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Academic scholarships?
"Whether or not they find weapons of mass destruction doesn't matter, because the rationale for the war changed. Americans like a good picture. And one photograph of an Iraqi child kissing a U.S. soldier is more powerful than two months of debate on the floor of Congress."
Republican pollster Frank Luntz
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0610-08.htm
Rupert's Right-Wing Media Monopoly....
http://www.politicaltoons.com/toons/toons108.cfm?ctoon=114&toon=108
Apply for US Visas Now, Envoy Tells Students
K.S. Ramkumar, Arab News Staff
JEDDAH, 12 June 2003 — US Ambassador Robert Jordan has urged Saudi students wanting to study in the US for the academic year beginning in September to send in their visa applications as soon as possible.
“The clearance of applications which go through various security procedures can take as little as two weeks or it can take longer. If students apply now, their visas will be ready in plenty of time for them to leave for the US,” the ambassador told Arab News on Monday night.
Jordan, who took part in a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony with Consul General Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley at the dedication of the Jeddah consulate’s new entrance, said visas were now being issued on a regular basis at both the embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah.
The consul general said the events of Sept. 11 had changed both the process and pace of issuing visas. “It can now take up to two months depending on the individual case,” she said. “Some students studying in the United States have not returned. Possibly they think that they will not get visas or might not get them in time to return to the US.”
Miguel Ordonez, consul at the US Consulate General, said there was no guarantee that every applicant would be issued a visa. “Visa applications are closely scrutinized here and also in Washington. If applicants qualify for a visa, there is no reason why they should not get one. In fact, some applicants have been issued visas on the same day that they applied.”
In his remarks at the dedication ceremony, the ambassador said: “We retain our long-term commitment as a mission to maintaining a robust presence in Jeddah where we have been since 1952 and in Riyadh since 1984. The new entrance that we have built is a physical reminder of that fact.”
He singled out the employees of the consulate and said, “Each one of you working here is the face of America for countless local people and others from all over the world. You’re ensuring that the thousands of American citizens in this region have a place to turn to if they need assistance. And you’re helping to get out the message that the ideals that America upholds — freedom, unity, brotherhood — are fully compatible with the values of Islam; indeed, they’re often identical.”
The consul general, in her remarks, said: “Our dedication of this new facade gives us the opportunity to renew our commitment to a US presence in the Western Province. We’re renewing the commitment of the many parts of this consulate that conduct the business of America.”
She said Administrative Officer Ron Acuff had been the “real keystone” in the completion of the structure and that General Services Officer Jim Williams and his team had seen to such important details as the wall seals and flag.
“Many other people contributed to the beauty of this doorway to the United States, including Craig Flanagan, facilities manager from Riyadh with regional responsibility for the consulates, Paul Adams, contractor for design and construction, and Diane Peterson, for the spectacular landscaping design that beautifies the entrance.”
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved. Site designed by: arabix and powered by Eima IT
Own Baghdad Bob on VHS or DVD Now!
http://www.baghdadbobdvd.com
Comical Ali: The very best of Baghdad Bob! :)
And you can claim you're of African descent!! lol :)
The world's oldest humans: proof we came from Africa
Scientists hail discovery of 160,000-year-old remains in Ethiopian desert as breakthrough in search for answers to evolution puzzle
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=414672
The date of the fossils is important because it matches precisely the age at which Homo sapiens is said to have diverged from its ancestral line as calculated from the genetic analysis of human DNA.
California Mars team wary of complacency on new rover mission
By ANDREW BRIDGES
AP Science Writer
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030611/APN/306110583
Ergo, Hey, ya never know... But talk about jet lag!!
In her new book, Hillary say's she doesn't understand how one can be both Christian and Republican... 8^}
Presidential Lies...
By: Roger Weinreich - 06/11/03
Bill Clinton's demise occurred because he lied about having sex with Monica. Richard Nixon's demise came about when he lied about the Watergate break in. George Bush's demise will come because he sent Americans to die for what may have been a lie.
President Bush delivered his ultimatum to Iraq on March 17th and told the American people: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to posses and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." If you had watched NBC's MEET THE PRESS on March 16th, you would have also heard Vice President Dick Cheney talk about Saddam Hussein's arsenal: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
And now, with more than 150,000 troops in Iraq, along with a vast array of sophisticated equipment, not one single Weapon of Mass Destruction has been found. According to Lieutenant General James Conway, the Commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."
It is clear that President Bush lied about the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to convince the American public that a war with Iraq was justified. The misguided support for this war was built upon the blatant lie that these weapons existed, and that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation because he possessed these weapons.
The Bush administration is not afraid to distort the truth even further by placing one lie on top of another. On May 14, 2003 at a hearing of the Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense) stated the following: "I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."
Clinton's sexual escapades and Nixon's petty crimes seem insignificant when compared to the damage that George Bush's dishonesty has caused. Young American soldiers have lost their lives because of a lie and the American people will not forgive this treacherous deceit.
Roger Weinreich, a contributing writer for Liberal Slant, is a writer and musician and an elected official (Selectman) in a small New Hampshire town.
2003-2002-2001-2000-1999-1998
LIBERALSLANT Web Publications.
All rights reserved.
liberalslant@entermail.net
Closed Door Hearings on IRAQ -- No Public Inquiry!!!
Senate committee to hold closed hearings on U.S. intelligence on Iraq
Roberts says allegations 'must be cleared up'
By Sean Loughlin
CNN Washington Bureau
Wednesday, June 11, 2003 Posted: 4:32 PM EDT (2032 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As part of its review of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee will hold closed-door hearings on the matter, the chairman of that panel announced Wednesday, but there will not be a formal, public inquiry as sought by Democrats.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/11/wmd.senate/
UNREAL !!!
They have to hang someone for Mainstreet's trillions lost. So why not Martha, the Diva of Domesticity, the one everyone loves to hate?? Hey, I know I feel safer with Martha off The Street!..
As you know, there are "right scams" & "wrong scams" in this country. And the gov is way to busy chasing penny thieves and other high school children. Tokyo Abby & the others have nothing to fear. You'd have more to fear pumping a 10 cent stock on iHub. Blodget "walked"....
I'm not saying it was our fault. I'm saying some of our entirely self serving policies in the oil rich region were not good and they enabled the Osamas of the region to gain support for their American hatred. I am not blaming the victim tho.
I know that, but where is Osama now? Hiding out with Saddam and his WMD?? And do we level the country (probably Pakistan) providing sanctuary to Osama?
My point was about fueling the rage in that part of the world. But as long as we can use the word "liberate", we Americans feel quite good about ourselves. And we never have to consider the consequences of our government's actions... When we, the greatest military power of all time and wealthiest people, level 3rd world countries adding more hardship, the result isn't "warm regards".
When has our meddling in that part of the world ever produced anything good - with the exception of cheap oil, of course?
Intelligence Officer Challenges Bush Administration on 'Why They Hate Us'
Gary Thomas
Washington
10 Jun 2003, 20:25 UTC
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=D65BA316-CA8F-4A99-AAAF9AB069C712F0
Saddam alive and paying bounty for dead US troops, claims Chalabi
June 11 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/11/1055220626502.html
Did we get rid of Saddam? Today Chalabi said Saddam is alive with billions, and has offered to pay a bounty to anyone who kills American soldiers. Chalabi did not say where Saddam was, in the report I saw. Maybe he's livin' large with Osama - somewhere.
I don't know what happened to the 4 bil. But when you look at it from the perspective of those living with the hardship everyday, you do get a perspective. To them, most Americans are living in their comfortable, clean homes with every convenience, driving our big cars while their country has been left in squallor we wouldn't let our dogs live in.
Iraq, and the ME in general are huge producers of oil that we use to power our economy, our homes and cars. There's unrest in Saudi, there's economic hardship for most and Saudi Arabia is not able to sell it's oil for the amount needed to support it's economy. Right or wrong, they blame us. And it's easy for people like Osama to sell the case against us.
We don't deserve the entire blame, but we share some. And what business do we have manipulating the ME at all? We have to view the situation from the perspective of others. Human nature is a funny thing. If you and I were living in a cardboard box in some third world country, we'd be looking for someone to blame as well.
I just saw a segment on CNN or MSNBC (obviously not Fox) that spoke of the political instability in Afghanistan, and the destruction caused by our war there. They spoke of average people (innocent citizens) and the hardship caused due to sporatic availability of water and electric. Maybe if we are looking to reshape the ME we should start by cleaning up our messes. When we decimate another country causing more hardship for innocent people, what do you think the result is, "warm regards"?
Poll shows U.S. isolation: In war's wake, hostility and mistrust
Meg Bortin/IHT IHT
http://www.iht.com/articles/98482.html
And if everyone wasn't a little crazy, we'd be bored out of our minds!.. Off to K-mart to support Martha's line of products. Poor Martha! I'm sure she's guilty as sin, but her crimes pale in comparison to the crimes of some of our "greatest" financial institutions!
Send Dick Grasso or Abbey Cohen, or Joe Batts to prison! Martha's crimes were relative "chump change". The big banks stole BILLIONS! Waksal was sentenced to 7yrs today...
Or totalitarian control freaks??..
Beautiful day!! I thought we were headed for swampland in NJ.
Too much rain.
brain, Don't you think we're all a little nuts? Be honest...
Nuts is a relative thing, of course. And nuts is also part of human nature.
"You are with us or you are with the evil-doers"??
Got it??.... :~}
maine, We can "talk" about Vietnam. But we can not question or criticise the gov. That would be "unpatriotic". True Americans support, unconditionally all policies of their gov. (Clintons not included, obviously!!:)) "Godless liberals", heretics, and other evil doers question... Capish??... :)
Brain, agreed -- there's no shortage of nuts in this world. But when one begins to think everyone else is nuts, one needs to look within themselves as well. We will get nowhere if we are unable to at least listen to the views of others, and at least consider those views. I'm not saying you have to listen to Sheik-Mullah-fundamentalist-whomever, but we should be listening to Europeans who's culture is not dissimilar to our own, and who used to hold a favorable opinion of the US.
Obviously Osama is a greater threat to our safety in the US now. My point was, many around the world believe Bush is a greater threat to world peace. Unless we are to believe everyone else is nuts, we have to assume Bush and the US have at least a very serious PR problem. In global affairs, PR does matter. And if Iraq is the catalyst for an increase in rage that breeds more extremists and terrorists in the region, we might consider Bush a greater threat, indirectly.
"Still, even people in countries that opposed the war said it may have improved Iraqis' lives. "People in most countries in Europe thought that the Iraqis were better off without Saddam Hussein, even though they didn't support the U.S.-led war in Iraq. But the people in the Middle East felt that the Iraqi people were worse off now," the Pew Center's Gross said.
Strikingly, last month's survey showed Osama bin Laden to be perhaps the most respected "world figure" in the Middle East, after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and French President Jacques Chirac.
Bin Laden, whom Washington blames for the 11 September 2001 attacks that killed 3,000 people, was chosen by people in the Palestinian territories as the most likely world figure to do "the right thing." He was second in Jordan, Morocco, and Pakistan and third in Indonesia."
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/06/09062003173358.asp
Kerry and Dean lead in recent poll
6/9/2003 3:33 PM
By: Capital News 9 web staff
The latest Zogby poll shows two presidential candidates form the northeast leading for the democratic bid.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean are polling best in New Hampshire.
The poll asked about 600 likely voters whom they would vote for. Kerry had 25 percent of the votes, while Dean received 22 percent.
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt followed Kerry and Dean.
New Hampshire holds the nation's first presidential primary in January.
We have the greatest military arsenal in the world. We can devastate countries.
To say Young George has a global PR problem is an understatement.
..Rise in global anti-American sentiment is due to "the conservatism of social values, the dominance of religion in social and political life", among other things......
..seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, a majority of the people say they are concerned their nation could be attacked by the U.S. military..
What Fuels Rift Between US and International Community?
Meredith Buel
Washington
09 Jun 2003, 19:06 UTC
)
Is a rising tide of global anti-Americanism following the war in Iraq a self-inflicted wound or a counter-attack on the United States by an international community that resents the use of military power by the Bush administration? Some foreign policy analysts say fundamental aspects of American society that differ greatly from those in other countries are fueling the rift.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center of 16,000 people in 20 countries showed a dramatic drop in global support for the United States.
The poll showed antagonism toward America has deepened and widened in Europe, parts of Africa and Asia, and especially in predominantly Muslim countries.
Minxin Pei, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a cover story in the current edition of Foreign Policy magazine that the rise of anti-American feelings can be traced to the differences in the core values of many people in the United States, compared with the values held by those in other countries. "When you look at social values, the conservatism of social values, the dominance of religion in social and political life, the United States is clearly very, very different from other industrial democracies," he said.
"Then you look at the recent rise of anti-Americanism in other countries ... not merely from those parts of the world that share very different values from us, but more worrisome to me, is anti-Americanism from those societies that share the same values," Mr. Minxin explained.
Francis Fukuyama, an author and professor of international political science at Johns Hopkins University, currently teaching at the School of Advanced International Studies, agrees that the role religion plays in American society is a major factor in the foreign policy of the Bush administration and how that policy is sold to domestic voters. He said, "It also, I think, gives a particular moralistic character to the way Americans think about themselves and the world. So it has always been the case that American foreign policy, although it pursued both realist and idealist agendas, usually had to be justified to the American people in moralistic terms, and there are plenty of examples of that," he said.
"The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan could not be justified on narrow, strategic grounds, and really had to be seen as a crusade against a kind of globally evil communism; same thing with the two wars against Iraq. There is, I think, a very emotionally powerful element of moralism that, I think, is highly appealing," said Mr. Fukuyama.
Analysts say moralism appeals to Americans, because it stirs up feelings of patriotism and nationalism.
Polls routinely find Americans have the highest degree of national pride among Western democracies.
Minxin Pei said such feelings inevitably collide with passions in other countries. "The consequence of this is, American nationalism tends to generate enormous resentment in other societies, largely because American nationalism clashes with nationalism in other societies, due to the different natures of the two types of nationalism. The second one is that American nationalism tends to backfire on American foreign policy, especially when American policy-makers downplay, or underestimate the power of nationalism in other societies," Mr. Pei said.
One of the more striking aspects of the Pew poll is that in seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, a majority of the people say they are concerned their nation could be attacked by the U.S. military.
In addition to prewar Iraq, President Bush has declared that Iran and North Korea form what he calls an "axis of evil," and American officials say both countries have active nuclear weapons programs.
This has led to widespread speculation that, in the future, the United States may use force against them.
Professor Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins University said the Bush administration needs to explain more clearly its policy of using deadly force in the war on terrorism. "Nobody in the administration actually believed that this new doctrine of preventive war or pre-emptive war was open-ended. But they just did not bother to explain that," he said.
"You know, Colin Powell, the day after the 'axis of evil' speech, should have been traveling around from one foreign capital to another explaining that this was actually not an open-ended doctrine, but it had certain specific conditions, and so forth. But they did not do that, and in a way they have been tongue-tied in responding to what I think are reasonable, although exaggerated, fears on the part of other people that they could have satisfied, simply by articulating a little bit more their own thinking," Mr. Fukuyama said.
Analyst Minxin Pei said the Bush administration needs to soften the way it sells its foreign policy to people in other countries. "I think for a start, lower the rhetoric. The rhetoric is antagonizing a lot of people. Then think about adjustments in policy. I would say that the recent initiative on the Middle East is great, because that kind of real action can help change people's perception rather dramatically," he said.
Another noteworthy finding in the Pew poll was that people in predominantly Muslim nations are supportive of many of the aspects of American society. Those surveyed say they support democratic values, such as freedom of the press, multi-party political systems, freedom of expression and equal treatment under the law.
Analysts say the Bush administration should build on what it has in common with Muslim nations and other countries.
They say a firm commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the successful reconstruction of Iraq could help reverse the rapid rise of anti-American sentiment around the world.
VOANEWS
Glad you're such an optimist... Speaking of world opinion, many (the majority?) around the globe believe BUSH is the greatest threat to world peace. Seriously, there have been polls. Are they wrong? Is everyone else wrong??
Comparing Hitler to Saddam is positively absurd. Besides, if human rights were the goal, we'd be in the Africa.
yayaa ==> Another Dream Team juror, for sure... :)
Rick, But in the end Powell walked the walk, and talked the Admin talk.....
I suppose global opinion is irrelevant, "right"??...
A few days after Bush toured Auschwitz, the Pew Research Center released a survey of international opinion, canvassed from some twenty countries, which found that “the war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era—the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance.”
MIGHT AND RIGHT
Issue of 2003-06-16
Posted 2003-06-09
Two weeks ago, on the first day of his first foreign trip since the fall of Baghdad, President Bush went to Auschwitz. The symbolism could not have been more heavy-handed: with the international press full of images of the grisly excavations of Saddam Hussein’s killing fields, the President claimed the memory of the six million to explain his “war on terror,” invoking the Nazi gas chambers and crematoriums as “a sobering reminder of the power of evil and the need for people to resist evil.” Bush ended his trip in the same spirit, telling a cheering throng of American troops in Qatar, “The world is now learning what many of you have seen. They’re learning about the mass graves. They’re learning about the torture chambers. Because of you, a great evil has been ended.” It’s true that stopping Saddam’s tyranny is the most heartening and unambiguous consequence of the war in Iraq. But Bush did not take over that country on a humanitarian impulse. As Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has said, although Saddam’s “criminal treatment of the Iraqi people” was a “fundamental concern” for Washington’s war planners, it was “not a reason to put American kids’ lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.” Rather, according to the repeated claims of the Administration, our kids were put at risk in order to disarm Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons, which, intelligence assessments were said to show, posed an urgent threat to our national security.
So where is Saddam’s terrible arsenal? Bush, on his way to Auschwitz, took time out to tell Polish television, “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” That wasn’t true. After more than two months of searching, American forces in Iraq had yet to discover any trace of biological or chemical agents. All they have found is a pair of tractor trailers, which appear to have been fitted out as weapons laboratories but never used. The President’s readiness to present this discovery as a finding of the weapons themselves follows a pattern of distortions on the part of the Administration—hypotheticals proclaimed as facts, suspicions and fears spun as clear and present dangers, actions taken accordingly—throughout the planning, marketing, and prosecution of the war.
Why, exactly, are we in Iraq? Regardless of whether one supported or opposed the war, one cannot escape the impression that the weapons, some of which may yet be found, were a pretext for a campaign whose larger motives and purposes the Administration has never seen fit to articulate to the public. As the war drags on, a sense of reality is lacking in the Bush camp’s triumphalism; Americans are still killing and dying in almost every news cycle, and Iraqi resentment is mounting against an improvised occupation that has set the nation free mainly in the sense that it is ungoverned. Against this background, the charges now circulating that Bush’s war cabinet depended on false or, worse, falsified intelligence to exaggerate the threat of those weapons in the first place is much more than a technicality.
The press reports are damning. The Washington Post quotes C.I.A. analysts complaining that they felt steady pressure from Vice-President Dick Cheney, from Wolfowitz, and from their own boss, George Tenet, to amplify the danger of Iraq. The Times has picked up the thread of reporting in this magazine by Seymour M. Hersh about the Pentagon’s creation of its own intelligence organ, with the apparent purpose of producing the sort of allegations about Iraqi weapons and links to terrorists that C.I.A. analysts would not supply. U.S. News & World Report describes how Secretary of State Colin Powell, before he made the Administration’s case against Iraq to the United Nations Security Council, rejected as weak and insubstantial intelligence material prepared for him by Cheney’s office. At one point, Powell reportedly threw the Vice-President’s pages in the air and said, “I’m not reading this. This is bullshit.” The historical precedent that these reëxaminations suggest is not, as the President would prefer, the Second World War but the Tonkin Gulf affair of 1964, when an alarmist report of an unconfirmed attack against an American warship in the South China Sea served Lyndon Johnson’s White House as a pretext for an escalation of the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, in London, Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing the fury of both sides of the aisle in Parliament over his claim before the war that he had intelligence showing that Saddam’s chemical agents were weaponized and could be deployed at just forty-five minutes’ notice. “It is about the gravest accusation that can be made in politics,” the Daily Telegraph, which strongly supported the war, wrote. “Blair stands charged, in effect, with committing British troops on the basis of a lie.” Both the Prime Minister and the President have indignantly dismissed the suggestion that they hyped—or, as the British put it, “sexed up”—the case for war, and both have said that with a bit more time the truth will out. In London, the outing will be done by Parliament, which has compelled Blair to submit to a full inquiry into the use and possible abuse of intelligence reporting in the buildup to the war. Americans should be prepared for a similar investigation, if Congress can muster the courage and the clarity to command it. Because Bush launched his reëlection campaign shortly after the marines pulled down Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, any public excavation of the Administration’s drive to war is bound to be fraught with partisan politics. But, in a country where the previous President’s lies about consensual adulterous relations were considered ground for impeachment, truthtelling about the gravest affair of state—the waging of war—must stand as a paramount value.
A few days after Bush toured Auschwitz, the Pew Research Center released a survey of international opinion, canvassed from some twenty countries, which found that “the war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era—the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance.” And the war in Iraq is far from over. What is at stake there, and in the war against terrorism of which it is but a chapter, is the nature of America’s standing as the defining power of our age. We are told that we went into Iraq to make the world safer, yet, even as the remaining members of Bush’s axis of evil, Iran and North Korea, pursue nuclear-arms programs, many of the countries that allied with us against Saddam are wondering if they were falsely led. Nobody can regret that Saddam is gone. But, in the unipolar world that the Bush Administration seems bent on forging, our security will depend as much on our credibility as on our physical might.
— Philip Gourevitch
Copyright © CondéNet 2003. All rights reserved
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030616ta_talk_gourevitch
No need for me to show evidence of deception. The Brits will do it for us... For sure - we shall see... :)
Wanna buy some swamp land in Jersey?? No spring, all rain. :)