Like most of his colleagues on the religious right, Tim LaHaye, a co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” series, insists that “those who founded this nation” were “citizens who had a personal and abiding faith in the God of the Bible.” If LaHaye means only to say that religion has played an important role in American history, he is surely correct. But if he is taken literally (as a believer in the inerrancy of the Bible should be), he is decidedly wrong. It is one of the oddities of our history that this very religious country was created by men who, for one brief but significant moment, had serious reservations about religion in general and Christianity in particular.

According to David L. Holmes’s “Faiths of the Founding Fathers,” none of the first five presidents were conventional Christians. All were influenced to one degree or another by Deism, the once-popular view that God set the world in motion and then abstained from human affairs. John Adams, a Unitarian, did not accept such Christian basics as “the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, total depravity and predestination.” Thomas Jefferson cut and pasted his own Bible. Before he became president, James Madison wrote the “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” a classic text in the history of religious liberty. Our fifth president, James Monroe, gave his name to a doctrine, but it had nothing to do with faith; in fact, Monroe may have been the least religious of all our early presidents.
nytimes.com

Porter J. Goss was forced to step down yesterday as CIA director, ending a turbulent 18-month tenure marked by an exodus of some of the agency’s top talent and growing White House dissatisfaction with his leadership during a time of war.

The likely successor to Goss is Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and now deputy to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, senior administration officials said. He could be named as soon as Monday.
washingtonpost.com

Top C.I.A. Pick Has Credentials and Skeptics
WASHINGTON, May 5 „ Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who senior administration officials said Friday was the likely choice of President Bush to head the Central Intelligence Agency, has a stellar r?sum? for a spy and has long been admired at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

But General Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, would also face serious questions about the controversy over the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program, which he oversaw and has vigorously defended.

His Senate nomination hearing, if he is chosen to succeed Director Porter J. Goss, is likely to reignite debate over what civil libertarians say is the program’s violation of Americans’ privacy.

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA Venezuela’s populist president Hugo Chavez has been accused of using his country’s oil wealth to help elect like-minded leaders in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, and Nicaragua. But there’s been little evidence, until now.

A cooperation agreement signed last week between Nicaragua’s Sandinista leader – and longtime US nemesis – Daniel Ortega and Mr. Chavez is being touted by many here as an initiative to sell oil to Nicaragua on credit, allowing the country to invest more in poverty-fighting projects. Critics call it a blatant attempt to buy the Nov. 5 presidential election for Mr. Ortega.

“Central America is important for Chˆvez because the rest of his influence is concentrated in the Andean countries [of South America],” says Michael Shifter, vice president for the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. Mr. Shifter says Chˆvez is clearly on a mission to challenge US influence in the region, but that he also appears genuinely concerned with helping the poor – two traits that don’t necessarily contradict one another. “This shows a larger ambition, and he is focusing his resources on Nicaragua and calculating that Ortega has a chance to win [elections in November].”
csmonitor.com

PUERTO IGUAZU, Argentina (AP) — South American leaders promised Thursday to respect Bolivia’s decision to nationalize its natural gas sector and agreed to negotiate future gas prices, hoping to diffuse a crisis sparked by the Andean nation’s energy industry takeover.

A day after Brazil’s state-owned petroleum company announced it was freezing investment in Bolivia because of the nationalization decree, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested that Petrobras could reverse course after negotiations.

“As a company, it will always invest wherever it sees a chance to obtain a return for its investments,” Silva said after meeting with Bolivian President Evo Morales, Argentine President Nestor Kircher and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in this city along the border with Brazil.
cnn.com

The Mexican president has backed down from a decision to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and other drugs after objections from the US.

A day after his office said he would sign the measure into law, Vicente Fox said yesterday he was sending the bill back to congress for changes to make it “absolutely clear” that the possession of drugs would still be a criminal offence.

Earlier yesterday, the US embassy said it had “urged Mexican representatives to review the legislation” after fears it would increase drug tourism from the US to Mexico.
guardian.co.uk

ATHENS: Radical speakers addressing the Fourth European Social Forum, which opened outside Athens on Thursday, said they were ready to wage a “war for peace” to stop an attack against Iran. “The day we get the news about [an attack on] Iran, we will be out onto the streets,” British writer Tariq Ali told a news conference.

“We have to be prepared for this, and when [U.S. President George] Bush makes [threatening] noises, to say that we will make war for peace,” he added.

According to American anti-war activist Ashley Smith, a writer for the International Socialist Review, “just this last weekend in New York City, 300,000 people marched to demand an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and to oppose a war on Iran.”

Citing sources inside Iran, Ali observed that a strike against Tehran would be folly, given the extent to which Washington depends on Iranian support to maintain forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The support given by the Iranian government to the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is very important to the United States,” he argued.

“An actual war against Iran would be one of the craziest things the United States has done. If they bomb Iran, let alone [conduct] a land invasion, you will have a big collapse in the occupation in Iraq and probably in Afghanistan within two weeks … you would have a new front of war from the Tigris to the Oxus Rivers,” Ali said.
dailystar.com

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) Thanks in part to last-minute U.S. diplomacy, two years of Darfur peace talks beset by setbacks and frustration ended with a signing ceremony between the government and the largest rebel faction Friday.

Now the hard part: ensuring pledges to stop the fighting and begin rebuilding translate to an end to Darfur’s suffering. The key may be a robust U.N. peacekeeping force, which Sudan’s government has indicated it is willing to accept.

While the main Darfur rebel group signed the accord, two others rejected it, saying it did not go far enough to meet their demands for security and power-sharing guarantees and compensation for war victims. Optimism was muted by the two groups’ absence and by a history of failure to live up to agreements.
usatoday.com

PALESTINIAN leader Mahmud Abbas is ready for “immediate negotiations” with Israel and urges its new government to abstain from any unilateral action in the West Bank, a spokesman said today.

“President Abbas has expressed the readiness of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) to resume immediate negotiations with Ehud Olmert’s new Israeli government to implement the roadmap and establish a Palestinian state,” Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
theaustralian.news.com.au

Who’s he talking to? It’s Israel refusing to negotiate, not Hamas.

The United States may push for a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria in hopes of reinforcing existing council demands for that country to respect Lebanese sovereignty, a senior official said Thursday.

As before, the United States has been in close touch with France on the issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is tentatively planning to raise the subject next week in New York with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
pravda.ru

EIRUT: Saudi Prince Talal bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud said although Arabs were becoming increasingly convinced of the importance of democratic reform, their slogans remain mere words as convictions have yet to be put into practice. The prince added that, on the other hand, democratic reform has become one of the priorities of U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the Arab world.

Prince Talal delivered a speech at the American University of Cairo Wednesday under the theme of “Political Reform between Arabs and the U.S.: The United States of America and Reform in the Arab World, Between Dialogue and Practice.”

He said he believed that the U.S. stand regarding Arab democratic reform was not only reflected in U.S. political rhetoric, but was also coupled with selective action encouraging reform and sometimes criticizing delays to undertake it.

He added that Arab civil society constitutes the basic structure for development toward democracy and human rights.

Prince Talal indicated that some saw a new U.S. policy being adopted in the Arab world but others believed that this will die when the motives behind it are achieved.

He denied any new policy, arguing that the U.S. principles behind this policy
are based on “Jeffersonism” which has always set the goals of American policy.

Prince Talal said perhaps fears of U.S. intervention in the Arab world stem from the fact that many opponents to the U.S. have shifted their positions and that this new U.S. policy was coupled with a war on Iraq and cruel and unfair political and media campaigns against Islam, labeling Muslims as terrorists and extremists.

The prince said there was a contradiction a U.S. policy which fought terrorism through war but preached freedom, adding that this contradiction shows how difficult making changes in U.S. policy is.

He said America lacked sufficient knowledge about the affairs of the region and illustrated that the U.S. could get involved in a major project without understanding its dimensions, he backed up his argument with the example of the war waged by the U.S. on Iraq without accurate information and in the absence of a vision for the post-war Iraq.

Addressing the U.S., Prince Talal said the Arab region could not engage in adventures resulting from reckless choices, stressing that chaotic instability could lead to catastrophes.

The prince indicated that the region could explode if members of the U.S. administration insist on striking militarily at Iran to thwart its nuclear project.

He added that although he opposed any attack on Iran, it is necessary to clear the region of weapons of mass destruction.

Prince Talal said his calls were an attempt to direct a change in U.S. policy toward being a support for Arab people and not a new burden.

“The U.S. needs assistance to be able to help the Arab region,” he said, adding that America is still confused about many issues, including Islamic movements.

Prince Talal called for cooperation to make a gradually successful change to democracy, freedom and human rights, through timetables agreed upon in national dialogue without pressure or threats.
dailystar.com

A rep of arguably the most dangerous and repressive Islamic fundamentalist state lecturing on ‘Jeffersonian democracy’…sadly, it fits.