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Thanks, Sara... Not that I think the States should be overly reliant on the fed gov. But we do have a habit of bailing out third world countries, and claiming to "rebuild" countries we destroy -- Iraq, Afghanistan. And bribing countries like Pakistan.... Has the fed gov offered Cali any aid, loans or assistance? The bankruptcy of the worlds 6th largest economy has huge economic ramifications, not to mention the effect on emergency, basic and social services...
Cali is the world's 6th largest economy (I think??) and they are on the brink of bust. That ain't good, altho I'm sure it pleases the Bush folks... Is the Bush Admin proposing any kind of a bail-out, loans, anything?? Or are they just sitting back enjoying the "show"??..
Pass the popcorn?... :)
Calif. Near Financial Disaster
Hours Remain to Solve $38 Billion Shortfall
California state Sens. James L. Brulte (R), left, and John Burton (D) confront each other after the Senate's defeat of a Democratic budget bill last week. (Rich Pedroncelli -- AP)
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2003; Page A01
LOS ANGELES -- Any day now, community colleges here may begin telling faculty members that they cannot be paid and students that summer classes are canceled.
Nursing homes are losing so much state aid that many soon may have to shut down or limit their services, a prospect that has elderly residents confused and frightened.
As many as 30,000 government workers who had been expecting pay raises in the fall are instead receiving formal notices warning that they could lose their jobs by then, because the state is broke.
This is life in California, on the brink of a fiscal disaster.
The nation's most populous state, home to one of the world's largest economies, has been staring in disbelief at the same dire predicament for months: a $38 billion deficit, the largest shortfall in its history and an extreme example of the budget woes afflicting many states. But now it has only hours left to solve the problem.
State lawmakers have until midnight to reach a compromise with Gov. Gray Davis (D) on a budget that would wipe out the enormous deficit, but the odds of that happening appear slim. And without a deal, the state will be bound by law to begin cutting off billions of dollars in payments to its agencies and its contractors in July -- and could run out of money by August.
"It looks bleak," said Perry Kenny, president of the California State Employees Association, which represents more than 100,000 government workers. "This is the biggest hole we've ever been in, and no one can seem to find a way out. We're all sweating bullets here."
For weeks, the state's budget has been hostage to an intensely partisan political war over taxes and spending that is now getting even more bitter and complicated because of a Republican-led campaign to recall Davis from office. Organizers of that movement have collected nearly 400,000 voter petitions in favor of ousting the governor, and political strategists in both parties say a recall election, which would be unprecedented, is looking ever more likely.
Davis and the Democrats who control both houses of California's legislature cannot get their way on the budget because state law requires a two-thirds majority vote for it to be approved. They need a few Republican lawmakers to support their plan, which they say must include new taxes in order to save public schools and other vital programs from ruin.
But Republicans are refusing to consider any tax increase, which they say would harm California's already weak economy, and are demanding deeper cuts in government spending.
There is no end in sight to the impasse, which California voters are watching with increasing exasperation. Polls show that public support for Davis has plummeted below 25 percent, and that two-thirds of voters are dismayed with the legislature.
Republican lawmakers say they will not budge from their stand on the budget because they are fed up with Davis's governing style.
"He and his allies have gotten the last three budgets they wanted and we're nearly bankrupt," said James L. Brulte, the Republican leader in the state Senate, who has threatened to work against the reelection of any GOP colleague who sides with Davis in the budget battle. "Somebody has to stand up and say enough is enough. That's what Republicans in California are doing."
But Democrats see other motives. Some are accusing GOP lawmakers of deliberately dragging their feet on the budget in the hope that will hurt Davis politically and strengthen the recall campaign.
"It's hard to take Republicans seriously when they say they want a real solution to this budget crisis at the same time some of them are openly backing the recall," said Roger Salazar, a political adviser to Davis. "They are putting important state programs at risk just out of pure political spite."
Democrats have retreated recently from some tax proposals but are insisting on a half-cent sales tax increase. Several dozen Democratic legislators even barnstormed Republican districts around the state last week to plead for support but got mostly hostile receptions.
Davis, who left the state this weekend to attend his mother's 80th birthday celebration in New York, is still expressing optimism that a budget deal can be reached soon, if not by tonight's constitutional deadline.
"I am doing everything I can to encourage, cajole, persuade, guilt-trip and all the things you do to try to make this happen," he told reporters last week.
California's $38 billion deficit is larger than the entire annual budget of any other state except New York. It represents about one-third of the state's annual spending.
As in many other states, the shortfall is largely the result of the national economic downturn -- which has been especially severe in Silicon Valley, an engine of California's $1.3 trillion economy. Soaring health care costs for the poor and new expenses for homeland security are other contributing factors. Republicans here also contend that Davis, who was narrowly elected to a second term in November, has spent recklessly while in office and relied on accounting gimmicks to balance the budget last year.
California, which had a $9 billion budget surplus three years ago, is constantly caught in boom-or-bust economic cycles. In the early 1990s, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson had to raise taxes and cut spending to erase a $14 billion deficit. Escaping this crisis will be far more difficult and painful.
To close the $38 billion deficit, state leaders have approved $7 billion in cuts affecting virtually every government program. They have borrowed $11 billion to keep California solvent through the summer. Earlier this month, risking the wrath of voters, they tripled the annual state tax on vehicles, a $136 increase for most motorists. But that still is not enough to balance the budget.
Now, with time to find a solution running out, state Controller Steve Westly is warning that as early as Tuesday more than a billion dollars in payments due to state agencies, medical providers and private companies that contract with California must be stopped.
"This is going to be real hurt for the state of California," he told reporters a few days ago, "and the problem gets worse every day we go without a budget."
Some public institutions already are reeling. The Los Angeles Community College District, which enrolls 130,000 students, has been forced to eliminate classes and lay off some of its faculty, and is on the verge of raising tuition by more than 50 percent because of the budget crisis. Thousands of students have dropped out because of cutbacks this year, college officials say, and more are likely to leave if additional classes are canceled.
Mark Drummond, the chancellor of the district, said that its network of colleges has enough money to operate until August, but would not be able to pay its vendors or its faculty if the state is still engulfed in deficits by then.
"We could have to turn off the lights and tell everybody to go home," Drummond said.
Nursing homes are suffering the same plight. Some already have stopped receiving all the payments they had been expecting from the state and are cutting back services to their residents and turning away new patients. If more cuts are approved, or if the budget gridlock doesn't end soon, dozens of homes could go bankrupt and close.
Betsy Hite, spokeswoman for the California Association of Health Facilities, said many elderly residents are baffled and despondent over the looming hardships.
"They see what's going on in the newspapers and on TV," she said. "Their perspective is, why are they doing this to us? What did we do?
"If I were a betting person, I wouldn't bet we're going to be fine," Hite added. "The gap is just too huge."
Special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
CA has how many electoral votes - and tends democratic....
California Struggling to Approve Budget
California Lawmakers Struggle to Break Budget Impasse; Six Other States Face Deadlines
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. June 30 —
With the state on the verge of a financial meltdown, California lawmakers struggled Monday to break a partisan impasse and meet a midnight deadline for passing a new budget.
At least five other states Connecticut, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Pennsylvania also faced a July 1 budget deadline.
New Hampshire lawmakers Monday gave themselves until Oct. 1 to negotiate a new spending plan, and Oregon's governor signed a stopgap bill Monday allowing state agencies without new budgets to continue operating at least through July 31.
New Jersey lawmakers late Monday reached a deal to balance the $24.1 billion budget including a tax plan for casinos though they continued to hammer out details, a process expected to last past midnight.
But nowhere are the stakes higher than in California.
The state faces a record $38.2 billion budget shortfall and is operating for the first time completely on borrowed money. State Controller Steve Westly says the state only has enough cash to get through mid-August, and officials say the state cannot borrow any more until a new budget is passed.
Without a new budget by the deadline, the state is unable to legally make millions of dollars in on-time payments to schools, community colleges, courts, state suppliers and others.
The salaries of the governor, legislators, state appointees and about 1,000 non-civil service employees will also stop Tuesday, although most of the state's 200,000 workers will continue receiving their full pay at least for now.
Gov. Gray Davis, who spent the weekend in New York celebrating his mother's 80th birthday, expressed disappointment that the deadline looks like it will not be met.
"We still have an opportunity to find common ground. Failure to do so would be irresponsible and dangerous," Davis said. "Critical funding for hospitals, nursing homes, community colleges and small businesses is at stake."
But the likelihood of a budget agreement anytime soon appears remote. Democrats, who hold big majorities in both houses, need Republican support to approve a spending plan.
California is one of the few states that require a two-thirds majority to pass the budget and Republicans have more than enough votes to block passage as long as they want.
Davis has proposed a budget plan that includes a mix of service cuts, borrowing and higher taxes to bridge the gap.
Republicans say they won't support new taxes, while Democrats are unwilling to cut enough to balance the budget without new taxes.
Last week a budget from Democrats totaling nearly $100 billion was shot down twice in the Senate. Republican Senate leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga said even with a half-cent increase in the sales tax, spending was still more than $10 billion out of balance with income.
A similar Democratic budget plan drew little interest in the Assembly last Friday. Assembly Republicans released their own proposal Monday, a plan quickly condemned as "destructive" by Democrats.
California lawmakers have missed the state's constitutional deadline of June 15 for adoption of a budget 18 times in the last 22 years. The Legislature has begun the new fiscal year without a plan in place nine times in the past 13 years.
Last year's budget was delayed a record 76 days.
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Bush should be impeached for lying and tried for war crimes for destroying another country.... Whatever happens to Bush, America is on the hook for hundreds of billions in rebuilding costs, unfortunately... This, at a time when NJ and other states can not balance their own budget...
The Bush Roadmap
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Jun-27-Fri-2003/photos/opinion.gif
{Compliments of syl!.. :)}
Here's one for the conspiracy theorists... On D Gov Grey Davis...
Davis was the first to claim the Cali energy crisis was a scam. He was branded a loon for saying so. But as it turns out, Davis was absolutely right... And so goes ENE and a few others...
The scam energy crisis was extremely costly to Cali, and I'm sure it continues to be very costly. All states are BK!... NJ may shut down all but emergency services due to their financial fiasco... So Cali is not alone in it's financial woes...
I can't help but wonder if Davis is being targeted for recall because he called a scam a scam. Or for some other related reason... Who is behind or bankrolling the recall effort??...
All the President's Lies... Excellent article! :)
IS OUR PRESIDENT A LIAR OR SIMPLY A STUPID IDIOT?
Back in 1998, when President Bill Clinton looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he lied to the American people. For that he was impeached, and the country was subjected to two years of chaos.
And in 1973, when President Richard Nixon looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "I am not a crook," he lied to the American people and was forced to resign.
Which brings us to January of 2003, when George W. Bush looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." He went on to say that "our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
Neither of these assertions was true. In fact, the story about the African uranium had been exposed as bogus by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency three months earlier, and articles were printed about it in several major newspapers.
Nor are these the only examples of presidential mendacity that have led to the deaths of more than 200 American and British soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians. In October, 2002, Bush told listeners in Cincinnati, Ohio, that satellite photos showed Iraq to be rebuilding its nuclear facilities and that it possessed a "growing fleet" of unmanned aerial vehicles designed for "missions targeting the United States."
Only two possible explanations exist for these repeated falsehoods. Either Bush was lying to the American people or he was repeating lies told to him by others. If the latter is true, he is even more of a bumpkin than a majority of the nation's voters thought he was in the contested election of 2000.
But if the former is true -- that the President of the United States led the country into an unprecedented "war of pre-emption" based on information that he knew to be counterfeit -- Bush is guilty of high crimes on a level never dreamed of by Nixon or Clinton.
Is he a bumpkin or is he a war criminal? We will probably never know. The Republican-controlled Senate and House both have elected to hold closed-door hearings on the matter.
Even as American boys and girls continue to fight and die in the desert sand.
Niagara Falls Reporter
www.niagarafallsreporter.com
July 1 2003
I don't know where the high approval #'s come from either because I don't know to many (if anyone??) who actually supports Bush or his policies...
Maybe it's all in who is doing the polling and how they're formulating the questions... Bush's approval rating hovers around 60% nationally, they say, but his re-election #'s are less than 50%. Supposedly, that's not good for an incumbent...
We shall see
Published on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 by the Associated Press
New Polls: Bush's Re-Elect Numbers Fall Below 50%
by Will Lester
WASHINGTON --President Bush's approval ratings are high, but his re-election support doesn't match up, a reflection of the nation's unease about the struggling economy and uncertainty about who will be the Democratic nominee in 2004.
Pollster Celinda Lake argues that it will be hard for Bush to solidify his re-election support in tough economic times. She said the president's re-elect numbers are a sign that ``independents are in play.''
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush has enjoyed approval ratings of 60 percent or higher in most polls, indicative of the historical trend of the nation rallying around the commander in chief when the nation's security is threatened.
But now that the electorate is beginning to focus on Bush's handling of the economy and wondering who the Democrats will nominate, the president's re-elect numbers are at 50 percent or lower in several polls.
Democrats, who face an uphill fight to oust the popular incumbent, see a glimmer of hope in Bush's re-elect numbers, convinced that independent voters are up for grabs. Republicans counter that the stability of Bush's approval ratings bode well for next year.
In a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, 50 percent said they would vote for Bush and 38 percent backed the unknown Democratic candidate, with the rest undecided. Those numbers aren't very different from those garnered by Bush's father in June 1991, when the commander in chief was praised for the U.S. success in the Persian Gulf War and the Democrats were scrambling for a candidate.
Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election.
``With job approval, you're asking how they feel right now,'' said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup poll. Bush's job approval ratings won't accurately reflect his potential until March or April next year, Newport said.
In the last three decades, presidents who failed to capture a second term--Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush--had job approval ratings in the 40s shortly before the election, according to Republican pollster Bill McInturff. Presidents who were re-elected, such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, were in the 50s before the vote.
The current Gallup poll found that 37 percent of Democrats approve of Bush's job performance, but only a third of those Democrats who approve would vote to re-elect him. Among independents, the re-elect numbers weren't as high as the approval ratings.
``What this means is that Democrats and independents who lean Democratic still want to consider other choices,'' said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. ``Bush will still have to convince swing voters that he's the right person for the job once a Democratic candidate emerges.''
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake argues that it will be hard for Bush to solidify his re-election support in tough economic times. She said the president's re-elect numbers are a sign that ``independents are in play.''
Bush's re-elect numbers are even lower in the Ipsos-Cook Political Report tracking poll, which showed a drop for the president from April to June, a time when the nation's focus shifted from the U.S.-led war against Iraq to the economy, Medicare and tax cuts.
In June, 42 percent of those polled said they would definitely vote to re-elect Bush, and 31 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else, with the remainder saying they would consider someone else. Bush had a 19-point advantage over an unnamed opponent in the April survey by the Ipsos-Cook Political Report.
Veteran pollster Warren Mitofsky said who the Democrats pick will definitely influence the support for Bush's re-election, noting:
``The real question for the Democrats is will they choose a candidate who's as good as people are looking for?''
Copyright 2003, The Associated Press
Usama Has Been Berry Berry Good to Me
Just as baseball was good to Garrett Morris in his classic (yet perhaps a bit racist) Saturday Night Live skit, Usama bin Laden has been very very good to President George W. Bush.
There was no better proof of Usama's largesse than at Monday's Republican Party fundraisers where Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney collected almost $6 million from some of their "everyday Joe" friends in New York City, Virginia, and Massachusetts.
At all the events, the sales pitch centered around, of course, terrorism.
"We have captured or killed many key leaders of al-Qaida, and the rest of them know we're hot on their trail," Bush told the people in the audience who paid $2,000 each to hear him.
Governor George Pataki added, "Thank God we have a president who, when our (country) was attacked in a way we never experienced before, understood it's not a time for national hand-wringing, it's a time for national leadership. On Sept. 11 and thereafter we could have never had a stronger leader for our country or a better friend for our city and state than George W. Bush."
All this is just a warm-up for the campaign's planned crescendo at the Republican National Convention, which is being held in, yes, you guessed it, New York City in late August/early September.
It's plain as day that Bush plans to get re-elected by riding on the "terrorism" issue, conjuring images of September 11th to help people in this country forget (as if we already needed any help forgetting) about the realities of a devastated economy, the post-invasion messes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the President's lying to the American people and the world to justify war, the dismantling of cherished freedoms, etc.
If it hadn't been for Usama, for all we know, we may have had the second impeachment in a row of a sitting president.
But all that's far behind him now as he cashes in, hoping to collect $170 million for a primary campaign where his only opponent will be an irritating facial smirk.
Posted by editor at June 24, 2003 12:03 AM / TrackBack
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/archives/000121.html
The Ends Still Don't Justify the Means
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
June 26, 2003
There was a time when the sickness of the political far left could best be defined by the rationale that the ends justified the means. Happily, support for revolutionary regimes claiming to advance the interests of their people through atrocious acts is now seen as an evil dead end by most on the left. Immoral and undemocratic means lead inevitably to immoral and undemocratic ends.
Unfortunately, junior Machiavellis claiming to wear the white hat still are running amok among us. This time, however, they are on the right, apologists for the Bush administration arguing that noble ends justify deceitful means.
With the administration's core rationale for invading Iraq – saving the world from Saddam Hussein's deadly arsenal – almost wholly discredited, the Republicans now want us to believe that any distortions of the truth should have been forgotten once we took Baghdad.
As Newt Gingrich put it last week: "Does even the most left-wing Democrat want to defend the proposition that the world would be better off with Saddam in power?"
The quick answer is that we don't know what the future holds for Iraq. Our track record of military interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere would lead any competent historian or Vegas bookie to conclude that a stable secular dictatorship is about the best outcome we can predict. But the larger, more frightening meaning of Gingrich's statement is that in order to rid the world of a tinhorn dictator who posed no credible threat to the United States, it was just dandy to lie to the people.
It was OK to lie about the nonexistent evidence of ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. It was OK to lie about the U.N. weapons inspectors, claiming they were suckered by Hussein. It was OK to lie, not only to Americans but to our allies in this war, about "intelligence" alleging that Iraq's military had chemical and biological weapons deployed in the field. Only it's not OK. Washington's verbal attack on the U.N. inspectors, for example, is of no small consequence, undermining global efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
Meanwhile, to justify a political faction's blunder we ignore core values upon which this country was built. The New York Times on Friday blithely referred to the use of "coercive" measures in interrogating former Iraqi scientists and officials. Apparently, protections in international treaties for political prisoners do not apply to us.
Similarly, the indefensible gambit of preemptive war has seriously damaged two of this nation's most precious commodities – our democracy and the reputation of our form of government. By giving Congress distorted and incomplete intelligence on Iraq, the Bush administration mocks what is most significant in the U.S. model: the notion of separation of powers and the spirit of the Constitution's mandate that only Congress has the power to declare war.
Is this an exaggeration? Consider that on Oct. 7, 2002, four days before Congress authorized the Iraq war, President Bush asserted that intelligence data proved Iraq had trained Al Qaeda "in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases." Yet no such proof existed. Never in modern times have we beheld a Congress so easily manipulated by the executive branch. Last week, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee caved in and dropped their opposition to closed hearings on whether Congress was lied to. How can they not be open to the public, which is expected under our system to hold the president and Congress accountable?
To be sure, many Americans were never fooled, and many more have become upset at seeing continuing casualties and chaos in Iraq after Bush's pricey aircraft carrier photo op signaled that the war was over. But much of our public has been too easily conned. For contrast, consider that in Britain the citizens, Parliament and media have been far more seriously engaged in questioning the premises of their government's participation in the invasion of Iraq.
This administration's behavior is an affront to the nation's founders and the system of governance they crafted. It is sad that we now have a president who acts like a king and a Congress that acts like his pawn.
© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction by Syndication Service only.
The Ends Still Don't Justify the Means
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
June 26, 2003
There was a time when the sickness of the political far left could best be defined by the rationale that the ends justified the means. Happily, support for revolutionary regimes claiming to advance the interests of their people through atrocious acts is now seen as an evil dead end by most on the left. Immoral and undemocratic means lead inevitably to immoral and undemocratic ends.
Unfortunately, junior Machiavellis claiming to wear the white hat still are running amok among us. This time, however, they are on the right, apologists for the Bush administration arguing that noble ends justify deceitful means.
With the administration's core rationale for invading Iraq – saving the world from Saddam Hussein's deadly arsenal – almost wholly discredited, the Republicans now want us to believe that any distortions of the truth should have been forgotten once we took Baghdad.
As Newt Gingrich put it last week: "Does even the most left-wing Democrat want to defend the proposition that the world would be better off with Saddam in power?"
The quick answer is that we don't know what the future holds for Iraq. Our track record of military interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere would lead any competent historian or Vegas bookie to conclude that a stable secular dictatorship is about the best outcome we can predict. But the larger, more frightening meaning of Gingrich's statement is that in order to rid the world of a tinhorn dictator who posed no credible threat to the United States, it was just dandy to lie to the people.
It was OK to lie about the nonexistent evidence of ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. It was OK to lie about the U.N. weapons inspectors, claiming they were suckered by Hussein. It was OK to lie, not only to Americans but to our allies in this war, about "intelligence" alleging that Iraq's military had chemical and biological weapons deployed in the field. Only it's not OK. Washington's verbal attack on the U.N. inspectors, for example, is of no small consequence, undermining global efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
Meanwhile, to justify a political faction's blunder we ignore core values upon which this country was built. The New York Times on Friday blithely referred to the use of "coercive" measures in interrogating former Iraqi scientists and officials. Apparently, protections in international treaties for political prisoners do not apply to us.
Similarly, the indefensible gambit of preemptive war has seriously damaged two of this nation's most precious commodities – our democracy and the reputation of our form of government. By giving Congress distorted and incomplete intelligence on Iraq, the Bush administration mocks what is most significant in the U.S. model: the notion of separation of powers and the spirit of the Constitution's mandate that only Congress has the power to declare war.
Is this an exaggeration? Consider that on Oct. 7, 2002, four days before Congress authorized the Iraq war, President Bush asserted that intelligence data proved Iraq had trained Al Qaeda "in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases." Yet no such proof existed. Never in modern times have we beheld a Congress so easily manipulated by the executive branch. Last week, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee caved in and dropped their opposition to closed hearings on whether Congress was lied to. How can they not be open to the public, which is expected under our system to hold the president and Congress accountable?
To be sure, many Americans were never fooled, and many more have become upset at seeing continuing casualties and chaos in Iraq after Bush's pricey aircraft carrier photo op signaled that the war was over. But much of our public has been too easily conned. For contrast, consider that in Britain the citizens, Parliament and media have been far more seriously engaged in questioning the premises of their government's participation in the invasion of Iraq.
This administration's behavior is an affront to the nation's founders and the system of governance they crafted. It is sad that we now have a president who acts like a king and a Congress that acts like his pawn.
© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction by Syndication Service only.
10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
June 27, 2003
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
– George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment need for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." – President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." – President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." – Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." – CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." – President Bush, Oct. 7.
LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." – President Bush, Oct. 7.
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." – President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.
LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." – Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." – President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
extelcom, What is the statute of limitation on sex crimes against children? Applying a statute of limitations poses specific problems with crimes against children?
If the predator can successfully scare, intimidate or shame a child into not speaking about the offense. The predator may be successful in avoiding prosecution because the child is afraid to speak up until years after the crime.
Kids will internalize or hide things from adults that should not be internalized or hidden, because they're kids and their judgement is often not the best. Kids are also easy to scare, intimidate or shame. This is especially true of kids who have been assaulted, I would imagine. Obviously, all of this works to the predators advantage. Sad!! Sometimes you have to wonder about who the justice system chooses to protect.....
Analysis: End to Iraqi disarray sought
By Derk Kinnane Roelofsma
Published 6/27/2003 4:50 PM
View printer-friendly version
WASHINGTON, June 27 (UPI) -- With daily killings of coalition troops, sabotage of oil pipelines, uncontrolled crime, continuing shortages of electricity and water, and rising Iraqi hostility to occupation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is looking, two months after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, for ways to end the disarray in U.S. policy on Iraq.
Writing in the New York Times last Thursday, John S. Burnett gave a snapshot of the current disorder. Reporting from southern Iraq, he wrote that among other ills:
"Lawlessness is endemic. Alongside the highway, boys scale electric poles with wire cutters (the electric cables have copper that can be sold) while their elders look on. To the south, in Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-sea port, young men climb atop trucks chartered by the World Food Program, casually tossing down 100-pound bags of flour to their friends waiting below, while a Spanish military unit guarding its ship stands by impotently only yards away. There is no police force of any note here -- and if a policeman had a gun and was to fire, he would just start his own interfamily war."
In an interview on June 17, an unnamed senior British official at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad told the Daily Telegraph of London that it was, "The single most chaotic organization I have ever worked for."
"The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," according to the official.
Last week, Patrick Cockburn, a British journalist particularly knowledgeable about Iraq, reported from Baghdad that the few Iraqis who have joined the authority describe the American officials administering Iraq as living in an air-conditioned fantasy world.
The head of the authority, L. Paul Bremer, speaking at an air-conditioned press conference, said that with a few exceptions, Baghdad was receiving 20 hours of electricity a day.
"'It simply isn't true,'" said one Iraqi, shaking his head in disbelief after listening to Bremer. "'Everybody in Baghdad knows it,'" Cockburn reported him as saying.
The day Burnett's account appeared, John Hamre -- the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prestigious Washington think-tank -- who had been deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, left for Iraq. He did so at the behest of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a CSIS spokesman told United Press International.
Hamre was heading a team of five that will spend about 10 days attending meetings in Baghdad and touring the country. As informal advisers, the team's task is to assess the reconstruction effort in Iraq for Rumsfeld and Bremer.
The Hamre mission came as U.S. military and diplomatic experts charged the Bush administration with bungling the post-conflict situation in Iraq.
"There is no longer anyway to tap dance around the responsibility of the administration for what more and more looks like a monumental bog up," Thomas Houlahan, told UPI. Houlahan is the Washington-based director of a military assessment program for James Madison University at Harrisburg, Va. He is also a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and staff officer with the 18th Airborne Corps.
The planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Houlahan says, "was very slipshod and not up to the standards of the U.S. Army."
Timothy Carney, a former U.S. ambassador who has just returned from two months in Iraq, has said much the same thing.
Carney, with long experience in post-conflict zones, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the White House failed to think through post-war plans and that there was a lack of resources and of priority for reconstruction efforts.
A grievous flaw in the initial U.S. post-conflict effort, the BBC reported him as saying, was that the reconstruction team was under the command of military officers who either did not understand or did not give sufficient priority to rebuilding Iraq. Reconstruction efforts were further hampered by a lack of troops, he said.
A well-known writer on military, Ralph Peters, told UPI there has been what he called a Stalinist refusal by the administration to admit that anything in its plan for Iraq could go wrong. Peters is a retired lieutenant colonel with a background in military intelligence.
Referring to the looting that followed the fall of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, Houlahan says U.S. irresponsibility, however unintentional, rises to the level of violation of the rules of war. "Once you are in a city, you are responsible for it," he said.
Asked how the White House and Defense Department went wrong, Houlahan answered that, "Virtually no thought at all went into what to do in Iraq after the war."
Rumsfeld, he said, "made the whole operation more difficult than it needed to be and increased the risks to the soldiers."
One result, Houlahan said, was that, "We are using armored forces for peacekeeping, when we have light divisions doing nothing."
Houlahan did not spare the military. "There are too many senior leaders in the armed forces who are boot-licking yes-men," he said. "If serious and well-presented objections had been raised, Rumsfeld would not have created so many problems."
Damage was done to the Army's structure in the Clinton years, Houlahan argued, in good part by the Army itself. Heroes of the Gulf war were passed over for promotion as too controversial. Instead, as he sees it, politicians in uniform got the promotions.
Peters, asserting that neo-conservatives such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others were behind the war, said they "talked themselves into believing a scenario in which the Iraqis would magically restructure themselves."
"The neo-cons underestimated the probability of resistance from Baath elements," Peters says. "Iraq has a population of about 23 million; 1 or 2 million had a real stake in the Baath system and of these tens of thousands remain emotionally committed to it."
Yonah Alexander of the Potomac Institute for Policy Analysis takes a similar view: "The White House and Pentagon thought that once a knockout blow was delivered to the Iraqi forces, they would be able to tell the Iraqis what to do."
So, Alexander says, there was no organization prepared to insure security and carry out reconstruction.
There is a window of opportunity to make good on the country's liberation, Alexander says, but it is closing fast.
Houlahan shares the same sense of urgency: "We need to get our act together in a matter of weeks, not months."
There is irony in Rumsfeld seeking advice from Hamre. According to CSIS, Hamre was chosen because Rumsfeld liked a CSIS report, published before the war, on what to do in post-conflict Iraq.
The report contained 10 recommendations by Hamre and Gordon Sullivan, president of the Association of the United States Army. The first was: "Create a Transitional Security Force that is effectively prepared, mandated, and staffed to handle post-conflict civil-security needs, including the need for constabulary forces."
Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush administration appear to have completely ignored the recommendation.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Analysis: End to Iraqi disarray sought
By Derk Kinnane Roelofsma
Published 6/27/2003 4:50 PM
View printer-friendly version
WASHINGTON, June 27 (UPI) -- With daily killings of coalition troops, sabotage of oil pipelines, uncontrolled crime, continuing shortages of electricity and water, and rising Iraqi hostility to occupation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is looking, two months after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, for ways to end the disarray in U.S. policy on Iraq.
Writing in the New York Times last Thursday, John S. Burnett gave a snapshot of the current disorder. Reporting from southern Iraq, he wrote that among other ills:
"Lawlessness is endemic. Alongside the highway, boys scale electric poles with wire cutters (the electric cables have copper that can be sold) while their elders look on. To the south, in Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-sea port, young men climb atop trucks chartered by the World Food Program, casually tossing down 100-pound bags of flour to their friends waiting below, while a Spanish military unit guarding its ship stands by impotently only yards away. There is no police force of any note here -- and if a policeman had a gun and was to fire, he would just start his own interfamily war."
In an interview on June 17, an unnamed senior British official at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad told the Daily Telegraph of London that it was, "The single most chaotic organization I have ever worked for."
"The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," according to the official.
Last week, Patrick Cockburn, a British journalist particularly knowledgeable about Iraq, reported from Baghdad that the few Iraqis who have joined the authority describe the American officials administering Iraq as living in an air-conditioned fantasy world.
The head of the authority, L. Paul Bremer, speaking at an air-conditioned press conference, said that with a few exceptions, Baghdad was receiving 20 hours of electricity a day.
"'It simply isn't true,'" said one Iraqi, shaking his head in disbelief after listening to Bremer. "'Everybody in Baghdad knows it,'" Cockburn reported him as saying.
The day Burnett's account appeared, John Hamre -- the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prestigious Washington think-tank -- who had been deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, left for Iraq. He did so at the behest of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a CSIS spokesman told United Press International.
Hamre was heading a team of five that will spend about 10 days attending meetings in Baghdad and touring the country. As informal advisers, the team's task is to assess the reconstruction effort in Iraq for Rumsfeld and Bremer.
The Hamre mission came as U.S. military and diplomatic experts charged the Bush administration with bungling the post-conflict situation in Iraq.
"There is no longer anyway to tap dance around the responsibility of the administration for what more and more looks like a monumental bog up," Thomas Houlahan, told UPI. Houlahan is the Washington-based director of a military assessment program for James Madison University at Harrisburg, Va. He is also a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and staff officer with the 18th Airborne Corps.
The planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Houlahan says, "was very slipshod and not up to the standards of the U.S. Army."
Timothy Carney, a former U.S. ambassador who has just returned from two months in Iraq, has said much the same thing.
Carney, with long experience in post-conflict zones, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the White House failed to think through post-war plans and that there was a lack of resources and of priority for reconstruction efforts.
A grievous flaw in the initial U.S. post-conflict effort, the BBC reported him as saying, was that the reconstruction team was under the command of military officers who either did not understand or did not give sufficient priority to rebuilding Iraq. Reconstruction efforts were further hampered by a lack of troops, he said.
A well-known writer on military, Ralph Peters, told UPI there has been what he called a Stalinist refusal by the administration to admit that anything in its plan for Iraq could go wrong. Peters is a retired lieutenant colonel with a background in military intelligence.
Referring to the looting that followed the fall of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, Houlahan says U.S. irresponsibility, however unintentional, rises to the level of violation of the rules of war. "Once you are in a city, you are responsible for it," he said.
Asked how the White House and Defense Department went wrong, Houlahan answered that, "Virtually no thought at all went into what to do in Iraq after the war."
Rumsfeld, he said, "made the whole operation more difficult than it needed to be and increased the risks to the soldiers."
One result, Houlahan said, was that, "We are using armored forces for peacekeeping, when we have light divisions doing nothing."
Houlahan did not spare the military. "There are too many senior leaders in the armed forces who are boot-licking yes-men," he said. "If serious and well-presented objections had been raised, Rumsfeld would not have created so many problems."
Damage was done to the Army's structure in the Clinton years, Houlahan argued, in good part by the Army itself. Heroes of the Gulf war were passed over for promotion as too controversial. Instead, as he sees it, politicians in uniform got the promotions.
Peters, asserting that neo-conservatives such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others were behind the war, said they "talked themselves into believing a scenario in which the Iraqis would magically restructure themselves."
"The neo-cons underestimated the probability of resistance from Baath elements," Peters says. "Iraq has a population of about 23 million; 1 or 2 million had a real stake in the Baath system and of these tens of thousands remain emotionally committed to it."
Yonah Alexander of the Potomac Institute for Policy Analysis takes a similar view: "The White House and Pentagon thought that once a knockout blow was delivered to the Iraqi forces, they would be able to tell the Iraqis what to do."
So, Alexander says, there was no organization prepared to insure security and carry out reconstruction.
There is a window of opportunity to make good on the country's liberation, Alexander says, but it is closing fast.
Houlahan shares the same sense of urgency: "We need to get our act together in a matter of weeks, not months."
There is irony in Rumsfeld seeking advice from Hamre. According to CSIS, Hamre was chosen because Rumsfeld liked a CSIS report, published before the war, on what to do in post-conflict Iraq.
The report contained 10 recommendations by Hamre and Gordon Sullivan, president of the Association of the United States Army. The first was: "Create a Transitional Security Force that is effectively prepared, mandated, and staffed to handle post-conflict civil-security needs, including the need for constabulary forces."
Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush administration appear to have completely ignored the recommendation.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Thanks for the explanation, Peg! :)
N.J. Court Hears Same-Sex Marriage Arguments
Jun 27, 2003 1:57 pm US/Eastern
TRENTON (AP) One day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law banning gay sex, an attorney for seven gay couples argued in a New Jersey courtroom that same-sex marriage should be legally recognized by the state.
A deputy attorney general countered that the issue belongs in the Legislature, not the courts.
Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg said she would not rule on the matter for at least two months.
Friday's hearing was on a state motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the same-sex couples.
Deputy Attorney General Patrick DeAlmeida said that while the state does not doubt the sincerity of committed relationships of same-sex couples, there is nothing in the New Jersey Constitution that guarantees their right to marriage.
David S. Buckel, the attorney for the couples, argued that the marriages should be allowed under the constitution's guarantees of equality and privacy.
Buckel said Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling was heartening to those seeking same-sex marriages.
"The federal Supreme Court sent a very strong message that the day has come when lesbian and gay couples are due dignity and respect," Buckel said.
(© 2003 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. )
Your Medical Privacy
By Jennifer Van Bergen
t r u t h o u t / Report
Monday 19 May 2003
http://truthout.org/docs_03/062403I.shtml
"Finally, it is not commonly known that your medical records are subject to the same provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that requires libraries to give federal law enforcement your computer usage and book borrowing information upon request without telling you. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act does not just apply to libraries. It applies to any records kept by a third party, including medical records. Thus, if federal law enforcement requested your medical records, your doctor would have to provide them and would not be able to tell you. HIPAA protection is utterly without teeth in this circumstance.
The problem with the PATRIOT Act’s intrusion into your medical records is that those records can be obtained by any FBI agent without probable cause that you are involved in any criminal activity at all. The agent need only certify that he seeks the records for a foreign intelligence investigation and the judge must rubber stamp the request."
================================================================
I had to "sign away" at the pediatrician's office and then again at the pharmacy -- swimmer's ear!!.. What is the impact on physician/patient confidentiality??.. The insurance industry is completely out of control -- a scam. The Patriot's Act presents a whole different set of concerns...
Your Medical Privacy
By Jennifer Van Bergen
t r u t h o u t / Report
Monday 19 May 2003
http://truthout.org/docs_03/062403I.shtml
"Finally, it is not commonly known that your medical records are subject to the same provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that requires libraries to give federal law enforcement your computer usage and book borrowing information upon request without telling you. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act does not just apply to libraries. It applies to any records kept by a third party, including medical records. Thus, if federal law enforcement requested your medical records, your doctor would have to provide them and would not be able to tell you. HIPAA protection is utterly without teeth in this circumstance.
The problem with the PATRIOT Act’s intrusion into your medical records is that those records can be obtained by any FBI agent without probable cause that you are involved in any criminal activity at all. The agent need only certify that he seeks the records for a foreign intelligence investigation and the judge must rubber stamp the request."
================================================================
brain, I had to "sign away" at the pediatrician's office and then again at the pharmacy -- swimmer's ear!!.. What is the impact on physician/patient confidentiality??.. The insurance industry is completely out of control -- a scam. The Patriot's Act presents a whole different set of concerns...
American military morale shaken by Iraq quagmire
By James Conachy
27 June 2003
Use this version to print / Send this link by email / Email the author
The daily attacks and acts of sabotage against American and British forces in Iraq testify that the real war of liberation has begun—a protracted struggle by the Iraqi people to drive the foreign invaders out of their country. If US control over Iraq is to be secured, it will require an indefinite occupation by tens of thousands of troops that will result in thousands of American casualties.
This grim reality is dawning on a constituency the Bush administration and the extreme right in the United States take for granted—the American armed forces. Over the past two weeks, reports have been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Herald that provide some indication of the fears among US troops and their families over the state of affairs in Iraq.
A lengthy New York Times feature on June 15 detailed the physical and psychological trauma of American troops in one unit—the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, which has been on deployment since last September and was one of the frontline units in the assault on Baghdad. Now policing in Baghdad’s eastern suburbs, the unit was supposed to have returned to the US in May but was kept in country due to the lack of security.
The troops are living 10 to a room in buildings without electricity, running water or air conditioning. Their days are taken up with patrolling streets that appear peaceful, but can erupt in gunfire without warning. Headlined “Anxious and Weary, GIs Face a New Iraq Mission,” the Times feature reported: “Some are haunted by the deaths they caused—and suffered—and have sought counseling. All are tired, hot and increasingly bitter. Morale has plummeted as sharply as the temperature has risen.”
According to the Times, the soldiers’ families were told on May 21 to stop sending them mail in an attempt to decrease homesickness. Some troops have sought counseling after hearing reports of sick families or unfaithful wives. One soldier told the Times: “You call Donald Rumsfeld and tell him our sorry asses are ready to come home.”
A total of 146,000 US military personnel remain in Iraq, along with some 15,000 British troops. They are stretched to the breaking point attempting to enforce the authority of the US occupation, and exert no meaningful control over large swathes of the country—including entire suburbs of Baghdad like the predominantly Shi’ite “Sadr City.” The Washington Post reported June 25 that just 35 US troops are stationed in the Iraqi province of Diyala, which has a population of 1.4 million and extends from Baghdad’s northeastern suburbs to the border with Iran.
Under such conditions, Iraqi guerillas are demonstrating an ability to move freely in and out of major cities and oil fields to launch attacks on US forces and carry out acts of sabotage. They are doing so with increasing signs of coordination and skill. Since May 1, when Bush declared the US military mission in Iraq to have been successfully completed, 57 US troops have been killed in combat and accidents, and dozens have suffered serious injuries.
Two American soldiers and two Iraqis working with the Americans were killed June 26, and at least nine US troops were wounded in three separate attacks outside Baghdad. Between June 24 and 25, US vehicles were attacked on the main road to Baghdad airport, in the city’s western suburbs, and in the town of Hilla, located 45 miles south of the capital. The attacks killed two marines and wounded at least six, as well as killing two Iraqi power workers working with the occupation forces.
Most of Baghdad has been without any power since June 23, allegedly due to a sabotage attack on power lines north of the city. Fuel pipelines needed to restore oil exports have been sabotaged four times in the last two weeks. At least 65 of the electricity transmission towers supplying the port of Umm Qasr and the southern oilfields have been destroyed.
On June 26, the Arab cable network Al Jazeera reported statements by two Iraqi organizations, the Mujahedeen of the Victorious Sect and the Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq, calling for resistance to the American occupation. Such organizations have no lack of potential recruits.
The hatred of the Iraqi people for the occupying forces is obvious to the US troops on the ground. The Washington Post published a feature on June 19 headlined “US Troops Frustrated with Role in Iraq.” An army sergeant from the Fourth Infantry Division stationed in the town of Baqubah told the Post reporters: “What are we doing here? The war is supposed to be over but every day we hear of another soldier getting killed. Is it worth it? Saddam isn’t in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we here?” A soldier at a checkpoint told the Post: “Tell president Bush to bring us home.”
The retaliation of the US forces against attacks—roadblocks, curfews, weapons searches, detentions and the killing of numerous civilians—has only strengthened the anti-occupation sentiment among Iraqis. An engineering officer stationed in Baqubah informed the Post that when they had arrived “every single person was waving at us” but now, “they just stare.”
The difficulties of professional soldiers in units like the Third Infantry are amplified for the thousands of reservists—part-time soldiers—who have been called up from their civilian jobs. Of the 1.2 million military reservists and National Guard in the US, 212,000 are currently mobilized to support or replace the troops taking part in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The New York Times reported June 22 on the financial stress some reservists’ families are under due to the loss of income. Military pay is sometimes half the civilian salary of skilled reservists, such as doctors, aircraft mechanics and executives. A Northwest Airlines aircraft mechanic interviewed by the Times has seen his pay fall from $6,000 a month to $3,000 since he was called up and sent to Kuwait, and he has been informed he is among the 4,900 Northwest workers who will be laid off this year.
The Boston Herald on June 25 published a report on the growing concerns and doubts among family members of soldiers stationed in Iraq. Gail Fahey, whose twin 23-year-old son and daughter are both in Iraq, told the Herald: “It’s a little nerve-wracking right now because of the unrest with the [Iraqi] citizens over there. My son wrote to me and said, ‘you don’t trust anybody, you don’t turn your back on anybody.’”
Jim Doherty, whose 21-year old son mans a Humvee patrolling the road to Baghdad airport, told the Herald: “I have friends saying ‘the worst is over, he’s all set and you don’t have anything to worry about.’ I often think: ‘Why don’t you tell that to the parents of the last soldier who got killed? It’s a daily battle, you know.’”
As in the Vietnam War, the eruption of US militarism will have a vast impact on the attitude of the American people toward American foreign policy and the military establishment. If they do not know already, they will inevitably come to know they were lied to about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq. There are no “weapons of mass destruction” that threatened the US; Iraq had no involvement in the attack on the World Trade Center or connections to Islamic terrorist groups; and whatever the Iraqi people’s attitude toward the Baathist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, they did not welcome the American and British forces as “liberators.”
The real reasons why American troops are in the Middle East and Central Asia are oil and world power. Young people who voluntarily enlisted in the US armed forces to get a decent job, some skills or a college grant are killing and dying so American corporations can plunder the region’s wealth and resources. At a certain point it is likely they will, in large numbers, stop volunteering, and the government will have to force them to fight by conscripting them.
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
Giving equal time to the lies of Baghdad Bob...
Political lies and propaganda are an amazing thing! But issue now is credibility.
Who is more credible, Baghdad Bob or President Bush??...
Actual Quotes From the Iraqi Information Minister
(aka 'Baghdad Bob')
"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"
"My feelings - as usual - we will slaughter them all"
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die"
"I blame Al-Jazeera - they are marketing for the Americans!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."
'We have destroyed 2 tanks, fighter planes, 2 helicopters and their shovels - We have driven them back."
"Surrender or be burned in their tanks."
"No I am not scared and neither should you be!"
"We have them surrounded in their tanks"
Britain "is not worth an old shoe."
Of U.S. troops: "They are most welcome. We will butcher them."
"We will welcome them with bullets and shoes."
"Washington has thrown their soldiers on the fire"
"These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying"
"They're not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."
"They do not even have control over themselves! Do not believe them!"
"Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege."
"They tried to bring a small number of tanks and personnel carriers in through al-Durah but they were surrounded and most of their infidels had their throats cut."
"We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein's soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly."
"On this occasion, I am not going to mention the number of the infidels who were killed and the number of destroyed vehicles. The operation continues"
"We're giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn't accurately describe the level of casualties we have inflicted."
"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."
"Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected."
"NO", snapped Mr al-Sahaf, "We have retaken the airport. There are NO Americans there. I will take you there and show you. IN ONE HOUR!"
"We defeated them yesterday. God willing, I will provide you with more information. I swear by God, I swear by God, those who are staying in Washington and London have thrown these mercenaries in a crematorium."
"Please, please! The Americans are relying on what I called yesterday a desperate and stupid method."
"They will be burnt. We are going to tackle them"
"We blocked them inside the city. Their rear is blocked"
"Desperate Americans"
"Today we slaughtered them in the airport. They are out of Saddam International Airport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed."
"Their casualties and bodies are many."
[On surrenders] "Those are not Iraqi soldiers at all. Where did they bring them from?"
"Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame Al-Jazeera before it ascertains what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."
"Search for the truth. I tell you things and I always ask you to verify what I say. I told you yesterday that there was an attack and a retreat at Saddam's airport."
"You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is okay."
"This boa, the American columns, are being besieged between Basra and other towns north, west, south and west of Basra....Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there."
"By God, I think this is rather very unlikely. This is merely a prattle. The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them....Wherever they go they will find themselves encircled."
"Listen, this explosion does not frighten us any longer. The cruise missiles do not frighten anyone. We are catching them like fish in a river. I mean here that over the past two days we managed to shoot down 196 missiles before they hit their target."
"Blair...is accusing us of executing British soldiers. We want to tell him that we have not executed anybody. They are either killed in battle, most of them get killed because they are cowards anyway, the rest they just get captured."
"They fled. The American louts fled. Indeed, concerning the fighting waged by the heroes of the Arab Socialist Baath Party yesterday, one amazing thing really is the cowardice of the American soldiers. we had not anticipated this."
"The louts of colonialism."
"It has been rumored that we have fired scud missiles into Kuwait. I am here now to tell you, we do not have any scud missiles and I don't know why they were fired into Kuwait."
"W. Bush, this man is a war criminal, and we will see that he is brought to trial"
"I think the British nation has never been faced with a tragedy like this fellow [Blair]."
"The United Nations....[is] a place for prostitution under the feet of Americans."
"They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind."
"They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone."
"Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr are giving the hordes of American and Brtish mercenaries the taste of definite death. We have drawn them into a quagmire and they will never get out of it."
"What they say about a breakthrough [in Najaf] is completely an illusion. They are sending their warplanes to fly very low in order to have vibrations on these sacred places . . . they are trying to crack the buildings by flying low over them."
"Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds. ... The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues."
"Yesterday, we slaughtered them and we will continue to slaughter them."
"We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp"
"When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics the grandfathers of Blair and little Bush were scratching around in caves"
About Bush: "the leader of the international criminal gang of bastards."
About Bush and Rumsfeld: "Those only deserve to be hit with shoes."
Source: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (aka "Baghdad Bob"), compiled by WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com
LOL! You got that right!!
10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
June 27, 2003
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
– George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment need for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." – President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." – President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." – Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." – CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." – President Bush, Oct. 7.
LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." – President Bush, Oct. 7.
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." – President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.
LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." – Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." – President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
Senators Predict 5-Year Presence in Iraq
Mon June 23, 2003 05:45 PM ET
By Will Dunham
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2975453
U.N. committee: No Iraq-al-Qaeda link
Posted 6/26/2003 12:57 PM Updated 6/26/2003 2:30 PM
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. terrorism committee has found no evidence to support Bush administration claims of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and the United States has provided the committee with no proof, officials said Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-26-iraq-alqaeda_x.htm
Big boost for privacy rights
In a ruling on a Texas law, the Supreme Court strengthened both gay rights and abortion rights.
By Warren Richey and Linda Feldmann / Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court has drawn a thick constitutional curtain around the nation's bedrooms.
In a landmark 6-to-3 decision announced Thursday, America's highest court commanded the states to get out of the business of attempting to regulate what can or can't happen within private, intimate relationships between consenting adults. Instead, five of the six majority justices ruled that Americans enjoy a fundamental right to conduct the most personal and private aspects of their lives free from the prying eyes of government officials.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p01s01-usju.html?mostViewed
Economy Downs Bush's Re-Election Support
The Associated Press
Wednesday 25 June 2003
President Bush basks in high approval ratings, but when potential voters are pressed about giving him a second term, the numbers drop, a reflection of worries about the struggling economy and a general wait-and-see attitude so far ahead of the election.
Bush's overall approval ratings have remained at 60 percent or higher in most polls since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But now that the electorate is turning to thinking about Bush's handling of the economy and wondering who the Democrats will nominate, the president's re-elect numbers are at 50 percent or lower in several polls.
In a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, 50 percent said they would vote for Bush and 38 percent backed the unknown Democratic candidate, with the rest undecided. Those numbers aren't very different from those garnered by Bush's father in June 1991, when the commander in chief was praised for the U.S. success in the Persian Gulf War and the Democrats were scrambling for a candidate.
Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election.
"With job approval, you're asking how they feel right now," said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup poll. Bush's job approval ratings won't accurately reflect his potential until March or April next year, Newport said.
The current poll also found that 37 percent of Democrats approve of Bush's job performance, but only a third of those Democrats who approve would vote to re-elect him. Among independents, the re-elect numbers weren't as high as the approval ratings.
"What this means is that Democrats and independents who lean Democratic still want to consider other choices," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "Bush will still have to convince swing voters that he's the right person for the job once a Democratic candidate emerges.
"It also says the public wants an election campaign and wants to see what the Democratic candidate will say," Kohut said.
Bush's re-elect numbers are even lower in the Ipsos-Cook Political Report tracking poll, which showed a drop for the president from April to June, a time when the nation's focus shifted from the U.S.-led war against Iraq to the economy, Medicare and tax cuts.
In June, 42 percent of those polled said they would definitely vote to re-elect Bush, and 31 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else. Bush had a 19-point advantage over an unnamed opponent in the April survey by the Ipsos-Cook Political Report.
Thomas Riehle, president of Ipsos Public Affairs, said the reason was simple: It's the economy.
For Democrats, struggling with a field of nine candidates and facing a Bush fund-raising machine that has raked in millions, the numbers provide some hope _ and a challenge. Veteran pollster Warren Mitofsky said who the Democrats pick will influence the support for Bush's re-election.
"The real question for the Democrats is will they choose a candidate who's as good as people are looking for?" Mitofsky said.
Pollsters also point to an inherent problem in asking people whether they favor the president or a hypothetical opponent.
"People can pick their favorite candidate, or they could pick someone who's not even in the field," said Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University poll. "People can pick their own fantasy candidate."
© : t r u t h o u t 2003
The comparisons are very naive...
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/3450/nexthitler.html
If I gave the impression that I believed Sara was a denier, it was a miscommunication. I didn't intend to insinuate that at all, and I don't believe my post made that insinuation. If it did, obviously I apologise to her...
My posts were in response to comparison of Bush's invasion of Iraq to Hitler's invasion of Poland, which I think is a ridiculous comparison, btw...
I have been grossly critical of Bush's invasion of Iraq, as you know. Beyond the fact that Bush & Hitler both invaded another nation, what comparison is there?... And how, by referencing the Polish Holocaust and it's "forgotten victims" could anyone reasonably infer that I was a "violent nut" - or whatever??...
FWIW, I also know the children of Polish Holocaust survivors, Jews & Christians. Hitler, a genocidal lunatic, and committed the most profound atrocities in Poland. The atrocities were so profound the children of survivors still "feel" the terror. None would compare the invasion of Iraq to the invasion of Poland - where literally millions lost their lives to the genocidal policies of a regime that was the epitome of evil. Both countries were physically invaded, but that's where the similarities end, imo. And nations have been invading eachother since BEFORE man walked in a upright position. That doesn't make it right. But Poland was an epic atrocity. To compare it to Iraq does a disservice to the survivors and to the history of the Polish people...
Now would you please explain what would give one the opinion that myself or others were "arrogant, violent and nuts"...
"They happen to think that you and most of the other people on this board are arrogant, violent and nuts."
What "others" are you talking about??...
U.S. court reverses anti-gay sex laws
Associated Press
Thursday, June 26, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.
The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.
The case is a major re-examination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state's ability to classify as a crime what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults.
Thursday's ruling invalidated a Texas law against "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex."
Defending that law, Texas officials said that it promoted the institutions of marriage and family, and argued that communities have the right to choose their own standards.
The law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.
Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare. Those on the books are rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for two Texas men had argued to the court.
The men "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Kennedy wrote.
"The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," he said.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy's rationale.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
"The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.
"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said, adding that he has "nothing against homosexuals."
The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, have retreated from public view. They were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanour sex charge in 1998.
The case began when a neighbour with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men having anal sex.
As recently as 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed or blocked by state courts.
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four _ Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri _ prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
Thursday's ruling apparently invalidates those laws as well.
The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld an anti-sodomy law similar to Texas'. The ruling became a rallying point for gay activists.
Of the nine justices who ruled on the 1986 case, only three remain on the court. Rehnquist was in the majority in that case _ Bowers vs. Hardwick _ as was O'Connor. Stevens dissented.
The case is Lawrence vs. Texas, 02-102.
© Copyright 2003 Assoriated Press
Another ridiculous comparison, or maybe I just don't get it:
Hitler, Stalin ... and Clinton?
Newspaper poll ranks president second among most evil
11/18/99
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© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
A New York Post survey of readers sampling nearly 20,000 people ranks Bill Clinton second to Adolf Hitler as the most evil person of the millennium.
Hitler received 8.67 percent, or 1,664 votes, and Clinton received 8.47 percent, or 1,625, placing him well above mass-murdering Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who got 6.69 percent, or 1,284 votes.
What makes the president's appearance on the survey more astonishing is respondents had to write his name in, while Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Dr. Josef Mengele and others were listed on the survey. First lady Hillary Clinton came in sixth on the survey, with 3.99 percent and 765 votes -- all write-ins.
Others on the list included Saddam Hussein, Charles Manson, Idi Amin, Genghis Khan, Jeffrey Dahmer, Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Ivan the Terrible, Fidel Castro, Vlad the Impaler, Timothy McVeigh and Marquis de Sade.
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Sara, I didn't say you we a "denier", and I don't believe you are. My point is -- we can disagree with Bush's policies, but he is not Hitler. As you know, I am not a Bush supporter. I don't like the direction of US foreign policy, but there is no comparison to Nazism. It seems that everyone loves to hate or loves to blame the US for everything today. And much of the blame or outrage is warranted, but not all. And we are certainly not homicidal people. We are not Nazis.
There are many "holocaust deniers" and there should be no "forgotten victims" of the Nazi holocaust or any other. Thruout history there have been many holocausts and many aggressive programs of genocide. There is a holocaust going on in Africa today. We don't "deny" that holocaust. We ignore it. Bush's agenda, the American agenda is not a program of extermination.
As those who fail to learn from history are damned to repeat it, so too are those who choose to distort history. To say Bush is like Hitler is a distortion. Hitler is the essence of evil. Bush is something else.....
"genocidal lunatic" -- But that particular piece was the essence of Adolph Hitler. Any other similarities between George Bush and Adolph Hitler are purely peripheral. One could find certain similarities between all leaders...
There have been many mass murderers thruout history. Hitler is by far the most notorious. The essence of Hitler was pure, and unfathomable evil. Because Hitler's persona remains an enigma to humanity, because Hilter's evil is beyond human comprehension, because an entire nation followed Hitler's evil, many believe Hitler to be an "anti-Christ"..... Bush is not Hitler. Bush is many things, and many not good, but Bush is not a homicidal lunatic. Any similarities between Bush and Hitler are incidental.
Agreed. Hitler blamed the Jews for all that ailed Germany. He murdered 6 mil Jews and millions of others. Bush is out to secure oil interests, and I am no Bush fan. But Bush is no genocidal lunatic.
To dislike a person(s) is one thing. To blame them for your problems is one thing. To plot to murder them is another. A program of genocide is not part of the Bush Admin's agenda.
It is safe to assume "conservative" Christians do not hold homosexuals or feminists in high regard, but they have no program of genocide. One can dislike a person or group of persons. Murder is a whole different thing... Hitler was a genocidal lunatic. George Bush is alot of things. But he is not a genocidal lunatic. Another example....
Yes, unless you believe extermination and genocide is the goal of the Bush Admin in it's invasion and occupation, a comparison between Bush and Hitler is ridiculous. Bush wants oil, ie "securing American interests". Hitler was a genocidal maniac who's goal was the extermination of the Jewish people and other groups he despised.
If you think there is a reasonable comparison between Bush's invasion and occupation and Hitler's, please explain. There is a reasonable comparison between radical, theopolitical Islam and Nazism, tho. Do you think Bush's goal is to exterminate the Iraqi people - to murder millions of Sunnis, Shias or Christians in Iraq??
Here's an analogy as to intent...
Several years back someone(s) broke into my house and stole "stuff" -- lots of "stuff" like cameras, cell phones and electronics, cash and a ring... They broke into my house and took my "stuff" -- my material possessions. They stole from other's too. They were bad kids. There intention was to steal, but not murder. Their goal in breaking and entering was to steal... For the purpose of example... Charles Manson also broke and entered into people's homes. He also stole. But Manson and Company's primary purpose for breaking and entering was not steal. It was to murder people who's lifestyle, etc, he found offensive. A comparison between my theif and Manson is ridiculous as well...
Bush invaded and occupied to secure oil interests. Hitler invaded and occupied to murder those he found offensive. Yet both Bush and Hilter did invade and occupy... I'm not defending Bush. I am saying there is little reasonable comparison between Bush and Hitler...
BTW, you never explained how someone reading my "forgotten victims" post could conclude I was violent, or nuts, etc. Please explain??...
CT, I think I might be missing the point of your response?
My post referenced the 6.5 mil Poles slaughtered by Hitler's Nazi regime during WW2. More than half of those Poles slaughtered are considered "forgotten victims" and I find that very sad. As I said, no victim should be "forgotten". Why my post would be offensive to anyone or cause anyone to think I'm "arrogant, violent or nuts", I have no idea.... Maybe you could explain?...
To compare Bush and Americans to Hitler and Nazis is a ridiculous comparison... And that is not a justification of US foreign policy... But as we are very much aware, Hitler had some very demented, evil goals, to say the least... One goal was to exterminate the Jews, and everyone else he didn't like. Adolph Hitler was a genocidal maniac. George Bush is not!
The American military and foreign policy has taken too many lives, but genocide was not the goal. Genocide was Hitler's primary objective. The US is out to secure it's "interests" around the world, monetary & strategic - oil being an "interest". Hitler was out to exterminate entire groups of people. George Bush is an aggressor. Nearly 4k people died in his unfounded oil war in Iraq. That's tragic. He destroyed & is occupying Iraq - for oil. One could even argue that Bush is a "war criminal" for his adventures in Iraq, but one could not reasonably argue that Bush's ultimate goal is to exterminate millions of people...
George Bush is out for American domination, no question. Hitler was on a genocidal rampage. There's a big difference, CT.
Genocides, Politicides, and Other Mass Murder Since 1945, With Stages in 2002
http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocidetable.htm
Saddam certainly is not the only tyrannical despot. But Iraq was needed to secure US interests (OIL!!) in the region....
The above list is very long and millions have died since WW2. Genocide continues......