Baghdad's streets now a deadly gauntlet

Baghdad's streets now a deadly gauntlet

When Adnan Shalaal left his job at the Sheraton Hotel on Friday afternoon, he went from being a valued employee and father of three to a statistic on a police blotter -- one of dozens recorded daily in one of the world's most dangerous cities. Shalaal and his three young children inadvertently drove through a shootout between insurgents and police. The 30-year-old hotel administrator was shot in the head, his blood and brains splattering over the youngsters. His children were unharmed, but Shalaal was not expected to survive.


By day or night, Baghdad has become a cacophony of automatic weapons fire, explosions and sudden death, its citizens living in constant fear of being shot by insurgents or the security forces meant to protect them. Streets are crammed with passenger cars fighting for space with armored vehicles and pickups loaded with hooded and heavily armed Iraqi soldiers.


Hundreds of bombs in recent months have made mosques, public squares, sidewalks and even some central streets extremely dangerous places in Baghdad. On Haifa Street, rocket-propelled grenades sometimes fly through traffic. Rashid Street is a favorite for roadside bombers near the Tigris River.


And then there's Sadoun Street, once teeming with Western hotels and home to Firdous Square -- the landmark roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein. In the two years since Hussein's ouster, Sadoun Street has become an avenue of blast walls -- thick concrete slabs 6 to 12 feet high -- that protect government buildings and hotels now home to the few Western contractors and journalists who remain.


Shalaal left the Sheraton with his two sons, aged 3 and 6, and his 12-year-old daughter. As he turned on Sadoun Street, gunmen in a white SUV passed between his car and the hotel regularly targeted by insurgents. Windows on the SUV rolled down and the firing began, with guards joining in almost reflexively.


Shalaal never made it down the tunnel of flying lead.


"He'll be forgotten in five minutes," one man murmured in Arabic after looking at Shalaal's bullet-riddled white compact car. "That's Iraq today."

I wonder how many American know how bad it is in Baghdad. The truth is newspaper editors are loath to offend their big money advertising clients. Bush has successfully rallied his "base" to pressure the press in America to tell only the Republican party line. The only truly free press in America is that which is not dependent on advertising. Juan Cole says:

When Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal admitted as much in a private email last October, she was forbidden to report from Iraq for two weeks. I guess Paul Gigot [Editorial Editor of WSJ] can't dictate the news to the Associated Press. I'd wager most Americans have no idea how bad it is in Baghdad.

Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says

For any of those folks out there who think Bush and Company, in good faith, believed there were WMDs in Iraq, consider the fact that the invasion force made no attempt to secure the areas that were of concern. It was as if there was really no interest in the military infrastructure in Iraq. No surprise to me, its clear to any one who bothers to research the issue, Iraq was about regional control over the largest oil reserve in the world.
International > Middle East > Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/international/middleeast/13loot.html?">The New York Times > International > Middle East > Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says

In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.


The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.


Dr. Araji said his account was based largely on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or lived near them.


"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Dr. Araji said. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting."


The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.

House and Senate Move Forward With Budget Resolutions Cutting Medicaid

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NAMI E-News March 11, 2005
Vol. 5-8
________________________________________________
Medicaid Alert: House and Senate Move Forward With Budget Resolutions Cutting Medicaid - Effort to Restore Funding Expected Next Week
Both the House and Senate Budget Committees acted this week on separate versions of the FY 2006 budget resolution that include cuts to the Medicaid program. When the full Senate takes up its version next week, Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) will be offering an amendment to reject these cuts and instead authorize a bipartisan commission on the future of the program.
ACTION REQUIRED
Advocates are strongly encouraged to contact their Senators and urge them to support the Smith-Bingaman Amendment to the FY 2006 budget resolution. Also please request that proposed cuts to Medicaid and authorize a bipartisan commission to develop recommendations on reforms to this critical safety net program for children and adults living with severe mental illnesses. Please remind Senators that:
- Medicaid is the largest source of funding for the public mental health system in every state - especially optional services each state Medicaid program offers to mandatory beneficiaries (particularly individuals eligible for SSI).
These optional services include prescription drugs, case management and assertive community treatment.
- The growth in Medicaid spending in recent years is driven by overall health care costs in the economy - NOT by the demands of program beneficiaries with severe disabilities and chronic illnesses who rely on Medicaid as a safety net.
In fact, Medicaid growth is actually below that for insurance premiums in the private sector.
- The burden for deficit reduction should not fall hardest on the most vulnerable and disabled - including children and adults with severe mental illnesses.
- A bipartisan Medicaid commission will ensure that efforts to reform the program and restrain future spending are based on established principles and goals for reforms, NOT an arbitrary budget target.
All Senate offices can be reached by calling 202-224-3121.
Bipartisan Opposition to Federal Caps in Medicaid
During deliberations in the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, Senators endorsed an amendment offered by Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) rejecting efforts to place a cap or strict limits on federal Medicaid matching funds for the states. While this amendment does not have the force of law, it does place the Senate firmly on record against efforts to place strict limits on the federal contribution to Medicaid that would destroy the program as an entitlement and safety net for the most vulnerable and disabled beneficiaries. NAMI thanks Senator Corzine for his leadership on this important issue.
For detailed background information regarding Medicaid cuts, click here.
More information on the Medicaid program and its importance to children and adults with severe mental illnesses is available here.
Additional information on the Smith-Bingaman Amendment is available here.
NAMI - The Nation's Voice on Mental Illness
2107 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201
http://www.nami.org

Is Syria Ready for Democracy?

There is a very interesting post at Syria Comment about the prospect of democracy in Syria. Below is a description of the traditional style of government. Each ethnic is represented in traditional proportions. Ethnicity has been such a major part of the tradition of the Syria, there is considerable concern that the majority Sunni's would dominate and discriminate against minorities, just like what happens in America. And there is news of plans for free elections at the local level in Syria beginning in 2007. Joshua attributes this to the election in Iraq, but it could just as likely been the two election in Palestine or the promise of elections in Egypt.
Syria Comment: Is Syria Ready for Democracy?

I asked him how many minorities served on the Regional Command. He said there are 21 members of the Command and almost half are minorities. He then began to count them. “There are two Christians, one Melkite and one `Ashouri (Asyrian – Aramean); there is one Alawite, one Ismaili, and one Druze.” Then he stopped and was unable to name more than those five. I asked if there wasn’t a Greek Orthodox. “No,” he said. “The Greek Orthodox always have either a Governor or a Minister. Now there is a Governor of Idlib, I believe.”


We could have gone on playing the sectarian game all evening. It is clear that at every level of government in Syria, as at every level of the army, sectarian apportionment of office has been very carefully worked out over the years. Any change to the balance and traditional divisions causes great concern and discontent from those communities that have been hurt or short-changed.


“So what is the answer,” I asked my friend? He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “But it is clear that George Bush doesn’t have the answer for us. We must solve it ourselves,” he added. Everyone here is taking sides in the battle of ideas begun with the invasion of Iraq. Most Syrians are sticking by their president.

[...]
The democracy question is on everyone’s mind now. To find out more about what Syrian plans are for democracy, I met with Ghimar Deeb, a lawyer and friend who has been contracted by the Minister of Planning Dardari to help work up by-laws and a training commission for local municipal elections. Ghimar is young energetic and devoted to changing things. He studied international law in the States for a year as a Fulbrighter after working for the UN in Damascus. I asked him if he really believed that there would be free elections in Syria’s cities. He paused for a second and then said, “Yes, they are planned for 2007,” – something I did not know. “It is very new for most people,” he said. “Syria has not had free elections since the early 1960s, but they want free elections. All the same there is much work to do and many people have an old mentality and others will lose their influence, but people are eager for elections. Dardari is very good, he added. I hope so. Insha’allah.”

Now Bush is Stealing History

Bush has been grandstanding that he's made the world more safe for Americans. Of course, it's quite the opposite. Islamist terror is growing in many hidden quarters. The Madrid attack is a unequivocal example of that, a major terrorist strike by a local organization that decided to sign on to Al Qaeda's agenda.
One can't deny that things in the Middle East certainly look like the invasion of Iraq did it all. The truth be told, there may have been a minor role in the course of events. Timing may have been enhanced by the turn of events in Iraq. When Arafat died, Bush reined back on Sharon perhaps because things weren't going well in Iraq. So that made for peace negotiations in Israel. The death of Hariri is confusing. The primary beneficiary to his death is the enemies of Syria. The most obvious enemy is Israel. I don't think Sharon is above such a thing, he has, afterall, been indicted by an International Court for war crimes. Bush gets to claim history so he'd be happy to look the other way. However, another group that might ultimate benefit is Al Qaeda who would like to see all of the Middle East destablized. There is a very interesting discussion here.
Democracy Now! | Juan Cole and Osama Siblani on Middle East Politics, U.S. Media Coverage of the Region, and the Arab American Landscape

OSAMA SIBLANI: Lebanese have had elections since 1948 and the 1950s, and every your years they had them. After the civil war in 1992, and then in 1996 and then in 2000, and now they're having them again. It's a parliamentary election, and it's not, you know, democratic 100%, but it's much better than what happened in Iraq, for example. Also, in Palestine, you know, that Mr. Bush is trying to claim credit for the election. There was an election in Palestine, in the occupied territory seven years ago. They elected the council of Palestine, the National Council, and also they elected a president at that time, who was Yasser Arafat. So, nothing really new is happening in the Middle East that the Bush administration could take credit for. And I think the situation in Iraq, the election in Iraq, was something made for television for an American audience, so Mr. Bush can claim credit for something that he really does not deserve. Yes, you can't fight, you know, back and say, you know, what is happening in Iraq is not a step forward in democracy. It's much better, you know, to have people have the right to vote under these circumstances, rather than having a dictatorship run by a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, but again, the situation in Iraq is not about democracy. I met with the President, and he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.


AMY GOODMAN: You met with the President of the United States?


OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And I said, ‘Well, you know, I totally disagree with you. You just can’t go around taking leaders out of their countries, you know. Let the Iraqi people do it. They can't do it on empty stomachs. Lift sanctions. Keep the pressure on Saddam Hussein, but lift the sanctions on the Iraqi people. People can't make moves on an empty stomach. Once they start establishing, you know, a connection with the United States and helping democracy inside, they will overthrow him.’ And then he said, ‘We have to talk about it later.’ But at that time he was not privy to any intelligence, and the democrats had occupied the White House for the previous eight years. So, he was not privy to any intelligence whatsoever. He was not the official nominee of the Republican Party, so he didn't know what kind of situation the weapons of mass destruction was at that time. But what I am saying now is the President is trying to claim credit for something that really had nothing to do with him. The Palestinians had elections seven years ago. They have had an election last month, and also the Lebanese, what the professor said that this is a situation that is happening in Lebanon because there is a -- there is a formula in Lebanon that always, always Lebanon -- part of the Lebanese communities try to get help from the outside in order to gain more power and bring more cards to the table for bargaining.

The Death of Arab Nationalism?

Syria Comment: March Meanings

The Golan issue and the crappy treatment of the Palestinians are real sticking points. As we saw in both Nasrallah's and Bashar al-Asad's speeches, it is the issue of occupied territories that keeps their struggle alive. People are still willing to buy into the resistance rhetoric because justice has not been done. End the land disputes and both Baathism and Hizbullah defiance will sputter out. There will be nothing left for them to debate but democracy and developing their own countries.

[...]
STEVEN WEISMAN in a N.Y. Times article entitled: "U.S. Called Ready to See Hezbollah in Lebanon Role," writes, "France has argued that Hezbollah ought to be encouraged to concentrate on politics. Our language on this has been since Hariri's death not to go too far beating up on Hezbollah," a French official said. "It might hurt, and it won't help. We could be a turning point now, with Hezbollah maybe turning to politics and politics alone. The United States is no longer making a case of using this issue to disarm Hezbollah and brutally crush them." This is an important shift for the US, if it is true. Israel is still pressing to see Hizbullah disarm, but how do you do it? The US does not want more UN troops in Lebanon and must follow France's lead on strategy toward Syria and Lebanon. Should the US lose European support for its Lebanon strategy, it will be powerless.

Very insightful point of view. If the Palestinians make peace with Israel, what will there be for the Arabs to unite about? Muslim fundimentalism may be a possibility, but Arab governments see them as a threat, not an ally.
I don't buy the US will recognize it's powerless. I'm sure Bush still thinks bombing the Syrians in Lebanon is an option. Syria would have little choice but to either turn tail and run or pre-emptively attack Israel. It won't risk its air force on defending troops in Lebanon. Leaving Lebanon under threat could doom Syrian leadership. Bashar would have to do something dramatic to save face. I seriously don't think Bush has that option without risking full scale war between Syria and Israel. But another war when peace is at hand is not a helpful option.

Wolfowitz: Architect of Disaster

I found some incredible quotes of our illustrious Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz in an excerpt from Richard Clarke book,Against All Enemies. If its all true, Wolfovitz qualifies as a man who could have single handedly left us vulnerable to bin Laden and saw 9/11 as an opportunity to further his long standing agenda to attack Iraq. But it would appear he had plenty of company. The amazing thing is that he still works at Defence. He is a government employee charged as a specialist who repeatedly demonstrated the only specialty he has is being wrong about Iraq.

Finally, Wolfowitz turned to me. "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don't exist." I could hardly believe it, but Wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited Laurie Mylroie theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Center, a theory that had been investigated for years and found to be totally untrue.

Informed Comment

Wolfowitz's first reaction to September 11 was to attack Iraq. If we had carried through on this plan, leaving Bin Laden ensconced in Afghanistan as we mired ourselves in an Iraqi quagmire, al-Qaeda would have been excellently placed to continue to hit us, both in the Middle East and in the homeland. Richard Clarke was outraged that Wolfowitz and his Neoconservative circle were willing so cynically to use the tragedy that had befallen the American people to accomplish their pre-existing goals in Iraq. Wolfowitz told the US Senate that Iraqis would greet the US troops as liberators and that the US would be back down to 20,000 troops or only a division by October of 2003.


When General Shinseki said that it would take several hundred thousand troops to pacify post-War Iraq, Wolfowitz the civilian bureaucrat openly ridiculed the career officer. Wolfowitz's dismissive reply is often quoted in part, but it is worthwhile looking at more extended passages to see how badly he miscalculated. Astonishingly, Wolfowitz did not know about the Shiite Badr Corps militia that operated between Iran and Iraq, run by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He did not know about the Sadr movement militias, which Saddam had massacred during the 1999 uprising provoked by his assassination of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. He didn't realize that Baath-on-Shiite and Baath-on-Kurdish violence had a strong ethnic-cleansing dimension, since the Baath was dominated at the upper echelons by Sunni Arabs. He didn't realize that the Sunni Arabs, the managerial and officer class, would not go quietly if dethroned, but would mount a sustained guerrilla resistance. Wolfowitz mistakenly thought that Iraqi oil would pay for reconstruction, and did not foresee the substantial sabotage of the pipelines that has made that impossible. He also thought the oil would attract France to become involved in post-War Iraqi reconstruction. (This is the same man who insisted that France be "punished" for declining to support the war at the UN Security Council).

[...]

"On the other side, we can't be sure that the Iraqi people will welcome us as liberators, although based on what Iraqi-Americans told me in Detroit a week ago, many of them -- most of them with families in Iraq -- I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down."

Health is Neglected Behind Bars

Now, here is a meaty issue the Christian Rightwing could step into. We're allowing those in prison to languish without adequate healthcare and then turning them out to the community to spread tuberculosis, AIDS and hepatitis. Now there is an example of poor creation care if I ever saw one.
Hey! Maybe I should join a charismatic church and start a new liberal tradition of creation care! I can speak with plenty of passion on the topic. Imagine a whole congregation getting a people care message directly from the Holy Spirit from speaking in tongues!
Opinion > Editorial: Death Behind Bars" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/opinion/10thu2.html?th"> NYT > Editorial: Death Behind Bars

The root problem is that the country has tacitly decided to starve the prison system of medical care, even though AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis are rampant behind bars, and roughly one in six inmates suffers from a serious mental illness.
The corrections system is largely cut off from the public health system, in part because of federal rules that deny Medicaid assistance to inmates. The denial of benefits is based on the notion that people who break the law don't deserve public help, a theory that has helped spread tuberculosis, AIDS and hepatitis from prisons to the world outside. Privatization of services is no magic cure for this growing threat to public health. The common-sense response would be a coherent, publicly subsidized program of testing, counseling and treatment that would slow the spread of disease, both behind bars and after inmates were released.

Global Warming Becomes Religious

Where have these guys been? All of a sudden "creation care" has made global warming a religious duty. What changed? Maybe they've been laying low building a political base from which to strike out. Does this mean "creation care" might be expanded to human beings? But then again, they want a bunch of social service dollars first before hollaring for more. After they have a political/economic base in social service, will they turn liberal on the people issues?
National > Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/national/10evangelical.html?th">The New York Times > National > Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group of 51 church denominations, said he had become passionate about global warming because of his experience scuba diving and observing the effects of rising ocean temperatures and pollution on coral reefs.
"The question is, Will evangelicals make a difference, and the answer is, The Senate thinks so," Mr. Haggard said. "We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to."
In October the association paved the way for broad-based advocacy on the environment when it adopted "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," a platform that included a plank on "creation care" that many evangelical leaders say was unprecedented.
"Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order," the statement said, "government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."
Nearly 100 evangelical leaders have signed the statement.

The Spoils of War

This weeks Vanity Fair has a shocking article about the corporate corruption of Halliburton. It even poses an interesting explanation about Halliburtons invitation to this war by Cheney. It seems that Cheney got Halliburton's subsidiary KBR the contract to support the troops in Kosovo during the Bush Sr. Administration. And from all the information I've seen, they did a pretty good job. They rewarded him by making him CEO after Bush Sr lost the election to Carter. Promptly, Cheney directed KBR to buy a company that soon went belly up and put KBR on the verge of bankruptsy. Cheney figured he owed KBR and the Army Corp of Engineers curried favor with Cheney by making sure that KBR got its money back from Cheney's tenure at KBR with a lucrative contract in Iraq. The $10 Billion contract KBR got for the War in Iraq Part II lead to sufficient profit to wipe out their debt. Now, Halliburton having got out from under the debt, wants to dump the political liability of KBR by selling it. I'd bet its a pretty lucrative company to own and sell right now.
Read on about the corruption of the Bush Administration:
Vanity Fair:The Spoils of War

In the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, when order had been restored to the Balkans, KBR had won its first LOGCAP contract: it would supply everything that occupying U.S. forces needed, from tents and mess halls to swimming pools and generators. The federal government would be trimmed, private industry would profit, soldiers would be snappily serviced. The original architect of this plan was Dick Cheney, then assistant secretary of defense under President George H. W. Bush. LOGCAP was a huge boon to KBR and its parent, Halliburton. Just four years later, Cheney was Halliburton's C.E.O.

[...]
It was at the LOGCAP office that deYoung saw how well KBR managers in Kuwait were living. They stayed in expensive waterfront hotels in Kuwait City and its environs at more than $100 a night per room. They availed themselves of hotel laundry service, even while KBR was paying outrageous prices to a subcontractor for laundry. And when they left their hotels, they didn't carpool or take buses. They'd requisitioned expensive-brand S.U.V.'s for themselves. DeYoung did some number crunching and came up with the figure of $73 million a year. That, she concluded, was what KBR was spending for its top managers in Kuwait City to live so well. More accurately, that was what U.S. taxpayers were paying—not including the extra 2-to-3-percent profit that came with the cost-plus system.

[...]
But there's another way to look at KBR's work in Iraq. Without it, the company would be in truly bad shape. In fact, the Iraq work accounts for nearly all of KBR's growth at a time when it has staggered under $4.2 billion in asbestos claims—thanks in large part to Halliburton's former C.E.O. Dick Cheney.


Back in 1998, Cheney decided to merge Halliburton with Dresser Industries, a Texas-based energy company. Unfortunately, he failed to do his homework on Dresser: a mountain of lawsuits over asbestos-contamination claims were about to be filed against it. KBR, formed from the merger, bore the brunt of those. By late 2003, Dresser was forced into bankruptcy and began organizing a court-ordered settlement plan. KBR incurred huge liabilities—handily offset by those contracts in Iraq.

[...]
"If the administration shares our concern about not wasting taxpayers' money, you would think they would want to learn from the auditors and whistle-blowers what has gone wrong," Congressman Waxman says. Instead, the government has ignored its own auditors—both at the Pentagon and at the G.A.O.—who found glaring irregularities in KBR's books on Iraq. "Why has the administration turned away?" Waxman says. "I don't know as I have an answer to that question."

America's Decline

I found an article that covers many of my concerns about the
economic policies of the Bush Administration and adds a lot of details. The
article, "Off Track" by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, describes the process by which the has fallen behind the curve in economic development. There is real concern among business leaders (400 blue-chip business executives including the CEOs of IBM, Pepsi, and General Motors, among others, and university presidents) that the American economy has reached an “inflection point,” a “unique and delicate historic juncture” at which America, “for the first time in our history…is confronting the prospect of a reverse brain drain.” The only way we can turn back the trends is “if we continue to create new, cutting-edge products and services to sell to those countries.”

The world has produced significant competition from other developed countries such as Europe, Japan and Korea, as well as incredible broom in China and India. Europe, Japan and Korea have caught us on innovation. Japan is on the verge of producing a CPU smaller and faster and cheaper than anything Intel has on the drawing boards using nano-technology, something the US is just exploring. China is already opening universities at a breathtaking clip, while Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Verizon have all opened research labs there —the kind that anchored the development of Silicon Valley. “It's become inevitable,” says Ross Armbrecht, president of the Industrial Research Institute, which is the think tank for the research arms of America's corporations, “that more and more of the most far-reaching innovations will be going overseas, to India and China,in the near future.”


Economics is a negotiation in uncertainties, and so nobody's really sure what all of these changes will mean for the well-being of the American middle class. But when you survey economists, policymakers, and business leaders about America's long-term future, it's hard to find many rank optimists; there are the Panicked, and then there are the Merely Tense. Richard Lester, the head of MIT's Center for Innovation, told me he belongs in the latter camp: “Things look somewhat bleak in the long-term, but if you look around Boston,
at the incredible concentration of talent and opportunity here, we've still got a head start, and if we're smart we can probably build on it.” Among the Panicked are economists such as MIT Nobelist Paul Samuelson, who has recently argued that the rapid spread of innovative capacity to other countries with lower labor costs
makes him doubt the whole doctrine of “comparative advantage,” on which much of modern economics rests.


While the president's talk focused almost exclusively on the need to free up capital for investment, these CEOs barely mentioned that as a problem. Instead, they stressed various below-the-radar government actions that they felt were undermining America's competitive edge: security arrangements that have crimped the supply of educated immigrants; recent cuts in science funding (the president's 2005 budget sliced money for research in 21 of 24 areas); and the reassigning of what research funding remains to applied research, most of it in homeland security and the military, and away from the basic scientific research that economists say is the essential engine of future economic growth. They also expressed concern about those policies Washington was not pursuing but should be: broadening access to patents; increasing research into alternative fuels; and bringing information technology into the health care market.


Under President Bush, however, the GOP's natural economic policy tendencies have been hyper-charged by a grand political vision. Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, and other Republican strategists have argued that massive annual tax cuts and the privatization of Social Security will not only increase the flow of capital into the marketplace, but will also put Democrats at a long-term electoral disadvantage and usher in a new era of GOP dominance. That these policies also require the government to take on trillions of dollars in extra debt, just as the first baby boomers are reaching retirement and trade imbalances are reaching historic levels, is seen by GOP leaders as a risk worth
taking. And so the White House and Congress have pursued tax cutting and Social Security privatization with relentless focus, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

In other words, the GOP is willing to sacrifice our future
job prospects and our children’s economic future in order to create a
Republican dynasty in American politics that could take decades to overcome. The future we fear could be sooner than anyone predicts. Because technology is diffusing around the world in single digit years rather than the decades of the 20^th Century, the advantage Japan and Europe have in building Hybrid cars means the US automakers have to import technology heavy hardware to produce stateside. And the lead Japan has in nano-technology may never be overcome. South Korea has the majority of Internet users on broadband while at best the US is far behind. They are already developing movies and video productions for purchase worldwide. Many other industries will emerge from their lead.
Europe got a lead on hybrid vehicles by regulating fuel efficiency and charging high fuel taxes. The result is a clean high grade diesel burning hybrid that combines efficiency, clean exhaust with incredible mileage. Meanwhile, Bush commits our sons and daughters
to securing a dubious future oil supply. What we really need is renewable energy alternatives. The country that makes renewable energy work will dominate the future economy.
We need to be rearranging our priorities before the world leaves us in the dust.

Harsh Critic of U.N. Named Ambassador

I can't think of a better way to disable the United Nations and snub our allies than appointing the man who most effectly disparaged the UN and our allies to be the UN Ambassador. Its hard to believe a politician would make such a statement publically as John Bolton did and still expect to be considered a serious player:

"The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," he said. And in 2000, Bolton told National Public Radio that the U.N. Security Council needed only one permanent member, the United States, "because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world."

The Bush Administration couldn't do more damaged to itself in terms of credibility at the world body than to make this move. The fact is, I believe he understands the consequences and wishes to do as much damage as he can to the UN before he leaves office.
I remember history, why doesn't Bush? WWII broke out not long after the League of Nations fell apart. The alternative to a world at war is world politik.

Are Cellphones Hazardous To Your Health?

There are two billion subscribers to cell phones worldwide worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
A controversial study by Lai and Singh was published in a 1995 issue of Bioelectromagnetics. They found an increase in damaged DNA in the brain cells of rats after a single two-hour exposure to microwave radiation at levels considered “safe” by government standards. The authors said it was not a definitive study, but they said it indicated further study was needed.
The Director of Public Affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association, a Washington, D.C.-based industry consortium that provides $1 million a year in funding for cell phone research, says “I don’t believe any of those studies have ever been replicated. We believe you should follow the science. The science to date shows there is not a health risk associated with the use of any wireless device.”
One million dollars for research and a study to attempt to replicate this study has not been done? Actually, that’s not quite true:

When a scientist in California published results that seemed to support Lai’s findings, he lost research funding and eventually left the field. At one point, the director of a group created to manage $25 million in industry-donated research money sent a memo to then-UW President Richard McCormick saying that Lai and Singh should be fired. Federal money for scientific investigation in the field has dried up, supplanted by funding from the industry—funding that Lai and others say can come with restrictions so oppressive they hamper scientific inquiry.

Interestingly enough, the European Union is funding independent research into possible heath risks of cell phone signals:

In December, preliminary results of work by 12 groups in seven countries found that radiation at some cell phone levels damages DNA in a laboratory setting. The scientists reported a significant increase in DNA damage. This damage could not always be repaired by the injured cell. The 291-page report is online at www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20041222_reflex.asp. The REFLEX study has yet to be published in a scientific journal, and scientists involved said their work did not prove such DNA changes were a risk to human health.


But in a BBC report, the leader of the four-year REFLEX study, German scientist Franz Adlkofer, said people should use landlines, rather than cell phones, wherever possible. “We don’t want to create a panic, but it is good to take precautions,” he told the BBC, adding that definitive research would take another four to five years. Adlkofer is a professor at the Munich-based VERUM Foundation.


The REFLEX study has not been reported in U.S. media.

I wonder why?

China Giving Mixed Messages

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing Sunday stated in starkly aggressive terms that China will pass a law forbidding Taiwan from seceding from China. Both China and Taiwan had been conciliatory to each other on the topic.
However military moves into islands surrounding Taiwan by both Japan and China tells a different story. North Korea has made overt threats towards Japan. Now that China has a trade agreement for military equipment from Europe, they now have driven a wedge between the US and Europe.
If I were a Chinese leader hell bent on taking back Taiwan, I'd be pretty bold with the US tied up in Iraq. The only card the US has to play in Asia Pacific is its Air Force and China is not prepared to deal with it. However, a nuclear threat from North Korea at the same time might tie up Japan and the US sufficiently to enable a Chinese move on Taiwan.
Taiwanese Denounce Anti-Secession Plan

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Sunday adopted a hard line toward Taiwan in advance of the expected passage this week of a controversial law aimed at legally binding the island to the mainland.


A few hundred miles across the Taiwan Strait, thousands of demonstrators denounced the proposed law, burning Chinese flags and promising to fight what they said were Beijing's heavy-handed tactics.

In a news conference during the annual, 10-day National People's Congress, which opened Saturday, Li said China's differences with the United States and Japan should be resolved through dialogue. But Beijing would not tolerate interference in its bid to reunite with Taiwan, he said.

America Number 1?

Nothing is more important to most Americans than being number one. It's an emotional attachment and at least partially reponsible for support for military adventures like the one in Iraq. It's initial support was directly related to the insult and injury felt by Americans after 9/11. Why do you think Bush did everything he could to connect Iraq with the "War on Terror"?
The sad thing is that America is already going the way of Rome. The US is in decline. Unless we quickly respond to the challenge, it in a few short decades be irreversible. Our educational system is no longer considered the best by the rest of the world. American young adults that enter the job market every year are less qualified than previous years.
Will we wake up? The first step is acknowledging we are no longer number one. Jimmy Carter tried to give us an heads up about our "malaise", but no one wanted to hear it.
This is only an excerpt. The whole thing is a must read.
City Pages - America No. 1?

> "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
> "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
> Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
> Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
> "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
> Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
> "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
> Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

Proposed New Bankruptsy Law Threatens Consumers, Protects the Rich

Daily Kos :: The Bankruptcy Bill, Examined.

You have now gotten a glimpse into the next 2 years (at least) of what will pass for legislation in the Senate and the House. Orwell would be proud of the naming: Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. No protection for the homes of the elderly and the medically infirm -- but by God, we made sure those exemptions for protected assets stayed firm. No protection for employees' earnings, pensions and retirement savings when an employer takes refuge in bankruptcy - but by God, we're gonna protect those credit card companies from too many intrusive rules that demand they properly inform their consumers of the small-print deal with the devil they've just made on that high-interest, high-limit, low-minimum-payment credit card. Outrageous!

China: The Emerging Rival

Khaleej Times Online

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged greater development of China’s military Saturday, saying modernizaton of the army was of strategic importance to safeguard the eventual reunification of Taiwan. “Strengthening national defense and developing the army constitute a task of strategic importance to our modernization drive and an important guarantee for safeguarding national security and reunification,” Wen said at the opening session of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC). Wen said it was an “historical objective” to ensure that the army “is capable of winning any war it fights,” but also underscored the importance of the military being run “strictly in accordance with the law.”

Clearly, the west must keep its eye on China. It is posturing to ensure the eventual annexation of Taiwan. The real question will be what will the Taiwanese and US do when push comes to shove. The US has held a "one China" policy since the Nixon Administration. Bush has shown all the signs that the Administration's position has shifting:

Statements by senior Bush Administration officials are instructive in framing how the White House views Taiwan's security. Even before the election, the Republican Party platform, which was ratified by the GOP in Philadelphia in August 2000, stated. "Our policy is based on the principle that there must be no use of force by China against Taiwan. We deny the right of Beijing to impose its rule on the free Taiwanese people. All issues regarding Taiwan's future must be resolved peacefully and must be agreeable to the people of Taiwan. If China violates these principles and attacks Taiwan, then the United States will respond appropriately in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act. America will help Taiwan defend itself.

China has responded by bellicose statements about its intentions to acquire Taiwan at all costs. Soon after publicly planning to make it illegal for Taiwan to declare independence, China announced its intention to increase its military expenditure. While it would appear that the amount its spending is less than half the size of Japan's budget, some western experts say China is deliberately hiding its real expenditure, said to be third worldwide behind the US and Russia.
Traditionally, China has been loath to involve itself beyond its own region. But clearly that tradition has changed. China is seeking new markets everyday for its products and its thirst for oil has made it aggressive in the South China Sea and forced it to reach well beyond its own region.
The biggest concern of all is China's improving missile capability. Already, its nuclear tipped missiles threaten all of Asia Pacific, but by 2015 its missiles will be capable of reaching all of North America.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration can only view the world in terms of Cold War perspectives of conflict and containment. The world has changed. Soon the US will no longer dominate and two new super powers will present themselves, China and India. Trade drives global politics. Economies have become so dependent on each other, the era of periodic world wide conflicts may be ending, not because we aren't willing to fight, but its no longer in our best interests.
The number one problem in this new world is a limited energy supply. For that reason alone, our number one priority needs to be a renewable energy supply. Without that solution, there will be another World War and its hard to imagine it not including use of nuclear warheads.
The number two problem for the US is that our economy is running on borrowed money. Since we can no longer expect to dominate the world, our debt can not be sustained. We need to rebuild our deteriorating infrastructure. We are no longer competitive with our past strength, industrial output. Now we are struggling to stay competitive in information technology and showing all signs of falling behind. Even if that is not true, our next generation of workers will not be as skilled in math and science. Our future work force is likely to be better match for heavy industry. Without rebuilding infrastructure or recreating an interest in math and science in our children, we will build ourselves a permanent underclass of poor and homeless people who eventually will be large enough to threaten civil order.

Understanding Islamism

International Crisis Group | Understanding Islamism

The West needs a discriminating strategy that takes account of the diversity of outlooks within political Islamism; that accepts that even the most modernist of Islamists are deeply opposed to current U.S. policies and committed to renegotiating their relations with the West; and that understands that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war occupation of Iraq, and the way in which the "war against terrorism" is being waged all significantly strengthen the appeal of the most virulent and dangerous jihadi tendencies.

[...]
The West's failure to understand the very diverse nature of Islamic activism, and adopt a discriminating strategy in response, risks sidelining non-violent and modernist tendencies, and strengthening militant jihadis. Though Shiite Islamism remains unified, its behaviour usually communally focused and defensive, Sunni Islamism -- about which most Western fears are held -- now has three distinctively different main types: political, missionary, and jihadi. Which of these three main trends will prevail is of great importance to the Muslim world and -- although none of them can be considered tamely "pro-Western" by any means -- to the U.S. and Europe. By adopting a sledge-hammer approach that does not differentiate jihadi Islamism from its political and missionary brands, or between fundamentalist and modernist streams of activism, Western policy-makers risk provoking one of two undesirable outcomes: either inducing the different strands to band together in reaction, or causing the non-violent, modernist trends to be eclipsed by the jihadis.

Here is another great example of how simple solutions to complex problems can create a backlash that undermines all the effort and lives invested. Bush has replaced Afghanistan with Iraq as the world's training ground for Jihadis while alienating most Muslims worldwide. He has single handedly created a much larger new generation of Jihadis that will terrorize our children.

Bolivia and Peru Are Destabilizing Because of Bush Drug Policy

The Bush Administration is cutting back on development money for Peru and Bolivia at the point when the populous is turning against the government for punishing even legitimate coca farmers and devastating rural areas by destroying the local economy without offering alternatives. In effect, Bolivia and Peru may be another casualty of the war in Iraq.
International Crisis Group | Coca, Drugs and Social Protest in Bolivia and Peru

U.S. counter-drug policies there also emphasise eradication and downplay the legitimacy of traditional coca production and have prompted mounting social protest by coca farmers, particularly in Bolivia but also in Peru. There is no doubt that a large part of coca leaf grown today in the two countries is sold for processing into cocaine. The extremely weak governments and state institutions, which lack the capability to control their vast territories and enforce the law, have come under increasing pressure from social movements and populist opposition parties. The counterdrug policies impact on coca farmers from poor indigenous communities with historical grievances against the economic and political elites. The implementation and public perception of counterdrug policies add fuel to a political tinderbox that already has seen a president forced from office in Bolivia. Democratic governance, prospects for equitable socio-economic development and social peace in Bolivia and Peru are in serious jeopardy.

Blogs Included in Campaign Finance Law?

Could blogs be considered in kind contributions to political campaigns? What is a link or an endorcement on a blog worth?
The coming crackdown on blogging | Newsmakers | CNET News.com

Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.