Saturday, November 01, 2003
The hallmark of the Bush foreign policy has been a naive radicalism married to an operational incompetence. A small clique with a preconceived blueprint took advantage of a national emergency and a callow president, blowing a containable threat into war while dismissing more ominous menaces. These people are out to remake the world, with little sense of risk, proportion or history. -Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, Nov. ‘03
Lies, yes, …and Diversion:
The Culture has now normalized the assertion that the Administration chronically misrepresents, distorts, selectively cites and lies. Well, at least ½ of the country buys this. Less focused on is the fact that the Cheney-Rove Group are masters at diversion- getting us to focus on an issue of their choosing while they cause notable damage elsewhere.
The example of this “success” is Iraq. To get us to not focus on the causes of terrorism and the states that are the real threats, they selected Iraq. As a long demonized ruler, Saddam was an easy target. All they had to do was to repeat their lies with regularity and enough of the press and the public bought in that Iraq was a growing threat, not a contained, weakened, isolated state.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, bona fide threats to security, were described either as problems that could be deferred or were sold to us as allies. Saudi Arabia housed (and funded) far more terrorists than ever passed through Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea build and trade missiles and nuclear technology. And, Pakistan’s secret service had long played footsie with bin Laden.
Similarly, diversion works on the domestic side. Talk of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge simplified their assault on the environment as being primarily confined to that location; when that effort was parried, we sighed relief, but more damaging assaults and give-aways to industry continued elsewhere.
Naturally the media- and this blog- have been caught focusing on Iraq. We all have focused on those lies, and, naturally those deaths. It’s understandable- we need to contain our anxiety and we respond to what the media has focused on, and deaths and destruction are a grabber! But, we must also look and work elsewhere. This time…
Economic News:
‘Good news’ was the news this week, that the economy is growing at a breathless pace. The bare bones story has some truth: there is a modest ‘recovery’ that has been underway and “growth” was manifestly strong this quarter, and it assuredly boosts Bush’s re-election chances. Yet, it is, of course, at least partly spin. A closer look reveals:
(1) Most of the bump for the “third quarter” came during the first 2 months. Consumer spending actually fell in September, and personal savings fell to its lowest point in 2 years. And, most importantly, more jobs were lost and the long-term unemployed numbers continued to grow.
(2) Unemployment: A regular feature the past many weeks has been the following wording: The total number of Americans filing initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 last week from a revised 391,000 the previous week, the government said on Thursday, in a sign of a convalescing U.S. job market.(forbes.com) In other words, each week the number of unemployed is low-balled, providing optimism that the numbers are falling. Then, during the week that figure is revised upward and so the following week the new figure is “lower” than the preceding. Then, that figure is ‘revised upward’. Sometimes the spinning is this elementary. It’s so common that no one has mentioned it in mainstream media until Paul Krugman noted it, though parenthetically, in his Friday column.
(3) The regular thievery by financial folk is not limited to Enrons, the schemes not limited to Bush’s financial past. Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE) noted the following in its weekly newsletter.
We haven’t mentioned so far the other side of the tax issue: they not only avoid paying their fair share of taxes; they invent complicated schemes to transfer money from the retirement savings of hard working people into their own pockets. That’s what Enron did, and that’s what the latest mutual fund scandal is all about. It’s too complex to explain here, but you can read about it in Business Week, http://www.businessweek.com:/print/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2002. It calculates that the "timing" scheme could reduce returns by almost 20%.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the CEOs expressed shock - even though they knew about the schemes since 2000 and made money from them. (WSJ: 10/29/03) Remember that most of these schemes are never discovered, mostly because the rich quash enforcement efforts. The same folks who express "shock" are generally the ones who oppose increased enforcement efforts that would prevent these schemes.
The damage to people’s lives is huge, but these scandals rarely get the media coverage they deserve.
More from FITE can be found at www.fairnessintaxes.org. [Self-disclosure: I'm a co-founder (with Chuck Palson) of FITE.]
(4) What’s Happening in the States? Not good. For most, if not all, this is the second or third year of massive cuts and, in some, tax increases. We know of the ongoing pain in Massachusetts, now rarely written about. A textbook case of sorts is Alabama, where the Republican Governor tried to push through tax increases so as to save vital services. Beaten badly (2:1), the results now are clear. What’s needed is also evident.
The budget cuts that went through in Alabama last month (September) were just the beginning. Next year is going to really show what's what. Almost 6,000 teachers will be getting the axe, with projected class sizes heading for more than 40 kids per.
I. The State Trooper force will be chopped, and the troopers will be restricted to about 50 miles of driving per day, according to one source in Alabama.
II. Thousands of criminals will be released, and the courts and municipal police will be cut drastically.
III. And so it goes. By this time next year, Joe Average Alabaman will really be seeing what his NO vote meant. And so will the rest of the country. Holding Alabama up as an example of what excessive tax cutting can do will make a great illustration for any Democrat who advocates more Federal revenues.
Neither Joe Average Alabaman nor Joe Average American will see these results if Democrats don't loudly highlight them. The secret of the Republicans long-term success is that the Democrats have run away from the fight instead of making it clear just what are the consequences of the "cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes" strategy. For Democrats to win on this issue they have to make it clear to people just what it is they are giving up if they continue to hold on to their Bush tax cuts.
http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/2003_10_26_interestingtimes_archive.html#106753849630133106
Paul Krugman asks, (and we need to answer…)
…Why is the public so easily manipulated? One answer is the supineness of much of the press, radio and television…. But that just pushes the question back a step. What is it about today’s right that lets it bully the press so easily, that creates such an effective machine of propaganda, intimidation, and base mobilization? (www.nybooks.com/articles/16790)
Environment: As per my comments earlier in this blog, the following is typical.
The Bush Administration will apparently allow oil and gas drilling on Utah lands once reviewed for possible wilderness protection. Critics are outraged. Sen. Joe Lieberman said, “we are now beginning to see the fallout from the closed-door deals that the Bush administration negotiated this spring…just so its supporters could pump a few weeks’ supply of oil and gas.
In a lease sale next month, the Bureau of Land Management will auction rights to drill for oil and gas on more than 17,000 acres, mostly in the Book Cliffs region of eastern Utah, that a review under the Clinton administration had determined could warrant wilderness designation. http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/2599179/detail.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Same Old.
Saturday’s NY Times front-paged (Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler) the flow of militants into Iraq. Across Europe and the Middle East, young militant Muslim men are answering a call issued by Osama bin Laden and other extremists, and leaving home to join the fight against the American-led occupation in Iraq, according to senior counterterrorism officials based in six countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/international/middleeast/01RECR.html?hp
Additionally, a rash of executions of former members of Saddam’s government, and this dispatch from Alex Berenson and Susan Sachs: Guerrillas and American troops battled for hours here on Friday in an intense firefight after a demonstration in support of Saddam Hussein turned violent. In Baghdad, rumors of terrorist attacks this weekend roiled the city. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/international/middleeast/01IRAQ.html
The Center for Public Integrity summarized the state of business in Iraq, focusing on the boom times for U.S. Contractors. More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.
Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton—which Vice President Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August 2000—was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/
Public Opinion in Iraq:
Iraqis See Israel as Culprit in Bombings was the headline of an LA Times piece (Alissa Rubin).
As the bombing disaster early this week is cemented into people's consciousness, three emotions dominate: anger, ambivalence about the U.S. role in Iraq and a desire to lay blame at the door of adversaries rather than fellow Muslims.
"I am sure that the people who did this are enemies of Iraq, not the enemies of the Americans," Dunya Khalil Ismail, a 28-year-old college lecturer, said as she left work Wednesday. "Whether it was the Israelis or the Americans themselves, they are aiming at us.
"It started with the war, and this is just another stage," she said. "I don't know what can be done. The Americans have everything in their hands."
Ismail is one of many people here — rich and poor, religious and secular — who see Israel as being behind the suicide bombings Monday at the International Committee of the Red Cross and three police stations, which killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 200. It might be an idea that seems farfetched to many Americans, but seen through Iraqi eyes, it has a kind of logic. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fg-iraq30oct30,0,7350796,print.story
“Mission Accomplished” Commentators have cited this fib by Bush as particularly galling; some even speculate that this could be the lie that sinks him! So, his lying about who put up the sign (duh, this administration is obsessive as to stagecraft) is more graspable than the lies about waging an unnecessary war based on deception that result in hundreds of American deaths and thousands of Iraqi deaths.
-R
Lies, yes, …and Diversion:
The Culture has now normalized the assertion that the Administration chronically misrepresents, distorts, selectively cites and lies. Well, at least ½ of the country buys this. Less focused on is the fact that the Cheney-Rove Group are masters at diversion- getting us to focus on an issue of their choosing while they cause notable damage elsewhere.
The example of this “success” is Iraq. To get us to not focus on the causes of terrorism and the states that are the real threats, they selected Iraq. As a long demonized ruler, Saddam was an easy target. All they had to do was to repeat their lies with regularity and enough of the press and the public bought in that Iraq was a growing threat, not a contained, weakened, isolated state.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, bona fide threats to security, were described either as problems that could be deferred or were sold to us as allies. Saudi Arabia housed (and funded) far more terrorists than ever passed through Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea build and trade missiles and nuclear technology. And, Pakistan’s secret service had long played footsie with bin Laden.
Similarly, diversion works on the domestic side. Talk of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge simplified their assault on the environment as being primarily confined to that location; when that effort was parried, we sighed relief, but more damaging assaults and give-aways to industry continued elsewhere.
Naturally the media- and this blog- have been caught focusing on Iraq. We all have focused on those lies, and, naturally those deaths. It’s understandable- we need to contain our anxiety and we respond to what the media has focused on, and deaths and destruction are a grabber! But, we must also look and work elsewhere. This time…
Economic News:
‘Good news’ was the news this week, that the economy is growing at a breathless pace. The bare bones story has some truth: there is a modest ‘recovery’ that has been underway and “growth” was manifestly strong this quarter, and it assuredly boosts Bush’s re-election chances. Yet, it is, of course, at least partly spin. A closer look reveals:
(1) Most of the bump for the “third quarter” came during the first 2 months. Consumer spending actually fell in September, and personal savings fell to its lowest point in 2 years. And, most importantly, more jobs were lost and the long-term unemployed numbers continued to grow.
(2) Unemployment: A regular feature the past many weeks has been the following wording: The total number of Americans filing initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 last week from a revised 391,000 the previous week, the government said on Thursday, in a sign of a convalescing U.S. job market.(forbes.com) In other words, each week the number of unemployed is low-balled, providing optimism that the numbers are falling. Then, during the week that figure is revised upward and so the following week the new figure is “lower” than the preceding. Then, that figure is ‘revised upward’. Sometimes the spinning is this elementary. It’s so common that no one has mentioned it in mainstream media until Paul Krugman noted it, though parenthetically, in his Friday column.
(3) The regular thievery by financial folk is not limited to Enrons, the schemes not limited to Bush’s financial past. Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE) noted the following in its weekly newsletter.
We haven’t mentioned so far the other side of the tax issue: they not only avoid paying their fair share of taxes; they invent complicated schemes to transfer money from the retirement savings of hard working people into their own pockets. That’s what Enron did, and that’s what the latest mutual fund scandal is all about. It’s too complex to explain here, but you can read about it in Business Week, http://www.businessweek.com:/print/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2002. It calculates that the "timing" scheme could reduce returns by almost 20%.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the CEOs expressed shock - even though they knew about the schemes since 2000 and made money from them. (WSJ: 10/29/03) Remember that most of these schemes are never discovered, mostly because the rich quash enforcement efforts. The same folks who express "shock" are generally the ones who oppose increased enforcement efforts that would prevent these schemes.
The damage to people’s lives is huge, but these scandals rarely get the media coverage they deserve.
More from FITE can be found at www.fairnessintaxes.org. [Self-disclosure: I'm a co-founder (with Chuck Palson) of FITE.]
(4) What’s Happening in the States? Not good. For most, if not all, this is the second or third year of massive cuts and, in some, tax increases. We know of the ongoing pain in Massachusetts, now rarely written about. A textbook case of sorts is Alabama, where the Republican Governor tried to push through tax increases so as to save vital services. Beaten badly (2:1), the results now are clear. What’s needed is also evident.
The budget cuts that went through in Alabama last month (September) were just the beginning. Next year is going to really show what's what. Almost 6,000 teachers will be getting the axe, with projected class sizes heading for more than 40 kids per.
I. The State Trooper force will be chopped, and the troopers will be restricted to about 50 miles of driving per day, according to one source in Alabama.
II. Thousands of criminals will be released, and the courts and municipal police will be cut drastically.
III. And so it goes. By this time next year, Joe Average Alabaman will really be seeing what his NO vote meant. And so will the rest of the country. Holding Alabama up as an example of what excessive tax cutting can do will make a great illustration for any Democrat who advocates more Federal revenues.
Neither Joe Average Alabaman nor Joe Average American will see these results if Democrats don't loudly highlight them. The secret of the Republicans long-term success is that the Democrats have run away from the fight instead of making it clear just what are the consequences of the "cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes" strategy. For Democrats to win on this issue they have to make it clear to people just what it is they are giving up if they continue to hold on to their Bush tax cuts.
http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/2003_10_26_interestingtimes_archive.html#106753849630133106
Paul Krugman asks, (and we need to answer…)
…Why is the public so easily manipulated? One answer is the supineness of much of the press, radio and television…. But that just pushes the question back a step. What is it about today’s right that lets it bully the press so easily, that creates such an effective machine of propaganda, intimidation, and base mobilization? (www.nybooks.com/articles/16790)
Environment: As per my comments earlier in this blog, the following is typical.
The Bush Administration will apparently allow oil and gas drilling on Utah lands once reviewed for possible wilderness protection. Critics are outraged. Sen. Joe Lieberman said, “we are now beginning to see the fallout from the closed-door deals that the Bush administration negotiated this spring…just so its supporters could pump a few weeks’ supply of oil and gas.
In a lease sale next month, the Bureau of Land Management will auction rights to drill for oil and gas on more than 17,000 acres, mostly in the Book Cliffs region of eastern Utah, that a review under the Clinton administration had determined could warrant wilderness designation. http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/2599179/detail.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Same Old.
Saturday’s NY Times front-paged (Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler) the flow of militants into Iraq. Across Europe and the Middle East, young militant Muslim men are answering a call issued by Osama bin Laden and other extremists, and leaving home to join the fight against the American-led occupation in Iraq, according to senior counterterrorism officials based in six countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/international/middleeast/01RECR.html?hp
Additionally, a rash of executions of former members of Saddam’s government, and this dispatch from Alex Berenson and Susan Sachs: Guerrillas and American troops battled for hours here on Friday in an intense firefight after a demonstration in support of Saddam Hussein turned violent. In Baghdad, rumors of terrorist attacks this weekend roiled the city. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/international/middleeast/01IRAQ.html
The Center for Public Integrity summarized the state of business in Iraq, focusing on the boom times for U.S. Contractors. More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.
Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton—which Vice President Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August 2000—was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/
Public Opinion in Iraq:
Iraqis See Israel as Culprit in Bombings was the headline of an LA Times piece (Alissa Rubin).
As the bombing disaster early this week is cemented into people's consciousness, three emotions dominate: anger, ambivalence about the U.S. role in Iraq and a desire to lay blame at the door of adversaries rather than fellow Muslims.
"I am sure that the people who did this are enemies of Iraq, not the enemies of the Americans," Dunya Khalil Ismail, a 28-year-old college lecturer, said as she left work Wednesday. "Whether it was the Israelis or the Americans themselves, they are aiming at us.
"It started with the war, and this is just another stage," she said. "I don't know what can be done. The Americans have everything in their hands."
Ismail is one of many people here — rich and poor, religious and secular — who see Israel as being behind the suicide bombings Monday at the International Committee of the Red Cross and three police stations, which killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 200. It might be an idea that seems farfetched to many Americans, but seen through Iraqi eyes, it has a kind of logic. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fg-iraq30oct30,0,7350796,print.story
“Mission Accomplished” Commentators have cited this fib by Bush as particularly galling; some even speculate that this could be the lie that sinks him! So, his lying about who put up the sign (duh, this administration is obsessive as to stagecraft) is more graspable than the lies about waging an unnecessary war based on deception that result in hundreds of American deaths and thousands of Iraqi deaths.
-R
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Number of Americans who have permanently lost the right to vote due to a felony conviction: 3.9 million
Ratio of black men who have permanently lost the right to vote due to a felony conviction to the number of black men who hold a college degree: 1.166:1 http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/plugin/template/dmi/44/250
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Administration persists with its absurd claim that the Iraq situation is improved- witness the “desperate” attacks. Terrorism experts note, we’re in a “big mess and an unsustainable level of casualties leading up to a presidential election." (Alyssa Rubin, LA Times), http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-resist27oct27,1,7463372.story?coll=la-home-leftrail.
More civilians (6) were killed by U.S. troops, though that was pushed back to page A11 in the NY Times. (Alex Berenson, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/international/middleeast/29IRAQ.html).
Mainstream media are noting that the public relations campaign isn't working. That's because there comes a point where you can't spin reality. (Howard Kurtz. Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28640-2003Oct28.html)
Aside from the 10,000+ in D.C. and a somewhat smaller number in San Francisco last Saturday, there are other public expressions. Hundreds demonstrated in Brussels and in Lisbon, for example. And, USA Today (John Diamond) notes that Pentagon / U.S. Central Command intelligence analysts are admitting that with all of the small arms available throughout Iraq, the resistance could “maintain their pace of attacks indefinitely.” http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=8061354&fb=Y&partnerID=1660
As to casualties: Many reports on the number of wounded, the severity of wounds. This one from the communist Wall Street Journal (Yaroslav Trofimov) "Since May, the number and the rate of casualties has increased," says Col. Doug Liening, commander of the 21st Combat Support Hospital, which also operates a facility in the northern city of Mosul. "People in the United States do not appreciate what's going on here." http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106737808452447200,00.html?mod=home%5Fpage%5Fone%5Fus
And, the San Francisco Chronicle (Matt Kelly) had a fine piece on this “war” that will outlive many of us. Privately, administration officials have said for months that they see the anti-terrorism fight as a decades-long struggle similar to the Cold War that dominated the second half of the 20th century. A private memo from Rumsfeld to his top aides brought the issue once again to the public's eye last week. http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/10/25/national1257EDT0540.DTL
The Administration’s primary goal is re-election, not Iraqi democracy. Thus, if the ensuing months bring ongoing security problems and attendant casualties, they could be tempted to suddenly withdraw or precipitously transfer authority to the UN, claiming “victory”, and/or “we always were going to transfer responsibility…” The resulting chaos (and worse) would hopefully hold off till after next November, and Iraq would be less of an election issue. This is not a good scenario. Our exit – which many of us favor- must be done responsibly.
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Ongoing trouble. The AP reports two CIA agents were “ambushed and killed in a mountainous border region of Afghanistan” in the region of a “six-hour firefight” near the Pakistan border, “the most evil place in Afghanistan”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1073332,00.html
Concern about Rumsfeld continues. Newsweek (John Barry) reports that Congress complains that he rarely provides more information than they read in the morning newspapers. One senior Republican senator was furious at Rumsfeld’s vague responses at a recent Hill session. “When a senator asked how many troops we would have in Iraq a year from now, he said, ‘We’re hoping for a sizable foreign involvement, and we’re optimistic that things will be improved,’ and blah, blah, blah,” he told NEWSWEEK. “It was a typical nonsensical, nonsubstantive briefing, like he always gives.” And within the administration he’s increasingly isolated. We shouldn’t forget that in early September of 2001 the consensus of pundits was that Rumsfeld would be the first cabinet official to be ushered out. More at http://www.msnbc.com/news/985259.asp
Taxes: The push continues. House Republicans are pushing a new corporate tax break to the tune of $128 billion. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/business/29tax.html
Bolivia: Jeffrey Sachs critiques U.S. policy in South America in reporting on the fall of the Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, seen as “further evidence that the U.S. approach to the region, and to impoverished and fragile countries across the world, is simplistic and prone to failure.” The roots of Bolivia's upheaval lie in chronic poverty and a regional economic crisis. But three precipitating factors were directly related to the United States and a rising tide of anti-Americanism. The most important was the U.S. demand in recent years that Bolivia eradicate tens of thousands of hectares of coca, thereby robbing 50,000 or so peasant farmers (and perhaps five times as many dependents) of their livelihoods, without offering any realistic alternatives. .http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15037-2003Oct25?language=printer
Michael Moore, from Dude, Where’s My Country?
Mr. Bush, in case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding your family's connections with bin Laden, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress might have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it was revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican Party and the media would have done with that one? Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, like "What is that all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Gitmo.
Or, to use the Clinton analogy again, imagine, in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton suddenly started worrying about the "safety" of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo—and then arranged a free trip for them out of the country. What would you and the Republicans have said about that? Suddenly, a stain on a blue dress probably wouldn't have been the top priority for a witch hunt, would it? Mr. Bush, the bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted -to you—or is it the other way around?
-R
Blogs are posted at http://www.global-equality.org/news/blog
Ratio of black men who have permanently lost the right to vote due to a felony conviction to the number of black men who hold a college degree: 1.166:1 http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/plugin/template/dmi/44/250
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Administration persists with its absurd claim that the Iraq situation is improved- witness the “desperate” attacks. Terrorism experts note, we’re in a “big mess and an unsustainable level of casualties leading up to a presidential election." (Alyssa Rubin, LA Times), http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-resist27oct27,1,7463372.story?coll=la-home-leftrail.
More civilians (6) were killed by U.S. troops, though that was pushed back to page A11 in the NY Times. (Alex Berenson, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/international/middleeast/29IRAQ.html).
Mainstream media are noting that the public relations campaign isn't working. That's because there comes a point where you can't spin reality. (Howard Kurtz. Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28640-2003Oct28.html)
Aside from the 10,000+ in D.C. and a somewhat smaller number in San Francisco last Saturday, there are other public expressions. Hundreds demonstrated in Brussels and in Lisbon, for example. And, USA Today (John Diamond) notes that Pentagon / U.S. Central Command intelligence analysts are admitting that with all of the small arms available throughout Iraq, the resistance could “maintain their pace of attacks indefinitely.” http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=8061354&fb=Y&partnerID=1660
As to casualties: Many reports on the number of wounded, the severity of wounds. This one from the communist Wall Street Journal (Yaroslav Trofimov) "Since May, the number and the rate of casualties has increased," says Col. Doug Liening, commander of the 21st Combat Support Hospital, which also operates a facility in the northern city of Mosul. "People in the United States do not appreciate what's going on here." http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106737808452447200,00.html?mod=home%5Fpage%5Fone%5Fus
And, the San Francisco Chronicle (Matt Kelly) had a fine piece on this “war” that will outlive many of us. Privately, administration officials have said for months that they see the anti-terrorism fight as a decades-long struggle similar to the Cold War that dominated the second half of the 20th century. A private memo from Rumsfeld to his top aides brought the issue once again to the public's eye last week. http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/10/25/national1257EDT0540.DTL
The Administration’s primary goal is re-election, not Iraqi democracy. Thus, if the ensuing months bring ongoing security problems and attendant casualties, they could be tempted to suddenly withdraw or precipitously transfer authority to the UN, claiming “victory”, and/or “we always were going to transfer responsibility…” The resulting chaos (and worse) would hopefully hold off till after next November, and Iraq would be less of an election issue. This is not a good scenario. Our exit – which many of us favor- must be done responsibly.
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Ongoing trouble. The AP reports two CIA agents were “ambushed and killed in a mountainous border region of Afghanistan” in the region of a “six-hour firefight” near the Pakistan border, “the most evil place in Afghanistan”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1073332,00.html
Concern about Rumsfeld continues. Newsweek (John Barry) reports that Congress complains that he rarely provides more information than they read in the morning newspapers. One senior Republican senator was furious at Rumsfeld’s vague responses at a recent Hill session. “When a senator asked how many troops we would have in Iraq a year from now, he said, ‘We’re hoping for a sizable foreign involvement, and we’re optimistic that things will be improved,’ and blah, blah, blah,” he told NEWSWEEK. “It was a typical nonsensical, nonsubstantive briefing, like he always gives.” And within the administration he’s increasingly isolated. We shouldn’t forget that in early September of 2001 the consensus of pundits was that Rumsfeld would be the first cabinet official to be ushered out. More at http://www.msnbc.com/news/985259.asp
Taxes: The push continues. House Republicans are pushing a new corporate tax break to the tune of $128 billion. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/business/29tax.html
Bolivia: Jeffrey Sachs critiques U.S. policy in South America in reporting on the fall of the Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, seen as “further evidence that the U.S. approach to the region, and to impoverished and fragile countries across the world, is simplistic and prone to failure.” The roots of Bolivia's upheaval lie in chronic poverty and a regional economic crisis. But three precipitating factors were directly related to the United States and a rising tide of anti-Americanism. The most important was the U.S. demand in recent years that Bolivia eradicate tens of thousands of hectares of coca, thereby robbing 50,000 or so peasant farmers (and perhaps five times as many dependents) of their livelihoods, without offering any realistic alternatives. .http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15037-2003Oct25?language=printer
Michael Moore, from Dude, Where’s My Country?
Mr. Bush, in case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding your family's connections with bin Laden, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress might have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it was revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican Party and the media would have done with that one? Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, like "What is that all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Gitmo.
Or, to use the Clinton analogy again, imagine, in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton suddenly started worrying about the "safety" of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo—and then arranged a free trip for them out of the country. What would you and the Republicans have said about that? Suddenly, a stain on a blue dress probably wouldn't have been the top priority for a witch hunt, would it? Mr. Bush, the bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted -to you—or is it the other way around?
-R
Blogs are posted at http://www.global-equality.org/news/blog
Sunday, October 26, 2003
9/11 Commission: Cleland Speaks:
The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks said that the White House was continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he was prepared to subpoena the documents if they were not turned over within weeks.
Well into the NY Times front page article (Philip Shenon) came pointed comments from Max Cleland, whose comments were less cautious than Chairman Thomas Kean’s.
… as another member of the commission, Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, became the first panel member to say publicly that the commission could not complete its work by its May 2004 deadline and the first to accuse the White House of withholding classified information from the panel for purely political reasons.
"It's obvious that the White House wants to run out the clock here," he said in an interview in Washington. "It's Halloween, and we're still in negotiations with some assistant White House counsel about getting these documents — it's disgusting."
He said that the White House and President Bush's re-election campaign had reason to fear what the commission was uncovering in its investigation of intelligence and law enforcement failures before Sept. 11. "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/national/26KEAN.html?ei=5004&en=ed66b0ead25a2dac&ex=1068350400&partner=UNTD&pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Yes, much more re Iraq. There’s no end, as this is a quagmire. Foreign observers are able to step back and look at these 25-26 weeks since the war was “won.” Writes the Asian Times’ Henry C K Liu:
The undeclared US war on Iraq ended some six months ago in a matter of weeks, mostly through bribery of an Iraqi high command infiltrated by US special operations that had been embedded during years of better relations in the Iran-Iraq War and military cooperation with its US counterpart, making treasonous plots possible. That may explain why the US high command had been so confident of a quick victory in defiance of mainstream military logic.
The Iraqi rank and file had also been demoralized by psychological pressure from relentless "shock and awe" strikes launched from locations safely beyond retaliatory range. Yet like Napoleon Bonaparte, who upon entering Moscow was astounded by his inability to find the czar to confirm an honorable victory, US President George W Bush, by his dubious war policy to assassinate an opponent chief of state by smart bombs, was unable to find Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Baghdad from whom to accept an honorable surrender. It is now plain for all to see that while the world's sole superpower may be able to topple a foreign government by the use of less-than-honorable force and force its leader to go underground, it is another matter to occupy a nation one-tenth its size to set up a puppet government to bring peace and order, even for a country the allegedly oppressed population of which US "experts" on Iraqi politics had predicted would welcome a US invasion with flowers and hugs instead of rocket-propelled grenades. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ23Ak01.html
Wolfowitz:
Aside from some of the usual attacks, the daring guerillas shot down a U.S. helicopter within sight of its base, wounded several U.S. soldiers in a mortar attack in Baghdad and then fired rocket/mortars at the Al-Rashid hotel, quite possibly targeting Wolfowitz, currently on a well-publicized visit, and the Al-Mansour hotel.
Robert Fisk’s take: You need to take a military escort to reach Baghdad airport these days. Yes, things are getting better in Iraq, according to President Bush - remember that each hour that goes by - but the guerrillas are getting so close to the runways that the Americans have chopped down every tree, every palm bush, every scrap of undergrowth on the way. Rocket-propelled grenades have killed so many GIs on this stretch of highway that the US army - like the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the mid-80s - have erased nature. You travel to Baghdad airport through a wasteland. Heathrow it isn't.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=457272
Those Polls: The Guardian (Peter Beaumont) notes that Iraq’s Centre for Research and Strategic Studies has new findings. Iraqis who view the coalition as a “liberating” force have dropped from 43% when Baghdad was taken over, to 15%. And, 67% of Iraqis view the American-British coalition as “occupying powers.” That’s a 20% increase since April.
Peter Beaumont http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1071460,00.html
WMD- Encore une fois: Again, the imminent threat, it seems, was that Saddam was thinking about nukes, but the sanctions and whatever else prevented him from even trying to secure them. This time, from the Washington Post article (Barton Gellman),
According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue
Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use. \Clear? There was no wmd, nor a wmd program. So, the “Kay Report” will continue to obfuscate, stall, hope that the public will continue to buy the Bush assertions that ‘it’s already proven’ that Saddam had such weapons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17707-2003Oct25?language=printer
Financial Aid for Iraq:
Apparently 13 billion was raised at the “Donor’s Conference” though a chunk of that is loans, not grants. The spin continues, that this was another victory in forging the coalition. The Guardian (Leader) has an apt summary:
The Iraq donors' conference in Madrid produced enough in the way of pledges of reconstruction cash and loans for the US to assert that a good start has been made. But continuing political differences, and concerns about how reconstruction will be managed, meant that any sense of a truly united, international effort was lacking.
Several important countries, including France, Russia and Germany, held back; others exhibited an evident wariness reflected by conditional or limited up-front, ready-money contributions. This ambivalence may prolong an already intensely difficult exercise in nation-building. For all the many offers of support yesterday, Iraq is still seen as primarily an American project. It was George Bush's war; even after Madrid, it is still mainly George Bush's problem. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1070841,00.html
Donor’s Conference PR / Spin: Compare the headlines:
The Washington Post re the Madrid Donors' Conference ... (and most of the $ is coming from the World Bank and the International Money Fund, and the 1.5 billion from Kuwait was already given to Iraq. It’s never straight-forward…)
Iraq Donations Fall Short: Many Pledges in the Form of Loans, Debt Relief, Not Grants
Compared w/ Reuters ...
Donors Promise Iraq $33 Billion, Smashing Expectations
Patriot Act: What’s to come:
A contribution from a periodical that has come through before. The St. Petersberg Times’ Robyn Blumner writes about what the Administration is seeking, ostensibly to merely close loopholes in the Patriot Act. Blumner shows that they have more in mind.
In a speech given on the eve of the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, our tin-eared president decided the time was ripe to propose Patriot Act expansions.
The proposed changes, which the president called the closing of "loopholes," may seem technical, but within those details lie our character as a nation. Are we a model of liberty, even in the face of threats to our national security? Or has al-Qaida's ragtag band impelled us to unravel a 200-year commitment to due process? Which is what Bush and Ashcroft are pushing.
Bush wants three additional powers from Congress.
First, he wants to give the Justice Department the authority to confiscate records and compel testimony without review by a court or grand jury.
The Patriot Act had substantially changed the law in this area by removing the requirement that federal agents tie the records they are seeking - be they library, medical, financial, educational or other records - to an investigation of a foreign agent or terrorist. Now, all the government has to do is certify to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - a court that operates in secret and is only open to government lawyers - that the records are "sought for" an investigation into terrorism or espionage…
Where once the FBI could only demand that bookstores turn over records on a particular customer who was under suspicion, now the FBI can seize the entire customer database as long as it somehow figures in an ongoing investigation. The Patriot Act made the courts little more than a rubber stamp for the FBI.
But even this is apparently too much of a paean to the separation of powers for Bush. He wants passage of the "Antiterrorism Tools Enhancement Act of 2003" that would give the FBI "administrative subpoena" authority to confiscate any records and compel any testimony on its say-so alone. The bill would eliminate entirely court oversight, or as Bush would call it "interference."
Second, Bush wants to chip away at the right to bail. Current law allows a judge to deny bond for anyone shown to be dangerous or a flight risk. And, for anyone accused of international terrorism, there is a presumption against granting bond.
Not good enough, according to the president. He wants passage of the "Pretrial Detention and Lifetime Supervision of Terrorists Act of 2003," a bill that would keep people accused of a whole range of new crimes behind bars pending trial by making those crimes presumptively "no bond" offenses.
This is an attempt to lock people up first and investigate later. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, more than 750 immigrants were jailed for months while the Justice Department looked into potential ties to terrorism. In the end not, one was charged. Now Bush wants the power to do the same thing to Americans and immigrants here legally.
And third, Bush wants to expand the reach of the federal death penalty by making it applicable to "domestic terrorism."
Under the Patriot Act, the crime of "domestic terrorism" couldn't be more broadly written. Any criminal act intended to influence the government through "intimidation or coercion" involving "dangerous acts" qualifies. Aggressive protesters of all stripes from Greenpeace activists to abortion foes could easily fall within this definition, opening the door for politically motivated executions.
Bush also wants the death penalty for those convicted of providing "material support for terrorism," a law that can be violated even when people think they are giving money to a charity and don't know the group is a designated terrorist organization.
While Bush is working to undo more of our liberty, there are bipartisan efforts in Congress pushing back. Perhaps the most promising is the "Safety and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act" that would rollback some of the worst excesses of the Patriot Act. If even NBA commissioners know the Patriot Act is a bad thing, what is Congress waiting for?http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/26/news_pf/Columns/No_pause_in_Patriot_A.shtml
And, a bit of Frank Rich. Not his best, but always worthwhile…
It's at times like this that we must be grateful that Disney didn't succeed in jettisoning "Nightline" for David Letterman. (The administration is only too happy to send its top brass to Mr. Letterman when it doesn't send them to Oprah — Colin Powell most recently.) If the Oct. 15 "Nightline" wasn't an Edward R. Murrow turning point in the coverage of the war on terrorism, it's the closest we've seen to one since 9/11. There will be others, because this administration doesn't realize that trying to control the news is always a loser. Most of the press was as slow to challenge Joe McCarthy, the Robert McNamara Pentagon and the Nixon administration as it has been to challenge the wartime Bush White House. But in America, at least, history always catches up with those who try to falsify it in real time. That's what L.B.J. and Nixon both learned the hard way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/arts/26RICH.html?pagewanted=print&position
-R
The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks said that the White House was continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he was prepared to subpoena the documents if they were not turned over within weeks.
Well into the NY Times front page article (Philip Shenon) came pointed comments from Max Cleland, whose comments were less cautious than Chairman Thomas Kean’s.
… as another member of the commission, Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, became the first panel member to say publicly that the commission could not complete its work by its May 2004 deadline and the first to accuse the White House of withholding classified information from the panel for purely political reasons.
"It's obvious that the White House wants to run out the clock here," he said in an interview in Washington. "It's Halloween, and we're still in negotiations with some assistant White House counsel about getting these documents — it's disgusting."
He said that the White House and President Bush's re-election campaign had reason to fear what the commission was uncovering in its investigation of intelligence and law enforcement failures before Sept. 11. "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/national/26KEAN.html?ei=5004&en=ed66b0ead25a2dac&ex=1068350400&partner=UNTD&pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Yes, much more re Iraq. There’s no end, as this is a quagmire. Foreign observers are able to step back and look at these 25-26 weeks since the war was “won.” Writes the Asian Times’ Henry C K Liu:
The undeclared US war on Iraq ended some six months ago in a matter of weeks, mostly through bribery of an Iraqi high command infiltrated by US special operations that had been embedded during years of better relations in the Iran-Iraq War and military cooperation with its US counterpart, making treasonous plots possible. That may explain why the US high command had been so confident of a quick victory in defiance of mainstream military logic.
The Iraqi rank and file had also been demoralized by psychological pressure from relentless "shock and awe" strikes launched from locations safely beyond retaliatory range. Yet like Napoleon Bonaparte, who upon entering Moscow was astounded by his inability to find the czar to confirm an honorable victory, US President George W Bush, by his dubious war policy to assassinate an opponent chief of state by smart bombs, was unable to find Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Baghdad from whom to accept an honorable surrender. It is now plain for all to see that while the world's sole superpower may be able to topple a foreign government by the use of less-than-honorable force and force its leader to go underground, it is another matter to occupy a nation one-tenth its size to set up a puppet government to bring peace and order, even for a country the allegedly oppressed population of which US "experts" on Iraqi politics had predicted would welcome a US invasion with flowers and hugs instead of rocket-propelled grenades. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ23Ak01.html
Wolfowitz:
Aside from some of the usual attacks, the daring guerillas shot down a U.S. helicopter within sight of its base, wounded several U.S. soldiers in a mortar attack in Baghdad and then fired rocket/mortars at the Al-Rashid hotel, quite possibly targeting Wolfowitz, currently on a well-publicized visit, and the Al-Mansour hotel.
Robert Fisk’s take: You need to take a military escort to reach Baghdad airport these days. Yes, things are getting better in Iraq, according to President Bush - remember that each hour that goes by - but the guerrillas are getting so close to the runways that the Americans have chopped down every tree, every palm bush, every scrap of undergrowth on the way. Rocket-propelled grenades have killed so many GIs on this stretch of highway that the US army - like the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the mid-80s - have erased nature. You travel to Baghdad airport through a wasteland. Heathrow it isn't.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=457272
Those Polls: The Guardian (Peter Beaumont) notes that Iraq’s Centre for Research and Strategic Studies has new findings. Iraqis who view the coalition as a “liberating” force have dropped from 43% when Baghdad was taken over, to 15%. And, 67% of Iraqis view the American-British coalition as “occupying powers.” That’s a 20% increase since April.
Peter Beaumont http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1071460,00.html
WMD- Encore une fois: Again, the imminent threat, it seems, was that Saddam was thinking about nukes, but the sanctions and whatever else prevented him from even trying to secure them. This time, from the Washington Post article (Barton Gellman),
According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue
Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use. \Clear? There was no wmd, nor a wmd program. So, the “Kay Report” will continue to obfuscate, stall, hope that the public will continue to buy the Bush assertions that ‘it’s already proven’ that Saddam had such weapons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17707-2003Oct25?language=printer
Financial Aid for Iraq:
Apparently 13 billion was raised at the “Donor’s Conference” though a chunk of that is loans, not grants. The spin continues, that this was another victory in forging the coalition. The Guardian (Leader) has an apt summary:
The Iraq donors' conference in Madrid produced enough in the way of pledges of reconstruction cash and loans for the US to assert that a good start has been made. But continuing political differences, and concerns about how reconstruction will be managed, meant that any sense of a truly united, international effort was lacking.
Several important countries, including France, Russia and Germany, held back; others exhibited an evident wariness reflected by conditional or limited up-front, ready-money contributions. This ambivalence may prolong an already intensely difficult exercise in nation-building. For all the many offers of support yesterday, Iraq is still seen as primarily an American project. It was George Bush's war; even after Madrid, it is still mainly George Bush's problem. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1070841,00.html
Donor’s Conference PR / Spin: Compare the headlines:
The Washington Post re the Madrid Donors' Conference ... (and most of the $ is coming from the World Bank and the International Money Fund, and the 1.5 billion from Kuwait was already given to Iraq. It’s never straight-forward…)
Iraq Donations Fall Short: Many Pledges in the Form of Loans, Debt Relief, Not Grants
Compared w/ Reuters ...
Donors Promise Iraq $33 Billion, Smashing Expectations
Patriot Act: What’s to come:
A contribution from a periodical that has come through before. The St. Petersberg Times’ Robyn Blumner writes about what the Administration is seeking, ostensibly to merely close loopholes in the Patriot Act. Blumner shows that they have more in mind.
In a speech given on the eve of the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, our tin-eared president decided the time was ripe to propose Patriot Act expansions.
The proposed changes, which the president called the closing of "loopholes," may seem technical, but within those details lie our character as a nation. Are we a model of liberty, even in the face of threats to our national security? Or has al-Qaida's ragtag band impelled us to unravel a 200-year commitment to due process? Which is what Bush and Ashcroft are pushing.
Bush wants three additional powers from Congress.
First, he wants to give the Justice Department the authority to confiscate records and compel testimony without review by a court or grand jury.
The Patriot Act had substantially changed the law in this area by removing the requirement that federal agents tie the records they are seeking - be they library, medical, financial, educational or other records - to an investigation of a foreign agent or terrorist. Now, all the government has to do is certify to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - a court that operates in secret and is only open to government lawyers - that the records are "sought for" an investigation into terrorism or espionage…
Where once the FBI could only demand that bookstores turn over records on a particular customer who was under suspicion, now the FBI can seize the entire customer database as long as it somehow figures in an ongoing investigation. The Patriot Act made the courts little more than a rubber stamp for the FBI.
But even this is apparently too much of a paean to the separation of powers for Bush. He wants passage of the "Antiterrorism Tools Enhancement Act of 2003" that would give the FBI "administrative subpoena" authority to confiscate any records and compel any testimony on its say-so alone. The bill would eliminate entirely court oversight, or as Bush would call it "interference."
Second, Bush wants to chip away at the right to bail. Current law allows a judge to deny bond for anyone shown to be dangerous or a flight risk. And, for anyone accused of international terrorism, there is a presumption against granting bond.
Not good enough, according to the president. He wants passage of the "Pretrial Detention and Lifetime Supervision of Terrorists Act of 2003," a bill that would keep people accused of a whole range of new crimes behind bars pending trial by making those crimes presumptively "no bond" offenses.
This is an attempt to lock people up first and investigate later. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, more than 750 immigrants were jailed for months while the Justice Department looked into potential ties to terrorism. In the end not, one was charged. Now Bush wants the power to do the same thing to Americans and immigrants here legally.
And third, Bush wants to expand the reach of the federal death penalty by making it applicable to "domestic terrorism."
Under the Patriot Act, the crime of "domestic terrorism" couldn't be more broadly written. Any criminal act intended to influence the government through "intimidation or coercion" involving "dangerous acts" qualifies. Aggressive protesters of all stripes from Greenpeace activists to abortion foes could easily fall within this definition, opening the door for politically motivated executions.
Bush also wants the death penalty for those convicted of providing "material support for terrorism," a law that can be violated even when people think they are giving money to a charity and don't know the group is a designated terrorist organization.
While Bush is working to undo more of our liberty, there are bipartisan efforts in Congress pushing back. Perhaps the most promising is the "Safety and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act" that would rollback some of the worst excesses of the Patriot Act. If even NBA commissioners know the Patriot Act is a bad thing, what is Congress waiting for?http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/26/news_pf/Columns/No_pause_in_Patriot_A.shtml
And, a bit of Frank Rich. Not his best, but always worthwhile…
It's at times like this that we must be grateful that Disney didn't succeed in jettisoning "Nightline" for David Letterman. (The administration is only too happy to send its top brass to Mr. Letterman when it doesn't send them to Oprah — Colin Powell most recently.) If the Oct. 15 "Nightline" wasn't an Edward R. Murrow turning point in the coverage of the war on terrorism, it's the closest we've seen to one since 9/11. There will be others, because this administration doesn't realize that trying to control the news is always a loser. Most of the press was as slow to challenge Joe McCarthy, the Robert McNamara Pentagon and the Nixon administration as it has been to challenge the wartime Bush White House. But in America, at least, history always catches up with those who try to falsify it in real time. That's what L.B.J. and Nixon both learned the hard way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/arts/26RICH.html?pagewanted=print&position
-R
