Reflections of a straight shooter - Greg Sheridan | Jan 20 - The Australian - One of the reasons so many people admire Richard Armitage, the outgoing Deputy Secretary of State, is his well-earned reputation for fierce honesty. He is George Orwell-like in his ability to face hard facts straight up, and deal with them. Although he always manages to do this with a smile, he'll tell you the things you don't like to hear as well as the things you do. [...] Then, after a minute's pause, he adds a third regret: "The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."
Its nice to know there are a few honest men in the Bush Administration. Sounds like Armitage and his boss were the most competent too. And that says a lot about the second four years of Double-Think Dubya.
January 20, 2005
Reflections of a straight shooter
January 19, 2005
Bush's War on Terror is an Utter Failure
The public report by the National Intelligence Council appears to contradict the Bush administration's contention that the invasion of Iraq struck a blow against terrorism. The report by the council, an advisory board of top intelligence analysts that's independent of the CIA, says Iraq has taken the place once held by Afghanistan as a proving ground for terrorist leaders. "The al-Qaida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," says the unclassified report, "Mapping the Global Future," which is an analysis of trends to the year 2020. "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are `professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself," it says.
Here is the reason that there are rumors Bush is looking for a way out of Iraq. Perhaps he has finally accepted that he's failed.
Funny thing is, I've seen no one else pick up on these reported rumors. Is the LA Times scoop difficult to verify? Others including the article after the link restates Bush's public statements of the election being a referendum on his approach to Iraq. The man would have to be delusional to believe that. I lean towards believing the rumors that he wants to convince the Shiites to accept military advisors rather than US Troops.
Then the NY Times has it that the Shiites are most likely to ask the US to set a timetable to leave Iraq according to "senior administration officials" refering to the recent crop of intelligence reports.
Sounds to me that Bush does or soon will recognize the Iraqi military mission as a house of cards.
January 18, 2005
U.S. Forces in Iraq Will Shift From Fighting to Training
U.S. Will Shift From Fighting to Training
U.S. military commanders increasingly believe that American troops will never entirely defeat Iraqi insurgents and now plan to reduce offensive operations and focus on training Iraqi security forces. Under the plan, expected to be launched after the nation's Jan. 30 parliamentary election, up to half of the U.S. troops in Iraq eventually could be enlisted to train police officers, national guard troops and other forces, said a senior military official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This outcome was predictable well before the campaign began. The Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Bush Administration that they would need at least 500,000 troops on the ground in Iraq for years. Rumsfeld, believing he was a military genius with a new concept of a small technically superior force could accomplish the same. He stated that an occupation force was unnecessary since the Shiites would meet the troops on the streets cheering. Surrounded by a cadre of similarly grandiose thinking Neo-cons convinced the present that they were right and the Joint Chiefs were wrong. Within weeks, many of the Joint Chiefs had resigned and were replaced.
Now we see how damaging a small cadre of closed minded fools can be in the Whitehouse. We've trashed very poor but functioning country, killed 100,000 Iraqis all for a principle that Sadaam had to go and the US needed to position troops in a central location in the Middle East to influence events. Clearly, the Iraqi people were better off with Sadaam. At least most had jobs and the streets were safe.
We've influenced events alright. Iraq will now degenerate into civil war. That is inevitable. As soon as US troops step back, Iraqi insurgents and militias will be at each other's throats. We've had no luck training more police and Iraqi troops and that won't change. They die like cannon fodder or run for home dropping their weapons on the way. Or they take their paychecks, provide intelligence for the insurgents and at some key point facilitate a major assault. Or they become a human bomb.
Eventually, Iraq will become a Shiite dominated and closely allied with Iran who is the leading exporter and supporter of terrorists. Iran already has a new influence in Afghanistan with it's with Tajik and Hazarah allies displacing the largely Pushtun. This is exactly the worst possible outcome from the US invasion of Iraq.
It's likely even the Bush Administration doesn't see any hope in winning the war in Iraq anymore. What we see in this change of tactics is what was called Vietnamization 30 years ago when Nixon decided to cut losses and turn over the country to the South Vietnamese government. The end result is the North Vietnamese chased the US troops out of Vietnam.
While I doubt the insurgency is anywhere near as potent as the North Vietnamese Army, I'm sure they will continue to do as much damage to US equipment and personnel as they can. Instead, we'll see US troops advising Kurdish/Shiite coalition forces against a Sunni insurgency. One can only hope that Jordan and Egypt will stay out of it.
And the US has no choice by to attack Iran directly with the help of Pakistan who is concerned about India's alliance with Iran. The world is heating up and the US is in the worst possible position to do anything about it with shaky allies and a severely damaged military.
January 17, 2005
Japan Beginning a 10 Year Plus Military Build-up
Sino-Japanese 'cold war' stirs new tensions
Simon Tisdall | January 18,
The Guardian - When Nobutaka Machimura, Japan's foreign minister, asked Israel to halt weapons sales to Japan's neighbours at the weekend, there was little doubt which particular neighbour he had in mind. And when Japan's defence ministry recently drew up contingency plans to deploy 55,000 troops in the event of an invasion of disputed islands off southern Japan, there was no question who the most likely invader would be. While the world watches China's rapid rise towards superpower status with awe, Japan, China's old enemy, watches with foreboding.
January 16, 2005
View from the Mountain
Today we celebrate the birthday of a great American. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a spiritual leader who stood a head above his collegues because he dared to use the bully pulpit to serve as a voice for peace and civil rights. At a time when war, intolerance, and discrimination begins to rear it's head towards Muslim and Arab peoples in the US, his words reverberate from the graveyard as God's own messanger....
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an
irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, 04-06-67
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam [Iraq]. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam [Iraq]. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964.
Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963.
The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant
animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes [minorities] in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them. - Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values
and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false
and the false with the true. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.
The bombs in Vietnam [Iraq} explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of
freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the
same thing as to ordain brotherhood. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has
only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that
would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.
Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity without arraying himself in vindictive force. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1964.
The Realities of Tax and Social Security Reform
Secondly, Bush's strategy has been developing since Ronald Reagan days. The tactic is one I've wrote about before. Its been been called "starving the beast". The idea is explained below very well.
Magazine > Breaking the Code" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/magazine/16TAXES.html?ei=5090&en=ec21b04f41fc7221&ex=1263618000&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=">The New York Times > Magazine > Breaking the Code
John Podesta,.. the last chief of staff to serve under Clinton,.. heads the Center for American Progress.... Podesta has little faith in the conservatives' trickle-down approach. He also says it is bad economic policy -- "fatally flawed," as he put it. "We're already seeing the current account deficit increase by $600 billion a year," he continued. "People are mortgaged to the hilt. The middle class is now being fundamentally squeezed. They've gotten no benefit from the tax reduction. G.D.P. growth is going almost all to corporate profits. And we're creating an overall economic circumstance in which the dollar is certain to drop, interest rates are certain to rise and growth over the long term looks kind of sketchy." To understand why the G.O.P. has pursued such a policy, Podesta argues, you have to look at the political dividends, not the economic ones. "What are the structural elements of what they are trying to do with the tax code?" he began, busying himself at a small coffee machine. "I would say there are three. One is to eliminate taxation on wealth and investment. Second is to create a revenue stream that aims at a government the size of which we haven't seen almost since before the Depression." Already, he points out, the government takes in far less than it spends, forcing the Bush administration to borrow billions of dollars to cover the revenue lost from cutting taxes. "Three is that if you build in taxation only on wage income, you have massive resistance by the middle class to letting those taxes rise. So you've kind of locked in three structural components that end up being highly beneficial to wealthy people, and I think, from a conservative governance point of view, create not just restraint on the growth of government, but essentially pressure to downsize the government." ...Democrats aren't willing to pretend that there can be tax reform without any losers.
Thats right, the Republicans have been plotting to undo FDR's New Deal reforms where government takes an active role in providing a safety net for those who can't take care of their own: Social Security, Medicare, and their cousins, SSI, and Medical Assistance.
You won't find many Democrats who'll defend AFDC anymore. It was a disaster that created a sense of entitlement among the poor for hand-outs and helped create an underclass of single mothers. Ultimately, it fed the roles of the homeless with their grown-up children. Of course I don't pretend that their aren't other factors involved. But the connection between work and a living was underminded by building a sense of entitlement. Government can't protect us from our irresponsible actions. That system has been reformed, mostly for the better. But I would argue that a lot of folks who are truly unable to work don't fit into the current definitions of disabled are falling through the cracks.
The rest of the aforementioned New Deal legislation provide government funded insurance for retirement income and medical care or provide a safety net for those who are disabled or too young to work. If you have any doubts that cutting Social Security and Medicare to the bone is not the agenda of the Republicans, look at the numbers. Social Security, Medicare, and the safety net for the disabled make up by far the largest part of government expenditures. They cannot cut government to pre-FDR levels without taking federal government out of safety net business.
In other words, unless local government picks up the slack, which is very unlikely, there will be poor and homeless elderly and disabled like we have never seen before. Ask the current private charities if they can pick up the slack.
Yes, reform is needed. Government is too big. Anything that big, including multi-national corporations are largely unmanagable. Even de-centralizing doesn't solve that problem. Sufficiently decentralized to be more efficient, the central office no longer can maintain quality control and the local office takes on the size that it can no longer manage.
Allowing younger workers to opt out even partially from Social Security will simply bring down the Social Security system much sooner than 40 years. And because of the volatility of the stock market, some people will have no retirement income. The beneficiaries of a privatized retirement system is Wall Street Brokers and the rich who will get another tax cut. The losers are those who need Social Security, those who bank their future in the Stock Market and retire when its a bear market, the unemployed who will wait a long time for jobs and our children who will have to pay off trillions of dollars of debt.
A better solution is a simpler system that requires fewer bureaucrats to manage. A negative income-based tax just might be the answer.
Just remember folks, while a common sense point of view, a flat tax makes sense, then we all will be living without a safety net. The only tax that will handle a safety net, will have to be progressive enough to capture the different from the rich. Otherwise, homelessness will be more common and life expectancy will drop because so many will be without healthcare.
Is that the kind of country you want to live in?
BUSH USING TRUST FUND TO PUSH ATTACK ON SOCIAL SECURITY
But then again, we all know the President is above the law, right? But perhaps Bush didn't expect the employee's union to speak up.
Washington > Social Security Agency Is Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16benefit.html?ei=5065&en=8fc5397cab02d3e0&ex=1106456400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position=">The New York Times > Washington > Social Security Agency Is Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision
Agency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program. They question the accuracy of recent statements by the agency, and they say that money from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for such advocacy.
Security Issue Threatens to Skew Iraq Vote
Security Issue Threatens to Skew Iraq Vote - Walter Pincus | Iraq | January 16 - WaPo - Twenty Iraqi women who are candidates in that country's Jan. 30 elections told a congressional delegation last weekend that because of threats to their lives they are not campaigning and will not let their pictures be displayed or their names listed publicly on candidate lists. "One was kidnapped, one had her son killed trying to protect her and one resigned from a candidate list after her husband and children were threatened," said Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), one of four lawmakers who met with the women over a two-day period in Amman, Jordan. "We heard it was a war zone, but didn't realize how dangerous it is."
Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran
Apparently the Neo-cons in the Administration have not learned their lesson yet. Now they are plotting another adventure in Iran. I suppose they figure they can get away with a limited incursion in Iran. But I suspect the Iranians have plans to make it cost the US dearly. These Neo-cons are the most dangerous people in the world, and they are advising the most powerful man in the world. The Neo-cons and the Administration appear to be impervious to any new information from the real world.
Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran - Washington | January 16 - Reuters - The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday. The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites. Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia." Defining these as military rather than intelligence operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas.
Babylon’s ruins wrecked
As the US prepared to hand back the ancient ruins of Babylon to Iraqi authorities at the weekend, a leading British archaeologist claimed US-led troops had "irrevocably contaminated" a site that dates to the dawn of history.
John Curtis, curator of the British Museum's ancient near-east department, said the coalition, which had used the old city as a base since invading Iraq in 2003, had seriously compromised future scientific research at the site.
"It is regrettable a military camp of this size should then have been established on one of the most important archaeological sites in the world," he said. "This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain."
Mr Curtis said entire sections of the city had been flattened and covered with gravel, paving stones that had survived 2600 years had been crushed by military vehicles, and decorative bricks around the celebrated Ishtar Gate had been cracked and dislodged by people who had tried to pry them out of the wall.
The problem is that this story is incomplete - it is known that Saddam had Babylon "restored" with lots of decorative bricks with the inscription "Saddam Hussein, son of Nebucadnezer". These bricks are getting good money on the black market.
January 15, 2005
Abu Ghraib abuse firms are rewarded
Why am I not surprised? These firms did Bush's bidding and they are due their reward!
Abu Ghraib abuse firms are rewarded Peter Beaumont | January 16The Observer - As prison ringleader awaits sentence(he got 10 years), defence contractors win multi-million Pentagon contracts Two US defence contractors being sued over allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison have been awarded valuable new contracts by the Pentagon, despite demands that they should be barred from any new government work. Despite demands by human rights groups in the US that the two companies be barred from further contracts in Iraq - where CACI alone employed almost half of all interrogators and analysts at Abu Ghraib - CACI International has been awarded a $16 million renewal of its contract. Titan, meanwhile, has been awarded a new contract worth $164m.
US Citizens Attitude Towards Torture
In a poll released last Monday by USToday finally asks the question I wanted to know the answer to: How does America feel about torture? Of the methods of torture listed, only sleep deprivation was considered acceptible by half of respondents. While its considered ok to assasinate known terrorists, killing leaders who support them is not acceptible. Using nuclear weapons is not considered acceptable. Ruled out overwhelmingly is the tactics highlighted at Abu Ghraib, forced nakedness chained uncomfortably in cold rooms, threatening with dogs, forcing heads under water, and transfering prisoners to regimes known to use torture is ruled out overwhelmingly.
RICE, FOR WHITE HOUSE, OPPOSES RESTRICTIONS ON TORTURE
Double-think Dubya is at it again. He first creates a ruse that he is going to change the doctrine about torture but then he persuades his buddies to drop legislation that would chisel in stone that legislation. It is a great way to get credit for something that really doesn't happen. Convince America there is no reason to worry about torture anymore, but then go on doing the same. He is recreating a secret while Rice covers for him by taking the blame and deflecting criticism to a legal technicality.
DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON, NY TIMES - At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say. . . The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
But in intense closed-door negotiations, Congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition.
In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday in response to inquiries, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the grounds that it "provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy."
Cyclone Kerry weakens.
I wish it wasn't true...
[Quote:]
Tropical Cyclone Kerry has been downgraded to a category two system and is now 1,000 kilometres east-north-east of Rockhampton in central Queensland.
How appropriate:
- lots of wind
- keeps changing directions, and no one seems able to predict where it will be next
- sure to cause damage to whatever it touches
- despite all this, no one is really interested in it
Freedom of Speech Or Hate Crime?
One of the difficult areas that continues to tangle in the courts is photographs of children in various stages of undress. No one wants to jail a parent for taking a picture of a naked baby waiting to be diapered, yet everyone wants to jail a child pornographer. But there have been examples where someones precious memories and art has been seen as another man's porn.
Religious intolerance is as ugly and provocative behavior as anything in the annals of historic discrimination and incitement to riot and war. So for Britain to consider outlawing statements of religious incitement as a hate crime seem a natural extension. What consequences may come from this? One can imagine an explicitly worded historical recount of an event that has been perceived very differently in other quarters might be seen as a violation of this war. This could have a chilling effect on both history and journalism where understatement becomes the rule and accuracy is compromised.
Ultimately, the outcome of such a law is manifest in test cases in the courts. I know of no unwitting victims of racial hate crimes. But they might exist, I don't know. Yet I would hate to see us abandon efforts to contain the excesses of free speech for fear of limiting legitimate exchange.
There is no easy answers.
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Home Office to meet Rushdie over censorship fears
In a letter to the Guardian published on January 6, Mr Rushdie wrote: "The continuing collapse of liberal, democratic, secular and humanist principles in the face of the increasingly strident demands of organised religions is perhaps the most worrying aspect of life in contemporary Britain."
In response, Ms Mactaggart wrote a letter to the Guardian in which she said: "Free speech is a crucial right for everyone, faith groups as well as artists. For many years the law has established that free speech rights do not licence people to stir up hatred of others on the basis of their race. "Now we are seeking to offer the same protection to people targeted because of their faith. This is not religious appeasement, but a responsible reaction to the tactics of those, especially from the extreme right, who would foster community tension by stirring up hatred of members of a faith group."
January 14, 2005
Britain's most notorious mercenary, Tim Spicer is US Contractor
Bush has created another nightmare. A system that contracts with private companies for many services that used to under military command. We don't have much control over contractors, unless they don't fulfill the contract. The Administration is inadequately screening the contractors they bring on board. A despicable character has managed to get a quarter billion dollar contract. Now because he is not listed as an unsavory, the Defense Department can't end the contract. I have to wonder if this guy was a foil for the CIA in the past, doing dirty deeds for us. Perhaps the contract is a reward. This is especially ugly business.
ANDREW ACKERMAN, NATION - Military contracts are big game. And one of the most notorious hunters is a former British soldier whose past business ventures include violating a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone and unwittingly triggering a coup in Papua New Guinea. His name is Tim Spicer, and in March his London-based company, Aegis Defense Services, bagged a $293 million contract from the Pentagon to protect US diplomats in Iraq. One might think that the government would be wary of awarding such largesse to a man with a dubious background. But not only did the Pentagon have no idea who Spicer was when they gave his company a huge contract, they didn't seem to care when challenged about it.
Five Democratic senators, led by Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, protested the Aegis contract on humanitarian grounds, urging the Pentagon to reconsider the deal in light of Spicer's background. He is, they noted, a man with a remarkable talent for entangling himself in scandal. In August, they asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to review the Spicer deal. In a response last month, the Army admitted that its contracting officer was unaware of trouble spots in Spicer's past, but it refused to reconsider the contract.
"It is significant that the British Ministry of Defense was apprised of our intention...and did not object or advise against the action. Moreover, neither Aegis nor Mr. Spicer are on the...list of parties excluded from Federal contracting," wrote Sandra Sieber, director of the Army Contracting Agency. "We therefore had no legal basis to deny the award to Aegis, which won the competition fairly based on the rules and criteria established by our solicitation."
WATCHDOGS PRESSING ARMY TO REVEAL DETAILS OF STUDY INVOLVING BIO-CHEMICAL EFFECTS BY ETHNICITY, AGE, SEX
Now the Army is studying the differential effects of chemical weapons based on ethnic, gender, and age. Now the gender and age thing MIGHT make some sense. But I'm disturbed by the history of using uninformed citizens as guinea pigs with unknown medical consequences. But the study by ethnicity is really disturbing. Are they looking for a chemical that will kill all Arabs but not whites? This is chilling.
TWO WATCHDOG GROUPS are appealing the US Army's refusal to release a study that compared the effects of different chemical, and possibly biological, weapons on different ethnic, gender, and age groups. The US Army has refused to release a single page of the study, which was conducted in 1999 by the US Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The experiments harken back to dark Cold War days, when Dugway used religious minorities in weapons tests. The watchdogs are the Sunshine Project and Citizens Education Project. This week, the groups have filed an appeal with the US Army General Counsel's Office.
"We want to know how and why the US Army is researching chemical weapons effects on different kinds of people," says Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond, "We see no valid defensive purpose to build data on ethnic chemical warfare. On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why this research might make others nervous. Did the Army segregate people based on ethnicity, gender, and age and then expose them to weapons agents?"
The US Army reply to the watchdog's request for the report mentions biological agents in addition to the chemicals. According to the watchdogs, that these studies may extend into biological weapons is more cause for concern. Says Hammond "The Army's reference to biological agents is all the more reason why it must disclose this report to explain what it has done and why it wants data on the effects of prohibited weapons on ethnic groups."
US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq
Perhaps with the soft talk from the President these days, he's having second thoughts about Iraq. So he allays his guilt by addressing less toxin sins, like faux pas. Another part of me thinks this is just another cynical tactic of deception inspired by Karl Rove. It's enough to make me retch. 1,300 dead American sons and daughters, 10,000 wounded, 5,500 deserters, some 20,000 who received medical discharge for psychological reasons, like post traumatic stress disorder and first time psychotic episodes because our Country asked them to a do a job that most thought needed to be done. It turns out it was only an adventure planned by grandiose stuffed shirts that spend their time talking only to those who agree with them and remaking history rather than learning from it. They are a relatively new specie called a Neo-conservative. They are so lacking in substance, they aren't even a real conservative.
[Quote:]
American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam. An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.
Vote for Values!
Bush is such a hypocrite. A partying rich boy alcoholic gets religion to keep his wife and ends up President. What happened to the party boy? See for yourself:
[Quote:]Kid Rock, a popular vulgar rock-rapper whose lyrics wouldn't begin to pass muster with the Federal Communications Commission, is headlining the youth concert during the inauguration festivities for President Bush a politician who was re-elected largely due to the participation of traditional "values voters."
The Detroit-based rapper, who dedicated his first album to songs about oral sex and who was voted the Sluttiest Male Celebrity at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, will perform Jan. 18 at the Washington, D.C., Armory in a concert hosted by Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara. Teenage singer JoJo also will appear at the event.[Update: Kid Rock cancelled by storm of protest.]
India’s untouchables forced out of relief camps
Disaster inspires the worst and the best of humanity. Most are inspired to efforts of heroism and compassion beyond the norm. Others find opportunity to exploit, like the kidnappers in Indonesia taking orphans to be slaves and the class hatred in India where more privileged self-righteously deny aid to the suffering poor. War will not end without the end of exploitation, discrimination and corruption for they are each a part of a cycle of conflict that feeds the monster of war.
[Quote:]India's untouchables, reeling from the tsunami disaster, are being forced out of relief camps by higher caste survivors and being denied aid supplies, activists charged.
Kuppuswamy Ramachandran, 32, a Dalit or untouchable in India's rigid caste hierarchy, said he and his family were told to leave a relief camp in worst-hit Nagapattinam district where 50 more families were housed.
"The higher caste fishing community did not allow us to sleep in a marriage hall where they are put up because we belong to the lowest caste," Ramachandran said.
