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You seem grossly naive, but still have the right to express your opinion too. Is this a great country or what, yayaayyaaa???...:)
Who said I'm angry?? But this is our country and we still have the freedom to be "angry" if we so choose. Or has "angry" become "unpatriotic" or "un-American"??...
ANALYSIS: ISRAEL'S KILLING OF A SENIOR HAMAS LEADER HAS SPARKED CALLS FOR REVENGE
Weekend Edition Sunday: June 22, 2003
Sharon Defends Killing of Top Hamas Leader
LIANE HANSEN, host:
http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/transcripts/2003/jun/030622.gradstein.html
How many "Senior Hamas Officials" are there in Israel?? Seems like every time an Arab guy dies they call him a "Senior Hamas Official"... Politics is politics, I guess - spin and all.
No - but I'm sure they'd LOOOVE! you on "NoLib"! Yayaa & NoLib, Perfect Together!..
THEY IMPEACH MURDERERS, DON'T THEY?
Mon Jun 16, 1:47 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Ted Rall to My Yahoo!
By Ted Rall
Bush Must Step Down
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=13&u=/030616/7/4esz6....
You might want to try the "NoLib" board. Sox & I have been banned. I'm sure you'd feel right "at home"... :)
Ditto -- Maine! We all suffer a lapse of rationality from time to time. We're human....
Stick with the far-right, yayayaaa! I'm not interested!
Who cares! ???.. Bush & the Boyz have made the world a much more hostile and dangerous place for Americans. That matters! And THAT can not be repealed. As for Bush's "tax cut", it's a gimick to make him look strong domestically. And Bush is deathly afraid of his father's fate. Without an equal reduction in spending, a tax cut is fiscally irresponsible. Bush may have inherited a burst bubble, and there are severe economic consequences, but Bush's irresponsible policies have greatly exacerbated the problems. Like I said, "Anyone But Bush!".
BTW, Interesting that you never answered... Why direct public funding of private, "faith based initiatives" rather than encouraging indirect funding thru the tax code?
I have no wagon, yayayayaaa. Nor any candidate preference as yet. My motto, tho: Anyone But Bush! Think ayayayaa, how "foolish" was the "State of the Union" in retrospect... And how much more foolish it will become?...
"Read My Lips!" -- "With us, or with the terrorists"...
Your point is - what??.. Have you seen the rap sheets of the Bush offspring, or the Prez himself?.. Ol'Prescott and Young Neal are/were hardly model citizens.
Maybe Mazen was involved with the 1982 Olympic terrorism...
If so, the roadmap involves nothing more than the usual cast of Palestinian terrorist thugs.
Mazen:
http://www.truepeace.org/download/truepeace127.pdf
If this is true why has the US media "white washed" Mazen the new PM? And why do these guys have 2 names Abu Mazen/Mahmoud Abbas??...
I don't know if they, Snow and Collins, should switch -- or stand their ground as "moderate", so-called "liberal" NE Reps. Howard Dean, a Dem, sounds of similar political ideology - a fiscal conservative (which the country desperately needs right now, imo!) and "liberal" on some social issues (equal rights for all??..) while socially conservative on others (death penalty, welfare reform). Interesting...
I don't think Reps or fiscal "conservatives" from the NE or where ever should belly up or run from the fanatics running the show now. Now more than ever is the time to stick to your convictions and stand-up for what you believe in...
At the risk of sounding extremely divisive, the NE is not "Bush Country" - ideologically. His extreme social conservatism is inconsistent with the general ideology of the NE, and the West Coast too... But people have become very complacent, apathetic, or fear ridden from 9/11.
How 'bout Gov. Christie for Prez??... She came out of no where and darn near unseated Bill Bradley, with minimal $$ resources in comparison. Ya never know.... Imagine how the extremists on the far-right would "villify" Christie, a "pro-choice", "moderate", FEMALE! ???... It would be interesting...
I know the Palestinians don't wear turbans and burqas. I was making a weird statement on prejudice. Personally, I think I could handle anything but that - "observant" Islam, from that region. Maybe from here too. I don't know, maybe I don't have the guts to admit the debth of my own bias. But as a parent, I couldn't handle the burqa or turban....
You make a good point too about Sharon politically. He is showing a willingness to make peace. The other side will not make the same effort, imo.
What is your opinion of Mazen? I think he probably is well intentioned but limited by Arafat and that "establishment". The rank & file Arab Israelis exist within a society where their leadership is blatantly anti-Jew and Jewish State. There is an influence, imo. If you grow up learning that something or someone is bad, you are effected.
Strange the word "Hamas" has come to mean "hate" for so many...
Thanks for the clarification, brainlessone. So if you or I "had been resident in the british mandate for one year" we could call ourselves "Palestinian"?.. Interesting... So how is it 60% of Jordanians are considered "Palestinian"? Or are they considered "Palestinian"? Or are they simply Arabs from Jordan?
In an personal opinion about face -- I think Sharon has caved to global pressure and terrorism "fatigue". There are too many in Gaza and the West Bank who consider all of Israel occupied - by Jews. And if they are given Gaza and the West Bank the anti-Jewish State factions will want more, and more.
Maybe it is hopeless. Maybe there is no real solution, other than managing and assaulting terrorism in a land that reminds me of the Michael Douglas - Sharon Stone movie "The War of the Roses". And we all know how that one ended... And maybe because the 3 major religions trace their roots to the Holy Land, the world is doomed to forever battle over the land. Who knows...
Would you take your family to visit Israel now? I would not. Too much violence, and turmoil. And WE are not martyrs... Sad!!
Al Qaeda mutating like a virus
Terror networks operating with renewed vigour
Iraq war helping bin Laden recruit suicide bombers
OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER
In a slum neighbourhood of Casablanca last month, 14 impoverished Moroccans were set to make history.
Mostly semi-literate, they included a street vendor, a shoe repairman and at least half a dozen unemployed men in their 20s.
Hundreds of kilometres away, two well-educated, middle-class young British men of Pakistani background were also on their way to an appointment with fate, in Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv.
And in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at least nine Arab men were co-ordinating a deadly plan that would be carried out in complete secrecy, confounding law-enforcement authorities in the Middle East and America.
At first glance, these three groups, totalling 25 men, had little in common. But all were suicide bombers determined to carry out their goal of sowing terror among Westerners and those singled out as enemies of their extreme sects of Islam.
For the West, the message was clear: International terrorist networks are operating with renewed vigour, in spite of U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Equally disturbing, analysts say, is the fact that so many people, from such diverse backgrounds and origins, have carried out such devastating attacks in the space of a month — leaving more than 65 people dead and hundreds injured.
This, they say, is a sign that, in the second year after the devastating Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" has not been won. Nor has U.S. President George W. Bush's assertion that a "corner's been turned" against these lethal groups been borne out.
Instead, there is evidence that the Iraq war has actually helped to strengthen and expand the networks, obscuring the advances that countries have made in bolstering their national security.
"This is a war of attrition and it's an infinite war," says Bruce Hoffman, director of the Rand Corporation's Washington, D.C., office and author of Inside Terrorism.
"You can say a corner has been turned, but there's another corner just in front of you."
Since the fateful morning of Sept. 11, 2001, progress has undoubtedly been made against the Al Qaeda network and its leaders and operatives by American, Canadian and European anti-terrorist operations.
And reluctantly or voluntarily, Middle Eastern and Asian countries have joined in, with the loss of dozens of law enforcers' lives.
"The real headline is that terrorism has been tentatively contained in North America and Europe," says Jonathan Stevenson, editor of an annual strategic survey published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
"Al Qaeda hasn't been defeated. But since Sept. 11, there have been no more attacks in those countries, and there have been significant arrests."
Worldwide, more than 2,000 people linked to Al Qaeda have been arrested and thousands more have been detained, questioned and sometimes brutalized.
Laws have been tightened in the West to allow more intrusive surveillance and more extensive searches. Financial rules have been changed to catch the funders of international terrorism and Internet users are being monitored as never before.
The war in Afghanistan produced vital intelligence on Al Qaeda and its plans and operatives, as Western military forces and journalists found thousands of the network's crucial documents in bomb-blasted ruins.
Armed with this intelligence, Washington put the squeeze on countries such as Pakistan and the Philippines for information that was previously jealously guarded by those countries' spy services. Having witnessed the fate of the Taliban, they responded swiftly.
Meanwhile, closer co-operation among Western intelligence services helped to plug some of the gaps that existed since World War II.
And the United States and other Western countries moved to end animosities within their own agencies that had caused blunders and wasted efforts.
The worldwide campaign, coupled with the Afghan war, resulted in a great leap forward in the understanding of how Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups work.
American intelligence sources say the draconian measures have delivered significant blows to Al Qaeda and its associates, shattering their bases of operations, breaking up their financial pipelines, killing some of their leaders and putting thousands of operatives on the run.
That's the good news.
But the bad news, delivered over the past month of spectacular killings, shows that, like a virus, Al Qaeda and its allies are fragmenting, mutating and spreading again.
Part of the problem, analysts say, was the war in Iraq, which unsurprisingly created a new wave of animosity toward the United States and Britain, acting as an effective recruiting tool among disaffected Muslims.
The failure to locate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the existence of which were used to justify the invasion, has reinforced the belief that America was cynically "sacrificing blood for oil" in a desperately poor and barely functioning country.
But most alarming, Middle East experts say, is the sacrifice of the long-term U.S. policy of supporting secular, rather than Islamic governments in the region, leaving the way open for extremists.
"This war has been a gift to Osama bin Laden," says Saad al-Fagih, the London-based director of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia.
"First of all, very few people in the region supported his argument that America wanted hegemony over the Middle East. At the same time, they believed that if there were an invasion of Iraq, the Baath party and its supporters would put up a serious fight."
However, al-Fagih says, "the fact that America actually waged war in Iraq showed that bin Laden was right. And when the Baath party supporters gave up so easily, it was a major defeat for secular Arab nationalism."
Al Qaeda, which is fighting to install an extreme form of Islam across the Muslim world, has become an even-stronger magnet for disaffected Muslims who feel the only way of stopping Washington's mammoth military machine is through terrorist action.
"Before Sept. 11, " says Saudi-born al-Fagih, who has closely followed the growth of Al Qaeda, "bin Laden and the jihadi groups were separate. But those groups have now integrated themselves into the Al Qaeda strategy."
The network, whose title means "the base," now consists of three elements: fighters who are personally loyal to bin Laden and number up to 600; a worldwide support network of thousands who offer money, shelter and logistical help; and a new group of Islamic scholars devoted to jihad, or holy war, whose ideology attracts and inflames supporters.
Using the Internet, the Islamists are spreading their gospel to potential new recruits in the West as well as in the developing world. For some, the Internet is a gateway to membership in militant groups; for others, it's an aid to studies they have already undertaken with local extremists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`We must look at terrorism as a fundamental condition for international security in the 21st century'
Bruce Hoffman, author of "Inside Terrorism"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recent Tel Aviv bombing, by two young Britons of Asian origin, was chilling evidence of the global reach of radicalism.
The pair's decision to travel halfway across the world to give their lives for a cause that was not their own — that of Palestinian sovereignty — is barely understandable to other Westerners. But they were not alone.
In a recent article in the Sunday Telegraph, British Muslims who were drawn to religious schools in Damascus said they admired the Tel Aviv suicide bombing and believed it was part of a global struggle.
They are among dozens who leave their homes in the British Midlands each year to study in religious schools in Muslim countries, where extreme forms of Islam are taught.
"America and Britain are attempting to create a new world order by annihilating our God, but they will not be successful," a Damascus school administrator told the newspaper. "Do not call these people suicide bombers ... martyrdom is a glorious fulfillment of the requirements of Allah."
The new recruits to bin Laden's cause represent a new generation of terrorism.
"In Afghanistan, there's no longer a military target for Al Qaeda's enemies," says Stevenson. "The war disrupted the comfortable physical base and eliminated a drawing card for training. But it also forced an already decentralized organization to become even more decentralized. Its members have dispersed and integrated into other societies."
Setting up cells in developing countries with inadequate law enforcement is easiest for would-be bombers. And their co-operation with local Islamist groups has created what the IISS calls "a potent transnational terrorist organization that could take a generation to dismantle."
According to intelligence reports, those currently co-operating with Al Qaeda include a spider's web of organizations ranging from Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya to Morocco's Salafia Jihadia and Attakfir wal Hijra, Egypt's Al-Jihad, and the National Islamic Front of Iran.
But beyond national boundaries, Al Qaeda and its allies have found a new home in cyberspace.
"Notebook computers, encryption, the Internet, multiple passports and the ease of global transportation enabled Al Qaeda to function as a `virtual' entity that leveraged local assets — hence local knowledge — to full advantage in co-ordinating attacks in many `fields of jihad,'" said the IISS report published last month.
The testing grounds for the network are countries least able to cope with terrorism.
"There's a whole list of countries with weak, under-resourced institutions that are soft targets," says Stevenson. "They may not be as high profile as Europe and North America, but it's possible to kill a lot of people there, including Westerners."
Security services in the Middle East and south Asia have expressed alarm at what they call the reactivation of Al Qaeda in their countries, as carrying out attacks in the West has become more difficult.
But most terrorism experts, including members of American and European secret services, say the prime target for Al Qaeda and its allies remains the United States. They believe the recent attacks in Morocco and Saudi Arabia were aimed at confusing and unsettling the U.S. government. A series of communications from network operatives have made it clear that the campaign against terrorism may have hardened security in the United States, but it has also failed to soften the resolve of America's enemies.
The Saudi-owned weekly magazine al-Majalla recently published a warning from Al Qaeda that there will be "new and more severe strikes which will surprise the Americans and Israelis alike."
An earlier announcement from Mohammed al-Ablaj, described as the commander of an Al Qaeda training centre, said the group was on an "intensive strategic course to make America pay for its invasion of Iraq."
The renewed threats have moved to the top of the agenda for Western counter-terrorism officials.
Tough new national security measures make it much more difficult for extremists to mount an operation on the scale of Sept. 11, but their main recent tactic, suicide bombing, is almost impossible to deter indefinitely.
And, says Rand's Hoffman, although the steps that should be undertaken are no secret to U.S. security agencies, "they have been implemented only unevenly."
He recommends a series of measures be put in force, with particular attention to suicide bombers. They include:
More analysis of the infrastructure needed for bombings to take place.
Developing better communications with ethnic communities that shelter would-be bombers.
Monitoring all materials that could be used for homemade bombs.
Reinforcing buildings and public structures against explosives and providing a higher level of emergency training for police on the beat.
None of the measures, however, deals with the complex root causes of terrorism.
Analysts agree that the time has come to expand the focus from physical security to issues that, if left unchecked, guarantee insecurity for the foreseeable future.
"Governments around the world have spent billions in an effort to beef up national security and the war on terror," says Irene Khan, head of Amnesty International.
"But for millions of people, the real sources of insecurity are corrupt and inept systems of policing and justice, brutal repression of political dissent, severe discrimination and social inequities, extreme poverty and the spread of preventable diseases."
Some Washington theorists think the war in Iraq was partly aimed at creating a "democratic model state" within the Mideast, producing the domino effect of liberalizing the country's neighbours.
However, any transition to democracy in Baghdad now seems distant and the U.S. is mainly concerned with avoiding an Islamic government or civil war.
And there are few signs that Washington will apply pressure on Saudi Arabia to end the kind of repression that is propelling disenchanted young Muslims toward Al Qaeda. Instead, there is more pressure to carry out crackdowns against suspected terrorists, many of whom are opponents of the Saudi regime.
"America's behaviour is giving more credibility to the jihadis," says al-Fagih. "And the more loudly America accuses bin Laden of terrorist attacks, the more attractive he becomes to recruits."
Analysts point out that by globalizing the reach of terrorism, groups like Al Qaeda can quickly change the focus of their ideology at will, in pursuit of their goal of creating a massive pan-Islamic state.
"The terrorism we practise is the commendable kind," bin Laden told a PBS reporter before the war in Afghanistan. "For it is directed at the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah — the tyrants, the traitors who commit acts of treason against their own countries and their own faith and their own Prophet and their own nation."
Nearly two years later, the end of the war on terror is nowhere in sight.
"We must look at terrorism as a fundamental condition for international security in the 21st century," says Hoffman. "The important thing in the future is not to give in to fatigue, and to have realistic expectations."
Additional articles by Olivia Ward
Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.
Friends, "liberal" Republicans from Short Hills, just sold their home, packed their things and moved to TN.
I think they're in for culture shock!
America: The lost art or thinking, or great "patriotism"?...
Compared to the far-right, Christie would be considered "liberal". Personally, I think Christie's views and policies are moderate, reasonable, and humanistic... Have you ever seen Christie speak or spoken to her? She's a good lady, moderate, yet she sticks to her convictions. Bush is far-right and surrounds himself with the far-right -- with people who think like mlsoft (and that mindset) -- rigid, intolerant, etc... Christie is typical of the NJ or NE mindset and political ideology. A Republican ideology sometime referred to as "country club Republicans" -- or something like that. But the NE is NJ and Boston, Maine and Burlington. And that aint the Bible Belt...
Yayaa, You are fooling yourself, or allowing yourself to be fooled...
Race should not be a factor, and should not discriminate against whites or black, by any parameter or standard.
Ashcroft is a fascist.
I think "Palestinian" refers to the citizens of the former "Palestine", or "nationals" of the former "Palestine". But Jordan is 60% "Palestinian" (I think??)... So what is "Palestinian" is debatable, I think... As far as I'm concerned, if they call themselves "Palestinian" that's good enough for me...
Thruout history, Europeans have been "migrant" -- but who would say they're not "Europeans", or "Italian", or "Spaniards", etc... All but indigenous Americans trace their roots somewhere else, but we are all "Americans" -- or something like that... If certain Arab folks call themselves "Palestinian" who are we to say otherwise... But it does raise issues in the "2 State Solution"... If Jordan is 60% "Palestinian" isn't Jordan a "Palestinian State"... Do we need 2 "Palestinian States"?...
I think the "2 State Solution" is a pointless argument... It won't come to that -- too much hostility, terror, and people who don't want peace.... Anyway, Israel is a VERY small country. How do you whack it up into 2 separate States, each with a certain population that hates the other, and expect them all to live in "peace", ie "happily ever after"?.... The "Road Map" is a fairy tale...
It is too bad we can't visit Israel, or take our kids. It's a place everyone should visit, beautiful, culturally enriching, etc....
Our kids may never go... That's really sad!!
The US should allow all Palestinians permanent refugee status in the US with very favorable immigration treatment, like Cubans... Imagine -- Americans and Palestinians living "side by side", working and socializing, building communities in the "melting pot", all productive members of US society. Total assimilation -- our children inter-marring with the children of men and women and burqas and turbans... Our children could celebrate Ramadan with the neighbor's kids maybe even religious conversion!...The Melting Pot!!..
What's the point of this rant, I have no idea... I suppose we're all a little racist. But I could handle alot of things, but I'd be stunned, dumb founded, falbergasted, etc by the burqa or turban!.....
Imagine your child bringing home a turban guy as a prom date?? 8^}} We are all a little racists -- some more than others, I guess... But I think even the most tolerant American would at least think twice about the turban guy or burqa babe.
Who wouldn't?...
Hap, What do you mean "we did not start the war"?
What "war" are you referring to??.. We did not start Al Qaeda's war on the US. But we absolutely did "start the war" in Iraq! Remember, our Commander-in-Chief told us about the WMD and the immediate threat, and the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection??.. Causing the US to launch it's first ever "pre-emptive strike"? Don't you remember all of that??...
Down on Our Knees: An American Tale
By: Walter Brasch - 06/20/03
Standing before more than 1,400 loyalists and lobbyists who threw him more than $3.5 million, President Bush claimed he "got the economy going again . . . laid the foundation for greater prosperity" and defended the country against terrorism. Assuming he was neither drunk or stoned, he may have believed what he was spinning.
But, let's look at the record. First up, the economy. --More than 2.7 million jobs have been lost during the past two years. More than 10 million are unemployed, the highest unemployment rate since the Bush I era.
--The Republican-controlled Congress failed to pass any significant legislation to raise the minimum wage or to provide health coverage for 60 million Americans--although the Administration says it wants to extend universal health coverage to all Iraqis.
--President Bush declared that leading economists said if the $350 million tax cut was approved, the economy would grow by 3.3 percent. As Gordon Livingston, writing in the Baltimore Sun, correctly noted, "no such report exists."
--What does exist is a welfare package for the rich. The top one percent, many of whom live on dividends and stock sales, benefit far more than most Americans who are paid hourly. Among their benefits are reduced income taxes, dividend exclusions and capital gains benefits, and a special deduction of up to $100,000 for any vehicle over three tons. About 50 million lower- and middle-class families get nothing; about 20 million get less than $100. In his original proposal, eventually modified by Congress, President Bush allocated nothing for military pay increases, nor any provisions to cover military families. --The package includes a "child tax credit."
Those with incomes below $26,625 a year get nothing. In killing the credit for low-income families, House Majority Leader Tom Delay coldly set the Republican priority. "There are other things that are more important," he told more than 12 million families.
--Among the "more important" items was a $1 million expense to turn around the U.S.S. Lincoln as it neared San Diego so the flight-suited President Bush could jet out and pose for several hundred cameras.
--Although President Bush declared he wanted corporate reforms, the actions of the administration proved otherwise. Halliburton, the company that Vice-President Cheney once ran, got a no-bid contract to help clean up Iraq
--after American-led forces tried to destroy and are now trying to "Americanize" one of the world's oldest civilizations. There have yet to be any prosecutions for Enron or WorldCom, among dozens of other corporations, which gave multi-million dollar benefits and bonuses to its executives while the workers lost their savings and retirements. Let's now look at the President's claims that he is responsible for reducing the levels of terror.
--What the Administration has reduced is the number of airport security screeners, delayed implementation of port security vulnerability assessments, and given the Coast Guard even more responsibilities with severe budget constraints. Nevertheless, we now have a color scheme.
--In his January 28 State of the Union message to justify his planned war, the President strongly implied that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda, and claimed that Iraq already had and was continuing to develop substantial quantities of biological and chemical weapons. He even cited documents that he said proved Iraq was buying supplies from African countries. Even as the President spoke, intelligence agencies had called these documents suspicious; the documents later proved to be forgeries. Those who argued there was no justification to go to war with Iraq, no matter how evil its leader was, were banded by the President's followers to be unpatriotic and un-American. No intelligence agency claimed there was any connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. In Poland after the war, the President declared "We found weapons of mass destruction." But, two months after the war was officially over, but with American troops still dying in Iraq, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway, said that extensive searching showed no weapons of mass destruction exists.
--At the same time the Bush administration is de-arming Iraqi civilians--claiming that guns are too dangerous for the average citizen
--the NRA-controlled administration is doing nothing to influence the NRA-controlled Congress to continue the temporary ban on assault weapons when it expires in September, thus raising Americans' own terror levels.
--And then there's John Ashcroft. The attorney general, with complete approval and encouragement from the White House, launched a massive attack upon the Constitution and civil liberties. Patriot Act I, with its sequel in development stages, has provisions that make even Saddam Hussein's disregard for human rights look rather mild. In a scathing report, the Justice Department's own inspector general blasted the FBI and Justice for massive violation of citizen rights.
When Bill Clinton came into office, after George H. W. Bush had led the nation into a series of domestic crises, there were 10 million unemployed, a federal debt that was four times greater than under Reagan/Bush, higher welfare and crime cases than ever before, massive environmental and MediCare cuts, and a $290 billion deficit. When Mr. Clinton left office eight years later, the nation had experienced the biggest economic expansion in history. More than 22 million new jobs were created, unemployment dropped to the lowest rate in 30 years, and welfare cases were down by almost half. He also stopped massive Medicare and environmental cuts imposed by the previous Republican administration, and set aside more land for environment than anyone since Teddy Roosevelt a century earlier. He put 150,000 Americans into AmeriCorps to aid the impoverished, added the family medical leave policy, special tax credits for families whose children were in college, provided federal funding for more than 100,000 teachers and 10,000 police, and allowed two million more impoverished children to benefit from health coverage. He created stronger ties to other nations, directed the biggest expansion of the GI Bill of Rights since World War II, and gave America a $230 billion surplus. A political witch hunt by conservatives led to several million taxpayer dollars to investigate Travelgate and Whitewatergate, neither of which had any substance. A politically-motivated investigation by the incoming Bushians of theft and malicious violence in the White House and Air Force One fizzled among massive government documents that proved otherwise.
However, because Intern Monica got down on her knees before Mr. Clinton who then lied about it, he was disgraced and impeached, though not convicted. When George W. Bush gets down on his knees before corporations and a phalanx of special interest lobbyists who tuck wads of dollar bills into his elastic campaign fund, then lies about the economy, innumerable domestic issues, and reasons to send American youth into war, we just nod our heads and tell him to keep sucking and spinning.
Go figure.
Walt Brasch is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant. Walt's latest book is "The Joy of Sax," a witty and penetrating look at America during the Bill Clinton Era. A former newspaper reporter and editor, and author of 14 books, Dr. Brasch is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. You may write him at brasch@bloomu.edu Assisting was Rosemary R. Brasch.
Back to: Liberal Slant
At least Bush 43 did not lie about SEX. Lying about WAR is "one thing". Lying about SEX is a SIN!!...
Right??.. Great article! 8*}
Rummy, Rummy, Rummy!
Three press conferences with Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Will Durst
http://www.WorkingForChange.com
05.02.03
050103:0132PDT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, WHERE OUR SUPERVISORS SHUT DOWN AN AIRPORT RUNWAY EXTENSION STUDY. YEAH, GOOD IDEA. LET THE TOURISTS ARRIVE BY BUS. BETTER YET, SCOOTERS. WAIT, I GOT IT SKATEBOARDS. "GO EXTREME, BE THE CITY."
Early February.
It is incumbent on us to go in hard and go in now, because Saddam has weapons of mass destruction with which he could strike at any moment. Don't you understand? We're talking big old monstrous huge ugly weapons of mass destruction. Does the term "mushroom cloud" have any meaning here? Big Badda Boom. Not just America but the whole coalition, and yes, it definitely is a coalition. The Solomon Islands signed on today. Of course, Hussein claims he doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction. Hell, I'd do the same thing. What do you expect him to say? "Oh yeah, I got em, and here they are and you better watch out?" No, Korea did that, and look what happened there. What do I make of the inspectors not being able to find anything? Hey, didn't we tell you he was hiding the stuff? And personally, may I interject, I don't see how any of these questions are helping America. Gotta go.
Middle March.
What are you talking about? The Iraqi people are celebrating the toppling of the dictator Saddam Hussein. They're simply not doing it in public; instead they're doing it in the newly found luxuriant privacy of their own homes. Don't ask me, it's a different culture. Resistance? What resistance? They're joyfully shooting their guns in the air except some guys are clumsy and trip. No, I can't tell you why he hasn't used his weapons of mass destruction on the coalition forces. Probably saving them for later, or, hell, maybe he forgot where he hid them. Like I'm supposed to know how a madman thinks? That's not funny. This guy stuffed people in prisons under the most inhumane of conditions on the merest hint of a suspicion never allowing them to contact anybody. No, no, no, totally different situation from Guantanamo. The difference between terrorists and liberators. Anybody asking those questions is just jeopardizing the troops. I'm outta here.
Late April.
Of course we can't find any weapons of mass destruction, we told you, he hid them. And we think we know where: Syria. But you know, that's not really the important thing. The really important thing is the brave Iraqi people. The newly liberated brave Iraqi people who have been falsely accused of looting. That's ridiculous: they're just getting the hang of shopping, that's all. Nevertheless, isn't it worth it just to see the look at the faces of every brave Iraqi citizen as they celebrate their new found freedoms. After 25 long years, there are finally hookers back on the streets of Baghdad again. That's progress. And we're going to take care of these people. Provide the whole country with universal health care. No, not America, you idiot, Iraq. Please, now is not the time for that kind of question. Now, I got to catch a plane to Damascus.
Will Durst doesn't have time for those kinds of questions either.
To read more Will Durst satire, see the Will Durst archive.
The newly liberated brave Iraqi people have been falsely accused of looting. That's ridiculous: they're just getting the hang of shopping, that's all.
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Protestors Are Not Terrorists
By Bill Berkowitz, http://www.WorkingForChange.com
June 16, 2003
You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest]. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act." – Mike Van Winkle, spokesperson, the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC)
Under the guise of President Bush's all-consuming, yet amorphous, war against terrorism, police agencies across the country are spying and compiling dossiers on citizens exercising their constitutional rights. The Bush administration – all war against terrorism, all the time – has consistently supported policies and legislation allowing for the collection and cataloging of data on the political, religious, or social views of individuals and organizations regardless of whether they present any imminent threat to the nation's safety. The administration has also spent obscene amounts of money to spy on its citizens while money for education and social services is drying up.
"Right now... the FBI and other federal agencies do not have 'to show reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause,'" Village Voice columnist and longtime civil libertarian Nat Hentoff recently wrote. "They merely have to make 'the broad assertion that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.'"
In early April, equating political protest with terrorism caused the most violent incident involving police and anti-war protesters since the US launched its invasion of Iraq. On the morning of April 7, acting on warnings from the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC), the Oakland, California police department indiscriminately fired wooden slugs at and injured several non-violent anti-war protesters – and several non-protesting Port workers as well – at the Port of Oakland. According to a report in the Oakland Tribune, "Days before... Oakland police were warned of potential violence at the Port... by California's anti-terrorism intelligence center, which admits blurring the line between terrorism and political dissent."
'Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder'
A recent compendium of definitions compiled by the Tri-Valley Herald – headlined "Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder" – pointed out that government agencies have different takes on what constitutes terrorism and who might be considered terrorists. Here are a few:
"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.' – FBI
"Terrorism means any activity that involves an act that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive to critical infrastructure or key resources; and is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state or other subdivision of the United States; and appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.' – Homeland Security Act, Nov. 19, 2002.
"Domestic terrorism means activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.' USA PATRIOT Act, Oct. 25, 2001.
"Terrorist Threat: A person commits an offense if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to: cause a reaction of any type to his threat by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies; place any person in fear of imminent bodily injury; or prevent or interrupt the occupation or use of a building, room, place of assembly, place to which the public has access, place of employment or occupation, aircraft, automobile, or other form of conveyance, or other public place; or cause impairment or interruption of public communications, public transportation, public water, gas or power supply or other public service.' Texas Penal Code.
"Terrorism is the threat to carry out any act that would be a violation of criminal law in California for the purpose of intimidating or coercing a civilian population, its government or any of its subdivisions; retaliating against or influencing the policy of the government; or carrying out any other activities which reasonably place the residents of this state in fear for their future health, safety or welfare.' – California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC), Sept. 25, 2001.
Spying free for all
"You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest]," CATIC spokesperson Mike Van Winkle said. "You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act." Information provided by CATIC spurred Oakland police fire those wooden slugs at anti-war protesters in early April.
CATIC, which receives $6.7 million a year in state funds, was "touted as a national model for intelligence sharing and a centerpiece of Gov. Gray Davis and Attorney General Bill Lockyer's 2002 reelection bids," reports the Oakland Tribune. It "has quietly gathered and analyzed information on activists of various stripes almost since its creation."
In Atlanta, the city's police department "routinely places under surveillance anti-war protesters and others exercising their free-speech rights to demonstrate," reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "This use of police resources is highly questionable and can very much have a chilling effect on people's sense that they can exercise their constitutional rights without appearing in somebody's database," state Rep. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta), the House majority whip, told the newspaper. "This harkens back to some very dark times in our nation's history."
These ramped up police activities since 9/11 are not unique to Oakland or Atlanta: According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "the Los Angeles Police Department... is authorized to keep files on anti-war protesters it deems capable of 'a significant disruption of the public order.' Miami police videotape demonstrators and infiltrate rallies with plainclothes officers, said Detective Joey Giordano with the Miami-Dade Police Department. Most of the surveillance, he said, is targeted at Haitian and Cuban immigrants protesting federal policies."
Legitimate concerns about a potential terrorist attack in the US cannot be allowed to morph into open season for eviscerating the civil liberties of peaceful citizens exercising their first amendment rights. Sharper and more focused standards are needed to prevent local police departments from running amuck. As Geov Parrish reported in these pages earlier this week, "the Global Intelligence Working Group (GIWG), a committee charged with advising Congress on intelligence sharing, presented a first draft of a plan to create a uniform set of intelligence standards that would cover all types and levels of U.S. law enforcement." Final recommendations are supposed to be issued in October.
If the erosion of civil liberties doesn't freak you out and/or piss you off, consider this: In this age of humongous state deficits and massive budget cuts to social programs, police departments across the country are not only acting like J. Edgar Hoover-like spies, they are spending ungodly amounts of taxpayer money in the process.
© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction by Syndication Service only.
With any luck Sharpton will "step ahead" of GEORGE BUSH!.. :)
Conservative media worth confronting
A Dayton Daily News Editorial
Even as conservative warriors continue to lament an alleged "liberal bias" in the media, liberal warriors are coming to terms with the fact that they are the ones taking a beating on television and radio. Former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt — a name out of Ohio's political past — are reported to be among those working on some sort of new radio or television network to combat the onslaught of conservative media. Details are sketchy.
Mr. Hyatt is the founder of Hyatt Legal Services and the son-in-law of former Ohio senator (and true-blue liberal) Howard Metzenbaum. After losing his 1994 bid to succeed Sen. Metzenbaum, Mr. Hyatt moved to California.
One needn't believe the media are almighty to see what worries the Democrats. Many elections are decided narrowly. And the margin of control in both houses of Congress is also narrow. If you're Al Gore, and you have lost a national election by the nearest possible approximation of nothing, you are particularly likely to have an interest in what voters are hearing over and over.
The "liberal bias" that some conservatives complain about resides primarily not in openly opinionated commentators, but in reporters and editors who claim to be presenting the news in an evenhanded way. These journalists get lambasted from the right and left. They always have. But these days, the right is more organized and energetic in complaining.
(This is partly because right-wing commentators have to trash the news media as a way of defending their own relentless imbalance. They present themselves as the counterweight to other peoples' bias, which, for some, apparently justifies almost anything.)
And the right does have one powerful point: Most journalists do, in fact, lean to the left politically. Surveys of their voting habits show that. But most are not motivated at every moment by their politics. They have professional values, and those values call for balance and fairness. More often than not, journalists find that setting aside their politics is not difficult.
Furthermore, the constant pressure from the political right results in attention to the need for balance. Indeed, some observers make an excellent case that the political right gets better treatment from the media than the left just by being the squeakier wheel.
More and more these days, however, politicos see the action as being not with the traditional reporters who are obliged to pursue balance, but with commentators who are not. They see those commentators as affecting the course of things by reaching a certain number of people who, in turn, reach a certain number of other people.
The commentators who have this kind of influence are concentrated in television and radio. Rush Limbaugh is the most prominent, but he has many fellow travelers.
Meanwhile, the Fox News Channel is run by political activists dedicated to helping conservatives. Fox says the old networks are the biased ones, but the old networks are generally not run by political activists.
So it was probably inevitable that the Democrats would try to fight back. Whether they can get anyplace is not clear. The conservative base is homogenous: white, middle class, Christian, connected to the private sector. Such a group is easy to appeal to.
The liberal or Democratic base, on the other hand, includes academics, yuppies, union workers, poor people and racial minorities. For the liberals to find one voice to appeal to all these groups will be quite a trick.
But the effort can't hurt. It might not be real journalism. It might not be worth taking seriously. But maybe it will, at least, show the conservatives who complain about liberal bias in the mainstream media what real liberal bias looks like.
Copyright © 2003, Cox Ohio Publishing. All rights reserved.
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Critical Mess
How the neocons are promoting nuclear proliferation
By Drake Bennett
Issue Date: 7.1.03
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Back in January, Brazil's newly appointed minister of science and technology, Roberto Amaral, suggested in a radio interview that his country had nuclear ambitions. "Brazil is a country at peace, that has always preserved peace and is a defender of peace, but we need to be prepared, including technologically," he said. "We can't renounce any form of scientific knowledge, whether the genome, DNA or nuclear fission." It was hardly a Kim Jong-Il-caliber nuclear tantrum, but it did cause a stir. The comments were roundly condemned and a flurry of clarifications followed.
But Amaral's boss, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had made similar noises. In a campaign speech last year to retired military officers, Lula criticized the fact that the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) allowed nuclear powers to keep their weapons but denied them to everyone else. "If," he complained, "someone asks me to disarm and keep a slingshot while he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do?" Here in the United States, Lula's invocation of the forbidden nuclear fruit caught the attention of several members of Congress, who in an alarmed letter to President Bush pointed out the Brazilian leader's past ties to Fidel Castro.
Brazil would have little difficulty joining the ranks of nuclear powers. For decades the country had a secret military nuclear program before renouncing it in the early 1990s. Brazil has two nuclear power plants, the capacity to enrich uranium and is developing a rocket that, if converted for military purposes, could have a range of 2,200 miles. In 1997 the Brazilian army raised suspicions by trying (unsuccessfully) to restart a military nuclear-research project.
Odds are Brazil is not going nuclear anytime soon. As a country that voluntarily gave up a well-developed nuclear-weapons program, it has been one of the nonproliferation regime's success stories. But the comments of Amaral and Lula show that the nuclear temptation is still strong, not only for rogue states that find themselves in America's crosshairs but for countries around the world that aspire to great-power status.
Today nuclear weapons are on Americans' minds in a way they haven't been since the height of the Cold War. Compared with the prospect of a nuclear-armed terrorist, the threat posed by a nuclear Brazil is hardly chilling. But the re-emergence of nuclear ambition in Brazil's government is alarming because it questions the ultimate endurance of nonproliferation. The Bush administration is ready to reinvent arms control, to ask questions that go to the heart of what our broader nuclear-weapons policy should be. As the alignments of the Cold War evolve into something more fluid, that's to be commended. Unfortunately, Bush's answers are only making things worse.
The preemptive attack on Iraq, billed in part as a battle in a larger war against nuclear proliferation, may well have convinced other nervous nations that nukes are their only hedge against a similar fate. Then there's the administration's push for low-yield and tactical nuclear weapons, and for a nuclear policy that goes beyond mere deterrence. Throw in a pathological aversion in the Bush White House to international obligations and you have all the ingredients for destabilization, a new arms race and an increasingly unsafe world.
Today's nuclear nonproliferation regime is largely the legacy of John F. Kennedy. After darkly invoking the specter of a U.S.-Soviet "missile gap" throughout his 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy got into office and realized that within 10 years, the nuclear quartet of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and France could grow into an unwieldy gang of 20 or 30 countries. In 1961, Kennedy created the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, negotiated the Limited Test Ban Treaty and began negotiations on what was to become the NPT.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, neoconservatives forwarded the argument that the NPT had outlived its usefulness. The treaty provides no real enforcement mechanism. And nations such as India, Pakistan and Israel that were particularly interested in nuclear weapons simply refused to sign it. The Bush administration makes much of these limitations. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation John S. Wolf told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in March that while the NPT "remains the cornerstone" of U.S. nonproliferation policy, international agreements alone "are simply not enough" to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Richard L. Garwin, a physicist and arms-control expert whose experience with nuclear weapons extends back to his work on the Manhattan Project itself, says the current U.S. commitment to the NPT is strictly conditional. "The Bush administration does not favor treaties," he says, "but they like the benefits of the NPT."
Today's nuclear-weapons debate divides along the fault line between the "nonproliferationist" and "counterproliferationist" schools. Nonproliferationists argue that nuclear weapons are a special and an increasingly less necessary evil. Counterproliferationists are more difficult to define. Paul Bracken, a Yale University political-science professor and author of Fire in the East, a study of weapons of mass destruction in Asia, dismisses the term as too vague. "To some people it means forceful diplomatic action," he says. "To others it means blowing things up." But in general, counterproliferationists want to fight fire with fire. They believe that there are no evil weapons, just evil men and women who want them. Bill Keller -- writing in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story -- compares the counterproliferationists' suspicion of nuclear disarmament to the sentiments expressed on a National Rifle Association bumper sticker, which reads, "If nukes are outlawed, only outlaws will have nukes." Another NRA staple springs to mind, as well: "Nukes don't kill people, people do."
The "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," released by the White House last December, lays out the administration's position. In the document, counterproliferation is the first of the strategy's "three pillars," with nonproliferation taking a subsidiary role. The administration insists, however, that the two still form "seamless elements of a comprehensive approach." In theory they could be just that. And in practice they have been. The sort of muscular language on Iran and North Korea that Bush championed at the recent G8 meeting was nothing new. Counterproliferation is neither a creation of the Bush administration nor of the neoconservatives spread through its foreign-policy ranks. Rather, it was born under Les Aspin, Bill Clinton's ill-starred first defense secretary. Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, points out that counterproliferation was simply "the role that the Department of Defense could play in nonproliferation efforts. It was going to develop technology and programs to counter [nuclear] programs in instances when diplomacy failed, or in support of diplomacy." In other words, it was a piece of a larger nonproliferation strategy. Aspin, a fervent believer in nuclear disarmament, frankly admits that coercive military means might be required to enforce nonproliferation.
But from a means, counterproliferation has grown into an end, and the original goal has dropped out of sight. The point is no longer the reduction in the number of arms but the concentration of those arms in the right hands. Counterproliferation's most radical disciples even suggest we give some of our allies nuclear weapons if they have neighbors we want to deter. Back in January, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer proposed giving Japan nuclear weapons in order to pressure China, which would in turn pressure North Korea. "If our nightmare is a nuclear North Korea," he wrote, "China's is a nuclear Japan. It's time to share the nightmares."
Making a practice of this surely wouldn't be in the interests of U.S. security. We have a patchy history of choosing lasting allies. Arming the shah of Iran might have deterred some of his neighbors, but having the Ayatollah Khomeini inherit those weapons would certainly have made us rethink that decision. And if we really want to give China nightmares we should give Taiwan nuclear weapons. But the escalation of tensions from that provocation would be its own nightmare. To follow Krauthammer's advice would be to repeat the greatest errors of the Cold War -- with exponentially higher stakes.
The administration has not suggested that it wants to kick off a Far East arms race. Its counterproliferationist mind-set starts at home, with strenuous opposition to binding cuts in U.S. nuclear programs. Instead, it holds that we may need to make our nuclear posture more aggressive. A review of U.S. defense policy published in 2000 by the neoconservative hothouse The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) argues that reducing our nuclear force is likely to be dangerous; it favors not only updating it but expanding its role beyond strategic deterrence. That the Bush administration has taken this advice to heart is no surprise. Several PNAC contributors are now running U.S. foreign policy, including Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Cambone at the Pentagon and I. Lewis Libby in the White House. Douglas Feith (the undersecretary of defense), John Bolton (the undersecretary of state) and Robert Joseph (the National Security Council's senior counterproliferation official) have espoused similar views.
To see this approach in action, look no further than the Moscow Treaty, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin last year. It requires that each country must have no more than 1,700 to 2,200 "operationally deployed" nuclear warheads by Dec. 31, 2012 (down from today's 6,000). There is, however, no timetable for the reductions, and no enforcement mechanism. The retired weapons do not have to be destroyed or dismantled but can simply be stored (an especially disturbing prospect considering the ramshackle condition of Russian nuclear security and the Bush administration's failure to adequately fund programs aimed at the problem). Most egregiously, the treaty expires the instant the limits go into effect. As Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay wrote in these pages last year [see "One-Day Wonder," Aug. 2, 2002], "[T]he United States and Russia are free -- except for a single day a decade from now -- to deploy as many (or as few) warheads on operationally deployed systems as they like. Yes, it is as absurd as it sounds." Just in case these terms prove too onerous, either side can pull out with 90 days' notice.
The treaty also makes no mention of tactical nuclear devices, the smaller "battlefield" weapons that sit in storage in both the United States and Russia. With the rest of its military atrophying from lack of money, Russia is in the unenviable position of actually relying on tactical nukes, and therefore not eager to get rid of them. Tactical nukes are hardly an important component of U.S. deterrence policy; nonetheless, the Bush administration in May pressured Congress to relax the 10-year ban on research into low-yield nukes in part to explore the possibility of "bunker-buster" bombs. (In a display of distressingly loopy logic, some advocates suggest using these weapons to destroy biological and chemical weapons stockpiles.)
This cavalierly aggressive attitude has not gone unnoticed in Russia. Putin, who desperately wanted deeper reductions and a commitment to destroying deactivated weapons, was deeply disappointed and embarrassed by the agreement. In a recent speech, he proposed that Russia begin work on "new types of Russian weapons, weapons of the new generation, including those regarded by specialists as strategic weapons." He did not say "nuclear," but the implication was clear, and the comments were widely seen as a response to the Bush push for new nuclear-weapons research.
Setbacks such as these might be worth the price if the Bush policy were paying off in Iran and North Korea. But it's not. Invading Iraq was supposed to show Iran and North Korea that getting nukes doesn't pay. So far, neither has shown a change of heart. That doesn't mean that they're not scared of us. Kim Jong-Il went into hiding just before the Iraq War, according to American intelligence, because he thought he, too, might be a target of "decapitation strikes." A security guarantee from the United States is the one constant in North Korea's continually shifting demands. However shrill and reckless North Korea's rhetoric, the country's nuclear program is driven largely by fear of U.S. attack. And Iran has seen a hostile neighbor (Iraq) replaced by a slightly less hostile but exponentially more powerful neighbor (the United States). The problem is not, then, that the Bush policy has been insufficiently tough. Precisely the opposite. As Cirincione says, "The lesson that Iran and North Korea seem to have drawn from the war is that they should speed up their nuclear programs, not abandon them."
In light of the shortcomings of the administration's approach, it's worth taking a look at what Bush is turning his back on. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was meant not only to stop but also to reverse the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The treaty was a deal struck between the nuclear and non-nuclear powers. The latter would forswear the pursuit of nuclear arms and, in return, the former would agree to help them develop peaceful nuclear programs, to not threaten them with nuclear weapons in the event of conflict and to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament."
No treaty by itself can take away the power and temptation of nuclear weapons. That nukes would cease to be the badge of great-power significance has always been somewhat utopian. For countries such as Brazil, the drive for nuclear weapons was fed as much by an unabashed desire for status as by security considerations. And Lula's bellicose campaign pronouncements show that the two-tiered NPT system of nuclear haves and have-nots still rankles.
But for 30 years the NPT worked surprisingly well. China, having tested its first device in 1964, signed on as a nuclear power. Egypt, Sweden, Italy and Switzerland gave up serious nuclear-weapons programs upon signing. Along with Brazil, Argentina and South Africa eventually followed suit. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the former republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine forfeited their inherited nukes. All in all, according to a 2002 Carnegie Endowment study, at least 40 countries with the capability and knowledge of how to develop nuclear weapons have chosen not to do so.
Moreover, contrary to popular conception, we're not seeing a new burst of proliferation. Since the United States founded it in 1945, the nuclear club has been growing at the rate of a new country every few years. The Soviet Union joined in 1949, Britain in 1952, France in 1960, China in 1964 and Israel (though ambiguously -- to this day, its official position is the sphinx-like statement, "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East") by 1966. India tested a nuclear device in 1974, and for nearly a quarter of a century it seemed happy to have tested once without deploying any nuclear weapons. Pakistan, too, apparently had nuclear capability as of 1986, 12 years before its first test. Iraq almost joined in the early '80s and then again in the mid-90s. (As of this writing, we have yet to see any conclusive evidence that Iraq had restarted that program in recent years.)
Nuclear know-how and materials have certainly grown more available. Especially in the years just after the Cold War's conclusion, it was much easier for a nuclear aspirant to find cash-strapped scientists and loose fissile materials by sifting through the fragmented remains of the Soviet empire. In the 40 years since the Manhattan Project, the technology has trickled out into the public domain. As Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, puts it, "When the first bomb was built, it took a lot of money and you had people like Einstein working on it. Now a lot of not very impressive physics Ph.Ds are working on them, and a lot of the parts can be bought off the shelf."
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ultimately did not live up to its ambitious aims. If a country really feels it needs nuclear weapons, it is very hard to change its mind, either by carrot or stick. But an increasingly isolated United States is even less able to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. An imperfect treaty at least imposes a structure and a set of norms. The "indispensable nation," as Bill Clinton called the United States, can't alone solve the nuclear problem. We can, however, aggravate it. We cannot always make countries feel safer but we can certainly make them feel less secure -- not only vulnerable rogue nations but powerful and already nuclear ones, too.
In response to the triumphalism of the neocons, Fareed Zakaria wrote in The New Yorker that the United States was "the dominant power at the end of the Second World War, when it founded the United Nations, created the Bretton Woods system of international economic cooperation, and launched most of the world's key international organizations. For much of the twentieth century, America embraced international cooperation not out of fear and vulnerability but from a position of confidence and strength." Machiavelli said it is better to be feared than loved. But, Zakaria counters, "He was wrong." In today's world, preserving stability and equality between nations requires norms -- whether codified into treaties and international bodies or not -- and nukes. As we devalue the former by withdrawing from treaties and scoffing at multilateral institutions, we increase the value of the latter.
The great irony is that the Bush administration, despite its "talk loudly and brandish a chainsaw" rhetoric, will probably continue to shrink the nuclear arsenal. Leonard Spector of the Monterey Institute's Center on Nonproliferation Studies points out that, "As a practical matter, the actual deployments are decreasing substantially, the number of warheads being dismantled continues to grow, at every stage that you look the arsenal is coming down." Behind the bluster, the administration's stance is less about nuclear weapons than about what Daalder and Lindsay call the "fetish for flexibility." But this fetish makes for a less stable world, and all the more so when nuclear weapons are involved. Out of a fear of being taken advantage of, the administration makes itself unable to be relied upon.
The United States ultimately does not benefit from a world with fewer rules. The Bush administration is right to push for greater enforcement capabilities for the International Atomic Energy Agency but wrong to insist on exempting its own arsenal. If the United States suddenly got rid of its nuclear weapons, the world would not be a safer place. But it would be safer if we made a good-faith effort to create what Bracken calls an "agreed nuclear world." Such an effort should take into consideration the security considerations of countries besides our own -- it should, for example, acknowledge that dealing with proliferation in the Middle East involves addressing Israel's nuclear arsenal -- and it should work not to undermine the nuclear taboo but to ensure it. A small, transparent American nuclear arsenal might in fact be credibly seen as a defensive force, as opposed to a jealously guarded guarantor of omnipotence. In nuclear policy, as in medicine, our motto should surely be, "First, do no harm."
Drake Bennett
Copyright © 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc.
Bush's foreign policy hawks see setbacks
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Fri, Jun. 20, 2003
WASHINGTON - The frustrating U.S. mission in Iraq - where American soldiers come under fire daily, chaos abounds and no weapons of mass destruction have been found so far - is beginning to clip the wings of the neoconservative hawks who pushed hardest for the war.
Although they remain a powerful force in the administration, especially in foreign policy and defense, the ``neocons,'' as they are called, have lost a string of internal battles lately. They wanted more confrontational U.S. policies toward Iran, Syria, and North Korea, and many of them argued that President Bush's road map to Mideast peace demanded too much of Israel and too little of the Palestinians.
Most neocons believe in using U.S. military power to oppose despotism and spread American values around the world. Many have strong ties to Israel, which they see as a threatened democratic outpost in the Middle East. Leading neocons have called for the destruction not only of Iraq but also other Arab and Muslim regimes that finance, support or tolerate terrorism.
The neocons had agitated since the mid-1990s for "regime change" in Iraq. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the neocons pressed their case for war against Iraq to eventual success.
The hawks argued that Saddam and his banned weapons presented an imminent threat to the United States; that the regime would be easily overthrown and Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops; and that American power could be used to reshape the world, beginning by creating a democratic Middle East.
"There will be dancing in the streets throughout Iraq if we liberate that country. The idea that it's going to damage us in the Arab world is nonsense. We will be seen not as invaders but as liberators," predicted former Pentagon official Richard Perle, a leading neocon and adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
While the war took just six weeks, the rest of the scenario is not materializing so far.
On Capitol Hill and elsewhere, the case for war is coming under growing scrutiny, as weeks go by without hard evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons being found.
Lawmakers and some within the Bush administration are expressing rising alarm as a U.S. soldier is killed almost daily by anti-American elements in Iraq and estimates of the size and duration of the U.S.-led occupation force grow.
"One lesson we should learn from Iraq is not to over-estimate what we know about the internal dynamics of other countries," said Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who served as President Bill Clinton's national security adviser.
"We had a somewhat ideological model in our head of what was going to happen ... influenced somewhat by the (Iraqi) exile community," Berger said.
One key assumption behind the war was that the United States could turn Iraq into a friendly democracy, starting a series of dominoes falling that would bring more open governments to the Middle East and thus reduce the threat from terrorism.
But some analysts question whether democratic governments in the region would automatically be more pro-Western or less interested than current regimes in acquiring nuclear and other weapons, and in opposing Israel.
If the hawks are having second thoughts, it doesn't show.
"A lot is riding on (Iraq), but it is not the success or failure of a particular mythological ideology," said Robert Kagan, a neocon and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, an influential conservative think tank.
The label "neocon" is overused and the group's influence exaggerated, he and his colleagues argue. Many neocons have their roots in the liberal anti-communist movement of the `60s and `70s. Although most had been Democrats then, they drifted rightward politically, first coming to senior government positions during the Reagan administration.
Kagan said he is surprised that the White House did not plan better for the peacekeeping phase of the Iraq mission. But "I think they've turned the corner," he said.
A senior administration official defended the administration's post-victory policies, noting that the fall of Saddam was a big success. No senior officials expected democracy would develop within a few months, he said; he spoke on condition that he not be identified because speaking to the press could get him in trouble with superiors.
Citing recent Bush initiatives in the areas of nonproliferation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East free trade, the official said: "I don't think the ideology of supporting freedom and opposing proliferation and trying for peace ... is on the defensive at all."
Many hawks hoped that destroying the Iraqi regime would give pause to other countries seeking nuclear, chemical and biological arms.
"The hard lessons learned by Iraq must resonate with other proliferating countries," Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a conservative senior State Department official, told a House committee June 4.
But Iran and North Korea, the other two members of Bush's "Axis of Evil," are moving ahead with nuclear weapons programs far more advanced than Iraq's were, presenting Bush with looming foreign policy challenges. Pre-emptive attack doesn't seem to be an attractive option.
Kagan argued that the U.S. war in Iraq has prompted the European Union to engage in tougher diplomacy toward Iran in hopes of averting another Middle East conflict.
As for North Korea, which is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons, "the cat was out of the bag already," Kagan said.
On the seesaw balance of hawks and moderates within Bush's sharply divided foreign policy team, the hawks appear - at least temporarily - to be on the downswing.
The moderates, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and uniformed military officers, have won several recent policy battles.
They blocked plans by some in Rumsfeld's office to install Iraqi exiles in power in Baghdad, although at least one senior Pentagon official is still assisting the exiles there, and suggestions to use an Iranian opposition group to undermine the theocratic regime in Tehran.
Bush has decided for now against a military strike on either Iran or Syria, both designated by Washington as state sponsors of terrorism. Instead, much of the White House's diplomatic energy is going toward the Middle East peace process, which involves degrees of pressure on Israel, a close U.S. ally.
The president and his political advisers appear more focused on domestic issues, and leery of risky new military ventures as Bush begins his re-election campaign. They also are concerned about a possible schism in the president's political base between neocons and traditional conservatives, many of whom question the necessity of attacking Iraq.
But if Bush wins a second term, those who advocate regime change not just in Iran and Syria, but in traditional U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, could be driving policy once again.
"If Bush is re-elected, that viewpoint is still very strong," said a former U.S. official, who requested anonymity to avoid being caught in a partisan feud.
Michael Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is among those who argue that the United States must eventually deal with all of what he called the "big four" sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
"We will deal with them," Ledeen said. "It's not going to happen overnight and it won't be defined by a single battle."
Knight Ridder Copyright
CTW is/was a "moderate", pro-choice, sometimes called "liberal" Republican in a White House den of far right extremists....
Under constant rebel threat, northern Ugandans appeal to the international community
Gina L. Bramucci
18 Jun 2003 17:43:00 GMT
Association of Volunteers in International Service
Website: http://www.avsi.org
Fifty washbasins, 24 bottles of Jik disinfectant, two liters of iodine and 657 children. Rinse, scrub, dry, medicate: A Tuesday morning cleaning at the Catholic mission in Kitgum, northern Uganda, where nearly 700 permanently displaced children now seek refuge from rebel attack and abduction.
The one-day cleaning—organized through the cooperation of the Comboni missionaries, district authorities and AVSI—was an effort to eliminate scabies and other skin diseases typical of congested environments. With funding from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and private donors, AVSI was able to distribute new clothing, blankets and mats to the children, burning infested materials to avoid the further spread of disease.
The number of children arriving at the mission has been on the rise for the past two months, as a long-running insurgency in northern Uganda has grown increasingly violent and dangerous for civilians. A majority of students in outlying villages have been displaced from their schools, and parents often seek to keep their children safe by sending them to live in places they believe are more protected.
Most of the children staying at Kitgum Mission come from areas heavily hit by rebels in late May and early June. About 60 percent are from Omiya Anyima, Kitgum Matidi and Mucwini, all trading centers that were attacked and severely burned.
As students have arrived at the mission they have been absorbed into classes at three neighboring schools. The Kitgum District Education Office gave exercise books and scholastic materials, and the U.N. World Food Program provides meals for the displaced. Teachers struggle to maintain a semblance of academic stability in this region of uncertainty; but aid workers emphasize that the influx of children represents a much larger problem.
Conflict has touched the lives of the entire population of Uganda’s Acholi-land over the past year. People have abandoned villages, moving to displaced camps or major urban centers such as Kitgum and Gulu towns. Food shortages are widespread and hospital admissions on the rise region-wide. Meanwhile, civilians in rural areas go largely unprotected and face the constant threat of rebel attack.
A series of rebel movements in has held northern Uganda in a state of instability since 1986. The most recent and longest lasting of these rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), shores up its army by abducting children to use as soldiers and young women as sex slaves. Human Rights Watch estimates that 5,000 children have been abducted since June 2002, when the Ugandan government launched an aggressive military campaign meant to finish the LRA.
Instead of its promised result, the campaign, designated “Operation Iron Fist,” triggered fierce rebel retaliation. The LRA—given orders by its top commander, Joseph Kony—stepped up attacks on villages and trading centers; burned camps for the displaced and health centers; and returned to a pattern of traditional mutilation and killing.
Catholic missions and missionaries have become specific targets as rebels reportedly seek to draw the attention of the international community. Nine missions have been burned in the last 12 months, and Kony has used the radio to issue warnings to expatriate nuns and priests.
Such direct threats are taken seriously by Catholic missionaries, but the relatively small number of foreign religious and aid workers who have remained here stress that it is the civilian population that is in danger.
Representatives of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), the group most actively involved in peace talks in the region, describe Kitgum, Gulu and other centers as “besieged.” It is a word they use because to travel a few kilometers from town centers means to run a high risk of rebel ambush or landmines. On June 10, four were killed and 19 injured when a large passenger bus ran over an anti-tank landmine in Pader District, the third district of Acholi-land.
Insecurity on roads has made it close to impossible for international agencies to deliver aid outside of Kitgum and Gulu towns. It is only by relying on armed government escorts that AVSI and the WFP have been able to access rural communities, many of which have been essentially razed by rebel attack.
Accessing outlying areas, while critical, raises great concern among the humanitarian community.
Already, in trading centers such as Omiya Anyima and Kitgum Matidi, delivered food aid has acted as a magnet for the LRA. In these cases, rebels monitored the arrival of WFP closely and arrived to loot food just moments after the convoy pulled away.
Long-time observers in Acholi-land warn that the confidence of the LRA and their apparent free reign signal a dangerous shift in the conflict.
“Kony is victorious,” said a 68-year-old Comboni missionary who has spent the past eight years working in the region. “People have no protection whatsoever,” he said. “Children are hunted and
people are on the run.”
With the level of desperation at a new peak among the Acholi people, and the level of need escalating with each new day, traditional and religious leaders are making a plea for international intervention of some kind. Pointing to the United Nations’ response to inter-ethnic fighting in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Acholi continue to ask why the world has turned a blind eye to their own 17-year long history of suffering.
The viable options for putting an end to conflict in Acholi-land are unclear. Where once an amnesty law and active dialogue offered hope for peaceful resolutions, even the most unwavering supporters of peace have begun questioning the possibility that rebel commanders will talk. Instead, they call for outside intervention, international pressure for protection of civilians, and consideration of the crisis at the United Nations.
Meanwhile, there were fresh reports of an LRA attack on a school on Tuesday, with more children abducted, more mothers and fathers afraid of what tomorrow will bring. For now, AVSI joins with the local population, religious leaders and missionaries, in reaffirming a commitment to the people of northern Uganda—to share the current struggle, to share the hope for peace one day, and to share the laughter of 657 children. And more.
The great court shuffle that may not come
Despite speculation about high court retirements, continuity may prevail.
By Warren Richey and Linda Feldmann / Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0620/p01s01-usju.html
"But alter that balance of power by one or two votes, and watch out. Some of the nation's most contentious issues - including abortion, the church-state divide, civil liberties, and states' rights - could be at a tipping point.
With the nation as politically divided as the justices, liberals and conservatives see both the court and country at a crossroads. And they're gearing up for a fight."
Vote on Pryor could come Thursday
By Chris Otts
Senior Staff Reporter
June 18, 2003
One of Alabama's own has been the source of controversy on Capitol Hill recently.
Attorney General Bill Pryor's nomination to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has become a hotly debated issue in Washington. President Bush chose Pryor, a Republican, for the post in April.
Pryor defended his conservative views, which some call extreme, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 11.
A committee spokeswoman said a vote on whether to reject Pryor's nomination or send it to the Senate floor is scheduled for Thursday, but could be tabled until next week or the following week. If the vote goes strictly along party lines, the committee will approve Pryor.
However, several liberal interest groups are lobbying Senate Democrats to filibuster Pryor's nomination should it reach the full Senate.
Conservatives such as Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., support Pryor, saying he is an experienced attorney who would apply the law fairly and impartially as a federal judge. But liberals are concerned about Pryor's conservative views on abortion, gay rights, federalism, separation of church and state, civil rights and capital punishment.
During the hearing, Democrats asked Pryor to explain several of his controversial decisions and statements. Pryor readily disclosed his conservative views, but reiterated throughout that his personal convictions would not interfere with his duties as a judge.
With the apparently imminent retirement of one or two Supreme Court justices, both Democrats and Republicans are vying to place their potential nominees in the position to move up to the court. Many think Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, is at stake. A bill banning late-term, or "partial-birth," abortions recently passed the House and Senate. Former President Bill Clinton vetoed two similar bills. But Bush, who supports a "culture of life," is expected to sign off on the new legislation.
Pryor's nomination is therefore of much concern for pro-choice advocates. Pryor, 41, would be appointed for life to a seat one step below the Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit is based in Atlanta and handles appeals from Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Pryor, a Catholic, once called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination in constitutional law and history." When committee members questioned him about the statement, he stood by his opinion.
However, in an effort to show he could respect the authority of higher law, Pryor mentioned that as attorney general he pushed for the narrow interpretation of a law banning late-term abortions because some parts of the law appeared unconstitutional according to the Supreme Court.
"I have demonstrated as attorney general that I am able to set aside my personal beliefs and follow the law, even when I strongly disagree with the law," Pryor said before the committee.
Civil rights record attracts opposition from liberals
Liberal interest groups, however, are not convinced Pryor is capable of impartiality as a judge. One group, the Alliance for Justice, strongly opposes Pryor.
"Pryor has demonstrated himself through statements and through actions as attorney general to be an ideological extremist who is incapable of separating his personal views from the requirements of a judge," said Marsha Kuntz, who heads the group's judicial selection process.
Nevertheless, U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., vouched for Pryor's ability to uphold the law.
"He's shown both at the ballot box and also in his performance as attorney general that he can do his job and do it in an unbiased way," he said. "I think he would do the same upholding the law of the United States."
Bonner also discredited the opinion of groups such as the AFJ, saying they obtain funding by opposing whomever Bush nominates to the courts.
"I find it appalling that liberals in these left-wing groups have come out and attacked Bill - many of whom have never met Bill Pryor," he said. "They don't even know the man they're talking about."
Another issue of concern for liberals is Pryor's stance on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires several Southern states, including Alabama, to get federal approval before making any changes when it comes to voting procedure. The act was adopted amid the civil rights movement to protect blacks' right to vote in the South.
Pryor called the act an "expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness."
Hillary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said the act still serves an important function in today's society.
"It is very clear that African-Americans are still discriminated against when they go to the polls," he said.
Shelton said the NAACP opposes Pryor's appointment because, among other reasons, he is an advocate of states' rights, which historically have not helped blacks.
"It was under the guise of states' rights that George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door," he said.
Despite Shelton's claims, Bonner said, Pryor has won the support of some blacks. Bonner pointed to last year's state election, in which Pryor got more election returns, almost 60 percent, than any state official. Bonner said the results show many blacks and Democrats supported Pryor.
He also said several black state leaders, such as U.S. Rep. Artur Davis and Joe Reed, chairman of the black wing of the Alabama Democratic Party, are behind Pryor. Bonner pointed out that Pryor supported the revision of an old Alabama law banning interracial marriages, which his predecessors as attorney general did not do.
"[Pryor] has been very fair, especially to minorities in Alabama," Bonner said.
Confirmation could hinge on moderate Specter's decision
Other Pryor views under scrutiny include his stances on homosexuality and separation of church and state.
In a brief Pryor filed in a Texas sodomy case before the Supreme Court, he equated homosexual acts with incest and pedophilia. Pryor explained himself to the committee, saying he was simply following precedent set by Supreme Court Justice Byron White in 1986.
Pryor has also voiced support for Alabama Chief Justice's Roy Moore placement of a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court building, which some call a clear overlap of church and state.
Pryor stood by all his statements and writings in question -- except for one. Three years ago Pryor said "nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court" should not have a say in whether an Alabama inmate on death row received a temporary reprieve. After Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., challenged him regarding the statement, Pryor conceded, calling the remark "inappropriate."
If history repeats itself, Pryor stands to lose his confirmation bid. Sessions, who introduced Pryor at the Senate hearing and spoke on his behalf, is a former Alabama attorney general and was voted down by the same Senate committee for a federal judgeship in 1986 amid allegations of racial insensitivity.
Republicans have a one-member majority in the committee, but moderate Republicans could swing against Pryor. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., did not attend Pryor's hearing. He told The New York Times he has concerns about Pryor's nomination and is undecided on how to vote.
Vote on Pryor could come Thursday
© 2003 www.cw.ua.edu
Draft of European Union's Constitution Wins General Support
By FRANK BRUNI
ORTO CARRAS, Greece, June 20 — European leaders broadly endorsed the draft of a first-ever constitution for the European Union at a summit meeting here today, calling the evolving document a historic step toward a more coherent identity and role for the union on the world stage.
But that endorsement fell short of a full-scale embrace, as individual countries raised complaints and concerns about the draft, an attempt to make the governance of the union smoother as it expands to 25 countries from its current membership of 15.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/international/europe/20CND-GREECE.html?ex=1056772800&en=b2a453...
The EU is vying for superpower status, as are the Arab militants, I think.....
Will we ever know the real reason Christie resigned?.. CTW never seemed in sync with the DC Bush Boyz...
Deck of Weasel cards - bashing the UN...
https://www.newsmaxstore.com/nm_mag/hillarycards.cfm
To bad for George (and us!!) the UN may be proven "right" after all...
Hillary Cards: A "right wing conspiracy", or beating the proverbial dead horse.....
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/nms/showdetl.cfm?&DID=6&Product_ID=1375
These people just can't give it up!!..