Monday, March 01, 2004
Social Security:
Fortunately, this 20 year old subject is getting some attention. The facts at hand: In 1982-83, Alan Greenspan co-chaired a commission to ensure the solvency of Social Security, The recommendations of the commission were to increase the payroll tax to create a surplus so that we could have ample funds for the boomer retirement. Low and moderate-income people paid the piper. Then we had two tax cuts for the wealthy in the Bush regime, which Greenspan endorsed. Now, he tells Congress that due to the growing deficits, swelled by those tax cuts, we should cut SS benefits.
So: raise payroll taxes on the middle class to create a surplus, then cut taxes on the rich to wipe out the surplus and create a deficit, and then announce that the resulting deficits mean that the Social Security benefits already paid for by the middle class need to be cut.
As the Globe op. ed by Gilbert E. Metcalf put it,
This is breathtaking. Imagine if Congress had come forward in the 1980s with a proposal that recommended cutting Social Security benefits to future retirees while raising taxes on wage income. The monies collected would be used to provide a windfall gain to big estates by eliminating a tax that they had fully expected to have to pay and to cut taxes disproportionately on the income of the rich.
Hard to imagine such a policy, isn't it? But that's what the Social Security Shell Game is doing. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/01/fooled_by_the_shell_game/
Pakistan:
The most dangerous country for the United States now is Pakistan, and second is Iran…. We haven’t been this vulnerable since the British burned Washington in 1814. -CIA consultant Robert Galluci.
A report by Jane's Defense Weekly says that despite Pakistan's attempt to portray the sale of its nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, as a rogue operation, it was a government-approved enterprise involving glossy brochures and official approval. http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000797.html
Seymour Hersh has an article on our special ally in the new New Yorker. Hersh reports that the U.S. has agreed to go easy on Pakistan's nuclear black marketeers in exchange for permission to put troops into Pakistan to look for Osama Bin Laden, in an area where, according to a former CIA operative, "Alexander the Great lost an entire division."
A Bush Administration intelligence officer with years of experience in nonproliferation issues told me last month, “One thing we do know is that this was not a rogue operation. Suppose Edward Teller had suddenly decided to spread nuclear technology and equipment around the world. Do you really think he could do that without the government knowing? How do you get missiles from North Korea to Pakistan? Do you think A.Q. shipped all the centrifuges by Federal Express? The military has to be involved, at high levels.” The intelligence officer went on, “We had every opportunity to put a stop to the A. Q. Khan network fifteen years ago. Some of those involved today in the smuggling are the children of those we knew about in the eighties. It’s the second generation now.”
In public, the Bush Administration accepted the pardon at face value. Within hours of Musharraf’s television appearance, Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State, praised him as “the right man at the right time.” Armitage added that Pakistan had been “very forthright in the last several years with us about proliferation.” http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040308fa_fact
Haiti: Abduction? And U.S. Credibility
We’re paying the price for a (further) loss of credibility. As Randall Robinson noted in describing Aristed’s alleged abduction, ‘They deny it; (but) there were no wmd’s.’
Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California called Artistide's overthrow the result of a plan, a "preemptive strike," and "regime change." She suspects that Vice President Cheney is calling the shots.
If this was a coup, as it appears it was, it would be the 33rd coup in Haiti's tragic history. Danny Schechter, at www.mediachannel.org, noted that
CNN was asking: "Will the marines bring peace to a troubled land?" Yuk. This, of course, accepts the official story of Aristide's departure and its beneficent rationalization of the intervention at face value. CNN presented the only problem in Haiti as Aristide's armed supporters, not the thugs who the US backed in ousting him.”
Two takes- from Newsday (Ron Howell) and Jeffrey Sachs in the Financial Times:
U.S. political maneuvering behind the ouster
The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.
That official is Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade as he climbed the diplomatic ladder in Washington.
"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.
White, now president of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, said Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide who had behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean before retiring from the Senate two years ago.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wopol013691845mar01,0,3025257,print.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines
Don't fall for Washington's spin on Haiti
The crisis in Haiti is another case of brazen US manipulation of a
small, impoverished country with the truth unexplored by journalists. In
the nearly universal media line on the Haitian revolt, President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was portrayed as an undemocratic leader who
betrayed Haiti's democratic hopes and thereby lost the support of his
erstwhile backers. He "stole" elections and intransigently refused to
address opposition concerns. As a result he had to leave office, which
he did at the insistence of the US and France. Unfortunately, this is a
gravely distorted view.
President George Bush's foreign policy team came into office intent on
toppling Mr Aristide, long reviled by powerful US conservatives such as
former senator Jesse Helms who obsessively saw him as another Fidel
Castro in the Caribbean. Such critics fulminated when President Bill
Clinton restored Mr Aristide to power in 1994, and they succeeded in
getting US troops withdrawn soon afterwards, well before the country
could be stabilised. In terms of help to rebuild Haiti, the US Marines
left behind about eight miles of paved roads and essentially nothing
else. In the meantime, the so-called "opposition", a coterie of rich
Haitians linked to the preceding Duvalier regime and former (and perhaps
current) CIA operatives, worked Washington to lobby against Mr Aristide. http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/000195.html
What’s Happening, Venezuela: Patrick Markey’s report of the ongoing tension.
Tens of thousands of supporters of President Hugo Chavez marched on Sunday to protest what they criticized as US meddling and rally support for the leftist leader as he battles an opposition referendum challenge.
"Waving revolutionary flags and "Out with the CIA" and "No to Yankee Invasion" banners, Chavez sympathizers streamed through the capital under the watch of National Guard troops and two military helicopters circling overhead." http://tinyurl.com/26c77
9/11: Update:
Ellis Henican’s account in Newsday summarizes Bush’s alleged support for the commission, amidst ongoing reports that he’ll give his convention speech at Ground Zero.
No one knows exactly why George W. Bush seems so reluctant to let the truth come out. Had someone tried to warn him about an imminent attack? Were there embarrassing predictions in the daily presidential briefing? If Sept. 11 was truly a life-altering experience for the nation, shouldn't all of us know the cold, hard facts?
If you listened only to Bush's rhetoric, you'd think he was a major booster of the inquiry. Indeed, he said he supported the extension.
"We have given extraordinary cooperation," he told Tim Russert a couple of weeks ago. "I want the truth to be known." Bush told Russert on "Meet The Press" that he'd be pleased to testify and was turning over his daily briefing reports.
That's what the president said. Now follow the trail of what he has done.
At first, Bush was opposed to the whole idea of the commission. Under strong pressure from Republicans and Democrats, he ultimately relented. But he never seemed too enthusiastic about the probe.
Commission members wanted the right to subpoena witnesses. The White House opposed that, relenting only when the subpoena rules were tightly limited.
Bush told Russert he'd release those daily-briefing forms. Then, that too was tangled up in restrictions: Only to the chairmen, not to be shared with other members, only summaries. That is still being wrangled out.
Then there was the question of whether Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would testify. Security adviser Condoleezza Rice agreed to speak only briefly, in private and on a weekend. Bush told Russert he'd love to appear. Then he began dragging his feet.
Only in private, he said.
Only with the chairmen.
Only for an hour.
We'll see if it happens at all. http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/nyc-henn0229,0,5014291,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
National Guard:
Walter Robinson of the Globe, the reporter on this issue, found that official government web sites were noting that Bush flew F-102 jets for almost 6 years. Fits with Bush the ‘successful businessman’ and ‘owner of a baseball team’, etc. The White House said that "It does not reflect the facts of his service. It will be corrected.” http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/28/bush_bio_on_web_inflates_guard_service?mode=PF
Environment: Another strike:
The Environmental Working Group notes that pristine Utah lands are going for a proverbial song… to Bush campaign contributors!
Today 5,000 acres of environmentally sensitive public land in Utah face permanent loss of protection at taxpayer-subsidized auction. A new computer investigation of federal data by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals the size, scope, and locations of this public land giveaway to oil and gas interests. The investigation also identifies some of the corporate players who are benefiting from the sale of these pristine lands at bargain basement prices.
http://www.ewg.org/reports/UT_oil&gas/
-R
