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| Ron Reagan makes the case against George W. Bush |
| 07.31.04 (6:40 am) [edit] |
The following is just a small excerpt and one must truly read the whole piece. It's excellent!
But image is everything in this White House, and the image of George Bush as a noble and infallible warrior in the service of his nation must be fanatically maintained, because behind the image lies . . . nothing? As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has pointed out, Bush has "never fully inhabited" the presidency. Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.
George W. Bush promised to "change the tone in Washington" and ran for office as a moderate, a "compassionate conservative," in the focus-group-tested sloganeering of his campaign. Yet he has governed from the right wing of his already conservative party, assiduously tending a "base" that includes, along with the expected Fortune 500 fat cats, fiscal evangelicals who talk openly of doing away with Social Security and Medicare, of shrinking government to the size where they can, in tax radical Grover Norquist's phrase, "drown it in the bathtub." That base also encompasses a healthy share of anti-choice zealots, homophobic bigots, and assorted purveyors of junk science. Bush has tossed bones to all of them - "partial birth" abortion legislation, the promise of a constitutional amendment banning marriage between homosexuals, federal roadblocks to embryonic-stem-cell research, even comments suggesting presidential doubts about Darwinian evolution. It's not that Mr. Bush necessarily shares their worldview; indeed, it's unclear whether he embraces any coherent philosophy. But this president, who vowed to eschew politics in favor of sound policy, panders nonetheless in the interest of political gain. As John DiIulio, Bush's former head of the Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, once told this magazine, "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
This was not what the American electorate opted for when, in 2000, by a slim but decisive margin of more than half a million votes, they chose . . . the other guy. Bush has never had a mandate. Surveys indicate broad public dissatisfaction with his domestic priorities. How many people would have voted for Mr. Bush in the first place had they understood his eagerness to pass on crushing debt to our children or seen his true colors regarding global warming and the environment? Even after 9/11, were people really looking to be dragged into an optional war under false pretenses?
If ever there was a time for uniting and not dividing, this is it. Instead, Mr. Bush governs as if by divine right, seeming to actually believe that a wise God wants him in the White House and that by constantly evoking the horrible memory of September 11, 2001, he can keep public anxiety stirred up enough to carry him to another term.
truthout
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| Unhappy workers should take Prozac -- Bush campaigner |
| 07.30.04 (9:03 pm) [edit] |
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.
When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: "Oh, I was just kidding."
While recent employment growth has buoyed Bush's economic record, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) has argued the new jobs are not as good as those lost due to outsourcing in recent years.
Nearly 1.1 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office in January 2001. Reuters
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| Fahrenheit 9/11 shown on prime time TV in Cuba |
| 07.30.04 (8:58 pm) [edit] |
U.S. director Michael Moore's anti-Bush
documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" was shown on prime time Cuban state-run television on Thursday after playing to packed cinemas for a week.
In a country with a deep-seated distrust of U.S. governments, the film has generated widespread public interest and added to a recent barrage of official criticism of President Bush.
Cubans have stood in long lines to buy tickets to see rough DVD copies projected at 120 cinema theaters across the island to unfailing applause.
"We hope this film will lead Americans to see the reality of their government, and not only deny Bush reelection but put him on trial for the harm he has done to humanity," said retired worker Armando Rodriguez.
"The film is a work of love for humanity. It confirms what many of us believe, that George W. Bush is a real threat to the world," said University of Havana professor Arnaldo Coro Antich.
Hostility between Washington and Havana dates back four decades since President Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, but relations have become very tense since Bush launched a plan to undermine Castro's communist-run government in May.
Restrictions put into effect by the White House on June 30 to cut back visits and cash remittances to Cuba by relatives living in the United States have annoyed Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits.
In a speech on Monday, Castro portrayed Bush as a "sinister" religious fundamentalist bent on destroying Cuban socialism and lengthily discussed the U.S. president's past drinking problems as the root of his "bellicosity."
Castro drew laughter from his audience quoting Moore's book "Stupid White Men" which questions Bush's reading abilities.
Cuban dissidents who saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" praised the United States for its freedom of expression and lamented that such criticism of a president was not allowed in Cuba where the one-party state controls the media. Reuters
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| Kerry's daughters speak about their father |
| 07.30.04 (8:49 pm) [edit] |
The man known for pulling a drowning soldier from the Mekong River in the Vietnam War had also dived off a dock to save a hamster named Licorice from what the elder sister, Alexandra, called "a watery doom," even administering CPR. With the younger, Vanessa, he fashioned a tree out of copper wire and colored leaves to bring to his dying mother's bedside when she was too weak to see the autumn foliage through the window. He told a brooding 19-year-old Alex of the men her age he had seen die in combat and how "being alive" and "being American" made her "the luckiest girl in the world."
"To every little girl her father is a hero - it's taken some getting used to, that my father actually is one," Alexandra Kerry said. "And let me tell you this: When he loves you as he loves me and my sister and his family, as he loves the men who fought beside him, there is no sacrifice too great." NY Times
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| Text of Kerry's convention speech |
| 07.30.04 (8:43 pm) [edit] |
It case you didn't get to here Kerry's speech, as I didn't, you can read it here.
He did a great job I must say. You can also find text of speeches by Wesley Clark and Max Cleland.
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| 911 Denial |
| 07.25.04 (6:54 pm) [edit] |
I think a lot of people are hoping that the 9-11 truth movement will just go away, and I think that's because there are a lot of things that most people would just rather not know. Most of us spend our lives in denial of all kinds of disturbing facts, and the fact of our own government murdering three thousand citizens to rally support for unjust wars would definitely qualify as information that's comfortable to avoid. I can assure you that knowing the truth behind the 9-11 attacks has certainly not made me a happy man, but the truth, even if disturbing, is always better than lies or ignorance. Arming yourself with the truth in this matter is also of extreme importance, because ignorance of these facts is dangerous to all Americans, and our nation's freedom. It's scary to think that our government has used history's most hated tyrant as a model for governing America and furthering its interests, but any student of history can plainly see the parallels between the United States today, and Nazi Germany before World War II.
There's no real debate about whether or not our own government committed the atrocities. Either you've looked at the evidence and arrived at the only sensible conclusion it supports, or you've ignored the evidence, or found a way to deny it. To deny that our own government is responsible for the attacks is to deny logic, common sense, and the laws of physics. Nothing more needs to be said on that matter.
If you've ignored the evidence in favor of believing whatever you're told, you've also ignored the patriotic duty Thomas Jefferson described as "eternal vigilance." Please go to 911review.org and browse their Sept.11 websites for reliable information. Beware of crazy theories posted elsewhere whose intention is to discredit the 9-11 truth movement. There is no shortage of scientifically verifiable evidence.
There's also a third camp, and these are the people who know the truth, and are helping to cover it up. They didn't need to have prior knowledge of the attacks, nor conspire at all, but once they discovered the truth, they also knew it would not be in their best interest to let it become public knowledge. In this camp lives our nation's news media, which happens to be controlled by a mere handful of extremely wealthy people with an identical political agenda. Americans would rather not believe that the news outlets they've trusted all their lives are not telling them the truth, and regularly avoid providing them with important news and information. We've been raised with an impression of the news industry that involves people like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen fighting to expose the truth to the American people, but this is very far from the reality of how news arrives in your home, and more importantly, which news arrives in your home, and which doesn't. Most of us have also grown up mocking the Soviet Union's government controlled news reporting, and therefore refuse to believe the same thing could happen in the land of the free, and the free press. Unfortunately, that's very similar to what's happening in America today, and it's putting our freedom in immediate jeopardy. I'm not claiming that our news outlets are under direct government control, but that they are controlled by people who have little interest in being critical of our government, and who also have a lot to lose by the truth of the 9-11 being exposed. If the truth were common knowledge, every politician in this country would be more worried about keeping his head attached to his shoulders than chasing funding for his next campaign, and many rich media moguls would be out of business because of their lies. I think it's safe to assume that everyone in this country who possesses significant wealth or power will help to bury the truth in this matter, because the truth threatens all they hold dear, and quite possibly their lives.
The American people on the other hand, all 290 million of them, have a lot to lose by the truth being buried. One only has to think of the Patriot Act, and all of the freedom, privacy, and civil rights lost in what is now referred to as the "post 9-11 world."
Our government has already proven they are willing to kill citizens by the thousands to scare us into relinquishing our civil rights. If our government plans to "stay the course," another traumatizing act of mass murder will soon be necessary. By helping to spread the truth, you can help to prevent the next "terrorist" attack that we've already been promised, and help to save the thousands of the people it will kill.
Americans have chosen to bury their heads in the sand concerning the events of 9-11, because accepting the disturbing truth forces many painful realities into your life at once, and it requires you to re-think much of what is common belief about our government, our news industry, and our future. It also forces you to face difficult decisions that will change this entire nation, beginning with who governs it. It would be a lot easier to believe that we were attacked by middle-eastern terrorists, and that we're now going after the bad guys, but unfortunately, that's not the case, and if Americans care about their freedom, that had better face that fact real soon.
Regardless of whether your political views are anti-war, anti-government, pro-human rights, or pro-freedom, 9-11 truth is by far the most important issue of our time, because the atrocities, abuses and tyranny are increasing on a daily basis, and the fraudulent attacks of September 11th are being used to justify it all.
Every American needs to know the truth, which means that everyone reading this letter needs to download the evidence while they still can, and disseminate this knowledge to as many people as they can. You are needed as a soldier in war of information. The battle is between truth and lies, and what you choose to do is a simple decision between supporting good, or evil.
----Jolly Roger
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| Bush: "All human beings begin life as a feces" |
| 07.25.04 (9:02 am) [edit] |
NEWSWEEK reports that President Bush, appearing before a right-to-life rally in Tampa, Florida on June 17, stated: "We must always remember that all human beings begin life as a feces. A feces is a living being in the eyes of God, who has endowed that feces with all of the rights and God-given blessings of any other human being." The audience listened in disbelief as the President repeated his error at least a dozen times, before realizing that he had used the word 'feces" when he meant to say "fetus."
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| Carlos Delgado protests war in Iraq |
| 07.24.04 (8:38 am) [edit] |
Fervently anti-war, Carlos Delgado quietly carried out his personal protest this season, refusing to stand when "God Bless America" was played at ballparks across the majors.
Most fans never saw him disappearing up the dugout tunnel or staying on the bench. And even teammates who disagreed with the Toronto slugger's political stance accepted his right to call the United States' invasion of Iraq "the stupidest war ever."
The Blue Jays played at Yankee Stadium for the first time this year on Wednesday night. It's the only park in the majors where "God Bless America" has been played every game since the Sept. 11 attacks, a fiercely patriotic place where active military members are still admitted free.
While big leaguers usually come to the top step of the dugout or on to the field to stand in silence during "God Bless America," Delgado does not make a public show of his stance.
In fact, until the first baseman spoke about the issue in early July to the Toronto Star, many people were not aware of how strongly he felt.
"It's a very terrible thing that happened on Sept. 11. It's (also) a terrible thing that happened in Afghanistan) and Iraq," Delgado said at the time. "I just feel so sad for the families that lost relatives and loved ones in the war.
"But I think it's the stupidest war ever. Who are you fighting against? You're just getting ambushed now. We have more people dead now after the war than during the war," he said. "I don't support what they do. It's just stupid."
Delgado, from Puerto Rico, also opposed the U.S. military's longtime use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for weapons testing.
Delgado's opinion became more well known to New York fans in a column in The New York Times on Wednesday. In it, he said, "It takes a man to stand up for what he believes."
"I am not pro-war; I'm anti-war," he said. "I'm for peace."
AP
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| Amnesty offer ends; only 5 militants accept |
| 07.24.04 (8:19 am) [edit] |
Saudi Arabia's one-month amnesty for Islamists loyal to Al Qaeda expired with only five known to have taken the offer.
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| Barroso wants more female EU commissioners |
| 07.24.04 (8:16 am) [edit] |
Jose Manuel Barroso, the new president of the European Commission, yesterday put pressure on key governments to nominate a female European commissioner, promising to use his "leverage" to ensure that women are given good posts.
After being endorsed by a large majority of MEPs yesterday, Mr Barroso said he would begin immediate talks with EU prime ministers to try to ensure that a third of the 24 commissioners were women.
Independent
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| French uncover child-trafficking network |
| 07.24.04 (8:10 am) [edit] |
French police believe they have cracked a child-trafficking ring involving babies born at a Paris hospital. At least eight people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the network which saw Bulgarian women apparently selling their offspring to childless couples. The affair came to light when a Bulgarian mother told a friend in her home country that her baby had been kidnapped.
Detectives, who doubted her story, traced the lead back to a Portuguese man who registered the birth. Francois Dagnaud from the local mayor's office said he informed police that the man had filled out the paperwork and he passed on a copy of the dossier they received. The extent of the network is yet to be established, although it is reported a the price of a baby girl was 5,000 euros while a boy was worth 6,000.
Euro News
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| 'Like it or not' EU will be play part in Middle East peace process |
| 07.24.04 (8:07 am) [edit] |
The EU's top diplomat has told Israel that Europe will play a role in the Middle East peace process. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met with Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres after Israel's rebuke for backing a UN resolution against its West Bank barrier. He told reporters that Europe was an important international power and would play a role, like it or not. He said the EU had a right to participate because of its important interests in the region.
Rocky relations between the EU and Israel have hit a new low since the 25-nation bloc voted for the resolution demanding Israel heed a World Court ruling calling on it to tear down the barrier. Israel says it needs the wall to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers, but the Palestinians describe it as a land-grab.
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| Blogging time down |
| 07.24.04 (7:57 am) [edit] |
Some may have noticed I haven't been blogging daily as I have for months. My life is going through a few changes these days...looking for another place to live and no permanent connection.
For awhile Bouillabaisse will be slow but I will be around when I can be although it probably won't be daily. Once I find a place I will be offline until I've moved and things are setup again.
If you need or want to contact me check the page for email address.
au revoir,
Dianne
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| France unsafe for Jews? |
| 07.21.04 (11:54 am) [edit] |
President Jacques Chirac made a solemn, and genuinely moving, declaration last week, in which he called on the nation to resist all forms of racism and anti-Semitism. He urged Frenchmen and women, of all religions and colours, to consider each other as French citizens with equal rights and an allegiance to the same secular state.
Into the middle of these painstakingly made arguments jumped Mr Sharon, saying, in effect, that French Jews are not French; they are exiled Israelis, who are in mortal danger and should come home. This is not the first time that statements of this kind have been made by the Sharon government but it is the first time that M. Sharon himself has singled out France as a place where Jews can no longer live in peace.
He went on to imply that France was dangerous for Jews because it had a "10 per cent" Muslim population. The true figure for the Muslim population in France is 6 per cent. Using Mr Sharon's argument, Israel is doubly and triply unsafe for Jews. Israel, in its pre-1967 borders, is 20 per cent Muslim.
Haim Korsia, a senior adviser to the Chief Rabbi of France, said the question of a mass exodus of Jews from France "does not arise". The number of emigrants to Israel from France more than doubled to about 2,500 a year from 2000 but fell back slightly last year. An estimated 60,000 French Jews have emigrated to Israel since 1948; almost half of them - 26,000 - have returned.
"French Jews is a meaningless phrase," M. Korsia said. "There are French citizens who are Jewish, just as other people have other religions. We are part of the soul of this country." He accused Mr Sharon of trying to reverse the downward spiral in emigration to Israel by exaggerating the problems in France. To encourage emigration to Israel for religious, political, sentimental or family reasons, was fine, he said. To talk of a "flight" from violence - as if France in 2004 was like Germany in 1934 - was "unthinkable".
Indigenous French anti-Semitism is by no means extinct. In coded form - and sometimes quite explicitly in private conversations - it persists on the far right, and even in the high Catholic, conservative right of French politics. The far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is plainly anti-Semitic. President Chirac, who has a good record on all racial questions, is plainly not.
The overwhelming majority of recent cases of verbal or physical aggression against French Jews have been carried out by disaffected youths of North African origin, or fellow gang members from other races, who believe - without thinking too deeply about it - that Jews and Israelis are the same thing. Jewish and mainstream Muslim leaders in France have been united for months in arguing that the 600,000 Jews in France - the third biggest Jewish community after Israel and the US - are not Israelis. They should not even be primarily considered "French Jews", they argue; they are first and foremost French.
There have been troubling anti-Semitic incidents in France in recent weeks which cannot be attributed to Arab youths: the desecration of a frieze painted by Jewish children in a transit camp near Perpignan in 1942-3; the painting of swastikas on Jewish graves in Alsace.
But these are the actions of a few obsessive die-hards. (There have been similar attacks on Muslim graves and British war-graves.) The new wave of "anti-Semitism" in France - the development which worries the Jewish community - is the growing tendency of marginalised youths in the poor suburbs of French cities to take out their frustration and aggression on Jews. The suburban children - not just Arab in origin but also Turkish, African and even Eastern European - began by identifying with the stone-throwing Palestinian children in the intifada.
The Jewish sociologist and philosopher, Edgar Morin, wrote in Le Monde recently: "An infernal dialectic is in play. Anti-Israeli sentiment reinforces the solidarity between the Jewish diaspora and Israel. And Israel wants to prove to the Jews of the diaspora that the old European anti-Judaism is still rampant and that Israel is the only proper country for the Jews. It therefore seeks to exaggerate Jewish fears."
Le Monde's Sylvain Cypel maintained anti-semitism in France was "a reality we have been aware of for too long" but felt there was another reality to be
addressed: "The tendency of some Jews to always see themselves as victims, even when they are being
aggressors themselves." France should strive to combat racism of all kinds, she concluded, but must take care the fight against antisemitism "does not become associated with an unconditional support of Israel".
La Presse de la Manche had a more practical
objection. "France is not a country in the midst of war, it has no ongoing hostilities with any other country, and, in general, the French live in far greater security than people in the Middle East," it said. Mr Sharon had "missed a great opportunity to keep his mouth shut".
The waves of Russian Jews who left the former Soviet Union to seek "refuge" in Israel have found it quite difficult to adjust to a new culture and way of living. The same holds true for the Jews from Ethiopia who ran up against racial discrimination. Employment and housing were genuine hurdles for these immigrants, most of who were lured to Israel on promises of a "better life."
If what worries Sharon is the rise of anti-Semitism in France and anywhere else in Europe, all he needs to do to reverse the tide is to reexamine his policies that have stirred growing worldwide criticism.
Independent
Haaretz
Guardian
Jordan Times
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| UN General Assembly votes for Israel to pull down barrier |
| 07.21.04 (9:53 am) [edit] |
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution calling on Israel to tear down its West Bank barrier, in accordance with a World Court ruling. The 191-nation assembly voted 150-6, with 10 abstentions, to support the measure, which is aimed at dismantling the 600km barrier. The Palestinians see the wall as a land grab to dash hopes for eventual statehood, while Israel says it is needed to keep out suicide bombers.
Israeli Ambassador, Dan Gillerman said: "Thank God the fate of Israel and the Jewish people is not decided in this hall." The General Assembly vote followed a World Court ruling on July 9 that the West Bank barrier was illegal. The World Court is the top UN legal body, and while its ruling is not legally binding, like the assembly resolution, it carries symbolic weight.
The court ruled the barrier illegal because it cuts deep into West Bank land, shielding settlements built by Israel on territory seized in the 1967 Middle East War. The General Assembly resolution demands Israel comply with the World Court ruling and pay reparations for damages caused during construction.
Euro News
Israel has already said it will ignore the court's ruling and condemned the resolution as "outrageous".
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| Seventh Bush judicial nominee blocked |
| 07.21.04 (9:45 am) [edit] |
William Myers, a solicitor in the Department of Interior (DOI) from 2001-2003, had his judicial nomination blocked by Senate Democrats. Myers was nominated by President Bush to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and his nomination was fought by Senate Democrats who criticize Bush's environmental policies and Myers' work on behalf of cattle and mining interests. Myers becomes the seventh Bush judicial nominee to be blocked in the Senate. Bush has had 198 nominees confirmed, and has used recess appointments to temporarily seat two of the blocked nominees. Jurist
"...Myers didn't get this nomination because of superior judicial fitness. He got it because of his political views and friendly relationships with industries besieged by environmental lawsuits. . . .
No distinguished career in law won Myers the attention of the Bush administration. He toiled for years as a lobbyist for the mining industry and cattle interests before the White House appointed him to be the Interior Department's top lawyer in 2001.
In that role, Myers has overwhelmingly looked out for industry interests while antagonizing a vast array of conservation groups, tribes, labor unions and civil-rights organizations. Earthjustice
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| Workers put in more hours just to keep up |
| 07.21.04 (9:35 am) [edit] |
U.S. families work more hours today to make ends meet, according to a joint report by the Economic Policy Institute and the New America Foundation, which is to be released next week.
"Families are working longer for less," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at EPI.
Wives in the bottom two quintiles of income worked 60 to 70 percent more hours in 2000 compared to 1979, while wives in the middle quintile increased their hours by half, according to the report. Without that increase, median-income families would have seen their incomes increase only 5 percent in that period, instead of the actual 24- percent increase.
"What's moving families ahead is more wives working more hours," Bernstein said.
"What's counterintuitive about this data is we think of people working harder to get ahead faster. This data shows that people have to work harder just to stay in place."
UPI
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| U.N. Reports 50 Million Displaced People |
| 07.21.04 (9:28 am) [edit] |
Conflicts, natural disasters and unchecked development have left about 50 million people homeless in their own countries, a new estimate that dwarfs the number of refugees known to aid workers, a U.N. official said Tuesday.
The United Nations knows of about 14 million refugees worldwide who have fled their homes for safer foreign lands, said Dennis McNamara, director of the U.N.'s interagency campaign to help the displaced.
But there is no global registration system for people displaced within their own countries, and McNamara said 25 million have been forced from their homes by conflicts, with another 25 million driven away by natural disasters and development.
"They are the world's forgotten and neglected," he said.
AP
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| Sudan: Government Officials Implicated in Supporting Janjawid Militias |
| 07.20.04 (2:51 pm) [edit] |
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday it had obtained documents showing that Sudanese government officials had directed the recruitment, arming and support for Janjawid militias in the country's western region of Darfur.
The confidential documents, obtained from the civilian administrations in Northern and Southern Darfur, implicated high-ranking government officials in "a policy of militia support", HRW added in a news statement.
The government of Sudan has admitted arming the militias to fight a rebellion in the region, but has consistently denied supporting them with its army, and has never accepted responsibility for the widespread human rights abuses they have committed. It was not possible to immediately get a comment from the government on the HRW report.
HRW and other groups have accused the militias and Sudanese government forces of being responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing involving aerial and ground attacks targeting civilians.
"It's absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias: they are one," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of HRW's Africa division. "These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it's been specifically supported by Sudan government officials."
IRIN
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| Palestinian Villagers Fear Eviction |
| 07.20.04 (2:44 pm) [edit] |
By Cynthia Johnston
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian Mahmoud Shehada is preoccupied with one fear: a night-time knock on the door by Israeli soldiers who demand that he leave his home and never return.
Israel says that part of Walaja, a village of terraced olive groves where Shehada and his neighbours have lived for more than five decades is in Jerusalem -- annexed in a move that is not recognised internationally after the 1967 war.
But the villagers of Walaja hold West Bank identity cards that give them no right to enter the country which lays claim to the land where they live.
"The soldiers said they can come at any time and expel us. There is no security," said 60-year-old Shehada. "Any sound I have to get up and investigate.
"It will happen. If they tell me my house isn't legal and my presence isn't legal, then of course it will happen."
Palestinians and human rights activists say that as Israel prepares to withdraw from the Gaza Strip as part of a plan to "disengage" from Palestinians, it is also trying to exert tighter control on Palestinian access to Arab East Jerusalem.
Residents say Israeli border police have raided Walaja three times this year, arresting 20 men from their beds.
Police also went house to house telling villagers that their presence was unlawful and asking them to sign legal documents. The residents, advised by their lawyer, refused.
"They want the land without the people," said Yazid Abu Ali, treasurer of Walaja's local council. "It is a political act."
For Walaja's residents, the thought of being forced out is especially bitter because of their history.
The village was built by refugees who fled in 1948 from the war at Israel's creation to settle on land that was then controlled by Jordan. Israel captured the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.
Palestinians say about 500 of 2,300 Walaja villagers live within Jerusalem's borders, putting them at risk of expulsion from homes they have lived in for decades because they do not hold the correct identity cards.
"It is not unprecedented," said Yehezkel Lein, head of research for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
"You can find many people in this situation -- that they have lived in or were born in Jerusalem and are not recognised as residents. They are under constant threat of expulsion."
"I am not a donkey," said Muhammad al-Atrash, 23, who spent 16 days in jail after being arrested in a pre-dawn raid for being illegally present in his home.
Adnan al-Atrash, deputy head of the Walaja council, said soldiers had come to his home three times, arresting two adult sons and delivering a warning he has no intention of heeding.
"They said: We want to inform you that your presence here is illegal. I told them I was here before Israel ... You are the ones who came illegally to me."
Reuters
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| The Election: Bring It On! |
| 07.20.04 (2:40 pm) [edit] |
by Jill Rachel Jacobs
The recent announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that it's looking into delaying the November presidential election in the event of a terrorist attack has caught a lot of people off guard. The news comes on the heels of a rather favorable public reaction to John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as his running mate.
It also follows a flurry of hauntingly familiar "credible but vague" apocalyptic warnings from Gov. Tom Ridge and the gang -- the latest that al-Qaida is planning a "large scale" attack to disrupt the campaign. Nobody knows whether such an attack will occur, but we do know that postponing the election is a topic under serious consideration by Bush administration appointees on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Rarely do I find myself in agreement with the current administration's policies and practices, but in regard to rescheduling the presidential election, I say, "Bring it on!" Instead of postponing the November vote, how about moving it up? Let's say, next month. We could tally the votes at our leisure while President George W. Bush takes his annual month long summer hiatus. Or how's next Tuesday sound?
Holding the election sooner rather than later may prove to be a great public service. Americans could skip the exorbitantly priced self-congratulatory ruminations of pontificating politicians during the upcoming political conventions and be spared what has become predictably partisan theater.
Do we really need to endure almost another four months of mud-slinging in what may turn out to be one of the ugliest campaigns to date? Why not take the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent by both sides to woo a relatively small number of undecided voters in a handful of swing states and divvy it out to those who really need it?
The 44-million-plus Americans struggling without health insurance would surely put the money to good use. Scores of seniors forced to choose between prescription drugs and food would definitely benefit from any assistance. I suspect the growing number of Americans trying to make ends meet would welcome any relief.
For the sake of humanity, let's relieve those Bostonians (don't they suffer enough with their Red Sox?) and my fellow New Yorkers from the bedlam that will surely ensue when the Democrats and Republicans commence their conventions. Who needs them? Move the election up and you no longer have to worry about all those unwanted demonstrators camping out on the Great Lawn at Central Park. Give the police a break from the heat. Besides, without all those Republicans around, you won't have to wait a week to get a taxi.
And if the worst were to happen and terrorists targeted the election, don't they ultimately triumph if we alter our democratic process and arbitrarily pick and choose which constitutional amendments we wish to adhere to?
And while the wounds of the 2000 "recount" still run deep, holding a fair and legitimate presidential election in 2004 could be part of a cure necessary to heal a divided nation. So why wait?
We live in uncertain times when we cannot count on much, but one thing is for sure: Terrorists are not big on forewarnings. I guess that's part of what makes them terrorists. And although it remains unclear which candidate will come out on top come next November or whenever, I'm hoping it's not the terrorists who win.
My mom, a resident of a Florida retirement community, doesn't care when she votes, she just wants the chance for her vote to "count this time." Although I have reassured my mother that she is neither at fault nor responsible for the outcome of the ill-fated 2000 election and the subsequent ills of the world, she's still a hard sell. But if she could cast her ballot (no chads, please) next Tuesday, that would work out great and she could get on with her life. And so could we.
Common Dreams
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| Impeach Bush Ad in NY Times |
| 07.19.04 (5:05 am) [edit] |
For those who may have missed it you can view it in pdf at the following link.
Vote to Impeach
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| Playboy interview with Michael Moore |
| 07.19.04 (4:45 am) [edit] |
Playboy: Is Bush smarter than the left gives him credit for?
Moore: He is not a very bright man. Like a lot of people who aren't very bright, he knows that the best way to get ahead is to be around smart people.
That's survival instinct, not brains. Bush has his lines down. If you've traveled with him at all, if you've ever gone on a campaign with him as I did back in 2000, you've seen something really freaky. Every politician has a basic stump speech, but he not only has the same speech but the same mannerisms, the same little mistakes, the little guffaws, the things you insert between the words or during the applause. Almost a windup doll sort of performance -- really scary.
Read the rest
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| Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi executed six insurgents: witnesses |
| 07.18.04 (7:53 am) [edit] |
Reporter: Maxine McKew
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 16/07/2004
MAXINE MCKEW: Let's go straight to the allegations that Iyad Allawi executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station at the end of June.
The explosive claims in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi Prime Minister.
Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.
Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American security men in civilian dress.
Well, the journalist reporting the story is Paul McGeough, awarded a Walkley Award for his coverage of the Iraq war last year.
He's also a former editor of the Herald and is now the paper's chief correspondent.
He's joined me on the line from a location in the Middle East.
MAXINE McKEW: Paul McGeough, thanks for joining us.
Paul, as you've also made clear in your article, Prime Minister Allawi has flatly denied this story.
Why then is the Herald so confident about publishing it?
PAUL McGEOUGH, 'SYDNEY MORNING HERALD' AND 'AGE' FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well it's a very contentious issue.
What you have is two very solid eyewitness accounts of what happened at a police security complex in a south-west Baghdad suburb.
They are very detailed.
They were done separately.
Each witness is not aware that the other spoke.
They were contacted through personal channels rather than through the many political, religious or military organisations working in Baghdad that might be trying to spin a tale.
And they've laid it out very carefully and very clearly as to what they saw.
MAXINE McKEW: You haven't identified these witnesses but why have they felt free to talk about such an extraordinary story?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, they were approached through personal connections and as a result of that, they accepted assurances.
They were guaranteed anonymity, they were told that no identifying material would be published on them and they told what they saw.
MAXINE McKEW: And just take us through the events as they were accounted to you?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, I'll take you through what the two bits of pieces of what the two witnesses said to give you the full chronology as I understand it.
There was a surprise visit at about 10:30 in the morning to the police centre.
The PM is said to have talked to a large group of policemen, then to have toured the complex.
They came to a courtyard where six, sorry seven prisoners were lined up against a wall.
They were handcuffed, they were blindfolded, they were described to me as an Iraqi colloquialism for the fundamentalist foreign fighters who have come to Baghdad.
They have that classic look that you see with many of the Osama bin Laden associates of the scraggly beard and the very short hair and they were a sort of ... took place in front of them as they were up against this wall was an exchange between the Interior Minister and Dr Allawi, the Interior Minister saying that he felt like killing them on the spot.
It's worth noting at this point in the story that on June 19, there was an attack on the Interior Minister's home in the Sunni triangle in which four of his bodyguards (inaudible) --
Dr Allawi is alleged to have said (inaudible) -- .
MAXINE McKEW: Paul, you just dropped out there.
You were just beginning to describe in fact how this incident, this alleged incident, took place.
What was the action taken?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Um, after a tour of the complex, the sort of official party, if you like, arrived in a courtyard where the prisoners were lined up against a wall.
An exchange is said to have taken place between Dr Allawi and the Interior Minister.
The Interior Minister lives to the north of Baghdad, and on June 19, four of his bodyguards were killed in an attack on his home.
He expressed the wish that he would like to kill all these men on the spot.
The PM is said to have responded that they deserved worse than death, that each was responsible for killing more than 50 Iraqis each, and at that point, he is said to have pulled a gun and proceeded to aim at and shoot all seven.
Six of them died, the seventh, according to one witness, was wounded in the chest, according to the other witness, was wounded in the neck and presumed to be dead.
MAXINE McKEW: And the victims, they were, what, foreign or local insurgents?
PAUL McGEOUGH: They were - one of the witnesses described them as Wahabis, the Iraqi colloquialism for foreign fighters who have come into the country or local Iraqis who have taken on their Islamic jihad, if you like.
The reference is very much to their appearance - very short hair, very scraggly beard and four of them were described as Wahabis, the other three were described to me as normal Iraqis.
MAXINE McKEW: Now you're time line, Paul, on this is this happened just before the formal handover, is that right, to Dr Allawi's interim Government?
PAUL McGEOUGH: As explained by the witnesses, neither of them could put a precise date on the incident.
But they each gave me a description in terms of the days that had lapsed from it and by tracking back on the two different descriptions that they gave me from the date of the interview I had with them, which was some days apart, I was able to establish that it happened on or around the weekend of June 19/20.
That would make it three weeks after Dr Allawi had been named as Prime Minister - one week before the handover.
MAXINE MCKEW: And your informants, in what kind of tone did they recount this extraordinary tale?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Very matter-of-factly, which is often the way you get incredible or remarkable events explained to you in this part of the world.
There's been so much violence, so much pain and a particular attitude to death, if you like, that both of them recounted it quite matter-of-factly.
MAXINE McKEW: And of course, I have to ask you again - I'm sure that the Baghdad rumour mill would be thick with stories about Dr Allawi.
Why are you so confident that you can't put this story into that same category?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Because it came from two eye witnesses.
You're right about the Baghdad rumour mill, it's ferocious.
And versions of this story are on it and it was as a result of hearing this story as a rumour that I proceeded to check it to investigate it, to see if it had a factual base.
I used, as I said earlier, personal channels to make contact with the two witnesses to establish that they were in a position to know in terms of somebody trying to come at me with a story, that wasn't the case.
They did not come to me.
They weren't offered or volunteered to me.
There was an element of chance involved in meeting one of them, which would have made it impossible for him to have been a set-up for me, and listening to their stories, their stories sounded credible.
I had a colleague sitting in by accident on one of the interviews.
He was impressed by the credibility and something that's very important with a story like this in this part of the world, particularly where you're interviewing through interpreters I had a very sound, to me on the ground, a very valuable set of Iraqi eyes and ears listening and also believing the account.
MAXINE McKEW: Your sources of course will be sought out by other news agencies after tonight.
Will they stand up to scrutiny?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well I don't know whether others will find them or not.
I won't be making them available to anyone.
I've given undertakes that I would protect their identities absolutely and I have to stand by that.
MAXINE McKEW: All right, for that.
Paul McGeough, thanks very much indeed, fascinating story.
PAUL McGEOUGH: OK.
/ABC
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| Suspending Elections? |
| 07.18.04 (7:26 am) [edit] |
DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created US Election Assistance Commission is pushing for a plan to cancel the presidential elections.
Rob Kall suggests if Soaries' idea for a bill that allows suspension of elections passes in congress, and the elections are cancelled, you may want to learn how to disappear, study the tactics of the French underground during WWII and go underground. Assume the nation has been taken over by the worst internal enemy-- business-funded fascists. I have nightmares because I'm afraid that if the criminals in the Whitehouse steal or cancel the next election, they'll have no restraints left to stop them from ending outspoken criticism. Maybe I'm being paranoid and hysterical. I wonder if the French, the Italians, the Poles in the Warsaw ghetto felt they were being paranoid in the late 1930s.
The stated plan is to have a rule in place that allows cancellation of the election if there's a terrorist attack. But, knowing the way the Patriot Act was written, I fear the actual bill will go much further. It could authorize martial law, extend the terms of the president and the members of congress indefinitely-- until the president or the supreme court decides things are safe, or stable. That will maintain the status quo, with Republicans in charge. The bill could broaden the definition of the event that could set off the election cancellation. An attack on our troops in Iraq could be used by our lying, dissembling, fraudulent president as the trigger to cancel the elections. A jump in chatter, reported by Tom Ridge could be used as the excuse to put into action the delay.
Apparently, Tom Ridge has asked the Justice Department for an opinion on the legal considerations of this treacherous idea. Isn't that funny... asking John Ashcroft. That should make us all feel safer.
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| Elton attacks censorship in US |
| 07.18.04 (6:58 am) [edit] |
Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech.
"There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview.
Sir Elton said performers could be "frightened by the current administration's bullying tactics",
The singer likened the current "fear factor" to McCarthyism in the 1950s.
"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American," he told the magazine.
The singer said things were different in the 1960s.
"People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on.
"That's not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts - or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter," he said. BBC
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| Facts about Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurie |
| 07.18.04 (6:09 am) [edit] |
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, who submitted his resignation on Saturday amid chaos in Gaza, is seen as a moderate who failed to get veteran leader Yasser Arafat to enact widely demanded reforms.
* Qurie, also known as Abu Ala, was sworn in as premier in November. He was seen as more likely to bend to Arafat's wishes than his heavily U.S.-backed predecessor Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned after losing a power struggle with Arafat.
* A former speaker of the Palestinian parliament, he has achieved little concrete as premier. Attempts to set up a summit with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proved fruitless.
* He was one of the chief negotiators at secret talks on the 1993 Oslo peace accords, which put some land under Palestinian self-rule for the first time. The accords were derailed in 2000 when talks collapsed and Palestinians launched an uprising.
* He was considered for a Nobel peace prize over his involvement in negotiating the Oslo accords, but the long-time politician was seen as remote by many Palestinians who regarded him as too much of an aristocrat.
* Qurie, 66, comes from a wealthy family in Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem. He gave up a job in banking to join Arafat's Fatah movement. For many years he ran the Samed investment fund underpinning the Palestine Liberation Organisation's finances.
AlertNet
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| Fighting Israel's Wall |
| 07.18.04 (5:54 am) [edit] |
by Ann Petter
The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel's "Separation Wall" illegal and has called on Israel to dismantle the wall. Nineteen days ago I came to Israel to protest that wall and to bear witness to its devastating effects on the Palestinian population. Instead I was detained by Israel police upon arrival at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport and have since been held in immigration detention awaiting deportation. I have been labeled a threat to "security," and the judge has called my camera a weapon. It seems to me the only threat I pose to Israel is a public relations one.
I have been asked, Why did I come from outside Israel to participate in political activity here? The first and simplest answer is because it is the right thing to do. The international community needs to insist on justice for all, for the sake of all. Secondly, I came from outside Israel to engage in political activity here because my country, the United States, bears the greatest responsibility for perpetuating the violence here.
The United States gives more foreign aid to Israel than to all African countries combined and crucial political support for nearly all of its policies concerning Palestinians, even those that violate international law, as does construction of the wall. I came to Israel because my tax money pays for Apache helicopters and tank shells like the ones recently shot at a peaceful protest in Gaza, and because the labels on the tear-gas containers we pick up in demonstrations say "Made in Pennsylvania." My taxes are sent to Israel in violation of US laws. The US Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits military assistance to any country that has a pattern of consistently violating human rights.
During a visit to the West Bank a year ago I saw that the wall is being built primarily inside the West Bank on Palestinian land, cutting off thousands of Palestinians from their farmland, trapping many in enclaves and devastating the Palestinian economy. With that knowledge, I returned here to say the exact same thing that the ICJ has now declared.
I intended to join a march organized by the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led movement working for Palestinian self-determination and to end the Israeli occupation. Through nonviolent actions, the ISM volunteers bear witness to the effects of military occupation. We act where our governments fail to act. We report what the international media fail to report.
For daring to witness and report the brutal effects the wall is taking on the Palestinian population, I have been deemed a "security threat" by the State of Israel, denied entry to both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and threatened with expulsion. My first appeal to challenge my deportation was denied yesterday. However, because I know that my efforts to stand against human rights violations like the construction of the wall are supported by international law, I am appealing this decision to the Israeli Supreme Court and will remain in prison until my case is reviewed there.
From Ben Gurion's detention center I have experienced first-hand a scaled-down version of the system of injustice experienced daily by Palestinians, who call on us to pay attention to the prison walls being built around them. In light of the decision made by the International Court of Justice, and in light of America's ongoing support of Israel's defiance of international law, I urge people to answer the call and participate in bringing to the world the Palestinian voices calling for freedom and justice. The Nation
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| The Successes of President George Bush |
| 07.18.04 (5:27 am) [edit] |
1. He has successfully rid America of that troubling
budget surplus and turned it into a $500 billion
deficit.
2. He has successfully helped America's trading
partners have the highest trade surplus with us in
America's history.
3. He has successfully lowered the taxes for the
richest Americans and corporations at the expense of
99% of the American population.
4. He has successfully started another Viet Nam in
Iraq after lying to the whole world.
5. He has successfully pushed the price of gas up to
the highest level ever in America.
6. He has successfully allowed American corporations
to dramatically increase their pollution.
7. He has successfully thrown about 10% of the
population out of work.
8. He has successfully allowed corporations to export
our best middle-class jobs.
9. He has successfully divided our country as never
before.
10. He has successfully driven our oldest allies away.
11. He has successfully united the terrorists as never
before (he said all along he was a uniter, not a
divider).
12. He has successfully broken his oath to uphold the
constitution of the United States of America.
13. He has successfully united Democrats (yay!) as
they haven't been for years (I told you he was a
uniter).
This man has committed more outright theft, more misappropriation of funds, more impeachable offenses due to lack of cooperation with constitutionally mandated cooperation with Congress, international war crimes, has the audacity to say others agreed with the war because they voted for it when they were as yet unaware the extent to which he was capable of sending innocents to battle and hiding all evidence, giving contracts which were totally biased toward the contractee, actually subcontracted out war activities, paying four or more times what it would have cost the military to do it, and on and on and on...
So why aren't we impeaching him?
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| Vacation time |
| 07.06.04 (7:46 am) [edit] |
This is to let everyone know I'm getting away for a few days and won't be blogging.
Everyone keep up the good work fighting the Bush/Cheney machine.
I'll answer any comments when I return.
I'll be back!
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| Democracy not worth the paper it's written on |
| 07.04.04 (7:13 pm) [edit] |
Democracy is an expensive business, the US and UK may argue as they count the enormous cost of invading Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein, killing 11 000 Iraqis and staging a Nuremberg-style trial for the "monster of Baghdad".
Saddam is charged with crimes against humanity but, unlike his genocidal peers in Bosnia and Rwanda, he won't face an international court of justice.
The judicial system in Iraq is Saddam's and he is more or less guaranteed an unfair trial, says Rolf Goessner, the president of the International League for Human Rights in Germany. But that is the law.
Starting with his ruthless ascent to leadership of the secular Ba'ath Party, which took power in 1968 and was subsequently supported by successive US governments, Saddam represents the worst of pan-Arabic nepotistic movements. Buoyed by oil revenues underpinned by enormous reserves, the party wielded power in almost god-like fashion, suppressing discontent, banning social movements and slaughtering opponents.
But this is no different to the oligarchies and autocracies running Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arabic states in which the king is the nation's guardian and ruler. (And not unlike Africa's last absolute monarch, Swaziland's Mswati III.)
If Saddam's trial, fair or unfair, is to assist the world in bringing military dictators and despotic monarchs to book, then it must focus on the broader pan-Arabic structures of power, which are built on petrodollars and direct US assistance.
Oil and revenge were at the heart of the US's shattering of Iraqi lives, and Saddam represents an experiment in gene splicing gone horribly wrong for the world's only superpower.
While American and British oil and construction companies will directly benefit from the devastation wreaked in Iraq, other Arab oligarchies and autocracies will remain intact, until they too fall out of favour with US interests and geostrategic considerations.
The trial of Saddam is an indictment of failed and fickle US policies. While economic imperatives may have dominated the rationale for invasion, the political fallout with the civilised world could be irreparable.
But that's the price of being a bully, and democracy is not worth the paper it's written on if you shove your version down the throats of a conquered people.
Via email
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| Contact information for owner of Fridley Theatres to protest ban of |
| 07.04.04 (6:47 pm) [edit] |
Midwest Theaters Ban 'Fahrenheit'
The president of a company that owns movie theaters in Iowa and Nebraska is refusing to show director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." R.L. Fridley, owner of Des Moines-based Fridley Theatres, says the controversial documentary incites 'terrorism.' [Contact information for censorship terrorist R.L. Fridley and his Reichwing theatres:]
R. L. Fridley
3603 Davisson Rd
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-279-9866
Fridley Theatres
1321 Walnut St.
Des Moines, IA 50309
515-282-9287
beth@fridleytheatres.com or renea@fridleytheatres.com
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| Don't go down alone, Saddam |
| 07.04.04 (1:49 pm) [edit] |
As I've said, Saddam's trial may be the finish of George Bush if the truth is allowed to come out. I am not a defender of Saddam but I do want to know the truth. The evidence against Mr. Bush is insurmountable. It's been published all over the internet for months. We know he lied to all of us. Saddam being a tyrant was not why the US went to Iraq. Does it matter? Of course, only fools say it's not and they are not to be suffered.
If Saddam is given a fair trial I am sure he will be found guilty of many things. But, I am just as sure he will be able to shed light on things some would rather be left in the dark.
Today I read, Saddam could call CIA in his defence
The Halabja massacre is now prominent among the charges read out against Saddam in the Baghdad court. When that charge was read out, Saddam replied that he had read about the massacre in a newspaper. Saddam has denied these allegations ever since they were made. But now with a trial on, he could summon a witness in his defence with the potential to blow apart the charge and create one of the greatest diplomatic disasters the United States has ever known.
A report prepared by the top CIA official handling the matter says Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the massacre, and indicates that it was the work of Iranians. Further, the Scott inquiry on the role of the British government has gathered evidence that following the massacre the United States in fact armed Saddam Hussein to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals.
Few believe that a CIA man would attend a court hearing in Baghdad in defence of Saddam. But in this case the CIA boss has gone public with his evidence, and this evidence has been in the public domain for more than a year.
The CIA officer Stephen C. Pelletiere was the agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. As professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, he says he was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf.
In addition, he says he headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States, and the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
Pelletiere went public with his information on no less a platform than The New York Times in an article on January 31 last year titled 'A War Crime or an Act of War?' The article which challenged the case for war quoted U.S. President George W. Bush as saying: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."
Pelletiere says the United States Defence Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report following the Halabja gassing, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. "That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas," he wrote in The New York Times....
I think because it's Saddam on trial some people think no one will care. He's a bad guy..hang him high. But, too many of us have been deceived by our own government and we want the truth. We care. Saddam will pay for his crimes and maybe with his help we will see the fall of a few other tyrants.
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| For Independence |
| 07.04.04 (9:48 am) [edit] |
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.
God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.
Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive --
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.
William Lloyd Garrison
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| "Assume he's innocent," says Colin Powell |
| 07.03.04 (6:54 pm) [edit] |
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein should be assumed to be innocent in his trial.
“The people of the world should watch carefully, listen carefully,” Powell said in his first comments on the judicial process against Saddam and 11 former aides that started on Thursday in Baghdad.
“Assume he’s innocent if you will, and let’s assume that, and let the Iraqi people through their courts decide,” Powell said in an interview with Indonesian television channel RCTI on the sidelines of an Asian security meeting in Jakarta.
Surely Colin Powell has better sense than this? Assume he's innocent? The US government didn't assume he was innocent before barging in with shock and awe killing thousands of people. When much of the world said, "let the inspectors continue their work," the US government didn't assume he was innocent.
There are many things Saddam is guilty of regarding the abuse of his own people. But, with no WMD, no ties to al-Qaeda the precept for going to war was a lie and nothing less. And if we assume Saddam is innocent well don't we have to now assume the US is guilty?
It's going to be very interesting to watch this unfold. I have a feeling we have yet to see the lengths this administration will go in ignoring the rule of law for its own gain.
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| UN observers requested for US elections |
| 07.03.04 (1:27 pm) [edit] |
Worried about the fairness of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, several House members have asked the United Nations to "deploy election observers" across the country.
Recalling the contentious Florida vote count in 2000, the lawmakers urged the international body to "ensure free and fair elections in America," said a statement by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, who spearheaded the effort.
The letter was signed by nine members of Congress.
"As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election," Johnson said in the letter, according to AFP.
Tom Kilgannon, president of Freedom Alliance, a group dedicated to protecting American sovereignty, admonished Johnson and her colleagues.
"Your appeal to the secretary general is alarming and embarrassing," he said. "As a Member of Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution and represent the people of the United States, it is disturbing, to say the least, that you would entrust the most sacred act of American democracy - our presidential election - to an international institution, which is unaccountable to the American people and mired by scandal and corruption."
Kilgannon said the request "undermines U.S. sovereignty, demoralizes American servicemen who are fighting to build democratic governments abroad and sends the message worldwide that the United States is nothing more than a Third World nation unable to police itself."
Mr. Kilgannon hit the nail on the head in his description of what is happening in the US. Fascism is running amok behind a mask of democracy. WorldNetDaily
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| Fears after acid leaks into Hamburg harbour |
| 07.03.04 (12:25 pm) [edit] |
German authorities are now admitting the port of Hamburg and the River Elbe may be facing an environmental disaster.The problems began on Monday when a chemical tanker sank in the port with some 1,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid onboard. At first, authorities said the cargo was trapped and would not leak.
After examining the capsized vessel, which can only be emptied if righted and then removed from the water, experts discovered it had already lost more than half of the acid, which may be corroding the hull, making salvage even more difficult. Many dead fish are floating in the port, and one environmental organisation has already declared Hamburg will be "biologically dead". The ship's captain, whose vessel was in collision with a container ship, has failed an alcohol test and is being investigated. Euro News
We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.
Jacques Cousteau, Oceanographer
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| Bush using church rosters for campaign purposes |
| 07.03.04 (11:25 am) [edit] |
The Southern Baptist Convention says it's offended by the Bush-Cheney campaign's using church rosters for campaign purposes.
"I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
"The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," he said. "I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way."
Other religious organizations also criticized the document as inappropriate, suggesting that it could jeopardize churches' tax-exempt status by involving them in partisan politics.
The Bush campaign is defending it's action as well witin the law but it's making some pastors nervous.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the effort "is a shameless attempt to misuse and abuse churches for partisan political ends." Lynn said his organization would be "watching closely to see how this plays out in the pews."
The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group that has been critical of the Christian right, said the document was "totally inappropriate."
"We are alarmed that this initiative by the Bush-Cheney campaign could lure religious organizations and religious leaders into dangerous territory where they risk losing their tax-exempt status and could be violating the law," Gaddy said.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said "efforts aimed at transforming houses of worship into political campaign offices stink to high heaven."
The Bush campaign memo seeks to mobilize church members by providing directories to the campaign, arranging for pastors to hold voter-registration drives, and talking to various religious groups about the campaign.
One section of the document lists 22 "coalition coordinator" duties and lays out a timeline for various activities targeting religious voters. By July 31, for example, the coordinator is to:
_Send your church directory to your state Bush-Cheney '04 headquarters or give to a BC04 field representative.
_Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush.
_Recruit 5 people in your church to help with the voter registration project.
_Talk to your pastor about holding a citizenship Sunday and voter registration drive.
Yea..it stinks but what's new with Bush and company?
St. Petersburn Times
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| Experts warn that 'Scob' virus could lead to keyboard logging |
| 07.03.04 (10:45 am) [edit] |
A computer virus designed to steal valuable information like passwords spread Friday through a new technique that converted popular Web sites into virus transmitters.
The infection, first discovered by Microsoft on Thursday, appears to take advantage of three separate flaws with Microsoft products and can be difficult to detect.
Stephen Toulouse, a security program manager at Microsoft, said software updates to fix two of them had been released in April, but the third flaw was newly discovered and had no patch available yet.
He recommended that computer owners obtain the latest security updates for Microsoft products and their anti-virus and firewall programs. For the flaw that lacks a patch, he said, users should also turn up security settings on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers to the highest levels.
Users could also turn off the JavaScript feature on their Microsoft browsers, though doing so could cripple functions on some sites.
The virus does not affect Macintosh versions of Internet Explorer, nor does it spread through non-Microsoft browsers like Mozilla and Opera.
Users can search their computers for the files "Kk32.dll" or "Surf.dat" to see if they are infected. Removal tools are available from major anti-virus vendors.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned that any Web site, even those trusted by users, might be a vector for spreading the virus. CMP
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| 60% of 'Fahrenheit' profit will go to charity |
| 07.03.04 (8:39 am) [edit] |
After Walt Disney Co. (DIS) refused to allow its Miramax Films unit to distribute the controversial Michael Moore documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," Miramax co-Chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein paid $6 million from their own pockets to acquire the film from the company, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported.
Six weeks later, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a smash sensation, and the Weinsteins are widely assumed to be laughing all the way to the bank.
If so, the laughter may be muted. Despite their personal investment, the Weinstein brothers will not be the biggest financial beneficiaries of "Fahrenheit." The real winner: a charity, or charities, as yet unnamed, that will receive about 60% of the net profit ultimately generated by the film -- a tally that could be tens of millions of dollars. The Weinsteins, meanwhile, will pocket about 40% of the net, according to people familiar with the deal.
In essence, Disney refused to sell the film to the brothers unless they agreed that they would not benefit personally any more than they would have under their employment agreement. That is still a lot of money: Under that complex deal, the Weinsteins typically pocket about 40% of the net profit from any Miramax picture, after the costs of distribution, prints and advertising and talent participations are deducted. But people close to the deal say that Disney demanded that the remaining 60% go to a charity or charities of its choice.
The Weinsteins, these people say, had little choice but to agree because they wanted to get the movie out quickly. After agreeing to Disney's terms, they negotiated a deal to distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11" through Lions Gate Entertainment Co. and Cablevision Systems Corp.'s IFC Films.
A Disney spokeswoman says no charities have been approached, as it isn't yet clear how much money will be available. It's likely that Disney will try to steer the money toward noncontroversial organizations benefiting children, education and the like. The arrangement was referenced obliquely in a press release announcing the sale of the film to the Weinsteins that said, "Any monetary benefit to Miramax or its parent company, the Walt Disney Co., as a result of the film's distribution will be donated to charity."
How much money the charity and the Weinsteins stand to make depends on a variety of factors, first and foremost the performance of the movie. It has already sold more than $35 million of tickets in six days of release at 868 theaters. With plans to greatly expand the screen count this weekend, many in Hollywood believe the movie could take in $100 million in U.S. theaters alone. DowJones
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| Ret. Col. David Hackworth on Gen. Richard Myers and Donald Rumsfeld |
| 07.03.04 (8:12 am) [edit] |
By David H. Hackworth
America would be a whole lot safer if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, was flying for Virgin Airlines, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was competing on “Survivor.” Both war leaders have done so miserable a job honchoing the military side of our critical conflict against global terrorism, and in the process so jeopardized our national security, that they should be sacked for dereliction of duty.
Contrary to continuing political spin, Iraq and Afghanistan both are running sores with little promise of even a long-term turnaround, and our world today is far more dangerous than it was before 9/11. Unless there's a 180-degree change in overall strategy, the USA is doomed to follow the same bloody path through these two brutal killing fields that the Soviet Union took in Afghanistan.
The mighty sword that Rumsfeld and Myers inherited four years ago – the finest military force in the world – is now chipped and dulled. And the word is that it will take at least a decade to get our overextended, bone-tired soldiers and Marines and their worn-out gear back in shape.
Top generals like former NATO commander Wes Clark and a squad of retired and active-duty four-stars warned long before the invasion of Iraq: Don’t go there. It doesn’t involve our national security. It’s not the main objective in our war with international terrorism. Even retired four-star Colin Powell said that if we go to Iraq and break the china, we own it. But know-it-all Rumsfeld and go-along-to-get-along Myers totally ignored this sound military advice.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, a distinguished soldier with counter-guerrilla campaigns in Vietnam and Bosnia under his pistol belt, was asked by Congress how many soldiers he thought would be needed for the occupation phase in Iraq. His response: A minimum of 200,000.
Rumsfeld treated this courageous soldier – who left half a foot in the Vietnam Delta – like a leper for telling a truth that was obviously contrary to party lockstep. And Shinseki’s spot-on troop estimate was discredited and ridiculed by senior Pentagon chicken hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, a man who dodged the draft during Vietnam and wouldn’t know a tank from a Toyota.
Even though Rumsfeld and Myers know zilch about ground fighting in an insurgent environment, they were convinced “Shock ‘n’ Awe” would do the trick, just as another military dilettante, former SecDef Robert McNamara, believed the big hammer would win in Vietnam, a war where the USA dropped three times the bomb tonnage and used twice the artillery firepower than was used in all of World War II.
Space doesn’t allow for the long laundry list of what went wrong after the Iraqi army was predictably defeated by a brilliant “Wham, Bam, Goodbye Saddam” air-and-ground attack and the present occupation phase kicked off. But the key screw-ups are:
* Our ground units went in far too light. They didn’t have – and still don’t have – sufficiently trained numbers and the right force mix to cope with the growing mess on the ground.
* There wasn’t an effective plan to deal with the looting, rioting and civil disorder or the early insurgent attacks. Army and Marine skippers in Iraq from company to division tried to put out four-alarm fires without sufficient force, equipment and logistics. Crisis management prevailed.
* Iraqi police, civil-defense corps, the regular army and border-patrol units – which could have prevented much of the chaos and civil disobedience that followed – were precipitously disbanded.
In this column on April 1, 2003, when many Americans and all the White House and Pentagon war hawks were gloating about the easy victory in Iraq, I wrote: “Hopefully ... he (G.W. Bush) won’t make the mistake of another Texas president who didn’t sack his SecDef and Joint Chiefs chairman straight away for their screw-ups” (See “Stuck in the Quicksand,” DefenseWatch, Apr. 1, 2003).
Fox’s Brit Hume publicly ridiculed my analysis, much like Wolfowitz did Shinseki’s. I wonder if Hume and Wolfowitz like their crow served hot or cold.
Our president says he’s not big on reading newspapers. But perhaps former librarian Laura will share this column with her husband and suggest he follow Harry Truman’s example of firing his inept SecDef when the Korean War was going badly.
Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. For information on his many books, go to his home page at Hackworth.com, wehre you can sign in for his free weekly Defending America. SFTT
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| Amnesty welcomes human rights proceedings but has concerns |
| 07.02.04 (9:23 pm) [edit] |
Amnesty International said:
“The beginning of legal proceedings to determine responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed over the last three decades, is to be welcomed.
“However, in order to bring justice to the thousands of victims, the proceedings must be fair, impartial and transparent.”
Amnesty International is concerned that defence counsel was not made available to the accused at yesterday's hearing.
Although the judge said that Saddam Hussein would be allowed legal defence in future, Amnesty International is pointing out that all accused should be given access to defence representation from the beginning of the process.
The human rights organisation is also concerned at apparent restrictions - or censorship - of some of yesterday's hearing. Audio of Saddam Hussein’s voice was initially barred from broadcasts.
In addition, Amnesty International is reminding the Iraqi authorities and members of the Multinational Force in Iraq that open reporting of the trial is of paramount importance.
While full physical access by the public may be impractical because of security considerations, the proceedings must at least be open to a variety of news media. In light of this, Amnesty International is dismayed that only reporters from US media outlets were allowed access to the court during yesterday’s hearings.
“It is essential that the trial of Saddam Hussein and the other defendants be fair and open to public scrutiny so that ordinary Iraqis and the international community can see that justice is being done.”
Background
International law guarantees everyone during detention and trial the right of access to lawyers of their own choosing as well as the time and facilities to communicate with them.
Under international law, the press and public can only be excluded from all or part of a trial for reasons of morals, public order or national security.
Amnesty International UK
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| Warheads not chemical weapons - How did I know? |
| 07.02.04 (9:05 pm) [edit] |
I've been watching this tale of mustard gas and sarin for a few days now. But, like sightings of UFO's and Elvis I thought it better to wait before blogging on it. The tale ends as I suspected.
Multinational forces in Iraq said that more than a dozen missile warheads said to contain mustard gas or sarin have tested negative for chemical agents.
Washington had announced the find by Polish troops on Thursday, which was later confirmed by Warsaw.
The head of Poland's military intelligence service also said on Friday that "terrorist" groups were seeking to acquire the weapons.
But the 122mm warheads, found in late June, have been found not to contain the deadly chemicals, a statement from multinational forces here said.
"Those 16 rounds were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals," it said.
Two other warheads found in mid-June were found to contain an insignificant amount of sarin gas. The armaments were left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the statement said.
"Due to the deteriorated state of the rounds and small quantity of remaining agent, these rounds were determined to have limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces."
Washington justified leading the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by claiming the country was harbouring weapons of mass destruction. However, none has yet been found. Yahoo
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| US removes peacekeepers over war crimes court |
| 07.02.04 (3:10 pm) [edit] |
The U.S. military is pulling small numbers of troops out of two U.N. peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Africa because they are no longer exempt from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
A total of 94 countries to date have ratified a 1998 treaty creating the ICC, which is bitterly opposed by the United States. Until Wednesday, when it expired, American officials operated under an exemption preventing foreign prosecution for war crimes.
The court, based at The Hague in the Netherlands, is the first permanent world tribunal set up to prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide and other gross human rights violations.
The United States charges that the ICC leaves U.S. military and civilian government officials open to frivolous and politically-inspired charges in countries that recognize the court.
The ICC steps in only when a country is unwilling or unable to conduct a proper investigation, which would make it highly unlikely a U.S. citizen would appear before it.
The Bush administration on June 23 withdrew a resolution to renew the exemption after it became clear there were not enough votes in the U.N. Security Council for adoption. Members cited worldwide anger over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American forces and strong opposition from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. AlertNet
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| Bush Campaign Refuses to Pull Nazi Web Ad |
| 07.01.04 (8:53 pm) [edit] |
President Bush's re-election campaign is refusing to withdraw an ad containing Nazi imagery from its Web site, despite severe criticism from Jewish organizations and from the Republican chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Several groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and the Zionist Organization of America, publicly criticized the Bush campaign and called on it to withdraw the ad.
"People of good faith seem to be regarding this ad as a comparison and are clearly disturbed by any use of Hitler's memory and images to further political goals," said AJCongress President Paul Miller in a statement. "This concerns us a great deal. It degrades public discourse to have any U.S. public figure compared to Hitler or even to use the name to advance an agenda; it is not helpful on any level."
Miller added: "Having reviewed the Bush ad, we do not believe that it is a clear comparison of Senator Kerry to Hitler in the way we saw the MoveOn.org ad.... Yet, we think there are better ways of attacking insensitivity than merely redisplaying the ugliness. The ad should be withdrawn."
In a statement, the national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, called the Bush ad "offensive and demeaning to the memory of the six million," while the president of the ZOA, Morton Klein, said that any use of Hitler's image in candidate communications "diminishes the horror of the Holocaust" and that images of Kerry, Gephardt, Gore and Dean should "never appear in the same ad" with those of Hitler.
Even the chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, Fred Zeidman, a prominent Republican donor and friend of Bush, said: "I can't ever condone the use of images of the Holocaust" in an ad, adding that it "demeans" Holocaust memory. Forward
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| French Foreign Minister visits Ramallah |
| 07.01.04 (8:35 pm) [edit] |
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier meets Arafat
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier arrived in Ramallah Tuesday for a meeting with Yasser Arafat.
"Our objective is to help you build an independent democratic and prosperous Palestinian state," Barnier told reporters after a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Nabil Shaath and before entering Arafat's Muqataa compound for dinner.
"I have come to deliver the cordial greetings of the president of the French republic (Jacques Chirac) in these very different times.
"There is an active need to resume dialogue (with Israel) to revive the peace process with the well-known roadmap and that's what I want to talk about with President Arafat tonight."
Barnier and Shaath had earlier signed an agreement on technical and scientific cooperation which the chief French diplomat said represented a "concrete sign of trust and solidarity."
Shaath said that both sides wanted to advance the troubled roadmap peace plan which envisages the creation of a Palestinian state next year but has made next to no progress since its launch last year.
The Palestinian Authority wanted "to go forward with the peace process, to put an end to the violence and to work towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state which will be a force for stability in the region and an ally for France," he added.
He praised Barnier for pushing ahead with his visit despite pressure from Israel on the European Union to boycott the veteran leader.
"France is a proud country" for not giving into "straight Israeli blackmail," Shaath earlier said.
"France is sometimes ahead of European policy. France is willing to stick its neck out, to do more than wait, and try to directly push peace forward."
Barnier's visit to Ramallah comes after he held talks with Egyptian and Jordanian leaders in Cairo and Amman last week over Israel's planned pullout from Gaza and from another four settlements in the northern West Bank.
He gave his strong support for Egyptian efforts to ensure security in Gaza after the evacuation and said that France was prepared to take part in "an international presence" in the territory.
Egypt has offered to send up to 200 personnel to the Gaza Strip to train a 30,000-strong police force to maintain security in the territory during and after the promised Israeli pullout.
The visit to the diplomatically isolated Arafat has been slammed by Israel, with a senior official branding it a "serious mistake" Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's government, having declared Arafat an obstacle to peace, has been trying to persuade European Union governments to follow the United States' lead and cut off all contacts with him.
Sharon and his entourage systematically refuse to meet any foreign official whose schedule includes a visit to Arafat.
Israel has prevented the ageing Palestinian leader from moving freely outside his Ramallah compound since December 2001.
Barnier is slated to meet prime minister Qorei Wednesday morning, also in Ramallah, and Latin Church Patriarch Michel Sabbah in Jerusalem later in the day.
Aljazeera.com
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| Bush ratings and public distrust |
| 07.01.04 (6:04 pm) [edit] |
Is the American public finally admitting to itself that Bush took advantage of their 9/11 fears and lied to them?
New surveys by The New York Times and the Washington Post reveal a perilous plunge in the commander-in-chief's credibility. The Times found that 79 percent of the public thinks Bush either is hiding something about Iraq, or worse, is "mostly lying" about it. The Post asked whether Bush or Kerry is "honest and trustworthy," and the president was judged to be honest by 39 percent. Kerry came in at 52 percent. NY Times
Will Bush cancel the election when he finally realizes he can no longer fool the public?
Also read: Distrust feeds a lethal national habit
Four years after the end of the Age of Clinton, we are back at this dispiriting pass. The public has ceased believing George W. Bush on matters involving Iraq. Period. Nor has it come to trust Democrat John Kerry.
The dismal consensus of recent polls is that voters think they're choosing between a president who has lied to them about as grave a matter as war and peace, and a challenger who fails to convey any conviction.
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| Bush Invests National Treasure in Death and Destruction |
| 07.01.04 (5:07 pm) [edit] |
The 2005 defense budget – the word “defense” has become a joke in the post Cold War world – will reach $500 billion (counting the CIA), $50 billion higher than 2004. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next ten years, the armada of aircraft, ships and killer toys will cost upwards of $770 billion more than Bush’s estimate for long-term defense.
Morgan reports that Bush wants “$68 billion for research and development—20 percent above the peak levels of President Reagan's historic defense buildup. Tens of billions more out of a proposed $76 billion hardware account will go for big-ticket weapons systems to combat some as-yet-unknown adversary comparable to the former Soviet Union.”
The mantra heard in Congress, “we can’t show weakness in the face of terrorism,” fails to take into account the fact that when the 9/11 hijackers struck, the US military--the strongest in the world--failed to prevent the attacks. So, logically one would ask, how does a futuristic jet fighter defend against contemporary enemies, like jihadists who would smuggle explosives into a train station or crowded shopping mall?
Continue Reading
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| Why did Ashcroft deport suspected terrorist Nabil Al-Marabh? |
| 07.01.04 (11:04 am) [edit] |
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers want to know why Ashcroft deported suspected terrorist Nabil Al-Marabh, once number 27 on the FBI Most Wanted list, rather than bring a case against him.
The circumstances surrounding Nabil al-Marabh's release, detailed in a recent Associated Press story, are "of deep concern and appear to be a departure from an aggressive, proactive approach to the war on terrorism," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote Tuesday in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"Al-Marabh was at one time No. 27 on the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) list of Most Wanted Terrorists," wrote Grassley, who leads the committee that controls federal spending and also is a member of the Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department. "He appears to have links to a number of terrorists and suspected terrorists in several U.S. cities." CBS
He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al Qaeda operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.
Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.
Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.
The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria - his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism. CBS
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| An examination of the Bush military files |
| 07.01.04 (10:42 am) [edit] |
The Story Of George W. Bush After He Quit The Texas Air National Guard
An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion: George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force. The AWOL Project
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| Watch out for those floating beer coolers! |
| 07.01.04 (10:02 am) [edit] |
Remember Bush telling the nation to go about it's business as if al Qaeda had not changed your lives? The latest floating beer cooler threat which has been unsubstantiated is no doubt another fear tactic in order to manipulate the American people as Independence Day draws near.
As the July 4 holiday approaches, Bush Administration officials are bombarding the nation's police, fire, emergency and corporate-security offices with another round of terrorism warnings. Although there are no plans to raise the threat level from yellow to orange, a senior Justice Department official says, "there's very serious intelligence that's corroborated, that's multiple sourced, that indicates that al-Qaeda is intent on hitting us and hitting us hard this year." The official concedes, however, that "we don't have specific information."
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| UN needs to step up to it's commitments in Sudan |
| 07.01.04 (9:34 am) [edit] |
The 16-month-old conflict in Sudan has killed up to 30,000 people, driven more than 1 million people from their homes and left more than 2 million in desperate need of aid. Many of us have been trying to draw international attention to the crisis and ensure it is not ignored, like the Rwandan genocide was a decade ago. In 1994 75% of the Tutsis population were wiped out while the world did nothing.
Colin Powell and Kofi Annan still refuse to call the killings by the Janjaweed militia "genocide". They are still studying and talking amidst all the horror.
During his visit to Khartoum Tuesday, Powell told reporters, ”What we are seeing is a disaster, a catastrophe, and we can find the right label for it later. We have to deal with it now,” he said.
20,000 people in and outside the US have signed a petition urging Powell to declare that "genocide" is taking place in Darfur. There needs to be immediate action taken against Kartoum to stop obstructing humanitarian access to the region.
Powell and Annan's visit to Sudan has been rejected as "dangerously naive" by Africa Action. U.N. human rights expert Asma Jahangir said the number of black Africans killed by Arab Janjaweed militias is "bound to be staggering".
The United States has been accused of dragging its feet over Darfur primarily because it doesn't want to undermine a U.S.-brokered power-sharing agreeement signed last month between the Sudanese government and the Sudan's People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in southern Sudan.
Bill Fletcher, Jr., President of TransAfrica Forum said,
”None of this excuses the slowness in the face of the Darfur crisis. It is almost irrelevant as to whether one defines the humanitarian disaster in Darfur as genocide or not. It is clearly a humanitarian disaster with thousands of deaths and massive displacement of its population.
We are witnessing a civil war that has been transformed into ethnic cleansing in which the war is being consciously brought to the civilian population with the full support of the Sudanese government. The protests by the Sudanese government are nothing short of disingenuous.”
He calls for a strong military show of opposition to Khartoum by the international community led by the African Union or the UN with the US providing financial and logistical support.
The UN Security Council has a responsibility to protect the innocent and the weak and it needs to step up to its commitment quickly.
Detroit News
ABC
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