Friday, November 14, 2003
Pakistan: Long established is that Pakistan is no mere ally of the U.S., but rather is a hotbed of terrorism- the security forces, if not the Government, more than play footsie with bin Laden. They’ve always been much more of a “threat” than Saddam. This contribution from the Daily Times of Pakistan:
“In Pakistan, there are legions of bin Ladin followers, plenty of links between government officials and terrorists and nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This is not speculation,” according to Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute.
He maintains that President Pervez Musharraf seems to be undermining stability in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan, he added, is also reportedly harbouring Islamic militants, fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and playing an active role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which it has already developed. Several news outlets have reported that members of a resurgent Taliban, enjoying the support of Pashtun tribes as well as sympathetic Pakistani military officers led by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are using Pakistan as a base for strikes against the US-backed government in Kabul. Some intelligence experts suspect that Osama bin Ladin and other Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders may have found sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, he added.
Hadar writes, “At the same time, some members of the Pakistani security forces continue to provide assistance to Islamic militants fighting against India’s rule in Kashmir. Indeed, US officials admit that Mr Musharraf has failed to crack down on those who support the fighters in Kashmir, who threaten to ignite war - possibly one that could turn nuclear - between Pakistan and India. More of a concern for the United States is the growing evidence that Pakistan’s nuclear programme - an arsenal believed to contain between 35 and 60 nuclear weapons - may have become a source of technology for North Korea and Iran. Also, some evidence points to some Pakistani nuclear scientists maintaining ties to Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups. All of this suggests that under various scenarios, including the collapse of Mr Musharraf’s rule or a coup staged by radical Islamists, Pakistan could turn into a nuclear-armed ally of Al Qaeda. Ironically, while Washington has been shoring up Pakistan’s military regime and perpetuating Pakistan’s mismanaged and corrupt economic system, the US has refused to take a step that could help members of Pakistan’s middle class and its Western-oriented entrepreneurs - open American markets to Pakistani textiles.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-11-2003_pg7_42
What’s Happening, Iraq: We’re still very alone, despite the British (below). The Japanese and South Koreans now are having second thoughts about their marginal troop commitments. And the military is on the offensive, yet mighty confused as to what they’ll accomplish, other than looking strong while we try to get out of the crosshairs. This sorry commentary made the front page of Friday’s NY Times.
After the start of a well-publicized offensive against Iraqi insurgents, American commanders said Thursday that they were intent on sending the rebels "a message."
But here at the site of one of the operation's primary targets, local Iraqis said they were uncertain what that message was supposed to be.
On the southern edge of the capital, a large building that American commanders said was a "meeting, planning, storage and rendezvous point" for the insurgents still stood, despite the military's claim that it had been destroyed in an airstrike the night before.
American soldiers came to the neighborhood several hours before the attack, local residents said, warning of the impending strike and making sure that everyone in the area was evacuated. Then an American AC-130 gunship strafed the building, knocking holes in the walls and wrecking much of the textile machinery arrayed inside.
After the strike, the Americans came back but detained no suspects, not even the owner of the building, and found no weapons.
The owner, Waad Dakhil Bolane, who said the Americans had warned his guards of the impending air raid, shook his head in befuddlement.
"Does this look like a military base to you?" he asked, standing inside his factory, which was still filled with textile machinery. "The Americans came here, told the guards to leave and then attacked. I don't understand."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/international/middleeast/14RAID.html
Meanwhile, the British remain the faithful ally, ready to send more troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1084325,00.html
Krugman on Medicare: As promised, he’s addressed the Right’s attack on Medicare.
But one of the proposals being negotiated behind closed doors — misleadingly described as "cost containment" — would set a limit on Medicare's use of general revenue, and would require action seven years before projections say that limit will be breached. This rule is reinforced with a peculiar new definition of "general revenue" that includes interest on the Medicare trust fund, accumulated out of past payroll taxes. The effect would be to force the government to declare a Medicare crisis in 2010 or 2011.
You might say it's a good idea to face up to Medicare's problems early. But the legislation would allow only two responses: either an increase in the payroll tax (a regressive tax that bears more heavily on middle-class families than on the wealthy) or benefit cuts. Other possibilities, like increases in other taxes or other spending cuts, would be ruled out. In short, this is an attempt to pre-empt discussion of how we want to deal with Medicare's future and impose a solution reflecting a particular ideology.
Meanwhile, another proposal — to force Medicare to compete with private insurers — seems intended to undermine the whole system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/opinion/14KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Moyers on the Media. An excerpt from a terrific talk:
When Joseph Pulitzer, a one-time immigrant reporter for a German-language paper in St. Louis, took over the New York World in 1883 he was already a millionaire in the making. But here’s his recommended short platform for politicians:
1.Tax luxuries
2. Tax Inheritances
3. Tax Large Incomes
4. Tax monopolies
5. Tax the Privileged Corporation
6. A Tariff for Revenue
7. Reform the Civil Service
8. Punish Corrupt Officers
9. Punish Vote Buying.
10. Punish Employers who Coerce their Employees in Elections
Also not a bad mission statement. Can you imagine one of today’s huge newspaper chains taking that on as an agenda?
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm
Columbia: Trouble, as the U.S.-backed president Alvaro Uribe loses his defense minister, armed forces chief, environmental ministers who all have quit. Trouble began when Uribe granted amnesty to right-wing death squads. Uribe’s government is replete w/ businessmen, apparently sharpening class issues. More via Frances Robles in the Seattle Times:
In mid-September, Uribe proposed a law that would in effect grant amnesty to Colombian paramilitaries. It would allow members of the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to avoid jail for crimes they have committed if they agree to lay down their arms.
This recent proposal would, according to Uribe, compel the leaders of the death squads to admit their crimes, turn over some land, pay some fines and provide community services when they turn in their weapons.
According to the Sept. 15 New York Times, the Bush administration is backing the proposed legislation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2001790149&zsection_id=268448413&slug=colombians14&date=20031113
Poll: Here’s one from the Pew Research Center: Independent women supported any Democrat over Bush 49-26 percent in October -- a huge shift from April, when the same group backed Bush 46-27 percent.
Gore Vidal: An excerpt from an interview in the LA Times:
We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.
Q: So if George W. Bush or John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?
No. It would have been better and worse. [Laughs.] Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military administration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be called Americans — most Americans would not think of them as citizens.
Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?
I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=48666
-R
“In Pakistan, there are legions of bin Ladin followers, plenty of links between government officials and terrorists and nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This is not speculation,” according to Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute.
He maintains that President Pervez Musharraf seems to be undermining stability in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan, he added, is also reportedly harbouring Islamic militants, fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and playing an active role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which it has already developed. Several news outlets have reported that members of a resurgent Taliban, enjoying the support of Pashtun tribes as well as sympathetic Pakistani military officers led by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are using Pakistan as a base for strikes against the US-backed government in Kabul. Some intelligence experts suspect that Osama bin Ladin and other Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders may have found sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, he added.
Hadar writes, “At the same time, some members of the Pakistani security forces continue to provide assistance to Islamic militants fighting against India’s rule in Kashmir. Indeed, US officials admit that Mr Musharraf has failed to crack down on those who support the fighters in Kashmir, who threaten to ignite war - possibly one that could turn nuclear - between Pakistan and India. More of a concern for the United States is the growing evidence that Pakistan’s nuclear programme - an arsenal believed to contain between 35 and 60 nuclear weapons - may have become a source of technology for North Korea and Iran. Also, some evidence points to some Pakistani nuclear scientists maintaining ties to Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups. All of this suggests that under various scenarios, including the collapse of Mr Musharraf’s rule or a coup staged by radical Islamists, Pakistan could turn into a nuclear-armed ally of Al Qaeda. Ironically, while Washington has been shoring up Pakistan’s military regime and perpetuating Pakistan’s mismanaged and corrupt economic system, the US has refused to take a step that could help members of Pakistan’s middle class and its Western-oriented entrepreneurs - open American markets to Pakistani textiles.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-11-2003_pg7_42
What’s Happening, Iraq: We’re still very alone, despite the British (below). The Japanese and South Koreans now are having second thoughts about their marginal troop commitments. And the military is on the offensive, yet mighty confused as to what they’ll accomplish, other than looking strong while we try to get out of the crosshairs. This sorry commentary made the front page of Friday’s NY Times.
After the start of a well-publicized offensive against Iraqi insurgents, American commanders said Thursday that they were intent on sending the rebels "a message."
But here at the site of one of the operation's primary targets, local Iraqis said they were uncertain what that message was supposed to be.
On the southern edge of the capital, a large building that American commanders said was a "meeting, planning, storage and rendezvous point" for the insurgents still stood, despite the military's claim that it had been destroyed in an airstrike the night before.
American soldiers came to the neighborhood several hours before the attack, local residents said, warning of the impending strike and making sure that everyone in the area was evacuated. Then an American AC-130 gunship strafed the building, knocking holes in the walls and wrecking much of the textile machinery arrayed inside.
After the strike, the Americans came back but detained no suspects, not even the owner of the building, and found no weapons.
The owner, Waad Dakhil Bolane, who said the Americans had warned his guards of the impending air raid, shook his head in befuddlement.
"Does this look like a military base to you?" he asked, standing inside his factory, which was still filled with textile machinery. "The Americans came here, told the guards to leave and then attacked. I don't understand."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/international/middleeast/14RAID.html
Meanwhile, the British remain the faithful ally, ready to send more troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1084325,00.html
Krugman on Medicare: As promised, he’s addressed the Right’s attack on Medicare.
But one of the proposals being negotiated behind closed doors — misleadingly described as "cost containment" — would set a limit on Medicare's use of general revenue, and would require action seven years before projections say that limit will be breached. This rule is reinforced with a peculiar new definition of "general revenue" that includes interest on the Medicare trust fund, accumulated out of past payroll taxes. The effect would be to force the government to declare a Medicare crisis in 2010 or 2011.
You might say it's a good idea to face up to Medicare's problems early. But the legislation would allow only two responses: either an increase in the payroll tax (a regressive tax that bears more heavily on middle-class families than on the wealthy) or benefit cuts. Other possibilities, like increases in other taxes or other spending cuts, would be ruled out. In short, this is an attempt to pre-empt discussion of how we want to deal with Medicare's future and impose a solution reflecting a particular ideology.
Meanwhile, another proposal — to force Medicare to compete with private insurers — seems intended to undermine the whole system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/opinion/14KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Moyers on the Media. An excerpt from a terrific talk:
When Joseph Pulitzer, a one-time immigrant reporter for a German-language paper in St. Louis, took over the New York World in 1883 he was already a millionaire in the making. But here’s his recommended short platform for politicians:
1.Tax luxuries
2. Tax Inheritances
3. Tax Large Incomes
4. Tax monopolies
5. Tax the Privileged Corporation
6. A Tariff for Revenue
7. Reform the Civil Service
8. Punish Corrupt Officers
9. Punish Vote Buying.
10. Punish Employers who Coerce their Employees in Elections
Also not a bad mission statement. Can you imagine one of today’s huge newspaper chains taking that on as an agenda?
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm
Columbia: Trouble, as the U.S.-backed president Alvaro Uribe loses his defense minister, armed forces chief, environmental ministers who all have quit. Trouble began when Uribe granted amnesty to right-wing death squads. Uribe’s government is replete w/ businessmen, apparently sharpening class issues. More via Frances Robles in the Seattle Times:
In mid-September, Uribe proposed a law that would in effect grant amnesty to Colombian paramilitaries. It would allow members of the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to avoid jail for crimes they have committed if they agree to lay down their arms.
This recent proposal would, according to Uribe, compel the leaders of the death squads to admit their crimes, turn over some land, pay some fines and provide community services when they turn in their weapons.
According to the Sept. 15 New York Times, the Bush administration is backing the proposed legislation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2001790149&zsection_id=268448413&slug=colombians14&date=20031113
Poll: Here’s one from the Pew Research Center: Independent women supported any Democrat over Bush 49-26 percent in October -- a huge shift from April, when the same group backed Bush 46-27 percent.
Gore Vidal: An excerpt from an interview in the LA Times:
We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.
Q: So if George W. Bush or John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?
No. It would have been better and worse. [Laughs.] Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military administration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be called Americans — most Americans would not think of them as citizens.
Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?
I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=48666
-R
