Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

March 31, 2005

America's Mercenary "Army"

The LA Times Opinion page has a great editorial today on the US use of civilian contractors as mercenaries in an attempt to make up for a shortage of men in uniform.
There is nothing new or nefarious about privatizing military support functions. But, in Iraq, the contractors aren't just building latrines or staffing mess halls. They're also running around with assault rifles and black body armor performing "tactical" functions. Many are well-trained U.S. or British veterans, but others are Rambo wannabes or sordid desperados. Among the mercenaries who have surfaced in Iraq are South Africans who were members of apartheid-era death squads and Chileans who served in Pinochet's security services.


When U.S. service members are accused of wrongdoing, they are investigated and, if necessary, court-martialed. That's not the case with civilians who are generally not covered by the laws of their home countries for crimes committed abroad. The Iraqi legal system could hold them to account, but in practice Baghdad won't do anything that might lead to an exodus of foreign firms. Dozens of U.S. and British soldiers have been prosecuted for misconduct in Iraq — but not a single contractor.

Actually, until the new Iraqi government changes the law, their courts have no recourse. According to the coalition's Order 17, enacted by US administrators shortly after the invasion, military personnel and most private contractors working in Iraq cannot be brought before Iraqi courts.
A lack of accountability leads to occurences such as those described by four former Custer Battles employees who claim that poorly trained Kurds on the firm's payroll killed innocent motorists. In one incident, a guard supposedly fired his AK-47 into a passenger car to clear a traffic jam. In another, an aggressive driver in a giant pickup truck allegedly pulverized a sedan with children inside. When true (the firm denies any wrongdoing), such incidents only create more insurgent recruits.


U.S. policymakers argue that they have to rely on private help because the U.S. armed forces simply aren't big enough to do everything, and allies have not made up the shortfall. But that's an argument for expanding the armed forces, not for hiring a lot of freelance gunslingers. Administration officials complain that a bigger army is too expensive, but are they really saving money by relying on privateers?


The most valued contractors are experienced former U.S. Special Forces operatives whose training cost the Pentagon hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are being lured out of uniform by the promise of making $500 to $1,000 a day. (If they stay in the service they'll be lucky to make $140 a day.) And where does that money come from? Pretty much all the foreign firms in Iraq are paid by the U.S. Treasury. So the government is in competition with itself for its most skilled and hard-to-replace soldiers. Does this sort of outsourcing really make sense?

Sure it makes sense to an Administration bent on "starving the beast". Bush's agenda is to return billions of government tax dollars to the private sector any way he can, to run up a huge debt so big any future attempt to balence the budget will result in major cuts in entitlements. Clinton proved that Reagan's initial attempt failed. So the only recourse was to raise the debt to mind boggling proportions. Interest payments alone on this debt will force cuts in entitlements or a tax increase. Republican's are banking on their being no support for tax increases. The rich take no risk in this, the middle class will no longer have an economic safety net should bad times strike if the Republican's get their way.

March 30, 2005

The Environment May Take An Irrevocable Turn in the Next 50 Years

Our world is in trouble. We are using up Earth's resources faster than ever in recorded history, likely in the entire history of mankind. Another 50 years of this will be disasterous. The Earth will no longer be able to sustain its population and massive famine of the sort the world has NEVER seen will be imminent. The good news is that if we make comprehensive changes now, we can head off the worst of it. But its a tall order.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.


“Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continue to be degraded,” said the study, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report, conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries. It specifically states that the ongoing degradation of ecosystem services is a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by the world leaders at the United Nations in 2000.


Although evidence remains incomplete, there is enough for the experts to warn that the ongoing degradation of 15 of the 24 ecosystem services examined is increasing the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously affect human well-being. This includes the emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of “dead zones” along the coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate.

[...]
“The over-riding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all,” said the MA board of directors in a statement, “Living beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-being.” “Achieving this, however, will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society. The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands.”


The MA Synthesis Report also reveals that it is the world's poorest people who suffer most from ecosystem changes. The regions facing significant problems of ecosystem degradation - sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, some regions in Latin America, and parts of South and Southeast Asia - are also facing the greatest challenges in achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the number of poor people is forecast to rise from 315 million in 1999 to 404 million by 2015.

Complete Report

The News is Not Good from Iraq

Juan Cole again has a great post on Iraq. Things are not going well, though you won't hear much from the mainstream press.

Insurgents have been very successful taking out US tanks.
The American premire Abrams tank has all of its armor on the front end. Naturally, rocket propelled grenades can be used from the side and the back of the tank. Roadside bombs take out the underside of the tank. While, the US lost only 18 tanks in Iraqi War I, they've lost 69 tanks this time around. One of the keys to the Afghani win against the Soviets was from its success destroying tanks.
The number of insurgents held in prison by US troops has doubled to 10,000 since last October. That suggests the insurgency has been more successful in recruiting within Iraq, despite talk of more non-Iraqis contributing.
Perhaps worst of all, the Iraqi people are losing faith in the democratic process. Bread, butter, and security are the primary concerns, and the government can't settle on leadership much less solve problems of the Iraqi on the street.
Iraqi voters aren't happy. They don't care that some of the biggest political changes ever to happen in their lifetime are going on in their country. All they know is that the electricity still is off for hours every day, the water doesn't always flow out of the faucets, there are still long gas queues at the stations, and the situation still seems pretty lawless in the streets.
"We're very disappointed," said Hathem Hassan Thani, 31, a political science graduate student at Baghdad University."Some personalities are trying to make the political operation fail, and they don't want to give positions to the Sunni Muslims."

[...]
"The Iraqi people are very itchy.The street is very nervous," said Saad Jawar Qindeel, a spokesman for the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of two dominant religious-based parties that won the United Iraqi Alliance ticket."There's a lot of talk of people ready to protest."


March 29, 2005

Tom Delay

Bush's Slap at the UN

Bush has a way of bringing talented Americans together to denounce his policies.
At least twice, Bush has drawn criticism from former presidents. This is a dubious distinction since there is an unwritten rule for former presidents not to speak out against a seated president. Both Clinton and Carter have done so. Clinton got criticized by three former presidents for his personal behavior, but Bush drew fire for his presidential duties.
One long time friend of the Bush family said that Bush Sr disagreed with Dubya's plan to invade Iraq and gave the nod for his former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, to try to dissuade Dubya from invading Iraq.
In April of 2004, former diplomats criticized Bush's Palistinian policies. In June of 2004, former diplomats and military officials criticize Bush's policies that were isolating the US internationally. In October of 2004, security specialists called for a comprehensive review of the Iraqi military and nation building policies.
Now former diplomats criticize Bush's nomination of Bolton as UN Ambassador, a man that has made his career advocating the only purpose of the UN is to serve the US. This man is so arrogant, its only surpassed by Dubya himself.
Washington > Ex-Diplomats to Urge Rejection of Bolton as U.N. Ambassador" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29bolton.html?th&emc=th">The New York Times > Washington > Ex-Diplomats to Urge Rejection of Bolton as U.N. Ambassador
A group of former American diplomats plan to send a letter to urge the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations.

[...]
Their criticism dwelt primarily on Mr. Bolton's stand on issues as the State Department's senior arms control official. They said he had an "exceptional record" of opposing American efforts to improve national security through arms control.
But the letter also chides Mr. Bolton for his "insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States. "That view, the letter says, would not help him negotiate with other diplomats at the United Nations.


March 28, 2005

A Crisis of Ignorance in America

Social studies becoming an unintended casualty
The Cold War refers to a spot at the North Pole. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1892. John F. Kennedy and his son, John Jr., were one of the two father/son pairs to serve as president. That's American history -- according to some local high school students. How about the "date which will live in infamy"? Well, not exactly. Two of 10 high school students interviewed could name the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor.


Students' ignorance of their country's history comes as little surprise to many educators. What disturbs them more is that schools are doing little to change that, they said. "There is a crisis out there," said Jack Bovee, past president of the Florida Association of Social Studies Supervisors. "We've lost the second generation of young Americans who don't know a lot of our country, our economic system ... and nobody cares."

[...]
"To have a well-rounded education and to have students understand what it is to be a citizen, they need to know their place in history. They need to know their rights," said Francis Holleran, Charlotte County schools' curriculum specialist for social sciences.

The teachers interviewed are expressing another example of America's greatest resource, our children, are being largely ignored. And another unanticipated consequence of "No Child Left Behind" will only make this problem worse. Social Studies is not part of the test.
But there is worse trouble for America's future. We are falling behind the world in engineering and education. The Bush Administration is too busy lining the pockets of his "base" and they are shipping all of their investments and jobs overseas where labor and materials are cheap. All of this is good for America, says the Bush Campaign.
The Bush Administration is squandering the future of America for greed. We need to return to American Values in 2008 and elect a Democrat to ensure our children's future.

Ethically challenged leader shouldn't hide behind God

Here is a great post from Carla at Preemptive Karma:
The Salt Lake Tribune has some harsh words for House Leader Tom DeLay:
Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that. But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. The Texas Republican has gone so far as to suggest that Schiavo's situation is a gift from God that he can use to defend himself against charges brought by his political enemies - enemies whom he all but calls, in an echo of a defensive Hillary Clinton some years ago, a vast left-wing conspiracy. In remarks to a Washington meeting of the conservative Family Research Council last week, DeLay made it clear that his cause is God's cause, and that those who oppose him oppose God.

When religious conservatives in one of the most hard right communities in the Union can see you're a pandering ass____ ...you know you're screwed.


March 27, 2005

Iraq Headed Towards Civil War

Boston.com / News / World / Middle East / Fractured Iraq sees a Sunni call to arms
For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi'ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq's ethnic communities. ''The Americans aren't the problem; we're living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ''It's time to fight back."


Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings. According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi'ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba'ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi'ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.

Sectarian killings are increasingly dominating the action on the ground in Iraq. Of course, the mainstream press isn't covering it that way. The risk of civil war has been present from the beginning. The Bush Administration's grandiose scheme to bring Democracy to Iraq has simply not produced an outcome other than sectarian violence. Since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, I have been concerned that the risk of withdrawal from Iraq has been the likelihood of civil war. Now it appears the US presense may not prevent it anyway.

March 26, 2005

Will Belarus Gov't Fall?

Police in Belarus Disperse Demonstrators
Belarusian demonstrators tried to rally outside the office of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday to demand his ouster in a self-declared attempt to emulate a popular uprising in Kyrgyzstan, but they were beaten back by riot police swinging truncheons.


The Belarusian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, harshly assailed the Kyrgyz opposition, warning that protests that drove longtime leader Askar Akayev from power this week could destabilize the entire region. Lukashenko, who has largely retained the Soviet system and hasn't changed the name of the KGB in his country of 10 million, has stifled dissent, persecuted independent media and opposition parties, and prolonged his power through elections that international organizations say were marred by fraud. He also pushed through a referendum in October that will allow him to seek a third term in 2006 and run in subsequent elections.


Showing he will not tolerate demonstrations like those that drove the presidents of Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan from power, Lukashenko sent police into the streets Friday to disperse an estimated 1,000 protesters who chanted "Down with Lukashenko!" and "Long Live Belarus!" Police chased demonstrators along the streets of the capital, beating some with the night sticks. Minsk police spokesman Oleg Slepchenko said 34 protesters were detained for participating in an unsanctioned rally.


Andrei Klimov, an opposition leader who organized the protests, said his goal was to help spark a revolution similar to those that have swept the other ex-Soviet republics.

I just don't think it will be quite so easy in Belarus. It looks like Lukashenko controls the police who are willing to do his bidding. The fall of Kyrgyzstan was directly related to police reluctance to take sufficient action against the crowds.

Jeb Bush Willing to Seize Schiavo and Force Feeding Tube

In a move more morally repugnant than anything yet in week of horror for Michael Schiavo, Thursday, Jeb Bush ordered Terri Schiavo seized and force fed in a move that was sure to be overturned in court within hours.
In a week where Operation Rescue, threatened to unleash political retribution on judges who ruled in the case. Jeb Bush himself was threatened with political on National TV if he didn't go beyond his legal options to intervene. Some very scary irrational religious fanatics have come out of the woodwork on this issue.
And Jeb Bush makes a cynical attempt to cement his 2008 candidacy for president with a media showdown at the OK hospice choral. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed.
Herald.com | 03/26/2005 | Police 'showdown' averted
Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.


Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.


For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called "a showdown." In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.


"We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,'' said a source with the local police. The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene," said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. "When the sheriff's department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off."


The incident, known only to a few and related to The Herald by three different sources involved in Thursday's events, underscores the intense emotion and murky legal terrain that the Schiavo case has created. It also shows that agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush had planned to use a wrinkle in Florida law that would have allowed them to legally get around the judge's order. The exception in the law allows public agencies to freeze a judge's order whenever an agency appeals it.


US Offers Aid to Kazakhstan for Maritime Defense

The US continues its encroachment into Central Asia by aiding Kazakhstan with maritime defense. They are working on relations in military, economic and political spheres, all with oil as an underlying purpose.
Amid the growing tumult in the Central Asia's Kyrgyzstan, the United States is offering assistance to aid Kazakhstan in strengthening its maritime defense capabilities in the Caspian, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan John Ordway told a news conference in Aktau (the administrative center of western Mangistau region) during an official visit. Ordway said, "Relations between the two countries in the sphere of military cooperation are developing well," particularly cooperation programs between Kazakhstan's Defense Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense."


France and Germany See Arms Embargo to China Ending

It looks like contrary to predictions in a NY Times article this week, EUobserver.com has a different read on events:
EU leaders have indicated that they want to press ahead with their controversial move to lift the arms embargo against China. Speaking after the traditional Spring Summit in Brussels (23 March), German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, "nothing has changed and nothing has changed in my stance". Mr Schroeder also said he had not discussed the issue with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and that "neither he nor I wanted that".


French President Jacques Chirac said, "There is no reason to think that there has been a change in this area".

TBO.com includes some background on France and Germany's thinking on the arms embargo:
Europe has long been divided over lifting the ban. France and Germany have called it a Cold War relic that holds back trade opportunities with China's booming economy. Chirac, in an interview published in Wednesday's editions of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, said lifting the embargo was aimed at improving relations with the Asian economic giant, not selling weapons. "The Europeans have no intention of engaging in an armaments exportation policy toward China," Chirac was quoted as saying. "What the Europeans want is to normalize their relations with China." Britain, Sweden and other European nations have been more reticent, citing continued human rights abuses and China's threat to Taiwan.


The United States has lobbied strongly for the ban to stay, saying European weapons could destabilize east Asia and threaten U.S. forces in the Pacific. Other European officials have said lifting the embargo could be delayed because of a failure to get agreement within the bloc for a series of safeguards to prevent a sudden, destabilizing flood of European weapons or the export of high-tech arms.

The key issue here is what the EU is saying about China's threat to Taiwan. Perhaps they are saying, "Taiwan is not worth going to war over." Frankly I agree Taiwan is not worth a war with China since it is really about a civil war stretched out over 50 years. However, sending the signal now when China is increasingly threatening amounts to an invitation to go ahead from the EU. They seem to say, "We want to have normalized relations. What you do with Taiwan is your affair. We won't support an invasion, but we won't try to stop it either." This will make Bush, already committed to defending Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines very nervous.

Another Attack on Freedom of Speech

Censorship by thick pocketted students may curtail academic freedom in Florida. A student who can afford to sue a professor, maybe able to do so under a law proposed in the Florida House. College curricula may well be controlled by students with cash who choose to intimidate the university they attend.
And Republicans are so concerned about tort reform. Let's keep victims of negligence from suing big companies for harming them, but instead intimidate professors and tie up the courts settling curricula in our schools. That makes sense, doesn't it? This isn't rule of law, this is rule of the monied.
THE LAW COULD LET STUDENTS SUE FOR UNTOLERATED BELIEFS
Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities. The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee. The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House. While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”


The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views. According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities. Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.


“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue. Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened. Similar suits could be filed by students who don’t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added.


“This is a horrible step,” he said. “Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be decided by judges in courtrooms. Professors might have to pay court costs — even if they win — from their own pockets. This is not an innocent piece of legislation.” The staff analysis also warned the bill may shift responsibility for determining whether a student’s freedom has been infringed from the faculty to the courts.


March 25, 2005

Al Qaeda is Targetting All Oil Producers

Al Qaeda has a pretty well orchestrated plan. They are going after oil production sources, seeking to destabilize the government, kill foreigners and destroy oil facilities anywhere they can.
BakuSun > Baku terrorists thwarted
A group with Al-Qaeda trained operatives attempted to recruit young women as suicide bombers and target expatriate business in Baku during a failed bid to destabilize Azerbaijan, according to an investigation into the case released by the Ministry of National Security. Last month, a six-person cell was jailed for “planning terrorist attacks in areas dense with people in Baku, in places where many foreigners live and work, in the security ministries, in strategically important locations and infrastructure sites,” according to security ministry spokesman quoted by international media. Reports of a closed-door trial against six men said to have unspecified links to Al-Qaeda surfaced in January but the security ministry refused to release details of the case at the time, citing “state interests” and prompting rights groups to say that the case was unfounded.


The Real Reason Bush Wants to Overhaul Social Security

The reason the Bush Administration wants to overhaul Social Security has nothing to do with the survival of the program. Witness how they ignore Medicare while it teeters on the brink of insolvency. They want Medicare to fail. And they want Social Security to fail. This is more of the "starve the beast" tactic. Thanks to Josh for the link.
There's already talk of raising the $90,000 income cap on which Social Security taxes now are collected to restore fake "solvency" to the program. Nothing like a massive tax increase on the entrepreneurial class to "fix" things, eh?

They want to free the rich from paying for the solvency of Social Security. Why shouldn't people with $90,000 income pay a little more to help those who don't make enough to create a viable pension? Let them starve? The food shelves are empty quite often these days. Charitable giving is down. The Churches and private sector can't pick up the difference.
The only real way to fix Social Security is, over the long haul, to convert this socialist wealth-redistribution scheme into a free-market, wealth-creation program. And the best place to start is with the modest private accounts the Bush administration proposes.

This is about greed. The rich don't want to pay for the privilege of getting richer on the backs of the workers. They use catch words that raise people's ire like "socialism" to cover their real intent.
Even factoring normal market ups and downs, private accounts will -- conservatively invested and over the long term -- provide workers of every socioeconomic class with a better, and inheritable, retirement income.

What Bush doesn't want you to know is that a whole lot of people who rely on Social Security today will have NOTHING in the future, because they can't afford to self-pay for their pension. The private accounts will bring down Social Security decades earlier.

March 24, 2005

Is the US Destablizing Kyrgyzstan?

It looks to Me that the US may well be behind the revolution in Kyrgyzstan. It's geopolitical location bordering Afghanistan, China and Russia has led to a US and Russian military bases there. I suspect the US want to have the upper hand over Russia, and Akayev, the leader who just fled the country, has been adept at playing no favorites between Russia and the US. The opposition without clear leadership will provide the power vacuum a handpicked US supported leader can step into. The problem is that civil war could break out and drug trafficking may proliferate. Sounds like part of the Neocon's plan to encircle China.

Geopolitics at Heart of Kyrgyzstan Unrest - INTERVIEW WITH Political scientist Igor Ryabov - MOSNEWS.COM
The OSCE [ORGANIZATION ON SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE, an organization that has been involved in setting up elections in Bosnia and Urkraine, as well as Kyrgyzstan] did not really condemn the elections, neither in the first round nor the second. It recognized the elections as valid. Of course, it noted violations in the first round and in the second, but it did not see those violations as grave enough to invalidate the elections. Mostly it was the Kyrgyz opposition that spoke out about the violations, and certain politicians in the United States. U.S. influence is very strong in Kyrgyzstan — a number of non-governmental organizations are active on its territory, and they they are financed by U.S. organizations. They are the Soros Foundation, and Freedom House. The printing press that prints opposition newspapers is actually owned by Freedom House. The head of this organization is James Woolsey, the former CIA director. And congressmen who have criticized the Kyrgyz government are in fact quite close to these power structures. In particular, such statements were made by Senator John McCain. Of course, tensions didn’t start to escalate right away. But three days after the first round McCain came out with some harsh critical statements, and in effect issued an ultimatum: either Akayev corrects the violations, or the country will face “consequences”. After this rather aggressive public statement, the OSCE distanced itself, and repeated that it recognized the elections as valid.
[...]
For the Americans, Kyrgyzstan is important on a geopolitical scale. This means that it neighbors China, it neighbors Afghanistan, and the United States wants a strong position in this region. How the domestic events are going to turn out after everything they’ve done there — they’re not really concerned about that. They need a government that they can control. Taking this into account, it’s not clear why they’re ruining their relations with Akayev, because he’s been loyal to them all this time. And it’s Kyrgyzstan where the U.S. has its military base. In Kyrgyzstan the scenario of an attempted “bloodless revolution” like in Georgia and the Ukraine could lead to a Tajikistan, with civilian casualties, anarchy, and a flourishing narcotics trade. So far, it’s brought about popular governors in the south, but it’s also brought about growing prices for bread, it’s brought about cases where the electricity has been cut off, where planes don’t fly there anymore. It’s brought about an economic crisis.


Richard Perle, Neocom Darling Is In Trouble With the SEC

Perle is one of the architects of the Iraqi invasion and has been agitating about invading Iran. I suspect we will see an attempt by the Bush administration to quash this lawsuit for Bush's corrupt advisor.
Perle is close with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the man who quietly left the Administration when the FBI investigated whether he was passing classified information through unofficial channels to the Israeli's through his involvement in the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. As Chairman of the Defence Policy Advisory Board, appointed by Rumsfeld in 2001, Perle was involved in an obvious conflict of interest where his former employer was seeking to leverage Homeland Security contracts with Perle's help.
This time, unless Bush can protect him, Perle may be over his head.
The Globe and Mail: SEC may sue Perle over Hollinger
According to an investigation by a special committee of Hollinger International's board last year, Mr. Perle admitted that he signed off on many of the transactions without reading the documents. In a report, the committee sharply criticized Mr. Perle as a "faithless fiduciary" whose "head-in-the-sand behaviour" breached his duty to protect shareholders. The committee also found that Mr. Perle and an affiliated company pocketed more than $7-million in compensation and investments from Hollinger International and a subsidiary. Mr. Perle has denied that his Hollinger benefits had any influence on his decisions as a director. Hollinger International officials, shareholders and the SEC allege that Lord Black and Mr. Radler wrongfully diverted proceeds from the sale of some of the chain's newspapers for their personal use. Mr. Perle said he never profited from the Hollinger deals that investigators have scrutinized.


March 23, 2005

Abdullah: Syria, Hezbollah promote terror against Israel

In a very surprising move, King Abdullah is actively warning Israel publically that Syria and Hezbollah seeks to restart the intefada. One has to wonder what has driven a wedge between Abdullah and Bashar. Syria and Jordan has often been on opposite sides of issues, never so much since Jordan made peace with Israel.
Haaretz - Israel News
Jordan's King Abdullah warned Tuesday that Syria and Hezbollah are encouraging Palestinian activists to carry out terror attacks against Israel, trying to divert attention from the situation in Lebanon and Syria. In a meeting with representatives of leading Jewish organizations, Abdullah also said Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are the greatest threats to stability in the Middle East. Abdullah said he recently told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that in case of a terrorist attack Sharon should check carefully who is behind it to avoid an Israeli retaliation against the wrong target. Abdullah was implying that, should a terror attack occur, Sharon would find that Hezbollah was responsible.


Restoring the Checks and Balences in the Constitution

Washington > Coalition Forms to Oppose Parts of Antiterrorism Law" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23patriot.html?th&emc=th">The New York Times > Coalition Forms to Oppose Parts of Antiterrorism Law
The coalition of liberals and conservatives said it had no quarrel with the majority of the expanded counterterrorism tools that the law provided, some of which amounted to modest upgrades in the government's ability to use modern technology in wiretapping phone calls and the like. But the group said it would focus its efforts on urging Congress to scale back three provisions of the law that let federal agents conduct "sneak and peek" searches of a home or business without immediately notifying the subject of such searches; demand records from institutions like libraries and medical offices; and use a broad definition of terrorism in pursuing suspects.

The group, calling itself Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, asked Mr. Bush in a letter Tuesday to reconsider his "unqualified endorsement" of the law. "We agree that much of the Patriot Act is necessary to provide law enforcement with the resources they need to defeat terrorism," the letter said, "but we remain very concerned that some of its provisions go beyond its mission and infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans, in ways that raise serious constitutional and practical concerns."
[...]
But coalition members said that the Bush administration's commitment to a dialogue struck them as somewhat half-hearted. Paul Weyrich, who is chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and a prominent conservative who joined the coalition, said he thought the administration, and in particular the former attorney general, John Ashcroft, had adopted an "absolutist" defense of the law.

Mr. Weyrich said he took offense at comments by Mr. Ashcroft suggesting that if people raised concerns about the law, "you were aiding and abetting terrorists. I don't think my colleagues here ought to be put in that position." Other conservatives who voiced concerns Tuesday included Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Taxpayer Reform; David Keane, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and leaders of the Second Amendment Foundation and other gun-rights groups.

Mr. Barr said that the group hoped "to compete with the bully pulpit of the White House" in prompting a more complete airing of the issues. "Missing from the debate has been a substantial discussion and analysis about restoring the checks and balances in the Constitution" while fighting terrorism, he said.

Where have all the Libertarian's been? The Patriot Act is the greatest threat to our civil rights in my life time. Basically, the Federal Government can do anything to any person anywhere in the world without due process or even attempts to meet a minimal due process interpretation. Everyone got scared to speak up because of the threat our nation faced from Al Qaeda.
What we must never forget is that without our liberty, we no longer are America, home of the free.

Bush Approval Plummets on Schiavo Overreach

Bush Approval Plummets on Schiavo Overreach
The blatant disregard for legal precedent and good policy finally appears to have caught up to President Bush and the Republican Congress. The AP passes on the results of the most recently published public opinion poll.
More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of the Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a national debate.

A CBS News poll found that four of five people polled opposed federal intervention, with levels of disapproval among key groups supporting the GOP almost that high.

Bush's overall approval was at 43 percent, down from 49 percent last month.

Looking at the specific data from the poll, a number of other things pop out. Firstly, Congress' approval rating has dropped seven points in one month, from 41% to 34%. Congress has not been this unpopular since 1997 in the wake of GOP investigations into Democratic fundraising.

Also interesting to note is that the President's approval on Iraq is down to 39%, a drop of six points this month. This is consequential due to the fact that there have not been any major attacks recently.

Finally, it appears people have had quite enough of Bush's pandering to Rightwing Christian zealots. Even his constituency in the past election no longer approves.

The Deadly Lack of Health Insurance

People who oppose universal health insurance because it will just raise their taxes should remember they have blood on their hands.
http://prorev.com/2005/03/pro-few-lives-anti-lot.htm

PROGRESS REPORT - According to the Institute of Medicine, lack of health insurance already "causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States." Since President Bush took office the number of Americans who are uninsured has swelled by more than 5 million people. Now he's poised to make the situation worse. President Bush is proposing significant funding cuts to Medicaid and the related State Children's Health Insurance Program. Bush's 2006 budget slashes funding for the programs - which provide vital health coverage to 1 in 6 Americans and 1 in 4 children - by more than $20 billion over five years. According to Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, "the cut would make 1.2 million children unable to access the system." Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) said of Bush's proposed Medicaid cuts: "[P]eople need to remember that to balance the federal budget on the backs of the poorest people in the country is simply unacceptable. . .

Bush's proposed budget significantly reduces funding for the Women, Children and Infants (WIC) program - "a major preventative against low-weight babies." In 2010, for example, Bush's budget would cut funding for the program by $658 million, which would require eliminating coverage for 660,000 women.

Bush's statement about his intervention in the Schiavo case implies that he is a champion for the well-being of the disabled. Not quite. He is proposing "to stop financing the construction of new housing for the mentally ill and physically handicapped." The program has existed for three decades.


Europeans May Continue Arms Embargo Against China

International > Asia Pacific > Europe's Shift on Embargo Places Taiwan at Center Stage" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/international/asia/23embargo.html?th&emc=th">The New York Times > Europe's Shift on Embargo Places Taiwan at Center Stage
Reports of a shift in European plans to lift an arms embargo on China have sent a sobering message to China's new leadership, underscoring the sensitivity of its Taiwan policy and the continued dominance of the United States, Chinese analysts say. American and European officials said this week that the European Union might now delay its plan to lift the embargo, imposed after China's crackdown on democracy protests in 1989, until next year at the earliest, dealing a blow to one of China's major foreign policy goals. European diplomats cited China's newly adopted antisecession law and intense American opposition to easing restraints on weapons sales to explain the shift. The Chinese law adopted this month threatens military action if Taiwan pursues formal independence from the mainland. Few in China have openly criticized passage of the antisecession law, which Beijing leaders argue is needed to stop Taiwan's drift toward independence. But some foreign policy experts said the country was paying a high price for codifying its longstanding threat to use force into law. "No question, the antisecession law had a strong impact on European sentiment," said Song Xinning, a professor at People's University who is one of China's most prominent experts on European policy.[...]Privately, some Chinese analysts say they now reckon that the law may have been mishandled by the leadership under Hu Jintao, the Communist Party chief, who has sought to strengthen his credentials by taking a tougher posture toward Taiwan.

I'm glad to see the European changing their tune. Had they not reconsidered, they would be sending a very dangerous message to China that they were not concerned about Taiwan and the threat of war. They might also have interpreted the move as a break in the NATO alliance.

March 22, 2005

Theocratization of Rule of Law

Ms. Schiavo, lying in a coma for 15 years is a sad picture indeed. Even sadder is what happened when the husband, after a long ordeal, decided that enough was enough. Believing his wife wouldn't want to live like this, he worked with the doctor to stop tube feeding her. Her parents were not willing to allow this to happen. Hoping beyond hope, they go to court for an injunction to stop the withdrawl of the feeding tube. Florida courts, after careful deliberation Opinion > Editorial: A Blow to the Rule of Law" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22tue1.html?th&emc=th"> ruled that she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means in her current state, and ordered her feeding tube removed. Ms. Schiavo's parents, tried and failed to get the Florida Legislature to intervene. Based on tried and true case law, that should have settled the matter.
Cynically, Tom Delay, facing increasing pressure because of corruption charges, and Bush, owing a the religious right pay back for helping him win a second term, led the charge to pass a new law that gives "any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo" standing to sue in federal.
A NY Times Editorial asserts:
This narrow focus is offensive. The founders believed in a nation in which, as Justice Robert Jackson once wrote, we would "submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules." There is no place in such a system for a special law creating rights for only one family. The White House insists that the law will not be a precedent. But that means that the right to bring such claims in federal court is reserved for people with enough political pull to get a law passed that names them in the text.

Worse yet, as the case proceeds in Federal court, the parent's attorney argues:
Ms. Schiavo's religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic were being infringed because Pope John Paul II has deemed it unacceptable for Catholics to refuse food and water. "We are now in a position where a court has ordered her to disobey her church and even jeopardize her eternal soul."

Effectively, Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. Both of these public bodies interfered in the private affairs of the Schiavos [...] Tom Delay is rather cynically using this issue to divert attention from his own corruption. ...Delay represents himself as acting on behalf of a higher cause. He said of the case over the weekend, "This is not a political issue. This is life and death."

Republican [theocratic law] will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn't different from his counterparts in Iran.

Republican's pandering to the Christian Right continues despite the damage our country's checks and balences it causes.

Foretelling the Return of the Left?

Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Return of Latin America's Left" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22Vargas_Llosa.html?th&emc=th">The New York Times: The Return of Latin America's Left
Behind this tilt is popular frustration with the failures of the 1990's, a decade of reform under governments of the right that were supposed to catapult the region toward development. Despite the success of many of these governments in curbing inflation, that development failed to happen. Instead of decentralization and the creation of a free, competitive economy and strong legal institutions open to all, crony capitalism and authoritarianism grew.
Countries replaced inflation with new taxes on the poor, high tariffs with regional trading blocs, and, especially, state monopolies with government-sanctioned private monopolies. The courts were subjected to the whims of those in power, widening the divide between official institutions and ordinary people - one reason recent surveys in Latin America have pointed to such widespread disillusionment with democracy. This frustration opened the doors of power to the left.

The events sound familiar to me. Remember all the poo-pooing of Republicans about the "tired old arguments" about class warfare? Have you noticed any "trickle down" development lately? The only thing I've seen trickling down is brown ooze that smells pretty bad.
Wages for the middle class won't buy as much with talk of $3 per gallen gasoline this summer. Has anyone noticed that the small cut in income taxes have been more than offset by rising property taxes and government service fees? Then in the not so distance past, there is the increase in Social Security taxes in 1983 that disproportionately affected the middle class. Then there was the series of tax cuts for the wealthy. Then the anticipated cut in Social Security benefits.
People just have trouble believing that the Republicans could engage in class warfare. To be fair, I seriously doubt most Repulican politicians really understand what's going on. They are just interested in getting the support of their constituencies to get re-elected. The problem is Democrats can't get their constituencies to vote consistently Democratic!
Class warfare is something you see in history, like Monday night armchair quarterbacking. Hindsight is always 20-20. The trick is to learn from history so you don't keep making mistakes. People haven't been paying attention to history because of all the greed and fear going on.

March 21, 2005

Deconstructing Iraq: Year Three Begins

The two year anniversary of the invasion in Iraq has passed. There have been protests all over the world. In another example of incomprehensible mental gymnastics, Doublethink Dubya claims Iraq is a new ally in the war against terror! This is the same country the CIA says is the new haven and training ground for terrorists.
Tom Engelhardt has put together a review of the actual conditions in Iraq on the two year anniversary:
TomDispatch - Deconstructing Iraq: Year Three Begins

[I]n a piece published last year in the British medical journal The Lancet, a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad did a household study of civilian deaths in Iraq (knocking on doors in 33 places in the country for almost 8,000 interviews, a dangerous task indeed). They estimated, based on their work, that somewhere around 100,000 Iraqi civilians, a majority of them women and children, had died due to the invasion and the ongoing occupation of the country and the insurgency. This study, for reasons well explained by Lila Guterman (Dead Iraqis) in the Columbia Journalism Review, was barely reported on in the American press, though the figures, approximate as they must be, are nonetheless probably conservative, or so concludes Guterman. Based on this study, it would not, she adds, be unreasonable to assume that in the five months since the paper came out, if "the death rate has stayed the same, roughly 25,000 more Iraqis have died."

Oh, one figure on the Iraqi and Afghan dead did come to light last week. One hundred and eight of them managed to die "in American custody," and "most of them violently, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. Roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel." This is assuredly but the tip of some iceberg or other.


March 20, 2005

The Cultural Revolution of America?

When Freedom of Speech is oppressed by social and academic ostracism, the freedom to speak one's mind carries such a cost that people begin say nothing contrary to the powerful order. This is only a small part of an outstanding post at Whiskey Bar:

The Left has taken over academe. We want it back. - Mike Rosen, Rocky Mountain News columnist, CU is Worth Fighting For, March 4, 2005

In this great Cultural Revolution, the phenomenon of our schools being dominated by bourgeois intellectuals must be completely changed. - Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum, August 1966

Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful Clash

Perhaps there is a reason for the Lebanese to think Syria is responsible for Hariri's death. This article in the International > Middle East > Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful Clash" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/international/middleeast/20lebanon.html?pagewanted=3&ei=5094&en=c339ade11f2428b6&hp&ex=1111381200&partner=homepage">The New York Times tells the story from the Druse leader Jumblatt. The trouble is that even Jumblatt may have had reason to kill Hariri. Now he becomes the primary spokesman for the Sunni-Druse coalition and a potential leader in any new government.
Mr. Hariri was ordered to Damascus for the ominous meeting. Mr. Assad advertised the fact that the meeting was remarkably short - 15 minutes in a country where most presidential encounters drag on for hours - to make it clear that Syria was issuing an order.
[...]
"He was like a boxer still reeling from a direct punch," said Patrick B. Renaud, the Beirut ambassador for the European Union. "He was shocked by the harshness of the message he received from the Syrian president."

An even harsher message followed.

As Marwan Hamade, the former minister of economy and trade and a Hariri ally, drove away from his seaside apartment building on Oct. 1, a roadside bomb flung his Mercedes into the air. He clambered from the flaming wreckage and collapsed to the ground at the very moment the car's fuel tank exploded, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Mr. Hamade managed to survive with head injuries, severe burns and a broken leg.
[...]
It was beginning to look like the opposition could capture about 60 seats in the 128-seat Parliament, enough to elect a president other than Mr. Lahoud. Around this time, Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt, the Druse leader, had a meeting. Mr. Hariri's earlier confidence that he would not be assassinated had slipped; the two men figured one or the other would be killed soon.


George W. Bush, the Torturer and Murderer

It might seem a bit over the top to accuse Dubya of torture and murder. But certainly, he authorized excessive and illegal use of force to persuade Al Qaeda suspects to divulge information. And some of these actions led to murder. Under the laws of the United States, this makes him an accessory to torture and murder.
There is another part to this story that I discovered today on More David Podvin:
[1] “‘We were terrible to animals,’ recalled [Bush childhood friend] Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. ‘Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,’ [Bush buddy Terry] Throckmorton said. ‘Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.’”
— The New York Times, May 21, 2000 (archived at MakeThemAccountable.com)

[2] “Even though George W. Bush is president, Neil Bush can still see in him the 16-year-old who gave him and his younger brother 10 seconds to start running down the hall before firing BB pellets at them.” — Utah County Daily Herald, March 2, 2002 (archived at MakeThemAccountable.com)

[3] “Bush was quoted in the New York Times defending the branding of fraternity pledges with a hot coat hanger, saying the resulting wounds resembled ‘only a cigarette burn.’” – Washington Post, July 27, 1999

[4] “George [Bush] tells [conservative commentator Tucker] Carlson that he watched the Larry King interview with [condemned murderess Karla Faye] Tucker while she was on death row. Bush says, ‘(King) asked her real difficult questions like, “What would you say to Governor Bush?”’ ‘What was her answer?" Carlson asks. Bush ‘whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation....Please...don't kill me,’ Bush says, pretending to be Karla Baye [sic] Tucker. ‘I must (have) looked shocked,’ Carlson writes, ‘ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush--because he immediately stops smirking.’” — Jerry Politex, August 15, 1999

There is a well known principle that associates cruelty to animals to future cruelty to humans. Gregory K. Moffatt, PhD, author of Wounded Innocents and Fallen Angels : Child Abuse and Child Aggression and psychologist, writes:
Many years ago when I was first beginning my practice, I worked with a child who delighted in killing frogs. He repeatedly would find frogs and then throw them into trees or into the ground to kill them. His parents were not sure if that was a problem. In his case, it most definitely was a problem.

Many teenagers and young adults who rape, assault, or kill began their careers by torturing and/or killing animals. I recognize I am making a sweeping generalization, but if there is no resolution to the internal conflict that drives this behavior, he or she will eventually graduate to harming people.

Dubya, in the past, has been accused of seeking revenge for an attempted assasination of his father attributed to Saddam. To manipulate the US by lies to go to war against Iraq sure to kill many innocents for reasons of revenge and to secure oil for blood seems like the actions of a disturbed person.

Religion and Violence

A lot has been said about the involvement of religion in violence over the history of America. Many peole have turned away from religion because of it's practitioner's excesses. The Crusades of the Middle Ages are a ancient example whereas the genocide in Rhwanda is a more recent instance. I've wondered how something practiced by most of the world because of it's ability to help people find peace in this chaotic world, can be used as one of the world's most notorious justification for violence.
In the article, Religion and Violence, Helena Cobban gives us a rule of thumb to work with in understanding this historical paradox.
“religions” come in two main different flavors (though sometimes these flavors come mixed together in the same institutional package.) The first of these flavors, or trends, in religions is the trend toward judging and punishing others, a focus that many, many religions seem to have. The other trend is quite different: it is the trend in those religions that seek to heal other people and ourselves. In the situations of often atrocious inter-communal conflict that I have witnessed or studied intensively—whether in Lebanon, in Israel/Palestine, in Rwanda, South Africa, Mozambique, or elsewhere—I have seen both trends at work. And I think I know, both intellectually and from my own experience, which of these kinds of religion seems to be more spirit-led and to be best for me and, I venture to suggest, for the rest of the world.

When religion moves from a personal philosophy of moral values and a path towards serenity into a societal standard of acceptable behavior enforce by government, it acquires the behavioral excesses of humanity. When man attempts to impose some sort of control on his fellow man, he resorts to punishment to impose his will on others. When this is officially or unofficially sanctioned by government, the scale of impact becomes huge. These are the conditions when genocide become possible.
I can't think of a better argument in favor of separation of church and state.

Mercenaries in Iraq Are Above the Law

The Bush Administration has a new phrase for a time-honors means to fight wars by proxy. They call them civilian contractors, but they are mercenaries by any definition. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
mercenary - hired professional soldier who fights for any state or nation without regard to political interests or issues. From the earliest days of organized warfare until the development of political standing armies in the mid-17th century, governments frequently supplemented their military forces with mercenaries. Employment of mercenaries could be politically dangerous…

Not only do mercenaries operate outside of the law in Iraq, they have no accountability inherant in the chain of command within the military.
FT.com / World / News in depth - Shoot first, pay later culture pervades Iraq
Two bursts of automatic gunfire rang out across a busy street in west Baghdad, echoing off the walls of the Australian embassy and one of the city's major hotels. A few seconds later, a three-vehicle convoy belonging to a private security company, transporting a foreigner working to facilitate Iraq's parliamentary elections, began to drive away from the scene. Askew in the centre of the street sat a civilian car, a neat line of bullet holes piercing its hood and windscreen. The driver lay some five metres away, wounded in the side and stomach, and going into shock. Later that day, he died in hospital. Another motorist, who was driving with his two children in the car, stood dazed in the street, his head lightly grazed by a bullet.

Scenes such as this, witnessed by FT correspondent Awadh al-Taee on January 23, repeats itself time and again across Iraq. This Baghdad neighbourhood of Kerrada alone, according to local police, sees one fatal shooting a week by either private security companies or the military. Under constant threat from suicide attackers driving explosive-rigged cars, coalition soldiers and contractors follow combat zone rules of engagement to protect themselves: warn drivers who stray too close, but if that fails, shoot. With procedures designed to protect the identities of anyone who might be singled out for retaliation, the victim's families may never know what happened, let alone obtain justice.
[...]
In such incidents, the victims have little legal recourse. According to the coalition's Order 17, enacted by US administrators shortly after the invasion, military personnel and most private contractors working in Iraq cannot be brought before Iraqi courts.


Doublethink Dubya Doubletalks to Asian Allies

Incredibly, the Bush Whitehouse is caught in another lie to "allies". Before his administation is over, he'll have effectively changed the definition of an "ally" of the US. Did he really think the truth would not come out? Does he simply not understand the consequences of routinely lying to US allies? Or does he simply not care what anyone thinks and will do or say anything to accomplish his agenda?
I do think Bush and his cronies will do or say anything to accomplish his agenda, consequences be damned. In the Bush Whitehouse, the ends always justify the means. The pragmatic problem is that no one in the Whitehouse can seem to see beyond four years and the next election campaign.
U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.


March 19, 2005

Hitler book bestseller in Turkey

Here are some ominous signs of US policy losing the hearts and minds of the youth of the Middle East.
BBC NEWS | Hitler book bestseller in Turkey
Adolf Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf, has become a bestseller in Turkey - sparking fears of growing anti-Semitic feelings in the country. The book has sold more than 50,000 copies since January. Analysts fear that the Middle East conflict and the US-led war on Iraq might have fuelled extremist ideology. [...The] book was being bought primarily by young people influenced by international politics.

Dogu Ergil, a political scientist at Ankara University, told the BBC he believed recent developments in Iraq and the Middle East might have fomented anti-Semitic and anti-American feelings among right-wing ultranationalists and extremist Islamists. "However, some feel there is an international conspiracy led by what they call the crusaders - meaning the US and maybe the West in general and the Zionists." He said people from different backgrounds, such as left- and right-wingers and Islamists, had found common ground - "not on a common agenda for the future, but on their anxieties, fears and hate".

New GOP Tax Cuts for the Rich Expand the Deficit

Basie! has the latest late night move by the Republican Congress pretty well summed up:
For anyone a little confused about what the Republicans just did, just look at the numbers. At the time of the highest budgetary deficit and the highest trade deficit in American history, the Republicans decided to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.

While some might rightfully say that the Senate also agreed to restore cuts to Medicaid, it is again important to check out the numbers. The new round of tax cuts for the wealthy are about five times larger than the money for Medicaid. Talk about priorities!

This new tax cut for the wealthy is indicative of Republican philosophy today, something that is completely overlooked by pundits and members of the mainstream media alike. Whereas the GOP once believed in balanced budgets and running the government like a business, today's Republican Party only believes in one thing: massive tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy and connected.

CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE


CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE

So it is now the federal government's role to micro-manage baseball and to prevent a single Florida woman who is trapped in a living hell from dying with dignity. We're getting to the point when conservatism has become a political philosophy that believes that government - at the most distant level - has the right to intervene in almost anything to achieve the right solution. Today's conservatism is becoming yesterday's liberalism.

Even the Gipper would agree.
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is." - Ronald Reagan.

Renewable Energy

The most compelling political issue being ignored by the Bush Administration is need to develop alternative renewable energy sources. The price of oil promises only to increase. Maintaining an oil supply has led the US into a war that has if anything made the politics of oil even more unstable. Today I found a website dedicated to alternative energy and found this article.
At least some Republicans are smart enough to see the write enough on the wall.
Alternative Energy Blog - Alternate-Energy.org: Alternative Energy California: A Million Solar Power Homes?
Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a new plan to make California a world leader in solar energy.[...]The goal is to have 3,000 megawatts worth of solar power by 2018, which amounts to about 5 percent of the state's entire electricity usage at peak periods – generally hot summer afternoons when electricity is most in demand, most expensive, and when solar panels are most efficient. That's the equivalent of 40 new, $30 million, 75-megawatt natural gas plants. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 homes. "We will be building literally power plants' worth of solar on roofs across the state," said Del Chiaro.

The goal is to create a large, stable solar market that will lower the cost not only of components but also of installation to the point that incentives will no longer be necessary to make solar energy affordable.

March 18, 2005

Does Iran and China Have Cruise Missiles?

KCTV5 - Ukrainian prosecutor says weapons dealers sold cruise missiles to Iraq, China
KIEV, Ukraine Prosecutors in Ukraine say weapons dealers there smuggled nuclear-capable missiles into Iran and China.
The prosecutor general's office says 18 cruise missiles were illegally sold to the countries.


It says proceedings against those who allegedly carried out the deal have been taken to the country's appeals court for closed-door hearings.


The deals allegedly took place during the term of the country's previous president, Leonid Kuchma (KOOCH'-mah).


In a letter to the new president, a lawmaker says six missiles purportedly ended up in Iran and another six allegedly went to China. He doesn't say what happened to the others.


Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

If this report is true, then we already have a new situation in the world. I'm more concerned about China having the cruise missiles. Soon they will be reproducing them enmass with nuclear warheads.
I can't help wonder if this is a political ploy within Ukraine to gain a politic edge for the new president or planted by the Bush Administration, disinformation to justify escalating the moves on Iraq and containing China, perhaps persuading EU to not sell weapons to them. I'd find it hard to believe this will be the last we hear of this.

March 17, 2005

Iraq : United States Caught in the Crossfire

Juan Cole has a great article on the NPR website. It's a nice summary on future prospects for the US in Iraq. Its important to emphasize that all that is happening now is pretty much how the naysayers said it would, including myself.
NPR : United States Caught in the Crossfire
With the guerilla war in Iraq showing no signs of abating, the prospects for successful military disengagement by the United States any time soon are bleak. The political picture is no rosier: the United States will increasingly find itself caught between support of the democratically elected government and resistance to program of implementing strict Islamic law. The United States long ago lost the ability to make policy in Iraq, being reduced to reacting on an ad hoc basis to the initiatives of local forces.


March 16, 2005

Afghanistan: Self-Immolation Of Women On The Rise In Western Provinces

I'm sure there were many Americans who truly believed that Democracy would be brought to Afghanistan and Iraq. And if they listen to the president and skim the sound bites on the network news on TV or headlines of the newspapers, they will not know any different. Democracy means people get to decide how they want to live. But that is not what is happening in Afghanistan. Bush was so busy getting ready for Iraq, he only bothered to secure the cities in Afghanistan. Only the capital Kabul is controlled by the government, then only because of NATOs presence.
Women are have seen no difference in large parts of Afghanistan and Iraq. They still often wear the burka in Afghanistan. Iraq's government on the other hand is dominated by a Shiite party that has promised that the Koran will govern social laws. That is not good news for women.
Afghanistan: Self-Immolation Of Women On The Rise In Western Provinces
A government delegation that traveled to Herat last week said at least 52 women in the province have killed themselves in recent months through self-immolation. A Herat regional hospital last year recorded 160 cases of attempted suicide among girls and women between the ages of 12 and 50. But Virdee says the real number is probably much higher.

"The official statistics which the hospitals have are for the women who have actually come to the hospital, who can receive treatment. There are many other cases of women burning themselves in the villages, in the city, in some of the provinces. But these are women we can't give any estimates on, partly because they never reach the hospital or because they die in their villages or city. These are the cases that never come to the attention of any public authorities," Virdee said.

Afghan officials say poverty, forced marriages, and lack of access to education are the main reasons for suicide among women in Herat. Domestic violence is also widespread. "A lot of women are saying that their husbands don't allow them to go and visit their families. There are severe restrictions on their movement, and also there is violence towards them -- both physical and psychological -- and intimidation and isolation," Virdee said.

[...]
Nor is the problem restricted to Herat. Female suicide through self-immolation is common in many parts of Afghanistan and throughout all of South Asia. But statistics are incomplete and largely anecdotal. There is a strong social stigma attached to suicide in Afghanistan, and many families are reluctant to seek help for victims of self-immolation or talk about the reasons behind the attempt.


March 15, 2005

An Unprecedented Abuse of Power

Republican plan to slam through the budget THIS WEEK, before the media and Democratic leadership can act to inform the American people . This is an outlandish abuse of power that undermines our democratic process.
MoveOn.org is urging people to write their local newspapers to breakthrough the media blackout.
* Republicans are pushing through the budget this week before critics and the media can point out huge program cuts and corporate giveaways.

* The Republican budget explodes the deficit—adding more than $400 billion to our national debt, when you include the extra money requested for the Iraq War. According to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the deficit is due mostly to the gigantic tax cut legislation and Iraq spending—two things Congress and the president want to make worse, not better.

* The Republican budget gives the wealthiest Americans permanent tax breaks, while cutting programs for the middle class and poor.

* The Republican budget would make gigantic cuts in health care—especially for Medicaid—which are unconscionable. Medicaid principally serves two groups: senior citizens and the working poor. Most seniors in nursing homes count on Medicaid.

* The Republican budget slashes education funding, especially funds for middle class and low-income Americans. The budget leaves out the needed funding for No Child Left Behind and funds to help moderate-income Americans afford college. Pell Grants are dramatically hurt in the budget.


Shiite/Sunni Tensions Heat Up

Al Qaeda has taken up the ancient conflict between Sunnis and Shiites as a way to destablize the Muslim world. They hope to spark a civil war in Iraq that then will be supported by the surrounding countries. The possibility of this is very real. Sistani has managed to keep a lid on the anger. He's apparently decided that there needs to be a planful release of the anger. He must be concerned about losing control.
Iraq News : Iraqis hold anti-Jordanian protests
Thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites have protested after hearing reports that relatives of a Jordanian suicide bomber suspected of killing 125 people in the town of Hilla celebrated him as a martyr. After breaking into the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad on Monday and tearing down the flag, protesters called on all foreign Arabs to leave the country and denounced Jordan's King Abdullah.


Anti-Jordanian sentiment has been spreading since Iraqis read newspaper reports that Jordan's Raid al-Banna blew himself up beside people lining up for jobs in the Shi'ite town of Hilla last month in the single bloodiest attack in postwar Iraq.
[...]
Iraqi government officials say Sunni Muslim militants from countries such as Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia are carrying out suicide bombings against Shi'ites in a bid to stoke sectarian tensions and spark a civil war. So far, Shi'ite leaders have urged their followers to show restraint. The protests were the biggest outpouring of Shi'ite fury over Sunni insurgent attacks that have killed thousands.


March 14, 2005

Details on Depleted Uranium

The details about Depleted Uranium are emerging from the deep hole the US Department of Defense has put them. Rumor has it that the BBC will break the story over the next few days. If that happens, US mainstream media will likely pick up the story.
What I want to know is why its taken so long. Who put the blackout on US Media? I've found internet links to documents produced by the government as early as 1990 on DU and its potential consequences. There are extensive resources on-line on DU. There are also government commissioned studies that minimize it's risks. The Federation of American Scientists has a good set of links.
Remember all the discussion about Anthrax powder? The <a title="Responding to Detection of Aerosolized Bacillus anthracis by Autonomous Detection Systems in the Workplace" href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr53e430-2a1.htm">CDC describes how small particles of Anthrax the size of 5-10 micrometers can easily become airborne again when disturbed:
Although resuspension of certain settled particles requires substantial amounts of energy, lower energy activities (e.g., paper handling, foot traffic, mail handling, and patting of chairs) can reaerosolize settled B. anthracis spores (9,10). The clinical and epidemiologic presentations of anthrax after an intentional release vary by the population targeted, the characteristics of the spores, the mode and source of exposure, and other characteristics.

The size of the particles of DU are nanometers and therefore even easier to disturb and stay airborne for longer periods. The problem with even Rands conclusions are based on the assumption of episodic exposures where the body can purge itself of the particles as it do with natural occuring uranium. I can imagine battlefields that are occupied indefinitely producing continuous exposure that builds up in the body. I recall discussions of dust always in the air in Iraq. I can imagine a gradually increasing continuous exposure to DU in certain locations. With troops rotating in and out of hot areas, they receive continuous exposure while there. The numbers exposed would be very high.
DU along with the exposure of many troops to the traces of chemical weapons in southern Iraq early in the invasion when a munitions dump was burned probably accounts for much of the 56% disability rate in Gulf War II Veterans.
Explaining How
“The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse,” Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an article about DU weapons entitled “Silent Genocide.”

“DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one’s genetic code,” Koehler wrote. “The Pentagon’s response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator.”

The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP.

DU is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: “Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity and particle toxicity.”
[...]
“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” Moret wrote. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

“When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote. “Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain.

“Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Hodgkin’s disease.”


China's President Tells Military "Prepare for War."

Hu Jintao, China's President, what named top military chief, a move that signals his successful transition into dominance within the Chinese Government.
In is acceptance speech, Hu told military leaders to prepare for war. With this statement, he apparently announces the Chinese governments willingness to go to war to end the cessation of Taiwan.
While I don't expect that to happen anytime soon since China has insufficient defense for the combined airpower of Taiwan and the US. But that won't last forever. China now has the ability to import European weapons. They have been making increasingly aggressive moves in the China Sea. And they have a wild card they may be prepared to play, North Korea.
Channelnewsasia.com
President Hu Jintao was named China's top military chief on Sunday, promptly telling the army to prepare for war to safeguard the country's territorial integrity, in an apparent reference to Taiwan.


In a move that marked the final step in China's first bloodless leadership transition, Hu, 62, replaced aging former leader Jiang Zemin, 78, as chairman of the state's Central Military Commission (CMC). He was selected by an overwhelming majority of 2,886 votes to six against and five undecided at a meeting of China's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), the official Xinhua news agency said.


State television CCTV showed Hu bowing to the NPC delegates while they gave him a long round of applause. Hu used his appointment on Sunday to show China's new leadership intended no let up in its determination to stop rival Taiwan from becoming independent.


The president told a meeting of military delegates to the NPC that China's top priority was safeguarding its territorial integrity. "We must ... always place the task of defending national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and safeguarding the interests of national development above anything else," Hu was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

[...]
Analysts said a major challenge Hu will face is maintaining a tough stand on Taiwan, to prevent the island Beijing wants reunified from declaring formal independence. "It remains an important priority for the Chinese leadership ... each new leadership needs to show it has a credible position on Taiwan," said Brian Bridges, a political scientist at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. "I'm not sure Hu Jintao wants to go to war with Taiwan so early after he took power, but the fact the law comes at this early stage of his (Hu's) power, he's probably trying to show nationalists in China that he's standing up for national rights."


March 13, 2005

Bush's Propaganda Machine at Full Steam

Ever notice the video takes of Bush during the nightly network news look much the same? That's because the networks have taken to using the video clips provided by the Bush Administration. This Administration has been given unprecedented propaganda advantage with the American people without their knowledge. As I said earlier, the only free press today is that which is not dependent on advertising. Jonathan Singer at Basie! makes it clear what is at stake:
This goes beyond perception, however; in an era of one party rule in Washington, it is essential that the media maintain a skeptical eye on the government. When this doesn't occur, the nation suffers. What happened during the late 1960s underscores this point as major news organizations failed to question claims about the situation in Vietnam from members of the Johnson administration. The consequences today could be equally troubling should the media continue its complicity in the Bush spin game.


The success of the American Democracy relies on a fully functioning and, more importantly, entirely independent media. Reporters on the dole from the administration and local stations running video news releases that amount to Bush ads serve only to undermine our government, not to strengthen it. Change in the media will not come quickly, and although blogs are playing a significant role in goading the big players into action, much more must be done so the Fox News model does not continue to take hold. The stakes are high in this battle. The fate of the nation depends on it.

Depleted Uranium Munitions Disabling Hundreds of Thousands of Vets

San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year
Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”
He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.


“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!” "Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.


“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”

If the Director of the VA knew of the disability rate of GWI Vets, surely Rumsfeld knew about it. Yet, now we have exposed about a million of our sons and daughters to God knows what in Iraq. And this says nothing about the Iraqis who have lived with the radiation from DU munitions for the past 15 years.