El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, resaltó el legado del guerrillero argentino-cubano Ernesto Che Guevara y afirmó que es un ejemplo para Latinoamérica, al conmemorarse el aniversario 38 de su caída en combate en Bolivia.
Hay que hacerle honor al Che y lo que significó, no sólo como combatiente, sino como pensador y filósofo, señaló el mandatario en su programa Aló Presidente, transmitido desde el estado de Lara.
Chávez llamó a retomar el proyecto del legendario guerrillero para enfrentar el pensamiento único que los países desarrollados intentan imponer en el mundo.
Recordó que fue "vilmente asesinado por lo lacayos del imperialismo" norteamericano.
El gobernante expresó que la inauguración este domingo de 30 Centros de Rehabilitación Integral en Venezuela es un homenaje al Che, médico de profesión.
Con la develación de un busto de Guevara, cubanos y venezolanos recordaron el sábado en esta capital al denominado Guerrillero heroico.
En un acto celebrado en el Paseo de los Insignes en la Avenida Simón Bolívar, la diputada al Parlamento Andino, Jhannett Madriz, afirmó que el accionar del Che fue durante toda su vida consecuente con sus ideas.
El embajador de Cuba en Venezuela, Germán Sánchez, expresó que fue un hombre de todos los tiempos, por su vida "heroica, sublime, íntegra y ejemplar".
La prensa venezolana también resaltó la vigencia del pensamiento del Che.
El alcalde de Caracas, Freddy Bernal, en un artículo en el diario Ultimas Noticias, señaló que fue un "ejemplo de austeridad, de sencillez y de constancia en el estudio y en la formación ideológica".
En tiempo de guerra fue el primero en la línea de combate y en la paz fue pionero en la transformación de un país, que es modelo de sacrificio y solidaridad, agregó, en referencia a Cuba.
Por su parte, el periódico Vea afirmó que el Che, como lo bautizaron los guerrilleros en la Sierra Maestra, es hoy un gigante, cuyas ideas se multiplican.
En 1956, el entonces joven argentino se sumó en México al grupo encabezado por Fidel Castro para derrotar a la tiranía de Fulgencio Batista en la Isla.
El 7 de octubre de 1967 el Che fue herido y capturado en la quebrada del Yuro, en las inmediaciones del poblado boliviano de La Higuera, y asesinado al día siguiente.
Conmemoran organizaciones argentinas aniversario muerte del Che
BUENOS AIRES (PL).— Organizaciones e instituciones argentinas conmemoraron con las más diversas manifestaciones el trigésimo octavo aniversario del asesinato del comandante guerrillero argentino-cubano Ernesto Che Guevara en Bolivia.
La Comisión de Solidaridad con Cuba del partido de Almirante Brown, culminó con un homenaje al Guerrillero Heroico en un seminario de seis sesiones dedicado a familiarizar a sus miembros y simpatizantes con la historia de la Isla.
La trayectoria del Che como estudiante, revolucionario, pensador y hombre de acción fue abordada por Agustín Prina, de 20 años de edad, integrante de la facultad Ernesto Guevara de la Universidad Popular Madres de Plaza de Mayo.
Un amplio debate derivó de la ponencia sobre actualidad mundial y vigencia del pensamiento y la ejecutoria del Che, mientras que varios participantes, entre ellos, chilenos y bolivianos, narraron sus remembranzas sobre cómo y dónde recibieron la noticia de su muerte.
La Comisión puso a disposición de los participantes una amplia bibliografía sobre el Che y se adoptaron acuerdos acerca del papel que desempeñará cada uno para difundir su pensamiento entre trabajadores y las nuevas generaciones de argentinos.
En su ciudad natal, Rosario, la Multisectorial de Solidaridad con Cuba de allí, realizó una marcha que pasó por la casa en que vivió y se dirigió a la Plaza Che Guevara, donde se dio lectura a un documento con motivo de la efeméride.
Participaron representaciones de partidos políticos, organizaciones sindicales, sociales, juveniles y no gubernamentales.
Los participantes asumieron el compromiso de continuar desarrollando su solidaridad con Cuba y reclamaron la liberación de Los Cinco antiterroristas cubanos presos en Estados Unidos.
También convocaron a la celebración de la III Cumbre de los Pueblos en Mar del Plata del primero al 5 de noviembre y la realización de un paro y movilización nacional en repudio a la presencia del presidente de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, en la IV Cumbre de las Américas en esa misma ciudad.
En la provincia de Buenos Aires, la mayoría de las radioemisoras AM difundieron reportajes alusivos a la fecha y el canal televisivo Todo Noticias transmitió un amplio trabajo con imágenes desde el nacimiento del Che hasta su caída en Bolivia, así como la trascendencia mundial de su figura.
EN NICARAGUA
Managua, 10 oct (PL).— Cientos de nicaragüenses rindieron homenaje al legendario guerrillero argentino-cubano Ernesto Che Guevara, en ocasión de conmemorarse el aniversario de su muerte en Bolivia.
Las causas por las que luchó el Comandante Guevara son las mismas por las que nos corresponden luchar hoy a nosotros, afirmó el presidente del Comité Che Guevara, Iván Romero, en el acto celebrado la víspera en el Centro para la Investigación, Promoción y el Desarrollo Rural y Social (CIPRES) de Managua.
La presencia del Comité de Solidaridad Nicaragua-Venezuela se hizo notar con el despliegue frente al escenario de una gran tela alusiva a la Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas, la iniciativa integradora promovida por el presidente Hugo Chávez.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Light sentence for a Pentagon expert who spied for Israel
ALTHOUGH he admitted having handed over classified information from the U.S. State Department to Israeli agents, it is already known that Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, aged 58, who was personal advisor to Donald Rumsfeld, is to be given a sentence way below the 25-year prison term established in law, according to an AP cable.
On the other hand, the five Cubans arrested by the FBI for infiltrating Miami terrorist groups in order to neutralize their acts were mercilessly sentenced to life imprisonment and lengthy prison terms for acts of "espionage" that the prosecution was never able to prove. Franklin is to receive a light sentence, AP affirms.
The official admitted to having handed over Pentagon classified information to Naor Gilon, a political official at the Israeli embassy, and to two U.S. citizens employed by the American-Israeli Affairs Public Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group.
The agency notes that he stands to receive a 25-year term but it is thought that he will be given a far shorter one, according to federal direction over the sentencing, and adding that District Judge T.S. Ellis is to pronounce the sentence on January 20.
Franklin, a resident of Kearneysville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy and one of illegally retaining national defense information.
"ADVISOR" TO DONALD RUMSFELD
It is important to note that Franklin is not just any lowly U.S. government official: for a long period he worked directly with Under Secretary Douglas Feith, at the time described as the Pentagon No. 3, who advised on Middle East and Iranian issues.
Moreover, Franklin also stated to the court that he occasionally met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfovitz in an advisory capacity.
The AP article by journalist Matthew Barakat states that the two Americans acting as Israeli agents: Steven Rosen of Silver Springs, Maryland, and Keith Weissman, of Bethseda, in the same state, have been charged with conspiracy to receive and disclose information on U.S. Defense. He does not state whether they are under arrest.
According to court documents, Franklin met regularly with Rosen and Weissman from 2002-2004 and discussed classified information with them. From 1999 Rosen and Weissman informed the Israeli government on a series of issues such as: Al Qaeda, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policies on Iran.
Franklin also confessed that he was hoping that his "contacts" would be able to influence U.S. policy via their links with the National Security Council.
Various high-ranking Pentagon and U.S. officials testified in the Five's trial that had not even come close to a single sheet of classified information. Even though their trial has been annulled by the Atlanta Court of Appeals and their detention declared illegal by a panel of UN jurists, the five Cuban victims of Bush justice are still imprisoned in distinct U.S. jails.
On the other hand, the five Cubans arrested by the FBI for infiltrating Miami terrorist groups in order to neutralize their acts were mercilessly sentenced to life imprisonment and lengthy prison terms for acts of "espionage" that the prosecution was never able to prove. Franklin is to receive a light sentence, AP affirms.
The official admitted to having handed over Pentagon classified information to Naor Gilon, a political official at the Israeli embassy, and to two U.S. citizens employed by the American-Israeli Affairs Public Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group.
The agency notes that he stands to receive a 25-year term but it is thought that he will be given a far shorter one, according to federal direction over the sentencing, and adding that District Judge T.S. Ellis is to pronounce the sentence on January 20.
Franklin, a resident of Kearneysville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy and one of illegally retaining national defense information.
"ADVISOR" TO DONALD RUMSFELD
It is important to note that Franklin is not just any lowly U.S. government official: for a long period he worked directly with Under Secretary Douglas Feith, at the time described as the Pentagon No. 3, who advised on Middle East and Iranian issues.
Moreover, Franklin also stated to the court that he occasionally met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfovitz in an advisory capacity.
The AP article by journalist Matthew Barakat states that the two Americans acting as Israeli agents: Steven Rosen of Silver Springs, Maryland, and Keith Weissman, of Bethseda, in the same state, have been charged with conspiracy to receive and disclose information on U.S. Defense. He does not state whether they are under arrest.
According to court documents, Franklin met regularly with Rosen and Weissman from 2002-2004 and discussed classified information with them. From 1999 Rosen and Weissman informed the Israeli government on a series of issues such as: Al Qaeda, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policies on Iran.
Franklin also confessed that he was hoping that his "contacts" would be able to influence U.S. policy via their links with the National Security Council.
Various high-ranking Pentagon and U.S. officials testified in the Five's trial that had not even come close to a single sheet of classified information. Even though their trial has been annulled by the Atlanta Court of Appeals and their detention declared illegal by a panel of UN jurists, the five Cuban victims of Bush justice are still imprisoned in distinct U.S. jails.
Laws violated by President George W. Bush sufficient for impeachment
Laws violated by President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney, public officials under their authority, and members of the U.S. military under their command, sufficient for impeachment
- The U. S. Constitution, Art. VI, para. 2,
makes treaties adopted by the U.S. part of the "law of the land." Thus, a violation of the U. N. Charter, Hague IV, Geneva Conventions, etc. is also a violation of U.S. federal law.
- U.S. Federal Law 18 U.S.C. § 2441
(War Crimes Act of 1996) makes committing a war crime, defined as: " ...a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party..." punishable by fine, imprisonment, or death.
- The following treaties and charters which define: wars of aggression, war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV)
Art. 55. The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator...of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.
U.N. Gen. Assembly Res. 3314
Defines the crime of aggression as " ...the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State…or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations..."
Nuremberg Tribunal Charter
Principle VI: "The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace: Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties;
(b) War crimes: ...murder, ill-treatment...of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war,...plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages...
(c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination...and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population...when such acts are done...in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."
Geneva Conventions
A) Protocol I, Article 75: "(1)…persons who are in the power of a Party to the conflict…shall be treated humanely in all circumstances...(2) The following acts are and shall remain prohibited...whether committed by civilian or by military agents: (a) violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons...(b) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault...and threats to commit any of the foregoing acts."
B) Protocol I, Art. 51: "The civilian population...shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." Art. 57: (parties shall) "do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects…an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one..."
C) Protocol I, Art. 70: “The Parties to the conflict…shall allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel…even if such assistance is destined for the civilian population of the adverse Party.”
D) Protocol I, Art. 35: "In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties...to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited...It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment."
E) Convention I, Art. 3: "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms - shall in all circumstances be treated humanely...To this end, the following acts (in addition to those listed in Art. 75, above) are and shall remain prohibited: - the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
F) Convention III, Art. 5: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy (are prisoners of war under this Convention), such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."
G) Convention IV, Art. 33: "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."
"Intelligence Brief: Eritrea"
In September 13, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1622 (2005), calling on Eritrea and Ethiopia to move toward peacefully resolving their longstanding border dispute. The Security Council was clear in its insistence that Ethiopia "accept fully" the demarcation of the border determined by the independent Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (E.E.B.C.) in 2002, but it also urged the two countries to engage in detente and diplomacy, and did not contemplate sanctions or other pressures on Addis Ababa to comply with the Commission's decision.
Asmara responded to the resolution defiantly, threatening that it would consider taking military action to protect its sovereign interests if the international community did not press Addis Ababa to accept the E.E.B.C.'s demarcation. Following Asmara's threat, the U.N. secretary general's special representative on the border dispute, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, warned that the two sides were at an "impasse" and were heading toward war, and called on the Security Council to send a mission to the region to restart negotiations, which Asmara had broken off after Addis Ababa refused to abide by the E.E.B.C.'s ruling. Legwaila assured Asmara that if it entered talks with Addis Ababa, the 2002 demarcation would remain final. Asmara remained distrustful.
The Border Dispute
The origins of the border dispute go back to the U.N.'s decision after World War II to compromise the divisions in Eritrea over whether the country should become independent or be integrated into Ethiopia, by opting for a federal solution in which Eritrea would have its own parliament and administration within Ethiopia. Eritrea had previously been a British protectorate and before that an Italian colony, and had never enjoyed independence in its modern history.
The federal solution broke down in 1960, when Ethiopia annexed Eritrea, resulting in an armed rebellion by pro-independence forces who were later joined by pro-federationists dissatisfied with Addis Ababa's rule. The conflict escalated in 1974 after a coup in Ethiopia by a Marxist military junta which then initiated an offensive against the Eritrean insurgency. In 1991, the Eritrean independence movement defeated the Ethiopian army and Eritrea gained independence after a 1993 referendum.
Eritrea's independence left its border with Ethiopia undemarcated, creating a point of tension between the two countries that broke into open hostilities in 1998; when Ethiopian soldiers entered the disputed Badme region, Asmara responded by invading the region with a substantial force and Addis Ababa followed by declaring "total war."
Asmara responded to the resolution defiantly, threatening that it would consider taking military action to protect its sovereign interests if the international community did not press Addis Ababa to accept the E.E.B.C.'s demarcation. Following Asmara's threat, the U.N. secretary general's special representative on the border dispute, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, warned that the two sides were at an "impasse" and were heading toward war, and called on the Security Council to send a mission to the region to restart negotiations, which Asmara had broken off after Addis Ababa refused to abide by the E.E.B.C.'s ruling. Legwaila assured Asmara that if it entered talks with Addis Ababa, the 2002 demarcation would remain final. Asmara remained distrustful.
The Border Dispute
The origins of the border dispute go back to the U.N.'s decision after World War II to compromise the divisions in Eritrea over whether the country should become independent or be integrated into Ethiopia, by opting for a federal solution in which Eritrea would have its own parliament and administration within Ethiopia. Eritrea had previously been a British protectorate and before that an Italian colony, and had never enjoyed independence in its modern history.
The federal solution broke down in 1960, when Ethiopia annexed Eritrea, resulting in an armed rebellion by pro-independence forces who were later joined by pro-federationists dissatisfied with Addis Ababa's rule. The conflict escalated in 1974 after a coup in Ethiopia by a Marxist military junta which then initiated an offensive against the Eritrean insurgency. In 1991, the Eritrean independence movement defeated the Ethiopian army and Eritrea gained independence after a 1993 referendum.
Eritrea's independence left its border with Ethiopia undemarcated, creating a point of tension between the two countries that broke into open hostilities in 1998; when Ethiopian soldiers entered the disputed Badme region, Asmara responded by invading the region with a substantial force and Addis Ababa followed by declaring "total war."
The US has got an image problem when it comes to the internet.
It is seen as arrogant and determined to remain the sheriff of the world wide web, regardless of whatever the rest of the world may think.
It has even lost the support of the European Union. It stands alone as the divisive battle over who runs the internet heads for a showdown at a key UN summit in Tunisia next month.
The stakes are high, with the European Commissioner responsible for the net, Viviane Reding, warning of a potential web meltdown.
It has even lost the support of the European Union. It stands alone as the divisive battle over who runs the internet heads for a showdown at a key UN summit in Tunisia next month.
The stakes are high, with the European Commissioner responsible for the net, Viviane Reding, warning of a potential web meltdown.
Monday, October 10, 2005
I, Bagman: The Story of Colin Powell
Jonathan Schwarz is back and loaded for bear over at Tiny Revolution, with a takedown of the tissue of lies that Colin Powell disgorged in an interview with ABC News last month. Powell's reputation as "one of the good guys" in the Bush Administration has been one of the most enduring mysteries of our sad, demented times. He was not only one of the chief enablers of Bush's war crime in Iraq, but his entire career has marked him out as a bagman for a bloody elite, ever willing to turn a blind eye -- or pitch in directly -- when there is dirty work to be done, from the My Lai massacre to Iran-Contra to the murderous excursion in Panama to the warm embrace of Saddam Hussein to his final apotheosis as Imperial Handmaiden in his sick-making appearance at the UN in February 2003, when he "made the case" for war.
Now, of course, Powell goes around with furrowed brow, dramatically declaiming how he was "betrayed" by unnamed intelligence agents into prostituting his (entirely vaporous) credibility at the UN. But as Jon shows, Powell knew full well that he was lying to the world during his UN fan-dance, claiming that his baseless assertions about Iraq's non-existent WMD were iron-clad gospel truth -- when, as we now know, those very same "unreliable" intelligence agencies had told Powell, in writing, that his charges lacked a solid foundation.
Jon has the goods, and promises that this is just part of a ongoing project "that will examine Powell's mendacity in all its glorious detail." For some historical context, you might examine this column that I wrote -- in May 2002 -- drawing on the excellent historical research of Robert Parry: General Principles: Colin Powell, Bagman.
George Bush and the Four Horsemen
It's becoming apparent to even the most avid Bush loyalist, that the current charlatan-in-chief has been the greatest catastrophe in the nation's 200 year history. Regrettably, there are strong indications that the Crawford albatross is planning to pull us further downward towards the ocean floor.
At present, the republic is buckling beneath the weight of deception, violence and incompetence. In Iraq, the plan to chop up the country into three smaller parts is moving ahead despite the intensity of the resistance or the objections of the Sunni minority. Bush has assumed the mantle of an Iraqi Jefferson Davis championing the merits of reformation and regional autonomy. The new constitution provides only the thinnest cover for a neocon master-plan that destroys what little is left of Iraqi society while legitimizing a permanent American occupation. Al Jaafari, Talibani, Chalabi and the long list of rogues and collaborators have made their Faustian bargain with their US overlords and put their country on a course that will result in decades of hardship and slaughter; all for what?
A mottled earthen hut in the world's most perilous gated community; the green zone?
At home the effects of Bush's rule have been equally harsh. The anarchic Bush has rummaged through the Bill of Rights like a draught-horse in a steeple-case. No statute, law or amendment has escaped his withering attention. One by one, he's savaged the constitutional protections that once shielded the citizen from the long-arm of the state. He's cut through 800 years of English and American jurisprudence like the Grim Reaper on saint's day; leaving nothing behind but the gulags that house his victims.
Ecuador's ousted president finds a haven in Uribe's Colombia. Narco links ignored
Uribe Ignores Lucio's Crimes and Narco Links, Grants Asylum
The Colombian government decided last week to grant asylum to former Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez, whose corruption-ridden administration ended in April following a revolt.
By granting asylum to Gutiérrez, the administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has given protection to a political figure whose presidential campaign was connected to a convicted narco-trafficker.
The connections between Gutiérrez's 2002 presidential campaign and drug money were unearthed in late 2003 after Ecuadorian police arrested the leader of a drug-trafficking organization.
That development also underscored the association of Alfredo Palacio, Ecuador's current president and Gutiérrez's running mate in 2002, with the arrested trafficker.
On Oct. 23, 2003, Ecuadorian police officers received a report from the U.S. Forward Operating Location in Manta, the airbase that hosted U.S. intelligence activities in Ecuador. The report warned of the landing of a suspicious Mexican-registered business jet on an airstrip at Portoviejo, a 250-thousand-people city in Ecuador’s coastal Manabi province.
That night, according to local press reports, when Ecuadorian narcotics agents raided the airstrip they found the jet in the hangar of Aerofer, a company owned by César Fernández, a wealthy local businessman who served as the governor of Manabi Province during the 1990s. Inside the plane police found 400 kilos of cocaine.
By granting asylum to Gutiérrez, the administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has given protection to a political figure whose presidential campaign was connected to a convicted narco-trafficker.
The connections between Gutiérrez's 2002 presidential campaign and drug money were unearthed in late 2003 after Ecuadorian police arrested the leader of a drug-trafficking organization.
That development also underscored the association of Alfredo Palacio, Ecuador's current president and Gutiérrez's running mate in 2002, with the arrested trafficker.
On Oct. 23, 2003, Ecuadorian police officers received a report from the U.S. Forward Operating Location in Manta, the airbase that hosted U.S. intelligence activities in Ecuador. The report warned of the landing of a suspicious Mexican-registered business jet on an airstrip at Portoviejo, a 250-thousand-people city in Ecuador’s coastal Manabi province.
That night, according to local press reports, when Ecuadorian narcotics agents raided the airstrip they found the jet in the hangar of Aerofer, a company owned by César Fernández, a wealthy local businessman who served as the governor of Manabi Province during the 1990s. Inside the plane police found 400 kilos of cocaine.
Will Bush Deliver?
Ever since President Bush promised to rebuild the Gulf Coast in "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen," many people have asked how he plans to pay for that effort. But looking at what has (and hasn't) happened since he gave that speech, I'm starting to wonder whether they're asking the right question. How sure are we that large-scale federal aid for post-Katrina reconstruction will really materialize?
Bear with me while I make the case for doubting whether Mr. Bush will make good on his promise.
First, Mr. Bush already has a record of trying to renege on pledges to a stricken city. After 9/11 he made big promises to New York. But as soon as his bullhorn moment was past, officials began trying to wriggle out of his pledge. By early 2002 his budget director was accusing New York's elected representatives, who wanted to know what had happened to the promised aid, of engaging in a "money-grubbing game." It's not clear how much federal help the city has actually received.
With that precedent in mind, consider this: Congress has just gone on recess. By the time it returns, seven weeks will have passed since the levees broke. And the administration has spent much of that time blocking efforts to aid Katrina's victims.
Bear with me while I make the case for doubting whether Mr. Bush will make good on his promise.
First, Mr. Bush already has a record of trying to renege on pledges to a stricken city. After 9/11 he made big promises to New York. But as soon as his bullhorn moment was past, officials began trying to wriggle out of his pledge. By early 2002 his budget director was accusing New York's elected representatives, who wanted to know what had happened to the promised aid, of engaging in a "money-grubbing game." It's not clear how much federal help the city has actually received.
With that precedent in mind, consider this: Congress has just gone on recess. By the time it returns, seven weeks will have passed since the levees broke. And the administration has spent much of that time blocking efforts to aid Katrina's victims.
Caras y caretas-Eduardo Galeano
¿Cristóbal Colón descubrió América en 1492? ¿O antes que él la descubrieron los vikingos? ¿Y antes que los vikingos? Los que allí vivían, ¿no existían?
Cuenta la historia oficial que Vasco Núñez de Balboa fue el primer hombre que vio, desde una cumbre de Panamá, los dos océanos. Los que allí vivían, ¿eran ciegos?
¿Quiénes pusieron sus primeros nombres al maíz y a la papa y al tomate y al chocolate y a las montañas y a los ríos de América? ¿Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro? Los que allí vivían, ¿eran mudos?
Nos han dicho, y nos siguen diciendo, que los peregrinos del Mayflower fueron a poblar América. ¿América estaba vacía?
Como Colón no entendía lo que decían, creyó que no sabían hablar.
Como andaban desnudos, eran mansos y daban todo a cambio de nada, creyó que no eran gentes de razón.
Y como estaba seguro de haber entrado al Oriente por la puerta de atrás, creyó que eran indios de la India.
Después, durante su segundo viaje, el almirante dictó un acta estableciendo que Cuba era parte del Asia.
El documento del 14 de junio de 1494 dejó constancia de que los tripulantes de sus tres naves lo reconocían así; y a quien dijera lo contrario se le darían cien azotes, se le cobraría una pena de diez mil maravedíes y se le cortaría la lengua.
El notario, Hernán Pérez de Luna, dio fe.
Y al pie firmaron los marinos que sabían firmar.
Los conquistadores exigían que América fuera lo que no era. No veían lo que veían, sino lo que querían ver: la fuente de la juventud, la ciudad del oro, el reino de las esmeraldas, el país de la canela. Y retrataron a los americanos tal como antes habían imaginado a los paganos de Oriente.
Cristóbal Colón vio en las costas de Cuba sirenas con caras de hombre y plumas de gallo, y supo que no lejos de allí los hombres y las mujeres tenían rabos.
En la Guayana, según sir Walter Raleigh, había gente con los ojos en los hombros y la boca en el pecho.
En Venezuela, según fray Pedro Simón, había indios de orejas tan grandes que las arrastraban por los suelos.
En el río Amazonas, según Cristóbal de Acuña, los nativos tenían los pies al revés, con los talones adelante y los dedos atrás, y según Pedro Martín de Anglería las mujeres se mutilaban un seno para el mejor disparo de sus flechas.
Anglería, que escribió la primera historia de América pero nunca estuvo allí, afirmó también que en el Nuevo Mundo había gente con rabos, como había contado Colón, y sus rabos eran tan largos que sólo podían sentarse en asientos con agujeros.
El Código Negro prohibía la tortura de los esclavos en las colonias francesas. Pero no era por torturar, sino por educar, que los amos azotaban a sus negros y cuando huían les cortaban los tendones.
Eran conmovedoras las leyes de Indias, que protegían a los indios en las colonias españolas. Pero más conmovedoras eran la picota y la horca clavadas en el centro de cada Plaza Mayor.
Muy convincente resultaba la lectura del Requerimiento, que en vísperas del asalto a cada aldea explicaba a los indios que Dios había venido al mundo y que había dejado en su lugar a San Pedro y que San Pedro tenía por sucesor al Santo Padre y que el Santo Padre había hecho merced a la reina de Castilla de toda esta tierra y que por eso debían irse de aquí o pagar tributo en oro y que en caso de negativa o demora se les haría la guerra y ellos serían convertidos en esclavos y también sus mujeres y sus hijos. Pero este Requerimiento de obediencia se leía en el monte, en plena noche, en lengua castellana y sin intérprete, en presencia del notario y de ningún indio, porque los indios dormían, a algunas leguas de distancia, y no tenían la menor idea de lo que se les venía encima.
Hasta no hace mucho, el 12 de octubre era el Día de la Raza.
Pero, ¿acaso existe semejante cosa? ¿Qué es la raza, además de una mentira útil para exprimir y exterminar al prójimo?
En el año 1942, cuando Estados Unidos entró en la guerra mundial, la Cruz Roja de ese país decidió que la sangre negra no sería admitida en sus bancos de plasma. Así se evitaba que la mezcla de razas, prohibida en la cama, se hiciera por inyección.
¿Alguien ha visto, alguna vez, sangre negra?
Después, el Día de la Raza pasó a ser el Día del Encuentro.
¿Son encuentros las invasiones coloniales? ¿Las de ayer, y las de hoy, encuentros? ¿No habría que llamarlas, más bien, violaciones?
Quizás el episodio más revelador de la historia de América ocurrió en el año 1563, en Chile. El fortín de Arauco estaba sitiado por los indios, sin agua ni comida, pero el capitán Lorenzo Bernal se negó a rendirse. Desde la empalizada, gritó:
—¡Nosotros seremos cada vez más!
—¿Con qué mujeres? –preguntó el jefe indio.
—Con las vuestras. Nosotros les haremos hijos que serán vuestros amos.
Los invasores llamaron caníbales a los antiguos americanos, pero más caníbal era el Cerro Rico de Potosí, cuyas bocas comían carne de indios para alimentar el desarrollo capitalista de Europa.
Y los llamaron idólatras, porque creían que la naturaleza es sagrada y que somos hermanos de todo lo que tiene piernas, patas, alas o raíces.
Y los llamaron salvajes. En eso, al menos, no se equivocaron. Tan brutos eran los indios que ignoraban que debían exigir visa, certificado de buena conducta y permiso de trabajo a Colón, Cabral, Cortés, Alvarado, Pizarro y los peregrinos del Mayflower.
Cuenta la historia oficial que Vasco Núñez de Balboa fue el primer hombre que vio, desde una cumbre de Panamá, los dos océanos. Los que allí vivían, ¿eran ciegos?
¿Quiénes pusieron sus primeros nombres al maíz y a la papa y al tomate y al chocolate y a las montañas y a los ríos de América? ¿Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro? Los que allí vivían, ¿eran mudos?
Nos han dicho, y nos siguen diciendo, que los peregrinos del Mayflower fueron a poblar América. ¿América estaba vacía?
Como Colón no entendía lo que decían, creyó que no sabían hablar.
Como andaban desnudos, eran mansos y daban todo a cambio de nada, creyó que no eran gentes de razón.
Y como estaba seguro de haber entrado al Oriente por la puerta de atrás, creyó que eran indios de la India.
Después, durante su segundo viaje, el almirante dictó un acta estableciendo que Cuba era parte del Asia.
El documento del 14 de junio de 1494 dejó constancia de que los tripulantes de sus tres naves lo reconocían así; y a quien dijera lo contrario se le darían cien azotes, se le cobraría una pena de diez mil maravedíes y se le cortaría la lengua.
El notario, Hernán Pérez de Luna, dio fe.
Y al pie firmaron los marinos que sabían firmar.
Los conquistadores exigían que América fuera lo que no era. No veían lo que veían, sino lo que querían ver: la fuente de la juventud, la ciudad del oro, el reino de las esmeraldas, el país de la canela. Y retrataron a los americanos tal como antes habían imaginado a los paganos de Oriente.
Cristóbal Colón vio en las costas de Cuba sirenas con caras de hombre y plumas de gallo, y supo que no lejos de allí los hombres y las mujeres tenían rabos.
En la Guayana, según sir Walter Raleigh, había gente con los ojos en los hombros y la boca en el pecho.
En Venezuela, según fray Pedro Simón, había indios de orejas tan grandes que las arrastraban por los suelos.
En el río Amazonas, según Cristóbal de Acuña, los nativos tenían los pies al revés, con los talones adelante y los dedos atrás, y según Pedro Martín de Anglería las mujeres se mutilaban un seno para el mejor disparo de sus flechas.
Anglería, que escribió la primera historia de América pero nunca estuvo allí, afirmó también que en el Nuevo Mundo había gente con rabos, como había contado Colón, y sus rabos eran tan largos que sólo podían sentarse en asientos con agujeros.
El Código Negro prohibía la tortura de los esclavos en las colonias francesas. Pero no era por torturar, sino por educar, que los amos azotaban a sus negros y cuando huían les cortaban los tendones.
Eran conmovedoras las leyes de Indias, que protegían a los indios en las colonias españolas. Pero más conmovedoras eran la picota y la horca clavadas en el centro de cada Plaza Mayor.
Muy convincente resultaba la lectura del Requerimiento, que en vísperas del asalto a cada aldea explicaba a los indios que Dios había venido al mundo y que había dejado en su lugar a San Pedro y que San Pedro tenía por sucesor al Santo Padre y que el Santo Padre había hecho merced a la reina de Castilla de toda esta tierra y que por eso debían irse de aquí o pagar tributo en oro y que en caso de negativa o demora se les haría la guerra y ellos serían convertidos en esclavos y también sus mujeres y sus hijos. Pero este Requerimiento de obediencia se leía en el monte, en plena noche, en lengua castellana y sin intérprete, en presencia del notario y de ningún indio, porque los indios dormían, a algunas leguas de distancia, y no tenían la menor idea de lo que se les venía encima.
Hasta no hace mucho, el 12 de octubre era el Día de la Raza.
Pero, ¿acaso existe semejante cosa? ¿Qué es la raza, además de una mentira útil para exprimir y exterminar al prójimo?
En el año 1942, cuando Estados Unidos entró en la guerra mundial, la Cruz Roja de ese país decidió que la sangre negra no sería admitida en sus bancos de plasma. Así se evitaba que la mezcla de razas, prohibida en la cama, se hiciera por inyección.
¿Alguien ha visto, alguna vez, sangre negra?
Después, el Día de la Raza pasó a ser el Día del Encuentro.
¿Son encuentros las invasiones coloniales? ¿Las de ayer, y las de hoy, encuentros? ¿No habría que llamarlas, más bien, violaciones?
Quizás el episodio más revelador de la historia de América ocurrió en el año 1563, en Chile. El fortín de Arauco estaba sitiado por los indios, sin agua ni comida, pero el capitán Lorenzo Bernal se negó a rendirse. Desde la empalizada, gritó:
—¡Nosotros seremos cada vez más!
—¿Con qué mujeres? –preguntó el jefe indio.
—Con las vuestras. Nosotros les haremos hijos que serán vuestros amos.
Los invasores llamaron caníbales a los antiguos americanos, pero más caníbal era el Cerro Rico de Potosí, cuyas bocas comían carne de indios para alimentar el desarrollo capitalista de Europa.
Y los llamaron idólatras, porque creían que la naturaleza es sagrada y que somos hermanos de todo lo que tiene piernas, patas, alas o raíces.
Y los llamaron salvajes. En eso, al menos, no se equivocaron. Tan brutos eran los indios que ignoraban que debían exigir visa, certificado de buena conducta y permiso de trabajo a Colón, Cabral, Cortés, Alvarado, Pizarro y los peregrinos del Mayflower.
Bush en tiempo de huracanes por Noam Chomsky
Mientras los supervivientes del huracán Katrina tratan de rehacer sus vidas, está cada vez más claro que otra tormenta, ésta de errores políticos, precedió a la tragedia. Los fallos del Gobierno a nivel local, además de la guerra de Irak, se unieron al huracán. Y se demostró la necesidad de un profundo cambio social, sin el cual corremos peligro de sufrir peores desastres en el futuro. En un informe anterior al 11 de septiembre, la FEMA, la agencia federal encargada del gestionar las emergencias, incluyó un huracán de mucha intensidad en Nueva Orleans como una de las tres catástrofes con más probabilidades de afectar a Estados Unidos. Las otras eran un ataque terrorista en Nueva York y un terremoto en San Francisco. Nueva Orleans se había convertido en una prioridad en la FEMA desde enero, cuando su director Michael Brown, ahora dimitido, retornó de un viaje al Asia, donde observó la devastación causada por el gigantesco tsunami de finales de diciembre del año pasado. "Hablábamos de Nueva Orleans como del desastre número uno. Estábamos obsesionados por el riesgo en esta ciudad", ha afirmado a The New York Times Eric L. Tolbert, un exfuncionario de la FEMA. Un año antes del impacto del Katrina, la FEMA ya había realizado un ejercicio de simulación de qué sucedería si un huracán llegaba a Nueva Orleans, pero los planes que elaboró no fueron aplicados. La guerra tuvo un papel en este fracaso. Los soldados de la Guardia Nacional de Luisiana enviados a Irak "se llevaron consigo una gran parte del equipo necesario, incluyendo docenas de vehículos para zonas inundadas, tanques de combustible y generadores que se habrían necesitado si un importante desastre natural afectara al estado. ... Un alto mando militar --informó The Wall Street Journal-- dijo que hubo resistencias a asignar labores de rescate a la Cuarta Brigada de la 10ª División de Montaña, porque la unidad, integrada por varios miles de soldados, estaba en medio de preparativos para ser enviada a Afganistá".
Wayne Madsen report on the Grand Jury Probe
October 10, 2005 -- New leads temporarily postpone indictments. Newly-discovered leads are postponing, at least temporarily, the issuance of indictments by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak scandal. On October 9, even conservatives on the Sunday pundit programs were resigned to the fact that indictments of top White House officials are imminent.
Although the Grand Jury probe of the White House scandal has been unique by Washington standards for the relative lack of leaks to the media, there are several currents that are beginning to emerge:
1. Investigators are focusing on an email between Karl Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley that referenced a July 11, 2003 conversation between Rove and Time's Matt Cooper. In a case reminiscent of Oliver North and the shredding and deletion of e-mail in the White House PROFS office automation system during Iran-contra, there is speculation that some critical e-mails involving the CIA leak were illegally destroyed by the White House.
Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales informed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at 8:00 pm on September 29, 2003 that the Justice Department was beginning a criminal investigation of the White House over the CIA leak. Gonzales did not order the White House staff to preserve all documents, email, and memos until the next day, giving the White House a full twelve hours to destroy any incriminating documents, including email. Gonzales later claimed he delayed his order because of the late hour on September 29 -- however, the White House and its operations staff works on a 24x7 basis.
There are rumors that critical email and other documents relating to the cover up of the CIA leak and the White House Iraq Group's "work up" on Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA wife may have been destroyed during the twelve hour interval between notification that a criminal probe was underway and Gonzales' document "freeze" order. If the special prosecutor determines that evidence was destroyed, obstruction of justice indictments could be issued against Gonzales, Card, and Hadley.
2. Recently discovered notes of New York Times reporter Judith Miller concerning a June 2003 conversation she had with Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby before Wilson's OP ED on Niger uranium and Iraq appeared in The New York Times, may implicate Libby and Cheney in a conspiracy to go after Wilson and his wife. Previously it was reported that the White House retaliation against Wilson and his wife was in reaction to the OP ED piece. The discovery of Miller's notes points to a possible premeditated attack by the White House on the Wilsons.
Although the Grand Jury probe of the White House scandal has been unique by Washington standards for the relative lack of leaks to the media, there are several currents that are beginning to emerge:
1. Investigators are focusing on an email between Karl Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley that referenced a July 11, 2003 conversation between Rove and Time's Matt Cooper. In a case reminiscent of Oliver North and the shredding and deletion of e-mail in the White House PROFS office automation system during Iran-contra, there is speculation that some critical e-mails involving the CIA leak were illegally destroyed by the White House.
Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales informed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at 8:00 pm on September 29, 2003 that the Justice Department was beginning a criminal investigation of the White House over the CIA leak. Gonzales did not order the White House staff to preserve all documents, email, and memos until the next day, giving the White House a full twelve hours to destroy any incriminating documents, including email. Gonzales later claimed he delayed his order because of the late hour on September 29 -- however, the White House and its operations staff works on a 24x7 basis.
There are rumors that critical email and other documents relating to the cover up of the CIA leak and the White House Iraq Group's "work up" on Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA wife may have been destroyed during the twelve hour interval between notification that a criminal probe was underway and Gonzales' document "freeze" order. If the special prosecutor determines that evidence was destroyed, obstruction of justice indictments could be issued against Gonzales, Card, and Hadley.
2. Recently discovered notes of New York Times reporter Judith Miller concerning a June 2003 conversation she had with Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby before Wilson's OP ED on Niger uranium and Iraq appeared in The New York Times, may implicate Libby and Cheney in a conspiracy to go after Wilson and his wife. Previously it was reported that the White House retaliation against Wilson and his wife was in reaction to the OP ED piece. The discovery of Miller's notes points to a possible premeditated attack by the White House on the Wilsons.
truthout multimedia
Dispatch from New Orleans
A Film by Chris Hume
TO Videographer Chris Hume reports from New Orleans. Chris interviews residents who decided to stay and are organizing their own relief efforts.
A British Anti-War Perspective
George Galloway, Respect Member of British Parliament
09.30.05
A Film by Chris Hume
TO Videographer Chris Hume reports from New Orleans. Chris interviews residents who decided to stay and are organizing their own relief efforts.
A British Anti-War Perspective
George Galloway, Respect Member of British Parliament
09.30.05
Revealed: police's new supergun will blast rioters off their feet
British defence scientists are working on a new generation of weapons which includes microwaves, lasers and chemical guns that could be used to quell riots, The Independent on Sunday has found.
One highly classified project is to develop a "vortex gun", for use in riots, which fires a powerful, doughnut-shaped pulse of air at supersonic speed. Experts say the weapon could fire riot-control gas or other chemicals to disperse mobs or disable enemy troops.
Scientific Applications & Research Associates, a US firm that has made such a gun, said it could fire shock waves that hit people "with enough force to knock them off balance. [It] feels like having a bucket of cold water thrown on to your chest". The research involves putting high-powered lasers and micro- wave weapons on cruise missiles and planes to "kill" an enemy's own weapons, although these new arms could be banned under international treaties.
A major British defence firm, Qinetiq, formed when the Government privatised its military testing agency, is understood to be investigating weapons that use lasers to "dazzle" the enemy, a technique the US military is now said to be using in Iraq.
British defence laboratories are also understood to have tested crowd-control foams including a much thicker version of the foam used to fight aircraft fires and another "sticky" foam that immobilises people caught in it.
These weapons are part of a taxpayer-funded, fast-expanding, secret programme of research by military laboratories and private defence firms into so-called non-lethal weapons.
The drive to find such weaponry sprang from attempts to replace the baton rounds, known as plastic bullets, which were heavily criticised in Chris Patten's report into policing in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. Police now have a far wider range of "non-lethal weapons", including safer baton rounds, CS gas, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and, in Northern Ireland, water cannon.
Modern technologies have also made it much easier to create new arms, and Britain has a joint programme to develop military non-lethal weapons with the US, which is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research.
The high-powered microwave weapon is part of a British programme code-named Virus, run by a little-known department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) called the Deep Target Attack directorate. The weapon fires a powerful pulse of microwaves to completely or temporarily knock out equipment such as computers, radar or guidance systems.
The lasers, which could be fitted on aircraft or unmanned aircraft called drones, would be aimed at an enemy's electronic sensors and disable radar-guided anti-aircraft batteries.
A report by Canada's defence research agency, released by the Sunshine Project, a US-based group that investigates military research, says the UK is "one of the main players" in the world in investigating weapons using high-powered micro-waves, along with the US, France and Russia.
This revelation surprised Neil Davison, head of a research programme into non-lethal weapons at Bradford University. He said the MoD had a track record of secrecy over its research programme.
"We know the British armed forces have an active programme to find new non-lethal weapons and the UK is working closely with the United States, but the details of that collaborative arrangement are not openly available," he said.
Many of these techniques could be highly controversial, particularly the use of lasers to temporarily blind an opponent. Britain was forced to abandon high-powered lasers to dazzle jet pilots, a technique allegedly used during the Falklands War, because it contravened new global rules outlawing devices designed to permanently disable combatants or cause someone to crash a plane.
Mark Fulop, head of the bio-medical sciences department at the MoD's main defence research agency, confirmed that there is an extensive programme to find new non-lethal weapons. That included the vortex gun, which tests showed could be effective fired up to 48m from a target. "But it is a long way from being practical," he said. "We're watching to see what others are doing."
The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
10 October 2005 08:35
Home > News > UK > Crime
One highly classified project is to develop a "vortex gun", for use in riots, which fires a powerful, doughnut-shaped pulse of air at supersonic speed. Experts say the weapon could fire riot-control gas or other chemicals to disperse mobs or disable enemy troops.
Scientific Applications & Research Associates, a US firm that has made such a gun, said it could fire shock waves that hit people "with enough force to knock them off balance. [It] feels like having a bucket of cold water thrown on to your chest". The research involves putting high-powered lasers and micro- wave weapons on cruise missiles and planes to "kill" an enemy's own weapons, although these new arms could be banned under international treaties.
A major British defence firm, Qinetiq, formed when the Government privatised its military testing agency, is understood to be investigating weapons that use lasers to "dazzle" the enemy, a technique the US military is now said to be using in Iraq.
British defence laboratories are also understood to have tested crowd-control foams including a much thicker version of the foam used to fight aircraft fires and another "sticky" foam that immobilises people caught in it.
These weapons are part of a taxpayer-funded, fast-expanding, secret programme of research by military laboratories and private defence firms into so-called non-lethal weapons.
The drive to find such weaponry sprang from attempts to replace the baton rounds, known as plastic bullets, which were heavily criticised in Chris Patten's report into policing in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. Police now have a far wider range of "non-lethal weapons", including safer baton rounds, CS gas, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and, in Northern Ireland, water cannon.
Modern technologies have also made it much easier to create new arms, and Britain has a joint programme to develop military non-lethal weapons with the US, which is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research.
The high-powered microwave weapon is part of a British programme code-named Virus, run by a little-known department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) called the Deep Target Attack directorate. The weapon fires a powerful pulse of microwaves to completely or temporarily knock out equipment such as computers, radar or guidance systems.
The lasers, which could be fitted on aircraft or unmanned aircraft called drones, would be aimed at an enemy's electronic sensors and disable radar-guided anti-aircraft batteries.
A report by Canada's defence research agency, released by the Sunshine Project, a US-based group that investigates military research, says the UK is "one of the main players" in the world in investigating weapons using high-powered micro-waves, along with the US, France and Russia.
This revelation surprised Neil Davison, head of a research programme into non-lethal weapons at Bradford University. He said the MoD had a track record of secrecy over its research programme.
"We know the British armed forces have an active programme to find new non-lethal weapons and the UK is working closely with the United States, but the details of that collaborative arrangement are not openly available," he said.
Many of these techniques could be highly controversial, particularly the use of lasers to temporarily blind an opponent. Britain was forced to abandon high-powered lasers to dazzle jet pilots, a technique allegedly used during the Falklands War, because it contravened new global rules outlawing devices designed to permanently disable combatants or cause someone to crash a plane.
Mark Fulop, head of the bio-medical sciences department at the MoD's main defence research agency, confirmed that there is an extensive programme to find new non-lethal weapons. That included the vortex gun, which tests showed could be effective fired up to 48m from a target. "But it is a long way from being practical," he said. "We're watching to see what others are doing."
The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
10 October 2005 08:35
Home > News > UK > Crime
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman's White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boilWith just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: "He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand."
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
GOP Proposes Massive Cuts in Food Stamps and Farm Subsidies
What they wanted: Red State voters sent the Gops to Washington to slash and burn the federal government. But after making bold promises, the Republicans who control Congress have actually increased the budget, not cut it. However, recent events have forced their hand and now the cuts must come. First they’ll go after the poor, with drastic reductions in food stamps - but next on the chopping block is farm subsidies - a slice out of the Red Staters’ hide:
Under orders to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion, Republicans in Congress have proposed reducing food programs for the poor by $574 million and conservation programs by $1 billion, The Associated Press has learned.
The proposal by the chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., also would cut payments to farmers by 2.5 percent across the board.
The plan faces hostility from congressional Democrats and other critics who say the cuts would hurt food stamps and conservation programs.
Payments to farmers would fall by $1.145 billion over five years. But that is considerably less severe than what President Bush had proposed. Bush had sought a 5 percent reduction in payments, plus a far-reaching plan for capping payments that would cut billions more dollars from subsidies collected by large farm operations.
The AP obtained a summary of the budget-cutting plan. A vote had been scheduled for a vote Thursday in Chambliss' committee but was put off indefinitely. Congress ordered the $3 billion in cuts in a budget outline passed this year.
Bush Administration Paradox Explained
The White House's strategy to make John Roberts the next chief justice has been the very model of meticulous planning, by contrast to its utter clueless-ness in dealing with Katrina. No White House in modern history has been as adept at politics and as ham-fisted at governing. Why?
With politics, the Bush administration has shown remarkable discipline -- squelching leaks and keeping Cabinet members on message, reaching down into the bureaucracy to bend analyses in directions that supports what it wants to do, imposing its will on congressional leaders and even making a political imprint on state legislatures. No recent president has got re-elected with controlling majorities in both houses of Congress, or been as successful in repositioning the national debate around his ideological view of the world.
With governing, it's been almost criminally incompetent -- failing to act on clear predictions of a terrorist attack like 9/11 or a natural disaster like Katrina, botching intelligence over Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, failing to secure order after invading Iraq, allowing prisoners of war to be tortured, losing complete control over the federal budget, creating a bizarre Medicare drug benefit from which the elderly are now fleeing, barely responding to the wave of corporate lootings and running the Federal Emergency Management Agency into the ground. Not since the hapless administration of Warren G. Harding has there been one as stunningly inept as this one.
11 Hurt in Plastics Plant Explosion - Cause of accident at Formosa facility in South Texas is unknown
Activist 'not surprised'
Diane Wilson, an activist and local shrimper who has protested against the company — a campaign that culminated in August 2002, when she chained herself to one of the plant's towers — said a serious incident was bound to happen.
"When Formosa was building this plant we had so much evidence about the shoddy way it was put together and the poor quality of the work," said Wilson, who was in New York City promoting her first book An Unreasonable Woman, about her fight against large petrochemical companies. "I'm not surprised at all."
Last April, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fined the facility $150,000 for violations of air pollution laws that included releases of toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride.
Over the past decade, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has inspected the Point Comfort plant a dozen times, five of them resulting in violations, OSHA online records show.
In 1994, the company completed a $1.5 billion expansion, building its first olefins unit. In 1997, the plant underwent a second $1 billion expansion, in which it constructed a second olefins unit - the part of the plant that erupted Thursday.
The San Diego Tribune wrote in their review of the book just recently the following:
Local story Published on Friday, October 7, 2005 by the Houston Chronicle
"For the American environmental movement, An Unreasonable Woman could not come at a better time. Citizens across the political spectrum are growing alarmed at the Bush administration's rollback of protective legislation for water, air and national parks. This book does for environmentalism what "All the President's Men did for government reform. Watch for the movie."
Diane is now on a national book tour. Last week she was interviewed on the nationally broadcast radio program, The Diane Rehm Show. Reviews of her book appeared in many newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor. This past Monday her lawyer called to say that the court said Diane was required to report to jail on Friday! Back in 2002 she staged an action at the local Union Carbide plant and Dow charged her with criminal trespass, a misdemeanor, of which she was found guilty and sentenced to 4-6 months of jail time. But as of last week she was still awaiting instructions on when to report to jail. The jail in her county has been condemned, and her lawyer had initially heard that her sentence would not begin until the new jail, under construction, opened in early 2006. It is now felt that Dow is trying to shut her up. In any case, she is refusing to go back to Texas until after she appears at the Bioneers Conference for several workshops in addition to the keynote address. And she refuses to serve her sentence until Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide reports to jail to serve his sentence.
Anderson, as the key representative of Union Carbide, has been an "absconder from justice" for the past 13 years for failure to face manslauter charges (among others) brought by chief judicial magistrate's court of Bhopal, India. The December 3, 1984 explosion at the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal that has to date killed over 20,000 Indians. Anderson, meanwhile, continues to live comfortably in his Bridgehampton, Long Island home.
Like Democracy, Only More Convenient
I wish I could say this surprises me, but I predicted back when he was caught that the U.S. wouldn't allow him to testify. He was our boy for a long time, and my guess is, he has a lot of dirt BushCo would rather died with him:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein could be executed before the Iraqi Special Tribunal finishes charging him with all his alleged crimes, a source close to the tribunal said Sunday.
For members of some groups allegedly abused by Saddam, the possibility that he'd not face their allegations drew mixed feelings.
His first trial, along with seven co-defendants, is set to begin Oct. 19. It will weigh charges that they massacred 143 people in Dujail, a predominantly Shiite town north of Baghdad, in 1982 after a failed assassination attempt. If convicted, Saddam could be sentenced to death.
Accusations and Smears - An Interview with Ward Churchill (Part 3 of 5)
Joshua Frank: It does seem like the left has abandoned you. What about lefty-liberals like Al Franken and Bill Maher?
Ward Churchill: Oops! You're right. I was passing right by Franken, who, as I understand it, has lately joined the chorus by using the televised version of his Air America program -- I guess you're aware that Air America is Clear Channel's "liberal alternative" to itself, eh? -- to parrot O'Reilly and Hannity with regard to yours truly. The problem is that he wasn't trying to do some funny impersonations; he was apparently serious. That being so, how about you ask him for an interview on the theme of, how did he put it in his book, "lies, and the lying liars who tell them"?
JF: Franken won’t return my calls [laughter].
WC: Ha! Yeah, well Maher's a different story. He was one of the very few people, aside from myself, Susan Sontag is the only other one I could name off the top of my head, who openly contested the way the hijackers were officially depicted in the immediate aftermath of 9-1-1. Lost his job over it, too, and you've got to respect that, even if, like me, you're not especially in tune with his overall politics.
Besides, after Maher picked up his HBO gig, he had Janet Reno and me on the same show. That gave me a chance to ask her face-to-face whether, since Waco, she's had occasion to reconsider her ideas on how to respond to suspected child abuse. She gave me a sort of puzzled look, so I explained how some of us tend to think that sending the FBI to burn the kids alive wasn't much of a "solution". It really wigged her out, and I'll always have a soft spot where Maher's concerned, since, however unwittingly, he afforded me the opportunity to impose what may be the closest to an actual penalty she ever pays for what she did to those poor kids.
Ward Churchill: Oops! You're right. I was passing right by Franken, who, as I understand it, has lately joined the chorus by using the televised version of his Air America program -- I guess you're aware that Air America is Clear Channel's "liberal alternative" to itself, eh? -- to parrot O'Reilly and Hannity with regard to yours truly. The problem is that he wasn't trying to do some funny impersonations; he was apparently serious. That being so, how about you ask him for an interview on the theme of, how did he put it in his book, "lies, and the lying liars who tell them"?
JF: Franken won’t return my calls [laughter].
WC: Ha! Yeah, well Maher's a different story. He was one of the very few people, aside from myself, Susan Sontag is the only other one I could name off the top of my head, who openly contested the way the hijackers were officially depicted in the immediate aftermath of 9-1-1. Lost his job over it, too, and you've got to respect that, even if, like me, you're not especially in tune with his overall politics.
Besides, after Maher picked up his HBO gig, he had Janet Reno and me on the same show. That gave me a chance to ask her face-to-face whether, since Waco, she's had occasion to reconsider her ideas on how to respond to suspected child abuse. She gave me a sort of puzzled look, so I explained how some of us tend to think that sending the FBI to burn the kids alive wasn't much of a "solution". It really wigged her out, and I'll always have a soft spot where Maher's concerned, since, however unwittingly, he afforded me the opportunity to impose what may be the closest to an actual penalty she ever pays for what she did to those poor kids.
Bush's Terrifying Terror Speech
George W. Bush's Oct. 6 speech demanding "complete victory" in the "war on terror" unnerved some Americans who saw a president who looked and sounded like an obsessed sea captain charting the ship of state into an endless storm.
To allay some of those worries, we are offering the White House a draft for a follow-up speech in which Bush can speak straight to the concerns of his doubters. Like another draft that we proposed last summer, we don’t expect this one will get very far.
"My fellow Americans, I hear that many of you who watched my speech the other day came away a little spooked. Some of you thought I sounded crazy because I made it seem like we'd be at war in the Middle East forever.
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don’t mix
Hitler greets Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio, in Berlin on New Year’s Day, 1935.
Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! - Not All Italians Love Columbus
America is a nation built upon myth (starting with its "discovery") but the greatest myth of all is that the land of the free is gonna last forever. But, alas, my History Channel-watching brethren, all genocidal empires must fall. Just ask Italy. Once the proud birthplace of DaVinci, Verdi, and my father; Italy must now bear the blame for producing Buttafuoco, Guiliani, and Janice Soprano. While the children of old Italia once rose up in defense of Sacco and Vanzetti, today's paisan is busy trying to explain Fabio.
Indeed, when the mighty fall, they do tend to go for the gusto.
I ponder this irony as we approach yet another Columbus Day...24 hours set aside to revere Italy's version of the Terminator. Upon encountering the Arawak people in 1492, Columbus noted that they "would make fine servants," adding, "with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." Yeah, Governor Arnold's got nothing on Chris "The Continent Cleanser" Columbus.
Below the elevated platform at the Astoria Boulevard N/W train station, my neighborhood plays host to Columbus Square...which is actually shaped like a warped triangle. Let Manhattan have its rather simplistic circle...we in Queens are far more geometrically sophisticated. It's a square triangle for us. Naturally, a statue of Christopher Columbus adorns this triangular square. If one were to believe this sculptor's rendition, Chris the Capo spent plenty of time in the Santa Maria Tennis and Fitness Club. This statue is pumped. He's got biceps to die for and a set of pecs that are literally bursting out of his manly shirt.
Yes, Columbus is buffed and ready for genocide. An engraved plate on the ground under the statue reads: "But not for Columbus, there would be no America." As I stomp on those intolerable words with my dirt-infested sneakers, I envision that first conversation:
COLUMBUS: Red man, we want your land and everything on it.
INDIAN: Okay, muscular paleface, but what will you offer in return?
COLUMBUS: Venereal disease, small pox, the destruction of your culture, genocide, Christianity, and a really bad image in John Wayne flicks.
INDIAN: Can you toss in a few casinos?
COLUMBUS: Sure, but you'll have to wait about 500 years.
INDIAN: Okay, Chris, you've got a deal. With that conversation in mind, I ascend the stairs to the train.
Happy Indigenous People's Day...
Cronyism and Capitulation: The Scoop on Harriet Miers
So you thought that Harriet Miers, George W. Bush's new Supreme Court pick has no paper trail. You were wrong. One of Miers only qualifications for the high court -- as she hasn't an ounce of judicial experience -- is that she was the head of Locke, Liddell & Sapp; a sleazy corporate law firm based in Dallas, Texas.
According to the InterNet Bankruptcy Library (IBL), Locke Liddell & Sapp paid $22 million in a suit alleging it aided a client in defrauding investors. The Dallas-based firm agreed in April of 2000 to settle a suit stemming from its representation of Russell Erxleben, a former University of Texas football star whose foreign currency trading company, Austin Forex International, was a pyramid get-rich Ponzi scheme.
The Miers scandal laden past goes deeper than her ties to corporate crooks in Texas. According to Newsweek, she's also played a role in maintaining Bush's National Guard credibility. As Michael Isikoff wrote in July of 2000:
According to the InterNet Bankruptcy Library (IBL), Locke Liddell & Sapp paid $22 million in a suit alleging it aided a client in defrauding investors. The Dallas-based firm agreed in April of 2000 to settle a suit stemming from its representation of Russell Erxleben, a former University of Texas football star whose foreign currency trading company, Austin Forex International, was a pyramid get-rich Ponzi scheme.
The Miers scandal laden past goes deeper than her ties to corporate crooks in Texas. According to Newsweek, she's also played a role in maintaining Bush's National Guard credibility. As Michael Isikoff wrote in July of 2000:
A Kick in the Shin?
Truth exists, falsehood has to be invented.
Is the 2005 Peace Nobel for Mohamed ElBaradei a kick in the shin for the US Government or a routine award?
...The reader can decide for himself whether the 2005 ElBaradei Nobel is indeed intended as yet another kick in the shin for the current US Administration or is merely a routine award as the committee chairman suggests. The scribe, however, is reminded of a car sticker that read, “I do not believe in any thing unless the Government denies it...
We Can’t Let "It" Happen Here - What is beyond the looking glass?
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published It Can't Happen Here, his depiction of a "democratically elected" US president imposing a tyranny on Americans. In 2005, life is imitating art. However, there are those of us who are willing to sacrifice and endure whatever is necessary for the cause of a more humane and just government and society. I will stay in the United States to work for something better. I will continue to teach my children to struggle for social causes. And yes, I will persist in my writing and other forms of dissent against the tyranny of the aristocracy, regardless of the consequences.
Benjamin Franklin
"And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room."Over a year ago, the comfort of my world severely diminished as I took my journey through the looking glass and discerned the ugly truths about the nation of my birth, the United States of America. “Logic and proportion” certainly seemed to have “fallen softly dead” when I discovered that much of what I had learned about my country as a child had been a lie. My world was turned upside down. Now I passionately pursue my goal to share my awakening with many others so they too feel inspired to struggle to preserve the excellent qualities of America and to eradicate the rotting decay.
Bush's Veil Over History
SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.
But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.
But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Pat Robertson attacks Hugo Chavez -- again
PROMINENT US TV evangelist Pat Robertson has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of giving Osama bin Laden $US1.2 million after the September 11 attacks and of trying to obtain nuclear material from Iran.
Mr Robertson caused uproar in August when he called during his televised religious program for the US government to assassinate Chavez. He later was forced to apologise to the leftist leader.
Mr Robertson caused uproar in August when he called during his televised religious program for the US government to assassinate Chavez. He later was forced to apologise to the leftist leader.
FBI Claims 84 Videos Show NO Flight 77 Impact on the Pentagon
Photos taken after the Pentagon crash do not support the Government conspiracy theory that Flight 77, a Boeing 757 airliner, demolished a major portion of the masonry structure:
Seismic waveform data also brings into question what struck the Pentagon. Seismologists have detected other 9/11 aircraft even pinpointing exact crash times for the Boeing 737 airliners that crashed into the WTC Towers and the aircraft alleged to be Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The seismologists observed:
We analyzed seismic records from five stations in the northeastern United States, ranging from 63 to 350 km from the Pentagon. Despite detailed analysis of the data, we could not find a clear seismic signal. Even the closest station ( = 62.8 km) at Soldier's Delight, Baltimore County, Maryland (SDMD) did not record the impact. We concluded that the plane impact to the Pentagon generated relatively weak seismic signals.
Seismic waveform data also brings into question what struck the Pentagon. Seismologists have detected other 9/11 aircraft even pinpointing exact crash times for the Boeing 737 airliners that crashed into the WTC Towers and the aircraft alleged to be Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The seismologists observed:
We analyzed seismic records from five stations in the northeastern United States, ranging from 63 to 350 km from the Pentagon. Despite detailed analysis of the data, we could not find a clear seismic signal. Even the closest station ( = 62.8 km) at Soldier's Delight, Baltimore County, Maryland (SDMD) did not record the impact. We concluded that the plane impact to the Pentagon generated relatively weak seismic signals.
GOVERNMENT AND COMPUTER MANUFACTURERS CAUGHT INSTALLING HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS INTO ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
COMMENT:
Sadly, this is nothing new or surprising. The government has been caught time and time again secretly colluding with industry to force people into their control mechanisms against their will and without their knowledge. No one wanted a to have their inspection sticker RFID tagged so that their vehicle could be tracked, but they rolled out the legislation anyway. We beat it once, but no doubt it will be back. No body wanted to pay extra for an automobile black box to monitor their every automotive move, but the auto industry is doing it anyway. And certainly no one wanted to have the government track their cell phone and spy on them, but never the less, it was done and in complete secrecy. They are aware that we can easily see through their schemes so they have to hide them. No longer can they simply invoke "safety" and have the population gladly accept the invitation to their track and control prison. Now they just do it and hope no one notices.
Devices capture everything you ever type, then can send it via your ethernet card to the Dept. of Homeland Security without your knowledge, consent or a search warrant each time you log onto the internet!
Freedom Of Information Act Requests For Explanation From DHS, refused.
I was opening up my almost brand new laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard.
America's greatest enemy ...
... is not hiding in a cave somewhere. He isn't hacking into your bank's mainframe. His name isn't Saddam or Chirac.
In fact, America's greatest enemy is right in your front yard. He chuckles when a camera points its lenses in his direction, he likes to pet his dog when he comes home, and he loves a challenge so much he beckons the world on by quirping "Bring em on!".
Yes, George Bush and the Bush empire have lowered America's stature as a powerful nation to one that renders garbage as gospel.
Oh, don't take it from me, take it Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
In fact, America's greatest enemy is right in your front yard. He chuckles when a camera points its lenses in his direction, he likes to pet his dog when he comes home, and he loves a challenge so much he beckons the world on by quirping "Bring em on!".
Yes, George Bush and the Bush empire have lowered America's stature as a powerful nation to one that renders garbage as gospel.
Oh, don't take it from me, take it Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
Bloggers fuel Libby letter conspiracies
We here at Blogma are wary of even peripherally touching such hot-button political issues as what some call (Valerie) Plame-gate. We try to stick to buzzing issues that have some sort of technology angle and avoid blogging blogs that spin general interest news.
Sometimes, however, bloggers are the subject of such general interest news, and we would be remiss in our job if we didn't mention their contribution.
Such is the case with the mostly liberal bloggers who are fueling conspiracy theories through their online analysis of a letter Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote to Judith Miller. Miller is the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in prison rather than reveal Libby as her confidential source in the Plame leak case.
While some pundits are debating the significance of the letter's friendly, if not flowery tone, bloggers read into the letter's ending:
Sometimes, however, bloggers are the subject of such general interest news, and we would be remiss in our job if we didn't mention their contribution.
Such is the case with the mostly liberal bloggers who are fueling conspiracy theories through their online analysis of a letter Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote to Judith Miller. Miller is the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in prison rather than reveal Libby as her confidential source in the Plame leak case.
While some pundits are debating the significance of the letter's friendly, if not flowery tone, bloggers read into the letter's ending:
"You went to jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover--Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work--and life."Bloggers wondered, among other things, if the "aspens" reference was some sort of code for a meeting of Neocons and or/Iraqi exiles in Aspen, Colo., that some say Miller might have attended.
E-voting hobbled by security concerns
It's been nearly five years since Americans received a painful education on the perils of traditional voting machines in Florida and almost one year since the 2004 election revealed perplexing irregularities in Ohio's vote tabulation methods.
Yet no uniform security standards exist for electronic voting machines. Even though they were used to tabulate a third of the votes in last year's presidential run, nearly all electronic voting machines in use today remain black boxes without external methods of verifying that the results have not been altered or sabotaged.
Possible threats to an accurate electronic vote tally are legion. They include everything from worms and viruses infecting Microsoft Windows-equipped systems to equipment tampering, code alteration and ballot box stuffing. On Friday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is charged with researching voting security, is convening a conference in Gaithersburg, Md., to explore technological countermeasures.
The conquest of Southwest Asia
During the first part of this year, the Bush administration's "war on terror" began to softly mutate into what it was supposed to mean in the first place: the conquest of Eurasia, and in the near term, Southwest Asia. This is the first article in a two-part report.
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous ... And having said that, all options are on the table."
- President George W Bush, Brussels, February 22
The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons ... Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. - American Conservative , July 22
The War to End All Wars That Started Them All
I just read an excellent book on World War I, and it made me incredibly sad. World War I was the beginning of all the horrors of the 20th century and of problems we still have to deal with in the 21st century. It all started there.
What's so sad is that we really learned nothing – not from World War I, not from World War II, not from Korea or Vietnam or the Cold War. It's almost as if world leaders in every country manage to get through school without learning anything about the past.
What's so sad is that we really learned nothing – not from World War I, not from World War II, not from Korea or Vietnam or the Cold War. It's almost as if world leaders in every country manage to get through school without learning anything about the past.
GM crop 'ruins fields for 15 years'
GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.
The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.
The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.
When Torture becomes Policy
October 9, 2005
Bush's veto puts the administration on the extreme end of the policy spectrum and links the president to the widely reported incidents of human rights abuses and torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the other American prison facilities. It is now impossible to deny that Bush not only supports a policy of calculated mistreatment of prisoners, but was also directly involved in establishing the current regime. This implicates Bush in violations of treaty requirements under the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 Torture Treaty, as well as the 8th amendment's provision against "cruel and inhuman" punishment.
Bush's veto is a clear sign that the administration is a willing participant in war crimes and intends to defend that barbarous behavior before the American people and the world. There's no longer any reason to dispute the reports from Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the ACLU, or the many eyewitness accounts from US servicemen or former inmates. The president's veto clearly establishes that Bush tacitly supports "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" as official policy.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government." Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776President Bush has made it clear that he will veto the $435 billion Pentagon appropriations bill because it restricts his ability to abuse prisoners in the war on terror. The bill, which forbids the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" of prisoners in US custody, was passed by an overwhelming 90 to 9 majority in the Senate. It was first flagrant rejection of administration policy in nearly 5 years.
Bush's veto puts the administration on the extreme end of the policy spectrum and links the president to the widely reported incidents of human rights abuses and torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the other American prison facilities. It is now impossible to deny that Bush not only supports a policy of calculated mistreatment of prisoners, but was also directly involved in establishing the current regime. This implicates Bush in violations of treaty requirements under the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 Torture Treaty, as well as the 8th amendment's provision against "cruel and inhuman" punishment.
Bush's veto is a clear sign that the administration is a willing participant in war crimes and intends to defend that barbarous behavior before the American people and the world. There's no longer any reason to dispute the reports from Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the ACLU, or the many eyewitness accounts from US servicemen or former inmates. The president's veto clearly establishes that Bush tacitly supports "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" as official policy.
More reasons to vote “NO”
The best analysis on why Bush keen that Iraqis must accept this joke constitution, called "Iraq Constitution Lays Ground for Oilfield Sell-Off".
Few days and the Iraqi constitutional referendum will be started, the government announces a new measures including curfew, weapons ban, border closings and other security measures.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said:
Part of these "other measures" is:
Iraqi police to protect "vote Yes" posters and banners.
There are also reports that American forces are photographing workers who are putting up “No campaign” posters and billboards in Iraqi districts and tearing them down (Al-Saydya).
Parallel to the Constitution, a Petroleum Law has been drafted, to be implemented following the elections of December/January. According to sources in the government, although some details are still being debated, it specifies that Iraq’s currently producing fields should be developed by the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company (INOC), but all other fields should be developed by private companies.
Few days and the Iraqi constitutional referendum will be started, the government announces a new measures including curfew, weapons ban, border closings and other security measures.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said:
"We will protect those who say yes and those who say no,’"
Part of these "other measures" is:
Iraqi police to protect "vote Yes" posters and banners.
There are also reports that American forces are photographing workers who are putting up “No campaign” posters and billboards in Iraqi districts and tearing them down (Al-Saydya).
America's war criminals pass the buck to underlings
"I was only following orders." With these words, that have entered our language as a cliche reeking of bitter irony, SS-Obersturmbannfurer Karl Adolf Eichmann (1906-62) defended his part in the murder of innocent prisoners in Nazi death camps. The court in Jerusalem, where Eichmann was put on trial in 1961, did not accept "only following orders" as a justifiable defense.
On Sept. 27, 2005, U.S. Army Pfc. Lynndie England, was found guilty by a military panel of maltreating detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Photos of England grinning, her finger pointed at naked men, shot around the world in 2004, revealing the physical and psychological torture that the American military practices on people who oppose the occupation of Iraq and its global "war on terror." Needless to say, England is not Adolf Eichmann. But her comment to the media in May 2004 recalls Eichmann's famous statement and brings into question the very important issue of responsibility in war.
"I was instructed by people in higher rank to stand there and hold this leash and look at the camera," England said. "We were doing what we were told."
On Sept. 27, 2005, U.S. Army Pfc. Lynndie England, was found guilty by a military panel of maltreating detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Photos of England grinning, her finger pointed at naked men, shot around the world in 2004, revealing the physical and psychological torture that the American military practices on people who oppose the occupation of Iraq and its global "war on terror." Needless to say, England is not Adolf Eichmann. But her comment to the media in May 2004 recalls Eichmann's famous statement and brings into question the very important issue of responsibility in war.
"I was instructed by people in higher rank to stand there and hold this leash and look at the camera," England said. "We were doing what we were told."
The Eichmanns, Calleys and Englands of this world must surely take responsibility for their individual actions. "Only following orders" is not an excuse that is acceptable in the courtroom.
The Amazing Shrinking President
It's hard to listen to George W. Bush and not think about the Wizard of Oz.
What comes to mind is the weak, fallible human being who was revealed when Toto pulled the curtain.
There, in the small booth, a small, ordinary man, not an omnipotent sorcerer, frantically yanks at levers and dials. When the ''wizard" finally admits the obvious fraud, Dorothy says, ''Oh, you're a very bad man." Replies the wizard, ''Oh, no, my dear, I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard."
Of course, ''The Wizard of Oz" -- published first in 1900 as a children's story by L. Frank Baum, then made world-famous by the classic 1939 movie starring Judy Garland -- has long been debated as political allegory.
Today, some people will see presidential adviser Karl Rove as the man behind the curtain.
But I see President Bush -- a decent, but flawed man with grandiose intentions, who is looking right now like a very bad wizard-president.
Like the wizard, he huffs and puffs in an attempt to maintain bamboozlement in the Land of Oz. But once the curtain is pulled, the people of Emerald City can never look at the fellow behind it the way they did before.
The curtain has been pulled on Bush, not by a tiny, black terrier, but by the outcome of presidential decisions and policies.
Bush's Crony Capitalism: Unaccountable, Unauditable & Out of Control by Ralph Nader
Amidst the wailing and grieving by those many victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita comes the growls of greed from those corporations getting huge contracts from the US government to supply emergency relief, reconstruction services and materials.
From everywhere - the press, citizen groups, lawmakers, federal inspectors general - come the howls and charges of 'profiteering', 'gouging the taxpayers', 'political favoritism', 'Halliburton again' and so forth. Clark Kent Ervin, formerly the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, says "when they issue rapid-fire, no-bid contracts, they're basically asking companies to gouge them."
Some of the early disclosures seem to confirm Mr. Ervin's experience. According to Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL), FEMA has entered a no-bid contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for $192 million to house hurricane evacuees on three cruise ships. Senators Coburn and Obama note the price the taxpayers are paying a company that has polluted offshore waters for years: "$2,550 per guest, per week, which is four times the cost of a $599 per tourist 7 Day Western Caribbean Cruise from Galveston, Texas".
Halliburton - flush with so many Iraq war contracts that one cannot keep up with all the Pentagon and Congressional charges of waste, fraud and abuse - has got it hands on $60 million in Katrina contracts. This is the company that charges the Pentagon $100 for each 15 pounds of laundry, gouges the Army on fuel and has charged the Defense Department for undelivered meals for soldiers. (The Army decided it cannot feed itself anymore in the field.)
From everywhere - the press, citizen groups, lawmakers, federal inspectors general - come the howls and charges of 'profiteering', 'gouging the taxpayers', 'political favoritism', 'Halliburton again' and so forth. Clark Kent Ervin, formerly the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, says "when they issue rapid-fire, no-bid contracts, they're basically asking companies to gouge them."
Some of the early disclosures seem to confirm Mr. Ervin's experience. According to Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL), FEMA has entered a no-bid contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for $192 million to house hurricane evacuees on three cruise ships. Senators Coburn and Obama note the price the taxpayers are paying a company that has polluted offshore waters for years: "$2,550 per guest, per week, which is four times the cost of a $599 per tourist 7 Day Western Caribbean Cruise from Galveston, Texas".
Halliburton - flush with so many Iraq war contracts that one cannot keep up with all the Pentagon and Congressional charges of waste, fraud and abuse - has got it hands on $60 million in Katrina contracts. This is the company that charges the Pentagon $100 for each 15 pounds of laundry, gouges the Army on fuel and has charged the Defense Department for undelivered meals for soldiers. (The Army decided it cannot feed itself anymore in the field.)
Che, Hope of the World
Havana, Oct 8 (Prensa Latina) October 8 marks 38 years since the fall in combat of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, the legendary guerilla of America and unforgettable Commander Che of Cubans.
Latin America Pays Tribute to Che Guevara
The cowardice of those unreasoning beings, who confront the people with violence and disrespect, mowed down one of the greatest liberators the world has ever known.
Physician and combatant extraordinaire, he is a legend for many, a saint in the Bolivian mountains and the paradigm for revolutionary and rebel fighter, whose ideas live on indefatigably after his death.
When he was murdered in Bolivia, the criminal masterminds claimed they had destroyed him, but history has proven them wrong, because Che continually renews the hopes of millions of men and women today.
On October 8, 1967 he was hunted and captured in Yuro ravine in La Higuera. The next day they killed him with machine gun fire and then "killed him again" with a pistol shot.
So the revolutionary world lost this man's exceptional ideas, intelligence and military qualities.
A man of action, profound thought, visionary intelligence, and wide culture, is how he is described by leaders, writers, farmers and workers, men and women of the people.
Today, when the world weighs the worth of ideas of justice against the lies of dominance and supremacy, his values prevail and multiply among the women and men who demand a better world.
His death put an end to a valiant and principled man, but he has become a grand symbol that friends and enemies alike cannot forget; one can see his face on a soccer shirt, on protest signs of Bolivian coca farmers, at the World Social Forum and in demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
The US intelligence services and the Bolivian Army could not imagine in 1967 that the Argentine-Cuban Ernest Guevara de la Serna would come to symbolize critical thinking, struggle and dignity for a great part of humanity.
His progressive militancy began when he was young; he participated with the Latin American opposition and in 1953 was in Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Guatemala where he discovered the misery caused by pillaging the people.
Later in Mexico, he joined with Fidel Castro and the rest of the expeditionary force on the yacht Granma, to begin the end of the guerilla fight launched in 1956, which culminated in the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
From that moment Commander Che Guevara held various positions and represented Cuba in international forums, where he directly denounced the ploys of the US government and its Latin American lackeys.
His revolutionary restlessness caused him to leave Cuba to march in other lands, convinced that only armed insurrection was effective against the imperialist power.
In 1966 he went to Bolivia to initiate a revolution that he hoped would extend even beyond the continent, because of the country's strategic position it was to be a center of operations and extend its influence to Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Paraguay.
On the 8th of October the following year, the days and projects of the liberator ended, buried secretly in a common ditch in Valle Grande, and found 30 years later by Cuban and Argentine experts.
In mid-1997 Che Guevara's remains were found, exhumed and brought to Cuba where they were placed in a sepulcher with all honors, together with his guerilla companions.
Brazil to build Latin America's largest wind-power park
Brazil's state-run National Development Bank said Wednesday that it had signed a financing contract for the construction of the largest wind-power park in Latin America.
The Brazilian bank will provide 205 million US dollars, or 69 percent of the total investment, for building a complex with a production capacity of 150 megawatts.
The contract was signed during a ceremony in the southern city of Sao Paulo in the presence of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said the bank.
The park, located in the city of Osorio, the southwestern state of Rio Grande do Sul, will be built by Vientos del Sur Energia, a joint venture formed by the Spanish firm Enervento, Germany's Enercon and CIP Brazil.
Being the largest of its kind in Latin America and the second in the world, the wind-power park will represent an effort to diversify energy sources in Brazil and is expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country.
The construction of the park is also expected to create more than 500 jobs in Latin America's largest country, which has been plagued by unemployment in recent years.
Brazil generates 28.6 megawatts of wind energy, which accounts for 0.03 percent of the country's total electricity production.
Source: Xinhua
The Brazilian bank will provide 205 million US dollars, or 69 percent of the total investment, for building a complex with a production capacity of 150 megawatts.
The contract was signed during a ceremony in the southern city of Sao Paulo in the presence of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said the bank.
The park, located in the city of Osorio, the southwestern state of Rio Grande do Sul, will be built by Vientos del Sur Energia, a joint venture formed by the Spanish firm Enervento, Germany's Enercon and CIP Brazil.
Being the largest of its kind in Latin America and the second in the world, the wind-power park will represent an effort to diversify energy sources in Brazil and is expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country.
The construction of the park is also expected to create more than 500 jobs in Latin America's largest country, which has been plagued by unemployment in recent years.
Brazil generates 28.6 megawatts of wind energy, which accounts for 0.03 percent of the country's total electricity production.
Source: Xinhua
Bush responds to political crisis with lies and new war threats
President George W. Bush’s speech Thursday on "the war on terror" constitutes a sobering measure of both his government's desperate political crisis and the threat that it will try to extricate itself from this crisis through escalating militarism.
The speech was a compendium of lies delivered with the aim of terrorizing the American people and rallying his extreme right-wing base. In remarks that at times bordered on lunacy, he invoked the unlikely bogeyman of an Al Qaeda terrorist network poised to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia."
Bush delivered his remarks to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the agency created by the Reagan administration in the 1980s to conduct political propaganda and subversion operations overseas previously carried out covertly by the CIA.
It was to this same audience that the US president proclaimed nearly two years ago a "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East." Then he was predicting that the successful US imposition of "democracy" in Iraq would lead to a "global democratic revolution" that would topple regimes throughout the region.
In Thursday's address, Bush advanced the reverse of this domino theory, warning that unless the US military achieves unconditional victory, the result will be "Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq," and the spread of radical Islamist regimes internationally.
This latest assertion has no more credibility than the one advanced in 2003. It is indicative, however, of the growing desperation within US ruling circles over the debacle in Iraq and of the administration's decision to rely on fear as its main means of coercing the American people into submitting to its policies.
As if on cue Thursday, the authorities in New York City issued a terror alert for the city's subways, only hours after Bush's speech and just in time for the evening television news and scare headlines in the next day's papers. Almost as soon as the alert was announced, however, intelligence officials acknowledged that the threat was of "doubtful credibility." Friday saw Pennsylvania Station shut down because of the discovery of a "suspicious" soda bottle.
The aim of such alerts, like Bus's speech itself, is to instill fear, thereby keeping the public off balance and suppressing the growth of political opposition and social unrest.
The speech was a compendium of lies delivered with the aim of terrorizing the American people and rallying his extreme right-wing base. In remarks that at times bordered on lunacy, he invoked the unlikely bogeyman of an Al Qaeda terrorist network poised to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia."
Bush delivered his remarks to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the agency created by the Reagan administration in the 1980s to conduct political propaganda and subversion operations overseas previously carried out covertly by the CIA.
It was to this same audience that the US president proclaimed nearly two years ago a "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East." Then he was predicting that the successful US imposition of "democracy" in Iraq would lead to a "global democratic revolution" that would topple regimes throughout the region.
In Thursday's address, Bush advanced the reverse of this domino theory, warning that unless the US military achieves unconditional victory, the result will be "Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq," and the spread of radical Islamist regimes internationally.
This latest assertion has no more credibility than the one advanced in 2003. It is indicative, however, of the growing desperation within US ruling circles over the debacle in Iraq and of the administration's decision to rely on fear as its main means of coercing the American people into submitting to its policies.
As if on cue Thursday, the authorities in New York City issued a terror alert for the city's subways, only hours after Bush's speech and just in time for the evening television news and scare headlines in the next day's papers. Almost as soon as the alert was announced, however, intelligence officials acknowledged that the threat was of "doubtful credibility." Friday saw Pennsylvania Station shut down because of the discovery of a "suspicious" soda bottle.
The aim of such alerts, like Bus's speech itself, is to instill fear, thereby keeping the public off balance and suppressing the growth of political opposition and social unrest.
The Dark Cloud of Democracy
On Saturday morning, October 2nd, hours after the Pentagon officially launched 'Operation Iron Fist', the Associated Press reported, "About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in an offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from al-Qaida in Iraq, the country’s most feared militant group, the military said."
Being a Syrian border town, Sadah has been a target of U.S. assaults before. This weekend however, was major - 1,000 troops moved on this little village of 2,000 men, women and children.
The most sophisticated (which simply means most deadly) military in the world has sent 1,000 troops, backed warplanes and helicopters, to enter and occupy the hamlet of Sadah, and is going door to door, raiding what homes were left standing after the air assault, apparently hunting for 'insurgents'. Although it is uncertain what they will find in Sadah, what they have brought is clear. Death and destruction on a massive scale have come to yet another town in the so-called 'Sunni Triangle'.
Troops involved in the siege on this rural enclave, were backed by warplanes, such as the C-130 Specter, which hovers over its target, circling and hammering those on the ground with 105 mm rapid-fire cannons directed by it's sophisticated computer tracking systems, and helicopters such as the Apache, which has turned humans into mincemeat with its 90 mm cannons and assortment of rockets.
"Sadah is a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River about eight miles from the Syrian border in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The isolated community has one main road and about 200 houses scattered over a rural area," the AP reports.
However, AP does not report why the U.S. was unable to take advantage of Sadah's isolation to quarantine and search this village without razing it (A much more humane approach to this 'humanitarian' mission to bring democracy to Iraq and its people).
Being a Syrian border town, Sadah has been a target of U.S. assaults before. This weekend however, was major - 1,000 troops moved on this little village of 2,000 men, women and children.
The most sophisticated (which simply means most deadly) military in the world has sent 1,000 troops, backed warplanes and helicopters, to enter and occupy the hamlet of Sadah, and is going door to door, raiding what homes were left standing after the air assault, apparently hunting for 'insurgents'. Although it is uncertain what they will find in Sadah, what they have brought is clear. Death and destruction on a massive scale have come to yet another town in the so-called 'Sunni Triangle'.
Troops involved in the siege on this rural enclave, were backed by warplanes, such as the C-130 Specter, which hovers over its target, circling and hammering those on the ground with 105 mm rapid-fire cannons directed by it's sophisticated computer tracking systems, and helicopters such as the Apache, which has turned humans into mincemeat with its 90 mm cannons and assortment of rockets.
"Sadah is a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River about eight miles from the Syrian border in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The isolated community has one main road and about 200 houses scattered over a rural area," the AP reports.
However, AP does not report why the U.S. was unable to take advantage of Sadah's isolation to quarantine and search this village without razing it (A much more humane approach to this 'humanitarian' mission to bring democracy to Iraq and its people).
Mujeres del Campo en movilización permanente
Con importantes definiciones para seguir avanzando en fortalecer una articulación internacional y poner en el centro del debate la temática y demandas de las mujeres campesinas, se puso fin al III Encuentro de Mujeres
El evento partió con una mística cargada de emociones, dedicada a la figura de Ernesto Che Guevara, en el marco del aniversario de su muerte, en conjunto con la Asamblea de Jóvenes. La mística rescató el legado revolucionario que no dejara el Che, en la lucha contra la opresión y la explotación de los más desposeídos.
Una vez concluido el trabajo de comisiones, donde se debatieron los temas pendientes, las mas de cien delegadas, representantes de organizaciones campesinas del Cono Sur, Región Andina, Centro América y el Caribe, elaboraron una Declaración para dar por clausurada la III Asamblea de Mujeres del Campo.
En la declaración se deja constancia del consenso alcanzado para elaborar la agenda política de las mujeres, que combaten la globalización y el patriarcado que se impone a los pueblos. De este encuentro también nace una Campaña permanente de lucha en contra de "todas las formas violencia sexista hacia las mujeres y las niñas del campo".
En el documento, se reafirma la oposición al neoliberalismo, al dominio autoritario de la Instituciones Financieras internacionales y se declaran "en movilización permanente" contra todo signo de opresión, violencia, discriminación y cualquier instrumento de dominación en contra de las mujeres y del movimiento social.
Las mujeres rurales, que se declaran "Hijas de la Tierra", denuncian también la militarización del campo, la criminalización de la luchas, las migraciones forzadas por razones económicas y la apropiación de los recursos naturales por parte de las transnacionales, que le han puesto precio a la Biodiversidad del planeta.
Al calor de la discusión, también surgió la ratificación de solidaridad permanente con las mujeres del mundo rural de Cuba, recogiendo su experiencia de resistencia inquebrantable en contra del imperialismo estadounidense.
El encuentro llegó a su fin con una mística dirigida por las organizaciones anfitrionas de Guatemala. En la ceremonia se hizo entrega a cada región de América un elemento de la naturaleza simbolizado en las velas que dieron luz a la III Asamblea de Mujeres del Campo.
El evento partió con una mística cargada de emociones, dedicada a la figura de Ernesto Che Guevara, en el marco del aniversario de su muerte, en conjunto con la Asamblea de Jóvenes. La mística rescató el legado revolucionario que no dejara el Che, en la lucha contra la opresión y la explotación de los más desposeídos.
Una vez concluido el trabajo de comisiones, donde se debatieron los temas pendientes, las mas de cien delegadas, representantes de organizaciones campesinas del Cono Sur, Región Andina, Centro América y el Caribe, elaboraron una Declaración para dar por clausurada la III Asamblea de Mujeres del Campo.
En la declaración se deja constancia del consenso alcanzado para elaborar la agenda política de las mujeres, que combaten la globalización y el patriarcado que se impone a los pueblos. De este encuentro también nace una Campaña permanente de lucha en contra de "todas las formas violencia sexista hacia las mujeres y las niñas del campo".
En el documento, se reafirma la oposición al neoliberalismo, al dominio autoritario de la Instituciones Financieras internacionales y se declaran "en movilización permanente" contra todo signo de opresión, violencia, discriminación y cualquier instrumento de dominación en contra de las mujeres y del movimiento social.
Las mujeres rurales, que se declaran "Hijas de la Tierra", denuncian también la militarización del campo, la criminalización de la luchas, las migraciones forzadas por razones económicas y la apropiación de los recursos naturales por parte de las transnacionales, que le han puesto precio a la Biodiversidad del planeta.
Al calor de la discusión, también surgió la ratificación de solidaridad permanente con las mujeres del mundo rural de Cuba, recogiendo su experiencia de resistencia inquebrantable en contra del imperialismo estadounidense.
El encuentro llegó a su fin con una mística dirigida por las organizaciones anfitrionas de Guatemala. En la ceremonia se hizo entrega a cada región de América un elemento de la naturaleza simbolizado en las velas que dieron luz a la III Asamblea de Mujeres del Campo.
THE DANGER OF IRAQI PARTITION by Stan Goff
[The increasing pressure on the Bush administration at home in the wake of the Cindy Sheehan catalyst and an impeding mass mobilization against the war on September 24th lends more urgency to show a result in the Iraq war - the latest one being a draft Constitution. But not only is this issue so arcane to the average American ear fails to provide any resonant symbolism, the real result of the forced pace of the draft is exacerbating an extremely adverse political situation for the US in Iraq and the region.
The primary forces remaining in the Iraqi "government" are semi-puppets. On the one hand, they are dependent on American military power for the time being to maintain the current balance of forces in their favor. On the other hand, they clearly have an agenda that is designed to consolidate that long-term power through a pact of some sort with Iran.
This has created a polarization between current direct participants in the Iraqi government and the minority - strategically located and well-armed - Sunnis/nationalists in the north. That is not a cultural polarization but a political one that further entrenches the Faustian alliance between the government and the US occupiers each day, though there is no inhering reason among the general populations - who have for years seen inter-ethnic and inter-denominational marriage, etc. - for any pressure to partition the country.
The so-called Iraqi government does not in fact exercise real governance over any but a fraction of Iraq, and the "city-state" phenomenon throughout the country is setting the stage for a universally unacceptable Balkanization of Iraq, at the same time that it is developing the probable (and yet largely unknown) future local leadership of Iraq.
At some point in the future, most of these actors will have to deal with one another politically.
The Shia interim government and the US have maneuvered themselves into the same corner with antagonistic goals if and when they ever find their way out. The Sunnis and nationalists of the north have no stake in partition, and with the withdrawal of occupying forces would b e freer to negotiate a political settlement with the south. This leaves one hugely influential local leader in the most flexible position in Iraq right now - Muqtada al Sadr.
He is the man to watch in Iraq for now.
Meanwhile, the greatest impediment to a political solution to post-invasion Iraq is not some cauldron of inter-ethnic rivalry. It is the politico-military distortion produced by the American occupation. –SG]
The primary forces remaining in the Iraqi "government" are semi-puppets. On the one hand, they are dependent on American military power for the time being to maintain the current balance of forces in their favor. On the other hand, they clearly have an agenda that is designed to consolidate that long-term power through a pact of some sort with Iran.
This has created a polarization between current direct participants in the Iraqi government and the minority - strategically located and well-armed - Sunnis/nationalists in the north. That is not a cultural polarization but a political one that further entrenches the Faustian alliance between the government and the US occupiers each day, though there is no inhering reason among the general populations - who have for years seen inter-ethnic and inter-denominational marriage, etc. - for any pressure to partition the country.
The so-called Iraqi government does not in fact exercise real governance over any but a fraction of Iraq, and the "city-state" phenomenon throughout the country is setting the stage for a universally unacceptable Balkanization of Iraq, at the same time that it is developing the probable (and yet largely unknown) future local leadership of Iraq.
At some point in the future, most of these actors will have to deal with one another politically.
The Shia interim government and the US have maneuvered themselves into the same corner with antagonistic goals if and when they ever find their way out. The Sunnis and nationalists of the north have no stake in partition, and with the withdrawal of occupying forces would b e freer to negotiate a political settlement with the south. This leaves one hugely influential local leader in the most flexible position in Iraq right now - Muqtada al Sadr.
He is the man to watch in Iraq for now.
Meanwhile, the greatest impediment to a political solution to post-invasion Iraq is not some cauldron of inter-ethnic rivalry. It is the politico-military distortion produced by the American occupation. –SG]
Bush's God controversy stirs press fury
Papers in the Arabic world recoil at remarks attributed to President Bush by a Palestinian official, to the effect that God had told him to invade Iraq.
The White House denied the alleged comments were ever made, and Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian official who said the president had told him he was "driven with a mission from God", later said he never thought that Mr Bush's remarks should be taken literally.
Other papers in the region comment on Mr Bush's assertion, at a speech in Washington, that Islamic radicals were seeking to establish an empire of terror from Spain to Indonesia.
The White House denied the alleged comments were ever made, and Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian official who said the president had told him he was "driven with a mission from God", later said he never thought that Mr Bush's remarks should be taken literally.
Other papers in the region comment on Mr Bush's assertion, at a speech in Washington, that Islamic radicals were seeking to establish an empire of terror from Spain to Indonesia.
The Maker of US policy
Given our previous knowledge of President Bush, the suggestion that he believes that God is dictating American foreign policy should be no more surprising than a revelation of the Pope's Roman Catholicism. And yet, surprisingly, the White House has been fiercely atheistic about such claims. A West Winger has rubbished suggestions by former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath (made in a new BBC2 series from the distinguished and highly reliable film-maker Norma Percy) that Bush had confided the Almighty's role as a sort of super national security adviser, a secretary of higher state
According to Shaath's recall of Bush's confession, God, apparently addressing the president each time as "George", had told him, in three separate briefings: "Go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan ... go and end the tyranny in Iraq ... go and get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security."
According to Shaath's recall of Bush's confession, God, apparently addressing the president each time as "George", had told him, in three separate briefings: "Go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan ... go and end the tyranny in Iraq ... go and get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security."
Rachel was bulldozed to death, but her words are a spur to action
When our daughter Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza strip on March 16 2003, an immediate impulse was to get her words out to the world. She had been working in Rafah with a nonviolent resistance organisation, the International Solidarity Movement, trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and wells. Her emails home had had a powerful impact on our family, making us think about the situation in the Middle East in ways we had never done before. Without a direct connection to Israel and Palestine, we had not understood the devastating nature of the Palestinians' situation. Coming from the US, our allegiance and empathy had always been with the people of Israel.
I'm Your Man!
In what has become a time-honored tradition of the current regime, a political hack subordinate to the ranking political hack (also known as POTUS) is rewarded by a coveted position.
Many people wrongly believe that the Dubya label is an armband, or perhaps the American flag in its ubiquitous magnetized form. But in fact the Dubya brand is the Brownie, called so after the oft-relieved, variously transferred and sometimes pink-slipped former head of FEMA.
We see the Brownie label on George Tenet. By failing to gather accurate intelligence, and then failing to accurately reveal what the CIA did know, Tenet was rewarded with one of the longest tenures of any CIA Director, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Paul Wolfowitz wears the Brownie label. A failed strategist, incompetent Middle Eastern expert, funky phantasmagoric visionary of some other people's future in some other people's land? Yes, it's all true. But to the White House, Wolfie remains fully qualified - indeed, an exceptional candidate - for his recent promotion from world policeman to World Banker.
The Harriet Miers saga is the second great example of how to succeed in Bush politics. Recall, if you will, the first...
Many people wrongly believe that the Dubya label is an armband, or perhaps the American flag in its ubiquitous magnetized form. But in fact the Dubya brand is the Brownie, called so after the oft-relieved, variously transferred and sometimes pink-slipped former head of FEMA.
We see the Brownie label on George Tenet. By failing to gather accurate intelligence, and then failing to accurately reveal what the CIA did know, Tenet was rewarded with one of the longest tenures of any CIA Director, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Paul Wolfowitz wears the Brownie label. A failed strategist, incompetent Middle Eastern expert, funky phantasmagoric visionary of some other people's future in some other people's land? Yes, it's all true. But to the White House, Wolfie remains fully qualified - indeed, an exceptional candidate - for his recent promotion from world policeman to World Banker.
The Harriet Miers saga is the second great example of how to succeed in Bush politics. Recall, if you will, the first...
Is This the Death of America?
This week Karen Hughes, long-time political adviser to George Bush, began her new mission as the State Department's official defender of America's image with a tour of the Middle East.
She might have been more help to her beleaguered president had she stayed at home and used her PR skills on her neighbors. At the end of a cruel and turbulent summer, nobody is more dismayed and demoralized about America than Americans.
They have watched with growing disbelief and horror as a convergence of events - dominated by the unending war in Iraq and two hurricanes - have exposed ugly and disturbing things in the undergrowth that shame and embarrass Americans and undermine their belief in the nation and its values.
With TV providing a ceaseless backdrop of the country's failings - a crippled and tone-deaf president, a negligent government, corruption, military atrocities, soaring debt, racial conflict, poverty, bloated bodies in floodwater, people dying on camera for want of food, water and medicine - it seemed things were falling apart in the land where happiness is promoted in the constitution.
Disillusioning news was everywhere. In the flight from Hurricane Rita, evacuees fought knife fights over cans of petrol. In storm-hit Louisiana there were long queues at gun stores as people armed themselves against looters.
She might have been more help to her beleaguered president had she stayed at home and used her PR skills on her neighbors. At the end of a cruel and turbulent summer, nobody is more dismayed and demoralized about America than Americans.
They have watched with growing disbelief and horror as a convergence of events - dominated by the unending war in Iraq and two hurricanes - have exposed ugly and disturbing things in the undergrowth that shame and embarrass Americans and undermine their belief in the nation and its values.
With TV providing a ceaseless backdrop of the country's failings - a crippled and tone-deaf president, a negligent government, corruption, military atrocities, soaring debt, racial conflict, poverty, bloated bodies in floodwater, people dying on camera for want of food, water and medicine - it seemed things were falling apart in the land where happiness is promoted in the constitution.
Disillusioning news was everywhere. In the flight from Hurricane Rita, evacuees fought knife fights over cans of petrol. In storm-hit Louisiana there were long queues at gun stores as people armed themselves against looters.
Venezuelan Gasoline Arrives in Houston
Citgo Petroleum Corp. received a shipment of 240,000 barrels of gasoline Monday at the Port of Houston.
Citgo's parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, sent the shipment as part of its pledge to provide 1 million barrels of gasoline to help alleviate fuel shortages in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"We are doing our utmost to keep supplies to the market and fight any price speculations," said Citgo CEO Felix Rodriguez.
The company's refinery in Lake Charles, La., remains shut down after being pummeled by Rita. But Citgo refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Lemonth, Ill., continue to operate.
Those refineries are "all the more important as we do everything we can to prevent product shortages from becoming any more acute," Rodriquez said.
The gasoline from PDVSA will be distributed through the Eagle and Colonial pipeline systems, which serve Texas and the Southeast.
Houston-based Citgo is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels and other refined products.
Citgo's parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, sent the shipment as part of its pledge to provide 1 million barrels of gasoline to help alleviate fuel shortages in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"We are doing our utmost to keep supplies to the market and fight any price speculations," said Citgo CEO Felix Rodriguez.
The company's refinery in Lake Charles, La., remains shut down after being pummeled by Rita. But Citgo refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Lemonth, Ill., continue to operate.
Those refineries are "all the more important as we do everything we can to prevent product shortages from becoming any more acute," Rodriquez said.
The gasoline from PDVSA will be distributed through the Eagle and Colonial pipeline systems, which serve Texas and the Southeast.
Houston-based Citgo is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels and other refined products.
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