Squeezing Palestinians Out of Jerusalem

While the world is watching the events unfolding in Gaza as the Israelis prepare their unilateral withdrawl of settlers. Some have speculated that the Israelis will continue military operations in Gaza as long as Hamas fights back. I think this is a very likely scenario that Hamas has been preparing for, even breaking the cease fire to challenge to Israelis to come for them. For they will fight on their own group, in a crowded highly populated area where Israeli casualities and collateral casualties of innocents have always been high.
International Crisis Group

Of most immediate political consequence, Israeli steps are further damaging the domestic credibility of Palestinian President Abbas. For Palestinian groups inclined to undermine the cease-fire, the fate of Jerusalem offers a potent pretext. The establishment of new Jewish neighbourhoods coupled with the route of the barrier is creating Palestinian enclaves in East Jerusalem, reducing economic opportunities, and producing overcrowded living conditions. If the process is completed, some 200,000 Palestinian East Jerusalemites will end up inside the Jerusalem envelope, live under greater Israeli control, and increasingly be separated from the West Bank; the remaining 55,000 will be outside the barrier, disconnected from the city that has been their centre of gravity, fearful of reduced social services and, in many instances, determined to find their way back into the fenced-in areas. That will be an explosive mix.

Perhaps most significantly, current policies in and around the city will vastly complicate, and perhaps doom, future attempts to resolve the conflict by both preventing the establishment of a viable Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem and obstructing the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian state. None of this is good for the Palestinian people, the people of Israel, or the peace process.

The withdrawal from Gaza and . Now that I see the population distribution on the above map and in view of the fact the birth rate of the Palestinians versus Israelis predicts Jerusalem under this plan will gradually increase their population from 100,000 and become the dominant population within the city limits.
Sharon knows this fact well, for it is this that made him rethink his strategy. The only possible explanation for all the events is that the Israelis intend to evict Palestinians from Jerusalem, but perhaps gradually over time. This action will be the single most provocative move of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that Europe and Arab neighbors can not support. Hate and war will be the reality in Israel for many years to come. Sharon has done the US a great disservice by drawing us into the line of fire.

The Truth About Jobs

Doublethink Dubya has been spouting his words of confidence about the recovery. Yeah sure... The truth follows.
CounterPunch.org

The US continues its descent into the Third World, but you would never know it from news reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July payroll jobs release. The media gives a bare bones jobs report that is misleading. The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises.


Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.


Here is the breakdown of the major categories:

• 30,000 food servers and bar tenders;


• 28,000 health care and social assistance:


• 12,000 real estate;


• 6,000 credit intermediation;


• 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;


• 50,000 retail trade;


• 8,000 wholesale trade;


• 7,000 construction jobs (most filled by Mexican immigrants.)

Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China.

It's been said that the American worker is not only facing the possibility of unemployment, but also stagnant wages. The real scenario is that the next job the unemployed get will be reimbursed at a wage much less than they had before. The reality is that the US wage earner is priced way out of the world market.

A Cover-up of Espionage and Bribery by the Speaker of the House?

Here is an update on my post on 8/4 about FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds who is now pursuing her case to the Supreme Court. Her story which she is forbidden to comment on by court order was reported on by Vanity Fair journalist David Rose. Her story is one of possible evidence of espionage and bribery of Republican Speaker of the House Hastert by Turkish government officials. They allegedly paid Hastert $500,000 to withdraw a resolution that would recognize Armenian genocide at the hands of Turkey and support stalled weapons sales to Turkey who was in the midst of suppressing an insurgency by Kurdish PKK fighters.
It's a very disturbing story about what may be a cover-up by the Bush Administration of espionage and bribery of a government official by a foreign government.
Here in Streaming Video, and in the excerpt below, he comments on Sibel's story she is forbidden to tell and adds a very recent development. Sibel is also interviewed in the video clip, but she is prevented from saying much. She is however, a very angry patriot who seems unlikely to give up.
Democracy Now!

...the new development is that just ten days ago, her attorney in Washington, Mark Zaid, received a message from the Office of Special Investigation at the Air Force saying that after this very long gap, nearly three years, they were reopening the investigation into the Dickersons, into Can Dickerson and her husband, Douglas, and might at some near future date seek to interview Sibel. Now, it may or may not be coincidental that, as part of the research for my article for Vanity Fair, I had submitted about 150 different questions about the entire case to the Air Force, to other parts of the Pentagon, to the D.O.J. and the F.B.I., and none of these questions were answered, but they did, of course, set out in enormous detail the various allegations that are being raised. Following the receipt of those questions, the investigation was formally reopened, which is, I think, perhaps significant.

[...]
there were two things, I understand, which those who were wiretapped, whose conversations were recorded and translated, referred to. One was the controversial deal to sell helicopters, attack helicopters, to Turkey, which was an issue of great controversy in the late 1990s. At that point, Turkey was fighting a pretty hot civil war with the Kurdish separatists in the east of the country. There were allegations of human rights abuses and so forth, and some in America thought it was wrong that Turkey should be sold several billion dollars worth of attack helicopters in those circumstances. So some of the calls allegedly referred to the hope that the Congress would approve that very large weapons sale.


But the second occasion or second event which is allegedly referred to in these wiretaps is the Armenian genocide resolution which came before the House in 2000. Now, the Armenian lobby has made attempts with some support -- I mean, Senator Bob Dole was a very great supporter of this back in the 1980s. The Armenians have tried to get the Congress to pass a genocide resolution so that – which would basically state that the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey that was carried out after 1915 was a genocide, and some countries have indeed passed such resolutions. Some states have in America. This resolution never really got anywhere until in 2000, Dennis Hastert, as House Speaker, announced he would support it.


Now, at the time, analysts noted that there was a tight congressional race in California, in which the Armenian community might just swing it in favor of the Republican incumbent. But what is significant, the resolution had passed the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House. It passed the International Relations Committee, but on the eve of the House vote, the full House vote, Dennis Hastert withdrew the resolution. Now, at the time, he explained this by saying that he had had a letter from President Clinton asking him to withdraw it, because it wouldn't be in America's interests to have such a resolution, which, of course, was bitterly resisted inside Turkey, pass through the House.


Well, it is slightly curious when you think about it. I mean, Dennis Hastert was not known, as one of the authors of Clinton's impeachment, for deferring to his judgment on many occasions, but on this occasion, he apparently did. Well, whether or not these allegations have substance is not something that I am able to state with any knowledge, but it is said that in the wiretaps that were translated by Sibel Edmonds, reference was made to this very controversial question of the House vote. One of the Turkish targets of these wiretaps claimed that the price for getting Dennis Hastert to withdraw the resolution would be $500,000. Now, I do emphasize there's no evidence at all that he received such a payment, but that is what is said to have been recorded in one of the wiretaps.

Canadian Arrested Transfering Planes in NY "Rendered" to Syria for Torture

CBC News

A senior lawyer for the U.S. government has told a judge hearing a lawsuit over Maher Arar's deportation to Syria that foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights. At most, Mary Mason told a hearing in Brooklyn, N.Y., passengers would have the right not to be subjected to "gross physical abuse." The policy has implications for Canadians who head for international destinations via big American airports in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major centres.


Mason said the U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country. If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. Mason told Judge David Trager that's because they are deemed to be still outside the U.S., from a legal point of view.

[...]
However, department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson issued this short statement: "The United States does not practise torture, export torture or condone torture." In legal briefs written by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Justice Department has defined torture to mean "pain consistent with major organ failure or death."

Well, that makes a lot of sense. If torture is causing death or near death, then the US doesn't sanction torture. More Doublethink Dubya: torture isn't torture if you say it isn't.
Arar with his daughter

Maher Arar is a man who was release after what he and human rights organizations say was torture from a Syrian where he was sent by DOJ officials after Canada failed to protest. Under torture he was forced to admit to being in Afghanistan. All charges were dropped after some gentle diplomacy by Canada. This guy's fate has been headlines in Canada for over two years. Yet, this is the first I've heard of it.
There are DOJ officials who have little better to do than dig around in people's history looking for any inconsistency or suspicion associated with "secret evidence" presumably from NSA communications surveilence, intelligence from foreign agencies, and interrogation of our own "unlawful combatants" under great duress. He was unable to even hear the evidence against him and was summerily wisked off to Syria. Here is an extensive 2+ year Maher Arar Timeline.
CBC News

Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria in 1970, came to Canada in 1987. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in computer engineering, Arar worked in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer. On a stopover in New York as he was returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia in September 2002, U.S. officials detained Arar, claiming he has links to al-Qaeda, and deported him to Syria, even though he was carrying a Canadian passport.


When Arar returned to Canada more than a year later, he said he had been tortured during his incarceration and accused American officials of sending him to Syria knowing that they practise torture.

One can only hope his lawsuit goes forward. The only thing Bush listens two is money and bad publicity that gets in the way of money.

Discrimination in Israel

I have followed Israel's history every since I read Exodus by Leon Uris just before the 1967 Six Day War. Needless to say, I was caught up in the war and consumed every detail I could find. I have followed the news from Israel closely ever since.
My eyes gradually opened to the Palestinian side of the story when Arafat finally starting getting press attention. Since then, my views have hardened on both sides of this conflict. One of the telling stories was the fact that Israeli Arabs are second class citizens.
First of all, the conflict makes no sense at all. Even Sharon was eventually convinced that short of driving all of the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank, if Israel annexed the territories, soon the majority of Israel would be Arab.
Instead, Israel is consistently stealing land from Palestinians in the West Bank on a daily basis. And as a hedge for the future, when Israeli Arabs' birthrate helps them become a significant voting block in Israel, the laws of Israel discriminate consistently against citizens based on religion.
Haaretz.com

Security prisoners who are Israeli Arabs are subject to discrimination, on three levels, compared with Israeli Jews who have harmed Arabs: In the severity of the punishment meted out by Israeli judges; in their chances for early parole (as a result of amnesty or time off for good behavior after serving two thirds of their sentence); and their conditions of incarceration.


In 1993, Yoram Skolnik murdered an Arab who was bound hand and foot, and was given a life sentence. President Ezer Weizman twice reduced his sentence: first to 15 years, and then to 11 years and three months. He was ultimately released seven years after his arrest.


Skolnik is part of a list of Jews who murdered Arabs and were released by the judicial system. In contrast, Arab prisoners are sentenced to life or lengthy prison terms, even if they were not convicted of murder. For example, Mukhles Burghal and Mohammad Ziade were given life sentences 18 years ago. They were convicted of tossing a grenade at a bus carrying soldiers. The grenade failed to explode. Burghal, who threw the grenade, had his sentence reduced to 40 years. The sentence imposed on Ziade, who had signaled him when the bus approached, remained unchanged: life in prison.

[...]
A long chain of Israelis are complicit in the inequality entailed in every such day in prison: the judges, who imposed on Arabs much tougher sentences than those imposed on Jews who have committed similar and grave offenses; the members of parole boards, who reduced the sentence of Jewish murderers and know that the "time-off committees" generally refuse to release Arabs, including murderers; presidents of Israel, who reduced sentences and granted amnesty to Jews; and their advisers, the heads of law schools, who do not raise a hue and cry and demand constant reexamination of a system which has different standards of judging and imprisoning, depending on a person's nationality.

Oil - Al Qaeda - Heroin

One might wonder immediately how these three items could be grouped together. What if you found out that initially, Al Qaeda was founded by Reagan diplomacy in Saudi Arabia, and funded by money from big oil and heroin sales in the US? The publically stated purpose was to support an Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. But then little did we know that Unical planned an oil pipeline there. Now the story fills in that Pakistan was hijacked from Democracy by the same Reagan agenda. They sponsored the Taliban overthrowing Kabul using oil and heroin money. After the overthrow, Al Qaeda was invited to Kosovo to advise the KLA. Much oil and heroin money flowed there as well.
After two training missions, the Al Qaeda and its Afghani friends sponsored insurgencies in Central Asia with the support of the US using oil and heroin money. Ultimately, oil pipelines were the leverage for oil money. Afghanistan was the source of heroin.
Ronald Reagan is largely responsible for the founding, funding and spread of Al Qaeda, all with the intent to contain the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union and corner America's 21st century source of oil.
And why do you think the Neo-cons are so interested in the Middle East and Central Asia? Oil, Jihadis and containing the US rivals of the 21st century. The cost is the loss of large numbers America's young people to war and heroin.
Where is that shining city on a hill, anyway?
Telegraph

...the [Pakistani] military regime allied to Islamic fundamentalists help[ed] the Afghans and Americans fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Pakistan became an "ideological" Islamic state whose parameters were determined by the army in a bid to differentiate the country from secular India. Since then the Islamic rather than the democratic and multi-ethnic character of Pakistan has been the thrust of the army and its main allies, the Islamic parties.

[...]
Although the fundamentalists have always been far weaker than the democratic forces, the backing they have received from the army has given them enormous power. What constitutes an ''ideological'' Islamic state has veered steadily from identity as Muslims in the 1970s to extremism and jihad in the 1990s as the pursuit of wresting control of Kashmir from India became less of a political struggle and more of a religious obligation.


The other determining factor for Pakistan has been its chronic sense of insecurity with India, with whom it has fought three major wars and several smaller ones. To counter India's might the military used the fundamentalists to pursue a foreign policy based on supporting Islamic extremists in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia.


Pakistan became a national security state where modern reforms, education and public welfare took second place to building nuclear weapons and spending millions of rupees on funding mujahideen of all shades.


The United States shares a large part of the blame as it poured billions of dollars into the Pakistani military in the 1950s and 1960s to fight the Cold War and again in the 1980s to help fund the Afghan mujahideen and Arab extremists. Saudi Arabia has also been a key ally, providing Pakistan with cheap oil and loans as well as funding for Pakistani extremist groups who were fighting in Kashmir and in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.


Those groups funded by Saudi Arabia have promoted Wahhabism - an austere form of Islam practised in the desert kingdom - and been largely responsible for the massacres of Shia Muslims in Pakistan.

Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia

What is slowly emerging from Al Qaeda activities in Central Asia in the 1990s is the extent to which they involved both American oil companies and the U.S. government.[1] By now we know that the U.S.-protected movements of Al Qaeda terrorists into regions like Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Kosovo have served the interests of U.S. oil companies. In many cases they have also provided pretexts or opportunities for a U.S. military commitment and even troops to follow.


This has been most obvious in the years since the Afghan War with the Soviet Union ended in 1989. Deprived of Soviet troops to support it, the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime in Kabul finally fell in April 1992. What should have been a glorious victory for the mujahedin proved instead to be a time of troubles for them, as Tajiks behind Massoud and Pashtuns behind Hekmatyar began instead to fight each other.


The situation was particularly difficult for the Arab Afghans, who now found themselves no longer welcome. Under pressure from America, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the new interim president of Afghanistan, Mojaddedi, announced that the Arab Afghans should leave. In January 1993 Pakistan followed suit, closed the offices of all mujahedin in its country, and ordered the deportation of all Arab Afghans.[2] Shortly afterwards Pakistan extradited a number of Egyptian jihadis to Egypt, some of whom had already been tried and convicted in absentia.[3]


Fleeing the hostilities in Afghanistan, some Uzbek and Tajik mujahedin and refugees started fleeing or returning north across the Amu Darya.[4] In this confusion, with or without continued U.S. backing, cross-border raids, of the kind originally encouraged by CIA Director Casey back in the mid-1980s, continued.[5] Both Hekmatyar and Massoud actively supported the Tajik rebels, including in the years up to 1992 when both continued to receive aid and assistance from the United States.[6] The Pakistani observer Ahmed Rashid documents further support for the Tajik rebels from both Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani intelligence directorate ISI.[7]


These raids into Tajikistan and later Uzbekistan contributed materially to the destabilization of the Muslim Republics in the Soviet Union (and after 1992 of its successor, the Conference of Independent States). This destabilization was an explicit goal of U.S. policy in the Reagan era, and did not change with the end of the Afghan War. On the contrary, the United States was concerned to hasten the break-up of the Soviet Union, and increasingly to gain access to the petroleum reserves of the Caspian Basin, which at that time were still estimated to be "the largest known reserves of unexploited fuel in the planet."[8]

[...]
In one former Soviet Republic, Azerbaijan, Arab Afghan jihadis clearly assisted this effort of U.S. oil companies to penetrate the region. In 1991, Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn, three veterans of U.S. operations in Laos, and later of Oliver North's operations with the Contras, turned up in Baku under the cover of an oil company, MEGA Oil.[14] This was at a time when the first Bush administration had expressed its support for an oil pipeline stretching from Azerbaijan across the Caucasus to Turkey.[15] MEGA never did find oil, but did contribute materially to the removal of Azerbaijan from the sphere of post-Soviet Russian influence.

[...]
The respected French observer Olivier Roy has charged that "When the Taleban took power in Afghanistan (1996), it was largely orchestrated by the Pakistani secret service [ISI] and the oil company Unocal, with its Saudi ally Delta."[37] Unocal executive John Maresca then testified in 1998 to the House Committee on International Relations on the benefits of a proposed oil pipeline through Afghanistan to the coat of Pakistan.[38] A second natural gas pipeline (Centgas) was also contemplated by Unocal.

[...]
The U.S., Al Qaeda and oil company interests converged again in Kosovo. Though the origins of the Kosovo tragedy were rooted in local enmities, oil became a prominent aspect of the outcome. There the Al Qaeda-backed UCK or "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA) was directly supported and politically empowered by NATO, beginning in 1998.[47] But according to a source of Tim Judah, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier."[48] This would presumably have been back when Arab Afghan members of the KLA, like Abdul-Wahid al-Qahtani, were fighting in Bosnia.[49]

[...]
BBC News announced in December 2004 that a $1.2 billion pipeline, south of a huge new U.S. army base in Kosovo, has been given a go-ahead by the governments of Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.[56]

One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President

The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch on Saturday, demanding an accounting from the president of how he has conducted the war in Iraq. Supported by more than 50 shouting demonstrators, Cindy Sheehan, 48, told reporters, "I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?" Sheehan arrived in Crawford aboard a bus painted red, white and blue and emblazoned with the words, "Impeachment Tour. From Democrats.com
This mom is angry and she is determined to make the most out of the publicity.
New York Times

President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.


Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington State. But when she was blocked by the police a few miles from Mr. Bush's 1,600-acre spread on Saturday, the 48-year-old Ms. Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., was transformed into a news media phenomenon, the new face of opposition to the Iraq conflict at a moment when public opinion is in flux and the politics of the war have grown more complicated for the president and the Republican Party.


Ms. Sheehan has vowed to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road. Early on Sunday afternoon, 25 hours after she was turned back as she approached Mr. Bush's ranch, Prairie Chapel, Ms. Sheehan stood red-faced from the heat at the makeshift campsite that she says will be her home until the president relents or leaves to go back to Washington. A reporter from The Associated Press had just finished interviewing her. CBS was taping a segment on her. She had already appeared on CNN, and was scheduled to appear live on ABC on Monday morning. Reporters from across the country were calling her cellphone.

But now, faced with a difficult foe, right-wing pundits are attempting a smear campaign against Sheehan based on out of context remarks of a June 24, 2004 article in the Vacaville, CA Reporter. The Reporter republished on the web today to set the record straight.

Bush, Sheehans share moments


By David Henson/Staff Writer


Since learning in April that their son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, had been killed in Iraq, life has been everything but normal for the Sheehan family of Vacaville. Casey's parents, Cindy and Patrick, as well as their three children, have attended event after event honoring the soldier both locally and abroad, received countless letters of support and fielded questions from reporters across the country. "That's the way our whole lives have been since April 4," Patrick said. "It's been surreal."


But none of that prepared the family for the message left on their answering machine last week, inviting them to have a face-to-face meeting with President George W. Bush at Fort Lewis near Seattle. Surreal soon seemed like an understatement, as the Sheehans - one of 17 families who met Thursday with Bush - were whisked in a matter of days to the Army post and given the VIP treatment from the military. But as their meeting with the president approached, the family was faced with a dilemma as to what to say when faced with Casey's commander-in-chief.


"We haven't been happy with the way the war has been handled," Cindy said. "The president has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached." The 10 minutes of face time with the president could have given the family a chance to vent their frustrations or ask Bush some of the difficult questions they have been asking themselves, such as whether Casey's sacrifice would make the world a safer place.


But in the end, the family decided against such talk, deferring to how they believed Casey would have wanted them to act. In addition, Pat noted that Bush wasn't stumping for votes or trying to gain a political edge for the upcoming election. "We have a lot of respect for the office of the president, and I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us," Pat said.


Sincerity was something Cindy had hoped to find in the meeting. Shortly after Casey died, Bush sent the family a form letter expressing his condolences, and Cindy said she felt it was an impersonal gesture. "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting. "I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith." The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.


While meeting with Bush, as well as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was an honor, it was almost a tangent benefit of the trip. The Sheehans said they enjoyed meeting the other families of fallen soldiers, sharing stories, contact information, grief and support. For some, grief was still visceral and raw, while for others it had melted into the background of their lives, the pain as common as breathing. Cindy said she saw her reflection in the troubled eyes of each. "It's hard to lose a son," she said. "But we (all) lost a son in the Iraqi war."


The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected. For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle. For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again. "That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," Cindy said.


David Henson can be reached at schools@thereporter.com.

Who's watching the watch list?"

LA Times

The administration delivers the message relentlessly: There will be another terrorist attack; Americans will die. Privacy and individual rights are the cost of minimizing the likelihood of this happening. If we hassle a million innocent travelers on the suspicion that one may be legitimately suspect, that is the price of security. I know this argument in the most intimate way, because for several months now the Transportation Security Administration has listed me, or someone, or many people with my name, on its National Watch List. The TSA uses only first name/last name — in my case, "John Johnson" — "Fenton" is my middle name.


In the months since I learned I am on the list I have flown several times, and — so far — my greatest inconvenience consists of being denied use of the machines that dispense automatic boarding passes. Instead, I must wait in line for a clerk. By now I anticipate the situation, obediently line up, and watch for the clerk to react as I'm fingered by the list. After an ID check, I've been allowed to proceed, although some make clear their feeling that if the law has turned its spotlight on me then I must have done something wrong, and the sooner I'm sent to Guantanamo Bay the better.


That's a small price to pay in an era of international terrorism, I would say, except for my persistent unease at being a suspect, a name on a list whose logic and standards are impossible to uncover. I have visited the TSA website, where I was informed that on submission of notarized copies of my birth certificate, my passport and my driver's license, I might find it easier to proceed through airport security — but that I will not be removed from the list. I telephoned TSA public relations, to be informed that there are no uniform standards for determining who makes the list. Names arrive from various agencies, each of which, I was told, sets its own standards for which names it submits. The TSA simply "enforces" the list.

Can you imagine that our airport security is maintained by a list of first and last names? There is no other identifying information. So if you have a common name, you may find yourself on the list. Former presidential candidate John Anderson's name is on the list.
So if we harass airline passengers randomly, are we safer? Can you possibly believe a system as ill concieved as this one is doing anything? Of course then there are the frequent security breeches here, here, and here. Then there is body searches of women at airports with serious consequences.
In the process of finding our security, we've lost our freedom and are having to under go the security common in totalitarian regimes.

China and India bury hatchet

Trade has always been a tool of foreign policy, as well as an end in itself. The two countries representing 1/3 of the world population and soon to be the two economic behomouths of the 21st Century have officially made peace after 40 years of border tensions. This could prove to be very big news in the global economy and foreign policy.
Scotland On Sunday

Shake on it: Wen Jiabao and Manmohan Singh at the signing of their joint declaration in April.


In a significant gesture of cartographic diplomacy, the Chinese premier, Wen Jiaboa, recently visited New Delhi and presented the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, with a beautifully crafted map of the Himalayas that finally acknowledged Sikkim as a state of India. New Delhi in turn, in a rehearsed display of compromise, reiterated respect for China's sovereignty over Tibet and promised to prevent anti-Chinese political activities by the community of Tibetan exiles in India. Further border resolutions are in the pipeline.


The true symbolism of the accord was made clear by the public signing of a groundbreaking Sino-Indian pact between the two nations which are home to one-third of the world's total population. The 11 agreements envisaged a galloping growth in bilateral trade, joint petroleum, gas and space exploration, and additional agreements for co-operation between China's 2.5-million-man People's Liberation Army and the 1.3-million-strong Indian Defence Force.


In short, Asia's oldest and most important relationship has undergone a tectonic shift. Today the Nathu La pass is once again open for business. But the re-establishment of meagre trade along the route is merely symbolic, representing nothing more than yak butter, woollen shawls and, most likely in these modern times, pirate DVDs.


On a global scale, of all the significant economies in the world, China and India have been the fastest growing for the past decade, yet barely a few years ago, trade between both nations was under $1bn per year.


According to statistics released by the Indian government last week, China has now come from nowhere to be New Delhi's second-biggest trade partner after the US - trade between both countries in 2005 is expected to exceed $13.6bn with both aiming for a trade turnover of $20bn by 2008 and $30bn by 2010. India-US trade is currently worth $19.8bn.


Premier Wen has declared that China and India will be the "two pagodas" of economic power in the 21st century. He said: "Co-operation is just like two pagodas - one hardware and one software," he said, referring to India's computer software skills and China's growing dominance in computer hardware. "Combined, we can take the leadership position in the world. When that particular day comes, it will signify the coming of the Asian Century of the IT industry."

Both China and India need to find a hedge to protect themselves from a drop in demand from America's overstretched economy. China is playing a smart hand by playing the India card. India is the only country besides Russia on China's border to present a real military threat. India has been strengthening their military cooperation with the US including getting modern weapons that China cannot at this time match. The only hope China has to protect its southern flank is by increasing trade.
Who would have thought that Globalization could become the world's best hope for peace?

Bush On the Offensive with Iran

MSNBC.com

It’s the number one killer of American troops in Iraq: roadside bombs. The massive roadside bomb that killed 14 Marines Wednesday flipped their 37-ton vehicle on its top and blew it some 40 feet down the road.


Tonight, there’s disturbing information that some of the most sophisticated of these deadly weapons are reportedly coming from Iran. U.S. military and intelligence officials tell NBC News that American soldiers intercepted a large shipment of high explosives, smuggled into northeastern Iraq from Iran only last week.

With Bush popularity waning, he apparently figures he has nothing to lose by demonizing Iran. He's benefited from every act of terrorism and major strike against Americans world wide. So he continues his attempts at escalating to war against Iran with a bold face lie. As Juan Cole points out, an alliance between Iran and the Iraqi Sunnis is ludicrous. The US is simply trying to justify war with Iran, something he's been working towards for nearly a year. It's the only way Bush can resurrect his dead on arrival Middle East foreign policy. Regime change in Iran is the only way to keep the Iranians from greatly benefiting from the American invasion in Iraq because of a new strategic alliance with Iraq.

What Michael Moore (and the neocons) don't know about Saudi Arabia

New Saudi King Abdullah listens to a tribal chief on Wednesday as he receives oaths of loyalty from hundreds of top Islamic clerics, tribal chiefs and other prominent Saudis.
Cole have an article today that continues his comments about the origins of Al Qaeda earlier this week. What's interesting here is that Juan takes apart Michael Moore's thesis in his movie "Farenheit 9-11". I must say I was taken in by Michael's arguments. So let me set the record straight.
Salon.com News

The late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who died on Aug. 1, should have been nicknamed "King Blowback." Along with his ideological soul mate, Ronald Reagan, who shared his long twilight, Fahd played a key, if inadvertent, role in nurturing Islamist extremism. Together, Reagan and Fahd -- one using proxy armies and arms, the other petrodollars -- launched a worldwide crusade against what they saw as the radical specters of communism and Khomeinism. To fight this battle, they gave massive support to Sunni Muslim fundamentalists as well as Saddam Hussein's Stalinist Baath Party. The rash decisions taken by the two leaders are in large part responsible for the crisis the world faces today.


The good news is that Fahd's successor, King Abdullah, is a far more cautious man, not given to his half-brother's dangerous adventurism. His ascension -- in fact, he has held power for a long time -- gives the United States an opportunity to improve relations with Saudi Arabia. As America faces the long, daunting task of recovering from George W. Bush's catastrophic foreign-policy blunders, solidifying relations with this key, if problematic, ally is high on the list of priorities.

FBI Investigation Leads to Indictment of Alleged Israeli Spies

Two Charged in Pentagon Information Leak

Two former employees of a pro-Israel lobbying organization were charged Thursday with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. defense information for five years. A five-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., named Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, the organization's former senior Iran analyst. The charges follow the indictment in June of Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, who is accused of leaking classified military information to an Israeli official and the AIPAC employees.

[...]
One unanswered question is how the men might have obtained classified material before they met Franklin, who specialized in Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, in 2003. While the indictment suggests that at least two other U.S. government officials also were sources of classified information, no other charges are planned at this time, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said at a news conference in Alexandria.

Bush and the Neo-cons have been either naive or sly like a fox to allow Israeli spies into the Whitehouse. There is no question about the intentions of allowing an Iranian spy and now vice-premier of Iraq was a primary source for false intelligence on Iraq. The US invasion has mainly benefited Iran. This was hardly a bright move.

FBI Whistleblower Is Getting No Justice

Is George Bush Above the Law?


"When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
Richard Nixon
David Frost Interview


"Authority to set aside the laws is inherent in the president."
Memo to President Bush from the Justice Department

President George W. Bush is opposed to rule of law for the Executive Branch and its allies. To that end, he has invoked various forms of Executive Privilege to cover illegal activities of his administration and its allies. America can not be the home of the free and the brave unless we have a government contained by the laws of the land. Our very freedom is in jeopardy.
American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's dismissal of the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets" privilege.


The Court created the so-called state secrets privilege more than 50 years ago but has not considered it since. The need for clarification of the doctrine is acute, the ACLU said, because the government is increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep legitimate cases out of court.


"Edmonds' case is not an isolated incident," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "The federal government is routinely retaliating against government employees who uncover weaknesses in our ability to prevent terrorist attacks or protect public safety."

Corporate Crime Reporter

Turkish officials boasted of giving “tens of thousands of dollars in surreptious payments” to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) in exchange for political favors. That allegation is contained a profile of Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine.


The article, “An Inconvenient Patriot,” by British writer David Rose, reports that Edmonds was asked to listen to wiretaps as part of what appeared to be an FBI public corruption probe into bribes paid to members of Congress – both Democrat and Republican. Rose, citing “some of the wiretaps,” reports that “the FBI’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks.”


The article notes that under Federal Election Commission rules, “donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.” The article reports that Edmonds has given confidential testimony on several occasions – to congressional staffers, to the Inspector General, and to staff from the 9/11 commission.

FBI Thought They Had a Case of Conspiracy to Torture By CIA

Someone has been paying attention to the wanton lawlessness of the Bush Administration.
Exclusive: Secret Memo—Send to Be Tortured - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

An FBI agent warned superiors in a memo three years ago that U.S. officials who discussed plans to ship terror suspects to foreign nations that practice torture could be prosecuted for conspiring to violate U.S. law, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. The strongly worded memo, written by an FBI supervisor then assigned to Guantanamo, is the latest in a series of documents that have recently surfaced reflecting unease among some government lawyers and FBI agents over tactics being used in the war on terror. This memo appears to be the first that directly questions the legal premises of the Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition"—a secret program under which terror suspects are transferred to foreign countries that have been widely criticized for practicing torture.


In a memo forwarded to a senior FBI lawyer on Nov. 27, 2002, a supervisory special agent from the bureau's behavioral analysis unit offered a legal analysis of interrogation techniques that had been approved by Pentagon officials for use against a high-value Qaeda detainee. After objecting to techniques such as exploiting "phobias" like "the fear of dogs" or dripping water "to induce the misperception of drowning," the agent discussed a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation. "In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate [U.S. law] if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate [the Torture Statute]" and "would inculpate" everyone involved.

The conspiracy trial could should have indicted our Attorney General and President.

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

Washington Post

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.


It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.


The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.


The circumstances that led up to Mowhoush's death paint a vivid example of how the pressure to produce intelligence for anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Iraq led U.S. military interrogators to improvise and develop abusive measures, not just at Abu Ghraib but in detention centers elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mowhoush's ordeal in Qaim, over 16 days in November 2003, also reflects U.S. government secrecy surrounding some abuse cases and gives a glimpse into a covert CIA unit that was set up to foment rebellion before the war and took part in some interrogations during the insurgency.

Just how is this not torture? The Bush Administration releases a vaguely worded policy that could easily justify the above action. Now they prosecute the "enterprising" soldiers working to get the desparately needed information.

Ill Will Rising Between China and Japan

Conflict between Japan and China is heating up. Japan has not been listening to China's concerns about their increasing nationalism and suppression of the truth about Japanese atrocities in history books. Frankly, I don't think either countries government is behaving responsibly. Instead, they are stoking nationalist fires that they may lose control over.
New York Times

Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution that plays down this country's militarist policies in World War II, less than two weeks before ceremonies take place across Asia marking the 60th anniversary of the war's end on Aug. 15.


Though expressing "regret" for the wartime past, the resolution omitted the references to "invasion" and "colonial rule" that were in the version passed on the 50th anniversary.

[...]
Both governments are encouraging nationalism for their own political purposes: China to shore up loyalty as Marxist ideology fades, Japan to overcome long-held taboos against expanding its military. With the impending 60th anniversary, both are trying to forge a future on their version of the past.


In Japan, major newspapers have published articles defending the Class A war criminals convicted by the postwar Tokyo Trials, and a growing number of textbooks whitewash Japan's wartime conduct. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi makes annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where war dead including Class A war criminals are enshrined.


In China, a new television series called "Hero City" tells of how cities across China "fought bravely against Japan under the leadership of the Communist Party." In Beijing on Aug. 13, six former Chinese airmen from the Flying Tigers squadron are to recreate an air duel with Japanese fighters.


"On the one hand we have a victim's mentality, and on the other we don't see this much smaller country as being worthy of comparison with us," said Pang Zhongying, a professor of international relations at Nankai University in the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin. "The reality is that they must accept the idea of China as a rising military power, and we must accept the idea of Japan becoming a normal nation, whether we like it or not."


To Japanese conservatives, becoming a normal nation amounts to a revision of the American-imposed peace Constitution that they feel castrated - a term they use deliberately and frequently - their country. Arguing that Japan must draw closer to the United States, Mr. Koizumi's government has reinterpreted the Constitution to allow Japanese troops in Iraq and has reversed a longtime ban on the export of arms to join the American missile defense shield. Recent polls show an increasing percentage of Japanese favoring a revision of the Constitution.


The conservative news media have helped demonize China, as well as North Korea, to soften popular resistance to remilitarization. Sankei Shimbun, the country's most conservative daily, recently ran a series about China called "The Threatening Superpower."

The History of Osama Bin Ladin

Another powerful post from Juan Cole. Definitely a must read.
Informed Comment

Fisking the "War on Terror"

Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party.



Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.

What Has Been the Bush Agenda?

Today in his column, Paul Krugman takes apart the Bush Administration policies and exposes them as nothing more than shrewed politics. Bush has been an ideological President. His entire agenda has been to turn back the political clock to a time when the titan's of capitalism controlled America, America's industrial might was built laying the infrastructure that made America what it is today.
All this sounds very glorious and heroic, the problem is no one wants to tell the people what the cost will be. In order to return to the time of Hoover, the American worker must return to a time when Labor Unions were formed on the martyrdom of many. A time when workers could barely keep food on the table, working long hours. American workers stand to lose their buying power, their access to individual housing, and ability and will to participate actively in the electoral process. They will be too busy putting food on the table.
New York Times

On the foreign policy front, the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emption and unilateralism sounded very impressive at first. But Mr. Bush's tough-guy attitude wasn't matched by his willingness to commit resources. His administration sought global dominance on the cheap, with an undermanned, underplanned invasion of Iraq that has, indeed, transformed the balance of power in the Middle East - in favor of Iran.


On the domestic policy front, talk of an "ownership society" appealed to conservatives who dreamed of rolling back the New Deal. But Mr. Bush has expanded, not reduced, middle-class entitlements. Only the poor and powerless have faced cuts. (I don't think those middle-class entitlements should be cut. But Mr. Bush claims to be against big government.)


Social Security privatization was to the crusade against the welfare state what the invasion of Iraq was to G-Save: an attempt to achieve radical goals on the cheap. Rather than openly propose reductions in entitlement spending, the administration tried to sell a phaseout of traditional Social Security benefits in return for the magic of investing. But the public didn't buy it.


So what about those legislative successes? Roy Blunt, the House Republican whip, called the victories "verification that this is a governing party." But governing means more than handing out goodies.


Let's start with the energy bill. Even the bill's supporters barely pretend that it will do anything to reduce America's dependence on imported oil. It's simply an exercise in corporate welfare, full of subsidies and targeted tax breaks.


Then there's the pork-stuffed highway bill. I guess we'll have to stop making fun of Japanese public works spending: now America, too, is building bridges to islands that have almost no inhabitants, but lie in the districts of influential legislators.


Finally, Cafta contains "free trade" in its title, but that's misleading. The administration rammed the bill through the House by, among other things, promising to limit imports of clothing from China; over all, the effect may well be to reduce, not increase, international trade. But pharmaceutical companies got measures that protect and extend their monopoly rights in Central America.


These bills don't have anything to do with governing, if governing means trying to achieve actual policy goals like energy independence or expanded trade. They're just machine politics at work, favors granted in return for favors received.


In fact, you can argue that the administration does a bad job at governing in part because its highest priority is always to reward its friends. Most notably, the Iraq venture would have had a better chance of succeeding if cronyism and corruption hadn't undermined reconstruction.


Still, Republicans should feel good. Those legislative successes show that the political machine can still deliver the goods, even at a time when a majority of Americans disapprove of Mr. Bush's leadership and believe that his administration deliberately misled us into war.

How can Bush further his agenda by increasing entitlements? The strategy is called, "starving the beast". If America soaks up all the debt in the world while cutting taxes to everyone but the middleclass, no one will agree to tax increases to offset the losses to services. Taxes will go to debt retirement, defense, and little else within the next generation.

Gitmo Tribunals Stacked Against Detainees

Not surprisingly, the Military Tribunals have been built specifically to convict those held. There is no real trials here. The detainees were convicted when they were captured. The Bush Administration just needs cover to execute them. Well, now some of the lower level prosecutors are speaking out. It seems we have honorable men in the Gitmo Prosecutors' Office.
New York Times

As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantᮡmo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.

Frist Stance Setback to American Taliban

Juan Cole does it again. Not only does he have a provocative post today on the Republican Party, it's full of insight and truth. It's so impressive, I just had to repost the whole thing. This is a must read even if you are a Republican.
Informed Comment by Juan Cole

Senator Frist's flip flop on the stem cell issue may or may not help his rumored presidential bid in 2008, but it is a potentially historic shift in Republican policy.

The contemporary Republican Party is a coalition of 1) the corporate wealthy; 2) Southern whites (former Democrats) who are damned if they are going to be in the same party with Black people; Midwestern and Western rural folks who hate the government that gives them handouts; 4) Neoconservatives among Jews and Catholics who have a Wilsonian foreign policy emphasis but are more liberal on social issues and 5) evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. The party cleverly gives its small but fabulously wealthy corporate constituency economic benefits like tax cuts while offering its much larger constituencies among white Southerners and rightwing Christians mere symbolic gestures (Bush won't attend meetings of the NAACP, and promotes issues dear to the hearts of evangelicals).

The coalition has been enormously successful, and has captured all three branches of government. But like all coalitions, it has important fissures. One divide is between the supporters of abortion rights and evangelicals and Catholics who are deadset opposed to them.

Among the Republican coalition, who would take on the evangelicals and conservative Catholics on the stem cell issue? 1) Biotech and pharmaceutical corporations that want to do research on stem cell cures and do not want to lose market share to British, Korean and other firms not hobbled by the Christian Taliban; 2) country club Republicans who believe in science and medicine, especially for themselves; 3) Jewish and Christian Neoconservatives that may be all for war in the Middle East but who rather like the idea of being saved from Alzheimers; and 4) old people and those with a prospect of getting old who know the odds.

Fifty percent of people who live past 85 (the fastest-growing segment of our population) will be stricken with Alzheimers. By 2030 the number of Alzheimer's patients will double from 4.5 million to 9 million. Even now it costs about $60 billion a year to treat Alzheimers patients. Stem cell treatments hold the promise of reversing Alzheimers, a cruel disease that steals one's ability even to remember loved ones. Diseases of dementia are among the fastest-growing health threats in the country.

The LA Times gives this quote: ' "We all want cures. We all want scientific cures. But there's this great pause about the notion of taking that young human life for the purposes of research," Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a key abortion foe, said on CBS. '

Uh, Sam-- blastocytes are not "young human life," or at least not moreso than acorns are saplings. And nobody is taking a human life here, as defined by US law. Moreover, the stem cells to be used come from embryos produced by in vitro fertilization for other reasons. There is no instrumental connection between the abortion and the harvesting of the stem cells.

Despite the odd occurrence of the word "scientific" in Brownback's mouth, he is one of America's Taliban. As this website notes, "The fact is, Sam Brownback is a member of this "elect" cult and has co-sponsored Senate bill 520, designed to allow federal, state, and local government officials to overrule all other laws by appealing to the "higher source" of all law ("God") and to forbid the Supreme Court from doing anything about it."

The principle that the individual has a right by virtue of his belief in God and scripture to act as a vigilante and disregard governmental law also underpins all Muslim radicalism, from Sayyid Qutb to Ayman al-Zawahiri (who want their own sort of "Dominion.)"

So what changed Frist's mind? Was it a bad conscience after he misused his training as a physician to allege that brain-dead and blind Terry Schiavo "certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli"?

Or is it simply the mounting evidence that the science is sound? Stem cell opponents used to claim that all the miracle treatments posited for them had not actually been demonstrated.

But scientists extracted stem cells from the marrow of pigs that had had a heart attack, and injected the cells into the damaged hearts, repairing 50 to 75 percent of the damage! Johns Hopkins is beginning clinical trials for humans. Although this particular treatment depends on adult stem cells from marrow, those cells have much more limited ability to develop into various kinds of tissue than do embryonic stem cells. That is, contrary to what propagandists will tell you, the success of the adult stem cell treatments suggests that the cures possible with embryonic stem cells are far more wideranging.

Or has Frist had his people do some tracking polls and come to the conclusion that standing against stem cell research would actually be a drag on his presidential ambitions, because of the constituencies I mentioned above, who are all for it? Six in ten Americans are all for stem cell research, whereas only 3 in 10 are against it. Politicians go where the votes are.

Look, 13,000 women every year have abortions in this country because they were raped and did not want to bear the child of the monster who attacked and impregnated them. Every time you hear someone bring up "pro-life" propaganda, ask him or her if they are in favor of making these women bear their rapists' children. If they are, then I should think they could fairly easily be defeated at the polls on that platform. Someone should please ask Senator Brownback this question, and ask the people of Kansas if that is really what they stand for. So even if we limited scientists to using fetal stem cells garnered from these abortions of the children of rapists, there would be plenty for scientific purposes. (I am told by a reader that federally funded research using fetal stem cells as opposed to embryonic ones [from in vitro fertilization] is not even on the table.)

By the way, I respect the views of those who believe that life begins with conception, I simply disagree with them vehemently. I don't want to impose my views on them. What I resent is that they do want to impose their views on the rest of us, using the government (our common government) for this sectional purpose. Like the Taliban, who didn't let people watch movies or have access to a whole range of technology because God told them it was bad, these folks are confusing their religious prejudices with divine revelation. Nobody cares if they want to deny themselves medical care. They should just please not deny it to the rest of us.

Meanwhile, one big question is whether the Christian Right as a dominant element in the Republican coalition has become so annoying to so many of the other coalition partners that the coalition might break apart, or at the very least become more independent of the evangelicals and fundamentalists (just as it is likely to become more independent of the Neoconservatives).