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Roberts and Alito Misled Us
By
Edward M. Kennedy
The Washignton Post
Sunday 30 July 2006

I have had the honor of serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee for 43 years, during which I've participated in confirmation hearings for all the justices who now sit on the Supreme Court. Over that time, my colleagues and I have asked probing questions and listened attentively to substantive responses. Because we were able to learn a great deal about the nominees from those hearings, the Senate has rarely voted along party lines. I voted, for example, for three of President Ronald Reagan's five Supreme Court nominees.

Of course, an examination of a nominee's views may cause the Senate to withhold its consent. That is what happened in 1795 to John Rutledge, who was given a temporary commission as chief justice by President George Washington (while Congress was in recess) and was then rejected by the Senate several months later. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon's nomination of G. Harrold Carswell was derailed when the Senate learned of his segregationist past. At that time, I explained that "the Constitution makes clear that we are not supposed to be a rubber stamp for White House selections." That was also the Senate's view in 1987, when its rejection of Robert H. Bork's extreme views led to the unanimous confirmation of the more moderate Anthony M. Kennedy. The Senate's constitutional role has helped keep the court in the mainstream of legal thought.

But the careful, bipartisan process of years past - like so many checks and balances rooted in our Constitution - has been badly broken by the current Bush administration. The result has been the confirmation of two justices, John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., whose voting record on the court reflects not the neutral, modest judicial philosophy they promised the Judiciary Committee, but an activist's embrace of the administration's political and ideological agenda.

Now that the votes are in from their first term, we can see plainly the agenda that Roberts and Alito sought to conceal from the committee. Our new justices consistently voted to erode civil liberties, decrease the rights of minorities and limit environmental protections. At the same time, they voted to expand the power of the president, reduce restrictions on abusive police tactics and approve federal intrusion into issues traditionally governed by state law.

The confirmation process became broken because the Bush administration learned the wrong lesson from the failed Bork nomination and decided it could still nominate extremists as long as their views were hidden. To that end, it insisted that the Senate confine its inquiry largely to its nominees' personal qualities.

The administration's tactics succeeded in turning the confirmation hearings for Roberts and Alito into a sham. Many Republican senators used their time to praise, rather than probe, the nominees. Coached by the administration, the nominees declined to answer critical questions. When pressed on issues such as civil rights and executive power, Roberts and Alito responded with earnest assurances that they would not bring an ideological agenda to the bench.

After confirmation, we saw an entirely different Roberts and Alito - both partisans ready and willing to tilt the court away from the mainstream. They voted together in 91 percent of all cases and 88 percent of non-unanimous cases - more than any other two justices.

A few examples help illustrate how the confirmation process failed the American people. During Roberts's hearing, I asked him about his statement that a key part of the Voting Rights Act constitutes one of "the most intrusive interferences imaginable by federal courts into state and local processes." In response, he suggested that his words were nothing more than an "effort to articulate the views of the administration . . . for which I worked 23 years ago."

Today - too late - it is clear that Roberts's personal view is the same as it was 23 years ago. In League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry , the Supreme Court held that Texas's 2003 redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act by protecting a Republican legislator against a growing Latino population. Roberts reached a different view, concluding that the courts should not have been involved and that it "is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."

The same Roberts who wished the federal government would leave Texas alone was unconcerned by federal intrusion into Oregon's approach to the issue of assisted suicide. In Gonzales v. Oregon , a majority of the Supreme Court held that the Justice Department lacked the power to undermine Oregon's Death With Dignity Act. However, Roberts joined a startling dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia, stating that the administration's actions were "unquestionably permissible" because the federal government can use the Constitution's commerce clause powers "for the purpose of protecting public morality."

It is difficult to believe that a neutral judicial philosophy explains Roberts's very different views in these two cases. He memorably claimed during the confirmation process that he wanted only to be a diligent umpire, calling balls and strikes without regard to what team was at bat. But it turns out that our new umpires have a keen interest in who wins and who loses.

One clear loser is the environment. In Rapanos v. United States , the court was asked to interpret the definition of wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Four justices deferred to the Army Corps of Engineers' expertise in implementing the statute. But Roberts and Alito joined an opinion that describes wetlands as "transitory puddles" and criticizes their colleagues for "giving that agency more deference than reason permits." For Roberts and Alito, protecting the environment - unlike "protecting public morality" - is clearly not a top priority.

Perhaps the biggest winner is the president himself. During Alito's hearing, I asked him about a 1985 job application in which he stated that he believed "very strongly in the supremacy of the elected branches of government." He backpedaled, claiming: "I certainly didn't mean that literally at the time, and I wouldn't say that today."

But he is willing to say it now. In the very recent case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld , Alito signed on to a dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas that asserts a judicial "duty to accept the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs" as grounds for allowing the administration to use military commissions of its own design to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This is part of a pattern. When he was in the Reagan Justice Department, Alito wrote in support of signing statements, through which the president has claimed to limit the scope of measures passed by Congress - including the ban on torture. When questioned about the legal status of such statements, he said it was an open issue that still needed to be "explored and resolved" by the court. But Alito joined a Scalia dissent in the Hamdan case that endorsed the use of signing statements without providing any analysis or legal support.

Similarly, Alito had a pattern of ruling against individuals in Fourth Amendment cases - including a case involving the strip-search of a 10-year-old girl. When questioned, he insisted that one of the judiciary's most important roles "is to stand up and defend the rights of people when they are violated." But Alito cast the deciding vote in Hudson v. Michigan , in which the court decided - contrary to almost a century of precedent - that evidence gathered during an unconstitutional search of a suspect's home could be used to convict him.

In the term that begins in October, the court will decide major cases on abortion, affirmative action and the Clean Air Act. Roberts and Alito may well cast the deciding votes. If their first term is any indication, their agenda will be exactly what many of us feared - and nothing like the judicial modesty they promised during their hearings.

At a time when great legal issues are being decided by the slimmest of margins, we cannot afford to learn nominees' views only after they have obtained lifetime tenure on our highest court. Instead, the Judiciary Committee, the Senate and the American Bar Association need to work together to return to an honest confirmation process. I support reform despite my belief that the next justice will be nominated by a Democratic president and be sent to a Democratic Senate for confirmation.

The discussion should start with a few truths. First, any qualified nominee to the Supreme Court will have spent many years thinking about legal issues. We should require that nominees share that thinking with the Judiciary Committee, and not pretend that such candor is tantamount to prejudging specific cases. In particular, the Senate should have the same access to the nominee's writings as the administration. Second, the Judiciary Committee will need to reorganize the way it asks questions. An in-depth inquiry will require something more than short rounds of questions that pass from senator to senator. Third, we need to remember what this process is all about. It is good to hear that a nominee has a loving family, faithful friends and a sense of humor. It is important to know that nominees possess the intellect, life experience and discipline that make a good judge. But it is essential that we learn enough of their legal views to be certain that they will make good on the simple promise etched in marble outside the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law." --------
Edward M. Kennedy (D) has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1963.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_073006X.shtml

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Condoleezza Rice: Midwife From Hell
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive

Friday 28 July 2006

After being one of the most inept national security advisers in the nation's history, Condoleezza Rice is now earning the same grade as secretary of state.

Her description of the conflagration in Lebanon as the "birthpangs of a new Middle East" was about as callous as it gets, matched only by Bush's remark that the conflict represents "a moment of opportunity." The 400 Lebanese who have died, an overwhelming number of them civilian and many of them children, were not feeling any birthpangs. They were feeling deathpangs.

Nor were families of the Israeli victims (about 50 so far, and most of them soldiers) cheering the new day, either.

Rice's cruel opposition to an immediate cease-fire has left the whole world outside of Israel (and Tony Blair's kennel) aghast.

And U.N. Ambassador John Bolton's sneering about a cease-fire not being "the alpha and omega" only reinforced the arrogance.

More than half a million people in Lebanon have been turned into refugees in just a matter of weeks.

Israelis are bunkered in bomb shelters.

And all Rice can do is issue hollow words of concern and then sabotage any immediate cease-fire?

The expediting of U.S. bombs to Israel at the same time sent an all too obvious message. Did they fly in carriage on the same plane that took Rice to the region? Is she bringing another load with her this time?

As Rice did in the lead up to the Iraq War, so she is doing now: She's drinking her own propaganda.

.....The Iraq War was going to redraw the map of the Middle East.

.....Now the Lebanon War is going to do the trick?

.....The Iraqi people were going to welcome the Americans with open arms.

.....Now the Lebanese people are going to rise up and somehow defeat
........Hezbollah when Israel can't even do the job?

Politically naïve, Rice also appears woefully jejune about human nature.

When people are being attacked by a foreign power, they rarely rally to that foreign power's side.

And when a group in their midst fights back against the invaders, that group doesn't lose support, it gains support.

The United States and Israel have succeeded only in making heroes of Hezbollah thugs.

Rice's green light for Olmert's spilling of red blood has managed only to further enrage the Arab and Muslim world and isolate the United States among its allies (except, of course, for Tony Blair, who is still wagging his tail and licking Bush's face).

It is not in the interests of the United States, and it is not in Israel's interests either, to show the international community utter disdain. And the war crimes of Israel, and Rice's blessing of them, will long be remembered.

Where was Condoleezza Rice when Israel bombed the only power plant in Gaza, bringing about a humanitarian crisis?

Where was Condoleezza Rice, when Israel inflicted collective punishment on the sovereign people of Lebanon?

Where was Condoleezza Rice, when Israel was killing more than 100 Lebanese children?

.....Condoleezza Rice was in Israel's corner.

For five and a half years, Rice did nothing about the most serious problem in the Middle East, and now she's done worse than nothing.

.....Rice believes in is the diplomacy of the F-16.

And that style of diplomacy is crashing and burning. -------

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072906Y.shtml

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~WHY ON OUR GOOD EARTH
WOULD THEY WANT
THE PEACE WE ALL YEARN FOR?
LOOK AT THE MONEY TO BE MADE
IN ARMS SALES AND RECONSTRUCTION.
SRH

US Plans $4.6 Billion
in
Mideast Arms Sales
Reuters
Friday 28 July 2006
Washington - The Bush administration spelled out plans on Friday to sell $4.6 billion of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as $2.9 billion to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.

The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $210 million to help Israeli warplanes "keep peace and security in the region."

The United States also rushed a delivery of precision-guided bombs requested by Israel after launching its airstrikes against Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon 17 days ago, The New York Times reported last week.

In the newly proposed sales to Arab states, UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter gunships worth up to $808 million would go to the United Arab Emirates, while AH-64 Apache helicopters worth as much as $400 million would go to Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain would also get Black Hawk helicopters, valued at up to $252 million. Jordan would get a potential $156 million in upgrades to 1,000 of its M113A1 armored personnel carriers.

Javelin anti-tank missiles valued at up to $48 million would go to Oman under the deals put forward by the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which administers U.S. government-to-government arms sales.

The $2.9 billion Saudi deal involves the sale of 58 older-generation U.S. M1A1 Abrams tanks that would be modernized. Also, 315 Saudi-owned, newer-model, Abrams tanks would be improved with such things as air-conditioning and infrared sights for the commanders as well as the gunners.

The project's prime contractor would be General Dynamics Corp.'s Land Systems business unit of Sterling Heights, Michigan, the Pentagon said in a notice to Congress required by law.

Vehicle "teardown" and final reassembly would be carried out in Saudi Arabia, the notice said. The upgraded configuration is known as the M1A2S, in which the S stands for Saudi.

"The proposed sale and upgrade will allow Saudi Arabia to operate and exercise a more lethal and survivable M1A2S tank for the protection of critical infrastructure," it said.

It also would keep a substantial number of tanks in the region that have "a high degree of commonality" with the U.S. tank fleet, the Pentagon said, referring to interchangeable parts.

Notices of proposed U.S. arms sales are required by law once they top certain value thresholds. They do not mean a sale has been concluded. Congress may block a sale if both houses pass resolutions of disapproval within 30 calendar days of formal notification.
Go on-site by clicking this link:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072906C.shtml

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Recycling medical devices raises concerns
By LINDA A. JOHNSON,
AP Business Writer
1 hour, 42 minutes ago

For eight months during his infancy, Sean Van Duyn gagged, retched and vomited daily. Now 6, the Winter Haven, Fla., boy still can't eat or drink by mouth, instead being fed by a permanent tube in his belly.

Beset by multiple medical problems in his first months, the boy had to have a breathing tube inserted through a hole cut in his neck. The gagging began and continued until his mother, Susan, discovered the tube was misshaped at the end and had been poking the back of his throat the whole time. The tube was replaced, but by then Sean's developing brain was programmed not to swallow; he still cannot.

The family alleged the injury occurred because the plastic breathing tube's tip had been bent during "reprocessing" — cleaning and heat sterilization — done at an Orlando hospital even though the tube was labeled for single use only. They won a confidential settlement from the hospital.

The case has fueled the debate over the safety of reusing surgical blades, forceps and other medical devices. The practice was routine until a couple decades ago, when stronger plastics enabled manufacturers to start making devices designed for single use to cut costs and prevent infection spread in the era of AIDS.

Then hospitals, and eventually specialized companies, started "reprocessing" single-use devices, cutting device costs by about half — without patients' knowledge.

Federal regulators say reprocessing is safe, but original device manufacturers say they can't guarantee recycled products will work correctly — and that they are wrongly blamed for malfunctions and patient harm caused by reprocessing.

A federal law taking effect Tuesday, requiring reprocessors to put their company name on recycled devices as well as the packaging, could help determine who's at fault when problems occur. For devices too small to mark, detachable stickers could be transferred to the patient's chart.

"That's like a 'Sue Me!' sticker," and may not be used much, said Josephine Torrente, a lawyer and biomedical engineer who consults for device manufacturers.

Dan Vukelich, executive director of the Association of Medical Device Reprocessors, argues reprocessed products are totally safe because each item is inspected before being shipped.

The device makers and their trade group have been lobbying legislators in several states for bills that protect their interests — and patients. The battle has a big — and fast-growing — financial stake for both sides. Device makers saw combined revenues jump from $48 billion in 2001 to $71 billion last year; reprocessors went from a combined $20 million in 2000 to $87 million in 2004.

Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon Endo-Surgery is suing the biggest reprocessor, Ascent Healthcare Solutions, for trademark infringement over reprocessing its single-use devices.

"It is impossible to reuse them," said Robert O'Holla, J&J's head of regulatory affairs for medical devices, because they are not designed to be taken apart for cleaning. Yet J&J gets complaints from customers about problems with devices showing excessive wear or bleach on them — signs of reprocessing.

Ascent Healthcare's regulatory chief, Don Selvey, said only about 2 percent of medical devices — a category that ranges from MRI machines to reading glasses — are now reprocessed. He said his company's processes reduce chances of "viable organisms" surviving on devices to one in one million.

Reprocessed devices are soaked in sterilizing solutions, disassembled, blasted clean with a fine powder, reassembled and inspected, then packaged, sterilized and resealed. On average, they're reused three to six times.

"It is as safe and effective as a new device if they meet our requirements," said Larry Spears, compliance chief for medical devices at the Food and Drug Administration.

Since early 2004, when reports of problems with medical devices were first required to note if they had been reprocessed, the FDA has received 13 reports of patient deaths and 421 other trouble reports, including 130 involving serious patient harm, although some may be duplicate reports.

Reprocessors say they must meet stringent FDA standards after first proving they can safely clean and sterilize each type of device. But the manufacturers main trade group, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, notes about half of the reprocessors' applications for reprocessing of individual devices were rejected by FDA, a sign of the difficulty of properly cleaning complex devices.

Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who chairs the House Government Reform Committee, said Friday he plans a fall committee hearing to examine the issue.

"It is unclear to us at this time whether FDA is able to accurately track how often something goes wrong because a device meant to be used once was instead reused," Davis wrote in a statement.

Congress also has asked its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, to update a June 2000 report which concluded more oversight is needed. GAO is unsure when it will begin investigating.

Ken Hanover, CEO of the seven-hospital Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, said his hospitals have used reprocessed devices for about eight years without a problem.

"There's far more risk of medication errors in a hospital than of a problem arising with a reprocessed device," he said, adding that his hospitals "probably" would honor patient requests to have only new devices used on them.

Children's National Medical Center in Washington, on the other hand, doesn't use reprocessed devices, said surgeon in chief Dr. Kurt Newman.

"We want to use the safest and most sterile equipment," he said.

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan has "qualms" about the practice, particularly because patients don't give informed consent — required when deviating from the standard of care raises safety or efficacy concerns.

"I just think people ought to know what's going on," Caplan said.

Susan Van Duyn, Sean's mother, agreed.

"If anybody can learn from the tragedies with Sean, it's worth telling" his story, she said.
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On the Net:

Advanced Medical Technology Association: http://www.advamed.org

Association of Medical Device Reprocessors: http://www.amdr.org

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

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"The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses." -Edward Abbey

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"The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred." -Daniel Berrigan

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We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom: Stephen Vincent Benét:

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Mark Twain: The War Prayer

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;

Read it here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2231.htm

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A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming: Ralph Waldo Emerson:
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Pictures From Qana

"We want this to stop," shouted villager Mohammed Ismail. " May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting. They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees."

07/30/06

Video Report From Qana Massacre 2006: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14276.htm

Video: Scenes Of Israeli Massacre In Qana 1996:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/quana_01_19_03.htm
Page I - Page II- Page III - Page IV Page V - Page VI - Page VII - Page VIII - Page IX - Page X GO ON-SITE TO VIEW AND READ ARTICLE:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14273.htm

WARNING Graphic images depicting the reality and horror of Israel's Invasion and destruction of Lebanon.

Please wait a moment for images to load. Click image to enlarge.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14273.htm

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TERRORISM: AL-QAEDA LAUNCHES WEB TV


Rome, 28 July (AKI) - The next evolution in al-Qaeda's propaganda war is a television channel visible only via the Internet, which has already begun operating on an experimental basis. The 'channel' has evolved out of the experience of jihadi internet forums - in particular of the al-Firdaws site - and al-Qaeda's own experiments in 'news bulletins' and talk shows produced by the Islamic Media Front. The new channel - called al-Firdaws TV - aims to publish the most important video and audio documents in the recent history of the terror network.
The documents include speeches by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as documentaries on mujahadeen.

The broadcasts start at 8pm Mecca time and run till midnight.

Like most traditional Islamic television channels, the broadcasts open with a reading from the Koran, followed by a film on al-Zarqawi and various videso that have already been published on the Internet such as that of the London bombs. The end of transmission is marked by Jihadi songs, calling for Islamic martyrdom.

To view the programming of al-Firdaws all that is required is a wide-band connection and a multimedia programme such as Windows Media Player or Real Player.

Radical Islamist internet forums publish the planned programmes daily and the channel organisers are seeking feedback from al-Qaeda sympathisers, on what they think of the new channel.
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http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.325740710&par=#

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Analysis: Hezbollah May Have the Edge

From the Associated Press
By SALLY BUZBEE
Associated Press Write
Sunday July 30, 2006 9:46 PM

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - It's hard to defeat a group of extremists who can mingle among civilian supporters and are pros at propaganda. Israel's military faces the same conundrum the United States has encountered elsewhere - finding that airstrikes are costly in civilian deaths and public support, while ground attacks are risky for soldiers.

That does not mean Hezbollah is winning militarily. But the guerrilla group has so far avoided a knockout by Israel, even as international pressure for a cease-fire has grown. And in the war of perceptions, Hezbollah has only to look strong against Israel and make Israel look bad to win across much of the Arab world, many analysts say.

That was brought into stark focus Sunday when an Israeli airstrike flattened a house in southern Lebanon, killing at least 56 people, mostly women and children. Israel apologized for the deaths and blamed Hezbollah, accusing it of using civilians as human shields.

But the backlash against Israel and its ally America was swift: Lebanese officials reacted in fury and Beirut protesters attacked a U.N. building and burned American flags. At an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was ``deeply dismayed'' his previous calls for a cease-fire had been ignored.

The United States knows this scenario well from Iraq and elsewhere: Pictures of dead children and women killed in airstrikes can hurt support even among friends.

Yet the alternative for Israel, if it wants to push back Hezbollah, is either a full-scale ground war or a lengthy series of smaller-scale incursions to eliminate the group's positions along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

For now, Israel says it has no plans for a big land invasion, still leery from its costly occupation of south Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. But the smaller incursions have brought relatively high Israeli casualties and low apparent impact: U.N. observers in south Lebanon say Hezbollah's supply of rockets remains adequate to fight, and most of its leaders have survived.

Israel has privately told the United States it needs 10 days to two weeks to accomplish what it wants.

Hezbollah's strength comes from its ability to hide fighters and weapons - both among the populace and in bunkers and tunnels - who can pop up once the Israelis pass by and fire more missiles toward Israel. That ability springs from its wide support among people in southern Lebanon.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld famously called it ``asymmetric warfare'' and identified it as the challenge America faced from terror groups after the Sept. 11 attacks, and from al-Qaida linked groups in Iraq.

Israel faces just such a struggle against both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the militant group Hamas in Gaza, says Jon Alterman, a Mideast expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

In many ways, such threats ``are more difficult to resolve'' than battles against conventional military forces, he said. ``The groups have made a living out of having few tangible assets to attack. In many ways, they exist principally as a set of ideas ... and they enjoy wide support among their target communities.''

Israel, of course, has years of experience fighting the guerrilla-style Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza. But its wars against outsiders have mostly, except in Lebanon, been against Arab countries' armies or air forces.

Some analysts say that history appears to have left it off-balance this time.

``It's relying too much on the air campaign and it's wrong,'' said Efraim Inbar, an analyst at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

He instead advocates a robust ground attack and attacks on Syria to prevent Hezbollah resupply of weapons.

But ground attacks also carry risks: Israel lost nine soldiers in ambushes Wednesday alone in operations around the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail.

Even when Israel succeeds in such pin-pointed ground incursions, ``Hezbollah can disperse, hide men and equipment'' and live to fight another day, notes Anthony Cordesman, another Mideast expert.

And a longer-term occupation of south Lebanon would simply give Hezbollah a ``new, exposed ambush zone,'' plus ample opportunity to raise anti-Israeli and anti-American hostility among Arabs - a propaganda ploy it is expert at.

Even one of the best outcomes for Israel - the insertion of an international force at the border to keep Hezbollah at bay - comes with huge risks for whoever makes up the force, eerily resonant of the attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, Cordesman warns.

``The international force will probably have to do the heavy lifting, be willing to fight and become the focus of new Hezbollah attacks and ambushes,'' he says. ``Non-Muslims will be seen as occupiers and crusaders ... Can anyone spell IED?''
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Sally Buzbee is the AP's Chief of Middle East News, based in Cairo.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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How can 'terrorism' be condemned
while war crimes go without rebuke?

Washington's partners in this hypocritical war on terror are given free rein to wreak their own brutal, illegal violence

David Clark
Monday July 31, 2006
The Guardian

As if we didn't know it already, the conflict in Lebanon shows that truth and war don't mix. All parties to the tragedy of the Middle East resort to disinformation and historical falsification to bolster their case, but rarely has an attempt to rewrite the past occurred so soon after the fact. Israeli ministers and their supporters have justified the bombardment of Lebanon as "a matter of survival". Total war has been declared on Israel, so Israel is entitled to use the methods of total war in self-defence. This would be reasonable if it were true, but it isn't. It's completely false.
The conflict was triggered by a Hizbullah operation in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and three killed. Let's be frank, this wasn't exactly the Tet offensive. It certainly didn't justify Israel's ferocious onslaught against the very fabric of Lebanese society. Yes, the rocket attacks on Haifa are an appalling crime, but they followed rather than preceded Israel's decision to escalate the fighting. They cannot provide retrospective justification for Israeli strategy.

The crisis has also been accompanied by the selective and often inappropriate use of the term "terrorism". Following the Israeli government, George Bush and Tony Blair were at it again on Friday, blaming "terrorists" for sparking the conflict. The purpose behind this is obvious enough. In the context of America's war on terror, anyone claiming to be engaged in the fight against this most contested of notions gets carte blanche to do as they please. But the result has been to politicise the term in ways that render it effectively useless as a category of moral judgment or policy analysis.

It is certainly true that Hizbullah has been linked to a string of classic terrorist attacks going back more than 20 years, including suicide bombings against civilian targets, hostage-taking and the hijacking of a TWA flight. A particularly vile example was the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were murdered. Hizbullah strongly denies involvement, but the truth is probably murkier than either side pretends. Responsibility for these attacks has often been attributed to Hizbullah's External Security Organisation (ESO), a unit believed to be under the operational control of Iranian intelligence rather than the Hizbullah's Lebanese leadership. Britain is one country that draws this distinction, proscribing ESO, but not Hizbullah itself, under the Terrorism Act.

Interestingly, some of the earliest suicide bombings commonly attributed to Hizbullah, such as the 1983 attacks on the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut, were believed by American intelligence sources at the time to have been orchestrated by the Iraqi Dawa party. Hizbullah barely existed in 1983 and Dawa cadres are said to have been instrumental in setting it up at Tehran's behest. Dawa's current leadership includes none other than the new Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, feted last week in London and Washington as the great hope for the future of the Middle East. As the old saying goes, today's terrorist is tomorrow's statesman - at least when it suits us.

None of this should be read as exonerating Hizbullah of the charge that it uses terrorist tactics. Irrespective of anything else, the use of Katyusha rockets against Israeli population centres is clearly intended to inflict terror and suffering on civilians. It deserves a response. But the allegations of terrorism levelled at Hizbullah (as well as Hamas and other groups) by America and Israel go well beyond the targeting of non-combatants. The US state department's annual reports on terrorism also list operations carried out against the Israeli Defence Force as examples of terrorism. The US government justifies this conclusion by way of a logical contortion that defines Israeli troops as "non-combatants", despite the fact that Israel continues to occupy territory in Lebanon and Palestine with military force. The intention is not just to stamp out terrorism as commonly understood, but also to stigmatise perfectly legitimate acts of resistance.

Terrorism has always been extraordinarily difficult to define, but the American approach lacks any pretence at objectivity, thus making the term utterly meaningless. Used in this way, terrorism becomes simply "political violence of which we disapprove". The answer, of course, must not be to abandon any attempt to distinguish between right and wrong in the use of force. There need to be standards if we are to prevent the free-for-all of violence without limit. But these standards must be disinterested, legitimate and robust. As it happens, most of what we need is adequately provided for in international humanitarian law. Numerous treaties and judgments from the Geneva conventions onwards set out quite detailed rules governing the use of force, including the principles of proportionality and civilian immunity.

Under international law, there can be no doubt that many of the actions carried out by Hizbullah and Hamas constitute war crimes that must be punished. The reason it has been disregarded for the purposes of fighting terrorism is that, rather inconveniently for the governments concerned, it applies to states as well as non-state groups. Accepting it would leave them open to unwanted scrutiny and possibly even prosecution for war crimes of their own. In the case of the Israeli government, it isn't hard to see why. Israeli doctrine eschews the principle of proportionality in favour of massive retaliation, as has been amply demonstrated in Lebanon and Gaza.

Despite Israel's protestations that it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, it is clear that its military strategy is aimed at maximising the suffering of the Lebanese people as a whole. This was declared quite openly on day one of the campaign, when Israel's chief of staff, General Dan Halutz, promised to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years", and confirmed again yesterday with the horrific slaughter at Qana. The approach is identical to the one taken in similar operations in 1996 and 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin admitted: "The goal of the operation is to get the southern Lebanese population to move northward, hoping that this will tell the Lebanese government something about the refugees, who may get as far north as Beirut." Populations will move like this only if they are in fear of their lives.

The same applies to Gaza, where the pretence at discrimination is even thinner and Palestinian civilians are being subjected to a brutal siege and acts of violence that have no military justification. As in Lebanon, the intention is to force civilians to turn on the militias by inflicting as much pain and suffering as the Israeli government thinks it can get away with. What is this if it is not terrorism? It is certainly a war crime. So let's hear no more hypocritical utterances about the evils of terrorism from Bush and Blair. Not until they are able to speak with genuine moral authority by condemning all forms of illegal violence, irrespective of who commits them.·
David Clark is a former Labour government adviser
Dkclark@aol.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1833931,00.htmlI believe "Hizbullah" knew full well what the response by Israel would be when they kidnapped an Israeli soldier. I believe they drew Israel into this with the intention of drawing in others, like Iran, if in fact Iran didn't instigate and plan this action in the first place. The US has been saying all along that it is Iran who props up and instigates their actions and, perhaps, there were plans of drawing in Syria as well. All of this done to try to escalate an already shaky situation, and even bring about a confontration with Iran. With the US and Israel standing side by side. I believe they wanted to cause havoc in the region and to cause the shaky ground we stand on in the Middle East to deteriorate to a state where all of the Middle East, and perhaps some in the near east will be drawn in as well. They will be chafing at the bit, wanting, with all that's in them, to stand against us. It seems this is what too many have wanted, it really does seem that all of this violence fits into so many wishes and plans.

Just indignent over it all and not being as sensible with my thoughts as I should be, because who in their right minds would want to rain down the terror on so many innocent people or did they not think that the strikes would hit their children, wives, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers? Blow up their homes relegating them to tents? Did they think Israel would avoid family dwellings, cars on roadways, refugee escape routes? Not when they store their weapons in family homes, have a history (or so we've been told) of using ambulances for their own war efforts, not humanitarian aid.

What a horrible situation.

Our own citizens had a terrible time of it trying to escape the country. Leave, the Iraeli's warned, but to where? How? Even the ones who tried to escape were gunned down and/or hit by rockets, by bombs. So where were their choices? What were they? They had none in too many cases. Just none. SRH

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Wal-mart Supercenter: Archaeologist: developers discount site findings print Go on-site to view photo's and map.

By TOM SHARPE | The New Mexican
July 30, 2006

Researcher considers discoveries significant; city says area ‘cleared’ by earlier survey

An archaeologist who worked on the site of the planned Wal-Mart Supercenter in southwest Santa Fe says the developers didn't want to hear about him finding 2,000-year-old artifacts there.

Tom McIntosh, who was hired to examine the vacant 65 acres earlier this year, said the developers seemed to have their minds made up that there was no significant archaeology there.

He said Richard Gorman, a land-use consultant for the proposed Entrada Contenta development, initially offered him an incentive to finish his work in two weeks.

"Gorman says, 'You don't need to tell me anything. Just go out there and get us a survey. ... There's nothing there. We're going to offer you $2,500 extra to turn that report in in two weeks,' " McIntosh recalled. "I said, 'There's no way we can get it in in two weeks.' He said, 'Well, if there's nothing there, you should be able to get it.' "

While the archaeologist made what he considers significant discoveries, it's not clear what, if anything, city officials will do with a report he drafted. And McIntosh is riled about how his work has been treated.

Gorman did not respond to repeated messages from The New Mexican seeking a response. McIntosh said Gorman called him Thursday and threatened to sue him over his statements to a reporter.

McIntosh, who has been working in Santa Fe for three years under the name ArcCom, said he negotiated an open-ended contract with Gorman and project manager Tom Keesing, acting on behalf of BSW Engineering and Steve Johnson Development LLC.

Keesing directed a reporter's questions to Nancy Long, an attorney for landowner William Herrera. Long said she couldn't speak for Gorman or Keesing because she was not present during their dealings with McIntosh. Keesing also said he had "never met" McIntosh.

McIntosh, who said he only spoke to Keesing by phone, said his contract called for a base fee of $4,500 if no significant archaeology was found or, in the alternative, $150 an hour.

After he and two associates worked for two to three weeks in May along the confluence of the Arroyo de los Chamisos and the Arroyo Hondo, McIntosh said, they identified six "lithic" sites, with stone tools and dwelling sites dating back 2,000 years, plus one "ceramic" site from around 1200 AD.

McIntosh said archaeological sites are considered significant if there is a potential to obtain more information. But he said the lithic sites are particularly significant because little is known of the hunter-and-gatherer cultures that lived in the Santa Fe area before pottery was invented.

Other archaeologists agreed with McIntosh's definition of archaeologic significance but said almost any site has the potential to yield more information. They said lithic sites are common in the Santa Fe area and are considered significant only when found in a context that allows the sites to be dated through scientific methods, such as the presence of hearths with charcoal that yields carbon-14.

"If the site is just a couple of (stone) flakes and there's no way to date when they were left behind, then often it's just considered not significant," said Eric Blinman, director the state Office of Archaeological Studies.

McIntosh said regardless of the significance of the sites, full exploration and documentation would have taken about 30 days and cost the developers another $20,000.

The project already has been put in limbo by a pending lawsuit. More than 20 small-business owners are asking a judge to void City Council approval of the project, claiming the governing body acted improperly during a series of split votes last summer on the development, which includes a planned 265,800-square-foot commercial development anchored by the 150,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The archaeologist said when he presented Keesing and Gorman with a bill for $17,000 for more than 100 hours of work, they balked. "Keesing said, 'Look, do you know who you're dealing with? We'll just walk away from this and not pay you, period, because that's absurd,' " McIntosh said.

After he insisted Keesing and Gorman pay him, McIntosh said, he met with Herrera, who paid him in full. "Herrera is totally honorable," McIntosh said of the retired dentist whose family owns the land. "He wanted to make sure everything was right and no bad stuff was going on."

A few days after Herrera paid him, McIntosh said, David Rasch, head of historic preservation for the city Planning and Land Use Department, told McIntosh his report wasn't needed because the site already had been "cleared" by a 2001 archaeological survey. McIntosh said when he went to Rasch's office to look at the 2001 report, he was told it was missing.

However, Carla Lopez, a media spokeswoman for the city, said no report is missing. She said a 1994 report by Matthew Schmader, approved by the city Archaeological Review Committee in 2001, found no significant archaeology in the area, including the adjoining Tierra Contenta subdivision. She said this gave "permanent approval" to development on the property.

The city about a decade ago annexed Tierra Contenta and some adjoining properties, including the land near Cerrillos Road that Herrera and his representatives have designated as Entrada Contenta.

McIntosh, however, said he's not satisfied with the city's explanation.

Other archaeologists say they have heard of developers offering incentives for finishing surveys quickly and trying to persuade archaeologists not to find anything. Alysia Abbott, a local archaeologist, recalled how a developer refused to pay her a $3,000 fee because she found archaeological sites on his county land. She said she turned in her report identifying the sites to county officials, even though the developer told her not to do it.

McIntosh said he'll turn his report in to the city, even though city officials say it's no longer needed. "The thing that's got me riled up now," he said, "there's seven significant sites that are going to get destroyed out there without any kind of protection or data recovery or anything."

Staff writer Bob Quick contributed to this report.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 995-3813 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com
http://www.freenewmexican.com/story_print.php?storyid=47168#

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EXCLUSIVE: Gibson Skated Twice Before
Posted Jul 31st 2006 1:06AM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Celebrity Justice
Mon, July 31, 2006
TMZ has learned that Mel Gibson has been stopped for reckless driving two other times in Malibu but he was allowed to leave without a ticket or arrest.
As TMZ first reported, Gibson was arrested on Friday for suspicion of driving under the influence on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu -- driving 87 miles an hour. As we reported, the deputy who arrested Gibson was ordered to sanitize his arrest report to make it appear that Gibson's arrest was "without incident." In fact, The report states Gibson was abusive, violent and vulgar, and even attempted to escape.

TMZ has confirmed that approximately three years ago, Gibson was driving 74 miles per hour on Pacific Coast Highway, one mile from his house, when he was pulled over by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy. Sources say Gibson avoided eye contact with the deputy during the stop and even though the deputy was suspicious of Gibson's sobriety, he let him go.
Approximately one year ago Gibson was stopped again, after driving 64 miles an hour on Pacific Coast Highway -- where the speed limit is 45. Sources say that Gibson was so cocky that he was on his cell phone the entire time he was detained by the deputy. Ultimately, the deputy decided to let him go without giving him a citation.

And there's new information about Friday's arrest. As TMZ reported, the deputy who arrested Gibson was ordered by superiors to re-write his report and eliminate all references to Gibson's bad conduct and anti-Semitic remarks. Sources tell TMZ that Lt. Crystal Miranda told the arresting deputy that Captain Tom Martin talked to Sheriff Lee Baca who expressed concern that the explosive report might leak to the media and that it needed to be re-written in a sanitized form.

Sources say Gibson, who was pulled over early Friday morning for allegedly crossing lanes at a high speed, told the arresting deputy that he was leaving home just after 2 a.m. and heading to his brother's house. The arresting deputy found a bottle of tequila in the car, 3/4 full, in a brown paper bag. We're told that Gibson told the deputy that the bottle wasn't his but, "I've had a little bit."

We're also told that Gibson, who issued a statement over the weekend, suggesting he was not of sound mind when he uttered the anti-Semitic tirade and engaged in abusive behavior, was not in fact "out of it." Sources connected with the case tell TMZ that Gibson was drunk but was in control of his senses.

At one point at the Sheriff's station, sources say Gibson was "jumping like a monkey" on a steel cage and told the arresting deputy, "I'm not going to hurt you physically. I'm gonna hurt you. I'm gonna make you lose."
We're also told that deputies at the Sheriff's station were star struck by Gibson and a number of them went to Gibson's holding cell to get a look of the star. The problem for the Sheriff's department -- there's a mounted camera in the station and the deputies can be seen fawning over the actor. Sheriff's officials have called some of the officers who were caught on tape in and warned them they might be subject to discipline.

As TMZ reported, the arresting deputy was ordered by officials to take out references to Gibson's bad behavior. We're told the altered report makes no mention of the fact that Gibson attempted to flee the scene by running to his car to escape. We're also told that the officer checked a box on the report that Gibson was "belligerent." Ironically, even though officials did not order the deputy to remove that reference, they did order him to re-write the report to eliminate all references to the supporting evidence leading the officer to believe Gibson was indeed "belligerent. "
PermalinkEmail thisComments [5]
Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade -- Alleged Cover Up
Posted Jul 28th 2006 9:15PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Celebrity Justice

TMZ has learned that Mel Gibson went on a rampage when he was arrested Friday on suspicion of drunk driving, hurling religious epithets. TMZ has also learned that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department had the initial report doctored to keep the real story under wraps.

TMZ has four pages of the original report prepared by the arresting officer in the case, L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy James Mee. According to the report, Gibson became agitated after he was stopped on Pacific Coast Highway and told he was to be detained for drunk driving Friday morning in Malibu. The actor began swearing uncontrollably. Gibson repeatedly said, "My life is f****d." Law enforcement sources say the deputy, worried that Gibson might become violent, told the actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated. As the two stood next to the hood of the patrol car, the deputy asked Gibson to get inside. Deputy Mee then walked over to the passenger door and opened it. The report says Gibson then said, "I'm not going to get in your car," and bolted to his car. The deputy quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.

TMZ has learned that Deputy Mee audiotaped the entire exchange between himself and Gibson, from the time of the traffic stop to the time Gibson was put in the patrol car, and that the tape fully corroborates the written report.


Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, "You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you." The report also says "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his money to 'get even' with me."

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

The deputy became alarmed as Gibson's tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, "What the f*** do you think you're doing?"

A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

We're told Gibson took two blood alcohol tests, which were videotaped, and continued saying how "f****d" he was and how he was going to "f***" Deputy Mee.

Gibson was put in a cell with handcuffs on. He said he needed to urinate, and after a few minutes tried manipulating his hands to unzip his pants. Sources say Deputy Mee thought Gibson was going to urinate on the floor of the booking cell and asked someone to take Gibson to the bathroom.

After leaving the bathroom, Gibson then demanded to make a phone call. He was taken to a pay phone and, when he didn't get a dial tone, we're told Gibson threw the receiver against the phone. Deputy Mee then warned Gibson that if he damaged the phone he could be charged with felony vandalism. We're told Gibson was then asked, and refused, to sign the necessary paperwork and was thrown in a detox cell.

Deputy Mee then wrote an eight-page report detailing Gibson's rampage and comments. Sources say the sergeant on duty felt it was too "inflammatory." A lieutenant and captain then got involved and calls were made to Sheriff's headquarters. Sources say Mee was told Gibson's comments would incite a lot of "Jewish hatred," that the situation in Israel was "way too inflammatory." It was mentioned several times that Gibson, who wrote, directed, and produced 2004's "The Passion of the Christ," had incited "anti-Jewish sentiment" and "For a drunk driving arrest, is this really worth all that?"

We're told Deputy Mee was then ordered to write another report, leaving out the incendiary comments and conduct. Sources say Deputy Mee was told the sanitized report would eventually end up in the media and that he could write a supplemental report that contained the redacted information -- a report that would be locked in the watch commander's safe.

Initially, a Sheriff's official told TMZ the arrest occurred "without incident." On Friday night, Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore told TMZ: "The L.A. County Sheriff's Department investigation into the arrest of Mr. Gibson on suspicion of driving under the influence will be complete and will contain every factual piece of evidence. Nothing will be sanitized. There was absolutely no favoritism shown to this suspect or any other. When this file is presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney, it will contain everything. Nothing will be left out."

On Saturday, Gibson released the following statement:

"After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the LA County Sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said. Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health."



Click to see portions of the original report.


EXCLUSIVE: Mel Gibson Busted for DUI
Posted Jul 28th 2006 7:00PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Celebrity Justice

Mel Gibson was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in Malibu, Calif. early this morning for suspicion of DUI. Bail was set at $5,000.

He was pulled over for speeding in his 2006 Lexus as he was heading eastbound on the Pacific Coast Highway and a Breathalyzer test was administered. The arrest report lists the time of arrest as 2:36AM and the time booked as 4:06AM. Gibson was released at 9:45 a.m.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Country Sheriff's Department told TMZ, "Mel Gibson was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence. He was released later this morning. The investigation was still ongoing, just like it would be with any other person."

A rep for Gibson tells TMZ they are "checking into" the matter.

Click here for Sheriff's Inmate Info. Center -- type in "Gibson, Mel" and hit search.

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: A sheriff's official told TMZ Gibson had a blood alcohol level of .12. The legal limit in the state of California is .08.

UPDATE 9:15 p.m. Explosive new details in this case! Click here.

Click on link below to go on-site to view this story, photo's and other articles about Pop Culture.
http://www.tmz.com/

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. . . . . . . . .
TOP FIVE HEADLINES
July 31

Okay, it's clear now that the Neo-con, Bush theory of creating maximum chaos has metastasized.

Only Dr. Strangelove wannabees believe that if you exponentially increase death, blood, disorder, conflict and profiteering, you somehow end up with peace.

Or maybe it's that they really just want permanent instability. The Republican Party can't win if there is peace. That is a simple truth.

They have nothing to offer domestically but bankruptcy, the dismantling of the American government and the U.S. Constitution, some wedge issues from the Victorian era, and unconscionable tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

That's a losing ticket, if they ever had to run on what they are really about. (Oh, did we forget to put chronic corruption and law breaking on the list?)

So, they distract the masses with endless conflicts abroad, and create more threats to our national security than they eliminate.

Okay, so either they are so massively incompetent that they think you can make a wedding cake out of dog shi*, or they are brilliant evil political Machiavellians who divert the public's attention from their dirty doing by pursuing unrelenting war, or Bush truly believes he is heralding the "End Times" and will achieve "Rapture" for his most cultist followers.

Take your pick.

The world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and Bush is continuing his residency on Fantasy Island.

Meanwhile, "Dr. No" (AKA Dick Cheney), pours on the gasoline, lights the match, and ensures that he and his friends pocket the profits off of the misery of the world.

And the mainstream media considers the wrenching tragedy as so much footage for the nightly news.

“The Sopranos,” the Bush Administration, and “The Devil Wears Prada.”

It’s all entertainment, isn’t it?

.....1. Bush to Armageddon: "Bring It On!

.....2. A Supreme Disgrace

.....3. Busheviks Do An About Face and Go Whining to the U.N. About Getting a Ceasefire. It's Just Another Stalling Tactic. What a Grand Hypocrisy Party, Indeed.

.....4. Seattle Muslim Who Shot American Jews and Mel Gibson Should Share Cell

.....5. As many BuzzFlash Readers know, "Air America" almost didn't get off the ground. It was underfinanced and almost crashlanded. That's why you should watch "Left of the Dial.".

For More Than 180 Headlines and Stories visit BuzzFlash.com by clicking on the followoing link:

http://www.buzzflash.com
. . . . . . .

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Can you make a difference
by not buying a stock?
A monthly discussion with notable experts
[B]Divestment efforts haven't attracted too much attention since an antiapartheid campaign against South Africa in the 1980s. Now one against the Sudanese government is catching on. Ethnic cleansing in Darfur Province has been so extreme that some states and universities are pulling (or plan to pull) their money out of corporations with operations there.

Can such moves make a difference? To find out, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie interviewed Don Pollak, senior vice president of Northern Trust Global Investments, which sells a Sudan-free portfolio to institutional investors, and Eric Fernald, research director for KLD Research & Analytics, a group that evaluates which companies should be avoided. Here are excerpts of their conversation:

Two years ago, activists began pushing the idea of divesting from Sudan. How successful have they been?

Mr. Pollak: There's been a great deal of activity along that line and a lot of discussion. I'm aware of four states that have passed binding legislation that calls for divestment and 20-some universities with a couple dozen more states who have some legislation pending.

So far, Illinois is leading the charge?

Pollak: Illinois thus far has put the most wide-ranging definition around the investment program. Illinois's, unlike some of the others, includes both US companies and non-US companies.

What about divestment plans in the other states?

Pollak:Some of them aren't due to take effect for a couple more years.... And some of the states have put laws into effect that would allow them to hold what they already hold but just not buy anything new. So there's varying definitions across the map and a large lack of consistency.

Is it hard to figure out which companies should be excluded?

Mr. Fernald: It's difficult research. I think the hardest area - well, one area - is companies that are providing humanitarian assistance and how you draw the line there. Sometimes, the definitions are not quite as clear as they should be. For example, General Electric has donated some medical supplies [to Sudan]. And that, we considered, was not worthy of being on the exclusion list. It was purely humanitarian. But Procter & Gamble is on the list because of razors that are distributed in Sudan.

Razors?

Fernald: It's not considered directly humanitarian so [Procter & Gamble] is on the list. Some of these issues are difficult areas to decide on. Are you helping build the infrastructure of a country, which can obviously support the people of the country? Or, as you help build up the structure, are you actually empowering the government, which is carrying out the atrocities?

Do companies respond?

Fernald: We contact all the companies that make it on our list. And they do respond. They don't want to be on the list. We had Xerox tell us that they're getting out of Sudan. Total, the oil company from France, is involved in Sudan, but they sent us a long letter explaining the exact nature of the involvement and how, in their eyes, it's not an active support for the Sudanese government.

Because?

Fernald:They have a percentage of one of the fields. they're not actively drilling. So are they giving any revenues to the government right now? They claim they're not. But the energy industry, that's what drives the government right now. And, of course, you wouldn't want to be supporting a company that's selling to the military.

How did you rule on Total?

Fernald: Well, they qualify [for the list] under the Illinois legislation.

Have you taken any companies off your list?

Fernald: Two American companies - [oil-service firm] Baker Hughes and Xerox - have told us that they are preparing to leave Sudan. So we will watch that closely. And if it comes to fruition, then they'd be removed from the list.

How many companies are on the list?

Pollak: Different research companies have different definitions. We work with KLD, and KLD's list has at this point about 160 names. Nine of them are US companies; 38 of them are within the EAFE [Europe, Australia, and Far East] Index; another 16 are within the emerging markets piece of the Morgan Stanley indexes; and the remainder aren't part of established benchmarks. But it's a pretty wide-ranging list that you'll notice if you're not investing in it.

Are investors flocking to your divestment product?

Pollak:I wouldn't say that investors are flocking to it. I think at this point they're looking to those bodies that either make policy for them - or their own policies - and saying: "If we're going to do this, how can we minimize the impact of these restrictions on our overall investment goal?"

And cutting out 160 companies from the universe of stocks could make that more difficult?

Pollak: For example, the 39 companies that are part of the developed, non-US countries represent almost 9 percent of that index. So you're taking out a large portion of that.

Those are the institutional investors. What can the individual investor do to be Sudan-free?

Fernald: You can certainly educate yourself on the issue. There's a lot of traffic on the Internet on it. So if you're interested, you can certainly find certain lists [of companies with links to Sudan]. I wouldn't claim that they would be exhaustive or as complete as ours, for example, but you can certainly make a beginning.



Pollak: The important thing, I think, is to have a definition that you're comfortable with as you get to be Sudan-free.... If you're not thoughtful about putting that definition together, you could wind up very unhappy with your returns.

The government and a rebel faction signed a peace agreement in May. If peace comes to Sudan, would the divestment campaign end?

Pollak: I think organizations like KLD and other firms that are doing the research would look for some proof that it's sustainable before they would reduce their list to zero. I think the legislatures and the foundations and endowments would do the same thing.

Fernald: We'd all be thrilled to see that take place.... If that actually came about, then I'm sure, fairly quickly, this issue would go away.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

Today's Article on Christian Science
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

from the July 10, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0710/p16s01-wmgn.html

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* * * * * * * * * * *If ethical dollars can change manufacturing and banking, can they improve the media, too?
Can investors help make the media better? Some investment firms are trying to do so in specific niches. For a look at two of them, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie sat down with Dawn Wolfe, social research and advocacy analyst for Boston Common Asset Management, and Chat Reynders, who is starting his own socially responsible investing firm here in Boston. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:


Dawn, your company wants Internet firms to stop giving too much data to foreign nations like China.
Ms. Wolfe: The incident you're referring to is the Shi Tao case, which has received a lot of press. Shi Tao was a journalist living in Hunan Province and in April 2004, he attended a staff meeting where they discussed documents that had been put out by the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda bureau, warning them about specific security implementations that were going to be happening in advance of the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Shi Tao sent an e-mail that evening from his personal Yahoo! e-mail account to a website in the US. About a year later Shi Tao was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for 10 years for distributing state secrets abroad.

What was Yahoo's role?
Wolfe:
In September of this year, a founder of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang, admitted that the company had in fact worked with Chinese authorities to help in their actions against this journalist. Certainly that case in particular raised the issue for a lot of people.

Is this problem limited to Yahoo?

Wolfe: Microsoft just this summer agreed to censor words like "freedom," "human rights," and "democracy" on its MSN China portal. So, for example, if you were to type the word "freedom" in that portal in China today, you would receive a message similar to "Your request cannot contain forbidden words such as profanity." And it would ask you to type in something else. Boston Common has been working with Cisco on the networking capabilities that they are providing [to China].

Chat, you're asking investors to fund educational films. That sounds risky.

Mr. Reynders: The first lesson I learned when I became an investment adviser was 'Never invest in films.' for 15 years now, we've been investing in IMAX film properties.

What films?

Reynders: We've got four films out right now. The first film we did, years ago, was "Whales." That's grossed about $50 million. We've got a second film out, "Dolphins," which was nominated for an Academy Award. It raised $80 million and is still out. "Bears" was another educational film that's raised about $30 million. "Coral Reef Adventure" was released two years ago and that is now over $60 million in revenue. When I add all of those revenues up, it's nearly $200 million, 80 percent of which is going to cultural institutions.

What are the social benefits?

Reynders: When we started there were 57 theaters and now there are over 400 worldwide. We partner with the National Science Foundation to create curricula that reaches, with each film, 2 million children. We have a website presence that goes all over the world in 16 languages. So, the impact of these media properties has expanded to an incredible degree.

And the financial benefits?

Reynders: Our clients receive something on the order of 50 to 70 percent return on their dollar over six to eight years.

Dawn, how have investors reacted to your initiative?

Wolfe: Over the course of the last couple months, Boston Common worked with other organizations including an NGO by the name of Reporters Without Borders and other social investment firms to put together a joint investor statement on human rights and the Internet. We launched that statement in November with 26 signatories representing over $20 billion worth of investments calling on US corporations within the technology sector to be mindful of what their potential impact could be in certain countries where the government was actively suppressing human rights via the Internet.

So, can ethical investors change the media?

Wolfe: I don't think the socially responsible investing community alone will change how the Internet is censored and monitored. But we are part of a much bigger group. I think it's important that investors are part of the debate. Shareholders bring a unique voice in that we are talking with management as owners.[B]• Watch the entire webcast conversation at www.csmonitor.com/ethicalinvesting

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

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Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Posted December 12, 2005 - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1212/p25s01-wmgn.html

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BUSH'S HEIR CUT:
AWARDS TAX BREAK TO SON OF AN ASTOR

A NEWSLETTER:
by Greg Palast
For The Guardian, Comment Is Free
Monday, July 31, 2006

East Hampton, New York -- Anthony Marshall, the tabloids tell us, wouldn't buy his elderly mother her prescribed medicine, locked her poodles in the pantry and refused to buy her hair dye or her favorite make-up. His mom is Brooke Astor, the ultra-rich socialite, now frail, helpless and dependent on her son.

While others merely gossiped about this tragedy of dogs and cosmetics, George Bush acted. In a deft maneuver at the end of last week, Bush rammed through Congress a massive reduction in the inheritance tax. As a result of the tax change engineered by the White House, Marshall stands to save $9 million on the $45 million he expects to inherit from his mom.

George W. Bush could feel Anthony's pain. It's not easy being a child of incredibly wealthy parents. Indeed, as the President noted, "death taxes" are supremely unfair to those who've earned these millions. As Mr. Bush often mentions, he himself worked long hours his whole life to be born into a rich family.

Our President recently told the Detroit Economic Club that, in an era of government belt tightening, “Spending discipline requires difficult choices.” But this choice was easy as pie: the President chose to use our tax dollars to reduce the burden on the most deserving. And who could be more deserving than Barbara's kids? The President himself, who stands to inherit well over $76 million from his parents, will save at least $12.7 million. Talk about family values!

This year, the President's budget eliminated the $255 paid to widows of social security recipients. But who needs a measly $255 when you're going to save millions on the estate you inherit?

Here's how much your family will save, if your family is the Astors. Under current law, Anthony would have to pay the government 46% of his profits from his mother's death, after the first tax-free $2 million. Now, Anthony will get the first five million tax-free and the tax rate on the rest is cut in half.

Altogether, this reduction in inheritance taxes will cost, oh, a quarter trillion dollars over the next decade -- $267 billion, to be exact. To pay for it, besides eliminating the $255 widow benefit, the President's "difficult choices" included taking $12 million from the federal traumatic brain injury assistance program and $119 million from housing for the disabled.

But cripples looking for a government hand-out should stop thinking selfishly. They should have more sympathy for the Menendez brothers, whose parents were worth $14 million. The tax laws in 1989 reduced the net sum each of the two boys stood to inherit to just $2 million each, giving the young men no choice but to kill their parents for the additional insurance money.

Apparently, one of the single largest beneficiaries of the change will be Robert Durst. And now that he's out of jail (he dis-membered his 71-year-old neighbor), the heir to the Durst real estate billions can look forward to a bonus of, I'd estimate, at least a quarter billion bucks from the US taxpayers. (With the extra Treasury treasure, Durst can look for his wife who is, uh, missing.)

The President could have used the quarter trillion to buy every displaced family from New Orleans a one million dollar home. But, he reasoned, their kids would just end up paying estate taxes on it when their parents kicked the bucket.

Several newspapers deplored the way Anthony treated the elderly Mrs. Astor. But, let me note, it was the Tax-and-Spend policies of Big Government that forced him to dilute his mom's medicine. Let's face it: until our President's bold action to repeal death taxes, Mrs. Astor, hanging in there at 104 years of age, simply had no incentive to die.

The National Association of Manufacturers, the key lobby for the end of estate taxes, wrote every Congressman, "Why on earth should good, honest, hard-working people" -- like Durst, Marshall and the Menendez kids -- have to pay taxes while other Americans just slack it?

Until the Republicons took action this week, Americans have simply had no reason, said our president, to "accumulate wealth." I know that in my own dad's case, rather than become a multi-millionaire, he chose to work 65 hours a week in a furniture store, with no pension, just so my sister and I would never have to fear estate taxes.

Congress' vote last week would eliminate only 74% of the taxes on America's wealthiest. Our President is not satisfied. Mr. Bush will not rest in peace until we emulate one of the only nations on the planet without any death taxes, Saudi Arabia. There, our president could point to the example of the billionaire bin Laden family, whose scion, Osama, unburdened by estate taxes, has donated his entire inheritance to "faith-based initiatives."

-----------------Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." To find out more about the book and to read Palast's reports go to www.GregPalast.com You may change your email address or unsubscribe from the newsletter member page. (If you don't have a password for the member page, you can have one sent to you.) GO ON-SITE TO ACCESS LINKS

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* * * * * * * * * * *Making Radio Waves
The new voice of immigrant rights
Sara Catania
July/August 2006 Issue

It was well past noon when Eduardo Sotelo’s SUV rolled up to a crowded loading dock in Los Angeles. By the luck of an on-air drawing earlier in the day, the employees of this sheet metal plant had won a coveted Sotelo taquiza, or taco party. When they spotted the white suv, decorated with a supersized reproduction of Sotelo, they began chanting “Pi-o-lín! Pi-o-lín!” which translates as “Tweety Bird! Tweety Bird!” a childhood moniker bestowed upon Sotelo for his large lips and diminutive stature. The nickname has stuck with him as the host of one of the most popular radio shows in the country.

Though most non-Spanish-speakers have never heard of it, “Piolín por la Mañana” (“Tweety Bird in the Morning”) is beamed daily from Los Angeles’ La Nueva 101.9 and some 20 other stations throughout the West to more than 1 million listeners. Until recently, the seven-hour broadcast was best known for its lively mix of humor, norteño and banda music, and the occasional taquiza giveaway. Then, in early March, Sotelo agreed to help publicize a protest of a proposed House bill that would turn undocumented immigrants into felons. For weeks, he and other Spanish-language radio personalities he had recruited blanketed the airwaves with announcements and discussions promoting the event. On March 26, around 400,000 protesters descended on downtown Los Angeles in an unexpected display of political muscle that energized the Latino community. Soon afterward, the Senate and President Bush started discussing a compromise measure that included none of the draconian proposals approved by the House. All thanks, in no small part, to Piolín.

Piolín has drawn the attention of politicians and power brokers hoping to tap into his audience’s newfound clout. Cardinal Roger Mahony has called in to the show several times to lead on-air prayer sessions and guide listeners through a fast to emphasize humility while seeking immigration rights. Sotelo says he hasn’t heard from any Democrats who might want to take advantage of his ability to mobilize potential voters. But Luis Miranda, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, says Sotelo’s role is valuable: “He has taken a strong stand. It’s about families and communities of people who are outraged at the attempt to scapegoat people who are here to work hard. Piolín is bringing that message to a diversity of people.”

Still, “Piolín por la Mañana” is not agenda radio. It springs from neither Rush Limbaugh nor Air America. It is entertainment radio from which a political consciousness, one that is not easily categorized, is taking shape. Sotelo is not an ideologue, and as he points out, he does not have U.S. citizenship and therefore cannot vote. His goal, he says, is simply to secure legal status for all undocumented immigrants. But the means to this end, as envisioned by Sotelo, are far from revolutionary, and instead hinge on patience, spiritual enlightenment, and personal accountability. For Sotelo, the big productions, marches, and protests are impressive displays that draw attention and catalyze communities. But, he argues, those marches are meaningless unless they inspire individual action. “If somebody does not agree with us,” he says, “demonstrate with work, with positive actions. We have to win the privilege of citizenship. And we have to respect all the laws.” And as the politicians take notice, Sotelo proceeds with caution. “I have to be careful because I have a big responsibility,” he explains. “I’m not going to do something just because somebody asks me to if I don’t believe in it. I need to feel it in my heart for it to happen.”

He took a guarded position, for instance, in the controversy over the May 1 walkout in support of immigrants’ rights, at first opposing the work boycott on grounds that it would hurt the economy. But as his listeners weighed in, he changed his mind. On the day of the boycott, he canceled his show and appeared at a rally in downtown L.A., where he told the members of an enthusiastic crowd that they should work to become citizens.

Sotelo attributes his passionate connection with his fans to his personal experience as an immigrant. His own border crossing was typically horrific. At 16, he narrowly escaped the hounding of a border patrol helicopter north of Tijuana, then packed himself into the airless trunk of a car with two others, where they remained, faint and gasping, for an hours-long journey. For a time, he lived with his family in a garage without a bathroom, working jobs at a car wash and a photo-developing shop. He got his break on the graveyard shift of a community radio station and, using a forged green card, worked his way up to bigger jobs until immigration agents tracked him down. The station where Sotelo worked at the time put its lawyers on the case, and at the eleventh hour, just as he thought he would be deported to his native Jalisco, approval for his residency came through.

Sitting in the taquiza truck, Sotelo bowed his head in prayer. “Dear God,” he began, “thank you for what you’re doing in Washington. Thank you for letting us be the light that you give us in our hearts.”

Whether or not he chooses to continue to use the devotion of his legion of fans for political ends, Sotelo clearly has the power to do so. When he emerged from the suv, a group of women screaming “Piolín!” closed in. The one closest to him thrust a Sharpie his way and yanked the collar of her shirt down, making room for him to scrawl “Piolín” across her upper chest. A few moments later, he leaped atop the suv’s roof and began gyrating. The crowd laughed as someone shouted, “Viva Piolín!”

Sara Catania is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who specializes in stories on criminal and social justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

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Still Cleaning Up After Katrina
Still doing a heckuva job for Katrina victims

July/August 2006 Issue

205,000 houses were severely damaged by last year’s Gulf Coast hurricanes. As of May, 60% remained unoccupied.

Displaced families have moved an average of 3.5 times since the storms.

In March, the New York Times found that more than 1 in 10 New Orleans evacuees were homeless or had no permanent place to live.

Fewer than 35% of New Orleans’ 462,000 residents had returned to the city as of March. Only half are expected to return by September 2008.

State Farm and Allstate will no longer sell homeowners insurance in New Orleans.

Eight months after Katrina, fewer than 1 in 10 New Orleans businesses had reopened.

The Small Business Administration has rejected nearly 70% of the 2.4 million loan applications received from hurricane victims.

36 countries and international organizations donated $126 million to federal rebuilding efforts, half of which remained undistributed six months after Katrina.

FEMA spent $431 million on 11,000 trailer homes that were never used, $3 million for 4,000 unused cots, and $10 million to fix up 240 rooms in Alabama that housed only six people.

Carnival Cruise Lines got a six-month, $236 million contract to house evacuees on three of its ships, which sat half empty off the Gulf Coast for weeks.

The GAO found that there was insufficient oversight on 13 reconstruction contracts, including $100 million to Bechtel.

Experts predict there is a nearly 50% chance that a Category 3 or greater hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast this season.

On a scale of 1 to 10, FEMA director R. David Paulison gave the agency an 8 in terms of preparedness for this year’s hurricane season.

More than 100,000 families in Louisiana and Mississippi live in FEMA trailers that Paulison said “should not, or could not, ride out even a Category 1 storm.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and viewers.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress . . . . . . . . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . .

CIA Blogger Fired For Torture Post
Govenment technology Intelligence Blogs
A software contractor for the CIA lost her job last week when she blogged one post too many. (go on-site to view links)The Washington Post's Dana Priest reported on Friday that Christine Axsmith, who wrote a popular blog for people top-secret security clearances, criticized the US policy on torture and promptly found herself on the street.

Writing as Covert Communications, CC for short, and posting on Intelink, the intel world's classified intranet, she was a typical general blogger in a rarified domain. She wrote about everything from the economy to terrorism to the food in the CIA cafeteria.

The day of the last post (July 13), Axsmith said, after reading a newspaper report that the CIA would join the rest of the U.S. government in according Geneva Conventions rights to prisoners, she posted her views on the subject.

It started, she said, something like this: "Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong."

And it continued, she added, with something like this: "CC had the sad occasion to read interrogation transcripts in an assignment that should not be made public. And, let's just say, European lives were not saved." (That was a jab at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe late last year when she defended U.S. policy on secret detentions and interrogations.)

She thought it would be OK to post about it, since the official policy had changed. She was wrong. She thought she might be reprimanded or her blog would be deleted. She was wrong about that too.

After a humiliating interrogation in which her badge was taken and she was left in a freezing conference room that people used as a shortcut, she was fired.

Fired - and threatened with criminal prosecution - for opining that torture is wrong, at a time when that sentiment is official policy.

How's that for a chilling effect?

CIA Blogger
That lady should get a medal for bravery!
Pity there aren't more humanitarian 'whistle blowers' l... (Read the rest)


CIA Blogger rob_wil -- 07/24/06
CIA blogger fired for torture post graphix1@... -- 07/24/06
She ought to get a medal barryschaeffer@... -- 07/24/06
new urban legend or grounds for claim? add7 -- 07/24/06
When doing the Right thing isn't Professional Dr_Zinj -- 07/25/06
Axsmith bloviated madmaven -- 07/26/06
Add your opinion
«« Previous Post | Next Post »»

Go on-site to view links and more articles. Just click on the following link:

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2454

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Next We Take Tehran
The confrontation with Iran has very little to do with nukes—and a lot with the agenda of empire
Robert Dreyfuss
July/August 2006 Issue

President Bush may or may not order a massive aerial bombardment of Iran later this year. Or he may wait until 2007. Or he may simply escalate a risky confrontation with Iran through covert action and economic sanctions. But whatever the next act in the crisis, don’t be fooled by the assertion that the problem is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms.

Iran is a decade away from gaining access to the bomb, according to the administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate, and despite all the talk about the ugliness of the theocratic regime in Tehran, the likely showdown is, at bottom, driven by the geopolitics of oil. With one-tenth of the world’s petroleum reserves and one-sixth of its natural gas reserves, Iran sits in a strategic geographical position that makes it the cockpit for control of the entire Middle East. It straddles the Persian Gulf’s choke points, including the Strait of Hormuz; it has important influence among Shiites throughout Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states; and it borders highly contested real estate to the north, from the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea to Central Asia.

The logic of the Bush administration is inexorable. Its ironclad syllogism is this: The United States is and must remain the world’s preeminent power, if need be by using its superior military might. One of the two powers with the ability to emerge as a rival—China—depends vitally on the Persian Gulf and Central Asia for its future supply of oil; the other—Russia—is heavily engaged in Iran, Central Asia, and the Caucasus region. Therefore, if the United States can secure a dominant position in the Gulf, it will have an enormous advantage over its potential challengers. Call it zero-sum geopolitics: Their loss is our gain.

Of course, the idea of the Persian Gulf as an American lake is not exactly new. Neoconservatives, moderate conservatives, “realists” typified by Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker, and liberal internationalists in the mold of President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, mostly agree that the Gulf ought to be owned and operated by the United States, and the idea has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy under presidents both Republican and Democratic. Its adherents justified it in the past, however thinly, because of the exigencies of World War II and then the Cold War.

But if the administration’s goals are congruent with past U.S. policy, its methods represent a radical departure. Previous administrations relied on alliances, proxy relationships with local rulers, a military presence that stayed mostly behind the scenes, and over-the-horizon forces ready to intervene in a crisis. President Bush has directly occupied two countries in the region and threatened a third. And by claiming a sweeping regional war without end against what he has referred to as “Islamofascism,” combined with an announced goal to impose U.S.-style free-market democracy in southwest Asia, he has adopted a utopian approach much closer to imperialism than to traditional balance-of-power politics.

By inaugurating a war of choice against a nation that had not attacked the United States, and by justifying his actions under a new doctrine of unilateral, preventive war, Bush shattered the U.S. establishment’s policy consensus while alienating America’s closest allies, angering its rivals, and provoking a storm of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. Now, like a high-stakes blackjack player doubling down, the president is letting the world know that he is ready to do it all over again in Iran.




A SUCCESSION OF U.S. presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush, literally and figuratively planted the American flag at the heart of the Persian Gulf. F.D.R., who met Saudi Arabia’s king aboard a warship in 1945, had proclaimed two years earlier: “I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States.” Carter, in 1980, restated the doctrine even more forcefully: “Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States.”

From the 1950s through the 1990s, the U.S. backed up those words with muscle. Military treaties reaching into the Middle East, including NATO and CENTO, were established. An archipelago of U.S. military bases took form in east Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Gulf. Washington sent billions of dollars in military aid and arms sales, and tens of thousands of U.S. military advisers, into the region. The Rapid Deployment Force and then the U.S. Central Command were created, and the U.S. 5th Fleet was assembled and based in the tiny Gulf nation of Bahrain. All that, and more, preceded the Gulf War in 1991, which led to a massive expansion of the U.S. military presence in the region.

Since 2001, President Bush has radically revised the rules of the game. From the beginning, the neoconservative architects of Bush’s policy intended for the war that began in Afghanistan and expanded to Iraq to go on, in a dominolike series of forced regime change, revolution, and even war, to Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. Iran, in particular, was always seen as the next step after Iraq. The original idea was that if the United States toppled Saddam Hussein and installed in Baghdad a regime dominated by Kurdish and Shiite puppets, Iran would be caught between U.S. forces to its west in Iraq and to its east in Afghanistan. And because both Shiites and Kurds have allies inside Iran, and because Iraqi Shiite religious leaders have intimate connections with the ruling Iranian theocracy, the skids would be greased for a U.S.-inspired overthrow of the Iranian government—or so Bush and Cheney believed.

Needless to say, things haven’t exactly gone according to plan. Still, it’s far too early to write off the impact of 130,000 U.S. soldiers in a country the size of Iraq, backed by a president convinced that he can still pull out a victory, especially if the troops stay for another five years or more. And if the United States launches the sort of bombing campaign against Iran that is being considered—involving attacks against not just nuclear research facilities but also airfields, command and control centers, and other intelligence and military targets—to say that the consequences would be unpredictable is an understatement. The administration and many of its supporters are apparently ready to take the gamble that after an armed confrontation with Iran, a moderate, pro-American regime might emerge from the wreckage. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is explicit on that score. “I don’t disagree [about] the convulsive effects that a strike would have. I actually think that it would be in the end a healthy thing for Iran internally.”

Not surprisingly, Russia and China have a different perspective. Moscow and Beijing, neither of which wants Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, nevertheless do not see Tehran as a threat. To them, the country’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas make it a natural ally. Both Russian and Chinese oil companies had enormous development and supply contracts with Baghdad under Saddam Hussein, deals that are worthless in an Iraq controlled by the United States. They might be forgiven for thinking that Iran, too, would be off-limits to them if Bush succeeds.

For China’s economic future, Iran and the region are essential. As recently as 1992, China was an oil-exporting country, but since then it has become a voracious importer of oil and gas. (Indeed, China’s demand for oil is the leading factor in pushing prices from $10 to $20 a barrel to around $75 a barrel today.) In Iran, China has signed a series of gargantuan deals, including a 25-year contract reported to be worth $100 billion between Iran and the Chinese state-owned energy company Sinopec. China is also deeply engaged with Russia’s oil industry and with Central Asian oil exporters in constructing a web of gas and oil pipelines throughout the region. President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China have made energy the centerpiece of Russian-Chinese relations. Russia’s Rosneft oil company and China National Petroleum Co., two state-owned conglomerates, have negotiated plans for Russia to supply about 10 percent of China’s oil, and the Russian gas giant Gazprom is talking to China about building two huge new gas pipelines with a total capacity of 80 billion cubic meters a year. Last year, the Asia Times heralded the emergence of a strategic “new triangle comprised of China, Iran, and Russia.”

Since 2001, Russia and China have watched America’s heavy-handed push into the Middle East and Central Asia with suspicion and alarm. Together, they and four Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—have created the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security body that has emerged as a counterweight to U.S. influence in the region. Last July, the organization issued a declaration demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Central Asia; by the end of 2005, Uzbekistan had kicked the United States out of its Karshi-Khanabad air base, and soon Kyrgyzstan may evict the U.S. from its Manas air base, both head-on challenges to the administration in countries that Washington considers essential to its influence in Central Asia. This summer, the SCO may agree to extend a membership offer to Iran.

Meanwhile, U.S. relations with both China and Russia are edging toward outright hostility. With Beijing, the administration has maintained cordial ties, in part because Big Business depends so heavily on China. But many Bush officials have an innate distrust, even loathing, of China, especially in the office of Vice President Cheney, who in 2001 drew several of his top aides from the staff of a strongly anti-China congressional committee pursuing allegations that Beijing had stolen state secrets during the Clinton administration. Cheney, too, is leading the charge for a more confrontational stance toward Russia. During an overseas visit in May that took him from the Baltic republic of Lithuania to Kazakhstan, in the heart of Central Asia’s oil and gas fields, Cheney delivered a series of broadsides against Moscow and warned Putin against using “oil and gas [as] tools of intimidation or blackmail.”

Flynt Leverett, who worked on Middle East policy for Bush’s National Security Council before resigning in disgust, told a political salon in Washington recently that the U.S.-Iran conflict could end up pushing Russia, China, and Iran closer together. “What I see as an emerging axis of oil between Russia and China will be greatly bolstered,” he said.

SERGEY LAVROV, Russia’s foreign minister, is Moscow’s point man for the U.N. talks about Iran. After a U.N. meeting in New York earlier this year, Lavrov said bluntly: “This looks like déjà vu.” Indeed, the parallels with the year before the invasion of Iraq are startling.

In addition to exaggerating the nuclear threat, the administration has been accusing Iran of harboring Al Qaeda fugitives and supporting bin Laden’s movement, though there is little or no evidence to support these claims. As in Iraq, Washington is sinking millions of dollars into propaganda efforts and alliances with dubious exile groups; according to a recent State Department planning document, the United States is busily setting up Iran intelligence and mobilization centers in Dubai, Istanbul, Frankfurt, London, and Azerbaijan to work with “Iranian expatriate communities.” Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the vice president and a top State Department official, is overseeing a program to spend $85 million on support for dissidents in Iran and to pay for anti-Iran propaganda. She has helped create a brand-new Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department, and she reportedly supervises an office called the Iran-Syria Operations Group. As with Iraq, U.S. officials—realizing that U.N. support for an attack on Iran is nil—are talking openly about bypassing the world body and forging yet another “coalition of the willing” to confront Iran. And, of course, as with Iraq, there is the escalating rhetoric, the talk of “all options” being on the table, the news of Special Forces already operating in the country to foment civil conflict.

“If that is déjà vu, then so be it,” John Bolton, the neoconservative saber-rattler who represents the United States at the U.N., told reporters in March. “That is the course we are on.”
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. He is a Mother Jones contributing writer, and his work frequently appears in The Nation, The American Prospect, and Rolling Stone.. . . . . . . . .
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and readers like you.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

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After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.

The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." -- Alexis de Tocqueville [Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
~ ~ ~
The dangerous patriot: "The one who drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. He is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism . . . which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power and which equates the national honor with military victory.": Marine Corps, Colonel James A. Donovan~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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* * * * * * *
A Nato-led force would be in Israel's interests, but not Lebanon's

Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.

By Robert Fisk
08/01/06 "The Independent" -- -- So, how come George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara - after their inevitable disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq - believe that a Nato-led force is going to survive on the south Lebanese border? The Israelis would obviously enjoy watching its deployment - it will be time for the West to take the casualties - but Hizbollah is likely to view its arrival as a proxy Israeli army. It is, after all, supposed to be a "buffer" force to protect Israel - not, as the Lebanese have quickly noted, to protect Lebanon - and the last Nato army that came to this country was literally blasted out of its mission by suicide bombers.

How blithely the US and British governments have erased the narrative of the old Multinational Force - the MNF - which arrived in Beirut to escort Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon in August of 1982 and then, after the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinian guerrillas at the Sabra and Chatila camps by Israel's proxy Lebanese militia, returned to protect the survivors and extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.

Does that sound familiar? And they also came to train the Lebanese army - one of the missions being foisted on the new Bush-Blair army - and they failed. Blown up by suicide bombers at their Beirut headquarters with the loss of 241 American lives, the US Marines retreated into the ground, digging earthworks beneath Beirut airport.

And there they lived until the newly-trained Lebanese army broke apart in February 1984 - at which point, President Ronald Reagan decided to "redeploy" his troops offshore. Like other famous historical redeployments - Napoleon's redeployment from Moscow, for example, or Custer's last redeployment - it represented a national disaster, a colossal blow to US prestige in the region and a warning that such Lebanese adventures always end in tears. The French left shortly afterwards. So did the Italians. A company of British troops had been the first to scuttle out.

So, how come anyone believes that the next foreign army to arrive in the Lebanese meat-grinder is going to be any more successful? True, the MNF was not backed by a UN Security Council resolution. But since when were Hizbollah susceptible to the UN? They have already failed to disarm - as they were required to under UN resolution 1559 - and one of the world's toughest guerrilla armies is not going to hand over its guns to Nato generals. But most of the force will be Muslim, we are told. This may be true, and the Turks are already unwisely agreeing to participate. But are the Lebanese going to accept the descendants of the hated Ottoman empire? Will the the Shia south of Lebanon accept Sunni Muslim soldiers?

Indeed, how come the people of southern Lebanon have not been consulted about the army which is supposed to live in their lands? Because, of course, it is not coming for them. It will come because the Israelis and the Americans want it there to help reshape the Middle East. This no doubt makes sense in Washington - where self-delusion rules diplomacy almost as much as it does in Israel - but America's dreams usually become the Middle East's nightmares.

And this time, we will watch a Nato-led army's disintegration at close quarters. South-west Afghan-istan and Iraq are now so dangerous that no reporters can witness the carnage being perpetrated as a result of our hopeless projects. But, in Lebanon, it's going to be live-time coverage of a disaster that can only be avoided by the one diplomatic step Messrs Bush and Blair refuse to take: by talking to Damascus.

So when this latest foreign army arrives, count the days - or hours - to the first attack upon it. Then we'll hear all over again that we are fighting evil, that "they" - Hizbollah or Palestinian guerrillas, or anyone else planning to destroy "our" army - hate our values; and then, of course, we'll be told that this is all part of the "War on Terror" - the nonsense which Israel has been peddling. And then perhaps we'll remember what George Bush senior said after Hizbollah's allies suicide-bombed the Marines in 1982, that American policy would not be swayed by a bunch of "insidious terrorist cowards".

And we all know what happened then. Or have we forgotten?

Day 20

* Lebanese dead - at least 577 confirmed, could be up to 750. Israeli dead - 51.

* Israel bombs and shells southern Lebanon despite announced halt in air raids.

* Rescue workers find 28 bodies buried for days in destroyed buildings in three Lebanese villages.

* UN postpones a meeting on Lebanon peacekeeping force indefinitely.

* Bush says he will seek UN action this week to end the fighting.

* Clashes near Aita Al-Shaab leave four Hizbollah fighters dead and three Israelis wounded.

Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14309.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

They say for every affair the saintly Loretta Young engaged in, (and I'm not saying that in a derogatory manner, she did have a saintly way about her, which she cultivated and strived for), she added a wing on to the church, she gave and gave and gave, for which ever addition the Catholic Church, and hospital was in need of.

Mel Gibson has put money into a huge Catholic Church and complex, one which will teach and preach his version of religion, pure orthodoxy, not contaminated by time and new thinking.

Now it seems that the Jewish community is asking for more, as Mel Gibson has refused for years to dispute his fathers beliefs, he skirts the issue, but there is doubt they say about his inner beliefs, in fact many believe he is as much an anti-semite as his father. Just more clever. He uses an almost subliminal approach with his movies, how he points out things which have dogged the Jews for two millenniums. That has bothered Jews and those of us who don't want their problems with Gentiles, us Goyims, exacerbated. We sometimes think he's done that, intentionally or unintentionally. Very subtle for sure, but it's there they say.

The Jews want deep and meaningful apology's concerning this latest incident, They are deserved I believe.

It has probably been the Jewish makers of film, of their having financed film projects, the use of their publicity skills, their lawfirms, underwriters and so forth, it being their expertese which has helped him to become such a success.

Could be, that growing up in such a confused situation as his radical and bigoted father provided him, is part and parcel of his problems with alcohol and life in general? Easy enough to understand looking in, but to have lived it like he has, well it's no wonder he has issues in life, no wonder he is driven to drink, unless he drinking started out as a fun thing and got carried away. But with the words which came out of his mouth make it seem he has deep seated issues which he, for some reason, for some time, just hasn't dealt with. Maybe it's too late. Leopards never change their spots?

I know one thing, the boycots have started and programs of his have been yanked. He's opened the door to a lot of adverse thinking, He certainly won't be viewed in the same way by an awful lot of us, or so it seems. Barbara Walters, has said she will never go to see another Mel Gibson movie, which brought in a large round of applause, and there are probably more out there who harbor the same emotions.

[lotech]

. . . . . . . . . . .

Still Cleaning Up After Katrina
Still doing a heckuva job for Katrina victims

July/August 2006 Issue

205,000 houses were severely damaged by last year’s Gulf Coast hurricanes. As of May, 60% remained unoccupied.

Displaced families have moved an average of 3.5 times since the storms.

In March, the New York Times found that more than 1 in 10 New Orleans evacuees were homeless or had no permanent place to live.

Fewer than 35% of New Orleans’ 462,000 residents had returned to the city as of March. Only half are expected to return by September 2008.

State Farm and Allstate will no longer sell homeowners insurance in New Orleans.
If this is true, it must be due to some factor other than the possibility of a repeat of the damage caused by Katrina. Flooding is not covered under company underwritten homeowners policies. A separate,federally funded flood insurance program covers rising water. Insurance companies are required to handle the paperwork, as a price of doing business, but most people didn't carry a flood policy (even though it's cheap), unless their mortgage lender required it.---LOTECH


Eight months after Katrina, fewer than 1 in 10 New Orleans businesses had reopened.

The Small Business Administration has rejected nearly 70% of the 2.4 million loan applications received from hurricane victims.

We were told by FEMA personnel, that we must apply for an SBA loan even, or especially if we knew we weren't eligible, and even if we didn't want the loan, because the processing of the application was required, if we were to be eligible for any further monetary help (government grants, etc.).
It's not at all surprising that there was a high rejection rate, since almost everyone who walked into a Fema office, for any reason, filled out an application.---LOTECH

36 countries and international organizations donated $126 million to federal rebuilding efforts, half of which remained undistributed six months after Katrina.

FEMA spent $431 million on 11,000 trailer homes that were never used, $3 million for 4,000 unused cots, and $10 million to fix up 240 rooms in Alabama that housed only six people.

Carnival Cruise Lines got a six-month, $236 million contract to house evacuees on three of its ships, which sat half empty off the Gulf Coast for weeks.

I could have stayed on one of those ships at the Port of Pascagoula, very near my workplace. I preferred to live in a tent, in my own back yard.
You can make housing available, but you can't make people live in it.---LOTECH

The GAO found that there was insufficient oversight on 13 reconstruction contracts, including $100 million to Bechtel.

Experts predict there is a nearly 50% chance that a Category 3 or greater hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast this season.

On a scale of 1 to 10, FEMA director R. David Paulison gave the agency an 8 in terms of preparedness for this year’s hurricane season.

More than 100,000 families in Louisiana and Mississippi live in FEMA trailers that Paulison said “should not, or could not, ride out even a Category 1 storm.”

A very large number of families lived in Trailers, before Katrina,. No house-trailer, regardless of origin, can be considered a safe haven in even a Category 1 storm. ---LOTECH
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and viewers.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress . . . . . . . . .

I live close enough to the shore I can hear waves breaking on a quiet night, when there's an on-shore breeze. Though not required by my mortgage-holder (I'm in flood zone B), I carried flood insurance. A good thing for me, and my mortgage-holder, because the high-water line in my house, was over the light switches.
As a very interested observer, sitting in a FEMA trailer as I write this, I take exception when deliberately misleading statements, of any kind are made by people who, knowing nothing first hand, spout well-spun factoids; not with the intention of bettering the situation in any way, but solely to discredit one particular political leader.
There are real problems that need to be solved, but who will ever know what the problems are, if you paint everything as a problem, with the only solution to elect someone different next time? The danger in this sort of simplification is that if you can get a majority to buy that logic, we will elect someone with a different label, everyone will congratulate themselves for having provided the solution . . . and all the problems will still be there, waiting for the next Hurricane, earthquake, pandemic, or terrorist's electromagnetic-pulse dirty-bomb. -Lotech

[Saundra Hummer]

I live close enough to the shore I can hear waves breaking on a quiet night, when there's an on-shore breeze. Though not required by my mortgage-holder (I'm in flood zone B), I carried flood insurance. A good thing for me, and my mortgage-holder, because the high-water line in my house, was over the light switches.
As a very interested observer, sitting in a FEMA trailer as I write this, I take exception when deliberately misleading statements, of any kind are made by people who, knowing nothing first hand, spout well-spun factoids; not with the intention of bettering the situation in any way, but solely to discredit one particular political leader.
There are real problems that need to be solved, but who will ever know what the problems are, if you paint everything as a problem, with the only solution to elect someone different next time. The dander to this sort of simplification is that if you can get a majority to buy that logic, we will elect someone with a different label, everyone will congratulate themselves for having provided the solution . . . and all the problems will still be there, waiting for the next Hurricane, earthquake, pandemic, or terrorist's electromagnetic-pulse dirty-bomb.

Interesting take on your situation. I just hope that you have some sort of air conditioning when the hot weather hits. It's easy to warm up, but so hard to cool off in aluminum or any kind of house trailer. If safe and in a mosquito net, I would take the outdoors anytime. We used to sleep out side at our house in Hermosa Beach quite a bit. Never a worry and very few bugs of any kind there. A back yard full of kids, and when the Hawaiians came over for the Lifeguard races, we had a house and yard full of them as well. We gave them our bedrooms, the living room floor, with it's soft wool, rug, they liked that, and then there was the room off of the garage with it's shower, all the privacy they wanted there, so it was a favorite with them, letting them save their money, not having to pay for motel rooms. Talk about fun, it was that.

Isn't governement red tape something? How do you think of the mandatory filings knowing they are for rejections, rejections printed out, posted and or mailed, adding to the expense I would imagine, surely there would be an easier way to make sure one would be accepted into programs if the need should arise in the future, other than a convoluted proceedure which you mentioned. Or do you think it is a good one.

I sure hope all works out well for you. Did you lose everything, or were you able to pack up clothing, memento's and other necessities? How about family and friends. Were they all spared the drama & trauma of it all or were they in it as well? Sure hope you're doing well and that your prospects are good.

From your viewpoint, how is it all coming along down there? I know most people are all concerned with the French Quarter and it's old buildings and establishments for music and food. How is that coming along? I know there's more to New Orleans and Mississippi than what we hear of the most, but what do you hear, and see. We're hearing a lot about some serious crime, is that a big problem? Or is it about like it used to be. I've always heard it's bad down there, not just during Mardi Gras. Not the girls flashing for beads and rowdy drunkeness, but some pretty serious stuff most of the time, locals, not college kids on spring break rampages, not that they can't be a wreck.

[Saundra Hummer]

* * * * * * * * * * *
Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon
By Anders Strindberg
NEW YORK
As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.

Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense.

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and per- sistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten.

These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.[/

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the August 01, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

[the magnificent goldberg]

* * * * * * * * * * *
Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon
By Anders Strindberg
NEW YORK
As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.

Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense.

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and per- sistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten.

These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.[/

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the August 01, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

Yes INDEED!

mg

[Saundra Hummer]

* * * * * * *

How Can There Be Peace, When For Years There Have Been Suicide Bombings And Policies Such As This? This Old Article Talks About Many Of The Problems Of The Palestenians.
SRH

Behind the barrier
Israelis say a new partitioning of the West Bank is critical to security. Palestinians say they'll be prisoners on their own land.
By
Nicole Gaouette
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
QALQILYA, WEST BANK - Yusif Josef Ramsi is still farming, if you can call it that. The West Bank farmer, never a major landowner, once tended his seven-acre plot of fig and olive trees with pride.

Now, what's left of his patrimony sits in a few dozen black plastic buckets.

"The rest is all over there," says Mr. Ramsi, pointing a gnarled hand beyond the sleek gray expanse of Israel's security barrier, just a few feet away.

At 26 feet high, the barrier around Qalqilya is the most striking example of Israel's attempt to physically separate itself from the Palestinians.

Israelis say the structure will end the militant attacks that have scarred their cities and left so many families in grief.

But the barrier's detours into the West Bank have claimed hundreds of acres of fertile Palestinian land, Ramsi's included, leading Palestinians to question whether security is Israel's only consideration. "We'll have a Palestinian state you can fit in a Coca-Cola bottle," Ramsi jokes bitterly.

Concerns about the barrier's route have brought it center stage. President Bush has raised it with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The State Department is proposing sanctions against Israel for construction in Palestinian areas. While Israeli officials stress the barrier's security function, Israelis outside government say it is also driven by a desire to define the borders of a Palestinian state. As such, it could derail the shaky Israeli-Palestinian peace plan now under discussion.

"[The barrier] will profoundly change the geographical and political landscape of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," RAND Corporation analyst Bruce Hoffman wrote recently.

The barrier is also the latest manifestation of a tragic trend in this conflict, in which the long-term security that Israelis desire and the state that Palestinians envision are in danger of becoming mutually exclusive possibilities.

Some 80 percent of Israelis, tired and worn after what the army estimates are 817 deaths at the hands of Palestinian militants, want the barrier. They say physical separation is the only way to free Israelis from the fear of suicide bombers. While left-wing groups campaign against the barrier, they are in a minority. Most Israelis, after three years of conflict, want nothing to do with Palestinians.

Israeli security, Palestinian hardship
But when Israelis lay out their safety concerns, Palestinians, pointing to the barrier's path through fields, around cities, and between neighbors, see only a blueprint for their suffering.

In the short term, the barrier blocks Palestinians from their land; their livelihoods, and their access to resources like water, schools, and health care. In the long term, it will stifle economic growth and, under an Ottoman-era law still in effect, could lead to the permanent loss of land. Many Palestinians believe this is the true aim of Israel's West Bank policy.

Israelis, who remember Palestinians' widespread public support for suicide bombers, say their adversaries are simply reaping the fruits of their hatred.

"We are not punishing the Palestinians. They are punished by their leadership ... that incites them," says Judith Shahor, head of staff at the group Victims of Arab Terror, whose 19-year-old son was murdered by Palestinians in 1995.

In Qalqilya, a town of 42,000 completely encircled by the barrier, Mayor Ma'aruf Zahran says both sides will pay a price for these policies.

"We have no income, no services, no water, no land . People think about moving out, we call it 'voluntary transfer,' " he says. "Young people are looking for ways of revenge. The Israelis are planting seeds of hatred and terror."

A modest genesis
The concept of a barrier emerged in November 2000, just two months after the intifada began. Then Prime Minister Ehud Barak wanted to block Palestinian cars from crossing the Green Line, which divides Israel proper and the West Bank.

When Ariel Sharon replaced Mr. Barak in March 2001, he inherited the project but had little enthusiasm for it. Right-wing Israelis, particularly settlers living in the West Bank, were worried the barrier would entrench the Green Line as the border.

But a steady barrage of suicide bombings - 42 from March 2001 to March 2002 - and strong public support for the barrier - shifted the tide. Settlers didn't want to pit themselves against the general public and fell in line behind the barrier. However, they planned to make changes.

In April 2002, the government tapped the Ministry of Defense to oversee the project, and in August the first bulldozers bit into the earth.

What are they building is not strictly a fence, the word Israelis prefer, and only five miles of the completed 87-mile northern section is a wall, the term Palestinians use. Every few miles, there will be gates to allow farmers access to their lands. If a farmer like Ramsi couldn't get through his gate and decided to cross illegally, he would face a formidable challenge.

He would have to scale a 6-foot-high pyramid of coiled razor wire; clamber through an 8-foot ditch; cross an army patrol path, then climb a 10-foot-high fence, avoiding its intrusion-detection sensors. Around Qalqilya, concrete walls stand 26-feet high.

Once on the other side, he would land in a sea of sand meant to capture his footprints. Then, the remaining hurdles: a patrol road wide enough for a tank, another sand trap, another razor-wire pyramid, surveillance cameras, and, every few miles, a manned sniper tower.

Officials describe the barrier as an interim security measure meant to stand until conditions are sufficiently peaceful. Palestinians and Israelis alike question who would spend $2 million per half mile on a temporary fixture. Netzah Mashiah, director of the Seamline Project Administration in charge of the barrier, told Ha'aretz newspaper in May that "politicians found a formula, but I believe the fence will be the border." Settlers thought so too. Loathe to be on the "wrong" side of the barrier, they began lobbying to be on its western flank.

'We've moved the Green Line'
As mustard-yellow earth graders began leveling hills for the northern section, Palestinians watched the barrier swerve east of the Green Line, ever deeper into the West Bank's most fertile land. The 5,000-strong settlement of Alfe Menashe, just east of Qalqilya, was going to be east of the fence until its leader Eliezer Hasdai took action. Now, the barrier does a double loop, enclosing Qalqilya to the north, snaking in some 4 miles to embrace Alfe Menashe along with a substantial amount of Palestinian land.

Then it curves back out toward the Green Line, shutting the Palestinian town of Habla off from Israel and from Qalqilya, its economic hub.

Mr. Hasdai told Israeli journalist Meron Rappaport that "we've moved the Green Line." Americans will now have to decide whether politics or security concerns prompted that move, and indeed, much of the barrier's path.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that no decision has been made "at this stage" about the State Department's suggestion to dock the $9 billion in loan guarantees the US is extending Israel this year.

Under the loan guarantee agreement, the US is committed to cutting the equivalent of any money Israel derives from the guarantees and then invests in the Palestinian territories for purposes other than security.

Some observers think there's little ambiguity. "It is clear to everyone that [the barrier route] is a political line behind which there is a political outlook," David Levy, head of the settlers' Jordan Valley Council, told Ha'aretz in May.

No one yet knows what the completed barrier will look like. The Ministry of Defense planners are still mulling its final route. Even so, environmental groups, among others, have assembled maps based on government statements, media leaks, information from contractors, settler maps produced with defense ministry support, and land confiscation orders.

These orders announce, in a curious turn of phrase, that the army is "laying its hands on the land," always for security purposes and, on paper at least, only for a short-term period. Having watched numerous settlements and multi-lane highways go up in the wake of these orders, Palestinians have no faith they will see the land again.

The projected barrier map shows three Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank, hemmed in by settler access roads. One small enclave makes Jericho an island unto itself. A second encompasses Hebron and Bethlehem in the south. The third enclave extends from Jenin in the north to Ramallah, narrowing at one point to about a mile wide.

To the west, Palestinians lose swaths of land to barrier incursions that surround settlements. In the center, Jerusalem is cut off from Palestinian areas. To the east, the Jordan Valley remains in Israeli control. The enclaves are not contiguous.

Sharon watchers say the barrier route reflects his long-held beliefs about keeping control over as much land and as few Palestinians as possible. Other analysts see echoes of the Allon Plan, devised after the 1967 war and premised on the belief that keeping hold of some West Bank areas is vital.

Uzi Dayan, a former director of the National Security Council and early coordinator of the seamline project, recommended in 2002 that the barrier be built on "demographic principles." Mr. Dayan means that Palestinians, with one of the world's highest birth rates, must be contained so that their rising numbers don't threaten Israel's Jewish identity - an issue fundamental to the country's existence.

The West Bank's new look
Whatever the theory behind the barrier, its presence is already altering the political and physical terrain here. The World Bank estimates that the 87-mile section now complete directly affects 200,000 Palestinians.

Some analysts say it already short-circuits Palestinian hopes of statehood. "The wall's route is seizing some of the West Bank's most fertile land, reducing the agricultural potential of a future state, and its configuration strangles any potential for urban and economic growth," says Dutch cartographer Jan de Jong, who documents the impact of Israel's policies in the West Bank.

On the other side of the barrier, residents of the Israeli cities of Netanya and Kfar Sava, traumatized by repeated suicide bombings, say the barrier gives them a sense of security. If it means Palestinians have to truncate their dreams, so be it, they say.

"They can forget about a state in the full sense of the word," says Ephraim Inbar, director of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University. "We don't want to give them control over their own borders because they kill us."

Yet the barrier could make things worse, warns Mr. Hoffman of the RAND Corporation, who writes that the barrier could deepen Palestinian rage, prompting stepped up attacks against targets inside Israel, and on its citizens around the world.

Israelis like Mr. Inbar are unimpressed. "We've been through this for one hundred years," he says of the conflict. "We have the stamina to go on."

About this series
Even as Israelis and Palestinians renew political negotiations, Israel is bringing more Palestinian territory under its control. Settlers continue to expand their communities while officials claim land to build roads, establish buffers, and erect the barrier intended to protect Israelis from terrorist attack. These confiscations are eating more deeply into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, raising concerns about the viability of any future Palestinian state. This occasional series will examine the trend, its roots, and its implications for Palestinians and Israelis alike who have been profoundly affected by ongoing conflict.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the August 08, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0808/p01s05-wome.html

Go on-site to view the other articles. Pro & Con. They give another insight to this long lived struggle, one which has only esclated with time. In this case, time hasn't healed all wounds, as no one will let it do it's job. Everyone, many nations included, keep picking at, and abraiding, the situation, until they have the whole world sitting on this powder keg we all inhabit. this earth of ours. Changes are needed and in a hurry, but it has all become so convoluted, so involved, that no one can see the forest for the trees, so we just rush towards destruction like it will be some sort of divine salvation.

Look at the rubble and suffering. Things need to change before more of the world is drawn in, and more innocents are just so much "collateral damage", which the majority of supporters of whichever side, could really care less about. It isn't them suffering, it's the enemy - so turn a hardened heart and a blind eye to it and know that one day it will end, as you believe you will have won, and winners are always right. SRH

Go on-site to view charts, maps, and other articles about Israel and Palestine. There is much, much more. Check out the following graphs & articles on-site. .

Part 1
an overview of the barrier's dimensions

Part 2
The barrier's impact on Palestinians

Part 3
Israeli victims talk about the barrier

Part 4
Jerusalem's growing web of walls

Part 5
Sharon's plans, made concrete

Map
The wall in Israel

Graphic
Fence to contain violence
[B]...
Reporters on
the Job

The Monitor gives the story behind the story.

Related stories:

07/31/03
Mideast road map hits impasse

02/27/03
Palestinians say wall is a noose

02/05/03
A week in the Middle East: Day Six

10/23/02
Palestinian statehood fades

07/10/02
After 21 months of intifada, a wall is born
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

[lotech]

Interesting take on your situation. I just hope that you have some sort of air conditioning when the hot weather hits. It's easy to warm up, but so hard to cool off in aluminum or any kind of house trailer. If safe and in a mosquito net, I would take the outdoors anytime. We used to sleep out side at our house in Hermosa Beach quite a bit. Never a worry and very few bugs of any kind there. A back yard full of kids, and when the Hawaiians came over for the Lifeguard races, we had a house and yard full of them as well. We gave them our bedrooms, the living room floor, with it's soft wool, rug, they liked that, and then there was the room off of the garage with it's shower, all the privacy they wanted there, so it was a favorite with them, letting them save their money, not having to pay for motel rooms. Talk about fun, it was that.

Isn't governement red tape something? How do you think of the mandatory filings knowing they are for rejections, rejections printed out, posted and or mailed, adding to the expense I would imagine, surely there would be an easier way to make sure one would be accepted into programs if the need should arise in the future, other than a convoluted proceedure which you mentioned. Or do you think it is a good one.

I sure hope all works out well for you. Did you lose everything, or were you able to pack up clothing, memento's and other necessities? How about family and friends. Were they all spared the drama & trauma of it all or were they in it as well? Sure hope you're doing well and that your prospects are good.

From your viewpoint, how is it all coming along down there? I know most people are all concerned with the French Quarter and it's old buildings and establishments for music and food. How is that coming along? I know there's more to New Orleans and Mississippi than what we hear of the most, but what do you hear, and see. We're hearing a lot about some serious crime, is that a big problem? Or is it about like it used to be. I've always heard it's bad down there, not just during Mardi Gras. Not the girls flashing for beads and rowdy drunkeness, but some pretty serious stuff most of the time, locals, not college kids on spring break rampages, not that they can't be a wreck.

Hi Sandi,

The air-conditioning works very well. These trailers are not top-of-the-line, but there's no reason they should be. Everything works and I'm well sheltered.
The Irony is, the government regulations meant to ensure equal treatment for everyone are also the cause of many inequalities. When you apply for a trailer, you get put on a waiting list and you take what's available when your name comes up; that's after you've waded through the red tape and met with all the various inspectors and got all your "tickets punched", just to get on the list. I know of millionaires who got trailers, months before I did, not because of undue influence, but because they had time to stay on top of the process and keep their application moving.
My own application suffered from the attentions of well-meaning, but inexperienced staff. I was told multiple times that everything was on track, but to come back in x-number of days if I didn't hear anything. Finally the supervisor spotted a mistake in the computer entries that had blocked my application from further processing.
I live alone, yet I got one of the bigger trailers. One of the Engineers, where I work, is a Vietnamese lady with six in her family. They got some kind of pop-up camper with a refrigerator so small, when she puts a gallon of milk in it, there's no room for anything else. The Vietnamese are small people, but they're not that small! I think they actually got priority, because of the number in the household, but luck of the draw gave them less than what they needed.
There are federal laws, with jail time attached, that keep anyone at ground-level from trying to make it all work better. I had to sign a paper stating that only I, the assigned resident, would live here. This is to keep people from renting out beds, or even whole trailers, but it can have unintended consequences.
I've heard of people who wanted to swap trailers, so the larger one could go to the larger family. Can't do that.
I've heard of people finally getting a trailer, after they had resolved their housing problem themselves and trying to get their trailer given to their next door neighbors, who were still waiting. Can't do that, either.
They asked, "Can we set it up on our property and let our neighbors stay in it?" Most definitely not allowed.
I don't know how to streamline the process, but I mention these things to make this point: A lot of what appears to be the result of ineptitude or wrongdoing, actually is caused by earnest people doing their very best to follow the letter of the law.
The law that really holds sway, is the law of unintended consequences. If we are to improve our ability to respond to emergencies, we must keep that law in the fore-front of our consciousness. I would suggest that FEMA, as an essential element of our homeland security forces, should adopt a technique used to great profit by the military. The core-staff (Most of the staff are sort of like draftees; brought in on response to a real emergency, but not part of the permanent staff.) should engage in regular "war-games", trying out the standard response against various known threats, and a few strictly hypothetical threats.
Guidelines are absolutely necessary, nothing will work at all, without them, but it's probable that no standard set will work well, in every scenario. Perhaps we need response "packages", for a variety of scenarios, each with it's own user-friendly software package, to guide the minimally trained responders.
One very big problem, that doesn't ever seem to get mentioned is communications. Even though we had a FEMA office here within a day or so (we heard about it on the police scanner), A trip up there, burning very-precious gasoline, would get you informed that you first had to get a registration number. All you had to do is call the FEMA 800-number, or go online to www.fema.gov. Easily said, impossible to do, when almost all links to the outside have been erased.
We finally got through, by staying at the cell-phone for hours, far into the night, waiting to get a signal, then dialing and dialing and dialing . . . Then we got cut off before I could register; it took me two more nights, just to get a number, so the FEMA person with her boots-on-the-ground, so to speak, would be able to even talk to me.
If an outside communications channel is what is required of disaster victims, in order to get help, then FEMA should be prepared to set it up themselves, before they do anything else!!! Gasoline was impossible to get. To be required to make multiple trips to the FEMA office, just to get the ball rolling, is unacceptable.

As far as the SBA-loan applications goes, it doe's make some sense. Why give someone a grant, when they're eligible for an almost no-interest loan? That can only be determined by processing an application.
What I took exception to, was the use of a single statistic, context-omitted, to "prove" that the SBA was not doing their job.

Did I lose everything? The little girl, down the street, asked me that. Her house suffered the same as mine, I'm sure she had heard adults talking about "losing everything". I told her, "I was lucky to have what I had, and I was lucky I got to keep, what I got to keep." That describes most of us, and as Forest Gump said, "That's all I got to say about that."
People died during the storm, about four-hundred yards from where I stood under a car-port, in the back of a pickup-truck, watching unmanned sailboats race between my friend's neighbor's houses. Perspective makes all the difference.
I am doing well and my prospects are indeed, very good.

The town I live in, Ocean Springs, is older than New Orleans; it was the original French settlement in the Mississippi Valley, founded by the same brothers who founded the Crescent City.
I used to wonder, why did they choose to build a city where you have to pump the water out, all the time? The answer was made evident by the flood. Where the original city was, the French Quarter, is the only high-ground around. It's the only place where there was any dry ground at all. Termites are the biggest danger to the historic buildings in that small section and the adjacent flooding has only made a very big problem, worse.
I haven't been to New Orleans in years, so I can't give any first-hand observations, but the crime has always been bad and I doubt the storm, or the city governments reactions to it, have improved anything.

Thanks for your good-wishes! -Lotech

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sixty Western wildfires stretch crews to limit

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- For the first time since 2003, federal land management agencies are being asked to make more employees available to fight wildfires because crews and equipment have been stretched to the limit by nearly 60 major blazes around the West.

The National Interagency Fire Center over the weekend raised its response status to the highest threat level, a move triggered when nearly all available crews and firefighting resources are committed.

The move allows federal firefighting coordinators to summon additional federal employees, military reinforcements and foreign fire crews if necessary.

"It frees up what we call the militia -- agency employees whose regular job may be as a biologist or realty specialist but who are trained in fire duty and can now be called up to help," said Randy Eardley, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman at the federal firefighting center in Boise.

More than 24,000 firefighters were working on fires across the West on Monday, including 58 large fires of 500 acres or more.

The biggest active fire in the country was in northern Nevada, where nearly 300 square miles of grass and sagebrush had burned. It was 10 percent contained Monday, and fire bosses had no estimate when it would be surrounded.

No homes were in immediate danger, though one outbuilding had been destroyed, said Jamie Thompson of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Winnemucca, Nevada.

More people were told to evacuate Monday from areas south of Chadron, Nebraska, on the fourth day of fires that have scorched nearly 80 square miles.

About 45 to 50 people were affected by the latest evacuation orders, and hundreds of others evacuated over the weekend were kept from their homes.

Four rural houses have been destroyed and several more damaged since lightning sparked the fires last week.

In Montana, more firefighters, equipment and aircraft arrived Monday as crews fought to corral a fire that blew up rapidly in Glacier National Park over the weekend, fanned by strong winds and blistering heat.

Firefighters got some relief Monday with calmer winds and lower temperatures, but officials said the fire -- estimated at 34 square miles -- still posed a threat to the gateway community of St. Mary.

The blaze came within a mile of the town over the weekend. The National Park Service on Sunday evacuated its administrative site there, as well as several area campgrounds.

Most of the park remained open to visitors, officials said.

Residents of a subdivision in central Oregon were allowed to return late Monday as crews tamed a fire there, though evacuation orders remained in effect for another 500 residents of two subdivisions near the tourist town of Sisters.

The subdivisions appear to be protected from the 14-square mile fire, which is 30 percent contained, said Scott Brayton, a fire spokesman.

An evacuation order was also lifted for several dozen residents near Weaverville in northern California after a wildfire that destroyed one home calmed down.

In Idaho, a 5-square-mile fire in the mountains fed on bug-killed evergreen stands as it neared a cluster of vacation homes and a mining museum.

More than 70,600 timber and range fires have burned on federal land so far this year, higher than the 10-year average of 50,984, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Because of unusually large early-season range fires in Texas and Oklahoma, the acreage burned so far in 2006 is 5.5 million, compared with a 10-year average of 3 million acres for the same period.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
Find this article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/01/wildfires.ap/index.html


Rich has an aquaintence who was a smoke jumper, and later on when his age made fighting fires as a jumper somewhat more difficult, he then switched over to management. As a manager, he was managing the crews who were filling tankers, doing dangerous and difficult jobs none the less, very dangerous he tells Rich.

He is totally disgusted with the system that is operating now. He believe's the man in charge of the Air Station he worked out of, is nothing but a political hack. The man he is telling Rich about, is in his opinion out to make his brownie points at the expense of the men & women under him as well as at the expense of the forest, the animals, wild and domestic, the people and their homes. He really has concerns for the brave men and women who lay their lives on the line to protect it all. He believes their lives have been made much more dangerous than ever before. Man made dangers.

It is about making points, by short cuts and not being sensible about it. Also cutting short monies needed. Under cutting proposed as probable expenses for equipement, chemicals, man hours, etc. It's another way to manipulate the system, leaving the needed firefighting manpower, equipment, and chemicals, etc., short. So after being given an order which he told Rich he thought harmful and dangerous to others, he wrote his letter of resignation and after two weeks, he was out of there. Pity, as we need men like him in positions of influence, not the type who oftentimes are, making life and death choices without the gray matter to do so. Or at least they don't live up to their potential as they are too busy manipulating the system to make themselves look oh so good.

Let's just hope that no one dies due to his shortcutting the system, a good one for most happenings, but not perfect, however in inept hands, the system fails, the system has failed us, and lets just hope again that it doesn't continue to do so.

He believes that the government decision of bringing pilots from back east will turn into a disaster, because they aren't familiar with the air currents, that jumpers will die, they will burn, as the three young kids did on Storm King Mountain, in Colorado. I used to see them almost every day jogging down our road, and to learn of how they died was tragic. New to smoke jumping and not savey in the way of fires, to the extent that they didn't do the right thing to escape, going uphill instead of parallel to the fire. and they died in Colorado, and others did in that fire as well.

There's got to be some good intelligent hardworking people, honorable people, out there somewhere. Not just those trying to raise up their own selves. How is it that people like he was talking about run the show? How can it be "All political"?
SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

Hi Sandi,

The air-conditioning works very well. These trailers are not top-of-the-line, but there's no reason they should be. Everything works and I'm well sheltered.
The Irony is, the government regulations meant to ensure equal treatment for everyone are also the cause of many inequalities. When you apply for a trailer, you get put on a waiting list and you take what's available when your name comes up; that's after you've waded through the red tape and met with all the various inspectors and got all your "tickets punched", just to get on the list. I know of millionaires who got trailers, months before I did, not because of undue influence, but because they had time to stay on top of the process and keep their application moving.
My own application suffered from the attentions of well-meaning, but inexperienced staff. I was told multiple times that everything was on track, but to come back in x-number of days if I didn't hear anything. Finally the supervisor spotted a mistake in the computer entries that had blocked my application from further processing.
I live alone, yet I got one of the bigger trailers. One of the Engineers, where I work, is a Vietnamese lady with six in her family. They got some kind of pop-up camper with a refrigerator so small, when she puts a gallon of milk in it, there's no room for anything else. The Vietnamese are small people, but they're not that small! I think they actually got priority, because of the number in the household, but luck of the draw gave them less than what they needed.
There are federal laws, with jail time attached, that keep anyone at ground-level from trying to make it all work better. I had to sign a paper stating that only I, the assigned resident, would live here. This is to keep people from renting out beds, or even whole trailers, but it can have unintended consequences.
I've heard of people who wanted to swap trailers, so the larger one could go to the larger family. Can't do that.
I've heard of people finally getting a trailer, after they had resolved their housing problem themselves and trying to get their trailer given to their next door neighbors, who were still waiting. Can't do that, either.
They asked, "Can we set it up on our property and let our neighbors stay in it?" Most definitely not allowed.
I don't know how to streamline the process, but I mention these things to make this point: A lot of what appears to be the result of ineptitude or wrongdoing, actually is caused by earnest people doing their very best to follow the letter of the law.
The law that really holds sway, is the law of unintended consequences. If we are to improve our ability to respond to emergencies, we must keep that law in the fore-front of our consciousness. I would suggest that FEMA, as an essential element of our homeland security forces, should adopt a technique used to great profit by the military. The core-staff (Most of the staff are sort of like draftees; brought in on response to a real emergency, but not part of the permanent staff.) should engage in regular "war-games", trying out the standard response against various known threats, and a few strictly hypothetical threats.
Guidelines are absolutely necessary, nothing will work at all, without them, but it's probable that no standard set will work well, in every scenario. Perhaps we need response "packages", for a variety of scenarios, each with it's own user-friendly software package, to guide the minimally trained responders.
One very big problem, that doesn't ever seem to get mentioned is communications. Even though we had a FEMA office here within a day or so (we heard about it on the police scanner), A trip up there, burning very-precious gasoline, would get you informed that you first had to get a registration number. All you had to do is call the FEMA 800-number, or go online to www.fema.gov. Easily said, impossible to do, when almost all links to the outside have been erased.
We finally got through, by staying at the cell-phone for hours, far into the night, waiting to get a signal, then dialing and dialing and dialing . . . Then we got cut off before I could register; it took me two more nights, just to get a number, so the FEMA person with her boots-on-the-ground, so to speak, would be able to even talk to me.
If an outside communications channel is what is required of disaster victims, in order to get help, then FEMA should be prepared to set it up themselves, before they do anything else!!! Gasoline was impossible to get. To be required to make multiple trips to the FEMA office, just to get the ball rolling, is unacceptable.

As far as the SBA-loan applications goes, it doe's make some sense. Why give someone a grant, when they're eligible for an almost no-interest loan? That can only be determined by processing an application.
What I took exception to, was the use of a single statistic, context-omitted, to "prove" that the SBA was not doing their job.

Did I lose everything? The little girl, down the street, asked me that. Her house suffered the same as mine, I'm sure she had heard adults talking about "losing everything". I told her, "I was lucky to have what I had, and I was lucky I got to keep, what I got to keep." That describes most of us, and as Forest Gump said, "That's all I got to say about that."
People died during the storm, about four-hundred yards from where I stood under a car-port, in the back of a pickup-truck, watching unmanned sailboats race between my friend's neighbor's houses. Perspective makes all the difference.
I am doing well and my prospects are indeed, very good.

The town I live in, Ocean Springs, is older than New Orleans; it was the original French settlement in the Mississippi Valley, founded by the same brothers who founded the Crescent City.
I used to wonder, why did they choose to build a city where you have to pump the water out, all the time? The answer was made evident by the flood. Where the original city was, the French Quarter, is the only high-ground around. It's the only place where there was any dry ground at all. Termites are the biggest danger to the historic buildings in that small section and the adjacent flooding has only made a very big problem, worse.
I haven't been to New Orleans in years, so I can't give any first-hand observations, but the crime has always been bad and I doubt the storm, or the city governments reactions to it, have improved anything.

Thanks for your good-wishes! -Lotech

You're welcome and if you were a girl, I would send you some clothing. I tried to do that when Katrina was new news, but no takers, I guess they had lots of new clothing items given to them by lots of manufacturers, and by private individuals as well, so I had no one wanting what I had offered, not one person, which was a surprise.

Anyway:

Rich says the thing going on with this silly red tape thing the government is so fond of wrapping us all up in, is this: It keeps many of their offices open and their people at work. It's like going out to buy light bulbs, they, the lightbulb manufacturers took out the long lasting element in them, replacing it with aluminum, just so they can keep their factories open and profitable. Every month, new bulbs were needed it seemed, not the three to four years (and longer, as our friends had one at their store that was over 80 years old and left it lit out in front of their store, never turning it off) the brass filament ones lasted. They were not making it with Brass, and some manufacturer went under their bulbs lasted so long. Nothing needed replacing nor fixed to work better. Not complaining about their need to keep things profitable, but that is going on with government as well, because if there weren't all of this red tape, where would the attorney's be who draw all of this up, their stenographers and any other needed employees to keep an office up and running, then how about the printers, the paper companies, the office equipment manufacturer's, telephone answering machines, live and recorded help? The cars to take them to and from work, the buildings they are in, with all of their other furnishings. It is's a vast industry, and every time Rich runs into a backwards policy or person enacting such policies, he believes and say's it's job protection, all at our expense. Without that senseless merry-go-round of government convoluted red tape, a lot of them would be without jobs. Looking out for number one again? A vast Red-Tape Conspiracy??? Ha, maybe he's right?

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We Need Policies for a Real, Lasting Middle East Peace

By
Jimmy Carter

Stop The Band-Aid Treatment
By
Jimmy Carter

There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians.

08/01/06 "Washington Post' -- -- The Middle East is a tinderbox, with some key players on all sides waiting for every opportunity to destroy their enemies with bullets, bombs and missiles. One of the special vulnerabilities of Israel, and a repetitive cause of violence, is the holding of prisoners. Militant Palestinians and Lebanese know that a captured Israeli soldier or civilian is either a cause of conflict or a valuable bargaining chip for prisoner exchange. This assumption is based on a number of such trades, including 1,150 Arabs, mostly Palestinians, for three Israeli soldiers in 1985; 123 Lebanese for the remains of two Israeli soldiers in 1996; and 433 Palestinians and others for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers in 2004.

This stratagem precipitated the renewed violence that erupted in June when Palestinians dug a tunnel under the barrier that surrounds Gaza and assaulted some Israeli soldiers, killing two and capturing one. They offered to exchange the soldier for the release of 95 women and 313 children who are among almost 10,000 Arabs in Israeli prisons, but this time Israel rejected a swap and attacked Gaza in an attempt to free the soldier and stop rocket fire into Israel. The resulting destruction brought reconciliation between warring Palestinian factions and support for them throughout the Arab world.

Hezbollah militants then killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others, and insisted on Israel's withdrawal from disputed territory and an exchange for some of the several thousand incarcerated Lebanese. With American backing, Israeli bombs and missiles rained down on Lebanon. Hezbollah rockets from Syria and Iran struck northern Israel.

It is inarguable that Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks on its citizens, but it is inhumane and counterproductive to punish civilian populations in the illogical hope that somehow they will blame Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking the devastating response. The result instead has been that broad Arab and worldwide support has been rallied for these groups, while condemnation of both Israel and the United States has intensified.

Israel belatedly announced, but did not carry out, a two-day cessation in bombing Lebanon, responding to the global condemnation of an air attack on the Lebanese village of Qana, where 57 civilians were killed this past weekend and where 106 died from the same cause 10 years ago. As before there were expressions of "deep regret," a promise of "immediate investigation" and the explanation that dropped leaflets had warned families in the region to leave their homes. The urgent need in Lebanon is that Israeli attacks stop, the nation's regular military forces control the southern region, Hezbollah cease as a separate fighting force, and future attacks against Israel be prevented. Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms, and release the Lebanese prisoners. Yet yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a cease-fire.

These are ambitious hopes, but even if the U.N. Security Council adopts and implements a resolution that would lead to such an eventual solution, it will provide just another band-aid and temporary relief. Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, exacerbated by the almost unprecedented six-year absence of any real effort to achieve such a goal.

Leaders on both sides ignore strong majorities that crave peace, allowing extremist-led violence to preempt all opportunities for building a political consensus. Traumatized Israelis cling to the false hope that their lives will be made safer by incremental unilateral withdrawals from occupied areas, while Palestinians see their remnant territories reduced to little more than human dumping grounds surrounded by a provocative "security barrier" that embarrasses Israel's friends and that fails to bring safety or stability.

The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal.

A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions. Direct engagement with the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority and the government in Damascus will be necessary if secure negotiated settlements are to be achieved. Failure to address the issues and leaders involved risks the creation of an arc of even greater instability running from Jerusalem through Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.

The people of the Middle East deserve peace and justice, and we in the international community owe them our strong leadership and support.

Former president Carter is the founder of the nonprofit Carter Center in Atlanta.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14313.htm

[lotech]

You're welcome and if you were a girl, I would send you some clothing. I tried to do that when Katrina was new news, but no takers, I guess they had lots of new clothing items given to them by lots of manufacturers, and by private individuals as well, so I had no one wanting what I had offered, not one person, which was a surprise.

Anyway:

Rich says the thing going on with this silly red tape thing the government is so fond of wrapping us all up in, is this: It keeps many of their offices open and their people at work. It's like going out to buy light bulbs, they, the lightbulb manufacturers took out the long lasting element in them, replacing it with aluminum, just so they can keep their factories open and profitable. Every month, new bulbs were needed it seemed, not the three to four years (and longer, as our friends had one at their store that was over 80 years old and left it lit out in front of their store, never turning it off) the brass filament ones lasted. They were not making it with Brass, and some manufacturer went under their bulbs lasted so long. Nothing needed replacing nor fixed to work better. Not complaining about their need to keep things profitable, but that is going on with government as well, because if there weren't all of this red tape, where would the attorney's be who draw all of this up, their stenographers and any other needed employees to keep an office up and running, then how about the printers, the paper companies, the office equipment manufacturer's, telephone answering machines, live and recorded help? The cars to take them to and from work, the buildings they are in, with all of their other furnishings. It is's a vast industry, and every time Rich runs into a backwards policy or person enacting such policies, he believes and say's it's job protection, all at our expense. Without that senseless merry-go-round of government convoluted red tape, a lot of them would be without jobs. Looking out for number one again? A vast Red-Tape Conspiracy??? Ha, maybe he's right?

I tend to agree with the notion that bureaucracies have survival instincts more powerful than those of any other monster.

The light-bulb theory, which I've seen elsewhere as well, I think is more of an "urban legend". The actual filaments can't be made from brass or aluminum; their melting points are far too low.
The base(the part with the threads on it), which used to be made from brass, is now, almost always aluminum. The reason is an economic one; the profit margin on an inexpensive manufactured item like light bulbs, is low; the price of brass, per pound is significantly higher than aluminum and aluminum is lighter, so you get more actual material per pound. When the first aluminum base bulbs came out, those companies slow to switch may well have gone under, but it would have been because they couldn't compete, price-wise, not because their product was too good.
I feel sure that if brass bulbs really did last longer, one manufacturer would make a line of bulbs with that feature, advertise the reason it was better and wipe the floor with any competitors that didn't follow suite.

Rich's take on the mechanisms driving the exponential expansion of red-tape, I think, has much merit. I've long thought that the reason so many routine transactions require the services of a lawyer is because most of our lawmakers are lawyers, and the reason the tax system is so complicated and fraught with danger, is because those bureaucrats who the lawmakers entrust to write the tax codes (Internal Revenue Service? What service?) are all accountants. In or out of government, there's plenty of high-paying jobs for these guys.

[Saundra Hummer]

Lotech, the thing about the light bulb company going out of business is true I believe. I'm pretty sure I read about it at one time or another this past year. They were making such a good product that it wasn't being replaced often enough to keep the company afloat. They talked about other companies doing that as well in the beginning. I'm sure that happened with more than a few other companies as well so now, like with appliances, they are geared to a ten year replacement, not that they won't and don't last longer, as we have appliance's which were bought 13 years ago and they are running fine, but our washer went out, a part wore out and it is has a worn area which makes it bang terribly loud, luckily we have my mothers and fathers which we bought at the sale they had. We had to turn to it.

I know that aluminum wiring has been banned here where we live in all new buildings, it just isn't allowed, as it was causing fires, terrible ones. They say it just melted????

The place where I used to buy the long lasting bulbs, wish I could find them again, told me they lasted longer because of the brass filliment, the aluminum ones we were getting which were Sylvania lasted a total of three weeks, at least with the ones we were using a lot.

Anytime we run into craziness with the government, and we have a lot, Rich just looks at me and says, "Job Security", and he's dead serious. It just irritates the heck out of him, saying if he did such as they do, he wouldn't have a job, he'd be fired and he'd deserve to be. Ha.

[Saundra Hummer]

* * * * * * * * * * *

Sadly, the Plural of "Fiasco" Requires No "E"

By
Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 01 August 2006

But the world desperately needs an "E" for EXIT from the march of folly toward a wider Middle East war that is increasingly likely to result from plural US foreign policy fiascos - in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, for starters; in Syria and Iran for the next stage. Fortunately, Webster's does allow the insertion of an "E" and that's precisely what we must now do. We need to make a prompt exit from the endless string of fiascoes that have the Middle East marching to calamity.

If we do not take a sober look beyond the carnage of the last few weeks and weigh the reaction of still others in and outside the region, I fear there will be no exit. Perhaps it would be wise to start with a brief review: Who led our march into this modern-day Valley of Death?

Ideologues and Amateurs

Let's begin with the new people and policies that President George W. Bush brought in with him when he took office on January 20, 2001. Who urged on him what Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings calls "the huge mistake of giving Israel a blank check?" Who played the leading roles in encouraging Bush to let slip the dogs of war on Iraq?

Honors for the leading role in the category of fiasco goes, ex aequo, to Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal," as described by Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (USA, ret.). At an award ceremony, the cabal no doubt would offer copious thanks to key members of the cast - first and foremost, ideologues Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. The Oscar for best actress in a supporting role goes to Condoleezza Rice.

It was five and a half years ago that Rice was formally initiated into the neo-conservative brotherhood as an auxiliary. Her most important service was greasing the skids for the brothers to try to shoehorn into reality their ambitious but naive dreams of using war to ensure total US/Israeli domination of the Middle East. At the new administration's first National Security Council meeting on January 30, 2001, then-national security adviser Rice stage-managed formal approval of two profound changes in decades-long US policy toward Israel-Palestine and Iraq. Thanks to Paul O'Neill, confirmed as treasury secretary just hours before the NSC meeting, we have a first-hand account.

The neo-cons had already gotten to the new president, for he began with the abrupt announcement that he was ditching the policy of past presidents who tried to honestly broker an end to the violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Rather, the president said the US would now tilt sharply toward Israel. Most importantly, Bush made it clear that he would let then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon resolve the conflict as he saw fit. The US would no longer "interfere."

Powell: Dead Man Walking

According to O'Neill, Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed "startled," and warned that US disengagement would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army. Bush shrugged dismissively, adding, "Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things."

After his requiem for the decades of US sweat and blood expended on the effort to work out a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the president turned immediately to Iraq. Rice led off by reciting the received wisdom of the neo-cons (I still wonder how many of them actually believed it...) that, "Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region." Whereupon, at her request, then-CIA Director George Tenet displayed a grainy overhead image of a factory in Iraq that he happened to have with him. Tenet thought the factory "might" be associated with a chemical or biological weapons program, but that association could not be confirmed. No problem. The conversation immediately turned from this typically Tenet-ative "intelligence" to the question of which Iraqi targets to begin bombing.

O'Neill, just inducted into the cabinet but not into the neo-conservative brotherhood, was understandably nonplussed. He says he found it all quite curious and left the meeting convinced that, for reasons never fully explained, "getting Hussein was now the administration's focus."

The twin decisions of (1) To "tilt" more decidedly toward Israel and (2) to prepare to attack Iraq were right out of a blueprint drafted in 1996 by a small group of Americans and Israelis, including arch-neo-conservatives Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. Shortly after the January 30 NSC meeting, the two were given influential posts in the Department of Defense directly under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz - Perle as chair of the powerful Defense Policy Board and Feith as undersecretary of defense for policy (#3 in the defense hierarchy). The policy's prescriptive blueprint, titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," had been prepared originally for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, but it proved to be too extreme even for him. No matter. As the new Bush administration took shape, Perle and Feith retrieved the mothballed study, made an end-run around the hapless Powell, and sold it to Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush

Dr. Rice Becomes Dr. No

There is a certain poetic justice in the fact that Rice, now secretary of state, is reaping the whirlwind. She has been trapped in the extremely awkward position of having to say "No" to a cease-fire to stop the burgeoning violence, and then being mocked by the Israelis who openly violated the cease-fire they had promised her.

Still an innocent abroad, Rice has loyally played piano accompaniment for the neo-con hit song, "Reshaping the Entire Region." She has, for example, described the violence in Lebanon and Israel as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." On Friday, President Bush declared, "This is a moment of intense conflict ... yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region."

Bush's remark elicited uncharacteristically acerbic ridicule from Richard Haass, who served under Bush as head of policy planning at the State Department. (Yes, this is the same Haass who in July 2002 begged Rice for an appointment with the president, whom he wanted to warn of the folly of invading Iraq. Rice reportedly told him, "The decision's been made; don't waste your breath.") Referring to Bush's remarks on Friday, Haass, now head of the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's optimism, according to a report by Peter Baker in yesterday's Washington Post. "That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time," said Haass. "If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

It is far from funny. Rather, it is amateur-hour again at the White House, with Rice acting as the president's personal secretary under instruction to do what Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neo-cons tell her to do. The results have been entirely predictable. Seldom before has Washington been so widely seen to be joined at the hip to an Israel on the rampage. Seldom has US stock in the region sunk to such depths as it did last week, with civilian casualties in Lebanon piling up (literally) and with Rice joining Israel in rejecting appeals for an immediate cease-fire on grounds that it must be "sustainable." Policy and performance alike have been myopic in the extreme, and have resulted in an embarrassing US setback from which it will take decades to recover. The ramifications are region-wide; but looking at Lebanon alone, one of my former CIA colleagues observed:

"The irony in all this is that Israel has an interest in a multicultural Lebanon and not an Islamist Lebanon, and the high hopes for the former are being dashed."

Meanwhile Back in Baghdad
-
More "Last Throes"

In terms of those killed, Iraq was even more violent than Lebanon over the past week, but Western media put Iraqi developments on the back burner.

-Last Tuesday, President Bush told the press, "Obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops." Bush observed that: "Conditions change inside a country. And the question is: Are we going to be facile enough (sic) to change with [them]." Some 4,000 US troops are being sent from elsewhere in Iraq to reinforce Baghdad. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) noted on July 28 that this "reverses last month's decision to have Iraqi forces take the lead in Baghdad ... and represents a dramatic setback for the US and the Iraqi government." Highly respected military analyst Anthony Cordesman has expressed the same view.

Secretary Rumsfeld approved General George Casey's request to extend the Iraq tour of a 3,700-strong Stryker brigade, which had been scheduled to return to the US this summer. And the Pentagon announced that the number of US troops in Iraq rose last week to 132,000 - the highest level since May. In a command performance in June, General Casey reportedly gave Bush a plan for withdrawing 7,000 troops before the mid-term elections - a plan that may now be overtaken by events.

Whether he intended to or not, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, also fielding questions from the press, virtually redefined the mission of US troops. Addressing what he called the "new challenge," Hadley said, "This isn't about insurgency. This isn't about terror. This is about sectarian violence." The number of sectarian killings has doubled since the start of the year. Press reports indicate that many Sunnis are even afraid to go out to retrieve the bodies of relatives in Baghdad's overflowing morgues, lest they too become prey to Shia militia. The very large unanswered question: Is that why our troops lie exposed in the middle - to stop Iraqis from killing one another?

Richard Armitage, who was Secretary Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, warned that bringing in more troops at this late stage may prove to be "too little too late, and that the US will turn into a bystander in an Iraqi civil war it does not have sufficient resources to prevent." Western press reports suggest that this may already be the case; with virtually everyone below the rank of general admitting that lack of troops is a major problem. At the same time, it is universally recognized that requesting more troops would sound the death knell for one's career.

One key Shia leader has objected to the deployment of additional US forces to Baghdad, and Shia militias are increasingly clashing with US troops. The Shia militias are also using more effective, armor-piercing IUDs. US officers have expressed concern over what the Shia might do in reaction to the US green light for Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Colonel Patrick Lang (USA, ret.) has expressed grave concern over the vulnerability of US supply lines from Kuwait into the Iraqi heartland, and Iran's ability to stir up the Shia in that area.

Former adviser to the US occupation authority in Iraq, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, has said, "The Shia-led Interior Ministry is out of control." There is a strong move afoot in the Iraqi Parliament to replace the interior minister.
Otherwise, all is going according to plan - or so the Bush administration and FOX News Channel would have us believe. It has become increasingly difficult to put a positive spin on all this. Now and again, out of desperation, a PR person will reach for the all-too-familiar chestnut: "We have not once been defeated in battle."

Many years ago, Army Colonel Harry Summers learned the hard way not to use this one. At the end of the war in Vietnam, Summers received orders to negotiate with North Vietnamese Army Colonel Tu the terms of the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam. Summers could not resist reminding Tu, "You know you never beat us on the battlefield." Colonel Tu paused for a moment: "That may be so," he said. "But also irrelevant."

Many of us in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been writing and shouting for 33 months that this war is UNWINNABLE. It is now time for Americans interested in justice, sanity and peace to draw the appropriate conclusions and summon the courage to stick our necks out. For it is simply not right to ask our troops in Iraq to play referee between factions and "stay the course" for us, on the off chance we might get lucky and "reshape the entire region." -------- Ray McGovern is on the Steering Group of VIPS. He draws on his experience as an Army infantry and intelligence officer and a 27-year career as a CIA analyst. He now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080106A.shtml -------

[lotech]

Sandi: I don't think one company could hurt itself making lightbulbs that lasted forever, not until it had driven every other company out of business with it's superior product.

Aluminum wiring was a bad idea from the beginning, for two reasons: Aluminum has a high coefficient of expansion relative to brass, copper or any other likely conductive material and the film of aluminum oxide that begins forming as soon as aluminum is exposed to air, is a very good insulator.
The heating and cooling of the wires and the fixtures causes unequal expansion in all mechanical joints in the wiring, causing the joints to loosen. Loose joints = poor connections = more resistance = heating of the joint = greater unequal expansion, until the resistance is so great, the heat produced melts the wire, starts a fire, or both.
The poor conductivity of the oxide coating on the wire adds to the resistance in the joints, speeding the cycle.


Aluminum wiring is how the Vietnam War killed people in the United States.

I'll bet you've never heard that.
The price of copper went so high, as a result of high demand for making military ammunition, aluminum wiring became an accepted alternative, in the late '60s, early '70s.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

[Saundra Hummer]

Thought I'd try to pull that site up Lotech, but can't find it, however here is an interesting one with readers comments, and some supposedly long lasting lightbulbs. I need some as we go through them like crazy, I think a lot of the problem is power surges, which the withstand a bit better. I'll see if I can find the story, but it may not even be up on the web anylonger.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/02/lightbulb_20_Lightbulb 2.0: Double the Life, Halve the Materials
February 13, 2005 05:44 AM -
In Design Boom's RE-think RE-cycle competition, Mahendra Chauhan and Sanjay Rajput from India propose a novel, extremely TreeHugger way to double the life of the common lightbulb.

Their concept: a typical lightbulb is 35 grams, 0.5 grams of which is the tungsten filament. The tungsten fails, the bulb is pitched, 35 grams of materials out the window. Add an extra filament and 2 extra contacts and when the first filament fails, you can rotate the bulb 90 degrees and get a whole other lifetime from the same bulb.

Old way: 35 grams. x number of hours. Effort to buy, change bulb.
New way: 35.5 grams. 2x number of hours. Less effort to "change" bulb.

Now that's what we're talkin' bout people! Nice work Mahendra
and Sanjay! And good for ::DesignBoom for making this contest happen.

::Contest Entry Here

One thought: It looks to TreeHugger like you could just as easily
have 3 filaments and 3 sets of contacts. That would triple the life
of the bulb. Is this thinking flawed? Please comment below.

Like this kind of thinking? Check out some of our recent posts
by John Laumer.

Getting more life from your coffee bodum

Lifecycle thinking and your multi-function Swiss-Army knife

Building your own hybrid desklamp



24
Comments
Similar stories from Technorati » Treehugger / prototypes /
Comments
The average incandescent bulb lasts around 300 hours. Doubled, this would be 600. The typical fluorescent lasts 10,000 hours and uses half the energy. Its a nice idea, but the math doesn't really add up. What about working on a cleaner-burning candle?Posted by: Severn
.
there's no reason why it won't work. However, it just won't be applied to the mass market anytime soon other than a "gimmick" or audience appeaser.

However, what is not commonly known is that the filaments that all light-bulbs have inside them are designed to be "time-dependent", there's a built-in obsolesce. Each filaments are specifically created to fail at a certain X amount of hours.

Yes, as amazing as it is, those light bulb companies can easily design light-bulbs that would run forever, but it doesn't make a great economic practice/sense for them. They would be literally putting themselves out of business.

The money is in replacements of the individual light-bulbs.

It doesn't require a lot of engineering ingenuity to develop a fail-proof filaments. In fact, it has already been done, patented, and hidden away. It all is dependent upon the very material used to drive the current/heat (the filament itself). The answer is just to simply swap the material itself with a stronger form of alloy with a single cell lattice. Job done.

think of it this way. .

if you were going to take an aluminum paper clip, and bent it continuously , it will eventually snap apart, right? That same concept applies to the Filament. Now. . imagine you had a paper clip made out of rubber, you would just keep on bending it . .will it snap? . .no. . why? . .different properties, different characteristics, and different results :)

I'm an engineer btw :) Any engineer with a basic knowledge of material science will tell you this :)

WILLIAM
If you really wanted some interesting light bulbs. Look no further than LEDS. They last 500K hours. If you can put them in a cluster, you have LED cluster that's as bright as an incandescent bulb, that sucks 1/8th the power of a typical fluorescent. They're nearly indestructible and emit almost no heat.
Posted by: William


automotive bulbs often have two filaments, one for high beam, one for low... No reason you could not have two equal filaments.
Posted by: jimf |


"Yes, as amazing as it is, those light bulb companies can easily design light-bulbs that would run forever, but it doesn't make a great economic practice/sense for them. They would be literally putting themselves out of business."
That's a false economy. Clearly any company which did release an infinite-lasting light bulb, would steal all the business from every other company selling light bulbs. It would be the _other_ companies which went out of business, before the company which did it.
Posted by: Trejkaz
.
I agree with 100% William...
Instead of spending time re-inventing the light bulb, non-filament, solid state devices are the future of lighting.
Bulbs are cheap, easy and readily available, but filaments based lighting creates light as well as heat.
As we all know, heat equals loss of power.
LEDs emit very little heat aren't bothered by heat, cold or vibration. LEDs don't produce RF, UV or EMF "and" within this year will be as efficient as incandescent and fluorescents.
Although pricing for LED devices often scare away consumers, expect cost and energy requirements to decrease as output increases.
I await the day when filament based lighting will be phased out, but most likely won't live to see it.
Posted by: Mike Hollibaugh
.

Actually, they've said that if you take a UK bulb that normally withstands 250V current, and use in the US with only 120V, the bulb should last indefinitely. I think the math was around 1000 or more years... So if you want an everlasting bulb, just import from the UK.

Posted by: Chris Chung | February 14, 2005 06:24 PM | flag a problem


It's not going to work most of the time.

The reason most of these bulbs go out is the vacume or the gas thats inside is leaking.
Posted by: Low
.
Multi filament lamps aren't new (think tri-lights). Rotating the bulb to change filaments would require an adapter socket (in North America at least) and it could be tricky to use.
Flourescents are a better idea to save money and minimize bulb changing; halogens if colour balance is important or if flouresents won't fit.
Posted by: George
.
Heat. Simple. The long life bulbs were made from great items that withstand heat. Having two items in the bulb will allow you to swap heat source. But while the other one is waiting arounf for its day as the sun, it will be subject to, yes, heat. Reduction in the overlife of the spare is the result. Edison had a bulb that is still going. Why? Heat Management!
LED lights are already here and will be cost effective before long.
Posted by: Steve
.
Well, you always hear about how company X could make a bulb that lasts forever but they won't because they want to be able to sell you more bulbs later --
You hear this about incandescent bulbs and it is an outright lie. While you can make very long lasting incandescents, they have serious drawbacks making them unappealing for either the manufacturer or the consumer. They will either be very low lumen, very fragile, very expensive (due to materials), or take a very long time to warm up to their full light output.
If you want a "forever" bulb, buy LED fixtures/bulbs. If you want the best tradeoff for economy without an initial purchase price that breaks the bank, go with CFL. If you want the widest selection of bulbs, go with incandescent/halogen/whatever.
I'm all for thinking different about the lightbulb, and I applaud the designers for thinking it up -- it's creative; however, the idea is half baked at best:
1) The design would not work in many (maybe most) light sockets. Requiring a specific socket design with the contact either on a centerline or offset around the ring limits the existing sockets this would work with. In other sockets, it may be impossible to prevent both filaments from having contacts at the same time - meaning twice the light; twice the heat; half the life. There's no way to argue economy if you have to replace your fixtures just to make the bulb work.
2) Bulbs fail mainly due to heat, oxidation, or vibration. Both filaments are going to be worn due to heat whenever the other one is on. If you hit a bulb hard enough or vibrate it long enough to break one of the filaments, you'll likely break them both. If a bulb has a very slow leak, poor seal, etc. or othrwise allows oxygen into the bulb, the filaments are going to burn out faster. Both of them will.
3) It already exists. 3-way bulbs contain two filaments that are activated either seperately or together at each of the three light levels. They require special fixtures, but essentially so does this design.
A practical implementation of this idea would be to produce an adaptor to screw onto the bottom or a 3 way bulb to activate one or the other filament seperately from a normal (non-3-way) base; however, the economics don't actually stack up.
Posted by: John Laur
.
Umm, ok, twice the light, half the materials, UNTIL you run into every house on the planet and rip out the existing light sockets and toss them in the land-fill.
To be a good solution, you must take into account existing infrastructure.
Let's work more on efficient flourescent or LED lighting. Try to get the cost of LED lighting down and more people will use it.
Posted by: Anton |
.
Are you guys stupid.
Normal light bulb socket
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Adaptor socket sold with the lightbulb
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
New bulb with 2 filiments or three.
Then just have the option to buy the lightbulb with or without an adaptor.
ROFL at throwing out all the current sockets.
Posted by: Mike
..
look, the problem with this idea is it doesn't solve the main gripe people have with incandescent bulbs. I don't give a flying rat's ass if I have to change a bulb in my desk lamp. What pisses me off is when I have to change a bulb in my stairwell. If I have to get up on a ladder to give this bulb a half-turn then wtf am I actually getting? This design offers people nothing in the situations they actually care about: bulb longevity in hard-to-reach places. It will fail.
Posted by: Anonymous
.
omg i have this great idea where you put 7 filaments in the lightbulb;
i call it lightbulb 7.0, and it's 3.5x cooler than your idea
Posted by: rofltoffle |
...
Dual filament bulbs used to be quite common in the US, with a light fitting that allowed you to use (say) 40W only, 60W only or both 40W+60W as a three-way dimmer.
But I'd guess the economics favour long-life fluorescents today, and white LEDs soon.
By the way, you can always extend the life of a burnt-out bulb by putting it in the microwave (Google for details first, can be dangerous if done incorrectly.)
Posted by: Andrew Yeomans
...

ou may have cut the cost of materials by approximately 50% by doubling the life of the bulb (which still doesn't stand up to the efficiency of CFL and LED lighting, as others have pointed out), but you've done pretty much nothing to the cost of labor for bulb replacement, which is one of the major costs of incandescent technology. You still need a guy to come by every X hours to give the bulb a turn, where X is the same as it was with a more traditional incandescent bulb design.
Posted by: Cheng-Jih Chen | ebruary 15, 2005 08:51 AM | flag a problem
...
Wow, who would have thought a lightbulb to sollicit so much conversation... how many treehuggers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Technically, a second filament would be subject to the same stress as the first, even while standing idle. So chances are the second filament wouldn't last nearly as long as the first once put to work. The design objection to fluorescents to me had always been its brash whiteness. But today you can get fluorescent that are tuned to mimick the yellowish glow of incadescent. In fact the way to really spare the bulb, is to revert all lights to DC, as it is the constant AC flicker that stresses bulbs the most. Incadescents can run on either AC or DC without modification... but fluorescents, because of their electronic ballast, need to be designed for either one or the other. Most mobile homes and boats all run on DC power. Tesla never advocated AC for inside homes or office... ONLY to allow the electricity to travel long distance. Reverting back to DC once at destination would save an immense amount of energy... ALL computers for example, have a built-in transformer that alters the 110 volt AC current into DC current. There's a big statue of Tesla near the falls in Niagara. I'll never forget the tour guide saying he had invented alternative currency... as if the only thing she was thinking about was how to spend her pay check in Canada!
Posted by: RemyC | February 15, 2005 06:28 PM | flag a problem
...
All the efficiency arguments are accepted. Just a technical point; you only need one extra contact for the two filament solution, that is three contacts not four.
One contact can be common to the two filaments.
Posted by: Les | February 21, 2005 05:27 PM | flag a problem
...
I would like to know, what lightbulb company can make a lightbulb that would last for 40 years and be located in the family bathroom, where it is turned on and off 3-8 times a day conservatively speaking, not to mention the condensation. If you can't build one then someone can. Because I own a lightbulb that is approximately 40 years old and has been in constant use since purchased in the early 60's. I'm sure someone out there who builds lightbulbs would like to see this bulb to duplicate it, if you would like to see this lightbulb please contact me, 1-604-295-3632 British Columbia, Canada.
Posted by: tony yliruusi |
...
That a real cool idea.
Let lots of it come.
it is high time more of Indians and world citizens participate in the design boom competions.
a develping country and for that matter all countries and the underdeveloped need to save.
Hope to one in the corner shop in due time.
Posted by: venkatram naidu |
...
William is talking toffee.
An infinite incandescent is of course possible - just reduce the voltage.
But then the efficiency drops so low as to completely negate any saving on replacement light bulbs.
CCFL and, eventually, LEDs are the way to go - not conspiracy theories about magic filament materials etc.
Posted by: Anonymous |
...
I have been working with common 40 and 60watt incandescents for a little over three years now and have found a single problem that seems to be constistent and very common with with most of the major manufacturers. I have been able to overcome the built in, planned obsolescence with some experimenting. My problem now is to find a maufacturer who will work with me to get it to market. My modification can be incorporated in the assembly of the bulb with very minor changes in the production process.
Posted by: bob w. |
...
CFL's are presently the optimum choice for lightbulbs. They are cheap (prices are between $0.99 and $9.99) and some of them (not all) produce a remarkably high quelity white light. In comparison, LED's are are expensive. However, the greatest drawback of LED's is the poor quality of light produced. It tends to be very cold and bluish. Morever, the light is highly directional.
Posted by: Robert Sczech |
...
I've written about this before and thought it had been put to rest by now, but I guess not. Think about the last 100 times you changed out an incandescent bulb: were you reading when it faded out, or did it go *pop* when you flipped the switch? 99% of the time, it was when you flipped the switch. The problem isn't heat, it's a sudden change in temperature. The filament heats up quickly, but not evenly, so part of it stretches more than the rest and *pop*. It isn't leaking gas, or heat exposure. To solve this problem, you could make the filament thicker and restrict the current. That's the secret behind the Centennial Light, a lamp that has burned since 1901. The problem? It's 4 FREAKIN WATTS!!! You can't even tell that it's on if the other lights in the room are on.

http://www.centennialbulb.org/photos.htm

Planned obsolesence? Only if idiots that like to lose money are running Philips and GE. If they had a long lasting light bulb, they would have brought it out to compete with CFLs by now. Where is it?!?!
The lamp described in this article is okay, but I'd prefer a CFL and, when the prices drop, an LED. They can tweak the effective color temperature and directionality of LEDs, but at $200+, who cares? The two advantages that this incandescent has over a CFL is that it requires fewer resources to manufacture (CFLs still use trace amounts of mercury, IIRC, as well as the fluorescing gas, and remember that you are still going to need 2-3 of these 2x bulbs to outlast a CFL) and incandescents can be used in common dimmer and sensor-controlled sockets. But the resources to operate a CFL are still much lower, so I would guess (without running numbers) that the CFL is the winner over its lifetime. If you don't need the control circuits, use a CFL and fuggetaboutit.
Posted by: Eric H |

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» Two Filament Lightbulb Concept from Gizmodo
Despite common cartoon knowledge, it's actually quite difficult to have new ideas about lightbulbs. That's why this concept from Mahendra Chauhan and Sanjay Rajput is so surprising—it obviously took twice as much brainpower to conceive it. The id... [Read More]

[B]Go on-site to see designs, etc, and more articles about who knows what. SRH

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/02/lightbulb_20_do.php

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SOLDIER: 101st Keyboarder Refuses to Answer Hypocrisy

By
David Sirota

The New Republic was one of the strongest and most aggressive voices pushing for the invasion of Iraq. Their editor, Peter Beinart, led the charge, attacking Democrats who dared to question the move. He and the magazine have yet to seriously consider how easy it is to advocate for a massive military operation based on lies when the advocates themselves never have to face the blood-and-guts consequences of their advocacy. Now, of course, the New Republic and Beinart would like everyone to forget their record, as Beinart pushes a new book trying to position himself as a "liberal" foreign policy guru and a chest-thumping "hawk." But at least one Army lieutenant catches Beinart and his magazine in some dishonest and grossly self-serving editing.

Here's an excerpt from a piece by Second Lt. John Renehan in this
week's Chronicle of Higher Education:

"In 2004, shortly before I left for basic training, The New Republic ran a piece in which Peter Beinart, then the magazine's editor, bemoaned the increasingly narrow demographics of those who serve and the consequent emergence of 'two countries' -- one that serves, and a second, more-affluent one that thinks of service as a thing done by other Americans. Notably, Beinart admitted his own mixed feelings on being a member of the nonserving elite, wondering aloud what he might say when a child of his someday asks, 'What did you do in the terror war, Daddy?' Impressed, I wrote a letter to Beinart praising his frankness and noting my own decision to join the military -- one
prompted by similar callings of conscience. Then I offered him what I called a 'public-spirited challenge': One of The New Republic's own should serve, and the magazine should write about it...It was a naïve sort of thing to write. My girlfriend took a look at the letter and said, 'You know they're never going to print this, don't you?' I did. But they did print it -- with a notable omission. My 'public-spirited challenge' had been excised, leaving only praise for Beinart." The netroots have labeled people like Beinart and his "hawkish" friends in the punditocracy as members of the 101st Fighting Keyboard Brigade - authors/insiders/operatives who are "very enthusiastic about war,
provided someone else fights it." The fact that members of the 101st would resort to selectively editing an Army Lieutenant's sincere letter to the editor in order to dishonestly heap praise on themselves and avoid facing the tough questions about their behavior tells you all you need to know about how unprincipled these people really are. In their comfortable bubble, war is all just a fun little political game based on Washington's false definition of "strength" as a politician willing to sit in their guarded, air conditioned Beltway office and call in airstrikes and ground assaults - regardless of the
consequences for the targets or America's national security.- - - - - - -
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=CCFAEB09-E0C3-F090-A4F430CF1A9919A9

{http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=CCFAEB09-E0C3-F090-A4F430CF1A9919A9}
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Leader turned informant rattles Muslims
Toronto Muslims debate duty to help track suspected terrorists after a religious leader helped officials arrest 17.
By Rebecca Cook Dube
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT
A BRAVE MAN
HAS HE SIGNED HIS OWN DEATH WARRANT?
SRH
TORONTO
The surprise announcement by a prominent Muslim leader here that he was an informant who helped authorities arrest 17 Muslims on terrorism charges has raised questions in the Muslim community over the ethics of informing versus a responsibility to stop violence.

Since outing himself as an informant who infiltrated and trained with the suspects, Mubin Shaikh has come under harsh criticism by some Toronto Muslims and sparked a debate about how far citizens should go in aiding police investigations, even as he has been hailed as a hero in the mainstream media.

The men, ranging in age from 15 to 43, were arrested last month after buying three tons of ammonium nitrate, a common bomb-making ingredient, and are alleged by police to have planned to blow up Toronto buildings and storm Canada's parliament. Then, earlier this month, Mr. Shaikh revealed himself to several media outlets as a mole who infiltrated the group at the request of the police.

"I wanted to prevent the loss of life," Shaikh told the Toronto Star newspaper. "I don't want Canadians to think that these [suspects] are what Muslims are. I don't believe in violence here. I wanted to help, and I'm as homegrown as it gets."

Before this, Shaikh was a well-known conservative leader in the Muslim community. He runs a shariah arbitration center and is a fierce advocate for Islamic law, in Canada.

"Whatever the source of his motivation, he did his duty as a Canadian citizen," The National Post newspaper wrote in an editorial. "And he has taught a lesson that others in the Muslim community would do well to heed."

But that view is not shared by many in Toronto's Muslim community. Some wonder whether Shaikh couldn't have dissuaded the terrorism suspects, most of whom are younger than he, from violence. Some accuse him of entrapping the suspects. Some question his motivation - Shaikh claims he was paid C$77,000 (US$68,000) for his work and is owed another C$300,000. Others simply scorn him as a betrayer.

"He was not just an informer in terms of ratting out certain people, he was actually fishing," says Aly Hindy, imam of the Salaheddin Islamic Centre, a mosque several of the suspects attended in Scarborough, an eastern suburb of Toronto. Mr. Hindy said Shaikh's deep knowledge of Islam - he studied for two years in Syria - helped him gain sway over the youngsters.

For his part, Shaikh told the CBC that the suspects had already chosen their path and needed no encouragement from him. After taking the unusual step of identifying himself as an informant, Shaikh has retreated from the public eye and could not be reached for comment.

The question of entrapment often arises in investigations involving undercover informants, experts say. Some of the 17 defendants' attorneys are claiming Shaikh instigated the terrorist plot rather than merely observed. In the US, informants in Muslim communities have been used often since the 9/11 attacks including in a Federal Bureau of Investigation case involving seven men accused of being Taliban sympathizers in Portland in 2002.

"If the police lose control of their informant, they lose control of the investigation," says Alan Young, a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. "In organized crime, very often you need informants to penetrate the inner circle ... sometimes they're necessary and sometimes they're a disaster."

Some Toronto Muslims say they support the idea of reporting suspicious behavior to the authorities, but they draw the line at Shaikh's extensive undercover work.

"All citizens have an obligation to report a terrorist plot to the police should they find out about it. In fact, they have a duty to do so," Safiyyah Ally, a Toronto graduate student, wrote on her blog ( www.safiyyah.ca/wordpress). But posing as a member of a group is different, she wrote.

"It becomes particularly problematic when a prominent member of a community spies on other individuals within the community," Ms. Ally wrote. "It wasn't right for someone of his stature to infiltrate himself within a group of youths with the intention of spying on them and secretly reporting their activities and ideas to the police."

Ally's posting touched off a storm of comments on her blog, ranging from predictions that Shaikh would burn in hell to calmer voices cautioning against a rush to judgment. Ally raised concerns about what the use of such informants might do to Toronto's Muslim community of 300,000.

"Our community is fragile enough as is, and our leaders are our moral anchor.... We cannot have communities wherein individuals are paranoid of each other and turned against one another," she wrote.

Hindy said he believes that would-be moles at his mosque already report to police when he makes controversial statements. "It looks like people are starting to be afraid of each other," says Hindy.

That distrust is a common side effect in a community where law enforcement frequently uses informants, says Alexandra Natapoff, an associate professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an expert on the use of informants in the US drug war.

"There's a very corrosive effect in urban communities when the government makes snitching a central law enforcement tool," says Professor Natapoff. Informants can be a useful tool for criminal investigations, Natapoff says, but it's easy to slide into ethically dangerous territory.

"One of the things we should be worried about is that it will become more like the war on drugs, and law enforcement will become more dependent on informers, and informers will drive investigations rather than investigators picking their targets," says Natapoff.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the July 31, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0731/p06s01-woam.html

Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

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Moderate Western Muslims, speak up!
Do we really need social research to condemn Islamofacism?
By
Rondi Adamson

TORONTO - In the months following 9/11, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that rather than constantly ask ourselves, "Why do they hate us?", we should instead ask, "Why don't they see us for who we really are?"

I thought about that following the arrests of 17 Canadian terror suspects last weekend. Most were citizens of Canada, born and bred, or residents. The police who announced the dragnet were careful to say that the young males did not represent any specific ethnocultural group - though all are Muslim.

Toronto's mayor, David Miller, after commending the excellent work of Canada's security forces, wondered aloud why young people might get involved in terrorist activities. We need "strategies to try to prevent that from happening again," he said. His earnestness awed me. Can he truly believe there is some "thing" Canadians can do (hold a "Hands Across Canada" event?) to prevent this kind of occurrence?

Canada is not France. Canada's Muslim population is not marginalized out of fear and contempt, not left alone to manage its own affairs. Even though a Toronto mosque had its windows smashed following the arrests, that sort of thuggery and stupidity is not systemic or common. Canada's Muslims are not prevented from attending good schools or holding high-powered jobs. Nor are they, for the most part, unwilling or unable to fit in peacefully and productively. So the mayor's concern was misplaced. His comment should have been something along the lines of, "I wonder what Canada's Muslim leaders/moderate Muslim citizens can do to prevent this kind of thing in future?"

In countries like Canada, or England, or Spain, where citizens have been shocked by the news of home-grown cells, I believe more needs to be asked of Muslim religious and community leaders. Western Muslims are a powerful potential ally in the broader "war on terror." It is true that most Muslims are not terrorists. But we need Muslims themselves to admit that most of the terrorists who threaten us are Muslim.

Aly Hindy, a high-profile imam in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, called the arrests "an attack on the Muslim community." He went on to say that, "We are abusing our boys for the sake of pleasing George Bush." Rather than speaking out against extremism, or entertaining the notion that perhaps his country's security forces know what they're doing, Hindy called the charges against the men "home-grown baloney."

Even moderate Canadian Muslim groups, willing to show faith in Canada's justice system, are mitigating their statements. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) praised the work of Canada's spy agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But then they scolded the Canadian government for not funding "academic research to diagnose this serious social problem and provide scientific solutions to it." A scientific solution to Islamofascism? Bring it on.

The group also chastised Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper for portraying events "as a battle between 'us' and 'them.' " Following the arrests, Mr. Harper stated that "we are a target because of who we are. And how we live." One wonders - do the members of the CIC not consider themselves part of the "we" Harper referred to, when he spoke of Canadians? If so, that is indeed revealing.

The Muslim Canadian Congress fared only a tad bit better. They praised the police, and expressed dismay that members of their community might be guilty as charged. And then they managed to blame President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and even Harper for the fact that any such terror cells might exist. So far, only the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) has managed to issue a condemnation of terror, and praise of the police, without tacking on a "but," a "Bush," or a "Canadian troops in Afghanistan."

I was happily surprised at CAIR-CAN's press release. I shouldn't have been. We must expect that Western Muslims will wholeheartedly condemn Islamofascism, without any conditions placed on that condemnation. Without that, we may reach a point of divisions too deep to mend.

• Rondi Adamson is an award-winning Canadian journalist.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the June 06, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0606/p09s01-coop.html

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

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* ** * ** * ** *
Bush Walks Right Into Castro's Trap
By
David Sirota
A few years ago, I read the landmark biography of Fidel Castro by New York Times reporter Tad Szulc. That by no means makes me a Castro or Cuba expert - but it does hammer home to even the casual reader that Castro's primary tool in holding onto power ha been his ability to pump up the threat of what he portrays as U.S. imperial ambitions and a supposedly corresponding threat to Cuban sovereignty. His basic line has been, "Keep me in power and the Revolution going so as to prevent the U.S. from invading, or exerting total control over Cuba." This manipulative message is nationalist to its core - he is saying that
Cuba can only hold onto its distinct cultural, historic and economic roots if America is prevented from overrunning the country. Now, with news of Castro's illness and feverishg talk that his reign may finally be ending, the question of how to deal with and debunk his message becomes critical to whether we will see a democratic Cuba or not.

Let's be clear: Castro is a dictator who has used horrific acts to hold onto power, and a democratic Cuba is in the long-term interests of the Cuban people, the United States and the world - that is not up for debate. But whether you agree with Castro's fundamental nationalist message about U.S. imperial ambitions or not, it's clear that he has been effective in using it to keep power. And thus, that begs a very important question: why is the Bush administration walking right into his trap?

Open today's New York Times, and you will see that the Bush administration is now publicly bragging that once Castro dies, America is planning for a full-on take over of Cuba. In one story, we find out that "Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, made it clear on Tuesday that the United States would take an active role in shaping events on the island if the Cuban leader dies." That is the kind of declaration easily interpreted/spun by anti-democratic forces in Cuba as no-holds-barred diplomat-ese for the very imperialism Castro has been warning his people about for the last half century.

In another story, we discover that the administration is now announcing that if Castro dies, "the United States would also send special monitors and advisers to Cuba in the weeks after a full transition began." In the wake of the Vietnam War, which infamously started out with U.S. military "advisers," again - this is clearly fodder that could be easily spun to confirm Castro's own message. And it is especially stupid and destructive to our long-term
goals/credibitlity when, at the same time our government is haughtily strutting around making these proclamations, the White House is also saying "it viewed attempts by Venezuela or other countries to influence the transition in Cuba as unwarranted intervention."

In political campaigns, the worst thing a candidate can do is publicly walk into their own stereotype. If, for instance, there are unconfirmed rumors out there that a candidate is a philanderer and is too-slick by half, the worst thing that candidate can do is get caught philandering and then lying about it, because it confirms the negative suspicions the public may have already had. If there are suspicions out there that a candidate waffles or stands for nothing, the worst thing that candidate can do is publicly waffle on a big issue (think John Kerry's "I was for it before I was against it" line on Iraq).

The same thing goes in the situation with Cuba. The stupidest thing American officials can do is publicly walk into Castro's portrayal of our ambitions. By doing that, we are confirming the negative suspicions that many Cubans must have, considering they've been hearing about it over and over and over again for the last 50 years.

Here's the thing - obviously, it is in America's interest to see a truly democratic Cuba, and our government should support that wholeheartedly. But there's an effective way to support a Cuba's transition to democracy that doesn't VERY PUBLICLY walk into Castro's caricature. Right now, the Bush administration is PUBLICLY walking into Castro's own well-honed message, showing just how utterly arrogant and incompetent the people running our country really are. Our government is quite literally giving Castro (if he survives) and those around him fodder to say: "See, we told you so, so keep us in power, because we have been right." Put another way, the
administration's arrogance could very well imperil a transition to democracy in Cuba, because it is very publicly giving anti-democratic forces in Cuba a rhetorical weapon to hang onto power.

As I've written before - Iraq has shown that the definition of "strength" when it comes to national security is not being a politician sitting in a comfortable air-conditioned Washington office and flippantly putting American troops in danger by calling in airstrikes or invasions half way around the globe. Similarly, the situation in Cuba should remind us that "strength" is not a
politician puffing out his chest and pigheadedly walking into the very caricatures our enemies have been peddling, so as to potentially alienate indigenous populations that may have otherwise been sympathetic to our goals. That's what's called "weakness" - and the more such weakness is peddled as "strength" by politicians and the media elite, the worse off America will be.
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=D0A9B9CD-E0C3-F08F-9B0250186F7568AD

{http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=D0A9B9CD-E0C3-F08F-9B0250186F7568AD}
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"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck.
The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians." : Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism


~~~

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."
—General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951

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Fetch, Heel, Stall

By
Maureen Dowd

07/29/06 "New York Times" -- -- Oops, they did it again. That pesky microphone problem that plagued George W. Bush and Tony Blair in St. Petersburg struck again at their White House news conference yesterday. The president told technicians to make sure his real thoughts would not be overheard this time, but somehow someone forgot to turn off the feed to my office. As a public service, I'd like to reprint the candid under-their-breath mutterings they exchanged in between their public utterances.

THE PRESIDENT: "The prime minister and I have committed our governments to a plan to make every effort to achieve a lasting peace out of this crisis."

"Actually, we talked about our plan to keep using fancy phrases like 'lasting peace' and 'sustainable cease-fire,' so we don't actually have to cease the fire. Condi had a great one! Didya hear it, Tony? She said, 'The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken cease-fires.' Man, can she talk, and she plays piano, too!"

THE PRIME MINISTER: "The question is now how to get it stopped and get it stopped with the urgency that the situation demands. ... I welcome very much the fact that Secretary Rice will go back to the region tomorrow. She will have with her the package of proposals in order to get agreement both from the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon on what is necessary to happen in order for this crisis to stop."

"I thought it was quite clever, George, to stall by sending Condi to Kuala Lumpur for that imminently skippable meeting of marginal Asian powers. And her decision to tickle the ivories while Beirut burns was inspired. The Asians love a good Brahms sonata. And she called it a 'prayer for peace'! Just brilliant. But her idea of a series of Rachmaninoff concerts at every layover on the way to the Middle East could look too conspicuously like dawdling."

THE PRESIDENT: "Hezbollah's not a state. They're a, you know, supposed political party that happens to be armed. Now what kind of state is it that's got a political party that has got a militia?"

"Uh-oh! I mean, besides all those Shiite leaders we set up in Iraq who have THEIR own militias. Oh, man, this is complicated. What about those Republican Minutemen patrolling the Mexican border? Or Vice on a hunting trip?"

THE PRIME MINISTER: "Of course the U.N. resolution, the passing of it, the agreeing of it, can be the occasion for the end of hostilities if it's acted upon, and agreed upon. And that requires not just the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon, obviously, to abide by it, but also for the whole of the international community to exert the necessary pressure so that there is the cessation of hostilities on both sides."

"And the whole of the cosmos! We can call for an intergalactic study group to act upon and agree upon and adjudicate - George, I can keep the verbs, adjectives and conditional phrases going until these reporters keel over."

THE PRESIDENT: "My message is, give up your nuclear weapon and your nuclear weapon ambitions. That's my message to Syria - I mean, to Iran. And my message to Syria is, you know, become an active participant in the neighborhood for peace."

"It's so hard to keep all these countries straight! And which ones are in the Axis? I hate it when Condi leaves town. Tony Baloney, just blink twice when I mention a bad country and once when I mention one we like and sell arms to. And while you're at it, heel, poodle! Har-har. Play dead! You crack me up."

THE PRIME MINISTER: "I've spoken to President Chirac, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, the president of the European Union, the prime minister of Finland and many, many others."

"See? I'm no poodle. I'm here to keep the names of our allies straight. And I can stand up straight. Bush, old boy, that's not posture. That's Paleolithic Man."

THE PRESIDENT: "And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles. For example, you know, you know, the, the, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge - emerge - scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, and those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them, and so they respond. They've always been violent. ... There's this kind of almost, you know, kind of weird kind of elitism that says: well, maybe - maybe - certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free."

"Tony, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14333.htm

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When You Care Enough To Do The Very Least

By
Ted Rall

08/02/06 "Information Clearing House" --- -- NEW YORK--Are we the world's policeman? Or are we an empire? The rest of the world has already made up its mind about us. The president of the Pew Research Center, whose latest poll of foreigners finds they hate the United Stats more than ever, says: "Obviously, when you get many more people saying that the U.S. [is as much of] a threat to world peace as...Iran, it's a measure of how much [the war in Iraq] is sapping good will to the United States."

But we Americans remain deeply divided over American values and intentions, and it's high time that we got our story straight.

In 1975 Philip Agee published his explosive memoir of his career as a CIA operative, Inside the Company. The former black ops specialist provided proof for what critics had long suspected, that the United States government had assassinated popularly elected foreign leaders and propped up brutal right-wing dictatorships in countries such as Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina throughout the '60s and '70s. Published in the wake of Watergate and the forced resignation of Richard Nixon, disgust for the dirty dealings described by Agee contributed to a reformist wave that fed Jimmy Carter's successful 1976 bid for the presidency.

Upon taking office Carter declared "the soul of our foreign policy" to be concern for human rights. Carter recalled in a 1997 interview: "I announced that human rights would be a cornerstone or foundation of our entire foreign policy. So I officially designated every U.S. ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative, and to have the embassy be a haven for people who suffered from abuse by their own government. And every time a foreign leader met with me, they knew that human rights in their country would be on the agenda. And I think that this was one of the seminal changes that was brought to U.S. policy. And although in the first few weeks of his term my successor Ronald Reagan disavowed this policy and sent an emissary down to Argentina and to Chile and to Brazil--to the military dictators--and said, 'The human rights policy of Carter is over,' it was just a few months before he saw that the American people supported this human rights policy and that it was good for his administration. So after that he became a strong protector of human rights as well."

The media and the public interpreted Carter's human rights-based foreign policy as welcome, radical, and sweeping. There were worrisome inconsistencies: Carter's State Department continued to arm and finance the violent dictators of Haiti, the Philippines and Iran. Nevertheless, the CIA was subjected to budget cuts and Congressional oversight. Subsequent U.S. military involvement in Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq were wholly or in significant part marketed as attempts to liberate the oppressed and protect human rights. Carter and Reagan convinced Americans of all political stripes that defending the helpless, stopping genocide and overthrowing tyrants were our country's basic duties.

We still do. Even though 63 percent of Americans say they approve of their own government's use of torture, 86 percent continue to believe that "promoting and defending human rights in other countries" as a U.S. foreign policy goal is "important." An August 2002 Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor poll found that 81 percent think that "the impact the U.S. has on the rest of the world [on] democratic values and human rights" is a positive one.

If we're so nice, why do they hate us so much?

The trouble with putting human rights first is that we have do it all the time, in every case, even when it costs us economically. Integrity requires doing what is right even--especially--when it hurts.

Before Jimmy Carter, American foreign policy was a straightforward and cynical realpolitik. We fought in South Korea and South Vietnam as if we were moving pieces on a Cold War chessboard instead of blasting children to bits; the despotic regimes we defended there were more brutal than their enemies. Afterwards, we became hypocrites. We went into Somalia, which controlled a strategic port of entry for oil tankers, but not Rwanda, which had no significant natural resources. We backed Saddam Hussein when Iraq granted lucrative oil concessions to politically connected multinationals and attacked him when he didn't.

A true human rights-based foreign policy would require "regime change" warfare against the biggest evildoers in the world, including those willing to do business with us. What we have now is a Chinese menu pick-one-from-column-A-and-one-from-column-B mishmash. We do whatever we want, then come up with a justification--human rights, WMDs, imminent danger--after the fact.

People liked us better when we didn't pretend to be nice.

Ted Rall is the author of "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.

Copyright © Ted Rall - Visit his website www.tedrall.com

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14336.htm

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A Soldier Maimed by War Now Questions the Mission

By
Brian MacQuarrie
The Boston Globe
Wednesday 02 August 2006
Sergeant Brian Fountaine, 24, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington this week, was injured in June while on patrol near Baghdad.
(Photo: Jay Premack / Boston Globe) Go on-site to view photo, and/or any links

Washington - President Bush came and sat by the side of Sergeant Brian Fountaine, a 24-year-old tank commander from Dorchester, a gung-ho soldier who had lobbied to be deployed a second time. Now Fountaine was among the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, his legs amputated below the knees after an explosion June 8 ripped apart the Humvee in which he was riding.

The president chatted about the sergeant's beloved Red Sox, but made no reference to the war, the soldier said.

If the topic had come up, the president might not have liked what Fountaine had on his mind. In a dramatic change of heart, Fountaine now considers the war a military quagmire in which American soldiers are caught in a deadly vise between irreconcilable enemies.

In his view, troop morale has plummeted, suicide has increased, and the sacrifices being made in American blood and treasure suddenly seem questionable.

The war began with the justifiable goal of toppling a reckless, dangerous dictator in Saddam Hussein, the soldier said. But as the country slides toward civil war, Fountaine added, the goal of a democratic Iraq seems more distant by the day.

"You have to wonder, what exactly are we doing?" Fountaine said. "In my opinion, [Iraq] is a country that has been at war with itself and with other enemies for thousands of years. And we're supposed to make them happy? I don't think so. I don't see it happening."

When asked if history will justify the life-altering sacrifice he has made, Fountaine paused for several seconds, lowered his head, and slowly replied: "If in 10 or 20 years, if Iraq is in the same spot and America is still losing boys over there, then, no, I think my sacrifice will be as futile as anyone else's."

That sacrifice has been profound, excruciatingly exacted from Fountaine's body by two large bombs on a dusty road a dozen miles north of Baghdad.

The pain has been both physical and psychic. On June 30, while visiting the Marine Corps War Memorial in a wheelchair he was still learning to use, Fountaine lost control and fell over. Nothing he experienced in the explosion outside Taji -- not the searing burn, not the loss of blood, not the experience of binding his own mangled legs with tourniquets -- equaled the humiliation of that moment.

"It was like a hammer to the face," Fountaine said this week as he sat on his hospital bed. "I just sat there for about 5 minutes, and I said, `How does one go from being a combat-hardened tank commander to being a poor wretch on the ground?' "

That journey began in April 2001 when Fountaine enlisted in the Army, fulfilling a childhood dream to follow his father, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam era, into military service.

"I was patriotic before Sept. 11 happened," said Fountaine, a 2000 graduate of Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. "It doesn't take a tragedy to make me realize I'm proud to be an American."

His father and mother, Paul Fountaine and Roberta Quimby, are separated and take turns visiting their son in a convalescent home on the Walter Reed grounds, each staying for 10 days at a time.

The rotation, clearly, is a boon for the sergeant, whose room contains several Red Sox caps, loaves of bread, cans of Spam, get-well messages, and a carefully arranged display of medals. One of those medals, the Purple Heart, was not discovered until Paul Fountaine rummaged inside his son's travel bag at a hospital at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Brian Fountaine woke after several days of unconsciousness. Until that discovery, Brian did not know he already had received the Purple Heart, which is awarded to combat-wounded veterans.

The elder Fountaine listened quietly as his son spoke to a reporter about the US mission in Iraq. But he said he would gladly serve in Brian's place and that, as a soldier, "all you can do is do what your country tells you."

When he enlisted, Brian's plan was to serve two years and then join the Boston Fire Department, where his father, a 26-year firefighter, is assigned to Rescue 2 in Egleston Square. But a zest for military life and steady promotions drove the younger Fountaine to reenlist during his first tour in Iraq, where he served from mid-2003 to mid-2004 with the Fourth Infantry Division.

During his first deployment, Fountaine said, his unit routinely came under attack from mortars and rifle fire. But he volunteered for mission after dangerous mission, he said. Although the potential for death or injury was everywhere, he added: "I accepted the fact that I was a soldier. And I expected this to happen, either a loss of limb or a loss of life."

During his next tour, when the two bombs detonated under the Humvee carrying Fountaine, it was the fifth time that the soldier had survived an improvised explosive device, the military's name for the makeshift bombs used by insurgents. Fountaine knew, as soon as he found himself face-first in the dirt beside the truck, that he had been hurt badly. The sight of his mangled feet and fractured legs, spewing blood as his wounded driver screamed in agony nearby, gave Fountaine a gory glimpse of his future.

"I knew I would become some sort of an amputee," said Fountaine, massaging the stumps of his legs, amputated 10 inches below the knees. "I won't be able to feel the grass between my feet or the sand under my toes, but the important thing is I still have my life."

He said he expects to receive prosthetic legs this week, and to continue arduous daily therapy to ease the transition to life outside the Army. He still has nightmares, Fountaine said, and he occasionally forgets that he does not have all of his legs.

"When you swing your legs over the side of the bed, you wonder why your feet don't hit the floor," Fountaine said. "And then you remember: It's because you don't have feet, stupid."

A whitewater-rafting trip to the Grand Canyon is on Fountaine's schedule for late this month, courtesy of the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides services for seriously wounded military personnel and their families. Fountaine said he hopes to be leaving Walter Reed within months and to live with his father in Dorchester for a short while.

Despite his reservations about the course of the war, Fountaine said he would return, if he could, to serve the remainder of his tour with the First Brigade Combat Team of the Fourth Infantry Division. The bonds forged in war between soldiers, he said, are reason enough to sacrifice one's life and limbs for the good of the unit.

"Those guys over there are my family just as much as that guy over there is my father," Fountaine said. "I wish I could have stayed there, and I wish I could come home with them."

Despite the incessant drumbeat of bad news, Fountaine said there are small positives that occur every day in Iraq, whether soccer games between soldiers and children or offers of water to thirsty farmers.

"Regardless of everything that's going on and the anger you may have," Fountaine said of the war, "... just know it's a lot of regular guys, just like you, who have volunteered to serve their country."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080206G.shtml
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Signing Off on a Constitutional Crisis

By
Barb Guy
The Salt Lake Tribune
Sunday 30 July 2006

After an especially eye-popping bill at the store, I hit upon an idea. While signing my name on the credit card receipt, I added a little statement: Signatory cancels the above debt; will not pay.

Then I did the same at the gas station. Later, when signing a contract for a freelance job, I put this: Signatory will not do the work detailed above but payment is due immediately.

Then, drunk with my newfound power, I flew to Italy and bought a lovely seaside place on Capri. I studied enough Italian on the plane so I could write non che gonna pay you per questi house. Can you believe they went for it?

Just kidding. Only a deceitful person or an idiot would try such underhanded stuff, right? Well let me tell you where I got the idea: our president. When signing a bill into law, President Bush often writes in, "Just kidding."

These signing statements really contain numerous lengthy paragraphs of dense legalese but the bottom line often is: I'm signing this bill into law but I don't really mean it. I alone will decide whether to really carry out the intent of this bill.

So signing a bill into law, a fundamental part of the United States' operation, an event every American kid learns about in school, has gone from a clear-cut process to an ambiguous and corruptible (or downright corrupt) action.

Some will say, and rightly so, that President Bush is not the first president to do this. But with all the previous United States presidents combined over 225 years, this executive method of "just kidding" was used to question about 600 laws. So far, depending on who's counting and how they count, George Bush has employed this duplicitous tactic to undermine 500 to 800 laws since 2001.

The American Bar Association became so concerned they set up a task force to investigate. They'll present their report on Aug. 7 at the ABA's annual meeting, but the 34-page report was released July 24. The ABA's task force, composed of conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans, concluded that President Bush is doing some very creepy stuff with these statements.

The report is online at: http://www.abanet.org/op/signingstatements/aba_final_signing_statements_recommendation-report_7-24-06.pdf

Joyce A. Green, whom the ABA calls a "concerned and public- spirited Oklahoma lawyer" has built a Web site that meticulously provides the text of all President Bush's notoriously difficult-to-locate signing statements: www.coherentbabble.com/signing statements/about.htm.

This is the way it's supposed to work: A law makes its way through both houses of Congress and lands on the president's desk. He signs it and it's the law. Or he vetoes it and the veto can be overturned by a super-majority of Congress.

Those were the days. It's no longer that simple. President Bush doesn't even inform Congress when a signing statement precedes his signature. They just hear that he signed the bill. Members of both parties and both houses are learning they need to read the fine print, but they've learned too late. A lot of folks think the president is using these signing statements as a gutless way to veto legislation that he opposes. Many people believe he is bringing about a constitutional crisis.

When signing Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain's anti-torture law, the president inked in "just kidding." Many Americans feel this brought shame on the United States and shows how far-reaching and devastating these little statements can be.

Our country is special in no small part because our founders hit upon a clever three-branch system of government to keep any one branch from effecting a sinister takeover. To review, these are the legislative (Congress) and the executive (the president and his team) branches and the judiciary (our courts).

All three branches do work that can include interpreting the Constitution, but the final say on constitutional matters belongs with the judiciary. That's the deal our founders set up. But President Bush, by wielding the signing statement along with his pen (usually to enhance his ability to wield his sword), is trumping the judiciary and mangling the Constitution, deeming himself mightier than either one.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is deeply alarmed. He called President Bush's statements "a very blatant encroachment" upon Congress's ability to enact laws.

The Decider is quietly taking apart the way America does things. In the past six years he has reinterpreted the environment, science, education, truth, national security, nation building, reasonable searches and patriotism; now he's altered what a signature means.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence did not have "just kidding" in their hearts; they knew their signatures were solemn vows. I only wish George W. Bush would carry on that honorable tradition. --------Barb Guy is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Salt Lake City and a regular contributor to these pages.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080306M.shtml -------

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The "Band of Brothers" Unravels
By
Martin Bashir
ABC News
Wednesday 02 August 2006

Soldier accused of civilian murders defends actions.
Pfc. Corey Clagett believed that the matter had been resolved.
After two internal inquiries evaluating a mission that had taken place in northern Iraq on May 9, the 22-year-old and three other soldiers from the 3rd Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division expected to return to their duties without a stain on their characters.

Within a month, however, three of the four had been arrested, accused of premeditated murder, and placed in a US military jail in Kuwait.

On Tuesday, the four appeared before an Article 32 hearing that would determine whether they should be court-martialed. If found guilty, they could face the death penalty.

From "Hero" to Prisoner

Speaking by telephone from his prison cell, in an exclusive interview with "Nightline," Clagett defended his actions and expressed anger toward the military for pressing charges against him.

"I was trained to do the right thing," he said, "and I did do that. And it's like I was a hero one day - and I was being treated like that one day - and now I'm in a prison facility in Kuwait."

The transition became all the more astounding when it emerged that his accusers were not from the Iraqi populace, but from his own battalion - the tightly knit and fiercely loyal "band of brothers."

Clagett, along with Sgt. Raymond Girouard and Spc. William Hunsaker - all members of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 3rd Battalion - have been accused of deliberately releasing three Iraqi men they had captured, in order to kill them.

Another soldier, Spc. Juston Graber, has admitted to carrying out the "mercy killing" of one of the detainees after the initial shooting.

Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker, however, vigorously deny the charges, saying that they only fired after the Iraqis broke free and started to attack them.

Rules of Engagement: "Kill All Military-Age Males"

The truth of what happened on that morning in May has become the subject of bitter dispute between former comrades who will find themselves on opposite sides of the ongoing military court proceedings.

The mission itself, like most combat tasks in remote areas of Iraq, was dangerous and intense.

According to Clagett, the briefing was clear.

"I was told that we were going into an al Qaeda and an anti-Iraqi force training area. And that when we were coming in, I was to expect fire.... Before we got on the ground, they were gonna shoot at the birds. They said we were gonna go in hot."

In their sworn affidavits, the three accused soldiers, along with others in the unit, say they received unusual but unequivocal rules of engagement for the task ahead. They say that they were given repeated and explicit orders to "kill all military-age males."

From his prison cell, Clagett explained how they prepared for the mission.

"We did rehearsals on the 8th of May and.... It got passed down to my lieutenant commander and he told us and then my platoon leader and my lieutenant he told us, then the platoon sergeant told us, then the squad leader told us. It was just relayed through chain of command."

What were they told?

"We were told that everybody on this island was hostile," Clagett said. "They were known al Qaeda insurgents, and we're going to kill all military-aged males, so be prepared."

Nightline: So you were told specifically to kill all military-age males?

Clagett: Correct.

Nightline: Were you ever told on any other mission that you were to kill all military-age males? Did that ever happen prior to this event?

Clagett: No.

Nightline: Never?

Clagett: Never.

When the soldiers first landed, close to the Syrian border, they encountered no resistance whatsoever - the place seemed empty.

Eventually they came upon a house where a man was looking out of the window. He was shot immediately.

They then advanced to a second property where they found three men hiding, using women and children as human shields.

According to Clagett, the male detainees were eventually separated. Zip ties were attached to their wrists. As Clagett tried to reinforce their cuffs, however, he says he was attacked by one of the detainees.

"I just got blindsided on my left side, and I just got hit in the face.... I spun around, staggered a little, spun around. I lost my vision.... Came back to and I saw this guy running and I just picked up right in between both of them and I just fired.... He did [have] hostile intent towards me."

"Because he just attacked me and all that ran through my head for those couple of seconds. So I engaged his target. With his hostile intent [this] gave me authorization to kill this guy. Then I know for Hunsaker, when I checked him out, he was cut on the face and on the arm and he received hostile action so that gave him [the] right to kill that guy."

For about four weeks after the killings in May, this was the account on record. Last month an entirely different version of events was given after three soldiers swore new affidavits.

One of them, Sgt. Leonel Lemus, a member of the 3rd Battalion, said that he had witnessed a deliberate plot to kill the three Iraqis and that the only cuts sustained by members of his division were self-inflicted in order to bolster their story.

In his statement he says that he didn't initially tell the truth because of "peer pressure, and I have to be loyal to the squad."

Lemus also recalled Clagett suffering a form of post-traumatic stress days after the killings.

"Three days later he told me he couldn't stop talking about it. As if it bothered him.... He was really stressed because when he slept the few hours he did, he dreamed about it over and over."

We put this to Clagett during our telephone interview.

Nightline: Do you recall telling him that you couldn't stop thinking about the shooting? And that you felt ill as a result?

Clagett: Yes, I did.

Nightline: Why did you tell him that?

Clagett: Well, I'm human. I'm not one of these guys who is like, 'Oh, I killed someone.' I felt bad because even though he did attack me and I had a right to shoot him, I still felt bad because I had to take two guys' lives and that affected me in my head because I am a really caring person. And with the thought of me killing two people that hurt me even though it was for the right reason, it hurt me.

Nightline: Is it possible that you are really feeling deeply guilty about it and that's why you couldn't stop thinking about it?

Clagett: No, I definitely did not feel guilty.... I did not feel guilty because [of] what he did. I just acted accordingly of what he did to me.... So I mean I just followed my original rule of engagement.

Other soldiers have also come forward to challenge Clagett's account.

Spc. Micah Bivins has said that "the cuts on Hunsaker's face were fishy and awkward. They could have been done with a paper clip," supporting the allegation that the injuries were self-inflicted and part of a conspiracy.

Graber, the fourth accused soldier, says Hunsaker told him that he wanted to "kill the detainees."

There is one aspect of the division's conduct that both sides appear to agree on: that there is a competition between battalions as to how many Iraqis can be killed.

Bivins, in his statement responding to a question about whether the rules of engagement had anything to do with the large number of killings, said, "Yes, because there is a list. The high value target list has persons on it who are confirmed bad guys and they are to be killed on sight, after confirmation it is actually them."

Again, we put the question to Clagett.

Nightline: Is it true that amongst certain divisions of American personnel in Iraq there is a list, a tally, of how many high value targets are killed in Iraq. Is that true?

Clagett: Yes. It is true.

Nightline: Do you think having a list like that is helpful? Doesn't that generate a sense of competition?

Clagett: Yes, it does. There pretty much was a competition. Everyone is saying there wasn't but there was.

The scene is now set for a legal showdown between men who, until recently, were comrades on the battlefield.

The tight cords that once maintained discipline and an absolute commitment to the division have begun to unravel among the "band of brothers."


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080206R.shtml

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Banking on War

By
William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 02 August 2006

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Only the dead, said Plato, have seen the end of war. As true as this may be, it does beg the question: why? Why is there so much conflict in the world? Why are there so many wars? Ethnic and religious tensions have been casus belli since time out of mind, to be sure. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War ruptured a framework that held for almost fifty years, bringing about a series of conflicts that are understandable in hindsight.

There is a simpler answer, however, one that lands right in our back yard here in America. Why so much war? Because war is a profitable enterprise. George W. Bush and his people can hold forth about the wonders of democracy and peace, and can condemn worldwide violence in solemn tones. Until the United States stops being the world's largest arms dealer, these words from our government absolutely reek of hypocrisy.

Mr. Bush and his people did not invent this phenomenon, of course. The United States has been selling hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons to the world for decades. In the aftermath of September 11, however, American arms dealing kicked into an even higher gear. The Bush administration, in 2003, delivered arms to 18 of 25 nations now engaged in active conflicts. 13 of those nations have been defined as "undemocratic" by the State Department, but still received $2.7 billion in American weaponry.

One example is Uzbekistan, a nation with an astonishingly deplorable record of human rights violations. Thousands of people have been imprisoned and tortured for purely political reasons, and hundreds more have been killed. Still, that nation received $37 million in weapons from the United States between 2001 and 2003.

In 2002, the United States sold almost $50 million in missile technologies to Bahrain. In the same year, the United States sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of missile technology, rocket launchers, tank ammunition, fighter jets and attack helicopters to Egypt. The United States has sold millions of dollars worth of weapons to both India and Pakistan, two nations that have been on the brink of war for years. This list goes on and on.

Analyze the list of the top twenty companies that profit most from global arms sales, and you will see American companies taking up thirteen of those spots, including the top three: Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. These arms dealers act in concert with the Department of Defense; they exist as a sixth ring of the Pentagon.

The Associated Press reported last week that business for the arms industry is, to make a bad pun, booming. "Northrop Grumman, the world's largest shipbuilder and America's third-largest military contractor," reported the AP, "said second-quarter earnings rose 17 per cent, as operating profit at its systems and information technology units overcame a decline at the company's ships division. Raytheon Co., the fifth-largest defense contractor, reported second-quarter net income jumped 54 per cent, buoyed by strong military equipment sales."

Beyond the missiles and the tanks and the warplanes, there is the small-arms industry. This is, comprehensively, far more deadly than the large-arms sales being made. A report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences describes the deadly situation:

Since the end of the cold war, from the Balkans to East Timor and throughout Africa, the world has witnessed an outbreak of ethnic, religious and sectarian conflict characterized by routine massacre of civilians. More than 100 conflicts have erupted since 1990, about twice the number for previous decades. These wars have killed more than five million people, devastated entire geographic regions, and left tens of millions of refugees and orphans. Little of the destruction was inflicted by the tanks, artillery or aircraft usually associated with modern warfare; rather most was carried out with pistols, machine guns and grenades. However beneficial the end of the cold war has been in other respects, it has let loose a global deluge of surplus weapons into a setting in which the risk of local conflict appears to have grown markedly.

The Federation of American Scientists prepared a report some years ago detailing the vast amounts of small arms delivered to the world by the United States. "In addition to sales of newly-manufactured weapons," read the report, "the Pentagon gives away or sells at deep discount the vast oversupply of small/light weapons that it has in its post cold-war inventory. Most of this surplus is dispensed through the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program. Originally only the southern-tier members of NATO were cleared to receive EDA, but following the 1991 Gulf war, many Middle Eastern and North African states were added; anti-narcotics aid provisions expanded EDA eligibility to include South American and Caribbean countries; and the "Partnership for Peace" program made most Central and Eastern European governments eligible for free surplus arms."

"Around 1995," continued the report, "large-scale grants and sales of small/light arms began occurring. In the past few years (1995 - early 1998), over 300,000 rifles, pistols, machine guns and grenade launchers have been offered up, including: 158,000 M16A1 assault rifles (principally to Bosnia, Israel, Philippines); 124,815 M14 rifles (principally to the Baltics and Taiwan); 26,780 pistols (principally to Philippines, Morocco, Chile, Bahrain; 1,740 machine guns (principally to Morocco, Bosnia); and 10,570 grenade launchers (principally to Bahrain, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Morocco)."

We hear so often that this is a dangerous world. It is arguable that the world might be significantly less dangerous if the United States chose to stop lathering the planet with weapons. Much has been made, especially recently, about the billions of dollars in weapons sales offered to Israel by America. This is but the tip of the iceberg.

It is, at bottom, all about profit. We sell the weapons, which create warfare, which justifies our incredibly expensive war-making capabilities when we have to go in and fight against the people who bought our weapons or procured them from a third party. This does not make the world safer, but only reinforces the permanent state of peril we find ourselves in. Meanwhile, a few people get paid handsomely.

In the end, it is worthwhile to remember that whenever you see George W. Bush talking about winning the "War on Terror," you are looking at the largest arms dealer on the planet. We can pursue cease-fire agreements, we can topple violent regimes, but until we stop loading up the planet with the means to kill, only the dead will see the end of war.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080206Z.shtml
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Some Attorneys Voice Surprise
as
Gibson Is Charged Only With DUI


Los Angeles Times
By Andrew Blankstein and Megan Garvey
August 02, 2006
I've had it happen once before, when a very beautiful client was taken to the tow yard three miles away
Prosecutors on Wednesday charged Mel Gibson with two misdemeanor counts of drunk driving but decided there was not enough evidence to pursue more serious charges against the actor-director for belligerent behavior directed at a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy.
Because he is charged only with misdemeanors, legal experts said, the actor could plead no contest without going to court or receiving any jail time. The arrest was Gibson's first in California for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Typically, first-time offenders have their licenses suspended, are ordered to pay fines, attend DUI offender programs and serve three years' informal probation. They may also be required to perform community service.

Officials at the Los Angeles County district attorney's office filed the charges after several days of discussion about whether the conduct detailed in Gibson's arrest report rose to the level of prosecution. In his report, Deputy James Mee said Gibson 'attempted to escape custody' and repeatedly threatened him. The star was clocked going more than 85 mph - nearly twice the posted speed limit - on Pacific Coast Highway about 2:30 a.m. last Friday. A breathalyzer test showed his blood-alcohol level to be 0.12% (the legal limit is 0.08%). In addition to drunk driving, prosecutors charged Gibson with an infraction of having an open bottle of tequila in his car.

Some veteran DUI attorneys said they were surprised that an 'excessive speed enhancement' was not filed against Gibson - a charge that would mandate jail time.

'If you're going 25 mph over the speed limit, that would greatly increase your chances of jail time,' said attorney Jonathan I. Kelman. 'The fact that they didn't file the speed enhancement - that makes me wonder,' Kelman said. 'Ninety percent of my clients out of Malibu would face that enhancement if [law enforcement officials] thought they could prove the speeding.' Under state law, a driver under the influence whose speed exceeds the posted limit by 20 mph or more on streets or 30 mph on highways faces a minimum of 60 days in jail. Paul S. Geller, another defense attorney who specializes in drunk driving cases, said the speed enhancement is a common but not automatic charge. Sometimes, he said, prosecutors use the threat of the charge as a negotiating tool. Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, said Gibson's bellicose behavior toward the deputy made it a borderline case for resisting arrest and making criminal threats, both felonies.

'Prosecutors had to use their discretion. A different defendant, a different situation, you might have seen those charges added,' Levenson said, adding that the charges filed appeared to be appropriate. 'But I think people will be suspicious as to whether he has received celebrity treatment because of the way this case has been handled from the beginning.' The sheriff's Office of Independent Review is looking into whether details of Gibson's behavior were deliberately kept from the media as a favor to the actor.

In announcing the arrest, a sheriff's spokesman said Gibson was taken into custody without incident. Sources have told The Times that department officials debated for hours what to do with Mee's detailed narrative of the actor's behavior, eventually deciding to place it in a locked area in hopes that the public would not get hold of it.

Mee's report described the Oscar-winning actor-director's behavior, including allegations that he made anti-Jewish slurs, blaming Jews for 'all the wars in the world' and then asked the deputy, 'Are you a Jew?'

The details became public when someone leaked the file to the celebrity website TMZ.com.

The disclosure was followed by other revelations about how sheriff's officials handled the case.

On Tuesday, sheriff's officials acknowledged that a sergeant drove Gibson 10 miles from the Malibu-Lost Hills station in Agoura to a Malibu towing yard to retrieve his sedan. 'It would be quite unusual to drive a defendant to a tow yard to pick up their vehicle after being arrested,' said attorney Kelman, who has defended DUI clients for nine years. 'I've had it happen once before, when a very beautiful client was taken to the tow yard three miles away,' Kelman said. 'Otherwise, all my other clients have been told to walk or get a ride.' Then on Wednesday, the district attorney's office acknowledged that Gibson had been released Friday on his own recognizance. On Friday, sheriff's officials said Gibson was released on $5,000 bail. Several sources said that recent statements by Mee, the arresting deputy, and other sheriff's officials were considered when deciding whether to pursue more serious charges against Gibson. In an interview with The Times on Monday, Mee called the incident 'just another routine stop that just got a little escalated . This is just another drunk driving incident. It just happened to be a celebrity versus Joe Blow public.' Additionally, Sheriff Lee Baca, whose department has been criticized for giving the actor special treatment, has insisted that Gibson should only face charges related to the DUI and that his behavior after the arrest should not be an issue in his prosecution.

'Our job is not to [focus] on what he said. It's to establish his blood-alcohol level when he was driving,' Baca told The Times on Saturday.

Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, declined to elaborate on the specific reasons prosecutors did not seek charges beyond those directly related to drunk driving.

'Prosecutors reviewed all of the reports, all the audiotape from the scene, all the videotape taken at the station, all the evidence,' she said. 'And we filed the charges we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.'

Attorney Lawrence Taylor, who has defended DUI clients for 35 years, said he has seen similar cases thousands of times.

'Except for the comments he made and who he is, this is a very common, run-of-the-mill businessman case,' Taylor said. Gibson's attorney, Blair Berk, declined to comment on the charges being filed. 'I will be the one lawyer not discussing the ongoing case,' she said. Gibson has issued two public apologies since his arrest and said he suffered a relapse in his longtime battle with alcoholism. *
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Times staff writers Richard Winton and Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this report.

http://www.topix.net/content/trb/0721497565215899443519748666020125760188

Copyright © 2006 Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved.

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Doctors' hands out for cash
Melissa Fyfe
August 4, 2006


THE biggest investigation into gifts to medical specialists has found they actively ask for gifts from companies worth between $50 and $100,000.

The requests extend to money for nurses' salaries, donations to their departments, computers, microwaves, journals, textbooks, CDs — even funds for a Christmas party.

The University of NSW study asked 823 specialists nationwide what companies gave them and what they asked for. It found that almost all the specialists were offered food and gifts for their office and one in two received personal gifts — including harbour cruises and tickets to the opera — as well as money for conference travel. Fifteen per cent asked drug companies for gifts, money and travel.

"Doctors are sometimes seen as the innocent victims and the villains in the piece are the pharmaceutical industry," the lead author, associate professor of ethics and law in medicine Paul McNeill, told The Age. "In reality it is a two-way relationship."

The survey, published online in the Internal Medicine Journal today, follows recent comments from Australian Competition and Consumer Commission head Graeme Samuel that "these grubby issues" acted "as an unpleasant stain on the professionalism and good name of Australia's medical practitioners".

The study found six specialists asked for money for the salaries of nurses, one being $80,000, while another asked for a $60,000 donation to their department "in return for time seeing (drug company) reps".

Each year, drug companies spend millions trying to persuade specialists to prescribe their pills. The stakes are high because a recommendation from a specialist can add an expensive drug to a hospital pharmacy list and make the drug company handsome profits. Doctors are supposed to prescribe the best, most cost-effective medicines.

The study found that personal gifts offered to doctors were valued up to $40,000 and included wine, flowers, a "spa" dinner, harbour cruises and tickets to events such as the opera. Tickets to non-educational events are banned under the ethical code of Medicines Australia, the pharmaceutical industry's leading organisation.

Professor McNeill told The Age these types of gifts, although much less common than free travel and food, could be an indication of something more widespread. Of the one in two specialists offered travel to conferences, two-thirds accepted and most attended the meetings as audience members, not speakers. The authors — who included ethics and medical professors from the University of Sydney and the University of Newcastle — recommended in their report the end of direct payments from drug companies for travel. Industry funds for travel should be distributed through an independent group, the report said.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians recently updated its voluntary guidelines, suggesting that doctors "carefully consider" travel offers to attend conferences. But Professor McNeill said this was not strong enough. "There shouldn't be any equivocation … It is not appropriate," he said.

The study, conducted in 2002, found that doctors involved in research for industry, who are engaged as consultants or who sit on drug company advisory boards, are more likely to be offered gifts, invitations and items of higher value. They were also more likely to accept the offers and ask for things from drug companies. A Medicines Australia spokesman said the study was done before a 2003 improvement to its code. He would not comment on the recommendation to scrap direct drug company payments for travel to conferences.

The study recommended that the Medicines Australia code of conduct be upgraded so that it is consistent with the American industry code, under which direct payments for travel are discouraged.

The Australian industry code also lags behind its British counterpart, which has completely ruled out business class travel for doctors.

"It is worth noting," said Professor McNeill, "that doctors are rather keen on that perk (of travel). One of the things that physicians really enjoy about their job, is that they get to travel business class overseas every year. But for people on the street, travel is a major perk, it is not a small thing at all." Professor McNeill said doctors are uneasy with the situation and were wanting to discuss the issue.
Would we find any differences here in the USA?
SRH
. . . . . . . . . . .
An Australian News Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/doctors-hold-out-for-cash/2006/08/03/1154198268197.html#

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. . . . . . . . . . .Anti-Israel bomb threat worry
August 4, 2006 - 8:17AM

The Federal Government will investigate claims that South-East Asian suicide bombers are on a mission to attack Jewish interests in Australia.

Human Services Minister Joe Hockey today said the Government was taking seriously media reports that hundreds of bombers had been dispatched around the world with orders to attack countries that support Israel, such as Britain, the US and Australia.

The plot is believed to be funded in part with cash donations from two unnamed Australian-Indonesian businessman.

"I can tell you that the minister for foreign affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs are investigating what is reported in the papers today and we are treating it very, very seriously," Mr Hockey told the Seven Network.

But Australia had been a terror target for some time, he said.

"That has no impact in so far as these people have targeted us for a long period of time," Mr Hockey said.

"You only need to look at Bali and that was before any major escalation of the conflict in Lebanon and Israel.

"We are a target, we always have been a target and we will be for a very long period of time."

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said the threat was a new one that warranted concern.

"I am concerned that this has sprung up without earlier evidence of action between the (Australian and Indonesian) governments," he said.

The Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM) claims it has thousands of jihadists who are prepared to join the fight against Israel.

A News Limited newspaper today reports that about 200 of these supporters will be immediately sent to attack Jewish targets in countries that support Israel.

AMYM leader Suaib Bidu said his group would also be closely monitoring Australia's reaction towards Israel's current military occupation in southern Lebanon.

"We have a lot of support, including in Australia, from people who don't believe Israel's attack (on Hizbollah) is just," he told The Australian.

Terrorism experts have warned the AMYM was possible of organising such an attack.

AAP

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bombers-australiabound/2006/08/04/1154198298155.html

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* * * * * * * * * * *

Chamber of Commerce: Credit Where It's Not Due
Ads thanking lawmakers for voting for Medicare Bill include four too many.August 3, 2006
Summary
The Chamber of Commerce rolled out a $10 million campaign to support 20 members of Congress (3 Democrats and 17 Republicans) for having "supported the Medicare Part D law, giving seniors a quality drug plan."

However, the group has had to change the ad for three members who were not in Congress at the time of the vote, and pulled the ad for a fourth member who voted for the bill the first time around, but against it the second. That's a 20 percent error rate.

Analysis

On July 27, the Chamber of Commerce kicked off its 2006 election efforts with a $10 million media campaign touting the benefits of the Medicare Part D plan which provides seniors with prescription drug coverage. The campaign included nearly identical ads in twenty congressional districts thanking incumbents for having "supported the Medicare Part D law" and listing the number of seniors from that state who benefit from drug coverage.

Supports vs. Supported

However, as the Associated Press initially reported, the group changed the ad for two members who were first elected in 2004, and not yet members of Congress when the bill became law in 2003. Reps. Mike Sodrel of Indiana and Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania are freshmen members who could not have voted on the bill. After the ads first ran, the word "supports" was substituted for the word "supported." Brad Miller, political director for the group, told the AP that he stands by the ads because the members backed the program on the campaign trail and during their first years in Congress.

Chamber of Commerce ad: "Chabot Medicare"

Announcer: Congressman Steve Chabot believes seniors deserve affordable prescription drugs. That's why Chabot supported the Medicare Part D law giving seniors a quality drug plan. Thanks to Steve Chabot close to 1.5 million Ohio seniors now benefit from drug coverage, saving them an average eleven hundred dollars a year. A lot of people in Washington talk about improving healthcare. Steve Chabot is doing something about it.
Announcer 2: Log onto USChamber.com/medicare

On August 3rd, the Seattle Times reported that a similar mistake had been made in ads featuring freshman Rep. Dave Reichert. Local television stations replaced the original ad with the amended version after receiving complaints.

Did He Even Vote for It?

The ads had previously garnered media attention the day after their release because a local station in Ohio had pulled ads supporting Rep. Steve Chabot. As the AP first reported , three Cincinnati-area television stations stopped running the ad at the group's request.

Chabot's votes on the law are a bit complicated. He actually did vote for the bill when it first passed through the House in June 2003. However, when the bill came back after conference with the Senate in November of that year, he changed course and voted against it.

Chabot is certainly being consistent about his position on the bill since then. In March, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer , the labor-affiliated Working America dispatched automated phone calls in his district telling voters that Chabot backed the prescription drug plan -- much to his chagrin. Chabot didn't want to be blamed then, and apparently doesn't want to be given credit now.

by
Justin Bank
Sources
Hammer, David, "Business group pulls ads giving Chabot erroneous credit ," AP. 28 July 2006.

Lester, Will, "Chamber of Commerce's ad campaign," AP. 27 July 2006.

Martin, Jonathan, "Ad Backing Reichert edited for accuracy," Seattle Times. 3 Aug. 2006.

Rulon, Malia, "Chabot blasts critics' phone calls to seniors ," Cincinatti Enquirer. 18 March 2006.

Sidoti, Liz, "Chamber of Commerce Alters Ads After Complaints," AP. 1 Aug. 2006.
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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth: Mark Twain

~~~

We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong: Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941

~~~

Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows' meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they call their flag; which had you sold it at any market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen?: Thomas Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus"

~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~

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)))))))))))O((((((((((((

Bombing is backed by most American voters

From
Tom Baldwin
in
Washington

08/04/06 "The Times" -- -- ISRAEL’s military campaign in southern Lebanon is still being backed by most American voters, according to a survey published yesterday that shows public opinion in the US once again sharply at odds with views in Europe.

The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that 59 per cent believed that Israel’s actions were “justified”, although a quarter of this group stated that the military had behaved in an “excessively harsh” fashion.

In contrast, a recent YouGov/Telegraph poll in Britain showed that only 17 per cent of those surveyed believed that Israel had made an “appropriate and proportional” response to the kidnapping of its soldiers. A Forsa/Stern poll has indicated that 75 per cent of Germans believe that Israel’s actions are “disproportionate” and only 12 per cent approved of the attacks on Palestinian or Lebanese settlements. Such a division across the Atlantic in Western public opinion is similar to that which opened up over whether there should be an invasion of Iraq.

This is, in part, a reflection of the more aggressive stance adopted by American voters after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. John McCain, the Republican senator, spoke for many this week when he suggested that America would respond in a similar fashion to Israel if it faced missile attacks from the other side of the Mexican border.

But support for Israel, which extends to billions of dollars in military aid, has deeper roots within American politics, where there is a long-established and influential Jewish lobby. This emphasises Israel’s post-Holocaust origins, its staunch support for the US during the Cold War and its role as a democracy in a region prone to dictatorship and extremism.

Last week 20 Democrat congressmen reacted furiously when Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, criticised Israel and failed to condemn Hezbollah as terrorists. They called for the withdrawal of his invitation to address Congress and some boycotted his speech.

The bipartisan pro-Israel lobby has, in recent years, been further strengthened by the fervour of millions of right-wing evangelical Christians, at least some of whom believe that the Middle East conflict is the fulfilment of the Bible’s prophecy of Armageddon.

Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organisation is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters.

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful, attended the rally, as did Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli Ambassador.

Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a “miracle of God” and suggested that a ceasefire would violate “God’s foreign policy statement” towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ’s return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace.

“The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad — the best is yet to be,” Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies.

President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr Hagee and his supporters for “spreading the hope of God’s love and the universal gift of freedom”. He is said to have added: “God bless and stand by the people of Israel and God bless the United States.”

The support for Israel of 50 million American evangelicals chimes with the reality of the Administration’s foreign policy, which refuses to tolerate terrorist organisations — or the Middle Eastern regimes linked to them. Dennis Ross, a Middle East envoy in the administrations of the first President Bush and Bill Clinton, said recently that evangelical supporters of Israel were now an “important part of the landscape”.

US SUPPORT

43 per cent thinks Israel’s actions justified, not excessively harsh

28 per cent thinks Israel’s action is unjustifed

13 per cent thinks the US should call for an immediate ceasefire

50 per cent thinks the US should continue to align itself with IsraelCopyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.

To view this story and others about this conflict, go on-site to view by clicking on the following link:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14365.htm

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More Time To Bomb

Blair and Bush: Killing To Go On Until We Find A Plan

07/29/06

07/29/06 Run Time 6 Minutes

Go on-site to view video and to read, and/or leave your own comments.
Comments (247)

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14258.htm

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Brzezinski: The Beginning of the End for Israel
By
Daniel M Pourkesali

08/03/06 "CASMII" --- - - What a difference 3 weeks makes. You know the warmongers are in trouble when the Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, the US-backed prime minister, who until last week would not hesitate to appear in a photo-op [1] with Condoleezza Rice tells her she is not welcome in Beirut unless she demands and sees to an immediate ceasefire before thanking Hezbollah [2], a long political thorn in his side, for its sacrifices to protect Lebanon.

Bush-Blair & Company in their unison support for a barbaric Israeli onslaught on Lebanon have managed to completely turn the proverbial political table around -- on themselves that is. Their adoption of the absurd notion of Israel acting in self-defense and continued insistence that there would be no halt to the offensive unless Hezbollah fighters are driven from the border has not only strengthened Hezbollah but will prove a boon to the anti-Zionist resistance movement in Lebanon and beyond.

Nathan Gardels editor-in-chief of the journal of social and political thought published by Blackwell/Oxford, and Global Services of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune in a recent interview [3] with Zbigniew Brzezinski posed this question to the former National Security Advisor to President Carter: "Doesn't military superiority as a blunt instrument lead to eternal enmity, not security?"

Brzezinski responded: "These neocon prescriptions, of which Israel has its equivalents, are fatal for America and ultimately for Israel. They will totally turn the overwhelming majority of the Middle East's population against the United States. The lessons of Iraq speak for themselves. Eventually, if neo-con policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well".

He then asks: "Don't the deaths of so many innocent civilians in Qana in the south of Lebanon -- like the massacre in Haditha, Iraq, by American troops -- send a message to Arabs and Iranians that the "new Middle East" coming from the U.S. and Israel will amount to occupation, carnage and bloodshed?" to which Brzezinski replies: "This is precisely why neocon policies are recklessly dangerous both to America and Israel". He then continues to explain that "today it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the Israeli-Palestinian problem, the Iraq problem and Iran from each other. Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East. There may be people who deceive themselves into believing that".

"Public opinion around the Arab world has reacted by strongly supporting Hezbollah and Lebanon" Rami Khouri wrote in a recent Beirut's Daily Star article [4]. "Washington is feeling the pain of its own self-inflicted diplomatic castration, as a consequence of siding with Israel".

Israel's ongoing and indiscriminate bombing of every village, road, bridge and other infrastructure, which has so far killed over 900 people, many of them children, and displaced another million has forged a remarkable unity among both politicians as well as the entire Lebanese population, whether Christian, Sunni or Shia. Those who may have rejected Hezbollah at the outset of this crisis, are now unanimously behind it.

The absurd neo-con invented and Bush-Blair adopted policy of waging wars in order to achieve peace will only serve to create more anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment and strengthen the resolve and increase support for those resisting the US-UK-Israel axis of aggression.

[1] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/2006/64679.htm

[2] http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19966759-23109,00.html

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-gardels/beginning-of-the-end-for-_b_26247.html

[4] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=74326

Comments (9) | Go on-site to view or add to them, by clicking on the following link:

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Traumatised and afraid
-
300,000 children who want to go home
from The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
4 August 2006 19:08 Home > News > World > Middle East

By
Anne Penketh and Kim Sengupta
Published: 04 August 2006

"I don't want to die. I want to go to school," says Jamal, a four-year-old Lebanese boy scarred by the Israeli bombing of his country. Home for Jamal is now a "displacement centre" in the southern town of Jezzine, where his family fled in fear for their lives.
"We've had our picnic, and we want to go home now," says another child,staying in a makeshift refugee camp in the Sanayeh public gardens in Beirut. "We are bored and afraid and we want to go home," says another.

These are the voices of the dispossessed of Lebanon, the hundreds of thousands of children whose world was changed forever in the seconds that followed the explosion of a bomb. "Mummy, what is a massacre?" another child asks.

About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon, 48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres.

Ribka Amsale, an aid worker with Save the Children, visited a school in Sidon yesterday. Children were playing football as their mothers cheered them on. The children seemed cheerful enough, but the stress and trauma are already etched in their psyches.

"Many are undergoing enormous stress in this situation," said Save the Children's Deborah Haines in Sidon. "Although some are out playing, there are issues of safety and security. Many are at a loose end, as their toys and games have been left behind. Their parents haven't got the time or the patience to set things up for the children."

Many of the displaced children are behaving aggressively, getting into fights, in a sign of the underlying pressure that also manifests itself through crying, bed-wetting and bad dreams.

Children placed with host families are not necessarily better off than those in the centres, says Ms Haines. "There are tensions, they have to get used to living with strangers."

Save the Children, which has launched a humanitarian appeal jointly with The Independent, is working with the Lebanese education and social affairs ministries, local non-government partners, and donor countries to assess urgent needs. Save the Children had received 300 telephone calls by yesterday afternoon, pledging an average of £100 a time, thanks toThe Independent's Lebanon appeal, which was launched on Wednesday.

Rania al-Ameri, a Lebanese child psychologist working with young internally displaced people, said: "They desperately need help because they are the ones who are suffering the most. Many children have lost members of their families as well as their homes. They are severely traumatised."

There have been discussions on creating safe places for children to play in. It sounds straightforward, and is relatively easy to organise in the camps, where children can be supervised. But for the displaced living with families, the natural caution of mothers must be overcome by house visits.

Schools have become the displacement centres of choice because of the holidays, which run until 15 September in Lebanon. But the water is of poor quality, the showers - if there are any - are overcrowded, and the lavatories reek of sewage.

In addition to basic necessities such as mattresses, the children need fresh fruit and vegetables for a balanced diet. But "in some of the camps in Tyre, the displaced people need food full stop," said the aid worker Jeremie Bodin of Save the Children. "The stress means that women are no longer breast-feeding, so we need [an] infant-feeding formula, and we need nappies because the children haven't been changed for days." Emerging from his basement, where he has spent the past three weeks, Ali, nine, said: "My father and mother went with my other brothers and sisters to another town. They said they will come and get me when the bombs stop." After another nearby explosion, he said: "Why are the Israelis hitting us? Do they hate us? My cousin told me nuclear bombs are really big. Are they as big as these rockets?"

"I don't want to die. I want to go to school," says Jamal, a four-year-old Lebanese boy scarred by the Israeli bombing of his country. Home for Jamal is now a "displacement centre" in the southern town of Jezzine, where his family fled in fear for their lives.

"We've had our picnic, and we want to go home now," says another child,staying in a makeshift refugee camp in the Sanayeh public gardens in Beirut. "We are bored and afraid and we want to go home," says another.

These are the voices of the dispossessed of Lebanon, the hundreds of thousands of children whose world was changed forever in the seconds that followed the explosion of a bomb. "Mummy, what is a massacre?" another child asks.

About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon, 48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres.

Ribka Amsale, an aid worker with Save the Children, visited a school in Sidon yesterday. Children were playing football as their mothers cheered them on. The children seemed cheerful enough, but the stress and trauma are already etched in their psyches.

"Many are undergoing enormous stress in this situation," said Save the Children's Deborah Haines in Sidon. "Although some are out playing, there are issues of safety and security. Many are at a loose end, as their toys and games have been left behind. Their parents haven't got the time or the patience to set things up for the children."

Many of the displaced children are behaving aggressively, getting into fights, in a sign of the underlying pressure that also manifests itself through crying, bed-wetting and bad dreams.

Children placed with host families are not necessarily better off than those in the centres, says Ms Haines. "There are tensions, they have to get used to living with strangers."
Save the Children, which has launched a humanitarian appeal jointly with The Independent, is working with the Lebanese education and social affairs ministries, local non-government partners, and donor countries to assess urgent needs. Save the Children had received 300 telephone calls by yesterday afternoon, pledging an average of £100 a time, thanks toThe Independent's Lebanon appeal, which was launched on Wednesday.

Rania al-Ameri, a Lebanese child psychologist working with young internally displaced people, said: "They desperately need help because they are the ones who are suffering the most. Many children have lost members of their families as well as their homes. They are severely traumatised."

There have been discussions on creating safe places for children to play in. It sounds straightforward, and is relatively easy to organise in the camps, where children can be supervised. But for the displaced living with families, the natural caution of mothers must be overcome by house visits.

Schools have become the displacement centres of choice because of the holidays, which run until 15 September in Lebanon. But the water is of poor quality, the showers - if there are any - are overcrowded, and the lavatories reek of sewage.

In addition to basic necessities such as mattresses, the children need fresh fruit and vegetables for a balanced diet. But "in some of the camps in Tyre, the displaced people need food full stop," said the aid worker Jeremie Bodin of Save the Children. "The stress means that women are no longer breast-feeding, so we need [an] infant-feeding formula, and we need nappies because the children haven't been changed for days." Emerging from his basement, where he has spent the past three weeks, Ali, nine, said: "My father and mother went with my other brothers and sisters to another town. They said they will come and get me when the bombs stop." After another nearby explosion, he said: "Why are the Israelis hitting us? Do they hate us? My cousin told me nuclear bombs are really big. Are they as big as these rockets?"

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The Independent Appeal:
Help save Lebanon's children

Published: 03 August 2006
The Independent's Lebanon Appeal: Donate now Of the 615 people so far confirmed dead in Lebanon, Save The Children says that almost half are children. They make up one third of the 3,225 injured, and about 45 per cent of the nearly one million Lebanese refugees are under the age of 18, according to Unicef.

But despite the shocking images and the harrowing accounts of suffering, there is an acute shortfall of money raised for the children caught up in the conflict. They need help now.

The Independent and Save the Children are launching an appeal for the children of Lebanon, for urgent food, medicine and clothing desperately needed as the violence continues to escalate.

Save the Children stresses that just £1 will buy candles and matches for a family; £10 will help provide adequate hygiene for a child and £50 will pay for food for a family in the short term. But international agencies say the public response has been surprisingly slow to appeals for funds.

Donate now by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk/independent or call our free emergency donation line 0800 8148 148

The Independent's Lebanon Appeal: Donate now
Of the 615 people so far confirmed dead in Lebanon, Save The Children says that almost half are children. They make up one third of the 3,225 injured, and about 45 per cent of the nearly one million Lebanese refugees are under the age of 18, according to Unicef.

But despite the shocking images and the harrowing accounts of suffering, there is an acute shortfall of money raised for the children caught up in the conflict. They need help now.

The Independent and Save the Children are launching an appeal for the children of Lebanon, for urgent food, medicine and clothing desperately needed as the violence continues to escalate.

Save the Children stresses that just £1 will buy candles and matches for a family; £10 will help provide adequate hygiene for a child and £50 will pay for food for a family in the short term. But international agencies say the public response has been surprisingly slow to appeals for funds.

Donate now by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk/independent or call our free emergency donation line 0800 8148 148
Also in this section
The young lives interrupted by their nation's call to arms
The family forced to flee Iraq is on the run again
Israeli bomb attack kills 33 as aid effort suffers
Israel extends bombing of Lebanon
Traumatised and afraid - 300,000 children who want to go home

The number above is a United Kingdom Number

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1211692.ece

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Beams reveal Archimedes' hidden writings

By
TERENCE CHEA,
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 9 minutes ago

Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.

Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.

The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment.

"We are gaining new insights into one of the founding fathers of western science," said William Noel, curator of manuscripts at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, which organized the effort. "It is the most difficult imaging challenge on any medieval document because the book is in such terrible condition."

Following a successful trial run last year, Stanford researchers invited X-ray scientists, rare document collectors and classics scholars to take part in the 11-day project.

It takes about 12 hours to scan one page using an X-ray beam about the size of a human hair, and researchers expect to decipher up to 15 pages that resisted modern imaging techniques. After each new page is decoded, it is posted online for the public to see.

On Friday, members of the public watched the decoding process via a live Web cast arranged by the San Francisco Exploratorium.

"We are focusing on the most difficult pages where the scholars haven't been able to read the texts," said Uwe Bergmann, the Stanford physicist heading the project.

Born in the 3rd century B.C., Archimedes is considered one of ancient Greece's greatest mathematicians, perhaps best known for discovering the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath.

The 174-page manuscript, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, contains the only copies of treatises on flotation, gravity and mathematics. Scholars believe a scribe copied them onto the goatskin parchment from the original Greek scrolls.

Three centuries later, a monk scrubbed off the Archimedes text and used the parchment to write prayers at a time when the Greek mathematician's work was less appreciated. In the early 20th century, forgers tried to boost the manuscript's value by painting religious imagery on some of the pages.

In 1998, an anonymous private collector paid $2 million for the manuscript at an auction, then loaned it to the Walter Arts Museum for safekeeping and study.

Over the past eight years, researchers have used ultraviolet and infrared filters, as well as digital cameras and processing techniques, to reveal most of the buried text, but some pages were still unreadable.

"We will never recover all of it," Noel said. "We are just getting as much as we can, and we are going to the ends of the earth to get it."-------------
On the Net:

Archimedes Palimpsest: http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

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))))))O((((((Everyone on Earth Has Royal Roots
By Matt Crenson
Associated Press
posted: 01 July 2006
01:16 pm ET

Actress Brooke Shields has a pretty impressive pedigree—hanging from her family tree are Catherine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Charlemagne and El Cid, William the Conquerer and King Harold, vanquished by William at the Battle of Hastings.
Shields also descends from five popes, a whole mess of early New England settlers, and the royal houses of virtually every European country. She counts renaissance pundit Niccolo Machiavelli and conquistador Hernando Cortes as ancestors
What is it about Brooke? Well, nothing—at least genealogically..
Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another.

"Millions of people have provable descents from medieval monarchs,'' said Mark Humphrys, a genealogy enthusiast and professor of computer science at Dublin City University in Ireland. "The number of people with unprovable descents must be massive.''

By the same token, for every king in a person's family tree there are thousands and thousands of nobodies whose births, deaths and lives went completely unrecorded by history. We'll never know about them, because until recently vital records were a rarity for all but the noble classes.

It works the other way, too. Anybody who had children more than a few hundred years ago is likely to have millions of descendants today, and quite a few famous ones.

Take King Edward III, who ruled England during the 14th century and had nine children who survived to adulthood. Among his documented descendants are presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, both Roosevelts), authors (Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning), generals (Robert E. Lee), scientists (Charles Darwin) and actors (Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Brooke Shields). Some experts estimate that 80 percent of England's present population descends from Edward III.

A slight twist of fate could have prevented the existence of all of them. In 1312 the close adviser and probable lover of Edward II, Piers Gaveston, was murdered by a group of barons frustrated with their king's ineffectual rule. The next year the beleaguered king produced the son who became Edward III.

Had Edward II been killed along with Gaveston in 1312—a definite possibility at the time—Edward III would never have been born. He wouldn't have produced the lines of descent that ultimately branched out to include all those presidents, writers and Hollywood stars—not to mention everybody else.

Of course, the only reason we're talking about Edward III is that history remembers him. For every medieval monarch there are countless long-dead nobodies whose intrigues, peccadilloes and luck have steered the course of history simply by determining where, when and with whom they reproduced.

The longer ago somebody lived, the more descendants a person is likely to have today. Humphrys estimates that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, appears on the family tree of every person in the Western world.

Some people have actually tried to establish a documented line between Muhammad, who was born in the 6th century, and the medieval English monarchs, and thus to most if not all people of European descent. Nobody has succeeded yet, but one proposed lineage comes close. Though it runs through several strongly suspicious individuals, the line illustrates how lines of descent can wander down through the centuries, connecting famous figures of the past to most of the people living today.

The proposed genealogy runs through Muhammad's daughter Fatima. Her husband Ali, also a cousin of Muhammad, is considered by Shiite Muslims the legitimate heir to leadership of Islam.

Ali and Fatima had a son, al-Hasan, who died in 670. About three centuries later, his ninth great-grandson, Ismail, carried the line to Europe when he became Imam of Seville.

Many genealogists dispute the connection between al-Hasan and Ismail, claiming that it includes fictional characters specifically invented by medieval genealogists trying to link the Abbadid dynasty, founded by Ismail's son, to Muhammad.

The Abbadid dynasty was celebrated for making Seville a great cultural center at a time when most of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. The last emir in that dynasty was supposed to have had a daughter named Zaida, who is said to have changed her name to Isabel upon converting to Christianity and marrying Alfonso VI, king of Castile and Leon.

Yet there is no good evidence demonstrating that Isabel, who bore one son by Alfonso VI, is the same person as Zaida. So the line between Muhammad and the English monarchs probably breaks again at this point.

But if you give the Zaida/Isabel story the benefit of the doubt too, the line eventually leads to Isabel's fifth great-granddaughter Maria de Padilla (though it does encounter yet another potentially fictional character in the process).

Maria married another king of Castile and Leon, Peter the Cruel. Their great-great-granddaughter was Queen Isabel, who funded the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Her daughter Juana married a Hapsburg, and eventually gave rise to a Medici, a Bourbon and long line of Italian princes and dukes, spreading the Mohammedan line of descent all over Europe.

Finally, 43 generations from Mohammed, you reach an Italian princess named Marina Torlonia.

Her granddaughter is Brooke Shields.

Go on-site to view other interesting items, just click on the link below:

http://www.livescience.com/history/ap_royal_roots.html

[Saundra Hummer]

.............................
Nature's Wrath: The Most Dangerous U.S. Cities

By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 04 August 2006
11:12 am ET

Mother Nature has various ways of reminding us who is in charge. The particular threats and the extent of risk vary greatly based on where you live [See Top 10 US Threats].

While there is no easy way to gauge overall risk of disaster, researchers love to try. One recent study found that in general, the world's population is migrating to coastal areas, where the threat of hurricanes and flooding from rising seas are now well known. Another study found that Americans are following this same deadly trend.

And anyone who lives in California knows that heading for the hills doesn't solve anything, since the very ground under your feet can give way at any time. Residents of the Midwest have their own twisted concerns.

A web site called SustainLane.com each year puts America's 50 largest cities into a natural disaster index with its Sustainable U.S. City Ranking.

At the top of the list are cities relatively immune to the brunt of nature. Near the bottom are those in the cross hairs of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis or some other force to be reckoned with.

This year's list (*=tie):

1. Mesa, AZ*
1. Milwaukee, WI*
3. Cleveland, OH*
3. El Paso, TX*
3. Phoenix, AZ*
3. T ucson, AZ*
7. Colorado Springs, CO
8. Detroit, MI
8. Fresno, CA
8. Minneapolis, MN
8. Philadelphia, PA
12. Chicago, IL
13. Denver, CO
14. Albuquerque, NM
15. Las Vegas, NV
16. San Antonio, TX
17. Nashville, TN
18. Atlanta, GA
19. Omaha, NE
20. Austin, TX
21. Kansas City, MO
22. Arlington, TX
22. Dallas, TX
22. Fort Worth, TX
25. Indianapolis, IN
26. Louisville, KY
27. Washington, DC
28. Baltimore, MD
29. Charlotte, NC
30. Portland, OR
31. San Diego, CA
32. Boston, MA*
32. Jacksonville, FL*
32. New York, NY*
35. Memphis, TN*
35. Seattle, WA*
35. Virginia Beach, VA*
38. Sacramento, CA
39. Columbus, OH*
39. Oklahoma City, OK*
39. Tulsa, OK*
42. Long Beach, CA
43. Houston, TX*
43. Los Angeles, CA*
45. San Jose, CA
46. Honolulu, HI
47. San Francisco, CA
48. Oakland, CA
49. New Orleans, LA
50. Miami, FL
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060804_disaster_cities.html
)))))O(((((

Natural Disasters: Top 10 US Threats: Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats
Government officials are evaluating and revising disaster plans around the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, just as they did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While war and automobiles kill more people than nature, find out what natural disasters top scientists’ worry lists.
-- Robert Roy Britt LiveScience Managing Editor

Number 10 Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake

Go on-site to view video, just click on the following link:
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/top10_naturaldisasterthreats_us.html[/INDENT][/I][/B][/SIZE]

[Saundra Hummer]

---------------------
Some Americans Eat Like Ancient Aztecs and Andeans

By Candice Choi
The Associated Press
posted: 21 June 2006
03:55 pm ET

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)—Amid the aisles of spaghetti and canned peas, cereals and breads made with mysterious-sounding grains like amaranth and quinoa are sprouting up at major supermarkets.

Wheat is still king of this country's whole grains, but the appearance of such alternatives indicates consumers are beginning to expand a niche market once relegated to the obscure corners of health food stores.

"People are realizing there's a benefit to eating a diversity of grains—and these grains have some incredible nutritional properties,'' said Carole Fenster, an author of numerous cookbooks that incorporate wheat-free grains.

Grain of Truth
A look at the nutritional profiles of whole grains per 100 grams:

WheatFiber, 12.2 grams
Protein, 13.7 grams
Iron, 3.8 grams

Amaranth
Fiber, 15.2 grams
Protein, 14.5 grams
Iron, 7.6 grams

Quinoa
Fiber, 6 grams
Protein, 16 grams
Iron, 4 grams

Sources: Whole Grains Council, NuWorld Amaranth

New federal guidelines recommending three servings of whole grains a day have put a spotlight on wheat, but exposure to barley, brown rice and other options has also grown, said Alice Lichtenstein, chair of the nutrition committee at the American Heart Association.

According to the marketing information company ACNielsen, sales of products with whole grain claims on their packages for the year ending April 22 increased 9.5 percent from the previous year.

NuWorld Amaranth, one of the country's main buyers of amaranth, reported a 300 percent increase in sales in the past three years. Bob's Red Mill, which sells alternative wheat-free grains, saw a 25 percent increase in sales in the past year, with quinoa driving the bulk of the growth.

Amaranth, grown for millennia by the Aztecs, has twice as much iron as wheat and is higher in protein and fiber. Quinoa, an ancient Andean crop, has less fiber but more protein and iron than wheat.

It may take some time for the unfamiliar grains to find broad acceptance. The American palate is still adjusting to whole wheat, and amaranth's distinct, slightly nutty taste could take some getting used to.

One reason for the fledgling demand is a growing awareness of celiac disease, which is triggered by gluten, the protein found in wheat. Symptoms range from severe cramping to chronic fatigue and even organ disorders. The condition is believed to affect about 2 million Americans, with others sensitive to the protein.

There is also a growing crossover market of health-conscious shoppers in search of the most nutritious grains, said Diane Walters, spokeswoman for NuWorld.

ConAgra Mills is working with farmers to expand the supply of sustagrain, a type of barley with a 30 percent fiber content, said Don Brown, vice president of business development at the company.

While products made entirely of amaranth and quinoa may not hit the mainstream anytime soon, the demand for such grains as ingredients will likely get a boost as multigrain products proliferate, said Robert Myers, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute, a research center in Columbus, Mo.

"Once they get past corn, wheat and oats, they'll eventually get around to picking up grains like amaranth,'' he said.

Alternative grains also benefit from the popularity of organic goods, Fenster said—Whole Foods even has a line of bakery goods devoted to gluten-free diets.

"As people go into those stores, they can't help but notice those products,'' she said.

Supply of some alternative grains is still limited, however. Estimates of U.S. farmland devoted to amaranth, for example, range from 1,000 acres to 3,000 acres—compared with 50 million acres for wheat, according to the Thomas Jefferson Institute.

But the supply of white wheat in the country was also limited until Sara Lee recently launched its white wheat bread, said Cynthia Harriman, director of food and nutrition at the Whole Grains Council. To ensure adequate supply, ConAgra began contracting with farmers about five years before the product launch.

The same thing could happen for other grains that are easy and inexpensive to grow, Myers said.

Go on-site for by clicking on the following link:

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/ap_060621_wheat.html --------------------

[Saundra Hummer]

------------------------
History of the Lebanese-Israeli Conflict

By The Associated Press
posted: 17 July 2006
10:00 am ET

A brief history of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict:
Because Israel and Lebanon have never signed a peace accord, the countries remain officially in a state of war that has existed since 1948 when Lebanon joined other Arab nations against the newly formed Jewish state.The two countries have been bound by an armistice signed in 1949, which regulates the presence of military forces in southern Lebanon.

With a large Christian minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim region, mercantile and Westernized, Lebanon was considered the least hostile Arab neighbor to Israel _ and the weakest. The rare skirmishes that occurred were mostly symbolic.

That began to change as Palestinian guerrillas became active. In 1968, Israeli commandos landed at Beirut airport and blew up 13 Lebanese airliners in retaliation for Arab militants firing on an Israeli airliner in Athens, Greece.

Under pressure from staunch anti-Israeli Arab regimes in 1969, Lebanon signed an agreement that effectively gave away a southern region for Palestinian guerrillas to use as a springboard to infiltrate Israel or launch cross-border attacks.

Israel retaliated regularly as Palestinian guerrillas fired on northern Israel, and Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978. A U.N. peacekeeping force deployed and the Israelis pulled out after installing a local Lebanese militia in a border buffer zone, but the attacks continued.

Israel invaded again on a wider scale in 1982 to destroy Yasser Arafat's Palestinian guerrilla movement, which had established itself as a force within Lebanon during the country's civil war that began in 1975. The bulk of Palestinian guerrillas were evacuated from Lebanon, but a new Lebanese guerrilla force, Hezbollah, emerged with the aid of Iran and drawn from the Shiite Muslim community that inhabits southern and eastern Lebanon.

U.S.-sponsored negotiations produced a Lebanon-Israel agreement but that deal died as Lebanon collapsed in another round of civil war.

After a destructive and costly military campaign that lasted for three years, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon but retained a self-proclaimed "security zone'' just north of its own border.

Fighting inside Lebanon would escalate periodically, including a 1993 Israeli bombing offensive and the 17-day "Grapes of Wrath'' military campaign in 1996 that left about 150 Lebanese civilians dead. At that time, Israel was reacting against guerrilla attacks by Hezbollah against Israeli soldiers inside the occupied zone and against Katyusha rockets being fired by Hezbollah into Israel proper.

Israel left that zone in 2000, but warned that it would return if its security to the north was compromised.

Hezbollah trumpeted Israel's withdrawal as a great victory but claimed that Israel continued to occupy illegally a small, empty parcel near Syria called the Chebaa Farms.

Diplomats mostly see that claim as a convenient excuse to justify attacks against Israel. Nevertheless, the Israeli-Lebanese frontier had remained largely quiet for the past six years with occasional outbursts _ until a cross-border raid July 12 resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, sparking the current warfare.
Go on-site for other articles pertaining to history and science, archaeology, weather, earthquakes, etc., by clicking on the following link:

http://www.livescience.com/history/060717_conflict_history.html

[the magnificent goldberg]

[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="7"]One recent study found that in general, the world's population is migrating to coastal areas, where the threat of hurricanes and flooding from rising seas are now well known. Another study found that Americans are following this same deadly trend.


Forgetting about America for the moment, a main reason for world wide migration to the coasts is a residual effect of colonialism. Colonialism sought to exploit the colonies for the benefit of the metropolis - ie the colonial power. That meant that all infrastructure had to be designed so as to get goods out of the interior to the coasts as efficiently as possible. Thus all roads lead to Lagos, Dakar, Mombasa, Bombay, Calcutta, Rio and so on. The creation of busy ports created big populations in those places and, subsequent to colonials leaving, these places developed into growth poles because much of the countries' expertise resided there and they have become huge cities attracting enormous proportions of the populations of the respective countries.

This isn't the case in America. There are plenty of huge growth poles away from the coasts. What's happening in America? Is is simply that people are looking for better weather?

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

Forgetting about America for the moment, a main reason for world wide migration to the coasts is a residual effect of colonialism. Colonialism sought to exploit the colonies for the benefit of the metropolis - ie the colonial power. That meant that all infrastructure had to be designed so as to get goods out of the interior to the coasts as efficiently as possible. Thus all roads lead to Lagos, Dakar, Mombasa, Bombay, Calcutta, Rio and so on. The creation of busy ports created big populations in those places and, subsequent to colonials leaving, these places developed into growth poles because much of the countries' expertise resided there and they have become huge cities attracting enormous proportions of the populations of the respective countries.

This isn't the case in America. There are plenty of huge growth poles away from the coasts. What's happening in America? Is is simply that people are looking for better weather?

MG
From what I've seen and experienced, heard about and done, it is because of the weather that everyone flocked to California.

Rich's grandfather never wanted to be in snow again, so he moved to Santa Monica and left behind all he had ever known. Worked on the Santa Monica Fire Department when the fire fighting units were pulled by horses. He even before then worked hauling sand onto the beach in Redondo Beach spreading it with Fresno scrapers, the sand having been hauled in all the way from the Mohave Desert. He never went back to South Bend, Indiania, that's where the Hummer Automobile comes from and it is the family name.

My parents moved to California as they had heard that is where the weather was good, no tornado's, lots of fast growth, all pre WWII, this is going to be where the jobs would be he believed, but it was terribly difficult for my father to find work in things he knew well. He ended up being a crane operator but not until he had worked as horse trainer and property manager for Big Boy (Glenn) Williams the old cowboy movie star. Menial work oftentimes, he even did car detailing and washing for early California monied people. Not much to have written home about, however, after doing so, both of his brothers, his two sisters and their husbands, moved to California. My dad and his brothers all worked for a heavy construction outfit, owned by a man named Joe Denny in Wilmington, California. My uncle Ray's wifes parents, moved from Wyoming, they too were tired of the cold, and worked at Joe Denny's ranch (the one the 49'ers bought as a training camp), in Boulevard, California. Talk about hot and miserable, it was that, but there was the fabulous old tiled roof Hacenda style home with a tile roof and french doors out onto the patio, a sqeeking wind mill which I just loved, just a neat comfortable old average sized home. They grew to love it, and stayed on managing it for years.

Uncle Ray and my Aunt Maurgaritte both moved there later on when the rigors of that life became too much for her mother and father due to their age, Papa (Charlie) and Granny Hale were their names, and were just terrific to be around. Granny in her 80's killed a 6 foot plus rattlenake in her garden with a garden hoe one day, just out her kitchen door, and that upset everyone no end, them asking her what on earth was she thinking? She said that as long as she could see it, she wasn't afraid, it would have been worse she said had she walked out and not known where it had gone to, so she killed it. She said it was better the way she handled it or if it had startled her, her not knowing it was there she could have been bitten or scared so she could have had a heart attack. She was right. They had a shoe box with a lot of rattles in it, just from the ones they had killed around the house.

They kept pigs around the barn area where gigantic bolders were half buried in the ground, a snake heaven, so it was all fenced off and the pigs and the peacocks keep the snakes down in that area.

Loren Hale, my aunts brother managed the Wriggley ranch on Catalina Island for years and years, until the "old man Wriggly" everyone called him affectionally, died and his son took over, he despised Loren, as he and his father were so close, really good friends, and the son fired him or tried to, I don't remember the end of that story, but he lived on Catalina as did my Aunts son Gordon Winkler (adopted by my uncle) until he died, early in life, 27 years old I believe, and I think Loren died there as well, and my Aunt Edith's daugher married the fellow who owned Catalina Pottery & Tile company, and about went nuts living there. Her maiden name was Peggy Sue Stroud. She left.

Our families all gravitated to the coastal areas, mostly due to the fabulous weather, not so much the jobs. This is what we heard from lots and lots of people, but the main thing on the West Coast, was the war effort, and even the military influx. From Washington to San Diego there were ship yards and manufacturers of all sorts of wartime goods, and people moved there in droves, during the beginning of WWII, so many that there were housing units being slapped up everywhere, looking like two story military barracks, filling up with workers involved in the war effort, and then there were housing units being slapped up for the military as well and so it became a crowded state along the coast in California over night, and I have to imagine it was that way up and down the coasts. Ports, sure they were all important, but then, the people working these new jobs in war time defense, etc., just didn't want to leave after the war was over, they loved the weather, they loved the ocean, they just loved California, & they branched out all over the state. So it wasn't the ports so much with the West Coast other than the times during the war, which even had quite a few people selling and moving out as they were afraid of invasions, as much as it was the glorious weather.

Boy do I ever miss how it is in California when we get snow here in Central Oregon, which I admit I love to watch and see, but it's the 14 below zero weather, and lower, and ice 4 inches thick on the ground which makes me wonder, just when did I lose my mind?

[the magnificent goldberg]

Thanks for that lovely story, Sandi. Yes, just when DID you lose your mind?

Reading about those people migrating there before, during and after the war and reminded me of a Woody Guthrie song, which I used to have in the early '60s and have never forgotten these words:

"California is a Garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see.
But believe it or not
You won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the Do-Re-Mi.

Well, if you ain't got the Do-Re-Mi, boys
You ain't got the Do-Re-Mi.
Well you better go back to beautiful Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee."

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

Thanks for that lovely story, Sandi. Yes, just when DID you lose your mind?

Reading about those people migrating there before, during and after the war and reminded me of a Woody Guthrie song, which I used to have in the early '60s and have never forgotten these words:

"California is a Garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see.
But believe it or not
You won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the Do-Re-Mi.

Well, if you ain't got the Do-Re-Mi, boys
You ain't got the Do-Re-Mi.
Well you better go back to beautiful Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee."

MG

When the "Dust Bowl" migrants came to California, many of them camped on the beaches down below Laguna, (my Mistake! It was before Laguna at Huntington Beach) and they stayed for a long long time, in tents, make shift tents, out in the open it had to have been miserable. We called it Tin Can Beach. This is no exaggaration, it was hard to see the sand for the rusted and broken into bits tin cans, broken bottles, in small bits, I mean it was an unbelievable site. Most of the cans had rusted, becoming very brittle, it was still dangerous, but the glass was pretty bad, even though after 50 some odd years, and longer, a lot of it had worn down edges, (people now use that type of glass in jewelry,)but it had stayed a place of abuse as there were always people opening tin cans, cooking, drinking from glass milk bottles, soft drinks, throwing out anything they'd used onto the sand or throwing it out into the ocean, and so it was really from the turn of the century that things had been tossed onto the beach and into the water, even the oil field workers threw their leftovers, and bottles out on the sand.

I still can't get over how it is now. My parents were amazed at it when they saw it for the first time, they really couldn't believe that anything could look so bad, and that the oil wells were along such a pretty stretch, even though my dad ended up working in them later, he wouldn't throw things out there, even when the other fellows did.

My uncle John was driving along there one day, and he tossed out a 7Up bottle out onto all the other broken up bottles and tin cans, etc., a policeman stopped him down the road, about a half mile from the place where he had thrown the bottle out and made him walk back to find it and put it back in his car. My uncle told him, he had to be kidding, to look at all the trash, but he wasn't kidding and as hot as it was and as overweight as he was, he had to walk all that way back and bring that bottle back to the policeman. He was so upset, as there was no way he was hurting a thing. If I remember correctly he was smoking a cigar and on the way back tossed the stump of it out on the beach, he was made to go back and pick it up as well. To hear him tell it was so funny. We laughed about that one for a long time.

You can't begin to imagine how it was there. Everyone going by threw out their coke bottles and any other thing they wanted rid of from their cars. That's how bad it was.

A few years later when you'd drive by, there would be huge grating machines, several of them for miles, like ants driving back and forth over the sand, all day long. It seems they did this at night too, but I may be wrong on this part. This went on for years and years, and now that beach looks so pristine. It took years and years to get it clean, but it's beautiful now. All that from the Great Depression as well as from the Dust Bowl refugees.

I wish there were some pictures of it when it was so horrible.

We went Grunion hunting there one night, however we got there early, a few hours before nightfall, and it just had to be seen up close to even be able to understand how full of debris it truly was. We were spooked we would really injure ourselves, especially at the surf edge when the water would work up the less rusted out and less broken up bottle's and other glass. There was a big group of us and if I remember correctly, the second time we had gone there to Grunion hunt, was just to show a relative that you could catch hundreds of fish from the ocean with your hands, they ran right up on the beach for you. I do have to say, it's a pretty sight, them shimmering in the moonlight, people laughing and running catching as many as they could hold onto, a hard thing to do. An odd sight with so many people there, all at night. Only one person we were with got a cut, and it wasn't a bad one, but we never did go back again.

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
American strategists have calculated the proportion of civilians killed in this century's major wars. In the First World War 5 per cent of those killed were civilians, in the Second World War 48 per cent, while in a Third World War 90-95 per cent would be civilians: Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action

~ ~ ~

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose: Thomas Jefferson

~ ~ ~

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable: Eric Hoffer

~ ~ ~

You see what power is -- holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!: Amy Tan ~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~

[Saundra Hummer]

When the "Dust Bowl" migrants came to California, many of them camped on the beaches down below Laguna, and they stayed for a long long time, in tents, make shift tents, out in the open it had to have been miserable. We called it Tin Can Beach. This is no exaggaration, it was hard to see the sand for the rusted and broken into bits tin cans, broken bottles, in small bits, I mean it was an unbelievable site.

My uncle John was driving along there one day, and he tossed out a 7Up bottle out onto all the other broken up bottles and tin cans, etc., a policeman stopped him down the road, about a half mile from the place where he had thrown the bottle out and made him walk back to find it and put it back in his car. My uncle told him, he had to be kidding, to look at all the trash, but he wasn't kidding and as hot as it was and as overweight as he was, he had to walk all that way back and bring that bottle back to the policeman. He was so upset, as there was no way he was hurting a thing. You can't begin to imagine how it was there. Everyone going by there threw out their coke bottles and any other thing they wanted rid of from their cars. That's how bad it was.

A few years later when you'd drive by, there would be huge grating machines, several of them for miles, like ants driving back and forth over the sand, this went on for years and years, and now that beach looks so pristine. It took years and years to get it clean, but it's beautiful now. All that from the Great Depression as well as from the Dust Bowl refugees.

I wish there were some pictures of it when it was so horrible. We went Grunion hunting there one night, however we got there early, a few hours before nightfall, and it just had to be seen up close to even be able to understand how full of debris it truly was. We were spooked we would really injure ourselves, especially at the surf edge when the water would work up the less rusted out and less broken up bottle's and other glass. There was a big group of us and if I remember correctly, only one person we were with got a cut, and it wasn't a bad one, but we never did go back again.

------------------------
Huntington Beach History Profile
City of Huntington Beach - Huntington Beach, one of the fastest growing cities in the nation during the 1960s, has slowed down quite a bit since it was transformed from a rough and tumble oil town into the third largest city in Orange County.

The community was founded in 1901 as Pacific City on the site of a former Spanish land-grant ranch. In 1904, the townspeople changed the name to honor Pasadena developer Henry Huntington, who made the small city a stop on his Pacific Electric "Red Car" Railway line.

The city's first boom occurred after Standard Oil Co. began drilling for oil in 1920, and a forest of derricks lining the beaches led to the nickname "Oil City."

It gained the unflattering nickname of "Tin Can Beach" early on from the debris found in the sand. Following is a first person account from Ed Sweeny, who used to visit the area at the time:

"During the years that we used to go to 'Tin Can Beach' 1946-1956, it was not uncommon for people to go and stay for a week or two at a time...Our families 20-30 members would go during the summer, when it was so hot in the inland valley, and pitch army tents and stay for a couple of weeks at a time...The men would go off to work every day and come back to the beach afterwards...The adults would sleep in the tents on cots and the kids would sleep out under the stars...we would have camp fires every night...It was so much fun...When the Grunion were running we did the same thing...The kids would end up with cuts all over their feet from all the tin can lids buried in the sand...and of course it was free back then..."

In 1961, the state cleaned up the tin cans and created Bolsa Chica State Beach.

Oil drilling and farming were the major sources of employment in the Huntington Beach area until the 1960s. The economy since has diversified greatly, with some 900 companies employing more than 40,000 people.

Huntington Beach probably is best known for its nine miles of sandy beaches stretching along the Pacific Coast Highway. An annual surfing contest, the OP Pro, attracts some of the top surfers from around the world.

Huntington Beach's famous pier, built in 1914, was shut down in July 1988 after officials found it to be structurally unsafe. Reconstruction started in 1990, taking almost 4 years to complete. Today, it is a blend of old and new in design. It resembles the 1914 pier in architectural style, but its new construction of reinforced steel is expected to make it last through the next millennium.
-------------
See the Huntington Beach Old Photos and Pictures Gallery for History and Information about Huntington Beach.

Go on-site to view photo's, etc.

http://www.stockteam.com/hbpress5.html

-----------------------

[Saundra Hummer]

--------
Scarlet service threat

Will Durst - WorkingForChange.com 08.04.06

Republican GOP might want to eat at home after trying to shaft service workers
08.04.06 - Its my duty as a patriotic American to send up this warning flare to the Republican Congress. Their very lives are in peril. THIS IS NOT A TEST! They have unknowingly stumbled into a dangerous situation that threatens them to a degree of which they are blissfully unaware. The fact that none of them will heed my advice saddens me a little, but not as much as it makes me giggle.

Let me explain. The GOP-dominated Congress just barely missed pushing through a bogus minimum wage bill that also would have finally accomplished their thickheaded goal of eliminating the estate tax... making sure that Paris Hilton gets every damn penny she deserves. Well, perhaps that's imprecise phrasing.

Anyway, that's not the scariest part. As part of the bill, the majority passed, on straight party lines, an amendment to the bill mandating a DROP in the minimum wage for workers that live in the seven states with a higher minimum wage for tipped employees, meaning in California, the pay for bartenders, waitresses, bellmen, and valets would have fallen from 6.75 an hour to 2.65. In other words the minimum wage hike would have cut the yearly pay of tipped employees by about $9,600. Besides being more cynical than dyeing oval shaped rocks and passing them off as easter eggs to contestants in the Special Olympics, this situation would put thousands of Americans at risk. Especially members of our distinguished Congress.

Now, it goes without saying that these privileged lords and ladies have the same working relationship with the service industry that a giant cephalopod has with the gear ratio of Toyota Camry, but my question is: are they out of their Mother freaking minds? Do they harbor a secret death wish? What, exactly, is their long term plan, to never eat in a restaurant or drink in a bar or park their car again? Back in Milwaukee, at a classy joint known as Century Hall, I was Will the Cosmic Waiter for a year and a half, and remain eminently knowledgeable of how very very very long that journey between the kitchen and the table actually is. Many a twixt between cup and lip doesn't even begin to cover the circuitous trip that appetizers may be subject to. Quick and dirty detours are always available. What lies at the bottom of the murky depths of your soup? You don't want to know.

I'm not just talking about ptomaine and salmonella and e coli and Hepatitis C, I'm talking about foreign objects such as grated pencil shavings and excess saliva in the béarnaise sauce. How many of our distinguished representatives are prepared to wear diapers full time to guard against the surreptitious drop of Visine in their Vodka Cran? And good luck getting the bathroom attendant to hand you more paper. You might want to ask the Senator in the next stall for change for a five.

A Republican leader said the bill may be scuttled for now, but plans are to revisit it as soon as possible. Someone, please, for the sake of humanity, warn these simpletons that a minimum wage bill is supposed to RAISE the wages of our neediest. And they do not want to put themselves in jeopardy by even CONSIDERING such a regressive measure. I am only thinking of their welfare at this point. To root out every possible sabotage would be like picking out a pubic hair in a sprout sandwich. Does a dead fish under the passenger seat of your Town Car have any meaning here?

Comic, writer, actor, radio talk show host, former busboy Will Durst carries a bottle of Visine just on the off chance he will meet Senator Doctor Indian Chief Bill Frist.

Catch Durst in radio talk show host mode on Keeping it Real With Will & Willie. Monday through Friday. 7- 10am. PDT. On KQKE. 960 AM. The QUAKE. San Francisco. Or listen long distance @ quakeradio.com.

(c) 2006 WorkingForChange. All Rights Reserved

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21193
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Christian right steps up pro-Israel lobbying
Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange

08.03.06 - Over the past two decades, as the Christian Right has grown in political power in the United States, there has been parallel growth in support for Israel. A number of organizations made up of conservative evangelical and Jewish leaders have been founded, and millions of dollars have been raised and donated to charities in Israel.

Now, a new group plans to take it up a notch, becoming a significant presence in any political policy debates involving Israel.

In mid-July, while the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict continued to escalate, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) -- an organization founded less than six months ago by Texas evangelist Rev. John C. Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and the author of "Jerusalem Countdown," a 2006 book about a nuclear-armed Iran -- rolled into Washington, D.C., for its first major get-together.

More than 3,400 delegates from across the country attended the inaugural meeting.

CUFI kicked off the gathering on July 19 with its "A Night to Honor Israel" banquet at the grand ballroom in the Washington Hilton. The festivities attracted a number of high-profile Israeli and U.S. political leaders, including Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, retired Israeli defense chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

According to a report posted at Israpundit, Hagee read greetings from President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. While Bush urged "God [to] bless and stand by the people of Israel and ... bless the United States," Olmert's letter referred to CUFI's "'bold stand at this crisis time,' and the group's acknowledgment of Israel's biblical 'birthright.'"

The following day, at a well-attended press conference, Hagee said that "The dots are there to be connected, and it is not some big thing called terrorism. It is Islamic fascism … all of the various things and forces that we've seen around the world are not merely hot spots but they are all part of a theme -- a war against Western civilization."

The news conference was followed by a trip to Capitol Hill to lobby congressional representatives.

While other organizations have mostly talked the talk, Hagee's CUFI has set out a bold agenda and it appears to have the resources and political connections to walk the walk:

CUFI aims to not only establish a visible presence in hundreds of cities throughout all 50 states, but it also intends to recruit activists to lobby on behalf of Israel.

In addition, CUFI plans to set up an "Israel Rapid Response" network which through e-mail, faxes, and phone calls will make its voice heard by elected officials.

To move CUFI's agenda from the planning stage to direct action, Hagee brought David Brog -- a Washington insider -- on board as the organization's executive director. The hiring of Brog, who is Jewish, the former chief of staff for Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter and the author of the recently published book "Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State," was a shrewd and politically savvy move.

In a recent interview, Brog noted that he had "admired" Hagee "from afar," and he explained why, as a Conservative Jew, he would work for a Christian organization: "I believe this is the most important thing I could do not only for Israel but for Judeo-Christian civilization today, which is under threat from radical Islam."

In the preface to his book, Brog establishes his religious bona fides by maintaining that he is "not a Messianic Jew or a Jew for Jesus" and that he doesn't "believe that the Messiah has ever appeared on Earth." He writes that he "embrace[s]" his "Jewish faith and seek[s] knowledge of my Creator through the paths and texts provided to me by my Jewish ancestors." He also points out that while he doesn't "observe all of the Halacha [Jewish law], [he does] recognize the Halacha as a central component of my religion."

While many in the Jewish community have certainly appreciated the support evangelical Christians have given Israel, there are many that still have deep reservations about the Christian evangelicals' mission to convert Jews to Christianity, and their adherence to End-Times beliefs that essentially leave Jews behind.

In a press release issued by the Institute for Public Accuracy, the Rev. Dr. Donald Wagner, a professor at North Park University in Chicago and a founding member of the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism, pointed out that Christian Zionists see "the modern state of the country-region Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial, and religious support."

Referring to the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Wagner added that "Many of the Christian Zionists may interpret this as a prelude to the battle of Armageddon and the final end-times scenario."

In a late-May interview with the American Thinker's Ed Lasky, Brog stated that "Christians who support Israel do not expect any kind of quid pro quo from the Jewish community. ... Evangelical support for Israel is a genuine expression of Christian love for the Jews and respect for God's promises to them, and it comes with no strings attached."

He then added: "That being said, it is important to note that Christians are human beings with normal human emotions. When they spend a great deal of time supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism, they are disappointed when these efforts are ignored by the Jewish community, and when the only time they hear from representatives of the Jewish community is to attack them because of their positions on social issues.

"This cold reception doesn't sway evangelicals from their course of support for Israel. But it does cause a certain disappointment, a certain feeling of rejection, that I think is unfortunate. We in the Jewish community should try to express greater appreciation for what our Christian friends are doing on our behalf."

In the preface to his book, written before he assumed the position of CUFI executive director, Brog gives Christian Zionists his unequivocal stamp of approval, stating that through his extensive research he "became convinced that the evangelical Christians who support Israel today are nothing less than the theological heirs of the righteous Gentiles who sought to save Jews from the Holocaust."

However, in the American Thinker interview, Brog fervently rushes to the defense of the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson -- two exceedingly self-righteous Gentiles. In a bit of linguistic jujitsu, Brog admits that the two media-genic televangelists have "over the years, made a few comments which have been perceived as insensitive to Jews," but, Brog argues, those comments were either "wrongly attributed to them," "taken out of context" or they "apologized" for them. Brog also claimed that both "were devoted friends of Israel that were misunderstood by the Jewish community."

They "have devoted their lives to helping Israel and the Jewish people. Time after time they have thrown their significant political support behind Israel." And, "even more importantly, Falwell and Robertson each runs a major Christian university (Liberty University and Regent University, respectively), and each teaches the next generation of Christian leaders passing through their schools to support Israel."

(c) 2006 Working Assets Online. All rights reserved

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21185 ----------

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No guts, no grace
Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate
08.03.06 - SAN FRANCISCO -- Do you think the Bush administration is going after the press? The San Francisco Chronicle says on the front page this morning, "Cameraman Jailed for Not Yielding Tape," whereas The New York Times is reporting, "U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records." I'm feeling like a bunny trying to outrun a pack of wolfhounds.

Sometimes the press enjoys scaring itself or pretending it is about to be made into a bunch of martyrs. This is not one of those times. We are under full attack now, and it is time to fight. I am not infuriated by the performance of the press so far, but I am disgusted. Bob Novak is the most notable traitor, but others are leaping for political favors as they rush to insist The New York Times shouldn't print the news (and occasionally, quite old news at that). I fail to see how Fox News and other right-wing outlets have so little imagination they cannot picture themselves in the same corner come a Democratic administration. What goes around comes around and all that good stuff, but to set it up so that payback is hell for yourself is tragically, deeply dumb. I have watched the D.C. press corps play courtier to Bush since he openly insulted Helen Thomas, who is not only a first-rate journalist, but a lady as well. Shame on you all. No principle, no guts, no grace.

On another topic, I was talking to a guy named Andy the other night when he observed that unlike President Bush, he had learned first-hand that diplomacy works with skunks. He was speaking of skunks, the striped, tail-up-bad-sign kind, but they seem a perfect metaphor for the rest of what he laughingly calls Bush's diplomatic strategery -- at which point the proper response is to ask, "What diplomatic strategery?" Has anyone seen a foreign policy lately? Does anyone still know what containment means? These are, after all, the people who were against arms control because Bill Clinton was for it.

One feels like Casey Stengel looking at the early Mets: "Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?" In the most contemptible act of irresponsibility imaginable, the neo-cons who pulled together to start this war now reject any responsibility for it. Mr. Wolfowitz is busy running the World Bank; it's no longer his business.

The rest of this crew of moral pygmies are too frightened of Dick Cheney to point out that this entire war is a disaster, or a FIASCO as Thomas E. Ricks, author of the new book "Fiasco" puts it. I think the Bush foreign policy -- when in doubt, send Condi Rice home -- is a public relations ploy to keep the Israeli-Lebanese war going long enough so that Americans won't notice Iraq has completely collapsed in the meantime. And it has collapsed. I suggest our military figure out how to get out of there before they lose an entire effing army on the way.

In Washington, the sophomore wienies who now staff the administration are far too terrified of Cheney to speak up, even if they had enough sense to notice it's going rather badly. Oh, for heaven's sake -- send Cheney back to south Texas so he can shoot at caged birds there. The Wizard of Oz had more credibility.

I think they're running around the Middle East looking for a red heifer. (For those of you who don't read your news straight from the Book of Revelations, a red heifer is needed to set off the Rapture. We're working on it.)

Well, if you can't get any global action from this outfit, how about some plain old legislation? Nope. The Republicans' latest effort was to pass a callous imitation of a minimum wage increase ($2.10 an hour over two years) after 10 years with no raise. They may fall over in gratitude. And, in the same bill mind you, this crew of crazed philanthropists insisted on another multibillion-dollar cut in the estate tax. For really, really rich people. Rep. Zach Wamp gloatingly told the Democrats, "We have outfoxed you." Outfoxed? A tiny increase in the minimum wage and a huge tax cut for multimillionaires. Does this make any sense? Does this even make politics?

In a splendid display of incompetence, the Republicans went on to make hay of pension reform plans.

Meanwhile, I have yet another complaint to lodge against George W. Bush. "The man is a moron!" is not political debate. Not helpful. Not even prudent, as his old man would say. But that is precisely what he leaves us saying: "But, he is a complete moron." Someone needs to pick up this discussion and point out that at least he's our moron and say something encouraging like someday maybe he'll learn to pronounce nuclear. We can count on him not to change his mind about stem cell research no matter what people learn. And, the only foreign leader he's necked with is female.
(c) 2006 Creators Syndicate

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21184
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The Iraq war is over
Sean Gonsalves
-
Cape Cod Times

08.01.06 - Listening to public debate you get the impression the Iraq war is not over yet. But, it is -- at least in terms of having reached, or passed, identifiable goals.

Regime change? Check. WMD? None there, but check. New "democratic" government? Check.

The president isn't fighting a war in Iraq. He's presiding over an occupation as a civil war unfolds. Of course, it could be claimed, we're still engaged in a global "war on terror." (Remember Afghanistan?) But when you consider the stubborn fact that terrorism is a tactic and not a flesh-and-blood enemy, the confused terminology becomes plain.

And what does "winning" the "war on terror" mean? That there won't be evil in the world anymore? There will be no such thing as nihilistic murder or political violence? The Second Coming?

The Bush administration and many of its supporters have come to realize this vacuous verbiage and try to add a bit more precision to their war rhetoric – a war against radical Islam, a war against Islamo-facism (careful not to say "crusade," though that's exactly what the president called it in an unscripted moment on Sept. 12 standing atop a pile of rubble at Ground Zero).

The foolishness of casting the response to terrorism in apocalyptic terms notwithstanding, the president alone can't be blamed for this kind of predictable and unimaginative thinking. It's embedded in our culture. Any complex social problem, we must "war" against it. War on poverty. War on drugs. War on cancer. War on AIDS. War, war, war is the answer.

Whatever you call the "war on terror," it is a "new kind of war" – not necessarily nation against nation, but a war against a decentralized network of terrorists who don't wear uniforms, as the logic goes.

The gloves come off, international law and civil liberties be damned – out of one side of our mouth. Out the other side, we pay lip service to "the rule of law" because that's what is supposed to separate the civilized from the barbarians.

What's the difference between law enforcement – where the means, and not just the ends, matter – and war, in which "all is fair"?

"War, by definition, is an activity undertaken against a political or social entity, while the terrorist network…is a coalition of individuals. Law enforcement, by definition, is an activity undertaken against just such individuals or networks," is how James Carroll parses it in his book "Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War."

Carroll's point underscores why this language thing is so important. "By clothing our response to the (Sept. 11) terrorist acts in the rhetoric of war, we make it far more likely that members of groups associated by extrinsic factors with the perpetrators will suffer terrible consequences, from being bombed in Kabul to being discriminated against in Boston."

Two other problems with war rhetoric: 1) In war, results matter far more than methods. The ends justify the means. And 2), war generates its own momentum. History has shown that war "has a way of inhumanely overwhelming the humane purposes for which the war is begun in the first place."

Law enforcement is the use of force against individuals who violate the law. It targets individual suspects and accomplices. If a crime syndicate takes root in a city, law enforcement doesn't bomb the city's infrastructure and terrorize entire neighborhoods with tanks, helicopters, grenades, house-to-house raids, mass arrests, torture, and other intended and "unintended" consequences that come with war – none of which can be written off with glib utterances of "war is hell" and "collateral damage happens."

The rule of law gives rise to order. War, literally, unleashes chaos, as the semantic history of the word reflects. (The word war can be traced back to the Indo-European root wers, which means "to confuse, mix up.")

We must "do something" about terrorism – is a common refrain. That's true. International law enforcement; not war. Initiating an illegal war to carry out a police action, creates more enemies, not less; And in such an asymmetrical war the civilized/barbarian distinction in the battle over "hearts and mind" is also lost.

Republicans are arguing that we need to "win the war in Iraq" and that Democrats stand for ending the war. Why aren't Democrats saying: We are not calling for an end to the war. The war is over. We're calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq, collective global security through focused police action, the return of the rule of law and the reclamation of our civilized humanity?

(c) 2006, Cape Cod Times

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21172

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Governors bristle at Bush Guard proposal

By
ROBERT TANNER,
AP National Writer
1 hour, 21 minutes ago

The nation's governors are closing ranks in opposition to a proposal in Congress that would let the president take control of the National Guard in emergencies without consent of governors.

The idea, spurred by the destruction and chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, is part of a House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act. It has not yet been agreed to by the Senate.

The measure would remove the currently required consent of governors for the federalization of the Guard, which is shared between the individual states and the federal government.

"Federalization just for the sake of federalization makes no sense," said Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat who had rough relations with the Bush administration after the disaster last year. "You don't need federalization to get federal troops. ... Just making quick decisions can make things happen."

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a Republican, said "a whole bunch of governors" were opposed to the idea after the proposed change was brought up in a private lunch meeting.

Some two dozen governors met in Charleston for three days of discussions at the annual summer gathering of the National Governors Association. The association's leaders sent a formal letter of opposition to House leaders last week.

The language in the House measure would let the president take control in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe," according to the NGA.

"The idea of federalizing yet another function of government in America is a, the wrong direction, and b, counterproductive," Sanford said. "The system has worked quite well, notwithstanding what went wrong with Katrina."

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060806/ap_on_re_us/governors_guard&printer=1;_ylt=ApBhdVpNu53egsNUQzNi86dH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

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Al Gore YouTube Spoof Not So Amateurish
Republican PR Firm Said to Be Behind 'An Inconvenient Spoof'
By JAKE TAPPER AND MAX CULHANE,
ABCNews.com
Updated: 06:19 PM EDT

(Aug. 5) -- A tiny little movie making fun of Al Gore, supposedly made by an amateur filmmaker, recently appeared on the popular Web site YouTube.com.


YouTube.com
A video spoof making fun of Al Gore and global warming recently ran on the popular Web site YouTube.com. One newspaper suspects a Republican PR firm produced the video.
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Watch Video: YouTube on Gore | Talk About It: Post Thoughts
Go On-Site To View, It Does Look Professional, But My Sound Is Out So I Can't Hear It
SRH
At first blush, "An Inconvenient Spoof" seemed like a scrappy little homemade film poking fun at Gore and his anti-global warming crusade.

In the movie, Gore is seen boring an army of penguins with his lecture and blaming global warming for everything, including Lindsay Lohan's thinness.

But when the Wall Street Journal tried to find the guy who posted this film — listed on YouTube as a 29-year-old — they found the movie didn't come from an amateur working out of his basement.

The film actually came from a slick Republican public relations firm called DCI, which just happens to have oil giant Exxon as a client.

Exxon denies knowing anything about the film, and DCI says, "We do not disclose the names of our clients, nor do we discuss the work we do on behalf of our clients."

Distrust of Mainstream Media

Media ethicists say that if DCI is behind "An Inconvenient Spoof," they should fess up.

"Without the disclosure, it's really ethically questionable," said Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy.

Another question is why would this movie be done in a seemingly unprofessional way, to be shown alongside YouTube's mostly amateur videos, which feature lip-synching, odd performances and funny satires?

"They want it to look like this came from someone who really believes this, who is really critical of Al Gore and global warming," Farsetta said.


Ana Marie Cox, the Washington editor of Time.com, said Americans have come to distrust the mainstream media.

"They're more likely to believe something that comes straight from the horse's mouth," Cox said.

Public relations firms have long used computer technology to create bogus grassroots campaigns, which are called "Astroturf."

Now these firms are being hired to push illusions on the Internet to create the false impression of real people blogging, e-mailing and making films.

"People will become more savvy, and then the people who are making the fake videos will become more savvy about how to cover it up," Cox said.

So next time you're reading something on the Internet from a "real person" pushing a movie or defending an actor's alcohol-fueled rant — be wary. That real person might actually be a hired gun, selling you an idea through deception.

8/05/06

Copyright 2006 ABCNEWS.comhttp://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/al-gore-youtube-spoof-not-so-amateurish/20060805132409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

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Reporter: Cheney’s not presidential material

If Vice President Cheney is indeed a “serious darkhorse” candidate for president in 2008, as Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward recently suggested, he probably won’t want to enlist legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas to help with his press relations, even though she has proposed a campaign strategy he could run on.

Thomas, a syndicated columnist for Hearst Newspapers who has covered the White House since the Kennedy administration, wrote in May that Cheney “certainly could campaign on the theme that he has had experience in running the White House.”

Thomas made the suggestion in a column she wrote about President Bush’s not being notified about a terror scare caused by an off-course Cessna airplane until after it was over, according to Editor & Publisher magazine.

Declaring that the incident “again raises the question of who’s running the show,” Thomas also noted Cheney’s central role on Sept. 11 and the widely held view that he is “probably the most powerful vice president in recent times, perhaps in U.S. history.”

But asked this week if she is promoting a Cheney candidacy, Thomas made it clear she isn’t.

“The day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself,” she told The Hill. “All we need is one more liar.”

Thomas added, “I think he’d like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does.”

Go on-site to view other articles, links, etc. Just click on link below:

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/UndertheDome/072805.html
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Senate Kills Estate-Tax Cut, Minimum-Wage Hike

By
Jonathan Allen
August 3, 2006

The Senate blocked action on legislation combining an estate-tax cut with a minimum-wage increase Thursday night, robbing Republicans of a legislative victory heading into the August recess.

GOP leaders fell short of the 60 votes necessary to end debate on the measure, which also included the extension of a series of expiring tax breaks. The 56-42 vote demonstrated that the three-part package was no sweeter for Democrats than an estate-tax repeal bill that met the same fate, 57-41, in June.

Senators jousted all week over the significance of the package, which became known as the "trifecta" bill.

Republicans painted the measure as a win-win for their side: The GOP would get credit for enacting it or Democrats would pay a price for blocking top priorities of both parties.

"I believe Americans will remember that Republicans worked hard to reach a true compromise here that would raise the standard of living for all American families," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said. "I think they will remember that after years of rhetoric, Democrats proved they were all talk and no action."

But Democrats argued that it would have been a net loss for the public.

"A trifecta is a high-stakes gamble," Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said on the floor. "There are many more losers than there are winners."

Democrats reiterated their election-year charge that Republicans are presiding over a do-nothing Congress.

"For the last 19 months, congressional Republicans have done nothing for the people," Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. " The little they have done on behalf of special interests and the well-connected has made America less safe and middle-class life more difficult."

"Their strategy is block and blame," countered Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

The measure would phase in an estate-tax exemption for estates of up to $5 million -- $10 million for couples – by 2015. Estates up to $25 million would be taxed at the capital-gains rate, which is 15 percent, and the rate on estates over $25 million would fall to 30 percent. The minimum wage would rise from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over three years under the bill, and it included a $4 billion provision for abandoned-mine cleanup efforts.

It passed the House, 230-180, Saturday morning. Republican leaders angered some on their own side by tying in a package of tax extensions that Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) had planned to include in a conference report on pensions.

The move did not appear to affect any Republican votes, but it got the bill off to an inauspicious start in the Senate.

"I will treat the proponents with more respect than they have treated this chairman and the institution of the Finance Committee. I will support this bill," Grassley said on the floor. "The process was lousy and offensive, but the substance is good."

Four Democratic senators – Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) – joined the majority of Republicans in voting for the package. Republican senators Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and George Voinovich (Ohio) sided with the majority of Democrats in opposing it.

Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.) and Joe Lieberman (Conn.) missed the vote. Baucus’s nephew, Marine Corps Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus, was killed in Iraq over the weekend. Lieberman is campaigning in a tight race to win renomination.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) voted "no" for procedural reasons.

The Senate cleared the pension bill after voting on the "trifecta" measure.

Click on the following link to access the site:

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/080206/tax.html--------------------

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***********DEPARTMENT OF VETERNS AFFAIRS
Democrats threaten to hold their own hearing on vets
By
Elana Schor
November 17, 2005
Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee are openly rebelling against Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) over his cancellation of Congress’s annual joint hearings with veterans groups, spurring lawmakers and lobbyists to consider breakaway hearings of their own.

Senate veterans committees every winter since the 1950s, and VSOs consider the hearings a prized tradition of dialogue with both chambers on the White House veterans affairs (VA) budget. But Buyer abruptly ended the tradition last week during a “veterans summit” meeting from which two top VSOs were conspicuously absent.

Democrats on Buyer’s committee responded this week with a strongly worded letter, asking the chairman to reinstate the annual joint hearings or risk the embarrassment of hearings led by the minority.

“While it is not clear how you could unilaterally abolish this series of joint hearings with the Senate, you are certainly within the purview to withdraw yourself from such hearings and discourage your majority colleagues from participation,” the Democrats wrote.

Majority staffers on the committee spent several hours yesterday in closed-door negotiations with their Democratic counterparts, attempting to reach a compromise that would avert further political damage.

The turmoil on the House veterans affairs panel comes as Buyer approaches his one-year anniversary at the committee’s helm. Leadership abruptly removed Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) from the chairmanship in January, aggravated by Smith’s outspoken advocacy for greater veterans funding.

Rep. Lane Evans (Ill.), ranking Democrat on Veterans’ Affairs, said he would fight to preserve the hearings in their current form.

“Chairman Buyer did not consult or even inform me before he terminated these hearings. It’s not clear if he even consulted his own Republican members,” Evans said in an e-mail. “What is clear is that it was the wrong decision.”

Democrats have also written to Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), that committee’s top Democrat, asking that senators take the lead in salvaging the joint hearings. Under Buyer’s proposal, the chambers would hear from VSOs separately before Congress receives the president’s budget request, a change that veterans lobbyists say would prevent them from making informed comment on VA budget realities.

Craig said he would ensure that the VSOs receive an appropriate level of access to Congress and charged Democrats with politicizing veterans issues in an effort to tar Republicans as uncaring.

Craig acknowledged, however, that he did not agree with Buyer’s bid to cancel the joint hearings.

“He and I differ a little bit on this issue. … I did not join him in what he proposed,” Craig said. “At the same time, I don’t disagree with him that as we move forward, there is a way to do it better.”

In recent letters to Buyer, the national commanders of leading VSOs have hinted that the chairman is using his post to disenfranchise and silence veterans during a time of war. Veterans leaders also took Buyer to task for his Nov. 7 “veterans summit” at the Army War College’s which allowed only 90 minutes for issues amid a field trip and battlefield tour.

Thomas Bock, head of the American Legion, the largest U.S. veterans group, did not receive an invitation to Buyer’s summit. The Legion was told that the invitation was mistakenly sent to a previous commander, according to the Legion’s legislative director, Steve Robertson.

When Buyer wrote a letter to Bock noting that “it was unfortunate that the American Legion chose not to send a representative,” Bock fired back.

“We will not be talked down to, lectured or treated as if we were superfluous,” Bock wrote, adding that “a modicum of respect is owed” to VSOs and “precious little was paid” by the chairman.

Robertson said the Legion would attend any Democratic-led joint veterans hearing and vowed to hold VSO-led hearings if Congress does not reinstitute the forum for veterans.

“Basically, [Buyer] is saying that all of our hearings have been irrelevant,” Robertson said. “We will schedule our own hearings … but that’s not how the democratic process is supposed to work.


Access link to site by clicking below:

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/TheExecutive/111705_vets.html
***********

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~~~~~
The Associated Press/BEIRUT, Lebanon
By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press Writer


Besieged Lebanese turn to Internet

AUG. 6 3:38 P.M. ET Like many of her compatriots, artist Zena el-Khalil has turned to blogging on the Internet to express her longings and fears amid the fighting in Lebanon.

Writing from Beirut, the 30-year-old tells of wanting to have children and worries about Israeli air raids on the capital.

"Word on the street is that Israel is threatening to hit Beirut now. I feel so helpless," she said in a recent entry in her online diary. "I called my husband and told him to come home right away. If I die, I want to be in his arms."

Another blogger, 27-year-old Jamal Ghosn, bemoans the casualties among Lebanese children. "Lebanese children don't hug teddy bears when they sleep, they sleep with Katyushas in their beds, in case you didn't know," he wrote with bitter sarcasm.
Young Lebanese, feeling increasingly hemmed in by the siege of their country, are turning to the Internet to vent anger about the war and express private longings intensified by the death and destruction.

But widespread electricity cuts caused by fuel shortages and Israel's bombardment of power stations have at times shut off even this outlet.

Operating his computer by battery late one night after the neighborhood generator went off, blogger Mazen Kerbej, a 30-year-old musician, quipped: "It's quite funny to write on a laptop connected to the world with a candle next to the keyboard to see the letters."

Lebanese bloggers burst onto the Internet in unprecedented numbers last year following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the subsequent "Cedar Revolution" -- the mass anti-Syria demonstrations that preceded the Damascus regime's withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon after an 18-year presence.

But the bloggers' enthusiasm had subsided as politicians became mired in squabbles over relations with Syria and other issues. But the Web musings have surged again since Israel launched its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

Besides blogging, Lebanese at home and abroad are using e-mails, text messages and other communications to share their feelings and ideas for ending the conflict. Anti-war petitions, cartoons and articles have been flying around the Internet since hostilities erupted July 12.

One e-mail making the rounds in Lebanon carries a picture of an "Israeli checklist" with check marks next to the words bridges, power plants, airports, children and the economy. "Hezbollah" is the only word on the list left unchecked.

Another that has circulated to thousands contains photos of wounded Lebanese infants and children juxtaposed with photos of Israeli children writing "greetings" on artillery shells.

Hanady Salman, managing editor of the As-Safir newspaper, said she never had the time or interest to keep a diary. But when Israeli missiles struck a convoy of Lebanese villagers fleeing the southern village of Merwaheen on the third day of the war, killing at least 15 people and blowing children into nearby ravines, the 38-year-old mother was galvanized.

She began e-mailing pictures of the death and destruction to everyone she knew, hoping to gain attention for what was happening. Sending pictures quickly turned into diary-style e-mails that have become hugely popular.

"It's a great way to get across your side of the story, to reach out to people. I thank God every day that there is the Internet to do that," Salman said. "It makes me feel like I'm somehow contributing, I'm doing my share."

Salman now has about 200 people on her mailing list.

On a recent morning, she wrote: "Last night the air raids were so close, I was almost out of my mind. Israeli fighters were flying so low, I couldn't wait to go home and hug my little baby (we live on the 12th floor, remember?)."

A popular Web site, Electronic Lebanon, is publishing the diaries of Salman and others from across Lebanon, written in English. The site has had more than 479,000 visits and 2,250,000 pages viewed since the start of the war.

While the devastation has fired the desire of bloggers to tell the world of Lebanon's pain, witnessing it firsthand proved too powerful for one.

"I so want to write, but I still have no words," blogger Muzna al-Masri wrote of her Aug. 2 tour of southern Lebanon. "This was Tyre, after all, the lovely city and its beach that I always wanted to call home.

"I still haven't cried, I feel I am not entitled to. If I were to cry, what would I leave to the people that have lost loved ones and houses full of memories?"

Copyright 2006, by The Associated Press.

I lost the link, it's from Business Week.

[Saundra Hummer]

--------------------SUNDAY, AUGUST 06, 2006
beirut, mon amour
ode to Hiroshima:

last night i dreamed that i was at the beach. we were camping out... the whole family was there... then suddenly someone told me that we were at war, and that we had to leave. i got really panicky and my heartbeat started racing... i remember running around trying to find everyone to tell them we had to leave right away. the only way out was by boat. by the time i got to the boat, everyone around me had disappeared.

i was all alone.. it was getting dark. there was no electricity or lights...

the bushes began to rattle and i began to hear really creepy noises... like someone moaning and nails scratching... i decided that i would try and take the trip out on my own. i turned on the boat and then suddenly some family members appeared in front of me.. i was so happy to see them. i ran up to them and hugged them, but as i did, they vanished from sight again.

i was devastated.

i fell to the ground and started to cry.

as i looked up, i noticed blood on my hands and realized that it was coming from me... that i was crying blood.

i leaned over the boat to look at myself in the reflection of the water. the water was a light red and all i could see were dismembered humans in the water.. arms... legs... torsos...

i began to scream and scream... until i woke up.

in some ways, i wish i never woke up. it seems that my reality is even worse than the dream. there are now around 1,000 documented civilian deaths in Lebanon.. the numbers in Israel are beginning to rise as well.

hospitals have begun to shut down due to lack of fuel. by this time next week, they will all be gone... not only will casualties no longer be able to be treated, but what happens to the everyday people who regularly go in for stuff like chronic treatment? kidney dialysis.... chemotherapy...?

what is to become of Maya?

this attack is not going to bring about anything except for more anger and more hate.

you can not make peace through bombs!

there are over 10,000 Israeli troops inside Lebanon right now. the un draft for the ceasefire is not going well.. they are asking that Hizuballah stop firing their rockets but say nothing about the Israeli soldiers leaving Lebanon.

the last time they were here, they stayed for 18 years.

i was only able to visit my father's village in the south a few years ago, after the pull out. it was the first time i had ever been there... i remember how surreal it was. our home had been used as an israeli army center during their occupation. they used to detain, interrogate and torture people in our house. is that going to happen all over again? after the pull out, we knocked down the old house and built a new one.

why is it that israel is allowed to occupy other people's home?

i was in that house a little over a month ago. it was july 1. my cousin's birthday.. now i don't know if i shall ever see it again. did i tell you my husband and i slept outdoors that night, on the patio? it was so quiet and serene... so peaceful...

for those of you who have been leaving messages of peace and love... i am so blessed to be surrounded by so many loving friends.. you have done so much to keep me going... sometimes i am so numb and down that i can not feel your energy... but what happens is that i find myself on the computer typing away and then realize that at least you are providing me with some kind of distraction.. and that is as good as it gets for now...

we have lost all sense of time and life. people wander around, trying to get their daily life stuff done, but we are walking around like zombies.. not knowing where or when this will all end. not knowing if this last breath in will be our last breath out... ever.

i know our neighbors are in pain too... so i wonder why and how this is all allowed to happen. so absolutely pointless.

it has almost been a month now, of this violence.. i have not been able to draw or make anything... i did manage to go to my studio once.. it is still ok, but i had forgotten some jars of glitter by the window, the last time i was there... a month ago... and the glitter had lost its color from the sun! i was so upset... i brought this glitter with me all the way from nyc :)

in the beginning of war, one is concerned about their personal safety... then after a few days, you realize that you are still alive.. so your thoughts then go out to those around you... you start spending your time trying to help others in need... then you reach out and start thinking about all those who are dying or being displaced... you try and help them.. if you can't, you end up spending all your time thinking about them.. writing about them.. then you realize how much time has gone by.. how much you miss your old life... you try and pick up a few pieces.. you try and give yourself some personal time during the day to do the stuff you miss doing... then you start to feel selfish... i went to the studio, but i could not work. i will try again. and again. until something happens.

i have not given up on hope or life. i still believe in humanity. i have not yet learned to hate. i never will.

i am ok health wise... the anxiety attacks have lessened. at least when i get them now, i know exactly what is going on.. and i know that it will pass. it makes a big difference. i try and breath deep breaths... sometimes i can control it, sometimes i can't. sometimes i break down into tears... being taken over by a fearful hysteria... resulting in cold sweats and vomiting... sometimes i am able to snap my fingers, yell out loud to myself "stop it!!" and then move on and try and do something productive or distracting...

as each day goes by, war is becoming a way of life.. and that is so dangerous. people must never get used to this.

today it is Lebanon... but tomorrow, who will be next?

violence begets violence. and all this attack is doing is creating more hate for the west in this region. it didn't have to be like this.

it was only a month ago that i was in the South of Lebanon listening to the radio.. the station was being broadcasted from Israel.. they were playing great music from the 80's... i was listening.. enjoying the tranquility.. and thinking about how similar we were.

a part of me wants to just sleep and wake up when this is all over with... however i am so scared that when i do wake up, things will just be a lot worse.
posted by zena at 8:58 PM 15 comments

Saturday, August 05, 2006
the rules
with all due respect, i will not tolerate any use of foul language on this blog. all comments containing foul language will be deleted. this policy is followed by all international media sites, as well as my own personal standards.

thank you for understanding.

"Be the change you want to see in the world."
Mohandas Gandhi
posted by zena at 1:53 AM 68 comments

Friday, August 04, 2006
And it gets worse
... last night.. last night... i don't even know where to begin from...

it seems the bombs are getting louder. perhaps they are the new ones from
the US expedited delivery.

they hit everywhere last night. beirut, jounieh, roads leading to the
north.... bridges in the north... the only highway left, leading to the
North, the last escape route to Syria, was hit.

we are all trapped now.. waiting... waiting...

the bombs started around 1am in Dahiye... we had some friends over...
everyone was in a state of panic... we waited a bit and then everyone made a
run for it, to go home. one of my friends lives outside of Beirut towards
the north.. a trip that would usually take about 20 min, he made it in about
5. then the bombing started up again... they hit Ouzai which is the southern
part of Beirut. they kept hitting Dahiye... my bed was shaking all night.
the noise was so loud. definitely not like the kind we were hearing before.

i am so drained, my head is buzzing... lack of sleep, lack of food... i am
pulling myself together, but it is not easy.

- new major bridges hit, ghazir, adma, batroun, mameltain, jbeil (all north
of beirut, all Christian areas)
- ouzai (residential area)
- more dahiye (charity institutions, ngo buildings hit)
- the forest in adma is on fire... there is not way to stop the fire, with
the roads cut
- baalbeck was pounded again (there was a helicopter raid a few nights ago,
they landed on a hospital, many civilians killed, several kidnapped,
including a 15 year old goat header)
- masnaa was hit again (that is the eastern road to damascus)
- they hit the electricity power station in the be'kaa; so many people now
without power there
- and the shelling continues in the south; nabatiye, sour (tyr), etc..

we are running out of FUEL. soon there will be no more electricity. soon the
generators will stop working. people in hospitals will die.

The oil spill is a disaster... It has reached as far into Syria, killing
everything in its path.

more and more civilians killed... more and more civilians massacred...

and the world watches on...

i have gotten many emails saying that there are people supporting us..
people behind us.. people out there making a difference... thank you. i
thank you with all my heart.

but, i do know that the majority of the world is also just going about their
everyday business... oh, another war in the Middle East, not our problem...
switch the channel... move on to something else. "Thank God, it's not me..
anyway those terrorists deserve it." they are caught up in their own
everyday problems.. paying bills, taking care of the family, moving on and
up in the world...

... umm can someone tell them i am not a terrorist. please.

everyday there is a new war, so why should this one be any different? it has
become so easy to say the word "war." it has become so easy to generalize
and stereotype. it is on tv everyday... it is no more a shocking event. it
has become a norm... or standard.. and all it does is continue to breed
hatred and violence...

people are making money off this war. people are going to make money off the
reconstruction. is that what is taking so long for the ceasefire to happen?
are they busy negotiating the spoils of war?

... while we sit here in pain and anxiety and sorrow and loss....

war can not be a way of life.

-- this just in, the customs building at the Masnaa' exit from Lebanon to
Syria was just hit. 12 people dead.

Even worse: just in the news. Israel has just acquired a new fighter plane
from America. It is supposed to be undetectable by radar.
posted by zena at 5:47 PM 143 comments

Thursday, August 03, 2006


this is a graffiti piece (in Arabic) i found near my house. it was done almost 3 weeks ago.. at the start of all this... it roughly translates to "Beirut will never die." i have been wanting to post it for a while. i think that for tonight, it's finally appropriate. to those who drew it, and i think i know who you are :), thank you so much.
posted by zena at 1:42 AM 52 comments

beirut will never die
after feeling so helpless all day... not being able to channel any energy into any work, i made my way over to a meeting we were having concerning the oil spill. there were about 10 of us there. i looked around the room and thought about how beautiful everyone was.

here we were gathered in a makeshift office in one of the relief centers... daring to meet up, under the bombs and threats... to talk about our environment and what we were going to do about it.

in the room next door, my sister who is only 24 years old, now head of the medical unit at the relief center, was organizing prescriptions and pills. it is so funny... people call her doctor now. she has a ba in liberal arts. because she has been at the center since day one and took charge of the medicine and distribution, she is now Doctora Lana. :) in a week she learned how to do stuff it takes people years to do at universities!

in the room next to her, people were meeting to set the plan of distribution of milk and diapers for the next day.

despite the threats of Beirut being blown up today, here were people working... here were every day people, coming together to help in any way they could. i was filled with so much love..,being around such passionate people.

something changed tonight. i guess when you are looking at death, straight in the eyes, you find a new kind of courage. you realize how important it is to hang on to what you have. you fight for life with a new kind of passion.

i have spent the last 3 weeks mourning the loss of Beirut... mourning the loss of my dreams and my work.

now, it's time to accept what is happening and take charge of the situation.

beirut, she will never die.
posted by zena at 1:32 AM 34 comments

Wednesday, August 02, 2006
bye bye beirut
just got home.. was driving like crazy... word on the street is that Israel is threatening to hit Beirut now... i feel so helpless... i called Maya, she said that if she dies today that i could keep her dvds that i'm borrowing... i told her the same.

i called my husband and told him to come home right away. if i die, i want to be in his arms...

... my little brother is here with me. he is 20 years old. he is making some tea now. he believes it is going to be ok. we are supposed to be discussing a plan he has to make t-shirts with slogans on them to raise money for the relief shelter he is volunteering at.

this could be my last entry.. maybe...

i have thought of that every time i put up an entry... but today, i am writing it with real fear in my heart.

the violence continues... the hating continues...

how can we stop this? please help to stop this.

i am only 30 years old. i have not had children. i want children. i want to live. i want to grow old with my husband... i want my children to play with my friends children... simple things, i want.

i want to breathe good air again. i want to wake up without my stomach in a knot. i want to stop coughing and vomiting. i want to continue to believe in humanity.

my head is spinning from anxiety.

i will not accept death. it is not my time. there is still so much in life to experience... i want to smile.. and laugh... simple things, i want.

i will not say goodbye... i refuse to say goodbye.
posted by zena at 2:25 PM 36 comments

Tuesday, August 01, 2006
wow. i just realized it is already august. time is flying by so slowly, but so quickly at the same time... is that possible? i have totally lost track of time. every day is simply every day now.
posted by zena at 12:09 AM 38 comments

black dust
there is a black dust that is filling the air. we are breathing it in ... constantly. it has settled on my clothes, in my kitchen... it is everywhere. we are guessing it is from the Jiye power station that was bombed... it is still on fire... it is the power station from which the oil spill originated from.

today i had my first experience at queuing for gas. the shortages have arrived. so many gas stations have shut down. the few that are left have long queues.. i waited for 40 minutes.. and when my turn came, i was give $10 worth only.

i only have a few minutes left before the electricity gets cut. we are running on generator now and they usually turn it off at midnight...

everyone is talking about the depleted uranium in the bombs... it is everywhere now. in the air we breathe.. in the land... it will soon be in our crops... in our water... wow. every time i think that things can't get worse, they do.

i am already envisioning myself with cancer. i can feel it all around me. i don't know if i could be as strong as maya has been.

maya by the way is doing ok. she is now on about 5 different pain killers... they make her funny. whenever i call she answers... "hello. maya's house of pain.. can i help you." hehe. it's funnier when you hear it on the phone.

the sky is so dark tonight. there is no moon. beirut is quiet. death is all around me.
posted by zena at 12:02 AM 25 comments

Sunday, July 30, 2006
beirut update
dear citizens of earth,

please do not post political comments or comments of hate or blame on my blog. though i appreciate that everyone is entitled to their opinions, i do not want my blog to be a platform for political debate.

i am an artist, not a politician.

our beautiful world is in such a fragile state right now. let us rise above hate.

remember love.
remember love.
posted by zena at 5:16 PM 72 comments

posted by zena at 3:58 PM 13 comments

chasing oil
yesterday, a few of us got into a car and drove up the Lebanese coast line, northwards...in order to document the oil spill. we took pictures, video, and prepared a map that traced the movement of the oil slick.

though i was on the edge of having a panic attack the whole time, being afraid that at any time, the road, bridge or tunnel we were on could be bombed... it felt good to finally get out of beirut for a few hours... first time in a long time.

what we saw was horrendous. our glorious beaches... all covered in black. bays, rocks, crevices, hidden under a blanket of oil. i can not tell you how big this spill is. we went as far up as Anfe (which is about 10 minutes before Tripoli) before we had to turn back to Beirut in oder to make it to our evening interviews on time. the oil slick continues to travel north, eating up everything in its path. we heard it was reached Syria now.

Byblos (Jbeil) bay is completely smothered. this once picturesque and touristic town, also the oldest port city on Earth, is in ruins. we could smell the oil before we were anywhere close to the bay. this summer, the town was planning to celebrate its 7,000th birthday! there were huge festivities planned... so much went into it... now... nothing but this black plague.

we stopped to speak with a few fishermen. they are completely devastated. they have no means of income anymore. so many of them had fixed up their boats for this summer i hopes of giving tourists small boat trips around the coast. now, that is gone too.

i had a really bad headache all day... we were driving on the coastal road, stopped every few minutes to document.... the smell was so strong. when i got home, i blew my nose and the tissue was all black. i made sure to take a really good shower.

we were going to send out the press release, pics and video today, but we got even worse news...

there had been a massacre in Qana early this morning. history repeats itself. the Israelis dropped a bomb on a building that was sheltering refugees. the news at this point is that 55 were killed. mostly women and children... but the numbers are growing. the news is still fresh. it was only a few years ago that the Israelis did the same thing, except last time, it was a UN building that they hit. and over 100 people were killed. mostly women and children killed... why?? how can anyone be so inhumane?

i think Israel is the only country in the world that is allowed to hit UN posts and get away with it. only a few days ago, an UN post was hit in the South. UN peacekeepers died. to their families, i beg forgiveness. Lebanon is a beautiful country.. full of beautiful people. we all mourn your loss.

this whole attack has been one massacre after another. and still they persist. and still, it continues...

posted by zena at 2:42 PM 99 comments
About Me
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[Saundra Hummer]

-----------------
IRAQ THE WAR AT HOME

In case we all forgot, Americans are still dying in Iraq

Jimmy Breslin
August 6, 2006

By the way, there are many American soldiers fighting in the Middle East.

In case you haven't noticed, they get killed. A lot of them get killed.

I was watching the endless television coverage of Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon killing women and children and then picking up the papers to read almost exclusively of the same thing. I found no picture on television and almost no mention in newspapers of Americans dying.

The dead babies of Lebanon and those dismembered by rockets in Israel are considered to be glorious distractions that allow our government to stroll the hallways that appear to have no blood on the floors.

I made a call to the Defense Department: "How are our soldiers doing lately?"

"We've had a bad month," the man responded.

"How bad?"

"Stay there and you'll see."

There now came faxes detailing American soldiers who died in Iraq since July 1. There have been 50 who died since then.

We list below who they are and where they are from, and the statistic that causes all to retch: the age.

We cannot list the entire number of dead in Iraq, for 2,583 Americans have been lost so far. And counting every day.

There also have been 19,270 wounded, with such injuries as legs blown off, young men with shattered backs being placed in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives, genitals lost, brains numbed by flying ball bearings, faces left in half by flames.

The television and newspaper coverage of this has been weak, lazy, fearful. What there is of it, you watch and read with clenched teeth.

Once, on HBO, they showed a young soldier on the table and the whine of a saw sounded as it went through the bone of his leg being amputated. This should be on day and night.

The obligation of reporting is to tell and tell and tell of the deaths and great injuries of young Americans sent to die by old draft dodgers in Washington.

How old was the kid on the table? What could he be? Twenty-two?

He stayed the course in Iraq.

What did it get him? He loses a leg.

Just as he was in his great college appearances, Bush is a cheerleader for any war that can be fought by somebody else's kids.

"I grieve for the children of Beirut."

"My heart truly goes out to the people of Haifa."

The vice president, Dick Cheney, is a serial draft dodger: five deferments, a national record.

The strategy for the Middle East is to keep Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon fighting. Keep all attention on them. If they ever stop, then everybody would look at Americans dying.

"We didn't know," Erin Tinsley, 37, was saying late Friday. "We didn't know what they were here for. Two military women."

Erin was in the hot 10th-floor hallway of the Alfred E. Smith houses on the downtown East Side. Two doors down from her lived the parents of Haiming Hsia, an Army specialist who died Tuesday in an explosion in in Iraq.

"The father let the military women in and then when they came out, he stood there and seemed fine. I thought that they had brought an award for his son."

Erin said she didn't know how long afterward, an hour, maybe two, before the words of the Army officers exploded inside him. He collapsed, and on Friday, somebody from the family said that his wife, the soldier's mother, was unable to cope.

"President Bush took away my son, my only son," the mother had said.

Just this once, there was no poor, helpless family member saying that they were proud that their son had died in this war.

Don't ever say that the young man had died in vain, because that is the icy truth of Iraq that people often cannot handle.

"I grew up with him," Erin Tinsley was saying on Friday. "We went to PS 126 and IS 131. We used to run up and down the hall. Playing soldier. The last time I saw him was in April. He was home, but he said that he had to go back."

Spc. Hsia joined the Army because he couldn't make enough as a security guard to support a wife and baby. He spent three years in the Middle East and wanted to come home for good, but part of the secret of Iraq is that we don't have enough soldiers. He was ordered back.

This time Hsia was in Iraq for a month. Now he returns to the Alfred E. Smith houses in a box.

He is placed on the list with other U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since July 1.


CPL. PHILIP E. BAUCUS, 28, Wolf Creek, Mo. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

CPL. NATHANIEL S. BAUGHMAN, 23, Monticello, Ind. With 101st Airborne Division. Died of injuries sustained when his Humvee encountered enemy forces' rocket-propelled grenades during patrol operations in Bayji.

LANCE CPL. ANTHONY E. BUTTERFIELD, 19, Clovis, Calif. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

SPC. STEPHEN W. CASTNER, 27, Cedarburg, Wis. With Wisconsin Army National Guard. Died of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Humvee during combat operations in Tallil.

LANCE CPL. GEOFREY R. CAYER, 20, Fitchburg, Mass. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Died in a nonhostile incident in Anbar province. The incident is under investigation.

SGT. ANDRES J. CONTRERAS, 23, Huntington Park, Calif. With 1st Combat Support Brigade. Died of injuries sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.

LANCE CPL. KURT E. DECHEN, 24, of Springfield, Vt. With I Marine Expeditionary Force. Died from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

STAFF SGT. MICHAEL A. DICKINSON III, 26, Battle Creek, Mich. With 4th Psychological Operations Group, U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Killed when his dismounted patrol encountered enemy forces' small-arms fire in Ramadi.

STAFF SGT. DUANE J. DREASKY, 31, Novi, Mich. With Michigan Army National Guard. Died at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Humvee in Habbaniya.[/U


STAFF SGT. JASON M. EVEY, 29, Stockton, Calif. With 2nd Brigade Combat Team. [U]Died of injuries sustained when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device during combat operations in Baghdad.

CPL. ADAM J. FARGO, 22, Ruckersville, Va. With 101st Airborne Division. Died of injuries sustained when his convoy encountered enemy forces' small-arms fire in Baghdad.

STAFF SGT. OMAR D. FLORES, 27, Mission, Texas. With 130th Engineer Brigade. One of three soldiers killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their Mine Protected Vehicle during combat operations in Ramadi.

SGT. ALKAILA T. FLOYD, 23, Grand Rapids, Mich. With 130th Engineer Brigade. Died at Landstuhl Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Mine Protected Vehicle in Ramadi.

SGT. JOSHUA A. FORD, 20, Wayne, Neb. With the Army National Guard 485th Corps Support Battalion. Died during combat operations in Al Numaniyah.

SPC. JOSEPH A. GRAVES, 21, Discovery Bay, Calif. With the 89th Military Police Brigade. Killed in action while conducting combat operations north of Baghdad.

PFC. JASON HANSON, 21, Forks, Wash. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.


SGT. IRVING HERNANDEZ JR., 28, Manhattan. With 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Killed when he encountered enemy small-arms fire during combat operations in Mosul.

LANCE CPL. JAMES W. HIGGINS, 22, Frederick, Md. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Died of wounds received during combat in Anbar province.

SGT. MANUEL J. HOLGUIN, 21, Woodlake, Calif. With 1st Armored Division. Died of injuries sustained when his dismounted patrol encountered enemy small-arms fire and a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

SPC. HAIMING HSIA, 37, Manhattan. With 1st Armored Division. Died Aug. 1 during combat operations in Ramadi.

SGT. RYAN D. JOPEK, 20, Merrill, Wis. With Army National Guard's 127th Infantry Regiment. Died in Tikrit of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his convoy.

PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS EDWARD A. KOTH, 30, Towson, Md. With Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Eight. Died after ordnance exploded during a disposal operation at Camp Victory.

SGT. DUSTIN D. LAIRD, 23, Martin, Tenn. With the Army National Guard's 46th Engineer Battalion. Died in Al Qaim of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations in Rawah.

PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS MARC A. LEE, 28, of Hood River, Ore. Lee was an aviation ordnanceman and a member of a West Coast-based SEAL Team. He was killed during combat operations while on patrol in Ramadi.

SPC. TROY C. LINDEN, 22, Detroit Lakes, Minn. With 130th Engineer Brigade. One of three soldiers killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their Mine Protected Vehicle during combat operations in Ramadi.

PFC. COLLIN T. MASON, 20, Staten Island. With 4th Infantry Division. Killed after encountering direct fire while manning a checkpoint in his vehicle in Taji.

SPC. JOSEPH P. MICKS, 22, Rapid River, Mich. With 130th Engineer Brigade. One of three soldiers killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their Mine Protected Vehicle during combat operations in Ramadi.

SPC. DAMIEN M. MONTOYA, 23, Holbrook, Ariz. With 4th Infantry. Died from a non-combat-related cause in Baghdad.

LANCE CPL. ADAM R. MURRAY, 21, Cordova, Tenn. With 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

SGT. JUSTIN L. NOYES, 23, Vinita, Okla. With 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force. Killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

STAFF SGT. PAUL S. PABLA, 23, Fort Wayne, Ind. With Indiana Army National Guard. Killed by small arms fire during combat operations in Mosul.

CAPT. CHRISTOPHER T. PATE, 29, Hampstead, N.C. With 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

PFC. DEREK J. PLOWMAN, 20, Everton, Ark. With Arkansas Army National Guard. Died from a gunshot wound in Baghdad.

STAFF SGT. KENNETH I. PUGH, 39, Houston. With 4th Infantry Division. Died of injuries sustained when his M1A1 Abrams tank encountered enemy forces small arms fire in Baghdad.

CPL. JULIAN A. RAMON, 22, Flushing. With 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Died during combat operations in Anbar province.

CPL. TIMOTHY ROOS, 21, Cincinnati. With 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Died of wounds received while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

CAPT. BLAKE H. RUSSELL, 35, Fort Worth, Texas. With 101st Airborne Division. Died of injuries sustained from enemy forces munitions while investigating a possible mortar cache during combat operations in Baghdad.

SPC. DENNIS K. SAMSON JR., 24, Hesperia, Mich. With 101st Airborne Division. Died of injuries sustained when he came under enemy small-arms fire in Taqaddum.

PFC. ENRIQUE C. SANCHEZ, 21, Garner, N.C. With 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

SGT. 1ST CLASS SCOTT R. SMITH, 34, Punxsutawney, Pa. With 52nd Ordnance Group. Died of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near a controlled ordnance clearing mission in Iskandariya.

STAFF. SGT. CHRISTOPHER W. SWANSON, 25, Rose Haven, Md. With 1st Armored Division. Died of injuries sustained when his patrol encountered enemy forces using small-arms fire in Ramadi.

PETTY OFFICER 1ST CLASS JERRY A. THARP, 44, Aledo, Ill. With Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 25. Killed when his dismounted patrol was struck by a roadside bomb while operating in Anbar province.

CPL. JOSEPH A. TOMCI, 21, Stow, Ohio. With II Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

SGT. THOMAS B. TURNER JR., 31, Cottonwood, Calif. With 101st Airborne Division. Died at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Muqdadiya.

SGT. GEORGE M. ULLOA JR., 23, of Austin, Texas. With II Marine Expeditionary Force. Died from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

SGT. MARK R. VECCHIONE, 25, Tucson, Ariz. With 1st Armored Division. Died of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his M1A1 Abrams tank in Ramadi.

CPL. MATTHEW P. WALLACE, 22, Lexington Park, Md. With 4th Infantry Division. Died of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle during combat operations in Baghdad.

AIRMAN 1ST CLASS CARL JEROME WARE JR., 22, Glassboro, N.J. With 15th Security Forces Squadron. Died from a non-combat-related cause at Camp Bucca.

CAPT. JASON M. WEST, 28, Pittsburgh. With 1st Armored Division. Killed by enemy forces using small arms fire in Ramadi.

SGT. CHRISTIAN B. WILLIAMS, 27, Winter Haven, Fla. With 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nybres064842623aug06,0,3954211,print.column?coll=n y-nynews-print

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»Helen Thomas: Inveterate First Lady of the Washington Press Corps

Helen Thomas:
The First Lady of the Washington Press Corps

Former White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas has for years been recognized as The First Lady of the Washington Press Corps. Thomas served as the major journalistic pioneer who almost single-handedly spearheaded the destruction of barriers against women reporters in the media. During her years reporting news at the White House, she provided coverage of every President since John F. Kennedy.

In November, 1960, Helen Thomas began covering then President elect John F. Kennedy, following him to the White House in January, 1961 as a member of the UPI team. It was during this first White House assignment that she began closing presidential press conferences with “Thank you, Mr. President.” She was the only woman newspaper journalist to travel with President Nixon to China during his breakthrough trip in January, 1972. She also traveled around the world several times with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. During the course of of those years, she covered every Economic Summit. Sources have frequently cited her as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in America.

Ann Coulter, Eat Your Heart Out….

A Video Presentation of Vintage Helen Thomas: Helen Thomas with Jon Stewart


This entry was written by disembedded and posted on July 6, 2006 at 4:37 am and is filed under Media, Video, Political, Cultural, Personalties, *


Go on-site to view this video with Jon Stewart and many others, along with print articles. Just click on the following link:

http://disembedded.wordpress.com/

[lotech]

http://www.masada2000.org/templemount.html

[Saundra Hummer]

http://www.masada2000.org/templemount.html

Go on site to view this article in it's entirety:
http://www.masada2000.org/templemount.html
THE TEMPLE MOUNT
EYE ON REALITY


Israel, Jerusalem, Temple Mount, Islam, Moslem, Muslim, Jewish, History, Intifada, Palestinian Intifada, History of Jerusalem, History of the Temple Mount, Palestine
Below are portions of an article written in WorldNetDaily by Joseph Farah
"B-E-T-W-E-E-N T-H-E L-I-N-E-S"
Myths of the Middle East by Joseph Farah
Wednesday, October 11, 2000

If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right? Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.
What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem. Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal truth from anyone else in the international media. It's just not politically correct.

I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites." Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem! With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem. So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam?



Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets -- myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon.* It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats. I know what it's like. I've been there. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?

So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? Well, frankly, I don't think there is a man-made solution to the violence. But, if there is one, it needs to begin with truth. Pretending will only lead to more chaos. Treating a 5,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and wants gives diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.


* Note: We beg to differ with Joseph Farah on this one point.
The violence started the day BEFORE Sharon went up to the Temple Mount.
In fact, the Arab Violence was planned months before after the failed Camp David.
Sharon didnt just go to the temple mount, HE applied for a permit from the waqf,
the ARABS KNEW he was coming and planned the intafada accordingly!
There was nothing spontaneous about the Arab violence!

We appreciate Joseph Farah's honesty and only wish more Arab-Americans would come forward
with the same courage and honesty. Talk about the proverbial "Needle in the Haystack!"

Joseph Farah, a Christian Arab-American journalist, is the editor and chief executive officer
of WorldNetDaily.com, a leading independent news site.

..

FFor Maps, Graphics and Photos Showing
East and West Jerusalem, The Old City of Jerusalem
and the Temple Mount, Click HERE

or...

Go Back to Masada2000.org Home Page Menu

I'm in total agreement that anyone should be able to visit anywhere at all in any country going to any holy sight they wish. If Sharron wished to visit Medina, the holy rock, then he should be allowed to. However, with his past history, he knew exactely what would happen if he were to go to the Temple Mount. His name in the Middle East conjurs up images that I for one would like to never have learned of. Much as our Twin Towers and the other tragedies that happened on Septermber 11th, conjure up images we will never come to terms with, so are the memories of Airel Sharron. If it were planned well in advance, it is the fact that he is so reviled that made it acceptable to many in the area. However, it is violence which is resorted as an accepted method to try to make things better, not the peace table, it is violence which brings in donations and government assistance, not peaceful means, at least not in as bountiful expressions of support as both sides would wish for.

It's not that the Jews, the Israeli's need or will, ever forget the deaths from suicide bombers and other tragic injustices they have suffered as well. But look, just look where all of this is headed. There must be a way to stop this rush towards doomsday. My heart goes out to all who suffer in these conflicts, I just can't stay with only one victim, as there are just too many of them out there, the ones we call the innocents.
SRH

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AMAZING,
IT TRULY IS!
DON'T THESE PEOPLE EVER READ?
SRH
Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD

By
CHARLES J. HANLEY,
AP Special Correspondent
1 hour, 15 minutes ago

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in IraqPeople tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq..

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents — up from 36 percent last year — said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."

Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.

"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.

Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book — at best uncorroborated hearsay — claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.

But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.

"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."

Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.

The facts are that Iraq — after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections — acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.

As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."

"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.

Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.

"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.

Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.

"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.

Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.

"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."

The creative "morphing" goes on.

As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.

"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?" asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc.

http://news.yahoo.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

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MIDDLE EAST:
WAR IN LEBANON PROMPTS INTERNET BLOG BOOM
Beirut, 4 August (AKI) - Young Lebanese are trying to break the isolation brought upon by the war with Israel by expressing their thoughts are recounting their experiences on Internet web logs, or blogs and online diaries. To communicate with the outside world many of the blogs are in English. One of around 15 popular sites that have sprung up since the conflict began on 12 July is LebanonsUpdates which provides a chronology of the fighting and the diplomatic moves afoot to bring peace.

Operated by a group of eight friends in their 20s the site also provides maps indicating areas struck in the Israeli air raids and a list of the dead and injured.

But the blog does not only serve as a source of information.

Through a link, visitors can connect with another site, Samidoun (the resistance fighters) were they can sign up to work as rescuers in the areas targeted in the Israel attacks.

Another blog, SiegeofLebanon works more like a traditional journal of events, informing visitors about the latest petrol shortages and where they may find fuel suppplies.

Personal accounts by people caught up in the violence are also posted on the site.

Some blogs are far more political in tone like LebanonScope, a site collecting anti-Hezbollah opinons. In a recent piece, Samy Gemayel, scion of one of Lebanon's most powerful Christian Maroniet faimilies (Bashir Gemayel, who as a pro-Israeli Lebanese president was assasinated in 1982) accuse Hezbollah, which he describes as "an armed movement wearing the uniform of revolutionary Islam".

Lebanonscope also contains criticism aimed at another Shiite grouping, Amal, lead by Lebanese parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri. The party is described as "corrupt" and as a stooge of Syria.

But some of the country's anti-Syrian politicians are also not spared from the criticism. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, whose Progressive Socialist Party forms part of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's coalition government, is accused of having "supported for 15 years Syria's interference in Lebanon."

The current Lebanese political system, Lebanonscope concludes, "can't guarantee prosperity and peace, and especially cultural pluralism in Lebanon.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=CultureAndMedia&loid=8.0.327876055&par=0#

[Saundra Hummer]

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WE'RE IN FOR A BUMPY RIDE
HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE!
SRH

Syria ready for regional war: FM
Monday, August 07, 2006


* 15 Israelis, 9 Lebanese civilians killed in violence
* UN mulls draft resolution
* Iran, Syria reject draft
* Putin wants immediate ceasefire

TRIPOLI: Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday that Damascus was ready for regional war and will respond “immediately” to any Israeli attack.

“We will respond to any Israeli aggression immediately,” he said on his arrival in Lebanon for an Arab foreign ministers’ meeting.

Asked by reporters in the main northern city of Tripoli about the possibility of a regional war, Muallem said: “Welcome to the regional war.”
Meanwhile, a Hezbollah rocket killed 15 Israelis, including 12 soldiers, and Israeli bombs killed 11 in Lebanon as the UN Security Council considered a US-French draft resolution to end the conflict.

The soldiers were killed and at least nine were wounded when a rocket struck a group of reservists in the northern village of Kfar Giladi in the deadliest Hezbollah rocket strike of the war. At least three people were killed and 160 wounded in heavy rocket fire on the Israeli city of Haifa.

Nine civilians, a Lebanese soldier and a Palestinian militant were killed, while three Chinese UN peacekeepers were wounded in crossfire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas.

The draft of the UN Security Council resolution calls for “the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations” – implicitly giving Israel the right to pursue “defensive” operations.

Israel views the draft favourably, a senior government official and Israeli media said, noting that it did not order Israel to withdraw its 10,000 soldiers from southern Lebanon. Lebanon wants the draft UN resolution changed to include an explicit demand for a full Israeli pullout from southern Lebanon, a government source said.

Hezbollah’s two key allies, Iran and Syria, rejected the draft cease-fire resolution – suggesting they back a continued fight by the guerrillas.

The Israeli army said on Sunday it had captured one of the Hezbollah guerrillas who took part in the abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

The US would like a second UN resolution, setting conditions for a permanent ceasefire and authorising an international force in the area, in days and not weeks, US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned that a UN resolution will not stop all the fighting in southern Lebanon but is a first step towards a lasting cessation of violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister Tony Blair “of the need for an immediate halt to hostilities” in Lebanon. agencies
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\08\07\story_7-8-2006_pg1_1

An action such as this, threats such as this, is what those among us who don't think war should be an option, what those of us who were hoping for a peaceful resolution are words we hoped we would never hear.

Now what will the chorus sound like when others in the region start with their threats and saber rattling, then what will our own threats be? Then will Venezuela chime in and what will North Korea, and others start adding to this already overflowing powder keg of a situation we in this world live in?

These are the craziest times I can remember. Nothing makes a lick of sense.

What weapons will we use to insure the oil keeps flowing?

A fellow we know says "Kill them all, we need the oil." He was dead serious.
SRH

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Israeli pilots 'deliberately miss' targets
Fliers admit aborting raids on civilian targets as concern grows over the reliability of intelligence
Inigo Gilmore at Hatzor Air Base, Israel
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer

At least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed civilian targets in Lebanon as disquiet grows in the military about flawed intelligence, The Observer has learnt. Sources say the pilots were worried that targets had been wrongly identified as Hizbollah facilities.
Voices expressing concern over the armed forces' failures are getting louder. One Israeli cabinet minister said last week: 'We gave the army so much money. Why are we getting these results?' Last week saw Hizbollah's guerrilla force, dismissed by senior Israeli military officials as 'ragtag', inflict further casualties on one of the world's most powerful armies in southern Lebanon. At least 12 elite troops, the equivalent of Britain's SAS, have already been killed, and by yesterday afternoon Israel's military death toll had climbed to 45.

As the bodies pile up, so the Israeli media has begun to turn, accusing the military of lacking the proper equipment, training and intelligence to fight a guerrilla war in Lebanon. Israel's Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, on a tour of the front lines, was confronted by troubled reserve soldiers who told him they lacked proper equipment and training.

Israel's chief of staff, Major-General Dan Halutz, had vowed to wipe out Hizbollah's missile threat within 10 days. These claims are now being mocked as rockets rain down on Israel's north with ever greater intensity, despite an intense and highly destructive air bombardment.

As one well-connected Israeli expert put it: 'If we have such good information in Lebanon, how come we still don't know the hideout of missiles and launchers?... If we don't know the location of their weapons, why should we know which house is a Hizbollah house?'

As international outrage over civilian deaths grows, the spotlight is increasingly turning on Israeli air operations. The Observer has learnt that one senior commander who has been involved in the air attacks in Lebanon has already raised concerns that some of the air force's actions might be considered 'war crimes'.

Yonatan Shapiro, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot dismissed from reserve duty after signing a 'refusenik' letter in 2004, said he had spoken with Israeli F-16 pilots in recent days and learnt that some had aborted missions because of concerns about the reliability of intelligence information. According to Shapiro, some pilots justified aborting missions out of 'common sense' and in the context of the Israeli Defence Force's moral code of conduct, which says every effort should be made to avoiding harming civilians.

Shapiro said: 'Some pilots told me they have shot at the side of targets because they're afraid people will be there, and they don't trust any more those who give them the coordinates and targets.'

He added: 'One pilot told me he was asked to hit a house on a hill, which was supposed to be a place from where Hizbollah was launching Katyusha missiles. But he was afraid civilians were in the house, so he shot next to the house ...

'Pilots are always being told they will be judged on results, but if the results are hundreds of dead civilians while Hizbollah is still able to fire all these rockets, then something is very wrong.'

So far none of the pilots has publicly refused to fly missions but some are wobbling, according to Shapiro. He said: 'Their target could be a house firing a cannon at Israel and it could be a house full of children, so it's a real dilemma; it's not black and white. But ... I'm calling on them to refuse, in order save our country from self-destruction.'

Meron Rappoport, a former editor at the Israeli daily Haaretz and military analyst, criticised the air force's methods for selecting targets: 'The impression is that information is sometimes lacking. One squadron leader admitted the evidence used to determine attacks on cars is sometimes circumstantial - meaning that if people are in an area after Israeli forces warned them to leave, the assumption is that those left behind must be linked to Hizbollah ... This is problematic, as aid agencies have said many people did not leave ... because they could not, or it was unsafe to travel on the roads thanks to Israel's aerial bombardment.'

These revelations raise further serious questions about the airstrike in Qana last Sunday that left dozens dead, which continues to arouse international outrage. From the outset, the Israeli military's version of events has been shrouded in ambiguity, with the army releasing a video it claims shows Katyusha rockets being fired from Qana, even though the video was dated two days earlier, and claiming that more than 150 rockets had been fired from the location.

Some IDF officials have continued to refer vaguely to Katyushas being launched 'near houses' in the village and to non-specific 'terrorist activity' inside the targeted building. In a statement on Thursday, the IDF said it the air force did not know there were civilians in what they believed was an empty building, yet paradoxically blamed Hizbollah for using those killed as 'human shields'.

Human rights groups have attacked the findings as illogical. Amnesty International described the investigation as a 'whitewash', saying Israeli intelligence must have been aware of the civilians'.

One Israeli commander from a different squadron called the Qana bombing a 'mistake' and was unable to explain the apparent contradiction in the IDF's position, although he insisted there would have been no deliberate targeting of civilians. He said he had seen the video of the attack, and admitted: 'Generally they [Hizbollah] are using human shields ... That specific building - I don't know the reason it was chosen as a target.'

Special reports
Israel & the Middle East
Lebanon and Syria

News blog
02.08.06: Israel's media offensive
02.08.06: Israel's reserve forces
31.07.06: 'They did it again'
21.07.06: An explosive image

Finally something which gives us hope.
SRH

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1838437,00.html

[Saundra Hummer]

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U.S. sanctions companies dealing with Iran
8/5/2006 9:00:00 AM GMT

(AFP Photo) The Bush’s administration announced sanctions Friday against seven foreign companies.

Go on-site to view photo's.

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=12416

The Bush administration announced sanctions Friday against seven foreign companies, including two from India and two from Russia, for high-tech business dealings with the Islamic Republic, The Associated Press reported.

The sanctions, announced in the U.S. government's official journal, the Federal Register, prohibit the seven companies from doing business with the U.S. government or acquiring American high-technology items.

The sanctions are the latest to be imposed under the Iran Non-Proliferation Act of 2000, which includes penalties for sales to Iran of ballistic missile technology and other items that could contribute to weapons of mass destruction program.

The Russian foreign ministry described the U.S. actions as part of unlawful efforts to force foreign companies to follow American rules, adding that the Bush administration is punishing its own companies by taking away their possibilities to cooperate with Russian firms.

But State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said he was unaware of any formal protest from Moscow.

"This is a matter of U.S. law," he told reporters. "Non-proliferation is, you know, if not the highest certainly one of the highest priorities that we have. We're very serious about it,

"We're serious about following this law, and the decisions rendered here, which were taken after a lot of thorough and careful review, are reflective of that."

As the U.S. government insists on taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council if Iran refused to permanently halt its nuclear activities, or failed to resume negotiations on limiting its nuclear program, Russia continues to engage openly with Iran.

Russia considers its strong ties with the Islamic Republic as well as Syria in its national interests. Its financial gains from cooperation with both countries stand to be very considerable, and this may be just a beginning of future cooperation.

Moscow believes that Western concerns about nuclear proliferation merely reflect commercial interests to exclude Russia from competitive markets.

In September 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated: "According to our information, many Western European and American companies cooperate with Iran either directly or through intermediary organizations in the nuclear sphere."

Also according to some Russian analysts, even in the absence of official contracts, U.S.-Iranian trade turnover was about US$1 billion, which was higher than that of Russia, despite the Russia-Iran strategic partnership agreement.

Prior the Islamic revolution in Iran, Washington and Tehran signed a contract worth $24 billion, which provided for U.S. assistance in establishing eight nuclear power plants in Iran within 10 years.

Related stories...

Iran: Oil could hit $200 if U.S. pursues sanctions
UN resolution steps up pressure on Iran
World powers send Iran back to UN
EU resumes nuclear talks with Iran
“U.S. determined to topple Iran’s gov’t”
U.S. gives Iran ultimatum on Uranium
Iran, Syria sign defense pact
Iran seeks Chinese, Russian support
Iran offers counter-package to nuclear incentives
IAEA finds highly enriched uranium traces in Iran
World powers agree on Iran nuclear package
Iran welcomes U.S. talks offer, but rejects conditions
U.S. conditionally prepared to join Iran nuclear talks
Russia to execute missile contract with Iran
World powers try to resolve difference over Iran
U.S. resorts to blackmail to pressure Iran

[Saundra Hummer]

---------------------
War drumbeat drowns out Israeli protesters

By
Jonathan Saul
Mon Aug 7, 2006 12:14 PM ET

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Waving colorful banners and singing protest songs, a tireless band of Israeli demonstrators is trying to end the war in Lebanon.

Few are taking notice.
"We understand we don't represent the consensus. Everyone is asleep," said Uri Even-Chen, 36, a computer programmer from the town of Ranana, during a weekend street march in Tel Aviv.

Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Hizbollah, sparked when the guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

The death, damage and panic caused by Hizbollah's rockets have only hardened attitudes -- more than 2,700 missiles have slammed into northern Israel, killing 48 people.

Those views have been reflected in the tiny street protests.

By contrast, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated at the height of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when the army sought to cripple Palestinian militants living there.

In one of the biggest rallies to date, around 2,000 people turned out in Tel Aviv at the weekend. Many carried communist and anarchist flags and banners belonging to Arab Israeli movements -- hardly the Israeli mainstream.

"The majority who support opposition to the war are from the radical left," said protester Amit Ramon, 42, a high-tech worker. "The mainstream left is no longer left."

Anti-war groups have demanded an immediate ceasefire and negotiations with Hizbollah over prisoners.

At the weekend rally in Tel Aviv, veteran peace campaigner Yael Dayan was booed off a stage for urging the safe return of all of Israel's soldiers fighting in Lebanon, underscoring how far removed protesters remain from most Israelis.

"There is no mainstream political opposition (to the war)," Israeli analyst Mark Heller said. "This is basically seen as a legitimate response to a serious challenge from somebody else."

Anti-war activists remain frustrated that protest groups such as Peace Now have not opposed the government.

The group, at the forefront of opposition to the previous war in Lebanon, insists Israel had the right to respond to attacks on its soil. Other dovish bodies such as political party Meretz have been virtually silent in opposition to the war.

Many in the protest camp have turned on Defense Minister Amir Peretz, a former labor union leader and avowed supporter of negotiations with the Palestinians.

"Peretz wants to be a hero and we are suffering because of it," said demonstrator Yoav Bar, 51, an electrician from Haifa.

Many traditional supporters of bodies such as Peace Now find it difficult to identify with the current anti-war groups.

I supported the anti-war rallies in the 1980s but this is different," Shmuel Adar, 71, from Tel Aviv said.

"This is a defensive war and it is clear that there is an intention to attack and destroy Israel -- just look at the amount of rockets fired."

With Israel possibly set to expand its offensive in Lebanon, opposition still looks feeble but protesters are not giving up.

In the northern city of Haifa, one of Hizbollah's favorite targets, sporadic protests have been held, with very little backing from the city's embattled residents.

"We remain distant voices but what Israel is doing in Lebanon is shocking ... Opposition will build up," said Yoni Yeheskiel, 23, a student at one Haifa rally.
Go on-site to view photo.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-08-07T161422Z_01_L07734006_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PROTESTERS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage3

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved

----------

[Saundra Hummer]

NO QUARTER
Tired of Spin in the No Spin Zone? Wanting some Hardball but tired of a host that tosses NERF balls? This blog takes no prisoners and offers no quarter on issues of your security in today's dangerous world. We don't care if you agree or disagree with us. We only care that you think about what we write.« The Neocons' Next War | Main | Bush's Middle East Strategery: For Toddlers »

Friday, 04 August 2006
“I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”
"Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq," Raw Story reports on the revelations in the new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, by the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Galbraith reports that the three spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”
Small wonder, with such a pathetically ignorant president, the United States is succeeding only in growing hatred and terrorism, even as Dear Leader thinks he's spreading democracy:

Leslie has been commenting on the demonstrations, particularly that in Baghdad today. Here's one demonstration that hasn't received as much attention:

About 100 demonstrators threw stones and firebombs at the British Embassy in Tehran on Friday, damaging the building but not harming anyone as they accused Britain and the United States of being accomplices in Israel's fight against Hezbollah.
Demonstrators also smashed some of the building's windows as they called for its closure and the expulsion of the British ambassador. (Forbes)


Another story claims that "thousands" demonstrated against Israel in Tehran.

Billmon has some great insights on these demonstrations. From "A Mukhabarat Moment":

... [T]he massive security and military establishments that keep pro-American Arab puppet rulers (like Jordan's King Abdullah or Egypt's Hosni Mubarak) sitting precariously on their thrones are getting quite a stress test right now, thanks to the Anglo-Israeli onslaught on Lebanon.
Regarding the demonstration that Leslie's been mentioning, last night, I caught this report from INN World Report (via Free Speech TV; view video):

Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has organized a "Million Man March" in support of Lebanon's Hezbollah. Chanting "Death to America. Death to Israel," thousands of Iraqi Shia, some wearing white shrouds signifying their willingness to become martyrs, are convoying to Baghdad for a Friday rally. The rally is to be held in the Shia stronghold of Sadr City, which has a population of two million and its own armed Sadr militia.
The rally comes at a very tense time in US–Shia relations, and there are very real fears Al-Sadr's march might spark revenge attacks against American troops.

Already there are unconfirmed reports that US troops have fired on an Al-Sadr convoy on the Najaf–Baghdad road, with one protester dead and at least 17 injured.

Shia and Sunni in Iraq and worldwide are blaming the US for Israel's assault on both Lebanon and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.


The MSM is reporting there were over 100,000 demonstrators (Middle East Times). Amy Goodman says the number was 250,000.

"Demonstrators bearing yellow Hizbullah flags, white shrouds, and portraits of the Shia group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, thronged a kilometer-long street in the teeming Sadr City district of the Iraqi capital."

CAPTION: "Iraqi Shia men carry their weapons during a protest in Baghdad's Sadr City August 4. Over 100,000 supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr massed in Baghdad Friday to protest against Israel's offensive in Lebanon.
(REUTERS)"

[I]For a truly sobering experience -- more like an ice cold shower than a warming cup of joe -- read Billmon's "The War Party." A snippet:

If the United States were to begin pulling troops out of Iraq now, it would be interpreted correctly throughout the Middle East as an open admission of defeat -- one that would likely lead fairly quickly to a complete American evacuation of the country. (Maybe not literally by landing helicopters on the roof of the embassy, but all in the region would understand the military reality that as the force grows smaller it will become progressively more dangerous to keep it in Iraq.)
Such an outcome could force well Iraq's Shi'a political leaders to snuggle up even more tightly to Iran, if only as a matter of physical survival. If the full-scale civil war everyone seems to expect were to break out following an American withdrawal, Baghdad might even feel compelled to call in Iranian troops. At a minimum, Iran could be left with enormous influence over, if not outright control of, the Iraqi government and its security forces. Access to Iraqi air space would give Iran a direct resupply corridor to Syria, and, through Syria, to Hizbullah. A ground presence could provide Tehran with a direct ground link -- call it the Ayatollah Khomeini Trail -- assuming the Kurds could be bought off and/or intimidated, or the Sunni belt pacified (one shudders to think of what that might involve.)

Presto: one Shi'a crescent to go.

Of course, it might not actually come to this -- or if it did it might not come quickly. But the fact remains that the U.S. Army is the only significant force standing between Iran and it's closest allies, and thus between Iran and Israel. If, as it now seems, Washington and Jerusalem both perceive Iran as the primary threat (and/or target for aggression) in the region, then there is no real distinction between America's occupation of Iraq and Israel's intended re-occupation of southern Lebanon. They are, in essence, both part of the next war.

It seems increasingly probable that that war will come soon -- perhaps as early as November or December ...


"I think we've run out of time," Billmon writes. "Events -- from 9/11 on -- have moved too fast and pushed us too far towards the clash of civilizations that most sane people dread but the neocons desperately want. The Dems are now just the cadet branch of the War Party ..."

Lord help us. Well, if Billmon's speculations come true, I'm blaming CNN's Paula "End Of Days" Zahn and MSNBC's Alison "The Most End Of Days" Stewart. (Has FOX done an "end of times" story yet?)

At least now Bush knows there are different sects of Islam. Perhaps he'll make them fight each other to the death. Nah. He's just venal, not diabolically clever.

Posted by SusanUnPC on Friday, 04 August 2006 at 17:50 | Permalink
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Comments
those comments about his education appear to continue to haunt us.
the idea that this fellow got through high school is most humorous. to have graduated Yale, goes beyond comedy.

would it matter if an endowment neatly assured his graduation? do we know of any such?

Posted by: oldtree | Friday, 04 August 2006 at 18:43

Well, I'll be damned...Bush is uniting Muslims everywhere. From the INN World Report above: "Shia and Sunni in Iraq and worldwide are blaming the US for Israel's assault on both Lebanon and the Palestinian Gaza Strip."

Bush's incompetence and arrogance knows no bounds. How could Bush possibly imagine that Iraq wouldn't erupt into civil war once Hussein was deposed? Now we know why he couldn't. No one in the administration thought to read up on the history and culture of Iraq. Duh!

I used to think Bush was on al Qaeda's payroll. Now I think he's on al Qaeda's and Iran's. He's certainly done a lot to help them both. God, I hope Israel and Hezbollah get tired of bombing each other soon, and this proxy war between Iran and the US doesn't escalate into all out war.

Posted by: Leslie | Friday, 04 August 2006 at 19:07

IMO, Billmon's been doing the best commenting on the Middle East I've seen. Too bad he isn't in on the councils of the great and powerful.

I think we're facing a perfect storm of inter-related catastrophes -- World War III, Peak Oil, Global Warming, and fragility of the global financial system the chief among them. I'm not sure I agree with Billmon that WW3 is the worst of them. Whichever is worse, it is hard to imagine Bush could do anything more to "bring them on" if he were trying.

I'm tempted to think he is trying, except that there are a lot of neocons who aren't evangelical Christians who agree with him point by point. In any case, like Billmon, I'm pretty well resigned to the inevitable. I just hope there's enough left to put the pieces back together when it's all over.

Posted by: shargash | Friday, 04 August 2006 at 19:27

billmon is partially right