Friday 15 August 2003

Poor regulation blamed
The day the lights went out
Aug 15th 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
President George Bush has ordered an inquiry into a massive power failure affecting up to 60m North Americans. Whatever the immediate cause, an overloaded transmission system and poor regulation may be the real culprits

Conservative abuse of power is not new...
A NEW REPUBLICAN BREED
A 'Big Government Conservatism'
George Bush hasn't put a name to his political philosophy, but we can.
BY FRED BARNES
Wall Street Journal Opinion
Friday, August 15, 2003
Is President Bush really a conservative? When that question came up this summer, the White House went into crisis mode. Bush aides summoned several of Washington's conservative journalists to a 6:30 a.m. breakfast at the White House to press the case for the president's adherence to conservative principles. Aides outnumbered journalists. Other conservative writers and broadcasters were invited to luncheon sessions. They heard a similar spiel.
Being a big government conservative doesn't bring Mr. Bush close to being a moderate, much less a liberal.

Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House
The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights
By Greg Palast, 15 August 2003
EXCERPT: I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, abrutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.

Only American Deaths Matter
Can't Stand the Heat?
Washington Post editorial, 14 August 2003
EXCERPT: After the outpouring of compassion that flowed from France after the terror attacks of 9/11, one would think that more than 3,000 deaths due to the heat in France would be met with some sympathy. But not at the Washington Post. This editorial complains, "To listen to the fuss Europeans are making about their weather, anyone would think that it was actually hot over there."
Meanwhile, Bush mocks the French crisis by pretending to enjoy jogging in the Texas heat.

Power Failure Reveals a Creaky System, Energy Experts Believe
By DAVID FIRESTONE and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
New York Times  EXCERPT:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — While energy experts disagreed on the precise cause of today's power blackout, they were in agreement that the extensive failure betrayed the age of the region's transmission system and its failure to keep up with demand.
"We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid," said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration. "Our grid is antiquated. It needs serious modernization."

Iraqis Gloat Over U.S. Blackout; Offer Tips on How to Beat the Heat
By Niko Price Associated Press Writer
Published: Aug 15, 2003  EXCERPT:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqis who have suffered for months with little electricity gloated Friday over a blackout in the northeastern United States and southern Canada and offered some tips to help Americans beat the heat.

Twilight Zone Economics
By Paul Krugman
New York Times, 15 August 2003
EXCERPT: Since November 2001 — which the National Bureau of Economic Research, in a controversial decision, has declared the end of the recession — the U.S. economy has grown at an annual rate of about 2.6 percent. That may not sound so bad, but when it comes to jobs there has been no recovery at all. Nonfarm payrolls have fallen by, on average, 50,000 per month since the "recovery" began, accounting for 1 million of the 2.7 million jobs lost since March 2001.

The Finest Liars in the World
By Eduardo Galeano
ZNet 14 August 2003  EXCERPT:
Before Iraq, Afghanistan was the chosen site for bombardment in the new millennium's geography of evil. Thanks to the thunderous victory of the invaders, there is freedom now. Freedom for drug traffickers. According to various specialized organizations of the European Union and the United Nations, Afghanistan has become the world's principal supplier of opium, heroin, and morphine.

Soldiers' Families Protest War in Iraq
By Bob Dart
Atlanta Journal Constitution, 14 August 2003
Courtesy of Common Dreams
EXCERPT: The activists said they had no statistics on how many military families or soldiers in Iraq support their position. But they dismissed charges that their activities are undermining morale. They insisted that no one cares more about the troops than their families do -- especially not the administration that promoted the war.

Taking Responsibility
By John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
AlterNet 15 August 2003
EXCERPTS: "I take personal responsibility for everything I say, of course. Absolutely," declared President Bush during his most recent news conference.
... Rather than taking responsibility for his words, Bush and his advisors did everything to avoid taking responsibility. They first attempted to justify the inclusion of the Niger claim which they knew was dubious by attributing it to Tony Blair's government. CIA director George Tenet stepped forward to accept the blame for Bush's words and was rewarded by Bush declaring his confidence in Tenet.

Bad Ideas of the Week
By Molly Ivins
14 August 2003
EXCERPT: Really Bad Idea of the Week: Attorney General John Ashcroft is now investigating judges. He is requiring prosecutors to report cases where the judge hands down sentences that are less than the federal guidelines suggest. This is part of a concerted effort by both Congress and the Justice Department (part of the executive branch) to pressure judges to follow rigid sentencing guidelines. When last consulted, the Constitution still said there are three co-equal branches of government – the executive is not assigned to intimidate the judiciary.

Thursday 14 August 2003

When will the Bush administration tell the truth about what happened on 9/11?
The Big Wedding
By R. William Harvey
Salon, 14 August 2003
EXCERPT: I should be celebrating my second anniversary this week. Instead, my marriage lasted exactly one month. My wife, Sara Elizabeth Manley, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, in the 93rd-floor offices of Fred Alger Management in 1 World Trade Center. She was 31. We were married on Aug. 11, just a month before. Two years later, families are still fighting to find out the truth about what happened. When will the Bush administration stop stonewalling?

We are not making this up...
U.S. Military Pioneers Death Ray Bomb
Pentagon project brings fear of new arms race
EXCERPT: American military scientists are developing a weapon which kills by delivering an enormous burst of high-energy gamma rays, it is claimed today. The bomb, which produces little fallout, blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, and experts have already warned it could spark a new arms race. The science behind the gamma ray bomb is still in its infancy, and technical problems mean it could be decades before the devices are developed. But the Pentagon is taking the project seriously

Truth Seems to be the Hardest Word
Editorial from Gulf News, 12 August 2003
EXCERPT: If the world's only super power is to ask for people to beleive it, the U.S. administration must work to a high standard of integrity. This has been conspicuously lacking over its adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nobel Economist, George Akerlof: "The Bush fiscal policy is the worst policy in the last 200 years."
No Work, No Homes
By Bob Herbert
New York Times, 14 August 2003
EXCERPT: Talk about preaching to the choir. President Bush and his clueless team of economic advisers held a summit at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., yesterday. This is the ferociously irresponsible crowd that has turned its back on simple arithmetic and thinks the answer to every economic question is a gigantic tax cut for the rich. Their voodoo fantasies were safe in Crawford. There was no one at the ranch to chastise them for bequeathing backbreaking budget deficits to generations yet unborn. And no one was there to confront them with evidence of the intense suffering that so many poor, working-class and middle-class families are experiencing right now because of job losses on Mr. Bush's watch. After the meeting, Mr. Bush said, "This administration is optimistic about job creation."

Where's The Recovery? 
Joint Economic Committee Democrats
TomPaine.com
August 2003 Fact Sheet
With President Bush gathering his key economic advisers on August 13th for a summit on the economy, it is sobering to see what has happened to various economic indicators since last year's Waco summit:

  Audio Link 
Who benefits most from the dividend tax cut in this land of...
CEO to Shining CEO
by Matthew Rothschild, Editor of The Progressive magazine opinion expressed on his 2 minute segment Progessive Point of View.
August 12, 2003 |
MP3 file (1mb)
RealAudio file (1mb)

Court Upholds Alaska Limits on Soft Money in State Races
By DAVID STOUT
New York Times
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: A federal appeals court has upheld Alaska's curbs on soft-money political donations to candidates for state office, holding that the State Legislature had a right to enact the restrictions in 1996 to restore the public's faith in government.
The 3-to-0 ruling on Tuesday by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in Seattle, overturned a federal district court that had found the curbs unconstitutional. The latest ruling comes as the United States Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on Sept. 8 on the McCain-Feingold law barring political parties from raising soft money for federal candidates.
 

Wednesday 13 August 2003

Homeland Security for Whom?
Are Bush, Ashcroft, and Wolfowitz Protecting America or Their Own Regime?
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
CounterPunch
11 August 2003   EXCERPT:
The war on terror, and its "homeland security" counterpart, are flip sides of the same coin. They are the same ideology applied to foreign and domestic policy. But like CIA agent Alden Pyle in The Quiet American, their evil intention is wrapped in a complex matrix of transparent lies. Pointedly, that evil intention is to provide the Bush Regime with political internal security at home, thus enabling it to plunder the world with impunity.

Pentagon Under Fire From Friends, Critics on Rules for Terror Trials
By Pauline Jelinek Associated Press
Aug 13, 2003
EXCERPT: Friends and critics alike are pressing the Bush administration to change its new rules for trying suspects in the global war on terrorism - rules for the first military tribunals planned by the United States since World War II.

Steel of the Century
Wall Street Journal Editorial
13 August 2003   EXCERPT:
President Bush can undo his worst economic mistake.
President Bush meets with his economic team at the Crawford ranch today to discuss how to help the economy create more jobs. We have a modest proposal: Repeal his own 30% steel tariffs.

Bush's penny-pinching puts soldiers at risk
Paul Krugman
International Herald Tribune
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: Letters published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Web site of Colonel David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties." A U.S. soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?
Hackworth blames "dilettantes in the Pentagon" who "thought they could run a war and an occupation on the cheap." But the cheapness isn't restricted to Iraq. In general, the "support our troops" crowd draws the line when that support might actually cost something.
Military corner-cutting is part of a broader picture of penny-wise-pound-foolish government. When it comes to tax cuts or subsidies to powerful interest groups, money is no object. But elsewhere, including homeland security, small-government ideology reigns.
There's also another element in the Iraq logistical snafu: privatization.
According to the Newhouse News Service, "U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the army for logistics support failed to show up." ...spooked by war zones.

Briton held as missile plot foiled
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday August 13, 2003
The Guardian
EXCERPT: A British arms dealer was arrested in New Jersey yesterday for trying to sell a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile to a buyer he thought was a terrorist but who turned out to be an FBI agent conducting a sting operation.

Bush: Neither a Christian Nor a Republican?
By Ned Boudreau
ZNet, 11 August 2003
EXCERPT: Jobless claims are amazing: up to 430,000 per week, and touching 450,000. Capital spending declines of 5.5 per year in this decade - the Bush II decade. A $5.6 trillion - again, trillion - federal budget surplus at his inauguration has now devolved to a $4 trillion deficit: Huge deficits as far as fiscal eyes can see. Two million seven-hundred thousand fewer jobs in the private sector compared to two years ago - Bush II years. This last denotes the longest decline in industrial employment since the Great Depression; specifically, a period of some 34 months. Further, there has been near a doubling of long-term unemployment, plus the stock market - for the first time sine the 1930s - has been off by double digits for the entire length of the Bush II regime. Let's call this what it is: Financial sabotage; fiscal treason. Economic madness, in any terms.

ABA Opposes Renewal of Anti-Terrorism Law
By Gail Appleson, Law Correspondent
Rueters in FindLaw
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: The American Bar Association, an outspoken critic of certain Bush administration anti-terrorism polices, on Tuesday opposed the renewal of surveillance powers granted to the executive branch in a post-Sept. 11 law.

Funnyman Franken Fires Back at Fox's Lawsuit
Reuters in FindLaw
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: Humorist Al Franken fought back against Fox News Network on Tuesday over a lawsuit it filed claiming he infringed on its "fair and balanced" trademark by using the phrase on the cover of his upcoming book.
"From everything I know about law regarding satire, I'm not worried," liberal satirist Franken said in a statement issued by publishers Penguin Group.
Franken questioned the way he was described by the network, part of the News Corp group, in the 17-page suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday and made public on Monday.
"As far as the personal attacks go, when I read 'intoxicated or deranged' and 'shrill and unstable' in their complaint, I thought for a moment I was a Fox commentator.
"And by the way, a few months ago, I trademarked the word 'funny.' So when Fox calls me 'unfunny,' they're violating my trademark. I am seriously considering a countersuit," he said.

House Judiciary to Investigate Judges
By MALIA RULON Associated Press Writer
AP in FindLaw
12 August 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House Judiciary Committee is investigating the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati after complaints that rules were manipulated to affect a death penalty case and a University of Michigan affirmative action case.

Mileposts on the Road to Societal Ruin
By Molly Ivins
Star-Telegram, 10 August 2003
EXCERPT: A recent newspaper advertising campaign by "independent" groups supporting President Bush shows a closed courtroom door with the sign "Catholics Need Not Apply" hanging on it. The ad argues that William Pryor Jr., attorney general of Alabama and a right-wing, anti-abortion nominee to the federal appeals court, is under attack for his "deeply held" Catholic beliefs. Actually, Pryor is under attack because he's a hopeless dipstick. That he also happens to be Catholic and anti-abortion has nothing to do with his unfitness for the federal bench.

Under Ashcroft, Justice Is Blind and Handcuffed
by Jonathan Turley, Los Angeles Times
Courtesty of Common Dreams
EXCERPT: The country now faces a choice between two visions of justice. Ashcroft wants judges to share his view of defendants as statistics rather than individuals. However, justice is found in the very details that Ashcroft wants to ignore in sentencing. In this system of forced ignorance, justice would be blind not to prejudice but to principle.

Today We Face Another 'Watergate'
By Samuel Dash
Newsday, 11 August 2003
EXCERPT: The government overreaches when it employs its war against terror to attack the liberties of American citizens. We now face sweeping federal wiretapping, secret searches and seizures, arrest and detention without trial or right to counsel, infiltration by FBI agents in our places of worship and in our social and political clubs and associations. Not even what we read, either from libraries or bookstores, is respected.

Take This Jobless Recovery and Shove It
Commentary by Genevieve Roja
AlterNet, 11 August 2003
EXCERPT: Since Bush took his cubicle, about 3.4 million Americans have lost their jobs. Last month, 470,000 Americans became discouraged and stopped looking for work. We have a 6.2 unemployment rate and the highest level of unemployment in nine years. And how does Bush respond? He signed a tax cut bill he claimed would create a million more new jobs but in actuality, did not. He recently sent three Cabinet members by bus to Wisconsin and Minnesota who reported "a positive feeling in America about our economy."

You'll never guess who owns the words "fair" and "balanced"...
Fox Sues Franken Over 'Fair and Balanced'
CNN, Associated Press
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: Filed Monday in Manhattan, the trademark infringement lawsuit seeks to force a Penguin publisher, Dutton books, to rename the book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." It also asks for unspecified damages. Fox News registered "Fair & Balanced" as a trademark in 1995, the lawsuit said.

Environmentalists Protest Selection of Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt as EPA Head
Democracynow.org
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: In Utah, Leavitt came under criticism for opening the state’s wild lands to polluting industries and opening millions of acres of wilderness to road building and development. He also backed a massive highway project that would have destroyed wetlands and fertile farmlands along the Great Salt Lake.

Democrats Unlikely To Retake House
Redistricting Is Biggest Obstacle
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: Numerous Democratic strategists have become convinced in recent months that their party is unlikely to pick up the dozen seats it needs to retake the House, even in the face of a sluggish economy and mounting questions about Iraq that could be issues to use against the Republican-dominated administration.

Impressions of Gore
by Ben McGrath
The New Yorker
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
Former New York governor Mario Cuomo asked Al Gore to change his mind and enter the Presidential race. EXCERPT: Cuomo’s plea arrived on the eve of a speech that Gore had personally requested the opportunity to deliver, and after a week of growing concern among Democrats that the front-runner, Howard Dean, is unelectable. What could be more perfect, now that Dean had demonstrated the previously untapped power of the Web as a fund-raising tool, than a revived campaign by the man who invented the Internet?

A Never Before Played Interview With the Late J.H. Hatfield
(Author of Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and The Making of An American
President)
Democracy Now
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
Democracy Now has held onto this exclusive interview for two years. The book examines Bush’s past, "from his engineering the seizure of other people's property for use by his Texas Rangers baseball team, to the millions he made in dubious insider stock swaps, to his peripheral connections to the BCCI scandal." And this interview covers another very serious charge. Was George W. Bush arrested for cocaine possession in 1972? If so, why wasn't he charged? Did Bush's father use his political connections to have his son's record cleaned up? None other than Karl Rove is named as the source for that story. All this and more -- about the book they tried to burn, about the author who was shamed into suicide, and about the shameless occupier of the White House.

No Place for Religion
Washington Post Editorial
11 August 2003 (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: WE HAD THOUGHT the day was past when state authorities defied federal court orders applying the Bill of Rights to state actions. Yet Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore has so far refused to say whether he will comply with a court order to remove the giant monument to the Ten Commandments he installed in Alabama's high court, and he has suggested that the federal courts lack the power to make him do so. Two federal courts -- including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta -- have declared the monument a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits state establishments of religion. U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson last week ordered it removed and made clear that he is prepared to hold the state in contempt if his order is not honored by Aug. 20.
Amazingly, Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. -- the state's chief law enforcement officer and President Bush's nominee for a seat on the 11th Circuit -- has not troubled himself to say a word in defense of the rule of law.
...nobody's rights are safe from state officials who don't believe in them.

Texas Democrats Solicit Bush's Help in Redistricting Dispute
White House Says It's Staying Out of Fight
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post
11 August 2003 (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPTS: In a letter addressed to Bush at his Texas ranch, 11 Democratic state senators who fled to New Mexico to prevent passage of the GOP redistricting plan accused Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, of playing a key behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating "a blatantly partisan and grossly unfair re-redistricting scheme."
Redistricting is normally done the year after the census, but in 2001, when Democrats still controlled the Texas House, the two parties deadlocked, and new lines were drawn by a panel of federal judges. ...House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is widely seen as the driving force behind the GOP redistricting plan, which could result in a gain of five or more congressional seats for the Republicans.

Monday 11 August 2003

Bush Administration Knew the Real Use of Aluminum Tubes Was Not Nuclear
Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence
By Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus
Washington Post
10 August 2003 EXCERPT:
This article is based on interviews with analysts and policymakers inside and outside the U.S. government, and access to internal documents and technical evidence not previously made public.
The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied:

Critics of US policy are racist, says Rice
By David Rennie in Washington
The Telegraph
9 August 2003  (posted 11 Aug) EXCERPT:
Condoleezza Rice, the most senior black woman in the Bush administration, has levelled a charge of racism against critics of the US drive to bring Western freedoms to the Middle East.In an unusually personal speech, Miss Rice, the national security adviser to President George W Bush, said the push to bring democracy and free markets to the Middle East was "the moral mission of our time", to be compared with the civil rights movement that ended racial segregation in America. Black Americans should stand by others seeking freedom today, she went on, and shun the "condescending" argument that some races or nations were not interested in or ready for Western freedoms. "We've heard that argument before. And we, more than any, as a people, should be ready to reject it," she said. "That view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the Middle East.

The Art of the False Impression
by Bob Herbert
New York Times Op/Ed, 11 August 2003
EXCERPT: Keeping his language polite, the former vice president asserted that the Bush administration had allowed "false impressions" to somehow make their way into the public's mind. Enormous numbers of Americans thus came to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and was actively supporting Al Qaeda; that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were an imminent threat, and Iraq was on the verge of building nuclear weapons; that U.S. troops would be welcomed with open arms, and there was little danger of continued casualties in a prolonged guerrilla war. The essence of Mr. Gore's speech was that these corrosive false impressions were part of a strategic pattern of distortion that the Bush administration used to create support not just for the war, but for an entire ideologically driven agenda that overwhelmingly favors the president's wealthy supporters and is driving the federal government toward a long-term fiscal catastrophe.

Get-out-of-Jail-Free Card for Oil Companies
Commentary by Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive 8 August 2003
EXCERPT: Leaving aside the legalese--you know, all those "thereofs" and "hereafters"--what we have here is a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of Bush's and Cheney's buddies in the oil industry. They can bribe officials, they can underpay their foreign workers, they can recklessly spill oil all over the lands and waters of Iraq--and still they will be untouchable by any arm of the law, at least that's how it reads to me. On top of that, if they're unloading Iraqi oil at some U.S. port, say Baltimore, and they spill it there, they may still be immune, because the order covers "any petroleum, petroleum products or natural gas originating in Iraq, including any Iraqi-origin oil inventories wherever located."

Blacklisting Judges
New York Times Editorial
10 August 2003 (posted 11 Aug)
EXCERPT: The founding fathers, whose brilliant design for the federal government was based on three coequal branches, would be horrified to learn of Attorney General John Ashcroft's latest idea for improving the American justice system. Mr. Ashcroft has ordered federal prosecutors to start collecting information on federal judges who give sentences that are lighter than those suggested by federal guidelines. Critics are right when they say this has the potential to create a "blacklist" of judges who could then be subjected to intimidation.

Feeding the military machine
CLAIRE SCHAEFFER-DUFFY
National Catholic Reporter Online
(posted August 11)  EXCERPT:
An increase in recruiter access to public high school students, made possible by the new education reform bill, and a dramatic expansion of Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, mark a significant growth in the Pentagon’s presence in the hallways and classrooms of America.
Over the past decade, the number of JROTC programs has doubled nationwide, from 1,500 units to around 3,000, and public military academies are becoming popular options, especially in urban districts where truancy and fights are rampant. Expenditures have tripled from $76 million in 1992 to approximately $210 million.
Politicians and school administrators say the military, with its uniforms and code of discipline, bring a much-needed cohesion to schools in chaos. Critics argue the military’s package of goods, with its pro-military career bias, is nothing but a thinly veiled effort to recruit Americans at an ever-younger age, a charge the armed forces denies.
The military’s incursion into public schools, widespread and deep, is undeniably altering the once strictly civilian tenor of public education, as more classrooms become a forum for the Pentagon’s point of view.

Report Finds Threat Alerts in Color Code Baffle Public
By PHILIP SHENON
New York Times
10 August 2003
EXCERPT: A new Congressional report has found that the government's much ridiculed color-coded terrorist alert system is so vague in detailing threats that the public "may begin to question the authenticity" of the threats and take no action when the alert level is raised.

Desire to reopen Wall Street paramount
Did EPA Mislead Public After 9/11?
CBS News & New York Times
9 August 2003 EXCERPT:
An investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general has found that White House officials instructed the agency to be less alarming and more reassuring to the public in the first few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, The New York Times reports in its Saturday editions.
The investigation specifically cites official statements about air quality after the collapse of the World Trade Center.
"In addition, based on C.E.Q.'s influence, reassuring information was added to at least one press release and cautionary information was deleted from E.P.A.'s draft version of that press release."
"Competing considerations, such as national security concerns and the desire to reopen Wall Street, also played a role in E.P.A.'s air quality statements," the report, which has not yet been made public, said.

Bush Misuses Science, Report Says
Democrats Say Data Are Distorted to Boost Conservative Policies
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post
8 August 2003  EXCERPT:
The Bush administration has repeatedly mischaracterized scientific facts to bolster its political agenda in areas ranging from abstinence education and condom use to missile defense, according to a detailed report released yesterday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).
The White House quickly dismissed the report as partisan sniping.
The 40-page document, "Politics and Science in the Bush Administration," was compiled by the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee's special investigations division. It marks the launch of a new effort by Waxman and others in Congress to highlight simmering anger among scientists and others who believe that President Bush -- much more than his predecessors -- has been spiking science with politics to justify conservative policies in areas such as reproductive rights, embryo research, energy policy and environmental health.

The possibile uses are endless...
Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush 12" Action Figure!
"Exacting in detail and fully equipped with authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6 scale recreation of the Commander-in-Chief's appearance during his historic Aircraft Carrier landing." We at BushWhackedUSA will wait for the talking version that cannot finish its own sentences.
And HERE [http://www.oldamericancentury.org/codpiece.jpg] is a great illustration of W.'s familiarity with the ins and out of the flight suit, courtesy of The Project for an Old American Century.

BushWhackedUSA Commentary
A Note From Texas
9 August 2003
There's been so much hubbub about Democrats in the Texas legislation periodically leaving the state, some of you may be interested to know what's really going on down here.
At the instigation of Tom DeLay, Texas Republicans decided to make a power grab for five or six additional seats in the US House of Representatives in the next election. The state legislature went through a re-districting exercise just two years ago, following a national census, which is a traditional practice in Texas and most other states. But DeLay and Governor Rick Perry  led conservative Republicans in a plan to consolidate their winnings after last year's election and subject Texas to another redistricting exercise well before the 2010 census. Perry has called two "special sessions" and changed the legislature's voting rules to require only a simple majority in an attempt to ram through a hyper-gerrymandered redistricting map. It was another one of those conservative "take no prisoner" strategies. So the Dems are denying conservative Republicans a legislative quorum by skipping the state. Sure, the Dems object to the whole idea, but the most disturbing feature of this episode is that, if the attempt to redraw the congressional districts out of cycle succeeds, it sets a precedent that threatens to destabilize "California style" the political environment in all states, especially the most populous. The way we see things, it basically boils down to an effort by the Dems to impede a "tyranny of the majority" and resist unnecessary expenditures for additional legislative sessions and redistricting, which few financially plagued states can afford.

Liberals Form Fund To Defeat President
Aim Is to Spend $75 Million for 2004
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post
8 August 2003  EXCERPTS:
Labor, environmental and women's organizations, with strong backing from international financier George Soros, have joined forces behind a new political group that plans to spend an unprecedented $75 million to mobilize voters to defeat President Bush in 2004.
ACT plans to concentrate its activities in 17 states, all of which are likely to be presidential battlegrounds: Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and West Virginia.

Behind Fame, Actor's Policies Are a Mystery
Schwarzenegger Has 60 Days to Define Self
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post
8 August 2003  EXCERPT:
Many California voters, fed up with the crises that have swamped the state in the past few years, may not care. "What Arnold offers most is that he could come in as a political outsider of the purest sort," said Bill Whalen, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who was a senior aide to then-California Gov. Pete Wilson (R).
If they do, Schwarzenegger has just two months to define himself politically and to show, in Whalen's words, that "a thick accent and thick muscles do not equal a thick head."

Denial and Deception in Bush Environmental Policies
Salt of the Earth by Paul Krugman
New York Times
8 August 2003  EXCERPT:
Before last year's elections Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, wrote a remarkable memo about how to neutralize public perceptions that the party was anti-environmental. Here's what it said about global warming: "The scientific debate is closing [against us] but is not yet closed. There is still an opportunity to challenge the science." And it advised Republicans to play up the appearance of scientific uncertainty.
But as a recent article in Salon reminds us, this appearance of uncertainty is "manufactured." Very few independent experts now dispute that manmade global warming is happening, and represents a serious threat. Almost all the skeptics are directly or indirectly on the payroll of the oil, coal and auto industries. And before you accuse me of a conspiracy theory, listen to what the other side says. Here's Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma: "Could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it."
The point is that when it comes to evidence of danger from emissions — as opposed to, say, Iraqi nukes — the people now running our country won't take yes for an answer.

Public Citizen to launch "White House For Sale" dot org
Market Place Morning Report
8 August 2003
The new web site will list principle donors to the Bush campaign and tell how those donors might benefit. Public Citizen is focusing on President Bush because he is the only candidate to refuse federal funds and the limitations they impose. Individuals, small businesses, PACs and employees account for the most of the money but big business is the primary recipient of access, influence and favorable government policy as a reward for backing a successful campaign. For a concise description of the problem see CommonDreams article, Take the 'For Sale' Sign Off the White House Lawn by Nick Nyhart and Joan Claybrook .

Ashcroft Orders Blacklisting of Judges Who Give Lighter Sentences
By Edward Walsh and Dan Eggen
Washington Post, 7 August 2003
EXCERPT: Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has ordered U.S. attorneys across the country to become much more aggressive in reporting to the Justice Department cases in which federal judges impose lighter sentences than called for in sentencing guidelines. The directive, contained in a July 28 memo from Ashcroft, is the latest salvo in an escalating battle over how much discretion federal judges should have in handing down sentences in criminal cases. The more extensive reporting will lay the groundwork for the Justice Department to appeal many more of those sentencing decisions than it has.

Masters of Deceit:
Convicted felons responsible for thousands of deaths are calling the shots at the White House
by Isabel Hilton
Guardian, UK, 7 August 2003
EXCERPT: The announcement that Admiral John Poindexter's latest brainwave - to encourage betting on the likelihood of a terrorist attack - had been terminated was characteristically bland. It began: "The Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced today that DARPA's participation in the Futures Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP) program has been withdrawn." The language does not betray the repugnant nature of the project, but then Poindexter is expert at disguising repugnant projects in bland language. He came to prominence in the Reagan administration, where the word "freedom" was used to justify renewed support for Latin American military dictatorships guilty of some of the most egregious human rights abuses on the planet.

Joe Lieberman Just Doesn't Get It
Commentary by John Nichols
Madison Capital Times, 7 August 2003
EXCERPT: U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman continues to complain that the party is too liberal. In a speech Monday to the National Press Club, where he tried to renew his crumbling candidacy, Lieberman warned Democrats not to vote their principles.

Who's the Real Howard Dean?
Business Week Online
7 August 2003  (posted 8 Aug) EXCERPT:
As Vermont governor, the liberal firebrand was a fiscal conservative with close ties to business
Howard Dean has fought his way to the front of the Democratic pack jostling for the 2004 Presidential nomination partly because he has won the hearts of so many liberals with his antiwar rhetoric and shoot-from-the-lip style. But who is the real Howard Dean? Is he the left-of-center insurgent being portrayed in the press or the business-friendly fiscal conservative and pragmatic moderate who governed Vermont for 11 years?
Those who know him best believe Dean is moving to the left to boost his chances of winning the nomination. "But if he gets the nomination, he'll run back to the center and be more mainstream," predicts Stenger. Says Garrison Nelson, a political science professor at the University of Vermont: "Howard is not a liberal. He's a pro-business, Rockefeller Republican."

Welcome to the Machine
How the GOP disciplined K Street and made Bush supreme.
The Washington Monthly
July/August Issue
By Nicholas Confessore
Conservative Republicans have systematically gained control of the lobbying organizations headquartered on K Street in Washington. Corporate money and manpower has increasing become the domain of rightwing Republicans. (bwusa)
EXCERPT: K Street is becoming solidly Republican. The corporate lobbyists who once ran the show, loyal only to the parochial interests of their employer, are being replaced by party activists who are loyal first and foremost to the GOP. Through them, Republican leaders can now marshal armies of lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations experts--not to mention enormous amounts of money--to meet the party's goals. Ten years ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the political donations of 19 key industry sectors--including accounting, pharmaceuticals, defense, and commercial banks--were split about evenly between the parties. Today, the GOP holds a two-to-one advantage in corporate cash.

United States: Many Hospitals Not Prepared for Bioterror Attack, GAO Says
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
7 August 2003 (posted 8 Aug)
EXCERPT: Most urban hospitals in the United States lack adequate equipment for dealing with the large influx of patients that would result from a bioterrorist attack, the U.S. General Accounting Office said yesterday in a new report.

Gore charges Bush of "A systematic effort to manipulate facts"
Speech by Al Gore
August 7, 2003
"Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we're all used to that. I've even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty."
"The Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole basic process, and I think it's partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it. They and the members of groups that belong to their ideological coalition are true believers in each other's agendas."

Effort to Gag Anti-Bush Causes
Muffling the Left
by Chisun Lee
The Village Voice
August 6 - 12, 2003 Issue
EXCERPTS: The Bush administration is actively seeking to gag or punish social service organizations (non-profits) that challenge the party line...
"If you disagree with the administration on ideological grounds, they're going to come down with a hammer. This has huge implications for the free flow of speech in this country," says Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, itself a nonprofit, which released the report last week as part of its 20-year-old mission to monitor White House budget and spending decisions.
The selective, stealthy approach of today is "unprecedented," he says. His organization had wanted to put out the alert months ago, but piecing together the scattered developments took time. "Almost every example we have here, there's a link to the Bush administration directly, not just ideologically," says Bass.

Poverty and Privacy
Electronic Privacy Information Center
(posted 8 August) EXCERPT:
Poor people have less of everything--less autonomy, less social mobility, and less privacy. State interests in fraud prevention and the structure of privacy law itself have worked to the disadvantage of the poor. HUD has also announced the implementation of a "Homeless Information Tracking System." Welcome to security in the homeland. This page is gives an overview of these forces and their effects on electronic privacy.

Incredible Rightwing Voting Machine!
Online absentee voting eliminates postmarks
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7 August 2003
EXCERPT: The Pentagon is putting the finishing touches on an electronic voting system that will allow about 100,000 military personnel and other Americans living abroad to cast their ballots through the Internet in the 2004 elections.
Military absentee ballots were a hot issue in the most recent presidential election, when Republicans accused Democrats of pushing Florida officials to reject overseas ballots that were improperly postmarked.

Activists Get the Drop on Bush
Indymedia
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
EXCERPT: Code Pink (Women for Peace) activists dropped a banner this morning next to the Washington Post Building declaring "BUSH: YOU LIED -- YOU'RE FIRED." Although slightly mired by tactical mistakes, hundreds of morning commuters got the message (and many seemed to agree).

EBay refuses to list Yukon artist's 'weasel' cards
CBC, 6 Aug 2003
EXCERPT: WHITEHORSE - An artist in Yukon who created pictures of playing cards mocking the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has been told he can't sell them on EBay – and received death threats for even trying.

Despair of the Jobless
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times
7 August 2003
The folks who put the voodoo back in economics keep telling us that prosperity is just around the corner. For the unemployed, that would mean more jobs. Are there more jobs just around the corner?
This alleged economic upturn is not just a jobless recovery, it's a job loss recovery. The hemorrhaging of jobs in the aftermath of the recent "mild" recession is like nothing the U.S. has seen in more than half a century. Millions continue to look desperately for work, and millions more have given up in despair.

Pfizer Moves to Stem Canadian Drug Imports
By GARDINER HARRIS
New York Times
7 August 2003
Just days after the House of Representatives voted to legalize the import of cheap prescription drugs from Canada, Pfizer has moved to squelch the nascent trade at its source.
The company confirmed yesterday that it had sent letters to 50 Canadian pharmacies that it believes are exporting to the United States, telling them that they would have to begin ordering their drugs directly from Pfizer, rather than from wholesalers. If Pfizer decides that the pharmacies are ordering more drugs than they need to meet Canadian demand, it will cut off or curtail shipments to them, the company said.

Present at the Dissolution
The Nation
editorial |  31 July 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
Wargate must be investigated, and those responsible must be brought to account, but none of this will matter if the policy stays the same. Building an alternative vision will be the work of the political opposition to this Administration--and, we hope, a new administration in 2004--but already the general outlines of one are obvious: The United States needs to choose cooperation over coercion; multilateralism over unilateralism; respect for international opinion over defiance; defense over offense; containment and deterrence over prevention; diplomacy over force; peace over war. Neither the resignation of Tenet nor of Hadley nor of Rice nor of all of them together will check the mounting damage. Not even the replacement of the President will in itself be enough. That, too, important as it is, will be significant only to the extent that it is one more means for changing the fundamental direction of the foreign policy of the United States.

Support an Independent Investigation
Insider fires a broadside at Rumsfeld's office
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
7 August 2003
A senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April, added her voice to expose the OSP, the Bush administration's equivalent to Nixon's 'plumbers' and Reagan's 'Iran-Contra gang.' Also read Kwiakowski's full article in the Beacon Journal. More of her articles may be found at the Kwiakowski Archive. (bwusa)
EXCERPTS: "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam [Hussein] occupation [of Iraq] has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD]."
Kwiatkowski went on to charge that the operations she witnessed during her tenure in Feith's office, and particularly those of an ad hoc group known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), constituted "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-option through deceit of a large segment of the Congress".

Nevada Does Not Want Pit Production Site
Global Security Newswire
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
EXCERPT: Nevada officials this week issued their opposition to the U.S. Energy Department’s consideration of the Nevada Test Site as the location for a new facility to produce plutonium triggers, or “pits,” for nuclear weapons, according to Energy Daily.
“DOE’s track record in this regard at almost all its facilities is atrocious, and nothing in the draft EIS demonstrates that DOE has learned the management, oversight and ‘cultural’ lessons of the past,” the officials said in their comments.

Church OKs 1st Openly Gay Bishop
CBS News
6 August 2003
EXCERPT: The Episcopal Church elected its first openly gay bishop after an inquiry dismissed last-minute allegations of sexual misconduct against the Rev. V. Gene Robinson. Conservative parishioners voiced dissent and said they may break ties with the church.

Neocon Coup at the Department d'État
Commentary by Maureen Dowd
New York Times, 6 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Let others fight over whether the war in Iraq was a neocon vigilante action disrupting diplomacy. The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy.... When the neocons want something done, they'll get it done, no matter what Mr. Bush thinks. And they think Mr. Powell has downgraded the top cabinet post into a human resources job, making nicey-nice with the U.N. and assorted bad guys instead of pursuing the neocon blueprint for world domination through what James Woolsey calls World War IV (World War III being the cold war.)

Groups Seek Probe of Bush Judge Nominee
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press in FindLaw
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: Environmental groups asked the Office of Government Ethics to investigate meetings between the Interior Department's top lawyer, now nominated for a federal judgeship, and cattle interests who may have been his former clients.
Friends of the Earth and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility contended Tuesday that William Myers III broke his May 1, 2001, pledge not to participate for a year in any dealings with former clients. The ethics office is an agency within the executive branch whose purpose is to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest.

Poor families held to a higher standard
IRS to Ask Low-Income Families for Proof
By MARY DALRYMPLE
Associated Press in FindLaw
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that 25,000 low-income earners will be asked to bolster their tax returns with proof that they qualify for a tax credit designed to lift the working poor out of poverty.
The new forms will go to some families with children who receive the earned income tax credit, a benefit designed as an incentive for low-wage workers to keep working. The families will be asked to prove they cared for a child more than half the year, one requirement for receiving the credit.

Gov't Won't Release Terror Financing List
By KEN GUGGENHEIM
Associated Press in FindLaw
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Treasury Department rejected a request from senators Tuesday and refused to release a classified list of Saudi individuals or organizations suspected of financing terrorist groups.

Dr. Strangelove Revisited...
U.S. Marks Hiroshima Anniversary By Holding Top Secret Summit to Discuss Expanding Nation’s Nuclear Arsenal
Democracy Now,
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: Some 150 top U.S. officials and military contractors are scheduled to gather Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska at the U.S. Strategic Command Center. The meeting’s agenda is secret as is the guest list. But observers say the Bush administration will likely agree to launch a new nuclear age.

Election 2004
It's Not Easy Being Green
ZNet
(posted 6 August)
Many Democrats at least partially blamed Ralph Nader and the Green Party for Bush's theft of the 2000 election; and, now that we've seen how bad a Bush administration can be, many are worried about the potential impact of another Green Party presidential candidate in 2004. As the DLC urges Democratic candidates to play to the right in order to protect those valuablecorporate funding sources, the Greens have been debating what they should do, and when, and where. Last week the Green Party issued a press release challenging Democrats and Republicans to Ensure Clean and Fair Elections in 2004 [http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_31_03.html].
ZNet recently provided two different perspectives on how the Green Party should handle the 2004 election:

Green Party Taking the Plunge for 2004
by Norman Solomon
30 July 2003

A Green Party "Safe States" Strategy
by Ted Glick
1 July 2003

Also, the Green Party's National Convention will be held this Sunday 10 August 2003 in Austin, Texas: http://www.campusgreens.org/convention/

Tuesday 5 August 2003

No"adult supervision?"
Powell and Armitage may not stay if Bush re-elected
Cursor.org
5 August 2003
The Washington Post reports that Secretary of State Powell and top deputy Richard Armitage have told the White House they will not serve a second term if President Bush is re-elected, and that leading candidates to replace Powell are National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But a State Department spokesman says "there is no basis for the story."

With the Bush Administration...
Everything Is Political
by Paul Krugman
New York Times, 5 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Across the board, the Bush administration has politicized policy analysis. Whether the subject is stem cells or global warming, budget deficits or weapons of mass destruction, government agencies are under intense pressure to say what the White House wants to hear. And the long-term consequences are likely to be dire.... But since George W. Bush came into power, the department has suppressed most of that information, releasing only partial, misleading tables. The purpose of this suppression, of course, is to conceal the extent to which Mr. Bush's tax cuts concentrate their bounty on families with very high incomes.

Twenty-five more words
Boston Globe
3 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
Okay, now lets talk about falsifying the Iraq-Al Queda link.

As voter turnout decreases, the influence of activist minorities increases, i.e., labor unions
By Leigh Strope
The Associated Press
5 August 2003
EXCERPT: Mindful of labor's election muscle, the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls are courting union leaders gathered for the AFL-CIO's executive council meeting, and also will participate in a Tuesday night forum.
Each is hoping to win labor's crown - a political mobilization machine that turns out voters.
For while the proportion of union members in the work force has fallen from 20 percent in 1983 to 13.2 percent now, labor's relative strength at the ballot box continues to grow in the face of overall declines in voter turnout.

Dean Says He Has Best Chance to Oust Bush
The Associated Press
Aug 5, 2003
EXCERPT: Howard Dean said Tuesday he has the best chance of beating President Bush because he appeals to supporters of former independent candidates John McCain, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader as well as to Democratic Party faithful.

Ganging Up on Dean
by Ruth Coniff
The Progressive,
September 2003  (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Washington press corps can be like a gang of mean junior high school kids. But there is more than fickle dislike for a certain personality in the media tarring of Dean. Dean is an outsider. As the most identifiably progressive candidate -- or at least the one with the most money, since Dennis Kucinich, who is running to the left of Dean, hasn't raised millions and has been almost completely ignored by the press -- Dean sticks out. The "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," which Dean claims to represent, is not much in evidence in Washington these days.

Activists Call for Gay Rights to Be Included in Human Rights Treaties
By Kim Gamel Associated Press
5 August  2003
Gay activists demanded homosexual rights be included in international human rights treaties and asked the United Nations to provide equal benefits to same-sex couples.

Electronic communication crucial in election
Cursor.org
5 August 2003
"Smart Mobs" author Howard Rheingold looks for flash mobbing to become "a major outlet of political activism...The 2004 elections are going to be a watershed moment. The use of text messaging and mobile communications will be pivotal in get-out-the-vote drives. It will allow groups to disperse the resources most efficiently in the days before the election."

Radio Daze: The Dearth and Birth of Liberal Talk Radio
Commentary by Hendrik Hertzbert
The New Yorker
11 August 2003 issue (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT: ...NPR programs are news-feature broadcasts; they adhere to the practices of journalistic professionalism, including the aspirational ideal of objectivity. Their sensibility may fairly be said to be “liberal” in the sense that liberal education is liberal—that is, open-minded and urbane, with a preference for empirical inquiry over dogmatic conclusion-mongering—but what little overt political commentary they offer hovers around the moderate middle. NPR’s local talk-show hosts tend to be more overtly liberal, but they are always polite about it. In contrast, Limbaugh and his scores of national and local imitators aggressively propagandize on behalf of the conservative wing of the Republican Party and the domestic and foreign policies of the Bush Administration, with a stream of faxes and e-mails from conservative think tanks and the Republican National Committee keeping the troops firmly on message.

Keeping in step with Rumsfeld
Military: The Army Cleans House
Newsweek
August 11 Issue (posted 5 Aug)
In a move widely seen within the Pentagon as a purge, a dozen or more Army generals are being ushered into retirement as the Army’s new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, takes over.
Iin adance of Schoomaker’s swearing-in last Friday, the Army’s acting chief, Gen. John Keane—who is himself retiring—spoke with a list of three- and four-star generals, thanked them for their services and told them it was time to go. Sources say Keane first contacted half a dozen names, but by the end of the week the list had reportedly grown to 11—”with more to come within 30 days,” according to one Army source. The Army has a total of 50 three- and four-star generals. A senior Pentagon civilian called the move “housecleaning.”
        Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with what he sees as unimaginative Army leadership. Schoomaker, too, is critical of a culture he sees as risk-averse and change-resistant. In comments made privately but now circulat-ing widely in the Pentagon, Schoomaker said recently: “Rumsfeld might think we’re at war with terrorism, but I’ll bet he also thinks he is at war within the Pentagon ... It’s a war of the culture.”
        The list of retirees was, sources say, drawn up in discussions between Rumsfeld, Schoomaker and Keane.

Monday 4 August 2003

Gong Show Imperialism
Mother Jones
4 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Never mind the lies the Bushies told us -- we're in Iraq because of the lies they told themselves.
Watching these guys trying to put the brakes on, while skidding near the edge on the far side of the mountain is a bit like watching the Gong Show as imperial policy -- but here's the problem: right now, there's no giant hook to pull these guys off stage.
And let's face it, the assessments of this administration -- and here I don't mean the lies they put forward to scare the American people into war, but the ones they believed, that they convinced themselves of -- have proved disastrously off the mark. They may in the end come a cropper for the lies they knowingly told, but at a deeper level what they will surely pay most for is the way they deluded themselves before even bothering with us.

Disdain for Bush Simmers in Democratic Strongholds
By ROBIN TONER
New York Times
4 August
EXCERPTS: While Democratic leaders in Washington debate strategy and demographics for the 2004 election — the wisdom of campaigning from the left, right or center — something far more visceral is at work in the first caucus state, and in other Democratic redoubts.
There is a powerful disdain for the Bush administration, stoked by the aftermath of the war in Iraq and the continuing lag in the economy. There is also a conviction that President Bush is eminently beatable and a hunger to hear their party's leaders and candidates make the case against him — straight up, from the heart rather than the polling data.

The Anti-Worker Economy
by Eric Laursen
IndyMedia Center
2 August 2003 (posted 4 Aug)
If the recession's over, why are so many of us still out of work?

Whistleblower on Niger uranium claim accuses White House of launching 'dirty-tricks campaign'
By Kim Sengupta
The Indepedent
4 August 2003
EXCERPTS: The former American diplomat who exposed false claims that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger has accused members of the Bush administration of a dirty tricks campaign against him.
Mr Wilson said yesterday that the naming of his wife (as a CIA undercover operative) had parallels with the disclosure of the identity of the British scientist David Kelly, the source of BBC allegations that the British government "sexed up" an dossier on Iraqi weapons.
"The Administration in Washington came in saying they were going to restore honour and dignity to the presidency," Mr Wilson said. "They have shown no sign of it so far.
"This is highly damaging to my wife's career, and could be seen as a smear against me."
But it was also about discouraging "others who may have information embarrassing to the administration from coming forward," he said.

Pentagon is seeking weaponry to strike at adversaries buried deep in bunkers
International Herald Tribune
4 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Pentagon is seeking weaponry to strike at adversaries buried deep in bunkers
.Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Federal and private experts agree that with the notable exception of North Korea, diplomacy and arms control, for now, have taken a back seat to muscle flexing.

Welcome to a Second Nuclear Age
Chain Reaction
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
New York Times
3 August 2003
EXCERPT: This week, ten minutes by car south of Omaha, Neb., the United States Strategic Command is holding a little-advertised meeting at which the Bush administration is to solidify its plans for acquiring a new generation of nuclear arms. Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.

Markets to Predict Just About Anything - a la Adm. Poindexter
NPR's Weekend Edition humorist Andy Borowitz has a few ideas for Rear Adm. John Poindexter's "futures market" plan.

Government Harassment of Dissidents
US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
The Independent
3 August 2003
EXCERPT: After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.
And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.

Inside the "Military-Industrial-Congressional" Complex
with Franklin "Chuck" Spinney
NOW with Bill Moyers
1 August 2003
'Chuck' Spinney has recently retired from his civilian career as "the conscience of the Pentagon." He assignment was with the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (a division set up in 1961 to make independent evaluations of Pentagon policy).
Spinney has written books and testified before Congressional committees about the complete breakdown of accounting in the DoD (Department of Defense). He has documented the absence of accountability and numerous instances of multi-billion dollar weapons systems that serve neither our war fighters or overall security interests of the nation. Acquisition system failure is almost assured by abdication of over-sight by the Congress and by a Department teaming with its contractors in a 'patriotic conspiracy' that seems to have the sole purpose of 'keeping the money flowing.' The 'open door' for retired military in the defense industry promotes a cultural corruption that runs to the core of our government.

Muting the Call to Service
by Dave Eggers
New York Times
2 August 2003
EXCERPT: Must we note that the $100 million that could save AmeriCorps is less than one-tenth of what we spend in Iraq every week? Is it too obvious to mention that the president, who long scorned nation-building abroad while encouraging education here at home, is now clearly choosing the former over the latter? It's no secret that many in the G.O.P. have long favored the dissolution of AmeriCorps. And though the process won't necessarily be speedy, Republicans in the House are well on their way to making the program a thing of the past. And what happens then? Who or what steps into the chasm created by the White House's failure to act? No one knows. But what is certain is that a generation that was beginning to engage with government, with citizenship and service, will be abandoned, and will be given good reason to shrug back into an easy and familiar, "Well, what did you expect?" sort of cynicism. In fact, the best and most idealistic members of this generation are the ones who will feel most betrayed.

Less than half of US would vote to return Bush to White House
AFP in Yahoo News
July 30,2003  (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: Less than half of Americans surveyed -- only 47 percent -- would vote for President George W. Bush in the 2004 election, according to a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll published.
Some 41 percent of those polled said they would vote for the yet-to-be-chosen Democratic candidate. There are nine Democrats vying for their party's nomination.
The dip below the key 50 percent mark is "a sign that this thing's not done," political analyst Charles Cook told USA Today.
The level of support for Bush was surprising, considering the same poll found that 58 percent approve of the job he is doing in office. According to USA Today, former presidents Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) and Bill Clinton (news - web sites) did not see significant differences between their approval ratings and election support

Second worse period of job loss since the "great depression"
Bush Says Recovery Might Have Looked Strong if He'd Let Recession Deepen
The Associated Press
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: "Economic historians would say that the recession of 2001 was one of the more shallow recessions. Some would probably say, well, maybe you shouldn't have acted and let the recession go deeper, which would have made - may have made - for a more speedy recovery," Bush told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet.
Bush said the "economy is vibrant and strong" even though recent government economic reports have been mixed.
"Even though some of the numbers are good, there are still too many people looking for work, and so we're going to keep working on the economy until people can find a job," Bush said.

Dean blames economic woes on Bush policy
Dean in DES MOINES, Iowa
Associated Press
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: "Too many Democrats in Washington have become so afraid of losing that they have remained silent or only halfheartedly fought the very agenda that is destroying the democratic dream of America."
"In order to change America, we are going to have to change the Democratic Party, and make it stand for principles once again,"
In his remarks, Dean assailed Bush and his economic plan. The president, in addressing the National Urban League Monday, had touted his policies, including tax cuts, for providing greater opportunity for Americans.
"Never has a president talked so much about jobs while doing so much to destroy them," Dean said.
"We must return to fiscal sanity for the sake of future generations, yes, but also for the sake of our national security," Dean said. "We cannot be a world-class country if we are the world's largest debtor."

Economic Policy Institute testifies on overtime proposal
Economic Policy Institute
July 31, 2003 (posted 1 August)
The Economic Policy Institute found that over 8 million workers will be affected by the Department of Labor's changes to rules that determine who is eligible for overtime pay. Theses findings are radically different from those of the Labor Department, and the two differing conclusions have led to a debate that culminates with EPI. Vice President Ross Eisenbrey gave testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 31. Read that testimony and check out the report that started this debate.

Growth Sector
America's prison population grew by 2.6% in 2002 to nearly 2.2m according to the Department of Justice. One in ten black men aged between 25 and 29 was behind bars. The keenest incarcerator is Louisiana, with 794 prisoners for every 100,000 residents.
                            The Economist

Dean calls for stronger environmental protection in S.F. speech
San Francisco Chronical
July 31, 2003 (posted 1 August)
EXCERPT: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on Thursday unveiled an environmental plan that would increase use of renewable resources, push automakers to improve fuel efficiency and strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency.
Two days after presenting his economic plan in Iowa, the former Vermont governor delivered the first major environmental address of his campaign and criticized President Bush's record during a speech in San Francisco.
"We can take America back from those who care more about returning a favor to a friend than about creating a sensible environmental and energy policy," Dean told an audience of about 400 supporters and environmental activists. He denounced Bush Administration programs such as the "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" initiatives as "Orwellian doublespeak."
Under Dean's plan, 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply would have to come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020. He would create incentives to develop hydrogen-powered vehicles, design more energy-efficient SUV's and increase use of ethanol, a renewable fuel produced from agricultural waste.

GOP Loses Pryor Vote in Senate
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press in FindLaw
July 31, 2003 (posted 1 August)
EXCERPT: Senate Republicans on Thursday lost their third attempt this week to push one of President Bush's judicial nominees through the Senate, with Democrats blocking conservative Alabama Attorney General William Pryor from the U.S. Appeals Court.

How Bush Blew His Press Conference
And why he didn't have to.
By Timothy Noah
Slate
July 30, 2003 (posted 1 August)
A recap of the President's blunders and a fine analysis of the neoconservative method of argument defending the war.
EXCERPT: Bush has never been good at press conferences. But he was unusually bad today, particularly at handling retrospective questions about the war in Iraq and the justifications his administration gave for waging it. The questions were far from hostile. A question on homeland security, pegged to the scary news that al-Qaida may be planning new airline hijackings in the United States, failed to query the president on why the government chose this time to reduce the number of airport screeners. When one reporter raised the inevitable rude question of why the president had sent troops into battle based on "flimsy" or "nonexistent" evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat, that reporter prefaced the question by saying, "it's impossible to deny that the world is a better place" without Saddam in power.
Yet Bush seemed jangled. His strategy for answering questions about why we went to war was to repeat, mantralike, that Saddam was a threat and that the intelligence on which he based that judgment was good, sound intelligence and that the United Nations had passed 12 resolutions against Saddam.

DoD Creates a Market to Predict Terror
Q- When was the last time the Bush Administration did something this stupid?

A- The last time John Poindexter had a big idea: Total Information Awareness.
                         NPR's Talk of the Nation

How Bush has scuttled our civil rights
Who Made George W. Bush Our King?
He Can Designate Any of Us an Enemy Combatant
Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
July 25th, 2003 (posted 1 August)
Some of the most glorious illuminations of the Bill of Rights in American history have been contained in Supreme Court dissents by, among others, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, Hugo Black, and Thurgood Marshall. Equal to those was the stinging dissent by judge Diana Gribbon Motz when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (8 to 4) gave George W. Bush a fearsome power that can be found nowhere in the Constitution—the sole authority to imprison an American citizen indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer.
 

Bush's 9-11 Secrets
The Government Received Warnings of Bin Laden's Plans to Attack New York and D.C.
by James Ridgeway
The Village Voice
July 31, 2003
EXCERPT: Even though Bush has refused to make parts of the 9-11 report public, one thing is startlingly clear: The U.S. government had received repeated warnings of impending attacks—and attacks using planes directed at New York and Washington—for several years. The government never told us about what it knew was coming.

N.Y. Times Calls Bush's Answers "Vague and Sometimes Nearly Incoherent"
New York Times Staff Editorial
July 31, 2003
EXCERPT: Throughout his political career, George Bush has been famous for sticking to a few issues, and repeating a few well-burnished talking points over and over. Wide-ranging news conferences do not play to his considerable strengths, and as president, he has generally avoided them. But having decided to make a rare exception yesterday, Mr. Bush should have been able to come up with better responses to two big and obvious questions: why he ordered the invasion of Iraq and why he pushed for tax cuts that have left the nation sinking into a hopeless quagmire of debt. Mr. Bush's vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers suggested that he was either bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking or had decided that doubts about his foreign and domestic policies could best be parried by ignoring them.

US scraps nuclear weapons watchdog
Julian Borger
The Guardian
July 31, 2003
EXCERPT: A US department of energy panel of experts which provided independent oversight of the development of the US nuclear arsenal has been quietly disbanded by the Bush administration, it emerged yesterday.
The decision to close down the national nuclear security administration advisory committee - required by law to hold public hearings and issue public reports on nuclear weapons issues - has come just days before a closed-door meeting at a US air force base in Nebraska to discuss the development of a new generation of tactical "mini nukes" and "bunker buster" bombs, as well as an eventual resumption of nuclear testing.

ACLU Challenges Patriot Act
CBS/AP
July 30, 2003  (posted July 31)
EXCERPT:  The American Civil Liberties Union and Arab American groups have filed a lawsuit challenging parts of the USA Patriot Act, in what the ACLU says is the first direct constitutional attack on the law.
They're opposing rules that let authorities monitor books people read and carry out secret searches.
The challenge was jointly announced Wednesday by the ACLU in Michigan and Portland, Ore.
The suit specifically challenges Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which contains the controversial provision which gives the FBI expanded powers in terrorism investigations to obtain records and other "tangible things" from entities that include libraries and internet providers.
"Ordinary Americans should not have to worry that the FBI is rifling through their medical records, seizing their personal papers, or forcing charities and advocacy groups to divulge membership lists," said ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson

Bush Opposed to Gay Marriage
President Believes Union Should Be Between a Man and a Woman
Washington Post
July 31, 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush said Wednesday he has government lawyers working on a law that would define marriage as a union between a woman and a man, casting aside calls to legalize gay marriages.
"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that," the president said a wide-ranging news conference at the White House Rose Garden.
Bush also urged, however, that America remain a "welcoming country" -- not polarized on the issue of homosexuality.
"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts."
"On the other hand, that does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage," he added.

"Domestic liberty is the first casualty of adventurist foreign policy ... To justify the high cost of maintaining rule over foreign territories and peoples, leaders are left with no choice but to deceive the people."
WSJ quoting the manifesto of the "conservative" Committee for the Republic

Poindexter to resign in wake of terror market flap
PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press in SF Chronical
July 31, 2003
EXCERPT: Retired Adm. John Poindexter will resign his position at the Pentagon after a research project he was overseeing was condemned by Congress as an "egregious error of judgment."
A senior defense official said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Poindexter realized that "it would be difficult" for him to continue in his job after the flap over a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist strikes in the Middle East.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner had spoken by telephone with Tony Tether, head of the Pentagon's Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where Poindexter works. Warner called the program "a rather egregious error of judgment."
See transcript of a White House Press Briefing in February 2001 where the wisdom of his appointment was questioned by Helen Thomas.

Swing voters, politicians: 'Dubya duped us'
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
1 August 2003
WASHINGTON - Independent voters and members of Congress continued to raise doubts about President George W Bush's war on Iraq on Tuesday. 
In a poll released by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), swing voters - people who consider themselves independent of both major political parties and very likely to vote in next year's elections - were considerably more critical of Bush's handling of Iraq and wider foreign policy than the general public and more likely to say the president deliberately misled the public about the reasons for the war.

When the nation goes to war,
The people deserve the truth.
-George Soros Newspaper Ad

THE NINTH HUNDRED DAYS: THE QUIZ
by PAUL SLANSKY
The New Yorker

Dean Plan Pushes Auto Fuel Efficiency
By ROSS SNEYD
Associated Press in FindLaw
July 30, 2003 (posted July 31)
EXCERPT: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is proposing an environmental policy that would push automakers to improve fuel efficiency standards and require that part of the nation's electricity supply come from renewable sources.
One day after presenting his economic plan in Iowa, the former Vermont governor planned to lay out his 100-year vision for the environment and criticize President Bush's record in a speech Thursday in San Francisco. The Associated Press obtained excerpts and the broad outlines.
"We have a president who seems to regard public resources as gifts to be handed out to special interests," Dean said in prepared remarks.

Big Guns: The Plan to Give Immunity to Gun Manufacturers and Retailers
Moving Ideas
July 30, 2003
EXCERPTS: The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S. 659) is the Senate version of a House bill (HR 1036) which was approved during the Iraq war with little debate. The bill would give gun manufacturers and retailers special immunity from damages in cases where injury or death results from their failure to use reasonable care in the design, distribution, security or sale of guns. Also protected are gun retailers who fail to take reasonable precautions to secure their inventory.

From the Department of Hypocrisy...
U.S. May Cut Air Marshals Despite Warning
By Leslie Miller, Associated Press
Newsday
July 30, 2003
Well, apparently the government has money to waste on terror-gambling markets, but not enough to actually prevent terrorism. Even as the Department of Homeland Security issues new warnings that planes could be hijacked any day now withing the United States, according the the A.P., the Transportation Security Administration has moved to reduce funding for air marshals. This comes hot on the heels of the latest terror alert. No one knows yet how many air marshals will lose their jobs, but the TSA needs to cut $104 million from their budget. Doesn't that make you feel safer?

  BushWhackedUSA Commentary 
Hey! Look out! What's that behind you?!
Yet Another Conveniently Timed Terror Alert
BushWhackedUSA commentary
July 30, 2003
Besieged by controversy over last week's 9/11 report, this week's Pentagon terror-gambling scandal, a year's worth of lies about Iraq, and Bush's inability to recall the order of events during his administration (no, G.W., the inspectors were NOT evicted from Iraq this Spring or ever!), the administration's Department of Homeland Security has just released a vague warning that terrorists could strike in the Eastern U.S., Britain, Italy, Australia or the North Pole, for that matter. Apparently, killing Saddam Hussein's sons did not keep us distracted -- which does not bode well for those who want the rest of us to stop asking all those pesky questions. In other words, the parade of lies, exaggerations and cynical manipulations of the American public marches on. Terror alert, schmerror alert! It's time for the occupation force in the White House to 'fess up and quit gambling with our futures, our safety, our dollars and our nation's integrity. Those are very high, very real stakes, but the administration seems to think this is all a game.

Friday 15 August 2003

AUDIO LINK
Iraq: Protests Erupt in Basra Over Lack of Electricity
Democracy Now!
With all the media coverage of the blackout in the U.S. and Canada, Democracy Now! goes to Iraq with Guardian (London) reporter Jamie Wilson to find out about life in a constant power outage since the American invasion.

Administration shifts target to BBC. Leaks abound- FBI undercover work is "sloppy" at best.
FBI attacks BBC over terrorism story
Jason Deans
Guardian
Friday August 15, 2003  EXCERPT:
Mangold: broke story about arrest of London businessman Hemant Lakhani
The FBI has accused the BBC of ruining an operation to infiltrate al-Qaida after Tom Mangold ran an "exclusive" 10 O'Clock News report about a missile sting.

Bush wins partial support from UN
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday August 15, 2003
The Guardian  EXCERPT:
The Bush administration, reluctant to yield any influence over postwar Iraq, but aware of the high cost of the occupation won limited endorsement yesterday for its mission from the UN security council.
A security council vote welcomed the US-appointed governing council for Iraq and the creation of a modest UN assistance mission. The resolution was passed by 14 votes with only Syria abstaining.
But it stopped far short of the broader mandate sought by countries such as France and India. Diplomats said the vote belied unease among member countries that it could be seen as sanctioning the occupation.

US voices deep regret for Baghdad flag incident
Jamie Wilson in Baghdad
Friday August 15, 2003
The Guardian  EXCERPT:
The US forces in Iraq expressed "deep regret" yesterday for an incident in which one Iraqi was killed and four were injured during a riot after the crew of a Black Hawk helicopter removed an Islamic banner, accidently or otherwise, from the top of an telecommunications tower.
The incident is the latest in which the US forces have provoked hostility by their perceived heavy-handedness and insensitivity to customs.

UN Cover for the Coalition
US takes its case to the UN
By Robert McMahon
Asia Times, 15 August 2003  EXCERPT:
NEW YORK - United States officials are hoping for approval soon of a new Security Council resolution endorsing the month-old Iraqi Governing Council as an official representative body.
Representatives of the permanent five Security Council members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - began to discuss the US proposal late on Wednesday. Agreements among the permanent five members usually clear the way for consensus on the 15-member Security Council.
The US proposal also calls for the formal establishment of a new UN mission, to be known as the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).
A US diplomat told RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) that the resolution was limited to the two proposals, both of which he called "noncontroversial" and that the resolution would likely be approved.

'It was punishment without trial'
Friday August 15, 2003
The Guardian   EXCERPT:
Hundreds of Iraqis civilians are being held in makeshift jails run by US troops - many without being charged or even questioned. And in these prisons are children whose parents have no way of locating them. Jonathan Steele reveals the grim reality of coalition justice in Baghdad

A privatized occupation
The Price of Freedom in Iraq and Power in Washington
by Ceara Donnelley and William D. Hartung,
ARMS TRADE RESOURCE CENTER
August 2003
From providing the weapons and tanks that took us to Baghdad, to the personnel rebuilding dams and bridges or operating ports, to the pencils and lesson plans revamping the education system for young Iraqis, private American corporations are spearheading U.S. campaigns in Iraq and reaping the financial rewards of warfare.
Private corporations have played an unprecedented role in the Second Gulf War, and from the looks of just one more number—$680 million, the projected contract with Bechtel Group Inc. for its reconstructive work in Iraq—they will continue to do so.

Calling Out Colin
What Powell got wrong in his U.N. briefing on Iraq.
By Fred Kaplan
Slate
August 12, 2003
The answer is he apparently got it all wrong and the only evidence that remains untainted are the taped conversations between Iraqi officials that indicated something, perhaps, was being concealed from UN inspectors. With the danger to these men having been deposed, why cannot occupation authorities bring these officials forward to explain their words? General Powell's UN performance seems to have been just that, a performance to win some votes and the confidence of a  rather suspicious audience.

Thursday 14 August 2003

A Pattern of Aggression
Commentary by Kate Hudson
The Guardian (UK), 14 August 2003
EXCERPT: The legality of the war against Iraq remains the focus of intense debate - as is the challenge it poses to the post-second-world-war order, based on the inviolability of sovereign states. That challenge, however, is not a new one. The precursor is without doubt Nato's 1999 attack on Yugoslavia, also carried out without UN support. Look again at how the US
and its allies behaved then, and the pattern is unmistakable.

Remember when Cheney said "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as
liberators"?
CIA Warned Administration of Postwar Guerrilla Peril
By Bryan Bender
Boston Globe, 10 August 2003
EXCERPT: In February, the CIA gave a formal briefing to the National Security Council, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President Bush himself: ''A quick military victory in Iraq will likely be followed by armed resistance from remnants of the Ba'ath Party and Fedayeen Saddam irregulars.'' The administration seemed unmoved. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, top Bush administration officials made glowing predictions that Iraqis would welcome US troops with open arms, while behind the scenes they did little to prepare for a guerrilla war.

Iraq: Third American Soldier in a Week Dies in Sleep
The Daily Kos, 12 August 2003
EXCERPT: From the Unted States Central Command website:
Soldier dies in sleep (August 12, 2003),
1st Armored Division soldier found dead (August 10, 2003), and
Soldier dies in sleep (August 8, 2003).
That's three soldiers dead in their sleep in four days. What the hell is going on over there? Throw in another loss from heat stress, and another two lost in combat, and that's six dead in four days. But you wouldn't know it from the news, would you?

Is Iraqi Intelligence Still Being Manipulated?
By Michael Hersh, Newsweek Web Exclusive
8 August 2003
EXCERPT: The treatment of Obeidi has in turn raised questions about whether even fresh intelligence from Iraq is being manipulated in advance of the report being prepared by David Kay, which is intended as the definitive account of Iraq’s WMD program. One Capitol Hill legislator told NEWSWEEK that the administration’s plan is to put out a vast compilation of data about Saddam’s decades-long effort to build weapons of mass destruction and “hope the issue will go away.” And several Democrats say they are disturbed by what Sen. Dianne Feinstein told NEWSWEEK was the “very vague and nonprecise” nature of Kay’s testimony when he appeared at closed sessions of two congressional committees last week.

Soldiers Return Fire on Demonstrators in Baghdad, One Civilian Killed
By Tarek Al-Issawi
Associated Press, 13 August 2003
EXCERPT: U.S. soldiers shot into a crowd of thousands of demonstrators in a Baghdad slum on Wednesday, killing one civilian and wounding four after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at them, the military said. North of Baghdad, guerrillas killed two American troops.

Over 50 Die in Day of Afghan Violence
By Amy Waldman
New York Times, 14 August 2003
Fifteen people, including half a dozen children, were killed in southern Afghanistan when a bomb went off inside their bus. Another 40 died in fighting in other parts of the country. Meanwhile the U.S. has decided to invest a billion dollars in an effort to get out of Afghanistan quicker and leave that country to the Taliban. BushWhackedUSA asks: Will Iraq look so peaceful two years down the road of liberation at the hands of the American military?

BOOK BLURB
Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy
By Ted Nace
In Gangs of America, Ted Nace presents a straightforward, easily readable narrative about how corporations came to enjoy the rights they now have in the United States. This link includes a free download of the book, in the form of a PDF file.
EXCERPT: You can read the Constitution from front to back, including all the amendments added to the document to the present day, and not see a single instance of the word “corporation.” For that reason, the rights that corporations now enjoy have all been established through indirect means, especially a handful of key Supreme Court decisions.

Dead Journalist's Family Denounces U.S. Iraq Report
REUTERS, courtesty of the New York Times
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: The family of a Spanish television cameraman killed by a U.S. tank shell in Baghdad four months ago dismissed as "a series of lies'' Wednesday a U.S. report that cleared its soldiers of blame. The U.S. military said Tuesday that an inquiry had found the tank crew acted in self defense when they fired on the Palestine Hotel, home to many foreign journalists covering the arrival of U.S. troops in the city center on April 8.

UN to "welcome" Iraq Governing Council
U.S. Abandons Idea of Bigger U.N. Role in Iraq Occupation
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN with FELICITY BARRINGER
New York Times
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials said today.
Instead, the officials said, the United States would widen its effort to enlist other countries to assist the occupation forces in Iraq, which are dominated by the 139,000 United States troops there.
The decision was made not "...to involve the United Nations or countries that opposed the war and are now eager to exercise influence in a postwar Iraq."
"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation,' " said an administration official. "You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but right now the situation in Iraq is not that dire."

  Audio Link 
Progressive Radio
Interview with Rahul Mahajan
12 August 2003
"Progressive Radio" is a weekly half-hour radio show hosted by Matthew Rothschild, Editor of The Progressive magazine. Rothschild recently interviewed Rahul Mahajan, author of the new book Full Spectrum Dominance:US Power In Iraq and Beyond.
Interview of Rahul Mahajan
MP3 file (20mb)
RealAudio file (14mb)

Mini carrot in hand...
U.S. Weighs Reward if North Korea Scraps Nuclear Arms
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
New York Times
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration, which had barred concessions to North Korea before it dismantled its nuclear weapons program, is now considering some conciliatory steps. In return, North Korea would have to either fully disclose its weapons or allow international inspectors into the country, administration officials said today.
Possible concessions include some form of written assurance that the United States has no intention of attacking North Korea and some relaxation of curbs on activities by international institutions to help the North with its economic problems, the officials said.
An administration official said the United States might even be prepared to offer economic incentives, an idea it previously disparaged in connection with the Clinton administration's 1994 deal to freeze North Korea's nuclear program...

Insiders Profit From Iraq 
TomPaine.com
13 August 2003
EXCERPTS: President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of "undue influence, whether sought or unsought," exerted by the military-industrial complex. If President Eisenhower were with us today, he would be suffering his own case of 'shock and awe' over the lengths this administration is willing to go to in using the military-industrial complex as a political tool to help its friends and grease the path towards its re-election.

Wednesday 13 August 2003

Rising Tide of Islamic Militants See Iraq as Ultimate Battlefield
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
New York Times   EXCERPT:
ULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Aug. 11 — In much the same way as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan stirred an earlier generation of young Muslims determined to fight the infidel, the American presence in Iraq is prompting a rising tide of Muslim militants to slip into the country to fight the foreign occupier, Iraqi officials and others say.
"Iraq is the nexus where many issues are coming together — Islam versus democracy, the West versus the axis of evil, Arab nationalism versus some different types of political culture," said Barham Saleh, the prime minister of this Kurdish-controlled part of northern Iraq.

BA suspends Saudi flights over security fears
13 August 2003   
LONDON (Reuters) -
EXCERPT: British Airways has suspended flights to Saudi Arabia over a security threat.
Saudi forces have clashed with gunmen over the past three days, and Saudi sources say they believed the gunmen were planning to target British interests.
"British Airways has suspended until further notice its flights to Saudi Arabia due to heightened security concerns in the region," the carrier said in a statement on Wednesday.

Papers of Mass Destruction
Relax, It Was All a Pack of Lies
By RAY McGOVERN
Former CIA Analyst
CounterPunch, 12 August 2003
EXCERPT: Four and half months of futile searching have demonstrated that there were not/are not any "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. We knew going in that the vast majority had been destroyed in the nineties. It is now clear that State Department intelligence analysts were right in insisting last fall that there was "no reliable evidence" that they were "reconstituted" (to borrow the term favored by Vice President Dick Cheney).
And the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was somehow in cahoots with al-Qaeda have been thoroughly discredited--most recently by the report of the joint congressional committee on 9/11.

Meanwhile: Is Colin Powell Terminator 4?
Andy Borowitz International Herald Tribune
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: Just hours after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for governor of California, the contest to replace Schwarzenegger in the lucrative "Terminator" film series began in earnest.
.Secretary of State Colin Powell was the first to toss his hat in the ring, discreetly phoning several executives at Warner Brothers to let them know he was interested in the Terminator role. "He likes the idea of being in a job where people have to listen to him, and if they don't, he can just blow them away," one of Powell's confidantes said.

Chomsky's analysis of the Bush Doctrine
Preventive War: 'the Supreme Crime'
By Noam Chomsky
ZNet, 11 August 2003
EXCERPTS: The grand strategy authorises the US to carry out preventive war: preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term "preventive" is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the supreme crime that was condemned at Nuremberg....
Perhaps the most spectacular propaganda achievement was the praising of Bush's vision to bring democracy to the Middle East in the midst of an extraordinary display of hatred and contempt for democracy. This was illustrated by the distinction that was made by Washington between Old and New Europe, the former being reviled and the latter hailed for its courage. The criterion was sharp: Old Europe consists of governments that took the same position over the war on Iraq as most of their populations; while the heroes of New Europe followed orders from Crawford, Texas, disregarding, in most cases, an even larger majority of citizens who were against the war....
The US administration's concerns now extend as well to Northeast Asia, the world's most dynamic economic region, with ample resources and advanced industrial economies, a potentially integrated region that might also flirt with challenging the overall framework of world order, which is to be maintained permanently, by force if necessary, Washington has declared.

Screw the United Nations, we've got money to make!
U.S. defends private sector's Iraq contracts
By Mark Matthews
SunSpot.net 10 August 2003
With U.S. taxpayers bearing most of the cost of occupying Iraq, the Bush administration continues to use American corporations to perform work that United Nations agencies and nonprofit aid groups can do more cheaply, a senior Bush administration official acknowledged.

What is a neo-conservative anyway?
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
13 August 2003
EXCERPT: With all the attention paid to neo-conservatives in the international media nowadays, one would think that there would be a standard definition of the term. Yet, despite their now being credited with a virtual takeover of US foreign policy under President George W Bush, a common understanding of the term remains elusive.
In this context, it may be useful to offer some description of their basic tenets and origin, if for no other reason than to distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration's neo-imperialist trajectory...

Repeating Mistakes of the Cold War
by Carol Brightman
AlterNet, 12 August 2003
EXCERPT: The "cakewalk" Iraq was supposed to have been has turned into a nightmare for U.S. forces, whose civilian leaders continue to broadcast a comic-strip fantasy of American power so remote from reality as to raise questions of competence. "We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or ... kill them, until we have imposed law and order on this country," Washington's Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, told Americans in July. "We dominate the scene ..."

Back-To-Back Blasts Shatter Mideast Calm
Associated Press in Washington Post
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: Suicide attacks less than an hour apart leave two Israelis dead. Hamas claims responsibility for one bombing.

Afghans Urge NATO to Expand Peacekeeping
Associated Press in Washington Post
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: Afghan officials today welcomed the impending NATO takeover of the 5,000-member multinational peacekeeping force and urged that it be expanded beyond Kabul.
NATO is taking over command of the International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, in large part to end the arduous task of searching for a new lead nation every six months to run it. Germany and the Netherlands have jointly led the force for the past six months.

Al-Qaeda directs Iraqi hit squad
By Marie Colvin
The Sunday Times, London
10 August 2003 (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: A deadly alliance has been formed between terrorists from various Arab countries and Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Al-Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated Iraq from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have formed a deadly alliance with former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein to fight their common enemy, the U.S. forces.
The alliance, known as Jaish Muhammad -- the army of the prophet Muhammad -- is believed to be responsible for increasingly sophisticated attacks on U.S. soldiers.
In the past four months, it has smuggled millions of dollars, weapons and hundreds of Arab fighters across the desert border with Saudi Arabia.

Interview: Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
By Mary Dejevsky, Diplomatic Editor
The Independent
11 August 2003   (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: 'It is galling to hear them say we're funding terror. Tell us who and how'

Think Again: The United Nations
By Madeleine K. Albright
Foreign Policy Magazine
12 August 2003
EXCERPT: Bureaucratic. Ineffective. Undemocratic. Anti-United States. And after the bitter debate over the use of force in Iraq, critics might add “useless” to the list of adjectives describing the United Nations. So why was the United Nations the first place the Bush administration went for approval after winning the war? Because for $1.25 billion a year—roughly what the Pentagon spends every 32 hours—the United Nations is still the best investment that the world can make in stopping AIDS and SARS, feeding the poor, helping refugees, and fighting global crime and the spread of nuclear weapons.

Washington Pushing for UN Embrace of Iraqi
Reuters
11August 2003   (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: The United States is pushing for a Security Council vote this week on a draft resolution authorizing the U.N. assistance mission in Iraq and endorsing the new Governing Council in Baghdad, diplomats said on Monday.
A vote is expected by midweek and could come as early as Monday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Both Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are keen for rapid adoption of such a resolution, and Washington has already circulated draft language among the council's other major powers -- Russia, China, France and Britain, the diplomats said.
"Washington is working on a very short resolution," one council diplomat said. "They want to move it as quickly as possible. It could move as soon as today."

WTO Negotiators Begin Trade Talks
Associated Press in the New York Times
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
EXCERPT: Diplomats on Monday began two weeks of negotiations aimed at breathing life into stalled World Trade Organization talks before a major meeting next month.
But those attending were told that talks between the United States and the European Union on the crucial issue of agriculture have so far failed to produce agreement.

Britain to produce new evidence on Iraqi WMD: report
APF in Yahoo
11 August 2003, (posted 12 Aug))
EXCERPT: The British government is soon to present new evidence that Iraq (news - web sites) had produced biological weapons, it was reported.
Government sources "say that several new bits of information will emerge including evidence based on interviews with Iraqi scientists that biological weapons had been produced in quantity", the Economist said.

Germany softens on troops to Iraq
By Kate Connolly in Berlin
The Telegraph
11 August 2003  (posted 12 Aug)
German troops could be sent to Iraq, the government said for the first time yesterday, if they are given a United Nations mandate.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was vehemently opposed to the war, causing US-German relations to plunge to a post-war low, and since the fall of Baghdad Germany has repeatedly insisted it will not get involved on the ground.
But Peter Struck, the defence minister, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper: "If the appropriate UN mandates are in place and Nato is asked to take on greater responsibility, we would have no reason to oppose an engagement by the [Nato] alliance."

Monday 11 August 2003

Many claims used to justify war in Iraq don't pass test of time
POWELL'S U.N. SPEECH, 6 MONTHS LATER
CHARLES J. HANLEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Olympian
10 August 2003
The speech that galvanized US opinion in favor of the war is shown to be filled with lies and deceit.

Anti-WTO Rally in France Draws More Than 100,000
Sydney Morning Harold, 10 August 2003
Courtesty of United For Peace and Justice
(posted 11 Aug)
EXCERPT: More than 100,000 people have flocked to a rally to welcome the
release from prison of French eco-warrior Jose Bove and to protest against
the agenda for World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks next month, organisers
said yesterday.

To the Victors Go the Spoils of War
By Pratap Chatterjee and Oula Al Farawati
CorpWatch,
8 August 2003 (posted 11 Aug)
EXCERPT: While the Bush Administration is under fire for failing to produce a single Iraqi weapon of mass destruction three months after the official close of the war, critics claim that the motive for the invasion all along was control of Iraqi oil. And if the bonanza in oil contracts won by giant oil companies is any indication, Washington is moving swiftly to secure access to Iraq's oil wealth once and for all.

US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
The Independent
10 August 2003  (posted 11 Aug) EXCERPT:
American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.
The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy.

Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car
Family shot dead by panicking US troops
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad
The Independent
10 August 2003   (posted 11 Aug)  EXCERPT:
The abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.
"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting."
The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: "Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq."

The Billion-Dollar Breakup
Traci Hukill
TomPaine.com,
8 August 2003 (posted 11 Aug)
EXCERPT: The White House decision, then, to administer a $1-billion cash infusion to a country so egregiously neglected in the last round of budget proposals would seem to signal a shift in priorities. But a change in tactics should not be confused with a change of heart. The administration is more eager than ever to extricate itself from Afghanistan. This plan is designed to speed that process; it is a fancy candlelit dinner and a new outfit on the eve of the breakup -- after months of heavy hints that the relationship just isn't working out.

Terror Group Seen as Back Inside Iraq
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
New York Times
10 August 2003  EXCERPT:
The American-led administration in Iraq has received intelligence reports that hundreds of Islamic militants who fled Iraq during the war have returned and are planning to conduct major terrorist attacks.

Iraqi collaborators discarded
U.S. Moved to Undermine Iraqi Military Before War
By DOUGLAS JEHL with DEXTER FILKINS
New York Times
10 August 2003  EXCERPT:
The United States military, the Central Intelligence Agency and Iraqi exiles began a broad covert effort inside Iraq at least three months before the war to forge alliances with Iraqi military leaders and persuade commanders not to fight, say people involved in the effort.
But Washington's war planners elected not to try to keep...Iraqi leaders around after the war to help them keep the peace, a decision some now see as a missed opportunity.

Weather balloons of mass destruction?
Iraqi Trailers Said to Make Hydrogen, Not Biological Arms
by Douglas Jehl
New York Times, 9 August 2003
EXCERPT: Senior administration officials have acknowledged that the United States has found neither biological agents nor undisputed evidence that the trailers were used to make such arms. They have said that intelligence analysts in Washington and Baghdad reached their conclusion about the trailers [that the trailers produced helium for weather balloons] after analyzing, and rejecting, alternative theories of how they could have been used. That view, described as a consensus of opinion with the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, was presented to the White House before it was made public. At that time, a senior official who examined the evidence in detail and concluded that the trailers were used for biological weapons said, "The experts who have crawled over this again and again can come up with no other plausible legitimate use."

Occupying Iraq
Is the price, in blood and money, too high?
The Economist, 7 August 2003
EXCERPT: Apart from the cost in American lives, there is the money. The price of occupation has been estimated at $1 billion a week, contributing to what is already the largest federal deficit in American history. America had hoped that oil exports would cover the cost of reconstruction, but the attacks have destroyed pipelines and discouraged private investment. Coalition and Iraqi oil ministry officials are cagey about revenues, but there is little doubt that income is far off target.

Who, Poindexter?
Pentagon met with discredited Iran-Contra figure
Associated Press & CNN
9 August 2003  EXCERPT:
Pentagon officials met over a three-day period in late 2001 with a long-discredited Iranian who was a middleman in the Iran-Contra scandal, Defense Department officials said Friday. Manucher Ghorbanifar sat in on a series of meetings in Europe between two defense officials and two other Iranians who the Bush administration had been told had information useful to the United States in its then-fledgling global war on terrorism, a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Action taken only after 9-11
Bush held up plan to hit Bin Laden
Julian Borger in Washington
5 August 2002 (posted 9 Aug)
The Guardian  EXCERPT:
The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday.
At the key briefing, ... proposals (were presented) to "roll back" al-Qaida which closely resemble the measures taken after September 11.

No more revisionist history on Iraq war
The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(posted 9 August 2003)
A thorough compilation of who said what, when.

NATO to Take Command of International Peacekeeping Force in Afghanistan
By Todd Pitman Associated Press
9 August 2003  EXCERPT:
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday plans to take command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan's war-shattered capital, a move that reflects the 54-year-old alliance's shifting priorities in the global war on terror.
NATO will take over command of the 5,000-strong International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, from Germany and the Netherlands during a ceremony in Kabul.
NATO decided several months ago to take over ISAF, in large part to end the task of searching for a new "lead nation" every six months to run the peacekeeping force.

Angry Iraqis Throw Stones at UK Troops in Basra
Reuters
9 August 2003  EXCERPT:
BASRA, Iraq - British troops fired into the air to disperse stone-throwing Iraqis protesting the lack of petrol and power in the country's second largest city of Basra Saturday, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the soldiers opened fire after the angry crowd threw stones at soldiers and at the Kuwaiti tanker at the station in Saad Square in Basra. The crowd then set on fire the tanker, they said.
Locals accused Kuwaiti tankers of smuggling cheap Iraqi petrol to Kuwait.

North Korea Next to Hear U.S. War Drum
by Geoffrey York
Globe and Mail (Toronto), 8 August 2003
Courtesy of Information Clearinghouse
EXCERPT: A senior Pentagon adviser has given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within 30 to 60 days, adding
muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities. Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war drums in Washington have begun pounding
again. A growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war.

Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation
Officials Made Uranium Assertions Before and After President's Speech
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
8 August 2003  EXCERPT:
Since last month, presidential aides have said a questionable allegation, that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium for nuclear weapons, made it into President Bush's State of the Union address because of miscommunication between the CIA and Bush's staff.
But by the time the president gave the speech, on Jan. 28, that same allegation was already part of an administration campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. In January alone, it was included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by the president's four most senior national security officials.

Saudi Secrets are Safe With Bush
by Joe Conasen
New York Observer, 11 August 2003
EXCERPT: So regardless of any claims to the contrary, it seems prudent to remember that the White House and the House of Saud are likewise best served by keeping all the sensitive files locked away. Both houses would be unwise to risk speaking candidly about each other now—a caution that applies with special emphasis when the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue bear the name of Bush.

Our Friends the Saudis
Riyadh's faithlessness becomes an American political issue.
Wall Street Journal Opinion
8 August 2003  EXCERPT:
A hearing last Thursday before the Senate Government Affairs Committee exposed the two large public questions at issue: Whether the Saudis are doing all they should to crack down on terrorists and their support network, and whether our own government has been too inclined to look the other way when they don't.
Let's start with two uncontested facts. The first is that Saudi Arabia is the "epicenter" of funding for terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular. (italics bwusa) That's not our word. That was the Senate testimony only a month ago of David Aufhauser, general counsel for the Treasury Department.
The other disturbing fact is that two years after 9/11 the Saudis still have not yet done all they need to do to stop the flow of Saudi money to the world-wide terror network. Again this is not our judgment. Secretary of State Colin Powell said as much in a radio interview earlier this week in which he applauded the Saudis for their "especially aggressive" cooperation but noted America still has "issues" with them on terrorist financing.

Did Iraq Have WMDs?
It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have'
by Steve Martin
New York Times, 8 August 2003
EXCERPT: See, I can "have" something without actually having it. I can "have" a cold, but I don't own the cold, nor do I harbor it. Really, when you think about it, the cold has me, or even more precisely, the cold has passed through me. Plus, the word "have" has the complicated letter "v" in it. It seems that so many words with the letter "v" are words that are difficult to use and spell. Like "verisimilitude." And "envelope." Therefore, when you ask me, "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction," I frankly don't know what you're talking about. Do you mean currently? Then why did you say "did?" Think about "did." What the heck does that mean? Say it a few times out loud. Sounds silly. I'm beginning to think it's just the media's effort to use a fancy palindrome, rather than ask a pertinent question.

It All Depends on What You Mean by "Napalm"
Officials Confirm Dropping 'Firebombs' on Iraqi Troops
By James W. Crawley
The San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 August 2003
EXCERPT: During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use. What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Bush 'Likud' crew favors skullduggery
Bush administration paralyzed over Iran
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
8 August 2003
According to a series of leaks by US officials, Iran has offered to hand over, if not directly to Washington then to friendly allies, three senior al-Qaeda leaders and might provide another three top terrorist suspects that Washington believes are being held by Tehran.
But its price - for the US military to shut down permanently the operations of an Iraq-based Iranian rebel group (the MEK) that is on the State Department's official terrorism list - might be too high for some hardliners, centered in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, who led the charge for war in Iraq.
...analysts argue that disbanding the MEK would help demonstrate that Washington is not applying a double standard to different terrorist groups, depending on their usefulness. But the Pentagon reportedly remains resistant to stronger action against the group.

U.S. Plans to Supply AK-47s to Iraqi Army
By Mark Fineman
LA Times
8 August 2003
EXCERPT: In a nation awash with hundreds of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, the U.S.-led occupation authority is planning to buy and import 34,000 more of the ubiquitous weapons to equip a new Iraqi army.
The plan has baffled some observers, not only because U.S. forces in Iraq have already seized and stockpiled thousands of the rifles since April, but because defense analysts have strongly recommended that the new Iraqi army be equipped with more modern, U.S.-made weapons.

Iraq invasion violated international law: Blix
Sydney Morning Herald
7 August 2003  (posted 8 Aug)
EXCERPT: With unusual candour, the former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix today denounced the US-led war on Iraq as a violation of international law, and questioned Washington's motives for the invasion.
"I cannot see that the action, in the way it was justified, was compatible with the UN Charter," Blix said, adding that it had undermined the Security Council's authority.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Follies...
U.S. Holding Iraqis at Saddam's Notorious Prison
by Alex Rodriguez
Chicago Tribune, 6 August 2003
Once one of Iraq's notorious prisons where Saddam Hussein had political prisoners tortured and hanged, Abu Ghraib has become a makeshift jail at the heart of the U.S. military's struggle to give Iraqis a new sense of justice. About 500 Iraqis are detained here and, like detainees in U.S. prison camps across Iraq, none has been allowed family visits. Only one out of 10 has been allowed to see a lawyer.

The Conceited Empire
by Martin A. Senn and Felix Lautenschlager
translated by Andreas Artz
Information Clearing House
(posted 8 Aug) EXCERPTS:
A historian credited with predicting the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1970s now says that the US has been on its way out for the last decade. The power and influence of the United States is being overestimated, claims French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd. "There will be no American Empire." "The world is too large and dynamic to be controlled by one power." According to Todd, whose 1976 book predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, there is no question: the decline of America the Superpower has already
begun.
The theatrical military activism against inconsequential rogue states that we are currently witnessing plays out against this backdrop. It is a sign of weakness, not of strength. But weakness makes for unpredictability. The US is about to become a problem for the world, where we have previously been accustomed to seeing a solution in them.

What are Israel's Loan Guarantees?
By Ed Finn
Slate
6 August 2003 (posted 8 Aug)  EXCERPT:
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the United States may be planning to reduce Israel's loan guarantees to account for any money the country spends constructing a "security perimeter" that will divide its citizens from Palestinians. What are these loan guarantees, and how important are they to Israel?
The $9 billion in loan guarantees (along with $1 billion in direct aid) comprise a special post-Gulf War II aid package, awarded to Israel on top of the $3 billion in other assistance that the United States gives annually. But with loan guarantees, it's never clear how much money is actually "given...":

Bush objection to fence is fake
Rice: Security fence will not affect loan guarantees
By Nathan Guttman and Aluf Benn
Haaretz.com
7 August 2003
EXCERPT: U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice yesterday told Dov Weisglass, the prime minister's bureau chief, that deducting the cost of the separation fence from U.S. loan guarantees is not
on the agenda.

Israel's fence draws threat of US sanctions
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
The Guardian
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
EXCERPTS: The Bush administration is threatening to impose hundreds of millions of pounds in financial sanctions on Israel if it persists in pushing its security fence and wall in the West Bank deep into Palestinian territory.
Congress recently approved $9bn (£5.5bn) in loan guarantees for Israel, with the proviso that amounts equivalent to the spending on Jewish settlements and other intrusions into Palestinian territory would be deducted

Wolfowitz: Iraq Was Not Involved In 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, No Ties To Al-Qaeda
By Jason Leopold
Defense Link and Information Clearing House
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
EXCERPT: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main architects for the war in Iraq, admitted for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, contradicting public statements made by senior White House and Pentagon officials whose attempt to link Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda was cited by the Bush administration as one of the main reasons for launching a preemptive strike in March against Iraq.
In an interview with conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham, Wolfowitz was asked when he first came to believe that Iraq was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
“I’m not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it,” Wolfowitz said in the interview, aired Friday, a transcript of which can be found at Defense Link.

'We don't feel like heroes anymore'
Commentary by
Isaac Kindblade, Pfc, US Army
The Oregonian
5 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug) EXCERPT:
I am a private first class in the Army's 671st Engineer Company out of Portland. I just wanted to let you know a little bit of what we are up to, maybe so that you can have another opinion of what's going on over here in Iraq.

Hiroshima Mayor Lashes Out at U.S.
Associated Press, 6 August 2003
The mayor of Hiroshima has criticized the U.S. for pursuing new nuclear weapons technology, as he marked the 58th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack. Tadatoshi Akiba said Washington's apparent worship of "nuclear weapons as God" was threatening world peace. "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse," Akiba said during the annual ceremony held Wednesday at the Peace Memorial Park. "As the U.S.-British-led war on Iraq made clear, the assertion that war is peace is being trumpeted as truth."

Jihad virus attacks Pentagon logic
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
7 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Paul Wolfowitz and the Pentagon will have to revise their logic... The Bush administration's first reaction to September 11 was to try to destroy al-Qaeda. But Osama bin Laden could not be captured. Ayman al-Zawahiri could not be captured. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, could not be captured. So the screenplay had to be changed, to Wolfowitz's original idea: smash Saddam Hussein. Evil metamorphosed from Osama to Saddam. Saddam may be gone, but al-Qaeda remains, and on top of it the US now faces a national liberation struggle in Iraq that is led neither by remnants of the Ba'ath Party nor by al-Qaeda, but by Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ites alike.
Only a long-term, carefully elaborated political strategy would be able to contain this worldwide anti-US jihad. There's no possible military solution. You can't kill a virus with a barrage of TOW missiles. And, according to al-Zawahiri, "The real battle hasn't even started yet."

Pyongyang and Tehran Discussing Missile Purchase
Global Security Newswire
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported today that North Korea is currently negotiating to sell Iran Taepodong 2 long-range ballistic missiles, according to Reuters.
North Korea plans to ship Taepodong 2 components to Iran, where they will then be assembled at a factory near Tehran, according to the Japanese newspaper. North Korea is also planning to dispatch missile experts to Iran and to work with Tehran on the joint development of nuclear warheads.
North Korea and Iran have been discussing plans for increased missile and nuclear weapons cooperation for about a year, the Japanese newspaper reported. The two countries are expected to reach an agreement by mid-October.

Bush Order Raises Rights Concerns
Little-noted decree appears to immunize U.S. firms exploiting Iraqi oil, critics say.
by Lisa Girion
LA Times
6 August 2003 (posted 7 Aug)
An executive order signed by President Bush more than two months ago is raising concerns that U.S. oil companies may have been handed blanket immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in connection with the sale of Iraqi oil.

Iraqi TV Head Quits, Says U.S. Losing Propaganda War
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
Reuters to My Yahoo!
5 August 2003
The postwar director of U.S.-backed Iraqi Television has quit, saying the United States is losing the propaganda war to countries like Iran and to the fugitive Saddam Hussein.
Three months after being flown to Baghdad on board a U.S. plane to relaunch Iraqi television and radio, former exile Ahmad Rikabi is disillusioned and back in London for the foreseeable future.
"Saddam Hussein is doing better at marketing himself, through Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya Gulf channels," Rikabi said, referring to the audio tapes believed to be from the former Iraqi leader which have been supplied to those stations and broadcast across the region.
He said that as the United States failed to invest in Iraqi stations or to retain local staff, channels such as Iran's Al Alam and Qatar's Al Jazeera were gaining popularity in Iraq

Wednesday 6 August 2003

U.S. military abroad: More bases won't curb terrorism
William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune
6 August 2003
EXCERPT: A vastly extended deployment of American forces is proposed by Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department. But there is no assurance that new military bases would actually improve the security of the United States, and they might constitute eventual political provocations, targets and potential hostages.

Microsoft misbehaves in Europe too
BRUSSELS (AFP)
6 August 2003
EXCERPT: The European Commission said preliminary findings from an anti-trust probe had found Microsoft guilty of unfairly blocking competition, and said it was giving the software giant a "last opportunity" to clear its name.
The European Union's executive arm said the interim findings of its lengthy investigation into Microsoft had shown the US company had sought to squelch rivals in the low-end server market and to its Windows Media Player.

The President's Real Goal in Iraq
by Jay Bookman
Information Clearing House,
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
This article provides a thorough summary of the Bush-Cheney cartel's neoconservative agenda for Iraq, complete with links to background information, an analysis of the international impact of the Iraq invasion, and mug shots with biographical blurbs for some of the neocon operators behind the scenes at the White House and Pentagon.

Palestinians Cancel Summit With Israel
By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press in FindLaw
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: The U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan hit a rough patch after a Palestinian shooting attack wounded four Israelis and Palestinians reacted with scorn to Israel's decision to release some 440 Palestinian prisoners.
Palestinian sources said Tuesday that the Palestinians, angry because Israel's list contained few long-serving detainees, called off a summit between premier Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Democrat Chides Arafat on Peace Effort
By JASON KEYSER
Associated Press in FindLaw
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPTS: A leading U.S. congressman on Tuesday accused Yasser Arafat of hampering peace efforts and raised doubts Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has the power to strike a deal with Israel.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland... told Sharon that Israel is "the world's most courageous democracy," adding, "We are together in the struggle against terrorism."

Cheney continues to export death and destruction
Banks Funded by U.S. Tax Dollars to Vote on Peru Pipeline
Amazon Watch
30 July 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
EXCERPT: Sustained natural gas extraction activities could wreak havoc on these vulnerable, isolated people. Construction, deforestation, and erosion could contaminate their water and deplete their sources of food. Worse yet, everyday diseases that are harmless to us could quickly kill many of these people. In need of more funding, the energy companies involved have asked the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) --which is partially funded by US taxpayers -- for a loan. The IDB will make a decision on this loan this week!
ALSO: As reported on Democracy Now!, "The main beneficiaries of the project are a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton and Hunt Oil Company, whose vice president was a top energy advisor to George W. Bush. Construction of the pipeline is causing forest erosion, landslides, spreading non-indigenous diseases, and creating a shortage of food supplies in the region."
Click HERE for the story.

Congo's International Civil War
Paul Harris
Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
5 August 2003 (posted 6 Aug)
When Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960 it did little to improve the lives of those living in what is now called Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A brief civil war, followed by a transitional government, gave way in 1965 to Joseph Mobuto's U.S.-backed leadership. Mobuto ruled for the next 32 years in a display of massive corruption. His departure in 1997 led to another U.S.-backed leader, Laurent Kabila, who quickly fell out of favor with the U.S. and found himself in the midst of a civil war in 1998. It raged for almost five years and now has the dubious distinction of being one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II.

Tuesday 5 August 2003

State Dept defends Bolton,
aka "human scum"
CBS/AP
5 August 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration declined Monday to respond to North Korea's description of the State Department's top arms control official as "human scum."
"We're not going to dignify North Korean comments about our undersecretary of state," spokesman Philip Reeker said.
North Korea's official news agency vilified Undersecretary of State John Bolton after he characterized North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" in a speech last week to a gathering in South Korea.
Defending Bolton's speech, Reeker said it contained "obvious truths."

"Such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks."
-- A North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, indicating that Pyongyang would not accept U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton as a delegate to nuclear talks expected this month.

John Bolton sets the tone for talks
A nuclear breakthrough
The Economist Global Agenda
Aug 4th 2003 (posted August 5)
North Korea agreed to a meeting framework that permitted them and the United States to have their way in a multilateral setting the US had demanded. Just as Bush pronounced this as "encouraging," the "Pentagon's diplomat" John Bolten traveled to South Korea and referred to life in the communist north as a “hellish nightmare,” where its leader Kim Jong-il lived like royalty while keeping hundreds of thousands of his people in prison camps and millions more mired in poverty. That certainly sets the tone for successful negotiations. Nice work Johnny!!
EXCERPT: North Korea has indicated that it is willing to take part in multilateral talks over its nuclear-weapons programme, after insisting for months that it would talk only to America. But many Asian observers continue to worry that North Korea might be the next Iraq

North Korea says will hold talks, but not with Bolton
By Samuel Len
Daily Times (Pakistan)
4 August 2003 (posted 5 August)
EXCERPT: North Korea said on Sunday it still was ready for six-way talks to resolve a crisis over its nuclear ambitions but it would have no dialogue with US envoy John Bolton after his sharp criticism of the country and its leader. "Such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the
talks." -- A North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, indicating that Pyongyang would not accept U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton as a delegate to nuclear talks expected this month.

Iraqis doubt US explanation for continuing attacks
By Charles Clover
3 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPTS: Fewer then a third of Iraqis believe the armed attacks against coalition forces in their country are attributable to former Ba'ath party operatives turned guerrilla, as US officials suggest, a public opinion survey suggests.
US officials have yet to produce much public evidence but many Iraqis believe the guerrillas are a new phenomenon, fuelled by nationalism, Islamism, and revenge.

UK may back new UN move on Iraq
By James Blitz,
Financial Times
3 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
The UK government is for the first time talking openly about backing a new United Nations security council resolution on Iraq with the aim of giving India, Pakistan, Turkey and other states the domestic political cover they need to contribute to a multinational force.
As the US and UK look at ways of sharing the military burden of post-war Iraq, a top government officials has said preliminary negotiations over such a resolution could begin at the UN within a few weeks.

The many voices of US foreign policy
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
5 August 2003
A current assessment of the power struggle between neocons and less extreme right wing...
EXCERPT: The jockeying was clear all week long. While Powell and the senators all but pleaded for a new UN Security Council resolution that would permit more countries to contribute troops and financial assistance to Iraq, Wolfowitz rejected any arrangement that would diminish US control over the occupation.

Bitterness grows in Iraq over deaths of civilians
By Vivienne Walt
Boston Globe
5 August 2003
The correspondent provides numerous personalized accounts of US occupying forces killing civilians. "...Amnesty International. The London-based organization said its researchers in Iraq had determined that US forces were at times trigger-happy and were ill prepared for policing Iraq.

Rights Activists Worried By African Peacekeepers
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post
5 August 2003
EXCERPT: In the rush to persuade the Nigerians to intervene to avert chaos in Liberia, there has been little public debate in Washington or at the United Nations over ECOWAS's human rights record in West Africa. The Bush administration, which has pledged to provide cash and logistical support for the West African forces, ushered a resolution through the Security Council Friday that grants the peacekeepers broad immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed in Liberia.
"I don't think [the West African human rights performance] was foremost in everybody's mind," said a U.S. official who tracks the issue. "ECOWAS has had some problems, but the situation in Liberia is so bad that people were looking to get a force in to stop them from fighting."

Shi'ites raise new battle cry
By Hooman Peimani
Asia Times
5 August 2003
Contrary to US hopes, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons has not helped curb attacks on the US troops occupying Iraq. The Americans therefore should be concerned about a seeming increase in such attacks, which they attribute to "pro-Saddam forces". However, the growing radicalization of Iraqi Shi'ites, as reflected in the creation of the "army of al-Mahdi", heralds the widening of the anti-occupation movement beyond the expectations of the US government.

Liberians rejoice as peacekeepers arrive
By David Clarke
Reuters
4 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT: West African peacekeepers have swooped into Liberia by helicopter, as hundreds of war-weary Liberians dance for joy in the capital's ruined streets on hopes of an end to 14 years of bloodshed.

Operation Oily Immunity: Bush Quietly Moves to Protect U.S. Oil Interests in Iraq
Democracy Now
4 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
The Institute for Policy Studies and Government Accountability Project are calling on Congress to investigate and repeal an executive order signed by President George W. Bush that they say gives sweeping powers to U.S. oil companies operating in Iraq. [Includes transcript]

Prisoner list disappoints Palestinians
By Jeffrey Heller
Reuters
4 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT:  Israel has published a list of 342 Palestinian prisoners it plans to free on Wednesday to bolster a U.S.-backed peace plan and reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, but Palestinians are crying foul.
Palestinian officials noted that 31 men were to complete their sentences this month anyway, and that Israeli officials said earlier 540 would be freed. Palestinians want a general release of all 6,000 of their brethren in Israeli jails.
"What is this? Is this deception? Are they deceiving nations?" Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said on Monday in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

  AUDIO 
Bush & Blair Launch PR Campaign To Silence Iraq Critics
Democracy Now
4 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT: Officials here in Washington and in London feel that the Downing Street and White House have failed to make the case about W.M.D., as I
suspect, most of us are fully aware. And they say that while saying they claim they have found certain evidence, it's come out piecemeal, and bit by bit, and hasn't had any impact. Now, I'm not sure about that. I can think of one instance perhaps, of something that was even vaguely, looked like credible evidence, to start off with. That's those two mobile pieces that practically everyone now conceives were for making helium. The idea is that they'll gather whatever they have, they will collate it and put it together. Then later this year, perhaps as early as next month, they'll deliver this in one big go, I think something similar to what Colin Powell did before the U.N. on, I think February the 5th it was, when he made his notorious, infamous presentation. [Includes transcript]

World Bank Knew about Enron's Payoffs in Guatemala
by Jim Vallette
Special to CorpWatch,
1 August 2003 (posted 5 Aug)
EXCERPT: A newly released U.S. Senate report has found that the World Bank and other U.S. taxpayer-backed agencies knew that Enron was paying commissions to a shadowy company called Sun King to win a contract to build a power plant on a barge inPuerto Quetzal, Guatemala, ten years ago. The bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report, released on Wednesday, including contracts and corporate correspondence, says: "Enron benefited from taxpayer support and multilateral organization support to extend its international reach, including the Guatemalan power project with its questionable payments."

Monday 4 August 2003

Killing Saddam: A Summer Blockbuster
Commentary by Tom Hayden,
Alternet
1 August 2003
To judge from the excited build-up, Saddam Hussein will be killed very soon. Once his location is identified, the spectacle of his death can soon be orchestrated. To have the greatest impact, perhaps it will be televised in all time zones on a weekday, avoiding the competition of weekend sports. There must be burnt offerings and a triumphal revelation of the corpse. For an insecure America, this killing will be a "ritual of blood," a "compact of fellowship" – terms used by West Indian sociologist Orlando Patterson in the context of ritual lynchings in the Old South.

"Okay, so Saddam didn't actually have any weapons of mass destruction, but he was THINKING about them, and THAT'S why we invaded his oil fields, I mean, invaded his country." (What Really Happened)
Blair and Bush join forces to spin away weapons issue
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Raymond Whitaker in London
The Independent
3 August 2003
EXCERPT: The British and US governments are drawing up a controversial new strategy to convince the public that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction - an admission that they have so far failed to make a convincing case.
The "big impact" plan is designed to overwhelm and silence critics who have sought to put pressure on Tony Blair and George Bush. At the same time both men are working to lower the burden of proof - from finding weapons to finding evidence that there were programmes to develop them, even if they lay dormant since the 1980s.

U.S. wants Saddam, but dead - not alive
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Toronto Sun
3 August 2003 (posted 4 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Bush administration will be delighted not to put Saddam on public trial. Dead dictators tell no tales.
The White House would much prefer to display a bullet-riddled Saddam as a trophy to divert mounting criticism over U.S. casualties in Iraq and the litany of falsehoods it used to drive America to war.

Bumbling Bush may have given Osama an open goal
Simon Tisdall
Monday August 4, 2003
The Guardian
EXCERPTS: The old-style tactics used in the 'war on terror' won't work on al-Qaida
Fear of attack, rather than the attack itself, is the terrorist's most potent weapon. And despite all the declared successes of George Bush's "war on terror", fear of major new outrages by al-Qaida and its partners in mayhem is once again on the rise.
The immediate question, as ever, is how to prevent such attacks before they happen. The larger question is why, after Afghanistan and Iraq and everything else that has been said and done by western leaders since 9/11, this threat apparently remains so omnipresent - and so scary.

US fostering sinister sort of democracy
Robert Fisk
New Zealand Herald
1 August 2003 (posted 4 Aug)
EXCERPT: Since he seems to be a total failure at the "anti-terrorist" game - 50 American soldiers killed in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared the war over is not exactly a blazing success - it is only fair to record that he is making a mess of the "reconstruction" bit as well.

A nightmare that Bush should end
Chester A. Crocker NYT
International Herald Tribune
4 August 2003
EXCERPT: The news that peacekeeping troops from Nigeria and other West African countries will head into Liberia this week and that Charles Taylor, the country's thuggish ruler, may go into exile at that time is to be cheered. But it should not become an excuse for the United States to delay or decide against sending ashore its own forces to ensure Liberia's return to security and political stability.

U.S. says truce better than trying to disarm militants
Cease-fire buys time for Abbas
By Steven R. Weisman
New York Times News Service
3 August 2003 (posted 4 Aug)
EXCERPT: The Bush administration has backed away from demands that the Palestinian Authority dismantle militant groups immediately, concerned that the authority's security forces are too weak at this point to carry out a speedy crackdown, administration officials said Friday.
The officials said that as a result of the changed thinking about Palestinian abilities, they had come to accept the cease-fire that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas negotiated last month with Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Thanks to John Bolten's diplomatic style...
Pyongyang warns against raising nuclear issue at UN
Chicago Tribune
3August 2003
EXCERPT: North Korea on Saturday warned that any moves to discuss its suspected nuclear weapons programs at the UN would "hamstring" efforts for dialogue and be a "prelude to war."
The warning came a day after the communist country agreed to multilateral talks over the nuclear standoff. North Korea, fearful that the United Nations may impose economic sanctions, has accused the world body of siding with the U.S.
"The U.S. intention to bring up the nuclear issue . . . at the UN at any cost is a grave criminal act to hamstring" North Korea's efforts at opening a dialogue, the KCNA news service said.
"Any move to discuss the nuclear issue at the UN Security Council is little short of a prelude to a war," it reported.

Crime Casts Fear in Iraq
By John Daniszewski
LA Times
3 August 2003
EXCERPT: The shooting death of Hussein's former doctor underscores how lawlessness and terror have spread since the dictator's ouster.
Murder is stalking this city. In the aftermath of the U.S. campaign to oust Saddam Hussein, residents who have no memory of violent street crime during his iron-fisted rule are now being terrorized by killers — not to mention thieves and vandals — whose motives range from retribution to rapaciousness. The crime wave poses a challenge for the U.S.-led occupation as it grapples with a multitude of problems — electricity shortages, joblessness and a guerrilla campaign among them — that have destabilized this shattered country. Iraqi police have started to work, but ineffectually. They defer to the U.S. soldiers, who often have no clue about what is going on in the streets and alleys around them.

U.S. says truce better than trying to disarm militants
Cease-fire buys time for Abbas
By Steven R. Weisman
New York Times News Service
3 August  2003
EXCERPTS: The Bush administration has backed away from demands that the Palestinian Authority dismantle militant groups immediately, concerned that the authority's security forces are too weak at this point to carry out a speedy crackdown, administration officials said Friday.
The officials said that as a result of the changed thinking about Palestinian abilities, they had come to accept the cease-fire that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas negotiated last month with Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

U.S. Shifts Rhetoric On Its Goals in Iraq
New Emphasis: Middle East Stability
By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen
Washington Post
1 August 2003
As the search for illegal weapons in Iraq continues without success, the Bush administration has moved to emphasize a different rationale for the war against Saddam Hussein: using Iraq as the "linchpin" to transform the Middle East and thereby reduce the terrorist threat to the United States.

Bush plan to silence WMD critics
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Washington Times
1 August, 2003
Iraq weapons strategy
The Pentagon adopted a new strategy in its search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is called the "big impact" plan.
The plan calls for gathering and holding on to all the information now being collected about the weapons. Rather than releasing its findings piecemeal, defense officials will release a comprehensive report on the arms, perhaps six months from now.
The goal of the strategy will be to quiet critics of the Bush administration who said claims of Iraq's hidden weapons stockpiles were exaggerated in order to go to war.

Iraqis mistrust US "liberation" motives
By Christina Ling
Reuters
2 August, 2003
EXCERPTS: Elation at Saddam Hussein's downfall has so far failed to overcome ordinary Iraqis' suspicions of the United States, U.S. researchers say.
Recent interviews with Iraqi citizens and politicians also revealed a longing for public life in post-Saddam Iraq to reflect Islamic values, said analysts working for the National Democratic Institute, which promotes democracy around the world.
"In many respects they've returned now, two or three or four months later, to the default position, which is, 'the United States is not our friend'," Tom Melia, director of research at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, said at a news conference.
"Most Iraqis think the United States came not for the benefit of the Iraqi people but for the benefit of the United States, especially to pursue its economic interests," he said.

Bush determined to expend more unnecessary blood and treasure in Iraq
U.S. Cool To New U.N.Vote
Unfettered Role In Iraq Preferred
By Vernon Loeb and Colum Lynch
Washington Post
2 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Despite increasing pressure to "internationalize" the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, the Bush administration is not actively pursuing a new U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing broader international participation out of concern that greater U.N. involvement could reduce U.S. control.
But when pressed on the issue, administration officials acknowledge that they have concerns about any resolution that would diminish the authority enjoyed by L. Paul Bremer, the chief civilian reconstruction official, and U.S. military commanders to manage the postwar situation in Iraq.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that there was overwhelming support among world leaders for a second resolution that would broaden the international presence in Iraq.
His comments came one day after Republicans and Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee expressed similar support, saying a U.N. mandate would enable countries such as India to contribute thousands of badly needed peacekeeping forces.
Two weeks ago, a team of independent experts funded by the Pentagon reported that the United States must immediately mobilize a "significantly broader" coalition to share the burden and to mitigate "rising anti-Americanism in parts of the country." (italics bwusa)
At the United Nations, Annan said most countries do not feel they have a sufficient U.N. mandate to send peacekeeping forces to Iraq. Annan said those and other countries would be willing to contribute troops only if they were serving under the command of a U.N.-mandated force.
"The legitimacy the U.N. offers is important," Annan said, noting that Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, recently told him, " 'We would want to go in, but we cannot do it under this current resolution.' "

Liberia: Peacekeepers Should Not Be Shielded from Justice
Human Rights Watch
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPT: International peacekeepers in Liberia should not be granted immunity for the crimes they are trying to prevent, Human Rights Watch said today.
The United Nations Security Council today authorized a peacekeeping force for Liberia, but the U.S. government insisted on including a paragraph in the resolution that provides far-reaching immunity for peacekeepers serving in the country.
“The United States has played a game of high-stakes poker with the lives of the Liberians," said Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. “It has hijacked the good intentions of the international community to serve a narrow and ideologically driven crusade against international justice."

Saudis squirm as US friends voice suspicion
By Timothy O'Brien in Washington
Sydney Morning Herald
2 August 2003
EXCERPT: US senators are pushing Saudi Arabia to intensify its anti-terrorism efforts, including the removal of a powerful member of the royal family from public office.
The senators are also asking the US Government to consider criminal charges against Saudi entities that sponsor terrorism.
Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, wrote to the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, asking that Saudi Arabia's interior minister, Prince Nayef, be replaced for failing to stem the outflow of terrorist money.
And in a contentious Senate hearing on Thursday with US law enforcement officials, a Republican senator, Arlen Specter, said economic sanctions had failed to rein in Saudi terrorist financing and that criminal sanctions should be considered.

Unnamed Sources Say Saudis Were Implicated in 9/11 Report
By James Risen and David Johnston
New York Times
2 August 2003
EXCERPT: The classified part of a Congressional report on the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, says that two Saudi citizens who had at least indirect links with two hijackers were probably Saudi intelligence agents and may have reported to Saudi government officials, according to people who have seen the report.

"Premature ejacu-vindication"
US optimistic, says vindicated by tough line on North Korea
AFP in Yahoo News
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPT: President George W. Bush said he was optimistic North Korea would bow to pressure to abandon its nuclear program, after it signed up to six-way crisis talks in a move portrayed here as vindication for tough talking US policy.

Security Council Authorizes Multinational Force for Liberia
By Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: The United States had hoped for a unanimous vote but France, Germany and Mexico abstained to protest a provision that would prevent the International Criminal Court from prosecuting participants in the multinational force from countries that haven't ratified the Rome treaty establishing the war crimes tribunal. (italics bwusa)
The United States vehemently opposes the court, fearing frivolous or political prosecutions of U.S. troops.
Germany and Mexico explained before the vote that this provision would also violate their national laws by preventing their prosecutors from investigating crimes against German or Mexico citizens in Liberia.
The Security Council also declared its readiness to establish a follow-on U.N. peacekeeping force and start deploying it by Oct. 1. Annan was asked to submit recommendations on its size, structure and mandate, preferably by Aug. 15.

Aide: Saddam Did Get Rid of Iraq WMD
Aide Says Saddam Did Get Rid of Weapons of Mass Destruction but Kept World Guessing About It
The Associated Press in ABC News
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: A close aide to Saddam Hussein says the Iraqi dictator did in fact get rid of his weapons of mass destruction but deliberately kept the world guessing about it an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion.
The strategy, which turned out to be a serious miscalculation, was designed to make the Iraqi dictator look strong in the eyes of the Arab world, while countries such as France and Russia were wary of joining an American-led attack. At the same time, Saddam retained the technical know-how and brain power to restart the programs at any time.
Both Pentagon officials and weapons experts are considering this guessing-game theory as the search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons continues. If true, it would indicate there was no imminent unconventional weapons threat from Iraq, an argument President Bush used to go to war.
According to the aide, by the mid-1990s "it was common knowledge among the leadership" that Iraq had destroyed its chemical stocks and discontinued development of biological and nuclear weapons.
But Saddam remained convinced that an ambiguous stance about the status of Iraq's weapons programs would deter an American attack.

Saudis are Federal Reserve of oil..,
Terror in the Saudi kingdom
by Mark Follman
Salon (by subscription or free day pass)
1 August 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: CIA veteran Bob Baer talks about the censored 9/11 report, why al-Qaida is still cozy in the house of Saud -- and why Osama is winning.
So why does Washington still call Riyadh a partner?
According to Baer, the Saudis essentially act as the globe's Federal Reserve of oil. They are the only player in the market with significant surplus capacity. When a major crisis threatens to spike oil prices dramatically, as when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 or when terrorists slammed planes into the twin towers in 2001, the Saudis literally pump massive liquidity into the global oil market to stabilize it.
Indeed, the catastrophe of Sept. 11 is the heavy price we pay for our dependency on the kingdom's oil, asserts Baer, because it keeps Washington entrenched in a tainted, decades-long deal: We arm the Saudi rulers in exchange for guaranteed cheap and free-flowing crude, and we let them turn a blind eye to malignant Islamic militancy within their borders.

Southern Afghanistan suffers as aid groups are harassed
Observers say the Taliban are targeting foreign workers to discredit the reconstruction process.
By Owais Tohid
Christian Science Monitor
July 18, 2003 (posted 2 August)
EXCERPTS: A spate of attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan has curtailed reconstruction efforts in the mostly Pashtun south...
Observers believe the Taliban are targeting aid groups in order to deepen the Pashtun vs. non-Pashtun divide and portray themselves as the only viable alternative to the Afghan government and its US backers.
Observers say the present security situation in Afghanistan is not stable despite the deployment of some 10,000 US troops and a 4,800-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

UK's Clinton, Tony Blair: Broken Promises, Wasted Years
Reuters
2 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Tony Blair has become the country's longest serving Labour Party Prime Minister but he has little else to celebrate, with an appearance before a suicide inquiry looming and public trust in his government collapsing.
A newspaper poll last week showed that two thirds of Britons see a "culture of deceit" at the heart of his government.
The tabloid Daily Mail newspaper ran an editorial on Saturday headlined "Broken promises, wasted years".
"This is a government that has frittered away trust, turned hope into cynicism and replaced optimism with resignation...And most damaging of all, nobody today believes a word it says," the paper added.

The war on Saddam has made the U.S. less secure, say foreign-policy experts.
Is the United States Safer Now?
By Eric Boehlert
Salon - (by subscription or free day pass)
July 31, 2003 (posted 2 August)
For every gain achieved in the few months since Saddam's government fell, there have been significant costs and reverses.
Some of these costs are are obvious, such as the lives of soldiers/civilians in Iraq and about $100 billion for the war plus $4 billion a month for the occupation...and, in addition, consider:
1. More progress would be made in the war on terrorism if we'd have focused on Afghanistan and not gotten distracted in Iraq. That could have prevented the rebirth of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as pockets of al-Qaida.
2. "The United States is not safer, because we went after the wrong target," argues Peña at the Cato Institute. "Since 9/11, it ought to be pretty clear that we're at war with the al-Qaida terrorist network, not rogue states who share common animosity towards the United States ... Iraq sapped tremendous attention and resources and has given al-Qaida time to recuperate and rejuvenate."
"We're less safe because we have made enemies out of people who were not previously our enemy, and we stirred up the anti-American sentiment," former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson told Salon.
3. The cost of the war and the Bush tax cuts have dried up federal aid available to states, cities and towns. They're already suffering from budget deficits, and now they face huge new expenses for anti-terror programs.

Cartoon by Greenburg in
The Ventura County Star on
Dare to Think Free

Why Saudi Arabia is outraged
By Hooman Peimani
Asia Times
2 August 2003
EXCERPT: Is Saudi Arabia being set up for regime change by the US? The Saudis apparently think so after President George W Bush's refusal to disclose the evidence behind allegations that their government has links to al-Qaeda.
...the US congressional report seems to be adding insult to Saudi Arabia's injury. Since September 11 that country has been a target of Washington hawks' proposals for regime change as part of a plan to reshape the entire Middle East. Regardless of his intention, Bush's refusal to declassify the mentioned chapter will only create grounds for future leveling of unverifiable charges against Saudi Arabia, which could prepare US public opinion for a future regime change under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Within this context, the refusal could serve as a first step toward "dealing" with an old US ally, which the hawks consider as a strategically important state with uncertain future stability. Saudi Arabia's refusal to let the United States use its bases in a major way in their war on Iraq has probably qualified it as an "emerging rogue state" that Washington can afford to alienate now that it has access to oil-rich Iraq.

Iraq: Why the US should let the UN take over
By Stephen Zunes
Asia Times
2 August 2003
EXCERPTS: Four theses on a campaign that could use opportunities created by the invasion and occupation of Iraq in a creative way: a campaign to turn the administration of Iraq over to the United Nations:
1. A United Nations administration would be more likely to bring peace and stability to Iraq.
2. Turning over control of Iraq to the UN would be in the best interests of Americans.
3. The United Nations could succeed in such an effort.
4. Such a campaign is winnable.

North Korea agrees to multilateral talks
Agencies
Guardian Unlimited
1 August 2003
EXCERPTS: North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks on its suspected development of nuclear weapons, South Korea's foreign ministry said today.
According to CNN, Kang Suk-ju, Pyonyang's second-most powerful official, told US diplomat James Kelly something to the effect of: "Your president called us a member of the axis of evil ... Your troops are deployed on the Korean peninsula ... Of course, we have a nuclear programme."
An oil embargo was then imposed on the country, to which Pyongyang responded by expelling UN inspectors from its mothballed Yongbyon plutonium nuclear reactor and subsequently bringing it back into use.
It had previously been feared that spent fuel rods from the plant were being used in an arms programme, leading to the 1994 agreement, and those fears then resurfaced.
North Korea says it has the right to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself, but has never publicly said it is developing a nuclear arsenal. It has said it would give up its nuclear programmes in exchange for economic aid and US security guarantees.

THE
BIG
TEN

Did Condi Give the Game Away?
Her Yellowcakegate alibi doesn't add up.
By Timothy Noah
Slate
July 31, 2003 (posted 1 August)
EXCERPT: Astronomers are often able to infer the existence of planets too far away to be seen through a telescope. They do this by observing a slight wobble in a visible star. The wobble is presumed to be the gravitational pull of an unseen planet. The Wobble Method is a useful tool for considering whether a key player is missing from the administration's narrative of Yellowcakegate. Let us now apply it to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's July 30 interview with Gwen Ifill on PBS's NewsHour, in which Rice became the fourth Bush administration official to accept full responsibility for the inclusion of erroneous information in the State of the Union address. (Five if you include President Bush, who surely neither knew nor cared whether it was true that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.") In a lengthy and skillful interrogation, Rice wobbled.

New Top General Tells Legislators U.S. Will Probably Need a Larger Army
by Thom Shanker|
New York Times
July 29, 2003 (posted 1 August)

Ha, ha, ha. And you thought Secretary Rumsfeld was doing this "on the cheap!"

 AP Photo

EXCERPT: The former Special Operations commander called from retirement to be Army chief of staff said today that the Army is likely to need more troops to meet its worldwide commitments.
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, appearing at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, said that he has not yet formally reached conclusions on a number of critical questions facing the Army, among them required numbers of personnel and the fate of some weapons systems.
"But I'm going to take a little risk here and I'm going to tell you that, you know, intuitively I think we need more people," General Schoomaker said with far more candor than usually is on display at confirmation hearings. "I mean, it's that simple."

The list just keeps growin' and growin'
The Bush administration's Top 40 Lies about war and terrorism
by Steve Perry
The Village Voice
July 30, 2003 ((posted 1 August)

'Chicken Hawk' Talk
Daily Cartoon by G. Trudeau
in Slate

US bartering arms for soldiers for Iraq
By Thalif Deen
Asia Times
1 August 2003
EXCERPTS: UNITED NATIONS - Faced with a rising death toll among its soldiers in Iraq, the United States is trying to "buy" foreign troops for a proposed 30,000-strong multinational force in Baghdad.
"When they were seeking UN support for a war on Iraq, they were twisting arms," one Asian diplomat said. "Now they are offering carrots in exchange for our troops."
The inducements - including weapons and increased military aid - have apparently been offered to at least three countries whose troops Washington desperately needs to bolster the fledgling multinational force in Iraq and relieve the pressure on US forces in the war-ravaged country.
"The Bush administration is doing the right thing in looking for additional help in Iraq," said Natalie J Goldring, executive director of the Program on Global Security and Disarmament at the University of Maryland. "But the US government should be seeking that help through the United Nations. Instead, US political and military leaders are once again trying to buy countries' cooperation with weapons transfers and military aid," she said.
The United States has refused to seek approval for a UN peacekeeping force because it might have to concede some of its military authority to the United Nations. (italics/bold by bwusa)

Typical Americans respond to their governments public display of the bodies of Uday and Qusay