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Rootsie's Blog
Thursday, June 30th

...If this is a potentially fascinating work of architecture, it is, sadly, fascinating in the way that Albert Speer's architectural nightmares were fascinating - as expressions of the values of a particular time and era. The Freedom Tower embodies, in its way, a world shaped by fear.

At a recent meeting at his Wall Street office in New York, Childs tried to deflect this criticism by enveloping the building in historical references. The height of the tower will match the height of the tallest of the former World Trade Center Towers - 1,368 feet - which will re-establish its relationship to the nearby World Financial Center, which was built at exactly half that height. The fortress-like appearance of the base was inspired by the Strozzi Palace in Florence, the relationship between the base and the soaring tower by Brancusi's "Bird in Space."

But the tower has none of the lightness of Brancusi's polished bronze form, let alone its sculptural beauty. And the Strozzi Palace's blank stone facade is beautiful because it is a mask: Once inside, you are confronted with a courtyard flooded with light and air, one of the great architectural treasures of the Renaissance.

What the tower evokes, by comparison, are ancient obelisks, blown up to a preposterous scale and clad in heavy sheaths of reinforced glass - an ideal symbol for an empire enthralled with its own power, and unaware that it is fading.
Full: iht.com
rootsie on 06.30.05 @ 08:25 AM CST [link]
Wednesday, June 29th

Covering up Napalm in Iraq

by Mike Whitney
“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Robert Duvall, “Apocalypse Now” (1979)

Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had “lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq”. (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American “free press” is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we’ve seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn’t embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using “universally reviled” weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.

“Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm” the Pentagon insisted that “US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.” (UK Independent)

The Pentagon lied.
Full: zmag.org
rootsie on 06.29.05 @ 06:55 PM CST [link]

Blair: Africa must address Zim

London - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday that neighbouring African countries had a responsibility to address the crisis in Zimbabwe, and suggested it could hamper his G8 goal of helping the continent.

Blair said it was harder to argue for a boost in international aid to Africa with such a prominent example of "abuses of governance and corruption."

President Robert Mugabe's so-called urban renewal campaign has displaced hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans.

Mugabe says he is trying to fight crime, maintain health standards and restore order in Zimbabwe's cities. But the opposition, which has its strongholds among the urban poor, says the blitz is intended to punish its supporters, who voted against the government in recent parliamentary elections.

Blair was asked in the House of Commons whether he would call on South African President Thabo Mbeki to help the suffering people of Zimbabwe when he attends the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland next week.

Blair said he would, and added, "We will continue to exert all the pressure we can... But in the end the best pressure will come from those countries surrounding Zimbabwe."

"We have to make sure that African countries realise the deep responsibility there is to sort this out themselves," he added.

"We are going to the G8 to try to make the case for helping poverty in Africa," Blair added. "There is no doubt at all that it is harder to make that case whilst abuses of governance and corruption occur in African countries.

"Now I do not believe that what is happening in Zimbabwe should prevent us from still taking action on poverty in Africa. I think that would be wrong. But it is right also to say that of course we should draw attention not just to the abuses in Zimbabwe but also the urgent necessity of changing what is happening in that country for the benefit of its own citizens."
Full: news24.com

What crushing hypocrisy. We will help you on the condition that you 'deal' with Mugabe, whose great sin was to expel whites off stolen land. Whatever moral outrage they manage to muster about these evictions or whatever they are, the real issue is Mugabe's willingness to take on the West and his refusal to play along with this 'aid' charade. So in exchange for illusory debt relief, Africa is forced to capitulate to European demands. This is the devil's bargain, and I wish African leaders would call the bluff. This is just another sickening chapter in the tawdry history of imperialism.
rootsie on 06.29.05 @ 06:52 PM CST [link]

President Bush's Speech About Iraq

President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.
Full: nytimes.com

Well since the Times was one of the main perpertrators of the 9-11/Saddam story, their moral outrage at this late date is extremely hypocritical.
rootsie on 06.29.05 @ 06:27 PM CST [link]

CIA blunder on al-Jazeera 'terror messages'

CIA analysts forced 30 flights to be cancelled and raised the US terror alert from yellow to orange because they thought that al-Qaida was sending hidden messages through the headlines of the Arabic television news channel al-Jazeera, it has been revealed
According to a report by NBC, CIA experts thought they had decoded messages that they believed gave dates, flight numbers and geographic coordinates for targets that included the White House, Seattle's Space Needle and even the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, which has a population of 2,000.

"These credible sources suggest the possibility of attacks against the homeland around the holiday season and beyond," said the homeland security chief, Tom Ridge, at the time of the incident in December 2003.

But in an interview with NBC 18 months later he conceded that the intelligence analysis was "bizarre, unique, unorthodox, unprecedented", and that "speaking for myself I've got to admit to wondering whether or not it was credible.

"Maybe that's very much the reason that you'd be worried about it, because you hadn't seen it before."

Code yellow denotes a significant risk of terror attacks. Code orange denotes a high risk, and additional precautions are taken at public events.

The analysis led to several international flights, operated by Air France, British Airways, Continental Airlines and AeroMexico, being cancelled.

Seven men - one French, one American and five Algerians - were questioned in Paris and released.

"The people with Arab-sounding names turned out to be, for example, a diplomat and a sports player. There were no terrorists," a police source told the newspaper Le Parisien at the time.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.29.05 @ 06:22 PM CST [link]
Tuesday, June 28th

Indian Affairs panel hears 'tale of betrayal'

Embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff was an avatar of greed and contempt who betrayed his friends and associates, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asserted yesterday.

McCain, presiding over the third of four scheduled hearings by the Indian Affairs Committee on Abramoff’s questionable business dealings with Indian tribes involved with gambling, turned the spotlight on Abramoff client the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, which he represented from 1995 to 2004.

“Today’s hearing is about more than contempt, even more than greed,” McCain said. “It is simple and sadly a tale of betrayal.”

McCain traced the trail of money from the Choctaws’ coffers to a private company controlled by Abramoff, a private Jewish school founded by Abramoff and even paramilitary groups in Israel.

According to an e-mail released at the hearing, Abramoff and his associate Michael Scanlon charged the Choctaw tribe $7.7 million in 2001 for public affairs and grassroots lobbying. After Scanlon spent $1.2 million on the activities, the two split the rest.

Much of the money Abramoff and Scanlon solicited from the Choctaws was filtered through various nonprofit groups, allowing Abramoff to conceal the fact that most of it was not spent on lobbying or public-affairs activities benefiting the Choctaws, records show.

For example, the Choctaws paid $1 million in 2002 to the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank of which Abramoff was a board member.

Although the tribe was led to believe it was paying for “professional services” performed as part of Scanlon’s public-relations duties, half of the money went to a company controlled by Scanlon, Capitol Campaign Strategies; $50,000 went to repay a personal loan Abramoff incurred during his days as a filmmaker; and the remaining $450,000 was a donation to a charity controlled by Abramoff, the Capital Athletic Foundation.

The great majority of the contributions to the foundation were later passed on to the Eshkol Academy, an all-boys Orthodox Jewish school in Columbia, Md., that Abramoff founded. The foundation also paid a monthly stipend and Jeep payments to a high-school friend of Abramoff who conducted sniper workshops for members of the Israeli Defense Force in Israel’s West Bank.
Full: thehill.com
rootsie on 06.28.05 @ 08:21 AM CST [link]
Monday, June 27th

Why does the moon look so big now?

For the past few nights the moon has appeared larger than many people have seen it for almost 20 years. It is the world's largest optical illusion, and one of its most enduring mysteries.

It can put a man in space, land a probe on Mars, but Nasa can't explain why the moon appears bigger when it's on the horizon than when it's high in the night sky.

The mystery of the Moon Illusion, witnessed by millions of people this week, has puzzled great thinkers for centuries. There have even been books devoted to the matter.

Not since June 1987 has the moon been this low in the sky, accentuating the illusion even further.

But opinion differs on why there is such an apparent discrepancy in size between a moon on the horizon and one in the distant sky.
Full: bbc.co.uk
rootsie on 06.27.05 @ 07:26 AM CST [link]

Amid the Turmoil, Iraqis Who Seek Historical Perspective, Skills and Solace Turn to Books

...Mr. Jazaery said he worried about the power of religion among young Iraqis. Anyone who was born after 1980 grew up during Iraq's decline into war and economic sanctions. Corruption and poverty have eroded the once-strong educational system, leaving young people vulnerable to populist leaders like Mr. Sadr.

"They can read, they can write, but they can't understand," Mr. Jazaery said. "That's good for dictatorship and dangerous for democracy. It's a spare army for all hard-line elements."
Full: nytimes.com

Yeah well what's our excuse for the erosion of our educational system, where the worst victims of disastrous policies are not sufficiently educated to either see through the smokescreen and whitewash or articulate their opposition?
rootsie on 06.27.05 @ 07:22 AM CST [link]

Chinese dragon awakens

China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.
Full: washtimes.com
rootsie on 06.27.05 @ 07:16 AM CST [link]

U.S. Has Plans to Again Make Own Plutonium

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.

Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.

Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

He vigorously denied that any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space.
Full: nytimes.com

And they sweat Iran about 'peaceful nuclear energy.' In Newspeak a 'vigorous denial' is an admission.
rootsie on 06.27.05 @ 07:12 AM CST [link]

Simulated oil meltdown shows U.S. economy's vulnerability

WASHINGTON - Former CIA Director Robert Gates sighs deeply as he pores over reports of growing unrest in Nigeria. Many Americans can't find the African nation on a map, but Gates knows that it's America's fifth-largest oil supplier and one that provides the light, sweet crude that U.S. refiners prefer.

It's 11 days before Christmas 2005, and the turmoil is preventing about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from reaching the world oil market, which was already drum-tight. Gates, functioning as the top national security adviser to the president, convenes the Cabinet to discuss the implications of Nigeria's spreading religious and ethnic unrest for America's economy.

Should U.S. troops be sent to restore order? Should America draw down its strategic oil reserves to stabilize soaring gasoline prices? Cabinet officials agree that drawing down the reserves might signal weakness. They recommend that the president simply announce his willingness to do so if necessary.

The economic effects of unrest in faraway Nigeria are immediate. Crude oil prices soar above $80 a barrel. June's then-record $60 a barrel is a distant memory. A gallon of unleaded gas now costs $3.31. Americans shell out $75 to fill a midsized SUV.

If all this sounds like a Hollywood drama, it's not. These scenarios unfolded in a simulated oil shock wave held Thursday in Washington. Two former CIA directors and several other former top policy-makers participated to draw attention to America's need to reduce its dependence on oil, especially foreign oil.

Fast-forward to Jan. 19, 2006. A blast rips through Saudi Arabia's Haradh natural-gas plant. Simultaneously, al Qaida terrorists seize a tanker at Alaska's Port of Valdez and crash it, igniting a massive fire that sweeps across oil terminals. Crude oil spikes to $120 a barrel, and the U.S. economy reels. Gasoline prices hit $4.74 a gallon.

Gates convenes the Cabinet again. Members still disagree on whether America should draw down its strategic oil reserves. Homeland Security chief James Woolsey, who ran the CIA from 1993 to 1995, argues that a special energy czar is needed with broad powers to bypass the bureaucracy and impose offshore oil drilling and construction of refineries.

That won't help now, though, or resolve any short-term issues, counters Gene Sperling, who was President Clinton's national economic adviser.

The energy secretary suggests that relaxing clean-air standards could help refiners squeeze out every last drop of gas. That makes the interior secretary, former Clinton Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner, bristle. She blames Detroit for the mess because automakers failed to develop hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars.
Full: realcities.com
rootsie on 06.27.05 @ 07:07 AM CST [link]
Sunday, June 26th

The Conduct of the UN Before and After the 2003 Invasion

by Hans von Sponek
In discussing UN involvement before and after the 2003 invasion of US, UK and other coalition forces into Iraq, a clear distinction has to be made between the policy makers and the civil servants expected to carry out the policies, i.e., between member governments in the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat.

If this is done, it quickly becomes clear that primary responsibility for the human catastrophe in Iraq lies with the political UN, with those member governments in the UN Security Council who had the power to make a difference. The failure of the Council to make a humanitarian, ethical and legal difference is much more monumental than is commonly known. There is not only the betrayal of the Iraqi people but also the betrayal of the UN Charter and the betrayal of the international conscience.

Why is this so?

World leaders were hiding behind the curtain of the UN Security Council to premeditate their betrayal before and after the illegal war of 2003. There can be no more doubts, the facts are present, that the US and UK governments were actively pursuing regime change by force at a time when the world was made to believe that international law, peaceful solutions to the conflict and the protection of the Iraqi people, were part of the US and UK governments' approach. They were not. Once the asymmetrical war was over, it also became clear to the international public that those who carried out this war had reached higher heights of irresponsibility by fighting this war without a strategy for peace.

The objective was to maintain a strangle-hold on Iraq. Means of 'disarray' and 'deception' were deployed to justify the end of 'domination'. Iraq's armed forces were sent home. Civil servants were retired without evidence of wrong doing, simply because they had belonged to the Baath Party. New laws, the Transition Authority laws (TAL) were introduced by decree. These laws tried to re-colonize Iraq economically and institutionally and create dependence even in such areas as agriculture by banning local seed stocks in favour of genetically modified seeds to be imported from the Unites States. The ensuing Iraqi opposition and chaos left the occupying powers stymied and bewildered.

How did the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat react to these bilateral aberrations?

Over a decade, the UN Security Council condoned what two permanent members, the US and the UK, were doing to pursue, first, their Iraq containment policy and later their regime replacement agenda. This amounted to nothing less but the de facto bilateralization of the Security Council. The rhetoric of the Iraq debates in the Council showed that there was an abundance of awareness of the evolving humanitarian crisis in Iraq. At the same time there was a severe shortage of political will to take timely steps to redress this situation.

It was known to all members of the Security Council that the linkage between disarmament and comprehensive economic sanctions meant that the people of Iraq were made to pay a heavy price in terms of life and destitution for acts of their government. It was known to all members of the Security Council that the inadequacy of the Council's allocations for the oil-for-food programme and the bureaucracy with which this humanitarian exemption was implemented worsened the chances of survival of many Iraqis. It was known to all members of the Security Council that the refusal by the Council to allow the transfer of cash to Iraq's central bank needed to run the nation, to pay for training, installation of equipment and institution building, encouraged the Government of Iraq to increase illegal means to obtain cash.

It was known to all members of the Security Council that the establishment of the two no-fly-zones within Iraq had little to do with the protection of ethnic and religious groups but a lot with destabilization. All members of the Security Council were aware that following 'Operation Desert Fox' in December 1998, the US and the UK governments, giving their pilots enlarged rules of engagement, used Iraqi airspace as training grounds, eventually in preparation for war. The Security Council had access to air strike reports when such reports were prepared by the UN in Baghdad and therefore all members of the Security Council knew of the destruction of civilian life and property. Yet, the Security Council did not ever debate the legality of the no-fly-zones to challenge two of its members that they maintained these zones without a UN mandate.

All this was known.
Full: commondreams.org
rootsie on 06.26.05 @ 09:10 AM CST [link]

Another G8 shell game

Bob Geldof and Bono may have screwed it for the world’s poorest countries. These are two well-meaning guys, and they certainly deserve kudos for the attention they have helped to focus on the plight of the world’s poor. But when they offered flippant sound bites last week about plans to relieve some of the debt of poor nations, they set back the path to economic justice by huge strides. It must be assumed they did not do so deliberately, but their fame and their ability to buttonhole the leaders of the wealthiest nations may have clouded their judgment enough to prevent them from remembering that they are spokespeople, not experts.

On June 11, the finance ministers of seven of the world’s leading industrial nations (the G8, minus Russia) agreed to write off the debt of the 18 poorest countries (14 of them in Africa). It is expected that a further nine African countries may qualify for similar relief over the next 12 to 18 months. Although the agreement still needs formal approval at the G8 Summit to be held in Scotland in early July, it sounds like good news and a noble humanitarian gesture. But is it? And what is actually to be written off?

Anyone with even a simple grasp of the issues will recognize that the conditions attached to the alleged debt relief are actually more onerous than the debt they relieve. When Geldof pronounced the deal as “a victory for millions” and Bono described it as “a little piece of history”, they set back by large strides the hard work that has been done round the world by those fighting to end poverty. For those workers know, even if Geldof and Bono don’t — or didn’t remember — that the enforced economic liberalization and privatization are not designed to ease third world debt, they are designed to open further lucrative investment opportunities for the West in a form of econo-colonialism. Geldof and Bono are running the risk that they will defuse the political campaign toward global justice and relegate any aid or relief to philanthropy.
Full: axisoflogic.com

'Well meaning guys'?? The best that can be said of these two is that they are fools, and that's a charity...
rootsie on 06.26.05 @ 09:03 AM CST [link]

Iran's President - Elect Expected to Take on West

Iran's conservative press hailed president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday as a man who could take on the United States and uphold the moral principles of the Islamic revolution.


The hardline conservative mayor of Tehran defeated moderate cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a landslide election win, but has sparked concerns that his brand of conservatism will enflame a row over Iran's atomic program.

Ahmadinejad has struck a defiant stance on Iran's nuclear fuel program, that Washington argues is needed for atomic weapons, saying Tehran could never surrender its technology.

The conservative Kayhan newspaper wrote Ahmadinejad's win would scupper U.S. attempts to flex its muscles in the Middle East under what it called a smokescreen of spreading democracy.

``The recent election and the people's leaning toward a devout man ... means America's plot of democratization in the region has backfired,'' wrote editor Hossein Shariatmadari.

The Tehran Times said the new president would put Islamic principles back at the center of policy making.

``The election signifies a return to the idealistic principles that have been forgotten over the past few years,'' read an editorial in the conservative newspaper.

Ahmadinejad, 48, has already called for the nation to unite behind him in a spirit of solidarity, saying: ``We have to forget all our rivalries and turn them into friendships.''

Major policy decisions on the nuclear program, which Tehran denies is a ploy to get atomic weapons, are ultimately taken by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said his over-arching policy was unlikely to change and a new president would not be able to strike a harder line independently in nuclear negotiations with the European Union.

The European Union reacted warily to Ahmadinejad, who takes office in August.

``From the new President Ahmadinejad we are waiting for clear words on human rights and the nuclear issue. But if the replies are negative, the European Union will have no choice but to freeze dialogue with Iran,'' European commissioner Franco Frattini told Italy's La Repubblica daily.
Full: nytimes.com/reuters

He sounds like the CIA candidate to me...
rootsie on 06.26.05 @ 08:58 AM CST [link]

Japan Suspects Iran - N.Korea Missile Link

Japan is worried that technology for a long-range cruise missile that can carry nuclear warheads may have been leaked to North Korea from Iran, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.

At issue is technology used in cruise missiles known as Kh-55s that Ukraine exported to Iran in 2001 under former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, the Sankei Shimbun daily said, quoting Japanese government and ruling party sources.

``They are linked by a network beneath the surface regarding the development of weapons of mass destruction,'' Sankei quoted a Defense Ministry source as saying about Iran and North Korea.

The possible leak of technology was conveyed to Japan by a U.S. intelligence agency, said Sankei, a conservative daily.

Developed in the late 1970s in the former Soviet Union, the Kh-55s have a range of 3,000 km (1,864 miles), long enough to hit any part of Japan if deployed by North Korea, Sankei said.

Ukraine said in March that cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads had been ``smuggled'' out of the country to Iran, but denied a report they had been exported with official sanction.
Full: nytimes.com/reuters

You can just hear the wheels in motion...
rootsie on 06.26.05 @ 08:53 AM CST [link]
Saturday, June 25th

The pirate who inspired the bankers: The roots of Ecuador's crippling debt go back two centuries

by Colin MacInnes
I have watched a young mother die because she did not have the money for a simple appendix operation, and neither did I.
I have looked on in despair as whole families were thrown on to the street because they could not pay their rent. Of the 700,000 Ecuadorean children whose parents could not afford to matriculate them for this school year, I know that many are from the barrio where I have lived and worked for the past 20 years.

Why refer to these facts? Because they remind me of one element that will continue to condemn the young and innocent to permanent poverty, to disease and to life on the margins of civilisation - the country's external debt, often referred to in Spanish as the eternal debt.
The Ecuadorean, and indeed Latin American, foreign debt has a long history, but I believe that as a world community we are quite capable of solving the human, social and economic problems of our times. I also believe that we are doing very little about it. I consider that our politicians, bar a few exceptions, do little more than parade on the world stage. They have betrayed their vocation towards humanity. They are cowardly, incompetent and incapable of facing up to the challenge of world poverty.

There is a desperate need to construct a world where justice is not just another supermarket commodity to be bought by the rich and powerful but denied to the poor and marginalised; a world where poverty is not just another topic for presidents and prime ministers who have lost their scripts; where solidarity is not merely preached from the pulpits but practised in the streets and in the Wall Streets of the world. I am convinced that if the people of Britain knew of the unjust manner in which the debt was accrued, of how it is used to perpetrate a system of exclusion and oppression, of how it affects the dignity and self-esteem of peoples and nations, they would become unrelenting crusaders in the fight to solve this problem.

Our mistake is to consider the foreign debt as a mere mathematical calculation illustrating how much is loaned by one party and therefore to be paid back by the other. It is far more complex than that; it is a socio-economic and human tragedy going back more than two centuries to a time when many Latin American countries were involved in wars of independence against Spain and needed arms. It was also a time when Britain wanted to exploit the weakness in the Spanish empire and so bundles of pound notes were dangled before the eyes of desperate peoples in need of ready cash to finance their wars.

At times ignorant of financial transactions, of the impact of interest rates that could rise as high as 40%, Latin American leaders were only too ready to sign along the dotted line. After all, as a General Trujillo remarked: "These English gentlemen are so generous with their money." The more astute Andean liberator, Simon Bolivar, was soon to comment: "We have more to fear from the English debt than the Spanish sword." How right he was.

British interests were well served. Apart from weakening Spanish power in the region, the British opened up lucrative markets for their developing industries. They were able to gain rights to gold and silver mines and the extraction of pearls and other raw materials for their more advanced industries. Areas of land with no predetermined valuation were often negotiated as collateral.

"With conscience wide as hell," as Shakespeare wrote in another context, English bankers and entrepreneurs floated around Latin America trading pounds for inestimable political and commercial advantages. The Scots did not lag behind, and, in the person of Gregor McGregor, provided a bizarre example of the exploitation that was rife at the time. McGregor was a soldier in the Colombian patriotic army and later a pirate on the Caribbean. In 1820 he negotiated a treaty with the Miskitos indians of Nicaragua and obtained the title of "Prince of Poyais".

With this most prestigious position, he was made more than welcome in the British court and the London financial world and so was able to negotiate loans and underwrite bonds to the tune of £200,000. With money so readily available on the London markets, it is little wonder that he felt disinclined to return to pirating in the Caribbean.

These initial experiences in the international credit market were just a taste of what was to follow. Corrupt dictators were desperate to borrow money to secure their often precarious political posts. "Borrow now and someone else will pay later" was their persistent ideology.

The frequent revolutions and civil wars in Latin America were ready-made territories for the arms traders, who became international bankers overnight. The international corporations could not miss out on the spoils. One outrageous example happened when an ingenuous government signed an improbable contract to build a railway across the mountains of Honduras to transport "ocean-going liners" from the Atlantic to the Pacific and secure perpetual prosperity for the country.

There is, however, a growing awareness among ordinary people of this type of blatant misappropriation and the injustices of the international money-lending system. The peoples of Latin America have moved from questioning the debt to outright declarations of protest. Ecuador paid 57% of its national income in the jubilee year of 2000 for the interest on its debt, and this year will have to borrow money in order to meet premium debt payments. The foreign debt is an immoral imposition, an illegal burden, a death sentence on future development and prosperity.

All Ecuadorean children are saddled with a debt of $1,212 the day they are born. This debt will increase to $25,000 before they receive their first wage. No wonder a litany of protest is spreading: "We have already paid the borrowed money many times over. We should not be made responsible for money that we never had access to nor ever benefited from. They stripped us of our gold reserves as war booty. They exploited our wealth in minerals and raw materials. Their industries have caused unknown ecological damage. Our forests have been savaged to extract oil, our mountains to open mines. Our coasts and seas have been plundered by industrial fishing. We say that we are not the debtors." What do you say?
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.25.05 @ 05:04 PM CST [link]

Anglican share vote angers Israelis

Anglicans yesterday voted to urge their member churches to consider disinvesting from companies involved in Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

The Anglican consultative council voted unanimously for the measure, which was opposed by the last archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi, who fear it will damage Jewish and Christian relations. Among those voting for yesterday's measure was Dr Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, a council spokesman said.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.25.05 @ 04:59 PM CST [link]

U.S. Court Backs Bush's Changes on Clean Air Act

WASHINGTON, June 24 - A federal appeals court sided with the Bush administration on Friday, upholding its revisions of the Clean Air Act to allow plant operators to modernize without installing expensive new pollution control equipment. The ruling turned back challenges to the revisions by New York, California and a dozen other states.

In upholding central provisions of the regulations known as New Source Review, the court concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted within its rights in issuing rules in 2002 that allowed operators of power plants, refineries, and factories greater flexibility in controlling emissions of air pollutants than they had previously.

Representatives of the electric power industry, which had strongly supported the new regulations, hailed the ruling as a victory. The new rules require owners of older plants to upgrade emission-control equipment to standards for new plants only if they make substantial improvements. Plant owners and the E.P.A. have consistently disagreed over how to differentiate between routine maintenance and large-scale upgrades.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.25.05 @ 04:56 PM CST [link]

Ashcroft Gone, Justice Statues Disrobe

WASHINGTON -- With barely a word about it, workers at the Justice Department Friday removed the blue drapes that have famously covered two scantily clad statues for the past 3 1/2 years.

Spirit of Justice, with her one breast exposed and her arms raised, and the bare-chested male Majesty of Law basked in the late afternoon light of Justice's ceremonial Great Hall.

The drapes, installed in 2002 at a cost of $8,000, allowed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to speak in the Great Hall without fear of a breast showing up behind him in television or newspaper pictures. They also provoked jokes about and criticism of the deeply religious Ashcroft.

The 12-foot, 6-inch aluminum statues were installed shortly after the building opened in the 1930s.

With a change in leadership at Justice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced the question: Would they stay or would they go?

He regularly deflected the question, saying he had weightier issues before him.

Paul R. Corts, the assistant attorney general for administration, recommended the drapes be removed and Gonzales signed off on it, spokesman Kevin Madden said, while refusing to allow The Associated Press to photograph the statues Friday.

In the past, snagging a photo of the attorney general in front of the statues has been somewhat of a sport for photographers.
Full: washingtonpost.org

Crimes against humanity and treason are not obscene, female breasts are. These are nightmare people.
rootsie on 06.25.05 @ 04:53 PM CST [link]

Italian judge orders CIA team arrested over kidnap

MILAN/ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA for "kidnapping" an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan and flying him to Egypt where he said he was tortured, judicial sources said on Friday.

"In the judge's order, it (the abduction) is clearly attributed to the CIA," a source said.

Confirming the arrest warrant without mentioning the U.S. intelligence agency, the prosecutors office said the 13 suspects were believed to be behind the abduction of imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was grabbed off a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003 and stuffed into a white van.

Nasr was then taken to a U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy and flown to Egypt, stopping over on the way in Ramstein, Germany, to change planes, the prosecutors' statement said.

The judicial source cited the warrant, which has still not been made public, as saying a CIA agent known to Italian authorities coordinated the operation.
A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401060_pf.html">Full: washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 06.25.05 @ 04:49 PM CST [link]
Friday, June 24th

Rove Criticizes Liberals on 9/11

Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

Told of Mr. Rove's remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: "In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes."

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, speaking after Mr. Rove, also touched on the Sept. 11 attacks. He promised that the proposed Freedom Tower, the new building at ground zero, would retain patriotic touches in its architecture, like a height of 1,776 feet, despite the concerns of some observers who fear that it would become a target for terrorists.

"We're going to have a Freedom Tower that soars 1,776 feet high, symbolizing our independence," Mr. Pataki said. As for the memorial, he said: "No one is going to turn it into something that is a negative statement about America and our belief in freedom, so long as I am governor of this state."
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.24.05 @ 08:18 AM CST [link]

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

WASHINGTON -- Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.

The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn't expect a rush to claim homes.

"The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings," said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.

The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue.

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what's best for a community.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 06.24.05 @ 08:14 AM CST [link]
Thursday, June 23rd

George E. Lowe: Can "It" Happen Here? Hasn't "It" Already? A Fascist Christian America

Sometimes we come across an eye-opening book by an American who is not part of the author circuit, and this is the case with the two-volume set, It Can Happen Here. George E. Lowe wrote a book in 1964 called The Age of Deterrence, but then went on with his career in the military. He served as a speech writer in the Reagan Department of Education, where he told BuzzFlash, he awoke to the threat from radical religious zealots taking over the Republican Party.

Lowe's two-volume collection is a labor of love (originally and prophetically written in 2000) that offers a provocative and persuasive explanation about how the Neo-Cons became a logical partner with the "Rapture" Christians, whose goal is to precipitate Armageddon and a Second Coming of Christ. One clear common political goal is increasing weapons production, because it will both enrich the Neo-Con corporate interests and help precipitate a Messianic age for the radical fundamentalists.

For many BuzzFlash readers, following the subtleties of the religious right fanatics is a challenge. But Lowe takes the reader on a journey through the strange permutations of Christian extremism and the danger it presents to America as a Constitutional democracy. Moreover, the Christian fanatics seek a World War III, because it will lead to the triumphant return of a resurrected Christ and a transformed Israel.

* * *

BuzzFlash: You published a two-volume set -- -- It Can Happen Here: A Fascist Christian America -- -- in 2000. You pretty much forecast what has come to happen in the United States since then, although we don't officially have a fascist Christian America.

George E. Lowe: We're heading fast toward it.

BuzzFlash: There's certainly the assertion by everyone from Antonin Scalia to Bill Frist to General Boykin and John Ashcroft that America is a country where God is king.

George E. Lowe: The famous phrase is: "I have no king but Jesus."

BuzzFlash: You were ahead of the curve on this. What made you so motivated to write two volumes, together hundreds of pages, about this topic?

George E. Lowe: The answer is I lived among them. When the Reagan Administration came in, I was Secretary of Education Bell's speech writer. I looked around and who did I see? Gary Bauer as an Assistant Secretary. Bob Billings, one of the founders of the Moral Majority -- -- another Assistant Secretary. Civil rights was handed over to Alan Keyes and Clarence Thomas. They dumped a lot of strange people into the department that had Hal Lindsey's book, The Late, Great Planet Earth, and the Good Shepherd's Yellow Pages. They had little cards that they would post up in the halls saying, "Listen to Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye." They were revolutionaries. And here I am, an American historian, worried about this, because I was fighting the military fascists in the sixties. Here we get Christian fascists, and I just couldn't comprehend it.

BuzzFlash: What has happened since you wrote the book to accelerate this? Why has the influence of the radical Christian fundamentalists gone from being somewhat in the background and somewhat at arm's length to being an overt part of the Bush Administration?

George E. Lowe: As I say on the cover of my book, it's that they've taken over the party of Lincoln. You could just look at the electoral map and you know that. It's the old Confederacy. And they've expanded it to the new booming Southwest. That and the Mountain West is their core base. There are people that essentially are the old David Duke crowd -- the Northern European, white, Protestant, small town, middle and lower-middle classes -- and their time has come. They're tired of all these foreigners that came in after '48 or after the Civil War, and all those two million Jews and all those Southern European Catholics -- those dusty people -- all those. They feel it's time to take back America. In essence, this is the revenge of the South for losing the Civil War.
Full: buzzflash.com

Read on about 'pre-emptive global nuclear war.'
rootsie on 06.23.05 @ 08:35 PM CST [link]
Wednesday, June 22nd

The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the US Public: An Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner

...Zeese: What is: "Truth from These Podia"? How did you conduct this media analysis?

Gardiner: It is a paper I published on the web that reflected four months of heavy research.

I had followed press reports of the war closely as it unfolded because of a job I had. During the first couple months of Gulf II, I was under contract with the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. With another retired colonel, we did an almost daily on-air analysis of how the war was going.

As the war unfolded, I became increasingly uneasy about what was being reported out of the White House, Pentagon and Central Command. I was hearing things that just did not make sense with what I knew and what my intuition was telling me. I began tracking some of the stories. It was just a matter of going over what we were told and connecting that with the truth as it emerged later.
One of the first items that made me uneasy was when I heard we were encountering “terrorist death squads.” I was very familiar with the Iraq military forces. There were no terrorist death squads. It became obvious the Pentagon wanted us to connect Iraq with 9/11. Terrorists did 9/11. There are terrorists in Iraq. Iraq must have been behind 9/11.

Zeese: Regarding the management of information about Iraq, I'd like to focus on the build up to the Iraq War initially. There has been growing indications from a series of memoranda and meeting minutes from Great Britain that U.S. intelligence was “fixed” to support the war. In your analysis of media management before the war do you see any indication that the United States Congress and public was manipulated into supporting the invasion of Iraq by misinformation?

Gardiner: Kevin, I find it amazing that there is now a growing interest in the marketing the war. There is absolutely no question that the White House and the Pentagon participated in an effort to market the military option. The truth did not make any difference to that campaign. To call it fixing is to miss the more profound point. It was a campaign to influence. It involved creating false stories; it involved exaggerating; it involved manipulating the numbers of stories that were released; it involved a major campaign to attack those who disagreed with the military option. It included all the techniques those who ran the marketing effort had learned in political campaigns.

Zeese: Can you give some examples of false or exaggerated stories put out by the Bush administration in the build-up to the war?

Gardiner: In the summer of 2003, we know from the Downing Street Memo that the Administration was talking about justifying a war by arguing that Iraq was the nexus of terrorism and WMD.

The terrorism argument was what propaganda literature would refer to as the big lie. The Administration’s objective was to make enough arguments connecting Iraq to terrorism and Bin Laden that the American people would believe Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. They used a technique called the excluded middle. Iraq supports terrorists. The attacks were by terrorists. Iraq must been behind the 9/11 attacks.

We the WMD story fairly well. We know the story of the uranium from Niger. We know about the aluminum tubes that were not for uranium enrichment. We know the biological labs Powell showed to the UN did not exist.

Beyond these there are many exaggerations that have gotten very little notice. Let me mention just a few.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 08:08 PM CST [link]

China's CNOOC to launch 19 billion dollar bid for Unocal: newspaper

NEW YORK (AFP) - China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) has agreed to launch the biggest ever takeover offer by a Chinese group with a 19 billion dollar bid for US oil major Unocal, according to a report.

The decision to trump a rival bid for Unocal by ChevronTexaco was reached by CNOOC directors in a tense six-hour board meeting held in Beijing on Wednesday, The Financial Times said in its online edition.

It quoted people close to the situation as saying CNOOC had decided to bid about 67 dollars a share for Unocal and would offer to take on 1.6 billion dollars of the US energy group's debt.

At that level, the offer would value Unocal at 19.8 billion dollars, the newspaper said.

It would be higher than Chevron's cash-and-shares offer of 16.4 billion dollars plus debt, and represent a modest premium to Unocal's share price, which closed in New York Wednesday at 64.86 dollars.

If successful, it would represent the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese company, dwarfing the Lenovo Group's recent 1.25 billion dollar takeover of IBM's personal computer business.

But the FT quoted New York bankers as saying that CNOOC will have a difficult task persuading investors that its offer is high enough to compensate for any risk that the deal might be blocked by US regulators.

"CNOOC will have serious difficulties closing this deal given legal, bureaucratic and political barriers," Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, a Washington consultancy, told the newspaper.

CNOOC, China's third-largest oil group, confirmed in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange earlier this month that it was considering launching a possible bid for Unocal.

It said a further announcement would be made "if and when appropriate."

If CNOOC were to go ahead with an attempt to take over Unocal, it would fit into a larger Chinese strategy of securing access to energy sources overseas for the country's power-hungry industries.

Unocal has gas and oil reserves in Thailand, Indonesia and Central Asia. It has more than 6,000 employees, with most of its activities in Asia and North America. It has no refining or marketing operations.

ChevronTexaco, the number-two US oil company, announced its takeover bid for Unocal in April. The bid received US regulatory approval on June 10.
Full: news.yahoo.com

Unocal is the big player in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:48 PM CST [link]

Democrats find 2004 voting problems in Ohio

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than a quarter of voters, and more than half of black voters, experienced problems at Ohio polling places during the 2004 presidential vote, a Democratic Party report said on Wednesday.

But the problems were not enough to have changed the outcome in the state that put President Bush over the top in his battle for the White House with Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, it concluded.

The report cited long lines that discouraged voting, poorly trained election officials and difficulties with registration status, polling locations and absentee ballots.
Full: washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:44 PM CST [link]

Bards of the powerful

'Hackers bombard financial networks", the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Government departments and businesses "have been bombarded with a sophisticated electronic attack for several months". It is being organised by an Asian criminal network, and is "aimed at stealing commercially and economically sensitive information". By Thursday afternoon, the story had mutated. "G8 hackers target banks and ministries", said the headline in the Evening Standard. Their purpose was "to cripple the systems as a protest before the G8 summit." The Standard advanced no evidence to justify this metamorphosis.
This is just one instance of the reams of twaddle about the dark designs of the G8 protesters codded up by the corporate press. That the same stories have been told about almost every impending public protest planned in the past 30 years and that they have invariably fallen apart under examination appears to present no impediment to their repetition. The real danger at the G8 summit is not that the protests will turn violent - the appetite for that pretty well disappeared in September 2001 - but that they will be far too polite.

Let me be more precise. The danger is that we will follow the agenda set by Bono and Bob Geldof.

The two musicians are genuinely committed to the cause of poverty reduction. They have helped secure aid and debt-relief packages worth billions of dollars. They have helped to keep the issue of global poverty on the political agenda. They have mobilised people all over the world. These are astonishing achievements, and it would be stupid to disregard them.

The problem is that they have assumed the role of arbiters: of determining on our behalf whether the leaders of the G8 nations should be congratulated or condemned for the decisions they make. They are not qualified to do so, and I fear that they will sell us down the river.

Take their response to the debt-relief package for the world's poorest countries that the G7 finance ministers announced 10 days ago. Anyone with a grasp of development politics who had read and understood the ministers' statement could see that the conditions it contains - enforced liberalisation and privatisation - are as onerous as the debts it relieves. But Bob Geldof praised it as "a victory for the millions of people in the campaigns around the world" and Bono pronounced it "a little piece of history". Like many of those who have been trying to highlight the harm done by such conditions - especially the African campaigners I know - I feel betrayed by these statements. Bono and Geldof have made our job more difficult.

I understand the game they're playing. They believe that praising the world's most powerful men is more persuasive than criticising them. The problem is that in doing so they turn the political campaign developed by the global justice movement into a philanthropic one. They urge the G8 leaders to do more to help the poor. But they say nothing about ceasing to do harm.
Full: guardian.co.uk

This is because they don't have the smarts to understand that they are products of centuries of European imperialism, and it takes work to start seeing 'out of the box'. They may like to believe that their motives are great, but they are just buffoons for the G8.
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:43 AM CST [link]

De Beers opens New York store amid bushmen protest

Plans by De Beers to expand its diamond retail empire with the opening of a new shop today on Fifth Avenue in New York will be dogged by controversy after a human rights group called for a boycott.
Survival International said it had enlisted the American feminist Gloria Steinem to join a picket line urging people not to enter the shop.

The charity, which campaigns on behalf of tribal peoples, is protesting at De Beers' alleged involvement in the eviction by the Botswana government of the last remaining Gana and Gwi bushmen from their homes in the central Kalahari game reserve.

Survival International organised a similar demonstration when De Beers opened its first standalone shop in Bond Street, London, in 2002. The company already had three in-store concessions in Tokyo.
The diamond company said yesterday that previous boycotts had not dented sales in Britain and argued it was unfair to target the retail arm because it was an independently managed joint venture with the luxury goods group LVMH in France.

De Beers said: "Survival International's misleading and dishonest claims are based on supposition and hearsay. They have failed to attract any significant, internationally recognised support from other civil society organisations and De Beers challenges them to provide any credible evidence to support their claims."

De Beers accused Survival of threatening to inflict "untold damage on one of Africa's success stories, dependent on its diamond revenues for the fight against HIV/Aids".

De Beers said it has a licence from the government of Botswana to search for minerals but has discovered no commercial deposits. Even if it had it would not need to "arbitrarily remove or resettle any communities", it said.
Full: guardian.co.uk

"...their homes in the game reserve."
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:35 AM CST [link]

Withdrawal is a prelude to annexation

Condoleezza Rice hailed the understanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the need to destroy the homes of the 8,000 Jewish settlers in Gaza as a historic step on the road to peace. This is a fatuous statement by one of the most vacuous US secretaries of state of the postwar era.

American foreign policy has habitually displayed double standards towards the Middle East: one standard towards Israel and one towards the Arabs. To give just one example, the US effected regime change in Baghdad in three weeks but has failed to dismantle a single Jewish settlement in the occupied territories in 38 years.

The two main items on America's current agenda for the region are democracy for the Arabs and a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. America, however, insists on democracy only for its Arab opponents, not for its friends. As for the peace process, it is essentially a mechanism by which Israel and America try to impose a solution on the Palestinians. American hypocrisy is nothing new. But with Dr Rice it has gone beyond chutzpah.

With Ariel Sharon, by contrast, what you see is what you get. He has always been in the destruction business, not the construction business. As minister of defence in 1982, Sharon preferred to destroy the settlement town of Yamit in Sinai rather than hand it to Egypt as a reward for signing a peace treaty with Israel. George Bush once described his friend Sharon as "a man of peace". In truth, Sharon is a brutal thug and land-grabber.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:30 AM CST [link]

Withdrawal is a prelude to annexation

Condoleezza Rice hailed the understanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the need to destroy the homes of the 8,000 Jewish settlers in Gaza as a historic step on the road to peace. This is a fatuous statement by one of the most vacuous US secretaries of state of the postwar era.

American foreign policy has habitually displayed double standards towards the Middle East: one standard towards Israel and one towards the Arabs. To give just one example, the US effected regime change in Baghdad in three weeks but has failed to dismantle a single Jewish settlement in the occupied territories in 38 years.

The two main items on America's current agenda for the region are democracy for the Arabs and a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. America, however, insists on democracy only for its Arab opponents, not for its friends. As for the peace process, it is essentially a mechanism by which Israel and America try to impose a solution on the Palestinians. American hypocrisy is nothing new. But with Dr Rice it has gone beyond chutzpah.

With Ariel Sharon, by contrast, what you see is what you get. He has always been in the destruction business, not the construction business. As minister of defence in 1982, Sharon preferred to destroy the settlement town of Yamit in Sinai rather than hand it to Egypt as a reward for signing a peace treaty with Israel. George Bush once described his friend Sharon as "a man of peace". In truth, Sharon is a brutal thug and land-grabber.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.22.05 @ 07:29 AM CST [link]
Tuesday, June 21st

Wolfowitz backs more aid for Africa

The controversial president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, who led the Pentagon's charge for war in Iraq, surprised critics last night by giving his backing to Tony Blair's plan for an increase in aid for Africa.

The former secretary of defence said he would "love" to see more aid, despite President George Bush's reservations.

On a six-day visit to Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and South Africa, Mr Wolfowitz said he focused on listening and tried to move his image beyond that of a key architect of the US war in Iraq. Speaking on his return from his first trip to southern Africa, Mr Wolfowitz said: "I would love to see a massive increase in aid."

He had said that throwing money at problems such as Africa's had not worked. But, he said after his trip: "I have a lot more confidence after what I have seen." Mr Wolfowitz also backed Mr Blair's demand that aid must be tied to reform.
Full: independent.co.uk

Well here's a sure sign that they know they're going to be taking out far more than they ever put in. I guess on one level they are correct about 'corruption'--where are the Chavez's of Africa to stand up and expose this charade of 'aid'?
rootsie on 06.21.05 @ 02:53 PM CST [link]

ACLU Says Bush Is Restricting Science

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union charged Tuesday that the Bush administration is placing science under siege by overzealously tightening restrictions on information, individuals and technology in the name of homeland security.

The administration "has sought to impose growing restrictions on the free flow of scientific information, unreasonable barriers on the use of scientific materials and increased monitoring of and restrictions on foreign university students," the ACLU said.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks the government has actively increased the use of classifying information to keep it secret, including the use of the category "unclassified but sensitive" and extending classification authority to more departments, the ACLU said.

Robert Hopkins of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy criticized the ACLU for seeking to politicize the issue.

"The report chooses to criticize actions taken to address security concerns in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack," Hopkins said. "The administration has worked in good faith with serious members of the science community, including the National Academies, to determine the best way to enable the conduct of science without providing terrorists with a road map for pursuing their aims."
Full: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 06.21.05 @ 02:44 PM CST [link]

U.S. Said Delaying Saddam Interrogations

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Iraqi's justice minister said Tuesday that U.S. officials are trying to delay interrogations of Saddam Hussein.

Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal, in Brussels for an international conference on Iraq, also accused the U.S. of concealing information about the ousted Iraqi leader.

"It seems there are lots of secrets they want to hide," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

Shandal also said Saddam's trial would be over by the end of the year.

American officials have privately urged caution about rushing into a trial, saying the Iraqis need to developed a solid judicial system. They also worry it could interfere with the important constitution writing process and inflame sectarian tensions.

Though Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government is determined to put Saddam on trial, circumstances may not allow it.

His government earlier this month said Saddam's trial would be held within two months, but later backtracked. No trial date has been set for Saddam or any of the other former regime officials being held in custody.

Saddam's trial could be a highly divisive issue in already turbulent Iraq. If court proceedings begin in two months, they will coincide with the crucial process of drafting the constitution. The draft must be finished by mid-August and approved in a referendum two months later, clearing the way for December elections.

Saddam, 68, is still being interrogated, the justice minister said.

"The process requires collecting evidence but the rule of Saddam was for 35 years, and it needs a lot of evidence, a lot of interrogations," he told The Associated Press.
Full: apnews.myway.com

Yes I'm sure.
rootsie on 06.21.05 @ 02:40 PM CST [link]

US radicals blow their tops over volcano movie as Darwinism debate rages

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Culture wars raging in the United States are reaping new victims as monster-screen IMAX cinemas and top museums are dragged into the fierce debate over the origin of life.

Pressure from ultraconservative religious groups has prompted some theaters equipped with the high quality panoramic IMAX screens to cancel showings of several movies which refer to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Some politically powerful religious groups dismiss the theory, despite its widespread acceptance throughout the rest of the world.

Instead, they advance a hypothesis that holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been designed by an "intelligent" being, i.e. God, and is not the result of random natural selection.

Many scientists have savagely attacked "intelligent design", arguing the theory is not significantly sound, and is simply the latest political shot from religious creationists.

Since the beginning of this year, numerous movie theaters in highly religious states in the US south have refused to show documentary films like "Cosmic Voyage," "Volcanos of the Deep Sea" and "Galapagos" named after the islands Darwin used to showcase his theory.

The films crimes? Mentioning the idea that the Universe is the product of a "Big Bang" explosion or that the origin of life is in the oceans.

"Volcanos of the Deep Sea" has prompted some radical religious conservatives to blow their own tops.

But oceanographer Richard Lutz, who collaborated on the movie, said the controversy centered on "a reference in the film that life may have originated in the deep sea."

Lutz, a professor of Marine Ecology at Rutgers University, said he was troubled to see other film producers steer clear of scientific subjects that risk controversy and low box office receipts.

Earlier this year, the Museum of Science and History of Fort Worth, Texas, refused to show the volcano film after a screening for a test audience.

"At the time, we had better choices that scored better in our screening tests," said Margaret Ritsch, the museum's Director of Public Affairs.

She admitted, however, that some people had made comments about the theory of evolution.

Valentine Kass, a science education program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) which helped finance the film, hit out at the campaign against the IMAX movie.

"It is very troubling if science museums don't want to promote what we consider totally accepted ideas of science. It is not a positive trend at all."

Blocking scientific movies from IMAX theaters is only one part of the creationists' agenda; they also promote their own films that document their theory of a cosmos-crafting higher intelligence.

"The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe," is one such film, based on work by University of Iowa astronomy professor Guillermo Gonzalez.

Stirring outrage from the scientific community, the Museum of Natural History at Washington's world-famed Smithsonian Institution agreed to show the movie.

The Smithsonian, however, was forced to issue a statement making clear that it did not consider intelligent design geled with scientific fact.

"We have determined that the content of the film is not consistent with the mission of the Smithsonian Institution's scientific research," the statement said.

But the Smithsonian still plans to show "Privileged Planet" as scheduled on June 23.
news.yahoo.com

rootsie on 06.21.05 @ 02:36 PM CST [link]

Global warming in Africa: The hottest issue of all

Bob Geldof, take note. All the rich nations' efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will fail unless climate change can be checked, a coalition of British aid agencies and environment groups warns today.

More favourable arrangements for African debt relief, aid and trade - the point of the rock star's forthcoming Live8 concerts and items on the agenda for the Gleneagles G8 summit - will count for nothing unless the effects of global warming are countered, say the development and green groups in a hard-hitting new report.

To combat climate change, rich countries must cut their greenhouse gas emissions further, far beyond the targets laid down in the Kyoto Protocol, they say. But more than that, aid policy for Africa as a whole needs a complete rethink in climate change terms, because the continent is uniquely vulnerable to climatic shifts, with 70 per cent of its people being immediately dependent on rain-fed, small-scale agriculture.

Aid needs to be targeted in a new way, they insist, and what will be vital in the future will not be big development projects, such as industrial-scale agriculture, so much as steps to make small communities more resilient in the face of potentially devastating rises in temperature or drops in rainfall.
Full: indepemdent.co.uk
rootsie on 06.21.05 @ 02:30 PM CST [link]
Monday, June 20th

Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans

LONDON - When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.

In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."
Full: yahoo.com

This 'news' just keeps breaking and breaking. Maybe it is the smoking gun. Bush is expendable if he gets too unpopular. A democratic president would serve the terrible status quo just as well, and put a kinder gentler face on it. Nothing like a big impeachment trial to divert and distract.
rootsie on 06.20.05 @ 07:59 AM CST [link]

10 Questions for Porter Goss

...WHEN WILL WE GET OSAMA BIN LADEN? That is a question that goes far deeper than you know. In the chain that you need to successfully wrap up the war on terror, we have some weak links. And I find that until we strengthen all the links, we're probably not going to be able to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice. We are making very good progress on it. But when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play. We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community.

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF WHERE HE IS. WHERE? I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?
Full: time.com

Me too. He's in the palace with Prince Fahd. They're holding hands and giving each other open mouth kisses.
rootsie on 06.20.05 @ 07:49 AM CST [link]

GELDOF ORDERS NO BUSH BASHING AT 'LIVE 8': IRAQ WAR, GLOBAL WARMING RANTING OFF LIMITS

LIVE 8 founder Bob Geldof is determined to see his international concerts stay focused on the plight of Africa's poor -- and not fall into cliched Bush bashing and global warming rhetoric!

Geldof has ordered show organizers and producers to redouble all efforts to keep LIVE 8 performers "on message" during the July 2 event, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"Please remember, absolutely no ranting and raving about Bush or Blair and the Iraq war, this is not why you have been invited to appear," Geldoff said to the manager of a top recording artist, who asked not to be identified. "We want to bring Mr. Bush in, not run him away."

[Geldof tells next week's TIME magazine how Bush "has actually done more than any American President for Africa."]

"Bob wants no attention on global warming, or the war," the manager warns, "He is very determined, he does not want to lose control of the message... But we have the most unpopular American president since Nixon, soldiers are dying... you are going to see some righteous anger on stage."

LIVE 8 will be a series of free international concerts with unprecedented star power.

Will Smith is host of a hip-hop-heavy show in Philly with 50 Cent and P Diddy headlining; Pink Floyd and the Sex Pistols will reunite in London on the same bill as U2, Coldplay, Keane, Madonna, Elton John, Mariah Carey, Sting and Paul McCartney. Concerts will also be held in Paris, Berlin and Rome.

BBC and AOL plan live broadcast and streaming worldwide.

[FOOTNOTE: U2's Bono has been attacked by his rock peers for associating with Bush and Blair. Fellow Irish star Sinead O'Connor says, "I think you risk losing your credibility by going to a party at Downing Street. I would draw a line at drinking wine and eating cheese with the Prime Minister."]
Full: drudgereport.com

Even this right-wing website is amused. What a fool.
rootsie on 06.20.05 @ 07:44 AM CST [link]

Row over German zoo's Africa show

The event is intended to give residents in the town of Augsburg in south Germany, a taste of Africa with craft sellers, drummers, story tellers, music groups and food from around Africa.

But campaigners, including representative of Germany's black community and academics, say setting it in the town's zoo is racist.

"People are upset by the idea of placing [the festival] in a zoo between the baboons and the zebras," said Noah So, who founded Der Braune Mob - an organisation that monitors race issues in the German media.

'Exotic atmosphere'

"It is just not the right place to display human beings, let alone their culture," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"There is an urge to see those who are not white as part of something exotic or romanticised."
Noah Sow

"Two hundred years ago African people were displayed in zoos. Now we're in 2005 and one could get the impression that nothing's really changed."
Full: bbc.co.uk

Yeah one could that 'impression' couldn't they? And Ota Benga, a twa man from Congo, was 'displayed' at the World's Fair and the Bronx Zoo in 1906.
rootsie on 06.20.05 @ 07:35 AM CST [link]
Sunday, June 19th

The first embedded protest

Shortly after Bob Geldof called for a million people to converge in Edinburgh for the opening day of the G8 summit, Midge Ure, the co-organiser of Live 8, was asked if he was worried about the events being hijacked by anarchists. His response was that Live 8 was, in fact, hijacking the anarchists' event. There is more than a little truth in this statement. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that Blair and Brown, in turn, are trying to do something similar with the Live 8 and Make Poverty History campaigns.

The spin surrounding the summit is beginning to appear as little more than a cynical attempt to buy off a section of what is commonly called the "global justice" or "anti-capitalist" movement by feigning serious engagement with some of its core issues: global poverty and ecological crisis.

This is the first G8 summit in the UK since the battle of Seattle, an event which brought the contemporary anti-capitalist movement into the spotlight and succeeded in breaking both the "there is no alternative" spell of neoliberalism and the "one size fits all" dogma that had plagued the old left.

This was a leaderless movement that began to talk about building diverse communities of self-determination, direct democracy and ecological sustainability. They declared: "Another world is possible." A world, of course, free of poverty, but also one free of the G8, whose raison d'etre, after all, is to manage a system that prioritises the pursuit of private profit over people and planet. In other words, they talked about a world without capitalism.

Blair and Brown do not want a repeat of Seattle, or Genoa, or any of the other summits that have been accompanied by mass acts of disobedience. They want a stage-managed, benign spectacle, and so they play along with Live 8 and Make Poverty History, creating the world's first "embedded" mass protest.

Blair's wearing of the Make Poverty History wristband and Brown's presentation of a modest new debt-relief programme (one, we might add, with stringent conditions attached) were carefully manipulated spectacles designed to obscure the fact that the G8's policies are at the very core of the world's problems.

While the coming together of hundreds of thousands of people for the Make Poverty History and Live 8 events certainly should be understood as a genuine expression of human solidarity, if we are serious about wanting to change the way in which the world works it is essential that we do not make poverty of history in attempting to do so.

In other words, we need to ask ourselves: who have, historically, been the agents of change? And, importantly, who has the ability to change the way in which the world works today? The answer, of course, is not Bob and Bono. But neither is it Blair and Brown. It's ordinary, everyday people. It's us. It's you.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Sorry kids. If by 'us' you mean privileged Europeans and Americans, 'we' possess no such agency. The whole problem with Europe from the start has been their view that 'the world' is theirs to change. It's Jean Paul Sartre's 100th birthday. People ought to read his preface to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and see what he learned from an African. Sartre's preface
rootsie on 06.19.05 @ 09:43 AM CST [link]
Saturday, June 18th

Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War

In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe.

They pretended a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the whole thing look official.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) banged a large wooden gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him "Mr. Chairman." He liked that so much that he started calling himself "the chairman" and spouted other chairmanly phrases, such as "unanimous consent" and "without objection so ordered." The dress-up game looked realistic enough on C-SPAN, so two dozen more Democrats came downstairs to play along.

The session was a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war. As luck would have it, all four of the witnesses agreed that President Bush lied to the nation and was guilty of high crimes -- and that a British memo on "fixed" intelligence that surfaced last month was the smoking gun equivalent to the Watergate tapes. Conyers was having so much fun that he ignored aides' entreaties to end the session.

"At the next hearing," he told his colleagues, "we could use a little subpoena power." That brought the house down.

As Conyers and his hearty band of playmates know, subpoena power and other perks of a real committee are but a fantasy unless Democrats can regain the majority in the House. But that's only one of the obstacles they're up against as they try to convince America that the "Downing Street Memo" is important.

A search of the congressional record yesterday found that of the 535 members of Congress, only one -- Conyers -- had mentioned the memo on the floor of either chamber. House Democratic leaders did not join in Conyers's session, and Senate Democrats, who have the power to hold such events in real committee rooms, have not troubled themselves.

The hearing was only nominally about the Downing Street Memo and its assertion that in the summer of 2002 Bush was already determined to go to war and was making the intelligence fit his case. Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador whose wife was outed as a CIA operative, barely mentioned the memo in his opening statement. Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, said the memo "only confirms what I already suspected."

No matter: The lawmakers and the witnesses saw this as a chance to rally against the war. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) proclaimed it "one of the biggest scandals in the history of this country." Conyers said the memos "establish a prima facie case of going to war under false pretenses." Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) concluded that "the time has come to get out" of Iraq.

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

The event organizer, Democrats.com, distributed stickers saying "Bush lied/100,000 people died." One man's T-shirt proclaimed, "Whether you like Bush or not, he's still an incompetent liar," while a large poster of Uncle Sam announced: "Got kids? I want yours for cannon fodder."

Conyers's firm hand on the gavel could not prevent something of a free-for-all; at one point, a former State Department worker rose from the audience to propose criminal charges against Bush officials. Early in the hearing, somebody accidentally turned off the lights; later, a witness knocked down a flag. Matters were even worse at Democratic headquarters, where the C-SPAN feed ended after just an hour, causing the activists to groan and one to shout "Conspiracy!"

The glitches and the antiwar theatrics proved something of a distraction from the message the organizers aimed to deliver: that for the Bush White House, as lawyer John C. Bonifaz put it, the British memo is "the equivalent to the revelation that there was a taping system in the Nixon White House."

Of course, Democrats controlled the real committees back then -- though Conyers was not deterred. "We have a lot of work to do as a result of this first panel," he told his colleagues. " 'Tis the beginning of our work."
Full: washingtonpost.com

Yup those black folks down in the basement raising a ruckus. The dismissive tone of this article tries to paint this as a minstrel show farce but guess what--it is a devastating indictment of the condition of this government when the only way there can be a hearing on high crimes and misdemeanors is in a makeshift room in the basement. I guess it's the only place in the building where a word can be said against Israel.
rootsie on 06.18.05 @ 09:27 PM CST [link]

Spain warns desert is spreading

The deserts of north Africa are threatening to leap the Mediterranean and creep through Spain, according to government figures made public as part of a national campaign to halt desertification.
A third of the country is at risk of being turned into desert as climate change and tourism add to the effects of farming.

More than 90% of land bordering the Mediterranean from Almeria in the south to Tarragona in the north is considered to be at high risk. But that figure climbs to almost 100% in Alicante and Murcia.

Spain's environment ministry has announced a £50m programme to combat desertification. Over-grazing and irrigation methods that wash away topsoil were to blame for some of the damage, experts said. Building developments and climate change were doing the rest.
Full:guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.18.05 @ 09:18 PM CST [link]

Wolfowitz, Ending African Tour, Calls for Changes

PRETORIA, South Africa, June 18 - The World Bank needs to streamline its bureaucracy and refocus its lending on rebuilding decaying infrastructures in poor nations, the bank's new president, Paul A. Wolfowitz, said Saturday at the conclusion of his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa.

At a news conference with South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, Mr. Wolfowitz said African leaders' commitments to address corruption and misfeasance had opened new opportunities to combat poverty in this, the world's poorest region. But he acknowledged that future lending would have to be better managed.

"There is increasing recognition that the reason they have these debts is that a lot of governments in the past didn't spend that money well - and that's an understatement," he said. "You know what I'm talking about, corruption."

He praised Mr. Mbeki, who recently dismissed his deputy president after a trial linked him to a bribery scheme, for leading efforts for better government in the region.

In his first trip abroad as president of the bank Mr. Wolfowitz spent six days in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa, much of it visiting rural areas to see first-hand the region's needs.

Earlier, Mr. Wolfowitz condemned Zimbabwe's uprooting of hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers, calling it inhuman and saying it must damage the country's development prospects. "It's a tragedy," he said.
Full: nytimes.com

What insufferable hypocrisy.
rootsie on 06.18.05 @ 09:15 PM CST [link]

Wolfowitz, Ending African Tour, Calls for Changes

PRETORIA, South Africa, June 18 - The World Bank needs to streamline its bureaucracy and refocus its lending on rebuilding decaying infrastructures in poor nations, the bank's new president, Paul A. Wolfowitz, said Saturday at the conclusion of his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa.

At a news conference with South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, Mr. Wolfowitz said African leaders' commitments to address corruption and misfeasance had opened new opportunities to combat poverty in this, the world's poorest region. But he acknowledged that future lending would have to be better managed.

"There is increasing recognition that the reason they have these debts is that a lot of governments in the past didn't spend that money well - and that's an understatement," he said. "You know what I'm talking about, corruption."

He praised Mr. Mbeki, who recently dismissed his deputy president after a trial linked him to a bribery scheme, for leading efforts for better government in the region.

In his first trip abroad as president of the bank Mr. Wolfowitz spent six days in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa, much of it visiting rural areas to see first-hand the region's needs.

Earlier, Mr. Wolfowitz condemned Zimbabwe's uprooting of hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers, calling it inhuman and saying it must damage the country's development prospects. "It's a tragedy," he said.
Full: nytimes.com

What insufferable hypocrisy.
rootsie on 06.18.05 @ 09:14 PM CST [link]

Caustic Turn Jolts Europe

BRUSSELS, June 18 - Something shattered in Europe on Friday night.

The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all.

The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders in the face of rising popular opposition to the project called Europe.

Their attacks on one another after they failed to agree on a future budget - for 2007 through 2013 - seemed destructive and unnecessary, and it is not at all clear that they will be able to repair their relationships. Even if they do, the damage to the organization is done.

Most embarrassing for the European Union was a last-minute attempt by its 10 newest members to salvage the budget agreement late on Friday night. They offered to give up some of their own aid from the union so that the older and richer members could keep theirs.

For the new members, that offer was an opportunity to prove their worth. Criticizing the "egoism" of countries driven by national interests, Prime Minister Marek Belka of Poland said, "Nobody will be able to say that for Poland, the European Union is just a pile of money."

But for the older members, it was a humiliation. "When I heard one after the other, all the new member states - each poorer than the other - say that in the interest of an agreement they would be ready to renounce part of the money they are due, I was ashamed," Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and the departing European Union president, told journalists after talks collapsed.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.18.05 @ 09:10 PM CST [link]
Friday, June 17th

Just hearsay, or the new Watergate tapes?

Forced to the basement of the US Capitol and prevented from holding an official hearing, Michigan representative John Conyers defied Republicans and held a forum on Thursday calling for a congressional inquiry into the infamous British document known as the "Downing Street memo".

Three dozen Democratic representatives shuffled in and out of a small room to join Mr Conyers in declaring that the Downing Street memo was the first "primary source" document to report that prewar intelligence was intentionally manipulated in order make a case for invading Iraq.

Not only did Republican leaders consign the Democrats to the basement, but Democrats also claimed that the House scheduled 11 votes concurrent with the forum to maximise the difficulty of attending it. Because the forum wasn't an official hearing, it won't become a part of the Congressional record - but members worked to make sure that the attending media and activists captured their words for posterity.
The Downing Street memo, so far disputed by Washington and London in some of its details, but not its authenticity, reports on minutes of a meeting between the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and his national security team on July 23 2002.

First reported by the London Sunday Times on May 1 this year, the internal memo states that, in the opinion of "C" (Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British secret intelligence service), "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [Bush administration's] policy". The author of the memo added that it "seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action".

Since then, several other British government memos have become public that also make the case that the White House was planning the war long before it admitted to doing so.

The Democratic representatives attending the forum said they believed that if such information had got out prior to the war, neither the House nor the Senate would have supported the October 11 2002 congressional vote giving the president the power to order the invasion.

To the Democrats taking turns to speak at the forum on Thursday, the memo was tantamount to the first word of tapes in the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal. Impeachment was on these representatives' minds as four long-time critics of the war in Iraq, including the former ambassador Joe Wilson, repeatedly urged Congress to hold an official inquiry into the validity and origins of the Downing Street memo.

"We sent our troops to war under dubious pretences," asserted Mr Wilson, who travelled, at the government's behest, to Niger in February 2002. There, he discovered President Bush's claim that Iraq was attempting to obtain uranium in Africa was false. The White House later retracted the accusation.

Speaking on the question of impeachment, representative Charles B Rangel, D-NY, asked, point blank: "Has the president misled, or deliberately misled, the Congress?"

The answer is at the heart of Mr Conyers' push for further investigation. Misleading Congress is an impeachable offence, and Mr Conyers' petition for an inquiry into the memo seemed a first step in that direction - though no one made that call outright.

"Many of us find it unacceptable to put our brave men and women in harm's way, based on false information," Mr Conyers said.

Though most of those at the forum voted against the war in Iraq, Mr Conyers, who is the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, insisted the forum was not partisan politicking, but a function of their oversight duty.

As members of Congress crammed into the small room, no bigger than 30ft by 50ft, Democratic representatives spoke and then scurried out to make scheduled votes. After being denied a hearing, then forced to the basement, which representative Jim McDermott, D-Wash, called unprecedented, the Democrats believed Republicans had purposely scheduled 11 votes to interrupt the forum.

"Absolutely, it was absolutely timed," Mr McDermott said in an interview after the forum. "There was no need to do it then. And they were having a major appropriations hearing at the same time. That was also to keep people away, because appropriations are your chance to get money for your district that you've been working all year on."

McDermott spoke as representative Maxine Waters, D-Calif, delayed her aide and sprinted down the hall in her high heels to do an interview with Pacifica Radio. Covered mostly by liberal media outlets, the forum got some mainstream news attention, from the AP to the Baltimore Sun to CNN.

Democrats who dropped by included representatives Barney Frank, of Massachusetts, Charles Rangel, of New York, Virginia's Jim Moran, and Barbara Lee of Oakland, California.

Following the forum, Mr Conyers led Democratic representatives and activists on a march to the White House, hoping to deliver a letter with more than 550,000 signatures of the public and more than 120 members of Congress, mostly - but not all - Democrats. The White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press that Conyers was "simply trying to rehash old debates".

As he left, the mild but indefatigable Mr Conyers was a little angry that the forum was denied a proper room in the Capitol.

"They tried to shut us out," he said after the hearing. "They tried to cut us off. They put us in a tiny room. The significance shouldn't be lost on anybody."
Full: guardian.co.uk

Not to mention the fact that the Congressional Black Caucus is leading this initiative.
rootsie on 06.17.05 @ 07:25 PM CST [link]

US agency 'giving green light' to human toxin tests

...The congressional report was sponsored by Barbara Boxer, a California senator, and Henry Waxman, a congressman from the same state. They said it had uncovered "significant and widespread deficiencies" in 22 human pesticide experiments it reviewed.

"In violation of ethical standards, the experiments appear to have inflicted harm on human subjects, failed to obtain informed consent, dismissed adverse outcomes and lacked scientific validity," the report found. "In many of the experiments, the subjects were instructed to swallow capsules of toxic pesticides with orange juice or water at breakfast."

The "informed consent" forms were often loaded with jargon, hard to understand or deliberately misleading about potential health risks. Some studies dismissed unfavourable results. In one test, all eight subjects became sick after exposure to a pesticide, but in the report their symptoms were discounted and attributed to "viral illness".
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.17.05 @ 07:18 PM CST [link]

Halliburton Unit Gets Guantanamo Contract

WASHINGTON (AP) - A subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton has been awarded $30 million to build an improved 220-bed prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon announced.

Kellogg Brown and Root Services Inc. of Arlington, Va., is to build a two-story prison that includes day rooms, exercise areas, medical bays, air conditioning and a security control room, according to the Pentagon. It is to be completed by July 2006.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Nice.
rootsie on 06.17.05 @ 07:14 PM CST [link]

Study Shows Big Brained People are Smarter

RICHMOND, Va. (June 17, 2005) – People with bigger brains are smarter than their smaller-brained counterparts, according to a study conducted by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher published in the journal “Intelligence.”

The study, published on line June 16, could settle a long-standing scientific debate about the relationship between brain size and intelligence. Ever since German anatomist and physiologist Frederick Tiedmann wrote in 1836 that there exists “an indisputable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man,” scientists have been searching for biological evidence to prove his claim.

“For all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related,” said lead researcher Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D., an industrial and organizational psychologist who specializes in the study of intelligence and other predictors of job performance.

The study is the most comprehensive of its kind, drawing conclusions from 26 previous – mostly recent – international studies involving brain volume and intelligence. It was only five years ago, with the increased use of MRI-based brain assessments, that more data relating to brain volume and intelligence became available.

McDaniel, a professor in management in VCU’s School of Business, found that, on average, intelligence increases with increasing brain volume. Intelligence was measured with standardized intelligence tests, which have important consequences on peoples' lives, such as where they’ll go to college or what kind of job they get. Critics have called the tests inaccurate or irrelevant to the real world, he said.

“But when intelligence is correlated with a biological reality such as brain volume, it becomes harder to argue that human intelligence can’t be measured or that the scores do not reflect something meaningful,” said McDaniel.
Full: vcu.edu

This is sick, still trying to put forward this racist argument.
rootsie on 06.17.05 @ 07:10 PM CST [link]

Developed world criticised at African meeting

The developed world came in for criticism on Monday at a conference on African revival for "the blackmail involved in international aid" and a vested interests in wars.

Blackmail has become "quite a common fixture of 'aid'," theologian and former anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak said, addressing a Pretoria conference on the African Renaissance.

In 1995, he said, United States subsidies for arms exports accounted for more than half that country's bilateral aid, and 40 percent of total US aid.

'War is a highly profitable business'
"This emphasis on weapons exports comes at the expense of programmes designed to promote economic development and social welfare in recipient countries," he said.

If he were an African leader, Boesak told the conference to many approving nods, "I would look very closely at agreements I sign with (US President) George Bush today, and see what is aid..."

On the questions of wars, he said these not only cost money, but also "make money for somebody".

"War is, above all, a highly profitable business, and we ignore that fact at our peril," Boesak said. "It helps explains the millions dead in wars since 1945... namely the common interest of the military-industrial complexes of the West and East and the power elites of the developing world."

Turning to debt relief, he said the cancellation of the debt of 18 of the world's poorest countries, announced by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations at the weekend, was a drop in the ocean.

"We are not touching reality here, ladies and gentlemen," he said.

Unless discussions about debt relief yield tangible results, and more aid than the promised $40-billion is received, "the African Renaissance may yet die in its infancy".

Boesak referred extensively to Africa's colonial and apartheid past, and what he described as the "destruction of kingdoms, the rape of our continent and the theft of our land".

The ongoing exploitation of Africa ensured the continued development of rich nations, he said.
Full: ioa.co.za
rootsie on 06.17.05 @ 07:03 PM CST [link]
Thursday, June 16th

Bush's climate row aide joins oil giant

A senior White House official accused of doctoring government reports on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming has taken a job with ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company.
Philip Cooney, who resigned as chief of staff of the White House council on environment quality at the weekend, will begin work at the oil giant in the autumn.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 08:40 PM CST [link]

The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue


by Greg Palast
gregpalast.com
Greg Palast, unable to attend hearings in Washington Thursday, has submitted the following testimony:

Chairman Conyers, It's official: The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls." You are warned, Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and "opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED," bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD -- "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive. But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the war-hawk policy.

Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.
Full: zmag.org
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 08:37 PM CST [more..]

Bloodsuckers' Summit

by John Hilary
British trade officials admit that the 'development agenda' has little relevance to their real work. Responding to a strong steer from lobby groups such as the Confederation of British Industry, the driving impulse is to achieve new market access for British business through the increased liberalisation of the manufacturing, industrial and services sectors of the developing world. The UK has by its own admission been at the forefront of the campaign to open up developing country markets in these sectors. The Labour Party's manifesto statement that "We do not believe poor countries should be forced to liberalise" rings hollow in the face of this reality.

The UK is by no means alone in dancing to a corporate tune. All other G8 countries base their policies on the wishes of their corporate lobby groups, many of which also band together in international federations such as the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), not to mention regional groupings such as the European Services Forum and UNICE, the EU employers' federation. In addition to their regular lobbying of G8 country representatives, the ICC has the special privilege of making a formal presentation to every G8 summit. Lest there be any doubt, it has identified the WTO trade negotiations as its top priority for the coming year.

The G8's paramount concern is control of the global economy for the benefit of its corporate sponsors. This control is maintained on a day-to-day basis through the institutions listed above, but ultimately it rests on military domination and the demonisation of opposition forces. The so-called 'war against terror' was explicitly linked to the G8's economic agenda following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, when delegates attending the WTO's Doha Ministerial Conference were told that opposition to a new round of trade liberalisation would be interpreted as support for terrorism. The security cordon thrown round Gleneagles is no more than a symbol of the military power which sustains the capitalist adventure worldwide.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 08:22 PM CST [link]

Al-Zarqawi Blamed for Spike in Iraq Deaths

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.S. general on Thursday blamed Iraq's recent spike in bloodshed on a terrorist leader condoning the killing of fellow Muslims, while a suicide car bomber rammed into a truck in Baghdad, killing at least eight police officers and wounding 25 others.

The U.S. military also reported that five Marines and a sailor were killed Wednesday near the volatile western city of Ramadi.

Separately, Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez was charged with murder Wednesday in the deaths last week of two Army officers at a base north of Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

The military initially attributed the June 7 killings of the officers - Capt. Phillip T. Esposito 30, of Suffern, N.Y., and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa. - to an insurgent mortar attack near Tikrit but said further investigation showed the blast pattern was inconsistent with such an attack.

Jordanian-born terrorist leader Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's hope to provoke sectarian war suffered a setback Thursday when the Shiite-led parliament and leaders of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, which is thought to provide the backbone of the insurgency, agreed on a process for drafting Iraq's constitution.

Elsewhere, dozens of hooded insurgents surrounded a downtown mosque in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, to prevent a meeting of local politicians and tribal leaders on the country's new charter and reconciliation efforts.

``We told them to leave Iraq's issues for us, we are the only ones who can liberate Iraq by fighting infidels and not by holding conferences. And instead of spending money for this conference, they have to give it to us to buy weapons to help our fighting against the Americans,'' a masked man told Iraqi reporters outside the empty mosque.

U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston took aim at al-Zarqawi, saying the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq is most responsible for the nearly 1,100 violent deaths since the Shiite-led government took office seven weeks ago.

``With Zarqawi's push recently, we certainly see the fantastic rise in the number of civilians killed, given that he has proclaimed that taking out civilians is an acceptable thing,'' said Alston, spokesman for the U.S.-led international military force in Iraq.

Last month, an audiotape said to be from al-Zarqawi denounced the country's majority Shiites as collaborators with the Americans and said it was justified for Muslims to kill such people even if they are Muslims.

Alston's focus on al-Zarqawi, whose small group is blamed for many of the bloodiest attacks and hostage takings in Iraq, apparently was aimed at reinforcing growing dissatisfaction among Iraqis over insurgents targeting civilians. He said that anger has brought an increase in calls to tip lines.

``We are getting reports that cells in his network are concerned about the consequences of this behavior and a consequence of what it has done to the Iraqi people,'' Alston said. ``The Iraqi people are increasingly exposing the insurgency. This is not a popular insurgency.''
Full: guardian.co.uk

Gee Zarqawi is doing the Americans so much good he ought to be working for them. O wait...he probably is.
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 08:13 PM CST [link]

Bono talks of US crusade

There have been dinners with Brad and Jennifer and drinks with Tom Hanks and Cameron Diaz. So far, so routine for a rock star on a mission.
But the sharpest advice Bono received on how to win American hearts and minds around to his crusade on Africa came from an altogether less expected source: the legendary stock market investor Warren Buffett.

The Irish rock star, who has arguably done more than any other to ensure that the cause of Africa gets on to the agenda of the US administration, has stepped up his lobbying while on U2's Vertigo tour in the US over the last two months to increase the pressure in the run-up to the G8 summit next month in Gleneagles.

Earlier this week he told the Guardian in Cologne how advice from Buffett, reportedly the second richest man in America, had shaped his strategy: "Warren Buffett told me, 'Don't appeal to the conscience of America, appeal to its greatness, and I think you'll get the job done'."
Others enlisted in Bono's crusade have included the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the former Republican senator Jesse Helms, and figures on the religious right such as Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. The rock star described in his only newspaper interview before next month's G8 summit how he has shared a laugh with President Bush, whom he describes as "very funny".

He has not been afraid to use his Christian faith to appeal to the American religious right, dining with Billy Graham and his son Franklin, and quoting Gospel verses to Jesse Helms, which reduced the 83-year-old Republican to tears.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 08:04 PM CST [link]

'Exit Strategy' Is More Than a Whisper in Washington, With Lawmakers Speaking Out

WASHINGTON, June 15 - Celeste Zappala, whose son died in Iraq, visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to demand "a very quick exit strategy." Her timing was perfect.

With opinion polls showing a drop in support for the war, and a British memo asserting that the Bush administration had intended to go to war as early as the summer of 2002, the words "exit strategy" are being uttered by both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The flurry began over the weekend, when Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, a conservative Republican, called for the Bush administration to set specific goals for leaving Iraq. That came from the man who was once so upset about French opposition to the war that he insisted that House cafeterias change the name "French fries" to "freedom fries."

But it does not end there.

Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, has introduced in the Senate a measure similar to the nonbinding resolution that Mr. Jones is offering. In the House, the International Relations Committee last week voted overwhelmingly, 32 to 9, to call on the White House to develop and submit a plan to Congress for establishing a stable government and military in Iraq that would "permit a decreased U.S. presence" there.

On Thursday, Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, will convene a forum on the so-called Downing Street Memo, a leaked document that appeared to suggest the White House had made a decision to go to war in the summer of 2002. Next week, Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat, is planning to read on the House floor the names of approximately 1,700 Americans who have died in the war.
Full: nytimes.com

It is far too late to be talking 'exit strategy.'
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 07:35 PM CST [link]

Durbin Supports the Troops

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis:

"When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

We are fighting an enemy that murdered 3,000 innocent people on American soil 3 1/2 years ago and would murder millions more if given the chance--and according to Dick Durbin, our soldiers are the Nazis.
Full: wall street journal

No, the soldiers are taking orders from the Nazis.
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 07:28 PM CST [link]

'Exit Strategy' Is More Than a Whisper in Washington, With Lawmakers Speaking Out

WASHINGTON, June 15 - Celeste Zappala, whose son died in Iraq, visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to demand "a very quick exit strategy." Her timing was perfect.

With opinion polls showing a drop in support for the war, and a British memo asserting that the Bush administration had intended to go to war as early as the summer of 2002, the words "exit strategy" are being uttered by both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The flurry began over the weekend, when Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, a conservative Republican, called for the Bush administration to set specific goals for leaving Iraq. That came from the man who was once so upset about French opposition to the war that he insisted that House cafeterias change the name "French fries" to "freedom fries."

But it does not end there.

Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, has introduced in the Senate a measure similar to the nonbinding resolution that Mr. Jones is offering. In the House, the International Relations Committee last week voted overwhelmingly, 32 to 9, to call on the White House to develop and submit a plan to Congress for establishing a stable government and military in Iraq that would "permit a decreased U.S. presence" there.

On Thursday, Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, will convene a forum on the so-called Downing Street Memo, a leaked document that appeared to suggest the White House had made a decision to go to war in the summer of 2002. Next week, Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat, is planning to read on the House floor the names of approximately 1,700 Americans who have died in the war.

Though most Republicans are steering clear of the exit strategy discussion, a handful are joining in. One, Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a longtime opponent of the war, has signed onto Mr. Jones's resolution and will join him in meeting reporters on Thursday. Another, Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina, is considering it.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.16.05 @ 10:08 AM CST [link]
Wednesday, June 15th

Privatization Hangs Over Debt Relief


LONDON - The G7 finance ministers agreed Saturday to write off the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, but firm prescriptions of privatization hovered over the debt relief offer.

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven of the world's leading industrialized nations -- United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and Italy (the G8, minus Russia) -- agreed to write off 100 percent of the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. That will amount to debt cancellation of about two billion dollars a year.

Campaigners focusing on debt relief welcomed the move. But the finance ministers' agreement contains a provision on privatization that has the potential to deliver to them more money than they wrote off.

The ministers reaffirmed in a statement at the end of their two-day meeting Saturday that "in order to make progress on social and economic development, it is essential that developing countries put in place the policies for economic growth." Among these, they must "boost private sector development, and attract investment," and ensure "the elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign."
Full: commondreams.org

But of course. This is the devil's bargain.
rootsie on 06.15.05 @ 08:11 AM CST [more..]
Tuesday, June 14th

Memo Suggests Oil-For-Food Link to Annan

The committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food program announced Tuesday it will again investigate Secretary-General Kofi Annan after an e-mail suggested he may have known more than he claimed about a multimillion-dollar U.N. contract awarded to the company that employed his son.

The e-mail describes a brief encounter in which officials from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspections S.A. discussed its bid for the contract during a summit in Paris in late 1998. Through his spokesman, Annan said he had no recollection of such a meeting.

If accurate, the e-mailed memo would contradict a major finding the Independent Inquiry Committee made in March - that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win the Iraq oil-for-food contract.

In a statement, the Independent Inquiry Committee said it was "urgently reviewing" the memo.

"Does this raise a question? Sure," said Reid Morden, executive director of the probe.
Full: daileycomet.com

Well the Independent Inquiry Committee said it so it must be true. Are these the same guys who tried to sandbag Galloway? There is a very funny and damning picture that accompanies this article, showing Annan and Chirac in a conspiratorial tete-a-tete.
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 04:14 PM CST [link]

Are the Moonies staging an insurrection against their Bushie pals?

Washington, DC, Jun. 13 (UPI) -- Insider notes from United Press International for June 8

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

Two years after President George W. Bush proclaimed "mission accomplished" in Iraq, some thoughtful officers are beginning to question who the insurgents actually are. In a recent interview the head of the US 42nd Infantry Division which covers key trouble spots, including Baquba and Samarra Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary Iraqis would take up arms against U.S. forces because "they're offended by our presence." Taluto added, "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could (want to fight us). There is a sense of a good resistance, or an accepted resistance. They say 'okay, if you shoot a coalition soldier, that's okay, it's not a bad thing but you shouldn't kill other Iraqis.'" Taluto insisted however that the other foreign forces would not be driven out of Iraq by violence, observing, "If the goal is to have the coalition leave, attacking them isn't the way," he said. "The way to make it happen is to enter the political process cooperate and the coalition will be less aggressive and less visible and eventually it'll go away." Taluto's comments are sure to raise hackles at the Pentagon, which insist that all insurgents are either Baathists or al-Qaida. Taluto observed that "99.9 per cent" of those captured fighting the U.S. were Iraqis.

Full: washingtontimes.com

All of this sudden candor from the extreme right-wing is FREAKING ME OUT.
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 04:03 PM CST [link]

Putin's 'cannibals' gaffe

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin sparked uproar yesterday by saying Africans had a history of CANNIBALISM.

He lashed out at the continent’s past after being challenged about his human rights’ record.

In an astonishing outburst, Mr Putin said: “We all know that African countries used to have a tradition of eating their own adversaries.

“We don’t have such a tradition or process or culture and I believe the comparison between Africa and Russia is not quite just.”

Tony Blair, who had just finished talks with Mr Putin, was left squirming with embarrassment as the former KGB boss let rip.

Minutes before the outburst, Mr Blair had hailed reaching a deal with the Russian leader on aid and debt relief for Africa.

But Mr Putin’s remarks about cannibalism will be greeted with astonishment in Africa and the wider world, as he will succeed the PM as G8 president next year.

Commission for Racial Equality chief Trevor Phillips said last night: “What a preposterous thing to say. He is at best insensitive and at worst a downright racist.”

Mr Putin had invited Mr Blair to his country residence for talks about the Prime Minister’s drive to wipe out third world poverty before next month’s G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The pair struck a deal after Mr Blair agreed to Mr Putin’s demands that aid was linked to Africa’s move towards democracy.

Earlier Mr Blair made a grovelling public apology for being the only senior world leader to miss a gathering to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Moscow last month.

He sent Deputy PM John Prescott instead.

Without prompting, Mr Blair said sorry yesterday and paid tribute to the “courage, dedication and heroism” of the Russian people.
Full: thesun.co.uk

It takes a racist to know one. Look at the Brits acting all superior while they have 'raised' racist discourse into a subtle art form. It was the indelicacy of Putin's 'astonishing [read crazy Russian] outburst' that offended them.
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 03:50 PM CST [link]

Mother of dead soldier vilifies Bush over war

The president of Gold Star Families for Peace, a mother who lost a son in Iraq, criticized the United States' "illegal and unjust war" yesterday during an interfaith rally in Lexington.

Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., accused President Bush of lying to the nation about a war which has consumed tens of billions of dollars and claimed more than 1,700 American lives -- including the life of Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan.

Sheehan was one of more than a dozen activists who were scheduled to speak at yesterday's anti-war rally at the Red Mile, which was organized by the Clergy and Laity Network and co-sponsored by dozens of liberal religious organizations.

Sheehan ridiculed Bush for saying that it's "hard work" comforting the widow of a soldier who's been killed in Iraq.

"Hard work is seeing your son's murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you're enjoying the last supper you'll ever truly enjoy again. Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son, your first-born, your kind and gentle sweet baby. Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big (brother) into the ground. Hard work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both," she said.
Full: www.kentucky.com
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 03:43 PM CST [link]

Israel tries to defuse arms sale dispute with U.S.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is trying to defuse a festering dispute over longstanding U.S. opposition to its arms sales to China and faces new U.S. demands for closer oversight of weapons deals with India, Israeli officials said on Tuesday.

The affair has strained security ties between Israel and the United States, its main ally and provider of about $2 billion in annual defense aid, at a time when it seeks U.S. assistance to help implement its planned withdrawal from Gaza this August.

"There is a crisis that has been going on for almost a year," Yuval Steinitz, head of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Israel Radio.

Israel's Haaretz daily reported the United States recently suspended several weapons and technology projects with Israel, moves which the newspaper said deepened the dispute that erupted last year over Israeli-supplied Harpy attack drones to China.

Israeli defense officials denied the report but said that Washington, seeking better supervision of Israeli arms sales to countries the United States deems problematic, now wants Israel to obtain advance approval for any weapons deals with India.
Full: washingtonpost.com

I always figure that when it comes to arms sales, Israel is doing proxy work for the US
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 03:22 PM CST [link]

A Movement Grows In Brooklyn

No one needs to tell Sofia Campos what hard work is all about. Since coming to New York City from Mexico in 1993, she has been employed at a succession of the low wage jobs that newly arrived immigrants often fill. But nothing prepared Sofia for her experience working at a small chain store in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.

"I worked from 9 a.m. until 7:30 at night, six days a week," Sofia said.

"I earned $240 per week, but I would have been earning $358 if I had been paid the minimum wage," she added, noting that several of her co-workers were also underpaid.

Sofia's story is not unfamiliar to the workers at the 175 stores that line this busy section of Knickerbocker Avenue. Like her, many come to Bushwick from the Caribbean or Latin America and find work at retailers who deny them wages they are legally entitled to.

Luckily, Sofia reached out to Make the Road by Walking, a Bushwick-based community organization. Together, they launched a consumer boycott that eventually forced the employer to pay Sofia and her coworkers the $65,000 they were entitled to.

Working with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the activists forced another merchant to pay more than $27,000 to four employees who had each been paid only $320 after putting in 72 hour work weeks.

Has it always been this way in Bushwick? Hardly. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, most of the stores on Knickerbocker Avenue were "mom and pop" operations whose owners often lived in the community they served. Most importantly, employees at more than half of the stores on Knickerbocker Avenue were protected by union contracts. They not only earned more than the minimum wage, they also received health insurance and other needed benefits. To retain good workers, many non-union businesses felt obliged to follow suit.

However, the mom and pop retailers have since been replaced by small, non-union chain stores. Instead of treating employees as a valuable asset, these businesses often regard them as expenses to be cut.

What is happening on Knickerbocker Avenue is not unique to Bushwick, either. A 2003 study for the Economic Policy Institute by Dr. Moshe Adler of Columbia University found that the wages and benefits of New York's retail workers are so meager that taxpayers spend $1.1 billion annually to provide the health insurance, rent subsidies and other assistance they and their families need to survive. In other words, retailers are nickel and diming workers and New York taxpayers are getting stuck with the tab.

americanprogress.org
rootsie on 06.14.05 @ 10:07 AM CST [link]
Monday, June 13th

Bush Urges African Leaders to Press Reforms

President Bush, meeting in Washington with the leaders of five African nations, said today that democratic reforms and free trade were the best ways to help poor nations.

Mr. Bush's remarks follow an announcement on Saturday that the world's wealthiest nations would cancel at least $40 billion of debt owed to international agencies by the world's poorest countries, most of them in Africa.

The Group of 8 - the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia - agreed that the best solution to poor countries' indebtedness was to cancel their debt burden completely rather than easing it by taking over interest repayments. But in his remarks today, made as he stood alongside the presidents of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger, Mr. Bush also seemed to be saying that economic stability and growth had to go hand in hand with political reforms.

"All the presidents gathered here represent countries that have held democratic elections in the last year," Mr. Bush said. "What a strong statement that these leaders have made about democracy and the importance of democracy on the continent of Africa.

"All of us share a fundamental commitment to advancing democracy and opportunity on the continent of Africa, and all of us believe that one of the most effective ways to advance democracy and deliver hope to the people of Africa is through mutually beneficial trade," he said.

Mr. Bush devoted most of his remarks during his appearance at the Executive Office Building, next to the White House, to hailing the successes of the African Growth and Opportunity Act that was approved by Congress in 2000.

The act reduced or eliminated tariffs and quotas on more than 1,800 items from some African countries, and Mr. Bush said today that exports from those nations to the United States were up 88 percent over the year before. The agreement requires participating countries to show that they are making progress toward a market-based economy, the protection of workers' rights and policies that will reduce poverty.

"We have opened our markets, and people are now making goods that the United States consumers want to buy," Mr. Bush said. "And that's helpful. That's how you spread wealth. That's how you encourage hope and opportunity."

He said that over the same period, United States exports to sub-Saharan Africa were up by 25 percent.

"In other words, this is a two-way street," he said. "Not only have folks in Africa benefited by selling products in the United States, American businesses, small and large, have benefited through the opening of the African market as well."

Mr. Bush said that the agreement announced on Saturday would benefit nations "that have put themselves on the path to reform."

"We believe that by removing a crippling debt burden, we'll help millions of Africans improve their lives and grow their economies," he said.

Mr. Bush also emphasized that the United States was committed to helping fight the spread of HIV and AIDS, and said that the United States was well on its way to reaching a five-year goal of providing treatment to nearly two million Africans.

"These are just some of the initiatives that we're pursuing to help Africa's leaders bring democracy and prosperity and hope to their people," Mr. Bush said.
Full: nytimes.com

The only thing they 'bring' is the worst sort of hypocrisy.
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:43 PM CST [link]

U.S. Panel's Report Criticizes U.N. and Proposes Overhaul


UNITED NATIONS, June 12 - A Congressionally mandated panel will report this week that the United Nations suffers from poor management, "dismal" staff morale and lack of accountability and professional ethics but will acknowledge the broad changes proposed for the organization by Secretary General Kofi Annan and urge the United States to support them.
Full: nytimes.com

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:38 PM CST [more..]

As Iraqi Army Trains, Word in the Field Is It May Take Years

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq - A small but telling test of Iraq's fledgling army came recently in this troubled farm town south of Baghdad, when a group of Iraqi soldiers, ending a house raid and rushing to board pickups they use as troop carriers, abandoned the blindfolded, handcuffed man they had come to arrest.

A mission by new Iraqi troops at Mahmudiya was rated a limited success. More Photos >
"They left the detainee," an astonished American soldier said, spotting the man squatting in the dust along a residential street. "They just left him there. Sweet."

The Iraqi troops were on their seventh house raid of the morning, part of a cordon-and-search operation in an area of towns and farmland so dangerous that American soldiers call it the Triangle of Death. Prompted by the soldier, the Iraqis ran back for the detainee, and managed much of the rest of their mission effectively, rounding up 13 insurgent suspects in three hours without having to call for direct involvement of the watching American troops.

Such limited successes stand against a backdrop of American disappointment with many of the Iraqi units, whose effectiveness is crucial to a future American troop withdrawal.

Despite the Bush administration's insistent optimism, Americans working with the Iraqis in the field believe that it could be several years, at least, before the new Iraqi forces will be ready to stand alone against the insurgents.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:32 PM CST [link]

Apple's Jobs Tells Graduates About Dropout

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates Sunday that dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made because it forced him to be innovative _ even when it came to finding enough money for dinner.

In an unusually candid commencement speech, Jobs also told the almost 5,000 graduates that his bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer reemphasized the need to live each day to the fullest.

"Your time is limited so don't let it be wasted living someone else's life," Jobs said to a packed stadium of graduates, alumni and family.
Full:washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:29 PM CST [link]

U.S. to Review Heart Drug Intended for One Race

In 1997, a new heart failure treatment called BiDil appeared dead on arrival. The Food and Drug Administration rejected the drug, saying that studies supporting it were inconclusive.

Then, proponents of BiDil refocused their strategy. This Thursday, eight years after the drug was rejected for use in the general public, an F.D.A. panel will consider whether BiDil should become the first drug intended for one racial group, in this case, African-Americans.

A study of 1,050 African-American heart failure patients showed that BiDil significantly reduced death and hospitalization, prompting the American Heart Association to call BiDil one of the top developments of 2004. BiDil increases levels of nitric oxide, which widens blood vessels.

The drug's maker, NitroMed Inc., says its decision to test and market BiDil as a drug for African-Americans is based on solid science. But BiDil's application has engendered controversy, with many scientists convinced that race is too broad and ill-defined a category to be relevant in determining a drug's approval, especially since geneticists have failed to identify a biological divide separating one race from another.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:26 PM CST [link]

Earth's “Bigger Cousin” Detected

Astronomers announced today the discovery of the smallest planet so far found outside of our solar system. About seven-and-a-half times as massive as Earth, and about twice as wide, this new extrasolar planet may be the first rocky world ever found orbiting a star similar to our own.

"This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets," said team member Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It's like Earth's bigger cousin."

Currently around 150 extrasolar planets are known, and the number continues to grow. But most of these far-off worlds are large gas giants like Jupiter. Only recently have astronomers started detecting smaller massed objects

"We keep pushing the limits of what we can detect, and we're getting closer and closer to finding Earths," said team member Steven Vogt from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Full: www.space.com
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:23 PM CST [link]

China's secret internet police target critics with web of propaganda

China's communist authorities have intensified their campaign against the party's biggest potential enemy - the internet - with the recruitment of a growing army of secret web commentators, sophisticated new monitoring software and a warning that all bloggers and bulletin board operators must register with the government or be closed down and fined.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.13.05 @ 10:20 PM CST [link]
Sunday, June 12th

Don't take the blue pill

by Gary Younge
...Such selective amnesia is not confined to the south or to segregation. The war on terror is being fought with convenient disregard for the fact that the terrorists the US is fighting today it armed only yesterday, and that among its allies today are vicious dictators that it will undoubtedly attack tomorrow. Nor is it confined to the US. The whole debate around debt relief in the UK takes place as though Britain had no responsibility for the state that Africa is in today. Those who lambast Africa for its rampant corruption and poor governance forget that most of these dictators have been knowingly propped up by the west. They lecture Africa on the need for democracy apparently unaware that the continent only got a shot at democracy once Europeans left.

Those who deride Make Poverty History and other activists for their naivety in trying to challenge inequalities bequeathed from the past are in need of a new slogan for a new wristband: Make History Impoverished. For the trouble is not that this sense of collective historical identity does not exist - Britons and Americans have no trouble saying "We beat the Germans and the Japanese" when referring to the second world war. It's that they apply it only selectively. Nobody says, "We backed death squads", "We lynched children", or "We tortured Kenyans" - even though these happened more recently.

The target here is not individual guilt - there are therapists for that - but a collective reckoning with the past that would help make sense of the present. Like everyone else, African-Americans, Africans and Arabs must naturally take responsibility for their own actions. But to pretend that their choices are not shaped and limited by the past is not just dishonest; it leads ineluctably to the racist conclusion that Arabs can't handle democracy, black Americans are inveterate criminals and Africans just can't cut it in the modern world.

"I am born with a past," writes Alasdair MacIntyre in his book After Virtue. "And to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships."
guardian.co.uk

This article is better than most, but still the problem is how the rest of the world is subjected to the white world's interminable conversations with itself, these narratives of empire:we will be the ones who will 'make poverty history.' If we think in terms of reparations rather than aid, then it naturally follows that it is for Africa to dictate the terms.
rootsie on 06.12.05 @ 11:18 PM CST [link]

The frontier continent


Tony Blair's Commission for Africa has left me bewildered. As an anthropologist interested in "traditional" medicine, I was delighted to see its report's attempt to take an Africa-centred point of view. Reading a sentence stating that "history shows African cultures to have been tremendously adaptive, absorbing a wide range of outside influences" is a relief to those of us who have tried for years to make this point. The commission is far better placed than any academic to bring to the world's attention the energy and ingenuity with which African people have engaged and resolved the problems facing them.

But I was frustrated by what seems to be our incapacity to escape our own mental traditions - the casts of mind that always seem to come into play when we imagine Africa. Nowhere were these more in evidence than in the report's discussion of the role of religion in African social life. On the one hand, it justly draws attention to the significance of religions in enriching social relations, creating accountability and empowering local people.

On the other hand, the report seems to be impressed by religion chiefly because of its potential usefulness as a tool for economic development. We are told that religion succeeds where the state fails, that faith leaders have a significant role to play in shaping social attitudes, that religion can be a model for the state and that it commands the kind of loyalty and energy that was given to nationalist causes during and just after Africa's struggles for independence.

To regard religion in Africa in these terms is to put their religion where our politics should be. Our error begins with the place in our imaginations that we force Africa to occupy. We are subject to "African exceptionalism": a sense thatAfrica is so different, so impossible to organise, that any undertaking is practically pointless. It is the sense that African people are unruly as citizens and irresponsible as politicians and bureaucrats. Africa's state is always behind. We never perceive it as leading the way. Economically and politically, Africa is held back, not yet caught up. Exceptionalism heightens the temptation to look at the continent as a problem or an illness.
rootsie on 06.12.05 @ 10:50 PM CST [more..]

White House Calls Editing Climate Files Part of Usual Review

Bush administration officials said yesterday that revisions to reports on climate change made by Philip A. Cooney, a former oil-industry lobbyist now working at the White House, were part of the normal review before publishing projects that involved many agencies.

"There are policy people and scientists who are involved in this process, in the interagency review process, and he's one of the policy people involved in that process," Mr. McClellan said, according to a transcript by Federal News Service Inc. "And he's someone who's very familiar with the issues relating to climate change and the environment."

The revisions, many of which cast doubt on findings that climate scientists say are robust, prompted strong criticisms of the administration from scientists and environmental groups after they were reported yesterday in The New York Times.

Mr. Cooney, 45, is chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which helps shape and carry out the president's environmental policies. A lawyer with no scientific training, he moved to the White House in 2001 after having worked for more than 10 years for the American Petroleum Institute, the oil-industry lobby. His last title there was climate team leader, and his focus was defeating plans to restrict heat-trapping gases.
Full: nytimes.com

Good to know old boy is keeping his 'focus.'
rootsie on 06.12.05 @ 10:36 PM CST [link]
Saturday, June 11th

Campaigners on verge of stunning victory in battle for Africa debt deal


A popular campaign which mobilised millions of people to demand that rich countries lift Africa out of debt, poverty and disease will score a stunning victory later today.

At lunchtime, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, will unveil a deal to slash billions of pounds of debt payments by some of the world's poorest countries.

The final terms of the deal were struck last night after last-minute negotiations between finance ministers from the G8 nations.

Mr Brown yesterday hailed the agreement as "the biggest debt settlement the world has ever seen" that would be worth more than $50bn (£25bn). "America, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy have all come together with one proposal, that is comprehensive, in other words it involves dozens of countries," he said. He added that 18 countries would have their $40bn debt of wiped out immediately, saving them aid payments of $15bn over the next decade. That would be extended to a further nine countries in 12 to 18 months - taking the total to $51bn and a final 11 raising the total-write-off to $55bn.
Full: independent.co.uk

Ah the pageants of imperialism...stunning victory? For whom? Against whom? As far as I remember, this 'massive mobilization' started up about 2 weeks ago, while Brown and Blair came up with their big plan 6 months ago. "A face saving exercise for politicians?" This plan was cooked up by politicians for politicians, and the 'massive mobilization' was convened practically overnight to lend it some credibility. This is what Western 'democracy' looks like. If you want to see real peoples' mobilization for truly democratic goals, check Bolivia. You don't hear anybody in this supposed left-wing Make Poverty History campaign speaking out against privatization. This is just the 21st century face of the Scramble for Africa. And now, as then, the voice of Africa is not heard. Only Brown et. al. are qualified to speak for them, think for them, plan for them, do for them. And with few exceptions, all these activists and anarchists and whatnot are completely off the mark in their analysis, if you can call it that. Reparations. Not aid. Dialogue. Not a one-way self-congratulatory conversation. A true engagement with history, not the digging up of a poor black boy's body 50 years later to put his dead murderer on trial (I'm talking about Emmett Till). An end to corporate imperialism. Yeah right, like that will be happening anytime soon. Here is the utter moral bunkruptcy of the West on pitiful display: it is not only unwilling but totally unable to acknowledge and address its own mess, let alone bring justice anywhere to anyone.
rootsie on 06.11.05 @ 08:16 PM CST [more..]

Emergency Preparedness against the "Universal Adversary"

Orwellian "Scenarios"

A recent Report of the Homeland Security Council entitled Planning Scenarios describes in minute detail, the Bush administration's preparations in the case of a terrorist attack by an outside enemy called the Universal Adversary (UA).

The Universal Adversary, is identified in the scenarios as an abstract entity used for the purposes of simulation. Yet upon more careful examination, this Universal Adversary is by no means illusory. It includes the following categories of potential "conspirators":

"foreign [Islamic] terrorists" ,

"domestic radical groups", [antiwar and civil rights groups]

"state sponsored adversaries" ["rogue states", "unstable nations"]

"disgruntled employees" [labor and union activists].

According to the Planning Scenarios Report :

"Because the attacks could be caused by foreign terrorists; domestic radical groups; state sponsored adversaries; or in some cases, disgruntled employees, the perpetrator has been named, the Universal Adversary (UA). The focus of the scenarios is on response capabilities and needs, not threat-based prevention activities." (See Planning Scenarios )

The domestic radical groups and labor activists, which visibly constitute a threat to the established political order, are now conveniently lumped together with foreign Islamic terrorists, suggesting that the PATRIOT anti-terror laws together with the Big Brother law enforcement apparatus are eventually intended to be used against potential domestic "adversaries".

While the Universal Adversary is "make-believe", the simulations constitute a dress rehearsal of a real life emergency situation:

"The scenarios have been developed in a way that allows them to be adapted to local conditions throughout the country"

Fifteen Distinct Scenarios

The scenarios cover the entire array of threats:

15 distinct threat scenarios to the Security of America carried out by four categories of enemies: Islamic terrorists, radical groups, rogue adversaries and labor activists.

The scenarios simulate operations carried out by the Universal Adversary (UA). They include inter alia a nuclear detonation (with a small 10-Kiloton improvised nuclear device, anthrax attacks, a biological disease outbreak including a pandemic influenza, not to mention a biological plague outbreak. Various forms of chemical weapons attacks are also envisaged including the use of toxic industrial chemicals, and nerve gas. Radiological attacks through the emission of a radioactive aerosol are also envisaged. (See Text box below)

What is revealing in the "doomsday scripts" is that they bear no resemblance to the weaponry used by clandestine urban "terrorists". In fact, in several cases, they correspond to weapons systems which are part of the US arsenal and which have been used in US sponsored military operations. The description of the nuclear device bears a canny resemblance to America's tactical nuclear weapon ("mini nuke") , which also has a 10-kiloton yield, approximately two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. That Homeland Security should actually envisage a make believe scenario of large scale nuclear attacks by 'domestic radicals' and/or Islamic terrorists borders on the absurd.

With regard to the nerve gas attack scenario, in a cruel irony, it is the same type of nerve gas (as well as mustard gas) used by the US military against civilians in Fallujah.
Full: globalresearch.ca
rootsie on 06.11.05 @ 09:18 AM CST [link]

Strategies of Struggle: The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America

by James Petras
For over a century social analysts of the right and left have been predicting the disappearance of the peasantry, with the advance of capitalism. Even today some of the more prominent authors of the Left, like Eric Hobsbawn, write of the marginalization of the peasantry deducing their conclusions from quantitative demographic data.

In terms of policy, on the neo-liberal right, President Da Silva of Brazil and his Agricultural Minister have provided vast resources to the agro-business export sector, and have relegated ecological, human rights, small farmers and landless workers demands to the lowest of priorities.

Despite this apparent consensus among academics and politicians, the peasantry refuses to disappear, or to play a marginal role. Despite the decline in the relative percentage of rural inhabitants, the peasantry over the past 20 years has re-emerged as an historical actor, playing a central role in changing regimes, determining national agendas, leading struggles against international trade agreements (ALCA or Free Trade Area of the Americas) as well as establishing regional and local bases of power. In many countries coalitions of landless farm workers, small family farmers and peasants have been central to national struggles against neo-liberal regimes and free trade policies. In some cases rural movements have detonated larger struggles, activating urban classes, trade unions, civic groups and human rights organizations.
axisoflogic.com
rootsie on 06.11.05 @ 09:06 AM CST [link]

Bush and 'the memo'

President Bush apparently thinks he can dismiss the damning "Downing Street memo" with a few glib words.

If he is right, it is a sad commentary on the state of American democracy and values.

The memo, recounting the details of a July 23, 2002, meeting at British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official residence on 10 Downing St., strongly suggested that the message had been sent across the Atlantic that the Bush White House had made the decision to wage war on Iraq. The minutes of the meeting indicated that Blair and his top-level intelligence and foreign-policy aides were given clear signals that military action was "inevitable."

In the most disturbing passage of the minutes, the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service, reporting on his recent trip to Washington, told the group that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of a war to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Bush was finally asked about the memo directly this week, during a media availability with Blair. Bush tried to discredit the memo because of the timing of its disclosure -- just days before Blair's re-election. But it is important to note that no one has challenged the authenticity of the memo nor the accuracy of its account of the meeting.

Bush also scoffed at the suggestion that the decision to go to war had been made by July 2002, nearly a year before U.S. bombs began raining on Baghdad. "There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush told reporters. "My conversation with the prime minister was, how can we do this peacefully?"
Full:sfgate.com/san fran chronicle
rootsie on 06.11.05 @ 08:48 AM CST [link]

India "Boom" an Environmental Disaster, Arundhati Roy says


NEW DELHI - India's economic boom is causing unsustainable environmental damage and is blinding people to the misery of hundreds of millions of poor, prize-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy said.

"Even if you know what is going on, you can't help thinking India is this cool place now, Bollywood is 'in' and all of us have mobile phones," Roy told Reuters in an interview.

"But it is almost as if the light is shining so brightly that you do not notice the darkness," she said. "There is no understanding whatsoever of what price is being paid by the rivers and mountains and irrigation and ground water, there is no questioning of that because we are on a roll."

"India shining" was the campaign motto of the Bharatiya Janata Party which lost last year's election, unable to capitalise on the fast-growing economy and failing to convince the rural poor that economic reforms were benefitting them.

Roy won the 1997 Booker prize for her first novel "The God of Small Things". Since then, she has become a leading environmental activist and opponent of big dams, which have displaced millions.

She said India's environment faced a major crisis, caused by industrial pollution, by big dams, and in particular by unsustainable use of ground water to irrigate thirsty cash crops such as soyabeans, peanuts and sugarcane.

"When the only logic is the market, when there is no respect for ecosystems, for the amount of water available... then we are in for a lot of trouble," she said. "You have to have a system where people have access to some amount of water to grow whatever is sustainable for them to survive."
Full: commondreams.org
rootsie on 06.11.05 @ 08:44 AM CST [more..]
Friday, June 10th

Salih Booker on Africa Debt: The Poorest Regions in the World Have Subsidized the Richest

...The chronic famine that a number of countries face, like Ethiopia or Eritrea, the food insecurity, is just a symptom of the larger issue of the growing disparities between this wealthy minority represented by the G8, the leaders who will meet in Scotland next month, and the vast majority of the world, as indicative of the plight facing so many Africans on the continent. When you have this rich minority in a position of absolute control over the institutions of global governance, like the World Bank or the I.M.F., the U.S. being allowed to appoint the president of an international institution like the World Bank, the Europeans have their pick in appointing the president of the I.M.F. Then you understand that we live in political economy of essentially global apartheid, international minority rule, where this tiny minority of rich states are dictating economic rules, political rules that the rest of the world must follow if it’s going to have access essentially to financing for development. But, again, this issue of how famine in Africa is manipulated by the Bush administration to show its compassionate side, that's exactly what yesterday's press conference was all about. It appeals to the worst of American ignorance to this racist preconception of Africa as a continent just of starving people and, gee, isn't the United States generous in giving more food assistance, as a way of denying the real role of the United States and other rich countries in impoverishing Africa and in dictating the economic terms, whether it’s trade, whether it is investment, whether it is access to development resources.
Full: democracynow.org
rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 11:37 PM CST [link]

A noose, not a bracelet


by Naomi Klein
Gordon Brown has a new idea about how to "make poverty history" in time for the G8 summit. With Washington so far refusing to double its aid to Africa by 2015, the chancellor is appealing to the "richer oil-producing states" of the Middle East to fill the funding gap. "Oil wealth urged to save Africa," reads the headline in the Observer.

Here is a better idea: instead of Saudi Arabia's oil wealth being used to "save Africa", how about if Africa's oil wealth was used to save Africa - along with its gas, diamond, gold, platinum, chromium, ferroalloy and coal wealth?

With all this noblesse oblige focused on saving Africa from its misery, it seems like a good time to remember someone else who tried to make poverty history: Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was killed 10 years ago this November by the Nigerian government - along with eight other Ogoni activists, he was sentenced to death by hanging. Their crime was daring to insist that Nigeria was not poor at all but rich, and that political decisions made in the interests of western multinational corporations kept its people in desperate poverty. Saro-Wiwa gave his life to the idea that the vast oil wealth of the Niger delta must leave behind more than polluted rivers, charred farmland, rancid air and crumbling schools. He asked not for charity, pity or "relief", but for justice.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 11:30 PM CST [more..]

Briton named as buyer of Darfur oil rights

A millionaire British businessman, Friedhelm Eronat, was named last night as the purchaser of oil rights in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the regime is accused of war crimes and where millions of tribespeople are alleged to have been forced to flee, amid mass rapes or murders.

The disclosure was greeted with outrage by human rights campaigners. "From a moral point of view these people are paying a government whose senior members may end up in front of the international criminal court for war crimes," Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, said yesterday.
Full: guardian.co.uk
See here's the thing--with one hand the Brits are launching this crudely emotionalist reptilian-brain-
stimulating campaign to 'save' Africa, and with the other the rape continues. 'Save' Africa in British bank accounts, right?

rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 09:40 AM CST [link]

Car sales boss is Bush's UK envoy

George Bush yesterday nominated Robert Tuttle, a Beverly Hills car dealer, presidential friend and fundraiser, as the next American ambassador to Britain.
Full: guardian.co.uk

rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 09:35 AM CST [link]

Israel accused of Gaza trickery

The Palestinian leadership yesterday accused Israel of setting it up to fail by withholding information crucial to a successful transfer of control of the Gaza Strip when Jewish settlers are withdrawn this summer.
Mohammed Dahlan, the chief Palestinian negotiator on the pullout, said the Israeli government was "employing tricks" over the handover.

"I believe the Israelis want to delay all the decisions to the eleventh hour and for disengagement not to be successful and later blame the Palestinians for the failure," he said.

"The Israelis are trying to make sure the occupation remains in the Gaza Strip with our cooperation and agreement. This is a means to repackage the occupation but the occupation will remain."
Full: guardian.co.uk

Gee, you think?

rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 09:32 AM CST [link]

TV show depicts 9/11 as Bush plot

A fictional crime drama based on the premise that the Bush administration ordered the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington aired this week on German state television, prompting the Green Party chairman to call for an investigation.
"I think absolutely nothing of the conspiracy theory that has been hawked in this series. I hope this particular TV movie will be discussed very critically at the next supervisory board meeting of ARD [state television]," said Green Party Chairman Reinhard Buetikofer, who acknowledged that he had not seen the show.
Sunday night's episode of "Tatort," a popular murder mystery that has been running on state-run ARD-German television for 35 years, revolved around a German woman and a man who was killed in her apartment.
According to the plot, which was seen by approximately 7 million Germans, the dead man had been trained to be one of the September 11 pilots but was left behind, only to be tracked down and killed by CIA or FBI assassins.
The woman, who says in the program that the September 11 attacks were instigated by the Bush family for oil and power, then is targeted, presumably to silence her. The drama concludes with the German detectives accepting the truth of her story as she eludes the U.S. government hit men and escapes to safety in an unnamed Arab country.
As ludicrous as it may sound to most Americans, the tale has resonance in Germany, where fantastic conspiracy theories often are taken as fact.
Many Germans think, for example, that the 1969 moon landing was faked, and a poll published in the weekly Die Zeit showed that 31 percent of Germans younger than 30 "think that there is a certain possibility that the U.S. government ordered the attacks of 9/11."
Full: washtimes.com
rootsie on 06.10.05 @ 08:07 AM CST [link]
Thursday, June 9th

Stockpiling the Wounded from Iraq: Inside Walter Reed Hospital

by Nicole Colson
The flights almost always land at night--and the wounded are brought off planes in the dark. Kept away from the news cameras, the nightly parade of the injured who arrive at Maryland's Andrews Air Force base from U.S. Army medical facilities in Germany are driven--sometimes in vans or school buses converted into ambulances--to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the nation's top military hospitals.

These soldiers have gone from the front lines to the back door--brought back to the U.S. under the cover of darkness to keep them hidden from the media and the public.

According to the Pentagon, the soldiers arrive at night because "operational restrictions" at a runway near the military's main hospital in Germany, where the wounded from Iraq are brought first, affect the timing of flights.

But Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Operation Truth, an advocacy group for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, told Salon reporter Mark Benjamin that there is a different reason. "They do it so nobody sees [the wounded]," Rieckhoff said. "In their mindset, this is going to demoralize the American people. The overall cost of this war has been...continuously hidden throughout. As the costs get higher, their efforts to conceal those costs also increase."

For the nearly 4,000 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq who have been brought through the doors of Walter Reed as of March, the personal cost of the war is staggering. Despite the Bush administration's repeated claims of reaching a "turning point" in the occupation of Iraq, the 250 beds at Walter Reed have been filled to capacity since the invasion--and before that, since the early days of the war on Afghanistan in 2001.

In late 2003, press accounts reported that medical staff at Walter Reed staff were working 70- to 80-hour weeks to handle the influx of patients. Overcrowding was so bad, in fact, that a number of the less seriously wounded were sent to stay in hotels near the hospital--transported during the day to Walter Reed for outpatient treatment. The situation is no better today--though it is more hidden than ever because of the media blackout that the Pentagon has tried to throw over Walter Reed.

Among the patients, the number of seriously injured--suffering from burns, amputations, brain damage, infection and combat stress--show anything but a "turning point" in Iraq.

Ironically, the main reasons for the overflow of seriously injured are improvements in body armor and the use of better medical technology on the battlefield. Because of this, many soldiers today are surviving with more severe injuries than in previous wars.

According to Pentagon statistics, approximately 6 percent of the more than 12,000 troops wounded by bombs or bullets in Iraq or Afghanistan have required amputation--three times the rate in Vietnam. About 20 percent have head or neck injuries, and many more have suffered breathing and eating impairments, blindness or severe disfiguration. Dr. Roy Aaron of Brown Medical School in Rhode Island told the Boston Globe in December that the Veterans Affairs system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 08:20 PM CST [link]

US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist

by Dave Lindorff
At this stage, it seems almost pointless to say it, but once again, the corporate media in America have been exposed as a cowardly mass of toadies who cannot bring themselves to publish or air anything remotely critical of the administration unless compelled to do so by cattle prods...or a reporter from a foreign news organization doing what reporters are supposed to do routinely.

The current example of this pathetic behavior is the page-one treatment finally accorded--after a fashion--to the damning memorandum delivered to British PM Tony Blair back in the summer of 2002 by his chief of intelligence, informing him of a meeting with U.S. officials, where he learned that the US planned to invade Iraq, and that the reasons for doing so, and the intelligence would be "fixed" to justify the action.

Although this devastating memo surfaced in the UK nearly a month and a half ago, and has been the lead story in Britain for some time, where it has thoroughly destroyed whatever credibility the prime minister still had, it has been largely buried in the U.S. media if it was mentioned at all, and in every case it has been presented not as evidence of President Bush's criminal behavior in lying to the American public to create a war, but as a problem for Blair.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 08:15 PM CST [link]

LA Deputies to Be Punished for 120 Shots

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) - Thirteen sheriff's deputies will be disciplined for firing more than 100 shots at an unarmed driver last month, an incident that sparked outrage in the community and prompted some deputies to apologize.

One deputy will be suspended for 15 days. The others will receive shorter suspensions or written reprimands, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Thursday.

While some community members hailed the announcement, others said they were disappointed. Lolitha Jones, who held a sign protesting the shooting, said the deputies should have faced tougher measures.

``An ordinary citizen going down the street on a rampage like that would have gone straight to jail,'' she said.

Winston Hayes, 44, was struck by four bullets in the May 9 shooting, which was captured on videotape following a brief pursuit of Hayes' sport utility vehicle. The vehicle matched the description of one thought to be involved in a previous shooting. It was later determined that Hayes was not involved in that incident.

Hayes was hospitalized for about two weeks and now faces charges of evading police and driving under the influence of drugs. One deputy was also slightly wounded.

The shooting spurred anger in Compton, where bullets smashed through windows and hit houses. Distrust of law enforcement runs deep in the community known for its street violence and gangster rap.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Well the gangster rap justifies 200 shots.
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 08:10 PM CST [link]

Don't blow Africa's chance, Bono warns EU

Bono took the African aid campaign to Brussels today, warning European leaders due to decide next week on a plan to double EU aid to the continent over the next 10 years: "Don't blow it."
The U2 singer said his message also applied to the world leaders who will meet next month at the G8 summit in Scotland.

After meeting the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, Bono argued that perhaps one of the reasons people had rejected the European constitution was because they did not feel connected to the vision of Europe promoted by politicians.

The singer, who spoke at a news conference alongside Mr Barroso after the two had met privately for half an hour, said helping Africa was a way for European people to feel such a connection.
Bono said: "I think perhaps that one of the reasons there is not support for the European constitution, the European dream, is because a lot of people don't share it.

"I am in a band and we travel around Europe and around the world, and what we pick up from our audiences is a lack of vision from Europe. People don't 'feel' Europe."

Bono said the problem of Africa represented a chance for politicians and Europeans to "redescribe" themselves and their capabilities.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Check the imperialist discourse: the 'problem' of Africa exists to exalt Europe.
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 08:06 PM CST [link]

No. 1 Quits in Bolivia, and Protesters Scorn Nos. 2 and 3

LA PAZ, Bolivia, June 8 - A worsening five-year political crisis in Bolivia reached a precarious impasse on Wednesday, with left- and right-wing adversaries so polarized that the departing president, Carlos Mesa, warned his country to step back from the brink of civil war.

With Mr. Mesa's government collapsing and surging indigenous protesters demanding early elections and more say in economic policy, Bolivia, a country of nine million people, stands at a perilous moment. Five years of instability have already forced two presidents to quit.

In Santa Cruz, the eastern lowland province where much of the country's energy sector is located, peasants pressing for expropriation of private oil companies occupied installations belonging to Repsol YPF of Spain and British Gas, forcing the companies to shut down production.

Here in the western Andes, Indians marched by the thousands and blocked key roads, keeping La Paz short of fuel and food and prompting two international airlines, American and LanChile, to cancel flights.

Two days after Mr. Mesa offered to leave office to defuse mounting protests, demonstrators vowed to topple the new government if it is led by the next in line to the presidency, the Senate president, Hormando Vaca Díez. Congress is preparing to accept Mr. Mesa's resignation on Thursday and anoint Mr. Vaca Díez as successor in a special session in Sucre, the judicial capital.

Leaders of Bolivia's powerful indigenous movement vehemently oppose Mr. Vaca Díez, a wealthy land owner and long-time politician who has the support of the influential business elites in Santa Cruz, his home province. The conservative business class there wants more autonomy, giving it control over the natural gas reserves that the Indians in the highlands want to nationalize.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 07:42 PM CST [link]

Latin States Shun U.S. Plan to Watch Over Democracy

WASHINGTON, June 8 - In a sharp setback for the Bush administration's Latin America policy, the Organization of American States rejected a United States plan on Tuesday to create a committee to monitor the exercise of democracy in the hemisphere.

Instead, the organization agreed, at a meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on a declaration that attaches equal or greater emphasis to attacking poverty because of what it calls "the interdependent relationship of democracy and social and economic development."

The organization, which represents 34 states of the Western Hemisphere, voted to approve the resolution at midnight on Tuesday, but the language was not completed until Wednesday by staff members who lingered after the formal meeting.

The United States professed to be satisfied with the final resolution, even though it bears little resemblance to the proposal the State Department introduced last week. The resolution does not include the element that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted it must have, a committee that would investigate troubled democracies.

On Sunday, en route to the organization's meeting of foreign ministers, Ms. Rice responded to a reporter's question about the growing opposition to the United States plan, by asking how the organization could be effective without a "mechanism that can help at times of crisis?"
Full: nytimes.com

"a mechanism that can help at times of crisis." I'm sure.
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 07:37 PM CST [link]

U.S. Begins Military Training in Africa

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- A weekend raid into Mauritania by Algerian Islamic militants illustrates why north Africa needs the U.S.-led joint counterterror exercises launched this week, a U.S. military spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The training exercise began Monday in Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and, for the first time, Algeria, from where Islamic insurgents linked to the al-Qaida network began a raid into Mauritania that left two dozen dead. Five other countries will take part by the time the program finishes in two weeks.

The Mauritania raid is an example of why nations in the region ''have to work together now,'' said Maj. Holly Silkman, a spokeswoman for the Germany-based U.S. European Command, or EUCOM, which is responsible for operations in most of Africa.
Full: nytimes.com
rootsie on 06.09.05 @ 07:30 PM CST [link]
Wednesday, June 8th

US official edited warming, emission link

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A White House official, who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that downplays links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.

The White House declined comment on the report.

The report said the documents were obtained by the newspaper from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that provides legal help to government whistleblowers.

The group is representing Rick Piltz, who resigned in March from the office that coordinates government research and issued the documents that Cooney edited, the Times said.

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

In a memo sent last week to top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen agencies, Piltz charged that "politicization by the White House" was undermining the credibility and integrity of the science program.
yahoonews.com

Credibility??? Integrity???

Los Alamos whistle-blower beaten outside bar
A Los Alamos lab whistle-blower scheduled to testify before Congress was badly beaten in an attack outside a Santa Fe bar.

Tommy Hook was in a hospital recovering from a fractured jaw and other injuries, his wife, Susan Hook, said Monday.

Hook's wife and his lawyer believe the attack was designed to keep him quiet.

Susan Hook said the assailants told her husband during the attack early Sunday that "if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

Tommy Hook has a pending lawsuit against the University of California alleging whistle-blower retaliation. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear weapons lab.

Police and the FBI said they are investigating.

According to Hook's wife, the 52-year-old lab employee got a telephone call late Saturday night -- after he was already in bed -- wanting to meet with him at a Santa Fe bar about 45 minutes from their home.

She said her husband told her the man never showed up, but as he was leaving the topless bar's parking lot, a group of men pulled him from his car and beat him.

"They left him in the parking lot for dead," Hook's lawyer, Robert Rothstein, said Monday at a news conference where pictures of Hook's bruised and swollen face were passed around.
Full: cnn.com
rootsie on 06.08.05 @ 12:52 PM CST [link]
Sunday, June 5th

Geldof's new/old version of "We are the World" Are we ever.

"The White Man's Burden"
by Rudyard Kipling
First published in McClure's Magazine (Feb. 1899).

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captive's need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of those ye humor
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
rootsie.com/forum
rootsie on 06.05.05 @ 10:01 AM CST [link]

Anarchist groups plan takeover of Geldof's march as DJ attacks Live8 line-up as 'too white'


Anarchists from around the world are planning to cause chaos at next month's G8 summit in Gleneagles as a row broke out last night between Bob Geldof and DJ Andy Kershaw over the absence of black musicians at events staged to benefit Africans.

With police fears mounting over Geldof's call for one million people to protest at the summit, Kershaw last night condemned the almost exclusively white line-up for the pop concerts to coincide with the summit. "If we are going to change the West's perception of Africa, events like this are the perfect opportunity to do something for Africa's self-esteem," he said. "But the choice of artists for the Live8 concerts will simply reinforce the global perception of Africa's inferiority."

Bob Geldof last week called on one million people to descend on Edinburgh on 6 July - a move branded irresponsible by city leaders and local police. Geldof's fellow campaigner, Midge Ure, later claimed the one million figure was "symbolic" and talks between the campaign groups and police appear to have resolved any potential problems for the march.

But The Independent on Sunday can reveal that anarchist groups that have rioted at previous G8 gatherings are planning similar disruptions in Scotland and plan to hijack Geldof's "long march to freedom" on 6 July and the Make Poverty History rally on 2 July. Anarchist groups will encourage protesters to "Make Capitalism History" instead.

Since this event is pretty much the ultimate in hypocrisy and imperial pageantry I wonder why any blacks would choose to be involved. It's discouraging that these 'anarchists' don't seem to get it at all, but not surprising. They're part of the show. The way I see it is as a day for whites to reflect on how good and kind they are. 'The Whiteman's Burden' you know old boy. Not a bit different.
rootsie on 06.05.05 @ 09:52 AM CST [more..]

Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind


When F. Scott Fitzgerald pronounced that the very rich "are different from you and me," Ernest Hemingway's famously dismissive response was: "Yes, they have more money." Today he might well add: much, much, much more money.

The people at the top of America's money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population, an analysis of tax records and other government data by The New York Times shows. They have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Call them the hyper-rich.

They are not just a few Croesus-like rarities. Draw a line under the top 0.1 percent of income earners - the top one-thousandth. Above that line are about 145,000 taxpayers, each with at least $1.6 million in income and often much more.

The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast.

The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell.

Next, examine the net worth of American households. The group with homes, investments and other assets worth more than $10 million comprised 338,400 households in 2001, the last year for which data are available. The number has grown more than 400 percent since 1980, after adjusting for inflation, while the total number of households has grown only 27 percent.

The Bush administration tax cuts stand to widen the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of America. The merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, will shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden.

President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most - 53 percent - will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts, which began in 2001 and would have to be reauthorized in 2010. And more than 15 percent will go just to the top 0.1 percent, those 145,000 taxpayers.

The Times set out to create a financial portrait of the very richest Americans, how their incomes have changed over the decades and how the tax cuts will affect them. It is no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everyone else behind is not widely known.

The Treasury Department uses a computer model to examine the effects of tax cuts on various income groups but does not look in detail fine enough to differentiate among those within the top 1 percent. To determine those differences, The Times relied on a computer model based on the Treasury's. Experts at organizations representing a range of views, including the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice, reviewed the projections and said they were reasonable, and the Treasury Department said through a spokesman that the model was reliable.

The analysis also found the following:

¶Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes - a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data - now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000.

¶Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000.

¶The alternative minimum tax, created 36 years ago to make sure the very richest paid taxes, takes back a growing share of the tax cuts over time from the majority of families earning $75,000 to $1 million - thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars annually. Far fewer of the very wealthiest will be affected by this tax.
nytimes.com

And of course, it is for these one's sakes and for this 'remarkable transformation of the American economy' that predominantly poor American kids are getting chopped up in Iraq, and the media pounds the reptilian brain with the message that they are dying for 'freedom.' And what is so quaintly referred to as 'opening up the global economy' is actually the imperial adventure of all time, with the world's resources bleeding out into the pockets and bank accounts of these 'hyper rich.' This is the context of 'debt forgiveness' and 'aid'. They call it democracy.
rootsie on 06.05.05 @ 09:35 AM CST [more..]
Saturday, June 4th

Le Monde editor 'defamed Jews'

A French appeal court has found the editor-in-chief of Le Monde and the authors of an opinion piece in the paper guilty of "racial defamation" against Israel and the Jewish people.

In a ruling greeted with applause by Jewish groups and some alarm by media lawyers, the court ordered Jean-Marie Colombani and the three writers to pay a symbolic one euro in damages to the France-Israel Association and to Lawyers Without Borders.

The two groups had alleged that the June 2002 article, headed Israel-Palestine: the Cancer, contained comments that "targeted a whole nation, or a religious group in its quasi-globality", and constituted racial defamation.

The offence was exacerbated, the groups said, by a "semantic slip" from the phrase "the Jews of Israel" to "Jews in general"; in other words, it referred to "the Jews" when it meant "certain Israelis".
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:54 PM CST [link]

Jerusalem orders Palestinian homes to be razed

Jerusalem's city council has ordered one of the largest mass demolitions in the city's recent history, with plans to raze the homes of about 1,000 Palestinians in a neighbourhood claimed by Jewish settlers.

The council says about 90 buildings served with demolition orders were built illegally over the last three decades on a site of religious and archaeological value just outside the Old City walls, and that they are being destroyed to restore the area as a national park.

But Israeli human rights campaigners say the real intent is to forcibly remove Palestinians from an area, Silwan, that is an important link in the government's plan to encircle Arab East Jerusalem with Jewish settlements.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:50 PM CST [link]

Panel Sets Aside Proposal on Nuclear Waste

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has put on hold a proposal to allow some very low-level radioactive waste to be routinely put into public landfills or recycled instead of shipped to special disposal sites.

By a 5-0 vote, the commission decided against issuing a final regulation on the matter, although it did not rule out considering the issue again in the future. The agency's staff had recommended that the rule change be approved, saying the waste under consideration has such a low level of radioactivity that it does not pose a public health risk.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:47 PM CST [link]

US lowers standards in army numbers crisis

The US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy in an attempt to halt the rising attrition rate in an army under growing strain as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An internal memo sent to senior commanders said the growing dropout rate was "a matter of great concern" in an army at war. It told officers: "We need your concerted effort to reverse the negative trend. By reducing attrition 1%, we can save up to 3,000 initial-term soldiers. That's 3,000 more soldiers in our formations."
Full: guardian.co.uk

3,000 more hunks of meat for the grinder.
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:44 PM CST [link]

Brown backs public protests

Gordon Brown issued a global call to action yesterday to "reverse the fortunes" of Africa and transform millions of lives in the developing world.

Setting out the ambitious package of debt relief, aid and trade measures that Britain will take to next month's G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, the chancellor expressed confidence that progress could be made and said public protests could play a key part.

He also revealed that the government would pick up the £500,000 tax and cleaning tab for the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, and gave what appeared to be tacit approval to calls for mass demonstrations in Edinburgh in the week of the summit.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Mass demonstrations so people whose country is stealing Africa blind, so they can feel good about themselves. Hypocrites. Parasites.
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:40 PM CST [link]

Berlusconi minister wants Italian vote on return to lira

The cause of European unification yesterday suffered another swingeing blow when one of the parties in Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition threw its weight behind a campaign to pull Italy out of the euro.

Roberto Maroni, Mr Berlusconi's social security minister and a joint acting leader of the Northern League, said his party would start collecting signatures for a referendum on the issue later this month. He also appealed for the process of ratifying the EU constitution to be halted.
Full: guardian.co.uk



rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:35 PM CST [link]

Iraq's Other Resistance

Faced with daily reports of car bombs and kidnappings, it's difficult to feel optimistic about Iraq. But last week in the south of the country I heard a very different story. A story of the movement that has formed to rebuild the country's economy and national pride, to create an Iraq with neither the tyranny of Saddam nor the pillage of military occupation.
Last week Basra saw its first conference on the threat of privatization, bringing together oil workers, academics and international civil-society groups. The event debated an issue about which Iraqis are passionate: the ownership and control of Iraq's oil reserves.

The conference was organized by the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE), which was established in June 2004 and now has 23,000 members. Focused as much on the broader Iraqi public interest as on members' concerns, its first aim was to organize workers to repair oil facilities and bring them back into production during the chaos of the early months of occupation.

This effort by the workers required both courage - often in conflict either with coalition troops or remnants of the Ba'athist regime - and considerable ingenuity, putting back together a working oil industry with minimal resources.
Full: commondreams.org
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:32 PM CST [link]

Witch Hunt at Columbia

by Joseph Massad
Targeting the university is the latest mission of right-wing forces who have hijacked not only political power and political discourse in the United States but also the very vocabulary that can be used against them. The campaign of the last three years or so to attack US universities as the last bastion where a measure of freedom of thought is still protected is engineered to cancel out such freedom and ensure that scholars will not subvert the received political wisdom of the day.

Some of the major tactics in this campaign have been the launching of witch hunts against specific professors, calling for their dismissal from their jobs, and, failing that, smear their reputation; target Middle East Studies as a scholarly field more generally and cut federal funding to it and place it under governmental supervision, and promote apologists for Israel in the guise of scholars as the only adequate scholarly alternative. While shutting down the educational process in favour of religious theories of creationism and the like has been around for a while, the recent attack on scholars who disagree with US foreign policy and the policies of the state of Israel are the main mobilisational issues of the current campaign.

What is at stake in this assault is not only academic freedom, but scholarship per se, and specifically scholarship on Palestine and Israel, which is the primary target of the witch-hunters.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:29 PM CST [link]

A rich country being stripped of its wealth

It has got a sad record of disease, brutality and corruption, and fewer inhabitants than Sheffield. But Equatorial Guinea is one of the key targets of the west's new "scramble for Africa". So much so that a gang of British businessmen, including Sir Mark Thatcher, were accused last year of financing an armed coup to get their hands on its wealth.
This mini country located under the armpit of the West African coast has immense quantities of oil; it is currently exporting $4.5bn worth (about £2.5bn) a year. Yet such an astonishing bonanza appears to have done most of the country's citizens no good. The IMF reported bluntly in May: "Unfortunately, this wealth has not yet led to measurable improvements in living conditions."

Who then, is getting the benefit? One of the answers can be found in Equatorial Guinea's recent big British deal.
BG Plc, formerly British Gas, takes full-page prestige advertisements in New Statesman, the Labour magazine, to boast that it intends "to play an important role in securing Britain's energy supply".

The company says it hopes to make considerable profits on what is being touted as the fuel of the future. It is buying up nearly 60m tonnes of liquefied natural gas - the entire planned output for 17 years of Equatorial Guinea's new LNG plant - an amount that is worth about $15bn at today's prices.

The company will not disclose what it will be paying for the gas, despite having signed up to the Blair government's idealistic scheme, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, under which companies and governments are urged to come clean about oil payments.
Full: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 06.04.05 @ 06:25 PM CST [link]
Friday, June 3rd

Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic Genes

A team of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among Jews of central or northern European origin, or Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability.

The selective force was the restriction of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe to occupations that required more than usual mental agility, the researchers say in a paper that has been accepted by the Journal of Biosocial Science, published by Cambridge University Press in England.

The hypothesis advanced by the Utah researchers has drawn a mixed reaction among scientists, some of whom dismissed it as extremely implausible, while others said they had made an interesting case, although one liable to raise many hackles.

"It would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is," said Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard, noting that it argues for an inherited difference in intelligence between groups. Still, he said, "it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed outright."

"Absolutely anything in human biology that is interesting is going to be controversial," said one of the report's authors, Dr. Henry Harpending, an anthropologist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

He and two colleagues at the University of Utah, Gregory Cochran and Jason Hardy, see the pattern of genetic disease among the Ashkenazi Jewish population as reminiscent of blood disorders like sickle cell anemia that occur in populations exposed to malaria, a disease that is only 5,000 years old.

In both cases, the Utah researchers argue, evolution has had to counter a sudden threat by favoring any mutation that protected against it, whatever the side effects. Ashkenazic diseases like Tay-Sachs, they say, are a side effect of genes that promote intelligence.

The explanation that the Ashkenazic disease genes must have some hidden value has long been accepted by other researchers, but no one could find a convincing infectious disease or other threat to which the Ashkenazic genetic ailments might confer protection.

A second suggestion, wrote Dr. Jared Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a 1994 article, "is selection in Jews for the intelligence putatively required to survive recurrent persecution, and also to make a living by commerce, because Jews were barred from the agricultural jobs available to the non-Jewish population."
Full: nytimes.com

Well this raises my 'hackels' alright. Let's see people who work the land are not as intelligent as people who 'make a living by commerce?' If persecution does indeed increase selection pressure for intellectual ability then dark skinned Africans win that one hands down. Funny that it's the white Jews who are deemed superior. Oh I could go on and on about Utah and The New York Times and Jared Diamond and co-opted science and Western intellectual bankruptcy and...
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 05:01 PM CST [link]

Israel Says Syria Test - Fires Missiles Over Turkey

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last week, including one that broke up over Turkey, senior Israeli security officials said on Friday.

The officials, citing intelligence data, said the missiles, using North Korean technology and designed to carry chemical warheads, were fired last Friday from northern Syria in the first such tests by Israel's arch-foe since 2001.

In New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the Syrian tests were ``very dangerous.''

Speaking after talks with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he said: ``This arms race in our region is something that we can't accept.''

There was no comment from Damascus.

Israeli security officials said one of the missiles was fired by Syria southwest toward the Mediterranean and it disintegrated over the Turkish province of Hatay, shedding debris over two villages.

The New York Times, which first reported Israel's allegations, quoted the Turkish ambassador in Washington, Osman Faruk Logoglu, as confirming that ``during a (Syrian) military exercise, there was a technical mishap.''

``The Syrian government was sorry about this,'' Logoglu said, adding that there were no casualties in the May 27 incident.

According to Israeli officials, the missiles were a Scud B, with a range of about 200 km (120 miles), and two Scud Ds, with a range of about 700 km (420 miles).

The officials said that the Jewish state had long monitored Syria's missile program and saw nothing particularly surprising in the latest tests.

Shalom said Iran, Israel's arch foe, was also developing long range missiles. Earlier this week, Iran said it had upgraded its Shahab-3 missile, already capable of hitting Israel, with solid fuel which could increase its range and accuracy.

``The whole international community should focus on trying to prevent the Syrians, the Iranians -- and maybe some other countries that will follow them a short time after -- from trying to develop those missiles,'' Shalom said.

``They will escalate the situation in the Middle East.''
Full: nytimes.com

Look who's talking. And boys, there can only be one 'arch foe,' though repeating it twice is good for effect. Throwing in North Korea was nice too.
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 04:51 PM CST [link]

Rumsfeld Urges China to Increase Political Freedom

SINGAPORE, June 3 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, arriving here today for a conference on Asian security, drew a sharp distinction between two of the region's major powers, predicting that ties with India would strengthen while urging China to let political freedom grow there along with its economy.

"It would be a shame for the people of China if their government did not provide the opportunities that freer economic and political systems permit," he said, describing a tension "between the nature of their political system and the nature of their economic system."

Mr. Rumsfeld, in comments aboard his plane enroute to Singapore, declined to be drawn into a discussion of North Korea's nuclear program, except to say that the Bush administration is re-examining its policy.

"It's a policy that we're reviewing, as we do understandably from time to time, as North Korea makes statements or makes announcements or does or doesn't get involved in six-party talks," he said. Those talks, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program, have been in limbo for the past year.

The threat that North Korea's nuclear and missile programs pose to the region is expected to be a focus of the annual conference, which the defense secretary will address Saturday morning.

In a brief survey of the region before landing here, Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States has "an excellent relationship with India," but noted that China is a major purchaser of weapons on the international arms market, in particular from Russia.
Full: nytimes.com

Playing India against Russia and China. The new U.S. pipeline surrounded by four nuclear states.
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 04:44 PM CST [link]

The New Scramble for the African Pie

by Binay Kumar
...The problem is that the British are past masters of the colonial game. And their approach to the 'new scramble for Africa' is camouflaged in heart-wrenching humanistic bravado. No such luck for the novices of neo-imperialism in America.

But American has not been sleeping on it. According to the highly-respected Le Monde, "The United States is turning its diplomatic and military attention to Africa, not just to the continent's oil and natural gas supplies (although these represent an important future contribution to US energy supplies) but to its metal and industrial diamond resources. It is quietly establishing military training and equipment links with a number of countries to secure future supply lines.

The US political and military interest in Africa has increased significantly in recent years. That is clear from Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Gabon and Angola in September 2002 (he spent just one hour in each) and from President George Bush's tour of Senegal, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda and South Africa in July 2003."

The US military involvement in the African continent was next to nothing in the cold war years. Africa was the 'back of beyond', an expression so commonly used by Americans. No more; while Iraq, Iran and North Korea have hogged headlines last two years, Washington has deftly moved on several initiatives which can secure for them uninterrupted supplies of raw materials from Africa: manganese (for steel production), cobalt and chrome vital for alloys (particularly in aeronautics), vanadium, gold, antimony, fluorspar and germanium - and for industrial diamonds. And the insatiable US thirst for oil necessarily makes countries like Angola and Nigeria highly attractive for the likes of Chevron and Shell.

Can you not therefore genuinely ask if the Good Samaritan Sir Bob [Geldof] is unwittingly playing into the hands of the neo-imperialists? To quote Ms Clare Short, a long-time colleague of Tony Blair who quit his Cabinet in the wake of the Iraq war, "Debt relief and aid alone without really strong action to end conflict, arms supply, start building order, the basic institutions of a state, leave the poor outside the whole development system".
Full: hindustantimes
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 04:40 PM CST [link]

The U.S. Removes the Nuclear Brakes: Transforming the Nuclear Bomb into a "Legitimate Weapon" for Waging War


by Reuven Pedatzur
Under the cloak of secrecy imparted by use of military code names, the American administration has been taking a big - and dangerous - step that will lead to the transformation of the nuclear bomb into a legitimate weapon for waging war.

Ever since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has gradually done away with all the nuclear brakes that characterized American policy during the Cold War. No longer are nuclear bombs considered "the weapon of last resort." No longer is the nuclear bomb the ultimate means of deterrence against nuclear powers, which the United States would never be the first to employ.

In the era of a single, ruthless superpower, whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view, nuclear weapons have become a attractive instrument for waging wars, even against enemies that do not possess nuclear arms.

Remember the code name "CONPLAN 8022." Last week, the Washington Post reported that this unintelligible nickname masks a military program whose implementation could drag the world into nuclear war.

CONPLAN 8022 is a series of operational plans prepared by Startcom, the U.S. Army's Strategic Command, which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea. One of the plan's major components is the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the underground facilities where North Korea and Iran are developing their nuclear weapons. The standard ordnance deployed by the Americans is not capable of destroying these facilities.

After the war in Afghanistan, it became clear that despite the widespread use of huge conventional bombs, "bunker-busters," some of the bunkers dug by Al-Qaida remained untouched. This discovery soon led to a decision to develop nuclear weapons that would be able to penetrate and destroy the underground shelters in which the two member states of the "axis of evil" are developing weapons of mass destruction.

The explanation given by administration experts calls these "small" bombs, which would have a moderate effect on the environment. The effect of the bomb would not be discernible above ground, the radioactive fallout would be negligible, and the "collateral damage" caused to civilians would be minimal.

Accordingly, America's deterrent credibility against the "rogue states" would grow, because it is clear that the U.S. would allow itself to make use of these "small bombs" - as they would destroy the weapon sites but not cause the death of many civilians.
globalresearch.ca/haaretz

Here comes the con-man, comin with his conplan. If they say they're contemplating using 'small bombs' this means they have already used them.
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 04:34 PM CST [more..]

Death Squad Massacres: For Iraq, "The Salvador Option" Becomes Reality

by Max Fuller
The following article examines evidence that the 'Salvador Option' for Iraq has been ongoing for some time and attempts to say what such an option will mean. It pays particular attention to the role of the Special Police Commandos, considering both the background of their US liaisons and their deployment in Iraq. The article also looks at the evidence for death-squad style massacres in Iraq and draws attention to the almost complete absence of investigation. As such, the article represents an initial effort to compile and examine some of these mass killings and is intended to spur others into further looking at the evidence. Finally, the article turns away from the notion that sectarianism is a sufficient explanation for the violence in Iraq, locating it structurally at the hands of the state as part of the ongoing economic subjugation of Iraq.

Full: globalresearch.ca
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 12:48 AM CST [link]

A Two-State Solution is No Solution

by Mazin Qumsiyeh
In DC last week, Huwaida Arraf of the International Solidarity movement posed two questions for the Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister:

1) Why is the PA not articulating the clear and continuing human rights violations by Israel, and

2) Since Mahmud Abbas wants Palestinians to end armed resistance to Israeli colonization why does his authority not show any visible participation or support for the Palestinian non-violence resistance?

His response was that he used to be president of an activist group and knows that activists may say a lot of things that leaders cannot and should not say. He also said that everyone knows Palestinians engage in non-violent resistance and obviously "we think it is good."

Then Phyllis Bennis asked why he stated that the PA "did not like Bush's written assurances to Sharon but we choose to interpret them in light of International law." She explained that this makes little sense considering that Sharon is proceeding based on these assurances to consolidate control in the occupied West Bank, that such assurances contravene international law and that the Bush administration has a history of violating international law. He did not reply.

PA leaders are not in enviable positions. They are required by an imbalance of power to fulfill the Bush and Sharon "visions" of security for the occupier in return for positions of "leadership" over the captive Palestinians. The PA leaders claim that Israeli settlement policies are destroying the "vision of a two state solution." But outgoing Israeli Army Chief Yaalon said it well "A two-state solution, is not relevant...it is a story that the Western world tells with Western eyes and that story does not comprehend the scale of the gap and the scale of the problem. We, too, are sweeping it under the carpet."

And why are the Palestinains fulfilling their obligations under an unfair road map even while Israel refuses to implement its obligations of a full settlement freeze. As for two-states, there is already a state called Israel with discrimnatory laws, with nuclear weapons and the fourth strongest army in the world. Zionism survives only in so far as it prevents Palestinians attaining their basic human rights such as the right to return to their homes and lands and the right to self-determination. Zionism and Israeli law claim all Jews around the world are nationals of the state and give them the "right" to automatic citizenship while denying Palestinian Christians and Muslims the right to return to their homes simply for being Gentiles. Palestinians by contrast are in shrinking cantons on less than 10% of their historic lands.
Full: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 12:26 AM CST [link]

The Mysteries of Watergate

by John Nichols
...Ultimately, now that Deep Throat has been revealed as just another cynical Washington insider working the system for all it was worth, one Watergate mystery remains. And it turns out to be a far more perplexing and troublesome one than that of some back-alley tipster's identity.

What remains is the mystery of how America, a country that proved her ability to depose a petty crook from power in the 1970s, has drifted so far from her ethical moorings. At the most fundamental level, it is not so difficult to unravel this mystery. A simple calculation of the roles of big media and big money campaign contributions provides most if not all of the explanation that is needed. But that calculus points to the lingering quandry of our time: Will we ever muster enough outrage at a stenographic media and a compliant Congress to steer America back to that place where lawless presidents are held accountable for their lies and the deadly consequences of their misdeeds?
Full: commondreams.org

This is a dangerously naive assessment at best, a deliberate distortion at worst. Who "Watergated" Nixon and why? Why were the burglars old-time operatives from the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination, and why did they show up in the 80's in Central America as part of Iran-Contra? They are connected to the global network of right-wing terrorists, part of the 'Deep Politics' which Peter Dale Scott unearthed in the 80's and are implicated in drugs/guns/ insurgencies far beyond the borders of the United States. I would not be surprised if a great deal of the violence in Iraq is ultimately traced back to this network. Think about it: what homegrown insurgency in its right mind would deliberately unleash such horrific damage on its own people? Bush et.al. say it's Islamists from outside Iraq. I doubt it.
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 12:21 AM CST [link]

Bases, Bases Everywhere: It’s a Pentagon World and Welcome to It

by Tom Engelhardt
...Begin with those prospective bases in Romania and Bulgaria (and while you're at it, toss in the ones already in existence in the former Yugoslavia); make your way southeastwards past "Pipelineistan," keeping your eye out for our Turkish bases and those possible future ones in Azerbaijan; take in the 4 or 5 bases we'd like to hang onto in the embattled Iraqi heartland of the Middle East (not to speak of the ones we already control in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and elsewhere in the region); take a quick glance at "oil-rich" North Africa for a second, imagining what might someday be nailed down there; then hop over base-less Axis of Evil power Iran and land at Bagram Air Base (don't worry, you have "access") or any of the other unnamed ones in Afghanistan where we now have a long-term foothold; don't forget the nearby Pakistani air bases that Gen. Pervez Musharraf has given us access to (or Diego Garcia, that British "aircraft carrier" island in the Indian Ocean that's all ours); add in our new Central Asian facilities; plot it all out on a map and what you have is a great infertile crescent of American military garrisons extending from the old Soviet-controlled lands of Eastern Europe to the old Soviet SSRs of Central Asia, reaching from Russia's eastern border right up to the border of China. This is, of course, a map that more or less coincides with the Middle Eastern and Caspian oil heartlands of the planet.
Full: commondreams.org

And Russia and China are going to sit for this? I think it's time to focus on how close we are to full-scale nuclear confrontation.
rootsie on 06.03.05 @ 12:03 AM CST [link]
Thursday, June 2nd

Wounded Iraqis Left Broken and Burdened

BAGHDAD, June 1 -- On a steamy June morning two years ago, a U.S. soldier's warning shot ricocheted off a sand berm and blew a hole in Raez Habib's life.

The stray bullet plowed through the meat of his left thigh and shattered his right femur, leaving him bleeding in the street, Habib recalled in a recent interview. A helicopter took him to a military hospital, where doctors amputated his right leg four inches below the hip.

The shooting was an accident, a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Habib and to statements from four U.S. service members who were at or near the scene, which Habib keeps in a tattered manila folder. He soon lost his job as a builder, because he could no longer carry heavy loads, and moved his family into his mother's three-room clay house.

Deaf since birth, Habib, 35, communicates through muffled groans and hand signals. "I have a wife and three children and no way to provide for them," he said, his fingers clenching the fabric of his long white robe as his younger brother Ghassan translated.

"We don't think about who to blame. It was his destiny," Ghassan Habib said. "It happened. We take care of him. That is all."

The U.S. military keeps a meticulous tally of its wounded -- 12,762 in Iraq as of Wednesday, along with 1,658 dead. Scenes of soldiers convalescing at well-equipped hospitals such as Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center are familiar symbols of the human cost of the war.

But more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion, there is little available data on the far greater number of Iraqi civilians wounded in the invasion and subsequent violence related to the insurgency. And few of the victims' stories have been widely reported.

While attacks on civilians are increasing, the wounded are getting little help from overburdened medical facilities, according to interviews with more than a dozen patients, physicians and health officials in Baghdad. The best rehabilitation hospital in the Iraqi capital is running out of artificial limbs and might soon close, its director said. And most of the wounded fall back on the only support network they have: their families.

Attempts to quantify civilian casualties here have largely focused on the number of dead, not the wounded. A widely criticized study by an international group of university professors released in October estimated that the invasion had caused 100,000 civilian deaths. At least 21,940 civilians have been reported killed in news stories, according to a database compiled by the group Iraq Body Count, which does not track the number of wounded.
Full: washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 06.02.05 @ 10:30 AM CST [link]

Turner: CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts

ATLANTA (AP) - CNN should cover international news and the environment, not the "pervert of the day," network founder Ted Turner said Wednesday as the first 24-hour news network turned 25.
Turner, an outspoken media mogul who started CNN in 1980 but no longer controls the network, said he envisioned CNN as a place where rapes and murders that dominated local news wouldn't be emphasized, but he's seeing too much of that "trivial news" on the network he created, now second in ratings to Fox News Channel.

"I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first aired.
"You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."
Full: apnews.myway.com

The US press seeks to distract from the real perverts.
rootsie on 06.02.05 @ 10:21 AM CST [link]

Bush, Cheney Attack Amnesty International

WASHINGTON - Stung by Amnesty International's condemnation of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and elsewhere overseas, the administration of President George W. Bush is reacting with indignation and even suggestions that terrorists are using the world's largest human rights organization.

The latest denunciation came from Bush himself during a White House press conference Tuesday. ''I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,'' he said, adding that Washington had ''investigated every single complaint against (sic) the detainees.''

''It seemed like (Amnesty) based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people had been trained in some instances to disassemble (sic) -- that means not tell the truth'', Bush went on. ''And so it was an absurd report. It just is''.

At issue is an Amnesty report released last Thursday that assailed U.S. detention practices. Since its release, a succession of top administration officials and their right-wing backers in the major media has denounced the London-based group in what appears increasingly like an orchestrated effort to discredit independent human rights critics. A similar campaign appeared to target Newsweek magazine earlier this month.

''It looks like a campaign,'' Human Rights Watch advocacy chief Reed Brody said Tuesday. ''There's been a real drumbeat since Amnesty published the report. It seems like there's an attempt to silence critics.''

Bush's reaction Tuesday largely mirrored that of Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview taped on Friday and broadcast Sunday evening by CNN.

''For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously,'' the vice president said in response to Amnesty's report.

''Frankly, I was offended by it. I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world.''

As to allegations of mistreatment of detainees, Cheney argued that ''if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who has been inside and been released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.''
Full: commondreams.org

Amnesty and HRW practice a peculiar brand of 'independence.' On the one hand, they come out with reports like this one calling Guantanamo 'the gulag of our times': a gulag yes, but not the worst. On the other hand they sit silent about Haiti and join in with the terrified whites' analysis of Zimbabwe. The human rights disaster in Haiti is ok with them? The entire country is a gulag. And speaking of gulags, they treat Congo as if it's a strictly regional conflict without considering Western complicity. They seem like some kind of 'deep cover' group to me, and in fact George Soros is behind Human Rights watch. When I see selective outrage like this I know we're watching some deeper machinations at work.
rootsie on 06.02.05 @ 10:16 AM CST [link]
Wednesday, June 1st

Israel Comes First: Pelosi at AIPAC

by Joshua Frank
"The lessons we should learn from all
The fighting in the days of old
When providence bestowed divine
The sanctuary purified
Let lightning circle all you hold
And don't uproot the olive grove"
-Mirah, "Jerusalem"

I think it is finally time we stood up and thanked Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the darling Democrat from the Bay Area who leads her party in the House. Pelosi's recent speech to the Israel-American lobby AIPAC, the second largest lobby in Washington, was monumental - truly unparalleled in its candor.

Despite the fact that AIPAC was recently busted for spying on the United States, Pelosi, along with many other top bureaucrats from Washington, gushed effusions of praise on the foreign power. "There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," Pelosi said as she rallied AIPAC loyalists. "This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist."

Apparently Pelosi has never asked a Palestinian what they think of Israel's brutality. Not that she hasn't witnessed the occupation first hand; Pelosi is just not concerned in the least with the Palestinian resistance.

"This spring, I was in Israel as part of a congressional trip that also took us to Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq," said Pelosi. "One of the most powerful experiences was taking a helicopter toward Gaza, over the path of the security fence. We set down in a field that belonged to a local kibbutz. It was a cool but sunny day, and the field was starting to bloom with mustard. Mustard is a crop that grows in California, and it felt at that moment as if I were home. And then we were told that the reason we had to land in that field, as opposed to our actual destination, was because there had been an infiltration that morning, and they weren't sure how secure the area was. And that point alone brought us back to the daily reality of Israel: even moments of peace and beauty are haunted by the specter of violence."
Full: counterpunch.org

oy vey.The Democratic Party is DEAD.
rootsie on 06.01.05 @ 08:51 AM CST [link]

Revealed: the new scramble for Africa

A new "scramble for Africa" is taking place among the world's big powers, who are tapping into the continent for its oil and diamonds.
Tony Blair is pushing hard for African debt relief agreements in the run-up to the G8 summit in Scotland in July. But while sub-Saharan Africa is the object of the west's charitable concern, billions of pounds' worth of natural resources are being removed from it.

A Guardian investigation beginning today reveals that instead of enriching often debt-ridden countries, some big corporations are accused by campaigners of facilitating corruption and provoking instability - so much so that organisations such as Friends of the Earth talk of an "oil curse".

Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, which has been prominent in urging reform, said: "Western companies and banks have colluded in stripping Africa's resources. We need to track revenues from oil, mining and logging into national budgets to make sure that the money isn't siphoned off by corrupt officials."

Looting of state assets by corrupt leaders should become a crime under international law, he said.

"The G8 should take the lead in this."
Full: guardian.co.uk

Yeah that's the ticket. Send in the wolves to guard to henhouse. Geldof and Bono will be in charge.
rootsie on 06.01.05 @ 08:43 AM CST [link]

New World Bank Chief Says Aiding Africa Is His Top Goal

WASHINGTON, May 31 - When he becomes president of the World Bank on Wednesday, Paul D. Wolfowitz says, Africa will be his top priority.

"Nothing would be more satisfying than to feel at the end of however long a term I serve here that we played a role in changing Africa from a continent of despair to a continent of hope," he said Tuesday at his first news conference.

To underline that commitment, he will travel to Africa in June.
Full: nytimes.com

Oh Oh. Wolfowitz is coming to 'change' Africa. Run.
rootsie on 06.01.05 @ 08:37 AM CST [link]

The Five-Bedroom, Six-Figure Rootless Life

...As a subgroup, relos are economically homogenous, with midcareer incomes starting at $100,000 a year. Most are white. Some find the salaries and perks compensating; the developments that cater to them come with big houses, schools with top SAT scores, parks for youth sports and upscale shopping strips.

Others complain of stress and anomie. They have traded a home in one place for a job that could be anyplace. Relo children do not know a hometown; their parents do not know where their funerals will be. There is little in the way of small-town ties or big-city amenities - grandparents and cousins, longtime neighbors, vibrant boulevards, homegrown shops - that let roots sink in deep.

"It's as if they're being molded by their companies," said Tina Davis, a top Alpharetta relo agent for the Coldwell Banker real estate firm. "Most of the people will tell you how long they'll be here. It's usually two to four years..."
Full: nytimes.com

This is what the American Dream has come to: a life no human being should live.
rootsie on 06.01.05 @ 08:32 AM CST [link]

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