Friday, July 30, 2004
Al-Qaeda arrest:
So predictable that many of us anticipated it, only it was supposed to be bin Laden, not the latest to be made into a “big achievement”.
Pakistan says it has arrested a senior al Qaeda figure wanted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and said he was a Tanzanian national wanted for the synchronised bombings that killed more than 200 people at the U.S. embassy in Kenya and 11 at the embassy in Tanzania.
"He carried head money of $25 million (14 million pounds)," Hayat told Reuters. "It is a big achievement for our security forces."
Hayat said Ghailani was one of 14 people arrested at the weekend when security forces raided a suspected militant hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km (110 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=556318§ion=news
Kerry Speech: Solid, even moving; energetic, but not over-the-top. I was reminded of being in meetings with him and being impressed with his focus and his intelligence and his decency- [even if he repeatedly called me “Dick”]. Hopefully those dolts who remain undecided in the swing states will grasp that this is a full person who is infinitely more decent and capable than the towel-snapper occupying the White House.
Content: calling for health care as a right, an energy policy that relies on American ingenuity and invention, “not the Saudi royal family”, no soldier will be held hostage to Middle East oil, God is not on our side, we are on God’s side, cutting middle class and small business taxes and rolling back taxes on the wealthiest, not refrain of “family values”, but valuing families, and you don’t value families by cutting after school programs and cops while giving tax breaks to Enron. JFK gave us hope, and we will finish the job, which starts with The Truth- restoring trust and credibility to the White House; promising never to mislead us into war, not to have secret meetings with polluters and promising to appoint a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the military and an Attorney General who upholds the constitution.
The networks- ABC, CBS, NBC- are consigned to relic status. Much more should have been shown, including Kerry’s ‘band of brothers’ and Max Cleland.
[More] Media: USA Today was the most recent to employ a Right-wing “journalist”, Ann Coulter to cover the Democratic convention. Her foul initial piece, however, resulted in her firing.
Salon’s Eric Boehlert offers his thoughts:
[As to] USA Today’s decision to hire Ann Coulter to cover the convention: They got what they asked for, even though they were unwilling to print it, as you can tell from this. I think it would be a healthy thing for journalism for someone to be fired over this. I mean, for all the nonsense we’ve read during the past week asking the question of whether the legitimization of bloggers by the DNC is a good thing, it seems to me a journalistic institution that would pull a stunt like this one has no business telling anyone anything about professional ethics. Ditto the cable folks. Really, do Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have anything to teach Josh Marshall, Brad DeLong or Atrios about how to distinguish illusion from reality and present it to an audience in an illuminating fashion?
USA Today editorial page editor Brian Gallagher, defending the choice, told a reporter Coulter "was a voice from [the conservative] side with standing and visibility." Notice how credibility was not a requirement. By contrast, for the Republican convention in August, USA Today has tapped Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore to file dispatches.
Are the two really compatible? Nowhere in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" does Moore suggest, for instance, that Republicans hate America or that Bush's Cabinet members are akin to Iraqi terrorists. Moore is an accomplished and, yes, partisan filmmaker; Coulter is a factually challenged name-caller. Could USA Today honestly not tell the difference?
This is just the latest example of mainstream press outlets embracing discredited, right-wing pundits in an effort to prove their "balance." And don't think the political pressure from the right isn't real. On the eve of the convention, at a media panel held at Harvard University, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw talked about how conservative activists "feel they have to go to war against the networks every day." http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/27/coulter/
One of the Lying Liars: Sean Hannity
Al Franken spends some of his time catching the chronic liars of the Right doing their thing. Sean Hannity, not an especially bright bulb, but VERY popular, dared to come on Franken’s radio show where Franken confronted him with his having accused Howard Dean of saying that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. Hannity denied it, and Franken played a bit from Hannity’s show, containing the quote, “…and Howard Dean saying the president knew about 9/11 ahead of time.”
Then, from Hannity- “I misspoke.”Text found at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,106408,00.html
Have to do more- a lot more- of this exposing…
Cambridge Talks
Lots of luminaries giving talks this week. Michael Moore’s presence made for a massive crowd on Tuesday:
And I know a lot of people have seen my film and the obvious bad guy in the movie is George W. Bush. But there's the unstated villain in the film. And that's our national media.
You've seen the film. Right? A lot of them are mad at me right now because I can't go on a show without them, you know. But I would be mad if I were them too, because the film outs them. It outs them as being for the Bush administration. It outs them as people who were cheerleaders for this war. It outs them as, to be kind to those who are actually good journalists, journalists who fell asleep on the job. Journalists who didn't ask the hard questions. The one thing I hear when people come out of the theater over and over again is I never saw that on the news. Right? I never saw those Black congressmen being shut down one after another. Did anyone see that?
I didn't know there was a riot at the inauguration parade. I never saw the egg hit the limo. I never saw that! I don't hear from the amputees who sit in our hospitals, 5,000 or 6,000 of them. How come I don't hear from them on the nightly news? I don't hear from the mothers. I don't see them on the evening news, the mothers of children who have been killed in Iraq and who state their opposition to this war. I haven't seen them on the news. http://www.alternet.org/election04/19385/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Democracy: Press Limitations: The Financial Times (Nicolas Pelham) notes that Prime Minister Allawi has established a “media committee to impose restrictions on print and broadcast media,” underlining “an aggressive new attitude towards press freedoms…” http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Iraq+sets+up+committee+to+impose+restrictions+on+news+reporting&expire=&urlID=11128783&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fs01%2Fservlet%2FContentServer%3Fpagename%3DFT.com%2FStoryFT%2FFullStory%26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D1087374001384%26p%3D1012571727169&partnerID=1703
British papers were the first to note that Saddam was rumored to have had a (minor) stroke. Who’s to know? His lawyers have reportedly not been allowed to see him. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14467737&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=saddam-s--stroke--name_page.html
And, the latest U.S. idea for sharing the security function:
Ayad Allawi today welcomed Saudi Arabia's US-backed proposals to help build a joint force of Muslim nations to establish security in Iraq. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1271597,00.html
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: A very bad sign. Doctors Without Borders decides Afghanistan is too dangerous, and withdraws.
The international aid agency Doctors Without Borders announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years to protest the government's failure to lock up the killers of five of its staff members and out of concern for the safety of the rest of its workers in the country.
The lack of progress on the case - even though a prime suspect has been identified - as well as threats from the Taliban forced the decision, Kenny Gluck, the group's operational director, said at a news conference in Kabul. The risk of more attacks remains too high, he said.
"We are scared that the lack of a credible government investigation and credible prosecution sends a message that it is acceptable to kill aid workers," he said. "We feel there is not a framework in which we can put unarmed aid workers who are trying to provide assistance."
The decision to pull out by such a prominent aid agency - Doctors Without Borders won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and works in 80 countries - has shaken the government and the aid community in Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/international/asia/29afgh.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Elections: Karzai has opposition, but the people think the fix is in.
For many Afghans, casting a ballot seems irrelevant. They believe that the result of the election has been decided already in Washington. They believe that the election is not about determining whom the Afghans want as their leader, but about anointing Washington's choice, Karzai, as Afghanistan's "democratically elected president". Karzai has led Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted in the US-led "war against terrorism" in December 2001. Several presidential candidates maintain that election rules clearly favor Karzai and that every effort is being made to ensure that he returns, with the rules of the electoral game denying candidates a level playing field. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FG29Ag01.html
What’s Happening, South Africa: Truly awful. The statistics: one in eight South Africans is HIV positive; in Durban, South Africa’s third-largest city, a survey two years ago found that 35% of women were HIV positive.
At S Cemetery in Umlazi Township, Innocent Gasa's handiwork is everywhere: endless mounds of fresh red earth topped with headstones, unpainted wooden crosses, or, for the most miserable, bricks bearing a painted identifying number. Mr. Gasa has dug graves on this lumpy, unkempt, Halloween-spooky hilltop for two years now, five holes a week, 52 weeks a year, well over 500 holes in all.
Which may seem peculiar, seeing as S Cemetery exhausted its last space for new graves five years ago. City records sum up its status succinctly, even dismissively: "Full."
But in Durban, "full'' is a term of art. This city is being battered by an AIDS pandemic so sweeping that people are dying faster than the city can find space to bury them. And so gravediggers like Mr. Gasa are reopening existing graves - the city calls it "recycling'' - and interring fresh bones atop the old ones.
The job gives Mr. Gasa nightmares. "I think it is not a good thing, to take out the bones'' for reburial, he said during a break in his spadework. "But we have no choice."
Every time southern Africa's AIDS epidemic threatens to exhaust its store of superlatives, some new, sobering extreme rises to the fore. The latest is Durban, where 51 of the 53 municipal cemeteries are officially filled to capacity, and a surging death rate threatens to overwhelm the remaining two within a couple of years.
"Five years ago, we used to have about 120 funerals a weekend, but this number has now jumped to 600," Thembinkosi Ngcobo, who heads the municipal department of parks and cemeteries, said in an interview this week. "In order to cope with the current rate of mortality - we hope it is not going to increase - we will need to have 12.1 hectares every year of new gravesites." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/international/africa/29durb.html?pagewanted=print&position
9/11 Postscript: Administration now seeks to act
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post writes of the “farce”- The Adminstration, having done so little since 9/11, now realizing that they had best get active, however belatedly.
Why the sudden alacrity? It's because the chairman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have been all over the airwaves warning that another terrorist attack could be imminent and that the nation's intelligence apparatus, so obviously broken, has yet to be fixed. They recommended a host of measures, some of which -- improved border and port security, an integrated "watch list," etc. -- you would have thought would have been implemented on Sept. 12, 2001. Insistently, the commissioners recommended speed. To paraphrase: Lives are in danger and little is being done. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16762-2004Jul26?language=printer
Economy: Deficit climbing
They know it, but won’t announce it till the Dem’s convention is over. Knowing their technique, it’ll probably be announced late Friday so as to not draw attention. Then, they’ll spin it as ‘not as bad as feared, proof that the economy is improving.’
The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said, a record figure certain to ignite partisan warfare over President Bush's handling of the economy. The annual summertime analysis is expected out this Friday, said several congressional aides speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday. That would be well after the frequently ignored legal deadline of July 15. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20040728/ap_on_go_pr_wh/budget_deficit
We shouldn’t forget that our fiscal condition was welcomed (and fostered) by the Republican Right. Recall the NY Times of August 25, 2001: Bush was quoted (from his faux “ranch” in Crawford) that there was a ‘benefit’ to the already quickly dwindling surplus, as it would create “a fiscal straitjacket for Congress” which was “incredibly positive.”
And, our place in the world is at stake. David Rothkopf, in the WaPost:
As American voters contemplate their choices in this presidential campaign year, the world's investors have been voting with their money. The early results are in -- and they don't look good for the United States.
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released figures showing that last year for the first time, China supplanted the United States as the No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment worldwide -- that is, money that goes into factories, equipment, real estate or existing companies. And in a blow to fans of "freedom fries," No. 2 was France. Though other major economies also suffered a drop-off in this category , no nation fell as far in percentage terms as the United States.
While such numbers fluctuate and foreign direct investment is just one type of capital flow, this dramatic swing can be seen as further evidence that in the 21st century, America is going to have to fight hard for its piece of the global investment pie -- money that translates directly into new jobs and the industries of tomorrow. Clearly, the world economy is shifting around us and our place atop it is being challenged. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10805-2004Jul24?language=printer
And, interest in our financial investments may be fading.
At a time when U.S. trade deficits are growing to historic proportions, foreign interest in U.S. stocks and bonds may be fading. If this continues, there could be consequences for U.S. interest rates and the dollar. Foreign purchases of securities in the U.S. in May came to $56.4 billion. While that was large enough to finance the current-account deficit, it was down 26% from April and represented the lowest monthly total in seven months. It also marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline of such purchases by foreigners. The report on foreign purchases included bad news for U.S. stocks, revealing that May was the third consecutive month foreigners have been net sellers. That hadn't happened in nearly a decade. Potentially more troubling was the slowdown in Asian purchases of U.S. debt -- especially in Japan, which holds 16% of all U.S. Treasurys. That country's nascent economic recovery has eased the government's concerns about maintaining a weak currency to boost exports, in turn reducing the Bank of Japan's need to intervene and buy dollars. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109078406964673107,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Finally, the NY Times (David Cay Johnston) notes Americans’ shrinking income.
The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows.
The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth, average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent.
Adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the new I.R.S. data.
While the recession that hit the economy in 2001 in the wake of the market plunge was considered relatively mild, the new information shows that its effect on Americans' incomes, particularly those at the upper end of the spectrum, was much more severe. Earlier government economic statistics provided general evidence that incomes suffered in the first years of the decade, but the full impact of the blow and what groups it fell hardest on were not known until the I.R.S. made available on its Web site the detailed information from tax returns.
The unprecedented back-to-back declines in reported incomes was caused primarily by the combination of the big fall in the stock market and the erosion of jobs and wages in well-paying industries in the early years of the decade.
In the past, overall personal income rose from one year to the next with relentless monotony, the growth rate changing in response to fluctuations in economic activity but almost never falling.
But now, with many more ordinary employees joining high-level executives in having part of their compensation dependent on stock options and bonus plans, a volatile and relatively unpredictable new element has been introduced to the incomes of millions of workers. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html
Kerry and Iraq: A good summary from the LA Times . It makes sense, yet makes one wince, as it paved the way for that ‘flip flopper’ label.
Less than two days before the Senate vote Oct. 11, Kerry said his gut told him to vote for the resolution. But his speech on the Senate floor was riddled with reservations and caveats.Despite the doubts he had expressed about the administration's commitment to diplomacy, Kerry said he would back the resolution on the strength of assurances from Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that they would not go to war unilaterally or without exhausting diplomatic options."Let there be no doubt or confusion," Kerry said. "I will support a multilateral effort to disarm [Hussein] by force, if we ever exhaust those other options as the president has promised. But I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible."There was nothing in the resolution that guaranteed those conditions would be met. Nonetheless, he was one of 29 Democrats to vote for the resolution, which passed 77 to 23.In his Senate speech, Kerry had said, "I will be among the first to speak out" if Bush failed to seek international support and go to war as a last resort.In December, less than a week after he announced he was exploring a presidential bid, Kerry accused Bush of forcing the war debate to distract attention from economic problems.In January, he criticized Bush for what he called a "hell-bent-for-leather" dash to war without allowing more time for weapons inspection and diplomacy. "The United States should never go to war because it wants to," he said. "The United States should go to war because we have to."In the fall of 2003, his criticism of Bush's polices led to his vote against the $87-billion bill financing continued operations in Iraq. Only 12 senators voted against the financing measure, and only three — besides Kerry — voted for the war and against the second measure. Among them was Kerry's eventual running mate, John Edwards.Critics say Kerry's vote was politically motivated. The surprise leader in the Democratic presidential race had become Dean, who was riding a strong tide of antiwar sentiment among party activists.Kerry said he voted against the bill because Bush had gone to war recklessly and without a plan for postwar Iraq. He called it a "principled" vote designed to pressure the administration to change its policies.But even nonpartisan analysts say that voting for the war resolution and then opposing the subsequent funding measure is a key part of the GOP attack on him as a flip-flopper."The strategic blunder is that he's allowed Bush to make the case that this guy is all over the map," said Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford University political scientist. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-kerryiraq29jul29,1,1267485,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Kevin Phillips on 9/11, Condi and Responsibility
MOYERS: It does describe Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, and her deputy, Steven Hadley, as not having regarded the coordination of domestic agencies as part of their responsibility after they took office even as warnings of a possible attack continued to grow.
Now Condoleezza Rice, it's her job as the National Security Advisor to coordinate the agencies of national security. She clearly failed.
PHILLIPS: Well, this is exactly the problem that we're getting to here. Phil Zelikow, the executive director of the Commission, used to work for Condoleezza Rice. He's the last person who's going to say, "Condi screwed it up." You get this all across the way, all the mechanisms in which one of these commissions work.
From the people who were selected to run them, the people who were selected to staff them. They have to know about the subject matter to some extent. But that generally means they have ties, connections, patrons, obligations and they don't want to name names.
MOYERS: If this had happened on Clinton's watch, if 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch, would there be calls for Condoleezza Rice's firing?
PHILLIPS: You know, it's a fascinating coincidence. But the Clinton National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, is being hatcheted by the Republicans for something it may or may not be a tempest in a teapot with having to do with documents that he mishandled. Shouldn't we be asking the question why is Sandy Berger being pursued right at this point?
Is it to take people's minds off whether the National Security Advisor whose failure was much greater was Condoleezza Rice? The Republicans and, you know, you know and I know from having been in politics, people do these games. I mean, sometimes you attack somebody to make the issue move away from the people on your side. I would say yes. I mean, if Condoleezza Rice has been somebody with the Democrats and 9/11 had happened, I think the Republicans would be all over her. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript330_full_print.html
-R
So predictable that many of us anticipated it, only it was supposed to be bin Laden, not the latest to be made into a “big achievement”.
Pakistan says it has arrested a senior al Qaeda figure wanted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and said he was a Tanzanian national wanted for the synchronised bombings that killed more than 200 people at the U.S. embassy in Kenya and 11 at the embassy in Tanzania.
"He carried head money of $25 million (14 million pounds)," Hayat told Reuters. "It is a big achievement for our security forces."
Hayat said Ghailani was one of 14 people arrested at the weekend when security forces raided a suspected militant hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km (110 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=556318§ion=news
Kerry Speech: Solid, even moving; energetic, but not over-the-top. I was reminded of being in meetings with him and being impressed with his focus and his intelligence and his decency- [even if he repeatedly called me “Dick”]. Hopefully those dolts who remain undecided in the swing states will grasp that this is a full person who is infinitely more decent and capable than the towel-snapper occupying the White House.
Content: calling for health care as a right, an energy policy that relies on American ingenuity and invention, “not the Saudi royal family”, no soldier will be held hostage to Middle East oil, God is not on our side, we are on God’s side, cutting middle class and small business taxes and rolling back taxes on the wealthiest, not refrain of “family values”, but valuing families, and you don’t value families by cutting after school programs and cops while giving tax breaks to Enron. JFK gave us hope, and we will finish the job, which starts with The Truth- restoring trust and credibility to the White House; promising never to mislead us into war, not to have secret meetings with polluters and promising to appoint a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the military and an Attorney General who upholds the constitution.
The networks- ABC, CBS, NBC- are consigned to relic status. Much more should have been shown, including Kerry’s ‘band of brothers’ and Max Cleland.
[More] Media: USA Today was the most recent to employ a Right-wing “journalist”, Ann Coulter to cover the Democratic convention. Her foul initial piece, however, resulted in her firing.
Salon’s Eric Boehlert offers his thoughts:
[As to] USA Today’s decision to hire Ann Coulter to cover the convention: They got what they asked for, even though they were unwilling to print it, as you can tell from this. I think it would be a healthy thing for journalism for someone to be fired over this. I mean, for all the nonsense we’ve read during the past week asking the question of whether the legitimization of bloggers by the DNC is a good thing, it seems to me a journalistic institution that would pull a stunt like this one has no business telling anyone anything about professional ethics. Ditto the cable folks. Really, do Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have anything to teach Josh Marshall, Brad DeLong or Atrios about how to distinguish illusion from reality and present it to an audience in an illuminating fashion?
USA Today editorial page editor Brian Gallagher, defending the choice, told a reporter Coulter "was a voice from [the conservative] side with standing and visibility." Notice how credibility was not a requirement. By contrast, for the Republican convention in August, USA Today has tapped Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore to file dispatches.
Are the two really compatible? Nowhere in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" does Moore suggest, for instance, that Republicans hate America or that Bush's Cabinet members are akin to Iraqi terrorists. Moore is an accomplished and, yes, partisan filmmaker; Coulter is a factually challenged name-caller. Could USA Today honestly not tell the difference?
This is just the latest example of mainstream press outlets embracing discredited, right-wing pundits in an effort to prove their "balance." And don't think the political pressure from the right isn't real. On the eve of the convention, at a media panel held at Harvard University, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw talked about how conservative activists "feel they have to go to war against the networks every day." http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/27/coulter/
One of the Lying Liars: Sean Hannity
Al Franken spends some of his time catching the chronic liars of the Right doing their thing. Sean Hannity, not an especially bright bulb, but VERY popular, dared to come on Franken’s radio show where Franken confronted him with his having accused Howard Dean of saying that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. Hannity denied it, and Franken played a bit from Hannity’s show, containing the quote, “…and Howard Dean saying the president knew about 9/11 ahead of time.”
Then, from Hannity- “I misspoke.”Text found at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,106408,00.html
Have to do more- a lot more- of this exposing…
Cambridge Talks
Lots of luminaries giving talks this week. Michael Moore’s presence made for a massive crowd on Tuesday:
And I know a lot of people have seen my film and the obvious bad guy in the movie is George W. Bush. But there's the unstated villain in the film. And that's our national media.
You've seen the film. Right? A lot of them are mad at me right now because I can't go on a show without them, you know. But I would be mad if I were them too, because the film outs them. It outs them as being for the Bush administration. It outs them as people who were cheerleaders for this war. It outs them as, to be kind to those who are actually good journalists, journalists who fell asleep on the job. Journalists who didn't ask the hard questions. The one thing I hear when people come out of the theater over and over again is I never saw that on the news. Right? I never saw those Black congressmen being shut down one after another. Did anyone see that?
I didn't know there was a riot at the inauguration parade. I never saw the egg hit the limo. I never saw that! I don't hear from the amputees who sit in our hospitals, 5,000 or 6,000 of them. How come I don't hear from them on the nightly news? I don't hear from the mothers. I don't see them on the evening news, the mothers of children who have been killed in Iraq and who state their opposition to this war. I haven't seen them on the news. http://www.alternet.org/election04/19385/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Democracy: Press Limitations: The Financial Times (Nicolas Pelham) notes that Prime Minister Allawi has established a “media committee to impose restrictions on print and broadcast media,” underlining “an aggressive new attitude towards press freedoms…” http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Iraq+sets+up+committee+to+impose+restrictions+on+news+reporting&expire=&urlID=11128783&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fs01%2Fservlet%2FContentServer%3Fpagename%3DFT.com%2FStoryFT%2FFullStory%26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D1087374001384%26p%3D1012571727169&partnerID=1703
British papers were the first to note that Saddam was rumored to have had a (minor) stroke. Who’s to know? His lawyers have reportedly not been allowed to see him. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14467737&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=saddam-s--stroke--name_page.html
And, the latest U.S. idea for sharing the security function:
Ayad Allawi today welcomed Saudi Arabia's US-backed proposals to help build a joint force of Muslim nations to establish security in Iraq. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1271597,00.html
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: A very bad sign. Doctors Without Borders decides Afghanistan is too dangerous, and withdraws.
The international aid agency Doctors Without Borders announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years to protest the government's failure to lock up the killers of five of its staff members and out of concern for the safety of the rest of its workers in the country.
The lack of progress on the case - even though a prime suspect has been identified - as well as threats from the Taliban forced the decision, Kenny Gluck, the group's operational director, said at a news conference in Kabul. The risk of more attacks remains too high, he said.
"We are scared that the lack of a credible government investigation and credible prosecution sends a message that it is acceptable to kill aid workers," he said. "We feel there is not a framework in which we can put unarmed aid workers who are trying to provide assistance."
The decision to pull out by such a prominent aid agency - Doctors Without Borders won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and works in 80 countries - has shaken the government and the aid community in Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/international/asia/29afgh.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Elections: Karzai has opposition, but the people think the fix is in.
For many Afghans, casting a ballot seems irrelevant. They believe that the result of the election has been decided already in Washington. They believe that the election is not about determining whom the Afghans want as their leader, but about anointing Washington's choice, Karzai, as Afghanistan's "democratically elected president". Karzai has led Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted in the US-led "war against terrorism" in December 2001. Several presidential candidates maintain that election rules clearly favor Karzai and that every effort is being made to ensure that he returns, with the rules of the electoral game denying candidates a level playing field. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FG29Ag01.html
What’s Happening, South Africa: Truly awful. The statistics: one in eight South Africans is HIV positive; in Durban, South Africa’s third-largest city, a survey two years ago found that 35% of women were HIV positive.
At S Cemetery in Umlazi Township, Innocent Gasa's handiwork is everywhere: endless mounds of fresh red earth topped with headstones, unpainted wooden crosses, or, for the most miserable, bricks bearing a painted identifying number. Mr. Gasa has dug graves on this lumpy, unkempt, Halloween-spooky hilltop for two years now, five holes a week, 52 weeks a year, well over 500 holes in all.
Which may seem peculiar, seeing as S Cemetery exhausted its last space for new graves five years ago. City records sum up its status succinctly, even dismissively: "Full."
But in Durban, "full'' is a term of art. This city is being battered by an AIDS pandemic so sweeping that people are dying faster than the city can find space to bury them. And so gravediggers like Mr. Gasa are reopening existing graves - the city calls it "recycling'' - and interring fresh bones atop the old ones.
The job gives Mr. Gasa nightmares. "I think it is not a good thing, to take out the bones'' for reburial, he said during a break in his spadework. "But we have no choice."
Every time southern Africa's AIDS epidemic threatens to exhaust its store of superlatives, some new, sobering extreme rises to the fore. The latest is Durban, where 51 of the 53 municipal cemeteries are officially filled to capacity, and a surging death rate threatens to overwhelm the remaining two within a couple of years.
"Five years ago, we used to have about 120 funerals a weekend, but this number has now jumped to 600," Thembinkosi Ngcobo, who heads the municipal department of parks and cemeteries, said in an interview this week. "In order to cope with the current rate of mortality - we hope it is not going to increase - we will need to have 12.1 hectares every year of new gravesites." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/international/africa/29durb.html?pagewanted=print&position
9/11 Postscript: Administration now seeks to act
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post writes of the “farce”- The Adminstration, having done so little since 9/11, now realizing that they had best get active, however belatedly.
Why the sudden alacrity? It's because the chairman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have been all over the airwaves warning that another terrorist attack could be imminent and that the nation's intelligence apparatus, so obviously broken, has yet to be fixed. They recommended a host of measures, some of which -- improved border and port security, an integrated "watch list," etc. -- you would have thought would have been implemented on Sept. 12, 2001. Insistently, the commissioners recommended speed. To paraphrase: Lives are in danger and little is being done. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16762-2004Jul26?language=printer
Economy: Deficit climbing
They know it, but won’t announce it till the Dem’s convention is over. Knowing their technique, it’ll probably be announced late Friday so as to not draw attention. Then, they’ll spin it as ‘not as bad as feared, proof that the economy is improving.’
The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said, a record figure certain to ignite partisan warfare over President Bush's handling of the economy. The annual summertime analysis is expected out this Friday, said several congressional aides speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday. That would be well after the frequently ignored legal deadline of July 15. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20040728/ap_on_go_pr_wh/budget_deficit
We shouldn’t forget that our fiscal condition was welcomed (and fostered) by the Republican Right. Recall the NY Times of August 25, 2001: Bush was quoted (from his faux “ranch” in Crawford) that there was a ‘benefit’ to the already quickly dwindling surplus, as it would create “a fiscal straitjacket for Congress” which was “incredibly positive.”
And, our place in the world is at stake. David Rothkopf, in the WaPost:
As American voters contemplate their choices in this presidential campaign year, the world's investors have been voting with their money. The early results are in -- and they don't look good for the United States.
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released figures showing that last year for the first time, China supplanted the United States as the No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment worldwide -- that is, money that goes into factories, equipment, real estate or existing companies. And in a blow to fans of "freedom fries," No. 2 was France. Though other major economies also suffered a drop-off in this category , no nation fell as far in percentage terms as the United States.
While such numbers fluctuate and foreign direct investment is just one type of capital flow, this dramatic swing can be seen as further evidence that in the 21st century, America is going to have to fight hard for its piece of the global investment pie -- money that translates directly into new jobs and the industries of tomorrow. Clearly, the world economy is shifting around us and our place atop it is being challenged. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10805-2004Jul24?language=printer
And, interest in our financial investments may be fading.
At a time when U.S. trade deficits are growing to historic proportions, foreign interest in U.S. stocks and bonds may be fading. If this continues, there could be consequences for U.S. interest rates and the dollar. Foreign purchases of securities in the U.S. in May came to $56.4 billion. While that was large enough to finance the current-account deficit, it was down 26% from April and represented the lowest monthly total in seven months. It also marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline of such purchases by foreigners. The report on foreign purchases included bad news for U.S. stocks, revealing that May was the third consecutive month foreigners have been net sellers. That hadn't happened in nearly a decade. Potentially more troubling was the slowdown in Asian purchases of U.S. debt -- especially in Japan, which holds 16% of all U.S. Treasurys. That country's nascent economic recovery has eased the government's concerns about maintaining a weak currency to boost exports, in turn reducing the Bank of Japan's need to intervene and buy dollars. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109078406964673107,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Finally, the NY Times (David Cay Johnston) notes Americans’ shrinking income.
The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows.
The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth, average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent.
Adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the new I.R.S. data.
While the recession that hit the economy in 2001 in the wake of the market plunge was considered relatively mild, the new information shows that its effect on Americans' incomes, particularly those at the upper end of the spectrum, was much more severe. Earlier government economic statistics provided general evidence that incomes suffered in the first years of the decade, but the full impact of the blow and what groups it fell hardest on were not known until the I.R.S. made available on its Web site the detailed information from tax returns.
The unprecedented back-to-back declines in reported incomes was caused primarily by the combination of the big fall in the stock market and the erosion of jobs and wages in well-paying industries in the early years of the decade.
In the past, overall personal income rose from one year to the next with relentless monotony, the growth rate changing in response to fluctuations in economic activity but almost never falling.
But now, with many more ordinary employees joining high-level executives in having part of their compensation dependent on stock options and bonus plans, a volatile and relatively unpredictable new element has been introduced to the incomes of millions of workers. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html
Kerry and Iraq: A good summary from the LA Times . It makes sense, yet makes one wince, as it paved the way for that ‘flip flopper’ label.
Less than two days before the Senate vote Oct. 11, Kerry said his gut told him to vote for the resolution. But his speech on the Senate floor was riddled with reservations and caveats.Despite the doubts he had expressed about the administration's commitment to diplomacy, Kerry said he would back the resolution on the strength of assurances from Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that they would not go to war unilaterally or without exhausting diplomatic options."Let there be no doubt or confusion," Kerry said. "I will support a multilateral effort to disarm [Hussein] by force, if we ever exhaust those other options as the president has promised. But I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible."There was nothing in the resolution that guaranteed those conditions would be met. Nonetheless, he was one of 29 Democrats to vote for the resolution, which passed 77 to 23.In his Senate speech, Kerry had said, "I will be among the first to speak out" if Bush failed to seek international support and go to war as a last resort.In December, less than a week after he announced he was exploring a presidential bid, Kerry accused Bush of forcing the war debate to distract attention from economic problems.In January, he criticized Bush for what he called a "hell-bent-for-leather" dash to war without allowing more time for weapons inspection and diplomacy. "The United States should never go to war because it wants to," he said. "The United States should go to war because we have to."In the fall of 2003, his criticism of Bush's polices led to his vote against the $87-billion bill financing continued operations in Iraq. Only 12 senators voted against the financing measure, and only three — besides Kerry — voted for the war and against the second measure. Among them was Kerry's eventual running mate, John Edwards.Critics say Kerry's vote was politically motivated. The surprise leader in the Democratic presidential race had become Dean, who was riding a strong tide of antiwar sentiment among party activists.Kerry said he voted against the bill because Bush had gone to war recklessly and without a plan for postwar Iraq. He called it a "principled" vote designed to pressure the administration to change its policies.But even nonpartisan analysts say that voting for the war resolution and then opposing the subsequent funding measure is a key part of the GOP attack on him as a flip-flopper."The strategic blunder is that he's allowed Bush to make the case that this guy is all over the map," said Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford University political scientist. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-kerryiraq29jul29,1,1267485,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Kevin Phillips on 9/11, Condi and Responsibility
MOYERS: It does describe Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, and her deputy, Steven Hadley, as not having regarded the coordination of domestic agencies as part of their responsibility after they took office even as warnings of a possible attack continued to grow.
Now Condoleezza Rice, it's her job as the National Security Advisor to coordinate the agencies of national security. She clearly failed.
PHILLIPS: Well, this is exactly the problem that we're getting to here. Phil Zelikow, the executive director of the Commission, used to work for Condoleezza Rice. He's the last person who's going to say, "Condi screwed it up." You get this all across the way, all the mechanisms in which one of these commissions work.
From the people who were selected to run them, the people who were selected to staff them. They have to know about the subject matter to some extent. But that generally means they have ties, connections, patrons, obligations and they don't want to name names.
MOYERS: If this had happened on Clinton's watch, if 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch, would there be calls for Condoleezza Rice's firing?
PHILLIPS: You know, it's a fascinating coincidence. But the Clinton National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, is being hatcheted by the Republicans for something it may or may not be a tempest in a teapot with having to do with documents that he mishandled. Shouldn't we be asking the question why is Sandy Berger being pursued right at this point?
Is it to take people's minds off whether the National Security Advisor whose failure was much greater was Condoleezza Rice? The Republicans and, you know, you know and I know from having been in politics, people do these games. I mean, sometimes you attack somebody to make the issue move away from the people on your side. I would say yes. I mean, if Condoleezza Rice has been somebody with the Democrats and 9/11 had happened, I think the Republicans would be all over her. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript330_full_print.html
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