Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Campaign Finance, DeLay Style:
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Tom DeLay's Amoral Code
"House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is hands-down one of the most corrupt politicians in the United States"
Business Ethics, or Lack Thereof:
NY Times: Investigators Say Drug Makers Repeatedly Overcharged
"Federal investigators said Tuesday that drug companies had repeatedly overcharged public hospitals and clinics for low-income patients, making them pay more than the maximum prices allowed by federal law.
Such taxpayer-supported hospitals, community health centers and clinics for people with AIDS are supposed to have access to the government's best prices for outpatient drugs.
The investigators, at the inspector general's office in the Health and Human Services Department, found that prices charged to those agencies frequently exceeded the limits set by the Public Health Service Act. In one month, the investigators said, the overcharges totaled $41.1 million, raising the cost of prescription drugs to public hospitals and clinics 18 percent, to $269 million, from $227.9 million.
In 31 percent of the transactions examined, the prices charged by drug manufacturers exceeded the legal maximums, the investigators said. Thirty-six of 37 health care providers had to pay more than the ceiling price defined by Congress..."
The So-Called War on Terror:
NY Times: In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally
Iraq:
Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions
"The US-controlled coalition in Baghdad is handing over power to an Iraqi government without having properly accounted for what it has done with some $20 billion of Iraq's own money, says a new report..."
Ralph Nader: Assault on the Labor Movement in Iraq
Robert Fisk: Iraqi Sovereignty - Alice in Wonderland?
"So in the end, America's enemies set the date. The handover of 'full sovereignty' was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now 'Prime Minister' of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies. What is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed like a birthday party because it might rain on Wednesday.
Pitiful is the word that comes to mind. Here we were, handing 'full sovereignty' to the people of Iraq 'full', of course, providing we forget the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom the Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has apparently asked to stay in Iraq, 'full' providing we forget the 3,000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world without even telling the Iraqi people that we had changed the date..."
NY Times Editorial: Abu Ghraib, Stonewalled
"While piously declaring its determination to unearth the truth about Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has spent nearly two months obstructing investigations by the Army and members of Congress. It has dragged out the Army's inquiry, withheld crucial government documents from a Senate committee and stonewalled senators over dozens of Red Cross reports that document the horrible mistreatment of Iraqis at American military prisons. Even last week's document dump from the White House, which included those cynical legal road maps around treaties and laws against torturing prisoners, seemed part of this stonewalling campaign. Nothing in those hundreds of pages explained what orders had been issued to the military and C.I.A. jailers in Iraq, and by whom..."
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Tom DeLay's Amoral Code
"House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is hands-down one of the most corrupt politicians in the United States"
Business Ethics, or Lack Thereof:
NY Times: Investigators Say Drug Makers Repeatedly Overcharged
"Federal investigators said Tuesday that drug companies had repeatedly overcharged public hospitals and clinics for low-income patients, making them pay more than the maximum prices allowed by federal law.
Such taxpayer-supported hospitals, community health centers and clinics for people with AIDS are supposed to have access to the government's best prices for outpatient drugs.
The investigators, at the inspector general's office in the Health and Human Services Department, found that prices charged to those agencies frequently exceeded the limits set by the Public Health Service Act. In one month, the investigators said, the overcharges totaled $41.1 million, raising the cost of prescription drugs to public hospitals and clinics 18 percent, to $269 million, from $227.9 million.
In 31 percent of the transactions examined, the prices charged by drug manufacturers exceeded the legal maximums, the investigators said. Thirty-six of 37 health care providers had to pay more than the ceiling price defined by Congress..."
The So-Called War on Terror:
NY Times: In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally
Iraq:
Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions
"The US-controlled coalition in Baghdad is handing over power to an Iraqi government without having properly accounted for what it has done with some $20 billion of Iraq's own money, says a new report..."
Ralph Nader: Assault on the Labor Movement in Iraq
Robert Fisk: Iraqi Sovereignty - Alice in Wonderland?
"So in the end, America's enemies set the date. The handover of 'full sovereignty' was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now 'Prime Minister' of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies. What is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed like a birthday party because it might rain on Wednesday.
Pitiful is the word that comes to mind. Here we were, handing 'full sovereignty' to the people of Iraq 'full', of course, providing we forget the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom the Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has apparently asked to stay in Iraq, 'full' providing we forget the 3,000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world without even telling the Iraqi people that we had changed the date..."
NY Times Editorial: Abu Ghraib, Stonewalled
"While piously declaring its determination to unearth the truth about Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has spent nearly two months obstructing investigations by the Army and members of Congress. It has dragged out the Army's inquiry, withheld crucial government documents from a Senate committee and stonewalled senators over dozens of Red Cross reports that document the horrible mistreatment of Iraqis at American military prisons. Even last week's document dump from the White House, which included those cynical legal road maps around treaties and laws against torturing prisoners, seemed part of this stonewalling campaign. Nothing in those hundreds of pages explained what orders had been issued to the military and C.I.A. jailers in Iraq, and by whom..."
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
In Europe:
Irish Independent: Angry White House pulls RTE interview, by Miriam Lord
"The White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.
And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.
It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.
The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.
She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.
And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit."
The Guardian (UK) - Angry Chirac puts Bush in his place
"Jacques Chirac bluntly told George Bush to mind his own business yesterday when the US president urged European leaders to give Turkey a firm date for starting EU membership talks later this year."
The So-Called War on Terror:
The Guardian (UK) - Supreme court blow for Bush on Guantánamo
"Prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay will be able to challenge their detention in the American courts after the US supreme court yesterday curbed the Bush administration's power to deny detainees the right to a lawyer.
By a 6-3 majority, the court rejected the administration's argument that Guantánamo Bay lay outside the jurisdiction of US courts - giving the approximately 600 prisoners, including four Britons, being held at the military prison camp the right to take their cases before an American judge."
Iraq:
William Rivers Pitt: Tuck Tail and Run
"A process that began in September 2002 as a coordinated propaganda blitz to convince Americans they were on the verge of being gassed by an Osama-Saddam Axis of Doom, a process that was swathed in flags and a snarling, nationalistic patriotism, a process that has in the last 22 months delivered 855 dead American soldiers, thousands of gravely wounded American soldiers and over ten thousand dead Iraqi civilians to our collective doorstep, has now concluded with a farcical handover of 'sovereignty' in the dead of night.
One can almost imagine American proconsul Paul Bremer handing the keys to this rolling bomb over to former CIA pal and newly-minted Iraqi 'Prime Minister' Iyad Allawi with a snicker and a shrug. Thanks for the laughs, Iyad, but my helicopter is waiting on the roof..."
The Independent (UK) - News: "The US-controlled administration in Baghdad has failed to account for more than $20m of the country's money as it hands over power to an Iraqi government, a report says. The money - oil revenues and international funds frozen during Saddam Hussein's regime - had passed into the coffers of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) before disappearing, according to the report."
Paul Krugman: Who Lost Iraq?
"The formal occupation of Iraq came to an ignominious end yesterday with a furtive ceremony, held two days early to foil insurgent attacks, and a swift airborne exit for the chief administrator. In reality, the occupation will continue under another name, most likely until a hostile Iraqi populace demands that we leave. But it's already worth asking why things went so wrong.
The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start — but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation. Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country."
Irish Independent: Angry White House pulls RTE interview, by Miriam Lord
"The White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.
And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.
It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.
The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.
She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.
And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit."
The Guardian (UK) - Angry Chirac puts Bush in his place
"Jacques Chirac bluntly told George Bush to mind his own business yesterday when the US president urged European leaders to give Turkey a firm date for starting EU membership talks later this year."
The So-Called War on Terror:
The Guardian (UK) - Supreme court blow for Bush on Guantánamo
"Prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay will be able to challenge their detention in the American courts after the US supreme court yesterday curbed the Bush administration's power to deny detainees the right to a lawyer.
By a 6-3 majority, the court rejected the administration's argument that Guantánamo Bay lay outside the jurisdiction of US courts - giving the approximately 600 prisoners, including four Britons, being held at the military prison camp the right to take their cases before an American judge."
Iraq:
William Rivers Pitt: Tuck Tail and Run
"A process that began in September 2002 as a coordinated propaganda blitz to convince Americans they were on the verge of being gassed by an Osama-Saddam Axis of Doom, a process that was swathed in flags and a snarling, nationalistic patriotism, a process that has in the last 22 months delivered 855 dead American soldiers, thousands of gravely wounded American soldiers and over ten thousand dead Iraqi civilians to our collective doorstep, has now concluded with a farcical handover of 'sovereignty' in the dead of night.
One can almost imagine American proconsul Paul Bremer handing the keys to this rolling bomb over to former CIA pal and newly-minted Iraqi 'Prime Minister' Iyad Allawi with a snicker and a shrug. Thanks for the laughs, Iyad, but my helicopter is waiting on the roof..."
The Independent (UK) - News: "The US-controlled administration in Baghdad has failed to account for more than $20m of the country's money as it hands over power to an Iraqi government, a report says. The money - oil revenues and international funds frozen during Saddam Hussein's regime - had passed into the coffers of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) before disappearing, according to the report."
Paul Krugman: Who Lost Iraq?
"The formal occupation of Iraq came to an ignominious end yesterday with a furtive ceremony, held two days early to foil insurgent attacks, and a swift airborne exit for the chief administrator. In reality, the occupation will continue under another name, most likely until a hostile Iraqi populace demands that we leave. But it's already worth asking why things went so wrong.
The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start — but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation. Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country."
Monday, June 28, 2004
Cheney, the Artful Orator:
Washington Post: Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity
"A brief argument between Vice President Cheney and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor this week. On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice..."
Iraq:
Naomi Klein: The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction
"Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from 'assassination, kidnapping, injury and' - get this - 'embarrassment'. I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.
In the run-up to the June 30 underhand (sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a 'handover'), US occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The state department has taken $184m earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US embassy in Saddam Hussein's former palace. Short of $1bn for the embassy, Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said he might have to 'rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul'. In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a recent study by the consumer group Public Citizen, are facing 'massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones' from drinking contaminated water...."
David Ignatius: A Tough Iraqi's Strategy: "Iraq's new prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has been making the same basic argument for the past two decades that a stable, post-Saddam Hussein government can be built only on salvageable remnants of the old army and civil service. Starting next week, Allawi will have a chance to put that theory into practice. I've known Allawi since 1991, when he was trying to organize a coup after Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War that year. Here's how he explained his group's strategy to me in one of those early conversations: 'We were originally leading members of the Baath Party, so we still have a lot of supporters in the Iraqi establishment. We subscribe to the theory that we can only change the regime through the existing establishment...' "
The So-Called War on Terror:
Senator Hollings: The United States Has Lost its Moral Authority
LA Times Editorial: The Disaster of Failed Policy
"In its scale and intent, President Bush's war against Iraq was something new and radical: a premeditated decision to invade, occupy and topple the government of a country that was no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a handful of GIs sent to overthrow Panamanian thug Manuel Noriega or to oust a new Marxist government in tiny Grenada. It was the dispatch of more than 100,000 U.S. troops to implement Bush's post-Sept. 11 doctrine of preemption, one whose dangers President John Quincy Adams understood when he said the United States 'goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.'
In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait - and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The current president outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror 'we must take the battle to the enemy' and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back by them. It now stands as a monument to folly..."
Paul Krugman: Errors on Terror
"... The erroneous good news on terrorism also came at a very convenient moment. The White House was still reeling from the revelations of the former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who finally gave public voice to the view of many intelligence insiders that the Bush administration is doing a terrible job of fighting Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush was on a "Winning the War on Terror" campaign bus tour in the Midwest.
Mr. Krueger, a forgiving soul, believes that the report was botched through simple incompetence. Maybe — though we can be sure that if the statistics had told the administration something it didn't want to hear, they would have been carefully checked. By the way, while the report's tables and charts have been fixed, the revised summary still gives little hint of how bad the data really are..."
The Center for American Progress: Analyzing 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
"...Even before the movie was public, the White House and its right-wing allies sought to smear both the film and Moore personally. Last month, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said the movie 'was so outrageously false it's not even worth comment,' even though he had not yet seen the film. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter discovered that 'big-time conservative donors' are funding a slew of anti-Moore activities. Following the White House's tactic of attacking critics' patriotism, the right-wing is also apparently bankrolling a movie called 'Michael Moore Hates America.' But despite conservatives' best efforts to discredit the film, the NY Times notes, 'central assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public record.' When the movie was aired at the Cannes Film Festival, it won top prize from a panel made up of mostly American and British judges..."
The NY Times: Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases
"An August 2002 memo by the Justice Department that concluded interrogators could use extreme techniques on detainees in the war on terror helped provide an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures used by the C.I.A. on high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
The legal memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002, the officials said. The memo provided a legal foundation for coercive techniques used later against other high-ranking detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the chief architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, who was captured in early 2003..."
Washington Post: Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity
"A brief argument between Vice President Cheney and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor this week. On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice..."
Iraq:
Naomi Klein: The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction
"Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from 'assassination, kidnapping, injury and' - get this - 'embarrassment'. I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.
In the run-up to the June 30 underhand (sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a 'handover'), US occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The state department has taken $184m earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US embassy in Saddam Hussein's former palace. Short of $1bn for the embassy, Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said he might have to 'rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul'. In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a recent study by the consumer group Public Citizen, are facing 'massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones' from drinking contaminated water...."
David Ignatius: A Tough Iraqi's Strategy: "Iraq's new prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has been making the same basic argument for the past two decades that a stable, post-Saddam Hussein government can be built only on salvageable remnants of the old army and civil service. Starting next week, Allawi will have a chance to put that theory into practice. I've known Allawi since 1991, when he was trying to organize a coup after Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War that year. Here's how he explained his group's strategy to me in one of those early conversations: 'We were originally leading members of the Baath Party, so we still have a lot of supporters in the Iraqi establishment. We subscribe to the theory that we can only change the regime through the existing establishment...' "
The So-Called War on Terror:
Senator Hollings: The United States Has Lost its Moral Authority
LA Times Editorial: The Disaster of Failed Policy
"In its scale and intent, President Bush's war against Iraq was something new and radical: a premeditated decision to invade, occupy and topple the government of a country that was no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a handful of GIs sent to overthrow Panamanian thug Manuel Noriega or to oust a new Marxist government in tiny Grenada. It was the dispatch of more than 100,000 U.S. troops to implement Bush's post-Sept. 11 doctrine of preemption, one whose dangers President John Quincy Adams understood when he said the United States 'goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.'
In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait - and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The current president outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror 'we must take the battle to the enemy' and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back by them. It now stands as a monument to folly..."
Paul Krugman: Errors on Terror
"... The erroneous good news on terrorism also came at a very convenient moment. The White House was still reeling from the revelations of the former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who finally gave public voice to the view of many intelligence insiders that the Bush administration is doing a terrible job of fighting Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush was on a "Winning the War on Terror" campaign bus tour in the Midwest.
Mr. Krueger, a forgiving soul, believes that the report was botched through simple incompetence. Maybe — though we can be sure that if the statistics had told the administration something it didn't want to hear, they would have been carefully checked. By the way, while the report's tables and charts have been fixed, the revised summary still gives little hint of how bad the data really are..."
The Center for American Progress: Analyzing 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
"...Even before the movie was public, the White House and its right-wing allies sought to smear both the film and Moore personally. Last month, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said the movie 'was so outrageously false it's not even worth comment,' even though he had not yet seen the film. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter discovered that 'big-time conservative donors' are funding a slew of anti-Moore activities. Following the White House's tactic of attacking critics' patriotism, the right-wing is also apparently bankrolling a movie called 'Michael Moore Hates America.' But despite conservatives' best efforts to discredit the film, the NY Times notes, 'central assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public record.' When the movie was aired at the Cannes Film Festival, it won top prize from a panel made up of mostly American and British judges..."
The NY Times: Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases
"An August 2002 memo by the Justice Department that concluded interrogators could use extreme techniques on detainees in the war on terror helped provide an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures used by the C.I.A. on high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
The legal memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002, the officials said. The memo provided a legal foundation for coercive techniques used later against other high-ranking detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the chief architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, who was captured in early 2003..."
Friday, June 25, 2004
"Washington's priority is to prevent Saudi Arabia descending into ... anarchy, even if it means propping up a regime it no longer likes or trusts."
Mai Yamani: Washington will prop up the House of Saud - for now
"Saudi Arabia has descended into a cauldron of hatreds and divisions - Long before the latest violence erupted, Saudi Arabia's immaculately suited spokesmen were out on the stump, telling anyone who would listen that the situation in the country was completely under control. They're now doing it again - only this time nobody believes them.
All the signs suggest that in the face of mounting violence and international pressure, the House of Saud has sunk into terminal denial and paralysis. Convinced that their enemies are all around them, they are nevertheless unable to locate them. Even when gunmen are totally surrounded in a building, three of them succeed in escaping. Last year the aged King Fahd threatened militants with his 'iron fist', but they have gone on killing regardless. While the princes have insisted reforms are in progress, they continue to fling reformists themselves into jail - and intimidate others into keeping quiet. The government maintains its oil installations are completely safe from attack - and yet high-level oil analysts insist the Saudi security forces which guard them are infiltrated by extremists.
Such contradictions suggest that very little is currently under control in the Saudi kingdom..."
Mai Yamani: Washington will prop up the House of Saud - for now
"Saudi Arabia has descended into a cauldron of hatreds and divisions - Long before the latest violence erupted, Saudi Arabia's immaculately suited spokesmen were out on the stump, telling anyone who would listen that the situation in the country was completely under control. They're now doing it again - only this time nobody believes them.
All the signs suggest that in the face of mounting violence and international pressure, the House of Saud has sunk into terminal denial and paralysis. Convinced that their enemies are all around them, they are nevertheless unable to locate them. Even when gunmen are totally surrounded in a building, three of them succeed in escaping. Last year the aged King Fahd threatened militants with his 'iron fist', but they have gone on killing regardless. While the princes have insisted reforms are in progress, they continue to fling reformists themselves into jail - and intimidate others into keeping quiet. The government maintains its oil installations are completely safe from attack - and yet high-level oil analysts insist the Saudi security forces which guard them are infiltrated by extremists.
Such contradictions suggest that very little is currently under control in the Saudi kingdom..."
The So-Called War on Terror:
BBC: UK alarm over Guantanamo trials
"Four British men are still being held at [Guantanamo Bay] in Cuba. In a speech on Friday, Lord Goldsmith argued there can be 'no compromise' on certain principles and the US tribunals would not offer a fair trial. The UK Government has always voiced reservations over the trial plans. Lord Goldsmith is underlining the point."
The Washington Post: Memo on Interrogation Tactics Is Disavowed
"President Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible, saying it had created the false impression that the government was claiming authority to use interrogation techniques barred by international law.
Responding to pressure from Congress and outrage around the world, officials at the White House and the Justice Department derided the August 2002 legal memo on aggressive interrogation tactics, calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.
In a highly unusual repudiation of its department's own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department's Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed..."
The Int'l Herald Tribune: State Dept. Doubles Its Calculation on '03 Terrorism Casualties
"The State Department said today that global terrorism in 2003 killed or wounded more than twice as many people as the department had reported earlier. The department said the earlier report was based on flawed calculations."
The NY Times: U.S. Drops Effort to Gain Immunity for Its Troops
"The United States bowed to broad opposition on the Security Council today and announced that it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court."
The Environment:
AP: Toxic pollution rose 5 percent in 2002, reversing trend
"Toxic chemical releases into the environment rose 5 percent in 2002, marking only the second such increase reported by the Environmental Protection Agency in nearly two decades, and the first since 1997."
BBC: UK alarm over Guantanamo trials
"Four British men are still being held at [Guantanamo Bay] in Cuba. In a speech on Friday, Lord Goldsmith argued there can be 'no compromise' on certain principles and the US tribunals would not offer a fair trial. The UK Government has always voiced reservations over the trial plans. Lord Goldsmith is underlining the point."
The Washington Post: Memo on Interrogation Tactics Is Disavowed
"President Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible, saying it had created the false impression that the government was claiming authority to use interrogation techniques barred by international law.
Responding to pressure from Congress and outrage around the world, officials at the White House and the Justice Department derided the August 2002 legal memo on aggressive interrogation tactics, calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.
In a highly unusual repudiation of its department's own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department's Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed..."
The Int'l Herald Tribune: State Dept. Doubles Its Calculation on '03 Terrorism Casualties
"The State Department said today that global terrorism in 2003 killed or wounded more than twice as many people as the department had reported earlier. The department said the earlier report was based on flawed calculations."
The NY Times: U.S. Drops Effort to Gain Immunity for Its Troops
"The United States bowed to broad opposition on the Security Council today and announced that it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court."
The Environment:
AP: Toxic pollution rose 5 percent in 2002, reversing trend
"Toxic chemical releases into the environment rose 5 percent in 2002, marking only the second such increase reported by the Environmental Protection Agency in nearly two decades, and the first since 1997."
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Media:
Finally, some really good news! Court Reverses FCC Media Ownership Rules
Maureen Dowd: Attack of the Wolfman
"On Tuesday, Mr. Wolfowitz, Rummy's top deputy, told the House Armed Services Committee that one reason so many negative stories come out of Iraq is that 'a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors — and rumors are plentiful.'
Beyond sliming journalists (much as he slimes his hair with his own saliva in Michael Moore's new movie) who are risking their lives traveling around Iraq to cover the cakewalk that became chaos, Mr. Wolfowitz dodges the responsibility he bears for turning Iraq into a shooting gallery and Al Qaeda recruitment center."
Finally, some really good news! Court Reverses FCC Media Ownership Rules
Maureen Dowd: Attack of the Wolfman
"On Tuesday, Mr. Wolfowitz, Rummy's top deputy, told the House Armed Services Committee that one reason so many negative stories come out of Iraq is that 'a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors — and rumors are plentiful.'
Beyond sliming journalists (much as he slimes his hair with his own saliva in Michael Moore's new movie) who are risking their lives traveling around Iraq to cover the cakewalk that became chaos, Mr. Wolfowitz dodges the responsibility he bears for turning Iraq into a shooting gallery and Al Qaeda recruitment center."
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
The So-Called War on Terror:
Ray McGovern: Will The Commissioners Cave?
"Amid the feeding frenzy over last week’s staff report of the 9/11 commission, the press downplayed an important fact: the report was produced by the staff and not the commissioners themselves. This matters greatly as we approach the July 26 deadline for the commission’s final report. The Democratic commissioners are saying the staff report reflects the commission’s findings, while the Republican commissioners disagree. McGovern, a former CIA analyst, explains the partisan wrangling we can expect during the next month."
The Daily Star (Lebanon): A Pentagon memo undermines the US Constitution
"The telltale signs are there: the disregard and dismantling of international law; the evisceration of the US Constitution; the erosion of any goodwill toward America internationally, but especially in the Arab world; the bickering between the White House, the Pentagon and the Justice Department on the one hand, and the State Department on the other; the shortsighted vision of national security; the endangering of the lives of American soldiers on the front lines by hawks who have never seen combat; the legitimization of methods made notorious by dictators; the boundless arrogance."
Robert Scheer: Truth About Iraq Finally Has Its Pants On
"It's the Big Lie technique - never flinch in the face of truth. That's why Bush will never admit that he got it wrong when he told the nation on the eve of going to war: 'Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.' "
Washington Post: Al Qaeda Link To Iraq May Be Confusion Over Names
"An allegation that a high-ranking al Qaeda member was an officer in Saddam Hussein's private militia may have resulted from confusion over Iraqi names, a senior administration official said yesterday."
BBC: Prisoner torture 'not sanctioned'
"The US has released hundreds of pages of previously secret documents which it says show permission was never given to torture military prisoners. They suggest that aggressive policies set out by some administration lawyers were rejected by the Pentagon.
BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb says the documents might go some way towards reassuring the US public.
But he adds that they do not fully address allegations that abuse in Iraq was tacitly encouraged from the top."
Ray McGovern: Will The Commissioners Cave?
"Amid the feeding frenzy over last week’s staff report of the 9/11 commission, the press downplayed an important fact: the report was produced by the staff and not the commissioners themselves. This matters greatly as we approach the July 26 deadline for the commission’s final report. The Democratic commissioners are saying the staff report reflects the commission’s findings, while the Republican commissioners disagree. McGovern, a former CIA analyst, explains the partisan wrangling we can expect during the next month."
The Daily Star (Lebanon): A Pentagon memo undermines the US Constitution
"The telltale signs are there: the disregard and dismantling of international law; the evisceration of the US Constitution; the erosion of any goodwill toward America internationally, but especially in the Arab world; the bickering between the White House, the Pentagon and the Justice Department on the one hand, and the State Department on the other; the shortsighted vision of national security; the endangering of the lives of American soldiers on the front lines by hawks who have never seen combat; the legitimization of methods made notorious by dictators; the boundless arrogance."
Robert Scheer: Truth About Iraq Finally Has Its Pants On
"It's the Big Lie technique - never flinch in the face of truth. That's why Bush will never admit that he got it wrong when he told the nation on the eve of going to war: 'Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.' "
Washington Post: Al Qaeda Link To Iraq May Be Confusion Over Names
"An allegation that a high-ranking al Qaeda member was an officer in Saddam Hussein's private militia may have resulted from confusion over Iraqi names, a senior administration official said yesterday."
BBC: Prisoner torture 'not sanctioned'
"The US has released hundreds of pages of previously secret documents which it says show permission was never given to torture military prisoners. They suggest that aggressive policies set out by some administration lawyers were rejected by the Pentagon.
BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb says the documents might go some way towards reassuring the US public.
But he adds that they do not fully address allegations that abuse in Iraq was tacitly encouraged from the top."
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Iraq:
Seymour Hersh: As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.
The NY Times: Reconstruction: U.S. Is Quietly Spending $2.5 Billion From Iraqi Oil Revenues to Pay for Iraqi Projects
"Struggling with bureaucratic problems in spending the money appropriated by Congress to rebuild Iraq, American authorities are moving quietly and quickly to spend $2.5 billion from a different source, Iraqi oil revenue, for projects employing tens of thousands of Iraqis, especially in the country's hot spots, Bush administration officials say."
The So-Called War on Terror:
Paul Krugman: Noonday in the Shade
"In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.
Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened..."
The NY Times: U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
Washington Post: Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
Energy Policy:
Wired Magazine: NASA Spaces on Energy Solution
"Scientists from around the world will soon gather to discuss how satellites could be used to address the world's energy needs by relaying solar power to Earth. But the U.S. government's decision to abandon research in 2001 could prevent the alternative energy source from ever seeing the light of day.
Solar panels on Earth are inherently limited in their ability to collect energy by two things -- the lack of direct sun at night and atmospheric interference from weather. NASA's now-abandoned Space Solar Power program would avoid these terrestrial impediments by launching satellites that would collect solar radiation and beam the energy to Earth. These satellite systems could each provide gigawatts of electricity, enough power for tens of thousands of homes..."
Wired Magazine: Alternative Fuels Cropping Up
"Farmers of the world must shift quickly to growing plants for industrial uses such as oils and plastics to replace petrochemicals as the climate warms and crude supplies run out, British scientists said on Monday."
The Environment:
Wired Magazine: Rocket Fuel Found in Cal. Milk
Seymour Hersh: As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.
The NY Times: Reconstruction: U.S. Is Quietly Spending $2.5 Billion From Iraqi Oil Revenues to Pay for Iraqi Projects
"Struggling with bureaucratic problems in spending the money appropriated by Congress to rebuild Iraq, American authorities are moving quietly and quickly to spend $2.5 billion from a different source, Iraqi oil revenue, for projects employing tens of thousands of Iraqis, especially in the country's hot spots, Bush administration officials say."
The So-Called War on Terror:
Paul Krugman: Noonday in the Shade
"In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.
Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened..."
The NY Times: U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
Washington Post: Report Faults U.S. Action on Nuclear Proliferation
Energy Policy:
Wired Magazine: NASA Spaces on Energy Solution
"Scientists from around the world will soon gather to discuss how satellites could be used to address the world's energy needs by relaying solar power to Earth. But the U.S. government's decision to abandon research in 2001 could prevent the alternative energy source from ever seeing the light of day.
Solar panels on Earth are inherently limited in their ability to collect energy by two things -- the lack of direct sun at night and atmospheric interference from weather. NASA's now-abandoned Space Solar Power program would avoid these terrestrial impediments by launching satellites that would collect solar radiation and beam the energy to Earth. These satellite systems could each provide gigawatts of electricity, enough power for tens of thousands of homes..."
Wired Magazine: Alternative Fuels Cropping Up
"Farmers of the world must shift quickly to growing plants for industrial uses such as oils and plastics to replace petrochemicals as the climate warms and crude supplies run out, British scientists said on Monday."
The Environment:
Wired Magazine: Rocket Fuel Found in Cal. Milk
Sunday, June 20, 2004
The November Election:
Greg Palast: 1.9 million black votes didn't count in the 2000 presidential election / It's not too hard to get your vote lost -- if some politicians want it to be lost
"In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. 'Spoiled votes' is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate."
The So-Called War on Terror:
William Rivers Pitt: Freedom, Incorporated
The Guardian: Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands: "A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an 'avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked' war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands."
LA Times: 2 Allies Aided Bin Laden, Say Panel Members
"Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks by cutting deals with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that allowed his Al Qaeda terrorist network to flourish, according to several senior members of the Sept. 11 commission and U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
The financial aid to the Taliban and other assistance by two of the most important allies of the United States in its war on terrorism date at least to 1996, and appear to have shielded them from Al Qaeda attacks within their own borders until long after the 2001 strikes, those commission members and officials said in interviews."
The Long Arm of the Law (finally) Reaches for Lay:
Houston Chronicle: Enron prosecutors to seek Lay indictment
"Federal prosecutors plan to ask a grand jury to indict Ken Lay on charges relating to the last few months he was at the helm of Enron as the company spiralled into its stunning 2001 collapse.
The indictments are expected within two weeks, according to lawyers close to the case."
Iraq:
Time Magazine: New Abuse Charges
"Could the abuse of prisoners in Iraq have gone beyond the beatings and sexual humiliation already alleged? Unreleased, classified parts of the report on prison abuse from Major General Anthony Taguba, which were read to TIME, contain indications of mistreatment of female prisoners. In a Feb. 21 statement to Taguba, Lieut. Colonel Steven L. Jordan, former head of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, said he had received reports 'that there were members of the MI [Military Intelligence] community that had come over and done a late-night interrogation of two female detainees' last October. According to a statement by Jordan's boss, Colonel Thomas Pappas, three interrogators were later cited for violations of military law in their handling of the two females, ages 17 and 18. Senate Armed Services Committee investigators are probing whether the two women were sexually abused."
Greg Palast: 1.9 million black votes didn't count in the 2000 presidential election / It's not too hard to get your vote lost -- if some politicians want it to be lost
"In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. 'Spoiled votes' is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate."
The So-Called War on Terror:
William Rivers Pitt: Freedom, Incorporated
The Guardian: Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands: "A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an 'avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked' war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands."
LA Times: 2 Allies Aided Bin Laden, Say Panel Members
"Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks by cutting deals with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that allowed his Al Qaeda terrorist network to flourish, according to several senior members of the Sept. 11 commission and U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
The financial aid to the Taliban and other assistance by two of the most important allies of the United States in its war on terrorism date at least to 1996, and appear to have shielded them from Al Qaeda attacks within their own borders until long after the 2001 strikes, those commission members and officials said in interviews."
The Long Arm of the Law (finally) Reaches for Lay:
Houston Chronicle: Enron prosecutors to seek Lay indictment
"Federal prosecutors plan to ask a grand jury to indict Ken Lay on charges relating to the last few months he was at the helm of Enron as the company spiralled into its stunning 2001 collapse.
The indictments are expected within two weeks, according to lawyers close to the case."
Iraq:
Time Magazine: New Abuse Charges
"Could the abuse of prisoners in Iraq have gone beyond the beatings and sexual humiliation already alleged? Unreleased, classified parts of the report on prison abuse from Major General Anthony Taguba, which were read to TIME, contain indications of mistreatment of female prisoners. In a Feb. 21 statement to Taguba, Lieut. Colonel Steven L. Jordan, former head of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, said he had received reports 'that there were members of the MI [Military Intelligence] community that had come over and done a late-night interrogation of two female detainees' last October. According to a statement by Jordan's boss, Colonel Thomas Pappas, three interrogators were later cited for violations of military law in their handling of the two females, ages 17 and 18. Senate Armed Services Committee investigators are probing whether the two women were sexually abused."
Saturday, June 19, 2004
The So-Called War on Terror:
NY Times Editorial: Show Us the Proof
"When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history."
9/11 Commission:
NY Times Editorial: 'We Have Some Planes'
"...There was no coordination between the Pentagon and F.A.A. headquarters, which seemed remarkably out of the loop even as four of its regional traffic control centers were juggling the crisis. These control centers initially failed to notice that hijackers had altered the transponder signal from the second plane bound for the World Trade Center, United Airlines Flight 175. They also missed the turn by American Airlines Flight 77, which was supposed to go to California but instead flew undetected for 36 minutes back toward Washington, and its target, the Pentagon. When military fighters were scrambled, they first flew in the wrong direction.
Perhaps most troubling were breakdowns in communication at the very top of the nation's government. President Bush, who was in Florida that morning, had to rely on a cellphone at one point to get through to Vice President Dick Cheney. And once they decided to authorize the fighter jets protecting New York and Washington to shoot down any more hijacked airliners, their order was not relayed to the pilots. Information was so unreliable that morning that Mr. Cheney actually believed two planes had been brought down as a result of his order..."
NY Times Editorial: Show Us the Proof
"When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history."
9/11 Commission:
NY Times Editorial: 'We Have Some Planes'
"...There was no coordination between the Pentagon and F.A.A. headquarters, which seemed remarkably out of the loop even as four of its regional traffic control centers were juggling the crisis. These control centers initially failed to notice that hijackers had altered the transponder signal from the second plane bound for the World Trade Center, United Airlines Flight 175. They also missed the turn by American Airlines Flight 77, which was supposed to go to California but instead flew undetected for 36 minutes back toward Washington, and its target, the Pentagon. When military fighters were scrambled, they first flew in the wrong direction.
Perhaps most troubling were breakdowns in communication at the very top of the nation's government. President Bush, who was in Florida that morning, had to rely on a cellphone at one point to get through to Vice President Dick Cheney. And once they decided to authorize the fighter jets protecting New York and Washington to shoot down any more hijacked airliners, their order was not relayed to the pilots. Information was so unreliable that morning that Mr. Cheney actually believed two planes had been brought down as a result of his order..."
Friday, June 18, 2004
The So-Called War on Terror:
Waleed Ziad suggests that economic conditions help to create the hopelessness that allows terror to thrive. The question is, how commited are 'rich' nations to helping poorer ones develop in a way that helps to create social justice. The answer, at least until now, appears to be: not very... How the Holy Warriors Learned to Hate
NY Times Editorial: The C.I.A. as History's Editor
"If only the Central Intelligence Agency had been half as vigilant on the road to the Iraq war as it has been in redacting the Senate's critique of its failures. The Senate Intelligence Committee remains in a tug of war with the Bush administration over the panel's overdue report on intelligence bunglings, with the C.I.A. allowed to play the role of censor. After weeks of delay, the agency has decreed that much of the report is too sensitive for the public to know.
The C.I.A.'s censors returned a version of the report that committee staff members call a blacked-out work of art. It is rife with deletions, which amount to as much as 40 percent of the 400 pages. No one is discussing specific redactions, but the C.I.A.'s performance only feeds suspicions that the administration is trying to chisel away the painful truth.
The C.I.A. claims that much of the Iraq report is about intelligence sources and methods that must remain classified. But intelligence committee professionals know how to produce reports that compromise few secrets. The wholesale job of bowdlerization reported by The Times's Douglas Jehl this week will only further tatter the C.I.A.'s reputation as Congress considers reforming the agency.
This is about nothing less than telling the public the truth about how it was led into Iraq. Committee leaders must fight for a forceful accounting. If the White House cannot be prodded to get a fairer job from the C.I.A., the committee should ask Senate approval to present a properly revealing version of the report directly to the public."
Bill Moyers (NOW) : The Hidden Cost of War
"Thousands of injured and ill soldiers sent home from Iraq and Afghanistan are not being counted in the Pentagon's official tally of the wounded because they are considered 'non-hostile' casualties. Some say that if they were included, it would triple the total casualty count. The Pentagon claims that until NOW's request, it hadn't been asked for those numbers. But, critics say these often debilitating injuries are not being reported to keep Americans from getting a clear picture of the human cost of war. NOW's Michele Mitchell profiles these soldiers who may spend the rest of their lives scarred and disabled, but whose sacrifices are not being counted by the nation they served. "
Halliburton Watch: GAO finds Pentagon violated law by hiring Halliburton for pre-war planning work
"The auditing arm of Congress issued a report today confirming that the Pentagon had violated procurement law by issuing a "task order" to Halliburton to develop plans for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq. The report, issued by the General Accounting Office (GAO), said the task order violated the law because it was issued under Halliburton's LOGCAP contract, which is not authorized to handle oil fires. LOGCAP is a logistics contract that requires Halliburton to feed the troops, deliver supplies in a war zone and construct military buildings. But there is no authority under LOGCAP to deal with oil well fires. The GAO said Bush administration officials “overstepped the latitude provided by competition laws” when they misused the LOGCAP contract to assign the planning job to Halliburton.
In addition, the GAO found Iraq contracts worth billions of dollars were not awarded under full and open competition. All 14 of the contracts the GAO examined, including Halliburton’s no-bid oil infrastructure contract and Bechtel’s billion-dollar capital construction contract, were awarded with limited or no competition."
Robert Fisk: Iraq, 1917
"They came as liberators but were met by fierce resistance outside Baghdad. Humiliating treatment of prisoners and heavy-handed action in Najaf and Fallujah further alienated the local population. A planned handover of power proved unworkable. Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books..."
Washington Post: Prison Tactics A Longtime Dilemma For Israel
Waleed Ziad suggests that economic conditions help to create the hopelessness that allows terror to thrive. The question is, how commited are 'rich' nations to helping poorer ones develop in a way that helps to create social justice. The answer, at least until now, appears to be: not very... How the Holy Warriors Learned to Hate
NY Times Editorial: The C.I.A. as History's Editor
"If only the Central Intelligence Agency had been half as vigilant on the road to the Iraq war as it has been in redacting the Senate's critique of its failures. The Senate Intelligence Committee remains in a tug of war with the Bush administration over the panel's overdue report on intelligence bunglings, with the C.I.A. allowed to play the role of censor. After weeks of delay, the agency has decreed that much of the report is too sensitive for the public to know.
The C.I.A.'s censors returned a version of the report that committee staff members call a blacked-out work of art. It is rife with deletions, which amount to as much as 40 percent of the 400 pages. No one is discussing specific redactions, but the C.I.A.'s performance only feeds suspicions that the administration is trying to chisel away the painful truth.
The C.I.A. claims that much of the Iraq report is about intelligence sources and methods that must remain classified. But intelligence committee professionals know how to produce reports that compromise few secrets. The wholesale job of bowdlerization reported by The Times's Douglas Jehl this week will only further tatter the C.I.A.'s reputation as Congress considers reforming the agency.
This is about nothing less than telling the public the truth about how it was led into Iraq. Committee leaders must fight for a forceful accounting. If the White House cannot be prodded to get a fairer job from the C.I.A., the committee should ask Senate approval to present a properly revealing version of the report directly to the public."
Bill Moyers (NOW) : The Hidden Cost of War
"Thousands of injured and ill soldiers sent home from Iraq and Afghanistan are not being counted in the Pentagon's official tally of the wounded because they are considered 'non-hostile' casualties. Some say that if they were included, it would triple the total casualty count. The Pentagon claims that until NOW's request, it hadn't been asked for those numbers. But, critics say these often debilitating injuries are not being reported to keep Americans from getting a clear picture of the human cost of war. NOW's Michele Mitchell profiles these soldiers who may spend the rest of their lives scarred and disabled, but whose sacrifices are not being counted by the nation they served. "
Halliburton Watch: GAO finds Pentagon violated law by hiring Halliburton for pre-war planning work
"The auditing arm of Congress issued a report today confirming that the Pentagon had violated procurement law by issuing a "task order" to Halliburton to develop plans for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq. The report, issued by the General Accounting Office (GAO), said the task order violated the law because it was issued under Halliburton's LOGCAP contract, which is not authorized to handle oil fires. LOGCAP is a logistics contract that requires Halliburton to feed the troops, deliver supplies in a war zone and construct military buildings. But there is no authority under LOGCAP to deal with oil well fires. The GAO said Bush administration officials “overstepped the latitude provided by competition laws” when they misused the LOGCAP contract to assign the planning job to Halliburton.
In addition, the GAO found Iraq contracts worth billions of dollars were not awarded under full and open competition. All 14 of the contracts the GAO examined, including Halliburton’s no-bid oil infrastructure contract and Bechtel’s billion-dollar capital construction contract, were awarded with limited or no competition."
Robert Fisk: Iraq, 1917
"They came as liberators but were met by fierce resistance outside Baghdad. Humiliating treatment of prisoners and heavy-handed action in Najaf and Fallujah further alienated the local population. A planned handover of power proved unworkable. Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books..."
Washington Post: Prison Tactics A Longtime Dilemma For Israel
Thursday, June 17, 2004
The So-called War on Terror:
NY Times Editorial: The Plain Truth
"It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide."
Iraq:
NY Times: The New York Times > Washington > Prison Abuse: Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.
This prisoner and other 'ghost detainees' were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who in February investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees there and at other detention centers as 'deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law.'"
Nuclear Nation:
NY Times: Senate Backs New Research on A-Bombs
"The Senate renewed its support Tuesday for research into a new generation of nuclear weapons, overcoming opposition from Democrats who said they feared that the Bush administration had already decided to develop such arms."
AP: Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
"The proposal for a nuclear waste site in Nevada took a tiny step forward Wednesday as House members tried to resolve a budget problem that threatens to dramatically curtail work.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved legislation that would send a steady stream of money for the Yucca Mountain waste project over the next five years, so the facility could open on schedule in 2010."
9/11 Commission:
AP: 9/11 Panel Criticizes Pentagon for Poor Response to Hijackings
"The terror strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 overwhelmed all immediate efforts to counter or even comprehend their scope, a bipartisan commission reported Thursday, and spread confusion to the point that Vice President Dick Cheney mistakenly thought U.S. warplanes shot down two aircraft.
The front line civilian and military agencies struggled to 'improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet,' the panel said."
The Campaign Finance Antics of Tom Delay (R), Texas, the House Majority Leader:
The Washington Post: DeLay to Be Subject of Ethics Complaint
"A Democratic congressman plans to file a wide-ranging ethics complaint today against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), shattering the remnants of a seven-year-old, unwritten ethics truce between the two parties and possibly nudging the House back toward a brand of political warfare that helped topple two speakers.
The complaint, which Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.) said he will send to the House ethics committee, accuses the House's second-ranking Republican of soliciting campaign contributions in return for legislative favors; laundering illegal campaign contributions through a Texas political action committee; and improperly involving a federal agency in a Texas partisan matter. The House's top two Democrats raised no objections when Bell told them he would file the complaint, according to Bell's office and party leadership aides."
NY Times Editorial: The Plain Truth
"It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide."
Iraq:
NY Times: The New York Times > Washington > Prison Abuse: Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.
This prisoner and other 'ghost detainees' were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who in February investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees there and at other detention centers as 'deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law.'"
Nuclear Nation:
NY Times: Senate Backs New Research on A-Bombs
"The Senate renewed its support Tuesday for research into a new generation of nuclear weapons, overcoming opposition from Democrats who said they feared that the Bush administration had already decided to develop such arms."
AP: Lawmakers Tackle Nuclear Project Budget
"The proposal for a nuclear waste site in Nevada took a tiny step forward Wednesday as House members tried to resolve a budget problem that threatens to dramatically curtail work.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved legislation that would send a steady stream of money for the Yucca Mountain waste project over the next five years, so the facility could open on schedule in 2010."
9/11 Commission:
AP: 9/11 Panel Criticizes Pentagon for Poor Response to Hijackings
"The terror strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 overwhelmed all immediate efforts to counter or even comprehend their scope, a bipartisan commission reported Thursday, and spread confusion to the point that Vice President Dick Cheney mistakenly thought U.S. warplanes shot down two aircraft.
The front line civilian and military agencies struggled to 'improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet,' the panel said."
The Campaign Finance Antics of Tom Delay (R), Texas, the House Majority Leader:
The Washington Post: DeLay to Be Subject of Ethics Complaint
"A Democratic congressman plans to file a wide-ranging ethics complaint today against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), shattering the remnants of a seven-year-old, unwritten ethics truce between the two parties and possibly nudging the House back toward a brand of political warfare that helped topple two speakers.
The complaint, which Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.) said he will send to the House ethics committee, accuses the House's second-ranking Republican of soliciting campaign contributions in return for legislative favors; laundering illegal campaign contributions through a Texas political action committee; and improperly involving a federal agency in a Texas partisan matter. The House's top two Democrats raised no objections when Bell told them he would file the complaint, according to Bell's office and party leadership aides."
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Will this matter after Bush cowed the UN into approving the US occupation of Iraq?
BBC: Ex-officials lash Bush policies
Science:
BBC: Teleportation breakthrough made
"Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports. "
BBC: Ex-officials lash Bush policies
Science:
BBC: Teleportation breakthrough made
"Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports. "
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
The So-called War on Terror:
Paul Krugman: Travesty of Justice
Salon.com - A Temporary Coup
"...the author of 'Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda,' charges that the Bush administration is responsible for what is perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of U.S. intelligence. From failing to anticipate 9/11 to pressuring the CIA to produce bogus justifications for war, from abusing Iraqi prisoners to misrepresenting the nature of Iraqi insurgents, the Bush White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies they corrupted, coerced or ignored have made extraordinarily grave errors which could threaten our national security for years. By manipulating intelligence and punishing dissent while pursuing an extreme foreign-policy agenda, Bush leaders have set spy against U.S. spy and deeply damaged America's intelligence capabilities.
'It's a catastrophe beyond belief. Going into Afghanistan was inevitable, and in my opinion the right thing to do. But everything since then has been a horrible mistake," Powers says. "The CIA is politicized to an extreme. It's under the control of the White House. Tenet is leaving in the middle of an unresolved political crisis - what really amounts to a constitutional crisis.'"
Paul Krugman: Travesty of Justice
Salon.com - A Temporary Coup
"...the author of 'Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda,' charges that the Bush administration is responsible for what is perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of U.S. intelligence. From failing to anticipate 9/11 to pressuring the CIA to produce bogus justifications for war, from abusing Iraqi prisoners to misrepresenting the nature of Iraqi insurgents, the Bush White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies they corrupted, coerced or ignored have made extraordinarily grave errors which could threaten our national security for years. By manipulating intelligence and punishing dissent while pursuing an extreme foreign-policy agenda, Bush leaders have set spy against U.S. spy and deeply damaged America's intelligence capabilities.
'It's a catastrophe beyond belief. Going into Afghanistan was inevitable, and in my opinion the right thing to do. But everything since then has been a horrible mistake," Powers says. "The CIA is politicized to an extreme. It's under the control of the White House. Tenet is leaving in the middle of an unresolved political crisis - what really amounts to a constitutional crisis.'"
Religion & Politics
Washington Post: Speaker Pushes Jobs Bill Provision
"House Republican leaders have tacked on to a major jobs bill a provision that would give religious leaders more freedom to engage in partisan politics without endangering the tax-exempt status of their churches."
The Budget We Can't Seem to Fund Without Borrowing:
Washington Post: Congress Backs Pentegon Weapons Build-up Pricier Than '80s
"As Congress moves ahead with a huge new defense bill, lawmakers are making only modest changes in the Pentagon's plans to spend well over $1 trillion in the next decade on an arsenal of futuristic planes, ships and weapons with little direct connection to the Iraq war or the global war on terrorism."
The Environment:
AlterNet: Sludge Funds
"How the Bush camp is using the EPA to keep its polluting friends happy and its campaign coffers filled."
Iraq:
Reuters: U.S. Contractor CACI Responds to Suit Over Iraq Abuse
"U.S. defense contractor CACI International on Thursday denied allegations in a lawsuit that it conspired with U.S. officials to torture and abuse prisoners in Iraq. CACI and Titan Corp. were charged in the suit with engaging in 'heinous and illegal acts' to show they could get intelligence from detainees, thereby positioning themselves to get more government contracts."
BBC: Iraq abuse 'ordered from the top'
"The US commander at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner scandal says she was told to treat detainees like dogs."
W wishes he could keep RR in the news, but not like this...
Greg Palast: WHILE REAGAN NAPPED: RONNIE, OSAMA AND THE CHIN DEFENSE: "Vinnie the Chin had a great alibi. The New York mob capo shuffled down the street in his bathrobe, unshaved, drooling out the side of his mouth. When he got busted, he pleaded he was too gone-in-the-head to know about the Cosa Nostra running rackets from his candy shop. Ronald Reagan out-Chinned the Chin. When caught paying ransom to Khomeini and his Hizbollah terrorists, Reagan did his aw-shucks I'm just a ga-ga grandpa routine, 'I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart tells me that's true, but the facts tell me it is not.' Oh, OK then."
Washington Post: Speaker Pushes Jobs Bill Provision
"House Republican leaders have tacked on to a major jobs bill a provision that would give religious leaders more freedom to engage in partisan politics without endangering the tax-exempt status of their churches."
The Budget We Can't Seem to Fund Without Borrowing:
Washington Post: Congress Backs Pentegon Weapons Build-up Pricier Than '80s
"As Congress moves ahead with a huge new defense bill, lawmakers are making only modest changes in the Pentagon's plans to spend well over $1 trillion in the next decade on an arsenal of futuristic planes, ships and weapons with little direct connection to the Iraq war or the global war on terrorism."
The Environment:
AlterNet: Sludge Funds
"How the Bush camp is using the EPA to keep its polluting friends happy and its campaign coffers filled."
Iraq:
Reuters: U.S. Contractor CACI Responds to Suit Over Iraq Abuse
"U.S. defense contractor CACI International on Thursday denied allegations in a lawsuit that it conspired with U.S. officials to torture and abuse prisoners in Iraq. CACI and Titan Corp. were charged in the suit with engaging in 'heinous and illegal acts' to show they could get intelligence from detainees, thereby positioning themselves to get more government contracts."
BBC: Iraq abuse 'ordered from the top'
"The US commander at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner scandal says she was told to treat detainees like dogs."
W wishes he could keep RR in the news, but not like this...
Greg Palast: WHILE REAGAN NAPPED: RONNIE, OSAMA AND THE CHIN DEFENSE: "Vinnie the Chin had a great alibi. The New York mob capo shuffled down the street in his bathrobe, unshaved, drooling out the side of his mouth. When he got busted, he pleaded he was too gone-in-the-head to know about the Cosa Nostra running rackets from his candy shop. Ronald Reagan out-Chinned the Chin. When caught paying ransom to Khomeini and his Hizbollah terrorists, Reagan did his aw-shucks I'm just a ga-ga grandpa routine, 'I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart tells me that's true, but the facts tell me it is not.' Oh, OK then."
Monday, June 14, 2004
Fred Kaplan: Reagan's Osama Connection - How he turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.
"Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note that a similar set of documents shows that Reagan also played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war that followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama Bin Laden.
Once again, the story concerns the fascinating relationship between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev took the helm as the reform-minded general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985. Within months, he had decided privately to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. One of his predecessors, Leonid Brezhnev,* had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the move was proving a disaster. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops had died; military morale was crumbling; popular protest—unheard of, till then, in Communist Russia—was rising. Part of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was due to the fact that the Reagan administration was feeding billions of dollars in arms to Afghanistan's Islamic resistance. Reagan and, even more, his intensely ideological CIA director, William Casey, saw the battle for Afghanistan as a titanic struggle in the war between Eastern tyranny and Western freedom. (Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had started assisting the resistance, but with not nearly the same largess or ambition.)..."
"Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note that a similar set of documents shows that Reagan also played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war that followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama Bin Laden.
Once again, the story concerns the fascinating relationship between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev took the helm as the reform-minded general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985. Within months, he had decided privately to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. One of his predecessors, Leonid Brezhnev,* had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the move was proving a disaster. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops had died; military morale was crumbling; popular protest—unheard of, till then, in Communist Russia—was rising. Part of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was due to the fact that the Reagan administration was feeding billions of dollars in arms to Afghanistan's Islamic resistance. Reagan and, even more, his intensely ideological CIA director, William Casey, saw the battle for Afghanistan as a titanic struggle in the war between Eastern tyranny and Western freedom. (Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had started assisting the resistance, but with not nearly the same largess or ambition.)..."
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Iraq:
The Guardian (UK) - A torturer's charter
"Secret documents show that US interrogators are above the law"
Washington Post: General Sanchez Granted Latitude At Prison
"Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents. The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib jail and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods."
The So-Called War on Terror:
AP: U.S. Wrongly Reported Drop in World Terrorism in 2003
Energy Politics:
Peter Beinart: Rigged
The Guardian (UK) - A torturer's charter
"Secret documents show that US interrogators are above the law"
Washington Post: General Sanchez Granted Latitude At Prison
"Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents. The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib jail and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods."
The So-Called War on Terror:
AP: U.S. Wrongly Reported Drop in World Terrorism in 2003
Energy Politics:
Peter Beinart: Rigged
Saturday, June 12, 2004
The November Election:
Bernard Weiner: Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies
NY Times: Colorado Republicans Lose Redistricting Effort
"The battle over a new Congressional map for Colorado, one of the country's most closely watched redistricting cases, ended Monday in a Democratic victory at the Supreme Court. Falling one vote short, the justices refused to hear the Colorado Republicans' appeal of a state high court ruling that invalidated an unusual second redistricting plan the Republicans had pushed through the legislature in the closing days of its 2003 session."
The Environment:
The Oregonian: t r u t h o u t - Politics Hold Sway in Biscuit Logging, Wilderness Plan
"A careful strategy in an election year leads to a protection effort while cutting into roadless forests."
The NY Times is reporting that states, rather than the Feds, are taking action to clear the air of pollution: Much of Coastal U.S. May Follow California on Car Emissions
"The only way to cut global warming emissions from cars is to use less fossil fuel.
Thus, the proposed cuts in emissions would have the side effect of requiring automakers to increase fuel economy by a range of mid-30 percent to mid-40 percent, experts say...
...Automakers say such objectives would be extremely difficult and costly to achieve across their vehicle fleets. Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, cited a recent study that showed fuel economy remained far down on most shoppers' priority lists."
Politics and Terror:
NY Times: Council on Foreign Relations: Nonpolitical Study of Terror Is Caught Up in Politics
Flags at half mast:
Krugman and Scheer: Reagan: Nice and Nasty
Bernard Weiner: Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies
NY Times: Colorado Republicans Lose Redistricting Effort
"The battle over a new Congressional map for Colorado, one of the country's most closely watched redistricting cases, ended Monday in a Democratic victory at the Supreme Court. Falling one vote short, the justices refused to hear the Colorado Republicans' appeal of a state high court ruling that invalidated an unusual second redistricting plan the Republicans had pushed through the legislature in the closing days of its 2003 session."
The Environment:
The Oregonian: t r u t h o u t - Politics Hold Sway in Biscuit Logging, Wilderness Plan
"A careful strategy in an election year leads to a protection effort while cutting into roadless forests."
The NY Times is reporting that states, rather than the Feds, are taking action to clear the air of pollution: Much of Coastal U.S. May Follow California on Car Emissions
"The only way to cut global warming emissions from cars is to use less fossil fuel.
Thus, the proposed cuts in emissions would have the side effect of requiring automakers to increase fuel economy by a range of mid-30 percent to mid-40 percent, experts say...
...Automakers say such objectives would be extremely difficult and costly to achieve across their vehicle fleets. Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, cited a recent study that showed fuel economy remained far down on most shoppers' priority lists."
Politics and Terror:
NY Times: Council on Foreign Relations: Nonpolitical Study of Terror Is Caught Up in Politics
Flags at half mast:
Krugman and Scheer: Reagan: Nice and Nasty
Friday, June 11, 2004
Business Ethics:
AP: Halliburton Under Investigation for Nigeria Bribery Accusations
Iraq:
NY Times: Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraqi PM-Designate Helped Agency in 90's Attacks
"Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say."
AP: Halliburton Under Investigation for Nigeria Bribery Accusations
Iraq:
NY Times: Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraqi PM-Designate Helped Agency in 90's Attacks
"Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say."
Thursday, June 10, 2004
The So-Called War on Terror:
LA Times: Administration Lawyers Ascribed Broad Power to Bush on Torture
NY Times: Bush Didn't Order Any Breach of Torture Laws, Ashcroft Says
"Mr. Ashcroft strove to make a distinction between memorandums that may have provided theoretical legal justifications for torture and his assertion that there had never been any directive that actually authorized its use."
Ray McGovern: Code Red (States)
"Fanning further fear of terror is the only remaining ploy to boost the president’s sinking poll numbers. The struggle against terrorism is the issue on which George W. Bush still gets relatively good marks. Small wonder that he used 'terror/terrorist/terrorism' no less than 19 times in his speech at the Army War College on May 24."
Matthew Yglesias asks whose side W is really on: Mole in Our Midst
Nicholas Kristof: Beating Specialist Baker
BBC: Following the Afghan drugs trail
"The Afghan drugs trade is growing so fast some fear the country could become a narco-state, where drugs barons rule, not the government."
Iraq:
NY Times: Rebels Launch an Array of Attacks Across Iraq
Gregg Bloche: Physician, Turn Thyself In
"According to press reports, military doctors and nurses who examined prisoners at Abu Ghraib treated swollen genitals, prescribed painkillers, stitched wounds, and recorded evidence of the abuses going on around them. Under international law - as well as the standards of common decency - these medical professionals had a duty to tell those in power what they saw."
Flags at half-mast
William Rivers Pitt: Planet Reagan
"Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us."
Some remarks about Ronald Reagan's legacy: Greg Palast [the language used may offend some readers]
Energy Politics:
Remember, the legal action described in the LA Times article below is what former CA Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante was pursuing prior to Schwartzenegger took the helm. Arnold's preference was to settle the suit for cents on the dollar, rather than the full $9 billion. In stead, he told the state it needed to finance it's debt, a debt that the energy crisis had a sizable role in creating. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Arnold in favor of even more deregulation of energy markets. Lockyer Suit to Accuse Enron of Manipulating State Power Market
"California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer intends to file a lawsuit accusing energy trader Enron Corp. of manipulating the state's electricity market during the 2000-01 energy crisis...
...State investigators contend that electricity prices were rigged, and they hope to convince federal regulators that California ratepayers are owed $9 billion in refunds."
LA Times: Administration Lawyers Ascribed Broad Power to Bush on Torture
NY Times: Bush Didn't Order Any Breach of Torture Laws, Ashcroft Says
"Mr. Ashcroft strove to make a distinction between memorandums that may have provided theoretical legal justifications for torture and his assertion that there had never been any directive that actually authorized its use."
Ray McGovern: Code Red (States)
"Fanning further fear of terror is the only remaining ploy to boost the president’s sinking poll numbers. The struggle against terrorism is the issue on which George W. Bush still gets relatively good marks. Small wonder that he used 'terror/terrorist/terrorism' no less than 19 times in his speech at the Army War College on May 24."
Matthew Yglesias asks whose side W is really on: Mole in Our Midst
Nicholas Kristof: Beating Specialist Baker
BBC: Following the Afghan drugs trail
"The Afghan drugs trade is growing so fast some fear the country could become a narco-state, where drugs barons rule, not the government."
Iraq:
NY Times: Rebels Launch an Array of Attacks Across Iraq
Gregg Bloche: Physician, Turn Thyself In
"According to press reports, military doctors and nurses who examined prisoners at Abu Ghraib treated swollen genitals, prescribed painkillers, stitched wounds, and recorded evidence of the abuses going on around them. Under international law - as well as the standards of common decency - these medical professionals had a duty to tell those in power what they saw."
Flags at half-mast
William Rivers Pitt: Planet Reagan
"Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us."
Some remarks about Ronald Reagan's legacy: Greg Palast [the language used may offend some readers]
Energy Politics:
Remember, the legal action described in the LA Times article below is what former CA Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante was pursuing prior to Schwartzenegger took the helm. Arnold's preference was to settle the suit for cents on the dollar, rather than the full $9 billion. In stead, he told the state it needed to finance it's debt, a debt that the energy crisis had a sizable role in creating. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Arnold in favor of even more deregulation of energy markets. Lockyer Suit to Accuse Enron of Manipulating State Power Market
"California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer intends to file a lawsuit accusing energy trader Enron Corp. of manipulating the state's electricity market during the 2000-01 energy crisis...
...State investigators contend that electricity prices were rigged, and they hope to convince federal regulators that California ratepayers are owed $9 billion in refunds."
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Note to readers: I'll be on vacation until June 10
The November Election:
NY Times Editorial: Fiscal Shenanigans
"President Bush appears to be planning to run for re-election as a tax cutter without discussing what federal programs will be sacrificed to make up for the lost revenue. That can't be allowed to happen. Voters have the right to see the whole picture, including the downside. Chances are they won't like the view."
The Guardian (UK) - Michael Moore wins US distribution deal
Iraq:
The Guardian (UK) - Chalabi accused of spy codes tip-off to Iran
"FBI inquiry focuses on Pentagon officials as Iraqi National Congress leader denies warning Tehran that US was intercepting messages."
The Guardian (UK) - Bush insists new government will not be US puppets
"George Bush declared yesterday that the newly formed Iraqi interim government would have 'full sovereignty', insisting its members would not be mere 'puppets' of Washington and the US troops who remained in the country after the 30 June handover."
Business Ethics:
NY Times: Two Studies, Two Results, and a Debate Over a Drug
"The two drug trials were known within SmithKline Beecham as Study 329 and Study 377. Study 329 suggested that the company's popular drug Paxil might help depressed adolescents. Study 377, completed not long afterward, indicated that Paxil provided no more benefit than a sugar pill in treating depressed young people. But only the favorable study was widely publicized by Paxil's maker."
In the too little, too late category:
The Guardian (UK) - Saudis crack down on Islamic charities
The November Election:
NY Times Editorial: Fiscal Shenanigans
"President Bush appears to be planning to run for re-election as a tax cutter without discussing what federal programs will be sacrificed to make up for the lost revenue. That can't be allowed to happen. Voters have the right to see the whole picture, including the downside. Chances are they won't like the view."
The Guardian (UK) - Michael Moore wins US distribution deal
Iraq:
The Guardian (UK) - Chalabi accused of spy codes tip-off to Iran
"FBI inquiry focuses on Pentagon officials as Iraqi National Congress leader denies warning Tehran that US was intercepting messages."
The Guardian (UK) - Bush insists new government will not be US puppets
"George Bush declared yesterday that the newly formed Iraqi interim government would have 'full sovereignty', insisting its members would not be mere 'puppets' of Washington and the US troops who remained in the country after the 30 June handover."
Business Ethics:
NY Times: Two Studies, Two Results, and a Debate Over a Drug
"The two drug trials were known within SmithKline Beecham as Study 329 and Study 377. Study 329 suggested that the company's popular drug Paxil might help depressed adolescents. Study 377, completed not long afterward, indicated that Paxil provided no more benefit than a sugar pill in treating depressed young people. But only the favorable study was widely publicized by Paxil's maker."
In the too little, too late category:
The Guardian (UK) - Saudis crack down on Islamic charities
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Iraq:
William Rivers Pitt: The Deep Game
The US mass media who unquestioningly carried as front-page news the 'facts' cited by the Independent, ought now to be involved in serious soul-searching. Will the light of day be shone on their role in manipulating public opinion in the run up to war? The sooner their role in doing the bidding of the White House is exposed, the better. Can they be counted upon to offer a mea culpa?
The lying game - An A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakes
Houston Chronicle: Ex-head of Texas prisons set up Abu Ghraib
"A civilian charged with preparing Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison for U.S. military use headed the Texas prison system during one of its most controversial periods and later resigned as director of Utah prisons after an inmate died while shackled naked to a chair. Lane McCotter, now director of business development for a private prison company, Management & Training Corp., says he never trained U.S. military personnel working in Iraq's prisons and turned over the management of Abu Ghraib to military officials before the United States began housing prisoners there. But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, is urging Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate how civilians such as McCotter were chosen to oversee the opening of prisons in Iraq -- noting that McCotter is an executive for a company operating a private prison in New Mexico that the Justice Department criticized last year for unsafe conditions and lack of medical care for inmates."
Baltimore Sun: DynCorp contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed
Robert Sheer: Electorate Is Wising Up to the Iraq Blunder
William A. Whitlow: The Price Of Giving Bad Advice
In reading the following article by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one should remember that it was this man's idea to arm the Afghan Mujahadeen. The part Mr. Brzezinski failed to address was the means by which these fanatics could convinced to lay down their arms, once the Soviets were defeated. Face Reality in Iraq
The following story from the AFP should raise some eyebrows. Is government interference in the press something we are supposed to find comforting?
Chalabi told Iran that US had broken its secret communications code:
"...the US government asked the media, including The New York Times, not to publish details of the case. 'The administration withdrew its request on Tuesday,' said the New York Times, adding that the US government said news reports on Chalabi's alleged betrayal had begun to appear."
Here is the same story as the one above from the AFP, as reported by the NY Times: Chalabi Reportedly Told Iran That U.S. Had Code
Energy Policy:
Two stories about Saudi Arabia from truthout.org
Denver Post: U.S. told tax can control warming
"In addition to oil prices hovering at record levels, some economists say a carbon tax would encourage Americans to curb wasteful energy consumption that contributes to global warming."
AP: Six Firms Control, Exceed U.S. Oil Leases
"A single New Mexico family and a dozen big oil companies, including one once headed by Commerce Secretary Don Evans, now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show."
William Rivers Pitt: The Deep Game
The US mass media who unquestioningly carried as front-page news the 'facts' cited by the Independent, ought now to be involved in serious soul-searching. Will the light of day be shone on their role in manipulating public opinion in the run up to war? The sooner their role in doing the bidding of the White House is exposed, the better. Can they be counted upon to offer a mea culpa?
The lying game - An A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakes
Houston Chronicle: Ex-head of Texas prisons set up Abu Ghraib
"A civilian charged with preparing Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison for U.S. military use headed the Texas prison system during one of its most controversial periods and later resigned as director of Utah prisons after an inmate died while shackled naked to a chair. Lane McCotter, now director of business development for a private prison company, Management & Training Corp., says he never trained U.S. military personnel working in Iraq's prisons and turned over the management of Abu Ghraib to military officials before the United States began housing prisoners there. But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, is urging Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate how civilians such as McCotter were chosen to oversee the opening of prisons in Iraq -- noting that McCotter is an executive for a company operating a private prison in New Mexico that the Justice Department criticized last year for unsafe conditions and lack of medical care for inmates."
Baltimore Sun: DynCorp contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed
Robert Sheer: Electorate Is Wising Up to the Iraq Blunder
William A. Whitlow: The Price Of Giving Bad Advice
In reading the following article by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one should remember that it was this man's idea to arm the Afghan Mujahadeen. The part Mr. Brzezinski failed to address was the means by which these fanatics could convinced to lay down their arms, once the Soviets were defeated. Face Reality in Iraq
The following story from the AFP should raise some eyebrows. Is government interference in the press something we are supposed to find comforting?
Chalabi told Iran that US had broken its secret communications code:
"...the US government asked the media, including The New York Times, not to publish details of the case. 'The administration withdrew its request on Tuesday,' said the New York Times, adding that the US government said news reports on Chalabi's alleged betrayal had begun to appear."
Here is the same story as the one above from the AFP, as reported by the NY Times: Chalabi Reportedly Told Iran That U.S. Had Code
Energy Policy:
Two stories about Saudi Arabia from truthout.org
Denver Post: U.S. told tax can control warming
"In addition to oil prices hovering at record levels, some economists say a carbon tax would encourage Americans to curb wasteful energy consumption that contributes to global warming."
AP: Six Firms Control, Exceed U.S. Oil Leases
"A single New Mexico family and a dozen big oil companies, including one once headed by Commerce Secretary Don Evans, now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show."
