--
--No American officers have apologised for this appalling killing. And I can promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic was very definitely not Saddam Hussein. Had they bothered to look at this place-as they claimed they would- they would at least have found the baby. Now the craters are a place of pilgrimage for the people of Baghdad.--
--Because there is also something dangerous and deeply disturbing about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town.
The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge ..an explanation that is growing very thin ..and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.
The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the whole project.
So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop this?--
--Why, for example, did Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, claim last week that there was no widespread looting or destruction in Baghdad? His statement was a lie. But why did he make it?--
--In whose interest is it for Iraq to be deconstructed, divided, burnt, de-historied, destroyed?--
Robert Fisk
The Independent UK
TODAY'S TIDBITS FROM THE OP-EDS
"While we've been watching the Iraq show, many past achievements of U.S. foreign policy have been disintegrating. Through neglect and arrogance, the United States has squandered the good will it built up in Latin America in the 1990's. For half a century the U.S. has regarded the drive toward free trade as a key part of its global strategy; now trade negotiations are falling apart from lack of attention.
Even in Iraq, we're starting to see that winning the war was the easy part, and U.S. officials — previously dismissive of "old Europe" — are suddenly talking about an international peacekeeping force. But to be effective, such a force, like the one in Afghanistan, would surely have to include French and German soldiers.
The truth is that we can't go it alone. But by the time that truth sinks in, there may be a lot of pieces to pick up. "
Paul Krugman
NYTimes
"For the overwhelming political lesson of the last year is that war works — that is, it's an excellent cover for the Republican Party's domestic political agenda. In fact, war works in two ways. The public rallies around the flag, which means the President and his party; and the public's attention is diverted from other issues.
As long as the nation is at war, then, it will be hard to get the public to notice what the flagwavers are doing behind our backs. And it just so happens that the "Bush doctrine," which calls for preventive war against countries that may someday pose a threat, offers the possibility of a series of wars against nasty regimes with weak armies.
Someday the public will figure all this out. But it may be a very long wait."
Paul Krugman
NY Times 4-15-03
"While we've been watching the Iraq show, many past achievements of U.S. foreign policy have been disintegrating. Through neglect and arrogance, the United States has squandered the good will it built up in Latin America in the 1990's. For half a century the U.S. has regarded the drive toward free trade as a key part of its global strategy; now trade negotiations are falling apart from lack of attention.
Even in Iraq, we're starting to see that winning the war was the easy part, and U.S. officials — previously dismissive of "old Europe" — are suddenly talking about an international peacekeeping force. But to be effective, such a force, like the one in Afghanistan, would surely have to include French and German soldiers.
The truth is that we can't go it alone. But by the time that truth sinks in, there may be a lot of pieces to pick up. "
Paul Krugman
NYTimes
"For the overwhelming political lesson of the last year is that war works — that is, it's an excellent cover for the Republican Party's domestic political agenda. In fact, war works in two ways. The public rallies around the flag, which means the President and his party; and the public's attention is diverted from other issues.
As long as the nation is at war, then, it will be hard to get the public to notice what the flagwavers are doing behind our backs. And it just so happens that the "Bush doctrine," which calls for preventive war against countries that may someday pose a threat, offers the possibility of a series of wars against nasty regimes with weak armies.
Someday the public will figure all this out. But it may be a very long wait."
Paul Krugman
NY Times 4-15-03
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
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